Turning of the Season
Astrology for the Solstice, Christmas and New Year
I had intended to write horoscopes for you, but to be honest the astrology over the next week or two isn’t wonderful. It’s going to be crunchy for most of us.
Here are some of my insights that I hope will help you move through it with grace.
Pisces themes have been activated lately with aspects from the Sun square to Neptune and Jupiter square to Saturn. The vibes are spooky and strange to say the least. Most of it is in the realms of the imagination and fantasy, but that’s not to say it isn’t real. Reality becomes more subjective by the minute and yours is just as valid as any one else’s. Even now after the Sun has moved into hard-ass Capricorn. Just saying.
The solstices are profoundly sacred moments of the astrological year, and are marked by the Sun’s ingress into Capricorn or Cancer. As the seasons turn we reach a point of stillness before the Sun turns and moves forward again.
The solstice offers a chance to review your intentions for the coming cycle. to be fully present in the here and now. What can you release? How can you refine or simplify your purpose?
If you can take a minute to pause and breathe deeply it will calm and reset your nervous systems. Take a minute to ground yourself, mind and body and it will help to smooth the path ahead.
The Sun is square to the nodes (the dread bendings), and the Moon is conjunct the south node in Libra; a waning square to the Sun. I have often seen this show up in awkward and uncomfortable situations.
An attempt to bring harmony brings only irritation or annoyance. In general the days around the solstice could feel chaotic and discordant.
For you this might mean the imperatives of releasing or culmination, or an opportunity for karmic resolution.
The Moon dislikes being near the nodes. The node being the eclipsing place. Our efforts can turn out to be incomplete or defective, the opposite of what we intend. The ancients described this conjunction as portentous of wanderings and disturbances. A bit all over the place.
Following through to Christmas and into new year there are a bunch of hard aspects knotted up. The lingering Jupiter-Saturn square perfects again on Christmas Day. I wrote a very long post about it here.
I did not love this aspect last time it happened. It’s a tough one for all you mutable folk who love the fluidity of change and being in the flow state. It’s an uncomfortable stuck place for most of us. With squares there’s nothing to do but surrender to it. Forcing things only makes them more stuck. And us more grumpy.
A day or two later Mercury opposes Jupiter again and then squares Saturn, giving voice to some of the turmoil around this situation. As a triggering planet in a T-square, Mercury could have us speak up about something we have been holding on to, or potentially reveal some unwelcome news or truth we haven’t been able to see clearly.
It might feel liberating to release some of this old baggage. Can you find a way to say what you need to say without being judgy or blaming?
Venus squares Uranus in fixed signs which is exciting and exhilarating for some people and just a bit on the nose for those who prefer our relationships to be more stable and predictable. It’s a fizzy, reckless ride for the young at heart though.
And this is happening just as Mars pulls into another opposition to Pluto, perfecting on new year’s day. It’s a very tense moment. If you are wondering how this will play out for you personally look at the Mars retrograde cycle since it started. What are you putting all your efforts into? You can read up on it here.
This happens the day after the new Moon in Capricorn on 31 December. What a dramatic start to the new year.
Despite the more modern ideas about Capricorn it’s one of my favourite signs (I have a stellium here), and it has a lot to offer in terms of burrowing down into our earthy and innate wisdom.
Capricorn season belongs to Pan (and all the other ancient versions of satyrs and nature gods) the ageless spirit in all of nature.
Pan (meaning all) is the goat-footed god of wild places adored by Pagans in pre-christian times. Pagan was the name christians used to refer to the country folk, the hard-working, practical people of the land who relied on the seasonal shifts and cycles of the natural world for their livelihoods.
He led young lovers to fragrant, shady bowers and tended the flocks in their absence. In the blaze of noon he brought to rest some weary travellers, and madness to others. Hermits felt his whiplash [panic] fall from smiling skies. By the waters of dusk, while Echo guarded the hills round about, he played his pipes for dancing dryads.
Pan proves companionable upon the starlit ridges of nothingness.
~Alexander Eliot.
Wishing you the very best ~ Anna Marie
