The Jew­el in the Lotus, the Light in the Dark­ness, to Dream and Become

We have reached the last month in the Astro­log­i­cal cal­en­dar, today we enter the sign of Pisces. At this time every year, yet tru­ly present every day in some place with­in your own chart too, you need to hold your­self to the truth behind all truths. That you are a one of the One, and that the divine spark with­in you, that is you, and that this forms the essen­tial nature and truth of every par­ti­cle of Cre­ation too. The Truth behind all of this is that we are One in spirit.

At the end of every hour, of every day, of every year, and every life, you will look back so that you might look ahead. You seek to under­stand the what and why, the where and how of the mys­tery of life, of all that is, of all of this, the why behind it all, why are any of us here.

The Ancient Teach­ings hold the Sto­ries of Cre­ation, and cen­tral to all of them is the “Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones”, the Zodi­ac, which forms the frame­work or web of Cre­ation. These are the twelve Ener­gy-Forms that shape and form, that inspire and guide every mon­ad, atom, mol­e­cule, par­ti­cle, being, star and galaxy that fill the fir­ma­ment, and it is this which forms the lumi­nous body of the One. The Zodi­ac is the Design Body or frame­work for Cre­ation, and it is from these sacred twelve that we can under­stand the what and the why of our journey.

Do you know what you are? You are a spark of the one Divine Light. Do you know why you are? Because the One became the many, and each and every spark of the Divine began a jour­ney, which is to fol­low the essen­tial pur­pose of Spir­it, which is “to be and become”. You, and all of Cre­ation, you are here to unfold your pure essen­tial self, your Swab­hā­va or Quin­tes­sence, because you are an essen­tial part of the mys­tery and majesty and the promise of Creation.

Yes, each sign of the Zodi­ac holds a piece of the puz­zle, form­ing and inspir­ing each par­ti­cle of Cre­ation, accord­ing to its par­tic­u­lar lev­el of self-real­iza­tion, and here at the end of the sto­ries of the Zodi­ac, of all the sto­ries and chap­ters of your hours, days, and years, you need to hold each strand and sto­ry of your life togeth­er as they must always be, as one.

This is the gift that comes from all of the water signs, which is to move beyond the bounds of mind so as to feel and intu­it, to lis­ten for the gen­tle whis­per­ing of the immor­tal with­in, and so catch a glimpse beyond any lim­it of ordi­nary thought or mind, to dream and dis­cov­er some greater under­stand­ing of the mean­ing and pur­pose of your life.

Yes, each sign holds a most spe­cial truth, about what makes you, you. The final spe­cial gift, the awe­some pow­er and respon­si­bil­i­ty that we have from Pisces is this, that what you are and how you are and why you are is because you are the “cre­ator of you”. That it is all that you think, and all that feel, and all that you do, that this is what makes the future you.

What is the most spe­cial gift from Pisces? It is that in your heart of hearts you are the “dream­er-cre­ator”, that you are inspired by the spir­it with­in you to imag­ine and dream of what you and your world might be…and then you make it so. But then why, why is the world the way it is? Because you, and every­one else is still learn­ing. You are imper­fect, and when you cre­ate what your dream might be, you also mix in, some­times more, some­times less, you also mix in what you also fear might be. And so, what you cre­ate is a future that is just as you are, not quite as you imag­ined it would be.

That is why the gift of Pisces is to see the whole sto­ry, to real­ize that we have made this world as it is. We, like all of Cre­ation, are held with­in the Law of Kar­ma, and what we sow we shall reap. That is also why the gift of Pisces is to real­ize that our final test is before us now, and that the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.

And how do you do that, how do you learn to live with­out fear?

This is the great­est gift from Pisces. How do you over­come fear? You become free from fear by your faith. Not by a leap of faith, or faith in some divine inter­ven­tion from above or beyond our­selves. The gift of Pisces is your “liv­ing faith”, that you are indeed the cre­ator of your future, and that you have noth­ing to fear because what­ev­er you will face, you were the one that made it…and you can face it and you can change it.

All you need to do is believe, to have faith, and remem­ber what makes you what you are. You are the liv­ing embod­i­ment of the source and the pow­er of faith.

Your faith is the Love of the One, and that is why you are here.

We are the ones of the One, we are made by divine love.

We are here to love one anoth­er and this entire Creation.

We will not live in fear, and we will make that bet­ter future by dream­ing-cre­at­ing and lov­ing today, tomor­row and for all our days to come.

And may we all live in the Light of Truth, Love and Understanding.

2024 Preview — A look ahead Part 2 — National Charts and World Leaders

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

We took a look at the gen­er­al astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions for 2024 in our last show on Jan­u­ary 7^th, so I thought we would turn our atten­tion to spe­cif­ic charts in today’s show. Though there are a num­ber of ways to approach Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy for an under­stand­ing of world his­to­ry, one of the most com­mon is to treat orga­ni­za­tions, whether they be com­mu­ni­ty-based, polit­i­cal for­ma­tions, cor­po­rate enti­ties, nations, or inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, to treat them just like we would any human indi­vid­ual with their chart.

We look at the begin­ning of an orga­ni­za­tion, its incor­po­ra­tion or announce­ment or a sig­nif­i­cant event, and cre­ate a “birth chart” for it. Then we ana­lyze its inher­ent nature and con­sid­er the time­line of its devel­op­ment through its natal pro­gres­sions and tran­sits, just like we would with an individual’s chart.

USA
Let us will begin with the chart of the USA, and the two lead­ing can­di­dates for Pres­i­dent in the 2024 elec­tion, which are Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump. We did a show on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2023, where I looked at 2024 for the USA chart, and at both charts for the can­di­dates, (and if you wish to review that show the tran­script was pub­lished on my blog on Sep­tem­ber 20^th). Some of what I am going to say will be a review of what I said then, but I am going to add to that first look as well.

The pri­ma­ry indi­ca­tor of where the USA is for 2024 is shaped by where it is with­in the pro­gressed Sun/Moon cycle of approx­i­mate­ly 29 years. 2024 will be the year in which the USA has its 9^th New Moon, which indi­cates a time when a seed is plant­ed, and a new infu­sion of inspi­ra­tion and ener­gy will begin to inform its jour­ney. This New Moon will occur on March 24, 2024, at 19 degrees and 26 min­utes of Pisces, which astrologers will com­mon­ly round up to be 20 degrees of Pisces. In my prac­tice with indi­vid­u­als, I will often refer to the Sabi­an Sym­bols to inter­pret a New or Full Moon for a client, and the Sabi­an sym­bol for this New Moon degree is this, “A table set for an evening meal”.

Now that might seem a rather odd and not very rel­e­vant image, but with sym­bol­ic lan­guages we must remem­ber to stretch our hearts and minds to move beyond mere appear­ances and look deeply into the sig­nif­i­cance of a scene or image. An evening meal implies the end of the day, which indi­cates we are at the end of the cycle (even though this refers to a New Moon, to a seed being plant­ed, it is real­ly about the mean­ing or under­stand­ing of an end­ing too). So, for us in the USA, we will find our­selves at a moment when we are to expe­ri­ence the results, what comes to us at the end of a cycle, enjoy­ing or fac­ing what we have pro­vid­ed for our­selves by our own efforts. Spir­i­tu­al­ly, it would sig­ni­fy that after a “long day”, after a series of moments for the USA, which in our case may mean since the last New Moon in 1994, or tru­ly going back to the begin­ning of 1776, that we are now to expe­ri­ence a return to our soul or spir­i­tu­al roots, a return to our spir­i­tu­al source or home, a return to our foundations.

