Dateblog: January 2015

January 2015 by Sign

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In terms of personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars), January 2015 begins with three of the five (and we really shouldn't count the Moon in this discussion as the Moon changes signs about every couple of days) in Capricorn - a sign known for looking ahead and working to carry out plans ... and alternately, for loses (often of stature or reputation) and the reality of life's consequences and world/worldly responses - either for what we've done prior to now or what we're in the throws of doing (or trying to do) now.

By January 4th, that 'solidity' of thrust ... that's going to begin to change. It may not be obvious or evident in any giant way, but as Venus and Mercury move into Aquarius (with Mars already in Aquarius) the emphasis (and thus our mental space) is going to stop being so absorbed by or focused on hard facts and more prone to considering (read: zeroing in on) and responding to things as being relative to other issues, matters and details - much of which is going to be  basically pertaining to those eternal things which form the basis for our life: home, family, mortality ... the land, sea and sky, and all which comes from, or abides in any such location.

Just keep thinking 'basics.'

That shift (the shift in thinking and focus) is going to alter the flow of things. Mars in Aquarius - in pragmatic terms - often represents the motivation to get something done on a broadly unified scale even as it tends to impact, fragment and break apart that which may still be cohesive, but which no longer serves a positive function in that state ... which makes what's going to happen now in many ways dependent on what  what we have come into this period doing, feeling, and being motivated by. With Pluto having just entered the shadow of its 2015 cycle there are things which are going to change or be transformed - some of which at least are going to reflect Pluto's ongoing approach to fixed star Vega, charisma's star. That Pluto isn't going to conjunct Vega (exactly) during 2015 is actually a sign that more and more is going to change and that many of the things we have been 'enchanted' or moved by in times or years past are on the move. They're going to change - and no one can stop that change, insistent though they may be.

For the Mercury watchers (that would be most of us) there's another interesting note to attach to this Mercury-entering-Aquarius moment ... namely that as Mercury enters Aquarius (Venus having already done so), that's also the same date that Mercury will be entering its retrograde shadow as the Mercury retrograde which begins on January 21st (UT/+0) at 17 Aquarius will in time back down to 1 Aquarius - and from 0 to 1 degrees (the movement of one degree) is something Mercury does rather swiftly.

The net of this takes us back to that 'subtle shift' of attitude, 'vibe' or perspective mentioned in terms of Venus and Mercury exiting Capricorn in the sense that though there is a tendency for much of the world to hit the ground running on January 2nd (even if the Orthodox Church hasn't yet celebrated Christmas, meaning their holiday season isn't over yet!) ... that this year that 'hitting the ground running' is going to be colored or affected by the fact that pretty much the whole of January 2015 is going to be a 'hurry up so we can slow down' (or stop) exercise which will manifest in any of a billion ways, hastening and hustling us through the first couple of weeks so that come the 21st, we know what we're attending to.

Or at least waiting for. (At least that's the thought.)

 January 2015 by Element

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And it's not like we're likely to be entirely unjustified. Looking at the month by element, both planets most associated with the rise and fall of lives, regimes, religions and plans in general (Jupiter and Saturn) are now both in fire signs. Added to that, Uranus is also in a fire sign, and since all three planets are in separate signs, what we have implied here is a grand trine (ongoing and virtually immutable) flow of energies which we will be living with until Jupiter exits Leo this coming August, describing a period of time where we can change things and change our approach to life (our 'relationship' to our world) ... or we can have our world thrust change upon us.

(Take your pick.)

That Uranus is going to perfect its conjunction to the lunar South Node this month promises fractious relationships, startling news/events and a number of personal breakthroughs - some of which may be fairly breathtaking (though what that means is individual - some people gasp long before others do!) ... and that it will do as Uranus - which is now in direct motion - is going to be beginning to "close in" on slower-moving Pluto in anticipation of perfecting the Uranus-Pluto square which has been with us now for quite a while symbolizing eruptions of uncontrollable, transpersonal events which are quite literally changing our world.

