Hey, I bet you’ve been thinking about how nice it would be to have more feelings. Right? Like maybe your full range of human emotion has felt a little flat lately — vacillating between hungry, bored, content, and mildly irritated. You’re in luck. With three planets in Pisces and two eclipses this month, emotional intensity is the name of the game. Pisces is the sign of our receptivity, compassion, and intuition. A highly creative and peaceful energy, it can also make our judgment and perception a little fuzzier and our emotions a little stronger. Pisces is the mild buzz of the zodiac (or psychotropic drug trip, depending on how deep you roll with it). With the Sun, Mercury, and Venus all moving through Pisces this month (and hooking up with Neptune, the planet that rules all the chaotic, free-floating love that is Pisces) we’ll all be a little extra sensitive, in ways that could help us deepen our relationships and our insight —or in ways that make us a little more touchy and paranoid.

The main event of this month, though, is the eclipses that happen on the 8th and the 23rd. Eclipse season is always an emotionally charged time when stakes feel higher and we’re more aware of what is dying and what is being born. The first eclipse in Pisces acts like a supercharged new moon, giving us a chance to deepen into what we’re feeling, hoping, and fearing. The energy of this eclipse is inward, contemplative, and dreamy. Use this day (and the days before and after it) to dig into your emotional truths, write out intentions, and dream of the love you need. The second eclipse is a full moon, happening in Libra — the sign of partnership and balance — and full moons offer us insight and clarity. Use this time to get clear on the real shape of what you’ve been dreaming about. And keep in mind that eclipse season can stir up a lot of old feelings, including grief and fear, which are part of the healing it offers us as we move forward. Treat yourself and your lovers gently!

So here’s your mini-guide to how to channel the eclipses for your romantic life this month. The astro-literate are encouraged to read their Moon and Venus signs first, followed by the Sun sign. If you want to become more astro-literate, check out my new online course Astrology 101, and for more insight into how the eclipses will affect you personally this month book a reading.

Aries

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into everything that’s mysterious about love. Let your dreams and instincts to guide you, and you may learn something you’ve been hiding from yourself. Don’t be too quick to need answers yet, and let any big decisions wait a week or two. Remember that love doesn’t need to look the way you thought it would, and what brings you the deepest joy may surprise you. The second eclipse offers more clarity about how you’d like to consciously direct your relationships. Deep feeling and intuitive connections are dreamy, but what do you need to feel respected? How do you show that you take your partners seriously? If you’re prone to intimacies that start and stop suddenly, or run hot and cold in ways that you don’t enjoy, now’s the time to examine what you’d need to feel safe in a more consistent connection.

Taurus

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into your sense of belonging to the larger world, be that your own queer family, homoculture writ large, or whatever world of freaks warms your heart and helps you feel bigger than yourself. Honor your connections to the people, collectives, movements, and ideals that help you shine your unique light as part of a constellation. Recognize how deeply these world love and honor you, too! The second eclipse directs your thoughts toward perfecting your relationships, especially their balance of give and take. Is there a top in your life that you’d like to teach how to bottom? Are you always the one scheduling threesomes and cleaning up after? Worse, have you been the shoulder to cry (and process) on for far too many people without asking them to return the favor? Use this time to address anything that’s gotten energetically out of whack between you and your dear ones.

Gemini

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into your ambitions, your drive, and your ability to become your best self. You may feel powerful longings to be further along in your growth, maturity, or authority in your chosen field. You may let these feelings fester into insecurities that make you feel even smaller, or you can honor the visions they offer of the road you’re on. Make room for time alone this week to feel the larger shape of your life and how close or far certain landmarks are. The second eclipse offers clarity about love as creativity, joy, and playfulness. If you’ve been playing the dutiful adult rather than the captivating flirt, now’s your chance to take a break. This eclipse is good for reconnecting with your sexuality as a part of you that is fundamentally innocent and curious, whether or not you’re able to share that energy with a partner. Let that hot spark shine through in whatever you do and make, as well, whether that’s belting out Sleater-Kinney covers for your crush or building a tiny house for your platonic life partner in your backyard.

Cancer

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into love as freedom. How does your capacity for intimacy help you expand your world, and offer you a sense of adventure? Where relationships may feel more oriented around care and security on the daily level, this eclipse opens up your deep need for exploration and passionate risks. Remember not to jump into anything too risky just yet, though! It’s always a good rule to let the eclipses pass before making big decisions. The second eclipse offers insight about your family ties and your emotional history, helping you clarify what you’re ready to let go of — be that a toxic family attachment, memories that prevent you from being fully present, or stories about your limitations that are just no longer true. Spend some time around the 23rd making a conscious effort to release all that old baggage and re-establish a sense of self that helps you feel truly grounded.

