EPISODE 108 (Jan. 31, 2022)
Aquarius New Moon: Where is My Comfy Chair?
April: Hello, invisible friends and welcome to the next chapter of The Big Sky Astrology Podcast, and my first solo episode. The date today is January 31st, 2022, and this is Episode 108.
It’s kind of appropriate that I’m starting this new chapter of the podcast on an Aquarius New Moon, with the Sun making a square aspect to Uranus. Because, both of those things talk about change. And those of you who heard episode 107 are aware that Jen has left the podcast to go on to other things, and that means a big change for all of us. I will, of course, miss her very much on the show. And I know that those of you who have listened from the beginning, one of the things that you’ve told us that you really enjoyed about the show was that rapport, that back and forth, the conversation between two friends, and we’ll all be missing that. And change generally is difficult.
There’s a place that we go to a couple of times a year on the central coast of California. And, when we went up last November, we were checking in at the front desk and they told us which room we were going to get. And it happened to be our very favorite room. And we had not gotten this room in years, so, we were really excited. And they said, “Oh, and by the way, we’ve just refurbished the rooms and we’ll be really curious to hear what you have to say about them”. And, my heart kind of sank, because like, “It was perfect. Why did you have to change it?”
So, we got into the room, and there had been these two arm chairs by the front windows, looking out over the ocean, beautiful, plush, comfortable chairs. And, I would nap in those chairs, and I would read in those chairs and in their place were these little hard, sort of like upholstered dining room chairs, and it just was not the same thing. They had taken up the carpet, and in its place, this sort of laminate wood, and it was very cold and I hadn’t brought slippers and all of this. So, it was kind of disappointing, right, the thing that I’ve become so accustomed to, that I looked forward to that was comforting and comfortable, had changed.
And my friends that is where we’re finding ourselves now on this podcast as well, because I know for a lot out of you, it was a cozy place to check in and visit every couple of weeks and listen to me and Jen talking about the world. So, as I say, things change, and this will be different. I know that you all join me in wishing Jen, the very best in her future adventures. You can keep up to date with her at her website, jenbraun.com and “BRAUN”. And, I hope that you will give this new format a spin, be a little patient with me as it grows into what it will be become, and hopefully you will find that it still adds a little bit of snap to your Mondays.
It’s still early days, but here is what you can expect from the show going forward at least initially. I do expect to release episodes every week on Monday with the usual rundown of the week’s major planetary happenings. This show has always been intended as a sort of a companion to my weekly blog at bigskyastrology.com. And that’s always a good weekly destination too for those of you who love to read as well as listen. I’ll be bringing you the week’s major lunation, and I’ll also give you my pick for the planetary happening of the week. And, at the end of each episode, I’ll offer you something just a little bit different. It might be a little mini astrology lesson, a listener question, or even a guest. So, if you have questions you’d like me to answer in future episodes, you can either leave a brief voicemail at speakpipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast, and I’ll link that in the show notes. Or, if you’re a shy person, you can just send a brief email to me, april@bigskyastrology.com and be sure to put ‘Podcast question’ subject line, so that’ll jump right out at me. Well, having said all that let’s get started with the week of January 31st.
Aquarius New Moon (Jan. 31)
And we begin with the New Moon in Aquarius, that happens today, January 31st at 09:46 PM Pacific Time. So, if you are on the east coast, any place basically east of the Pacific Time zone, almost, you’re going to end up having this New Moon on February 1st. It’s at 12° and 19 minutes of Aquarius, on the Sabian symbol, “A Barometer”.
So, a barometer of course, is something that measures atmospheric pressure, but it’s also a term we use for gauging public opinion. And both of those things seem appropriate at this New Moon. This New Moon is in a conjunction with Saturn – the Sun and the Moon are together with Saturn, and they’re all square Uranus. And that’s a lot of pressure, and this goes back to the pressure of the Saturn/Uranus square that really dominated 2021. We had our final square in that sequence around Christmas time, so, it won’t make another exact square. But they’re still traveling really closely together throughout 2022. And in fact, on October 1st, they come within a half a degree of an exact square. So, we know the dynamic tension of Saturn square Uranus is still with us, has not been completely resolved.
