Three separate components of today’s astrology can be interpreted together as a prelude to growth. Specifically, three possible stages of your own personal growth in 2014 are being symbolically anticipated now.
The process started with yesterday’s Capricorn New Moon, and continues with a cardinal square from the Capricorn Sun to Mars in Libra later today.
The third component is an opposition that is exact tomorrow, but functional now: from Mercury in Capricorn to retrograde Jupiter in Cancer.
Every New Moon is a conjunction of the luminaries, or put another way, the Sun and Moon sharing the same degree of the same sign. Every conjunction of Sun and Moon serves in turn as the template through which all conjunctions are interpreted, and all conjunctions correspond to a beginning.
The beginning represented by a conjunction is then followed by growth. You can see the growth that follows a conjunction of the luminaries with your own eyes. Starting today, the Moon separates from sharing the same sign with the Capricorn Sun and enters Aquarius.
As the Moon gradually continues to separate from the Sun in the days to come, the illuminated portion of the Moon will grow from one night to the next until the side of the Moon facing Earth is fully lit by an opposition to the Sun — a Full Moon.
Even as the Moon initiates the growth stage of its cycle today (inviting you to do the same), other objects are orienting to one another through means other than conjunction to imply subsequent stages of your growth later this year. The Sun, for example, is doing a little separating of its own.
The Sun last conjoined with Mars in cardinal Aries way back on April 17, 2013. Today, the Capricorn Sun reaches 90 degrees of separation from Mars’ current Libra placement — an aspect known as a cardinal square.
Because a new season begins when the Sun enters one of the four cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn), the territory of those signs is associated with initiative of all sorts. Square aspects, in turn, represent tension. Tension is associated with growing (as in the term “growing pains”), because when you act to resolve tension in any form, you frequently grow in some way as a fringe benefit.
Hence, the solar symbol of fully aware consciousness is combining with the Martian representation of energy today to elaborate on the Moon’s message and help you see further into the new year than one lunar cycle can take you. You are being coached from the get-go to approach any tension you feel now as a hurdle, which when cleared makes you more capable of clearing the next one. You are being encouraged to get a jump on the pain attributable to growth by recognizing the strain of a square aspect as a prelude to the eventual gain that a Full Moon represents.
That’s where Mercury and Jupiter come in. Today, even as the Moon initiates its growth cycle, Mercury is traversing cardinal Capricorn to oppose Jupiter’s retrograde through cardinal Cancer. Today, even as the Sun and Mars have separated to a cardinal square aspect that gets you started anticipating (and overcoming) the consequences of growth, the smallest planet, Mercury, is emulating a Full Moon by its orientation to Jupiter, the largest planet.
Just as a Full Moon literally reflects the light of the opposing Sun, Mercury’s versatile mental archetype is now moving to reflect Jupiter’s emblem of expansion. It is as if you are being asked to conceive now as a requisite for achieving later. It is as if you should ask what it would look like if your mind were to expand as a prelude to growth. Indeed, if there is anything to how today’s astrology appears to represent three stages of growth you may realize as the new year progresses, ask now you should.
Ask now not for what you want, but how to get it. Inquire now for how to attain the growth your aspirations will require of you. Anticipate now how to recognize and meet challenges so they contribute to, rather than obstruct, further growth. Visualize now so as to expand your mind’s ability to see ahead. Finally, be bold. Be bold and dare to see ahead to what you must necessarily be after today’s prelude to growth is finally realized in full. Because once you can see it, you can more surely be it.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
Thank you, Lizzy, received with gratitude and appreciation and a few tears…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgH3DTayEAc
…a beginning is its own truth…
Hi Suria – to one who loves music and poetry, I just discovered these guys in concert on the radio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3-9c1ykBxo
and they read this wonderful poem in memory of the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney, another marvellous soul who recently passed away:
The Given Note
On the most westerly Blasket
In a dry-stone hut
He got this air out of the night.
Strange noises were heard
By others who followed, bits of a tune
Coming in on loud weather
Though nothing like melody.
He blamed their fingers and ear
As unpractised, their fiddling easy
For he had gone alone into the island
And brought back the whole thing.
The house throbbed like his full violin.
So whether he calls it spirit music
Or not, I don’t care. He took it
Out of wind off mid-Atlantic.
Still he maintains, from nowhere.
It comes off the bow gravely,
Rephrases itself into the air.
Ps I really recommend the ukulele if you ever get tired of its larger cousin….
