Astrology of 1/10 – 1/16: Replenishing the Well

We are in the dark moon phase approaching a dynamic New Moon in Capricorn which is setting the stage for a lunar eclipse in Leo at the end of the month. Many of our dynamics of this week under this overall context are coinciding with emotional contractions and moodiness. In the light of day, Capricorn wants success, status, image. So let’s hold that with its shadow. There is nothing wrong with wanting success, however increasingly nuanced our definition of success becomes. The desire to live up to one’s potential is noble enough. What happens though is that we might have less awareness for how to deal with the shadow of Capricorn because of the archetypal natures of failure and shame, and the way that in our Solar-focused, “we can keep growing and expanding” industrial complexes (external ones and internalized), that we have devalued the counterpart to the cycle of expansion – contraction. Our judgements of what is practical, useful, ‘work’, and what is not, reflect this. We might feel bad for taking time off to do nothing, even though doing nothing is what replenishes us and allows us to relax into realizations of how we do want to proceed.

As someone who loves and studies manifestation techniques and law of attraction like teachings, I can say that these spiritual technologies that offer techniques on how to stay high up, do not serve if they are used to bypass dipping into deeper waters now and then. The ache of longing, loneliness, depression, etc. are all soulful messengers, which if listened to, rather than repressed, can often signify we are preparing ourselves for greater fulfillment and replenishment from life. The more I think about it, it is not just a new age, or high-vibrational judgement thing to think that all negativity is bad. It’s a deeper cultural conditioning of polarity in which some things are publicly okay or deemed as successful and other things are better kept to oneself or are somehow shameful. It’s the idea that the reality that matters is what you can see and touch, not what you imagine or feel. That deeper piece of conditioning, and this tendency toward polarity, can seep into our intellectual and spiritual processes, if not checked.

Additionally, we sometimes think of feeling good or bad about our circumstances as set in linear time. If we feel moody or depressed for no valid reason, it’s the judgement that nothing in our reality as it already is should create depression. The Soul, and the big Self, is timeless. It often can feel bad just because it is aware of our true Self and the disparity between that Self and our current circumstances. It may be feeling off because something of gravity is rippling in from the future and the ego/contemporary self is paving out a canal of emptiness to receive the incoming gift.

In the midst of the ambition of Capricorn season, remember that ambition’s shadow can be about feeling bad about the way things currently are. Which tasks us with a few things: one, to forgive ourselves and our realities for what we deem as their imperfections. And two, to forgive time itself, the nature in which there are seasons and progressions in our realities even though the big Self may already know who and what it is outside of this linear sequencing that we experience as life.

If you were to watch a time lapse of a flower growing out of the ground, you would also see the picture of there being no flower. The awareness of the moment in which there is soil, but no flower, is not any worse than how we feel about our own circumstances except for that we judge. Take some time, outside of time — to remember who you are and to soften the value judgements on frames of time being better or worse than others. If each moment is linked inevitably to the moments you already love without having to stretch yourself, then this is all worth it.

This week’s title is inspired by Toko-pa Turner’s just-published “Belonging.”

“While most of us weren’t raised with such a life-giving mythology, I believe we share a Grandmother Well that springs inexhaustibly with wisdom, insight, and guidance for our healing that we can access from the holy grove within. Especially in times of exile, when our anchors are pulled up and we’re no longer taking cues from the outside world, we have a chance to find the inner well are reinstate our connection to the sacred. We may find it overgrown, or hard to reach through the brambles, but each of us faces a time when the well within needs tending: when we’re no longer able to bestow blessings on others because we’ve over-given, or when something precious has been taken from us, or life’s demands have been too taxing on our fragile system. When the moisture goes out of our lives, and we’re no longer able to see beauty or converse with magic, we must ask ourselves how we can replenish our well-ness.

Too often, we fall into the misguided belief that the outside world is our source of vitality. We wait for its cues and its permissions and forget to honor, petition, and receive from the well within. Unconsciously, we’re terrified to turn away from the world; we think we’re putting our ‘heads in the sand,’ or that we’ll lose everything if we don’t keep pace. But the truth is that there is a different rhythm trying to temper us from within. If we shift our responsiveness from the outer to the inner world, allowing for a periodic ebbing of our external effectiveness, we come et see that it’s in service to a more harmonious way with our own bodies and with our greater earthbody.” Belonging by Toko-pa Turner, page 87

(Top image: Stephanie Pui-Mun Law)

With that, here’s our week:

January 10

Mercury enters Capricorn: 10:09 PM PDT

(Image: k mackowick)

