January 1, 2019 — After a stormy 2018, we’re leaving the year behind, feeling far more resilient. We’ve faced some of our deepest pain during a yearlong journey of Jupiter in Scorpio, which magnetized our collective shadows. As we enter 2019, we now have the chance to steady our pace and come home to ourselves, with clearer vision of the future. With multiple planets in earth signs and the North Node in Cancer, we’re now finding stronger anchors within ourselves as we rely less on external authority and outside perceptions. Self-care and our emotional needs are now taking precedence over mindless work, ambition, and empty success. Meanwhile, Uranus’ and Chiron’s shifts are ready to revolutionize how we relate to money, resources, healing, and the environment.

The planets are now giving us the chance to break free of our stubborn ruts, addictions, and delusions, and to find momentum after a series of stifling retrogrades. As we finally move forward, we can call on our discernment to determine where to apply our energy, making sure that all we do resonates with our deepest desires, sanity, and well-being. We’re using the pain of last year as fuel to become wiser, more integrated beings, then building our lives and world from there.

After all, this is the final year before the paradigm shift of 2020, when we enter a whole new age in humanity. The more we can establish inner peace, our own truth, and self-sufficiency, the more we’ll be prepared for the shift—able to offer our gifts, talents, and love to the world so we can establish a more aligned society and planet. Karmic reckonings will confront us if we’re unable to come from integrity and the highest good for ourselves and all. But if we do, great transformation and awakening are available to us this year, as we steadily grow into our future selves, lives, and world.

January 2019

As we begin the New Year, Mars is at 0° Aries, the planet of assertion at the zenith of the first sign. We’re finally catapulting forward after multiple retrogrades held us back last year, keeping us in static reflection. Mars’ shift comes as a great relief, easing our frustrations. We’re ready to go after what we’ve been dreaming of for the past six months, with more clarity about where to exert ourselves. At the same time, the Sun is also passing Saturn, helping us find solid ground and slowing our pace. This way, whatever we build is sure to have a sturdy foundation. Two eclipses also arrive this month, beginning the year with great evolutionary change. The eclipses are ready to adjust our course if it’s out of alignment with authenticity and integrity. Jupiter is also forming the first of three squares with Neptune, painting the portrait for how these energies will show up throughout the rest of the year. Themes around finding our truth, spiritual growth, and unconditional love are ready to reveal themselves. At the same time, toxic patterns and deception have the potential to rear their heads, but two eclipses and Saturn in Capricorn provide strength to resist unhealthy pulls. By the end of the month, the planets will have detoxified and expanded our hearts, while clarifying our paths forward.

The North Node in Cancer / South Node in Capricorn

The North Node moved into Cancer on November 5, where it will remain for eighteen months. The feminine within us is now taking her throne and leading the way forward. With the South Node directly opposite in Capricorn, we’re also purging patriarchal conditioning—letting go of the idea that expressing our emotions is weakness. As Saturn and Pluto circle the South Node this year, there’s extra potency to our karmic releases and reckonings. The Cancer North Node is telling us to embrace what we feel without fear, and to see all beings as our mother or child—worthy of our love, nurturing, and care. This is part of our soul’s expansion, not only over the next year, but beyond—into the new paradigm, which takes root in 2020. We’re establishing a world where we look after one another more, readily offering our affection and support. Finally, this transit also indicates that women and other marginalized people are now stepping into positions of power and leading the world from a place of greater empathy and understanding.

Three Eclipse Seasons

Normally there are two eclipse seasons per year, but 2019 holds three—in January, July, and December—presenting five eclipses total. The Lunar Eclipse on January 21 will wrap up a year and a half of eclipses along the Leo-Aquarius axis. We’re now ready to fully offer our talents to the world for the benefit of all, and to follow our creativity and authentic hearts into the next phase. The four other eclipses will fall along the Cancer-Capricorn axis, bringing great evolutionary change toward upending patriarchy, while triggering release of outworn patterns and conditioning so we can move toward healthier emotional states and greater concern for the Earth and mankind. Where have we been repressing our feelings? Stuck? Shackled by external authority, ambition, or expectations? We’re ready to break out of whatever is keeping us from fulfilling our heart’s longings.

Jupiter Square Neptune

Jupiter squares Neptune three times in 2019—in January, June, and September. As the planet of expansion forms creative tension with the planet of transcendence and oneness, they’re continuously reminding us of our interconnection, sowing unconditional love in all that we create. With so many planets in earth signs this year, Jupiter and Neptune offer welcome relief and spiritual inspiration, making sure we don’t feel too heavy or overburdened. The only danger is that we may fall into addictive patterns or deception. But with Saturn and Capricorn showing up as such strong players this year, truth and dignity are likely to prevail. We will be working to decipher our truth, while balancing the practical with the divine.

