STARFIRE

January 2008

January 2008 - THE YEAR OF INTERNAL ACTIONk.
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2008: THE YEAR OF INTERNAL ACTION

The New Year chart is a rare and unusual chart because it moves around the world with the New Year in each time zone.

Most mundane charts are timed by naturally occurring events (solstices, equinoxes, hurricanes, earthquakes, lunations, or planetary ingresses and aspects to other planets). Mundane charts may also be set for the birth of a corporation or government or for man-made events like elections. In each of those kinds of charts, we see a specific time set for a precise latitude and longitude; as we relocate the chart around the world, we see its shifting impact as the planets move from house to house without changing their original degrees and mutual aspects.

A chart for the New Year, whether you use the Western Civilization New Year or the Chinese New Year or some other calendar’s date, With minor variations and allowances for latitude and for those time zones that are less than two full hours from the neighboring zone, each planet is in the same house wherever the chart is located around the world.  On our New Year’s chart for New York, Mars is the most elevated and emphasized planet, dominating the chart from the 9th house (just to the right of the midheaven or highest point in the chart). If we set the chart for Baghdad or Tokyo, we’d still find Mars dominating the chart from the 9th.

Solstice charts impact every point on the globe.  Eclipses seem to be most important to the countries that can see them, but they fascinate us so much that people travel around the world to watch them if they aren’t visible over our own homes. Again, New Year’s charts are different.  Although I love the lion dogs and dragons (and food) of Chinese New Year’s and enjoy knowing my oldest stepson and I are the tigers in the family, I don’t set my calendar or plan my annual goals by the Chinese New Year calendar.

The New Year’s chart stands alone as the chart of a culture or a broad group of related cultural segments.  The Roman calendar was established by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, then revised under the auspices of Pope Julian and finally replaced by the Gregorian calendar under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII. Wikipedia has a fascinating article on the three calendars and the dates they were adopted across the Western Civilization world at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar Those of us in the British Empire (including the American colonies) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Some Eastern Orthodox churches only partially adopted the new calendar and celebrate Christmas, for example, on a different date than the Roman and protestant churches.  So the chart seen around the world is only observed in those parts of the world who were influenced by Christianity.

New Year’s has seeped so deeply in our cultures, with so few apparently religious roots, that it is a secular event (and football day) widely celebrated by those who barely give a nod to religion.  Its excesses are, in fact, the subject of sermons and warnings on many pulpits, even though it remains the cultural icon of the new beginning once celebrated at the Winter Solstice. (And do remember that many people around the world still honor the Winter Solstice as the spiritual new year even as the calendar date is recognized as the political year.)

Culture being what it is, New Year’s takes on its own importance not only because we celebrate it but because countries around the world see it as a new beginning politically for America and her allied nations.  Congresses and parliaments come back from winter holidays. Taxes are reckoned. Laws and ordinances take effect. All that activity based on an artificial event–but one that has accumulated its power over the centuries.

So what do we find in 2008? The New Year’s chart is fiery and daunting at first look. Mars, the God of War, is in the 9th house of international events, precisely opposing Pluto.  Mars and Pluto are never a good combination; Mars is like the detonator for Pluto’s devastating and transformational power.  Mars is in the final degree of Gemini, scattering its energy.

Mars is retrograde, moving back toward Pluto. Astrologers call this phenomena “rushing to meet”, implying that the impact is greater in the same way that a head-on accident between two cars is harder than a collision between two vehicles going the same direction. I can safely guarantee explosive changes with worldwide impact, even if they appear to be local events.

What saves the year is the fact that Mars is retrograde.

Mars retrograde moves inward, not outward, creating opportunities for forgiveness and release of old burdens, anger and grudges. We can use Mars like a scalpel this season to root out sorry and grief and make room for something truly new to enter our lives in the new year.  What comes in may not be what we had before the sorrow, but it can be honored and values for its own hard-won wisdom.  Jean Shinoda Bolen makes the point in GODDESSES IN OLDER WOMEN that we can be vital and juicy at any age if we allow humor and wisdom to heal and direct us. Mars is the opportunity, as always, for the juices of life to flow–but retrograde, Mars opens the inner well springs.

With Mars opposing Pluto and situated in Gemini, we may well resist these openings.  Mars in Gemini can scatter energy. Transformation may come faster than we expect, be more overwhelming than we expect.  My own test on whether sleep facilitates transformation or not is that sleep in the service of integrating change wakens us to new convictions, new directions and a desire to take action.

Mars in Gemini may be best served by the physical act of uncluttering.  If you must be distracted in a thousand directions, let it be by the thousand things you toss out, one by one. Or the decision to use what you have before you buy new. I’ve started a spreadsheet file for all the new books I can’t live without (Mars in Gemini in the 9th and Pluto in Sagittarius in the 3rd both impel us to read everything from the labels on cans to doctoral dissertations.) The rule for the New Year: I have to finish two books before I can buy one.  (There is, of course, always the library.)

The Gemini-Sagittarius axis, triggered by Mars and Pluto, can help us make big changes with small steps.  We do not have to rush from detonator to nuclear explosion.  We can take one tap of the hammer or throw one small pebble into the ponds of our subconscious minds and watch those small changes move our lives into new paths.  Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D., an addictive nutritionist, teaches the power of baby steps at www.radiantrecovery.com  Her list of small acts that raise our betaendorphin levels is a masterpiece of small steps, including time to pet a dog.

With Saturn hovering on the edge of the 12th house, many of us will work through limitations or face unexpected opponents this year (perhaps even ourselves as opponents to our own best interests). Goals will be easier to accomplish if they are in writing.  If you prefer visualizing, then write the results of the visualization.

Uranus in the 6th calls for changes in health and daily routines this year.  New insights may lead to renewal of your work or your health as we move through the year. Some barriers fall to synchronicity and sheer good luck, others to creative adaptation of materials and wisdom already at hand.

And what of the economy? What indeed.  We’re still nearing the bottom of the 20-year United States economic cycle–but we are nearing the bottom, and there are signs of recovery on the horizon.  Personal money and resources should improve this year, but it takes knowledge, wisdom and a bit of negotiation to put your money in your pocketbook.  New projects and companies started this year may have a rocky start, but grow strong precisely because they are required to put down roots.  I’m advising my private clients to wait until March for new ventures because the most obviously difficult period of the year are shown by Mars retrograde through January and Mercury retrograde in February.

This is the year we’ll look back on as new beginnings, even though we may not see those beginnings at the start of the year. New Year 2009 will be a radically different year.  (If you want a look at the 2009 chart, go to my website www.iowapoet.com and click on astrology; I have a free chart service there and you can enter the date January 1, 2009, and the time 12:00:00 am and your location to see the New Year right where you are.) In 2008 we do the work of the dark moon, digging down to our foundations and planting seeds for new growth. By 2009, we’ll be nurturing those seeds creatively and breaking down barriers personally and around the world.

I wish for all of you what the New Year’s Chart promises: The opportunity, with focused and incisive thinking, to clear problems from your lives, plant the seeds of new ideas and resources, and nurture yourself at the beginning of a new cycle of creativity and life.

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.