Here’s something that everyone is talking about right now! Should you charge your crystals, create moon water, and start manifestations during a lunar eclipse?

The popularity of this topic is because there is a full moon occurring tonight/tomorrow (11/18-11/19/2021), which also happens to be a lunar eclipse. The lunar eclipse began at around 10:02 pm PST and will reach its peak around 1:02 am PST.

There has been some debate on this, mostly because each person’s practice is unique and personal. But there is a consensus that you should not charge your crystals or water, or begin or do manifestation rituals during a lunar eclipse.

Now, normally, charging your crystals and water under the full moon is strongly encouraged, as you’re essentially “harvesting” some potent energy that can then be put to other uses later. For example, moon water is great for energetic cleansing, so you could use moon water in homemade cleaning solutions, or for a ritual bath on another full moon (esbat) or holiday (Sabbat) to energetically cleanse yourself before your ritual. Leaving your crystals out in the full moon’s light is said to not only energetically cleanse them but also amplify their innate properties and magic, as well as charge them with some of the moon’s energy, which is said to tip the magical scales in your favor even more. As an example, amethyst (one of my favorites) is believed to enhance one’s psychic abilities, dissolve negative energies, and open one’s intuition. Leaving amethyst out under the full moon is thought to energetically clean the crystal of any lingering negative energies, as well as amplify its ability to open up a psychic gift that you already have.

Charging your crystals and water under a lunar eclipse, however, is thought to enhance them with an energy that is chaotic and unpredictable, which can lead to some disastrous results for your spells and rituals. Say that you decide you’d like to cast a spell to attract a new job to you. You’ve left a chunk of green aventurine out to be charged by the full moon and lunar eclipse, knowing that green aventurine is great for manifesting money, good luck, and helping bring about a drastic change in your life. With that now-charged green aventurine, you cast your spell to attract a new job. What may end up happening, since lunar eclipses are believed to bring about endings (sometimes chaotically), is you lose the job you have due to unforeseen events, and that event essentially forces you into looking for another one, that you then succeed in obtaining. What’s happened here is the chaotic energies of the lunar eclipse have mixed with the already drastic changes that green aventurine can bring about, and it has given you some extremely stressful occurrences in your life that ultimately provoked an ending in something that may have been holding you back from finding the new job that you so desperately wanted or needed.

Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t do any spellwork during a lunar eclipse.

Things thought to be best practices during a lunar eclipse are shadow-work (often journaling exercises involving a Jungian psychological concept called “the shadow,” or the parts of ourselves that we’ve rejected), cleansing and protection magic, release rituals, grounding practices such as meditation, and divination practices, such as reading tarot or working with a pendulum.

I do not do, nor do I advise doing, any sort of manifestation during a full moon in general, let alone a lunar eclipse. I find banishings, cleansings, and divinations work extremely well during these times. Being a Witch is all about working with the energies present in the natural world, and I find that it makes more sense to clear away what no longer serves during the full to the waning phase of the moon, and then save my manifestations and goal settings for the new to the waxing phases.

Please feel free to come back tomorrow, where we’ll do a deep dive into what energies a full moon and lunar eclipse bring about, as well as the energies and astrological influences of this full moon and lunar eclipse in particular!

Let’s have a discussion below! Have you ever attempted to manifest or charge anything during a lunar eclipse? If so, how did it end up turning out for you?