Total Solar Eclipse 2024: The Sacred Union of the Solar and Lunar Principles
Total Solar Eclipse 2024:
The Sacred Union of the Solar and Lunar Principles
Astrologer Maureen Richmond, Ph.D.
On April 8, 2024, a Total Solar Eclipse will occur, with a path of visibility running diagonally across the continental United States from Eagle Pass, TX to New England and maritime Canada. An unnatural nightfall will descend during daytime hours along the path of totality, an event now being promoted to the public as cause for a paroxysm of sky watching tourism and an orgy of related spending on eclipse trinkets ranging from coffee mugs to t shirts to hotel and motel accommodations, camping fees, musical performances, and eclipse-themed street fairs.
The event is hailed as the happening of the century on every possible communications platform. The states through which the path of totality passes expect a maniacal temporary population explosion, no matter what the weather may be. The public has been convinced that eclipses are breathtakingly auspicious and ought to be observed by dashing out to the nearest location in the path of totality, no matter the cost or inconvenience. All this is so that later, members of the public can say they did so, or perhaps sport a t shirt emblazoned with the proclamation I survived the April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse.
If the world is to go mad over this event, it may as well understand what a Total Solar Eclipse signifies spiritually. After all, the public is being told the Total Solar Eclipse is special and will confer some type of magic to those who behold it. Never mind the nonsense of advising the general public to observe a Total Solar Eclipse, never a good idea (even with those cutesy cardboard eclipse eyeglasses supposed to protect the eyes).
Still, state governments, astronomical associations, photography clubs and organizations, hospitality associations, chambers of commerce, schools, municipals boards of directors, news organizations, and a myriad of others exhort the public to be there or be square. In the hoopla, excited eclipse-goers are sure to forget not to look in some cases, for the urgings to attend to the eclipse have been much louder, more strident, and vigorous than have been the warnings about necessary protections to eyesight.
There can be no question that in the Total Solar Eclipse mania, April 2024 has become a marketing extravaganza second only to Black Friday or Christmas shopping. Every possible method has been employed to turn out the consumerist crowds for the event. In other words, the public is being massively manipulated into a near-hysterical buying modality.
None of the eclipse cheerleaders appear to be aware that in the accumulated traditional wisdom of the world, eclipses are viewed quite differently. Not a cause for delirious money-spending and indiscriminate socializing, eclipses are fairly serious business. For example, within traditional astrology, eclipses are not viewed as auspicious, but rather as times of uncertainty and hesitation. That means eclipses are not great times for assembling in crowds, partying down, travelling afar, or mixing it up with people you’ve never known before. Instead, eclipses are ponderous, introspective moments much better suited to quiet pursuits such as meditation, contemplation, or uncomplicated attunement to nature.
Why is this so? The answer is that Total Solar Eclipses are nothing but very strong New Moons, and New Moons are their own kind of special moment. They are inevitably preceded by a period of low energies, fatigue, dissipation, loss of enthusiasm, and resignation, all of which are natural to the conclusion of the lunar cycle. Imagine trying to have a party with that sort of energy in the mix! Does that make sense? Of course not. It’s Full Moon, not New Moon, which brings the highpoint of the lunar cycle. When the Moon is plump, round, and silvery bright, that’s the time for revelry, dramatic romance, and high times. But not New Moon. New Moon is a time of profoundly inward developments, not at all a time to be carousing madly on the streets in near Mardi-Gras fashion, as exhorted by the present avalanche of solar eclipse advertising.
Today’s eclipse promoters demonstrate a stunning ignorance of lunar psychodynamics. They have closed their eyes and ears to the stories enacted around them day in and out in the Book of Life, open for all to read throughout every lunar cycle. The ups and the downs of life are written there clearly: drive, creativity, determination, stamina, and libido go down right before New Moon, slowly gear up to the Full Moon crescendo, then slowly dwindle back down again to complete rest at the Dark of the Moon before New Moon moment.
Every lunar cycle runs for approximately 28 days, beginning at New Moon. Starting with New Moon, two weeks of gradually increasing psychic and physiological energy follow. Defined as the point in time when the Moon and the Sun are perceived from the viewpoint of the Earth through the same degree of the ecliptic, the New Moon is the focal point of a vitally important natural cycle. It starts the psychic life cycle all over again.
