TRANSCRIPT Ep. 217 | The Sun and Pluto Plunge into Aquarius!

TRANSCRIPT Ep. 217 | The Sun and Pluto Plunge into Aquarius! (Jan. 15, 2024)

Hello Invisible Friend, April here, and the date today is January 15th, 2024. Welcome to Episode 217 of the Big Sky Astrology Podcast. This week, the Sun makes a sextile aspect to Neptune. A passionate Aries First Quarter Moon sets the stage for the Sun’s powerful conjunction with Pluto just before each moves into Aquarius. Mercury aspects Jupiter and Saturn, and Venus square Neptune asks us to look at reality. Plus, I answer a listener question about the quincunx aspect.

Sun sextile Neptune (Jan. 15, 2024, 4:38 pm PST)

The week begins with the Sun’s sextile to Neptune on January 15th at 4:38pm Pacific Time. The Sun in Capricorn is the executive who delineates the path to achievement for everybody. But Capricorn can sometimes be a little harsh, a little too committed to the bottom line, and impatient when we don’t live up to its standards, which has really been accentuated in the years that Pluto has been in Capricorn.

As the Sun in Capricorn connects with Neptune in Pisces, it’s guided a bit by softer considerations. How do our structures and forms and plans work to make the world a better place? To help others in need and to make us better people as well?

The Sun is at 25º21’ Capricorn on the Sabian symbol, 26 Capricorn, A water sprite. This is a kind of delightful symbol that shows the earthy nature of Capricorn, the ability to be in the physical world and loving it. And I love the image of a water sprite. It’s so different from the way we normally think about Capricorn. But it so beautifully suits, I think, this sextile with watery Neptune.

Aries First Quarter Moon (Jan. 17, 2024, 7:52 pm PST)

And now for the Moon Report. It begins with the Aries First Quarter Moon on January 17th at 7:52 pm Pacific Time. It is the most energetic First Quarter Moon of the year. The First Quarter is the part of the lunar cycle where we’re asked to take action. Or, to put it another way, where some kind of action is required, and we will see this happen whether we consciously take action or not.

Something that we initiated at that January 11 New Moon in Capricorn is now ready for some kind of action. And with Aries, it generally is something that we will consciously take action about. The Moon here is square the Sun in a close conjunction with Pluto. It’s very close to the end of the sign. And so we are really feeling that coming up to the finish line of Pluto in Capricorn and feeling the strong need to act.

The tension of this particular First Quarter square between the Sun and Moon is that the Moon in Aries is kind of impatient and impulsive, while the Sun in Capricorn plans its actions and is very strategic with the moves that it makes. But the advantage here is that with Capricorn, we kind of want everything to line up just so before we act, and we can get a little bit stuck. But the Moon in Aries will definitely get us unstuck. And as is always the case with a First Quarter Moon, we might not make exactly the right moves, but it is important to do something.

I’ve been watching these wonderful videos on YouTube, with a man who does housecleaning, and he cleans these intensely cluttered and dirty spaces. And he gets in there – and he actually is a Sun sign Aries, and I was struck by something that he said, which is, he walks into a space, and if he’s just overwhelmed by the amount of clutter, he’ll choose one small space, and he will just move something. Because he says getting something into motion gets him unstuck and gets the energy moving. And I love that as an image for this First Quarter Moon. Just move something, do something, and the act of doing that gets us unstuck.

This is the First Quarter Moon in a lunar phase family cycle that began with a New Moon on April 19, 2023, at 29º50’ Aries. That was a solar eclipse, and as I remember, it was a really profound one. It was the first solar eclipse we’d had in Aries in a number of years. So the Aries spaces in our birth charts hadn’t been touched in quite this way by the eclipse energy of change. And so this really stirred things up. Now we’re at the First Quarter Moon, nine months later, in that cycle. And this is the time when we’re called to take action, not only on what we began at the January 11 New Moon in Capricorn, but in a larger sense, what we conceived or initiated back at that solar eclipse in April of last year.

