The transits leading up to a Full Moon this week pose many frictions – Mars in Aries squares Pluto in Capricorn, the Sun and Mercury in Capricorn square Chiron in Aries, and Venus in Sagittarius squares Neptune in Pisces. The square (90 degree) aspect is very confrontational, and tends to bring pressures to a head. Squares make themselves known. It is like being at a four-way stop and having a car to the left or right of you. If you both proceed forward there will be a collision. As this translates to astrology however, these collisions are like the spark born of two sticks rubbing together – the start of a fire. Squares can be vitalizing and dynamic, and they can accelerate the plot, as much as they are also tense.
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Consider not being in a rush for resolution. With the Aries planets involved, there is a sense of urgency at play – we want what we want and we want it now. However, the Capricorn planets are like grandmother trees. They’ve been here for years, and plan to be here for years and years more, and they’ve seen many cycles of life and death already. What is urgent to the Aries consciousness is a blip in time to Capricorn. To be fair, Capricorn has already climbed the mountain and if this archetype wishes to offer the torch to the next generation, Capricorn is also responsible for empathizing and relating to initiates, which is an art in of itself.
The requests that life makes of us – the calls that we receive to courage, to step up, to take action – are emergent, they have a ‘now’ quality. But through the act of reflection, time slows down. It is not just the action that we take and the way it carries the plot forward that matters. It’s how awake we can be in that process. It’s how affected, and moved, we can be by it. Reflect on how the plot of life can mature us, if we are willing to entertain the alchemical, soulful, deeper questions around our accountability in a given situation and our dharma – why we are in these situations at all.
Welcome back! Or 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 zeitgeist feels 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 and be notified of upcoming educational opportunities, sign up for my mailing list here.
Here’s our week after a few announcements!
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Astrology has always been so fun and magical to me but also something I see as worth being dedicated about, which means training! There are many hours that go into studying, practicing, and then there are also the attunements of how to live astrologically (how to track the transits, how to evolve your expression of your natal placements in daily life, discovering learning opportunities everywhere, etc.) – so let’s develop skill and interpretive acumen in community. This is a space for astrological devotion, and for bringing this practice into earth – i.e. materializing it and making it a reality. Open to alumni, with potential special exceptions to people well-versed in Evolutionary Astrology. Learn more and apply here.
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Here’s our week:
December 23, 2020
Mars in 23 Aries square Pluto in 23 Capricorn: 6:53 AM PST
Mars and Pluto have been in orb of this square for months now, due to Mars’ recent retrograde. However, it is kicking up in intensity at the moment because the square is exact again. I want to share a passage I wrote for Mars retrograde several months ago, in which I was reflecting about Mars in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn. I have edited it slightly for this week. (The original one can be found here.)
- With Mars in Aries squaring Pluto in Capricorn, there is a major emphasis on slowing down and sinking into a deeper intentionality with our actions.
- What are the differences to you, between inhibition, caution, and wisdom?
- There is an archetypal tension within this transit between establishment/tradition/‘the old’ and fresh burst of life and instinct. At times, the disagreement is warlike – establishment wants to quell the new, or the new wants to destroy the establishment. At this level of intense disagreement, there is often lack of understanding and even developmental blocks from understanding (what is established is too crystallized to be flexible, and what is new is too immature to understand the full depth of the situation).
- On the other hand, this archetypal tension can often be fruitful. The new energy comes into maturity within the container of the world that has already been built (established). Sometimes the youth and the elders have immensely respectful relationships to each other and feel enhanced by the other.
- These archetypal frictions (between old and new) challenge what is old/established to become more clear about where standing ground is necessary and where flexibility is needed. The long-established energies may be bothered by being challenged so recklessly (as it would appear).
- If there are places in our lives where we possess a certain amount of authority or expertise, or we have worked and climbed hard to attain our position, we may find ourselves playing Capricorn/establishment in this dynamic. It could be a social position of power, but it could also be a well-maintained sense of personal integrity. If we are playing Capricorn, Mars is squaring us.
- Rather than being shocked at being challenged, we might come to expect that our position will be challenged. The question is how skillfully and perhaps even playfully we can work with resistance.
- Be mindful of sparring occurring in your environment between the old and the new, elders and youth, traditional values and rebellion to those values, authority and recklessness, the experienced and the initiates. This is rich, and human. It’s been playing out archetypally for as long as we’ve been organizing in society! You can find it in books, movies, and your own family systems.
(Image: Timothy Von Rueden)
- This archetypal tension challenges what is new/instinctual/impulsive to find an efficacious course of action that is more responsible and aware than it is impatient or foolish – or to be willing at least to accept the consequences of foolishness, to learn through trial and error and feedback – and perhaps even some developmental necessity to test life and one’s abilities and learn what happens.
