December 2024
Regrouping
Hello, dear ones, how are your hearts?
Over the Thanksgiving weekend I rewatched the 2020 documentary "My Octopus Teacher" with family and was struck by just how much the octopus in this film has to teach us right now about resilience, evolution, and the process of maturing into adults.
Somehow "adulthood" in our culture means something akin to being given more and more agency to control our immediate environment. Yet any notion of control is a lie. The natural world just doesn't work that way. It is always evolving so any notion of control based in static knowledge from the past just doesn't cut the mustard. Our human dance with the world around us is always changing, therefore, reaching true human adulthood has more to do with a capacity to adapt, to find new moves to the continually evolving dance, living in love, beauty, play and connection, amidst all the dangers and tragedies.
I hope by the time you read this you have been able to digest the events of the past month to the degree that you are in acceptance of What Is. And even when our minds are in agreement, it might take awhile for our bodies to catch up, so..., patience...
With the Winter Solstice fast approaching by this time each year, December normally offers us entry into a season of inward pull, reflection, and renewal. Yet this year the tough inner work does not take a rest. In fact, with so many planets making contact with a now-direct Saturn, we are examining our lives, our plans, our resources, coming into acceptance of the new directions set before us, and adjusting our approaches.
With Mercury and Jupiter straddling a sweet axis, Hope goes underground, with new leadership sowing new seeds, new visions. The old world and its dying structures crumble around us. The split between the old and new worlds culminates this month.
The practice for an Agent of Evolution is to be like the trees, with their eyes on the health of the forest, not on themselves.
December Astro Weather Highlights
During this final month of the year, Saturn is direct and Mars goes retrograde. In general this implies going through the motions that have been dictated by where we fin ourselves, without a lot of connection to the motions, rather, a kind of perfunctory showing up while we examine our strategies.
On the other hand, with Jupiter encouraging Mercury in Jyeshtha, new leadership begins to rise, being in the right place at the right time with the right message.
The important thing to remember is that this is happening for everyone on all sides of every situation. In the collective political landscape, for instance, this is happening for democrats, republicans, every other kind of party or disavowal of party or politics, and all those tuned out altogether. These transits rise on all of us, like the sun.
November 25 - December 15, 2024
Mercury Retrograde
Loyalties examined
Mercury moves backward through both the signs of Jyeshtha and Anuradha, so we retrace our steps in the domains of leadership, promises, and loyalties. Upon further examination, we might find ourselves uncovering new data that changes our tune.
December 1 Eastern Time (late night November 30 Pacific Time)
New Moon in Anuradha
Fidelity to the Known
Right at the beginning of the month, this New Moon brings a tone of devotion to the familiar, to the whole 28-day lunation – essentially the whole month.
I have offered an expanded summary of this New Moon on Instagram.
December 4
Sun square Saturn
What healing leadership looks like
With Sun in Jyeshtha forming a square to direct Saturn in Shatabhisha, we are understanding what it means to share power. To collaborate for mutual benefit. To solve problems together, increasing the efficacy of 'medicines' applied to the ailments, whether physical or emotional or mental or social.
December 4
Retrograde Mercury opposite retrograde Jupiter
A promise made must be a promise kept
We may have made promises (to ourselves, to God, to life, to others) in order to arrive where we are. We revisit these words of Hope and expansion that set us on the course we're now on, (even if that course is now revealing its challenges,) sending those roots deeper into very fertile soil.
Dec. 6, 2024 through Feb. 23, 2025
Mars Retrograde
This Mars retrograde period could be a long, clumsy tumble through tricky terrain. This will be a time for working with anger, frustration, irritation, annoyance. Mars retrograde can bring up the pout of frustrated desires in us. The more skilled we are at working with our own anger, the less damage we will be prone to creating.
Through this 11-week period we are asked to look at our desires and what motivates them. With enormous self-compassion we can work with these desires like we would with a child. For instance, if we wanted to win that election, that job, that person, that new house, that race, we can ask ourselves, "what would winning that have given me?" Then we can try to give ourselves the desire underneath the desire, even if only in our mind's eye. (Hint: most desires boil down to some core things like, Love, Acceptance, Belonging, and Being Seen for Our Light.)
December 7
Saturn square Mercury
Leadership blocked, delayed, or otherwise questioned
We know what must be done. We have our plan around how we will get it done. This transit might put a momentary kink in our plans as we discover some reason why our plan needs more examination, more work, tighter strategy.
December 7/ 8
Venus conjunct Pluto
The darker sides of Love
Pain and death are a part of life. They are what keep the whole play in movement. Without them, life wouldn't have much depth. Allowing ourselves to go to the depths with someone takes courage, vulnerability, and trust – not necessarily trust in an individual, but in Life's ability to renew itself.
December 12
Mars opposite Venus
Creative connections
Traditions, conventions, norms, especially around marriage and family, appear attractive as we approach the holiday season. We have more creative energy for the holiday conventions ahead.
December 15
Full Moon in Mrigashira
Leadership captures our sense of daring and adventure
Jupiter conjoins this Full Moon. On the personal side of things, we are feeling very, very hopeful. On the collective side of things, the public gives its leader all the glory, showering them with approval and praise.
I will offer an expanded summary of this Full Moon on Instagram.
December 18
Sun square Neptune
Dream a new dream
We are injected with a dose of imagination, challenged to expand our vision for ourselves and our world.
December 21
WINTER SOLSTICE
A still point in the yearly cycle, inviting us to slow down, rest, dream.
December 23
Sun square Rahu and Ketu
Life has other plans
Sometimes our visions for ourselves and the world aren't in step with where Life is going. In the couple days leading up to Christmas, we might take the time to let our bodies and beings catch up with where Life is going.
December 24-27
Mercury opposite Jupiter square Saturn
Shaped by collective forces of push and pull
During this Christmas season we find our minds both troubled/ distressed by restrictions on our methodology, as well as supported/ acknowledged by inner Grace.
December 28
Venus square Uranus
We surprise ourselves
We are willing to take risks in love. We are willing to enter new territory to reclaim joy. We are willing to embrace what is different than us, for the sake of all that is good in the world.
December 31 Eastern Time (late night December 30 Pacific Time)
New Moon in Purva Ashadha
Invigoration
Though our means of protection are different, we all think our group is the underdog that needs to be protected. This New Moon invigorates us for the new year, to protect what we love.
I will offer an expanded summary of this New Moon on Instagram.
