Current Transits for December 2010 Current Transits for December 2010Here's some of the important astrological news this month ...
Vesta enters Sagittarius, 12-3
New Moon at 13Sa28, 12-5
Uranus Direct Station at 26Pi40, 12-5
Mars enters Capricorn, 12-7
Chiron Semisextile Uranus, 12-10
Mercury Retrograde, 12-10 to 12-30
Mercury-Mars-Pluto Conjunction at 4Cp41, 12-13
Sun Conjunct Galactic Center, 12-18
Pallas enters Capricorn, 12-20
Full Moon / Total Lunar Eclipse at 29Gm20, 12-21
Coming Attractions for 2011
An online ephemeris for the month is available.
With the direct station of Uranus on the 5th, we're reaching the point where the stasis of November is starting to move again. Last month featured 4 planets, most of them slow moving outer planets, all standing still and Uranus is now the 5th. Such traffic jams are typical of times when life feels stuck, as if situations have reached a state of going nowhere and there are no obvious paths forward. With Uranus, it's often the intuition or those flashes of insight that seem to be AWOL. Give it some time to start moving and maybe those "aha!" moments will start to flow once more. Don't start celebrating too soon, however -- Mercury is retrograding from Dec 10 to the 30th. Our thinking mind is in mothballs during this period, clouding our abilities to think straight or communicate with others. It's probably not the best time to be making decisions or attempting work that requires attention to details, so do the mundane activities that face you and avoid the fancy stuff. On the other hand, the major storm that lasts from the 16th to the 23rd is far from mundane in its influence. Besides the outer planets which have been affecting us for months now at a subliminal level and slowly driving us buggy, we're coming up to the annual passage of the Sun over the Galactic Center. Having watched these passages intently for over a decade, I'm stuck by how "otherworldly" the energies feel around this time. The GC is a center of spiritual energies that far transcends the influences of the planets in our own solar system, although they operate at such a high level that few people are conscious of their effects. However, it feels as if we are moving beyond normal reality for a few days and are operating at a more mythic or spiritual plane than usual. The powerful storm only intensifies the effect. Throw in a powerful lunar eclipse before the solstice on the 21st and we've effectively got an open portal to the other side for about a week. It's a good time to do your spiritual work, but it's hard to keep your feet on the ground. Consider it icing on the cake for the holiday spirit.
Probably the most noticeable events this month are the direct station of Uranus and the retrograde cycle of Mercury. In addition, there's one "big aspect" and 3 sign changes to consider. The full moon just before the winter solstice is also a total lunar eclipse.
Vesta moves from Scorpio into Sagittarius on the 3rd. She will remain in this sign until 2011-1-28 when she goes into Capricorn. Vesta energies seem to come into play when you feel overwhelmed by the outer world and need to go within to recapture the vitality of your life. In Sagittarius, two big themes become critical: there's the question of freedom and the issue of how your beliefs and perspectives are affecting your life. First of all, Vesta is her own woman, so any hint that she's feeling tied down is apt to send her packing. Her initial response to when relationships demand too much of her is to go into seclusion and get away from it all. Don't be surprised if you need more space than usual, which for Vesta, is saying a lot. One of the issues bugging her is that sense of life demanding too much of her. Curiously, much of this "oppression" can be self-induced. The outer world is, more or less, rather indifferent to your individual concerns. The quality of the events in your life is more likely determined by your responses and interpretations of these outer circumstances. So while you're holing up in your castle to get away from these demands of the outer world, take a little time to see if some of it is due to your own beliefs. All too often, we're thinking one thing and doing another, but neither is really in tune with the situation you're in. We're all experts at being our own worst enemy, undermining our own positions due to some kind of misunderstanding. Vesta can perform no better service to herself than to clear up these problem areas, removing the enemy within her own refuge. The strongest (and most invisible) shackles we wear in life are the ones we impose on ourselves due to a mythology that doesn't work for us. Which gets back to the freedom issue -- it's time to break free! It'll make life so much more pleasurable when you decide to come back.