Nine months from now will come the Full Moon in this Lunar Phase Series on October 17, 2024. And nine months after that is the Last Quarter Moon in this cycle on July 17, 2025. So those are important dates to keep in mind, nine months and 18 months from now, in whatever it is that we are pushing hard to do something with at this First quarter.

Void-of-Course Moon periods

Let’s look at the Void-of-Course Moon periods for this week. They’re all extremely short Void-of-Course periods because the Sun and Pluto are at the very, very end of the sign of Capricorn. So, the Moon will make an aspect to one of the two of those, and it takes no time at all between the time the Moon makes the aspect and the time that it moves on to Aquarius.

On January 15, the Moon in Pisces sextiles Pluto at 8:33 p.m. Pacific Time. It’s Void of Course for about 15 minutes before it enters Aries at 8:48 p.m. Now these, as I said, are very short Void-of-Course Moon periods. There perhaps isn’t a lot we can do about breaking old habits and initiating new ones, which is usually the work of our Void-of-Course periods. But we can hold space for the thought.

This Void-of-Course Moon presents an opportunity, because it’s a sextile aspect. And the opportunity, I think, is about surrendering – Moon in Pisces – rather than trying to hold on and be in control.

On January 18th, the Moon in Aries squares Pluto just after midnight, three minutes past midnight Pacific Time, and it’s Void-of-Course for only 12 minutes before it enters Taurus at 12:12 am. The square aspect, as we know, represents a conflict. This is the conflict that we’re seeing in that First Quarter Moon between the Moon in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn. It is about passionate, straightforward action symbolized by Aries versus the external control that is symbolized by Pluto in Capricorn.

And finally, on January 20, the Moon in Taurus trines the Sun at 5:57 a.m. and 8 seconds, Pacific Time. It’s Void of Course for under one minute until the Moon goes into Gemini at 5:57 a.m. and 55 seconds Pacific Time. We can almost do nothing with this except for that moment, if we should think of it and pause, we can be conscious of the reward that always comes with a trine aspect.

Slow and steady wins the race, is the message with the Moon in Taurus, which doesn’t move fast, but it moves steadily. And it’s in this trine to the Sun at the very end of Capricorn. And saying to the extent that we are ending this Capricorn season with a sense of success, it’s because we took it at a Taurus pace, slow and steady.

Mercury sextile Saturn (Jan. 18, 2024, 12:49 am PST)

On January 18th at 12:49 am Pacific Time, Mercury makes a sextile aspect to Saturn. This is a closing sextile, meaning Mercury is behind Saturn. And a closing sextile brings one last chance to do something related to the nature of these planets. Mercury in Capricorn is deliberate and systematic in the way it organizes its thoughts and expresses its ideas. And it is sextile Saturn in Pisces, and Saturn rules Capricorn. So Saturn in Pisces kind of has the last word here. What it is telling us, I think, is that while Mercury in Capricorn wants us to be very organized, very careful in what we say and how we say it, Saturn in Pisces gives us the invitation to go off script a little bit – to improvise, to use our intuition in a way that we would not normally see with Mercury in Capricorn in aspect to Saturn.

But Pisces makes a big difference here, and I have been noticing this really ever since Saturn first went into Pisces last March, that things related to Saturn are tending to be a little softer and a little more reliant on intuition and going off script.

Mercury trine Jupiter (Jan. 19, 2024, 1:31 am PST)

The next day, on January 19 at 1:31 am Pacific Time, Mercury trines Jupiter. This is a powerful aspect between the planet of ideas and articulation, Mercury, and Jupiter, the planet of big ideas. Your thoughts have real power just now. The Sabian symbol for Mercury at this trine is 7 Capricorn, A veiled prophet of power. And something about keeping our ideas a little bit hidden maybe gives them more power.

Jupiter’s Sabian symbol is 7 Taurus, A woman of Samaria. And it comes from the tale of the woman of Samaria in the Bible, who came to believe Jesus’ claims that he was the Messiah, and then went and spread the word to others – even though Sumerians had no dealings with Jews for the most part. So at this trine, powerful words allow us to open our minds and see things in a new way.

