Photo by sujo foto on pixabay
This month’s experts:
The Astrology Podcast
Chris Brennan
Austin Coppock
Leisa Schaim
The Water Trio
Kelly Surtees
Cassandra Tyndall
Alicia Yusuf
Rick Levine
Pam Gregory
Acyuta bhava Das
OVERVIEW:
Austin Coppock, when asked to summarize the upcoming year 2022, says “Well, it’s like 2021, but the good parts are better and the bad parts are worse.”
As we get to January, Venus is moving retrograde in Capricorn after having met up with Pluto near the end of Capricorn once before turning to head backward through Capricorn and meeting Pluto again on Christmas Day. Venus will go almost to the beginning of the sign stopping at 11 degrees by the end of January before heading back toward Pluto, meeting it again in early March. Pam Gregory notes that Venus connecting with Pluto can “make us feel intense emotions” sometimes around a relationship with someone from our past (who may turn up during the retrograde of Venus). It can, she says, be “obsessive, intense emotions about a new relationship” as well. Another theme of Venus and Pluto, she points out, has to do with betrayal, whether it is in a personal relationship or “globally we’re having a sense of betrayal in a widespread collective sense.” She believes it could lead us to “learning some new inner skills in our own sense of sovereignty and our power.
While Venus heads back to where it came into the sign of Capricorn, it dances with Mercury but they don’t connect until they meet in Aquarius in March. The Sun connects with Venus on the last day of the month, when flirtatious Venus is being chased by macho, passionate Mars, which showed up late to the party on January 24. Chris describes the arrival of Mars to Capricorn as being an energy of anger, fighting or “having something severed from you,” while Austin says Mars and Venus in Capricorn without disciplinarian (chaperone) Saturn around is “rowdy fun” or promiscuity when you may be trying to “uphold traditional sexual morality.” Leisa notes that it can also just mean “pursuing things you want” including people or just other things that we actively go after. Austin adds that outside of the sexual references to Venus/Mars connections it is a very passionate combination—not very stable, but very passionate.
Chris, Austin and Leisa discuss past events connected with Venus retrograde periods, which occur in the same signs every 8 years near the same degree and every 18 months throughout in certain signs repeating the cycle over and over. So we can look back 8 years to see what was happening in our lives or in the world to get a sense of what may occur this time around. Chris mentions that the Supreme court will be dealing with abortion while Venus (representing women) is retrograde and meeting with Pluto (which represents control, particularly government or authority control)—thus, controlling women. Leisa points out that when the original case regarding abortion—Roe v. Wade—was first argued, Venus was at 18 degrees of Capricorn. This Venus retrograde will be at 18˚ of Capricorn and conjunct with Pluto around February, though the decision related to abortion rights is not expected until June. One day after the first Venus/Pluto conjunction, the Supreme Court did not act to put a stay on a Texas law making abortion illegal after 6 weeks of pregnancy, according to Chris. Interestingly, Austin notes, Venus retrogrades are also six weeks long. Leisa points out that there are other aspects related to Roe v. Wade and past attempts to overturn it that are showing up this year.
The Water Trio’s Alicia Yusuf points out that the Venus/Pluto connection “in Capricorn, especially, is that yes. we’ll be meeting some depths and some murkiness and things we might not have seen before.” She adds, “It’s really touching on these plutonic themes of bringing things up from the underworld of forcing us to face things especially around love and beauty and relationships and I think Nick Dagan Best talks about Venus retrograde as consensus, as well—how do we find consensus in things. So, we may have to face a lot of icky stuff or or stuff that’s unpleasant or uncomfortable to look at but in doing that we eventually become empowered.” She notes that she always finds Venus retrograde “brings us back to our value systems and after the two years we’ve been through it’s really an opportunity to examine what are our value systems that relate to Capricorn themes—like success, like goals, like hierarchies, and those traditional things in our lives. How can we revisit this and do a detox on those areas so we can come back to our more pure, more core value systems in our choices going forward.”
