Most of us use the civil calendar on which tomorrow is the final day of 2014 and the eve of 2015. Because that calendar does not turn over in strict synchrony with the renewal of any particular celestial cycle, the astrology of every civil new year’s eve is by definition different from any other.
This year, the astrology for the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 features implications of both blatant and subtle events combining to guide your life, providing you can both heed the subtle and handle the blatant in proportion.
Yesterday, Amanda held forth on a developing aspect that is anything but subtle. Mars moving forward through Aquarius to oppose Jupiter’s retreat in Leo on the first day of 2015 is in fact functional now.
That’s because Mars has a tendency to jump the gun on aspects in which it is involved. Hence, be aware. Look for indications of any strident energetics popping up, because such phenomena would probably correspond to Mars.
Once you have discovered manifestations of Mars, keep an eye on them. Look for Martian expressions to ramp up and build until after Thursday, but don’t let Mars take over your life if you can help it.
By the same token, where you find what appear to be polarizations of potential in your life, you will more than likely have found an expression of the opposition. Even though Mars and Jupiter are not the only objects opposing in the sky and on the zodiac right now, they do likely represent what is most obvious.
It would then be both reasonable and unsurprising to find Jupiter where either abundance or excess are — most likely in a complementary orientation to desire.
Once you have identified Mars, Jupiter, and the indications of opposition in your life, locate yourself in relation to all three. For example, if increasing stimulation makes lack of gratification an issue, you might be living predominantly through Mars. In such a case, your task would entail deciding where to put your energy so as to yield productive (rather than destructive) results.
After getting some clarity on where you are in relation to manifestations (or even personifications) of Mars and Jupiter, and their applying opposition, the idea is leave room in your life for more.
That’s because the developing opposition from Mars to Jupiter is, if nothing else, representative of all that is obtrusive. So, as one civil year transitions to the next, address the loudest and most blatant issues as you must without letting them take over as the sole focus of your reality.
Remember that even as you find it necessary to put out proverbial (and even literal) fires, there are subtleties to be aware of on less immediately pressing (but nonetheless important) levels.
For example, Mercury is chasing Venus through Capricorn even as Mars and Jupiter are moving towards opposing each other. However, Mercury and Venus are going in the same direction, in contrast to the rapid closure toward climax Mars and Jupiter are now engaged in.
Additionally, the Capricorn Sun is literally just a few days away from a precise engagement with the continuously functional square from Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn that defines our era. No small deal that, but not particularly flashy either.
Finally, now that Saturn is solidly in Sagittarius for a while, it is consequently well within range of an historic and rare separation of 90 degrees from Neptune in Pisces (a square aspect between mutable signs).
Yet, neither Mercury nor Venus (even when racing each other through the same sign) ever get in your face the way Mars and Jupiter on a symbolic collision course do.
By the same token, even as monumental and lasting as aspects of Saturn to Neptune frequently are, levels of expression at any given moment are more likely to be sublime than obvious.
So if there is something to make of the astrology of New Year’s Eve 2014, it would be to make sure you see it all. Address what clamors for your attention only to the extent that you must. But as you do, sustain an understanding that much of what now appears urgent will in fact also pass more quickly than you might think.
Besides, even while Mars and Jupiter are at their most insistent, other things of import (albeit less dramatic) will also be going on. These other things deserve your attention as well, and you deserve the chance to take them in. Only you, however, can provide that chance.
You will know the chance when you see it because it will not express as something either hot or big. Instead, listen for the breath of a sleeping child, feel the wind’s direction, sniff for a changing tide, and look for what would never have presented itself to you just a few years back. In these subtle things, as much or more as in the blatant urgencies, a new year is offering itself up for your taking. Take your time. Take it all.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
Len:
Thinking about our friends John and Julene at this moment. They must be experiencing breathtaking moments in their travels throughout Istanbul this holiday.
Fe: Thank you. Yes, may they be safe, even though possibly short of breath.
Hey Len, I was responding to your offering today when my poor sick computer knocked me off line. Guess I was blabbing too much so I’ll skip the personal observations about this Jupiter-Mars opposition and get to the interesting thing I wanted to note. When Mars and Jupiter started this cycle they are now half-way through they were in a grand trine with Saturn and Neptune. That’s a WOW thing (for me) and I would never have noticed it without your leading me to it.
It was back on July 22, 2013, and they were at 5+ Cancer (conjunct the U.S. Sibly Jupiter) and Mars had made his exact trines to Neptune and Saturn on the 20th, which were about 2 hours apart. Not only that but their conjunction was followed 11 hours later by a full moon at 0+ Aquarius. You know, where the 2020 Jupiter-Saturn conjunction will take place? Where January 2015’s New Moon will take place?
