Today is Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. Tomorrow Mercury ingresses Aquarius today just before 1:12 pm EST. Following the recent movement of the Sun and New Moon, Mercury is making the same aspects to slower planets, which you can review here. That means it’s almost time to open that envelope holding the list of thoughts and impressions Len suggested making on Monday, with regard to this same event.
We’ll come back to that. Today, the Moon is in Pisces, and this morning made a conjunction to Venus. It’ll make another to Vesta. These are subtle aspects, describing emotional sensitivity, a feeling of devotion and a sense of emotional and sexual contact. Because the Moon is involved, this is something that starts inwardly and is reflected outwardly. The Moon stays in Pisces till it ingresses Aries on Friday afternoon.
Mercury’s movement influences mental patterns. The move from Capricorn to Aquarius is an opening, where patterns become evident or at least visible, what was previously difficult to express can suddenly be put into words, and (whee!) you may want to take a more modern approach to your thoughts. Both Cap and Aquarius are Saturn-ruled signs, though of the two Aquarius is more the one that says ‘now’ whereas Capricorn is the one that usually points to the past.
As Mercury ingresses Aquarius, three other planets are also in the last degree of their respective signs. This is another way of saying that as Mercury moves, it has a dialog with all of them. Two of these will move to new signs (creating new patterns) within the next seven days: Juno (a fast moving asteroid now in late Scorpio) and Neptune (a slow moving outer planet, now in late Aquarius). The third, Saturn, will station retrograde on Feb. 7 and remain in Libra through October. The retrograde will help us review our Libran-ruled material in a new context: matters of coexistence; the viability of ideas; whether the world around you is comfortable, aesthetically pleasing, and otherwise in balance. Balance is the very theme of Libra, emphasized by Saturn, which has a resonance with this sign.
There are also questions of balance and structure in relationships. You have a couple more weeks to take conscientious steps toward where you’d like to be, testing your footing and the ground thoroughly each time, before Saturn’s shift. Mercury is square Saturn, so be aware of potential tension between the changes you’re endeavoring to make and your more traditional thoughts about relationships.
Saturn’s retrograde will not slide us backwards. It will, however, give us an intimate, inner tour of what progress we have actually made – as well as the sensitive areas we still need to work on – in this process of positioning ourselves to participate in more functional relationships.
Speaking of relationships: On Sunday at 9:13 am EST, Juno will depart Scorpio and enter Sagittarius. This is a shift from a sign primarily considered emotional and another that’s more open and idea-based. This is a similar kind of transition as Mercury is involved with, as the relationship of Capricorn to Aquarius is equivalent to the relationship of Scorpio to Sagittarius.
During its time in Scorpio, you may have been faced with issues of jealousy or control, perhaps fueled by deep-seated insecurities; scorekeeping in sexual relationships is another theme of Juno at any phase, especially in Scorpio. On the other hand, Gary Caton has also described Juno as embodying the “overall principle of connectivity.” So the question is, to whom are you connected, and how, and why? Are your connections a plus-plus symbiosis (that is, do they support both you and the people around you — and your environment) or do they consume energy?
The biggest change arrives one week from tomorrow, when Neptune enters its home sign, Pisces. We’ve only tasted this briefly in our lifetimes, for four months last year. Nobody alive has ever lived through a cycle of Neptune in Pisces, and since few astrologers were taking notes the last time it happened before the American Civil War, we only have history as our guide.
This is a generational energy that will affect all of us until 2025, so you can expect a little adjustment period as the world begins reacting to and assimilating the watery planet in the wateriest sign. Neptune will be joining Chiron there, which we’ve been getting used to for a while. Water has been calling for our attention. The hot, dry world dominated by fear, with everything becoming digital (from mail to music to painting) is getting some water to drink and soak in.
So you can be sure that the state of our emotional bodies, our relationship to our creativity (which really means our relationship to existence), and the state of Earth’s oceans will be asking for attention. At the moment, we’re still standing on the shore when it comes to being aware of water. This brings us back to Mercury, which echoes the message the Sun suggested last week with its own ingress to Aquarius, to think differently in order to find our way through the coming changes. Three planets changing sign in the next week should help you stay afloat in that endeavor, while Saturn provides a mooring on the relational front. As the little fish in that movie kept saying, “Just keep swimming.”
Looking for insights on how this week’s astrology affects your personal Sun and rising signs? Try out Planet Waves Light, our streamlined horoscope service. For deeper cultural context and astrological investigation, the premium Planet Waves subscription includes the same horoscopes, plus extensively-researched articles on Fridays.
aword — too funny!!! 🙂 i never even thought to check if there were asteroids with those names. goodness. are there any names that have *not* been applied to the sky yet?
