1/1/2014 - A Truly Powerful New Year's Day

The first day of the new year is always a powerful time for setting new goals and resolutions.  This year, 2014, the first day of the new year will be especially charged thanks to an exact conjunction of the Sun and Pluto at 1:55PM that day.  The entire world will feel the merging of the Life Path (the Sun) with Death/Transformation (Pluto) in the sign of Capricorn.  Whatever resolutions you choose, do so wisely, because this energy will empower change at both profound levels and across a broad spectrum.  This energy aspect alone is remarkable, but other energies are significantly in play that day as well.

Mercury is also in Capricorn and within 2 degrees of this exact conjunction, adding itself to the alchemical mix.  We will all be able to think, speak, and write powerfully this new year's day, so I encourage you to write your resolutions down, with serious intent and appreciation for the power of thought to shape reality.  No goal is too small under the influence of this energy.  But before you go resolving to win the lottery or gain super powers, another powerful aspect and energy point is active just one degree apart from the Sun/Pluto conjunction.  On that same day Mars, in Libra, will be at 12 degrees and a nearly perfect square with the Sun/Pluto tandem.  Libra, ruled by Pallas Athena, the master strategist, cools the Mars energy and gives it focus it does not easily come by.  We must make wise resolutions as well as ambitious ones.  Deciding to save the planet by conserving would be a very good example; we need to stop, as a race, believing and acting like the end justifies the means.

Libra's energy is about fairness and justice; it uses analysis to make decisions and requires Mars power to stand up to Pluto's transformational intensity.  Yes, go after powerful change in your life, but plan to make your efforts from a place of what is right and what is fair and what is just.  If not, the conflicting energy that is the square will bring painful consequences.  On this day, a few hours before the exact conjunction, I would recommend writing down what you want to accomplish this new year.  If you happen to know which house in your chart Capricorn rules, all the better, because that is the area to be affected the most.  In my case, this energy will activate my 3rd House of Communication and I am planning 2014 to be a break out year for my astrological career and the connections I want and need to make to head in the direction of my long-term goals ... namely, to be one of the leaders in my field.

Separately, but not aligned with the Sun/Pluto/Mercury/Mars integration, Juno will move out of Aquarius and into Pisces that day, shifting the energy of Duty and Commitment from our collective ideals to our higher consciousness.  We are to shift into a deeper appreciation of our spiritual responsibilities at the start of this new year.  You are not humans trying to master your spiritual existence, you are spiritual beings trying to master your human experience.  Throughout December Hygeia (Health) went retrograde in Taurus and got all the way back to the first degree before going direct again near the later part of December.  With the new health care act a dramatic change in health care policy, and something of a dramatic disaster, we are all awakened to the need to care more about our health and what we need to do to maintain healthy lifestyles.  The unintended consequence of the mess that is the Affordable Health Care Act is the unequivocal knowledge that we must, as individuals, take responsibility for ourselves and our health, first and foremost.  The era of the "Nanny State" is coming to a close.

So, on this New Year's Day set a side time to think seriously about your goals and write them down.  I strongly suggest using a high quality pen and nice paper, then put what you have written in a safe place for review at the end of the year and the beginning of the next.  Treat the process as a ritual, with care and intensity befitting the energy active that day.