Excavate and Illuminate: Three Tarot Spreads for Eclipse Season
Some helpful Tarot Spreads for a highly transformative time
A quick heads up: My books are open for 60 minute discounted Spiral Ahead Readings (my version of Year Ahead Spreads)! If you’d like to get a sense of the Tarot energies that will be traveling with you through 2025 and beyond, it would be my honor to hold space for you. You can check them out or book here!
With the upcoming Lunar Eclipse in Pisces on September 17th fast approaching, I thought it would be a beautiful opportunity to discuss Eclipses, Eclipse seasons (or portals), and how the Tarot can be of great support to us in the midst of them.
But first and foremost, what is an Eclipse portal?
An Eclipse portal is a term that is sometimes used to describe the two-ish week period between two Eclipses. On September 17th, we have a Lunar Eclipse in Pisces. On October 2nd, we have a Solar Eclipse in Libra – this span of time roughly between September 17th and October 2nd (with an extra week and a half before and after each of the Eclipses to account for the shadow phase) is an Eclipse portal.
Eclipses serve to heal and reveal. They excavate, illuminate, and bring forward what was previously buried, unseen, or unknown. They do this to free and heal us from the hooks and strings that keep us locked in old patterning and painful cycles. The veil always feels very thin to me during the Eclipses, and for good reason. They are highly magical periods of time. Indeed, the weeks that lead up to and follow Eclipses can be extraordinarily transformative, sometimes even life-changing.
One important thing to know about these seasons: we don’t tell Eclipses what we want clarified and revealed – they show us, beckoning us forward on a pilgrimage of discovery, awakening, and observation. Our job for the next few weeks is to follow the Eclipses’ lead, surrendering to what gets presented to us.
This is one of the biggest reasons why so many witches (myself included) really advise that folks consider pausing on doing any big intention setting/spell work during Eclipse seasons. We’re often learning, changing, and growing so much during Eclipse portals that it’s ideal if we can just let those energies do their work on us for the next few weeks.
What Tarot cards (if any) are representative of Eclipses?
There’s no one sanctioned card that presides over the energy of an Eclipse in the Tarot, but if I had to offer my own personal opinion as to which card comes the closest, I would say Judgment.
The Judgment card is ruled by Pluto. Like the Eclipses themselves, Judgment excavates, illuminates, and helps us to fully see and integrate something that we’ve been unable to take in before. In this way, Judgment helps to remove a blindfold, and often subtly assists with guiding us to a kind of awakening. In my humble opinion, Judgment is a very close cousin to the energy and medicine of the Eclipses.
That said, this is not canon! There are no rules here, so I’ll turn that question back over to you: what Tarot card would you say feels most Eclipse-like to you?
How might we work with the Tarot for greater support and nurturance in Eclipse seasons?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to No Bad Cards with Lindsay Mack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.