I would see this as a sign that we are being guid­ed to remem­ber and to return to the inte­gral agree­ment of our found­ing, to our Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, and per­haps equal­ly to our sec­ond found­ing after the Civ­il War and Lincoln’s mem­o­rable restate­ment of who and what we are. The way I like to frame this is that the USA was found­ed upon a com­pact and a pledge to be guid­ed by a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple, that we the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States would seek to ful­fill our liveli­hoods and dreams, that our indi­vid­ual hap­pi­ness would only be made pos­si­ble, by our mutu­al under­stand­ing that we are to be one another’s means for self-ful­fill­ment. That each one of us belongs to and finds our ful­fill­ment through many com­mu­ni­ties, and by hold­ing these togeth­er as the fields of mutu­al self-real­iza­tions, it is by our fel­low­ships that we forge our Union so that our liveli­hoods are made and sus­tained. That we hold as our cen­tral truth, that in the end what we hope and wish for, which is that we all should be able to pur­sue our hap­pi­ness, means that what unites the vast major­i­ty of us is far deep­er and much wider than what divides us, or by those who seek to divide us.

I would also argue, that giv­en this cen­tral theme that is Amer­i­ca, that those who seek to divide us from one anoth­er, those who pit “us against them”, will con­tin­u­ous­ly lose the sup­port of the vast major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans, and that this is what has hap­pened since 2018 with the so-called MAGA move­ment. MAGA (and a greater por­tion now of the Repub­li­can par­ty), keeps los­ing elec­tions up and down the bal­lot, as it did in 2018, and again in 2020, and in 2022 and in 2023. And the more they lose, the more their leader dou­bles-down on his prin­ci­pal vision, wit­nessed in his words and deeds that strive to divide Amer­i­cans from one anoth­er. Trump, whose claim to fame is that he is the great­est win­ner con­tin­ues to be the biggest los­er, and I do not see that chang­ing in 2024.

With regards to the major tran­sits in the USA chart, the most impor­tant one is the wax­ing square of Uranus to the USA Moon. The Moon in a nation­al chart is said to rule or indi­cate “the peo­ple”, and Uranus is the plan­et that brings a quick­en­ing of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, a stir­ring and stim­u­la­tion of what I like to call the Quin­tes­sence, which in our exam­ple con­cerns the nature of the peo­ple of the USA.

The USA has its Moon in Aquar­ius, which means that the peo­ple of the USA are to be inspired and shaped by a firm belief in the spe­cial­ness and unique­ness of each indi­vid­ual, group, and com­mu­ni­ty, and by exten­sion to the very notion of the USA as a whole. As our mot­to so suc­cinct­ly puts it, “Out of many, one”, which means we cel­e­brate our diver­si­ty as our strength, our col­lec­tion of cul­tures and peo­ples as being what it means to be “Amer­i­can”, and that tol­er­ance and under­stand­ing is what cre­ates a com­mu­ni­ty and a soci­ety where the indi­vid­ual flour­ish­es, where our human­i­ty and love for one anoth­er is the core prin­ci­ple for help­ing to make our dreams come true with and through one anoth­er. This is what de Toc­queville not­ed in his writ­ings about Amer­i­ca in the 19^th cen­tu­ry, that the char­ac­ter and strength of Amer­i­ca was to be found in its vol­un­tary asso­ci­a­tions, of a peo­ple com­ing togeth­er to help one another.

Of course, we have not real­ized that fuller dream of Amer­i­ca, but it is the dream that we are here to become. It is by join­ing togeth­er, per­son to per­son, group to group, com­mu­ni­ty to com­mu­ni­ty, that we made what we are and holds our promise of what we aspire to be. We look to our seers, our artists, cre­ators, dream­ers, but most espe­cial­ly to all those who do build and sup­port com­mu­ni­ties to make this bet­ter world we imag­ine. And we look to our lead­ers to remind us of who we are, where we are and what we must do to make our dreams come true. So let us look at what the plan­ets say about Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump for 2024.

Joe Biden/Donald Trump
The plan­e­tary influ­ences for Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump this year are both sup­port­ive and chal­leng­ing. The pro­gres­sions and tran­sits in any chart will have a hier­ar­chal dimen­sion of effects that range down­wards, mov­ing from the spir­i­tu­al plane, to the men­tal, to the emo­tion­al and final­ly to the phys­i­cal body. With this in mind, we are all very aware that we are exam­in­ing two rather old­er men, and the gru­el­ing jour­ney of a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, not to men­tion the demands of a four-year term in office, well that should make us real­ize that it is not at all cer­tain that either one of them will be able to weath­er such intense pres­sure this year or in the years to come. Nev­er­the­less, let us see what is in store for them both this year.

Joe Biden
For Joe Biden, the most favor­able influ­ence in 2024 is the trine aspect by Nep­tune to both his Sun and Venus. Nep­tune holds the influ­ence of the sec­ond qual­i­ty of Spir­it, that the entire Uni­verse is formed by and made from Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love. The Sun in a chart of an indi­vid­ual rep­re­sents the Self, the pure poten­tial of that per­son; Venus rep­re­sents the per­son­al val­ues and the human expres­sion of love for that per­son. Build­ing through 2023 and cli­max­ing here in 2024 there is a pow­er­ful influ­ence that is shap­ing Joe Biden to be inspired by and guid­ed in a spir­i­tu­al attune­ment to a self­less and sac­ri­fi­cial pur­pose. Where he faces an oppo­nent filled with anger and resent­ment, who promis­es revenge and ret­ri­bu­tion, Joe Biden is focused upon a path of com­pas­sion and heal­ing and love.

And what is remark­able about this moment, is that Joe Biden was born with Nep­tune in his chart so that it forms both a sex­tile to his Venus and to his Sun, and that Neptune’s place­ment in his chart is in the 10^th house of his pub­lic life and respon­si­bil­i­ties. This is, in some sense, the very time in his­to­ry that Joe Biden was made for.

The most chal­leng­ing influ­ence in 2024 for Biden is Plu­to squar­ing his Moon. There is no doubt that this is a dif­fi­cult ener­gy. Plu­to rules the pow­er of the will, and prin­ci­pal­ly for an indi­vid­ual forms their capac­i­ty for self-con­trol and deter­mi­na­tion, of how they both pre­serve their own sacred space while equal­ly respect­ing the sacred space of oth­ers. Biden will expe­ri­ence extra­or­di­nary pres­sure emo­tion­al­ly this year, from fam­i­ly, from friends and from the world around him, try­ing to bend and make him yield to their needs or wants or fears. Biden’s chal­lenge is to remain cen­tered in his truth, to his moral com­pass and to not lis­ten to or be swayed by guilt or manip­u­la­tion. For­tu­nate­ly, once again, it is Nep­tune which will help him here, because at the very same time that Plu­to is squar­ing his Moon, it will be mak­ing a trine to his Nep­tune. He will be inspired to be guid­ed in his actions by his upper­most plan­et to stay on the path of true sac­ri­fice, and to under­stand that at the root of all these neg­a­tive ener­gies around the world, and of those direct­ed at him, that they all orig­i­nate from fear. By remain­ing faith­ful to his truth and path, he will not over or under react (Plu­to squar­ing the Moon) but remain steadi­ly pur­pose­ful to lead by the exam­ple of love.

