You find yourself on the floor with what seems like one hundred sharp pieces of a vessel that was once whole. The first impression is that it is destroyed, and it must be thrown out because recreating the original is impossible.
But what if it could be put together again? What might it look like?
The ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi 金継ぎ, mending broken pottery with gold, is much like a physical and emotional healing journey. There are no instructions, and it is a slow process that requires patience; each piece must be carefully placed, repaired, and slowly cured.
Kintsugi not only reveals the transient nature of life, but the repair process itself also compels us to remain present with the concept of impermanence unfolding in time. It is an apt metaphor for healing and an important contemplation during the August 27–28 Lunar eclipse.
Just as shattered fragments cannot be restored to their original form, the truths uncovered by the Solar eclipse on August 12 demand that we find a new way forward.
Where the total Solar eclipse in Ashlesha nakshatra revealed hidden aspects of ourselves and anything that was too tightly held, the Lunar eclipse in Shatabhisha nakshatra invites a different kind of healing. Once released, the insight must be integrated into our lives. Awareness alone is not enough; the truth has to become part of who we are.
The Healing Power of Shatabhisha Nakshatra
Shatabhisha is most often described as the nakshatra of one hundred healers, but it is more precisely translated as the healer of one hundred persons. The meaning reflects the shakti of Shatabhisha, Bheshaja Shakti, which is the power to heal and support.
The house where the eclipse occurs shapes the context of what is being disrupted. The interruption of light as the Moon reaches fullness in Shatabhisha brings our attention to what has become fragmented, urging us to consider how the pieces might be reassembled into a pattern of wholeness.
Conventional medicine considers us healed when an illness has been cured, symptoms are gone, or we have physically recovered from an injury or surgery. This encourages us to gloss over or ignore the psychological cracks, cover up the physical and emotional scars, and ask that we simply move on. No follow-up appointment necessary.
But true healing goes beyond the physical body into the mind–body connection, connecting spirit and purpose, truth and awareness, the individual and the collective.
Much like Kintsugi, wholeness requires stopping to honor the break, taking the scattered pieces and carefully placing them back together with the gold of what we’ve learned, creating something entirely new, and possibly far more beautiful and resilient for having been broken. Instead of being hidden, the physical and emotional scars become the architecture of self-worth.
Healing is liberation from whatever prevents the parts from working as a whole – a self no longer defined by the break.
This is the deeper medicine of Shatabhisha. Healing is not about becoming someone new. It is about restoring wholeness, whatever shape that takes.
Working with the Lunar Eclipse: Rising Sign Contemplations
Now what do we do with the pieces? Take some time on or around the Lunar eclipse to contemplate or journal with these questions. These are based on your sidereal Vedic rising sign.
If you are new to sidereal Vedic astrology, you can calculate your accurate sidereal birth chart and planetary cycles (dashas) here.
Aries Rising: Have some of your friendships, social networks or business communities become fragmented? Do some connections still have life in them and deserve to be repaired?
Taurus Rising: Has anything shifted in your career path or your motivations for achievement? Is the path you are building leading toward the life you want now and in the future?
Gemini Rising: What spiritual beliefs or philosophies are the gold that is holding the pieces of your life together? Is this a time to release longstanding beliefs so that a broader worldview can emerge?
Cancer Rising: Where are the places that don’t fit together or are complicated in life related to shared finances, assets, or obligations? What needs to be renegotiated or brought back into balance so that you can move forward with trust and freedom?
Leo Rising: Have committed relationships changed so much that they have an entirely new shape? What would it mean to honor the changes while allowing relationships to continue to evolve into something different?
Virgo Rising: Are parts of your daily life more complicated or burdensome than they need to be? What must be reorganized, released, or healed so that everyday routines give you greater freedom rather than simply asking you to do more?
Libra Rising: Have elements of your creative life or capacity for joy become disconnected from the rest of you? Is it time for something or someone you once loved to be brought back into your life, or is a new form of creativity waiting to emerge?
Scorpio Rising: Has anything changed in your relationship to home, family, or the place where you feel most rooted? Is there something from the past that needs to be honored without being reconstructed exactly as it was?
Sagittarius Rising: Have all the pieces of your story found their place? What new information or communication might help connect something that has felt scattered in the past?
Capricorn Rising: Are there questions within your sense of security or self-worth? Could releasing an old expectation of financial security allow you to experience greater freedom?
Aquarius Rising: Which pieces of yourself or your personality might need to be seen differently? What new sense of wholeness is emerging as the pieces fall into place?
Pisces Rising: What has been quietly dissolving beneath the conscious level of the mind? What are you ready to stop carrying, and where might surrender create the freedom to begin again?
From the Author’s Desk
This article was personal. Beginning in my late 20s, I have been through a number of surgeries and experienced trauma, like so many have. Over the years I have had to learn how to put the pieces of my life, both physically and emotionally, back together in a different shape. A lifelong contemplation…
Once again, thank you for your timely writes, insights and your unique ability to translate the stars.