We’ve talked about this many times throughout 2021. And just to recap it here, I’ll say Saturn’s about boundaries and structures and the way things have always been done, and Uranus is the planet that wants to bust all that open and do things in a new way. So, basically, it’s a classic tension between old and new and what’s established and what is innovative. And as I’ve said many times before, when you have an aspect between two planets and in particular, a square, both planets have to be heard and have to be respected, they have to have their voice honored. So, it’s not as simple as just throwing all the old ways out the door, getting rid of Saturn in favor of Uranus and just doing everything new. We can’t do that. We have to keep some of the established structures to keep things from devolving completely into chaos. But, neither can we allow things to grow stagnant and outmoded, and we have to see changes and innovation.
So, that is the ongoing dynamic. And, it’s a lot of pressure that has been building. And we’ve seen it. You’ve seen it in your daily life, in society, in the media and the social media, in your personal relationship, in the place where you work and all of the rest. So, this New Moon in Aquarius is to me a little bit critical because Aquarius is a sign that is ruled by both Saturn. Saturn’s the traditional ruler of Aquarius and Uranus, which is its modern ruler.
Aquarius itself is a very contradictory sign. It’s a fixed sign, so it can be very constant, very consistent, stay with things, day after day, month after month, year after year. And then suddenly, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, it says, “I’m done with this. I’m going in another direction”. And, that’s the Uranian part. That’s where we find ourselves at this New Moon. And since the Sun and the Moon are in a conjunction with Saturn and square Uranus, we’re siding a little more with Saturn at this New Moon. And, it can be a time when we’re feeling a little confined or like things are really hard, we have more of a burden, we have many more constrictions on us. That’s how Saturn can feel. But over there, 90° away is Uranus saying, “Hey, let’s burst this thing open. Let’s do things in a new way”.
Now, New Moon times, we always say in astrology are times to plant seeds. It’s the beginning of a new cycle. And in fact, it’s the beginning of a couple of cycles. One is the typical lunar cycle that begins at each New Moon until the next New Moon, about 28 and a half days later. So, that’s one cycle. Then there are of course is what we call the lunar gestation cycle. And, I’ll link to really good article about that in the show notes. This was introduced to us by our friend “Astrology by Celeste”, who has wonderful Instagram channel that you should check out. Bu, the lunar gestation cycle tracks this degree, the degree of the New Moon around 12° of Aquarius over the next two and a half years when First Quarter Full Moon and Last Quarter occur near this degree. So, the First Quarter of this new gestation cycle will be on Halloween of this year when there’s a First Quarter Moon near 12° Aquarius, then there’s a Full Moon on August 1st, 2023 near this degree, and the Last Quarter on May 1st, 2024.
And I love this system because I used to look at the New Moon and think, “Oh, well, you know, make some intentions, plant some seeds, be aware that you’re at the start of a new site cycle”, but then I thought, “Well, how much can you really accomplish in a month in 28 and a half days?” So, I loved learning about this lunar gestation cycle because it puts every New Moon in a really different context for me. It feels much more consequential because it’s setting the tone, not just for the next month, but for the next two and a half years. So, even though we will be finished with Saturn and Uranus to a great extent by the end of this year, this is something that we’re carrying with us through the next two and a half years.
So, look for 12° of Aquarius in your birth chart, what is the house that it falls in? Is it aspecting any personal planets in your chart? And that will tell you what you’re planting, what you’re beginning, where to invest your attention and your energy at this time, so, that by the Full Moon, a couple of weeks from now, you start to see some little shoots growing. And, at this time at the Full Moon in August of 2023, you see even more of what you planted now, because at the New Moon, we’re in the dark. I always like to remind people, if you go outside on the night of a New Moon, there’s no light and we’re taking it on faith. You know, we’re going outside with a bag of seeds and we just kind of indiscriminately throw them around and hope to heck something takes and begins to grow.