This is pretty important then, this opposition between Jupiter and Mars just as Saturn gets ready to square Neptune and a new moon in the same degree as that full moon was when their cycle began in July 2013. Must think about that for a while. Whew!
Also would like to note that the racing Mercury and Venus will be in the 11+ degree of Aquarius on January 12th, not conjunct, but both on that potent degree that shows up in all 3 outer planet ingress charts. Mars will ingress Neptune that day too. Might be subtle, might not, but we should be aware that outer planet energy will be in the wind.
Hope to see you on New Year’s day, figuratively speaking of course!
be
Mars will ingress Pisces, not Neptune. Haste makes waste./be
As much as I wish I could make sense of all this information, my newbie brain is exploding while realizing there is so much opportunity for me with this astrology. As a truly fiery Aries born with Mars in Taurus opposite Jupiter in Scorpio (which also houses my moon), is there a way for me to work with this astrology to resolve some of the tense oppositions in my life? I’m also a Gemini rising so I feel polarities everywhere and find I need a new way of being with them.
Barbara: i’m so very sorry about your computer. Thank you for being so persistent as to send us a wonderful comment (although i do wish we could have also read the ill-fated original because your wise personal observations are always gratefully received.). Thank you especially for mentioning the grand water trine of which both Mars and Jupiter were (for a short period of time) a conjoined part – that’s petty amazing and (thanks to your broad vision over time) adds considerable importance to this moment of opposition. Finally, thanks for another useful correlation to add to the considerable credits being accumulated by 11+ Aquarius.
Elizabeth: Thank you for commenting on behalf of all the “newbies” reading out there. Please allow me to serve in clarification. The zodiac is a circle. Objects on opposite sides of the zodiac circle (180 degrees apart) are defined as being in opposition. Clear so far?
The definition also applies to objects in the sky. One example you can see with your own eyes is the prototype for all oppositions – a Full Moon. On the night of a Full Moon the Moon is rising in the East just as the Sun is setting in the West – opposite sides of the sky. Still clear?
Because the Full Moon is the template by which all other oppositions are interpreted, experiment. Find out how you feel at the time of a Full Moon (especially seeing it), then compare what you feel when planets oppose (keeping in mind that as the two opposing objects change, the feeling must necessarily change somewhat as the constituents in opposition change, but with what should be something also in common). Clear still?
To use astrological oppositions to deal with oppositions in your life, consider:
(1) Opposing signs have the most in common. Remember how Eric repeatedly quotes another astrologer who said that when you scratch a Pisces, you will often find a Virgo below the surface.
(2) An opposition of any two objects is the halfay point in their mutual cycle from one conjunction to the next.
(3) Halfway points have their own relief (“halfway there!”) and their own tension (“only halfway?”) in your own everyday experience depending on your point of view.
(4) If oppositions in your life are primarily a source of tension rather than relief, first consider your point of view.
(5) Then consider how tensions between polarities can be relieved. You can fight, but history has shown that is wasteful. You can be cooperative and creative, and history has shown that to be productive. You can negotiate back and forth between the polarities, history call that shuttle diplomacy which is often ephemeral in its results. Or you can hold the tension, history calls that a bridge which often requires a lot of maintenance.
Please, Elizabeth, does that help? Please respond to let me know if my service has not been satisfactory.
re: Jupiter conjunct Mars on 7/22/2013
A few hours after that conjunction took place, Pallas at 0+ Cancer would sextile Venus at 0+ Virgo and they would form a yod with the 0+ Aquarius Full Moon. A decidedly feminine yet not passive energy (Pallas in a cardinal sign on the Aries Point?) combined with practical values (Venus in Virgo) were influencing that 0+ Aquarius Full Moon. There was also a second grand trine (water) between Mercury (think and communicate) at 13+ Cancer trine Chiron (learn and heal) at 13+ Pisces, trine North Node (path forward) 13+ Scorpio.
Both grand trines on 7/22/13’s Full Moon at 0+ Aquarius have something else in common with the New Moon at 0+ Aquarius on 1/20/15:
Neptune, part of the 1st grand trine, will have only moved 1 degree from it’s July 2013 FM position by January 2015’s NM – from 4+ Pisces to 5+ Pisces and . . .
Chiron, part of the 2nd grand trine in July 2013’s FM, will have only moved 1 degree by January 2015’s NM, from 13+ Pisces to 14+ Pisces.