Don­ald Trump
For Don­ald Trump, the most “favor­able” influ­ence in 2024, (and it is by no means cer­tain that it will be favor­able), is being brought by Uranus mov­ing into his 10^th house of the pub­lic life, of one’s career, of one’s pur­pose and stand­ing in soci­ety. Uranus is the plan­et of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, which is the inces­sant spir­i­tu­al ener­gy with­in each mon­ad of the divine, and that pro­pels us to be an ever truer and freer expres­sion and expe­ri­ence of who and what we are.

I call Uranus “the awak­en­er” as it brings about shocks and sur­pris­es that are meant to free the indi­vid­ual from their self-lim­i­ta­tions, which may close a path if it is no longer right and per­haps lead to anoth­er that is more sig­nif­i­cant or appro­pri­ate. Typ­i­cal­ly, Uranus brings about cir­cum­stances that break open and shake up things, all in order to free you. The key to know­ing whether it will lead to greater free­dom or not will depend upon what you bring to this moment, which is the char­ac­ter and qual­i­ty of what you have done in the world, and what your moti­va­tion is with regards to Uranus’ mes­sage of freedom.

When I first exam­ined Trump’s chart in depth in 2016, I not­ed that one of his prin­ci­pal fea­tures was that he was born with Uranus next to and lead­ing his Sun, and oppo­site to his Moon. This two-fold align­ment forges an indi­vid­ual who believes in their being excep­tion­al, being an icon­o­clast, a break­er of icons. But because this dis­rup­tive ener­gy influ­ences both his essen­tial nature and his emo­tion­al being, he will be a per­son who is unpre­dictable, unsta­ble, and more often than not chaot­ic. There is no cer­tain­ty with Uranus, except to expect the unex­pect­ed. Uranus is return­ing to where it began in Trump’s chart, and he will be reap­ing what he has made of his life and be faced with the con­se­quences of his own making.

The most chal­leng­ing influ­ence in 2024 for Trump is real­ly a dou­ble tran­sit to his ascen­dant being formed by Nep­tune and Plu­to, each of which is form­ing an incon­junct or 150-degree aspect, with Nep­tune from his 8^th house and Plu­to from his 5^th house. When two incon­juncts form togeth­er in this man­ner, it is called by astrologers a Yod for­ma­tion. The ascen­dant is your per­sona, the pres­ence you have as you walk through time, as you make your jour­ney through the Eter­nal Now. Here we have these two shapers of our jour­ney, Plu­to the plan­et of the Will and of self-con­trol, and Nep­tune the plan­et of Uncon­di­tion­al Love and sac­ri­fice, each of them is push­ing and pulling on Trump’s way of being how he holds him­self and presents him­self to the world. The chal­lenge is two-fold, to main­tain self-con­trol and nei­ther be con­trol­ling or out of con­trol, while at the same time being com­pas­sion­ate and sac­ri­fi­cial with­out play­ing the role of vic­tim or mar­tyr. This would be quite a chal­lenge and achieve­ment for any indi­vid­ual, but from what we have seen of Trump, he is cer­tain­ly seems unable to con­trol him­self, nor is he has ever shown an abil­i­ty to sac­ri­fice himself.

And this brings up anoth­er inter­est­ing indi­ca­tor that I have not men­tioned before, at least not pub­licly. There is anoth­er class of indi­ca­tions one can use to deter­mine the mean­ing of var­i­ous points in a chart, which may be espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant in the case of a well-known indi­vid­ual. Astrologers have stud­ied the influ­ence of what are called the Fixed stars of our local space Zodi­ac, with each such star hold­ing var­i­ous qual­i­ties of char­ac­ter that come with spe­cif­ic warn­ings too.

In Trump’s chart a tru­ly impor­tant star is right on his ascen­dant, on his pres­ence in the world. It is the star Reg­u­lus, which is called “the Heart of the Lion” and the “Watch­er of the North” and is found in Trump’s chart at 29 degrees of Leo, which is also Trump’s ascen­dant. It is one of the great four or Roy­al fixed stars, each of which endows a per­son with the poten­tial to gain great suc­cess and to ful­fill their ambi­tions, but only if that per­son faces and over­comes a par­tic­u­lar neme­sis. The neme­sis that must be con­quered with Reg­u­lus is Revenge. Which means that with Reg­u­lus promi­nent in the chart, you will have the poten­tial to gain great fame and for­tune but if you ever stoop to revenge you may lose your pow­er and your position.

So, we find our­selves here in 2024, with the gift of Reg­u­lus for Trump, which offers the bless­ing of being able to attain fame, pow­er, and for­tune, and with Plu­to and Nep­tune trig­ger­ing this degree, which means that he may find his path to suc­cess being brought to an end by his inabil­i­ty to for­give or let go, by his inca­pac­i­ty to feel for any­one oth­er than himself.

There are a num­ber of oth­er impor­tant aspects occur­ring in both Biden’s chart and Trump’s chart, and in the USA chart, and per­haps we will exam­ine those in a future episode. But I do see that our time is pre­cious, and I need to turn to you, the audi­ence, at some point here. So, what I will do is rather than going into any detail with these oth­er “world­ly charts” of coun­tries and lead­ers I will just do an overview, and then we’ll come back and look at them in more detail for our next and future shows.

Ukraine/Russia
Start­ing with Ukraine and Rus­sia, and that means also look­ing at Zelen­sky’s chart and Putin’s chart for the Ukraine/Russia war. What does 2024 hold, and even look­ing to 2025?

It was going to be a very con­fus­ing year for Rus­sia in 2023 with some pit­falls and mishaps in terms of mis­read­ing things. But as we move into 2024, it seems there is less con­fu­sion and dis­rup­tion and more pur­pose­ful­ness and deter­mi­na­tion. Where­as for Ukraine, which seemed to be hold­ing its own under the under some very dif­fi­cult aspects in 2023, some real­ly chal­leng­ing aspects are show­ing up in the chart of Ukraine for 2024 and even mov­ing into 2025.

When we take a deep­er look at both of those charts for Rus­sia and Ukraine, in a future episode, I will go into more detail about those indi­ca­tions might be. But I do think that things are not going to look too well for Ukraine, at least from this view.

And if we look at the charts of the indi­vid­u­als lead­ing these two coun­tries, at Putin’s chart and Zelenskyy’s, chart what do we see? Putin was under the sim­i­lar influ­ence as that of Rus­sia with a strong Nep­tune aspect in 2023. That would have caused him to find that his efforts were being some­what thwart­ed, sort of mis­di­rect­ed or mis­placed. But in 2024 that is lift­ed, and he will be able to focus more on achiev­ing what he may wish to achieve, at least in the short term.

