Dear Friends,
We wish you all a good holiday!
Winter Solstice is Wednesday, December 21 at 10:23 PM Mountain Standard Time. This solstice is a time to celebrate your life, your responsibility to yourself, your power, your talents, your purpose, your vitality and your inspiration. Make a list of everything that stands in the way of this celebration and burn it with ceremony. Take note of where you are, what you are doing and who you are with. How is it? If you don't like it, change it. Since we are in an accelerated time, allow things to move and shift and manifest without the need to control or micromanage. Trust that your intentions are well set and step aside to allow them to manifest.
The New Moon is Saturday, December 24 at 11:08 AM Mountain Standard Time. This is a time for anchoring, for affirming, for sticking to your boundaries and for inserting order into something you can control. A good day to organize any space that is yours or improve your environment in some way. Being as this is also a holiday in many traditions, make sure you are not compromising yourself with unwanted distractions, but rather that you are in control of your decisions around how you are spending the day. It's OK to say "no" to what you don't want and "yes" to what you do want.
Blessings,
Lena
ASTROLOGICAL NOTES:
Written by Patricia Liles
Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com
Winter Solstice
Wednesday, December 21, 10:30 PM MST
Capricorn New Moon
Saturday, December 24, 11:06 AM MST
Honor, Blessings and Respect to the Winter Solstice.
The point of power that anchors the year – for the Northern hemisphere, the first day of Winter – for the Southern hemisphere – the opposite, the first day of Summer. From the Sun’s maximum at Summer Solstice until now, the Sun has decreased until reaching its point of maximum contraction – the ultimate out breath, the shortest day. The Solstice point, December 21/22, marks the death and rebirth of the Masculine principle of the light. With the dawning of the Solstice, the Sun enters 0º Capricorn, cardinal earth sign, and the Sun again begins its slow ascendancy into fullness on the Summer Solstice.
The chart for the Solstice most prominently has Pluto conjunct the Sun in Capricorn. Our will and purpose, again this year as it was at last year’s solstice, is set for powerful transformation and exposing the dark underbelly of authority, societal structures, and the financial world that have ambitiously overstepped boundaries and lost sight of the responsibility to the society at large.
Jupiter in Taurus (0º) trines the Sun in Capricorn (0º). Jupiter bestows optimism and enthusiasm, and embraces what is foreign as it expands our vistas and makes us question our basic beliefs. We have faith and tolerance and we seek out new experiences and want to improve and develop our selves and our environment. A strong, powerful blessing for the New Year.
Mars in Virgo – detail oriented, health conscious, a bit on the nervous, worrying side, but efficient with notable expertise, finesse and discrimination. Mars, planet of energy, desire and above all else, action is in a provoking, ongoing square to the North and South Nodes. We are being forced to grow (North Node) and to release our issues of the past (South Node). It can present as resistance, conflict within ourselves or with others who help us see what we need to move forward or it can incite us to initiative, assertiveness and adventurousness where maybe we shake up our security issues, but we are supporting a courageous, positive self in the world.
The Moon is in Scorpio and trine to Uranus giving power and focus to the innovative and rebellious energies of Uranus’ square to the Sun and Pluto. The tendency will be to seek freedom and expression for our personal power. There is a lack of willingness to go along with empty authority or confrontive displays of power.
New Moon
Just days after Solstice, the Sun and Moon join at New Moon in Capricorn (2º) on December 24. After the expansion and open-minded philosophizing of the fiery Sagittarius Sun, Capricorn gets down to the practical business of actually making those visions manifest in the physical world. That’s where the earth signs – Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn are at their best. Capricorns are interested in the everyday necessities of life. They are practical and hard working patiently completing the next step to move their ambitions forward like their archetypal mountain goat climbing ever higher accumulating and building security in the material world. Capricorns are conservative; they build and maintain the structures of society. Ruled by the Lord of Time, Saturn, keeps them aware of limitation and boundaries and enables them to concentrate their energies and bide their time for the perfect moment to further their ambitions. No wonder they accomplish so much. Capricorn rules the calcified bones and skeleton and externally the knees of the body just as they are the upright and ‘backbone’ of society. They value stability and conventionality and respect authority. Where you have Capricorn in your chart is where you take responsibility and uphold your values. Because of that Saturn ruler though, Capricorns must be conscious of their tendencies to be rigid, pessimistic and cold and just way too uptight and wary of change for their own good.
You can see why Pluto, planet of transformation, power and the shadow, entering the sign of Capricorn in 2008 has revealed the darker side of our (Capricorn ruled) financial, governmental and corporate practices – those structures that form the skeleton or backbone of society became overreaching, greedy and excessive in the previous decade of Pluto’s passage through Sagittarius. Now the dark side is being revealed by Pluto’s willingness to look behind the scenes at the decay, corruption and rigidity held in governments and institutions around the globe in order to bring about a cleansing and healing and rebirth to these aspects of life. Be aware that it often takes years before the dominant paradigm realizes the wheel has turned, Pluto has entered a new sign, and the game has irrevocably changed. This leaves the old, dominant power structures lost in a meaningless tug of war as witnessed in the shenanigans of our politicians and the US congress. Just as the Solstice represents the ultimate contraction and bare bones minimum of light so do we find ourselves in the initial ‘breaking down’ phase of Pluto’s entry into the early degrees of Capricorn. We have many years to go before Pluto leaves this sign in 2023, so it may be after the seven upcoming exact squares of Uranus to Pluto from June 2012 to 2015 creating conflict, crisis, chaos, confrontation and dynamic change before we begin to see the rebuilding phase. With Uranian influence, you never quite know what will be created – who could have predicted the creation and influence of the web and social networks so Uranian in their egalitarian and technologically based nature. We’re going to need that patience of the mountain goat to weather this transition. But when Uranus is not bogged down with needing to create massive change, it can be the source of tremendous freedom and genius level creativity.
So don’t be discouraged by the news and traditional media. Things are unfolding exactly as they should in the political and economic arenas. You think change is difficult for you, well just look at what societal structures have to go through to make a major shift. Not pretty. Let this time of the Sun’s movement through Capricorn and especially at the Solstice and New Moon windows help you look to your own rigidity and calcifications, but also to fix your eyes on the mountaintop and set your goals and intentions for what you would like to build and accomplish out there in the material world in the upcoming year.
12/21&22/2011 Ursids meteor shower
12/25/2011 Jupiter turns direct until 10/4/12
01/09/2012 Cancer Full Moon 12:30 AM MST
01/23/2012 Aquarius New Moon 12:41 AM MST