Each of these transiting planets in Pisces have been holding a trine with (1) the U.S. Sibly Sun (trined by transiting Chiron) and (2) the U.S. Sibly Jupiter (trined by transiting Neptune) for a year and 1/2, which seems to me to have provided a cushion for the devastating effects of the transiting Uranus-square-Pluto transits to the U.S. Sibly Sun-square-Sibly Saturn. (Not to mention the cardinal cross period and Nessus conjunct the U.S. Sibly Moon for most of that time!)
These are subtle things that have had an ongoing influence on this country, and I for one believe that Neptune has provided the U.S. people and it’s governing bodies a kind of escape or perhaps we could call it a loosening (unraveling) of order so as to let these transforming energies (trans. Uranus square trans. Pluto) do their work with less resistance. What appears to be sheer madness going on in Washington DC just might prove to be a blessing in disguise.
Same as with transiting Chiron who provides healing; he hasn’t strayed far from his trine with the U.S. Sun all through this 1st half of the Jupiter-Mars cycle. It’s just so alchemically timed to produce transformation with the least amount of instability to the process, that it makes me believe the U.S. isn’t meant to be destroyed like Rome was. It seems to me that we in this country have been blessed, despite our ignorance of the process, so as to become more consciously aware of the role we will be expected to play in humanity’s survival and evolution.
Take this 0+ Aquarius business. In 2013 it was a full moon degree and next month it will be a new moon degree, and in 6 years time it will be the degree of the introduction to new cycle of cultural/societal growth/change and it will have a new element of operation – air.
We’ve long been in a cycle of earth energies influencing these Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions, each of which operates for 20 years. It’s been all about the material sense of growth but now. . . now we will be growing from ideas and communicating them in new ways. Perhaps this 0+ Aquarius New Moon will shed light on what is coming down the road once we get through these difficult transitions we must endure. President Obama has his natal Jupiter at 0+ Aquarius, as does Elizabeth Warren. Hmmm. . . .
I think it’s the breath of a sleeping child Len. Who would have thunk it!
be
g’morning Len…still consider myself a ‘newbie’ to comments…that explanation of opposition is really helpful…Jupiter is conjunct my natal Pluto just now but the ‘opposition of my life’ is natal Jupiter @ 29 Pisces opp. Saturn@ 26 Leo…my other natal opp. is Uranus/Chiron in Cancer/Cap….
wishing you a joyful and productive New Year with thanks for your presence on Planet Waves…
Len: As far as “newbies” go, this is the first time I’ve ever posted a comment on Planet Waves although it’s not the first time in the many years I’ve been reading your weekly posts that your grace, serenity and compassion have touched me and brightened my day, not to mention all the astrological guidance I’ve received. In the spirit and wonder of the current Mars (action) Jupiter (expansion) face-off, please accept my heart-felt thanks and wishes for a joyous new year! Estrellita
Len, I know that your clarification post was in response to Elizabeth’s comment, but I just wanted to let you know that I appreciated the additional information and found your explanation easy to understand. Thank you!
I agree with you Victoria 🙂 So much that is written i dont understand but i just smile reading through all the posts — it sure is a great place to find onself, this PlanetWaves 🙂
Thank you Len and everyone else….. Bonne et Heureuse Année !!
Everything feels subtle to me right now, and has since around the time Neptune went direct in November. Maybe I mean to say that I feel like I’m inside the subtlety instead of outside of it, but still only sometimes aware of it’s contents.
Len, your response to Elizabeth re: working with oppositions was quite helpful to those who aren’t newbies to astrology too. I’m appreciative of the #5 point especially; holding the tension, negotiating. . . .
This upcoming new moon at 0+ Aquarius will provide an opposition for the USA, if not the whole world, as the opposing nodes of the Moon will make significant aspects to the U.S. Sun and Saturn. At that time, January 20, 2015, transiting Uranus (12+ Aries) will conjunct the south node (12+ Aries) while the north node (12+ Libra) will conjunct the U.S. Sibly chart Saturn (14+ Libra).
The U.S. Sun at 13+ Cancer opposite the transiting Pluto at 13+ Capricorn on 1/20/15 form a cardinal grand cross when combined with the New Moon nodes and the U.S. Saturn. Without the nodes presence, there would still be the contentious grand cross, but the remarkably synchronous timing of the nodes movement makes it an auspicious point in modern history. This is because the transiting, opposing nodes not only provide choices for the U.S., they place the U.S. Sun in Cancer in the north bending between the nodes.