Acyuta bhava Das talked about Venus/Pluto conjunctions last year in January when similar connections were being made in Capricorn after Saturn and Jupiter went into Aquarius, and Venus, Mercury and Mars were together with Pluto. He said that Venus can be objects of our desire, beauty, relationships, friendships, passionate love or wanting something that will satiate us. It can be related to serving other people in a spirit of harmony, he says, or it could be simply satisfying our own selfish interests and desires, such as lust and vanity. Venus can represent women or the feminine. Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, is hidden beauty, powerful, demonic or evil. It can be cryptic or about forces building up where we cannot see them, and these pent-up energies can be released or purged. If it is not released, it can become toxic. There can be scandals around sex, or and empowering energy related to women, or the dark side of a relationship, an obsession, perversion, or stalking situation. There could be the exploration of the darker side of Venus—alluring and beautiful—but “trapped by impulses that are a little bit like the devil card in tarot’ being in chains that could be removed by choice.
In January, Mercury also turns retrograde January 14 once it has passed Pluto and moved into Aquarius. Austin notes that when Mercury is about to hit Saturn in Aquarius it stops and turns around and heads back into Capricorn where it meets up with Pluto again and stops and heads back to Aquarius. Mercury hitting Saturn sets off the ongoing Saturn-Uranus square energy—the push/pull of status quo versus breaking new ground and being less conservative and more progressive. When Mercury heads back toward Capricorn, it meets up with the sun around the 23rd or 24th
Around the time Mercury returns to Capricorn from the Aquarius side, Mars enters Capricorn from Sagittarius. Chris points out that there will be a stellium (a collection of planets) of Mars, Venus retrograde, Pluto, and Mercury all in Capricorn, saying, “Kind of reminds me, you know, last time Mars was there, of course. When Mars entered Capricorn it was back when Saturn was still in Capricorn and that was the beginning of the stellium in early 2020 that was the outbreak of the pandemic worldwide at that point, and the onset of the lockdowns all across…especially in the West and Europe and North America.” And, he adds, that Venus will be co-present—or close together—with Mars for a few months, since they are moving at the same speed.
Another major thing that happened at the very end of December that will be big in January and through the spring, is Jupiter entered Pisces again. It did so between May and July of 2021, before retrograding back to Aquarius. Now, it has returned to Pisces and it speeds through there until May before heading to Aries until it returns to Pisces in October through the end of 2022. Chris, Austin and Leisa point out that last year, the mask mandate was removed when Jupiter went into Pisces and that the price of Bitcoin dropped. When Jupiter went back into Aquarius, the mask mandate returned, and the price of Bitcoin went up. By April, Jupiter meets up with Neptune in Pisces—both rulers of Pisces together, which could be represented by the key words “big lies,” Leisa points out. Chris says that Jupiter-Neptune is “just things getting bigger and bigger beyond what is realistic or based on a false premise,” and “the idea of something lacking in grounding or substance is the downside of that.” The upside, he notes, is the way things felt last summer when Jupiter went into Pisces and “there was a period of things opening up and warmth and reestablishing connection or community connection with people, and that was enjoyable.”
But Leisa says she wonders what will happen with the pandemic under the Jupiter in Pisces transit, and that it could be an emotional time made more so by Jupiter’s tendency to expand things. It could, she says, be “more like tears, tears of frustration, because that can be an emotional release.” Though she does think there will be a lot of positives, there could be more tears.
Pam Gregory also points out that in January the nodes of the moon—representing the placement of eclipses during the year—are changing signs out of the Gemini/Sagittarius axis where they had been for 18 months and now into Taurus/Scorpio for the next 18 months. The south node is what is falling away. New belief systems will be born again, she says—which is represented by Scorpio’s ruler Pluto, which destroys things and rebuilds them to make them better. The north node is going into Taurus, which Pam says is about the economy, finances, currencies, the earth, nature, loans .mortgages, debts, taxes, and such. The north node is the direction we are going in to grow as a global community. The south node in Scorpio is related to secrets of a sexual nature, a financial nature—particularly of the rich and powerful—coming out. It can be related, she says, to poisons and toxins.
Pam notes that Jupiter in Aries is forming a t-square to the nodal axis. Jupiter represents “the truth,,,around the law.” Its placement in dreamy Pisces means, she adds, that “2022 is a year of dreaming big,” and “having bigger dreams than you have ever had in your lifetime.”
