The January Effect

It is funny how we set up barriers in places that are really very arbitrary. I live in Queens, New York, very near the Throgs Neck Bridge, and I could be in the Bronx in 5 minutes. But I'd have to go over a bridge, and in my mind the Bronx is as far away as Cleveland (where I'll be in February, speaking at the International Academy of Astrology, by the way).

There are two times each year when I set up a similar barrier, but in time rather than space. One is September, the time of going back to school. Due to the whole process of education, I set that barrier up rather strongly as a kid, and now although it may be August 25th, in my mind September is still months in the future.
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The other is January 1st, the beginning of the New Year. Intellectually, of course, I know it is days away, but my emotional understanding still makes January sometime next year. That doesn't affect the way I do astrology, I should emphasize, just the way I picture time in my mind.

This year, though, there are hot aspects that tie the end of December to the first couple of weeks in January. Beginning around the full moon/Uranus station on the 17th, and extending through Christmas Day and peaking right around New Year's Eve, we have very intense energy as Mars weighs in on the Uranus-Pluto square (which has become the Uranus-Pluto-Jupiter T-square and with Mars is now a Grand Cross). This otherwise quiet time of year, when Yin energy predominates and we are drawn inwards, is lit up by these intense aspects.

Pay attention to what happens around the 1st of the year. This next week is setting the table for the most intense week of the decade, which will be in late April of 2014. Issues that emerge now will be hot for some time, and/or will point to areas that are about to become hot. We're in a crucible of change where holding on is not an option and going with the flow may be very scary at times. And the astrology of late December and early January links things together in a way that is sure to be strong enough to make even me see it as one continuous time.