By: Janette Dalgliesh – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
4-10 January 2020
The week begins with Mars zipping into fiery, inspirational Sagittarius, where anything is possible and we yearn to explore beyond the ordinary.
Expect a surge of energy, some urges to take inspired action, and perhaps just a twinge of feisty.
Or a gigantic streak of feisty, depending on how Mars is in your chart. Folks with Sun or Ascendant in Aries will definitely feel this – as will the people they live with!
If you start getting antsy with the push to DO, but you’re not yet clear enough on what the doing might look like, you can burn it off with some physical activity. Full on sweaty workout, dance class, gardening will do it. As will hauling everything out of the pantry / closet / office and rearranging it in pleasing ways.
But the main contextual story for the week is still the party in Capricorn, preview season for the Saturn-Pluto conjunction next week.
We’ve done a ton of work in 2019. Over the next 10 days, we hold our nerve, we keep reactivating the joy and anticipation of our intentions for 2020, and we continue to bask in appreciating all that work we’ve done – if nothing else because appreciation is always a good idea anyway.
(I’m such a fan of January basking, I actually made a little permission slip – feel free to pick yours up here)
Sun activates the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, adding its fire and warmth to the mix, and providing illumination to help light the way.
Mercury helps us to articulate some of the deeper aspects of the foundations we’ve been building – both to ourselves and to others – which is helpful for both appreciating what’s been done, and exploring what is yet to come.
We can finally put things into words more easily, have any conversations we need to have to consolidate our foundations and prepare for the building still to come.
With this party happening in my own personal house of career and public legacy, I expect to write copy and communicate easily, where previously it has felt foggy and insubstantial. Woohoo!
Ceres is also in the mix: the goddess of agriculture, she who oversees our relationship to the harvest and the planet.
Mother of Persephone, Ceres (known to the Greeks as Demeter) understands the grief and anger associated with big loss. Given the way a Saturn-Pluto conjunction requires us to embrace significant transformation, it’s entirely possible some of us may have to face the mourning of that which no longer serves us.
Big change involves big loss, and sometimes that simply requires big and appropriate grieving.
Ceres taught the ancient Greeks the rites of the dead, so she is a powerful ally to have on board at times like this.
Ceres says “yes, that old identity, that old version of you has gone – it’s okay to mourn if you need to; and then you embrace the new with joy, because that’s the season and the doorway to a rich harvest”.
This week also sees Jupiter conjunct the South Lunar Node, inviting us to appreciate all of the familiar things we have already mastered – the skills, talents, habits that work as a platform from which we reach out into the leading edge.
Jupiter in Capricorn seeks to expand our ideas of what‘s possible to build.
Sitting directly across from Jupiter, receiving the full blast of his magical optimism rays, we find the North Lunar Node — our key to unlock how we reach forward into the unknown, exploring those areas that both entrance and terrify us.
The North Node nudge forward is often referred to as “getting out of your comfort zone“.
Jupiter in Capricorn wants us to build something that’s outside our comfort zone – and by lighting up the South Node here, it also invites us to expand our appreciation what lives inside that comfort zone.
Yes, we spend time and energy reaching out beyond our comfort zone; but we get to recharge by revisiting that very same comfort zone.
We didn’t come here to ignore or ditch the things we’re already good at, or the natural talents that were our birthright.
That comfort zone has value, too, as a kind of metaphorical internal recharging station.
Reminding ourselves of the things we’re good at, the things that come easily, helps us rebuild energy, replenish courage, and tap into important feelings of confidence and mastery.
Jupiter lights up both of the Lunar Nodes, and for my money the best way to take advantage of this dynamic is to allow the expansion into the new (no holding back because of fear; no pushing forward because of anxiety); and also to bask in our mastery of all the things that went before.
Towards the end of the week, we get another eclipse. Yay!
This Full Moon Penumbral Lunar Eclipse* sits at 20° of Cancer, the Moon’s own sign.
It’s perfect for self-nurture and self-compassion.
It’s a time to find a quiet private spot, look into your own heart, and truly love and appreciate that most intimate, vulnerable deep perspective of You.
Really see yourself as a spark of the divine, a child of God or the cosmos or Source or goddess. Whatever you call that huge, perfect, ineffable thing which is bigger than you – You are a piece of that.
From that perspective, it’s easy to remember that you are worthy and deserving of love, contentment, peace and joy. Lovely.
This eclipse is also, like all eclipses, a potent time for magical workings. You can make yours as elaborate or as simple as you like.
A candle to acknowledge the elimination of the beautiful moon (please do not leave it unattended, especially if you’re in Australia)
An an elaborate ritual involving all the classic Moon oriented ingredients – candle, incense, moonstone crystal, sweet flowers or floral oils. You can also incorporate bodily fluids if that’s your thing: sexual fluids or menstrual blood both connect to the Moon.
And then a few hours after the eclipse, Uranus stops his retrograde motion and pauses before turning direct, at 2° of Taurus.
Be sure to set intentions for delightful surprises, especially those to do with your physical resources, your senses, your core values.
In fact, it would be good to include that as part of your eclipse celebrations.
The short version for this week is this.
We cannot yet see all the details that will unfold in 2020.
We are like the Capricornian sea-goat, which has brought intangible dreams and desires up from the depths of the ocean, and alchemically transformed itself to take up space on the beach and begin to make things real.
We are at base camp, preparing for the climb up the cliff to the mountain peak above.
The air at base camp is mostly clear. We can see the equipment we have available to bring with us: our mastery of old things, our willingness to be self-compassionate, the work of cleaning out and clearing out that we’ve done in 2019.
We know where we’re climbing to, more or less.
But there is a cloud layer, a fog sitting between us and the top of the cliff. We can see the first few steps perhaps, but not the full path ahead.
Not yet.
Now is the time to set an intention that as we move forward, the path will be revealed – and as the path becomes clear, there will be delightful surprises and the removal of obstacles and fences along the way.
For now, for this week, our work is to consolidate 2019.
We do that by appreciating ourselves and the work we’ve done; by basking and taking credit; and by letting Mars in Sagittarius fuel our willingness to move forward when the doors open fully.
And they will!
Exact times (US Eastern)
- 3 January 4:30am – Mars into Sagittarius
- 8 January 2020, 11:08am – Jupiter conjunct South Node
- 10 January 2020, 2:21pm – Full Moon Penumbral Lunar Eclipse at 20 deg Cancer
- 10 January 2020, 8:48pm – Uranus direct at 2 deg Taurus
* A penumbral lunar eclipse is one where the ‘penumbra’ or soft edge of Earth’s shadow falls across the face of the Moon. There’s no clear ‘bite’ taken out of Moon’s light, but rather there’s a soft and subtle suggestion of darkness.
Janette Dalgliesh has a simple mission in life – to wreak more joy in a world which sometimes seems to have forgotten how. A keen student of astrology, brain science and Law of Attraction, she serves her people through astrology, life coaching, teaching and writing. You can find her partying on Facebook, or at her website Resonant Joy. And if you’d like to check where this week’s astro weather is happening in your chart, be sure to download her nifty Astrology 101 free resource.