DAILY DETAILS:
JAN 1
Pam Gregory sees 2022 as starting with “ a very positive beginning” because the sun is at a positive angle to the planet of our future, Uranus. This means that our higher state of being is awakening, quickly, unexpectedly, suddenly, as it moves us forward. The sun is highlighting this aspect of Uranus.
JAN 2
NEW MOON IN CAPRICORN
Pam Gregory points out that as the first new moon of the year, it is very important, as it sets the new direction of the year ahead. Capricorn is earth energy and a cardinal sign, which she notes is “initiatory energy” and so it is “excellent at setting a goal and achieving it…at manifesting.” It is a good time to set a new intention (as always) and plant a seed.
This new moon, she points out, is the mid-point between Pluto in Capricorn and a dwarf planet known as Ixion, which is considered the “lawless brother of Pluto.’ But, she adds, that each planet and dwarf planet has both higher and lower levels of expression, and the higher level of expression with Ixion is “breaking away from the mainstream and finding your bliss.” She suggests that people are already doing that.
Rebellious Uranus in Taurus is at a 120˚ trine angle to the sun and moon in Capricorn—which is, she says, “bringing our consciousness to a higher state of being” and be linked to “the economy, currencies, innovation and new technology.” Uranus, however, is “always the planet of surprises,” Pam reminds us.
Wounded healer and teacher Chiron is in ambitious, energetic Aries, forming a 90˚ square angle to the sun and moon. This is also about new initiatives, she says. “Chiron is always about healing, so we are going to see some new healing solutions…which are going to kind of break us forward out of the pandemic.”
Logical, informative Mercury enters intelligent, forward-thinking Aquarius today. Acyuta bhava Das points out that although Aquarius is a lighter place for Mercury to be than Capricorn was, “Mercury moving into Saturn’s sign [is]still heavy but it’s less earthy. It becomes airier so there’s a little bit more of a flexibility perhaps or a little bit less of a feeling of being in the grind–you know, the mind in the grind.” In Aquaariiuus, Mercury will be highly intellectual –and he says we will feel this energy throughout January as Mercury is heading toward Saturn.
Acyuta bhava also says he sees the new moon in Capricorn ”as being connected to the Venus retrograde in Capricorn, and will “continue the work of Venus’s retrograde with Pluto; you’re going to continue to see those themes coming to the surface as the moon cycle plants a seed co-present with Venus and Pluto.”
Rick Levine points out that the new moon in Capricorn, …” although it’s a couple degrees past it’s about a degree and a half past the trine to Uranus… we’re still feeling the blast forward, the excitement ,the we’re moving somewhere new, we’re letting something in the past go,” and he adds that there is some excitement because “there’s something that is giving us the permission to let go of stuff that’s been holding us back and to actually move into the future.”
JAN 4
Pam Gregory notes that the moon triggers the 90˚ square angle between Saturn and Uranus—the push-pull dichotomy between the establishment and status quo versus the progressive change and breaking through to a new way of doing things—in government, finance and business.
JAN 5-6
Rick Levine points out that retrograde Venus will be forming an angle of opportunity to dreamy, imaginative Neptune on these two days. Venus is what we want, and Neptune brings the fantasy to the table, so Levine says, “It’s like there is something here that is really working (on the 5th), and yet by the 6th, Mercury makes a half square to Neptune (a 45˚ angle) and that is a bit more annoying and a bit disruptive.” It’s like we are thinking about what we want, imagining we can get it, and the logical brainy Mercury says, “Nah, you’re never going to get it.” On top of that, Levine says, the sun is also in Capricorn, making a stressful angle to optimistic, adventurous Jupiter who is like a hot air balloon just floating away without a care. The sun is shining its light in feet-on-the-ground Capricorn and wants to ground Jupiter and hold it back from going too far. So we want to let our minds and imaginations wander and go to those places we hope to be soon, and pragmatic Capricorn energy and logical Mercury in intelligent Aquarius are putting the kibosh on it all.
We want to let our minds and imaginations wander and go to those places we hope to be soon, and pragmatic Capricorn energy and logical Mercury in intelligent Aquarius are putting the kibosh on it all.
