Solar Eclipses

Changing the very identity of people and places for months to come.

2024.

When I set out to create the Time Capsule video episode about the solar eclipse in Aries this year, it really happened quite organically and quite spontaneously. I had gone through a series of challenges in the previous months leading up to April - stripped of some basic needs and scaling down of my desires which brought me back to a sort of blank canvas, a rebirthing, a clean slate. And so it made me look deeper into the energy of the solar eclipse that month - the first total solar eclipse of the year.

On April 8th, 2024 we had a solar eclipse in the star sign of Aries. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac and describes our identity, how we present ourselves, our roles in friendship, family, our communities, how others see us. And it’s also the sign of Spring, blossoming new beginnings, fresh starts, initiating new sparks of inspiration, and leaving the past behind without looking back. The fearless Aries wants to explore new frontiers and honors their instincts and intuition. So a new chapter on many levels of life is possible with the solar eclipse in Aries - something to expect in this next chapter of all of our lives. And the solar eclipses always bring accelerated change.

The last time we had an April 8th solar eclipse in the sign of Aries was in 2005. And a few months later there was Hurricane Katrina which had devastating effects on Louisiana for many years to come, and quite literally abruptly changed the face, the identity, of this rich historic place. When the solar eclipse hits the zodiac sign of our very identity it always shakes things up.

But another similarity I found with the April 8th solar eclipses in Aries in both 2005 and 2024, was that each were closely positioned to the celestial body called Chiron, which means that there was an even more delicate and powerful energy influencing these stark changes in our lives.

Chiron is nicknamed the wounded healer in Greek mythology. Chiron was half man and half beast, rejected by his mother for his abnormalities. Basically his identity as a centaur. His wound was this deep rejection and abandonment but he learned to redirect the pain into art, music, archery, and medicine - quite literally, the healing arts. So the Chiron energy brings a vulnerability to the whole process, taking our Achilles heel, our own individual profound grief and pain, and brings it into the light where it can ultimately be loved and embraced and cared for.

And in 2005, it ushered in a pivotal turning point in my own life. That year I went through a major breakup. I had panic attacks and depression. I spent two months on anti-anxiety medication. But it seems that life will always give us multiple chances to elevate and expand our consciousness through any given challenge. And of course, as the ancient Greek and Roman Stoics teach, it is our reactions and our responses to things that make the difference. So, that year, I responded to this heartbreak by going on a week-long cross country roadtrip in an 18-wheeler. I took boxing lessons, took drumming lessons, played bass in a cover band, had solo exhibitions of my photographs, and at the end of the year was hired at my first official job in television at BBC. I was thrust into a new direction in my life.

C.G. Jung describes the wound as a strength. Allowing for the deep insecurities of the self by embracing the shadow aspects of the self you become stronger, more integrated, and better able to deal with the challenges of life. I think the Chiron pain in each of us is sort of a secret superpower.

Chiron didn’t wear his wound like a badge of honor and cross over to the threshold of victimhood, but instead transformed it into something beautiful and free, into creation. He transformed his pain into a purpose.

Thinking of the intense vulnerability that Hurricane Katrina brought feels a bit like that. The landscape of your body being opened to monsters and demons and flooded by ghosts and goblins of the surrounding world - at least that’s how it felt to me in 2005 until I started to see those little monsters as a gift to plow forward into the great unknown and embrace that adventurous Aries sun.

So 2024, with that mythical celestial Chiron sitting almost right on top of the solar eclipse, creating deep sensitivity on top of highly charged intensity, and poking at the parts of our identity that no longer serve our highest good, forcing us through the pain to look at a new way of life - no matter if those changes are perceived as good or bad - the sun will shine again and the shadows will make an art show on the cave walls, and there will be a new dawn, a new spring in our step, and a brand new identity to explore.

I love you.

Käla

Here is the full Time Capsule episode for “The Solar Eclipse” -