We come into January and the New Year of 2024 on the 1st with an affirmation of ‘out with the old, in with the new’ and high hopes for this year just beginning.
Although we consider the 1st of January to begin a New Year, astrologically we recognize a new year to begin with the Vernal Equinox in March when the Sun enters Aries to start its new yearly transit of the Zodiac wheel and initiate the spring season, while in China the new year is considered to begin usually on the second New Moon after the winter solstice.
The 1st of January for many of us is celebrated with great hope, even expectation. This January 1st begins with a Grand Trine in the Earth Element. January can be a highly productive month, a month when we can accomplish a great deal with much of our focus on working towards attaining our goals and ambitions.
The strong Earth presence this month may have us taking a no-nonsense attitude to our involvements.
The 1st also has Venus square Saturn and Mercury ending its three-week retrograde cycle to turn direct. Although we are interested in our relationships, we may have grown weary of those people who concentrate merely on the negative, everything that is wrong in their world and their negative appraisals of the happenings in the world-at-large. We might decide to jettison certain people from our life. Tired of the drama and exhausted from their unwillingness to deal with conditions as they are, we may determine our time to be better used in pursuit of our interests and accomplishments.
It’s a new year, a new day, and we’re committed to resolving to make this year the best that we can make it.
The end of the three-week Mercury retrograde is certainly a blessing as we end Murphy’s Law of ‘whatever can go wrong could go wrong’.
For myself, this Mercury retrograde was truly vexing. With Mercury associated with travel, I had several incidents of travel issues.
During the Mercury retrograde, my car battery died, and it took four different AAA technicians and four different times for AAA to come out and jump start my car until finally they replaced the battery that was still under warranty.
To add to my personal experience of this Mercury retrograde, my wife and I planned to travel to Phoenix to celebrate her Solar Return and her birthday. In calculating the ‘best’ locale for her Solar Return, I had determined Phoenix to be the appropriate choice. Now, I’m not a fan of traveling during Mercury retrograde or during major holidays, but her birthday falls on the 21st, and to align with the stars, we had no choice but to fly out on the 20th. Our flight was scheduled to leave Palm Beach in the early afternoon for a connecting flight through Dallas to arrive in Phoenix. Early on the morning of the 20th, I received an email indicating that our flight to Dallas would be delayed, which would mean our missing our connecting flight. Upon reading the email, I immediately contacted the airline which was able to reroute us by sending us north to D.C. and then out to Phoenix. The importance of contingency plans whenever Mercury is retrograde was not lost on me, as I was able to confirm alternate flights to get us to where we planned to go.
Since retrogrades talk about going back over situations that may not have been previously resolved, a most curious incident occurred with our travels to Phoenix. Four years ago, based upon my wife’s Solar Return, we had traveled to Phoenix at that time as well. In our departure from Phoenix four years ago, I lost my wedding ring. We searched for the ring, retraced my steps, but had no luck. My wedding ring was gone. Upon our return to Florida, I bought a new wedding ring. On this past trip, I brought with me a travel jacket that has a gazillion pockets [well, not really a gazillion but a great number] to carry items and hide items. Putting my hand in one of the pockets, I found my ‘lost’ wedding ring.
Mercury retrograde!
The 4th of January has Mars exiting Sagittarius to enter Capricorn [9:58 AM EST]. Mars is exalted in Capricorn and gives greater physical energy and stamina to accomplishing goals and persevering to achieve successful results. With Mars entering Capricorn we now have a Stellium in the Cardinal Earth Sign as Mars joins the Sun and Pluto in Capricorn. The thrust of energy that we might feel can have us virtually moving mountains.
Working smarter rather than harder could be the theme on the 9th of January. The Sun trines Uranus and Mars sextiles Saturn. We may decide to make alterations to our plans and to our trajectory. Utilizing technology and new techniques can help us streamline operations and have us being more effective with less expenditure of energy. We might be determined to use a best practices approach to realize our goals.
