Revolution is in the Air: The Significance of Pluto’s Ingress into Aquarius on March 23, 2023

Tomorrow morning at 7:13 Central Daylight Time (US), Pluto, the most remote planet in our solar system that archetypally expresses Death and Rebirth energies, the Hidden, and Underworld sojourns, enters the Fixed Air Sign of Aquarius. While there will be initial back-and-forth Retrograde periods that will have Pluto backtracking into Capricorn for several months this year, He (and I always refer to the Planetary Intelligences by the Gods They are named after) will stay put in Aquarius starting in January 2024 for a transit that will last until March 8, 2043.

Saturn in Pisces: Welcome to the Great Resignation

As of 7:35 am Central Standard Time, Saturn has exited out of Aquarius and made His ingress into the Mutable Waters of Pisces. There are profound energetic shifts any time a planet transits into a new sign, but this is especially true of the outer planets of our solar system, which move at a much slower rate than the personal planets closer to the Sun. And given the fact that we have the heavyweight of Pluto also changing signs later in the month (more on that in a subsequent post), March 2023 is a Cosmic Green Light to the activation of sweeping changes / structural overhaul that will affect us collectively and individually.

Friday’s Taurus Full Moon Eclipse: Radical Changes, Ready or Not!

No matter where you are in the world, Friday’s lunar eclipse at 27° Taurus will be impactful. For starters, it’s the longest eclipse in duration in over 580 years of human astronomical reckoning: it will last three and a half hours! In the Central Standard Time zone of the U.S., which is my time zone (please adjust for your corner of the world accordingly), the Taurus Moon will noticeably begin to become engulfed by Shadow at 1:15 a.m. and the Shadow will have dissipated by 4:45 a.m. on Friday, November 19. The apogée of lunar fullness happens at 2:57 a.m.

What Mysteries will our beloved Luna undergo during this long descent into Shadow? Her story will ripple out and reach us all, especially with the dramatic backdrop of planetary aspects that set the stage for this eclipse.

 

Manifestation Magic: The Astrology of January 2019

Overview

The glyph for Capricorn

Happy New Year, gentle reader! January is one of the best/most positively powerful months of 2019. Its firepower, evident from a powerful stellium of five planets in Capricorn at the time of the Capricorn New Moon/Partial Solar Eclipse the night of January 5th, builds the framework for the triple super conjunction of Saturn-Jupiter-Pluto in Capricorn that will occur in January of 2020. Capricorn’s ruling planet, stable and serious Saturn, tests the mettle of our projects and goals to determine their worth for implementation (should we even bother?) and chances of long-term viability (to reap major rewards for work well done over the long haul). New Year’s Day, the Capricorn New Moon/Partial Solar Eclipse on January 5, and the conjunction between the Sun and Pluto in Capricorn on January 11 are what I’m calling the three most crucial Power Days of the Month, whose energies you would be well advised to capitalize upon to execute your goals.

We will all be feeling motivated to push forward and excel, thanks to the drive of fiery Mars rejoicing at having entered His home sign of Aries on New Year’s Eve, 2018. And once electrifying Uranus stations Direct in the last degree of Aries on the afternoon of January 6, ALL OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM’S PLANETS WILL BE MOVING DIRECT UNTIL THE FIRST WEEK OF MARCH. THIS IS THE MOST AUSPICIOUS WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR: BE LIKE THE CAPRICORN GOAT AND SCALE NEW HEIGHTS!

New Year Fireworks: The Astrology of January 2018

As an esoteric astrologer, I tend to see the first month of a new year as a tone-setting month for that year as a whole. January 2018, book-ended as it is by two full moons on the first and the last days of the month (and the second full moon is a total lunar eclipse–more on that in a bit), is a powerful month, indeed. True to its namesake of the liminal Roman god of doorways, Janus, the month will have us starting out facing the past (Cancer full moon on the 1st) in order to set our intentions for the future (Capricorn New Moon on the 16th and Leo total lunar eclipse full moon on the 31st). The fact that no less than 6 planets will be in Capricorn at the time of the New Moon on the 16th means that heavy Saturnian forces are at work to make sure that all of our aspirations firmly pass needed reality-checks before they can be set into motion. Personally, as a Virgo-Double-Aquarius, I’m loving what I see, as the end result will be liberation—from the debris of stagnant energies that clogged our progress in 2017, from falsehood, and from self-imposed limitations. If we play the energies right, the first month of the new year will have us learning to master the art of getting out of our own way!

Io, Saturnalia! Saturn Returns to His Home Sign of Capricorn for the Next 3 Years

“Saturn ascends / Choose one or ten / Hang on or be / Humbled again”
–TOOL “The Grudge” (Lateralus, 2001)

This is the planetary event I’ve been looking forward to all year—more than August’s dramatic total solar eclipse, more than Jupiter entering Scorpio in October. As of last night, the great karmic task-master esoterically embodied as the planet Saturn has entered His home sign of Capricorn—where transformative Pluto awaits Him! This glorious transit will last a whopping three years.  

