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As we move into the last weeks of 2022, I thought it would be helpful to look ahead and see what 2023 holds for the Astrological conditions we will be experiencing. Although there are no major outer planetary alignments to one another, no Saturn square to Jupiter, or Uranus with Pluto, there are major shifts that we will be encountering in the months ahead. These include Pluto beginning to move into the Sign of Aquarius after having been in Capricorn since 2008, and Saturn moving from Aquarius into Pisces. Before we examine these longer-term shifts, let us look at the yearly phenomena of the Lunar and Solar Eclipses, the Mercury Retrogrades as well as the next Venus Retrograde too.
Eclipses
Typically, we experience two Lunar and two Solar eclipses in any year, and this year we will that two of each type in the months of April, May, and October. The Solar eclipses are always to be considered as more significant, and Astrologers often consider their influence to be in effect for the next six months (until the next Solar eclipse). The Lunar eclipses are much shorter in influence and prevail for the next lunar month typically.
Eclipses happen twice a year when the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun, and the orbital plane of the Moon around the Earth align in such a way that one body or the other creates a shadow that is visible to us. In a Solar eclipse the New Moon passes exactly in front of the Solar disc forming a shadow on that part of Earth, (when at other New Moons the Moon is either below or above the Sun’s position), and a Lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and the shadow of the Earth falls upon the Moon.
The first eclipse is a total Solar eclipse on April 20, 2023, at 29 degrees, 50 minutes in Aries. It will be visible partially or wholly in Australia, Indonesia, Timor, Papua, and Papua New Guinea. To understand the significance for oneself, you would look to the house that has 29 degrees of Aries, and/or any planets you may have in your chart very close to that degree. Typically, the house where an eclipse is located would be a very important realm of activity in your life for the next six months or so. But you must remember, planets or an alignment like this do not create something good or bad, they just elicit energy-forms that you will need to be aware of and need to work with. The experience will be determined by you, given your past actions and your present spiritual awareness.
The next eclipse is a Lunar eclipse on May 5, at 14 degrees, 58 minutes in Scorpio, at around 1:34 pm EDT, and not visible in the USA. Again, the significance of this Full Moon will depend upon where 15 degrees of Scorpio is in your chart, and whether you have any planet near to this as well. But this is also a rather special Full Moon, which is because for many this is also known as the Buddha Full Moon or Vesak, as it is said that the Buddha was born, achieved enlightenment, and passed at the Full Moon in Scorpio.
The next eclipse is a total Solar eclipse on October 14, at 21 degrees, 58 minutes in Libra, at around 1:55 pm EDT, and will be visible from Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Yucatan and into South America, and partially throughout much of the USA. Consider where in your chart you have 22 degrees of Libra, or any planet near to that degree to understand the significance of the area of life being activated for you for the next six months.
And here is something to note, there will be another very significant eclipse six months later on April 8, 2024, that crosses the midsection of the USA from the Southwest to the Northeast. I mentioned this eclipse in 2017, because the August 2017 total eclipse also went across the midsection of the USA from the Northwest to the Southeast, and it seemed significant that these two eclipses in effect have formed an “X” where the two eclipse paths meet in southern Illinois.
Finally, the last eclipse of 2023 will be a Lunar eclipse on October 28, at 5 degrees, 9 minutes of Taurus at around 4:24 pm, and not visible in the USA. Look to what house has 5 degrees of Taurus in your chart and that will be the area of your life that you will experience a lesson in the coming month.
Mercury Retrograde
Next up are the Mercury retrogrades for 2023. For each retrograde, it is important to note what degrees of the zodiac it reverses through and to see what house (or houses) of your chart it is activating. For all of us, the Mercury retrograde period affords an opportunity to become more self-critical, more reflective, and more deeply introspective; it is a spiritual gift so that we may correct our errors of perception, cognition, and communication.
Typically, we have three Mercury retrogrades a year, and this is true this year, but with an exception. That is because we will begin the year with Mercury in retrograde already, and it will have begun on December 29, 2022, and will end on January 18, 2023.
The first Mercury turning retrograde in 2023 will be on April 21 and will end with Mercury direct on May 14, moving from 15 to 5 degrees in Taurus. Behind all reflections and reconsiderations for this period we will be needing to focus our understandings with regards to substance and value, of which the ultimate truth being that the universe is made of Divine Love.
