How Do You Know When You’re Ready for a Major Life Change?

Tips for understanding when eclipses will be a bigger deal for you

I’m currently 36 weeks pregnant, and it feels surreal that there is less than a month until I give birth. I’ve had nine months and even time before that to mentally prepare myself for this major life change, and in many ways I feel a lot more ready to become a mother now than I did even a few weeks ago. I’ve accepted that one era of my life is over, and I’m excited to finally meet my daughter and see what comes next. I also find it very fitting that I’m having my first child the same month that a solar eclipse happens in Leo, the sign of my ascendant, followed by a Pisces lunar eclipse in the sign of my moon - a literal identity change through becoming a mother. Eclipses are actually the biggest catalyst for change in astrology and with eclipse season quickly approaching, I want to get into how you can time major shifts in your own life by tracking eclipses to your chart.

Pregnancy is unique in that you have such a long lead time to reflect on this big transition you’re about to experience, when most other life changes often take you by surprise or just happen a lot more quickly. However, whether it’s having a baby, moving to a new city, leaving one career path behind to pivot into another, or getting out of a relationship that no longer feels aligned, with all of these bigger life changes there’s still the underlying theme of needing to take a risk at a certain point and trust that everything will work out. There are only two other times within the last ten years when I felt similarly to how I do now in the days leading up to giving birth, and both of these experiences also happened to coincide with Leo eclipses on my ascendant. One was when I moved to New York in 2017 without a job or an apartment lined up and somehow made it work, and the other was in 2019 when I gave notice at my job and quit to be a full time astrologer.

These were both big risks, and I didn’t know if I would be successful, but in each of these instances, it was only once I took the leap that new opportunities actually began to open up. If I held onto what was comfortable, I would have never gotten to that next new phase of my life. As much as giving birth and being in charge of a child is scary to me, I’m trying to keep these past experiences in mind as a reminder that historically what has followed my decision to make a big change has ended up being better than what I was doing before it. Over time, I’ve come to love how eclipses push you to take these risks and serve to set you off in a new direction, so I want to help you to better understand and love eclipses too!

Where is change currently happening for you?

From July 26, 2026 - March 26, 2028, the North and South Nodes are in Aquarius and Leo. Not only do the Nodes indicate the signs in which eclipses are occurring throughout a 1.5 - 2 year period, they also show where you’re seeing the most significant growth take place and where you might be experiencing endings but also new beginnings. So as a more general first step, you can always identify the two houses in your chart ruled by Aquarius and Leo to note what themes will be more prominent for you over the next year and a half. In the diagram below, you can see how the Nodes are now transiting this person’s 5th and 11th houses. (Or you can also revisit your Leo season horoscopes where I explain what this transit means for each rising sign.)

However, we are also still wrapping up the Pisces/Virgo eclipse cycle, with one more lunar eclipse in each of these signs over the next six months. A final Pisces eclipse takes place on August 28, followed by a final Virgo eclipse on February 20. In addition, within the next year, the Cancer/Capricorn eclipse series will have begun, as we get the first Capricorn lunar eclipse as early as July 2027. With so many eclipses taking place in all of these different signs, it’s important to zero in on which ones will be most impactful for you. Below, I’ve put a checklist for how you can do that.

Do you have planets or angles in the sign in which an eclipse is taking place?

If an eclipse is taking place in a sign in which you know you have planets or angles in, that eclipse will automatically be a bigger deal for you. The upcoming eclipses in August are in Leo and Pisces, so if you have a Leo sun for instance, or a Pisces Midheaven, then you would want to take note of these eclipses more than someone who doesn’t have any significant chart placements in these signs. Below is the solar eclipse in Leo taking place on someone’s Leo moon.

To interpret what an eclipse activating a natal chart placement means, you would blend the eclipse theme of change with the topics of the planet affected. A solar eclipse can signify both an ending, but also a new start that isn’t quite visible yet, while a lunar eclipse shows more of a culmination of activity or realizations being made. Here are a few examples:

Solar eclipse on your Sun = tapping into different interests, goals, and sides of your identity, more major life events that make you think of yourself differently are likely to happen in the weeks surrounding an eclipse

Lunar eclipse on your Moon = seeing greater activity happen within your family or changes to your home and family life occur in the weeks surrounding this eclipse

Lunar eclipse on your Descendant angle = experiencing greater activity in your relationships or making an important realization about the future of a partnership

Solar eclipse on your Midheaven angle = wanting to pivot in a different career direction, but the answers or results here might not be visible yet, bigger work projects and opportunities may also get initiated in the weeks following this eclipse

If you do have chart placements in the sign in which an eclipse is occurring, note the degree in which that natal planet or angle falls. Does that degree match up closely to where an eclipse is happening?

There will be a series of eclipses that take place back and forth across two signs over about a 1.5 - 2 year long period. For reference, there will have been three eclipses in Pisces and four eclipses in Virgo between September 2024 - February 2027. That’s a lot of Pisces/Virgo eclipses to keep track of! To narrow this down a bit, you will want to look at the degrees in which all of these eclipses are taking place and note which ones fall closest to a planet or angle in your chart. Below is a table of upcoming eclipses and the degrees at which they’re occurring. You can also find a full list with even more eclipse dates here.