Mercury turns direct (Feb. 3)
Also this week, our friend Mercury is turning direct on February 3rd at 08:13 PM Pacific Time, on 24° and 22 minutes of Capricorn. Mercury turned retrograde on January 14th at 10° of Aquarius and got all the way back to 24° of Capricorn. Every time Mercury turns retrograde this year, it does so in an air sign. So, the retrograde cycle begins with an idea, it’s happening in our minds, but then it turns direct again in an earth sign, which asks at the end of the Mercury retrograde period, “How will you realize your vision?” When planets are retrograde, we’re asked to go within to find guidance about its matters. And I think while Mercury is retrograde, it is not a bad idea at all to turn off your social media, turn off the news and basically stop consuming so much of other people’s thoughts and ideas. And, any process that you like to do to access what’s going on in your own head, whether it’s journaling or meditating, it’s a really good time to do it when Mercury is retrograde. So, what I have done for this year for myself is note all of the dates that Mercury will be retrograde, so that I can plan a little bit more in advance to leave my schedule a little more open, so that my mind has a little bit of time to rest and reflect. And, I’ll make a note of these dates for you as well in the show notes, so you can go in a note on your calendar the times that you might want to set aside for this more internalized Mercury time
Mars sextile Jupiter (Feb. 4)
On February 4th, the next day, Mars makes a sextile aspect, Jupiter at 05:37 AM Pacific Time, and Mars will still be out-of-bounds. I think we talked about it on Episode 107, we talked about it on our special Capricorn Solstice episode for subscribers. And, an out-of-bounds planet just means that the planets is traveling in its declination beyond the ecliptic, beyond the Sun’s maximum or minimum declination of solstices. And because this idea is related to the Sun, we know that it is about our sense of normalcy and sanity. The Sun, I always call, the organizing principle. And, when a planet is moving beyond those bounds, it means, it’s a little more reckless and wild, it’s completely unsupervised, and we don’t know exactly how it’s going to behave. So, Mars went out-of-bounds on January 12th, will continue to be out-of-bounds through February 10th. So, this is a Mars that is even a little more outside the norms than usual.
Mars is not a planet that’s normally that concerned with following the rules. It wants to get what it wants to get. However, it is currently in Capricorn. And, Capricorn lends a little more discipline, a little more respect for boundaries than say Mars in Sagittarius. As Mars makes the sextile to Jupiter, Mars’ wild spirit can actually open up interesting opportunities. We’ve talked about sextiles a lot in the past on the show, we had a whole, well, not a whole episode, but a good portion of an episode early on. I want to say, Episode 12. I’ll link in the show notes, where we talked about the sextile aspect, the unSung aspect of astrology. It’s an opportunity aspect. It’s planets separated by 60° of orb. So, we know that the sextile from Mars to Jupiter, this is why I’m saying it’s opening up opportunities and news and new things coming in. But always with the sextile, we have to remember that we have to do a little work, we have to exert a little effort to get the good things that can come from the aspect.
It’s not like a trine where nice things just kind of fall in your lap. With a sextile, it says, now you have to earn it a little bit. You have to put a little bit of effort into making this happen.” But then you get Jupiter, which is almost always something really nice. It might be a little overwhelming at first, and it might feel like more than you can comfortably handle, but I think with Mars been out-of-bounds as well, we are more willing to entertain opportunities that seem a little big, that push the envelope for us a little bit.
Aspect of the Week: Sun conjunct Saturn (Feb. 4)
Now, our aspect of the week is the Sun making its exact conjunction to Saturn on February 4th at 11:04 AM Pacific Time at 15° and 56 minutes of Aquarius, on the Sabian symbol, 16 Aquarius, “A Big-Business Man At His Desk”. So, we saw this aspect coming together in the New Moon chart. And as the Sun approaches Saturn, it can make things feel even more daunting and more difficult. It feels that there’s some huge obstacle that we have to overcome in order to express ourselves, which is what the Sun wants to do. It wants to express itself, it wants to be creative, it wants to shine its light and enjoy life and have a good time. So, you can see that the Sun coming together with Saturn can have a little bit of a dampening effect. It’s like putting a big heavy light shade on a bright shining lamp. So, once the Sun gets past the exact aspect to Saturn on February 4th, things begin to open up and maybe feel a little bit easier. But, in any event, in this conjunction and specifically with this Sabian symbol, I think we see the best of Aquarian innovation, because the Sun and Saturn are coming together in Aquarius, where that comes together with the discipline and earned authority of Saturn.
The Sun really struggles when it’s aspecting Saturn, because they want to accomplish such different things. But I remember talking recently to one of my clients who was talking about the creative process in something that she did. And, we both sort of exclaimed to each other that, wow, isn’t it true that sometimes the more constrictions you have, the easier it is to be creative? Ask any writer. If you wake up in the morning and you need to write something for the day, where is the idea gonna come from? And that’s why we have writing prompts. And this is why often I will use the Sabian symbols, because they’re launching point for my imagination. If you start out with a blank slate and limitless possibilities, it’s a lot harder to decide what to focus on and how to use your creative powers to best advantage. So, that’s how I like to think of the Sun with Saturn, that even though it can feel a little constricted, sort of like a tight shoe, we know actually that it can do a good thing for us – because it helps us focus and really get serious about doing something.
