Paying it back (and looking forward)

By Len Wallick

Yesterday, Saturn (in Libra) stationed retrograde and is now heading for another square with Pluto (in Capricorn). It will get there fairly soon — on Jan.31. The second of three squares occurs on the eve of the cross-quarter Imbolc — the Sun in mid-Aquarius. Eric has noted that the middle of fixed signs resonate with the first degree of cardinal signs, which creates an Aries Point effect. So while we look forward to Puxatawny Phil declaring his grass roots candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, exposing an underground animal rights movement, we remain in a long series of Aries Point hot spots. The Aries Point stirs up the kind of environment we’re seeing — lots of news where personal and collective experiences are mixed together.

Overnight Thursday into Friday, the energy first peaks then relaxes as Mercury stations direct more-or-less concurrent with an annular solar eclipse.The eclipse is late tonight (in USA time zones) at 2:11 am EST and 5:11 am GMT (early Friday morning in UK and European time zones; and Mercury stations direct Friday at 11:52 am EST or 4:52 pm GMT.

The eclipse will be at least partially visible (weather permitting) in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia (roughly the same path as the lunar eclipse on New Year’s Eve). Solar eclipses take place at the New Moon (us here, Sun there, Moon in the middle) when the Moon is in or close to one of lunar node. In this case it is the North Node which puts it in a kind of synchrony with Mercury, looking (and moving) forward. Make sure you take a moment to pause, breathe, think about how long it seems since the Full Moon on New Year’s Eve just two weeks ago. Appreciate the personal awareness that space and time are the same thing.

The North Node is not simply forward, however. Rahu or the Dragon’s Head, as it is known in different cultures, is about stretching into the unfamiliar quest of the life we are supposed to have. Its identity is a restless drive, at once necessary and uncomfortable. When an eclipse happens there, that pushes the door open and lures or shoves us through.

All of this is playing out against the background of Jupiter’s final days in in the final (anaretic) degree of Aquarius. The last degree of Aquarius has been described on these pages as the degree of the avatar (not the movie, the real thing). It is about birthing into a new level of consciousness, after many trials and tests. An eclipse at that point opens the way and either draws or pushes or lures us into the unfamiliar, that entirely necessary direction of our lives and the one that we so often resist.

Back in the Dec. 22 daily edition, we reviewed the properties of the first degree of a sign. Let’s check out the vibe of the final slide of Jove’s journey through the sign of the selective collective (Pisces is the true sign of populism; Aquarius can have an elite feeling). Some see the last degree as going out with a roar, still others with a whimper. Still, there are a few consistencies we can piece together.

Looking at it as a sign change, it ain’t over ’til it’s over (as opposed to looking at it as a house change, which exhibits as a gradient). Looking at it as a microcosm of the zodiac, one can assign the last degree the cachet of Pisces — the end of a cycle, the long accretion dissolving, fragile, ephemeral, on the tipping point — the ultimate. But the last degree of Aquarius has just as much clout.

Jupiter is the big benefic; the heavyweight cherubim, bearing good news, but mostly just emphasis: Jupiter is akin to a cosmic magnifier. He is the ruler of the pantheon. For the last year it has been the magnifying, amplifying, member of the separating stellium with Neptune, Chiron and Nessus. We have known Jupiter together, communally. He has put us in touch with the wisdom of one-with. Ruler of Sagittarius and Pisces, it carries the the devotion of the 6th house, the calling of the 9th and the mystery of the 12th.

Aquarius is the collective, the seeming paradox of a fixed air sign, symbolized by a container of water (often mistaken for a water sign), traditinoally ruled by Saturn, controversially (and hence appropriately) associated with Uranus in our current era.

For nearly a year, Jupiter has been modulating and rewarding our first steps into a transition that will require participation and compassion. It is for this reason that your humble observer has concluded that this particular transit can situation-ally and contextually be expressed as giving back. As we prepare for what is clearly a new and demanding phase of challenge and change we can gather faith and recall that the Beatles were in earnest when they reminded us that “in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”.

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