Mercury is out of retrograde shadow, and if you remember when it went retrograde in 29 Sagittarius it was conjunct Saturn in 28 Sagittarius. As Mercury enters Capricorn, it closes in on a conjunction to Saturn in Capricorn which exacts a few days later. Mercury will stay in Capricorn until January 31, 2018. In this time, watch for:

• Communications that tend toward the methodical, practical, and judicious.
• Gaining data/intelligence on how you are steadily improving/climbing/ambitioning, and what the actual footholds are. Mercury is associated with perfectionism, and Capricorn is the entire climb. If we are going to break this up into digestible pieces, it becomes apparent that it’s not just about having arrived wherever you’d like to arrive. Note your footholds – the places the mountain goat gains leverage to ascend. Self-criticism (about how you’re not where you’d like to be) may deceptively cover as a foothold (“I have to know I’m bad to get better”), but it tends to create paralysis and low self-esteem more than it actually offers leverage. Consider what resources and strengths you do have, too.
• Leverage as cleverness: take note of which factors in your reality help you get to the next step (are you waiting on other variables when a genuine foothold is right before you?). The order isn’t preconceived. The order is a natural collaboration with the particular mountain you are climbing. (Goals, however specific or even what you would like to feel, such as the goal of creating more happiness, are useful with Capricorn.)

January 13

Mercury in 2 Capricorn conjunct Saturn in 2 Capricorn: 12:03 AM PDT

(Image: Bob Kuhn)

Similar vibe to Mercury in Capricorn alone, yet it’s conjunct it’s ruler for some extra gravity.

• We may feel a little more exacting/judicious with words and transactions/commerce. This in not necessarily hinged not the axis of having enough or not having enough (money to spend, credibility/trust to speak and share, etc.) and if that’s where you are with it, that can be a useful dynamic to be aware of only in that we can condition our paradigms based on where on the ladder we rank the value of money for example, in comparison to other needs which may be well worth spending on. The issue to pay attention to may be more about priorities themselves.
• Mental patience and diligence – sitting with problems, living into questions.
• In what processes would it be more clever to slow down?

January 13

Venus in 24 Capricorn square Uranus in 24 Aries: 12:08 PM PDT

(Image: ms. neaux neaux)

Venus it at the tail of a triple conjunction with Pluto (19 Capricorn) and the Sun (23 Capricorn). The Pluto-Uranus square is still in effect! It is part of the archetypal dynamic we can correlate with the continuous note of disaster in the news. This shaking-up of the status quo is bringing to the forefront in a more cataclysmic way the issues within society that need to change. In our own personal lives, such shocks and disorientations are also revealing places of shift and growth for us.

But Venus, in her own synodic cycle with Uranus, begins the last quarter phase. To isolate this for a moment with the previous info as context, these are some dynamics to note:

• If we would like to be liberated from our systemic and conditioned limitations, or the sense that somehow we’re not progressing/advancing as we would like, or we don’t like some part of our past — a new self-concept has to emerge. In the imaginal space of who you are: this you that meets your current conflicts or ambitions, has an identity. This identity is crucial for midwifing desired changes.
• Take care that being pragmatic does not equate to simply being cynical. In the Uranian realm, reality happens on different channels, which can be tuned into like a radio station. You pick up the frequency depending on who you are – and attraction relationships to mirror you (Venus). Circumstances, and other people, will play with you at your level of cynicism. The track is already grooved. If you find another channel and deepen its grooves, not only does the path forward open but you invite others into that space or meet others who are already there.
• If you can identify what forward motion you are looking for, your self-concept just has to catch up or hold a flame to guide you. For example, if you are writing a book, you are already a novelist, not just someone who is trying to write a book. (How would a novelist live? Then do it.) Self-image /is/ pragmatic in Venus in Cap. Construct as necessary & take your time.
• Some old self-images will not meet current opportunities for growth and individuation – so don’t try to keep them just because they’re familiar. You don’t have to go without an image, but you can invent one for the sake of transition.

January 14

Sun in 24 Capricorn square Uranus in 24 Aries: 1:44 PM PDT

Similar themes as Venus square Uranus, even in terms of self-actualization via self-concept. But here are a few other notes:

• More direct intuitions or synchronicities that point out the value of the actualized Self to the collective ecosystem: the principle in which the thriving of an individual allows them to have an actualized role in the community/collective – therefore, the boundaries between self and collective improvement are blurred.
• The feeling that one cannot take up space or is not allowed to be and still exist in the community without some kind of persecution/punishment is a collective trauma – during an individuation or self-actualization path this is a hurdle to jump over – do you have the right to have an affect on reality by bringing forth your unique and special qualities? What conditioned patterns do I have to confront within myself to take up space or to shine and not feel like I’m doing something wrong? And ultimately, how does being myself in public alter the collective codes of what is acceptable and what is not?
• Not all group consciousnesses (Uranus) makes space for individual innovation – there is a push and pull between the tradition or collective codes and the new energies that are wanting to come through. And there are other group consciousnesses that are open to this. This can be a time for people who are in group power to consider how the mores of the group allow for flourishing or try to box it. Structures and leadership styles are also capable of being supports, of being containers for heightened realties to occur.
• Self or group management that seeks to control output versus management that seeks to foster creative output.