Tomorrow Morning’s Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Libra

If you live in the U.S. and you’re awake and facing the soon-to-be-setting full moon in the western pre-dawn skies, you’ll more than likely see tomorrow morning’s penumbral lunar eclipse in 3° Libra. It reaches its apex at 6:48 a.m. Central Daylight Time. Unlike the more visibly dramatic partial and total lunar eclipses, the visual effects will be subtle–a perceptible darkening of the moon’s surface. But the lack of visual appeal doesn’t in any way detract from the astrological intensity.

Stormy Seas: Navigating Next Week’s Total Solar Eclipse in Pisces with Challenging Planetary Aspects

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.

–Victor Hugo

Depending on where you live in the world, you will experience the new moon/total solar eclipse in 18° Pisces on either the night of Tuesday, March 8, or Wednesday, March 9. Here in the U.S., it will occur on the evening of the 8th: 5:54 p.m. PST, 7:54 p.m CST, 8:54 p.m. EST. The eclipse will not be visible to audiences in North America or Europe–unless, of course, you’re watching a real-time online streaming event. Audiences in southeast Asia and Oceania will be able to view it directly.

Eclipse chart for March 8/March 9 courtesy of planetwatcher.com

Merry Mithrasmas!

MITHRAS, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the wall!

“Rome is above the nations, but Thou art over all!”

Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away,

Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!

–Rudyard Kipling, “Song to Mithras” (1922)

 

During my lunch break yesterday I went to the Christkindl Market in Daley Plaza, Chicago’s annual Yuletide celebration of Teutonic culture and the contributions of German immigrants to the city’s rich, culturally woven tapestry of history. Amidst the cheerful booths showcasing Bavarian woodcarvers’ wares such as nutcrackers and cuckoo clocks, and the food vendors with their mouthwatering apfelstrudels and warm and spicy glüwein to ward away winter’s chill, you’ll find a Nativity scene, the subject of many a tourist’s photograph. In front of it, stretched out on a fence, stands a banner from the Freedom from Religion Foundation brazenly wishing passers-by a “Happy Winter Solstice!” There’s a message below the headline, the first sentence of which reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, we celebrate the Birth of the Unconquered Sun–the TRUE reason for the season!” I smiled and applauded, then took the obligatory photo for my Instagram account. I thought warmly of the first Winter Solstice public ritual I’d ever participated in, way back in 1999, which honored the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus) as the god Mithras. I was obsessed with researching everything I could about the cult of Mithras, and I took it upon myself to write a research paper that I presented to the Gardnerian coven I belonged to at the time. I’d like to share the fruits of my research here, as Winter Solstice is imminent, and I like to muse on how this Persian import of a cult provided serious competition for a nascent Christianity in the Late Roman Empire. Oh, if only history could have turned out differently…

Shitty Planetary Positions: Saturn in the 5th House

Stroll down Memory Lane a bit with me, won’t you? Here are some sensory details to swell the scene:

Act I, scene i: June, 2003. A cheerfully sunlit but uncomfortably cramped metaphysical store in Honolulu’s quirky Kaimuki neighborhood, with crystals and towering bamboo plants cramming the windows and mounds of paperback books spilling out of their cases, stacked horizontally on the floor. A gentle ginger tomcat named Toby, who more than slightly resembled my own beach cat rescue, welcomed a hearty scratch under the chin. I sigh nervously and paw my way through storefront flyers announcing the meeting times of Reiki groups inviting the public to join them in their full moon meditations on the “Violet Flame of Saint Germain.” I giggle as I mentally devise doggerel verse on the fly using that rhyming couplet (“the Violet Flame of Saint Germain / Makes New Agers go INSANE”!)…cheap entertainment while I wait. Toby meows as if he’s accusing me of insolence by walking away from him and focusing my attention elsewhere.

It’s a return visit, as I’d stumbled upon the store for the first time only the week prior to give the store’s owner–a Midwestern Mainlander transplant like myself–my birth details so she could construct my natal chart.

“Well, well!” Cheryl the proprietor/resident astrologer, after adjusting her reading glasses upon the bridge of her nose, greets me by waving all 30-plus pages of my detailed natal chart printout in the air. “Come and sit down, Ana. This is gonna be fun! Would you like a cup of tea before we begin?”

I thank her for her hospitality and say, even though it’s over 90 degrees outside (the trade winds weren’t blowing that day; I remember how the air felt oppressive, hanging with a leaden weight), that I would love a cup of jasmine tea if she’s got any. Organized Cheryl (she has a Capricorn Ascendant, I find out later) pulls out a wooden tea chest and extracts two jasmine tea bags, as she was fancying a cup herself.

“Soooooo, yes. Virgo Sun and both Moon and Ascendant in Aquarius,” she begins with no preliminary remarks. “Very cerebral, intellectual. You live a lot in your head, don’t you?”

I nod, sipping my tea.

Cheryl flips a few pages into my report where my natal chart, in wheel form, explodes in an array of zig-zagging, interwoven colored fonts, showcasing the various conjunctions, trines, squares, and oppositions of the planets at the moment of my birth in Chicago. She traces her ridiculously long, fuschia-painted right index fingernail across the “pie slices” of my chart and starts tapping once she reaches the fifth one–my fifth house. “Yeah, I actually want to start talking about this first,” she says. “Saturn in your fifth house. This is a heavy placement,” she announces brusquely. She adjusts her eyeglasses, studying my face. And then: “Do you and your fiancé plan on having any kids?”

“Excuse me?”