At New Moon, the Sun and the Moon are together, or conjunct in the zodiac, positioned with the Earth on one side, the Moon in front of the Earth, and the Sun behind the Moon. It’s a line-up, much like three billiard balls on a pool table, all cued up and ready to be played. The difference is that the whole configuration is viewed in the case of astrological measurement through the degrees of the zodiac, which are arranged along the ecliptic. As a result, each New Moon is associated with a particular degree of the zodiac. When the Sun and the Moon are both positioned at the same degree of the zodiac by line of sight from the Earth, then the exact moment of New Moon occurs. For the April 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse/New Moon, the Sun and Moon will be conjunct at 19 degrees of the sign Aries.
This positioning of the Sun and Moon at 19 degrees of Aries means that the deep inner message of the moment will be permeated with the energies of the sign Aries. The first sign in the zodiacal year, Aries concerns drive, motivation, courage, willingness to explore the unknown, pioneering instincts, and a love of worthy challenge. It is often said in astrological circles that Aries thrives on adversity, never doing so well as when competition enters the picture, providing an opponent to defeat. Life obstacles like unemployment, underemployment, and material uncertainty serve as the worthy opponent for many in life’s jousting matches of early 2024. The will to meet and conquer the impediments of the moment could quite easily arise out of the April 8 New Moon moment.
Astrologers have long known that the New Moon astronomical arrangement represents a psychospiritual happening of great importance. It is so because the forces of the Sun and the Moon merge and blend at that time. The Sun represents the outer conscious mind which manages the affairs of daily life with logic and reason. The Moon represents the inner subjective mind which responds to the affairs of daily life through dreams and intuitions, seeking to balance or round out individual expression. When the two come together at the same degree of the zodiac, it is as if Father Sun and Mother Moon have mated to give birth to a new sequence of energies and experiences.
In other words, the masculine principle of the Sun and the feminine principle of the Moon join forces in a sacred moment at New Moon to give rise to a new creation in collective and individual experience. This happens at each New Moon, and with even greater impact at a Total Solar Eclipse. In truth, a Total Solar Eclipse is nothing more than a particularly strong New Moon, when the Sun and Moon not only arrive at the same degree of the zodiac, but when they are so closely positioned in a line of sight arrangement that the light of the Sun is obscured by the Moon.
In the case of the strong lunation resulting from a Total Solar Eclipse, the lunar function temporarily overcomes the solar function, which is to say, the deep subconscious overwhelms the rational mind. At the same time, the Total Solar Eclipse fulfills the function of the New Moon in the lunar cycle, renewing energies on all levels and initiating a new wave of activity which matures at the Full Moon.
But that new wave of activity is always preceded by a low point in the monthly sine wave of human psychic energy. That low point will occur in the 2 or three days right before April 8. Shortly, yes, the New Moon will arrive (on April 8, 2024, as a Total Solar Eclipse), but the human energy system will not immediately bounce back to its maximum strength. That rebound of life-promoting moxy will require a few days to develop, coming out of the deep low, down-spiral, dying back moment of the complete Dark of the Moon, well-known in astrology and indigenous wisdom to be a time of personal and collective vulnerability. The death-like trance of the Dark or Old Moon state will slowly dissipate, but not until about three days into the new lunar cycle when the first sliver of a Crescent Moon begins to appear in the western sky before sunset.
This is why the 2 – 3 days right before and after the Total Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024, and the Total Solar Eclipse date itself, are most certainly not a time conducive to extraverted social interaction, boisterous fun, and free-wheeling good times as currently promoted.
Instead, the Total Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024, is a time suited for deep inner work. A singularly potent New Moon which offers a stellar opportunity to delve into the subconscious mind in restful meditation, hypnotic trance, or ritual, there to glimpse inner images and sow potent seeds of the next steps ahead to follow, the New Moon/Total Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024 calls not for party-time, but for meditation, quietude, thoughtful ritual, restful nature attunement, and listening to the subtle voices of spirit.
A time to properly honor the powerful but inward spiritual process of the April 8 Total Solar Eclipse should cover the day before, the day of, and the day after New Moon moment, which occurs at 1:21 pm CDT on April 8, 2024. (Adjust that time to your own time zone.) This is the time pocket for experiencing the sacred union of the solar and lunar forces, the male and female archetypes, the conscious and subconscious minds, the intellect and psychic self.
From this union are certain to arise special realizations, all set in motion during the outstanding New Moon/Total Solar Eclipse moment of April 8, 2024. Observe accordingly, and reap what inner benefits are yours for the taking.