With the Sun Moon conjunction, the Capricorn New Moon on the 11th [6:57 AM EST] is in orb of a trine to Uranus. By orb, Mars trines Jupiter, exact on the 12th. Influencing the next two weeks up to the Full Moon on the 25th, this New Moon suggests creating solid foundations for our future and for our goals, all the while recognizing the realities of this paradigm shift where things can change dramatically and suddenly.
For the times, they are a-changin’
During this two-week period between the Capricorn New Moon and the Leo Full Moon, it is interesting to note that on the 20th both the Sun and Pluto enter Aquarius.
For the times, they are a-changin’
By combining both a desire to put down solid foundation stones for our year ahead, all the while being flexible and adaptable to changing circumstance, we can advance our interests, develop greater autonomy in our actions, and progress forward successfully often with evidence of serendipity and synchronicity in play.
The Mars trine Jupiter on the 12th gives greater force to our expanding our involvements. We are looking to create some level of stability and security in a most insecure world. But we have the determination and persistence to forge ahead no matter the situations occurring in the world-at-large. By concentrating on the micro of our personal world, we are less likely impacted by any dysfunctionalities in the macro environment.
The 13th of January has Mercury re-entering Capricorn [9:49 PM EST] and giving greater emphasis to the Capricorn Stellium as Mercury joins the Sun, Mars, and Pluto in the Cardinal Earth Sign. We can be more focused, more accepting of a practical approach to realizing our ambitions. We are still in the ‘shadow’ of the Mercury retrograde, so we still need to be cautious in our thinking and in our decisions. We come out of the Mercury retrograde ‘shadow’ on the 21st of January when Mercury reaches the degree at which it had turned retrograde in December.
The Sun sextile Neptune on the 15th of January might help us appreciate our personal destiny, the reality that each of us has our own individual journey through this life experience. Although present society seems to negate individuality under the guise of equity [fairness], often interpreted as same outcomes and with people walking lock step in rhythm and rhyme to consensus opinion, each of us is totally different, similar to no two snowflakes being the same.
By taking the time to reflect on what we are doing and why we are doing rather than being caught in the frenzy of our multi-activity lifestyle, we can come to a better understanding of our life purpose and the circle of life.
The 18th of January has Mercury sextile Saturn. Attention to detail may be matched by our ability of finding the right placement for all our involvements. We could be meticulous in the organization of our affairs. Due diligence can be sharp with our blending an intuitive sense of ‘knowing’ with our critical analysis of any situation. This would be a good time for us to budget our resources, balance our books between our inputs and our expenditures. Such an exercise would seem an important measure to forestall the liable excess we could engage on the 19th.
From Mercury sextile Saturn on the 18th, we encounter Mercury trine Jupiter on the 19th along with Venus square Neptune. An upbeat attitude to the point of overconfidence might have us spending more and going overboard to assuage our appetite. What we see might not be what we get, and it would be wise for us to rein in our enthusiasm and our first impulse regarding any matter. Grandstanding and being too self-absorbed can prove costly and might diminish new prospects and new possibilities as we cross the threshold into a brand new world.
The 20th of January has us entering a revolutionary time, both in our individual lives and in society. The Sun conjuncts Pluto both in Capricorn early in the day followed by the Sun exiting Capricorn to enter Aquarius [9:07 AM EST] and Pluto exiting Capricorn to enter Aquarius [7:50 PM EST].
This two-punch movement is highly significant, especially with the Pluto transit. Although Pluto will retrograde back into Capricorn in September through mid-November of this year, the Pluto transit of Aquarius that continues into 2043 could prove quite revolutionary with amazing technological advances [think A.I. and the use of light and frequency in medicine, transportation, and communication] and with the stirring of the people with various populist movements gaining influence.
When Pluto was last in Aquarius in the late eighteenth century, its transit coincided with the American Revolution and the French Revolution and saw the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
This past Spring from March 23rd into June 11th, Pluto dipped its toes into Aquarius. As it left Capricorn at that time, we saw the banking system rocked, as it was when Pluto first entered Capricorn back in 2008 when we experienced the liable global financial system implosion. This time, the banking system was rocked again as Silicon Valley Bank went under, Signature Bank was closed, Credit Suisse collapsed and was bought by UBS, and First Republic failed and was taken over by JP Morgan Chase. It will be interesting to see if there are further issues in the banking system early this year and in the autumn of this year when Pluto is in Capricorn and about to exit into Aquarius.
