In less than a week’s time, the April 2024 Aries solar eclipse will make its way across the North American continent, cutting a swathe from Mexico right up to Canada, and creating some spectacular celestial sights (including the eery experience of day briefly turning into night) for those visiting or located along its pathway of totality.
Building on my preliminary thoughts on what potential trends and themes to look out for, it’s time to delve deeper to see what this six-month long event could potentially herald from a mundane astrology perspective, between now and the autumn.
And although this eclipse stands to affect both Mexico and Canada (and will reach its point of greatest magnitude in , I am primarily interested in how it may work astrologically for America, given how crucial the outcome of the 2024 US elections will be for the entire world. So I’m going to concentrate on that and leave it to the Mexican and Canadian astrologers to fill in the gaps of what’s likely to happen south of Texas and north of Maine during the coming months.
So, let’s look at how the 2024 eclipse shapes up in relation to the US Sibley chart to get some ideas of general trends.
The April 2024 Eclipse & America’s Birth Chart
The upcoming April Aries solar eclipse will diagonally traverse 48 US states on 8 April 2024, potentially bringing about unexpected changes and amplifying key issues or flash points between now and the autumn.
While it will also affect Mexico and Canada, the focus in this post will be on its astrological implications for the US, particularly in light of the crucial 2024 elections due to take place at the end of this six month cycle.
Domestic Focus
The Aries total solar eclipse falls in the US 4th house of domestic policy and family affairs, where it will conjunct the US Chiron, one of the ‘centaurs’ associated with wounding/feelings of exclusion or alienation, indicating potential vulnerabilities at home.
The rise of ‘incels’ and the potential for mass shootings by disaffected young men is a concern, especially given that this eclipse takes place in Mars-ruled Aries, a sign associated with war and conflict, but also angry young men (as opposed to Saturn, the patriarch and the wisdom of old age).
In a 2023 research paper, Harvard psychology researcher, Miriam Lindner argues that these violent acts are a message, a cry for help linked to their feelings of socio-economic failure and sexual inadequacy:
“They are trying to prove their potency, their mattering, their ability to wield power by inflicting harm. This impression of potency could (in an ultimate sense) make them more respected and hence sexually successful.”
The rise of ‘incels’ – Harvard Gazette
This motivation seems to be confirmed by the astrology: In the US chart, Chiron squares Mercury in the 8th, a house associated with sex, intimacy, hidden ‘vices’ such as porn, as well as feelings like guilt and shame around taboo subjects like sex, death and financial struggles.
Given all of this, policymakers and law enforcement are advised to pay special attention to this group between now and October. With an election on the horizon, and mass shootings and attacks already up by a staggering 20% since 2019, bad actors are likely to be increasing their efforts to target this group of adults, due to their vulnerability to far-right ideologies.
Other ways this could manifest are: home security, crimes like housebreaking, domestic violence and acts of vandalism.
On the plus side, this eclipse could encourage Americans to proactively address and heal these issues before they become even more problematic. With transiting Chiron in Aries forming part of a stellium with the eclipse luminaries, this is certainly a possibility. But such opportunities need to be seized – carpe diem and all that. Pre-emptive strikes of the positive variety are definitely favoured now, while the Saros cycle hints at the potential for breakthroughs, so it’s definitely not all doom and gloom.
America’s Global Standing & Foreign Policy
The eclipse’s south node in the US Sibley 10th house also suggests waning international influence. This could be due to the Biden administration’s ties with Netanyahu’s Israeli government, which has been strongly criticised for its handling of the Gaza conflict. The US may need to reassess these relationships to maintain its global standing.
After six months of warfare – which has been raging since the solar eclipse in mid-October 2023 (and one of the so-called ‘American’ eclipses) – together with largescale destruction and extremely high numbers of Palestinian civilian fatalities, ongoing and unconditional support for Israel is becoming increasingly problematic domestically, especially for Biden.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that:
- In the April 2024 Aries eclipse chart, the Part of Fortune is making a conjunction to the South Node in Libra. So good fortune and success (PoF) comes from letting go or releasing (south node) certain key relationships, contracts or agreements (Libra) that might prove too compromising.
- Transposed onto the US Sibley chart, this combination relates to 10th house matters = prominence on the world stage. This letting go could therefore concern public support for/ties to a particular authority figure, or leadership style – say, a president vs. a prime minister, for example.
