The Full Moon in Cancer falls on January 6th this year. Within the Full Moon is also the beginning of a new Mercury cycle, which commences with its conjunction to the Sun. Meanwhile Mars is slowing to a dead stop on January 12th. And as it does so it could feel like we are being put on pause. Unlike the station before its retrograde phase, this pause is the preparation for the launch that is about to occur, when it is finally in its direct phase once again. For more on the week ahead, click below. 

It may seem pretty ominous to begin 2023 with the retrograde phase of Mercury. All the more so when we see the mayhem already wrought with all the weather and travel gremlins. However, as frustrating and inconvenient as these retrograde phases can be in our everyday lives, it can also be an ideal time for a brief interruption in our regularly scheduled programming. And it may be just what we need to rediscover and re-find ourselves in the scheme of things.

Although we traditionally make our New Year’s Resolutions on New Year’s Day, it might make more sense to do so with the New Moon in Capricorn which falls on December 23rd this year. New Moons offer us the raw potential of new beginnings. Then we can later use the Mercury retrograde phase which begins December 29th to make any revisions and adjustments that will allow them to be more sustainable and achievable.

This week we have one of the sacred 4 corners of the Solar Year: the Winter Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice below the Equator. The Solstice is one of the most powerful and significant times of the Solar Year. A time of transition as the Sun appears to hesitate and pause on its journey. Shortly after this day, the Sun will gradually appear to make its way back North, bringing with it the return of the Light. This year the Solstice is doubly invested with all that much more potential and light, as it coincides with the ingress of bountiful Jupiter back into the sign of Aries. 

12 days after Neptune stations direct it makes a square to the Sun as it will on December 14th. This is where we make the adjustment from the retrograde phase to the direct phase of Neptune. Symbolically it can be like waking up from a dream. And then seeing how our real lives stack up against the dream state we just left behind. To read more about this stage of the Neptune cycle, click below.

The Mars opposition occurs in the middle of the Mars retrograde phase, approximately every 26 months. This year, the Mars opposition occurs simultaneously with the Full Moon in Gemini on December 7th or 8th, depending on where you are in the world. At 16º of Gemini, the Full Moon will then temporarily occult Mars, eclipsing it from the night sky. It is at the time of this opposition that Mars is at its closest to the earth in its orbit, and otherwise at its brightest.

Betwixt and between the stations of Jupiter and Neptune, we are being asked to be inspired. Inspired to pursue our dreams, and to recognize ourselves as part of a much larger whole. Meanwhile, the planet Mars, retrograde, out of bounds, and recently besieged by Neptune, is trying to find its footing this week. And so are we.

On November 23rd not only do we have the New Moon in Sagittarius, but we also have the direct station of Jupiter, the ruling planet of Sagittarius. And this, just minutes after the New Moon. Whenever Jupiter stations it does so with a trine to the Sun. This year it makes a trine to the Sun with the New Moon. What expansive dreams are we dreaming? What vast horizons are worth exploring? What hopes for a better tomorrow are brewing?

The Mars/Neptune transit has been permeating our lives since early October. Due to the recent station of Mars on October 30th, the red planet appeared to stall within this small range of degrees that put it so at odds with Neptune, the Lord of Obfuscation and Confabulation, for such a lengthy period of time. Truly we have been navigating these murky waters for all of October and November. And as we veer between truth and confabulation, hope and despair, on the 19th of November it will make its second of 3 exact squares.

On November 8th we have a long anticipated Total Lunar Blood Moon Eclipse. At 16º of Taurus, this can indicate an important turning point in society, and perhaps in our own lives as well. Eclipses can often represent turning points. But this one is all the more intense, due its close alignment with an unpredictable and tense Saturn/Uranus square. This square represents the conflict between the past and the future, between Us and Them. Hold on to your hats everyone, the Lunar Eclipse has arrived.