That square won't perfect until mid-March. But let's just say that the closer we get to Uranus perfecting its conjunction to the lunar South Node (which occurs on January 19th), the more flexing and innovative thinking is going to be called for not just in external life and in terms of what we do (or choose to do/not do) but in who we are - and because this event is currently traversing degrees 12, 13 and 14 of respective signs (with the conjunction of Uranus/Node occurring at 13 Aries-Libra)(the South Node being in Aries and the North Node being in Libra) this entire month is likely to be particularly focal for anyone who with natal placements at one of these degrees in any sign... if particularly (she says, thinking of people in the news) those among us with primary chart indicators (Sun, Moon, Ascendant/Descendant, Midheaven/Nadir) at 13 Aries, Libra, Cancer or Capricorn, followed by those with placements at 13 Pisces, Taurus, Virgo and/or Scorpio.

The first group will face or be facing issues directly. The second group will be facing them obliquely, which is to say that because 'Thing A' happens, 'Consideration B' becomes important.

As to the nature of this particular ripple in the works, this transit - Uranus/South Node - is about a 'shake up' (or shift) in how we relate to our own nature as well as that of others. And though the likes of those news makers (the two I'm thinking of being politicians) and myself (my Midheaven is at 13 Capricorn) are likely to be particularly impacted on a core and/or internal level, there are going to be plenty of things floating around for everyone to be bouncing off of (or around about) - all while possibly getting bruised by, or through the process of participating in doing all that relating, relational or relationship tra-la.

Also: none of this is optional. If you're thinking you'll just put everything on hold or hide in some mental (or other type of) hole, you certainly have the choice to do that but the world (that thing you're supposed to be relating to and working on your relationship with?) ... the world will have moved on without you, which brings this all back to the most important thing I ever heard one of my astrology teachers (Robert Hand, as it happens) say: use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely. 

Plus that's not all ... (she said, well aware that she may be sounding a bit like a late-night infomercial, which is ridiculous seeing as I'm about as bad at sales and marketing as any human being has ever been) ... January is also playing host to an approaching square to Neptune (in Pisces) by a Saturn which is newly in Sagittarius. That will set in virtually as soon as the new year dawns (read: on January 2nd), and it's likely to be felt as an on-and-off 'haunting' awareness which we're all going to also be contending with not just this month ... and not even just into March, as in the case of the current 'ramping up' of various Uranus/Pluto square pressures and situational anxieties. 

No ... with Neptune-Saturn, we're not getting off that easily: this transit will be with us in various forms through November of 2015, promising all sorts of issues having to do with habits and things we are habituated by - and the many forms of 'addiction' which riddle our lives and world, be that an addiction to a substance or a belief or a perspective on sex, love, work, money, power, violence, happiness, exercise, food, politics - or anything else. Saturn-Neptune contacts being always about reality versus hope and facts versus denial in favor of something "prettier" (or at least more appealing), this is the sort of lengthy square aspect which we would expect to manifest both in our lives and through things in life which effects lives on a global and somewhat 'indistinct' (or) 'impersonal' way or scale.

The Saturn side of this brings the effort to structure, restructure, limit or withstand to the table where the Neptune energetic will inspire ... and then again, also dissolve, whether 'dissolution' or 'dissolving' means eliminating that which stands between you and something (or two separate things) where the elimination of some factor, thought, issue is taken on either because of a depth of feeling which is not only not about the Self (Neptune = lack of personal or individual ego) or because that which we have been sure of comes to no longer function or serve a positive purpose.

Mind you, any of this can be positive: squares ask us to balance different functionalities, much as an engineer balances the substance and structure of a wall against the structure and function of a ceiling. Then again, any of this can be detrimental. And all of it (or any of it) can be hugely informative, most of all as to what the realities and facts really are ... as opposed to what we might want them to be, or what we were hoping they were or would become.

All of which is far more about us than others or our world ... which is probably worth a thought or two.

And fortunately (read: whether we like it or not) Mercury retrograde is going to donate just that dynamic to our universally human personal cause.

So we are going to be learning something going forward. But what are we about to learn - and learn about?
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Typhon/Eurydike - Chiron/Psyche: Minding Stations

A forest of synthetic pyramidal dendrites grown using Cajal's laws of neuronal branching

(photo credit: Hermann Cuntz, PLoS Computational Biology Vol 6, August 2010)

It was something about Mercury going retrograde and the near-instantaneous confrontation with a disruption of body, car and finances which (as I lay there trying to think of things to think about while not sleeping) got me to thinking about Typhon.

