Here we are again, folks. A brand-new year and it is bringing with it an entire kitschy wall calendar of astrological transits to look forward to. Technically, the astrological new year begins at the spring equinox when the sun moves into the sign of Aries.
However, thanks to everyone’s favorite Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, our society’s calendar begins amid all the other holiday hullabaloo and shenanigans going on at this time of year. Thanks, Jules.
I, for one, am very much looking forward to the shift in astrological alignments that will be taking place in 2023. There is a marked change in the type of energy we will be wading through, and it feels less frustrated, less aimless and more boogie-on-forward.
The biggest shift that I see isn’t so much something that is coming at us, but something that we are leaving behind. For the past three years, we have been going about our business underneath a Saturn-Uranus square, in which these two planets were oriented to each other at a 90-degree angle – with us at the angular knife point. You can think of this transit as an irritated stalemate between past tradition and future revolution. Sound familiar? Conservative vs. progressive, generational finger-pointing, fear of and frustration with technology, revolutionary impulses maturing when they hit roadblocks – all of these themes erupted under this transit.
Three years we’ve been simmering in this stew. We now carry these lessons with us, but the pot is being removed from the flame.
Leaving all of that behind feels like removing yourself from the room when your crotchety uncle and your rebellious cousin are fighting about all of life’s -isms. But what exactly are we walking into?
We step into 2023 under a Mars retrograde that began around Halloween. So, expect the year to begin a little sluggishly, albeit not for long. Mars oversees our gumption and our ability to get things done, so when this planet appears to move backward in the sky we can feel as though we are spinning our wheels. However, Mars will turn direct on Jan. 12, and all of the work and preparation we have put in during the latter months of 2022 will begin to gain some traction. Get ready for your projects to take off, your energy to pick up, and your confidence to return.
On March 7, Saturn will move from the sign of Aquarius, where it has been for three years, into the sign of Pisces. Expect society to start focusing less on what makes us all different from each other and to start discovering our shared commonalities. Saturn sets hard boundaries, but when Saturn is in the watery, mystical sign of Pisces our boundaries become much hazier and we can see through what differentiates us from one another more clearly.
While Saturn is in Pisces, we will also be empowered to pull our dreams into the material world.
Prepare to harness this two-year transit by getting serious about constructing a life that is spiritually fulfilling by enacting a real plan. Write a business proposal for your cupcake shop, find an investor for your film production, create your Etsy profile – whatever your dream life looks like, you will have cosmic support for bringing it into the waking world.
From March 23 through June 11, the solar system’s gothic badass, Pluto, will dip into the sign of Aquarius before retrograding back into Capricorn for the remainder of the year. To understand this enormous upcoming shift, think back to 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn, the Zodiac sign associated with material success. Global financial crisis ring a bell? Since then, it has felt like we’ve been plugging our leaky ship trying to make it to shore. At the end of Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, self-centered billionaires (aka the “winners of capitalism”) are making headlines with their childish yet impactful power plays. The logical conclusion perhaps.
Toward the end of March, Pluto’s 2.5-month foray into Aquarius will offer us a short preview of Pluto’s long uninterrupted 20-year journey through Aquarius that will start at the beginning of 2024. Pluto represents death and rebirth and volcanic shifts, and I expect this powerhouse planet to elicit some major eruptions for the little guy. If Capricorn is about material success,
Aquarius is about the people who are systematically denied opportunity. I think we can expect some social revolutions that gain real traction with this transit. At least, we’ll see them show up in 2023, probably fall back out of the collective conscious, and really start to make change in 2024.
Now that we’ve addressed Saturn and Pluto, which tend to bring about more challenging energies, let’s see what Jupiter is up to. Jupiter is a big ol’ ball of joy and good fortune and will be gallivanting through Aries in the first half of the year before moving into Taurus mid-May. The first half of the year will provide us with all sorts of energy to achieve our personal goals and joys, fueling our fires of productivity and instilling courage with a dash of luck. Expect to see a lot of activity in our higher courts and governmental institutions during this time as well. When Jupiter moves into Taurus in May, we will be more inclined to sit back and enjoy the fruits of the almost manic energy of the first half of the year. When Jupiter is in Taurus, we will find more happiness in earthy pleasures such as gardening, appreciating art, and perhaps some peaceful self-indulgence.
The final major transit of 2023 is the retrograde movement of Venus in Leo, which will take place all summer long. Love and beauty will be center stage in the sign of the sun, bringing forth what some might consider a modern-day summer of love. I also think we will be seeing women and femininity in the spotlight, perhaps a major focus on women in the performing arts and a collective reflection on the role of the feminine in pop culture.
The rest of 2023 is relatively quiet astrologically, so expect an action-packed spring and summer followed by a period of rest. All in all, let the weight of the past three years drop and hop into some practical optimism to take advantage of these major transits. Keep in mind that astrological cycles do not happen to you, you participate in them. So, come to play in 2023!
