OTHER MAJOR ALIGNMENTS and PHENOMENA

I will note and com­ment upon
some of the remain­ing major astro­log­i­cal move­ments and align­ments for this
year, and I will offer more detailed analy­sis for when they actu­al­ly occur. I
will then exam­ine the align­ments that are present this year in the chart of the
Unit­ed States and for Pres­i­dent Obama.

Jupiter
Direct (Jan­u­ary 30, 2013 until Novem­ber 6–7)

Jupiter, who guides you upon your Path of
Under­stand­ing, turns direct and you must shift your search for mean­ing away
from your inner path­ways of growth to focus upon the realms of life around you.
You have revis­it­ed, revised and renewed your out­look on life for almost four
months now…time to put it out there and build a bet­ter world!

Sat­urn
Ret­ro­grade (Feb­ru­ary 18 until July 7)

Sat­urn turns your atten­tion inwards to consider
the nature of Union in your world…You have been delv­ing deeply with Sat­urn in
Scor­pio, into how you can over­come your pains of sep­a­ra­tion and join with one
anoth­er more com­plete­ly. Now you need to look with­in to see what is there, what
you hold to, or what holds you back from the deep­er expe­ri­ences you pro­fess to
desire. The shad­ows of the past, your fears about rejec­tion or loss have to be faced
and released here with­in your­self, for only then will you find your joy out
there.

Mer­cury
Ret­ro­grade in Pisces (Feb­ru­ary 23 until March 17)

The first of three Mer­cury ret­ro­grades this year
and there is some­thing special…all three ret­ro­grades will take place in one
of each of the three Water signs, Pisces, Can­cer and Scor­pio (in that order). It
looks like the uni­verse is bring­ing you an inten­sive oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on
your Mind/Feeling integration.

This first ret­ro­grade is in Pisces, so it is time
to pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to your dreams and imag­i­na­tion in this one. You need
to re-con­sid­er what you dream of, what you imag­ine will be and how to make it
so. As usu­al, many issues in your present day life may be put on hold as you go
back to fin­ish some­thing left behind.

Mer­cury
Direct (March 17 until June 26)

You have recon­sid­ered your hopes and dreams for
three weeks, now you go for­ward to bring them into your real­i­ty. What was held
up or delayed for a time should now be back on track…but you need­ed that step
back to revise and regroup before you could leap ahead.

Plu­to
Ret­ro­grade (April 12 until Sep­tem­ber 20)

Plu­to takes you inwards to re-con­sid­er the nature
of your will. Before you can forge even deep­er mean­ings between one anoth­er, before
you can make the mag­ic that comes from the join­ing of spir­its one with another,
you need to secure your own sacred space again.

Full
Moon Eclipse in Scor­pio (April 25)

The five eclipses of the year begin with the
Bud­dha Moon! The ancient teach­ings say that Bud­dha was born on, achieved
enlight­en­ment under and left his phys­i­cal body on the Full Moon in the month of
Tau­rus. This Full Moon is about under­stand­ing the dynam­ic rela­tion­ship you must
expe­ri­ence regard­ing the ques­tion of Val­ue. For in your very being you
expe­ri­ence this truth, that you are an immor­tal in a mor­tal frame. Val­ues are
“eter­nal” (or time­less), yet their phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion is only for
a time. The key teach­ing of the Bud­dha con­cerned this way of under­stand­ing the
jour­ney you must take as a spark of the Divine…that you must learn the way,
in fact become the way of Non-Attachment. 

Here is a map of where the Eclipse will be vis­i­ble. It will be
pass­ing over Europe, Africa and Asia mostly.

Solar
Eclipse in Tau­rus (May 9)

The first of two Solar Eclipses this year as the
Moon cross­es the face of the Sun, but because of the Moon’s dis­tance from the
Earth, it will not com­plete­ly block the Sun so that there will be a “Ring
of Fire” of the Sun’s light around the Moon’s shad­ow. This type of
align­ment is called an annu­lar eclipse (annu­lus means “bright ring”).
This near­ly total eclipse will be vis­i­ble in North­ern Aus­tralia and the South
Pacif­ic and here is a map of its path. Here is an
ani­ma­tion show­ing how the Eclipse will move across the Earth.

The mes­sage of the Tau­rus Solar Eclipse is centered
again upon the ques­tion of val­ue, but this spe­cial New Moon will release a
deep­er under­stand­ing as regards your under­stand­ing about  the nature of true val­ue, how it aris­es, grows
and is sustained…The answer, quite sim­ply, is that it is to be found in your
expe­ri­ence of your Self. It is this, your “trea­sure in heav­en”, that
you take with you from life to life, and all the efforts you put in to better
your­self today will be there as a gift to your­self in this life and in life
after life. 

