January ushers in a softer experience than we’ve had since … well, who can remember? Outer events aren’t calming down, but we likely are, thanks to cosmic buffering as we navigate situations that remain in flux.
Passion and intensity are still in the air and underlie most everything. Do-overs and revisiting are ongoing themes, spreading from past loves and financial business to all manner of communication and agreements. Little of it is new, out of the blue or, if we’re honest, truly unexpected. Little has the destabilizing impact we’ve endured in recent years. Most of it we’re watching like a movie – though there will be moments when we jump into the action with fervor and determination.
The opening atmosphere colors the month and much of the year. Something feels gentler. More hopeful. More loving. That’s radiating off Jupiter, the influence of indulgence and expansion and beneficence, which has just floated into the boundless waters of Pisces.
Here his nuanced influence dissolves boundaries, increasing sensitivity, empathy (it could happen), inspiration, escapism and inter-dependency. He’ll be there into the summer and again in the fall. For now, he’s smoothing harsh realities (perhaps with the help of substances; let’s not fool ourselves) and offering higher, more loving perspectives on the upheaval and restructuring of foundations and institutions.
Jupiter in Pisces encourages looking at life and fellow humans through the lens of higher love. Whether we take him up on his offer or not, love is definitely in our sights. We’re looking at love as it is in the real world, and measuring it against a cold bottom line.
The prompt is Venus, ruler of love, money and all we value, retrograde in goal-oriented Capricorn for most of the month. This mode of Venus wants durability, reliability, longevity and the probability of appreciating tangibly. Since mid-December, she has been calling in reminders of what we desired and experienced before. Revisiting has allowed for reclaiming dropped parts of our selves, reworking old or unfinished business and recognizing what has no place in our current lives.
Her travels this month offer the possibility of linking earthly experiences with higher potentials, when Venus sextiles Neptune on January 5. She also midwives incorporating our retrograde experiences and revelations into our sense of self, when she fuses with the Sun January 8.
Her focus on long-term practicalities has assistance of various kinds throughout the month. The Capricorn Sun underscores her orientation through January 19, when it moves into Aquarius. Our minds are also on board with her at the start of January, then fly off for a few weeks into intellectual exploration and distance, and come back down to ground before the month ends.
The changeability comes courtesy of Mercury, ruler of information methods, vehicles and systems. He hits the exit door for Capricorn on New Year’s Day and spends January 2-25 in objective, far-seeing Aquarius. His first retrograde of the year begins January 14. It lasts for the rest of the month, until February 3, kicking off with a square to electrifying, awakening Uranus shaking up thinking and zapping us with startling information. We wrap our brains around it by January 23, when Mercury meets the Sun.
Read more about Mercury retrograde in my 2022 guide for OM Times.
Focus returns to the concrete, the practical, the “where is this going?” beginning January 24-25. Our drive heads to project management and incremental work toward tangible goals, thanks to Mars leaving fun and philosophy loving Sagittarius for Capricorn January 24.
For most of the month, he’s stoking enthusiasm, energy and a lighter, adventurous vibe, motivation to get up, keep going and enjoy ourselves as so much rivets attention to practicalities. Come the 24th, fun and games head for the sidelines as Mars begins a painstaking exploration of “measure twice, cut once” territory. His work is slowly, inexorably leading to meetings with Venus and Pluto, the intensity of which will build into early March.
Our mental approach joins him the next day, when retrograde Mercury slips back into Capricorn, where he’ll remain till the middle of February. The air is serious, determined and focused on the long term. The news, conversations and thinking are full of secrets, truths, fears and other factors that have been below the surface or behind the scenes.
As the information changes, strips down and streamlines perspectives and priorities, along comes another influence to shake a lot loose. Venus stations direct on January 29 and caps the review process with an unimpeded zap from Uranus. It’s a formula for change of heart. The trine delivers startling, disruptive developments that flip perspectives in an instant and send desires, relationships and attachments out the window.
It’s a quick and efficient graduation exercise, snapping grips on the outmoded and in some cases blowing it up. Our hearts are the better for it, but we feel challenged all the same. The Sun squares Uranus on the month’s final day. Some part of ourselves is ripe for change as well. What we’ve been striving for is morphing, and now we are, too.