Astrology of 12/27 – 1/2: Discovering Higher Will

This week, Mars in Scorpio trines Neptune in Pisces and we reach a Full Moon in Cancer. This Full Moon is not lit just by the Sun, but the Sun is joined by Saturn, Black Moon Lilith, Venus and Pluto in Capricorn. Uranus is stationing direct in Aries. Jupiter in Scorpio is in a loose trine to Neptune and Mars is catching up to Jupiter. Shadow work has been part of the Jupiter in Scorpio zeitgeist, and now the building Mars-Jupiter conjunction in Scorpio is in a gentle harmony to Neptune in Pisces – the veil, illusions, dreams, spiritual clarity.

One simple way that this combination of transits plays out is the reveal that there is more love in ourselves and more love surrounding us that we may think: that in general distrust of self, others, of life, of the Universe (in ways we are yet unaware), there are certain blessings we put into shadow – for the shadow does not just contain qualities we deem negative, but also unrealized potentials, abilities, powers, and connections.

In Capricorn, we can get rigid or stodgy and use dogmas or general conventions and rules to shut down to life but to keep things secure. Or, we experience organically the throes of integrity, responsibility, authority, mistakes, accountability, success and uncertainty alike. We take on the weights and burdens that we are assigned, or that we allow ourselves to be assigned. We learn how to let them go.

A magic of Capricorn is to climb: to discover the progressive footholds that allow us to better achieve and succeed in life. But there is also the element of the seagoat that is Capricorn’s mascot: this creature that occasionally falls into the water, loses control, and de-armors itself. This is the phase in the climbing hero’s journey where along some upward trajectory we face a moment of doubt or defeat: these inward, watery moments are part of the climb.

Wherever we are hardened or gruff to life itself emerged as a defense against being vulnerable from a circumstance that otherwise would have threatened us. But there comes a time when these defenses are no longer useful: life is kinder or offering fruits that were not available at the time of hardening. Listen for the opportunities to become more vulnerable not because your defenses are wrong but because time has passed & the actual circumstances of now call for different methods.

“Like the sun’s rays that cause the seed to stir within its husk, love’s radiant energy penetrates the facade of the false self, calling forth resources hidden deep within us. Its warmth wakes up the life inside us, making us want to uncurl, to give birth, to grow and reach for the light. It calls on us to break out of our shell, the personality-husk surrounding the seed potential of all that we could be. The purpose of a seed husk is to protect the tender life within until the time and conditions are right for it to burst forth. Our personality structure serves a similar function. It provides a semblance of security, as a kind of compensation for the loss of our larger being. But when love’s warming rays start to wake us up, our ego-shell becomes a barrier restricting our expansion. As the germ of life swells within us, we feel our imprisonment more acutely…..The brighter love’s radiance, the darker the shadows we encounter; the more we feel life stirring within us, the more we also feel our dead spots; the more conscious we become, the more clearly we see where we remain unconscious. None of this need dishearten us. For in facing our darkness, we bring to light forgotten parts of our being. In recognizing exactly where we have been unconscious, we become more conscious. And in seeing and feeling the ways we’ve gone dead, we start to revive and kindle our desire to live more expansively.” – John Welwood

Like a dream in which symbols move from benevolent to menacing or menacing to benevolent, the waters of shadow shift – our personal work can be reflected in the environment too. Fears can be transformed.

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(Top image: Andrew Norris)

Here’s our week:

December 27

Mars in 11 Scorpio trine Neptune in 11 Pisces: 10:59 PM PDT

(Image: sent by a friend as I was editing this forecast)

This transit highlights the trine between Jupiter in Scorpio and Neptune which is in a 5 degree orb right now.

