The Winter Solstice comes at 6:11 AM EST on Dec 21st this year. This is the day when the Sun, at its highest point in the sky, is also at the lowest “high point” of the year, and marks the shortest daylight day we see each year. (Actually, that condition continues for another two days each year, and after the third day of this condition, the Sun starts climbing higher in the sky, bringing light back into the world.)
Hiding in the dark, so to speak, are clues about what we might want to focus on for the coming year. The “seeds” we plant now will be pushing their shoots out of the ground come the Spring Equinox, so it’s a good idea to think carefully about what we might want to grow. And, while there are lots of doomsday scenarios, movies, books and a lot of chatter about the “end” of the Mayan calendar, I think it’s a good idea to put some thought into what we might want to achieve in the coming year. (On Dec. 31st each year, we just put up a new calendar, it’s not the end of the world. But if you’re carving a long term calendar on stone, it’s just not that easy to flip the page!)
While the Sun is always at 0 degrees of Capricorn at the Winter Solstice, the aspects it makes will change year to year. This year it only aspects the three outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The aspects to Uranus and Pluto are challenging – a square and a conjunction, respectively – while the aspect to Neptune, a sextile, is generally considered to be “easy” yet stimulating. But, an easy aspect to Neptune may bring its own challenges, since Neptune often needs a bit of “stress” to shake it loose from its inherent dreamy nature and help us to act on those dreams.
Uranus represents an energy of sudden and unexpected change. The square from the Sun suggests that we might not be fully aware of where we need that change to occur, and that the impetus comes from outside ourselves, i.e. from someone else. Pay attention to the reactions – past and current – of others to your actions and attitudes and try to determine whether they are justified or not, whether your actions are really in support of your goals or not. Pluto, on the other hand, is an energy of deep, systemic change. Since the Sun is coming into a conjunction with Pluto, this pressure is felt as being fully from within, although we may not always be conscious of it! So we might feel that we have something that needs doing or changing, and not be certain about what it is. Neptune in Pisces really wants to wander off into dreamland, and our dreams are what we need to spur us to our highest levels. Without some pressure it’s often the case that we don’t do anything to make them happen. The sextile aspect from the Sun to Neptune therefore has some “stress” associated with it, which may be enough energy in the mix to help us to actualize what ever those dreams might be. Since the sextile typically is an energy of “adjustment” that is usually easy to make, this configuration might make it a bit easier for us to deal with the (seemingly) sudden and deeper changes indicated by Uranus and Pluto.
Pluto and Neptune also aspect the chart’s Moon, so this isn’t going to be just affecting our conscious minds (represented by the Sun), but also affecting our emotions (the Moon). Since the Moon is also in an exact square with the chart’s Mercury, actually communicating those emotions may be difficult, but not impossible. We need to remember to take some time analyzing our emotional state before trying to talk about it – an activity that the Moon in Aries isn’t normally prone to do! Likewise, Mercury in Sagittarius has a tendency to just blurt out what ever is on his mind, so we need to consciously curb both of these enthusiastic energies and take control of them rather than letting them control us.
By carefully evaluating the nature of the needed changes and then carefully communicating our emotional state about them, we can plant the seeds we want to grow. But make sure to do all this thinking and feeling before taking action.
Mars, the symbol of action, assertion and aggression, makes no major aspects to any other planet. When a planet is unaspected, it generally behaves in one of two ways – it either manifests as somewhat aimless and without purpose, since it’s not interacting with any other energies; or it runs rampant, since, again, it’s not interacting with and being modified by any other energies. In either instance, aimless or rampant action when we’re trying to lay the groundwork for the coming year’s growth, we need to be especially sure of what we want to accomplish before we try to set that in motion. Yet, since Mars is in Capricorn, once we have made our decision, his energy can be effectively harnessed to help us prepare the ground and plant the seeds to get the growth that we want.