(Okay, it’s terribly astrological of me. But what do you think about when it’s the middle of the night and you can’t sleep?)

Anyway, physicality, money, transportation...these are the most basic of basics in modern survival. Even with all our technology some things just come back to our Self.

And that - plus any event or thing which gets us to think in terms of basics or to experience them (recognize them, etc.) is the essence Typhon. Typhon is the object which brings us back to the ‘instinctual level’...and which in doing so asks us whether we are just instinctual creatures, what instinct is (or isn’t) good or bad - considering our truest aims - to accede to or to resist...

...or whether we are going to ‘master’ not others, but our Self - a Typhon quality which is rather easily seen and quite possibly more of an issue at the moment as Typhon transits airy Libra, sign of relating and (along with Aries) the most ‘projection-prone’ of signs simply because Libra asks us to reconcile our sense of Self to that Self through what we learn or encounter in others or life as a whole.

And this issue of Typhon transiting Libra, that isn’t any short term transit. Typhon’s orbit (around the Sun) is some 235 years in length, giving us an average of 19.5 years in any given thirty-degree sign - of which we have only thus far experienced 13 of those degrees.

...Which brings us back to 13 Libra, a degree which tends to increase focus and emphasis on others with something of an ‘all good/all bad’ sort of ‘black-and-white’ quality which when active tends to react rather purely in terms of whether the good ‘expectation’ has been met without all that much cognizance that the expectations are not only not fact, but they are one of the premier ways humans challenge their Self to be realistic - and thus to achieve that wholeheartedly Libra thing, namely the satisfying of one’s aims through others, interactions, situations and joint/joined efforts.

So as Typhon goes direct on June 19th (UT/+0) we can all expect some sort of experience which is basic. And though the reasons why we do or don’t do something may seem like the object (and may well be important in their own right) the real ‘Typhon question’ is likely to be more about our experience of who we are when all else is stripped away - and how our regards for...or our lack of regard - for others and the world around us can so color all we achieve.

Or don’t achieve, depending.

 A diagram of the orbit of TNO Typhon

(credit: NASA-JPL)

 

Where Typhon is concerned, there’s no doubt but that we will react from instinct. The question is whether we will realize it as such and - if we do recognize that fact - whether we will parse or moderate instinct through the use of more ‘modern’ (as opposed to primal) or intellectual means as we sort through that good old axiomatic metaphysical rule about life: what happens isn’t about ‘them’ so much as it’s about us.

As the old adage says, it’s not what happens, it’s how we respond to it, react to it, and what we learn from it which counts.

Under Libra we learn about ourselves through external means - and until we reckon ‘cause’ with ‘effect’ we aren’t likely to win our own respect, love or satisfaction in the long run.

Furthermore, since life seems to have a trés bizarre sense of humor (especially of late, she says with an admitted degree of personal concern) this Typhon station isn’t ‘one-and-done’ simple. No, this is not just about Typhon (just?) as Typhon isn’t going direct all by its celestial self on June 19th. Instead, as Typhon goes direct at 13 Libra, Eurydike is also going direct at 27 Libra.

Oh, what an airy, airy world - or at least it’s likely to feel like one as life becomes all about ‘the idea’ or our ‘concept’ of what’s true or not true at all sorts of interesting and variable levels throughout this (June 17-21) joint station.

And when one adds Typhon to the Eurydike ‘know the cost’ (or simply ‘the cost of’) vibe, the results are obvious - the cost of basics...and knowing them, understanding them, accepting them - whether that means having them, needing them or having ignored them...whether in past tense, present tense or something which works out to being happy or rather personally tense about the future.  

In combination, this energy can be personal and pragmatic - but that would seem to require a degree of pragmatism. Why? That would be because 27 Libra has a reputation for things which are difficult to move through in part because they flex and change at every step along the way combined with their tendency to be unmoved by short-term influence - a quality which may manifest as anything from annoyance to frustration to sheer dismay in the charts of those with 13 Libra highlighted.

