by Robert Wilkinson
This article covers significant aspects, degree symbols, and other important factors in this Solar eclipse New Moon at 20 Aries on April 8. This brings the Light of actional union with others to overcome an environmental or situational lack or deficiency. Find the right “camouflage” since we’re going through a “rehearsal before a battle.”
Renewed action accompanied by losses which will require our courage and/or forgiveness are in front of us. Having renewed a vision, embraced a new life, and entered a new land these past few months, we’re now releasing a lot in our Aries and Libra sectors which would obstruct what we have to do. Forgive and release the past, since the focus is on the “Here/Now” with a new life in front of us. Face forward, bless the rapidly fading past, and feel the lightness of being free to move forward in your life!
The span between 16-20 Aries is about “potency” in the actional material levels of life. We’ve all been “paying dues” or finished paying dues since the 2023 Libra Solar eclipse, freeing us for new vistas of growth and enjoyment. The next month is a time to be joyous in our discoveries of new approaches, new questions, new answers, and new potentials even as we have to let go of some things.
A great thing about this Lunation is the conjunction with Chiron and Mercury retrograde, showing new healing, a new look at old healing, an alternative view of “reconsidered potentials,” and perhaps even “the redemption of a promise” from the past once we eliminate the energetic resistance to redeeming something from long ago. This should bring tremendous rewards for those who move with a degree of enthusiasm to whatever brings the type of “gain” we need, as Jupiter is conjunct Uranus and moving us all into new rewards. Be joyous in responding to challenges, and cultivate a happy attitude as you embrace the adventure of the “new lands” promised by what we left behind in 2023.
The Planetary Spread
In this chart, because the inner planets are between mid-Pisces and late Aries in a 40+ degree span, we’re at the end of the last Great Compression of planets which began a few years ago and is ending for 330 years. At this point, all the planets are within the 109+ degree span between 2 Aquarius and 22 Taurus!
Because of the planetary spread, we now have a third of the chart occupied from Pluto at 2 Aquarius to Uranus at 22 Taurus, creating a classic Bundle Jones pattern. At this time we have planets in Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, and Taurus.
Depending on the position of the Moon and the inner planets relative to the outer planets, different months bring us different Jones Patterns. These patterns operate their own independent influence, regardless of which planet is in which sign.
Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Pluto in early Aquarius, and proceeds through Saturn in mid-Pisces, Neptune in late Pisces, Jupiter in mid-Taurus, and ends with Uranus in late Taurus. (We don’t include TransPluto, since Jones didn’t use it in defining his patterns). Because we have 4 signs represented in a 109+ degree span with no other signs occupied, this chart is a “Bundle” Jones Pattern, said to be the rarest of all patterns.
The Bundle Pattern and how it works
This type of spread, with all the planets occupying approximately one third of the signs with two thirds unoccupied, creates “the least common of the seven basic differentiations,” and creates a “bunching of interests or the intensive self-gathering which is least responsive to any universal stimulus” and as Dr. Jones noted in a section on another pattern, a “special obsession with some particularly narrowed aspect of experience” which characterizes the Bundle people.
He continues that “the meaning of the concentration of the ten planets in one single third of the zodiac is that the course of the native’s life is held to certain narrow bounds of opportunism,” and they are “almost completely inhibited, in contrast with the outstanding lack of inhibition in the Splash pattern. He then goes on to say that “Characteristic of the Bundle type is an outstanding capacity for making much of little, or for building small beginnings into great and often unanticipated final results.” He also notes this type can mold their world “by some highly centralized force of self-concentration.” This type is not universal in the slightest, but rather “brings universe to center.”
With Pluto in Aquarius leading the concentration of planets, and thus the entry to the entire pattern, it shows we need to be alert to the seeds of a future unifying vision, or the transformational possibilities related to 2 Aquarius, which is an activating degree liberating us from “adverse conditions” through “spectacular developments” which mobilize us. This entry to the Bowl tells us to mobilize in a fixed visionary and economical approach as we embrace our power within a larger collective effort.
With Uranus in Taurus closing the Bundle (with Jupiter amping up the signal!) we’ll finish experience with an expanded sense of enjoyment at our “lightness of Being,” and some will reach very high states of a new breadth of possibilities as per Jupiter on the same degree occupied by Uranus for the past 15 weeks. See how you’re now freed from the past, and have found something which certifies your worth through the actions you’ve taken.