(Come to think of it – Doreen is in exact opposition to Saturn now, isn’t she? Sly fish that Dory!)
Ha! Amanda, and re “that little fish”……..there is no asteroid specifically named Dory so I figured Nemo would suffice and wouldn’t cha know – he’s conj Mars in Virgo opposing the Lilith/Moon stellium and squaring transiting Merc.
And then just to get back to Dory who gets credit for the Keep on Swimming thing, I figured she’s probably really a Doreen – and Doreen is currently at 28 Aries – which must count for something especially since Dory is a little off kilter anyway.
lol!! and “Keep Swimming!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxB_TemN1pc
Justine —
Eric did some major rewriting on this one, but i haven’t even had a chance to read it through to see how he molded it. i’ll be emailing you later!
Hi Amanda:
Thanks for another great post. It’s clearly been a very feminine week, astrologically speaking. But I wanted to mention an aspect in the skies today that, although masculine, is working hand-in-hand with other feminine archetypes, including the biggest one – Mother Earth. The aspect involves the outer planet Makemake – not many of us are familiar with his story. In the mythology of Easter Island, Makemake was a creator god of humanity, the god of fertility, and chief of the Tangata manu or ‘bird man’ cult. Nick Anthony Firenza writes of Makemake ‘as supporting the discovery of or uncovering that which is nourishing in the material/physical realm of life, of that which provides our fundamental physical sustenance, of economics; and involving the politics governing the “fundamental provisions for the people”.’
Makemake is currently in the last degrees of Virgo, ruler of agriculture, crops and the harvest (a very fine place for it to be), in a trine to Mercury in the last degrees of Capricorn. Simultaneously, Mercury is sextiling Ceres/Uranus in Aries. It’s as though the Messenger of the Gods is dropping us a line to say ‘let’s pay attention to what we’re doing with our food supply. It’s time for some new ideas.’
You would have had to be living under a rock not to realize by now how much politics and big business are tied into what we eat and how we grow it. The memory of small farmers raising organic crops and healthy, well-tended livestock for market consumption has been replaced by agribusiness growing GMO crops oversprayed with toxins and factory forms raising diseased livestock before shipping it out to unsuspecting consumers.
It seems to be another ‘think different’ moment, an opportunity to become aware of what might be done to save the planet and ourselves when it comes to our physical sustenance. In today’s issue of Planet Waves, Eric’s article on the New York Ocean Science Lab in Eastern Long Island is (as usual) right on the mark. It’s a perfect illustration of Nick Firenza’s delineation of Makemake above.
The work of individuals trying to repair Mother Earth and how she feeds us continues in often-unheralded ways. Let’s hope that today’s aspect will manifest in greater physical support for such work. To quote once more from Nick Firenza: ‘Makemake reveals our need to get clear on the use and application of resources. Clearly finding the golden egg is not about greed and lust, trapped in the fear-based techno-bureaucratic monster of collective human consciousness, but is about the proper use of the land and its resources in providing for our nourishment and wellbeing.’
You can read all of Nick Anthony Firenza’s writing on Makemake at: http://www.lunarplanner.com/asteroids-dwarfplanets/Haumea.html#Makemake
The clarity linking the present planetary movemets in this post are sterling to me. As I battle for a just settlement of this 44 year long entanglement I can feel the different energies moving me, pulling me, stupefying me and reminding me. As well, my dreams (thank you Len) are screaming at me in clear and loud symbols and down right kicks in the head. Venus, Vesta and Juno really are at one another up there in my head also. (It seems that Mars in Virgo is my savior this week. We’re going to finish this up baby no matter how many retrogrades it takes. I have drafted a clear message to my attorney.) Rob–what a quote.Thank you. I am intterested in that book pam, thanks for mentioning it. Thanks everyone for helping me live and learn to thrive through another day. (((all)))
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And a thank-you to Eric for a photo that serves to complement (both in color and in theme) the one from Amanda that was there when the blog was first posted. A thought-provoking temporal juxtaposition between the two pictures, separately and together a worthy object of contemplation.
Rob44 – I love that book too. Do you know Dibs in Search of Self by Virginia Axline – navigation of spirit waters – the way I said I wanted it, the way you said you wanted it, the way we said we wanted it…
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.
~ Norman Maclean
Amanda,
Thanks for a photo that not only portrays reflection but supports it.
Thank you for so adroitly channeling Juno and connecting the impending sequence of three substantial sign changes (and the one not quite ready to move on) in a meaningful manner. As you imply, the over-riding theme of water is, appropriately, rising to the surface.