1:48 pm  AHST 01/17/2022
  3:48 pm  PST   01/17/2022
 11:48 pm  UTC   01/17/2022

On Friday of this past week, Mercury went retrograde, signifying a three week period of introspection and exploration of our inner world awareness. And now the Full Moon time a few days later comes upon us, with the Sun in a tight conjunction with Pluto, opposing the sensitive Cancer Full Moon. The Sun and Pluto conjoin once a year, and at the Full Moon it is an especially powerful alignment. Pluto is the most subtle of influences, slowly making its way around the zodiac in 248 years, and yet, an astrological truth is: the more subtle the more powerful. Pluto’s effect as it courses through the signs, is to strip away what is false, especially as it has to do with the most powerful energies in our psyche. Pluto rules wealth, the power of sexual energy, death, domination (wrong use of power) and the things we hide beneath the surface of our social self. In Capricorn, it deals with governments, and systems of organization, both personal and global. All these are subject to its “stripping away” influences.

Pluto is very close to the position it was in 1776 at the birth of the US. It will exactly reach that point three times this year, the first being on February 20^th. As Pluto nears this point, a Pluto return, the US is faced with examining its darkest elements. This influence has been building for years. Awareness is becoming more widespread of the corrupt and destructive ways in which the US has been working, both internally and in its politics around the world. Coming at the time of a major paradigm shift, this darkness that precedes the light is a necessary period of disruption and disorder.

The Cancer Full Moon opposing the Capricorn Sun asks us to question where we have neglected self-care, where we need to get more centered and “at home” with ourselves and others, where we need to pay attention to our bodies, to dance, sing and revel in our own life force. Are we too engrossed in fulfilling our responsibilities to our work, and ignoring our own needs, the absolutely necessary human needs for pleasure, love and resting/contemplative time? This Full Moon forms a harmonious trine (120˚ angle) to Neptune, highlighting the energies of dreaming into what we need to engage with in our lives to nurture ourselves and allow love to become our primary source of sustenance. With Pluto in the mix, these concerns are not idle considerations. They are of major life or death importance, to be taken with utmost seriousness. Like the infant that we all came in as, we cannot live without the ways of caring and nurturance. In the words of Albert Camus, “We must love one another or die”. This is the signature of this Full Moon.

Uranus is often thought of as the “higher octave” of Mercury, dealing with the kinds of awareness that transcend our mundane thinking. In earthy Taurus and squaring Mercury in idealistic Aquarius in this chart, Uranus the awakener asks us to let go of identifying with our thoughts, to discover what lies beneath the surface of our social self, to sink into what our bodies are telling us, or perhaps screaming at us to pay attention to. In two days Uranus will turn direct, having been retrograde since August of last year. This brings in the energies of greater truth, affirming our basic human connections to each other on this planet, and asks us to tailor our actions accordingly. It forms a trine to Venus, who is now a morning “star” rising in the early hours before the Sun, the bringer of the light, having undergone her transformation after her conjunction with the Sun on the 8th. Again, we are being asked to awaken to the responsibilities that love asks of us (Venus in Capricorn), and to transcend cultural conditioning wherever it interferes with the spontaneous expression of our heart.

As we do so, we are healing not only our own wounds, but those that came before us, those heart-wounds our ancestors have carried for generations. These wounds, economic, cultural, physical, and psychological/spiritual, have resulted in a distortion of our connection to the Earth. Uranus in Taurus asks us to transform these wounds into wisdom, to heal not only ourselves and our bodies, but the relationships of our daily lives, and ultimately our relationship to our Earth Mother. Chiron’s presence in Aries is pointing out to us the historical wounds of our aggressions, our warrior-like and opportunistic stance that is now outworn in a world where there could be resources and wealth aplenty for everyone.