January 31-February 6, 2005

We're being drawn deeper into the individualizing alignment in awareness that is the emphasis of Aquarius, mid-winter, on our way to the new moon of February 8, this year's seed germination turning point. As we are stripped of everything we can do without, reduced to the fertility of a solitary spark, it can be a challenging experience of isolation under pressure, the purification of our core essence. We must accept this time as a critical part of the seasonal process, a natural distillation that brings renewal and emergence with the coming spring.

This week begins with the moon, heart sensitivity, in Libra, mindfulness of love and harmony. Monday, the moon meets big, expansive Jupiter, this year also in Libra, just as it is slowing to an apparent stop, beginning five months of retrograde--internalizing,deepening. The shift of Mercury and Venus, mind and beauty, from earthy Capricorn to airy Aquarius, also reinforces the intensification of awareness as our underlying emphasis right now. Tuesday and Wednesday, the moon's sensitivity is drawn by the magnetic gravity of Scorpio, a vortex of concentrating emotion. This as the sun, our soul vitality, is reaching the mid-point of winter/Aquarius, and meeting Neptune, the 164-year cycle planet of dreams, deepest feelings, at that same place in the seasonal cycle. It should be a powerful, polarizing moment of tension building and breaking between the sun's vitality isolated in awareness and the moon's sensitivity charged with undeniable feeling.

Thursday and Friday, the emotion released, the heart settles down to the low ebb of the seasonal cycle, Sagittarius, resolving passion. Late Friday, heart sensitivity aligns with deep power and action expression (moon meets Pluto and Mars) dragging down to the ground of things, before hitting bottom Saturday morning and crashing/rebounding in Capricorn's primal earthiness. Sunday morning, impulsive Mars, on its two-year cycle, also shifts into Capricorn, adding its active energy to the moon spirit's empowered constructiveness. We are now on approach to the heart/soul convergence at the center of awareness, the Aquarius new moon, on Tuesday, February 8. That will begin the Year of the Rooster. Get out your colors, the love parade is about to begin.