A Retrograde and Visionary February

The astrology of February features Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Mercury is of course implicated through its three-week retrograde that lasts to the end of the month, when you take the time passage represented by its 'retrograde shadow' into account. Because the onset of the Mercury Retrograde, in mid-Aquarius, followed the Aquarius New Moon by only one day, and with Saturn in the picture as well, this has been quite a powerfully introspective time. As 2015 gets rolling thoughtful people everywhere cannot help but wonder where this global society is heading, with terrorism on the increase, including the state-sponsored variety, and the rising threats of global warming, environmental degradation and income inequality. As we look more closely into these issues we perhaps may find that they all come back to the human psyche and its evolution toward what the relatively optimistic amongst us would like to imagine is a "Wisdom Culture" in the making; although how to get there is the enormous challenge that we face in our times. We might be able to recognize that it is only by the spiritual evolution that is distinctly possible on the part of each one of us that the world will be relieved of its suffering, and that the time for action is indeed getting short.

These reflections have their cosmic equivalence in this month's astrology, with a prominent Jupiter and Neptune in contrast with Saturn, newly entered into Sagittarius, Jupiter's sign. The meaning of the Jupiter archetype, also Neptune, has its positive flair and its belief in possibility over the necessity to hold back, so that the contrast with the sense of limitation provide by stodgy old Saturn is quite palpable. Jupiter is greatly emphasized now, being solitary, especially at the timing of the recent New Moon, in one half of the Zodiac. All the other planets in the Aquarius New Moon configuration come after Saturn, occupying the four signs that follow Sagittarius in Zodiacal order, through Aries. This makes Saturn the 'leader' of this planetary pattern. Saturn is emphasized in this New Moon chart in other ways, being square to Neptune and Mars and sextile to the Sun and Moon, while Jupiter is also featured in the Full Moon chart for February 3rd. Neptune in its own sign of Pisces is the ruler now of Mars, as he conjoins Neptune at the timing of the New Moon while Saturn squares him.

When Saturn, Neptune and Jupiter face off in this way there is a corresponding struggle within the psyche for taking an optimistic-idealistic stance and yet also a conservative approach. Then, too, Uranus and Pluto are powerfully invoked in this month's configurations as well, being aspected by Jupiter in the New Moon chart, and by the Sun and Moon at the timing of the Leo Full Moon.

We are therefore entering into, with this monthly cycle, an introspective period of time when we are both pulled forward into new ways of thought and belief while at the same time struggling to maintain our balance in the midst of the recognition of limitation and an upsurge in conservative empowerment. This is a tricky monthly cycle to be sure, and one in which perhaps the only real choice is to put our reliance on the activity of a benevolent cosmos to pull us through, to the extent that we can manage that feat of faith and transcendent imagination.