Early Friday morning there is a New Moon which is also an annular solar eclipse (total at approx 1:30am), at 19.31 Taurus, visible in Australia and the southern Pacific. Annular means that the Moon is too far from Earth to block out the Sun completely, so at totality it leaves a ring of the Sun's light (annulus) around it, sometimes known as 'the ring of fire'.

Astrologically, eclipses can bring drama, intensity and passion, and if you have any planets within a degree or so of Taurus in particular (and possibly Scorpio), expect to be in the spotlight for some reason. Eclipses are often like a message, prompting - sometimes forcing - you to make important decisions about your life, or showing you a vision of the way forward. Check out the house of your birth chart that the eclipse falls in for additional clues.

Eclipses also fall into Saros Series, which Bernadette Brady discusses in her book Predictive Astrology - The Eagle and The Lark (available to members in our library). According to Bernadette, this eclipse is part of the Saros 138 South15 series. Of this, she writes: “This series is about a release of tension. A situation which has been lingering will suddenly clear. In the clearing of the problem there is also a sense of grief or loss which is not so much personal as belonging to a group or collective.”

This eclipse, along with the two lunar eclipses surrounding it (on April 25th and May 25th) takes place within the current Uranus-Pluto square, exact on May 20th.

Eclipse photo by Kevin Baird, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The BBC is one many organisations and Countries (including the UK 1801) formed on 1st. January. Originally the BBC was a private company started on 18 October 1922, but its current form was established under a Royal Charter in 1927. All these 1st. January entities will have the Sun at about 9 or 10 degrees of Capricorn, so Pluto is already or soon will be transiting this point. Most of these organisations have a legal midnight formation time which also places the IC of the chart here, usually a degree or so earlier.  The pattern seems therefore to be the foundations being rocked followed by turmoil, reorganisation and transformation. As this time and date every year also has a descendant round about 6 degrees of Aries - where Uranus currently is - the full impact of the ongoing Pluto-Uranus square will be emphasised in all 1st. January organisations.
KL