Where­as Zelen­skyy finds him­self under tremen­dous pres­sure. The pres­sure that was there in 2023 remains the same in 2024. So, the stress he has endured will not be let­ting up for him what­so­ev­er. When we meet next, I will look at 2025 and see how that looks for both him and for Putin. But it looks to me that the war between Ukraine and Rus­sia is going to be rather dif­fi­cult for Ukraine in 2024, and giv­en what cur­rent news reports have been indi­cat­ing, that seems to be no great sur­prise to me, or prob­a­bly to you.

China/Xi Jin­ping
If we then look anoth­er major play­er on the world stage, and we will into more detail with our next show, let’s look at what hap­pened to Chi­na and Xi Jin­ping in 2023. There has been a great dis­rup­tion over the issue of val­ue in Chi­na because of a major plan­e­tary tran­sit. Uranus oppo­site to China’s Venus. And for Xi, span­ning both 2022 and 2023, he has expe­ri­enced a great loss of con­fi­dence and self-assur­ance, lead­ing to self-doubts about him­self and what he is doing, with Nep­tune squar­ing his Sun. That may lead to him dur­ing 2024 to con­tin­ue to piv­ot in terms of his aims and actions of his goals and means as Plu­to aspects his Mars.

But there may be some kind of great dis­rup­tion com­ing to Chi­na, lead­ing to the ques­tion of the secu­ri­ty or sta­bil­i­ty of the land in Chi­na in 2024. That is because Uranus, the plan­et that shakes things up moves into the 4th House of Chi­na, which is the root of the chart, of where we come from, but also lit­er­al­ly the land issues of a coun­try. And one of the big prob­lems we all know that has occurred in Chi­na of late is this very large real estate and build­ing bub­ble, that they are try­ing to resolve. But with all of that debt hang­ing over Chi­na, a cou­ple of big fail­ures there could real­ly cause them great dif­fi­cul­ty. So, it looks like more chal­lenges are to come and that could lead to some kind of a reck­on­ing and realign­ment for Chi­na in terms of secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly with regards to their foun­da­tions in 2024.

North Korea/Kim Jong Un
And then right next door, of course, we always want to take a look at North Korea and Kim Jong Un. For Kim, he has reached a moment in his own life where he’s look­ing at the dreams he has of his life and see­ing how some dreams have come true and some dreams have not come true. He is going through his midlife cri­sis. This hap­pens to all of us when we reach our late 30s and ear­ly 40s. But of course, with him being a world leader, this is play­ing out on the world stage. So, he is strug­gling with how he can real­ize the dreams I have for myself and per­haps for my nation, and it is uncer­tain as to what to do. So, he may act in ways that send out very mixed sig­nals as a result of his own per­son­al “cri­sis”. I think we will get through 2024 with­out any great dif­fi­cul­ty com­ing from North Korea. But I do look at 2025 as being much more of a chal­leng­ing year, because that is the year when the plan­et Plu­to becomes much more active in Kim’s chart, going over his Venus and going over his Sat­urn too. And that will coin­cide with Plu­to going over the Venus of North Korea as well. So, there are a lot of align­ments com­ing in 2025 that should def­i­nite­ly give us pause.

Israel/Benjamin Netanyahu
Let’s take a quick look at what is hap­pen­ing here with Israel and Netanyahu and with Hamas. But with Hamas, well that is much hard­er to do because it is not a nation state per se, it is an orga­ni­za­tion found­ed and declared to be found­ed on a cer­tain date, which peo­ple might com­mon­ly use. But is that the real date to use? We are always won­der­ing. We can be much more cer­tain about what is hap­pen­ing in Israel’s chart, and cer­tain­ly with Ben­jamin Netanyahu’s chart.

Israel
The prin­ci­pal influ­ence that is hang­ing over Israel both in 2023 and 2024, and then some­thing changes here in 2024, is that the plan­et Nep­tune, which bring about the pos­si­bil­i­ty or neces­si­ty of dis­solv­ing bound­aries, of mov­ing into a wider under­stand­ing of what­ev­er we are encoun­ter­ing, but always when it’s work­ing, that very dis­solv­ing func­tion and move­ment into a wider, more encom­pass­ing realm, that we all will go through a peri­od between the old real­i­ty and the old under­stand­ing and the new, we enter that space in in between, that we all call confusion.

There was a great deal of con­fu­sion last year and it con­tin­ues into 2024. Nep­tune is tran­sit­ing Israel’s Jupiter, the plan­et that rules truth, the plan­et that rules our belief sys­tems, whether those be sci­en­tif­ic or spir­i­tu­al or reli­gious or legal. We know that there was this very real cri­sis in Israel in 2023, with a major legal strug­gle between and over the kind of demo­c­ra­t­ic struc­ture of that state of Israel. Netanyahu’s coali­tion was push­ing for changes in the bal­ance of pow­er between the leg­is­la­ture (the Knes­set) and the judi­cia­ry. This strug­gle over the bal­ance of pow­er and gov­ern­ing code of Israel brought about the largest protests in Israel’s his­to­ry. At the root of this strug­gle was the very nature of the state of Israel, of peo­ple ques­tion­ing, “what is our truth, what is the way we are sup­posed to be?” And that ques­tion con­tin­ues to rever­ber­ate down into 2024 for Israel. So, at the very root of Israel’s trou­bles in strug­gle over truth and beliefs. I would say that the peo­ple of Israel are very con­fused about the nature of truth, of what they believe and what kind of nation they will be.

Then what is com­ing in 2024, and which was not there in 2023, comes from the fact that the nation of Israel is a Tau­rus nation, and the plan­et Uranus has been mov­ing through Tau­rus for a num­ber of years now, and in 2024 Uranus will be going over Israel’s Sun which has nev­er hap­pened before. This is the first time Israel has expe­ri­enced an exact con­junc­tion to the Sun. Every time Uranus touch­es the Sun, we get shook up and we are made to go through a shock or series of shocks, that leads to a break­through and a break­down, and to the release of new a host of new pos­si­bil­i­ties ulti­mate­ly. But it can make for a very great peri­od again of uncer­tain­ty, and insta­bil­i­ty that could lead to a great sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. But it also can be a sur­pris­ing time, where what was not pos­si­ble, what was not even con­ceiv­able, sud­den­ly becomes nor­mal­ized and the change that could not be hap­pens. So, a shock is going to be deliv­ered by Israel as well as received by Israel, that is what will hap­pen in 2024.

Netanyahu
When we look at Netanyahu’s chart, he has had the plan­et Nep­tune form­ing an align­ment to both the plan­et Mars which rules desire and action, the plan­et that deter­mines the thrust in life, and to the Sun in his chart which is his expe­ri­ence of him­self. It is like what is hap­pen­ing in Trump’s chart with the Yod For­ma­tion. For Netanyahu, Nep­tune is lin­ing up to Mars in one part of his chart, and at the same time to his Sun in anoth­er sec­tion of his chart. So, this is a twin influ­ence. Nep­tune dis­solves what­ev­er it is influ­enc­ing, and it will often appear to be bring­ing about some sort of weak­en­ing for what­ev­er it is touch­ing. Mars is your vital­i­ty, so there is def­i­nite­ly a drain­ing of vital­i­ty, a con­fu­sion about desire and direc­tion often lead­ing to mis­un­der­stand­ing and mis­di­rec­tion. For 2023 this influ­ence affect­ed his vital­i­ty and his sense of him­self, and his assured­ness in himself.

