The Astrology Of January 2020: Gate Crashing

The needles jump and twitch as the paper streams through like a ribbon of dry milk electrified by a frozen bolt of graphite static coursing cross parallel lines, the thin solid strips of time that host the erratic rise and fall of everything contained between eon ends. Outside the mile thick solid stone walls are lead wires that tap through the bare crust and pierce down into the bedrock, boring nearly to the mantle, where sensitive nodules operate on the seismic vibrations like the sound sensitive mandible ends of serpents jawbone hinges, the early evolutionary ear. The data fills an array which in many millions of stone slab steps is represented upon the expanse of an empty desert, the terrain stacked into topographical diagram which when seen from space reveals the collections of amassed materia and craters of deficit which has been let open its maw and sprawl in the interim between competent emperors. The real life monument matches the theoretical data, the setbacks click like cog corners, the angles lock and set against the to scale model, the earth quakes from the realization of its self, like sleeping giants stirring awake. The eyelids crack and release deluge of sands, which in dramatic falls fill pools and granular lagoons, and feather out toward the flatlands in abominable shifts and devastating shuffles. The face stones remain, smooth as glass but bearing familiar features, dowsed in perpetual night, the long deep shadows of interior worlds, the place where the Sun never shines. The cold air of the tomb issuing from the aperture like a swallowing camera that digests its subjects with envelopes of pure darkness.

It’s drastic, but its verifiable, all the information is there, you can reach out and touch it yourself, you don’t the deny a statue placed upon you that crushes your bones and lessens their shattered grit by each shifty of weight from foot to foot, no matter how much it taxes the knee. The red Ferrari that circumambulates the Territory goes the long way around, knowing that it is doomed to finally arrive, but decides to waste gas for the fun of philosophy until it gets the long way around. We wait in a way that lets us look for imaginary escape routes in the hollows and voids created by the architectural elements coming together into corners. The stone and dirt and night itself doesn’t say no, simply allows for anything you can imagine to be behind the missing brick, or around the aimless corner. You are free to imagine anything you want, and the isolation will only enhance the hallucination. Your body on the other hand cannot leave, and instead it reaches out and caresses the cold rock face, presses its flesh into the hard ground, smells the must and sniffs out the age of moss and runs fine, dry silt between thumb and finger in appreciation of place, feeling the soft skin of other worlds where there is license to love and follow one’s will. There is no law against it, and it is as true as anything else. There is an escape within the iris of oblivion, the in swept ocean of the soul.

Suddenly debris gets swept from the surface of the old marble floor and banished from a shaft that begins where the paving tiles meet the wall. Broken brick, desiccated vertebrae, skull shards, smashed pottery, sacrificed hair, titanic talon trimmings, all pushed across the floor and out the void, leaving behind thin streams of lime. The trails become tears of milk which in thick rivulets flow towards dry muscles that need nourishment and drink the cool calcium deep into the tissue. A gasping for the smooth and succulent, a passing a blind hand through a tunnel in search of the ready and the plump. A pushing of edibles into a greedy mouth— In the absence of the mess the room becomes aware of its own vastness, of the formidable nature of its columns, of the depth of its shadows, of the sheer weight of its well supported ceiling structure, and the duty of its sturdy foundation, and in an internal contemplation of its self in cold blooded scanning reptilian self analysis, the structure reflects a blank stream of questions back upon its un-answering countenance, and the cold epithets of tombs applaud the empty gesture by doing nothing forever. An eternal no-thing hidden under everywhere in immobile potential. The insectoid exoskeleton that conceals the fact that there is no one running the controls at all. A whole world built for no one to inhabit, ever, but for some reason everyone does anyway.