JAN 8
Venus is still heading backwards through Capricorn until the end of the month, and today it bumps into the sun. Venus is traveling past the sun between the earth and sun (sometimes it goes on the far side of the sun, but this one is an “inferior” transit, which Anne Ortelee calls “interior” because it is on the inside. She also says she sees it as a time to go inside and contemplate the Venus energy in our lives. Rick Levine points out that Venus passing across the sun’s face is a good time to “regroup and think about how what we want is in fact what we are working for.” Are we working for what we want?
Acyuta bhava Das says this conjunction between Venus and the sun is very powerful, because it is happening as the first quarter moon is coming through. That, he says, tends to produce action—and being in Aries, the sign of the warrior, the moon goddess becomes empowered. He adds that “typically, when Mercury or Venus are retrograde and hitting the conjunction with the sun, it represents a kind of critical moment of alchemical transformation.” The sun connecting to Venus, which has been sucked into the underworld in its conjunction to Pluto, is infusing Venus with light to clarify the lessons learned in order to determine how to act on them. This whole process could bring a sense of empowerment, or the sense that there is a new way of doing something that is more equitable or more compassionate, he explains.
In The Water Trio, discussion of Venus retrograde in Capricorn, Cassandra Tyndall points out that “it is like really looking forward to the future and what seeds can I plant , what do I need to change or transform so when I come out the other side I can hold onto things that have longer lasting value or longevity that are in alignment or clarification with my own values or my own desires or my own wants, because that’s also really what Venus is you know what do I want, what joy, happiness, harmony, all of those kind of, you know, the sprinkles, the sugar on top, stuff in life so and those things have been a little bit hard to grasp” last year. It will, she says, put us in touch with our values and dive deeply into the things that really matter.
Their discussion continues to point out that this Venus retrograde is opening up the chance to think about what choices and habits we make, and realizing “how what we do today affects what we do or don’t have in the future.” Venus, they point out, magnetizes what we want to attract to us based on our value systems – Venus rules our values. But it is part of a cycle, and we will see Venus in Capricorn again in eight years, but Pluto will not be there, and it is Pluto that is bringing the deeper things out, allowing us to purge and release so that we can realign our values and bring in what we want for the future.
Pam Gregory notes that the moon begins to highlight the challenging square angle that chaos creating Eris and secretive, powerful Pluto are forming for the past two years. Eris the street-fighter is challenging Pluto to collapse what is old and outdated, but Eris is opposing and Pluto is at a 90˚ square to the dwarf planet Haumea, which regenerates and protects the earth, “even when it appears to be hopeless and just laid waste and dead and toxic, she is one of the most powerful symbols for the new earth.”
JAN 9
Intelligent, logical Mercury is at a positive angle of opportunity to Chiron bringing a chance to talk about something to bring a potential healing. However, Mercury will go retrograde and direct and form a sextile to Chiron three times, and this potential healing could miss its chance now but by mid-February could bring it out into the open if we take the opportunity to talk about something. That could then bring the potential for healing, forgiveness, for leaving the past behind and moving on, Levine says.
JAN 10
Pam Gregory notes that today Eris pauses in its retrograde motion and stops to head back in a direct motion through Aries. “We will feel this a good week to either side,” Pam says. This goddess of discord and chaos will be strengthening “to break through to something better” and “adding another layer of consciousness” to help us rebuild something that Pam describes as “amazing.”
Rick Levine notes that Venus is at a 45˚ (half-square) angle to Jupiter in Pisces, which, he says, “may be a signal from the cosmos that we’ve overindulged, we’ve stepped too far, we’ve taken on too much, over committed.” It is reminding us to back off to make something last longer.
Acyuta-bhava Das notes that on the 10th, the sun is at a 60˚ angle to dreamy, creative Neptune. That, he says, “is a moment where there is just a grace or an ease, a sense of clarity with the infusion of imagination, inspiration, emotional lightness that can come in with the very Saturnine—the position of the sun being in Saturn’s sign of Capricorn.” Saturn and Capricorn ground the inspiration and imagination, and bring things to reality. The sextile angle brings in a Venus energy, harmonizing the two planets that are connecting in this way.
