MAJOR ALIGNMENTS and PHENOMENA

I will make note of and com­ment upon the remain­ing major astro­log­i­cal move­ments and align­ments for this year, sav­ing more exten­sive analy­sis for when they actu­al­ly take place. I will then take a more exten­sive look into the align­ments that are occur­ring in the charts of the Unit­ed States and for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, and per­haps one or two oth­er charts, again sav­ing more exten­sive com­men­tary for lat­er this year.

Mars Ret­ro­grade (Jan­u­ary 23 till April 13–14)

Where­as Mer­cury moves ret­ro­grade 3 times a year for about 23 days each time, and Venus ret­ro­grades about every 1.5 years for about 40 days, Mars will move ret­ro­grade about every 2 years and 2 months for about 80 days or so…it is the plan­et that goes ret­ro­grade the least so you should take advan­tage of this opportunity.…what opportunity?

Mars rules your actions and desires, it serves your “self” (the Sun) by pro­vid­ing the dri­ve to secure your needs and wants. But when it turns ret­ro­grade it sig­nals a time for you to turn inward, and offers you the oppor­tu­ni­ty (neces­si­ty) to re-exam­ine what is “desire” (or what are your desires), and, just as impor­tant­ly, re-con­sid­er how you should obtain them. This time Mars is ret­ro­grad­ing through Vir­go, so the review of your desires and aims will be upon your need for greater clar­i­ty, order and peace of mind…

Nep­tune Enters Pisces (Feb­ru­ary 3, 2012 till 2025–26)

Nep­tune, which has been paus­ing at the thresh­old of her home sign dur­ing 2011, moves in to stay for over 13 years. My com­ments when it first began to make this tran­si­tion, (April 4, 2011) are well worth re-post­ing here:

Just as with Jupiter and Uranus last year, Nep­tune dances back and forth between one sign and the next this year. It has been in Aquar­ius since 1998 and it will stay in Pisces start­ing next Feb­ru­ary 2012 until March 2025. This is a com­ing home event, since Nep­tune is said to rule Pisces. 

The last time Nep­tune was here was 1848 to 1862 and the pur­suit of dreams (and fan­tasies) grew apace. In the US, the west­ward expan­sion was accel­er­at­ed as the vision of gold sparkled in the eyes of “forty-nin­ers”. In the spir­i­tu­al world, on the heels of the “Sec­ond Great Awak­en­ing”, a grow­ing reli­gious fer­vor spurred the calls for jus­tice as abo­li­tion­ists strug­gled to make our coun­try con­front the great evil and shame of slavery. 

For the next 13 years, a path­way has been offered for a renew­al of under­stand­ing, com­pas­sion and sac­ri­fice. We are mov­ing into a peri­od of spir­i­tu­al revival and growth. Dreams, romance and the imag­i­na­tion will take flight. 

Be pre­pared to wonder…be ready to embrace… and be able to sur­ren­der, so that the gifts of Spir­it may enter our hearts and so remind us that we are one. “E Pluribus Unum” 

Sat­urn Ret­ro­grade (Feb­ru­ary 7 till June 25) 

Sat­urn ret­ro­grades every year and pro­vides you with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-exam­ine your social roles, hier­ar­chies and respon­si­bil­i­ties. This is its last ret­ro­grade in Libra before mov­ing into Scor­pio in Octo­ber, so this will be your chance to once again look at the nature of your rela­tion­ship agree­ments or con­tracts, whether implied or writ­ten. When Sat­urn moves on into Scor­pio you will want to have made sure that you have done your best to pre­pare for mat­ters to get even more serious.

Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade (March 11–12 to April 4)

Mer­cury ret­ro­grades through the sign of Aries and back into Pisces. You need to go with­in and recon­sid­er your atti­tudes and be mind­ful to think before speak­ing! Lat­er, when Her­mes moves back into Pisces, you will need to con­front your fears and restore your faith by re-con­nect­ing to the pow­er of your imagination.

Venus Ret­ro­grade (May 15 to June 27)

Venus ret­ro­grades in the sign of Gem­i­ni. Take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to go with­in and con­sid­er the nuanced com­plex­i­ty in your hier­ar­chy of val­ues. Venus in Gem­i­ni illus­trates the mul­ti­fac­eted nature of your aes­thet­ic and social val­ues, but some­times those flash­ing facets can become a lit­tle dis­con­cert­ing and/or con­fus­ing. The ret­ro­grade will offer a peri­od of re-exam­i­na­tion so that you can more clear­ly assess those dif­fer­ing and diverse approach­es and so help you to sort the wheat from your chaff.