- For lack of a better word, we speak of foolishness. Archetypally, one who is fresh/new and unaware of the path before them is a “fool”. The fool often finds support, luck, as well as ‘lessons’ in life that are the feedback from one’s actions. One at the onset of a new journey has to have some reserve of courage (or naïveté, or a mix of both) to set off. Often this courage is rewarded, and a repetitive or consistent willingness to try new things and get back up is a kind of strength that is represented at the intersection of Aries and Capricorn energy.
- The fool, the fresh initiate, the new one – these characters may have less experience, but they are also less crystallized in their perception and potentially less jaded by life. The perspective they bring is truly fresh – and it can challenge or invigorate the status quo.
- These tense dynamics explored above exist within intergenerational discord, conservatism versus progress, as well as within the self’s competing impulses for maintaining the status quo versus breaking it. It is also the self’s competing impulses for new adventure versus staying in the known, and whether we give ourselves permission and support for learning new things or feel to inhibited to do so, or shame ourselves too hard when we make mistakes. Remember that planetary transits occur across people (relationally) but also represents aspects of ourselves. These dynamics can be found in many places.
- Consider the radical, evolutionary, or revelatory opportunities available when these archetypal tensions collaborate and teach one another more than they war with each other, and what that could look like in your own life.
- I believe one of the highest expressions of the warrior is the peacemaker – one who understands war and because they truly respect the damage that war causes, they work to create peace instead at every possible opportunity. This an alchemical warrior. When we find more skillful ways of resolving conflict or negotiating agreements, or learning how to opt-out of inner-violence, we support a more peaceful planet. Peace moves. It is a power, and it takes courage and nobility.
Mercury in 4 Capricorn square Chiron in 4 Aries: 6:11 PM PST
This gives us another Aries-Capricorn square, which echoes the generational or ‘new versus old’ tensions but here are some other things to think about relative to this transit in particular.
- Chiron in Aries could be seen as a wound around selfhood and courage – the way one might suffer developmentally if not allowed to make their own mistakes as a child, or the way one might suffer emotionally if they feel a new idea they expressed aloud was immediately shut down or ridiculed by others. So there is some struggle potentially with inhibition – being afraid to take a step or to make a mistake – or some overcompensation like bravado, the need to be ‘the best’, or a fixation on winning as a metric of self-worth, to account for what recognition felt missing. Chiron in Aries can also express as a bully figure – tearing down others to avoid feeling torn down oneself, beating others to it. If we have the moral character and awareness to not act on that type of impulse, mean thoughts about others can still be a flag in our consciousness that something is up – for us (not necessarily for the other who is a target)!
- Resonating with Aries type of wounding does not make the Aries mission invalid – archetypally we often do need to experience a win that the soul yearns for, to move on. Once the win occurs, there is a natural tendency for complex feelings of depression, disappointment, or “what now?” thoughts to settle in. Perhaps we imagined that arriving at a certain destination would mean something, when we overlooked that the journey was also meaningful and soulful, and that we gained something from having a goal or having an ambition that wasn’t just about the end result.
- As Mercury in Capricorn meets Chiron in Aries at this square, it is possible for us that we are experiencing some kind of mental pivot around how we find meaning in the goals that grip us at a deeper level. It’s possible that the mood is more sobering, more humble. It is also possible that we will be in greater touch with our thoughts around why things aren’t possible, but also in reach of breakthrough. We might also be re-assessing our motivations – finding ourselves still drawn toward the same thing even, but for new reasons. In some cases, it may also be pivoting actual direction, not just our thoughts about the direction.
December 24, 2020
Mercury in 6 Capricorn trine Uranus retrograde in 6 Taurus: 11:05 PM PST
(Image: Carlos Schwabe)
At the time of this aspect, the Moon and Black Moon Lilith will also be conjunct Uranus, and trining Mercury.
- Many of us have inherited an idea that our ideas/communications have to be fully baked and complete before we send them. Perhaps this is appropriate in certain contexts. But in some contexts, it can create a sense of stagnancy, a state of constant hiding – wanting to speak but never having the words, wanting to come out into the world but staying back. There is another subtle reality however, that things *change* as soon as they are named or spoken. This is part of the magic of the word. Sometimes, we have to say something aloud or post something online to have that new perspective click in.
- Perhaps consider it an embodiment of the voice – to be able to name what is true in a moment, and then name what is true in the next moment, and so on. These truths do not last. But honoring them as they arise creates fluidity and fluency in our reality.
December 25, 2020
Sun in 4 Capricorn square Chiron in 4 Aries: 11:37 PM PST
(Image: Giorgio de Chirico)
- There may be a basic tension at play currently around self-expression and the results we want to come of that, i.e. how we want to come off or appear to others – and how we don’t. How we feel pressure to conform in order to not experience consequences in reality (not fitting in, ostracization, etc.), versus feeling bursts of energy that is wanting to come out that we deem unruly, inappropriate, or not wise. There is not a simple answer here though – just a tension that could inspire us to take off some masks that we have been wearing, or be reserved if that is truly the wiser thing to do. If we do feel this kind of tension, there is a dissonance perhaps between our routine way of being, or our ego even – and something that is wanting to come through us. Working with this tension may relate to becoming more throughly self-expressed.
