This Full Moon of 2022 leaves no doubt that this new year holds a major paradigm shift of volcanic intensity. The Sun conjuncts Pluto as the Full Moon opposes it; much deep rumbling shakes our sense of security.  

Full Moon @27 Cancer-Capricorn 51
January 17, 2022 @6:49pm EST, 3:49pm PST, 11:49pm GMT,
January 18 @ 10:49am AEDT

Mercury, just turned retrograde, visits Pluto 3 times. Venus also visits Pluto three times in its ongoing retrograde circle. Venus turned retrograde on December 19 while visiting Pluto, and ends in dramatic fashion on the March 2 New Moon. Venus conjuncts Pluto accompanied by Mars as well! Highly emotional! Let’s let go, process out the fear, and be ready to stand forth in our strength and power. All the personal planets are deeply engaged with Pluto, Pluto, Pluto! fulfilling the January 2 New Moon promise of an unusual year of potent rebirth.

The first retrograde Mercury of 2022 just started January 14 @11 Aquarius, positioned in a very close square with Uranus, slowed to a standstill as it turn forward @11 Taurus. This is called a ‘station,’ when a planet is paused and turning direction. It holds on a degree for a period of time. Uranus has been in the 11^th (10+) degree since December 29 and holds there until February 7^th. Astrologer Richard Idemon described the effect of a stationing planet like a candle flame over which you were holding your hand. It doesn’t feel all that hot unless you do so. We feel the heat of a stationing planet, especially a slow-moving one like Uranus, whereas quicksilver Mercury turns direction ‘on a dime,’ as the saying goes. Mercury is picking up this ‘heat’ and informing us that the pace of Earth changes is picking up with the forward motion of Uranus.

Let’s take a Sabian symbol look at the storyline between these two stationing planets and see what inspiration we can glean:
Uranus @ 11Taurus: “A Woman Sprinkling Long Rows of Flowers”
Quite a lovely reminder of Nature’s Beauty and our relationship to it as one of nurturing, as Nature nurtures us.

Mercury @ 11Aquarius: “During a silent hour, a man receives a new inspiration which may change his life.”
This is quite a positive take on this Mercury retrograde. We just need to make some time for silent hours to listen in. Change is afoot; let’s keep abreast of it by giving time to perceive its inspiration.

Mercury squares Uranus again as it finished its retrograde circle on February 25, back at 11 degrees. Along the way we may experience abrupt  changes of mind, lightning-like insights that change our perception, become aware of information that completes reorients our thinking—such are potential effects of this square that extends itself as the alpha and omega of this Mercury retrograde.

In addition, Mercury turns retrograde very close to Saturn @14 Aquarius Sabian: “A train entering a tunnel.”
This suggests the dark passage often experienced with Pluto activations. Saturn’s reality check suggests we keep moving through this passage so that we get to the other side. We may not be able to see where we are going, but don’t stop now! Follow your heart.

We become aware of potential limitations in our thinking, or roadblocks that require rethinking. Uranus in earthy Taurus is on-the-ground changes that also require different thinking. In other words, Mercury retrograde is bringing up the whole Saturn-Uranus challenge of 2021 that continues to require development, radically different approaches, and a hefty dose of common sense rather than theory. Things are radically changing, paradigms shifting like lightning from the ground up. Mercury is so keen to translate these changes to our perception this that it retrogrades back into do-it-yourself Capricorn to get its practical thinking cap on.

And not just any thinking cap! Mercury revisits Pluto in Capricorn, hanging out with the subatomically shrewd god of the underworld. Pluto’s ‘thinking cap’ is a helmet of invisibility. We need to look with different lenses to see what it is possible to see. We face some fears along the way. We dig into some old issues or ways of thinking that have been holding us back. Pluto, collectively relevant as it is, has been undermining and deconstructing old systems and structures. The ways we used to do things are no longer workable, functional,  effective or sustainable. With the imminent changes indicated by the current planetary choreography, we are going to have a major re-think, deeply and meaningfully, during this Mercury retrograde. We go back over our experience and reinterpret it based on where we are now in our lives. We take a good, long look around at the new terrain that is emerging in front of our eyes. With a fresh perspective, some serious mental rewiring and awakening insights from our higher intelligence, we catch on to ideas of how to sketch a new plan of action as we redesign and reconstruct the world and how we want to live in it. Then we get right on it and do it, especially when Mars conjuncts Pluto in March.

This is all in the first 10 weeks of the year!

This Full Moon picks up the flavor of the Cancer Moon on December Solstice. It taps into ancient history and traditional wisdom, with a deep motivation that compels us to action, especially on the March 2 New Moon, with the Venus-Mars-Pluto conjunction.

This Full Moon celebrates the rebirth of Venus as the Morning Star, subtly sighted in the pre-dawn sky. She is said to be a bit sharply pointed in her heliacal rising; this is not her sweet side of the sky.

Still retrograde in Capricorn, under Pluto’s influence, she compels us to let go deeply, seriously, responsibly, to recognize our situation, take it on and prepare initiatives, no longer to indulge in the past immature behaviors. We are heading into new territory. Venus is our preparation ally, so we can thrive in that new territory.

Pluto is clearly propelling us into 2022 with a powerful, transformational thrust. We are so ready, aren’t we?! As if we could burst at the seams if things don’t change. Make it so! Take charge, embrace the ferocity and fearlessness of the Year of the Tiger that begins on the February 1 New Moon.

Retrogrades are about going back over, so it is especially appropriate to bring back to mind something relevant I quoted last time:
“…if you can step outside of the cacophony of personal strife and ambition, you will be able to feel the involvement of the world. You will feel it within your heart. You will feel it in the ground beneath your feet. You will feel it as you look up into the sky at night…
It has everything to do with who you are, why you are here and who sent you. It may have little to do with who you think you are and what you are preoccupied with at the moment.”

—from The New Message from God, Vol 2, Marshall Vian Summers, published by The Society for the New Message. Summers’ work has recently come to my attention. You might want to look into his book called The Great Waves of Change: Navigating the Difficult Times Ahead. Quote from back cover:
“by connecting to a deeper authority within, you can find the strength, courage and inner certainty to adapt and to become a contributor, not a victim, to a rapidly changing world.”

The Earth is clearly indicating such potential in the evolutionary process we are engaged in. With huge plasma waves of higher frequencies washing upon our planetary shores, and the collective planets, Pluto and Uranus, both in earth signs, it is time to take into account how we are living on and with Earth—and ‘all our relations.’ I can’t see how things will ‘settle down’ when Pluto goes into electrically-charged Aquarius over the course of 2023-24. This process is beyond any of our mundane arguments and tug-of-war between viewpoints. Something bigger and awesome is happening.

With all this Pluto activation in these next weeks, will we emerge from some level of subterranean, subconscious darkness and see new light? Pluto does have a heart, and Venus enriches the heart’s intelligence.

 

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