Dear Friends,
New Moon is Saturday, January 9 at 6:30PM Mountain Standard Time (MST).
An excellent time to focus on RESET. If you have not already done so, this is also a good time to focus on your intentions for the year or revisit the ones you anchored over the New Year for refinements and changes. You may be surprised at how quickly some of them may manifest if you are really clear about what you want and it comes from essence and your heart.
Due to the influences right at this time, you may feel some energy around intention at a standstill. It is simply at a still point gathering power from love, beauty, essence connection, community, prayer, joy, gratitude and awe. You can always help it along by feeding it this positive fuel.
We are in the year of the Priest and Sage with the Monkey as one of our allies! Use them well beginning with this New Moon.
Blessings,
Lena
For more information about the influences of 2016 get TRENDS 2016.
For more support for this month get the January Mp3
ASTROLOGICAL NOTES:
Written by Patricia Liles. Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com
Capricorn New Moon
Sun and Moon in Capricorn 19º
Saturday, January 9, 6:30 PM Mountain Time
(Sunday, Jan. 10, 1:30 AM Greenwich Mean Time)
We start the calendar new year in Capricorn with some pointed challenges and some strong, underlying support and en(courage)ment. Challenges first?
Mercury, just four days into Aquarius, turned retrograde on Tuesday, Jan. 5th until January 25 (and won’t be back in Aquarius until Valentine’s Day, February 14). Retracing steps in Capricorn lends the opportunity to reassess our goals and priorities and clarify our focus. Have we cleared necessary time and space for inviting in the new energy we want front and center in our life? It’s a retrograde time to get mentally leaner and more focused on the next round. We’re in that underground seed germination period begun at Winter Solstice. Gather your mental resources and focus them on the vision of where you want to end up when you begin your ascendency in mid-February and beyond. It’s the perfect accompaniment to a Capricorn New Moon. Mental Germination.
Jupiter in Virgo also turned retrograde this past week on January 7 until May 9. Jupiter spends about a year in each sign, and after September, won’t be back in Virgo for 12 years, so now is a generous opportunity to really feel into Virgo’s joy of getting organized in the physical world, working on upgrading your health, disciplining the mind to be an ally by letting go of judgment and criticism, avoiding the drug of distraction that media has to offer, and developing your efficient, skillful self so we can actually manifest in the world. Virgo is always your ally in getting it done on the physical plane. Look inside to see what’s holding you back on a practical level. And let Jupiter broaden your knowledge and understanding and bring you discerning wisdom.
This past week as the Sun and Moon have moved through Capricorn toward meeting at New Moon (19º), they met and triggered Pluto in Capricorn at 15º and squared Uranus at 16º, thus producing a challenging week re-activating the tear-it-down/surrender-and-rebirth energy of this powerful Pluto/Uranus duo that will continue to spark inspired change and transformation for several years to come as the faster moving planets roll by and trigger events as Mercury is also doing now.
With the first New Moon cycle of the year, it’s underworld time as the Sun and Moon ride with Pluto in Capricorn. Perhaps there is some part of your psyche that has been hijacked like Persephone and taken to Pluto’s underworld realms. How willing are you to surrender up your defenses, fears and denials to stand up and take back your power? Queen of the Underworld is a powerful position. Fear just weakens and separates you from Source. Better view this New Moon cycle as opportunity rather than a choice. Pluto can hold your feet to the fire regardless of your avoidances. Coupled with retrograde Mercury, it’s a chance to clean out negative mental habits and mind talk laid down in the last century. (Did I mention there are four Mercury retrograde periods this year?)
Saturn is the ruler of the chart as it rules Capricorn, and it’s coupled closely with Venus here. Capricorn rules the bones, the foundation of the body, where our stability comes from. We store our most ancient patterns in our bones. Capricorn strives for perfection on this plane, and Saturn works to strengthen us with his tests and challenges. He’s the kung fu master of the zodiac, and this is his New Moon cycle of the year. Saturn likes to test your limits to make sure you learn the value of discipline, perseverance and responsibility yet remaining adaptable so as not to calcify, thus enabling you to hold more access to the higher frequency, collective, transpersonal planets – Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
Aligned with Venus, Saturn is uplifted, feels enthusiasm for an adventure – lessons and tests become more socially oriented. Venus in Sagittarius becomes more philosophical, idealistic, drawing on her strength and inner feminine intuition in Saturn’s presence giving her more backbone and clearer vision. Venus here encourages Saturn to invite in beauty, allow for the complexities of the poetic, and the diplomacy of appreciating diversity in points of view. Venus here soothes Saturn’s brittle narrowness with her warmth, light and passion for the new and stimulating. They’re well aspected to Uranus supporting change, inspiration, the unconventional, and the liberation of the feminine from past limitation.
With a Saturn-ruled chart, effort and hard work are rewarded. Ambition is high. You’re looking toward the long goal, eager to get started. Jupiter in Virgo is exactly aligned with the North Node for two months encouraging our taking practical steps to ride that edge of growth wherever we find it. We have plenty of support from the Sun and Moon in earth-sign Capricorn supporting Jupiter. In fact we have five earth-sign planets in this chart and no air signs. Get practical, take a step in the right direction, ask for help, let the wisdom of your senses guide you, invite in simplicity, set up your support systems, gather your resources, value order and structure – all manifestations of the earth element. With no air, we will have to consciously cultivate a broader perspective and optimistic response to anything Mercury retrograde throws our way. Change and adaptability with grace doesn’t come easily without the support of the air element.
It’s an interesting and complex start to the New Year. March and August/September are eclipse months.
The following are all in Mountain Standard Time, MST.
01/20 Sun enters Aquarius 8:27 AM MST
01/23 Leo Full Moon 3º 6:46 PM MST
01/25 Mercury direct 14º Capricorn until 4/28
02/08 Aquarius New Moon 19º 7:39 AM MST
Chinese New Year of the Monkey begins
Written by Patricia Liles. Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com