As I write this on February 1st, we are on the threshold of Imbolc, the midpoint between the December Solstice and March Equinox. Here in America we celebrate with a meaningless and rather silly Groundhog Day ritual which is supposed to determine whether or not we will have 6 more weeks of Winter. We will in either case.
Thirty years ago Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell gave us an amusing new look at this event. Time freezes and Bill Murray is doomed to repeat the day over and over until he gets it right. He moves from a lustful, self-centered man on the make to a genuine humanitarian, beloved by a community, and finally rewarded with true love. It’s a great metaphor for the wheel of karma on which we humans go round and round for lifetimes wrestling with ego issues that get in the way of our authenticity and ability to love.
At this mid-winter point we begin to notice that the days are getting a bit longer, the light a bit brighter. Uranus turned direct on January 22nd kicking off three months of growing momentum as all the major planets move forward. February is a transition month in which to tie up loose ends and take final stock of the past three years.
At the Full Moon, Mercury will be in a tight square to Eris, the brother of Mars who has worked with Pluto to disrupt our lives in order to transform them. Mercury is at 22 degrees of Capricorn, the very degree on which Saturn and Pluto came together in January of 2020, kicking off shock waves of change.
During February, both Pluto and Saturn will be transiting the last degrees of Capricorn and Aquarius respectively. The 29th degree of a sign is the most potent, bringing our experience to a conclusion and the lessons of the transit into focus. Mercury is suggesting we take a look at how much we have grown, changed and learned through the passage of these planets.
Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008, a time of financial crisis when the housing market collapsed and the homeless population increased dramatically. We were also dealing with the fallout of the Iraq war and everyone wanted change. Barak Obama was elected president that November and while the majority of us were relieved, we were unaware of the dark shadows of racism and fascism gaining strength beneath the surface.
In 2016 we handed our country over to Donald Trump and the rest is chaos. By 2020, while Trump was scheming to seize control for another four years, Pluto was undermining the structure of our society and its many systems of operation. In January 2021 we watched in horror as our government was almost overthrown by violent radicals deluded by the lies of their leader. And the conflict still rages although its supporters are dwindling.
All of this accompanied by a pandemic, the obvious inadequacy of our health-care system, the lack of transparency in our pharmaceutical industry, increasing violence and the further separation of our population into factions.
On March 24th, Pluto will move temporarily into Aquarius giving us a preview of the 20 years ahead, only to return to Capricorn on June 11th and remain there through the rest of the year. Pluto re-enters Aquarius on January 20th of 2024 where he will be stirring up the issues that block a smooth transition to the Aquarian Age. There is much work to be done on every front as we rebuild our society based on humanitarian values.
2023 is about shifting our focus forward. We are going through a re-alignment of our consciousness with multiple energy shifts. On March 7th Saturn moves into Pisces. Saturn spent the last 2-1/2 years laying the foundation for the Aquarian Society of the future. We can’t see it yet, but it will become clearer as Pluto releases more information over the next two decades. All the inner work we did during this time contributed to that brighter future.
So what will Saturn accomplish in Pisces? Well, for one thing, Saturn can bring some solid, practical sense to dispel a lot of the illusions created by lies, half-truths, fake news, faulty perceptions, conditioned beliefs, escapist fantasies and religious/political dogma. The Aquarian Age is about the reuniting of humanity, the awakening to our identity as one spiritual consciousness manifested in glorious diversity. We will learn how to live together in peace and harmony, respecting one another, caring for the welfare of the whole, honoring our interdependence with our precious planet and its abundance. It won’t be complete in 20 years, but we have 2600 years to make it so. This amazing transformation is taking place right now as one by one we awaken to new possibilities. Meanwhile, the chaos we see outside of ourselves is the manifestation of the chaos within our collective unconscious as we struggle toward a new paradigm. There’s a lot to sort out.
Pisces is about connection. We’ll explore that next month. The pace will pick up for the next three months. Energies will shift. Who knows what will manifest? But the clearer we are at this moment about our values and the more they are aligned with humanitarian ideals, the smoother it will be.
And that brings us to the Full Moon.
Full Moon in Leo
On Sunday morning, February 5th the Moon will exactly oppose the Sun on an axis from 16:40 Leo to 16:40 Aquarius. The Sun is in the USA 2nd House – the house of value – and the Moon is in the 8th – the house of mysteries. In perfect heavenly fashion, the Moon is at apogee, far out in space, furthest away from Earth, close to Black Moon Lilith, the twin center of its elliptical orbit.
Lilith is within two degrees of the USA North Node. The message is about the powerful Divine Feminine in her primal form and manifestation, pointing the way to the future. She is also connected to a Grand Cardinal Cross consisting of Ceres, Quaoar, Jupiter and the USA natal Venus/Jupiter conjunction close to our nation’s Sun.
So much symbolism to unpack. Let’s get back to the Full Moon for a moment. The Leo/Aquarian axis echoes the Aries/Libra axis. Aries is about selfhood, individuality, self-assertion. Leo is about courage, self-confidence and self-expression. Libra concerns relationship with another while Aquarius broadens our perspective to include our place within the whole of humanity. The Self/Other theme is common to both. All the Air signs have sigils involving two lines and all are concerned with duality and the resultant balance between the opposites.
Aquarius operates in the Airy mental realms, looking at the bigger picture, expanding the focus from private to public arenas. Leo is about the joy of expressing oneself, of putting ourselves out into the world with confidence and courage. Leo begins to make art of our lives. The domain of the Sun, symbol of our Spirit and identity, Leo expresses individuality that comes from the heart. While Aries leaps impetuously into life, Leo basks in its glow and feels appreciation and the joy of being alive. It is therefore creative and playful. There’s a sense of Divine Grace. Of course I speak of the ideal Leo.
