It’s a soft spring morning in Western North Carolina on this day of the total solar eclipse in Aries. Clouds in the sky seem to be clearing, but the mountains may reach out stony fingers to hold on to them. We won’t know what the view will be until the sun is fully awake.
On this New Moon in Aries and eclipse day, I’m feeling how much this solar/lunar event has become part of our day-to-day world.
We notice Full Moons, with all the lore about intense experiences like werewolves. New Moons, though, are often invisible–well, they are invisible, that’s the point–except on days like today.
The visible, physical signs of an eclipse are compelling. The light doesn’t just dim; it gets weird. Colors shift. Shadows change in odd ways. Birds quiet. Animals pause, including human animals.
If you will be viewing today’s eclipse, please be sure to wear eclipse glasses that are real ones, safe ones, and not some knockoff.
The Rising Moon Astrology Podcast is available on an expanding number of sites including Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podbean, PlayerFM, Castbox, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts. Listen in on your favorite and please leave a review.
As you watch the luminaries, Sun and Moon, in the sky, notice the world around you. In nature, you can’t help but feel the shifts of light and sound and movement. Yet even in our cities and other built environments, we ourselves are affected.
This is the total solar eclipse in Aries. The chart has so much Aries in it, it’s startling.
With Venus newly arrived and sitting at 04º26’, we have planets and points across all three decans of this sign of cardinal Fire. The sweep across Aries ends with retrograde Mercury at 24º47’, conjunct the asteroid Eris.
The eclipse New Moon occurs in the middle decan, the place of the Sun’s exaltation, as the Sun and Moon meet at 19º24’, conjunct the asteroid Chiron at 19º24’, with the Aries North Node close by at 15º37’.
Aries is a place of rebirth, initiation, action. Aries moves, directs, cuts to the chase, separates the wheat from the chaff. Aries excites, heats up, rouses, instigates, agitates. Aries is quick and sharp, separating, dividing, cutting.
This is the energy it takes to begin new life, to take action in the world, and to cut out what needs to be removed to maintain health and vitality.
Eclipses affect us all, having an outsized impact on the world at large. The desire to predict these eerie changes is part of the origin story of astrology, as such events seemed linked to changes in power structures, shifts in leadership, and events that affected the destinies of nations.
In our own lives, eclipses can mark milestones. The impact of an eclipse on our personal lives relates to how it affects our birth charts. So, while I always suggest comparing New and Full Moon charts to our birth charts, this is especially important for an eclipse.
Where is Aries in your chart? If you have significant planets, points, or chart angles in this sign, you will feel this eclipse–and most likely already have been. If your chart has a lot of the other cardinal signs (Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn), the Aries placements will create squares and oppositions to these.
If you have placements in the other Fire signs (Leo and Sagittarius), you will and most likely already are feeling the eclipse energy via trines from Aries planets that raise the fires higher. Aries also sextiles Gemini and Aquarius, lighting up these placements too.
And yet, you may feel this eclipse with any chart, simply due to the concentration of Aries fire lighting up the sky.
This will be a dramatic eclipse in every way. The eclipse travels a path that will allow millions of people from Mexico to Canada to witness the event (weather permitting).
The Moon is close to Earth, making it larger in the sky, which allows the Moon to block more of the face of the Sun, highlighting the corona. The Sun is close to a solar maximum, which means the corona is brighter and extends farther than usual. This will make the contrast between the dark central disk and the bright corona more dramatic (and also more dangerous, so please do wear quality eclipse glasses).
All eclipses are linked to cycles crossing hundreds and thousands of years. Today’s eclipse is part of solar Saros 139, which means this eclipse is part of a family of North Node eclipses that began in 1501 and will continue until 2763.
The most recent eclipses in this family were on March 29, 2006; March 18, 1988; and March 7, 1970. If any of these dates link to important events in your history, it makes it more likely that today’s eclipse will also be important.
Today’s eclipse is linked to the Aries and Libra eclipses we had last year as we began the shift from Scorpio/Taurus eclipses: The New Moon solar eclipse of April 20, 2023 at 29° Aries 50′ and the New Moon solar eclipse of October 14, 2023 at 21° Libra 08′. If either of these eclipses linked to important life events for you, today’s eclipse may as well.
Yet despite the bright, high, outward-facing energy of today’s Aries New Moon eclipse, our orientation today and in the day’s ahead needs to be one of watching, recording, and contemplating rather that diving headlong into action.
This is true of any eclipse, but especially today’s because of some of the other aspect patterns in this chart.
Mars is about to conjunct Saturn, with both planets in Pisces. Mars rules today’s eclipse and all of the planets in Aries. Yet Mars is currently in a watery sign that does not support his fiery character. He’s also in the presence of Saturn, the boundary setter, the old man who counsels care and planning and responsibility.
These two can work together. Mars heat can benefit from Saturnian caution. Saturn’s chill can be at least partially warmed with Mars energy. Yet these two together now slow down the action of all the Aries planets.
We also have Mercury retrograde in Aries, an invitation to contemplate and possibly revise how we do Aries in our lives. Are we too hot-headed? Are we too cautious? Do we rush in where angels fear to tread? Or do we hold back too long and miss a chance?
In these weeks of Mercury moving back and forth from late Aries to mid Aries, we have an opportunity to explore how we act, how we decide, how we feel and express anger and its family of emotions, how we are brave, how we blaze new paths for ourselves and others.
Last and not least, this eclipse invites us to heal. Where has Aries energy in our lives caused harm to us or to others? Can we face into what is sensitive and painful, reaching for understanding and release?
Chiron is tightly conjunct this eclipse. Chiron’s cazimi, the conjunction with the Sun, happens eight minutes after the eclipse New Moon is exact. The archetype of the wounded healer is strongly present.
Aries is a wide-open kind of energy. How open can we be during the time of this eclipse and in the weeks ahead? What can we open to? What can we learn? What can we heal?