• If you’ve been having potent and vivid dreams lately this may be one of the most relevant planetary influences – when Mars and Neptune contact, the dream world (Neptune) can become especially forceful and vivid (Mars). As Mars is catching up to complete a cycle with Jupiter, this is only amplified and our dreams may also be giving us messages that are (perhaps gently) intense, enough to get us to think about something in a way that is revealing.
• When Mars and Neptune contact it is a value to go with the Tao – it does not mean there is not a time and place for force, for pushing through, for “making things happen” – but that it’s best to find the surf. Mars-Neptune can also relate to imagining actions before they happen live. Mars-Neptune is like martial arts of the Tao. If the action has already been visualized, it has a subtle energy track for the action to take place, a track which is already stronger than if it had never been imagined at all.

“You are a co-creator with the Higher Will. You are here to work with the Higher Will; you are the one who carries out your work and makes a difference in the world. Aligning with the Higher Will doesn’t mean becoming less of an individual. Your individuality, strength, perceptions, and uniqueness assist you in effectively carrying out the Higher Will and the purpose of your life.

Don’t wait for fate to decide what will happen to you. Alignment with the Higher Will requires you to set goals, decide on the results you want, and take action. You have a highly developed will for a reason; the more you have learned to use your will wisely, the more able you are to create your higher path and effectively carry out the actions that are indicated.

How do you know if you are exerting too much or too little force? How do you know if you are exerting your own will against the Higher Will? If you are trying to create something and you must struggle, push, and work hard to force things to happen with little result, you are not following the Higher Will.

A few obstacles may come up to provide you with the opportunity to become stronger and more definite about your goals. However, if you continue to find too many ‘closed doors,’ if you feel exhausted or drained by your efforts, or feel you are doing something only because you have no other choice – STOP. Look for something else you have been wanting to do. When you are flowing with the Higher Will, there is balance between feeling carried by the current and feeling that you are using your own will to create results.

When do you let go, surrender, and let things happen, and when you do you use your will and become an active force? It is always appropriate to do energy work and then take whatever actions appeal to you. If you want a particular result, do everything that your inner messages are indicating. Then, surrender and let the best happen.” – Spiritual Growth: Being Your Higher Self by Sanaya Roman.

(The concept of “energy work” is introduced on page 30 – which is about using the imagination to create more light and magnetism around desired concepts and results.)

• Having an effective will during Mars-Neptune is about tapping into inspiration and being aligned with the channel of Higher Will – so visualization becomes especially relevant. This can apply for conflicts as well: rather than to continue fighting and pressing onward, to retreat (Scorpio), recharge, connect with Spirit and access other higher options.
• Mars-Jupiter can speak to an amplification of vitality and life force and here in Scorpio, it is also relating to deep connection. This would be a special time to be around tribe – healing and insights are inflowing as a result of these connections.

January 1

Full Moon in 11 Cancer: 7:24 PM PDT

(Images: Ahren Hertel, Oksana Dimitrenko)

The Sun is conjunct Saturn, Black Moon Lilith, Venus and Pluto in Capricorn – all opposite our Moon in Cancer.

• For those of you who like to set intentions at this time for the new year, a way to maximize this astrology could be to locate your desire of what you would like to achieve (it is Capricorn season!), and in your imagination flesh it out with architecture (Capricorn) – what does it look like over time as energy and manifestation has constellated around it. Then allow yourself to feel (Moon in Cancer) what it feels like to live there. You’ll both access the feeling state for your manifestation and the details/blueprints of what it will take to get you there.
• This is an emotional Full Moon that is building in the Moon’s home sign of Cancer, but with Pluto mixed in as well the emotional tenor can be intense. Pluto relates to focus, either our intentional focus or negative fixations. Emotionality may be a weather pattern but the specific emotion depends on focus, as well as the ability to digest/metabolize whatever energies we consider negative or have conflict with (rather than to stew in them, which Cancer and Scorpio can both do).
• As the Sun and Pluto are together conjunct opposite this Moon, take note of where awareness/clarity (Sun) feels penetrating (Pluto) and illuminates vulnerability (Cancer).

