Aries Eclipse

Mylene Cagnoli

The first eclipse of 2023 is upon us. 

What astrologers and the ancients knew, but many in New Age, Pop Spirituality, do not, is that Eclipses are not a time for celebration or ceremony. This isn’t a New Moon in which we want to call in, and plant, our latest dream seeds or intentions. Eclipses are a dragon hole, they open a portal to other dimensions. It is a time for intergalactic travel between interstellar species. It doesn’t belong to our realm. 

During eclipses, the ancients would cover their food and water, bring their animals in from the fields, and stay indoors themselves, lest one of the visitors, or their supposed ill intentions, might take notice of them. 

While I am unsure it is that extreme, we all have to admit, there is a frenetic energy that accompanies eclipses. I’ve heard other astrologers refer to it as the energy of 1000 New Moons at once. That is a lot of death and shadow energy. Endings.

This is the last series of eclipses to take place with the Nodes along the Taurus Scorpio Axis. One might not know that we are closing out these evolutionary energies because this eclipse takes place at the 29th anaretic (or crisis) degree of Aries, with the Nodes at 4 degrees of Taurus Scorpio. 

This means we are closing out the edits, or the evolutionary story changes, that we initiated in January of 2022 when the nodes ingressed to this axis. While you are in your eclipse cave, waiting for the energy to pass you by, it might be a good time to assess what all was shifting in your life at that time, and evaluate how it has progressed and developed over these last months. 

Since this eclipse takes place in Aries, it’s helpful to understand what Aries means. A cardinal fire sign, ruled by Mars, Aries is marked by a pioneering spirit, courage, a bombastic spirit, intelligence, leadership, the ability to initiate new experiences, take oneself on new journeys, and plan and execute one's desires. They are not known for being cool headed in heated situations, but rather acting first, and thinking about consequences later. 

In the Tarot, Aries is ruled by the Emperor who embodies the qualities of true leadership, which include humility and submission to cosmic law, as well as dynamism and power. We can see these as attributes of  the “High” or “Light” expression of a fully evolved Aries. 

Eclipses often act as “story nodes” in our chart, a place where our current trajectory shifts in service to our evolutionary contracts. 

In Aries, this may mean we are being asked to make a “bold new start”, or bring courage to an area of our life we’ve previously felt collapsed or swampy. Through Mar’s placement in Cancer, this highlights the realm of home and domestic matters. 

It might be wise as we venture through these next few weeks to be aware of the places in which Mars is aggravating the emotional  “pain body”, with unnecessary suffering. Or using the pain body to distract us from the evolutionary shifts that the eclipse will precipitate. Be on notice that we may be feeling overly sensitive, or reactive to things that “aren’t like us”. This is a sign that the feeling isn’t necessarily true or authentic to us, but rather a product of the this rather inflammatory transit. 

I am encouraged by Elias Lonsdale’s Inside Degree for the Eclipse (Inside Degrees are a divination for each degree of the Zodiac. It states

ARIES 30

An anatomist delivers a lecture on the kidneys.

Knowing about the things that others would rather pass on by. Absorbed within the excremental, the margins, the cracks. Preoccupied with matters of critical awareness and pragmatic considerations. You somewhat decadently repeat over and again patterns of viewing yourself and others as dysfunctional machines or poorly-put-together bits and pieces. Being so conversant with the little mind that you are a walking encyclopedia of trivia, having made it your business to specialize in determining what has gone wrong, what is the problem here. Ultimately and essentially, playing back variations on one's self-image as being off course and hopelessly wrong-headed. Given to exaggerated negative impressions. At times even condemning self and world to being unworthy and unredeemable.

It indicates a potential transformation of our “wrong headed” inner narratives. We all benefit from this.