Leo

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into your sexual self: all those electrically charged and erotically dangerous corners and curves of your mind and body. Do you need to reconnect with pleasure? Do you need to mature into a new sexual persona? Is it time to let go of an old fantasy to make room for more erotic potential? Can you release an old wound that’s kept you stuck in a pattern you no longer need? The second eclipse gives you a chance to communicate all these new insights about your inner erotic world and share them with the right people — the ones who help you understand yourself. Find the right words, be vulnerable, don’t hold back.

Virgo

The first eclipse allows you to deepen your trust of the unknown, especially where it concerns partnership and the separateness of the ones you love. Use this time to develop your compassionate impulses; resist the impulses to control and scrutinize, especially when it comes to the inscrutable mystery of your lover as a whole and complex human. The second eclipse builds on this experiment in courage and trust, granting you deeper insight into your own self-worth. Extend the compassion you’ve been practicing toward others, and recognize your own beauty, importance, and vitality as unquestionable.

Libra

The first eclipse allows you to deepen through your connection to your own body, your daily rhythms and rituals, and the care and feeding of relationships. Settle more comfortably into your own skin. Trust your instincts as you make room for others to relax and feel nourished. The second eclipse happening in your sign marks the beginning of an important period for you. Over the next six months, you’ll be redefining your sense of who you are in relationships and in solitude. Anything that currently feels imbalanced will be up for review. You may need a little more time alone during this period to discover and practice new ways of being that feel more appropriate to your current life. Don’t worry about it looking a little messy right now — be patient, and stay curious.

Scorpio

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into love at its most playful and joyous. You don’t often let yourself relax and trust this feeling, which is most common at the begining of a romance, along with all kinds of terrors about vulnerability and what it would mean to fall hard for someone. What could help you focus on the lighter side of love right now? The second eclipse offers insight into what’s been holding you back subconsciously. You may have a prophetic dream, a sudden flash of insight, or a sneaking suspicion that finally takes on a real shape–however it comes to you, expect some new information that will help you prevent unecessary dramas in the future and resolve a few from your past.

Sagittarius

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into love as the feeling of coming home. Expect to reconnect with your past, through memories or people that resurface and remind you of your history. Listen for the answer to the questions you keep asking about where you belong, where you can put down roots. Even if there’s no clear answer coming, you’ll be able to feel the shape of your own longing well enough to guide your search. Above all, spend some time this week with your feet on the earth, celebrating your connection to your own body. The second eclipse offers insight into larger connections, notably the ways your personal relationships help you find your place in a wider world. Have you lost sight of your ideals? Are you working on the projects you deeply care about? Are you in touch with people who inspire you? If not, now is the time to work on building those connections.

Capricorn

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into your own native intelligence. Have you been selling yourself short as a partner or lover? Do you second guess the information you know on a gut level, especially when it comes to love? What would it look like to take your own insights seriously, and share them honestly? Communication is where you’re learning to heal right now, which means you may not get it perfect right away. I suggest writing long letters to yourself, first–love notes, reflections, and encouragement. The second eclipse offers insight into what your highest goals are for love, and the dreams you’d like to make real. Indulge your inner idealist this week, and pay attention to signs and symbols that things might be better (or could get better) than you’ve let yourself hope.

Aquarius

The first eclipse allows you to deepen into love as something tangible, solid, and certain. Sensuality is the easiest way to experience this, whether you’re licking vegan whipped cream off one another’s thighs or eating a meal cooked by your platonic life partner. Disrupt your internal worries with physical experiences of pleasure. Ironically, trying to relax may be the most stressful thing. If that’s the case for you, start with deepening into a sense of internal permission: you deserve pleasure and happiness. You don’t need to postpone them. The second eclipse offers insight into unseen horizons, while deepening the theme of having faith — in yourself, in the abundance of the world, in the good intentions of those you encounter. Cynicism isn’t always the smartest position; you might be surprised what you can find to believe in.

Pisces

The first eclipse in your sign sends you deeper inwards, and may signal a time of retreat from drama, new connections, and socializing. The focus of your meditations is your self: where do you begin and end? What are your truest needs, desires, and dreams, and what are you carrying for someone else? When do you get to stop reflecting others? When do you get to say no? How does intimacy deepen when you make time to pull away and focus on yourself first? The second eclipse offers some insight into your sex life. Is what you’re getting up to really in your best interest? Are you using sex to hide from yourself, or avoiding sex for the same reason? What kinds of risks are you taking, and why? How can you communicate better with your boo (and her boo, or her ex-boo, or your shared exes, etc.) so that the messy business of getting off causes the least amount of emotional mess? This is an important six months for you, and you owe it to yourself to get clear of any emotionally sticky situation and be as honest as possible with yourself and others.

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