In history’s darkest moments, when a people were faced with leaving their homes or facing deadly circumstances, some escaped to safety and others didn’t. Some tried but just didn’t succeed; others waited just a beat too long to attempt their escape. And I’ve often wondered: how would you know when the time was now, when your happiness, livelihood, or even your life depended on leaving everything familiar to seek a better life somewhere else?
This week’s Solar Eclipse at 29º50’ Aries (April 19, 2023, 9:12 pm PDT) tells a story of emigration. At the last, critical degree of Aries, this eclipse demands that we leave something – leap, figuratively, into a jalopy crossing a deadly but exhilarating desert; into a dinghy navigating treacherous rapids; aboard an aircraft headed for another planet, better equipped to support life. Filled with the powerful optimism of the Sun and Moon’s current ally, Jupiter, the eclipse point is also in a tight square to Pluto, which just entered Aquarius after months at Capricorn’s final, dour degrees. Pluto’s momentary shift (it will return to Capricorn’s last degrees twice again before settling in Aquarius for good), combined with this Sun-Jupiter alliance in courageous Aries, is a signal that the time to move on is now.
Emigrants leave what’s familiar because they have to. We might never have been faced with something as dramatic as literally leaving our home, all that we’ve built, and loved ones. But most of us know what it’s like to leave a job that’s crippling you physically and emotionally, because you can’t spend another day there. Or to leave a relationship that’s killing you so that you can stop hurting.
Eclipses show us exactly where in our lives we’ve reached the indisputable crossroads of change. This eclipse in particular is emphatic that change must come – however scary it might be. Eclipses that fell at the same degree on April 19, 2004, and April 17, 1996 might offer additional insights on how your chart will respond to this one.
This is the first eclipse in Aries since September 28, 2015, and the first Solar Eclipse in Aries since March 29, 2006. How different the world looks today, and how much drama we’ve witnessed – the great recession, terrible political division, a global pandemic. And Pluto was in Capricorn for all of it. Pluto’s shift to Aquarius signals a big shift, personally and collectively, in the direction of hopefulness – or at least, of a future.
On a personal level, that might mean making decisions that not everyone in our lives will like. It will certainly call on our Aries courage, something flinty and unapologetic in our character that we hadn’t known was there – and our refusal to let fear deny us a new beginning and a brighter frontier.
For more details, check out my popular eclipse report, Followed by a Moon Shadow.
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