And in 2024 this influ­ence remains, with Nep­tune con­tin­u­ing to influ­ence his Sun. It is a two-year process, of being not sure of him­self and uncer­tain of what is going on, which oth­ers will prob­a­bly take advan­tage of his appar­ent weak­ness. He will not feel him­self, and he will not be ful­ly present in what­ev­er he is doing, and he will send out mixed messages.

We will take a deep­er look at all of these charts and at some oth­ers that we have not yet con­sid­ered. We don’t have enough time to do this today, so I will go into more depth with these mat­ters and con­sid­er them in a future show.

USA
I also just want­ed to go back and just remind us of the impor­tance for the USA with this new moon that is tak­ing place in March of 2024. Remem­ber this will hap­pen every 29 years or so. The last new moon in the USA chart was 1990. Before that was 1965, and before that was 1935 and so on. So, it hap­pens repeat­ed­ly, and it is an inter­est­ing way of look­ing at peri­ods in the USA’s life in terms of themes that may be released and then devel­oped in the course of those 29 years.

So, what is hap­pen­ing now in the USA? We are at the end of what has been going on since 1994, and we are mov­ing into a new era here from 2024 onwards. It is an inter­est­ing way of fram­ing and char­ac­ter­iz­ing an era in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, sim­ply through an exam­i­na­tion of these pro­gressed new Moons. But we can and should look at the full Moons too to see the result or cli­max of that cycle, which will hap­pen about 14 to 15 years lat­er. The new Moon of 1994 reached its cli­max in 2008, which of course coin­cid­ed with a col­lapse of the USA econ­o­my, the burst­ing of the debt bub­ble and the mort­gage cri­sis. This sec­ond “great depres­sion” had been formed by the cor­po­rate and gov­ern­men­tal poli­cies and actions that had been pur­sued since 1994. It was this that led to the col­lapse of our econ­o­my and real­ly for the world economy.

The pre­vi­ous new Moon was 1965, and it was the seed being plant­ed that led to a full Moon har­vest which was in 1979. That again was a year of a painful eco­nom­ic har­vest, of what became termed “stagfla­tion”, to a stag­na­tion in jobs and growth and an infla­tion in prices. So, these new moons and full moons func­tion like our book­ends, sort of fram­ing the his­to­ry of the USA in one sense. Per­haps in a future show we will look at more of the entire series of new and full Moons to see our his­to­ry through that method of analysis.

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings — 2024 Pre­view — A look ahead Part 2 — Nation­al Charts and World Leaders

In my sec­ond show of 2024, we will con­sid­er the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions for nations and nation­al lead­ers in 2024 and beyond.

I will begin with a look at the Unit­ed States and the two lead­ing con­tenders for the 2024 elec­tion, Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump. Then we will look at oth­er impor­tant charts for nations and world lead­ers includ­ing Ukraine and Rus­sia, Israel and Iran, Chi­na and North Korea, and oth­er world actors as well. I am sure that we will not be able to get to all the charts in today’s show, so I will con­tin­ue our review in my next show in February.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 28^th @ 2 pm EST:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2024/01/28/astrological-musings-2024-preview–a‑look-ahead-part‑2

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638.

Please join me on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 28^th @ 2 pm EST as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.

Aquar­ius by Jake Baddeley

The Way

The Zodi­ac, what I like to call the “Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones”, is not some­thing “out there”, found in a net­work of stars that seem­ing­ly sur­round our Solar Sys­tem. We must free our minds from this mate­ri­al­ized and lim­it­ed con­cep­tion of real­i­ty and instead under­stand that the whole of Cre­ation exists as a hier­ar­chy of dimen­sions of Ener­gy-Forms, rang­ing from the sur­pass­ing­ly ethe­re­al to the most phys­i­cal. Through­out all these realms there is an order­ing and inter­con­nec­tion that is “formed and informed” by these Twelve arche­types, with the Signs in effect form­ing the design-body and bestow­ing the mean­ings found at the root of the small­est of ener­gy-forms, the mon­ads, which are the sparks of the Divine at the cen­ter of one and all.

Accord­ing to the ancient teach­ings, the One became the many, and what we call these spir­i­tu­al mon­ads at the heart of every ener­gy-form of the cos­mos began their remark­able jour­ney, which is the sto­ry of Cre­ation. It is these mon­ads at the root of all, who in their alchem­i­cal com­bi­na­tions bring about the birth, death, and rebirth that we expe­ri­ence as “life”. It is by these series of end­less trans­fig­u­ra­tions that the whole of Cre­ation is forged into the many king­doms of life that fill the spaces of space, which range from the atoms to mol­e­cules to all of the beings, plan­ets, and stars, and it is they, in their total­i­ty, which are the majesty and mys­tery of the One made manifest.

Today you move into the penul­ti­mate realm in the hous­es of the holy, into the last of the airy signs and the final fixed sign known as Aquar­ius. At this time of the year, and for­ev­er some­where in your very own chart too, you seek to know and under­stand what comes next, what comes after your accom­plish­ments and rewards that you reaped in Capri­corn. For it was there that you reached a greater degree of per­son­al self-mas­tery; you not only knew what was true, but you under­stood that this was not enough, because you are here to be this very truth too.

Hav­ing ful­filled your respon­si­bil­i­ties, to your fam­i­ly, through your work and with­in your com­mu­ni­ty, you might indeed won­der, “what comes next, what do I do now?” And from the Ancient Ones will come the answer, that it is not enough to pro­tect and pre­serve what was made by your ances­tors and most recent­ly by your­self, because the spir­it that is you is not made or held by what was. No, the eter­nal light of the One that burns with­in is ever intent to reach for the unmet promise, that unre­al­ized dream of what you and your world are yet to be.

Why are you here, real­ly? You are here for one rea­son, to become a bet­ter human. That being human means you are on the path of awak­en­ing that will lead to your self-ful­fill­ment as a ful­ly con­scious co-cre­ator of Cre­ation, what is known as a “free mon­ad”, and no longer utter­ly bound to the law of kar­ma. Yes, you are on a path that leads to true free­dom, and your pur­pose is to free your­self. But this is also true about the way you become free, that you will equal­ly do this for one anoth­er too for this is the way of the liv­ing spir­it, the com­mu­ni­ty of light and love.

Because it is in Aquar­ius that you under­stand this essen­tial truth of being human, that you would not be human, you would not be you at all, were it not for all with whom you have jour­neyed on this path of awak­en­ing. You are the way to one another’s cre­ation, and all that you are is because of the innu­mer­able souls with whom you have been in this life, and in all of your many lives too. Your feel­ings and thoughts, the source of you and your har­vest too, your dreams and deeds, all of this you did with one anoth­er, so that you made you through one anoth­er, and all of these many souls live on in parts of you as you are a part of them, for­ev­er. Tru­ly, you are not an “I” but a “we”, a host of thoughts, of loves and lives that are with you always, as you are part of them for­ev­er too.