Venus square Neptune (Jan. 19, 2024, 7:49 a.m. PST)

On January 19th, at 7:49 am Pacific Time, Venus squares Neptune at 25º26’ minutes Sagittarius and Pisces. When we see an aspect between Venus and Neptune, we always know there is a message that has to do with love and truth. And because this is a square aspect, we can safely assume there is some kind of conflict.

Maybe we are disillusioned by someone who we care about. Maybe we discover that we’ve trusted the wrong person with our heart or with our money. This isn’t necessarily a huge problem. It’s a pretty fast aspect. It’s only in effect for a couple of days, but it might be more serious if you’re having Neptune by transit aspecting your own birth chart, especially Venus.

The way transits sometimes show up is just in the world around us, not always something that’s happening to us personally. You might happen to watch a film on the night before this aspect that has something to do with the theme of disillusionment in love or some kind of deception, especially related to money or romance. Or a friend might share a story with you about something that’s happening with them. The nature of the conflict could be represented by the Sabian symbols for Venus and Neptune at this square. Venus is on 26 Sagittarius, A flag bearer – one who is guided by strong beliefs. Neptune is on the symbol 26 Pisces, a New Moon that divides its influences which often suggests people going their own ways to pursue different paths.

Sun conjunct Pluto (Jan. 20, 5:46 a.m. PST)
Sun enters Aquarius (Jan. 20, 6:07 a.m. PST)
Pluto enters Aquarius (Jan. 20, 4:56 p.m. PST)

January 20th is a big day. It brings a profound confluence of the Sun making a conjunction with Pluto at 5:46 a.m. on the very last minute of the last degree of Capricorn. And then the Sun enters Aquarius at 6:07 a.m., and Pluto reenters Aquarius at 4:56 p.m.

The Sun’s conjunction with Pluto is like an exclamation mark at the end of Pluto’s most recent time in Capricorn, which began on June 11, 2023. This is a very hard planet that’s been in a stern and serious sign since 2008. So, on January 20th, the Sun and Pluto hold hands and then leap into Aquarius.

The Sun’s Aquarius season each year is a month of exploring our social connections, about the ways in which we connect with others to create big things. Aquarius is the opposite sign from Leo, which is the sign of individual creativity. And so Aquarius represents the things that we can really only create in concert with others. Along with Pluto, the Sun will be joined in this sign by Mercury on February 4, by Mars on February 12, and by Venus on February 16.

The period between February 16th and when the Sun enters Pisces on February 18^th, we’ll see a stellium of five planets in Aquarius, so expect community and planning for the future to be top of mind.

Pluto in Aquarius will emphasize the profound importance of creating things together, but Pluto is not a planet of creation. It’s the planet that takes whatever is standing in the way of realizing the higher potential of that sign and getting rid of it. We can expect to see the shadowy sides of social media, artificial intelligence, privacy issues, and so on. As Pluto does its job of purifying the communal territory of Aquarius, Pluto will go back into Capricorn briefly between September 1st and November 19th, and then it goes back into Aquarius and stays there through March 2043.

Listener Question: The Quincunx Aspect

In this week’s listener question, listener Elliott asks, via Speakpipe:

Elliott: Hello, April and fellow Big Sky listeners. This is Elliott with another question. So, I keep thinking about the quincunx aspect, which is a great word because it reminds me of another word that’s not such a nice word, which is kind of inconvenient in conversation. Anyway, so I think it also is called inconjunct.

But, you know, you read all this stuff about how it’s like a terrible aspect and you get health problems and, you know, the energies don’t mesh and all this. I don’t know about that because it’s also one sign away from a trine. So a quincunx is one sign off of an opposition, but it’s also one sign off of a trine, right?

And I mean, think about Aries and Scorpio, which I think are quincunx, they’re both really passionate signs, or Gemini and Scorpio. Are both really into facts and research, and getting to the bottom of things, and collecting data, and so it seems like they don’t have anything in common, but they kind of do.

So, maybe you could give us a little mini lesson on quincunx. Okay. Quintunx? Quincunx. Bye!