Judging from the waveform for the new moon, you might not have high expectations for this chart. It's more interesting than you'd anticipate, however. For starters, it's filled with conjunctions. Jupiter conjuncts Uranus, which are square Pallas and Mars; throw in Juno and you have a weak T-square. Neptune conjunct Chiron is also part of this pattern. There's a quintile from the Sun-Moon to Neptune and a sextile to Saturn. Mercury is conjunct Pluto, with supporting aspects from Vesta and Venus. This chart is more connected than it looks.
However, for some reason this chart doesn't speak to me much. Except for the T-square, there's not much of a central message to it, just a bunch of miscellaneous Post-it notes lying around. The T-square hints at some kind of relationship issues -- Jupiter-Juno aspects often indicate struggles or disharmony between partners. These problems are more than your usual mundane dispute, given all the outer planets in the mix. With Uranus going direct today, relationships are actually posing as a vehicle for deeper insights into your own private issues. Mars-Pallas in Sagittarius is the focal point of this T-square, clues that insights are more important than pulling rank or fighting with partners; giving them some freedom and space beats hanging on tightly. Mercury-Pluto also hints that practical solutions require going deeper into what the core problems really consist of. The new moon itself is only tangentially connected with all this activity, so it may be hard to truly make sense of these difficulties or do something useful about it. This lunation is a bit of a false start in that regard. Maybe clarity will emerge later in the month...
Uranus reaches its direct station of 26Pi40 on the 5th, ending a retrograde cycle that began with its station of 0Ar35 back on Jul 5. The role of Uranus in our lives is often described as being the Higher Mind, the faculty of intuition and insight that works below the surface of the Mercury mind. It simply sees what's true or what to do, without thinking about it or running through all the stories we tell ourselves. Well, on a good day anyway. Despite the cliché to trust your intuition, to go with your gut instead of your head, that's not always the best advice when Uranus is standing still. At times like this, even your gut instincts can be totally off base or simply not talking to you. Insight comes from a very deep strata of the psyche, one that operates so instinctively and without our awareness that few people understand its workings and pitfalls. In essence, this is where we create reality for ourselves. Every moment of every day, we are creating an awareness of ourselves and the world we live in out of our experiences and how we interpret them. It's a kind of constrained and culturally conditioned hallucination that let's us connect with others. As long as we fit in with the bigger story, we appear "normal" and are accepted. Of course, that's no guarantee that your private story faithfully reflects the objective facts. Uranus' stations can show us where our intuition is running wild, where we're out of touch. Don't believe everything your think and take all your basic assumptions lightly during this time. You may have some of those "aha!" moments about yourself. Externally, the world may seem more than a little crazy, out of control and very unexpected. Surprises can be good, if you take them in the spirit of a teaching. When Uranus is active like this, you may find your path blocked or obstructed, but it's usually the case that the detours are better than the route you originally planned. Be flexible and have some fun with this influence! Another reason for clearing out these psychic levels is that Uranus is finishing up its 7 year journey through Pisces and will be entering Aries for good on 2011-3-11. Life will be rather busy then for such introversion.
Mars shifts from Sagittarius into Capricorn on the 7th for a 5 week stay. He'll be here until 2011-1-15 when he slips into Aquarius. Mars in Capricorn is actually a pretty good placement. Our Warrior God tends to be rather rash, impetuous and self-centered, but Cap is good at toning all those things down. Capricorn is about getting things done, taking care of business on the physical plane. He has a sense of discipline and a no-nonsense approach that helps Mars focus his efforts in a useful manner. He is more interested in results than crowing about it, which tones down Mars' natural egotism. It's especially important to put self-interest to the side, what with Pluto also in Capricorn. Pluto is Mars' big brother, in a sense, but he operates in a selfless fashion that puts the ego back in its proper place. So get to work and make the most of this time! It's an excellent time to make your dreams happen.