(Note: this would mean anyone with any planet/dwarf planet, axis or node between 8 and 18 Libra, Aries, Capricorn or Cancer - and/or - those with points or planets between 11 and 15 degrees of Pisces or Virgo.)

If those points are highlighted, the ‘Typhon effect’ will be strong, against which we would expect any astrologically underscored placement of Eurydike would indicate fluctuation(s) which may or may not be important, but which may well seem important - sending us back to that ‘need for internal I/thou’ balance so common with 13 Libra.

(With regards to Eurydike’s effect, look for points between 22 Libra and 1 Scorpio...22 Aries and 1 Taurus...22 Cancer and 1 Leo, or 22 Capricorn and 1 Aquarius.)

There is a ‘stability’ quotient associated with 27 Libra, there may appear to be a promise of the ability or embodiment of some sort of ‘inner harmony’ which is difficult to define if no less real for that. It’s an elusive, hard to pin down quality which when combined with Typhon and 13 Libra’s reputation for difficulties with others based on difficulties with reconciliation of desire against (life’s often rather mundane) realities.

It would seem to be a recipe which may well manifest through eruptions where at the most basic level there may well be the least to worry about - which of course will create rebuttals, reactions and responses from that which is being disrupted in theory or because of theory - much of which reflects the Typhon’s current 13 Libra placement.

Typhon entered 13 Libra (in retrograde) back on June 4th - and because the sign is Libra, and because like Taurus, Libra is ruled by Venus there is (and has been) an ongoing ‘reference’ which sort of ‘ties’ things which have been going on...not always literally, but certainly thematically...with (you know what I’m going to say, right?) the 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse which occurred back in April.

(Just call it the eclipse which refuses to go away.)

Furthermore, let’s also remember that all this not-so-merriment is occurring under Mercury retrograde, so while we need to be working through things which are already on the table (or in action, on our plate, in focus, already challenging us, etc.)...and while there may be perfectly good reasons to be investigating options which either pertain to matters at hand or something you’re thinking of doing as/once Mercury goes direct on July 1st....

In short, Mercury retrograde is yet another way of bringing things home to us as things we need to deal with in terms of how we think, how we operate, how we regard others and in all those many and varied ways we rise and fall, gain or fail, learn or reject others and/or the standards of the world (or you particular ‘audience,’ be they personal, professional, private or public).

And just to make this very plain (even in some cases unpleasantly so), Mercury’s retrograde motion will move it back out of Cancer and into Gemini exactly as the Typhon/Eurydike station comes entirely into play (as opposed to the mental roughing up it’s represented over the past several weeks).

That’s right...Mercury returns to Gemini at 10:05 a.m. on June 17th (UT/+0 time) - setting an alarm clock (of sorts) which re-emphases issues of ‘choice,’ whether that’s the choice we make or have made, whether we will choose to be involved in any given thing, or whether we have simply changed our mind.

Such things do happen, after all. And providing those changes reflect enlightenment and a broadening of the mental basis upon which choice is made, Gemini (and Mercury) generally honor that...give or take all those ongoing post-eclipse upheavals and evolutions of things we didn’t want to hear (see, say, do) and which we surely didn’t want to have to deal with when thrust upon us.

Take heart - Venus will soon (as in next week) be exiting Taurus. No guarantees are being offered on this opinion, but it would be likely that much of the toxic subterranean upwelling (internal and external) will begin subsiding about then.

(And you may be assured I will be among the grateful about that.)

As for the second station pairing of the week, that would involve centaur Chiron and asteroid Psyche. Of these two, Chiron is certainly far the more famous, astrologically speaking. Yet being that in terms of mass asteroid Psyche is fully 1% of the entire known and total mass of all the many thousands of asteroids out there...Psyche’s no slouch in the ‘importance in life’ department.

Theoretically (this being metaphysical theory we’re talking about) all asteroids which reside in the main asteroid belt refer to things we will meet up with on our way from initiation, inception or assertion (Mars) and to understanding all the many things which make things work in the Big Picture rather than in our head, among our friends or (more or less) locally - that being the metaphysical Jupiterian notion.

