Mercury, Mars and Venus each change signs this week. Mercury in Aquarius will highlight by aspect both the current Saturn-Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius and the Saturn-Uranus square. A New Moon forms in Capricorn, conjunct god of the underworld Pluto, and trine fire priestess and keeper of the sacred flame, Vesta in Virgo.
As Mercury draws to make contacts with both Saturn and Mars, this speaks to conflict and mental tension. It is also an opportunity for things to come to a head. A Mercury-Mars-Saturn mood is like a person sitting at a desk, deep in thought, with a thunderstorm happening just outside the window. It’s a gritty comic book aesthetic vibe. (I had no chill this week and went all in for the comic book aesthetic.) The problem at hand is inevitable – there are consequences in every which direction, including non-action. This also becomes a powerful time for seeking advice from trusted people, or saying the things that are hard to say. A transit like this can remind us that life does involve hard decisions or moments where we feel tested, situations where there is not an easy answer.
Watch this week’s forecast on YouTube, or continue reading below:
Potentially in moments of tension like this, time moves slowly enough for us to consider our situation in a new way. The narrative tales that we love to watch or read are full of conflicts that forge the main characters. And sometimes life itself is cinematic like that, as well.
The earthiness of Mars’ ingress into Taurus, and a New Moon in Capricorn, suggest that we can also practice feeling into the way our decisions feel in our bodies, or registering the after-effect feels. Choosing to learn something, reflecting on what we’ve learned, and accepting and working with consequences – all remediate the stress of decision-making or confronting the results of our actions.
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!
Starting soon! Days left to enroll (January 8 deadline)
Study Evolutionary Astrology with me in January 2021 – enrollment is now open! It’s always an inspiring group of deep thinkers that gather for this class. If you are wanting to learn karmic soul-centered astrology, and go deeper into the astrological craft in both an intuitive and a structured/guided way – and you resonate with these forecasts, you’ll love this live course.
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Learn more, read testimonials, and enroll here. Deadline is January 8!
Introducing a new program for alumni of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive (a level two training)! METEORITE is an Astrological Embodiment Accelerator, a deep nine-month dive into building skill and voice as astrologers. Expanding on what we’ve already learned in the intensive, we will practice our interpretive and delineation skills, continue to explore the transpersonal mysteries of the outer planets, work with the material of our own charts and transits, and create something (a work of astrological scholarship or art) by the end of the nine months to share with everyone. Call it an initiation.
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.
Latest episode of Magic of the Spheres and the first of 2021 ✨🔮✨ I interviewed brand witch Captolia @captolia.online about the priestess path, goddess devotion, magical business, money mindset and wealth, and personal magnetism. The magic of existing online & having an online business has so much to do with being fully in yourself and by virtue of that, being fascinating. We discussed the process of opening to wealth and ways to address some challenges that people tend to have around online expression and brand creation. Tune in where you listen to podcasts! Or on your browser here.
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Here’s our week:
January 6, 2021
Mars enters Taurus: 2:27 PM PST
This is a significant mood shift, given that Mars spent so much time in Aries due to the recent Mars retrograde. Mars was in Aries from June 27, 2020 to now. Mars will stay in Taurus until March 3, 2021.
- For months, Mars in Aries was in orb of squaring Pluto, Saturn, and Jupiter in Capricorn. Now that Saturn and Jupiter have ingressed into Aquarius, this ongoing square continues but in different signs. Mars’ entrance into Taurus also brings Mars closer to Uranus in early Taurus, and places Mars as a cameo figure in the Saturn-Uranus square that will characterize 2021 (video on this 2021 transit here).
- On a feeling level, Mars in Taurus is much slower than Mars in Aries. Mars is at home in Aries, and more naturally expresses its impulsive, raw, moment-to-moment instinctual nature there. Taurus, on the other hand, is a sign that loves leisure and rest. Think of the image of a bull laying in a meadow. Once the bull is in motion however, it’s formidable, combining impact with weight/gravity. See if you notice a shift in energy levels or motivation as Mars changes signs.
- Mars in Taurus can be motivated with pleasure. While Mars in Aries can express as a person who just loves and needs to move, Mars in Taurus often desires pleasurable movement – something aesthetic or sensual.