Chiron is semisextile Uranus on the 10th, the 5th of 23 such contacts that stretch from 2009 to 2038. It's curious how this contact and the one last Jul 2 were both near Uranus stations. There's an emphasis on understanding your intuition and the workings of your unconscious mind in a deeper fashion. As we've mentioned, the promptings of your unconscious are not always reliable, but there's some value in these messages more often than not. It's hard enough to listen to these hunches, harder still to trust them, especially if you've been burned by them a few times. Listening to such "spirit talk" is not a fashionable thing in our fast moving world -- you need to consciously and deliberately make room for it in your life. Engaging the unconscious is a struggle and a challenge that requires courage and effort. All this otherworldly information must be tested and sorted. Some is worthwhile, but some needs to be resisted. There is no easy path here. The inner rewards are great, even if the outer world isn't all that appreciative. There's an inner freedom to this journey -- perhaps that's the greatest reward of all.
Mercury goes retrograde at 5Cp56 on the 10th. He backs up the rest of the month, turning around again at his direct station of 19Sa37 on the 30th. Mercury is the thinking and story telling mind, the guy that has an explanation for everything. Normally he's quite capable of understanding the world around us, spinning a story of how things work, what to expect and what to do to make the most of any situation. He's good at making connections between ideas and between people. Except when he's going retrograde like this. Retrograde planets seem to malfunction somehow, which forces us to examine this part of the psyche more closely than usual. When Mercury is backing up, the thinking mind seems to get everything all wrong. Your explanations of how the world works fall apart, making the world seem crazy and unpredictable. Your ability to communicate with others descends into confusions and mixed signals. Rationality itself seems to break down. For all the frustration of these cycles, there are some deep lessons here. The main one is simply that thinking is only one way to understand your world, often not even the best way. Another is that people tend to confuse their stories with the events they are trying to explain. Reality is woven in the mind and unless you're extremely careful how you do the weaving, you can make a mess of it. The craziness is not in the world, it's in our stories. Mercury retrograde is a wonderful time for debugging your mental life. When you find one of these confusions, take the effort to figure out what's wrong with your story and update it. These times are also a lesson in how language controls our lives. Language is a very slippery and demanding master. When you see how your inner reality fails to capture adequately the infinite variety of life, it's a humbling lesson in how much you really understand things. Don't take your thoughts so seriously and turn down the mental chatter in your head. It makes room for other possibilities.
Incidentally, the periods from Dec 5 to the 10th and Dec 31 to Jan 19 (when Juno goes retrograde) are some of those rare times when all the planets and asteroids I follow are all in direct motion. Such times are remarkably free of the typical roadblocks we feel the rest of the year. Enjoy the brief vacations.
There's a tight conjunction (all at 4Cp41!) of Mercury, Mars and Pluto on the 13th, although the pattern is active for several days before and after, especially when the Moon aspects them all (such as on the 12th and 14th). The operative word for all this is "intense", as you'd expect from Pluto. Pay attention to any unusual ideas or impressions that come your way these days, as the unconscious is speaking to you pretty insistently. It's also a good time to pursue some project for the greater good, although activities based on more selfish motives tend to backfire on you. You may also be noticing some friction with the people around you, another sign that people's egos are out of balance. There's a lot of power in this conjunction -- use it wisely.
Every year around this time, the Sun is conjunct the Galactic Center (27Sa00), a massive black hole in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy around which nearly everything you can see in the sky orbits. Just as the Sun symbolizes the center or core of the individual self, the GC represents the organizing center of the world and/or the psyche at a much more inclusive level. I've been watching these conjunctions each year for more than a decade and I'm always impressed at how "cosmic" or "otherworldly" the general mood becomes for a few days. We seem to step out of normal consciousness and pass through a portal to a higher spiritual awareness that's hard to describe. In particular, the GC seems to activate the third eye chakra. Mercury is also conjunct the GC in coming days, so be aware of unusual thoughts or possibly dreams during this period. Take some time off from your usual activities to dwell in these higher realms for awhile, if only to remind yourself that we are children of spirit, not just the earth. This year should be especially intense, as we are heading into the big Koz Quake storm.
