By Henry Seltzer, AstroGraph Software
Saturday’s Last Quarter Moon brings to a near close the tumultuous lunation cycle that was initiated on Thanksgiving Day with a Solar Eclipse in early Sagittarius. This cycle also included the recent and also quite potent Lunar Eclipse from a week ago. Now the Sun and Moon in their waning square bring a moment of tension to a process that is winding down, and emphasize the contemplative nature of this monthly period. Even though Mercury is now in direct motion – finally – it is still to escape from its retrograde shadow, coinciding with the end of the month. The configuration of this Last Quarter Moon includes Uranus, now in forward motion and aspected by the Moon, and as well Jupiter, stationing direct on Christmas Day, which remains in close aspect and therefore strongly emphasizes the startling enlightenment provided by Uranus, still right at the Aries point. The Moon and Mercury also complete a bi-quintile yod to Jupiter, bringing a streak of optimism into the picture even in the face of somewhat difficult times.
The chart for New Year’s Day itself is quite interesting, being the prognosticator for the year to come, the much–storied and magically invoked year of 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar and the beginning of a new phase in the affairs of planet earth, at least by some accounts. Indeed this is a potent year that is a–dawning, as we can judge also by the culmination of the Uranus–Pluto square that would represent the quarter phase of that planetary relationship – birthed in the sixties and with many past revolutionary cycles to the list of its historical appearances, including the time of the French Revolution, when these planets were opposed. And indeed a new revolution for our times has been brewing lately, one that has been getting more and more intense as the years leading up to 2012 have rolled by. In the New Year’s Eve chart there is another square alignment between Sun and Moon. In other words, January 1st will be a Quarter Moon as well, the First Quarter Moon of the new lunation cycle that is beginning on December 24th, Christmas Eve. It is significant that as theSun and Moon move into square alignment on that day they aspect both Uranus and Pluto, being also in their same respective signs of Capricorn and Aries, while Venus, Jupiter and Chiron also aspect Uranus. Taking this chart as a harbinger for the coming year, it seems that there will be surprising developments and no let up in the intensity of radical changes coming down.
This all provides much food for thought in these last two weeks of the dying year, as we mull over recent events and attempt to see where we are headed both individually and collectively. We might reflect on the places in our personal lives that could use a New Years Day clean–up, bringing us a little bit closer to where at the deepest intuitional level we feel that we really could be. It’s a lot to ask of ourselves, but in another way, what else can we do but move forward, in spite of inherent difficulties, in spite of everything.