JAN 11
Ambitious Mars is still in fiery, adventure-loving Sagittarius and it is at a point where it is making a 90˚square to Neptune, which Rick Levine points out is “almost like Mars is all dressed up and ready to go on an adventure in Sagittarius, ready to fly into outerspace , to tack some problem that may take years of study, and work to figure something out.” Neptune, however, has other ideas, and discourages Mars from doing this by casting doubt on the direction this ambitious energy wants to go in. Once we realize we may have set off in the wrong direction, or made a false start, it could mean starting all over again. But, Levine says, “It is important for us to cut ourselves some slack, and to cut slack for those that we work with or love.” Things will move ahead again soon.
Acyuta-bhava Das points out that this energetic Mars in a square angle to compassionate Neptune are both in signs ruled by Jupiter—Sagittarius and Pisces—“very expansive but also very charismatic to the point of potentially being sort of forceful or even violent.” Nevertheless, Acyuta-bhava says he likes this energy for its passionate, inspired, big-mindedness, but still notes that it “could have an aura of fanaticism around it.” It could be fun, but “a little holy roller, that one.”
JAN 12
Mercury begins to slow down as it prepares to turn retrograde and head backwards through Aquarius and back into Capricorn on January 14th.
At the same time, Acyuta-bhava Das notes that Uranus is slowing down in order to station (pause before it changes direction) to go direct within a week. He says that from the 12th to the 19th we may notice “a momentum shift around that time specifically in the whole sign house of Taurus in your birth chart.” So the house where Taurus falls in your chart, and what it represents in your life, could experience a shift.
JAN 14
Logical, communicative Mercury begins to head backwards on the 14th, just before meeting up with Saturn in Aquarius. It does not reach Saturn before it stops and heads back to Capricorn, yet, Acyuta-bhava Das says there will be a Mercury/Saturn feeling to this—which could be thinking (Mercury) about a plan of action (Saturn) or delaying something in order to do things right. But Mercury stops and pulls back, which Acyuta-bhava says is a “symbolic progression,” which in horary astrology is called “reformation—something refrains before it can happen.” He sees it as Something needs to be finished up or be redone, reconsidered, revised before it moves forward into the planning stages.
As Mercury heads back toward Venus, and both are retrograde in Capricorn, Acyuta-bhava says there is a sense that “whatever Venus is demanding, in the most practical earthy way Mercury has to go through a long process of figuring out on a more rational level, a strategic level, a level of planning how this will be implemented.” He expects we will see procedural changes or organizational changes, structures being shifted around to accommodate whatever Venus has been asking for. Acyuta-bhava believes “that’s going to be the focus of mercury’s retrograde.” In Capricorn and with Pluto co-present there, it could be about big business and big government and what we want that needs to be changed and reconsidered, redesigned, restructured.
Austin Coppock points out that this Mercury retrograde not only sets off the tense square between Saturn and Uranus as it comes close to Saturn before turning away, it also sets off the Pluto energy in Capricorn when it gets back there. He says, “So Mercury retrogrades may or may not be relevant to historical developments, but this one is kind of right on the nose. It has two of our slow or really three of our slow outers [planets], right?” Chris Brennan makes a point about Mercury and Saturn and the connection between this Mercury/Saturn alignment and the election day 2020 Mercury/Saturn energy, which represented delays (in knowing the actual outcome of the election). He suggests, “that could be a potential theme here of something having to do with the slowness or delays and things like that.” And with Saturn near its challenging square to Uranus, Chris says, “it’s got that disruptive and unexpected and sometimes technological snafu retrograde tendencies, as well.” Austin adds that “it looks like things are going to be one way, but there’s a disruption.”
Rick Levine makes a point that if Mercury did not stop to turn retrograde, it would form a challenging square angle to disruptive Uranus, and then it would connect with Saturn, which wants things to maintain the status quo. This is new, because Mercury would have hit the transit to Uranus first since it is at a lower degree point than Saturn, which he sees as the tendency to break through the energy “and moving into something new, then having to pull back a little bit just to step make, to make it hold, to make it real.”
“It’s as though our intentions, our ambitions, our sense of purpose is temporarily flipped on its head or exposed for what it is. There is a plot twist that comes with sun/Pluto conjunctions.”
acyuta-Bhava Das
JAN 16
Rick Levine points out that the sun lines up with Pluto, which happens once a year. This, he explains, channels the planet’s energy and vitality bringing it to light. So Pluto is “about the depths, about the underworld, about the psychology of everything that’s hidden, all those things that are down around our root chakra, that are buried, suppressed.” So when the sun meets Pluto, it brings these buried, hidden things into the light where we can work with them, he says, instead of those things staying underground and running our lives.