Uranus is at 22 Taurus, the same degree where Jupiter will make the conjunction. This “white dove flying over troubled waters” has been awakened since last year, and promises us all a sign from Spirit showing our “ordeal” is over, and we’ve endured the flood. New lands await us all, coming soon via Venus in mid-May and activated by Mars in the second week of July.
This leads with actional contribution, and closes with emotional-social confirmation. Because the leading edge is Aquarian Air, approach experience with a pragmatic detachment, friendliness, and broad vision of how to make a greater contribution to your world. Because the closing planet is Taurus Earth, by the time you’re done with a given experience, you’ll know a more enjoyable way of moving through life’s changes.
The Sabian Symbol for the New Moon
A New Moon sets the seed forms for what the following month will demonstrate. This Lunation falls at falls at 20 Aries, and it is said that the second third (decan) of any sign deals with the emotional, social, and cultural levels of life, and being the second decan of Aries it has a sub-influence of Leo with an added dose of the Sun. While I've given you a sense of this degree up to now, this is where we go into depth.
The Sabian Symbol for the 20th degree of Aries is “A young girl feeding birds in Winter.” In the original Jones class notes Dane Rudhyar published in The Astrology of Personality, he states this degree is about “Participation of self in a life larger than any conception of self-hood” and “protection, or the need for it.”
In The Astrological Mandala,, Rudhyar says this degree is about “overcoming crises through compassion.” He offers that this is about “Nature’s seasonal rhythms” involve an oscillation between life and death, and “through creative imagination (we) can ‘fly over’ the cycle,” and find means to escape the “seasonal decay” while assisting others to do the same. He goes on to state that “by establishing a partnership with other creatures unable to escape wintry deprivation or death” we can maintain the “life of the spirit…. Steady through all crises if we are widely open to the promptings of love and sympathy.”
He goes on to say that at this stage “we witness human activity motivated by sympathy overcoming the season phase of impotency,” where “potency in Nature spirits reaching a higher level in the human being,” and the theme is “the transmutation of life into love.” He states this is in the Span of Examination, and is the fulfillment degree of the actional-material level of Potency in the Act of Differentiation.
Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, offers that this degree is a symbol of our “self-assurance as regained by giving nourishment to forms of life other than (our) own. The social nature of the inner being is stressed her by a receptivity to experience which becomes the characteristic of youth and of femininity, and by a deep generosity of spirit which marks maturity and the more masculine aspiration which has its expressing in the more barren periods of everyday living.”
He offers us the keyword HOSPITALITY. He goes on to say that when operating in a positive way, this symbol is “a naïve genius in the administration of both the powers of nature and the potentialities of selfhood.”
From this symbol it seems the specific theme of the next month (and 5+ years) is one of linking with others in a genuine goodwill, and nourishing others in ways they need it. Cultivate “generosity of spirit” and you’ll do just fine! And with it conjunct Chiron and Mercury retrograde, we’ll definitely be reviewing how these qualities have mentored us, or helped us heal in recent months, getting a different angle of understanding these as active qualities.
Another very important factor is that 20 Aries is the degree where Chiron went stationary retrograde in July 2023. That means the “healing or mentoring review” we did the last half of last year is now a) the object of activation via the New Moon, b) the shutting down of either the old method or anything which would obstruct a new method, and c) something which should have been done then will be done now, thanks to Mercury retrograde.
Important Aspects
Remember that in reading a Lunation chart (as well as a horary, inceptional, electional, or any event chart) the forming aspects show things to come, while separating aspects show things already past. Partile separating aspects show what’s been going on in the Now. This section covers only forming and partile separating aspects.
This month we have only 1 special evolutionary configuration but an extraordinary activation of two from the past. The Lunation is conjunct Mercury, decile Mars, semisextile Jupiter, decile Saturn, semisextile Uranus, and binovile Pluto. Mercury is vigintile Venus, conjunct the Sun, novile Mars, quindecile Jupiter, novile Saturn, quindecile Neptune, and binovile Pluto; Venus is conjunct the Sun, semisquare Jupiter and semisquare Uranus; and the Sun makes the same aspects as the Moon.