Question: Do You Use Astrology to Plan Your Daily Life?
As I said, I’ll be ending each of these episodes now with something a little different, usually either a little lesson or an interview with a guest or something of that nature. So, what I’m going to do today, I just wanted to talk to you about a question I get a lot, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever addressed this on the podcast before. But a question I do get really often from people is “Do you use astrology to plan your daily life?” And, my first instinct to is to just categorically say that I don’t. I don’t think that’s completely the case. And of course, not all days are created equal. If there is a day when I have something really important that I have to do, I’m going to pay attention to the astrology of the day and see if it can help me accomplish what I need to accomplish in the easiest way possible. It’s sort of the idea behind giving you the big aspects for each week and talking to you about that. It says “Here is the tone of the week. Here are the major energies that we’re contending with.” And, it’s the same thing on a daily basis. But on a daily basis, we look at much more detailed information, we look at the movement of the Moon.
And we have done this in our Podathon episodes where we have an episode every day for a week, and we have a lot more latitude to go into detail about the aspects, say, of the Moon, which moves very quickly compared to everything else. Whereas the Sun moves 7° in a week, the Moon is moving 12° in a day. So, the Moon talks about that daily ebb and flow, and the sign that it’s moving through, talks about the tone and the mood of the populous. The Moon traditionally was the symbol, not only of our internal and emotional landscape, but of the people, the populous, the public. What kind of mood are people in today? What do they want to see?
My astrology teacher used to tell us the story of working in human resources. She was learning astrology on the side, and she began experimenting with working with the day’s Moon to try to ensure success for her clients when she sent them out to apply for jobs. So she would take a look at the sign that the Moon was in and each sign is associated with particular colors. She would tell them if the Moon was say in Aries on a given day, and they were going to an interview, she’d say, “Wear something red. You don’t have to wear a whole red suit, but some little red accent somewhere”. Because, her idea was that subliminally, everybody is kind of keying into Aries on that day. And, the color red is a little bit of a signal. And, she said she had a really good success rate while sending people out with that one simple little tip.
The other thing I will look at often on a day, especially if I know I have to do thing a little challenging and I need some help, I’ll look and see in my astrological calendar, is just glance at it and say, “Wow, is the Moon making a lot of squares and oppositions on this day?” Things are probably not going to flow real smoothly. And, if they’re making a lot of trines and a lot of sextiles, maybe few nice conjunctions, there’s a good flow to it, things will probably go easier. So, I try to use the days with a lot of squares, a few oppositions, to tackle the things that I know are going to be hard and are going to take some effort, because that’s what that kind of date is well suited to, to tackling the things that are hard.
So, I suppose my answer to the question, “Do I use astrology in my daily life?” is, I mean, not every day, not consistently. But, if there is something in particular that I need to tackle, I will look at the Moon sign. I know, when the Moon is in some signs, I do a little better than when they’re in others. I don’t do super great on the days the Moon is in Scorpio. It moves through my 12th house, my energy tends to be low, I tend to be a little grouchy because the Moon’s squaring all my Leo planets. So, just following the Moon in your own chart becomes helpful. It’s not that I don’t do anything on the days the Moon is in Scorpio, but again, if it’s something kind of important, I will try to avoid those days.
Thanks to these donors
Well, my friends that is everything I have on my little show sheet here, so I’m going to wrap this one up. And I really want to thank you for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. I hope, as I said, that you will hang in there with me while this continues to evolve. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to follow or subscribe depending on the platform you’re listening on, rate, review, and maybe you’ll spread the word, maybe we’ll tell an astrology loving friend about the show. You can read show notes and full transcripts and leave your comments about each episode at bigskyastropod.com.
Thanks very much to everyone who showed support for us during our September Podathon. Of course, each week, I’m thanking some of you by name. And this week I’m giving a Big Sky Astrology Podcast shout out to Karen Carothers, Henrietta Chan, and Deb Kirkland.
April: Karen, Henrietta and Deb, thank you so much for listening to the podcast and for supporting the show with your donations. If you miss the Podathon and would like to support the show, please go to bigskyastropod.com.
That’s it for this episode. Please join me again, bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars.
© 2022 by April Elliott Kent
