On January 1st 2014 around 11:12 am UTC the Moon exactly aligns with the Sun in the 11th degree of Capricorn in the tropical Zodiac. With Capricorn hosting Mercury, Pluto, the Sun and Moon all within 2 degrees of arc, that is a lot of psychic and mental energy, drive and power focused into initiating the new lunar cycle, and it does so from a strong Cardinal Earth foundation. The desire to initiate a new basis for expressing and embodying our personal power is emerging. It may not be wholly visible en-masses, but……this is about moving a mountain, one rock, pebble and grain at a time……and, while it is a process that involves us all, it is by virtue of this fact that its collective power is most potently expressed at a personal level. And that is a power that it is growing exponentially. This, like the following Moon, is a ‘supermoon’, initiating an intensified lunation – can you feel it? Our world may be under duress, but, ‘our time’, we can surely sense, is upon us!

On an individual level the will to express fundamental truths, to cut through the crap and get at the core of what matters most to each of us will be very strong during this lunation, but, there is also a strong note of caution here. While this is initiating a renewal time for ‘walking our talk’, it is also one in which we would first do well to be content to observe, to gather the facts and knowledge that we know to be real, that truly belong to us. Only after doing this to a point of ‘knowing’ can any one of us have the absolute certainty that ‘the talk we are walking’ is undeniably ours, and not borrowed, learned or the result of conditioning and programming. If you think you’ve heard this before, well, you have – get used to it! This is crucial not only for staying with our personal truth, in our integrity, but, for what will follow in the coming months……the crunch line of this lunation builds on the previous full Moon, and that is that “the ‘true revolution’, the one that really matters, is within, each of us“. If the impulse at the height of that lunation was galactic, now its well and truly Earthed.

This new Moon stellium is squared by Mars in Libra and Uranus in Aries, an oppositional combination that is likely to shoot first and ask questions later. Look out for provocation – be and stay cool!Sudden insights that might force our tongue can easily backfire, so, ‘keeping one’s council’ when those insights come firing across our bows is the watch-word, at least for the  time being. Get street-wise to the vibe that’s building……its not about being re-actionary, it’s a matter of heart……

Venus is also in Capricorn, unaspected, but, she’s at the beginning of possibly her most significant retrograde period in over 250 years. The inward working Venusian energies will help us to get to the heart of all matters upon which we bring that psychic, mental and will power to bear. Venus is now in complete sync with the solar seasonal cycle, stationing on the December solstice and following cross quarter festival of Imbolc, for the first time since 1762. But, listen up, and, before we go head to head with life’s challenges, it is essential that we ‘look with the eyes of the heart’ and not the ego here, to bring the necessary balance and equilibrium to our findings and what we witness. Why? Because the heart knows the truth. Trust in yours. Its in our nature to do so.

Jupiter retrograde in Cancer is trined with Saturn in Scorpio and in that on-going aspect we can find an emotional stability and ability to face the truth. Even when it is emotionally most challenging, when the words get hottest, we can find the dignity to retreat, knowing there’s no disgrace in doing so. In fact, while there is a mood of brooding tension here, if we call in the elder-self present with and within each of us, we will see our patience pay off. Here is one of the key differences between those who advocate the old power structures, which are primarily based upon the use of force for the maintenance of power and authority, and the incoming ones, those who advocate the empowered individual, the one who ‘knows’! There is a return of something deeply ancestral at work in this, something with a very old root.

The most subterranean energies carry the deepest charges. Earth will show us the truth of this. But, individually it bodes us well to co-operate creatively with those energies, to merge our own drum-beats with their own. Yet, while the old gods and goddesses speak through our unconscious, and while the unconscious is ever present, can throw us at a moments notice and have us dropping our guard when we least expect it, not only can that same water trine can help us navigate the flow of deeper energies through our lives here, but,  Venus also emphasises the very real power of love and compassionate forgiveness in meeting those deeper energies when they do arise. They are hurting too, mostly, it would seem, through neglect – we are all in this together! Time come…….

As we transit this potentially unsettling yet immensely significant and rewarding time what does all that mean on the ground? Put simply it means, once again, first and foremost, not buying into other people’s shit!! We know that is not why we are here, any of us…..and we should rest assured, something much more significant is at work. If it was seeded one year ago……now it is, like Venus, shedding its final veil. A most mysterious time……for all apparent the drama! Isn’t it always the way…….one day, if we heed the times now, we will look back in both laughter and wonder……..

Venus will track back to 13 Capricorn and station just as the current lunar cycle evolves into the next at the end of January. The Sabian symbol for that degree tells us of a fundamental ancestral truth coming into the world, something that has been overshadowed, overlooked and buried by the mindless accretions of ‘progress’, something that yet remains at the foundation of our essential humanity. Once Imbolc arrives this will mark the real turning point for all our inner focus and energy  to evolve out of that ancestral core.

The energy, information and inner strength and connections we have built up over this lunation will always be available to begin working its magic in the world, but, will you pay heed, will you hold your own council, follow the drumbeat within, and prepare yourself with due diligence, because, if you do, walking your talk will become a walk of true power. And that is what we most need in this world – people who can bring their own truth and sovereignty to bear on their own lives and stand beside those of like minds, spirit and heart, as brothers, sisters, people of many colours and, in this sense, of one source.

This is where the ‘revolution’ has its deepest tap root. It is all about the true foundations of power on earth – they are sourced in Nature, and this lunation is a signal moment for throwing off whatever shackles are holding us back and proclaiming our own true nature.

Mars regroups opposite Uranus, squaring both Pluto and Jupiter shortly before Beltane, so we have an opportunity to sense now what will be in the making then – but, by that time, we should be ready to make all this truly count……