This is the heart of the teach­ing held by Aquar­ius. That you are part of a great human fel­low­ship, a great fam­i­ly of souls, and it is by our fel­low­ships and friend­ships, it is by our dream­ing and doing and lov­ing one anoth­er, it is by each and every one of us seek­ing and striv­ing togeth­er to make a bet­ter life, it is by this way of love that we forge a bet­ter world for one and for all.

Yes, it is for this dream, our dream of the future, that is how and why we are here. We have made our many lives through our loves and by our com­mu­ni­ties, and we built for one anoth­er these dreams that made us more per­fect by our love for one anoth­er. Yes, it is because we are human, that every one of us is part of some­thing greater, and these ener­gy-forms of our count­less inter­re­la­tion­ships is where we wield the forge of Cre­ation, which is the alche­my of love, of being the source for one anoth­er of the dream come true for one another.

Aquar­ius looks at what is, and dreams of the bet­ter world that is yet to be. We are the seeds of the future; we are the mak­ers of our­selves and the world that was and will be.

You are here for what is to come; and you here, for one another.

And you must remem­ber, you are all for one and one for all; this is our Way.

As it was in the begin­ning, so shall it be in the end.

We are here for one thing only,

We are here because of love.

We are here to love and be loved.

We are here for the future and the dawn of a bet­ter day.

Let it be, may we all be.

The Way.

Alchemist Heat­ing a Pot, by David Teniers the Younger

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings — 2024 Pre­view, a look ahead

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

As we move into 2024, it is time for us to con­sid­er what Astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions will pre­vail dur­ing this year and beyond. The major plan­e­tary align­ment of this year includes the first major aspect of Sat­urn to Plu­to since their last con­junc­tion in Jan­u­ary 2020, which is a semi-square that is exact in May, Sep­tem­ber, and Jan­u­ary of 2025. 2024 will also be the final year of Pluto’s tran­si­tion from the sign of Capri­corn to Aquar­ius, and it will the final full year for both Nep­tune in Pisces before it tran­si­tions to Aries, and final full year for Uranus in Tau­rus before it tran­si­tions to Gem­i­ni. Those shifts indi­cate that we will cer­tain­ly be in a much dif­fer­ent world by 2025 and beyond.

This year will also have the usu­al repeat­ing phe­nom­e­na of the Solar and Lunar eclipses, three Mer­cury in ret­ro­grades, and Jupiter chang­ing signs. I will do anoth­er show soon where we will look at some of the major nation­al and lead­er­ship charts to see what we might under­stand about the year ahead from that per­spec­tive as well.

Sat­urn semi-square Pluto
The most impor­tant aspect in the heav­ens this year is the first align­ment of Sat­urn with Plu­to since their con­junc­tion or “new moon” of Jan­u­ary 2020. The cycle of Sat­urn and Plu­to, from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, lasts from between 33 to 38 years, and it con­cerns the inte­gral bal­ance between Order (Sat­urn) and Will (Plu­to), or Struc­ture and Sacred Space, or Spir­it mate­ri­al­ized and the Alchem­i­cal force that is behind the entire­ty of Cre­ation. In Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, this cycle informs the birth/death/rebirth of new polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and social struc­tures. Often the cycle begins with the end­ing of some kind of order, a break­down and then a rebuild­ing of the ways of the exer­cise of pow­er through struc­ture, of the ways in which order and dis­or­der and reorder echo down the ages. The most recent con­junc­tions have been:

The first of the 20^th cen­tu­ry occurred in 1914, with World War I which we could see as the penul­ti­mate war in the his­to­ry of col­o­niza­tion. The sub­se­quent semi-square of 1918 brought the end of that war but also the great Influen­za epi­dem­ic of 1918–1919. The con­junc­tion of 1947–48, saw the real begin­nings of decol­o­niza­tion, with the par­ti­tion of India and Pak­istan, the emer­gence of Chi­na final­ly free from for­eign con­trol, but also the estab­lish­ment of the state of Israel. The sub­se­quent semi-square in 1951 saw the Kore­an War, and many oth­er South Asian and African wars of post-colo­nial strug­gles; the Saturn/Pluto con­junc­tion of 1982–83 saw Israel invade Lebanon, (which it did not com­plete­ly leave until 2000), but also the “birth” of the inter­net, and a num­ber of mil­i­tary gov­ern­ments being replaced by civil­ian ones in as in Argenti­na and Turkey. The sub­se­quent semi-square in 1988 saw the first inter­net virus, and the begin­ning of the end to the Iron Cur­tain and cold war as the Sovi­et Union tried to open up its eco­nom­ic sys­tem and Hun­gary opened up to trav­el between the east and the west.

Now we have our most recent con­junc­tion of 2020, and we have cer­tain­ly expe­ri­enced the struc­tures and sys­tems around the world being over­matched and over­whelmed by a world-wide pan­dem­ic. We have been made aware how our sys­tem of meet­ing human needs by means of an intri­cate glob­al trade struc­ture has been proven to be vul­ner­a­ble and lack­ing in resilien­cy. The very way in which we have become inter­con­nect­ed and inter­de­pen­dent, both mate­ri­al­ly and vir­tu­al­ly, has over­whelmed and thrown into dis­re­pute the gov­ern­ing insti­tu­tions with­in and between nations, as what had been assumed to be a uni­ver­sal lib­er­al polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic order has been bat­tered and some­times shat­tered by forces of reac­tion and rev­o­lu­tion, by extrem­ists on the right and the left. What we are see­ing around the world is a glob­al expe­ri­ence of Mil­len­ni­al move­ments, whose adher­ents either want to return their world to a myth­ic “gold­en age”, or to a final judge­ment in which their fol­low­ers will be spared and exalted.

What this year’s semi-square may hold for us, there is tru­ly no way to know for cer­tain. All we can know is that the essen­tial inter­de­pen­den­cies and inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ties of the nat­ur­al world, the beau­ti­ful yet vul­ner­a­ble hier­ar­chy of nature’s ecosys­tems, com­bined with the effects of our eco­nom­ic world dri­ven by infi­nite con­sump­tion on a finite plan­et are grow­ing not fad­ing. We will cer­tain­ly expe­ri­ence ever greater waves of dis­tur­bances, mass migra­tions of peo­ples flee­ing cli­mate dis­as­ters and insti­tu­tion­al fail­ures, and this inescapable real­i­ty is being brought to bear as the pri­ma­ry and exis­ten­tial chal­lenge fac­ing human­i­ty is the threat of cli­mate change, a trans­for­ma­tion of our world that we have cre­at­ed, and which is becom­ing ever weird­er and wilder.