Chiron Returns to Aries

After a period in retrograde when Chiron trekked back into Pisces, he returns to Aries and will stay here until 2026. The planet of the Wounded Healer is now ushering in a seven-year cycle that encourages us to more fully embody and express our vulnerability and pain, healing ourselves so we can help others do the same. We’re also discovering deeper connections between body, mind, spirit, and the natural world, uncovering more holistic cures for mental and physical illnesses, as well as societal and environmental issues. At the same time, we’re becoming more self-reliant, learning to depend less on saviors, more on our own inner resources. Perhaps the main outcome of this transit is tenderizing our inner masculine, and softening our aggression and anger. Leading us to feel extra raw and exposed, this transit could be painful. But it’s a necessary step in our personal evolution, and in rectifying harmful, selfish pursuits, as well as needless war and competition in the world. Historically, inspiring figures have died at the start of these transits, eliciting martyrdom that led to significant cultural shifts. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated within three days of Chiron’s last journey into Aries, and Robert F. Kennedy faced the same fate of few months later. Last year, around the initial transit into Aries before its retrograde, we saw the children of Parkland become martyrs and wounded healers for the collective. Aries is the child of the zodiac, and we could see more children and young people stepping up as leaders in the new paradigm.

Uranus Returns to Taurus

Uranus returns to Taurus on March 6, after recently retrograding back into Aries. Here, Uranus will remain until April 2026, offering a major shift in the collective unconscious. Uranus brings revolution, and it’s now time to look at the Taurean domains that require innovation as we determine the future. Taurus rules farming, the environment, cooking, real estate, and the economy, and these are the areas we will reinvent over the next seven years. Major earthquakes, hurricanes, famines, and other natural disasters are likely during this transit, waking us up to how we’ve been relating to our resources and Mother Earth. Market instability and global economic upheaval are also indicated. It’s time to rethink money, possibly moving more toward cryptocurrency, and certainly a more even distribution of wealth. On a more personal level, we’re breaking free of stubborn patterns and stepping outside our comfort zones. If we’ve been afraid to take risks, our lives will now rattle out of stagnation, aligning with our authentic hearts. If we’ve been single, afraid of getting hurt, or stuck in painful relationship patterns, we might find ourselves finally establishing a healthy, inspired partnership. If we’ve been caught in a monotonous job, we may finally venture out and start our own business, or find ways of making a living from our creative pursuits.

2019 Summary

As we begin 2019, we’re moving from a year of great upheaval and inner turmoil, into a one of simplifying, finding ground, and coming home to ourselves. Jupiter has just moved from Scorpio into Sagittarius, and we’re finally extracting the wisdom of the past year’s shadow work, which confronted us with intensity and our deepest pain. Our eyes are beginning to glimmer in the light of optimism, expansion, joy, and peace. We’re growing into more integrated, resilient, and wiser versions of ourselves. However, even though we’re now moving forward, 2019 is not about speed. With many planets in slow and steady earth signs, the focus is on anchoring down and finding our bearings for the long haul. Whatever we build this year must embody integrity, heart, and concern for all beings. Otherwise, with Saturn and Pluto on the South Node, karmic reckonings are ready to right our courses. With the North Node in maternal Cancer, the key is to feel safe within ourselves, orienting more toward family, close friend groups, and above all, self-care. Meanwhile, Uranus and Chiron are shifting signs. We’re ready to revolutionize the economy, our inner feminine, the environment, and how we allocate resources. We’re tenderizing the inner masculine, while beginning a powerful journey of healing ourselves, our bodies, and our self-confidence. With Jupiter and Neptune in square, the planets are ensuring that our crowns stay open to the higher realms, even as we focus on grounding, paring down, and tending to the mundane. All that we experience this year is ultimately leading us to the paradigm shift in 2020, when Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto will meet in Capricorn for the first time in 2,200 years, beginning a whole new age in humanity. The key for 2019 is not to stay stuck—to avoid clinging to the past or unhealthy addictions and patterns of escapism. If we can be at ease with ourselves no matter what—establishing deep inner peace, deliberation, and self-sufficiency—we’ll be ready for these great changes. We’re paving the way toward a world where selfishness, addictions, and abuses of power no longer define our culture. If we’re able to work consciously with these energies and shifts, 2019 will provide great transformation, awakening, and a clear path toward the new paradigm.

At the cusp of the New Year, may we feel rooted in the strength of our spines and hearts, and the suchness of our beings. Releasing the old, may we bask in the light of hope and expansion, and the warmth of loving embraces.

Check my Events Page for upcoming talks, workshops, + retreats, including an Astrology Immersion Retreat in Guatemala this January 2019. It’s not too late to sign up.

My book, The Stars Within You: A Modern Guide to Astrology, is now available for purchase.