Acyuta-bhava Das says it is “a major moment that we can’t forget about” because the sun connecting with Pluto represents “a moment of catharsis [that can] signal a small shift that has long-term impacts.” Although the transit last about a day, he says, “It’s as though our intentions, our ambitions, our sense of purpose is temporarily flipped on its head or exposed for what it is. There is a plot twist that comes with sun/Pluto conjunctions.” Powerful stuff comes up from beneath the surface, he adds, which clarifies and changes our course in some way.
JAN 17
FULL MOON IN CANCER
Acyuta-bhava Das calls this “a very cathartic full moon in Cancer” that will be opposite Pluto, which adds to the intensity of the moon in its home sign. “Think about the more emotionally vulnerable spaces in our lives—home, family, and the patterns around home and family, our living environment, intimate relationships, the places in our lives where we feel like we belong,” he explains. It can be emotionally intense with a lot of things that are buried deep inside coming out, being revealed that could be shocking and emotionally not easy to deal with, he tells us.
Rick Levine notes that this full moon is “about power struggle; this is about someone coming in with a different set of issues, it’s about control, it’s about domination. There’s secrecy here and this is not an easy full moon—it’s complicated by the fact that Pluto is so close to the sun.” He adds that there is a drive to bring things out into the open. This, along with the change of direction of Uranus on the 18th could mean that “we are going to find some surprises here of how deep and how complicated something is—like there’s no simple fix.”
JAN 18
Mercury forms its second sextile to Chiron which it did on the 9th, when it was moving in a direct motion. Rick Levine points out that now Mercury is moving backwards and now there is the added strength of Uranus that is turning direct. It is the last oof the outer planets to do so, and this brings us into new territory, he says.
On the same day, Levine points out, fiery, assertive, aggressive Mars is going to kick up the energy of Uranus so that “it feels like it’s on the launch pad and Mars has matches, and Mars is lighting that fire.” However, it won’t blast off yet. Something disruptive could happen, he notes.
Pam Gregory says that Uranus, being similar to dwarf planet Eris—both are planets of revolution and rebellion, and they the truth—will bring up that energy in a strong way around the 18th. It can also include “earthquakes, volcanoes, shocks, the coronal mass ejection—all of those things—cyber attacks” which will be strongly felt at this time, she says.
Leisa Schaim points out that regarding the nodes of the moon, which could be either the true node or the mean node—the true node axis is changing signs from Sagittarius/Gemini to Scorpio/Taurus—meaning that the eclipses will fall in the signs where the nodes are hanging out. The south node moves from Sagittarius to Scorpio, and the north node moves from Gemini to Uranus—because the nodes move in the opposite direction of the planets. The north node, Leisa reminds us, is beginning to move toward Uranus. Here is an article that explains the north and south nodes and what each one represents.
Leisa also points out that the last eclipse in Sagittarius happened at 12˚ and that Mars, on the last few days of 2021, was crossing over that eclipse point—activating it and ushering us into the new year. The significance of that degree is that it is the point of the ascendant –the most important point on a chart—for the United States. So, there is meaningful connection for the United States there with the new moon eclipse that happened in December on the U.S. ascendant and the fact that Mars reactivated that point as we began the year 2022.
Pam Gregory points out that with the nodes moving into Taurus and Scorpio until July 2023, “the point of focus…is linked to currencies, banking, wealth, the economy” as well as to nature and the earth. “I think for many people…there is a yearning to come back to the simplest things, getting in. touch with nature more deeply, growing food, planting seeds…to shift away from a very kind of hyper-technological, so-called sophisticated society to really kind of get our hands in the mud….”
JAN 19
The sun moves into Aquarius leading the charge for the inner, faster moving planets – Venus, Mercury and Mars—to follow suit, but not until Venus and Mercury stop their retrograde motion. The paradox of Aquarius, Rick Levine tells us, is that “we see glimmers of the future, we can put some of that stuff in the future together, but we’re not quite there yet.”
