Today is Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011. The Sun enters Sagittarius in bold style today at 11:08 am EST. When it does, it makes a square to Chiron and a trine to Uranus. This is a veritable explosion of fiery/male/yang/expressive energy. After several days of working its way through the late degrees of Scorpio and a long square to Neptune, the Sun bursts free in a fire sign, picking up the energy not just of Uranus and Chiron, but also of Jupiter and Mars.
Especially noteworthy is the trine of the Sun to Uranus (big flow of energy) and the square of the Sun to Chiron (a planet associated with Sagittarius). Prior to the ingress, note that the Sun is void of course in Scorpio. This presents openings for unlikely events, possibilities and feelings. The transition of the Sun from Scorpio to Sagittarius is one of the most palpable of them all. We take the most fixed emotional sign and convert it to the most mutable fire sign. The transition is from deeply introspective to fully expressive — and we have a solar eclipse building to boot. That takes place at 1:09 am EST on Friday, coupled with Mercury stationing retrograde in Sagittarius on Thursday: fire and more fire.
In Scorpio the themes are about introspective passion, attachment and control, and they always involve others. In Sagittarius the themes are about letting go of the need for validation or involvement; the sensation is of the single-pointed arrow of direction. If there is one sign that insinuates relationship, it’s Scorpio. If there is a sign that insinuates something else, it’s Sagittarius. Even the opposite sign of Sagittarius, Gemini, is a sign about the dualistic nature of an individual and relating to oneself.
Sagittarius contains some of the most personally relevant mysteries to be found in astrology; in particular it’s the home of the Galactic Core.
In case you’re wondering where the Moon is through this transition, it spends most of the day in Libra, and happens to be conjunct Saturn when the Sun ingresses Sagittarius. That offers some solidity and balance to our emotions, a momentary container for all the fire and expressive energy. Then the Moon moves to Scorpio just before 9:00 pm EST, on the way to its rendezvous with the Sun (the New Moon and partial solar eclipse) later this week. That’s a little extra emotional depth — kind of a lunar coda to whatever song of transformation we’ve been composing in the last month — as we leap into the shift of solar energy.