- This Mars entering into conversation with Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus could relate to some tensions around speed/desire for accelerated momentum versus limitations. Instead of being in a rush, it could be helpful to think about endurance or longevity as an important factor in our plans. Just because we want something now or got the whole download or vision about it doesn’t mean we can implement it as quickly, and without adequate time to rest or readjust.
January 8, 2021
Mercury enters Aquarius: 4:00 AM PST
(Image: Joelle Jones)
Mercury will station retrograde in 26 degrees of Aquarius on January 30, and station direct again February 20 in 11 degrees of Aquarius. Mercury will enter Pisces March 15, 2021.
- Mercury leaves an earth sign (Capricorn) and enters the air sign Aquarius, which can relate to a mood shift around feeling the wind of new ideas entering our consciousness. Mercury in Capricorn is pragmatic, and we may have found ourselves more practically focused during that transit – focusing on what is right in front of us.
- Mercury in Aquarius is network consciousness, a systems-oriented consciousness. It can relate to downloads, or making rapid connections that are logical/deductive but happen so quickly that it feels like a vision (and it still is, in some sense).
- Mercury will retrograde in Aquarius and spend extra time in this sign as a result. This can be a good time for re-thinking some of our traditional mental patterns – the ways we expect certain things and create self-fulfilling prophesies by being so tuned into those ‘programs’. When we create things with self-fulfilling prophesy it’s not just that we were right, necessarily – but that we were participating with a script, a story, a ‘program’.
- One force that interrupts these programs is insight. When we have a flash of insight, a moment of sudden understanding, it’s a kind of shock that reverberates through our system and has us thinking differently and seeing our experience from new angles.
Venus enters Capricorn: 7:41 AM PST
Yes – another mood shift. Planets changing signs changes the field. Venus leaves Sagittarius to be in Capricorn until February 1, 2021.
- Venus in Capricorn highlights intentional, aesthetic and value-oriented construction – having clarity around what we desire and being able to make decisions accordingly. The more clarity, the less time is spent on things that aren’t in alignment. This can create an energy/orientation that seems reserved, and it is. Venus in Capricorn may be less concerned about pleasing everyone and more interested in priorities.
- What if there is not clarity? Capricorn is about climbing the mountain, success, wordiness, accomplishment, in some sense – but there is the descent side of Capricorn, like depression or dark night of the soul, doubt, winter. Clarity can not be forced just because we’re trying to be good – claiming to know what we want just because we know that’s something we ‘should’ do. Part of Capricorn’s depth is the ability to go into the contracted seed-state – those moments of being underground before bursting through the seed husk and growing, blooming. If we don’t feel connected to pleasure, to what we value, or feel like we “should” be happy with what is happening in our lives but we aren’t, these are moments where we might try to suppress those feelings and just carry on or be grateful. But these can also be moments to be curious, to be patient, to open – what is forming in this darkness?
- As an activity of self-intimacy, feel into the difference of your clarity and non-clarity. When you’re certain and when you know what you want and are not willing to settle for anything less, is this not powerful and galvanizing? Similarly, when you’re uncertain, and you’re willing to admit to that and be with that liminal space and open to something new or open to change, is that not also potentially powerful, like standing at the death & birth gates?
Sun in 18 Capricorn sextile Neptune in 18 Pisces: 8:51 AM PST
Mercury in 0 Aquarius square Mars in 0 Taurus: 3:56 PM PST
- Consider the mental tensions you experience on your way to freedom – the doubts or patterns that want to take hold when you are experiencing wealth, happiness, love – the part of you that is fighting for some reason to hold onto your pain, victimization, unworthiness, and so on. What if you could just watch this happen as an observer? It is when we are on the edge of breakthrough or transformation that more stubborn parts of our ego/ego constructs come out to fight for dear life. It’s normal. What if you observed it with curiosity, as opposed to just being inside of it?
January 9, 2021
Venus in 1 Capricorn trine Mars in 1 Taurus: 7:53 AM PST
(Image: The Wicked + The Divine)
- This is a subtle transit, but creative and something that could help build momentum around value-driven or passion projects. When Venus and Mars come together we can feel more motivated to create art, to perform, to make our affection known, to initiate connection. In earth signs, the emphasis is on concrete, material, tangible reality. It takes vision or imagination to dream, but it takes the earth element to bring it down to… earth. So consider if you are taking tangible steps to honor the inspiration that you are in contact with.