Uranus
Square Plu­to (May 20)

The first of the two exact align­ments these great
Lords will make this year. Please refer to my 2012 Gen­er­al
Fore­cast for the
over­all mean­ing, and to the first part of this 2013 fore­cast to see my thoughts
about this.

Full
Moon Eclipse in Sagit­tar­ius (May 24–25)

The sec­ond of three Lunar Eclipses moves the
top­ic from Taurus/Scorpio to Gemini/Sagittarius. Here is a map of where the
Eclipse will be vis­i­ble. It will be seen
in North and South Amer­i­ca and South­west Europe and West­ern Africa.

This Lunar Eclipse con­cerns the relationship
between your low­er mind and your high­er mind, between your induc­tive and
deduc­tive ways of com­pre­hend­ing your world. The Sun in Gem­i­ni has been
extolling the virtues of your Induc­tive Mind, and the Full Moon would normally
be able to offer a bal­anc­ing point of view of Deduc­tive Rea­son­ing. But the
Earth­’s shad­ow is get­ting in the way, so some­thing in your present assumptions,
some­thing in regards to your Truths, Beliefs or Prin­ci­ples is obscur­ing the
mes­sage. It is time to chal­lenge your­self and ques­tion your assump­tions so that
you might become less blind­ed by your self-cast shadows.

Nep­tune
Ret­ro­grade (June 6 until Novem­ber 13)

The Lord of Dreams and Imag­i­na­tion asks you to go
with­in and con­sid­er what lies at the heart of your pow­er of cre­ation. It is
time for deep­er con­tem­pla­tions, you need to med­i­tate and take more of those
qui­et walks in forests or sanc­tu­ar­ies. It is a time of ego-tran­scend­ing, true self-seeking
acceptance…You need to find a more trans-per­son­al way of believ­ing and being.

Sat­urn
Trine Nep­tune (June 11)

Sat­urn is mak­ing his sec­ond of three pass­es over
Nep­tune (the first was on Octo­ber 10, 2012, the final will be part of the Grand
Trine in Water in July-August). I dis­cussed the larg­er sig­nif­i­cance of this
aspect in the first part of the 2013 fore­cast. Here is what I said about their
first align­ment in Octo­ber 2012. Dream­ing and
Real­i­ty-mak­ing have aligned here…and it is beautiful!

Jupiter
Enters Can­cer (June 25 until July 16, 2014)

The Lord of Truth and Prin­ci­ples moves into the
sign of Can­cer, and your jour­ney of dis­cov­ery brings you home again to consider
the root nature of what you hold to be true. Your steady growth is found­ed upon
start­ing with a good foun­da­tion, and Jupiter in Can­cer will help you deepen
your expe­ri­ence of being cen­tered upon what mat­ters most. I dis­cussed this in
the first part of the 2013 fore­cast, and I will have more to say in June.

Mer­cury
Ret­ro­grade in Can­cer (June 26 until July 20)

The sec­ond of three Mer­cury ret­ro­grades in Water,
and now it is time to renew your thoughts about home and fam­i­ly. For three
weeks Mer­cury will ret­ro­grade through Can­cer and you will need to look within
to see how secure­ly root­ed are the ideas that you hold (or do they have their
hold on you?). You need to exam­ine how well you have learned to inte­grate your
thoughts with your feelings…For it is only then that you will communicate
with your head and your heart as one…and then your world will lis­ten with
won­der and appre­ci­a­tion. As always, present day mat­ters may need put on hold as
you go back and tidy up some items left behind.

Sat­urn
Direct (July 7 until March 2, 2014)

Sat­urn turns Direct in Scor­pio and you must face
the chal­lenge of forg­ing deep­er unions with one anoth­er. You have re-examined
where your fears regard­ing this have come from. Now the ques­tion put to you is
this, do you and do they have the courage to rise above your fears of rejection
and loss and take this next chance to join togeth­er in more mean­ing­ful unions?

Uranus
Ret­ro­grade (July 17 until Decem­ber 17)

The Lord of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Free­dom takes you
with­in to con­sid­er how you must free your­self from your shad­ows if you are to
be your true self. You often think of Free­dom as being all about your
expe­ri­ence of rela­tion­ships, the joys and demands that oth­ers bring into your
life, of how much you must give of your­self, or give up, of how much you will
gain, by join­ing with one anoth­er. But before you can cre­ate that greater space
of Free­dom for you and them, you have to Free your­self from old pat­terns that
reside with­in your­self, for it is from these that you go out and form those
man­i­fest­ed rela­tion­ship pat­terns with those around you. Uranus calls upon you
here to become more tru­ly you, to become more indi­vid­u­at­ed, to take the next
step in lift­ing up your low­er self as you become more attuned to your constant
guide and com­pan­ion, your soul and con­science, your beloved Self.