Outer planet aspects feature Mars bielftile Jupiter, conjunct Saturn, and novile Pluto; Jupiter is bielftile Saturn, conjunct Uranus, septile Neptune (via Jupiter) and tredecile Pluto (via Jupiter); Saturn is bielftile Uranus and novile Pluto (via Mercury), and Uranus is septile Neptune and tredecile Pluto (via Jupiter).
This month the friction is provided by only 2 semisquares. The semisquares are about internal decisions and movement. We will have almost no frictional transit to transit aspects after this because the next squares will happen from early Taurus to Pluto in late April. At this point we have only “interior aspects” of angles less than 90 degrees between non-Lunar aspects due to the tight compression of all the planets within a 108+ degree span.
Special Configurations in Evolutionary Astrology
This month we have the rare circumstance of only one evolutionary configuration in play, though as mentioned, Jupiter plays an outsized role in triggering prior outer planet configuration aspects. We also have been in a period of mostly waning aspects to the outer planets, but now are in the second month of planets making significant waxing aspects, as the Aries transits and Jupiter make aspects to Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto.
1) Mercury is novile Mars and Saturn and binovile Pluto, with Mars and Saturn novile Pluto. This activates 3 points of a “9 Pointed Star of Spiritual Realizations,” with realizations coming after a period of gestation, or putting some things on hold so they mature a while. Zones most affected include 1-6 Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius, 11-16 Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, and 21-26 Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius.
As noted, a special focus is on Jupiter triggering past Uranus aspects to Neptune and Pluto. Jupiter is septile Neptune and tredecile Pluto, which brings the powerful Uranus septile Neptune back into play. This is a distant echo of the Grand Irrationality which I wrote about for many years. Active zones include 27 Pisces-1 Aries, 18-22 Taurus, 10-14 Cancer, 1-5 Virgo, 22-26 Libra, 14-18 Sagittarius, and 6-10 Aquarius. If you have something in one or more of these zones, expect whatever is taken away by this eclipse to put you at forks in the road of destiny where you’ll expand as per wherever Jupiter conjunct Uranus happens in your chart.
We also have Jupiter reactivating Uranus tredecile Pluto, an unusually favorable alignment also in play last year. This brings interactive gifts and blessings and serendipitous events wherever we have Taurus and early Aquarius, and activates 10 zones of unique events around 1-5 Aquarius/Leo, 7-11 Pisces/Virgo, 13-17 Aries/Libra, 19-23 Taurus/Scorpio, and 25-29 Gemini/Sagittarius. If you have something in one of these zones, uniquely favorable things are on the way!
Explaining Harmonics
Aspects in the same series are considered to be various stages of “harmonics” for each series. In the 7th harmonic aspect series of “destiny,” this month we have 2 septiles. In the 5th, 10th, 15th and 24th harmonic specialization series, we have 1 vigintile, 2 quindeciles, 4 deciles, and 2 tredeciles. The 9th harmonic gives us 4 noviles and 3 binoviles, and in the 11th harmonic faith series there are 3 bielftile.
The novile (9th harmonic), septile (7th harmonic) and elftile (11th harmonic) series all feature spiritual aspects. All novile series (9th harmonic) aspects indicate things which need to be put on the shelf for a while, or that which has been waiting can now move forward. They represent gestative energies that can lead to great spiritual realizations. Septile series aspects represent forks in the road of destiny, while the 11th harmonic elftile series indicate that faith is required to deal with transcending some dualities, issues and points of evolution where we must make a leap of faith to attain a form of mastery over that type of duality. This series tests our faith. Both the 7th and 11th series involve non-rational aspect values, bringing an element of irrationality in behavior and circumstances.
The quintile and biquintile (5th harmonic) and related 10th (decile and tredecile), 15th (quindecile), and 20th harmonic (vigintile) aspects are all specialization aspects. You can find more by going to Astrology Class on the Specializing Aspects Pt. 1 – The Quintile and Biquintile, and Astrology Class on the Specializing Aspects Part 2 – The Decile, Tredecile, Quindecile and the Vigintile.
You can find out more about the spiritual aspects (septile, novile, and elftile series) by referencing this brief overview of Astrological Aspects – the 7th, 9th, and 11th Harmonic Series Aspects and their Symbols.
Element Balance and Who’s Leading the Sun
This month shows a big imbalance in the elements, with the 10 traditional planets occupying 4 signs. We have 4 planets in Fire (inspiration and warmth), 2 planets in Earth (practical grounding), 1 in Air (relatedness and communicating), and 3 in Water (feelings and experiencing). This month we have very few signs represented.
