Our relationship to the environment, to our bodies and Earth has been coming increasingly into focus for years. From the astrological perspective this has been highlighted through long term planetary activity in Capricorn, the sign of responsibility and since 2019 in Taurus, the sign of stability, food, comfort, and nature. Our collective experience of the pandemic as a threat to life and wellbeing, and its calling to re-evaluate every aspect of ‘normal life’, has been yet another catalyst in our collective evolution. Now, as we appear to be normalising this radical process of change, astrology points us towards a potential for renewal, even amidst the ongoing chaos. More than ever, it falls to each one of us to explore and discern what has real value to our own and collective experience, as we gently emerge from the shattering of ‘normal’.
In the short-term, the astrological aspects of the next few weeks deliver a vast potential for optimism, whilst also healing and potentially anchoring the challenging experiences we’ve been through as embodied wisdom. These aspects prepare us for the energies of March through May when opportunity for revitalising ourselves abounds. At the moment it may seem like nothing much has changed externally. The calling to awaken, heal and transform is incessant, yet now the light of hope and real possibility is also dawning. We are pulled down into even deeper layers of patterning, especially around power and authenticity, whilst paradoxically feeling the promise of new life. The dawning of new vitality is imminent, and many of us are feeling it, yet it’s vital not to get ahead of ourselves, push, or leap too far. It’s just like spring’s emergence; if a plant grows up and out too fast, without rooting deeply, it won’t survive or thrive. The current astrology, just like nature, is suggesting rooting deeply in your body and what’s here right now, whilst also recognising that a lighter sense of being and expansion is emerging. This is the flow…
11 February: Messenger Mercury conjunct Lord of the Underworld Pluto at 27 Capricorn
Mercury with Pluto since 30 December, and through his retrograde journey, has been a deep dive exploration of how our thoughts and perceptions create our reality. It’s been supporting the discovery of greater response-ability with negative programming within our self and more honest communications with others. Now we are at a final stage of clearing deep karmic patterns in the emotional and physical bodies also. Key focus: letting go of external orientation, with its push to move forward or achieve, to focus inwardly for a deep reorientation.
14 February: Wisdom Asteroid Pallas Athena moves from Pisces into Aries
As Pallas Athena moves from Pisces, where she stands for the wisdom of compassion, her expansive perception opens awareness into the deeper layers of psyche and physicality with a profound potential for healing. Her final aspects in this watery sign of soul points to a key awareness: making space for what truly nurtures body-mind-soul as a catalyst for the embodiment of deeper Feminine wisdom. Actively cultivating patience, compassion and surrender to divine timing. As Athena moves into first sign of the zodiac Aries, her fierce, wisdom warrior energy is activated. It’s the start of a new cycle for Feminine wisdom. This shift enables clarity and direct action on what has been opening gently & soulfully since March 2021.
16 February: Goddess of Love Venus meets her consort Warrior Mars at 16 Capricorn (in orb to 18 March)
The meeting of Venus and Mars symbolises the union of masculine and feminine polarities, the alchemical marriage. Ruling & governing the opposing signs of Aries & Libra, Taurus and Scorpio, when Venus and Mars conjunct, the desire for autonomy touches the need for harmonious relating; the demand for independence meets the desire to connect and share; the compulsion to do rubs against the longing to simply be. The energies of Venus and Mars act like powerful magnets, attracting and repulsing. Regardless of gender, we carry both within. Venus being the Feminine polarity attracts, receives and creates; Mars acts on Venus’s frequencies of desire and yearning, or pushes against them. Following Venus’s recent retrograde journey through Capricorn and appearance as Morning Star, Mars comes in now to activate and strengthen what has been gestating within since late December. Today’s initial meeting is the inception point of that deeper shift. Your experience now points towards the themes at play.The Divine Lovers make an exact conjunction again on 6 March at 0 Aquarius (the potent Solstice 2020 activation point). This clears the way for a fresh start: integration in your inner world, new beginnings in relationship. When we reach that point, it may well feel as if all the challenges suddenly make sense! Prior to that however, there is a further meeting with Lord of the Underworld Pluto – see 26/27 February below. It’s truly radical!
16 February: Full Moon at 27 Leo
Read this in the light of the Venus/Mars conjunction in Capricorn also – the Full Moon in Leo always reflects the creative potency of our individuality – our capacity to enjoy, play, connect and create. This one stimulates the challenge of differing wants and needs, particularly the distinctive polarities of heart and mind. With the Sun in Aquarius in a Fixed Grand Cross with the Moon in Leo and Nodes in Taurus/Scorpio, the mind is particularly active at this Full Moon, whilst feelings of being wired or chaotic are related to not being grounded, or avoiding feeling emotions in the body. Any inner challenge or conflict with others reflects resistance or holding energy that is particularly rooted in karmic or ancestral patterns. We are being invited to fully shed old structures of energy at every level of mind-body to open new creative capacity within. Key questions: Where am I holding back my creative life-force and self-expression or denying a healthy need to relax, play and enjoy life? What changes would serve to fill up my heart?
17 February: Blessing-giver Jupiter at 11 Pisces exact sextile Awakener Uranus at 11 Taurus (in orb 9 February to 2 March)
A profound connection that opens the way for real breakthroughs, amplifying the ongoing dynamic of Venus/Mars and the Full Moon energies now waning. This aspect acts like the sun breaking through dark clouds, spreading new perspectives of hope, trust and optimism, filling the heart with faith. Insight into recent challenges abound. It’s a rebirth of our potential for joy, especially in the simple pleasures of life and a deeper nurturing connection to our bodies. The natural unity of consciousness and form is more readily available to our individualised consciousness, especially through the natural world, plants and animals. Expanded states open naturally: vision, dreaming, meditative insight, flow state, being in the zone, along with inspiring creative potential. This aspect opens a natural desire for grounding and embodiment practices to anchor more expansive frequencies of consciousness in the body and our world. Socially and collectively, this highlights inventiveness and innovation re. the environment, food and financial systems.
26/27 February – The Moon, Goddess of Love Venus, Warrior Mars & Priestess Vesta conjunct Pluto at 27 Capricorn
In the weeks since mid December 2021, planets connecting with Lord of the Underworld Pluto have been dominating the energy play. This has meant yet another deep stripping away of personal agenda and patterning, and collective systems (the matrix), to put us in touch with a more real truth of life. Finally, we reach a crux point with this planetary stellium, just before dawn on 27th (northern hemisphere – visible high above the eastern horizon, with Mercury & Saturn also just visible, very low on the horizon). This potent grouping takes us very deep into Pluto’s realm of core revelation through honesty. Through going there willingly, or being compelled through circumstances, it aligns and makes visible your deepest essence, the truth of you at core. It’s an intense edge-of-the-cliff point of truth that also activates your deepest desires – not what you think you want but what you truly want. There is both profound vulnerability and strength in this mix. It’s truly a watershed moment that lays the foundation for March through May’s renewal.