In the 8th House, the Moon is beckoning us to go beyond the known of ourselves and quest for the unknown. We have sifted through our past for clues to our identity. Now we are reaching into future selves. What talents, gifts, aptitudes have we not yet seen or explored? What don’t we know about ourselves and our spiritual identities? Who is the Higher Self and how do we communicate with it? How do we work with guides?
Both Sun and Moon are square Uranus in the 5th House which just happens to be the House of Leo and domain of the Sun where the focus is on how we express ourselves and what we create. That includes everything from a loving relationship to offspring to works of art. 5th House is where we play and explore.
Uranus of course is a wielder of surprising change. It electrifies our experience, intensifying the energy so we really get a jolt. Reality hits us right in the face. We see what needs to change, or how we are restricting ourselves, stuck in reactive patterns or frozen in resistance. The experience may manifest with an event of some kind here in the USA because Uranus is conjunct our natal Vesta, the keeper of our sacred flame of freedom and equality. We have had countless opportunities to see what a troubled country we live in.
Mars stationed over our natal Uranus in January and sat there for days. Big change is on the agenda this year. Of course Mars has been transiting Gemini in our 6th House giving us time to work out our lives, think about our habits and how we are living our days. Mars is about to cross our Descendant and enter the 7th House of relationship. You can see the obvious focus on how we relate to one another. This is something we have choice about. We can become mindful of how we treat other people. How we think about them – judging them, sizing them up or appreciating them for who they are. Change happens through us and our impact on others.
Grand Cardinal Cross
Jupiter in Aries is much in play at the Full Moon. It is exactly conjunct the dwarf planet Salacia. I haven’t been able to find much information on her yet. I do know that she was the consort of Neptune. Of course this creates an association with Pisces and issues of Oneness in the Great Quantum Field of Consciousness.
Jupiter is opposite the dwarf planet Ceres in Cancer the nurturing Mother who provides, as does our Earth, the abundance that sustains us. This axis crosses another cardinal axis between Pholus and Quaoar opposite our nation’s Venus and Jupiter. Jupiter is about growth, faith, optimism, good fortune, ideals and joyous expansion.
The Venus/Jupiter conjunction is an innate part of our collective psyche – enormous spiritual love. Imagine how much love was at play when we conceived of liberty and justice for all! This spiritual love is being activated by the dwarf planet Quaoar. I finally understand this enigmatic dwarf. My meditations have changed this year and I find myself working with and learning from the flow of energy through my body. I knew intellectually that Quaoar supports our embodiment of Spirit through spiritual practice, but now I see that energy work is spiritual practice for me right now. I relax as much as I can and notice the tight places in my body. Then I focus on reducing tension, opening up space in the tightness. In the process information is released from those tight places revealing the psychic content that is blocking energy flow. It’s a new way for me to process and results not only in expanded awareness, but increasing love.
Pholus is conjunct Quaoar within 1 minute of arc. He is a centaur who seems to be an agent of transformation on a generational level. In the USA chart he points to what is blocking us, what needs attention to free us up and liberate future generations. Pholus helps us see ancestral karma. Part of our collective work is resolving the themes that we inherited through our blood lines.
This conjunction with Quaoar in the first house of our nation’s identity is also conjunct our natal Eris, queen of chaos. As Quaoar and Pholus activate our natal Eris, our national identity is evolving through disruption, chaos and discord. It’s uncomfortable and we all wish it would go away, but it’s a necessary step in our awakening. Pholus conjuncts Eris on February 11th and Quaoar on the 12th. These slow-moving bodies will make several passes over Eris all the way through October of 2024, forcing us to look at our entitlement, our arrogance, and the damage we wreak on our nation through exclusion.
The answer to all this separation and conflict lies in the Jupiter/Venus conjunction which completes the Cardinal Cross. Put simply, we need to open our hearts, to expand our awareness of Spirit, to nurture and care for one another. Didn’t we receive that message 2000 years ago?
Ceres in Libra sets the tone of this Cardinal Cross. Nurture our relationships. She is conjunct the dwarf planet MakeMake. His contribution is helping us see the bigger picture. As the upper octave of Uranus, he brings even bigger insights. Ceres will catch up to MakeMake in July when the Nodes move from Taurus/Scorpio to Aries/Libra, another big energy shift.
Finger of God
Not only we do have a T-Square and a Cardinal Cross, three planets form a Yod, or Finger of God which points to yet another answer to the question “How do we heal?” Orcus lies at the apex of this Yod with the Sun in Aquarius sextile Chiron in Aries. Orcus asks us to remember our oaths to our souls to uncover the dark places within ourselves and bring them to light. Then Orcus lends the energy to transmute negative energy into a positive expression. This is alchemy, working with the contents of consciousness to elevate their energy, thus allowing them to express in a more loving way. As we take responsibility for our own shadow material, we build integrity and contribute to collective healing. Orcus is making its way toward our natal Neptune which it will reach in 2029, transforming our understanding of Spirit and Oneness.
Venus is the Answer
Venus moved into Pisces on January 26th. On February 2nd she was sextile the North Node activating the path of loving relationship. She is picking up speed, racing through Pisces and entering Aries on February 19th at the New Moon at 1 degree of Pisces. We can see her climbing higher in the evening sky and growing brighter. Look for her and open to her light. Let her touch your heart. And further to the East, look for the next brightest light – that will be Jupiter. They are headed for a reunion on March 1st. So stock up on the growing love.
In March the winds of change blow in. We’ll talk more about that and also the importance of Venus. She is in her Remembering and Embodiment phase. Intriguing topic for the Pisces lunation.
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