Jupiter
Trine Sat­urn (July 17, Decem­ber 12 and May 24, 2014)

The plan­et of your Mean­ing (Jupiter) aligns
beau­ti­ful­ly with the plan­et of Real­i­ty-Mak­ing (Sat­urn). This is one third of the
Grand Trine in Water ana­lyzed in the first part of this 2013 Fore­cast. Two
times in twen­ty years, Jupiter will form up this beau­ti­ful aspect with Saturn,
which should help you hold to that noble path between being too opti­mistic or
too pes­simistic, as you find the roy­al road, the mid­dle way of rea­son­able and
opti­mal growth.

Jupiter
Trine Nep­tune (July 17)

Your Prin­ci­ples meet your Dreams in the sec­ond of
the three align­ments in the Grand Trine of Water. This is the sec­ond third of
the Grand Trine in Water that I ana­lyzed in the first part of this 2013
Fore­cast. The beliefs you hold with those clos­est to you, those with whom you
share a greater his­to­ry, those beliefs will be mod­u­lat­ed and uplift­ed by a
gen­tle elicitation…it is Nep­tune’s gift of a deep­er expe­ri­ence of compassion.
What can be often expe­ri­enced as that more nar­row sense of car­ing for just one’s immediate
cir­cle of com­pan­ion­ship will become ele­vat­ed beyond these con­fines to a concern
for the many or for all who jour­ney on this Earth. This is a beau­ti­ful alignment,
tru­ly heav­en-sent, as it fos­ters Growth through Compassion.

Sat­urn
Trine Nep­tune (July 19) 

The final piece of the Grand Trine in Water, the
Lord of Real­i­ty aligns with your Imag­i­na­tion. For it is not enough to Dream of
a bet­ter world, you are here to take your dreams and bring them to life here on
Earth. When Sat­urn makes this align­ment, which occurs only two times in about
36 years, you will expe­ri­ence the pos­si­bil­i­ty that per­haps, just per­haps, your
dreams can real­ly come true. But that may also be true because you may have
tem­pered your hopes through the prag­mat­ic prism of Saturn…you may not reach that
per­fect world of your dreams, but you can make a bet­ter one.

Mer­cury
Direct (July 20 until Octo­ber 21)

You have recon­sid­ered your expe­ri­ences of
Secu­ri­ty, Nur­tur­ing and Home…so now you need to act upon those discoveries,
it is time to act on your greater under­stand­ing and so cre­ate and preserve
those deep­er foun­da­tions of your world.

Jupiter
Oppo­si­tion Plu­to (August 7, Jan­u­ary 31, 2014 and April 20, 2014)

This is the first part of the Grand T‑Square of
Jupiter, Uranus and Plu­to, ana­lyzed in the first part of this 2013 Fore­cast, and
it will be the sto­ry for August. It has been build­ing in since the end of July
and will “fin­ish” some­time after August 21. But remem­ber, this is only Act I of a
three-act dra­ma and the full impli­ca­tions of what you face in August will only
be known in 2014.

Jupiter
Square Uranus (August 21, Feb­ru­ary 26, 2014 and April 20, 2014)

This is the “oth­er half” of the Grand
T‑Square, so per­haps it would be best to see the aspect as form­ing up in early
August, reach­ing a “max­i­mum” around August 14 but hold­ing forth until
this date, and then fad­ing away. As I said above, you will have to deal with
this chal­lenge again in ear­ly 2014.

Plu­to
Direct (Sep­tem­ber 20 until April 14, 2014)

The Lord of Will and Bound­aries leads you out
from within…you’ve spent months improv­ing the sacred space of you, of
employ­ing your will­ful insight to remove your fears…now it is time to see if
you are ready to join with one anoth­er in more mean­ing­ful and fulfilling
unions. 

Full
Moon Eclipse in Aries (Octo­ber 18)

The third Full Moon of 2013 brings a new theme as
it moves back­ward into the sign of Aries. Here is a map of where the eclipse
will be vis­i­ble. It will be seen
in most of the North and South Amer­i­ca (though not the entire event), Europe
and Africa and most of Asia.

