Welcoming in the new decade: Astrology of 1/1 – 1/7

Before we get into this week’s astrology I want to take a moment to thank you for following me in 2019 (and perhaps in any previous years back to 2014) and I’m looking forward to forecasting the weeks of 2020! For me, 2019 has ended with going deep within. While I continued to share forecasts, I pulled back from social media content creation and turned instead toward journalling, solitude, and quality time with friends. My phone lit up less with notifications and I spent more time with books, practicing reiki on myself (after just receiving a level 1 certification), and entering a timeless liminal creative space. I turned in my last assignment for my M.A. degree and took a long deep breath. 

Some of my favorite memories from 2019 have been my interactions with you. Last April/May, I invited you to join me and Cici Cyr in going outside every day for one lunar cycle and channeling messages from plants and nonhumans, and sharing about it on Instagram every day to welcome in Uranus in Taurus. And that was wild! I loved reading everyone’s experiences. I taught two intensives, and a transit study group (for graduates of the intensives) and an incredible community was formed. I got to meet you over video chat to read your natal charts, and meet some of you and meet some new people at a New Moon circle in Berkeley and a talk and workshop in Minneapolis. As I come to the end of 2019 with you all I’m feeling that the relationships I get to form with you are some of the richest experiences I have as an astrologer and I’m so grateful for you.

2020 begins with an Evolutionary Astrology Intensive (starting January 27) and I invite you to join us and bring a deeper relationship and comprehension of astrology and chart-reading technique into your life for 2020 onward. If you have questions about the course, start a conversation with me by emailing me at sabrina@monarchastrology.com. I’ll get back to you! If you haven’t already, take a moment to read over the course page to learn all about this offering – it’s been such a profound experience and has gotten high reviews from students, which you can read on the course page.

So the funny thing (for me as a forecaster at least) is that the calendar years are not really astrological events, but they are human cultural events and around this time of year many people are projecting out into the next 365 days and deciding what they want to call in. But of course, the movements of the spheres continues in 2020 – 2020 holds the Saturn-Pluto exact conjunction, both a Venus and a Mars retrograde, Jupiter and Saturn entering Aquarius, the lunar nodes moving into Gemini and Sagittarius, and more. I’ll be writing about it every week with insights on how to connect with the moments we find ourselves in so stay tuned!

This week Mercury and Jupiter join up in Capricorn, Mars leaves Scorpio to enter Sagittarius, and the Sun in Capricorn will sextile Neptune in Pisces. It’s a good time for pursuing truth, which includes taking a more honest inventory of the thoughts and feelings we are having that we may be dismissing or that we have a difficult time accepting. If we can tune into deeper layers of forgiveness and acceptance, and/or perhaps work with some self-development tools that help us be more present with ourselves, we have an opportunity to actually move and process energy that would otherwise be stagnant or repressed in some way. Investing in our own development (becoming more aware, skillful, resourced internally) has returns in every area of our life since everywhere we go, there we are. There are many different ways we can facilitate a more compassionate and skillful navigation of life, and now is a great time to activate this.

In case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the vibe may feel like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox, sign up for my mailing list here. You’ll also receive a new subscriber-only article about the current Saturn-Pluto conjunction.

(Top Image: Agnes Lawrence Pelton)

Here’s our week:

*Note on this forecast: Astrology is a study of synchronicity, and also participation and relationship. I don’t align with a philosophy that the planets “cause” things. But due to my perceived limitations of language, I often use syntax or wording that implies causation. Please do not take this language of causation literally. I more mean to say that the rhythms of our psyches and events here on earth are in profound communication with the movements of planets – as above, so below.

January 2, 2019

Mercury in 7 Capricorn conjunct Jupiter in 7 Capricorn: 8:41 AM PST

Mercury and Jupiter lining up together brings out a new synodic cycle between Mercury and Jupiter, similar to a New Moon which is a new cycle between the Sun and the Moon.

