Timeline:
Tues, Jan 24
☉ ✱ ♃
Sun sextiles Jupiter
8:30 pm ET
♒︎ 4°47’ ♈︎
Thurs, Jan 26
♀︎ → ♓︎
Venus enters Pisces
9:33 pm ET
♓︎ 00°00’ ♓︎
Sun, Jan 29
☉ Δ ♂︎
Sun trines Mars
8:45 pm ET
♒︎ 9°53’ ♊︎☿ Δ ♅
Mercury trines Uranus
9:16 pm ET
♑︎ 14°57’ ♉︎
Notes:
As some of you may know, I have had a lot on my plate personally, going through many big transitions. The past few years I have been dealing with mysterious health issues, particularly pertaining to GI function. Fortunately, while I don’t fully understand what’s going on, I have been able to take steps that have significantly improved how I am feeling.
But this has meant I have had to make a number of lifestyle changes, a big one being that I have to spend a lot more time preparing food (which I don’t necessarily dislike… it’s just a lot of work). On top of this, I have spent a lot of time navigating the healthcare system, scheduling appointments, and doing my best to learn more about what the heck is going on. Another layer to all this is that, when I moved into my current place 14 months ago, I wasn’t able to fully set things up, so my home environment is rather chaotic, which doesn’t particularly serve the promotion of wellness. I am working less at my day job, but my workload at home has dramatically increased and I need to do a lot more work than previously to get through each day.
In short, I have been spending significantly more time taking care of myself than I had been when I started this newsletter.
It is because of this that I have decided to take a hiatus from writing after this week’s newsletter. I will still be sending out these weekly posts, which will include the timeline of the week and a selected chart from the week, but I will not commit myself to anything beyond that.
This weekend Venus conjoined Saturn, which is a transit that (among other things) is about committing to the people and things we love and that matter most to us. One thing to which I am deeply committed is learning and writing about astrology. Another is my personal wellbeing. So I am intending to spend this time addressing my health more intensively and setting up better systems at home that will help me better take care of myself while making my home environment generally more pleasant, but I am also hoping to catch up a bit on my formal astrological studies, which have fallen to the wayside with all that’s been going on in my life.
It’s been three years since covid began and I am also hoping to spend more time connecting with people whose presence has become a less regular feature of my life in recent years. I haven’t been able to talk since late December, but my throat issues are improving. As I slowly regain the ability to talk after nearly a month of not talking, I am hoping to connect with folks and have the conversations I’ve been holding off. I have been incredibly starved for conversation.
I am hoping that when I return to writing consistently that I will come back to it with new perspective. So as I play catchup with my astrology coursework, I know that this will only enrich what I will have to say when I return to writing.
I am not going to say when this hiatus will end (maybe it will just be during Aquarius season, maybe it will go until spring), but I am already dreaming up what I want to do with this newsletter going forward. I have found with many things in life that, when I return to something after some time away, I come to it with greater perspective and renewed creativity.
Thank you to everyone who has been reading this newsletter in the time since I started it nearly 11 months ago. Again, still check in every week. I will still be sending out the weekly transit timeline, which I hope has become a handy reference for readers (it has for me!). It is difficult for me to pull away from writing, because there are always so many things I want to say about the transits and sometimes I think, “maybe, just maybe, I can still get in a little writing… it won’t be too difficult.” But I’ve decided that it’s best to cut myself off so I can better focus on other things.
This Tuesday, the Sun in Aquarius (which is the sign of the Sun’s detriment or exile) will sextile Jupiter in Aries, which is the sign of the Sun’s exaltation. This should provide us with a bit of an energetic boost and will help kick things into gear after Saturday’s New Moon in Aquarius, which was the first New Moon of 2023. This is a good time for beginning to put into action the intentions that were seeded during the New Moon.
On Thursday, we have Venus entering its sign of exaltation, Pisces. This is very lovely and connective. Venus is held up high in Pisces and in this sign wants to be Venusian in the most recognizably (and sometimes stereotypically) Venusian ways. Venus will be in Pisces until February 20 and will conjoin Neptune on February 15. Neptune is a planet that dissolves boundaries, so this conjunction goes beyond connectivity, toward merging, toward the sublime and transcendent, the blissful and ecstatic, toward romance and fantasy, but also illusion and intoxication. Cue up “Fade Into You.”
This upcoming Sunday, the Sun in Aquarius will make a very intellectual air trine with Mars in Gemini. This will be going on simultaneously with Mercury’s trine to Uranus, which will happen this Sunday for the third and final time of its current retrograde cycle.1 Think back to the periods around December 17 and January 8, which were the two previous days this Mercury-Uranus trine went exact. I know that this trine has brought me a lot of game-changing insights about my health. Mercury-Uranus is all about looking at things in a new way and the flashes of insight that suddenly flip things around. With the Sun-Mars air trine in the mix, we could find ourselves working with ideas or thinking through things, perhaps connecting with others over the sharing of ideas (Mars is in the gregarious sign of Gemini and at the time of this trine will be beyond 8° Gemini, which is where it stationed direct a couple weeks back).
With Mercury stationing direct last week, it may have felt in the time leading up to the station that we were stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for something to happen, perhaps wanting to act, but suspended and waiting for all the necessary information to arrive or for certain pieces to come into play. Mars had only gone direct the week prior and the lunation cycle that began in December with the New Moon in Capricorn was winding down, both of which may have left us feeling like we literally couldn’t move. I found myself very fatigued last week, which isn’t unusual for me in the days leading up to a New Moon, as the closing of a lunation cycle represents a kind of energetic lull.
The period after a planet stations direct can feel sticky, like the retrograde is still around somewhat, as it takes a moment for the planet to become unstuck from its standstill and pick up speed. But this week’s astrology should find us beginning to become unstuck, particularly with Mars and Mercury being in trine formations to the Sun and Uranus, respectively. The Moon will be growing in size and the Sun will form a helpful, expansive sextile with Jupiter.
With Mars and Mercury (and as of yesterday, Uranus) now direct and with the New Moon in Aquarius this past weekend, we can finally feel like we are moving into the real work of 2023. For me, 2023 is going to be more about taking care of myself so that I can better follow my inspiration. Jupiter is currently in Aries, which is all about following inspiration and taking a risk. Where will inspiration lead you this year?
That’s it for this week. Be well everyone!
Mercury will leave its post-retrograde shadow on February 7 at 24°21’ Capricorn.
Wishing you all the good results you’re working to achieve, Natty. Thank you for everything you contribute here. You have a wonderful gift for clarifying complex material. I am grateful to read your treasure whenever it arrives.
Glad you’re doing what you need to do to care for yourself! I look forward to whatever you post each week! Thank you!