Air and Earth are “cool” elements, while Fire and Water are “hot” elements. With this distribution, it’s in a skewed balance, with a lot more heat than cool. In fact, with so much Fire and Water, see it as a challenge to manage “steam power,” keeping the right balance between these two elements which are by nature hostile to each other. With almost no Air, find the urge to relate and communicate within, since there’s not much in the outer world except for inspired feelings, inspired experience, and inspired releases!
The current sequence at present of Deciding, Feeling, and Thinking
We’ve been through several different sequences over the past few months. There are six patterns, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. This begins a new pattern. For now, as a process of moving through events, the most effective “firing sequence” for approaching life and experience over the next four weeks involves first feeling our way into decisions and actions. After we decide and/or act, it will be important to get new information to come to a new vision or understanding. Once we get the right view or understanding, then a new feeling-experience will naturally arise that points the way to the next action.
So over the next 4 weeks we’ll be leading with our feelings, then making decisions on the basis of those feeling experiences. Because this pattern naturally reverts to wanting to feel its way into actions, when a decision has been made, it’ll be important to search for new information, new ideas, new interpretations, and new views.
We’ll be “feeling our way” into new experiences, then deciding and acting on the basis of those feelings. After a decision or action, then we’ll have to find a different way of viewing old information, facts, and understanding so we can get a new vision.
This pattern learns and teaches best through anecdotes, seeing how others handled things practically, or how you handed things practically in the past. Keeping lines of communication open both within and without is how this pattern completes itself. So let your thinking and communicating and envisioning follow your actions, and let your feelings follow a new understanding, a new perception, or a new view.
Summing Up
This New Moon will bring us releases, unique gifts and blessings, and the redemption of a promise. Go for the truth in all things while blessing and forgiving the passages, especially things left over from last year’s ordeal of finding new answers and new approaches. We let go of a lot in late 2023, and reviewed the year to see how much we attained a state of “fulfilled Selfhood.” We’re now moving into the future at full speed!
Because Mercury’s guiding our journey into “a new country” and is in Aries, even though it’s retrograde, it’s still opening the doors to our future! Keep focused on the bigger work you’ve been doing since 2020 while welcoming the new physical and/or psychological environment. Things will continue to feel compressed for the next few weeks, so stay focused on whatever is going on in your Pisces, Aries, and Taurus sectors and facilitate the flow.
We’ve finished a time of saying goodbye to old ways, places, and people, However, since all forms pass away in this impermanent world, this created space for new ways and new experiences since there’s more potential than there is in whatever has left. Celebrate the uplifting energies at play in your chart, and let go of memories which don’t serve the flow into the future. Feel the lightness of your unique evolutionary dance through space and time. We’re all moving from the interpersonal to the transpersonal level of focus.
While Saturn’s in Pisces, we are learning about the collective field and techniques of “non-local awareness” while developing our subtle senses of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and clairsentience. Forgiveness allows Divine Grace to manifest, and the quicker things flow down the timestream the less of an obstruction they’ll be.
Saturn in Pisces is teaching us how to demonstrate practical compassion as we live at a higher level than we used to. We are now living the life renewal we “heard as a call” last June, and are now “rehearsing before the battle,” where appearances must give way to true necessities.
Pluto is now on the second degree of Aquarius, bringing us “back to the future,” since Saturn opened those themes in early 2020 when it went SRX on that degree. The theme is about some sort of “cosmic visitation” which “galvanizes us to action.” As it is also associated with “Nature’s challenges,” I suspect collectively we’re about to being a long wave series of Plutonic upheavals.
Neptune is showing the way to “let go let god” as we approach the threshold of Neptune in Aries. For now, practice sensing the flow and simultaneity of knowing and experiencing a vaster connection to the collective field. This prepares us for receiving what we need to walk into the new collective reality of Neptune in Aries in 2025! Jupiter and Uranus offer us a “lightness of Being,” so allow yourself to feel the joy and “ecstatic state of awareness” which is your Soul’s nature.
We now stand at the entrance to a new life and land, a new field and focus. Be brave as you get clear about what dances you want to do and which things you’ll need to express as part of your new life roles to play. The future is now, and will get clearer over the next few weeks.