That north bending position attracts incoming signals and directives from Universal sources that provide opportunity to move forward in growth. While the south node itself suggests a release or movement away from old patterns, it’s conjunction with transiting Uranus urges impulsiveness, self centered (Aries) action in an effort to be free of something (Uranus), while the north node suggests opportunity for growth in partnership (Libra) and as it conjuncts the U.S. Saturn, advises a thoughtful, measured approach leaning toward diplomacy (Libra) for the U.S.
It appears that the U.S. will have a choice to make during the time the new moon at 0+ Aquarius is operational (until the next new moon); between responding with the same old, same old impulsive, and likely aggressive, mode or with a steady considered response resulting from a consensus. As fear will be driving the decision (transiting Pluto opposite natal Sun) a strong and vociferous demand for aggressive response from the U.S. will be clearly heard (tr. south node conjunct tr. Uranus)
As I said before, President Obama has natal Jupiter in the same degree as this new moon in January and as well, the new moon chart – when set in Washington DC – has its ascendant, Mercury and Venus surrounding the President’s natal ascendant in Aquarius. He will be in touch with the problem and its consequences. With the new moon’s Vesta at 25+ Capricorn conjunct the President’s natal Saturn, if it his decision to make (between NN or SN choices), he will first and foremost take a protective (Vesta + Saturn) stance, but likely, his response won’t be radical (Uranus) or impulsive (Aries) or typical (south node) for the U.S.
It should reveal a hint of the future roles the United States will be taking, this New Moon in Aquarius, and because the President’s Sun at 12+ Leo is trine the south node (+ tr. Uranus) and sextile the north node (+ U.S. Saturn) it won’t be easy for him. We must keep him in our prayers.
be
I agree, Len your instruction on oppositions is very useful. Transiting Saturn has just taken position in natal chart squaring natal opposition of Pluto and Sun, something of the balance point of a teeter-totter that may be useful on the path of cooperative and creative. January’s New Moon will be upon natal Venus at 0AQ, Be. I’m looking forward to some substantial Venusian energy being triggered maybe augmenting the creative balance of power and transformation otherwise happening.
Blessings for the New Year to All!
I don’t know where the tension I’m feeling right now is best described in the spinning and twirling of celestial objects. I’m awake because my body is grappling with a virus, but that’s not what’s getting to me. What’s getting to me is an interaction I had today with a homeless man who’s been hitchhiking recently. He approached me inside a Target store for whatever compassion and aid I might have been able to offer. I was waiting for a taxi.
And it’s not that I did not offer compassion and aid. I offered food and drink, which he declined, and my ears and my heart after I offered him a measly three bucks of blessing to help him get something that might have eased his suffering in a tiny way, even if it was only more booze.
The collective Booze Festival was underway, after all. Who the hell am I to condemn one alcoholic over another? Look merrily on society’s favorite legal drug and those who use it. All of them. Housed and un-housed.
The man was in pain and had recently been sleeping out in the freezing cold, so I tried to tell him where he could find a warm bed, some more meals, and support services. And it turns out? I GAVE HIM DIRECTIONS TO A SHELTER WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS.
My talk, bigger than my walk, sent a man who identified me as a possible source of compassion into the freezing cold night to walk to a shelter that no longer exists due to the lack of needful funding. He might be freezing to death right now, joined to the earth in the last sleep he will know. I have no way of knowing.
A part of me I needed to be engaged and listening blocked itself off and I was not present enough to open it, and now? Now is too late. Now he might be dead. Homeless people die all the time from exposure, especially this time of year.
Maybe events conspired to keep me delayed long enough to be present with this man’s suffering. Maybe not. Maybe it was just a part of the web being weaved and I assign it meaning. Whatever the case, I am listening to snow plows going by and asking myself how I could have opened that shut-down part up to handle the interaction differently.
I’m asking myself how I respond differently next time. There are so many next times for this kind of interaction. So many homeless people. My face and voice and whatever I vibrate seem to be a beacon for people in pain.
And I’m asking myself why I live in a society that turns away from those wandering in the streets and roads of Plenty For All If Only We Knew How To Share. Capitalism throws people away every day. And justifies it.
And oddly enough, I’m also reading The Grapes of Wrath for the first time and wondering at how the perfection of capitalism has maimed us: the homeless, certainly, but those who let homelessness persist, perhaps the most of all.
Don’t we all give our consent for people to be shunned, discarded and left to fend for themselves? Isn’t this a problem that deserves more than a little focused attention and collective action?