Solar Eclipse in Gem­i­ni (May 20)

The New Moon Solar Eclipse is in Gem­i­ni which means that before you can move ahead with this next release or gift of ener­gy you will first have to turn around so as to cor­rect some­thing in your think­ing. Gem­i­ni rules the low­er mind’s most impor­tant gift, the agile-adapt­able-ques­tion­ing voice bet­ter known as your intel­li­gence. The Moon’s shad­ow reminds you that some old assump­tions may be block­ing you so that your cat­e­gories, labels and what­not are cast­ing a shad­ow upon what you per­ceive. It is time to think “out­side of the box”!

Lunar Eclipse in Sagit­tar­ius (June 4)

The Full Moon Eclipse falls in Sagit­tar­ius and is the “answer” to the Solar Eclipse on May 20. Where­as the Solar Eclipse reminds you that your past may obscure or hin­der the unfold­ment of a new release of ener­gy, the Lunar Eclipse sym­bol­izes the impor­tance of how your cur­rent belief sys­tem, your “truth”, may be blind­ing you to a greater Truth. This Eclipse is also World Invo­ca­tion Day so many, many peo­ple will be call­ing upon uni­ver­sal ener­gies for guid­ance and sup­port. Join in this spir­it of com­bined aware­ness so as to rise to a high­er under­stand­ing in your life.

Jupiter Enters Gem­i­ni (June 11) 

The biggest plan­et “hops over the prover­bial can­dle­stick” (again and again), as it moves through the sign of nim­ble­ness, intel­li­gence and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The over­all ener­gy lev­el (thoughts, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and actions) will expand great­ly, but you will need to work on try­ing to main­tain direc­tion­al­i­ty and focus. Advances will be made in all forms of net­work­ing, and indi­vid­u­als and groups will have access to more and more infor­ma­tion. The ques­tion will be: “Do we real­ly have more under­stand­ing or are we mere­ly becom­ing more distracted”?

Jupiter Square Nep­tune (June 24–25)

Jupiter in Gem­i­ni meets up with Nep­tune in Pisces; you need to see how to bet­ter bend your grand ideas to the whis­pers of your imag­i­na­tion, dreams and spir­i­tu­al nature. Growth is good, but you need to expand rea­son­ably (and hon­est­ly). Be care­ful of deals or promis­es that sound too good to be true…they usu­al­ly are!

Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade (July 14 to August 7–8)

Mer­cury ret­ro­grades through the sign of Leo. Before you can make a splash with your next “big idea”, you need to go back and review your approach. You need respect, but you have to earn it by lead­ing by exam­ple and help­ing oth­ers to believe in them­selves too.

Sat­urn Enters Scor­pio (Octo­ber 5)

The lessons learned about rela­tion­ship needs, prin­ci­ples and agree­ments (Sat­urn in Libra) moves onto the heart of the mat­ter, lit­er­al­ly. The test now is to go beyond your for­mal agree­ments and forge deep­er and ulti­mate­ly trans­for­ma­tion­al unions. The way for­ward is through joint ven­tures, but that means real sac­ri­fices of the less­er so as to hon­or the greater good for one and all.

Mer­cury Ret­ro­grade (Novem­ber 6 to Novem­ber 26)

Uh oh…remember the Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion in 2000, (Flori­da and those hang­ing chads, a Supreme deci­sion)? Well, here we are again with Mer­cury shift­ing directions…and this time Her­mes is going ret­ro­grade right on Elec­tion Day!

Mer­cury will start mov­ing back­wards in Sagit­tar­ius and on into Scor­pio. The re-exam­i­na­tion of your beliefs will ulti­mate­ly lead to fac­ing what unites and divides you from one another.

Solar Eclipse in Scor­pio (Novem­ber 13)

Right in the mid­dle of Mer­cury’s ret­ro­grade we expe­ri­ence the sec­ond New Moon Eclipse of the year. The theme for the Solar/Lunar eclipses is shift­ing now, away from the realm of thoughts and ideas (Gemini/Sagittarius) and onto the thorny ques­tions of Val­ue (Taurus/Scorpio). The release of some new under­stand­ing about the nature of your unions is being obscured by shad­ows from the past…time to con­front those fears of rejec­tion and loss and take the high­er path of show­ing your strength by cre­at­ing a bet­ter space for mutu­al sacrifice.

Lunar Eclipse in Gem­i­ni (Novem­ber 28)

The Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Gem­i­ni inter­rupts the rev­e­la­tion you were hop­ing for. You were seek­ing to bend and stretch your intel­li­gence so as to hold two (or more) approach­es to the issue you con­front. Again, it is your men­tal “blind spot”, your unques­tioned pat­terns and assump­tions that need to be seen as stand­ing in your way. Real intel­li­gence is not exer­cised in hav­ing the “cor­rect” answer by accept­ing the con­ven­tion­al par­a­digm; it is much more impor­tant to be able to shift your assump­tions so that you can ques­tion the ques­tion itself!

 

Next, I will take a look at the major tran­sits for the year in the charts for the USA and Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.