With the eclectic clicking of theoretical jewelry the many green skeletal sculptures animated by inertia alone march from the old tombs and temples and out into the perimeter places for some perspective on the situation. Cords of old paper producing publishers rip and tear asunder with so many tired sighs. The lights of dawn or dusk or the flattened light of worlds in distance paint the pioneer airs upon the canvas each insolent caricature is forced to pass through. There are only theories on the other side, and they buzz like gooseflesh necks, lonely beacons turning the next theorem over in their mind like a stone in the palm which bares a color never seen before. Unknown on Earth. Blowing the dust off the board out under big sky country and hefting the thing into your lap you notice its a weird kind of book. The cover reads ‘This Book Wrote Itself’. The ring of incendiary light that whips itself into rolls and dragon coils sizzles on the horizon. Arcs and dives that sink below the landline and rise back up into sight, like splashes of lava from no where, describing many unpredictable forms. There’s much more that we just don’t know yet.

In January we literally hit the end of the big desk we’ve been stranded on for the last 200 years and can now stand and watch antiquated paperweights get pushed over the edge. But other than crossing ourselves and also leaping off the ledge we notice there are other options emerging both out the office window as well as on the other side of the computer screen. For a very long time we’ve each lived out our own respective mixture of acting like nothings wrong for our sanity’s sake and strategizing our life around certain hard and fast laws etched in stone all around us. At times this was frightening, but its all we’ve had and all we’ve known for generations. The difficulty comes when you try to exit the careening vehicle and realize it would rather you be locked inside. You can’t get out, you just have to wait for it to crash and try to escape through some rupture opened up in the calamity if you survive and aren’t too injured. But, there is a couple other options for creative escape, and they are going to begin here to get rashly previewed and flashed for display in irresponsible or otherwise maverick enclaves. There is a Moon roof, but it looks too thin to slither your body through, but maybe you could just conveniently leave your body behind..if only… we may begin to wonder if it were possible in more way than one.

North Node Lunar Eclipse in Cancer

We receive the 2nd to last eclipse in the Cancer-Capricorn axis on January 10th, and coincidentally both eclipses are Cancer eclipses, this one a Lunar eclipse and the following Cancer eclipse on Summer Solstice a Solar. We need to prioritize our needs, to intuitively understand what conditions most nurture our bodies, both physically and subtly, and support healthy generation in our lives. What temperatures, flows, PH, nutrients, minerals, lights, sounds, stimulation, rest cycles, comforts can contribute to the bountiful production of fruit in our nursery, and keep us up to biological optimum. This may fall in a more externalized part of your chart, such as the 10th, in which case what are the nursery conditions to grow the most impressive hydroponic tomato of your career goals? We’ve been asking these questions since at least January of last year, and although familiar they resound with urgency still. The world is undergoing a hard grinding halt, what do you need to be ok in such conditions, to creatively generate and enjoy healthy cycles and emotional calm despite the buckling architecture and announcements of doomsday?

A couple hours before the Eclipse perfects there is a Superior Conjunction of Mercury and the Sun in Capricorn, which lends its particular insights into the mixture. We recognize these needs with a certain urgency because of what is keenly visible in the management of cold systems opposite our comfort zones, and more than a clarifying ray is cast upon these structures but insights delivered from on high, certain downloads about the details, perhaps our Daimon’s dictating to us about pieces of the puzzle we hadn’t already realized, and with this new data we can quietly complete our maps of the prisons and contemplate our escapes. Or, alternately, realize the component which may need pressure release which in actuality amplifies security of the compound. Regular R & R amongst the inmates reduces the rate of revolt and riot. If the food is inadequate there could be an uprising. What is the pea beneath the prisoner princess’ mattress? What can be tweaked to insure supply flow is not choked? Exactly what resource is more than a luxury and must you demand as non negotiable. You might want to meditate on that in the morning of the 10th before the eclipse as Mercury is passing through the heart of the Sun. Jupiter will be upon the nodal axis so his pragmatic wisdom can add understanding of the whole picture and process. What losses to cut and what to gain in rest and relaxation and what resources are won when the territory is made less complicated. Navigate calmly through the eclipse, listen to your body, feel the pressures and dialogue with them subtly. This is a pair of feminine modality signs. Be receptive to the physical and emotional information. Contemplate, and then act in organic time.

