Though Jupiter is known as the “greater benef­ic”, not all good things come from the biggest plan­et in the solar sys­tem. Some­times too much, is just that…too much. When Jupiter makes a hard aspect to anoth­er plan­et, we all have to be care­ful not to over­es­ti­mate, over­do, and fall into many oth­er exam­ples of los­ing touch with what is reasonable.

The Sun rules our self; Jupiter is the prin­ci­ple and pow­er of relat­ing. We will have a ten­den­cy now to over-relate. That means we will either go too far in push­ing our self upon anoth­er, or over­re­act to some­one else at this time. Like­wise, some oth­er per­son may be over-reach­ing or react­ing towards us.

A square lit­er­al­ly means we are at a turn­ing point; this is a time of deci­sion about per­son­al growth. This square is ask­ing, “how are you going to act in order to grow rea­son­ably now?” Some­thing was revealed back towards the end of Sep­tem­ber about your poten­tial for growth and rela­tion­ship. Now you have to make a choice about that.

This deci­sion will have some­thing to do with let­ting go of an old con­cept, belief or idea. By chal­leng­ing your beliefs you can break up an old way of relat­ing and move into a bet­ter one. The self/Sun wants to expand by mov­ing along a path that has been true (till now). Jupiter is say­ing that you need to use your imag­i­na­tion now, you need to show more com­pas­sion now, if you want to grow beyond yourself.

Before true growth, comes a greater under­stand­ing. The path to under­stand­ing is found through com­pas­sion. If you wish to be ful­filled now, then show that you are ready by the breadth of your gen­eros­i­ty and the great­ness of your heart.

Warn­ing! …Triple Con­junc­tion ahead. Sun­day evening into Mon­day evening could prove to be one of the more intense peri­ods of this month. Three plan­ets are lin­ing up with one anoth­er. All three effects will be felt simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as they align with­in min­utes of one anoth­er Mon­day night.

Mer­cury is ret­ro­grade and so is com­ing back over Plu­to as it did on Decem­ber 5th. Mer­cury is like­wise align­ing with Mars again as it did on Novem­ber 20th. Look back and see what was hap­pen­ing on those dates, there will prob­a­bly be a con­nec­tion with what hap­pens now. At this time, with the ret­ro­grade influ­ence, each con­tact is turned inward and inten­si­fied. The les­son is more per­son­al, the effect more deeply felt.

The Mer­cury align­ment to Plu­to helps us to have much more insight into our own think­ing and that of oth­ers. But the con­trol issues of Plu­to will have to be con­front­ed now as regards our way of think­ing about author­i­ty. We should always see these times as oppor­tu­ni­ties for greater self-aware­ness and per­son­al growth. But that often comes about through some chal­lenge thrown down by oth­ers. The chal­lenge here will con­cern some­thing to do with Author­i­ty; we can­not force an idea mere­ly because our posi­tion gives us pow­er to do so. And like­wise, those in a supe­ri­or posi­tion to our own should not try and force their ideas upon us.

The Mer­cury align­ment to Mars speeds every­thing up. We might say some­thing, or say it in a way, we will lat­er regret. Fast and agile think­ing is admired, hasty and angry speech is not. An intel­li­gent mind is agile, with a facil­i­ty to chal­lenge assump­tions, (includ­ing one’s own). But with Mars spurring Mer­cury, we might become eas­i­ly hurt and angered, and pass on our pain by being mean or curt to anoth­er. Instead, we should turn the “thought­less” ener­gy around and impart to it a true sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty; and, that what we must respon­si­ble to is how we care one another.

Mars con­junct Plu­to com­pletes our triple play and reveals the deep­er lev­els of what is mov­ing us now. Plu­to rules our willpow­er; Mars rules our desires and actions. Com­bine them togeth­er and we can (by will­ing) do any­thing. The impos­si­ble is pos­si­ble now. We will win the competition.

But what might be the price? We might win the bat­tle but lose the cause. Our wield­ing of any pow­er must be in ser­vice to its source. If we become too full of our­selves, too full of our pow­er, we will prob­a­bly mis­use it and bring about unwant­ed reper­cus­sions. We will fail and fall.

