NEW MOON at 19 Capricorn 13
January 9, 8:30pm EST, 5:30pm PST, January 10, 1:30 GMT
Image: HEART of PLUTO, NASA’s iconic photo from the New Horizons flyby of Pluto in July 2015, after 9 years of travel to that tiny world in the distant dark.
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.—John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club
With Mercury turning retrograde right off the starting block (January 5-25), it’s good to take a back seat and enjoy a slow start to the new year, as we carefully consider and carve out our plans. I’m still wrapping my mind around the new number—2016! Feels like it might take all month for it to sink in. I’m going through the motions now, pretending I feel like it’s a new year, but find I am a bit distracted by the need to rearrange, sort out and get things in order. How about you?
For several years now, the planet Pluto has accompanied the Sun into the New Year. This year continues this short-term “tradition.” Thankfully, 2015 saw New Horizons spacecraft snuggle up to Pluto and take some fab photos. We have brand new impressions of Pluto, most significantly the Heart of Pluto, an instantly iconic image of one of its surface features. It’s SO GOOD to see that Pluto has a heart! Many of us have known for some time about Pluto’s heart, the deep drum beat feel of this remote planet. Pluto no longer marks the outer bastions of the solar system. A good dozen or more planet-type bodies are in the same orbital range and farther afield. Pluto feels like an old friend by now. Still, one can’t ignore any visitation from Pluto. Necessity calls. Let go, let live and let die.
Capricorn is an earth sign, of Mountain Mother, a lover of natural cosmic order, sacred geometries and traditions that honor all life.
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you,
and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.” —John Muir
Many people are finding their passion this month, which might take a different shape or direction than initially conceived (as in “Who would have guessed?!”). The Cosmos has infinite imagination. Step back and ride on that river of inspiration. Your passion may change form through this month, or find its most effective resonance for fulfillment in unexpected ways, especially when we go with the flow. If we are truly living in a quantum state of mind—letting consciousness catch up to science and vice versa— we will vibrate with the highest possibilities. This may not follow our idea of how it’s “supposed to” happen. We’re going beyond history here, personally and collectively. All the better. Let magic happen. Capricorn has a natural magic, when properly grounded.
This Capricorn New Moon is in the same degree as the rare Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1993— 19 degrees. The last time this pair met up was in 1821. What do you remember about the recent years of the 1990s? A good use of Mercury retrograde can be to think backwards, just to check in on your status at that time and where you are at now. Note how differently you think might think about what was going on then, those 20+ years ago.
So many persons born in its span of influence, from 1988 (down with the Berlin Wall) to 1994-5, have multiple conjunctions. I have seen charts with 4 or 5 planets in Capricorn, in addition to Sun or Moon (or both!). Such a stellium in Capricorn reminds me of “The Golden Child,” that 1986 movie with Eddie Murphy, about a Tibetan child who is the world savior, kidnapped by the dark side.
I have had the honor recently of speaking to several of this rare cosmic crop of young men and women. They have to grow up under mostly dysfunctional societal systems to learn what doesn’t work before proceeding to craft their lives around what does work. They live like sculptors, chipping away the extraneous stone that hides the true form. It’s a hard road in this decade for many of these highly intelligent diamond souls, with Pluto passing across so many of their planets. This month I am offering a special for these folks, born in the Harry Potter era (see below). It’s a good thing they could at least read about Hogwarts, if not attend personally.
An additional exceptional facet of this New Moon chart is the presence of:
JUPITER, the Wisdom planet,
in nature-loving VIRGO, more earth,
exactly conjunct the NORTH NODE or DRAGON HEAD, the collective destiny point calling to us now.
Earth intelligence is extraordinarily informative, whatever your weather.
In his newsletter on Vedic Astrology this month, James Kelleher discusses the Vedic perspective on the North Node,
“considered to be the planet of sudden interruptions and unexpected events. It is also considered to be an outcast. So it represents all things foreign, unconventional and outside the box. It is also the planet of things that are new, advanced, and cutting edge. It represents astrology, and it is also a planet of alternative healing modalities…. also a planet of revolutionary change.”
[James Kelleher mystically and mythically demystifies some basic meanings of “scary” planets, like Saturn and the Nodes. Check out the offerings on his website: http://www.jameskelleher.com.]
Let’s cooperate with these effects by stirring up change in stuck areas. However, best not to go overboard to make it happen the way we think it should. Like I said above, the universe has way more imagination than we do.
This is clearly a month to find our ground, stand in stillness, breathe and think at least twice before taking action. Beware of urgency and righteousness. The “know-it-alls” are going to have a field day under this New Moon, waving that banner. Take a moment to watch and see what is coming your way with an open mind that welcomes new input, fresh air and a change of pace.
I’ll close with this lovely “Benediction” by individualistic nature lover, writer and environmental activist Edward Abbey (sent by a kindred spirit)—so appropriate for the energy of this New Year New Moon:
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets’ towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.”
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” —John Muir
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AstroSpecial for the “CAPRICORN KIDDS,” born 1988-1994, a specialty subset of The Millennials. $75 for 45 minutes, to get a 2016 cosmic “booster shot” toward fulfillment of your life path. Can be given as a gift.
