A January of Hope, Reassessment, and Delayed New Beginnings

This is an interesting month of January, and start to the new 2023 year, in part due to the ongoing retrogrades of personal planets Mars in Gemini and Mercury in Capricorn, which give a thoughtful and introspective quality to the proceedings. Mercury stations to direct motion on January 18th and then recovers its lost zodiacal ground over the following two and a half weeks. There is also the recent Capricorn Solstice of December 21st and subsequent New Moon two days later, on the 23rd, just before the Christmas holiday weekend. Both of these significant configurations were harbingers of the months and the thirty-day lunation cycle to follow, and both featured the Sun, and on the 23rd the Sun and Moon, in close square alignment with Jupiter – newly entered into Aries. This presents an optimistic viewpoint on this month and year, with plenty of go power and a strong appetite for new initiatives because Aries is involved. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, bold new beginnings may have to wait until February for their full flowering because Mercury remains squirrelly all through January, finally escaping its “retrograde shadow” period only on February 7th. The January month is therefore an introspective and self-reflective time period, and we will want to be very sure before we take any new action, perhaps waiting until February to do so.

Mars also changes to direct motion early in the month, on January 12th, and yet will remain in Gemini until March. The Capricorn stellium that was featured in the Christmas New Moon that signaled the beginning of the year implies as its theme social status and the perfection of the society itself. There were no less than five planets in Capricorn including Mercury, now in retrograde, and Venus, which will move into Aquarius on the evening of January 2nd, so that we will likely during this Capricorn cycle be attempting to understand the nature of the society and our place within it. This as we meditate on what there was, and is, and what there might yet be.

The New Moon of the 21st in Aquarius brings energy to this Air sign, and breaks the Capricorn spell somewhat, although Mercury is still making up its lost zodiacal ground until after the end of the month. Jupiter remains prominent in Aries, along with visionary Neptune, in his own sign of Pisces, so that there is positivity and fertile imagination, as well as the questioning and introspection of the personal planets recovering from their retrograde status. Eris in Aries is sextiled by Venus and Saturn in conjunction, with Neptune at the midpoint of this sextile. This implies taking ultimate action upon the visionary impulse of this New Moon.

New planets beyond Pluto are emphasized all through January, with Haumea, newly entered into Scorpio, stimulated by the Capricorn New Moon from December, and as well the Aquarius New Moon of the 21st, which squares it. Makemake at 9 degrees of Libra is aspected on the 12th and the 18th by the station direct of first Mars and then Mercury, each at the 8 degree mark of their respective signs of Gemini and Capricorn, trining and squaring Makemake. These planets represent taking a look below the normative surface areas of life towards a profound connection with Nature herself, and with principles of natural law, right action and right relationship.

The mystical nature of this initial month of the New Year becomes summed up in its closing days, from January 28th to the 30th, by an extremely interesting partile (or same-degree) grand trine in Air between Mars in Gemini, the Sun in Aquarius, and Makemake in Libra. Simultaneously Mercury trines intuitive Uranus in Taurus. This might be the occasion for taking an in-depth look at our values and our internal moral compass, and assessing how well these might be able to align with our actions as this visionary, exciting, and hopeful 2023 year enters its second month.

A January of Hope, Reassessment, and Delayed New Beginnings

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