- The clincher, I think though, is the chart for the Oct 2023 Libra Solar Eclipse, which criss-crosses this one, and coincided with the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict, shares synastry with Benjamin Netanyahu’s birth chart. (Bibi’s natal Moon is 19 degrees Libra, which is conjunct the eclipsed Sun, indicating that his ‘star’ is on the wane. It is also smack bang on top of that south node in the April 2024 eclipse chart.)
The message here seems pretty clear: Netanyahu is a liability as an ally – with his actions coming in for increasing criticism (and large protests) at home, and previous corruption charges still pending, many believe that his political days are numbered.
It is something of an open secret that Bibi is hoping he can hold out for a change of leadership in November, believing that Trump’s past track record on Israel makes him more likely to tolerate his right-wing agenda than Biden, who seems to slowly be losing patience with him. And given Trump’s natal Jupiter at 17 degrees Libra – which conjuncts Bibi’s Moon (and that PoF-south node combo), his calculation is probably correct.
The question is: will Trump win? Or will he be in prison before election day? That’ll have to wait for another forecast. In the meantime, I plan to briefly look at how this eclipse affects both their charts in a separate video for paid subscribers.
US homeland security also fits with trajectory of the 2023 and 2024 eclipses and their emphasis on the US-Mexico border region. Given how much coverage border politics got from the right-wing media and social media platforms during 2023, it seems prudent to keep a watchful eye on this topic over the next few months, lest things spiral out of control, as they nearly did in 2021.
Economy: Housing, Pensions & The Rust Belt
The other thing that voters care about, of course, is the economy.
The US Pluto Return, occurring as it does in the 2nd house of money, points to some potential long-term economic trends to look ou for. Although not directly related to the eclipse, this once-every-240-year event (active from Feb 2022-Mar 2023, and again from June 2023-Jan 2024), remains in play due to Pluto’s retrograde cycle. In fact, Pluto will return to the late degrees of Capricorn in the autumn, so is worth paying attention to.
While the US economy is strong, a testament to the Biden administration’s handling of the economic fallout from COVID, its monetary and fiscal policies have negatively impacted many foreign economies, especially in 2022-3. These chickens could come home to roost at some point.
Pluto is a planet associated with power, the plutocracy (so oligarchs and billionaires) as well as the destruction and rebuilding of current systems or circumstances. From its position in the US second house, it will make a square to transiting Mercury in Aries in the days following the eclipse, which will be orbiting quite close to the eclipse Chiron-Sun-Moon conjunction. This could suggest bad news of some kind, possibly via breaking news story.
Mercury rules the US 7th house of friends and enemies, and is located in the US 8th house of banking and secrets (from where it will oppose Pluto, along with the US Part of Fortune), so it is possible that we could have another Enron-style scandal or banking crisis on our hands between now and November.
I wonder whether this is likely to concern the collapse of a pension or hedge fund, given that Saturn will oppose the eclipse from the 10th? (It could also indicate the need for a senior figure like a judge or chief economic adviser to intervene.) It could also involve Trump-style tax evasion by some bigwig or large corporation, since this is also an 8th house matter. Needless to say, if anything untoward has been hidden from the American people regarding public finances, or corporate corruption, then they could well come to light now.
Equally, though, these aspects could indicate the need for largescale economic reform (especially around tax and how corporations are treated vs individuals) due to the huge inequalities between the 1% and everyone else – a growing problem in America and a symptom of late stage capitalism.
The April 2024 eclipse could also indicate shifts in the domestic economy, including the real estate market (e.g. gentrification, rent hikes and the growing problem of homelessness as we’ve seen in areas like San Francisco) and pensions, due to Saturn’s negative influence on the US 4th house and eclipse nodes.
However, on the plus side, family-related tax breaks and housing initiatives could definitely benefit election campaigners. We could also potentially see new mortgage or pension products being launched now.
The intersection of the 2017 and 2024 eclipse paths around the Rust Belt could also have implications for election policies regarding the economy. Given that this group of people feel very let down by the system, and left behind by globalisation, they became an easy target for Trump’s MAGA messaging in 2016 and 2020.
It’s possible that we could see more unionisation or strikes by coal miners and steel workers, as we’ve seen in the US auto industry, although this seems relatively unlikely, given how well the US economy is doing generally. And in fact, with Mars and Saturn in the US third house, trine to the US Sun, there is a sense that reminding the electorate how well the US economy is doing post-COVID compared to elsewhere in the world has the potential to unite the electorate, both young and old, and make them realise their good fortune, despite wars, supply chain disruption, energy shortages, export challenges and higher borrowing costs. In other words, the mighty US Dollar stills reigns supreme. So there’s no need to ‘make America great again’ – because it already is…
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