• When the Moon in Cancer is opposite Pluto in Capricorn (in general), this quick influence can constellate moody projections on authority figures, hierarchical relationship or boss/worker, parent/child dynamics. People can be more likely to feel as though they are not being taken care of, that people around them are not competent, or that they are holding too much responsibility, or that no one is holding them. The role-plays (Capricorn) betray (Pluto) us. Or these relationships go excellently and the vibe/magnetism is strong because people empathically feel each other out and there is a proper balance. This balance can be assisted by the simple awareness that this is happening and we are feeling into new awarenesses of how we are “solid”/put-together, how we take care of others, how we let others take care of us, and how some of these dynamics operate below the surface (Pluto) or are projected in terms of expectations and disappointments. Many of this exchanges could work better as conscious agreements (where we become aware of what we want and how to ask for it) rather than unconscious games.
• Emotional catharsis can be a theme with this Moon and the time leading up to it; also in our examination of what kinds of emotions we repress. Usually repression was a coping mechanism at the time the pattern began, but over time repressed emotions can harden the personality and the heart. This Moon you might take note of what emotions feel taboo to you, like you are not supposed to or allowed to feel that way about that situation/thing/person/etc. This is a time where these judgments can be released and transformed, and a deeper self-love can emerge.
• Trust may be huge at this time. The emotionality of Cancer Moon may feel different states depending on the container (Capricorn, Saturn, Pluto…) and how supportive/safe that container feels. Likewise, we can become aware of how shields we put up when we do not trust a situation have their own intelligence; to be able to shield and unshield at will is part of Pluto’s deep free will – the more discerning we are about what we trust and don’t trust, the freer we are to open up, relate, or to energetically retreat into the Cancerian crab shell and have a hard exterior when necessary. It’s two kinds of boundaries: the more overt, agreement, hard boundaries, as well as the subtle, emotional boundaries.
• Solidity and integrity have been points of trust through Pluto in Capricorn – and not just in a postured, repressed way of faking it – but a real sense of having boundaries and authority in holding those boundaries or letting the boundaries change organically.
• The shadow, or Plutonic side of integrity, is that we can make mistakes. It can be transformative to both take accountability but to really forgive ourselves – sometimes to the point we are clearing the need to have judgement at all.

January 2

Sun in 11 Capricorn sextile Neptune in 11 Pisces: 2:37 AM PDT

Venus is conjunct the Sun, only a degree apart, and soon also to make a sextile to Neptune.

• The sextile between Capricorn and Pisces is incredibly beautiful in its implications. It involves the way that a structure or container (Capricorn) may be engineered/designed to hold different experiential and spiritual realities (Pisces). While Pisces can find happiness, love, beauty and forgiveness in anything – in squalor and despair and in castles and palaces alike… at some point the creative potential within us (Sun) wants to climb, elevate, achieve, move the earth plane (Capricorn). Capricorn makes it climb methodically, step by step, accessing whatever foothold happens to be available. The sextile between Capricorn and Pisces can teach us that we can improve the overall feeling tone and field consciousness of our lives by making pragmatic, methodical steps.
• The Sun and Venus conjunction in Capricorn relates to structures around our creativity, our radiant field, and our love lives, our relationships, our values. Neptune in Pisces is the like the Ocean, the creative infinite source. If we are building a ship, say, to navigate this magical sea of Neptune, the inner-engineer (or perhaps all of us) will be quite aware of weaknesses or holes in the ship. Similar to this, any area in our life which can be improved is not just a local phenomenon to itself. It will improve the entire ship that is our lives. When we use our creativity to better support ourselves by nourishing our foundations, we are free to cruise through life at an elevated level, rather than sinking.
• The “leaky points” of the ship continue to appear in different forms. It is helpful to be disillusioned of the notion that we might arrive at a place of perfection where there is no more self-work or life-work to do. We just level up. It can be more helpful to observe the obstacles or leaky points in the ship as lessons and adventures in of themselves that appear at the time we are ready to meet them.
• A craft/artistry of Capricorn can be to discover efficiency – what structures can we introduce to our lives that give us the energy to take on other dimensions of life?
• The Capricorn and Pisces sextile also highlights the way in which it is perfectly spiritual to take care of one’s affairs and earth life. Spirituality, as we are on Earth, is not about purely transcending this existence. It’s about creating and flourishing here. Therefore, as we take care of ourselves and our realities we are engaged in spiritual practice. It is often just a mental/perceptive choice to see these two things as a bridge, rather than separate dimensions.