By evening Uranus stations direct in the sign of the Moon’s exaltation, while the Moon is conducting a little more than routine pass opposite Pluto. Uranus has volatilized and hot rodded parts of your life corresponding to Taurus and its apparent now that there’s no going back to before things got the chop. We’re standing on different ground, our keys have been electrified, our kites fried and a light bulb illuminates an exciting workspace where we can either create some radical new work, with the possibility still of blowing ourselves up in the process, as we’ve barely gotten used to how this new technology operates. Likely its in how we pace things. The tech needs us to rush what was once a gradual process, but only in an attempt to find a new normal pace and feel it’s natural rhythms.

Mercury and Sun conjunct Saturn and Pluto

Of course the actual conjunction of Saturn and Pluto occurs on the 12th of January, a pivot point in a long, ongoing process. The javelin spiked into the gravel, into a crick in between boulders of unknown girth the vaulter reaches peak height and then over arches to the other side where they will later land. Where they touch down a black hole opens up, and the once predictable latticework, the very grid holding physical reality together is swallowed up in a state of extreme gravity that bends the rules of physics itself. There is a point of no return. An event horizon. What passes this threshold cannot reverse itself and go back to how things once were. The reality on the other side of this anomaly is unknown, it can’t be predicted. It’s unprecedented, that which steps forth from shadow. Darkness itself is raw potential. From it anything can emerge, and that is why we fear it. We lose ourselves to our anxieties, and in this case it is an amplification of age old laws, limits and hierarchies. The shadows cast from these monuments looms over us and swallows some people and places in whole. An ominousness that naturally causes obsession. We try to run in terror but are transfixed and bore ever deeper into the system looking to hide within. But this weight of special relativity in the historical systems and structures of the manifest and mechanical world are exhibiting pressures far past natures limits, and the rarified situations this creates are rearing their heads everywhere. This kind of power causes change. We avoid the overused terminology of “transformation” as astrologers, but this combination of planets, Saturn and Pluto, in Saturn’s own domicile, marks a point of extremity that is unsurpassable. This is a transition state. Nothing can be the same on the other side of this conjunction, it is beyond all conceivable limit, so another world awaits us upon the landing of this vault through fear and obsession and system magnification and structural collapse. This is true for the world but also to each of us individually, depending on where this conjunction hits your chart. We will likely not be next year who we were last year. Again, as this is a feminine sign, of receptive modality, feeling our way through the point of maximum pressure is all we can do; trying to understand it with our whole bodies, even if it makes no sense to our minds.

Although, our minds will be busy analyzing and trying to bring it into focus. This may be so many computations filling the blackboard, as it’s not going to fit into regular reality. This is the structure beyond the structure, the system beyond the system, the shadow government, the black market, the collapsing stars in deep space, the dark matter that flows through the framing of our house. Nevertheless, both the Sun and Mercury sweep past the conjoining pair in mid to late January shining flashlights into the void and attempting to measure the perimeter of the known universe; they want to find the square footage of Hades itself, draw up blueprints of the old Underworld and be certain of its dimensions, but its not so easy. Get a good look and take away what knowledge you can from this examination of what’s beneath and behind or beyond it all, but don’t let yourself be bulldozed down by the lack of ability to comprehend the extremely enormous and unquantifiably heavy. Allow yourself to move on the planets plan, and look ahead to new ideas and emerging concepts in Aquarius late in the month. The Saturn Pluto configuration will slowly separate, and what has changed in its wake will be apparent. It’s a process that can’t be stopped. We must let it play out and take its course as it comes together and then moves steadily apart.