On the day that Pluto entered Aquarius in March the Technology officials were testifying before Congress. The censorship and regulations of the communications and technology industry will be under scrutiny with Pluto moving into Aquarius.
Another characteristic of the Pluto Aquarius transit has already been seen over the past couple of years. Thousands of people taking to the streets to protest the narrative promulgated by the powers-that-be. We have seen it in the western nations with people opposing vaccine mandates, in Israel with people opposing judicial ‘reforms’, in the United States with people opposing the presumed standard bearers of the two main political parties. We have witnessed it in elections where populist candidates have scored significant electoral impacts. The win of Geert Wilders in this past autumn’s Dutch elections and the victory in the Argentina presidential election of Javier Milei are two examples of the vox populi playing out in national elections.
Gil Scott-Heron, often referred to as the godfather of rap music, authored in 1970 his famous poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, in which he foreshadowed how the revolution would not be sponsored by the corporate interests dominating the media but rather “The revolution will be live.”
The 21st of January has Mercury coming out of its ‘shadow’ of the retrograde, as Mercury reaches the degree at which Mercury turned retrograde back on December 13th. Our thinking can be clearer and less shackled by the past or any sense of limitations.
On the 23rd of January, Venus exits Sagittarius and enters Capricorn [3:50 AM EST] triggering a Cardinal Earth Sign Stellium as Venus joins Mercury and Mars in Capricorn. In our relationships we may be looking to connect with people who can assist us in realizing our goals. We do need to be wary not to give into a sentiment of ‘what have you done for me lately?’, since our interactions might seem too focused on the what people can do rather than the who the person is. Superficial and expedient interactions may serve a purpose but lack substance, depth, and real meaning.
The Leo Full Moon on the 25th [12:54 PM EST] when the Aquarius Sun opposes the Leo Moon is liable to raise the question of ‘me or we’. We might find a push – pull between what we want and what would be best for the collective. We may be adamant in our wants and desires but negating the truth of this paradigm shift where things occur in the most inexplicable manner and not always in accord with our wants.
Any tendency towards assuming what we want we can have from an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement could boomerang back on us on the 27th of January as the Sun squares Jupiter and Uranus turns direct [2:35 AM EST]. We may be overly confident, highly optimistic, and might easily invest heavily in our future plans without drawing upon due diligence and seriously vetting the situation. Any liability of arrogance at this time could also encounter Uranus turning direct, making us aware that during these times of the paradigm shift plans are best made in pencil with a large eraser, since the disruptive, tumultuous times can have unexpected developments that lay waste to the best-laid plans. Humility is called for with an attitude of ‘expecting the unexpected’.
Even if we stubbed our toes around the 27th of January, the 28th allows us to ‘straighten up and fly right’. The 28th of January has the Virgo Moon triggering an Earth Grand Trine, Venus sextile Saturn, Venus trine Jupiter, and Mercury trine Uranus. Proper planning would allow us to draw upon solid foundations and then expand our operations. We may get some interesting insights, those ‘ah-ha’ moments when we can determine streamlined methods and may become aware of trajectories which were not previously evident. Let’s take the time to strategize on the 28th, all with an appreciation of engaging humility and being flexible to shift and adapt in accord with changing circumstance.
With well-considered plans in mind, we can move forward in new directions as Mars trines Uranus on the 29th. We continue with the Virgo Moon triggering an Earth Grand Trine. The 28th – 29th are two primo days for productivity and for advancing our ambitions. If there are technologies and equipment that would enhance and expedite our operations, now is a time for us to invest in them. Our resolve is indefatigable, and we might become aware of a best practices approach whereby we can achieve successful results in the most unanticipated ways.
January 2024… at the top of our game…