January 15

Jupiter in 19 Scorpio sextile Pluto in 19 Capricorn: 9:13 PM PDT

At the time of its exactness, the Moon is also conjunct Pluto.

• Jupiter relates to a bendy sense of time, (as opposed to linear time) and can in this dynamic relate to the sense of feeling things coming; feeling a fluctuation to accommodate for a future event or a deep aspect of self emerging from the undercurrents.
• This could be a beneficial time to cut some ropes – let go of tethers that are no longer serving but are taking up vital life force. (Hang-ups, regrets, etc.) No need to do this haphazardly – if you think about what you are holding tightly onto even though you know It’s not that great for you, try to reflect on what you are so attracted to and what you are symbolically getting out of the experience. Is there another way you can connect with that energy? Perhaps a deeper way that is not bound to the particular vessel it came from before? (i.e. the love you felt from a person you’ve since parted ways with being available in other forms).
• Some processes of letting go are not so intellectually available – in Scorpio/Pluto the experience is visceral. Insight can come through cathartic experience, embodied practices and healing arts, new experiences in general which shake up old stagnancies, or even just time itself. Pay attention to which opportunities have made themselves available to you at this time to help you move on from stuck places and/or evolve into more abundant, flowing horizons.
• There might be something in the angst – there can be an expansion (Jupiter) upon which is repressed or has been compartmentalized (Pluto in Capricorn) so that we can clear these obstacles from the path. Often they have to be confronted though; their wisdom gleaned (which in the end, may be a lot quieter than the irritation itself initially presents for our attention).

January 16

New Moon in 26 Capricorn: 6:17 PM PDT

(Image: Plantare)

This New Moon is conjunct Pluto, square Uranus in Aries, and forming sextiles to both Mars in Scorpio and Chiron in Pisces. The following Full Moon in Leo will be a lunar eclipse! Some possibilities:

• There is a great desire to expand past our conditioned limitations – the things embedded structurally into our lives, the patterns in our bones, DNA and ancestors, social structures, etc. We might feel tiredness and fatigue energetically around these heavy, oppressive-feeling themes. Types of discontent may arise which are not as easy to quell as usual because the point may not be to suppress the message again through some compensatory action, but to actually feel the deficit as though it is a canal being built that does not have water yet. Feeling this hunger/desire allows us to take honest account of what is in development in our personal evolution. Don’t skip this process if it’s pulling at you, but also remember not to linger here when it’s time to get out of the well.
• It would be useful to consider the value of actions which are investments in the future: things we do that start to amass gravity and consequence but may not show immediate results. There has to be some faith in the process and will to do the work for reasons which go deeper than the immediate surface reward – it is a kind of doing that is intrinsic in value as you know you are taking care of future-you and paving the way for a better life. This is strength in reserve and it is powerful.
• As the Full Moon (harvest peak of the New Moon) will be conjunct the North Node in Leo, there are some manifestation potentials here! The cynicism side of Capricorn often involves a more nebulous Piscean sextile component (a vague sense that nothing is possible), while the engineering/architect side of Capricorn constructs blueprints for a reality that does not exist yet and brings it into being by acting in accordance with the blueprint. It can come down to taking the time to open up space in your emotional body to ask, what do you really want? What is your vision? And what are some steps you can take to bring that vision into fruition? Who can you ask for help? What discipline/commitment might be involved? Does your daily life activities and emotional attitude resonate with your goal? If the answer is no, all you have to do is do something about it – that’s what Capricorn often wants – something tangible. You’re not limited to how you’ve shown up in the past – the future is now and can be method acted into being.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! Let me know how you’re doing in the comments! 🙂

Enrollment has begun for my next 60 hour online Evolutionary Astrology immersion course. In addition to class time, students have access to my one-on-one support so that wherever you are at in your knowledge of astrology, I can help advance you. Read more about the program and reserve your spot by registering here – it is first come first serve until I’m at capacity.

This knowledge school and taking it into my meditations is what informs much of my experience and my writing style – its language and its concepts are in themselves, consciousness evolving. I’m excited to share it with you!

With 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.