The Long View
In 2020 we entered a transition phase in human history. While we will be functioning within the Capricorn cycles we began then, we also have begun an era unknown to humanity since the 13th and 14th centuries. Even then, we were still in the depth of the Age of Pisces, so the awakening of new ideas then were relative to the old era, whereas what’s coming involves wave after wave of Aquarian energies, pushing us to the coming Great Age emerging in the second half of this century.
The long wave Aquarian pulses were initially set into motion by the Mars conjunct Saturn at 1 Aquarius on March 31, 2020, marking the initiation of archetypal Aquarian preliminary structures offered by Saturn. The promise and potential of the new Aquarian pulse then began to expand into a greater social and cultural vision beginning at the Jupiter conjunction with Saturn, the Grand Mutation of the Solstice also at 1 Aquarius. So we have 20 years of Aquarian energies set into motion by that conjunction!
When Venus and Mars conjuncted at 1 Aquarius in March 2022 it gave a new impetus and new expression to the Aquarian structures which took shape in 2021. This year Mars renewed the Aquarian energies when it transited Aquarius and conjuncted Pluto at 1 Aquarius. All of this strengthens the Pluto in Aquarius “generation” of the 21st century which lasts until 2043. As there will be a Jupiter conjunction with Pluto at 15 Aquarius in 2033, we’ll see the “expansion of the Angels of the Age of Aquarius” at that time.
2021 opened a new adventure for all of us, and the long term “metamorphosis” we went through showed us what the beginning of the coming Age of Aquarius is about. 2022 helped us remember we are Beings of Light, a Superstar shining the Light of our Eternal Love into our world. We’re now expanding our spiritual knowledge, understanding, and effective forms of service, and have entered a new phase with Mars in a new Sun/Mars conjunction cycle.
New groups of Spiritual communities have formed since 2021, and will be given a boost in early 2024. Those which are Aquarian in nature will be “lifted on the wings of angels” in 2024. Trust the process. Revolution is in the air! And when you find things and people of eternal worth, value them with all your heart.
Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend
Saturn is now solidly in Pisces. This helps us to a deeper feeling of connection with others and Source. Because Saturn plays such a large part in our lives, if you haven’t gotten your copy already, please give yourself the timeless gift of my book, Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. This book shows you the way to take command of your power to steer your life in a conscious way, using Saturn’s strengths and skills to master life on your own terms. It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers, and will help you understand how your life experiences assisted your Soul growth and your power to change negative karma to positive karma. Each time you re-read any part of it you’re sure to find undiscovered gems of insight helping you throw off attitudes which frustrate your ability to live your higher Purpose on your own terms.
And now, on a related note….
Because Venus is one of the planets in the “Chain of Dispositors” ruling all the other planets besides Neptune, She has tremendous power behind the scenes. As She now prepares to transit the eclipse degree, we’ll find value and appreciation for past, present, and future eclipse effects. Embrace the new!
If you want to know more about how Venus works its magic to bring us the people and things we need to find spiritual understanding, you can get a deeper understanding of you power to shape your future by getting your copy of The Magic of Venus: Friendships, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames.
It’s the most comprehensive book on Venus ever written, and takes a deep dive into how our Venus shapes why we like or don’t like the people and things we do, and how we can change our patterns of attraction to make future relationships more fulfilling. It explains the world of relationship from the angles of psychology, astrology, spirituality, and worldly experience. I’ve heard it helps people find strength to turn away from unhealthy relationships and understand how not to attract anything similar in the future. It examines the qualities in healthy relationships and friendships, and offers tips on how to create long lasting personal relationships and friendships, why Soul Mates come into our lives, and how to know the difference between a Soul Mate and our Twin Flame.
It has chapters on the qualities of each sign’s natural mate, the qualities of Venus in each sign, Venus retrograde, and when crucial choices and changes are made, affecting who we attract in the future. It was written for both astrologers and lay people, and as it has a thousand gems for better relationships, with self, others, and Source, please consider getting your copy by going to the link above! (And when you’re done, please leave a review on Amazon, since it helps the book and all other books on astrology as well!)
Previous articles about this very important eclipse!
The Total Solar Eclipse of April 2024 at 20 Aries Pt. 1 – Who Does It Affect and for How Long?
Astrology in April 2024 - On The Threshold of a Total Solar Eclipse at 20 Aries
“What Are Solar Eclipses And Why Are People Excited?”
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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