6:56 am  AHST 02/16/2022
  8:56 am   PST   02/16/2022
  4:56 pm   UTC  02/16/2022

February has gotten off to a rather slow start energetically, as Mercury went direct on the 3^rd, but then we were met on the 4^th with the Sun’s yearly conjunction with Saturn, the planet of limitations and responsibilities. Saturn being Chronos, who governs  Time, this can immerse us in the feeling of being “late” or having not enough time to do what we want to do, for fun or to rest. But, recovering from this, we now pick up speed as all the planets are moving direct, and will be until the end of April when Pluto goes retrograde. (More on that later.)

Pluto is big in the astrological news now, as it will complete its 248 year circuit on 2/20/22, having advanced to the degree once again where it was in 1776 when the US began its quest for independence from Britain. Pluto represents power, the kind of power that rules above all else. On the physical plane, our little egos translate this into massive systems of control, resulting in centuries of imperialism, colonialism and the resultant economies that have destroyed Native peoples and the Earth’s delicate ecological balance. Pluto also rules power out of control, like the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about, taking over the whole country’s economy and mindset. Pluto moves very slowly, and will hit this exact conjunction twice more this year, but as with these outer planets and their cycles which determine historical epochs, the effects will be ringing for many years to come. This Pluto return of the US has been building for years before this point, Pluto doing its job of exposing this country’s shadowy past, of slavery, of segregation and violence against non-Whites, and imperialism around the world. Things are beginning to shift in rather more obvious ways, especially in the next two years when the mass consciousness considers if it is really going to give up its addiction to power, greed and manipulation.

There is a powerful conjunction exact at this Full Moon, of Venus and Mars. The masculine and feminine principles are joined together in the practical down to earth sign of Capricorn. As mentioned at the New Moon blog, this is an alchemical fusion of the opposites, which is a powerful time for us all. Though they are exactly conjoined at this Full Moon, they will remain fairly close together for at least a month. Venus you can easily spot before sunrise, Mars is faintly visible to her right. Their conjunction is in a harmonious angle of a trine to Uranus, the revolutionary supercharger planet, bringing freshness to the old outworn gender roles, loosening their accompanying rigidity. This is the time to work on balancing our masculine and feminine, each of us, in whatever ways we perceive that balancing to happen. In doing so, we create a bridge of unification within ourselves, and in our relationships. Where do we power through situations at others’ expense, or where do we fall back and become passive? Where is passivity and vulnerability valuable?

The Leo Full Moon supports our individual unique creative expression, while the Aquarius Sun asks us to join with others in service, and to partake in the spirit of shared community. This Sun-Moon opposition forms a right angle to the Lunar Nodes, that astrological path denoting the current issues of our collective development. This makes for a Grand Cross, a high tension aspect that has the effect of pushing us or driving us forward, and points up the need for us to be careful with the enormity of the pressures we encounter. In a sense this is a crossroads Full Moon, having just followed the Sun/Saturn conjunction, letting us know there is little time left to take care of business. We are all being pushed by many factors of change now. It’s important to take time for quiet and meditation as much as possible.

Uranus is key in this chart, having all the harmonious angles in the chart toward the personal planets of Mars and Venus. Though it is still in a wide square to Saturn (old vs. new paradigm) Uranus is asking us to bust out of our old adaptations, to witness them as they come up, but to be creative (Leo) and allow new expressivity to emerge in our lives, to be spontaneous rather than planned, pushing ourselves to risk speaking our truth without castigating others, or falling into black and white thinking. With so much cancel-culture happening, we must allow for others’ mistakes, and look toward what we learn from them rather than sitting in judgement. Every person carries and reflects an aspect of our own psyche. Remembering this puts us into humbleness, knowing we all fail in our judgements and actions at times.

With the Sun moving soon into Pisces on the 18th, soon to join Neptune and Jupiter there (and eventually a very rare Jupiter/Neptune conjunction in Pisces in April) we need to prepare to move into a potentially inspired time, a time of visioning and receptivity to new awarenesses of our priorities. But to listen and be able to receive such inspiration, we need to practice inner stillness as much as possible, for these inspired moments come when we are not thinking or talking to ourselves.