JAN 20
Pam Gregory notes that today Mars moves exactly into a conjunction with the Galactic Center at 27˚of Sagittarius. “Whenever a planet aligns with these very important portals, which really are cosmic areas in space, we are more able easily to download higher consciousness information.” She explains that with Uranus becoming stationary—linking us more strongly to the galactic—and Mars connecting with the Galactic Center, we will have a chance to receive galactic information. She also notes that Uranus is tightly square to Mercury in Aquarius. This, she says, encourages us “to radically think outside the box, think differently, get new solutions, get downloads, insights, revelations in your meditations about…what new ideas you can product to move forward in your world.” She indicates that 2022 could bring new innovative technology that could also be very benevolent
JAN 23
Rick Levine notes that retrograde Mercury lines up with the sun in Aquarius. He says that while “there is still an alignment of our intentions and our ideas and our thinking and the essence of our soul, the sun, our purpose,” our minds may be too busy to find a way to “jump in,” since Mercury is retrograde. Mercury’s retrograde motion intensifies the energy, and, Levine says, “it’s louder, it’s noisier, and sometimes it makes it difficult to find a way to express” our mission.
He adds that Mars is at a 135˚ angle to Saturn, which also happened between Mars and Uranus on January 18. This is the time when Saturn pulls on the reins to hold things back, resulting in a false start for the Mars and Uranus connection that happened a few days earlier. The energies, Levine tells us, are not meshing, and “it’s not easy to communicate or to work the energies out because they’re at odds with one another, and yet it’s still very powerful.” But, it can be very frustrating.
Pam Gregory says that today is a “strongly militaristic day, as warrior Mars comes into semi-square with the blockade of Saturn. There may be, she suspects, more attempts at control coming in. “In the last four days of January and the first four days of February Saturn becomes quite strong because it is in hard aspect to the world axis, so across the world we may see again greater attempts at control.”
JAN 25
Just as Mercury leaves Aquarius and returns to Capricorn, Mars decides to join the Capricorn party, and leave Sagittarius to join Mercury, Venus and Pluto forming a stellium—a bunch of planets hanging out in the same sign. Chris Brennan says it reminds him of the last time Mars was in Capricorn for another important stellium—the one in early 2020 when COVID first reared its ugly head. “So, we have Mars returning to there and completing that cycle and bringing things full circle, but also the start of a new cycle in terms of some of that.” Austin Coppock points out that now it means that Venus is connected to Mars. “Venus doesn’t just get a moment of Venusian glory” as it heads on its way back to Pluto escorted by Mars—who is going to stick close to Venus “for months and months,” Austin says. Mars will bypass Venus right after Valentine’s Day, and then Venus will chase Mars and pass him by on March 6th. Austin reflects that Venus, the planet of happiness, harmony and what we want, won’t really be happy until early April when it “suddenly dips into its exaltation sign of Pisces, [and] its suddenly like jumping into a hot bath after being constrained the first three months.”
Alicia Yusuf of the Water Trio comments that the journey of Venus “is kind of crispy…she’s not having a great run of it. She does get a little bit of support from Mars by around January 25,” and that they will hang out together all through February and by March will join together in Aquarius.
Chris Brennan also pointed out that the year 2022 is “the first year in a while where we get some actually really amazing elections…which was pretty striking compared to previous years,” with more opportunity for growth, development, and starting new things.
JAN 27
Chris Brennan and Leisa Schaim chose this day as the election chart for January, meaning that it is the best day to begin something new or to plan for something that could be most likely to have a positive outcome. Leisa mentions that Jupiter is in Pisces, its home sign, and there is “maximum Jupiter goodness.” Their summary is that with Mars in the area of friends and groups, there could be more trouble there, even with Venus nearby, but it is retrograde and not strong. Jupiter, however, is good for the individual and the career or reputation—“basically whatever you want for work that you want to go well,” she says. It is also a good day to make a really positive first impression.” Overall, they determined that it is the firsts really nice Jupiter election chart since 2019—prior to the pandemic. So that is a good sign. Chris Brennan also pointed out that the year 2022 is “the first year in a while where we get some actually really amazing elections…which was pretty striking compared to previous years,” with more opportunity for growth, development, and starting new things.
