OFF THE LEASH
Gee whizz I’m not sure about you, but for me the new calendar year brought with it a whole bunch of frustrated tension. Mercury Retrograde in Capricorn was yanking my chain, holding back the slobbering bulldog of Mars Retrograde in Gemini from barking savagely into the night. All that pent up energy hit a breaking point, and inevitably I was holed up for most of the holiday period with a snotty nose and fever chills.
By some miracle it wasn’t Covid, (can you believe I’ve managed to dodge the virus completely so far? I can thank the Hermit Card and free access to vaccination for that) but still, I accepted the offer to isolate, rest and recover. Propped up in bed amidst a mountain of books and crumpled tissues, I took yet another look at the Retrograde transits and their effect on my chart, in an attempt to figure out how best to work through this interference with my Sun and Moon signs, my light and shadow, and find the date where I might feel some relief.
Mars stations direct at 8° Gemini on the 13th, and Mercury stations direct at 8° Capricorn on the 19th of January
My mind has been a dancefloor lately. It’s all quite smoky and frenetic in there, multiple conversations chattering away in tandem. There’s so much noise, the clarity of my thoughts gets garbled into incoherence, masked by a throbbing bassline. You’d think I would just let loose and enjoy the party, but sometimes it feels like I’m not even on the guest list of my own brain. The messages can sound muffled and distant, coming from behind the barrier that I have built up in order to protect myself.
I’ve worried a lot over these last years. The panic of the global health crisis had us paranoid that we’d put the folks we care about in danger. For a while the healing properties of physical touch were prohibited for our safety. This enforced disconnection widened the chasm between our already polarised society and soon, hateful vitriol came spewing forth from the sewers of the human psyche. It infected some of the folks we love, those we thought would’ve been immune to such ignorant garbage. Now, as Capitalism instructs us to get back to business, we are expected to carry on as if nothing has happened. The palpable division in our local communities echoes the greater void separating our species.
The Devil XV, Capricorn as enslavement to Hierarchy
Ruminating on all of this from my snotty sickbed, it dawned on me how frightened I have become. I realised that my boundaries cannot exist as a fortress for much longer. I am scared, and that is okay. I do not have to go it alone. The pressure in my head began to ease and, after a simple message of love on New Years Eve from a dear friend, I allowed the water of my heartache to flow down my face, my emotions swelling and crashing in great waves. The fortress in my mind began to spring leaks too. I felt the foundations of my barriers rumble. The light streamed through the cracking bricks and soon after, a deluge of inspiration poured forth. The crystalline, magical messages rang in my ears with perfect pitch.
I reminded myself that Saturn, the restrictive ringed planet of difficult lessons, has been in Aquarius, the humanitarian sign of the people, since March of 2020. They will be moving into Pisces on March the 8th of this year. Also, Pluto’s destructive power still lingers over the final critical degrees of Capricorn. They will continue to dismantle hierarchical systems of oppression for the remainder of their stay, with the final clearing happening in November of 2024. There is so much more that will be revealed to us over the coming years, and so many more ideological confines to be dissolved.
Pluto currently at 27° Capricorn, and Saturn currently at 23° Aquarius
After my deluge, I mapped out the Astrology for the full year ahead on my whiteboard, like a mad scientist enslaved to the staccato rhythm of my internal Gemini dancefloor. Once I’d finished 2023, I thought what the heck? Let’s go further and soon, the rough sketch of 2024, 2025 and 2026 emerged. What I’m coming to learn in my study is that we, as a human species, are standing on the precipice of a bold new way of being. Not only is it happening in our lifetime, it is about to begin right now.
Change is inevitable, and hope is surely on the horizon.
Every single one of the outer planets will be changing signs like dominoes over the next 3 years, rewriting the possibilities of our outer limits. We are existing through the disintegration of an old era. It’s exhilarating, and it’s okay to be scared. You have my word that I will devote the next years of my life refining my teaching style so that I can share with you what I know in a way that everyone can understand, no matter your fluency in Astrology. I can't tell you how empowering it is to find the patterns in the sky, and believe in their magic.
Hope is on the way