The Out­er Planets
But we must always remem­ber that the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions from Uranus, Nep­tune and Plu­to are still the major shapers for any peri­od of his­to­ry. We have looked at them recent­ly, and we will look at them again in a lat­er show, but we need to remem­ber that we are at the cusp of three major tran­si­tions. Plu­to is mov­ing into Aquar­ius in 2024 until 2044, Nep­tune is begin­ning its move into Aries next year until 2039, and Uranus is begin­ning its move into Gem­i­ni next year until 2033. The last time Plu­to was in Aquar­ius was 1778 to 1798, the same time as the Amer­i­can and French Rev­o­lu­tions and Napoleon Bona­parte. The last time Nep­tune was in the sign of Aries was 1862 to 1875, encom­pass­ing the US Civ­il War and Recon­struc­tion. The last time Uranus was in Gem­i­ni was 1935 to 1942, the first half of the Sec­ond World War. As much as we may have been frus­trat­ed by the rigid­i­ty between groups and fac­tions over the past many years, these shifts of the major plan­ets will mean that we are going to see a rearrangement/realignment of issues and peo­ples from 2025 onwards.

With so many out­er plan­ets mov­ing into new signs, the com­bi­na­tion­al or ener­getic spir­i­tu­al vibra­tions will cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties (and new solu­tions) to our present-day chal­lenges. But they will also nec­es­sar­i­ly give rise to new prob­lems too. It is upon each one of us to under­stand the mean­ings and mes­sages of the plan­ets, but most espe­cial­ly remem­ber the fun­da­men­tal truths and wis­dom that should guide our thoughts and shape our actions year after year. If we can remain cen­tered by the ever­last­ing truths, then we will be able to respond much bet­ter to these plan­e­tary influ­ences and not react with fear.

Eclipses
Nor­mal­ly every year we will have two Solar and two Lunar eclipses, and this is also true for 2024, with a Lunar eclipse on March 25, a Solar eclipse on April 8, a Lunar eclipse on Sep­tem­ber 18, and a Solar eclipse on Octo­ber 2.

Solar eclipses are more sig­nif­i­cant, and their influ­ence can be expect­ed to last until the next Solar eclipse around six months lat­er, until the next Solar eclipse. The Lunar eclipses are under­stood to influ­ence the next 30 days, until the next full Moon.

Solar and Lunar eclipses hap­pen when the orbital posi­tion of the Earth around the Sun, and the orbital posi­tion of the Moon around Earth match up so that either the Moon cre­ates a shad­ow by block­ing out the Sun (at the New Moon), or the Earth cre­ates a shad­ow that falls upon the Moon when it is full.

The March 25^th penum­bral lunar eclipse, which means the Moon only enters the penum­bra of the Earth’s shad­ow and just dims, hap­pens around 3 am EDT at 5 degrees and 7 min­utes in Libra, and weath­er per­mit­ting it will be vis­i­ble in the USA. If you have any plan­et or chart angle around this degree, it will be impor­tant to con­sid­er its mean­ing for the next month or so.

The April 8^th total solar eclipse is exact at 2:20 pm EDT at 19 degrees and 24 min­utes of Aries, and the eclipse path of total­i­ty will sweep across the USA from the south­west to the north­east. If you have any plan­et or chart angle around this degree, it will be very impor­tant to con­sid­er its mean­ing to you for the next six months, and the area of your chart it falls in will be high­light­ed for that same period.

The path of total­i­ty will sweep from Mex­i­co and into Texas, then up through Arkansas and Mis­souri into South­ern Illi­nois, and into Indi­ana and Ohio, then on into west­ern New York and through north­ern Ver­mont and New Hamp­shire, through Maine before final­ly end­ing in the east­ern provinces of Canada.
Here is a map of the April Eclipse Path:

I had actu­al­ly men­tioned this eclipse in 2017, because in August of that year we had anoth­er total eclipse sweep across the USA from the north­west to the south­east, start­ing in Ore­gon and arch­ing through the Mid­west and inter­sect­ing the 2024 eclipse in south­ern Illi­nois and mov­ing fur­ther south­east to exit in South Carolina.

It seems rather sig­nif­i­cant to me, and I am sure to many oth­ers, that the USA will have expe­ri­enced two total Solar eclipses, 7 years apart, that form a per­fect “X” cen­tered just east of the con­ti­nen­tal cen­ter of the USA, and actu­al­ly right on the medi­an spot for pop­u­la­tion of the USA. Here is a map of the two Eclipse paths:

The Sep­tem­ber 17^th par­tial lunar eclipse, which means the Moon enters most of the full shad­ow of the Earth, but a small cres­cent appears on one side, is exact at 10:34 pm at 25 degrees and 41 min­utes of Pisces, and weath­er per­mit­ting will be vis­i­ble in the USA. If you have any plan­et or chart angle around this degree, it will be impor­tant to con­sid­er its mean­ing for the next month.

Final­ly, the Octo­ber 2 annu­lar solar eclipse, which means the Moon is a lit­tle too far away from the Earth, so that a small ring of sun­light, which is called the “annu­lus”, is seen around the Moon and is exact at 2:49 pm EDT at 10 degrees and 4 min­utes of Libra. It begins in the Cen­tral Pacif­ic and arch­es down to South Amer­i­ca pass­ing through south­ern Chile and Argenti­na. If you have a sig­nif­i­cant plan­et of chart angle around 10 degrees of Libra, you will expe­ri­ence this area of your life becom­ing more con­se­quen­tial for the next six months.
Here is a map of the Octo­ber Eclipse path:

Mer­cury Retrogrades
Let us now con­sid­er the Mer­cury ret­ro­grades for 2024. Usu­al­ly, we will have three Mer­cury ret­ro­grades in a year, and that is true for 2024. Of course, we did begin this New Year with Mer­cury turn­ing direct on Jan­u­ary 1, as it had been ret­ro­grad­ing since Decem­ber 13^th.

The mean­ing and mes­sage of each ret­ro­grade peri­od will be indi­cat­ed by what sign or signs Mer­cury is mov­ing back­wards through, and for each of us indi­vid­u­al­ly by what house or hous­es of your chart it is mov­ing through as well.

No mat­ter what, the Mer­cury ret­ro­grade peri­od presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty for every­one to become more reflec­tive and pen­sive, more drawn to and more able to take advan­tage of this time of intro­spec­tion, so as to help clear up poor think­ing or com­mu­ni­ca­tion by self-crit­i­cal analy­sis. In so doing, your man­ner of observ­ing, think­ing, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with one anoth­er is improved and uplifted.

But each peri­od also requires that we remem­ber that the “weath­er” has changed for one and all, and although every­one is affect­ed by this shift of ener­gy-forms, many do not know what is hap­pen­ing or how to man­age it. That is why we expe­ri­ence a rise in mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions and a surge of mis­un­der­stand­ings in the world gen­er­al­ly. In each encounter between one per­son and anoth­er, the gen­er­al con­di­tion for all minds means that either one or both indi­vid­u­als are not receiv­ing as well as they might think, nor are they trans­mit­ting as well as they should.

So, dur­ing these peri­ods we should use this time for mind­ful, thought­ful self-renew­al, but when engaged in com­mu­ni­ca­tions with oth­ers we must strive to lis­ten or read more care­ful­ly and speak or write more clearly.