Pallas enters the sign of Capricorn on the 20th. She'll be in this placement until 2011-3-10, when she moves into Aquarius. Pallas is a very versatile lady, an energy that expresses itself in many ways. First of all, she's a master of strategy, of looking at the facts and realities on the ground and figuring out how to put her plans in action. She knows how to size things up so you get from point A to point B. Given her placement in Capricorn, her executive abilities are focused on very practical, tangible goals these days. This is a sign of form and structure, of putting the routines in place that make your life work well on the material plane. It's especially useful for putting financial and health matters in order. Pallas is also an artist of sorts, though these days her artistic skills are tilted more towards practical goals than the purely aesthetic. It's also a good time to make sure the "systems" in our lives operate fairly and smoothly for everyone -- Pallas hates seeing the underdog suffer. These aren't very glamorous goals perhaps, but when the material world works smoothly, it frees your energies for more fun goals. Finish your homework so you can go out and play.
The eclipse chart is quite spectacular, coming just hours after the big Koz Quake peaks. The four tall peaks in the waveform point to the central pattern in the full moon chart, an impressive Grand Cross. One arm of the Cross is Jupiter-Uranus opposite Juno, again; the other arm is Mercury-Sun-Pallas opposite the Moon. Ceres, Neptune and Chiron also fit into this pattern. Venus and Saturn are minor players now, while Mars and Pluto are on the sidelines.
By the way, the lunar eclipse is visible across all of the US (clouds willing), with the best views on the west coast and the Pacific region. The eclipse is at its darkest at 2:17 CST, with a total phase some 73 minutes long. You should be able to see some darkening of the Moon between 0:32 (just after midnight) and 4:02. It's the best show for the next 3 years, so don't miss it if you can.
Like the T-square at the new moon, this Grand Cross screams of relationship and communication issues that point to more subtle spiritual problems. Notice that the Galactic Center is nestled between the Sun and Mercury, so the stories we tell ourselves of who we are and how we fit into the big picture of Life are part of the problem and need to be looked over more closely. As part of the big storm pattern and the passage of the Sun over the GC position, this entire week is pregnant with spiritual possibilities if you're simply open to them. It may sound odd, but this Cross engenders a rather impersonal attitude, which may be the best way to handle relationship disagreements, since it takes the personal drama out of the picture. The winter solstice is later in the day, which also tends to make people go inward and become more reflective. With Mars and Pluto so weak, it may prove difficult to act upon these revelations which may seem to have little relevance to everyday living. Trying to assert your ego and will power is especially likely to backfire. Simply take in the high spiritual energies for now -- you can make sense of them at your leisure.
There are a number of important astrological themes that we'll be following in 2011. I'll be talking about them in more detail as the year proceeds, but let me mention several of them now so we can start thinking about them. First of all, there are several outer planets changing signs. Chiron moving into Pisces and Uranus moving into Aries started already in 2010, but they don't settle into their new sign placements until Feb 8 and Mar 11 respectively. Also in 2011, Neptune starts transitioning into Pisces, his home sign. He first enters Pisces on Apr 4, backs up into Aquarius for some clean up work on Aug 5, and then settles into Pisces for a 14 year stay by 2012-2-3. Neptune was last in Pisces between 1847 (shortly after it was discovered) and 1861 (as the Civil War was breaking out), so it's been a long time since we've seen this placement before. It should be a momentous transition.
One of the major aspects of the coming decade is the square of Uranus and Pluto, which repeats 7 times between 2012 and 2015. However, this aspect is already in orb and active. It'll be much more noticeable after Uranus moves into Aries for good. This is a revolutionary combination -- their conjunction in 1965-66 was a revolt on the left ("the Sixties") that is still reverberating through our national psyche. The square seems to be starting out as a revolt on the right, of which the Tea Party is one symptom. Things will only get more extreme in coming years.
In the US chart, we are going through a Saturn return between now and August 2011, another "wake up and smell the coffee" transit. Further, as Pluto is finishing up his opposition to the US Venus (2009-10), he next opposes the US Jupiter in 2011. As Jupiter is a major financial planet, I doubt the economy will be picking up any time soon.
There are 6 eclipses in 2011, a large number for a single year. The solar eclipse of Jul 1 (9Cn12) is unique, as it's the start of a new Saros family, a very rare occurrence. This chart will be important for literally centuries to come.