• This new cycle can be a new phase of honesty, if we lean into it. We’re talking about self-honesty here, like what it takes to confide honestly in one’s journal. Many of us have learned that speaking negatively is a form of bad manifestation, and we even gloss over things in our own journals! Perhaps this is you – but perhaps not. Either way, what do you censor? Mercury and Jupiter in the no-bullshit sign of Capricorn can be a great alignment for us getting more real with ourselves. If there’s something we can’t even admit or accept within ourselves, do we hide it from others in shame as well? Journalling, and self-confiding, is a big doorway to healing what we have a difficult time admitting to ourselves.
• If we take the cue from what one of my colleagues Jason Holley says about Mercury – Mercury’s general agenda is to “keep the story going” (listen to our podcast together here), when we take the leap to be soberly frank with ourselves, we may also create some movement internally where there otherwise would have been blocked energy and stagnancy.
• When our own thoughts are put on paper before us (or recorded and listened back to on audio if that’s your style), we have that much more objectivity about what is happening in our minds. If we think our thoughts are ugly, or petty, or dramatic, or boring, or whatever adjective we are using to judge ourselves, at least we know that! More change and development can come when we know where we’re coming from than when we’re repressing ourselves from the start. Some thoughts and feelings just want to be moved.
• Conjunctions in new phase (like these two right now, after the moment of the exact conjunction) relate to a burst of subjective consciousness. Because it is a new cycle, there is no experience yet relative to this cycle, but instead the impulse to have experience. We may lean toward introspection as we tend to new ideas emerging from within.

“It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could ever improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.

It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.” – Joan Didion

January 3, 2019

Mars enters Sagittarius: 1:37 AM PST

• While Mars in Scorpio since November 18 has perhaps lended us some focus, it has also highlighted obsession of pursuit. Obsession and focus are very powerful and can be amazing allies when wielded very intentionally (i.e. steadiness and resolve on one’s mission) but can also create tunnel vision or burn us out. Mars entering Sagittarius can diversify our focus, inclining us toward the pursuit of new experiences and expanded horizons. The very impulse toward novelty can shake loose some of our more obsessive holding patterns.
• Remember that Mars is, like Venus, related to love, compatibility, and chemistry. As lovers, Mars in Sagittarius natives (people born with this placement) pave out new frontiers of consciousness and sensuality with the ardor of their romantic will. As a more externalized image out in the world, we may picture lovers out backpacking, far away from the city, surrounded by a massive sphere of enchanting wilderness around them. But even in a room in a house, the field that opens up from the boundlessness of Mars in Sagittarius chemistry is similarly massive. By transit, we may engage with this spiritedness of Mars in Sagittarius by being open to or creating big experiences. Perceiving life as an adventure allows us to travel when we’re not even moving. And perceiving life as an adventure allows us to say yes to travel suggestions, too. (Literal or figurative!)

January 6, 2019

Sun in 16 Capricorn sextile Neptune in 16 Pisces: 10:21 PM PST

• This could signify taking a moment to breathe and to stop fretting that we’re fretting. There is deep and collectively karmic importance, spiritually and socially, to help ease suffering and struggling in ourselves and in the world. I am not saying the struggles are irrelevant. I am mainly speaking now of the personal peace we make with ourselves about our personal struggles, as opposed to getting in loops like being anxious that we’re anxious, or having shame that we have shame. At that point acceptance and forgiveness goes a long way in dissolving an unnecessary layer of resistance to experience.
• From a spiritual perspective, many of us have heard or personally believe that we experience what we experience here to grow and to learn. In this spirit, the more we lean into and forgive our personal challenges, the more we align with working on our assignments here.
• It is also true that sometimes we worry about things which are really not that important in the scheme of things, but even just the sign we are worrying about something suggests a kind of learning process that we are having. Sometimes grace comes in the form of letting go of a petty concern not because we are suppressing what is petty but because we have truly gotten over it. This can rarely be forced, but is a graceful harvest along the path of self-inquiry and self-development.
• It is often very spiritually challenging (or simply offensive) to people who believe or are told that “things happen for a reason”. We try to discover what the reason is from a limited vantage point of consciousness. How do we justify, logically, what we experience as tragedy? Sometimes the clarity we get from this kind of reflection gives us meaning that empowers us, but other times it would be more empowering to be humble and to admit we don’t know – rather than having some story about how we must have messed up or did something wrong. It is one thing to learn from the past and grow wiser – but another to ruminate and self-incriminate ad infinitum. 

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!

Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are soul family to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have.

If you would like more personalized guidance, I would love to read your natal chart and transits for you! If you would like me to explore the themes in your chart, book a reading with me here. 

I meditate on charts before the reading and combine my knowledge of astrology with my clairvoyant abilities to offer you some insights about themes you are working with in this life based on prior lives, and what is the evolutionary purpose of this lifetime. I recorded an episode on my podcast recently titled Befriending your Intuition and Clairvoyance if you’d like to learn more about my relationship with clairvoyance along with tips for increasing yours!

I can work with your specific questions and shed light on ongoing issues or patterns you would like to shift, as well! Book with me here.

I’m also becoming increasingly expressive on instagram (minus my recent social media break I mentioned earlier), so go find me there @sabrinamonarch and say hello! I’m posting a lot of content there that I don’t share anywhere else and I love interacting with you there.

With love,

Sabrina Monarch