The Wednesday Witch December Astrology
Mercury enters Sagittarius on December 1, and our minds are plunged into the reason for the season. The magic and warmth of the holidays derives from the heart of Sagittarius. Jupiter’s mutable fire sign that dances us down a fiery path of adventure and exploration. Sag season hosts more religious celebrations than any other month in the Western world. We string up lights that guide our way home and remind us of hope and spirit. We tell tales of people in lack having their needs met through the generosity of strangers, of angels walking amongst us, the magic of resources being extended long past capacity, and the emotional fulfillment that comes from giving. We sing songs about merry making, faith, blessed divinity, and the dawn of a new day. It is a complex period full of multiple meanings that often elicits the best and worst from us. Many people consider it their most or least favorite time of year. Mercury moving into Sagittarius invites you to reflect on your relationship to the holidays, and consider what it would be like to set aside all of your expectations based on past experience. In such a weird and disorienting year, one of the invitations is to let it all be new.
Mercury will be in Sagittarius until December 20, when it enters Capricorn just before the Winter Solstice, staying close to the Sun. We tend to get overwhelmed by possibility with Mercury in Sag. Details get lost. We’re subsumed in information overload. There’s a carnal desire for knowledge, to comprehend the mysteries of the universe, and experience all life has to offer. There’s less frenzy this year due to Jupiter’s dour position in Capricorn. The quality of our holidays varies due to the position of the planet hosting the party. Jupiter has been in Capricorn, where the bounty and prosperity it usually brings is inhibited, since December 2, 2019. Jupiter’s transits through Cap historically bring economic downturn. The last one, in 2008, coincided with a recession. The austerity Jupiter encountered this year was exacerbated by the co-presence of Saturn, Pluto, and the lunar South Node.
The Nodes of the Moon are eclipse points where the light of the luminaries, the Sun and Moon, become obscured on New and Full Moons. December opened in the dizzying glow of the Gemini Full Moon lunar eclipse on November 30. The North Node is a place of increase and growth; lessons we’re learning on a spiritual level and what we’re seeking to master. The South Node is purgative. A place of karmic release and loss. It indicates times and places where our normal faculties are impaired and we’re forced to grow in uncomfortable directions--just like during a solar eclipse when we lose the light of the Sun, but gain the ability to see something rare and wondrous (if we’re wearing our safety glasses). The South Node moving through Sagittarius adds an extra dose of karmic consequence. What we do matters and our actions bear fruit, weather immediately or eventually.
This eclipse season we’re asked to stay home and forego the usual large holiday parties and gatherings, not just for our own health, but for the good of the public. The best way to spread love and cheer is by not spreading a communicable illness. Frontline and essential workers are the most at risk, and studies have shown that Covid-19 rates are higher amongst BIPOC (black and indigenous people of color) communities. It’s a privilege to isolate from a deadly disease, which many do not have the choice to make. The South Node reminds us to do no harm with our holiday plans.
The first weekend in December feels like falling in love thanks to the trine between Venus in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces on December 5. A romantic, fanciful vibe will be in the air tempting you to drift off on a sea of pleasure. Plan a date or do something sweet for your beloved. Take in art with friends, even just virtually, or make a masterpiece by yourself. Fantasize about all you’ll do once the pandemic is over. Store up those dreams for your vision board or ritual work on the Winter Solstice. Enjoy this taste of transcendence, but don’t let yourself get carried away on shopping sprees. And, most of all, don’t plan a spur of the minute trip if it involves an airplane just because you need an escape. This utopian energy will just last a few days, but your credit card bill (and Covid test result) will remain once the reverie has passed. The Sun squares Neptune on December 9, helping us cut through illusion and see things for what they are. If you got lost over the weekend, this transit will pull you back onto dry land.
The second weekend of December has a decidedly opposite vibe from the first when the Sun conjoins the South Node at 19 Sagittarius and trines Mars in Aries on December 11. There could be fallout from decisions made during the Mars retrograde in Aries (from September 9-November 13). If you gained insight during that period but have yet to act, the universe may force your hand at this time. The Mars retrograde was a withdrawal from normal modes of fighting and our typical reactions to conflict. It was a two month exercise in surrender that scared us, but ultimately left us lighter and freer. The grace we gained was in proportion to the vulnerability we were willing to show. If there’s something you’re asked to give up around December 11, don’t hesitate or delay. Perhaps you’re being invited to adopt an uncomfortable posture of humility. The South Node is a place of karmic residue where life (a past life) has left its mark on us. This conjunction with the Sun will illuminate that pain but also provide the needed warmth to heal what was previously left unresolved.
Eclipses are catalysts that hasten the inevitable. We’re initiated into accelerated periods of change during eclipse season. If you know your chart, pay close attention to the topics activated in the houses ruled by Gemini and Sagittarius (if you aren’t sure, you can book a reading here to find out). Eclipses are portals that come in pairs, and sometimes threes, and the second eclipse will happen at the Sagittarius New Moon total solar eclipse on December 14. Jupiter is ruling this eclipse from a tight conjunction with Saturn so the Capricorn influence will be strongly felt. Jupiter, like the rest of us, gets depressed in Capricorn. Depression (or fall) is actually the technical term for the condition when a planet is opposite the sign of its exaltation, where it has the most fun. Jupiter entered Capricorn, where it has the least fun, on December 2, 2019, and things have been a bit bleak ever since. Happily, Jupiter will enter Aquarius on December 19, and a new era will begin.