Mercury in 2 Aquarius conjunct Saturn in 2 Aquarius: 7:17 PM PST
(See below, Mercury conjunct Jupiter)
January 11, 2021
Mercury in 5 Aquarius conjunct Jupiter in 5 Aquarius: 9:19 AM PST
Mercury touches the current Saturn-Jupiter conjunction that was exact December 21, 2020. For more information on this great conjunction, see this video.
- Mercury interacting with this conjunction makes the themes of this great conjunction more readily intelligible to us. We may be talking about and researching some larger projects we have in mind. Saturn-Jupiter is like a new world – and perhaps an idealistic one, with these planets in Aquarius. So what do we need to know, what information do we need, to materialize this new world?
- When it comes to simply talking about visions and plans and never actually doing anything, not all talk is equal. Some talk moves the needle forward. We might want to more ~aggressively~ pinpoint the next steps in our visioning, and start asking questions or consulting people that can help with the blindspots in our vision.
- For example, it had occurred to me some time back that people who believe they don’t possess the ability to follow-through with projects (but are good at starting them) might just not have the mapping for finishing projects. Actually studying different phases of the creative process gives the mind a map to overcome various common hurdles that come up along the way. Aquarius is an amazing systems thinker. So if we have a vision of an entire process, and its various steps, we can more readily orient to where we are and where we are going.
- Tune into opportunities to understand processes that you’re in from a much larger perspective. Sometimes it’s presented as research, like Brene Brown for example collecting a ton of information about shame and vulnerability and helping us contextualize these themes better through her body of work. Sometimes it’s presented as personal stories, like people sharing how they got to where they are, and you can empathize with some of their hurdles and locate yourself as confronting some of the same things. Seeing how they got from that point, to the next, however, is also bigger picture context.
January 12, 2021
Mercury in 6 Aquarius square Uranus retrograde in 6 Taurus: 7:00 AM PST
As Mercury highlights the recent Saturn-Jupiter conjunction, it also activates the Saturn-Uranus square. Watch the video on this square here for more information.
New Moon in 23 Capricorn: 9:00 PM PST
(Image: Poison Ivy)
This New Moon is conjunct Pluto in 24 degrees of Capricorn, and trine asteroid goddess Vesta, a priestess and keeper of the sacred flame. By the Full Moon in two weeks, the Sun will be in Aquarius (and Moon in Leo). At the Full Moon, the Sun will be conjunct Saturn and Jupiter, and the full moon axis will square Uranus and Mars in Taurus.
- A new moon conjunct Pluto here is interesting/fascinating – but not necessarily pleasant. It can be an invitation to move into what is real, even if the feelings are grief, emptiness, anger, jealousy, or other moods we judge as something we are averse to feeling. A shift happens when we move with these emotions rather than contract in the presence of them, judge them, resist them, try to get over them.
- Writing of natal Moon-Pluto aspects in his book Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul volume 1, Jeffrey Wolf Green: “…by nature these individuals <need> to cyclically shut down in order to replenish their emotional batteries. They also need to shut down because they are cyclically consumed by the unconscious force of their Souls. This occurs in order to induce knowledge or perspective, or to release a new seed thought, feeling, or emotion from the Soul to the conscious ego at key times in the evolutionary journey. Thus, the balance between necessary shutdown time and animated time is critical.”
- One aspect of being in touch with our personal power and the spiritual life-force that runs through us is to be able to surrender into the moments that we feel empty, or down. As Green speaks to above, sometimes these down moments can be seed moments – the compact, quiet moment before something bursts through the seed husk. We can resist these down/empty moments for feeling that we need to be productive, more obviously functioning, or that there is something wrong with us for feeling these ways.
- On the other side of this coin, there is a renewal or rebirth that follows these deepening/down/death moments. We can feel animated, inspired, or motivated after a hibernation. This lunation can highlight our process around trusting our own psyches and souls, and their rhythms. How do we also experience devotion, intention, or willpower, in a way that harmonizes with our nature?
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
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