If you identify that one of these eclipses will fall very close in degree to a planet or angle in your chart, you can know that the weeks leading up to and immediately following that eclipse will likely hold greater change for you that relates back to the themes of that planet or angle. For instance, if you have an Aquarius rising at 5 degrees of Aquarius, then out of the four Aquarius eclipses total, the final one in January 2028, which happens at 6 degrees of Aquarius, would be the most important for you. It could be that around that time you notice a bigger shift take place in your life, where you’re coming up with new goals, pivoting in a different direction with work or your personal life, or receiving more attention from people.

I gave a reading to someone a couple of weeks ago, who has their Pisces Moon at 3 degrees in their 5th house. 5th house eclipses are notorious for bringing up greater romantic activity, and even though she had already experienced two Pisces eclipses to her 5th house since 2024, it wasn’t until a couple of months before this final one, occurring just one degree away from her 5th house Moon placement that she got into a relationship. Moon themes have been relevant for her in the lead up to this eclipse too, because the new relationship has her thinking more about would she move in with this person in the future, and they are also planning to meet one another families right around the time of this final Pisces eclipse in late August.

Even if you have no planets in a sign in which an eclipse is happening, still note what houses in your chart are getting activated by a pair of eclipses. How are you seeing both of those house themes be relevant at the same time?

As I mentioned earlier, you can identify the houses ruled by Aquarius and Leo in your chart to see what themes will be experiencing the most change throughout the rest of 2026 and into 2027, since the are the two signs the nodes are now transiting. However, it’s not always the case that an eclipse season will bring eclipses that are in signs exactly opposite to each other. For instance, this upcoming one has one eclipse still in Pisces, while it introduces the new eclipse cycle starting up in Leo. Similarly, the eclipses that took place in February/March 2026 and which will repeat again in February 2027 are a continuation of Virgo while blending in Aquarius.

The houses in your chart ruled by Virgo and Aquarius don’t really share similar themes, yet both of these house topics will set the stage for the six months that follow these eclipses. You will see the themes of one house influencing the other. For instance, if you are a Sagittarius rising with a Virgo 10th house and an Aquarius 3rd house (see chart above), you may have noticed that there’s been more travel for work, or you could have been busier with writing, presentations, or tending to other communication based projects for your career. Meanwhile, the August 2027 eclipses will be fully Leo and Aquarius, instead of Virgo and Aquarius, so with this same Sagittarius rising chart, that eclipse season would be more geared towards education, like how you can find time for bigger picture learning or exploring your spiritual beliefs, while still finding ways to make your ideas and knowledge accessible through short form content or other types of communication based work.

Note what the ruling planet of the eclipse is and if that ruling planet is currently transiting an important part of your chart.

The final tip for seeing how an eclipse season may play out for you is to note where the ruling planet of each eclipse is transiting at the time of that eclipse. Exceptions to this rule would be an eclipse in Leo or Cancer, as those are ruled by the Sun and Moon respectively, so another house and sign in the chart won’t be relevant.

Both of the eclipses in August refer back to the sign of Leo. The Leo solar eclipse on August 12 already has the ruling planet, the Sun, in Leo. Meanwhile, the Pisces lunar eclipse on August 28 is ruled by Jupiter, which is currently transiting Leo at the time of this eclipses. So this eclipse season in particular is super important for people who have Leo chart placements. In the diagram below, you can see how even though this is a Pisces lunar eclipse activating this person’s 4th house, it will still tie back in with 9th house themes, since that is where Jupiter is currently transiting.

To contrast, last September’s Pisces lunar eclipse had its ruling planet Jupiter transiting the sign of Cancer, and the one prior to that in September 2024 had the ruling planet Jupiter transiting Gemini. So for instance, if you’re someone who has prominent Cancer planets in your chart, then maybe last year’s Pisces lunar eclipse was more impactful than this year’s will be. Going back to how I’ll be giving birth this month, this major life event is timed to now, because Jupiter will be exactly on my Leo ascendant at the time of the Pisces lunar eclipse. So themes of identity and bigger life shifts are becoming more relevant for me.

To give a couple of other examples, the Aquarius solar eclipses from 2026 - 2028 will all be ruled by Saturn in Aries, so every time there’s an Aquarius eclipse over the next year and a half, it will also affect the Aries ruled house of your chart and any planets placed there. Meanwhile, the Virgo eclipses are all ruled by Mercury, which happens to be in different signs at the time of each of these eclipses.

• March 2025 Virgo lunar eclipse was ruled by Mercury in Aries

• September 2025 Virgo solar eclipse was ruled by Mercury in Libra

• March 2026 Virgo lunar eclipse was ruled by Mercury in Pisces

• February 2027 Virgo lunar eclipse will be ruled by Mercury in Aquarius

For example, if you’re someone who has more Libra in your chart than these other signs, you would want to look at what was happening around the September 2025 Virgo lunar eclipse and how that time may have felt more pivotal for you. For everyone though, you can always incorporate these other house topics where the eclipse ruler is transiting to get a better idea of what you will be focused on at the time of each eclipse season.

I hope this was helpful in deepening your understanding of the upcoming eclipses! I can’t wait to see how this next month plays out.