Another Bumpy December

12.6.14

Once again, the ongoing square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn takes center-stage during the holidaytime end-of-year.

I'm hoping last December's version (the writeup for which I artfully titled 'Xmas-New Year's Grand-Cross Razzmatazz') will prove to have been more of an astrological shitshow than this season's will be.

This year, there's no imminent Venus retrograde (that's not until July), and neither Mars nor Jupiter are directly messing with the at-odds planetary power-couple. Yet, Uranus and Pluto are now slinking back into another exact square with each other, perfecting on Dec 14… and made all the more pronounced due to how slowly Uranus will be moving through our sky at that time, in advance of returning to direct motion a week later (Dec 21).

For those who are counting, this will make Uranus-and-Pluto's sixth exact square since June 2012—and leaves only one more (in mid-March 2015) remaining in this decade-rocking series of seven. By this time next year, we will have 'officially' completed the main syllabus of this collective crash-course in revolution (though, of course, its orb-of-influence only gradually tapers off, extending through the end of 2017). By next year, we will have faced the big examination question ('evolve, or suffer?') and earned some sort of grade, either a more profound pride and satisfaction, experienced through intentionally participating in our own evolution, or a more intense disappointment and distress, born from passively agreeing to endure the suffering (or, worse, actively fighting against evolution to reinforce this misery-inducing status-quo).

How are your test-scores looking? It's not too late to cram, you know, if you'd like to up your average before 'graduation' from the University of Uranus-Pluto Square.

Because we've already been grappling with Uranus/Pluto challenges for a few years now, the themes should be familiar: How can we radically shake up our lives, expressing our rawest self-liberatory impulses (Uranus in Aries), while simultaneously rooting out, then transmuting, the rotted planks in our resource-management foundation (Pluto in Capricorn)… neither indiscriminately destroying every remnant of a structure which, though it may be flawed, does provide us some constructive purpose (too much Uranus), nor allowing corrupt or oppressive strains of authoritative power to thoroughly crush the resistance, sneakily reinforcing its authority hegemony-style, disingenuously donning the garb of its critics (too much Pluto).

With the spotlight on this Uranus-Pluto showdown during these weeks ahead, the effect is even further amplified by a trio of bodies travelling across Capricorn, one by one conjoining Pluto and squaring Uranus at exactly the same time—first Venus (Dec 20), then Mercury (Dec 24), and finally the Sun (Jan 3). As I've repeatedly mentioned, whenever a faster-moving planet veers into aspect with the Uranus-Pluto wasp's-nest, we witness developments and events which symphonically symbolize and/or personalize these broader archetypal trends.

Over this coming month, the definite advantage goes to Pluto, insofar as Pluto's the one receiving the series of conjunctions, an aspect which concentrates planetary energy. That means using our relationships and our values (Venus), our words and our thoughts (Mercury), and our modes of conscious self-identification (Sun) strategically—just as I recommended last month, when Mars was in this same spot, using the phrase 'empire-building' in reference to asserting will and determination with far-ranging vision—rather than momentarily falling prey to impetuous reactions which could accidentally and/or collaterally damage our long-view standing.

What might such behavior actually look like? For starters, it would entail thinking twice before shooting off an unfiltered communication that sharply discharges everything you feel—if, that is, you have any goal from bothering to communicate other than just letting out everything you feel. If you actually wish to make a larger point, lay groundwork for future conversations, build bridges, maybe change hearts and minds… any of that, on the other hand, should perhaps inspire you to thoughtfully hold back certain sentiments among certain audiences.

As frustrating as it might be to 'censor' or otherwise restrain yourself, in order to cast your message in terms more palatable to an unknown and/or potentially unwelcoming audience, it's really about just deploying standard message control, for maximum transmission results. Such tactics are used all the time in business and politics, which is why their 'messaging' (whether as marketing or propaganda) is so damn effective. Apply this lesson straight from the folks-in-power, using it to deliberately shape others' perceptions to your desired end.

The same strategy is also madly relevant to how you behave in certain relationships, those which leave you feeling put upon, due to having to compromise certain parts of your personality, to maintain a cordial or considerate rapport. There's a lot of kneejerk 'unfriending' going around lately… which, don't get me wrong, can be an awesome self-care gesture, to not have to deal with folks you don't respect on a personal level, but is also sometimes hasty if there might indeed be some larger productive purpose for keeping that person around. Though I'll stop short of advocating outright Machiavellian insincerity (because Uranus-in-Aries does need a fair say, too), I will encourage you to consider whether preserving amiable ties to someone with whom you may significantly disagree on certain issues could possibly help you get somewhere you'd like to go—before you light that torch and burn the whole thing down.

A hard-line stance might promise present-moment ideological self-gratification, but it might also shoot your own efforts to attain some other ambitious goal right in the proverbial foot. The greater your personal accomplishments, the greater your power… and then the greater your capacity to advocate for what you really-and-truly believe over the years to come. This is how a conjoined Venus/Pluto-in-Capricorn would think about it.

Thankfully, Mars spends this whole time largely out of trouble in Aquarius, his only notable aspect between now and the end of the year being a rather unremarkable sextile (or gently supportive 60-degree angle) to Uranus. Mars in Aquarius takes actions and fights battles meant to serve the greater good, the whole group, what's fairest and most considerate to the widest swath of diverse interests (though, admittedly, Aquarius can also suffer from too fixed and totalizing a notion of what such greater-good solutions ought to entail). Because Mars is now Uranus's dispositor (i.e., Mars rules Aries, the sign where Uranus presently resides), his more humanitarian concept of the 'battlefield' should help temper Uranus-in-Aries's more blindingly short-sighted and/or self-centered impulses.

P.S. Saturn finally leaves Scorpio and enters Sagittarius on Dec 23. (Big news! More info soon!) But first, Saturn spends nine days in the notoriously-potent 29th-degree of the scorpion sign, beginning Dec 14, the same date as Uranus-and-Pluto's square. Hmmm.


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