I wish for you a life
where your blood sings
with the voice of
an eager wild thing.
With a voice that says
I am here,
and in this short time,
this is the song I sing
because I can.
kai skye
The Total Eclipse on April 8, 2024, at 19 Aries
packs a punch, catalyzing healing and new growth. The big energy of this powerful New Moon and Solar Eclipse stimulates revolutionary insight that paves the way for bold self-acceptance and an affirmation of all that is worth loving and fighting for. The initiatory new beginnings may arrive with some turbulence, some letting to, but with the goal of granting us access to our whole self.
We are to hold and let the heat build in us rather than venting or dispersing it through impulsive decisions or rash outbursts. The Eclipse seeks to heal what is blocking our confidence, boldness and passion. It can be experienced as a sudden opening, or we may find ourself feeling the pain of an old wound that we are now ready to address, heal and move beyond.
The Eclipse marks a potent opportunity where we can feel renewal on a cellular level. Aries is primal creative energy that burns with an intensity and focus that can melt barriers and dissolve blockages that have disconnected us from our vitality and inner strength, from access to all of who we are.
April is the most significant month of 2024. What is catalyzed this month will likely shape the rest of the year. It is a month of breakthroughs and surprises, shifts and openings designed to get things moving. It is entirely possible we may not feel anything significant on the day of the Eclipse. The Eclipse is more an activation point for something that will be unfolding over the next weeks and up to six months.
To understand where we each may feel the healing fire in our lives, we can look to the activities associated with the house where 19 degrees Aries falls in our natal charts.
The Eclipse Path, Timing, and Phenomenon
Mercury Retrograde (April 1 – 25)
6 Planets in Aries
Chiron exact conjunction with the Eclipse
Eclipse Ruler: Mars conjunct Saturn (April 10)
The Jupiter/Uranus Conjunction (April 20)
You do not need to know
precisely what is happening,
or exactly where it is all going.
What you need is
to recognize the possibilities
and challenges offered
by the present moment,
and to embrace them
with courage, faith and hope.
Thomas Merton
The Total Eclipse Phenomenon and how to View It
A Solar Eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, casting a shadow over the Earth, thus blocking, for a brief time, the sun’s light from reaching the earth. In a total Solar Eclipse, those who find themselves on the eclipse path will experience night in the middle of the day. For a short time, the electromagnetic rays of the Sun that perpetually stream towards the earth are blocked from reaching us. The disruption can be experienced as a reboot. In that period of disruption, there is a space for something new to enter our consciousness and dawn within us.
Eclipse Time
Partial begins at 1:54 pm EDT when the Moon’s shadow begins to cross over the Sun
Maximum Shadow at 3:12 pm EDT when the Moon covers the Sun. Totality will last 4 minutes.
Partial ends at 4:26 pm EDT when the Moon’s shadow clears the face of the Sun.
Click here to see the exact times to see the Eclipse from where you live and how much of the Eclipse you are likely to see from where you live.
The total Solar Eclipse will chart a 115-mile-wide path of totality across North America. Over the coming months, the people, communities and states who are in the direct path of the Eclipse will experience the biggest influences and changes in relation to the Eclipse energies. The path of totality will move across 9200 miles of the continent from Mexico to Canada at 1,500 mph over a 100-minute time period and cross over portions of five Mexican states,15 U.S. States and six Canadian Provinces. It will cross over six time zones beginning in Mazatlán, Mexico, at 11:07 a.m. MST and ending in Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NDT.
The Eclipse will be visible in some form throughout most of the continental United States. Remember to not look directly at the sun during the Eclipse. If we wish to view it, please we wear special glasses made just for Eclipse viewing.
I like it when a flower
or a little tuft of grass
grows through a crack
in the concrete.
It's so fuckin' heroic.
George Carlin
The Punch - Busting through Barriers that Inhibit Movement
Beyond the inherent potency of a total Solar Eclipse, there are other equally powerful astrological dynamics that have this eclipse really pack a punch. Its energy seeks to initiate a new beginning that we have longed to see happen. For this to unfold in a beneficial way, we are to refrain from acting out to protect or defend a wound we carry and instead give the time and consideration needed to heal and release what has held us back. There will be those in the media or around us who are not willing or able to do this and will follow an impulse to instigate a fight, lash out, or take rash and impulsive measures that will only result in an intensification of their frustration. Both the enlightened and the unfortunate response to the eclipse energies will powerfully shape the coming months for ourselves and for the collective.
