OX Solar Eclipse

OX North Node Solar Eclipse

March 29th 2025, 6:57 am Eastern

09* 00’ Aries

1st Shape: OX; 00*00’ Aries to 12*51’ Aries

The first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox is an important marker for the “birth” of the year, as many cultures worldwide and throughout time find the start of the annual cycle at spring equinox, meaning this lunation is the initiation of the first lunar becoming of the Astrological year. This round we receive not only a New Moon but a North Node Solar Eclipse at nine degrees Aries. Some Arabic medieval texts, such as the Picatrix, have named 0 degrees Aries as marking the first of the 28 Mansions. Elsewhere, in Ibn Arabi, we find it is Vernal Equinox that marks the first mansion, which seems to correlate with evidence in at least the content from every other tradition, especially the older content, no matter which sidereal schema they later became bolted onto at whichever period of textual transmission, and from then on frozen to the stars by alphabetization. There is even mention in Ibn Arabi of the North Node being the true start of the mansions, which is a very curious idea, and perhaps an extraordinary layer of migrating zodiacal organization which juxtaposes with the tropical which is fixed to solstices and equinoxes and runs along in biological time. March 29th 2025 is a moment when these two considerations sync up, as was 19 years ago on March 29th 2006, and 19 years prior and so on.

This, in essence, is very much the start of the world story re-emphasized and re-performed every 19 years. You can think of this as the radical emergence of reality, the arriving of the world-train and all its inhabitants and components unloading into existence, much like the Big Bang myth of status quo science and the Prime Mover lore of archaic cultures which preceded it. This is the starter pistol, the whip crack, all else that happens for the next 19 years snaps into action and is ultimately compelled by this very instance. Some of our personal cycles (what synodic revolutions we are most attuned to by the moment of birth our natal chart describes) may or may not be synced up to this external world sync, so we may be stimulated, illuminated, selected or emphasized by this cracking open of reality’s story book to the first page whereas others of us are incarnated as characters who appear and inhabit other parts of the narrative mid stream or nearer its final passages; Either way, the beginning has significance for everything else in the story, it sets the initial premise, its where the setting and mood and themes begin to be established out of relative nothingness.

Some books are more circular, like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and its predecessor, Samuel Delaney’s Dhalgren, both of which feature first and last sentences which wrap around into each other. This would be appropriate in 2025—2026 with multiple sets of retrogrades weaving around the Aries-Pisces boundary, the beginning and end of the zodiac, the top of he head and sole of the feet in the body, the event of more light than dark which signals spring retracing expression back to the conclusion of winter. Despite fundamental issues of all systems which attempt to regularize multiple celestial cycles into a state wide calendrical order, the taoist 60 year revolutions of qi cycles for this year also describe an attempt at creating harmony in an in-congruency as Spring 2025 (at the Chinese pace) is dis-regulated and out of order or sync elementally; metal element is visiting the spring (which starts earlier, near Imbolc, amidst the Western Winter) a bit of opposites in collision as metal is the element of Fall, so we have Metal visiting Wood, and metal (the guest element) overtakes wood (the host element). There may then be (I’m paraphrasing Chinese Medicine practitioner Christine Cannon, whom I don’t really agree with her methods but I find the resulting delineation interestingly fitting for what the straight ephemeris is also telling us) a contraction and dryness in the spring when we should feel juicy and expansive, making new creative expression a little harder as wood is being impacted by metal energy. She suggests we might have to dig deeper to cultivate anything new. It’s more the moment for harvesting the energy of what you’ve been building for a long time (I’d suggest for the past 19 years), emphasizing what needs to fall away and thereby entering a whole new way of being in the world; a time for letting go and taping into the new energy of the year.

The work of Geraldine Patrick Encina (born to Chilean parents with Celtic and Mapuche ancestries) on the Maya calendar also pinpoints this relative moment as interesting, and for similar reasons, Mesoamerican Indigenous practices which observes 18 equal periods of 20 days which equal 360 days and fit into metonic moon cycle of 19ish years: what the North Node eclipse in the first mansion around vernal equinox is an episode of. For these people the coalescence of Sun, Moon and Venus is an important marker, something this moment also features. The Maya calendar did its wrapping around to the beginning of the cycle on March 26th 2012, something that was much confused and hyped up, ironic as it coincided with Neptune’s ingress into Pisces, which has led us in part to this climax of the world being both confused and hyped up at a culminated maximum as Neptune readies to transition out of Pisces and into Aries. This current transition coincides with the next step change in the Maya calendar, the ending of the 13 year First Flint period of new beginnings, getting rid of what does not serve us, self-sacrifice, tuning back into our souls, and putting bodies in sync preceded by what Geraldine says was a stretch of decomposition of memory, behavior, food and water; essentially the melting down of everything in reality so it could renew. As of three days ago we transitioned into the period called One House: the house of mother earth, where the fire can be lit, providing the opportunity of humanity to step into accordance with one another under the connectivity of the earth which generates and provides for us. This an interesting notion for a year which will include Jupiter’s ingress into Cancer upcoming in June. I’m paraphrasing Geraldine from a recent conversation she had with Tiokasin Ghosthorse:

“…warriors to become butterflies who's sense of freedom comes from connecting to the beam of light and their heart can burn symbolically to feel alive and full of freedom and opportunity to live in a paradise world where everything is beauty and harmony people are floating and enjoying watching all the variety of flowers and waters and cloud beings and celebrating life possibility to have a harmonious way of life, butterfly can be tremendously life changing can move fire and water at the same time, movement of fire water causes tremendous change and shift and instill in people that mother nature has consciousness and she is the master of all of us so life can continue as she needs it to be as a new vision of herself that only she can hold…”

The first entry on the list of 28 Shapes from the Prayer to Mene in the Greek Magical Papyri is Ox. This is likely a reference to lead initiatrix of Mystery Traditions devoted to Dionysus, such as we find referenced in the Orphic Hymns, where (Apostolos N. Athanassakis explains) Oxherd is a term for the head participant in officiating initiation ceremonies. Like Vernal Equinox, all that follow are compelled by this Prime Mover. As Jake Stratton Kent has pointed out the probable correlation between the sequence of spirits in the Grimorium Verum and the mansions, Lucifer would preside over this first position, his name meaning Dawn-Bringer, and who’s illuminating quality is akin to the spring increase of light, and all the spirits which follow, and are ultimately compelled by his evocation, nestle into the qualities and characteristics of the annual cycle of light and season. This is the expression of eastward, where all luminous bodies rise over the horizon and scroll westward. The gates of manifestation (the North Node) opening in this territory are significant, despite that they repeat every 19 years, This time around they coincide with Venus’ recent transition from Evening Star to Morning Star— further establishing the dawn-bringing essence in the moment.

The Picatrix calls this Shape the Horns of Aries and sees a warrior with a spear here and note it is appropriate for beginnings but also highlights discord, as the arrival of new things out of no where can often disrupt what was previously settled into space. Both the Verum and the Rigveda mention a young boy associated with the first spirit and nakshatra respectively. The Chinese Xiu also mentions youth, as well as animal birth, renewal and growth, calling this the Horn of the great Azure Dragon, similar to the Picatrix’s Horns of Aries and Warrior’s spear. Indeed, the Grecco-Egyptian Oxherd likely prods with the sharp stick of cardinality. The Fangshi in the Chinese material is seen controlling serpent-like demons, similar to Lucifer’s ability to compel all the other spirits. The Vedic material talks about fighting poison, healing, honey and bee hives, which remind of the increase of yang in the spring which clears out excess yin and dispels noxious energy and stagnation with activation of more movement and frenetic dynamism.

The Neijing speaks of doing neigong (yogic movement and breathing exercise) in the courtyard with loose hair and breathing in the essence of spring qi but to not hike in the woods. It suggests not overexerting oneself, bing outside but not over exposed to the elements quite yet, and building qi not depleting it, as well as not trampling the growing things (young buds and shoots etc) in the forest in union with your own energy cultivation and new growth. In addition it reminds us that if we don’t gather qi well in the spring then we will become overwhelmed once it is summer, not having the proper energetic stores at our disposal. The influence of the North Node here wishes to fast forward the plot, and rev up this transition into spring with its exponential, compulsion driven tendency to entice us into more-more-more. It is telling us the truth, pointing the way we should go, but can lead us into going that way at a faster pace than is necessary. Ironically though, the actual Node has moved itself already into late Pisces, so the Sun-Moon story open the gates in spring that are themed to let in some late winter content. Like taoist qi period calendar suggested for spring of 2025, we begin by ending, we let go of the past cycle in a big way to initiate the new energetics. Saturn, the North Node, retrograde Venus and soon retrograde Mercury will all be forming a unified council to this purpose, closing out and sending to rest several stories of 3, 13, 8, and 19 year lengths as well as some only a few months in all simultaneously and interwovenly in a kind of cinematic conclusion. We’re off to the New World birthing so its here we loosen so many threads and allow the old tapestry to return to its primordial source. With Neptune very soon and Saturn not so far behind as well as the retrograde inner planets all coming around to Aries soon enough, the new dream, scenario, desire, structure, form has immediate and direct action, capability, quick draw ability and vitalizing autonomy written all over it. We gain all this by crossing the waters towards shores we may have never been to before, but might be reminiscent to plot elements on the 3, 13, 8 and especially 19 year cycle scales.

We might want to contemplate the skull moving with this moment. Skull, circle, dawn, flame, and sword. Eyes open and the world suddenly appears. Passing betwixt the twin peaks.The crown of our heads and the first light that ever hit them. Our origin stories becoming critical at a time when we go from pre-natal to the emerging of our newly developing character's once again. Waking up to the old dreams dissolve and the new dreams dawning in a serious and very real way.