Bonne Année 2014 Len , amour, succès et santé sont au programme
Si j’ai bien compris vous avez abordé du grand carré en cardinal ? , Oui tous les astrologues en parlent mais pour moi il n’y a pas de grand carré , le carré de Jupiter Uranus l’orbe est trop grand. En échange on peut mettre en relief la première nouvelle lune de l’année sous l’énergie du chiffre neuf , qui parle de la fin d’un cycle sous un nouveau cycle de la Lune
D’après Louise Haley dans son livre sur la Numérologie planétaire il est question de mettre en évidence des choses qui sont très troublantes, car elles sont en contradiction avec la nouvelle lune. On vit alors des choses qui ne sont as nécessairement comprises comme on le voudrait
Vous en pensez quoi Len ?
Good year 2014 Len, love, success, and health are on the programme
If I understand correctly you approached the Grand cardinal square? Yes all astrologers talk about but for me there’s not great square, the square of Jupiter Uranus the ORB is too large. In Exchange you can highlight the first new moon of the year as the energy of the figure nine, who speaks of the end of a cycle in a new cycle of the Moon
According to Louise Haley in his book on planetary Numerology it comes to highlight things that are very disturbing, because they are in contradiction with the new moon. We live so things that are as necessarily understood as we want
You think what Len? 😉
Hello! Peace and love to each one and all. Could some-one remind me to sort out a new guitar. I’m thinking something differentish, 12-string acoustic? nilou
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oDU_x0kE2U
p.s. who knows? lol…
Amanda: yes, something like that: evolve, attune, align. I suppose I balk at the term ‘growth’ being used as a one size fits all cause it’s exactly the worldview of the monster that’s ripping up the Earth for money. Capitalism’s programs trickle down and seep into everything, even the new age consciousness raising memes. Pluto’s on my Mercury right now. Feel free to throw some water in my face if things get too wonky 😉
Len,
Thank you for another great year and this wonderful column. This is a lot to think about.
Happy New Year
Thank you again Suria.
Thank you, Len and all
In the bright sunlight of this morning with the rain of last night glistening on every surface, in the sparkle it is as though every drop was filled with love. I received this gift from the universe yesterday and I offer in service the gift of the peace and joy I am brought to feeling as I read these words.
Precious Things
The beauty of nature, always there,
always changing. Every detail a surprise
and intricate.
Look around, enjoy and see things
with new eyes, the eternal landscape.
Wow, Len, this is awesome. I am reading this as a thaw out my frozen pipes with a hairdryer. It’s working, all’s well, no damage. Indoor plumbing is the curse of the northern climes, minus 18 F!, though I did enjoy a hot bath and maybe will get to enjoy my clean sheets before dawn. So maybe indoor plumbing is not so bad.
While you were posting this piece on expanding your mind in preparation for growth, I was teaching a class on desire, which is very much in that theme. Jupiter et al must be visiting me in my dreams.
Satchel Paige is quoted to say, Dream Big, small dreams ain’t got no suction. I like that.
Expanding one’s mind is a prelude to growth, evolution, creation, whatever fits. Peace and clarity of mind are also preludes.
Strawberry Laughter, amen to the resistance. I was unconsciously fighting the growth and watching the damage from the sidelines. Kind of like being a NY Mets fan in the 70s. Finally I paused to take stock of all I did accomplish, which was a whole lot. I got really clear on what was in the way, as a result. Painful. Growth.
Lea, congratulations on your news. I am glad it’s over and you can move ahead! The pruning/divesting is a necessary for expansion too. I am in that phase, and feeling a bit resistant.
Hey the pipes are good. Going to sleep. I’ll see you all tomorrow.
Excellent conveyance, Len.
Your archetypal erudition is brilliant. Thanks.
Jere
Lea: Thank you so very much for making our day with your good news and inspirational words.
Chief Niwots Son: Thank you for your kind affirmation, and may your expansive efforts result in the manifestation of your highest visions.
wandering_yeti: While it appears that you are referring to a different kind of growth, you motion is granted for alternative terminology in deference to your superior wisdom. Thank you!
Amanda: Thank you so very much for your astute editorial guidance and creative participation in the discussion here.
Cynthia: Thank you for your excellent observation, which is the ticket purchased with grounded wisdom.
Strawberry: Thank you for your excellent observations (some people believed Einstein’s thoughts were overblown – their names do not come to mind as his does), correlations (with the tarot especially), and your continued kind acceptance of my poor service.
be: Speaking of excellent correlations – Pluto and the banks is very timely. We could go for a book on that one. In the meantime, however, our support to you for standing in your power (and serving as an excellent example) – thank you so very much!
Hazel1: You are very welcome. Thanks to you in turn for your support of be, Amanda, and wandering-yeti.
And thanks Len!
