When the World goes Dark - Solar Eclipse in Aquarius
Welcome to Eclipse Season, where the light of our luminaries gets obscured, and I cringe when people talk about manifesting.
We normally get two eclipse seasons each year, and they generally occur in pairs on what would be the “normal” New Moons (Solar Eclipses) and Full Moons (Lunar Eclipses). The next ones will be:
Solar Eclipse at 28°49’ Aquarius - 17 February 2026 at 13:01 CET
Lunar Eclipse at 12°5’ Virgo - 3 March 2026 at 12:37 CET
Traditionally speaking, eclipses are malefic events for the Sun and Moon, which is easy to understand when you remember that the luminaries give us life (Sun) and light the way at the darkest hours (Moon). And if you have ever experienced a total solar eclipse, you have a very somatic understanding of how it feels when the world goes dark, temperatures drop and nature falls quiet in the middle of the day. It’s a moment of disorientation, where time stands still and speeds up at the same time. Eclipses by nature, are disorienting for all animal bodies, and that includes us.
Especially Solar eclipses were seen as bad omens in ancient times. The Sun has always symbolized the ruler, authority, power, leadership, and the conscious ego, so obscuring the solar light was seen as a representation for loss of vitality, obscuration of reason, and disruption of order. That’s why they hid the king.
On the other side of the coin, the Moon in that context symbolized the people, women, food supplies, and bodily health, and eclipses were considered collective events.
So if I were an ancient or medieval, mundane astrologer, my train of thought would go something like this:
Aquarius ruling the legs = movement, support, circulation.
Solar eclipse → damage to structures that support life, breakdown of systems meant to support society.Virgo ruling the guts = nourishment, order, refinement
Lunar eclipse → the body’s ability to digest, purify, and sustain itself fails.
equals
Governments and leaders can’t stand properly,
and people can’t digest what they’re given.
Or in other words: the systems break first; then the people’s bodies suffer. And I wouldn’t be so far off considering the state of the world right now. All the systems are breaking (because they were never built for us) and there is A LOT we are not able to digest.
But I’m not an ancient astrologer. I’m a practitioner of somatics and astrology as a way to find a deeper relationship with ourselves and the world around us. So Solar Eclipses are times when I practice seeing with more than my eyes, when I practice orienting myself towards more than I can see.
Photos of the nervous system I took in 2018 at the “Körperwelten” exhibition in Heidelberg
One of my favorite ways to engage with Aquarius on a somatic level is through the nervous system. Not so much the electrical charge, the information travelling along it, or the concept of “regulating it”, but the nerves themselves. Yes, Aquarius is an air sign and intellectual, but it’s ruled by Saturn, the planet of form and structure.
Remembering that our nervous system is made up of bundles of nerve fibers, wrapped in protective layers of connective tissue, and insulated by a fatty myelin sheath that weighs around 2 kilos, helps me remember that it responds to space and gravity.
That it is something that can be felt on a cellular level and therefore moved with. Which can be very helpful when things get disorienting, aand the world goes dark.
Even if it sounds like it sometimes, eclipses are not single dramatic events. They are part of cycles, and their effects unfold over time. They are catalysts for change and transformation, giving us the chance to see things from a different point of view, pointing out patterns and, yes, disrupting them.
Just like what we are seeing in the world right now aren’t singular events. They are connected through the same systems. May they be forever disrupted.
There’s a lot more to say about the upcoming Solar Eclipse in Aquarius, with Mars’ co-presence and its ruler Saturn about to conjunct Neptune in Aries. But for now, I leave you with this: Allow yourself to work with the nervous system as an organ of perception, not control. This is a listening practice, not a manifesting one, and it will show up wherever Aquarius lives in your chart.
Join AstroSomatics for the Solar Eclipse in Aquarius live and by recording Monday 16 February 2026