There are six planets in Aries at the Aries Total Eclipse. This is a lot of Aries! Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. Its presence initiates a new life cycle and propels us forward. We are urged to bring our full presence to meet opportunities, challenges and potentials that emerge in any given moment. If something isn’t working, we are to let it go and look for what is being revealed as possible. We are not to hold tightly to anything but to feel where the energy and life is moving and go with it.
Aries energy is primal, bold and not to be hindered or restrained. Aries is creative, looking to break ground and initiate new growth. It is the energy of spring when overnight bare trees are now covered with buds, the daffodils open their blooms and the air is filled with the song of birds. It affirms and asserts new life. It is instinctual. It lacks an inclination for consideration, forethought or compromise. It asserts its right to exist as it is. Its presence at Spring often stirs new life in us and with six planets in Aries AND an Aries Total Eclipse, there is a fighting energy that is ready to break through. We are ready to fight for ourselves, for what matters and to remove what is holding us back.
On the world stage, the intensity of the Aries Eclipse will likely fuel movements where people will no longer tolerate being silenced or oppressed. Protests may be sparked with peoples standing up for their rights and beliefs. Aries is also the sign of war and those we do not handle the Eclipse energy well can initiate violence or escalate tensions that can ignite aggressive action.
Mercury is Retrograde in Aries (April 1 -25) will move backward from 27 to 15 degrees Aries. While Aries energy seeks to break through barriers and assert itself unencumbered, the Mercury Retrograde is asking us to curb the impulse to be spontaneous, make decisions based on a gut feeling, or make assumptions that we haven’t check out. Rather than make a snap decision, we are to give ourself time to think things through, catch up with ourselves and make sure we have the facts and information we need to make a sound choice. By doing this, we allow the heat to building within us without dissipating it. There is an alchemical process happening and if we short circuit the process, the healing and the new beginning may only be half-baked.
Chiron conjunct the Eclipse brings a soul medicine we need. Not only is Chiron conjunct the Eclipse is exactly conjunct down to the minute. The Total Eclipse is occurring at 19 degrees and 24 minutes of Aries, which is Chiron’s exact position at that time. This is truly a unique phenomenon.
Chiron is the Wounded Healer. Interwoven with the Eclipse our vulnerability and insecurity may be triggered as the Chiron seeks to strengthen and heal us. Chiron's presence is what makes this a healing eclipse.
Chiron has been in Aries since 2018. The work we have been doing since then to heal our confidence to be who we are without compromise, inhibition or restraint is coming to a head at the Eclipse. Rather than trying to have our life all planned out and our future secured, Chiron in Aries is that it is helping increase our capacity to be fully present and responsive to what emerges each day, trusting that the actions we take day to day will lead us to the best future possible. Chiron in Aries is also helping us to not be afraid of our own fire, passion, anger and drive so that we can embrace and wield it in a generative and creative ray rather than a destructive or self-protective way.
The wound is the place where the Light enters you. Rumi
If we have been actively working on past trauma or unresolved emotional hurts in recent years, we can experience the Eclipse as liberating us from the past and ushering in an experience where we feel wholly ourselves and ready to unapologetically assert what lights us up. If we have shut the door on past trauma and sought to distance ourselves from it, the Eclipse can stir up the old hurt and also support us deal with it and release it.
Chiron will turn Retrograde the end of July and it will then station direct at the 19 Aries Eclipse point on December 30. At the end of the year, we will have a deeper understanding and perspective on what we are healing and opening into now.
Multiple conjunctions. There are nine conjunctions between planets in April. Each conjunction (when planets travel together) indicates the beginning of a new cycle initiated by the two planets. The conjunctions add to the intensity and the significance of April as a month of big shifts. Read below about two of these conjunctions.
Life shrinks or expands
in proportion
to one's courage.
