The first New Moon of the year is at 23 degrees and 13 minutes of Capricorn on January 12 at 10:00PM in Tucson, Arizona. It’s in a frightfully close applying conjunction to spooky Pluto.
This, by the way, is a photo of my favorite goat, Thunder, who unbelievably managed to survive cataclysm, and to whom I had the task of giving daily injections for a time. He initially fought me on that but quickly learned resistance was futile and only got huffy with me when I would take too long to prepare the needle. There were post-medication oat cookies involved, so maybe he was just being practical. Time is money. I’ll never know the nature of his motivation for sure, but caring for goats certainly taught me a lot about Capricorn energy, challenged my fluffy idealism surrounding the crude realities of life, and I fully support the assignation of this animal’s energy to the sign. Shout out to Lola Sonoma farms for the free husbandry/inadvertent astrology lessons.
Capricorn is Cardinal Earth, the ‘Daddy’ of the Zodiac, the stern Saturnian voice of Winter, the most fallow time of year where frugal resource management is imperative for success let alone survival. Capricorn rules the bones, structures, foundations, hierarchies, government, corporations, bosses, limitation, strategic building for a long-term future. In the tarot, it is associated with The Devil card, though this is likely to suggest the dominantly material focus of the Capricornian perspective: pare it down to what exists as tangible and visible even at the expense of what may exist in more subtle, spiritual, emotional or mental possibility realms. From the orientation of other signs governing more fruitful seasons, it would be easy to judgmentally overlook the simple, raw practicality of Cappy’s focus. Cap wants to create something that can be relied upon and that lasts. Let’s be clear that we all have Capricorn somewhere in our charts, even if there are no planets in the sign. The degree to which it presents, where, and how, is unique to every individual. Check out your chart to see which house you find 23 degrees Capricorn and that may speak to where specifically for you the themes of this moon will most resonate (and where you have an opportunity to better integrate elements of Capricornian energy you may have fought in the past). And FYI it’s hard to not see the blaring and literal external political picture reflect in the astrology right now, because, among other things, this degree point is highlighting and the position of Pluto specifically is, for the first time, a tiptoe away from revisiting its position in the US Declaration of Independence chart (if that’s your defining moment for the inception of this country), so, spoiler alert… expect to see all that that represents come undone and get restructured.
2020 was unique given the overwhelming number of planets simultaneously crowding Capricorn’s sky domain. It was a year that exposed and challenged so many of the structures in life that we took to be a given. The astrological story for 2021 is a little different, and perhaps I will elaborate upon that elsewhere, but today’s New Moon may have this culminatory component to it, as it is an echo of the 2020 ruckus. With all that happened, now what have you got to show for it? What are you seeding now (it’s a New Moon after all) that is going to be a clear, tangible distillation of everything you’ve just learned? What contract are you signing? What decision is being made? What excess needs to fall away so that the foundation can be more solid? What ideations are you prepared to put your actions behind?
Let’s chat about this Pluto conjunction. Pluto, the slowest planetary body in our highly standardized system, takes about 250 years to orbit through the 12 signs. It will be holding the fort in Capricorn after the majority of its faster buddies have recently moved on (with Venus departing at the end of the month). Pluto destroys on every level and then promises a rebuild. It is both the death and rebirth process and also the intense concentration of power and force required to carry it out. Your willingness to change or to look at the truth—seen and unseen—on all levels will have a lot to say about your feelings about this planet. So with this New Moon happening smack on Pluto, this is not a planetary force that we can afford to ignore at this time and during the next 28 days. And because this union is occurring at a degree so affiliated with much of the planetary activity last year, it is easy to see how so much politically (our government, our structures) is coming to a head; the concentrations of power that have been building under the surface for so long are being exposed. It’s not always pretty to look at because this process also requires looking inward to one’s shadow projections. What happens when you realize that you can no longer separate what is outside of you from yourself? History continues to fail and repeat violently when we cease to see that tyrants do not actually exist outside of ourselves. Where can the redistribution of energy, attention and focus in your specific body and field be reoriented to rebalance perceptions of extreme polarization? This Moon’s separating sextile to Neptune in Pisces affords the opportunity to get a smidge more real with ourselves as more comes to light and recalibrate our position on the muggle—delusional conspiracy theorist spectrum.
Recent days have been interesting as we felt Mercury (communication) conjoin with Saturn (limitation) in Aquarius and then subsequently move into a conjunction with Jupiter (expansion) in the same sign. Aquarius has a lot to do with networks and technology. It’s the literal and metaphorical interweb. So we see this simultaneous censorship (Saturn) and desire for creating new outlets (Jupiter) of expression. Aquarius has a very sobering and self-righteous vibe to it at times when it comes to deciding what is worthy or not of sharing, so quite frankly, it makes this evolutionary tug of war process all the more annoying, as it seems completely devoid of feeling. Because this is so fresh, it will have a direct impact on this lunar cycle and that being thematically seeded for the long term at this time.
Keep an eye out for the impending conjunction (collision?) during this lunar cycle of Mars and Uranus in Taurus, which is incidentally on inauguration day and, by that point, will be joined in a three-way with the drama-inducing Moon. Venus is currently making a pleasing trine to the future demolition site, so we hope her positivity and cheer will carry forward as Mars (aggression, individuation, personal will) and Uranus (revolution, spontaneous and radical change) meet. Uranus is currently in retrograde and is just a couple days away from stationing (appearing to stand still) and then slowly beginning to move forward. These station points for larger planets tend to be significant moments, and in the case of Uranus, are almost always palpable in the air. Again, because this is all happening so close to the New Moon point, it’s really emphasizing the Uranian qualities of the moment. I mean, can you feel it? Uranus often has a heavy hand in times of public protest, civilian uprisings, and also scientific discoveries. It has a dominant place in the general astrology of 2021. I’ll just say, I would be pretty surprised if some major outburst didn’t happen on January 20. It’s not the first and won’t be the last astrological tantrum of the year, and I would be mindful to just avoid static-filled areas, encounters, conversations, etc. around that date specifically because Mars is bringing a lit match to a room filled with gas… all in the name of progress surrounding our values (ie in Taurus, where it’s all taking place)… The trick here is, there’s a need to reassess and evolve sense of value (personal and collective) and back that prioritization of value with aligned action. When that’s not really happening, we get a static generating over time, and when Mars and the Moon join the party, we get an explosion to make it glaringly obvious that things are amiss. Uranus can bring healthy and even smooth progress, but you really need to be on top of feeling into and embracing the change rather than letting shock and volatile drama be the catalyst for it. Unfortunately, some people thrive on that drama, even attach a purpose to it. It’s just noise. Reprioritize values, redirect the focus, stop giving voice and power to what is unpleasant just because it seems to scream louder. This, to me, is one of the greater challenges of the year.