Evolution and alignment sound good to me too, Amanda. Opening the door before crashing into it works too, I forget to do that more often than not, Strawberrylaughter. I have the same antipathy for my bank, Be, at least for one of them, when the first one started acting like jerks, I started another account at a “good” bank, a local bank. I do very little banking at the bad bank and pretty much all of my actual banking with the local one, leaving about $15 in the Bad bank at the end of every month. I cant trust them, so I just do as little as I can with them until I can pay off my mortgage and get away from them, so I sympathize.
For me this astrology is playing out in the financial arena; likely due to Pluto’s conjunction to yesterday’s New Moon. However, it has to do with the institution of banking, you know, how they yank you around once they have you in their clutches? So, that is the Capricorn part, but Saturn himself opposes natal Uranus in the 2nd house now and that’s what really made me squirm. Enough so that I’m now planning to utilize a 2nd checking account (credit union) to pay my bills and just let the bank’s checking account sit for a while as I do some needed research into their creative bookkeeping. For example, why does my fixed monthly mortgage payment to them need to be increased by $15?
I’ve had some concerns regarding this institution before but never enough to devote the time to get to the bottom of it. But now I’m mad as hell and I will probably spend a lot of this year getting some straight answers. (They want to blame this increase in escrow payments on property taxes and insurance. Really. I don’t think so.) In the meantime I will eliminate the banking transactions (checks) in order to ascertain my true balance (something I’ve put off for too long) since money machine receipts never match my own checkbook figures. I’m starting at the bottom so as to get my ducks in a row first. This “plan” is partly due to trans. Venus square my Vesta (she lit my fire for sure!) Once trans. Jupiter gets back to my natal Sun in February I should know where all the bodies are buried, so by the end of March, when Venus and Mars both trine my natal Venus, all systems will be prepared for April’s cardinal T-square and the Venus-conjunct-Chiron trine Jupiter (and my Sun) make headlines. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do Len.
be
Oh my goodness, what a crib sheet to the next several months! Chief Niwots Son, I zeroed in on that line, as well. Imagine — just imagine! — expanding your mind before the need for growth arises!?! This whole year, I’ve felt like I’ve been fighting the growth tooth & nail, until I surrender in a pile of tears. So, new approach: Open the door before you smash into it. I’ll try. I already know I’m going to do the work; 2013 proved to me that resistance is indeed futile.
It fits with the tarot card I drew for the year: Ace of Swords. Opening up to pure inspiration as a way of life. I can feel the mental blocks I have on that.
And Len, thank you once again for such empowering interpretations of the astrology. Seeing Mercury-Jupiter in this way is so different from Jupiter simply magnifying & making our thoughts seem overblown. I love this.
And last but far from least, Lea, thank you so very much for sharing. I breathe a sigh of relief with you and wish you strength and fortitude in centering your life on the peace you’ve so surely earned. You have my utmost admiration. Buckets of love to you.
The gardener knows that pruning is an important part of nurturing the growth that comes much later. I find a dormant time necessary, when I can cut away and let go. Quiet, still, and dark.
hhmmm… yeti… what about “evolution?” or “alignment?”
interesting points about growth; though i think often it’s a useful and apt term for transformation/learning/understanding, you are certainly correct to note that not all “growth” is positive, or is in the areas where we desire it to be.
hmmmm… will keep thinking about this one…
Do we have to call it growth? I know it’s fashionable and all but growth isn’t always what happens, isn’t always what’s desired. Growth always comes with decrease. When it tries to grow without decrease it makes a crisis that explodes like cancer or war or the boom and bust cycle of capitalism. Grow, grow grow…no, please? I’m trying to shrink my noise, simplify my living habits, decrease my tension, melt my internal resistance to change.
Splitting hairs? Mercury in Capricorn, at the degree where Mercury currently is: literal as a stick, but I gotta choose my words carefully cause I notice that I get what I ask for, always. Growth is sometimes not the medicine I’m after.
“It is as if you should ask what it would look like if your mind were to expand as a prelude to growth.”
Aye, aye, Captain! Commencing mind expansion: envisioning larger possibilities, manifesting a wider field of action, and generating greater potential energy to achieve success in the opportunities offered by the Universe. Thank you!
In April 2013 I began the last stage of a brutal divorce process. In December it was decreed and today it is executed.
This morning I was able to sit down and clearly, calmly write out the 14 intentional points I have for the coming year, expecting Good at every turn. And then, let it all go. And rest in gratitude and peace.
Thank you Len and Planet Waves for your astrological insight and support for me as I have wended through this dark and necessary process for the Good of my life and for the Good of the lives of everyone I love and to keep moving into the unknown, but friendly, Beyond.
+-+ xo
PS, Len. The eclipses did their work. I have become dis-invested of nearly all that supported my past life. And it is Good.