Saros 9 Old South: Eclipse Family in Astrology

Constructive energy focused on reuniting loved ones or artistic endeavors

Great energy is contained in this Saros Series via the Mars-Pluto combination. However, this energy is constructive and seems to be focused on the reuniting of loved ones, or the expression of love to a person, or some artistic endeavor. There is also a touch of idealism in this family of eclipses.

Mars is on the midpoint of the New Moon/Pluto and the Node is on the midpoint of the New Moon/Venus. In addition, Venus occupies the midpoint of the New Moon/Neptune.

The January 23, 1917 eclipse at 2.4 degrees Aquarius arrived during World War I, yet even within that context of destruction, the reunification theme persisted. The United States was preparing to enter the war, a decision partly motivated by the desire to protect transatlantic bonds and alliances. On the cultural front, 1917 saw the premiere of Sergei Prokofiev's Classical Symphony and the continued flourishing of artistic movements that sought beauty amid catastrophe. The Dada movement, born from war's absurdity, was itself an act of creative reunion among artists scattered across neutral countries.

The February 3, 1935 eclipse at 13.2 degrees Aquarius coincided with the Works Progress Administration's launch of Federal Project Number One, which employed thousands of artists, writers, musicians, and theater workers across the United States. This massive public investment in creative expression, in a time of economic hardship, perfectly embodied the 9 Old South theme of channeling powerful energy into artistic endeavor. The same year saw George Gershwin completing "Porgy and Bess," a work that sought to reunite American musical traditions that had been artificially separated by racial boundaries.

The February 14, 1953 eclipse at 25 degrees Aquarius fell during a year when the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II became a global celebration of continuity and communal belonging, broadcast by television to millions for the first time. The series' final eclipse on February 25, 1971, at 5.7 degrees Pisces, arrived in the same month that the Apollo 14 mission returned safely to Earth. It also coincided with the Concert for Bangladesh being organized by George Harrison, one of the first major benefit concerts in history, an act of artistic reunion dedicated to humanitarian love.

Because 9 Old South produced its final eclipse in 1971, no one alive today will experience a new activation of this series. However, its echoes persist in the natal charts and prenatal eclipse patterns of people born near its last four activations. If you were born close to the 1917, 1935, 1953, or 1971 eclipses and this series is your prenatal solar eclipse, its themes of reunion, creative expression, and constructive love are woven into your fundamental orientation toward the world.

For those carrying the 9 Old South signature in their charts, the gift is an instinctive understanding that power does not require destruction. You may find that your most natural mode of influence involves bringing people together rather than pulling them apart, and that your creative impulses carry a quality of devotion that others find both unusual and compelling. The idealism of the Venus/Neptune component is your inheritance; the challenge is maintaining it without becoming naive about the world's harsher realities.

The series ended at 5.7 degrees Pisces, a fitting conclusion in the sign of spiritual transcendence, compassion, and the dissolution of boundaries. If you carry this eclipse signature, Pisces placements or transits to early Pisces in your natal chart may reactivate the themes of reunion and artistic expression that defined this remarkable family throughout its long history.

In its final century, 9 Old South moved through Aquarius and into the first degrees of Pisces. The 1917 eclipse at 2.4 degrees Aquarius, the 1935 eclipse at 13.2 degrees, and the 1953 eclipse at 25 degrees traced a complete passage through the sign of collective ideals and humanitarian vision. Each activation expressed the reunification theme through increasingly collective channels: from individual artistic expression, through publicly funded creative programs, to globally broadcast celebrations of communal belonging.

The 1971 eclipse at 5.7 degrees Pisces was the series' farewell, and its placement in the earliest degrees of the most spiritually dissolving sign in the zodiac feels deeply appropriate. Having spent its final decades in Aquarius, the sign of the collective, the series concluded by stepping into Pisces, the sign where all boundaries dissolve and individual identity merges back into the universal. It was, in a sense, the perfect ending for a family whose entire purpose was reunion: one last act of joining, this time the series itself dissolving back into the cosmic whole from which it emerged nearly thirteen centuries earlier.