Anais Nin
The Challenge
Eclipse Ruler: Mars Conjunct Saturn
Mars in Pisces is less a warrior and more a poet, less inclined towards assertive action and more inclined towards an empathetic response. Mars' position, coupled with the Mercury Retrograde, cues us to not initiate some big course of action or make some bold sudden decision during April if we can help it. Instead, we are to reflect on what is stirring within us, what inspires us and what we are to release so that we can best meet the passion and fire that is awakening within.
Mars conjunct Saturn occurs once every two years and launches a new two-year challenge around something that invites us to develop discipline and assume responsibility around something in particular. This dynamic is part of the Eclipse energy, but the conjunction will not be exact until two days later on April 10. Saturn inhibits Mars impulsive and spontaneous nature, which requires that we slow down and exercise patience as we re-evaluate the best course of action.
Saturn’s journey through Pisces (March 2023 – February 2026) is having us recognize what dreams are no longer viable and what aspects of our life are not working and need to be released. Saturn is compelling us to get real about what we can invest in that will stand the test of time and change. This invariably leads us to look at our relationship with what is enduring and perpetual - what we might call the divine. Needing to root ourselves in something that is not subject to the winds of change or time, The Mars/Saturn challenge urges us to develop a spiritual perspective that can guide us through the sweeping changes that will occur over the next few years.
The flavor of the two-year challenge that we are each to undertake can be better understood by looking at the house where 14 Pisces resides in our chart and any planets that can be found at 14 Pisces that will be activated by the Mars/Saturn conjunction.
Every six months for the next two years, there will be a time of testing and possible crisis where we will assess how well we are doing with this challenge, and we may need to slow down to make adjustments to our approach to meeting this challenge.
Mars will enter Aries and leave Pisces on April 30. After being slowed down and inhibited by Saturn, it will conjunct Neptune. Neptune dissolves definitions and conjoined Mars, we can feel impotent or a diminished capacity to exert our will. Again, we are asked to slow down and consider the right us of our will. Mars journey through Pisces and encountering Saturn and Neptune as part of it, indicates that we are to engage April as a needed emotional unwinding so that we are free to fully move forward. The process may be uncomfortable, and we may feel frustrated this month, but we will reap the benefits if we just stay with it and be patient with ourselves.
Mars likes a good fight. We are realigning and reaffirming what is worth fighting for, which usually involves something greater than or beyond ourselves. Come May, after Mercury turns direct (April 25) and Mars has left Pisces and has moved beyond Saturn and Neptune’s influence, we are likely to feel a surge of confidence to act on what we are contemplating now. Mars will be in its own sign, Aries, and with that comes the self-trust and courage to take a huge leap and initiate some big movement in our lives.
The difference between a good life
and a bad life
is how well you walk
through the fire.
Carl Jung
The Inspiration
Jupiter/Uranus conjunction at 21 degrees Taurus.
Once every 14 years, Jupiter and Uranus come together. Their conjunction is felt throughout April and is exact on April 20.
Jupiter is about expansion and growth.
Uranus is about freedom and change.
The combined energies of these planets brings inspiration and a revolutionary intention.
The conjunction occurs in Taurus, indicating that we are open to a new perspective or vision for what stability means for us in our lives, for a new way to relate to the earth or a shift in our perspective on how to look at our money and possessions. There can be an inspired movement for how we work with material reality in a way that will better empowers us in the long run. There is likely to be some practical and tangible action we take in the wake of this conjunction that may seem small but will have a beneficial ripple effect.
To understand how we each might experience the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction, we can contemplate the activities of the house where 21 degrees Taurus is found in our natal charts.
For the collective, there can be a social movement to uplevel our values around material goods and resources that looks towards a vision for how to achieve sustainability. The conjunction may affect financial markets and bring potential fluctuations in the values of cryptocurrencies, stocks, gold, real estate.
This conjunction initiates a 15-year cycle that will foster new perspectives on what has value, what provides stability and what is sustainable. In the days around April 20, we may get a glimpse of the revolutionary themes that the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction inspires by looking at what is reported in the news media around new developments associated with the handling of material resources.