There's a new moon this week on Friday, April 8th in the sign of Aries. It happens at 4:32 pm Eastern Standard Time here in the U.S. (or, rather Eastern Daylight Time since we just switched over to Daylight Savings Time.)

The new moon is immediately followed by a total solar eclipse which occurs at 4:37 pm. This is one of two solar eclipses this year, but this one is a total solar eclipse. It will be most visible over the Northern Atlantic Ocean and portions of South America.

Take It Easy During This New Moon

While new moon periods are usually times of renewal and creativity, the energies of optimism are likely to be a bit dampened by everything else that is going on with the planets right now. We're still in a Mercury retrograde period, and there's a lot of heightened emotionality, distraction, and potential negativity (if you watch TV or spend too much time listening to the news!) Mercury remains retrograde until April 12th. So if you feel a bit grumpy, disoriented, or out of sorts, wondering why you don't have as much drive as you usually do, Mercury retrograde may be contributing to those sensations.

To make things more volatile, the sun is in the sign of Aries until April 20th and Mercury is in the sign of Aries for all of April. Meanwhile, Venus is joining the others in a game of triple tag, moving through Aries until it finally heads for Taurus on April 16th.

And this particular new moon falls in the sign of Aries, too. So on April 8th, we'll be feeling the influence of four planets in Aries.

Aries is a Fire sign, notorious for its impatience and angry outbursts yet famous for qualities like passion, loyalty, and heart-felt love. With so many planets aligned in Aries, it's important to keep our cool this month and to watch for personal triggers which could cause us to lose our tempers or shoot off our mouths. Try not to make enemies when you could be busy using the warmth and friendliness of this Aries energy to make important allies.

Be Aware of the Solar Eclipse Energies

The new moon occurring in Aries plus the solar eclipse on the 8th could mark a day when we feel a "darkening of the light," a momentary loss of faith or loss of direction. The shadow side may offer us some challenges, but by maintaining a sense of calm and focusing on more positive energies, we'll navigate through this test and arrive on the other side, relatively unscathed.

Eclipses tend to carry a sense of psychic heaviness to them. As physical beings who need sunshine and solar energy to survive, we feel an intense response when the sun stops shining. There's both a physical and a spiritual reason for this.

Biochemically speaking, our bodies react very strongly to the presence of solar rays. Our skin has to absorb a certain amount of sunlight so our bodies can receive enough Vitamin D, an essential nutrient. In fact, sunlight is our body's primary source of Vitamin D. Dr. Michael Holick, author of a book called The UV Advantage, is one of many health experts who works to promote a greater awareness of the benefits of natural sunlight. He talks about how the US is just one of many nations whose population suffers from chronic Vitamin D deficiency, and Vitamin D deficiency puts people at a greater risk of developing diseases like diabetes. (You can read more about his work at www.UVadvantage.com.) Vitamin D is also a key component which our bodies use to process calcium, and it makes calcium more available to our bones. Many researchers now believe that getting enough Vitamin D may be the best way to prevent osteoporosis (loss of bone density) and the key to building stronger bones, no matter what your age of level of health.

Spiritually speaking, eclipse times reconnect us with the soul memory of our ancestors, who lived and died by the weather. If it didn't rain enough, crops wilted, and our ancestors went hungry. If it rained too much and storms were too violent, crops could be damaged, and everyone went hungry. Eclipses occurred with such rarity and unpredictability that they stirred up a certain amount of fear. What if the sun never came out again? What if the gods were angry, and they took the sun away? How would we eat? How would we survive?

Even though we now live in an age when we have handy things called calendars and wonderful people known as astronomers, it's hard not to get a chill down your spine when you watch the actual progression of an eclipse. You can sense how we rely upon the sun's rays to boost our spirits and connect us with healing solar prana, and the very thought of it going dark can shake us up. We feel a disruption on a primordial, cellular level.

On the one hand, we're more sophisticated than our ancestors, and we know that the sun isn't going anywhere, even if it's momentarily dark. But it's easy to understand how our elders might have been upset when an eclipse happened. We no longer live in a culture which worships a sun god, but we still appreciate the sun's energy and depend on it to lift our spirits and to bathe us in its lovely rays.

So a lot of these psychic dramas may be playing themselves out in the background as we experience four planets in fiery Aries plus the new moon and the solar eclipse on the 8th. Remember, too, that the energy of the eclipse will be gathering momentum on the etheric planes a few days before and a few days after the 8th, so these influences may be felt before the weekend and well into the following week.

Cultivate Selflessness and Acts of Generosity

When a new moon period is accompanied by an eclipse, it's not the best time to engage in rituals that are geared for more "selfish" purposes like writing yourself a new moon abundance check. And the influence of Mercury retrograde this month is also encouraging us to be less aggressive about putting ourselves first and pushing hard to resolve issues in our individual lives.

Instead, this new moon is a great time to open up our hearts to focus on broader concerns. Offer prayers to benefit groups who are suffering in other parts of the world, focusing those new moon energies on healing. Do some drumming, singing, or chanting and dedicate that sound-based work to Mother Earth, who can always use healing. Or reach out to people in your social sphere who could use a lift and send a distant relative a friendly letter, make a phone call to a loved one overseas, or send a care package to soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. If you oppose the actions that the US is taking in those places, donate money or time to a charitable organization that raises awareness about the dangers of depleted uranium or land mines or other destructive instruments of war. There are plenty of things you can do to enhance the well-being of your fellow creatures and this wonderful, unique planet we are blessed to be living on.

The energies of this particular new moon encourage us to pitch in and contribute loving energy to a global agenda of healing and consciousness-raising. We're all involved with a magnificent and challenging adventure, a time for spiritual transformation and the releasing of old patterns of living. Find your own way of making a difference during this new moon eclipse period, and you'll enhance light in the midst of darkness.