The second Mercury retrograde in 2023 will begin on August 22 and end on September 15, with Mercury moving from 22 to 8 degrees in Virgo. For this period, we will have to reconsider our understandings about order and peace, with our need to strive to find our way to the source of everlasting peace, which is found in our own hearts, as it is at the heart of Creation.
The third Mercury retrograde of 2023 will begin on December 13 and end on January 1, 2024, with Mercury moving from 8 Capricorn to 22 Sagittarius, and this will help us to bring together our need to not only know the truth (Sagittarius) but to embody it into our roles and responsibilities too, (Capricorn).
Venus Retrograde
We will also have another Venus retrograde in 2023, from July 22 until September 3, moving from 28 degrees to 12 degrees Leo. Much like Mercury retrograde, Venus retrograde is an opportunity to turn inward, to heal and repair. Mercury retrogrades roughly three times in a year, but Venus retrogrades about every 18 months. Rather than a focus upon the mind as with Mercury, Venus retrograde encourages us to appreciate the complex hierarchy of values that shape our lives. It is an opportunity to bring forth a more insightful understanding about how we are held together or drawn apart by what we share or do not share with one another, of the values we share or do not share with one another. The house that Venus moves retrograde in your chart will provide the particular focus for you with regards to the nature of the values you must reconsider during this 40-day period.
Major Planetary Shifts
Now we will consider the two big shifts that lie ahead in 2023, which is Saturn moving into Pisces and Pluto beginning to move into Aquarius.
Saturn into Pisces
The movement of Saturn through the twelve signs of the Zodiac forms one of the principal shapers of our experience of reality. Since Saturn is the planet known as the “Teacher”, and rules Reality and the hierarchy of institutions in the world, its passage through the signs provides the focus for our facing our responsibilities and developing our experience and wisdom from year to year. Since 2020, those lessons have been experienced in the realm of Aquarius, (the previous times for Saturn in Aquarius were 1991–93, 1962–64 and 1932–35), but starting on March 7, 2023, Saturn will focus its influence through the last sign of Pisces until 2025–26. We should note that the previous times for Saturn in Pisces were 1993–96, 1964–67 and 1935–37, and though the content of those periods is very different from our present day, the basic message of Saturn in Pisces remains the same.
As much as Saturn in Aquarius will always be a time of testing and teaching for our social consciousness and conscience, a tester for the strengths or the weaknesses in our communities, for the integrity of our social networks and the depth of our essential humanity, Saturn in Pisces brings us into the final realm in the Circle of the Living Ones, which is to the very question of our Faith versus our Fears.
Every passage of any planet through a sign is an opportunity to rise to the challenge, and we can either move higher or fall backwards. Having witnessed the challenges that the world has encountered since 2020, we can certainly see how well or poorly our communities met the many crises of climate change, of a pandemic, of the many crises and cries for social justice and simple human togetherness versus our divisions from one another.
So, it does seem especially timely for Saturn to turn our attention to the foundations of our journey, to the very essence of what drives our human story which is also the story of Spirit. The perennial question of spirit is before us which is this: will we find the way to restore our faith and face our fears, or will we succumb to those fears and fall further from the path of Truth and Light? What do we mean by this essential nature of Truth, of the Light that makes “all things shining”? What is the Fountain-Source of our Faith?
Behind the whole of Creation, encompassing and pervading every particle of being and every vibration of energy-forms, it is there that we find the monad of Spirit, the divine spark of Creation. And every particle and energy-wave of creation is its own hierarchy too, descending from the monad, the most sublime root essence of divine spirit, on down through the dimensions and realms to the most physical. That means that within each particle or energy-form, each of the monads in these realms or dimensions of being is striving to rise in its own spiritual development too.
That is why the whole of Creation can be seen as a great Journey, of the Involution of Spirit into Matter-Forms, and then the Evolution of these forms as they move up the Spiritual Ladder of Light, for all are inspired by the essence that is the One which is omnipresent and all-encompassing. Behind it all, the whole purpose of Creation is for the One, for the One Spirit to be and to become, to unfold, through all the hierarchies that are Creation, and that is why we are all here to be the One made Manifest.