The first Mer­cury ret­ro­grade of 2024 begins on April 1^st and ends on April 25^th, with Mer­cury mov­ing from 27 degrees of Aries back to 16 degrees of Aries. What­ev­er area of your chart this involves, by which I mean what­ev­er house or house it is mov­ing through and what plan­ets it may con­tact, you will find it impor­tant or nec­es­sary to review and revise your thoughts about this area of your life. For one and all, since this ret­ro­grade is in Aries, behind the issues being addressed will be the Aries expe­ri­ence of being more mind­ful of your “pres­ence”, by your atti­tude and demeanor, so that you can meet each moment of the eter­nal now in the most mean­ing­ful manner.

The sec­ond Mer­cury ret­ro­grade begins ear­ly on August 5^th for the USA east coast, but in the late evening of the 4^th for the rest of the USA, mov­ing from 4 degrees of Vir­go back to 21 degrees of Leo when it turns direct on August 28th. Again, what­ev­er area of your chart this involves you will need to review and revise your under­stand­ing of that. For one and for all, since this ret­ro­grade involves both Vir­go and Leo, it will encom­pass and link both sign’s mean­ings. For the Vir­go phase, a time to reflect and amend the “order” of one’s life, to strive to main­tain or bring into greater inte­gra­tion all the parts of your life, and dur­ing the Leo phase to reflect on the mean­ing of respect for one­self and for one another.

The third and final Mer­cury ret­ro­grade begins on Novem­ber 25, and ends on Decem­ber 15^th, mov­ing from 23 degrees Sagit­tar­ius back to 6 degrees Sagit­tar­ius. As before, what­ev­er area of your chart this involves, you should use these three weeks to reflect and revise your under­stand­ing of that. For one and all, the ret­ro­grade through Sagit­tar­ius will pro­vide a peri­od to ques­tion the hier­ar­chy of truths and beliefs that form and guide your under­stand­ing and actions.

Jupiter
The plan­et Jupiter is the largest in our solar sys­tem and com­pletes an orbit of the Sun rough­ly every 12 years. That means Jupiter will spend about one year in each sign. Since May 16, 2023, Jupiter has been in the sign of Tau­rus. It will enter Gem­i­ni on May 25, 2024, and remain there until it moves into Can­cer on June 9, 2025.

Jupiter is the path­way to and the ves­sel of Truth, whether those truths be Spir­i­tu­al or Meta­phys­i­cal or Sci­en­tif­ic or Cul­tur­al. What­ev­er sign your Jupiter is in your chart, it will indi­cate the type of truths you will guide your life by, and the path­way you will fol­low to reach a greater under­stand­ing. But just as there are many paths that will lead us to our even­tu­al awak­en­ing, we should be open each year to the var­i­ous forms of truth that Jupiter will hold for us as it moves through the signs.

When Jupiter is in Tau­rus, it will fos­ter a pur­pose­ful and per­sis­tent search for the truth. Those who have Jupiter in Tau­rus will hold to a firm belief in Teach­ings and Val­ues that are Eter­nal. Any indi­vid­ual with Jupiter in Tau­rus has an under­ly­ing opti­mism and faith in human­i­ty, or real­ly in all of life or Spir­it. Most indi­vid­u­als with Jupiter in Tau­rus have an abid­ing belief that human­i­ty is on a con­tin­u­ous and upward path that will lead to the ful­fill­ment of some form of a Divine Plan. Dur­ing this past year and until May 25^th, human­i­ty has been influ­enced by Jupiter to fol­low a path to Truth that is found­ed and forged by Ever­last­ing Val­ue, which is of course Divine Love.

When Jupiter is in Gem­i­ni, it will fos­ter a path of devel­op­ment that is formed by an insa­tiable curios­i­ty and con­stant exchange of infor­ma­tion. Any indi­vid­ual with Jupiter in Gem­i­ni will be more able to take the often-times chaot­ic mul­ti­plic­i­ties of inputs from the uni­verse and be more capa­ble of orga­niz­ing and giv­ing them coher­ent mean­ings, where­as for many for oth­ers they might expe­ri­ence this surge of ener­gy as noise or even chaos.

Dur­ing the upcom­ing peri­od of Jupiter in Gem­i­ni, human­i­ty will be influ­enced to fol­low a path to Truth that is filled with insa­tiable curios­i­ty and won­der. The injunc­tion with Jupiter in Gem­i­ni is that no mat­ter what lev­el of under­stand­ing you have achieved, in order to remain true to your spir­i­tu­al nature you must fol­low the eter­nal Voice of the Silence which whis­pers, “Walk On!” Those who claim to have all the answers will be seen for who they tru­ly are, they know nothing.

More­over, 2024 will be the first of the four major align­ments that Jupiter will make with Sat­urn dur­ing their cycle of 20 years, which is the wax­ing square. The begin­ning of their last cycle in Decem­ber of 2020 was his­toric, as it was the start of a new 200-year cycle of Jupiter and Sat­urn con­junc­tions in the Air signs, start­ing with Aquar­ius. The pre­vi­ous con­junc­tions of Jupiter and Sat­urn were: 1980–81, 1961, 1940–41 and 1921. And the moments like our own of pre­vi­ous wax­ing squares were: 1986, 1965, 1945 and 1926.

What was released at the end of 2020 has reached a crit­i­cal turn­ing point. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is put before us to choose which way we will go now, either to rise with courage and faith, or to fall back­wards because of fear.

The wax­ing square presents us with a chal­lenge, whether we should choose one way or the oth­er, or whether we can find a way to hold togeth­er two very dif­fer­ent ener­gy-forms, to find a way to blend two very dif­fer­ent mes­sages and ways of act­ing in order to meet this moment of the chal­lenges laid before us, (and we must always remem­ber that those real chal­lenges are what we forged in the past by our pri­or actions and inactions).

The ques­tion posed by the square is in our case between Sat­urn in Pisces and Jupiter in Gem­i­ni. If we can find a way to hold them togeth­er, we will find the wis­dom that is there on the mid­dle path of spir­it. If we choose to hold to one and deny the oth­er, then we will like­ly fail to make the most of the choic­es we need to make.

Since Sat­urn is the “slow­er” mov­ing plan­et in this pair­ing, we should con­sid­er that its mean­ing and mes­sage should shape and guide the expres­sion of Jupiter as we face what­ev­er chal­lenge is before us. Sat­urn in Pisces reminds you of your ulti­mate test, which is that the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. That means if are you still a cap­tive of fear, cir­cum­scribed by your own self-cast shad­ows and a fear-filled fatal­ist about your life, if this is so you will be unable to pierce through the cacoph­o­ny of Jupiter in Gem­i­ni, with those count­less points of views and dis­trac­tions will lead you into a morass of half-truths and confusion.

But if you have begun to under­stand that you are a Creator/Dreamer, who has a liv­ing faith that is found­ed upon your Immor­tal spir­i­tu­al nature, then you will know that you have noth­ing to fear what­so­ev­er. Anchored by your high­er self, you will be able to dis­cern fact from fic­tion, truth from half-truths, and you will know in your heart and in your mind what you must do. You will see through the shad­ows and fog, and the bright shin­ing light that is there with­in every one of us, the light sub­lime, Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love, will inspire your thoughts and guide your steps as you meet the choic­es that 2024 will bring.

May the Light of Truth, Love and Under­stand­ing be with you all, now and for­ev­er more.

May it be.