The New Moon of April 8, 2024 at 19° 23’ Aries, will be a total solar eclipse, the first seen in the U.S. since 2017. In the path of totality, the Moon will shadow the Sun, visible from parts of Mexico up through the U.S. south and east and into Canada, and lasting about four minutes.
Astrologically, this eclipse will be hot.
The April 8 eclipse will be dominated by Aries, with the Sun, Moon, lunar north node, Venus and Mercury all in Aries, like a great ball of fire.
Aries is the cardinal fire sign, charging boldly out of the gate. Aries is brutally honest, not mean but direct, unimpeded, and instinctive. In the natural zodiac, Aries comes first. A newborn creature has one agenda: to survive. Thriving comes later, with Taurus’ drive for security. Then Gemini forges communication skills, Cancer clings to family, and so on. Aries just wants, first, to exist.
Mercury, traveling close to the Sun, is now in the first week of one of its thrice yearly, retrograde cycles. When Mercury’s in Aries, it’s time to speak and think for yourself—because no one else can effectively do that for you. When Mercury’s retrograde in Aries, it’s time to think retrospectively, with enlightened self-interest. And with Venus in Aries, now, too, one is reminded that what’s good for Me ought to also harmonize with what’s good for You and for Us.
Aries is the sign of the Warrior. The battles may be mostly internal, but watch out for tempers flaring. One of the parties at this New Moon eclipse is the dwarf planet Eris, currently at 24 Aries, conjoined with Mercury. Eris was discovered only recently, in 2005, and was named for the Greek goddess of discord and strife. Famously, Eris crashed a party, to which she was not invited, and threw a golden apple that sparked the Trojan war. Aries wants to survive. If the Aries archetype is about survival, Eris is willing to stir up trouble and fight for it.
Fighting, though, is hardly the dominant theme of the Aries New Moon eclipse. The Sun and Moon are tightly conjoined by Chiron, the hybrid comet/asteroid known archetypally as the Wounded Healer. Astrologers have been working with Chiron only since its discovery in 1977. Chiron’s meanings in astrology are still evolving and enigmatic. The astrological glyph for Chiron looks like a key.
Upon discovery, this tiny object in the sky was named for the Greek mythological Chiron, a son of the god Cronos (Saturn) and the sea nymph Philyra. Chiron is a centaur, half horse and half human, and he’s also immortal, embodying the natures of animals, human beings, and the Divine.
The myth of Chiron has several versions. As I’ve been writing this post, I’m also reading and reviewing a new book based on a lecture series by the preeminent Jungian psychological astrologer Liz Greene. The title is Chiron in Love: The Astrology of Envy, Rage, Compassion and Wisdom. In myth, the god Chiron was a master teacher of medicine and esoteric arts. He was loved by the other centaurs, who were his students.
One day, by accident Chiron was shot in the leg by a poison arrow. His pain was severe and enduring, and though he was a doctor, he couldn’t cure his own wound. Yet he was also immortal and could not die. To solve Chiron’s plight, the god Heracles brokered a deal with Zeus, who had condemned the god Prometheus to eternal suffering—among other reasons, for stealing fire. Chiron agreed to sacrifice his immortality, and in exchange, Zeus freed Prometheus and sent Chiron to the stars to become the constellation Centaurus.
The story is relevant for how astrologers interpret Chiron in natal charts by sign, house, and aspect. Each of us carries an enduring wound, something we cannot fully recover from, showing up in different ways for each person. Liz Greene points to multiple facets of the myth. One is that Chiron was already, by nature, a compassionate, loving being before he was injured, blamelessly, by accident. His pain was not part of any kind of reward/punishment system (though it was for Prometheus). The teaching here is that just by virtue of being a sentient being, Chiron met unavoidable suffering. And just as suffering is a characteristic of reality, so also is the capacity for compassion without reason. Chiron was a teacher both before and after he was hit with the poison arrow.
Greene’s other point in studying the Chiron myth is to distinguish between healing and curing. A Chironic wound embeds deep in the psyche. It cannot be fully cured. Suffering can only be accepted, integrated, and deployed for some good. Suffering is an incomparable Teacher.
During the April 8 New Moon solar eclipse, the Moon will hide the light of the Sun for a few minutes, speaking to the truth that light, even when hidden, is always present.
Each of us, working skillfully with our own mortal wounds, has the Chironic power to change, and in this sense, to be healed, and by that process, to become a beacon to others.
To quote that old sage Leonard Cohen,
There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Blessings for the Aries eclipse and with prayers for peace,
~ Sara
Sara R. Diamond, an astrologer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a life-long student and practitioner in several esoteric paths. Her style of astrology combines modern-psychological astrology with insights from traditional astrology. Sara is also an estate planning attorney. In addition, she has published four books on right-wing movements in the United States and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. You are invited to contact Sara via her website at www.SaraDiamondAstrology.com.
Thank you for mentioning Chiron. That is very meaningful to me, since I have it conjunct the Sun in my birth chart.
Some astrologers say that Virgo ( my Sun sign) is not ruled by Mercury but by Chiron, like Pluto ruling Scorpio and not Mars anymore.