JAN 28-29
Pam Gregory says she will want to keep her frequency up on the 28th and 29th. Aside from Venus stopping movement on the 29th to change direction back toward Pluto and then Aquarius, Mercury will be meeting up with Pluto as it heads backwards through Capricorn, having left Aquarius in its retrograde journey. Thoughtful Mercury in this meeting with intense Pluto “is about very deep thinking…about secrets coming to light,” she tells us, adding that we will see a lot of secrets of the rich and powerful being revealed.
Venus turning back to direct motion is bringing it back to its third meet-up with Pluto, which doesn’t happen until March 3rd, but gives us time to dig deep, Pam says, on what is important, what our values are, and in Capricorn, what kind of work we want to do. “How do I want to feel day-to-day that’s very much Venus—how do I want to feel in my downtime, but also in my work time? What kind of work do I want to do to make me feel really wonderful day-to-day?”
Acyuta-bhava Das notes that when Venus turns around to move direct, and the Venus retrograde ends, it is happening under the dark moon (as the moon is going to be new in Aquarius on January 31-February 1 depending on where we are in the world). He feels this will be “a pretty profound moment of culmination…a feeling of the completion of the process but a pretty deep moment of completion of a signature of depth and shadow around its completion.”
He adds that mercury’s retrograde brings it back to conjunction with Pluto as Venus completes its retrograde and he feels it is a “completion and resolution, but not an easy one.” Since the time of the full moon in the middle of the month, he says “I could see a little bit of exhaustion settling in…the feeling of okay, we’re starting to move forward again.”
Rick Levine notes that reflective, thoughtful Mercury crosses over the intensity of Pluto by the 29th for the second time and will, in February, do it again, but when it is traveling in a direct motion back toward Aquarius. These, he says, “are chances that we have to speak about things that we don’t normally speak about…chances that we have to bring things up out into the open, that as long as they’re hidden, as long as they’re buried they get in the way, they’re problematic.” He adds that we may be afraid of what people might think about what we will say, or that it will be difficult, or things could go all wrong. But this is an opportunity that is likely to be better to take advantage of than what it would be if this opportunity never was possible because by “leaving things in the underworld, leaving things unspoken where they gain power on us” does not allow us the chance to see them for what they are, and work the energy through. This is that chance to make things right.
JAN 30
Today the sun in Aquarius is in a 90˚ square to unpredictable, rebellious Uranus in Taurus. Rick Levine notes that this is disruptive and is about “something falling apart, something breaking through…disruptive and unexpected.” He adds, however, that by February 4, the sun catches up to Saturn in Aquarius, which stabilizes the energy, makes it serious. This, he says, is the impact throughout 2022—getting the Uranus breakthrough, and then Saturn holding things back.
JAN 31-FEB 1
NEW MOON IN AQUARIUS
The new moon in Aquarius happens on January 31 on the west coast of the U.S. but on February 1 on the east coast. Acyuta-bhava sees this new moon as giving us “a little bit more of a hopeful note” in spite of the new moon landing with Saturn and being in a challenging 90˚ square to Uranus. He sees it as “a Uranian signature that suggests there will be revival, a kind of resuscitation” with the end of January having been a “heavy wave closing out, but you will feel that sun/Uranus energy coming through” even ahead of the new moon on the 29th and 30th.
Rick Levine sees this new moon playing on the Saturn/Uranus challenging 90˚ square, even though it is technically over. He points out that Uranus is at 11˚ of Taurus and Saturn is at 15˚ of Aquarius, and the mid-point of those two degrees is 12-13 degrees, which is closer to where the new moon will be. Additionally, Venus in Capricorn has begun to move direct, and it will be in a harmonious angle to Uranus. “We have something new happening here—we’re enamored with something, we see something we like. It might be different, it might be out-of-the-box, but we’re intrigues, and it’s exciting and it’s really interesting,” he tells us. But then the moon makes a hard aspect with Uranus, and, he explains, “the change isn’t quite as easy as we would like it to be.” Then when the moon lines up with serious, disciplinary Saturn, “it’s either time to get real or time to answer to the judge, the parent, the law—how are we going to pay for this.”
Pam Gregory says she sees this new moon in Aquarius as being “particularly strong,” as Uranus is the (modern) ruler of Aquarius, and it mans Uranus “is surging forwards yet again.”
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