This hierarchy of creation is what makes us Divine and human, it is why the very core of us never left (what we might call) “heaven”, and this is why we say that “heaven is within us”, because it is truly at the root of one and all. But because we are a hierarchy of energy-forms, ranging from the most ethereal down to the less evolved, we are each individually, and as a host of beings, on our own human journey to become more aligned and guided by the light that is within our higher self. It is by this Light that is Love that we will lift our own individual hierarchy and our fellow humans into ever higher dimensions of a Living Faith. We humans began our journey as sparks of the divine, we came from a star, and we will eventually return one day to become our very own star too.
Our human self, our human consciousness, rises and falls day in and day out, it rises or falls from year to year and in life after life. Sometimes we are filled with the most loving and self-forgetful intentions and actions, and sometimes there are more troubling thoughts and feelings that shape our actions and lives. This is what drives the journey of our self-becoming, this is what forms the pathway to Perfection framed by Karma and Dharma. We are on a journey to perfection, and we learn that we have a choice to do and be better from experiencing the consequences of our thoughts, words, and deeds.
Ever inspiring us to move higher on the path of light is our own inner light, our higher self or spiritual monad, our essential link to the One that is Creation, the One that is pure Love. When we lose sight of this or feel alone and apart, we fall down into darkness and despair, and when we listen to the gentle loving spirit that is within us all, we rise and shine brighter for one another too.
This is what we must remember every day, and especially now as Saturn moves through the Sign of Reaping and Redemption, of Karma and Forgiveness. This will be the question behind the messages of Saturn while in Pisces. The Question is, do you know and live with some form of this understanding, with this Living Faith, that you are here to learn one thing, which is how to be a better human, which means to know how to equally have more self-understanding and self-mastery, yet to live and act with ever greater self-forgetfulness. That your journey is to work with your own complex host of hierarchies and energy-forms, to bring them into alignment with Truth and Love; that your true work is this Great Work, which is to lift yourself and one another higher. You will have moments of transcendence, and moments when you fall. But if you are to climb higher you must forgive yourself and one another too. Your path of Light is a path of Love, it is the Path of Wisdom which is revealed by your Humility and Gratitude, and it is this understanding that you have and will always make your future that will form your Living Faith and overcome your fear.
This is also one the principal lessons of Pisces, to know why you must, how you should, and when you will make a sacrifice, because this is how you live a sacred life, a truly loving life. A measure of any person or society to which they belong, is how much they reveal the love that they are, and they do this by how they honor those who came before them, how they conduct themselves with their contemporaries now, and most especially how they consider with love those that will come after them. Pisces is the time of Reaping; it is equally the time then of the Sowing of the Seed.
Pisces is the last Sign, it’s meanings and messages concern the entirety of any cycle, how in these fields of the One we harvest the spiritual gifts of understanding and love, which are to be held and passed on to the next cycle, to the next generation, and beyond. You are the fruit of those who came before you, and your gifts to those who come after are formed by your dedication to make possible a better world for one and all. This is Pisces, this is the Circle of Life; this is the Love of the One. With Saturn in Pisces, we must understand that we are making the future for those who will look back upon us, because our thoughts, words, and deeds will have formed their Reality, their fate.
This will be the heart of the Test with Saturn in Pisces, to face our fears and hold to our faith. With our understanding that we are the makers of our fate, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, we can remain in the light that is love, with our Living Faith of being co-creators of Creation and we will see the shadow that is fear fade.
When we consider all of the gifts of Life, of all the many lives of all the many creatures who form this Creation, we see in the end that the Story of Creation is about the Light shining through the whole of this Creation. It is your light; it is what is called That. In Pisces we remember that All Things are Shining, and that Spirit-Life-Consciousness forms the fullness of Space.
This fullness that many call emptiness of space is the Pleroma of Creation, it is the Light that is Love.
It is the One.
It is you.
I had hoped to have time to talk about Pluto beginning to enter Aquarius in 2023, but I see that our time is too short for that now. I will do another show this year but given the calendar I will have to do it on another day of the week, so perhaps on Saturday the 31st of December.
I will say this however, that as much as Pluto in Capricorn was the time (once again) for an End of an Age, the passage of Pluto in Aquarius will be a time when we will be asked to begin to build a new world, to begin a New Age. Though it has been painful (and at times good) to see the end of an age, it will be an even greater challenge to create a better world for us and our descendants. But this is our responsibility, this is our duty and our sacrifice to make.
This promises to be a very significant shift in the energies informing and shaping our journey through the stars, and I look forward to being with you all as we move into the New Year.
Astrological Musings — 2023 Preview, a look ahead part 2- Pluto and Neptune