Venus In Pisces

Venus’ ingress into Pisces comes on the day the Sun does his scan of the Pluto-Saturn configuration, January 13th, and is a much needed lubrication during a time of such heavy weight and pressure. Venus is exalted in this water sign where she is free to love without boundary, to create art without condition and follow desire without restraint. Here we are attracted to the imaginal, the mystical and our romantic sensibilities are empathic and amplified. Jupiter, newly in his fall in Capricorn colors her passage through the Piscean waters, adding weight and solidity to the normally endlessly expansive. This might be more deep sea aesthetics than swirling surface waters; the bizarre luminescent monsters of the deeps rather than the sparkling sunfish and slick porpoises encountered in the lagoons. With a ruler made uncomfortable conservative we might find more purposeful applications for our pleasure pursuits and move our mermaids through a system of locks and docks, and though this may feel a little more constricted into tributary but really it gives us opportunity to channel our desires.

We want to take advantage first to Venus’ passage over Fomalhaut by the 16th, the fixed star in early degrees with powerful poetic and oracular abilities. With Jupiter in Capricorn this year taking whatever he can get it’ll become part of the routine to collect starfire whenever we have the opportunity to and get some assistance from our cousin Suns. Venus sextiles Uranus in her sign of Taurus the next day. With Jupiter having recently trined Uranus, and Venus sextiling her rulership from her exaltation, and also headed into a sextile soon with Jupiter himself, this is an optimum time to integrate whatever upgrades Uranus has been busy experimenting with in your life to increase pleasure, creativity and aesthetic power. Look to what signs Taurus and Pisces occupy in your nativity. Venus sextiles Jupiter on the 23rd, the day the Sun square’s Uranus having only recently ingressed Aquarius. The voltage will be flowing and sparks will be spraying in our face, so the part of life effected could be rather obvious. Venus then square’s Mars in Jupiter’s other sign Sagittarius on the 26th. There is typically a lot of sexual tension when the planet’s of yin and yang come to clash, but this time it is with Jupiter in a rather serious mood and Venus in a dignified place. We may be getting romantic, dramatic and all fired up about getting serious and buckling down to improve our foundational systems. Whatever gets it done. If we are feeling horny to replace the zone valves in the crawl space or hot about getting under the hood and doing some overdue maintenance, so be it. The Moon conjoins Neptune the following day, so whatever fantasies we encounter while below deck could potentially really carry us away. The Moon catches up, so this is a mood we will be feeling emotionally and physically, something we’ll really throw ourselves into. Keep the recording on, the camera rolling and the notebooks open, we might feel rushes of artistic genius as the Muse stirs and swirls past us, in excitement or agitation. A pissed off Muse is actually quite a delightful occurrence. Be prepared to take full advantage of her fury.

Mercury and Sun in Aquarius

With the Sun and Mercury in Aquarius we begin to contemplate new realities, new possibilities for ourselves and the world, no matter how outlandish they may seem; in a world pushed beyond all conceivable natural limits the projections of alternate lifeways and the systems society might attempt in uncertain futures don’t require many constrictive constructs. It’s whatever you can think up. Whatever you can imagine. Saturn has yet to ingress into Aquarius for the first time, he does so in March, but after having gone through the process of passing over Pluto he is destined to reach his airy domicile, and the Sun and Mercury’s time in Aquarius’ degrees might be in anticipation of what’s to come. Especially as they are volatized by the squares to Uranus, a persistent feature of the sign for the next six years. The Promethean fire will be delivered to this section of the zodiac, and so our mental activity in thinking up a new world and a radically transformed material culture will be highly activated, well before the conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter in air signs continue to commence. We might let our minds wander in these conductive ways, and that even though we might think ourselves way off map, it is certainly not a sign of heading no where, but to possible futures that might quake up from the fringes and begin to take shape.

The New Moon in Aquarius occurs mid-afternoon on the 24th just after the Sun begins to separate from the square with Uranus, and decentralizing our emotional and physical selves so we may plant the seeds of such new ideas into the darkness falls as a natural part of the process in such times of radical shifts and changes. Storms at the gates, static charged winds bristling the exterior of the old stronghold in a threatening lateral to its formidability. This is the lunation which officially ends the eclipse season, and somewhat brings the gates closed on what urgent needs have been flowing into our lives over the past two weeks. In the electrified potential of still yet agitated shadow fresh thinking begins to emerge, first as potential, and then to fruition in the world, for better or worse.