In going on station at 20 Aquarius, Psyche represents the bridging or separating (the ‘divides’) between the individual and the group or some sub-set of a whole and the whole itself. If you have any planet, dwarf planet, nodal or axis point positioned between 15 and 25 Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio or Taurus...(or) 18 to 22 degrees of Virgo or Cancer, there is likely to be a notable ‘Psyche effect’ in your life about now - not that everyone else won’t be affected, but Psyche does seem to have a quality which works most effectively (in terms of long-term growth and productivity) through hard aspects.

(Translation: tough moments.)

The Sabian symbol for 20 Aquarius (‘A DISAPPOINTED AND DISILLUSIONED WOMAN COURAGEOUSLY FACES A SEEMINGLY EMPTY LIFE’) being less about gender and more about our individual ability/need to respond or accept - which Psyche and Aquarius (in being an air sign) plainly states is about some mental process, concept, thought or judgment (decision) - all of which operates on some societal or social level. And when we add in astrologer Marc Edmund Jones’ comment on this image (‘the capacity to meet emotionally upsetting experiences in human relationships with strength of character and personal integrity’) there would seem to be a ringing echo of Typhon at 13 Libra, if from a more mental and less visceral perspective with some emphasis on the experiencing of our own vision or expectation against why it won’t (or hasn’t) worked - or proved true.

With Psyche going retrograde, thoughts turn inward. And seeing as Psyche is going retrograde in tandem with Chiron doing the same thing in Pisces, the Aquarius/Pisces (Psyche/Chiron) combination describes an uncomfortable ‘encounter’ of that which can be conceived of in the abstract and the experience of the human reality, replete with all that often inconvenient (and uncomfortable) emotional vulnerability being human requires.

In this combo, Chiron represents the ‘wounded healer’ - or that we can do, but which we don’t want to (and don’t know how to) get ourselves to move through, even if that’s the only way we can learn our Chirotic truths. Chiron always asks that we ‘own’ something about or in our Self, and that something is always something we feel terribly inept about.

Are we inept? Maybe yes, maybe no - that’s not the Chiron issue. Chiron always involves something we love to tell others how to do but which we’re less than adept with in our own life - and sometimes that can manifest as looking hypocritical. Or even manipulative. When we ‘act out’ in a Chiron manner people tend to wonder why we don’t understand that all we have to do is....(insert concept)...to which we tend to react to with frustration.

Speaking of which (frustration, that is) because Chiron going retrograde at 17 Pisces says we will never be able to depend on others until we find our own inner independence. Those with axis points, nodes or planets/dwarf planets positioned between 12 and 22 degrees of Pisces, Virgo, Sagittarius or Gemini (along with those with chart points between 15 and 19 degrees of Libra or Leo) will feel the Chiron side of this dual-station more acutely than others, but everyone is bound to get a ‘dose’ of need to act which is strangely confronted by not being quite sure that you know what to do just to that degree which knocks you off your game.

With Chiron, it’s that inner insecurity with ourselves which gets to us...and not making this any more simple is the fact that 20 Aquarius is generally thought of as a problematic degree which needs a constructive outlet, lest pent-up energies, frustrations and in particular, the sense that you’re not being heard manifest as physical illness. 20 Aquarius has a reputation for connections to spinal nervous system (one I can vouch for personally and currently), so if problems arise, have them checked out. Given the centaur nature of this point there is always a tendency to ‘do what’s easy’ and resort to physical assertion (even aggression) rather than requiring ourselves to temper our willfulness with a healthy dose of thinking things through so that we will assert thoughtfully when and where necessary.

These days we are moving through are the last days of Sun in Gemini for 2014. As noted before, there is a common ‘descent into mental pressure’ which occurs at this time as part of the shift from Gemini (the last sign in the natural zodiac’s first quadrant) into Cancer as the first experience of having to (or needing to learn now to) move from mentality into emotionality and from the more egocentric world of personal learning (the I-Me-My Idea orientation towards life) into a world where we need to respond to others as part of learning how to get along - and ultimately achieve in life.

Against all this, 0 Cancer is the degree of the mid-year Solstice: Earth coming into a moment of ‘balanced illumination.’

So all of this...the earliest part of the week with its coloration of Typhon/Eurydike going direct (indicating facing things in the world) against Psyche/Chiron turning retrograde (indicating the need to think through why things mean what they do to us) is all about coming into balance - most of all with our Self.
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