The Earth is cast­ing its shad­ow upon the message
of the Aries Full Moon. This Full Moon would nor­mal­ly offer a coun­ter­point and
bal­ance to the cur­rent dom­i­nant theme of the Sun mov­ing through Libra. But the
mes­sage is hid­den by some­thing in your present cir­cum­stances. You would normally
need to re-assert your­self a bit more to counter the Libra trend, but perhaps
those webs of col­lu­sion are mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to parse the “I from the
Thou”… 

Mer­cury
Ret­ro­grade in Scor­pio (Octo­ber 21 until Novem­ber 10)

The third and final of the three Mercury
ret­ro­grades in Water will take you to your depths to con­sid­er the nature of
your unions. Many plans will be put on hold now, as you should re-con­sid­er what
you are gain­ing ver­sus giv­ing up in any ven­ture. The ques­tion is are you making
the right sacrifice…or are you in fact the sac­ri­fice itself. 

Uranus
Square Plu­to (Novem­ber 1)

This is the sec­ond of two exact align­ments these
great Lords will make this year. Please refer to my 2012 Gen­er­al Fore­cast for
the over­all mean­ing, and to the first part of this 2013 fore­cast to see my
thoughts about this aspect as it formed and shaped by the Grand Trine of July
and Grand T‑Square of August.

Solar
Eclipse in Scor­pio (Novem­ber 3)

The sec­ond of two Solar Eclipses this year, and
it is putting on a rather unusu­al show…in fact it is for this rea­son named a
“Hybrid Eclipse”. What is that? It is sort of a total and partial
eclipse com­bined. Here is the sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis. Here is an
ani­ma­tion of the eclipse mov­ing across the Earth. It will be at
least par­tial­ly vis­i­ble in east­ern North Amer­i­ca and north­ern South America,
and cross­es over to west­ern and cen­tral Africa by the end.

The Eclipse in Scor­pio will more stark­ly reveal an awe­some chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty that is to be found in this seed­ing of mean­ing. There is no greater strug­gle and no
high­er reward than what you will find here…But first you must con­front your greatest
fears that now will stand revealed to you. For it is always in these dark­est hours that you will find your answers…and you will see that from the shad­ows a pres­ence veiled reveals its won­drous Light.

Jupiter
Ret­ro­grade (Novem­ber 6–7 until March 6, 2014)

Jupiter, who ever encour­ages you grow beyond your
for­mer frames of ref­er­ence, takes you on anoth­er inner jour­ney of growth, to
explore your beliefs and truths as you lis­ten for those whis­pers from your
high­er self. This time he is in Can­cer, so you need to reex­am­ine the root
beliefs that nur­tured your begin­nings and may still inform, inspire and guide
you now. Pon­der a piece of wis­dom in this very old say­ing, “That it is a very
good for­tune to be born and brought up in a belief…but it is a terrible
mis­for­tune to die in that belief.” 

Mer­cury
Direct (Novem­ber 10 until Feb­ru­ary 6, 2014)

The third and final of the three Mercury
ret­ro­grades is over. Time to put into motion the pur­pos­es and plans that you
had to put on hold for the last three weeks. You have cleared the way for
deep­er, truer Unions and it is time to see how much more you can
grow…together.

Nep­tune
Direct (Novem­ber 13 until June 9, 2014)

The Lord of Faith and Imag­i­na­tion bids you bring
your dreams into Reality…You have been trav­el­ling upon those inner path­ways of Inspiration,
but now Nep­tune will show you the ways in which you can weave those numinous
webs of what might be into your Reality.

Jupiter
Trine Sat­urn (Decem­ber 12 and May 24, 2014)

This is the sec­ond of three align­ments of these
two most impor­tant plan­ets and a real bless­ing for you and yours. See my entry
for July 17…

Uranus
Direct (Decem­ber 17 until July 21, 2014)

The Lord of Indi­vid­u­a­tion, of you becom­ing more
tru­ly you, takes you out there to cre­ate bet­ter spaces of free­dom for yourself
and your com­pan­ions. You have spent the last sev­er­al months free­ing yourself
from your own pat­terns of self-denial…Now it is time to go out and expe­ri­ence a truer you, a freer world for you and your friends.

Venus
Ret­ro­grade in Capri­corn (Decem­ber 21 until Jan­u­ary 31, 2014)

The year con­cludes with the plan­et of Love and
Beau­ty going ret­ro­grade until the end of Jan­u­ary. Yes, it is time again to
re-con­sid­er what you have, what you want and the nature of Love in your life…

Up next will be the analy­sis of the chart of Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and Pres­i­dent Obama.