Trust, Changing Values and a Consequential 2023

Before giving an overview of 2023 I want to briefly mention the next New Moon and Full Moon. The Capricorn New Moon occurs at 8:16pm on the 23rd of December with Jupiter squaring the luminaries and coinciding with Chiron going direct after a six month journey retrograde. It’s time for creative thinking, generational healing and reviewing your definition of success. Embrace unique aspects of yourself that may have been the subject of alienation in an attempt to appear “normal” in the past. At the following Cancer Full Moon at 9:07am on the 7th of January we are challenged to find a balance between our public and private lives, between family and career and between self nurturance and our responsibilities.

Like many years 2023 gets off to a slow start. This is especially so with Mars emerging from its long retrograde in Gemini on the 13th of January bringing more clarity and confidence. While Mercury stations to go direct on the 19th of January it won’t be in new territory until the 8th of February.

How can we forget the January 2020 Pluto-Saturn conjunction and the overpowering focus on structures and boundaries, power and control wrought by the various combinations of Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter and the  Nodes  doing the karmic work here. Mask wearing to avoid bushfire smoke morphed into mask wearing to dodge COVID. That tumultuous year ended with Jupiter and Saturn coming together in the first degree of Aquarius marking a highly significant event and the birth of a new 20 year and 200 year astrological cycle. This new cycle is in analytical and communicative air gradually taking us away from the materialism of earth and the industrial revolution, the fallout from which we know too well as the climate emergency. Jupiter and Saturn are moving signs in 2023 and we will also get a three month preview of Pluto in Aquarius.

Significant changes are afoot in March. Firstly Saturn moves from Aquarius into Pisces on the 8th of March where it will remain until 2025. We can anticipate that boundaries will become more fluid and ripe for change. In the Saturnian desire for practical achievement we will be learning to integrate spiritual values with material ones. Allow yourself to be creative and imaginative and you can anticipate less interference from the ego. Saturn is associated with fear and in Pisces this can manifest as a challenge to our sense of trust in our intuition.  The power of healing, focused dreams and networks will be highlighted. We’re also capable of considerable effort and hard work in support and service. Expect changes in the entertainment industry and the introduction of more imaginative approaches to teaching.

Then from the 24th of March to the 12th of June we will experience a three month preview of Pluto’s official 20 year re-entry into Aquarius in January 2024. A change in Pluto’s sign marks a major shift in the focus of power within society and the area of life up for major transformation. Revolutionary change was the flavour of Pluto’s last sojourn in Aquarius was from 1778 and 1798.  Pluto in Aquarius can be anticipated to focus the zeitgeist on community, equality, feminism and liberation after the current focus on plutocracy and traditional patriarchy. Eventually we can anticipate a major shift from the power of the autocrat to the power of the people. Pluto will then go back into Capricorn for the rest of 2023 before moving back into Aquarius for a 20 year sojourn. The way we gather, work together and exchange will be reinvented and the level of technological change will be significant – with recent advances in nuclear fusion as an early exemplar.

Mars entry into Cancer on the 25th of March is significant, even though inner planets sign changes are generally unremarkable in the context of a yearly astrological overview. For an unusually long period of six months Mars has been moving back and forth through Gemini helping us to be more introspective in our curiosity and to deconstruct ideas and beliefs that could do with a rethink while hopefully getting a better understanding of our impulses and motivations. With new found clarity we can now move forward with a better sense of timing and a realisation that we are all part of the one world family.

Pluto is square to the lunar nodes for much of 2023 indicating once more that we’re on an important threshold. The transit of the lunar nodes, points where the moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic, speaks to our inherited collective karma. We are being challenged to learn the new lessons of the futuristic North Node while releasing the resisting energy of the past through the South Node. Achieving a balance between these two opposing lunar energies is one of the critical jobs our souls face. Since the 24th of December 2021 the North Node has been in Taurus, bringing a whole new collective karma narrative with a focus on values, power, resources and money and especially on calling us back to earth. With the North Node moving to fiery Aries in July 2023 we are rebalancing through finding the inspiration and courage to support our own goals and entrepreneurial skills. Relationships plunge into a new evolutionary cycle as we work to balance our desire for autonomy with the necessity of interdependence. With Aries signifying war and its opposite Libra seeking peace personal power and the power of love will be highlighted. Meanwhile, Meanwhile Neptune has been in its home sign of Pisces since 2011, where its influence is particularly powerful. It will reside there until 2026, reminding us that nothing is very permanent.  It is helping us to find compassion, the higher octave of love, and to understand our connection to all things.

Chiron, the wounded healer, with much to teach us about being human, will remain in Aries until 2026, continuing a healing cycle centred on courage and the need to embrace our uniqueness. While healing the wounded masculine, Chiron in Aries is asking us to take on the power of individual choice and heal wounds associated with competition and identity. It is also assisting in healing our willpower while simultaneously becoming more aware of our instinctual responses.

In the area of communication, the four Mercury retrogrades of 2023 are all in earth which may help to bring communication solutions into solid form. Finally, the four eclipses of 2022 include a hybrid solar eclipse in Aries on the 20th of April, a penumbral lunar eclipse in Scorpio on the 6th of May, a partial solar eclipse in Libra on the 15th of October and a partial lunar eclipse in Taurus on the 29th of October.  May you go well in 2023.