April: Elliott, thank you for your question! It’s an exciting one for me because I love talking about planetary aspects. The quincunx is an aspect that separates two planets by 150 degrees. They occur in signs that, with a very few exceptions, don’t share much in common at all. They aren’t in the same or a compatible element. They are not in the same modality – cardinal, fixed, or mutable.

When I was learning astrology back in the Paleolithic era, the quincunx was sometimes referred to as inconjunct, and that’s not incorrect, but inconjunct also refers to the semi sextile aspect, which separates planets by 30 degrees. The semi sextile also occurs between planets and signs with nothing in common. For example, Aries and Taurus – Fire and Earth, Cardinal and Fixed.

The inconjunct aspects describe a relationship like the kind we might have at a party, where we don’t know that many people. We might strike up a conversation with someone next to us, or we might be introduced to someone, and in both cases, it’s immediately clear that we have absolutely nothing to talk about.

There are exceptions, Elliott, but they’re not really connected to being one sign away from a trine or an opposition. A trine and an opposition are distinct and very different from a quincunx. Being one sign away from a trine or an opposition certainly can help you find a quincunx aspect in the chart. You just look to the opposite sign; so say it’s Taurus, the opposite sign is Scorpio, and the signs on either side of Scorpio – Libra and Sagittarius – this is where a quincunx aspect is most likely to take place. But it doesn’t offer any kind of sympathy between the two signs that are in the quincunx relationship.

The exceptions have to do with planetary rulership. So you mentioned Aries and Scorpio, and yes, they’re both passionate, but in very different ways. One is in a very fiery and straightforward way, one is a little more watery and a little more under the surface. But, Aries and Scorpio, importantly, share Mars as their planetary ruler. So they don’t do Mars in the same way, but at least they can agree that action is important.

Taurus and Libra share Venus as a ruler. Cancer and Sagittarius are connected because Sagittarius’s ruling planet, Jupiter, is considered exalted or very strong in Cancer. And, in the semi-sextile category, Capricorn and Aquarius both are ruled by Saturn, so they have that in common.

So, because planets in a quincunx are operating in ways that have so little in common, it is an aspect that’s above all about compromise. Neither planet in a quincunx gets to be completely comfortable. Going back to that cocktail party analogy, if you and that other guest work incredibly hard, you might be able to find a way to hold a conversation, but it’s a lot of work, and by the time you sit down to dinner, you might both have a headache.

We generally are just not that motivated to work that hard, unless there is a physical attraction, which is another characteristic of the quincunx sometimes when we see it in synastry, or we just don’t have any choice but to interact with this person. Maybe they’re a co-worker or a family member.

In synastry, if two people have planets quincunx each other, one might be fascinated by the other, and sometimes they turn themselves inside out to try to be of service to them. And obviously, this can lead to a fairly unbalanced relationship that might be really compelling, but not always super comfortable.

I think we can all deal with having a couple of areas of life that are sort of quincunxy, where we bend over backwards to make something work.

Maybe it’s our job, maybe it’s a relationship, but if your whole life were that way, if you had tons of quincunx aspects in your chart without a lot of trines or sextiles to offset them, you would probably end up pretty aggravated and, yes, probably more likely to dis-ease. It’s an aspect that is of the nature of Virgo, a sign of physical health, and Scorpio, which is connected with emotional and psychological health. So if you do have a lot of quincunx aspects in your chart, I would not be surprised to see health problems. And I would go a step further and say that quincunxes in your chart, especially connected to the Ascendant, can give testimony to the kinds of diseases you might be prone to and what tends to make them manifest.

It’s a fascinating aspect and actually quite a lot has been written and said about it by some of my colleagues. I’m going to leave a couple of links in the episode summary to videos and books related to the quincunx, and also the Yod – sometimes yawd, which is a configuration in which you have two planets that are both in quincunx aspect to a third.

Elliott, I hope that helps, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this fascinating aspect.

If you, Invisible Friend, have a question you would like me to answer on a future episode, just leave a message of one minute or less at SpeakPipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast, or you can email me at April (at) BigSkyAstrology (dot) com, and please be sure to put podcast question in the subject line.

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