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Astrology Highlights for Jan. 29-Feb. 4, 2024: The Muse Comes Calling

The Muse Comes Calling

My job comprises a revolving series of creative tasks. Unfortunately, the muse doesn’t visit me any more often than she does anyone else. But deadlines must be met, so I get to my desk in the morning, organize a strategy for the day, and roll up my sleeves.

Luckily, I’ve gotten to the point where what I lack in inspiration, I mostly make up for with general competence and a stubborn refusal to give up. But every now and then, when I’ve given up on ever having another idea, the angels of inspiration pay a visit. They might drop off a care package with a couple of apt metaphors, an idea for a collage, or a new way to look at a planetary placement in a chart – and just like that, work is transformed from arduous to effortless, dreary to delightful.

Diligence alone won’t always produce an inspired result. But if you’re at work, you’re just where you need to be when inspiration comes calling. And this week, when Mars in hard-working Capricorn trines Uranus (Jan. 29, 2024, 3:41 pm PST), the muse will be in the neighborhood – so make yourself easy to find.

A Soupçon of Imagination

There are some who mostly place their confidence in what they can experience with their senses. Mercury in Capricorn can be that way, a bit. And it likes formulas – this action + this action = this outcome.

And the thing is, this is a perfectly fine approach to dealing with the practicalities of the physical world. If you’re having a house built, you want an architect who knows the rules, one who can create a solid, leakproof building with straight walls and level floors.

But, just maybe, a little bit of artistic flair would be nice, too. In my part of town, huge, brutalist apartment buildings are springing up like mushrooms. Few have so much as a trace of anything non-essential, graceful, or beautiful.

But around the corner from us, a utilitarian, post-war house is being transformed into a split-level full of whimsical angles and interesting design choices. It makes me feel kindly toward its owners; I like that they seem interested in making a home that nurtures inspiration, not just a storage box for people.

Likewise, when Mercury in Capricorn sextiles Neptune (Feb. 2, 2024, 2:55 am PST), seek opportunities to elevate the functionality of your life by introducing a touch of whimsy, a playful smile, or a soupçon of imagination.

Connections

As the Sun in Aquarius hurtles toward the future, the Scorpio Last Quarter Moon (Feb. 2, 2024, 3:17 pm PST, 13º35’ Scorpio), along with Jupiter in Taurus, stand to one side, arms crossed with skepticism. “What’s so great about the future?” they mutter. “And what – whom – will you leave behind on your way there?”

The Sun is on the Sabian Symbol 14 Aquarius, A train entering a tunnel. Here is a group focused entirely on their shared destination. But the Moon is on 14 Scorpio, Telephone linemen at work. Way up high and lonesome, we find these telephone workers, much fewer nowadays, who connect us to one another.

The future is all well and good, but what about the connections we share with others here and now? What about the Jupiter in Taurus gardens that we nurture today? We’ll enjoy their yield in the spring, and that’s far enough into the future for Taurus; but Aquarius sets its gaze on a future that seems to have no need for such humble, earthly occupations.

The stampede of planetary astronauts that will crowd into Aquarius over the next couple of weeks (by Feb. 16, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Pluto) declares that the future is on its way. But then again, it’s always on its way, its borders are ever-shifting, and by definition, we never quite reach it. It’s exciting, this vision of a dazzling future, a frontier filled with newness. But the Scorpio Last Quarter Moon whispers, “New isn’t everything. Don’t forget to treasure your old connections, too.”

Tomorrowland

When I first visited Disneyland in 1967, Tomorrowland was the most exciting area of the park. Standing in line outside Monsanto’s Journey Through Inner Space, we watched with a touch of anxiety as what looked like real people were shrunk to miniatures. The Carousel of Progress spun us through the latest in modern household appliances, unknown on our Midwestern farm. We gleefully boarded the sleek Monorail, and the Autobahn gave six-year-olds our first taste of driving (though it gave no intimation of the epic L.A. traffic jams in our future).

Aquarius is the sign of tomorrowland, a fantastical and innovative future where nearly anything seems possible. Place Mercury in Aquarius (Feb. 4, 2024, 9:10 pm PST through Feb. 22), and you’ll spy entrepreneurs in excited conversation over lunch, madly scribbling ideas on the back of a napkin. You’ll catch astrologers excitedly plugging asteroids into their charts, and engineers doodling interesting gadgets and gizmos on their desk blotters. And somewhere, you can be sure that science fiction writers are at their laptops, banging out their visions of the future with renewed zest.

As I’ve said, the future is a place that we never quite reach. But it’s important to keep reaching for it, because though we might not get there, we’ll certainly end up someplace new – and Aquarius makes the process of getting there altogether exciting.

Writing and images © 2017-24 by April Elliott Kent

For more on this week’s planetary news, listen to my podcast!

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1 comment to " Astrology Highlights for Jan. 29-Feb. 4, 2024: The Muse Comes Calling "

  • Ann

    Thank you April for an exciting thought provoking highlights.
    As an Aquarius I love dIpping into the future possibility tank and pulling some gems out that transform ourselves and humanity as a whole. It is so exciting we all have an opening with this planetary line up to take the next brave step into the future and bring along with us our heritage of the past.
    Here’s to an exciting muse for you!
    kind thanks for everything you give selflessly,
    Ann Griffen
    Toronto, CNADA

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