That’s the tension I’m holding, Len. It will spur me to more action, but in the meantime? It hurts. And that man was in infinite pain; I felt it and didn’t let it in where it needed to go for me to respond appropriately.
Thanks for letting me sound off about it. I felt like you wouldn’t mind if I decompressed a little here.
Touching story Jaimie, it brings to mind events in my life where I wondered afterward whether I did the right thing. The impact this event has had on you could be what it is for and certainly you aren’t running from your feelings. I’d say your inner guidance system is awake. That is a beautiful result, in itself. Trust the universe to care for its own – which you are one also. No guilt – we all just feel our way along. Send blessings and comfort to the man you met and thank the all-that-is for its guidance.
Thanks for the story – I’m feeling blessed by it.
I really understand how you’re feeling, Jaimie – and have been intensely aware of this suffering with the freezing weather that has hit the part of the world where I live. I did some voluntary work last summer, and would like to continue this year. It made me feel less hopeless and helpless , and I’m sure it will be the same for you. I’m also sure that your care and warmth was a great comfort to that man you helped – and possibly gve him the strength an energy he needed that night, in order to carry on.
Thanks, Lizzy, for the words. I appreciate your experience and empathy here. Unlearning hopelessness and helplessness through acting where we can. That’s the stuff!
Cowboy, I appreciate your words, too. I could tussle with some of what you’re expressing because my understanding or lack of understanding about theological and phenomenological matters is not solid enough for me to trust any universe to care for its own.
If I may, Cowboy, I’d like to suggest it is our job to care for our own, us homo sapiens sapiens, humans not so smart-smart, just semi-evolved primates with elaborate systems of preying upon one another.
And “our own” is everywhere and waiting to be cared for. “Our own” is human and non-.
You see, I’ve been homeless. More than once. I never went to a shelter, although when I was at my hungriest and most destitute, I probably should have. I never slept skin to skin with frozen earth. But I do know what it means to be shunned and treated like human trash and live with the taste of despair and shame and the pain of hunger and sleeplessness for days on end while seeking a gentler way for feet to meet pavement and earth.
I’m glad my story stirred something within you, though, and I thank you for reaching out to touch me with the strokes you created of shadow on backlit bright.
Jaimie I did not mean to minimize the plight of homelessness or compel anyone toward my belief system. The way I see the world is reflected in my expression. I simply wanted to suggest that you were doing exactly what the situation compelled you to do – which (in my opinion) was the perfect course of action.
I think we are all part of the whole and that whole expresses itself through these fractured individual parts. From the fractured perspective we have trouble seeing the whole picture, therefor pain and suffering exist. This is not to minimize it but to conceive of a bigger purpose playing out – one which we are challenged to comprehend as separate parts. The whole is simply us as the collective. Every single part great or small, beautiful or ugly, powerfully wealthy or dirt poor, is important and part of the universal expression. There is the appearance of separation but it is illusory. That doesn’t mean it is not really happening but just that we are all experiencing for the whole and the whole is the truth.
You don’t have to agree but I wanted to suggest that you had experienced something that was impacting you profoundly – and for that the homeless man played his part. Now maybe it spurs you to start a homeless shelter or some other form of service to humanity…….By writing what you did here maybe that spurs someone else to do something they have been putting off doing….
When I realize that everything acts together in unison I find my mistakes easier to accept. I have also found that some of my greatest failing have turned out to be the perfect step leading to some of the greatest outcomes of my life.
I have a friend who has a heart for homeless and abused dogs and puts all of her energy into rescuing as many as she can. She raises money for her cause and gets frustrated that others don’t see the gravity of the need, as she does. She is an advocate for homeless dogs. She also goes through periods where she realizes how pitiful her efforts are since there are some many hungry cold hurting dogs still wondering our world.
First she cannot save the world of dogs but she can help her little corner of it and she must find happiness in that. Second if everyone already served dogs the way she does than there would be no need for her to serve. She would find another cause. There must be needs for us to exercise our humanity. We are all in this together. I appreciate the roles we play.
It was helpful for me Len, your answer to Elizabeth, thank you for taking the time to explain things, I personally very much appreciate this and I would guess others value this also. Being a few days past the posting of this article, I get what you write, it has been that way, the astrology has worked indeed as you say. It is a relief in fact that what seemed urgent is now calming down a bit. Thanks again.
Thank you Len, for the explanation of the levels of oppositions. I very much appreciate that you can temove some of the complexity wi
Oy, my apologies. I meant, remove the complexity enough for me to begin using the tools. Thanks for a great new year’s gift.