- Consider if there is a place in your life that you feel both reserved and frustrated – like you are holding back in a way that is becoming more unbearable or more inauthentic. This is a place where we are experiencing growing pains – like a shell we used to live more comfortably inside of is becoming too small. One could dramatically step out. One might also be inclined toward learning some skills to create a more easeful transition.
December 27, 2020
Sun in 6 Capricorn trine Uranus retrograde in 6 Taurus: 7:25 PM PST
- There may be some intimations at the moment around major change or progress in our life taking the form of slow, concrete steps. That a personal revolution is happening through devotion, through routine, through the things we bond ourselves to in our schedule.
December 29, 2020
Venus in 18 Sagittarius square Neptune in 18 Pisces: 2:18 AM PST
(Image: Antonio Javier Caparo)
With Venus and Mars both in fire signs and creating hard aspects to outer planets, its a passionate week in our relationships! And there can be a lot of ‘content’ here, beyond what meets the eye – including projection, awakening, soul-making.
- There is a strong draw with this aspect to see the best in others – to see their heroism, their stunning beauty, their most remarkable qualities that make them larger than life and enchanting to us.
- Sometimes caught in a spell in deep admiration for others, we can become blurrier about our own desires and boundaries. At a positive level, this has an opening effect – bringing us outside of our normal egoic bounds, sparking in us a willingness to try new things and have new experiences. At a more challenging level, it can turn into self-abandonment – rationalizing that something is okay because we’re just down for the ride. Sometimes floating adrift like this is the path to self-knowledge, but at the point that it is a pattern, it invites us to become more clear on our values so that we can align ourselves accordingly.
- The blurring of boundaries can be part of sublime experiencing – instead of feeling separate from the world, we feel entirely connected – we see the fabric that connects everything. This can be experienced as dreams that whisper the future, as synchronicity, as noticing themes in our own lives reflected in the lives of others around us, of feeling universally connected to all things, to nature. This can be a fruitful time to open our hearts to the magic of the world that really relationship is a gateway too. Those of us that love astrology experience meaning in these celestial bodies that others might consider inanimate objects hurling in space. Those that love plants may talk to them and receive messages from them, instead of just filtering them out of their perception as they pass them by while walking on the sidewalk. The simple, but expansive consideration that something or someone may be mysterious and full of surprise & beauty results in having a more alive experience of that person or thing. Perception, curiosity, trusting in depth and value beyond what we immediately know can be a form of courtship.
Full Moon in 8 Cancer: 7:28 PM PST
(Image: Caia Koopman)
Chiron in Aries forms a t-square to this lunation.
- The Cancer-Capricorn axis relates to development – the ways that we develop in family systems, under particular conditions, and in cultures with cultural conditioning. We are formed within these matrices – sometimes empowered by these conditions, and other times we feel wounded by them. But none of us have gone through life without this kind of influence. Cancer-Capricorn themes can bring up reflection around our personal history or a more familial or collective history, as we seek to understand the consequences these influences have had.
- A Full Moon in Cancer suggests a growing mood of sentimentality, the desire to connect and cohere with others, and perhaps more nostalgic reflections and visions coming through.
- It is also possible that if there are places in our lives we are seeking more responsibility or status (Capricorn) – wanting to ‘be someone’, we are also tasked with understanding the people around us. A leader that understands the people is more beloved than a leader who does not.
- Leadership may be literal here (like a position of leadership) but it can also be a role that is organically fulfilled by living one’s purpose and being true to oneself. When a person ripens into themselves in this way, they become leaders by example. Others do not necessarily imitate them directly, but are influenced and inspired by this person to also become themselves.
- The ability to understand and hold space for others – while also knowing who one is and where their boundaries are – can be immensely community building. We do not have to be the same or have the same values (I get that some divides are harder to cross). However, one who takes the time or has the psychological maturity to understand and empathize with others may gain respect. It is not just about who we are, but how we relate to the matrix of life around us, that determines who we end up being ‘in the world’.
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like further guidance, I have been increasingly focused on longer-term 1:1 work with my students and clients, in the form of mentorship – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to heal, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. If you’re interested in working together in that capacity, I am currently accepting new clients. Send me an email at sabrina@monarchastrology.com to start a conversation and set up a free consultation call.
Find me on Instagram @sabrinamonarch and Twitter @Sabrina_monarch, get on my mailing list to stay apprised of all upcoming offerings and events, and I’ll see you next week!
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
(Top Image: Veronica Park)
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