This lunation is an invitation to meditate on all you’ve learned since Saturn entered Capricorn on December 19, 2017. The last three years have brought hardship beyond measure. Capricorn activates our motivation to achieve and succeed, but Saturn has thrown up one road block after another. We’ve run headfirst into limitations we’d hoped we could outgrow, and when we asked for a break the universe replied that we hadn’t earned one. It’s been rough. Hearts have been broken and lives have been lost. Confrontations with failure and depression have been common. And yet there have been so many victories. The biggest being simply that we have survived. We’re still here, still standing, taking in breath on planet earth. What a miracle. What a gift. In the days following the eclipse, make a “goodbye to all that” list of everything you’re leaving behind once Saturn enters Aquarius on December 17, 2020. We honor our process by recording and reflecting on it. We tell the universe we’re ready for something new by acknowledging the lessons and releasing what was. A wise yoga teacher recently said, “We can’t let go of what we don’t know we’re holding.” Saturn has made us feel the heaviness of our baggage, but that’s part of the process to lighten the load.
Saturn encourages us to keep it simple, but Jupiter in Capricorn has helped us appreciate what we’ve got. So much has been taken from us this year that we’ve gained gratitude for mundane luxuries previously taken for granted. During this period of deprivation, Jupiter’s had us chasing silver linings. How good it will feel to hug friends again! The conjunction with Saturn at the Sagittarius New Moon seals a connection between our faith that a new day will come and our ability to survive adversity. Make a list of all you are grateful for and everything you’d like not to take for granted in the future once the pandemic has passed. You can keep these musings for future reference or burn them. Either way, you’re releasing the old to make way for the new. (Note: many folks advise against doing magic on eclipses and I agree. But I do find them to be useful times to reflect. Save these prompts for the days following the eclipse or complete them on the Winter Solstice).
We begin to feel the build up to the powerful change that’s coming mid-month when Venus enters Sagittarius on December 15. The flavor of love and relationships switches from intense and brooding to playful and non-committal. Venus in Sag likes to try new things, doesn’t take things personally, and can’t hold a grudge. Venus will conjunct the South Node at 19 Sagittarius on December 31. It won’t be the most sparkling New Years Eve, but that’s fitting for the kind of year it's been. We may ruminate on the past. Old acquaintances will certainly be brought to mind with the South Node. The solution is to take a cup of kindness yet for times long since past (auld lang syne), and give 2020 a shove with gladness in our hearts.
The biggest event of the month, year, and perhaps our lifetimes, is the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction at 00 Aquarius on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2020. Their meetings happen every 20 years, and are powerful inception points for society. When Saturn, the structure of things, and Jupiter, our culture and faith, come together, it turns the dial and moves us in a new direction. Known as the “Great Chronocrators”, markers of time or rulers of the ages, Jupiter and Saturn are the outermost planets visible to the naked eye. They represent the known limit of human comprehension. Their movements describe generational experiences, but their transits foretell the blossoming of individual karma. Their great conjunctions are definitive, watershed moments that capture the zeitgeist. The last meeting was May 28, 2000, at 22 Taurus.
Saturn and Jupiter have a longer cycle in which they meet in the same elemental trigon for 200 years. We've been living through the earth cycle, which began in January 1842, with a strong emphasis on materialism. Our relationship to the earth, how we’ve learned to manipulate and work with her resources, has gone through an unprecedented evolution in the past two centuries. The result is higher standards of living than has ever existed on earth for upper class people in developed nations. But the benefits are unequally distributed--3% of the world’s population hordes 87% of the wealth--and we’re now on the brink of environmental collapse. We need a radical revision of priorities, and restructuring of ideas for how to live on earth. Thus begins the air cycle. At their best air signs are intelligent, relationship oriented, equitable, fair, harmonious, just, connected, and humane. Jupiter and Saturn will start meeting in air signs beginning on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2020.
The change in element of the Great Chronocraters is known as the Grand Mutation or Trigonalis. We’ve been living in the twilight of the earth cycle, and all of the endings this year are hallmarks of this transition. We’re being asked to take an evolutionary leap in consciousness to facilitate the social and political change that Jupiter and Saturn bring. Whatever area of life is ruled by Aquarius in your chart will signal the personal place in which energy will express. Saturn will be in Aquarius until March 8, 2023. Over the next several years we can expect to witness and participate in epochal social and political transformation.
The Winter Solstice on December 21, when the Sun enters Capricorn, is a night of endings and beginnings. The Sun dies and is reborn to itself and the wheel of the year turns again. We’ve seen the fabric of our society torn asunder with Saturn in Capricorn, but that was only to create space for this new dawn. What kind of world do you want to live in 20 years from now? The seed is being planted this month. Let yourself dream without limit. A new world is waiting in the wings. We all have a part to play in midwifing her into existence. (You can read more about ritual and meaning of the Winter Solstice with the Pagan Baby Yule e-book coming soon).
The Cancer Full Moon on December 29, that closes out the month and year feels blessedly free. It is the first lunation along the Capricorn-Cancer axis without an eclipse since January 2019. What’s more, it’s the first time since December 2017, when Luna gets to shine to her fullness without the gloomy looming specter of Saturn. It’s still not the most cuddly Moon, with Venus conjunct the South Node, but there is much to celebrate. Mercury will share the good news from its close position to the Sun in Capricorn. We end 2020 much wiser than we began and with a heartfelt appreciation for family, community, and connection. This Moon will make you feel it. Don’t be surprised if you cry tears of relief. You’ve earned it.
Love you. Mean it.