Uranus stations direct in 24 Aries: 7:11 AM PDT

A quick bigger picture view: Uranus will move into Taurus on May 15, 2018 and from there retrograde back into Aries 7 months later on November 6, 2018 and remain there in Aries until it returns to Taurus March 6, 2019. When a planet hovers at the end of a sign due to retrogrades rather than making a clean break into a new sign, we tend to feel that as being on a precipice of the new energy while continuing to really refine and close up the last sign’s motif. Remembering also that stationing planets heighten in tone and clarity, these are some things to note:

• Uranus in Aries registers as a deep urgency for change and revolution: whether it is collective or personal.
• While Aries is the noble warrior, it is also the fool, the bully, the aggressor. For any of us who became inspired to fight for something this transit, we may have encountered an accelerated learning curve around how to defend and protect without being a bully or using force unjustly.
• Aries relates to what is just being born into existence, what is new, fresh, springlike — and Uranus is a liberator. Aries can be underestimated, stepped on, challenged – or Aries expects this from its own defensive vulnerability having emerged from the Source as a new, distinct individual. The invitation of this transit was, and still is, to really liberate the seed potential within us: that which wants to sprout and grow and yet which is so new and therefore vulnerable. By Uranus in Taurus, more focus may be placed on the cultivation of these seeds. Through Uranus in Aries, the revelation comes through that we deserve to exist as we really are & there is a lot of fight in this energy.
• Uranus in Aries may have or may still bring us the revelations around the brilliance of the will – about the brilliance of starting out. It may be around how we align our Higher Selves (Uranus) with our actions (Mars/Aries). Uranus in Taurus will be, for those who choose to access this piece – revelations around the brilliance of tenderness, of the body, of the unique intelligences of the body which we have not even tapped into (personally and collectively). As Uranus trails through the last parts of Aries, we are inflamed (at times) or compelled to begin. To start out. To become – and in that becoming, face the vulnerability of being a seed.
• Potentially we need new ways of envisioning the Aries archetype as Uranus moves through this sign. Uranus is about the collective hive and in that sense the collective good, and we may become more aware of how to use our will and walk consciously through reality in a way that is both a self-discovery and in the good of all. Competition or scarcity paradigms are old models which are not helpful – it is possible through Uranus in Aries that everyone can win, that winning/victory is for all. (At the least, the vision may be born – how it becomes part of mundane reality can be carried out through earth sign Taurus.)

Thank you for meditating on the forecast with me! I want to share that I read this book this last week that was published the last time Saturn was in Capricorn and it has touched me deeply – never heard of the author before or the being she is channeling. It’s called “Spiritual Growth: Becoming Your Higher Self”  by Sanaya Roman (quoted earlier) and I really appreciate its perspective and techniques. It was published during the triple conjunction of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in Cap. Outside of astrology, one of my favorite things to research is how people talk about “Higher Self”. Each time I find a new speaker of Higher Self, my own connection to that part of myself is strengthened and I earn new linguistic maps and reference points to make Higher Self a more lived part of my reality. I was so moved by it that I realized there were some morals, views, ideals, and practices I could commit myself to joyfully from now on – things I go in and out of remembering but that, once named, are harder to forget. This is all I can say for now, but I am looking forward to digesting it further and contributing some ideas for the Saturn-Pluto conjunction that is upcoming and how we may imagine and cultivate elevated futures — the toolkit exists! Stay tuned and/or check out the book for yourself.

Please let me know what you think and share what you are experiencing in the comments!

With so much love,

Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys kundalini and ashtanga yoga, hiking and creative writing.