Mars and Plu­to in Capri­corn com­bine now to illus­trate that we must acknowl­edge our duty; that our use of pow­er must be exer­cised in order to serve and ful­fill our respon­si­bil­i­ties. By so doing, the exer­cise of pow­er is guid­ed by hon­or­ing what we stand upon with one anoth­er, our cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al her­itage. We will and must use our pow­er to cre­ate, not destroy.

We are here to act with regard for one anoth­er so that we might ful­fill our des­tinies with each oth­er. We must wield pow­er so as to pro­tect and pre­serve what has been passed down to us by those who came before, as we must now pass it on to those who fol­low. Act now in order to hon­or the val­ues and tra­di­tions that form the foun­da­tion of your life. It is your duty.

Mer­cury turns ret­ro­grade today until Decem­ber 30th. Our minds are turned inward, we become more reflec­tive and intro­spec­tive. But life goes on, so the end result is that nor­mal out­ward com­mu­ni­ca­tions become much more scram­bled. We are not speak­ing, writ­ing or design­ing as clear­ly as before; and, who­ev­er is our intend­ed recip­i­ent is not receiv­ing as well either. Mis­un­der­stand­ings build up and frus­tra­tions and ten­sions result in what appears to be a break­down of “mes­sag­ing”. This need not be.

Instead, use this time to re-exam­ine your thoughts, ideas, and plans. Repair your think­ing and use this oppor­tu­ni­ty for intro­spec­tion. Mer­cury is actu­al­ly clos­er to us dur­ing these ret­ro­grade peri­ods, (3 weeks in dura­tion, 3 times in a year), so its pow­er and influ­ence should be strength­ened. Many indi­vid­u­als find that these peri­ods are often filled with a flur­ry of activ­i­ty and much progress can be made in improv­ing our thinking.

Till the 18th, Mer­cury ret­ro­grades in Capri­corn, so we need to re-exam­ine our thoughts regard­ing author­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty. Then, till the 30th, Mer­cury moves through Sagit­tar­ius help­ing us to ques­tion and look more deeply into our beliefs and assumptions.

When it comes to the day to day neces­si­ty of stay­ing con­nect­ed with oth­ers, just make cer­tain to be more care­ful in both send­ing and receiv­ing. We can make mis­takes at any­time; it just seems more like­ly at this time because we are all under the influ­ence of this change of direction.

Also, we will com­mu­ni­cate some­thing of val­ue today thanks to Mer­cury sex­tile Venus. The pro­duc­tive com­bi­na­tion of these two inner plan­ets means that our appre­ci­a­tion of and thoughts about beau­ty, grace and love will turn out well.

Talk about what you care for, enjoy the arts, and share lov­ing thoughts with friends and fam­i­ly. You will find greater mean­ing in some­thing or some­one today.

Deep­er insights into our val­ues are made avail­able to us now. We dis­cov­er more about our­selves when we are forced to make a choice between less­er and greater values.

We were faced with a chal­lenge about some issue back in August that seems to be work­ing out now. The preser­va­tion of our most mean­ing­ful val­ues requires that we make adjust­ments about more minor points. We are will­ing to do this because, in order to suc­ceed, we need to be sup­port­ed by others.

The real­i­ty we must acknowl­edge now is that each side has to com­pro­mise. Give some­thing up and you will gain much more. You will achieve a deep­er union with your­self and with each other.

We should expect tan­gi­ble help from those in author­i­ty because of  the Sun Sex­tile to Sat­urn. It is a good day for steady accom­plish­ment. We find it eas­i­er to apply our­selves, espe­cial­ly in group or part­ner­ship activ­i­ties. We are guid­ed by our plans for the future which unfold through the sup­port of our agree­ments made in September.

We are work­ing hard as the year ends and there is no rest in sight for now. Mars mov­ing into Capri­corn cre­ates an atmos­phere, until Jan­u­ary 15th, of seri­ous efforts direct­ed towards accom­plish­ment. It is time to dis­play ambi­tion and focused activ­i­ty. The mantra now is: work, work, work! But do not for­get to pace your­self. More time spent work­ing hard means you need to set aside more time to rest and relax. To act respon­si­bly means you must also take care of yourself!