by Robert Wilkinson
As I offered you yesterday, last January I composed an overview of various themes in play throughout 2023 and posted them on the site, as well as some personal forecasts for each sign. Yesterday and today we’re reviewing the first article, and I’ll post the personal forecasts on Monday.
These are my notes on the “action beats” for the past year where I break down what was happening into main areas of focus. As it originally ran 8 single spaced pages, I decided to give you the first half yesterday and the second half today. I’ll be doing another of these for 2024 over the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday we covered “Quick Beginnings With Maximum Productivity,” Jupiter and Mars transits, and Eclipse factors. We pick up the flow by taking a new look at
The Spiritual Field – Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto
This year Pluto moves from 28 Capricorn to 1 Aquarius and back, continuing to purify us wherever it transits our charts. It’s at its 1777 position during the American Revolutionary War, so take note of the Plutonic seeds coming forth in May, when Mars and Jupiter make a powerful T-square with Pluto and shake the Aquarian energies loose in our world. That period in mid to late March is a major flashpoint in the spiritual field.
Neptune moves from 24 to 28 Pisces, moving us through the emotional and social level of the dream state into the mental spiritual level at “the end of the end” of the zodiacal cycle. Having achieved a new faith and way to touch and be touched, this year we take that kinesthetic awareness into a new level of existence, where there are powers utilizing creative imagination which allow us “to dominate circumstances” and find the abundance we seek. Stay aware of your interdependence within the larger field. This year Neptune occupies the same positions it did in 1859-60.
Uranus begins the year stationary direct at 15 Taurus, showing how we’ve awakened a new resilience since 2021, and this year it moves forward until it goes retrograde at 24 Taurus in August, showing an awakening to an expertise in demonstrating personal power or administering the power of others. This will again show us “the inadequacy of past knowledge” in meeting current challenges, and have to focus spiritual power. Follow your “self-dissatisfaction” and clear out your mind and perceptions. Allow a new spontaneity to arise and you’ll be at a pretty high level of function.
June through early December awakens a search for what has relevance to each of us in our society and culture as prelude to the dawning of a new day in all our lives these next 15 months. Accept the rewards which confirm your excellence, and move into being a good administrator of the assertive-aggressive energies in play.
Saturn begins the year at 23 Aquarius and moves through the end of Aquarius in late February and early March promising major transfigurations. It then moves into Pisces where it finally goes retrograde in mid-June at 8 Pisces, a degree of “hearing the call to renewal.” It then retrogrades back to 1 Pisces, where it goes direct in November and makes it back to 4 Pisces by the end of the year.
Saturn is teaching us about our individual spiritual management issues and rewards in January and February before entering Pisces and crystallizing what Jupiter promised in May through July 2021 and January 2022. Saturn in Pisces will be entirely different than Saturn in Aquarius, much more feeling, less mind, more connectedness, less detachment.
Mercury Retrograde Periods and Themes
This year Mercury again bookends the year with a specific theme, as it has the past six years. It went SD at 14 Sag in December 2017, and went SRX on the same degree in November 2018. That means throughout 2018 we got signs and signals all year related to our "ancestral wisdom" or “genetic wisdom.” I certainly found my ancestral wisdom in a variety of ways related to that degree falling in my 5th house. This spiritual power of course was expanded in 2019 by Jupiter.
Then in Dec 2018 Mercury went SD at 28 Scorpio, and in late 2019 Mercury went SRX on the same degree, indicating that 2019 gave us all opportunities to reflect on how connected we were with the magnetic force of the Earth, and how connected we were internally.
In Nov 2019 Mercury went SD at 12 Scorpio, which is the exact degree it went SRX in October 2020. That means 2020 was about learning how to interact with others at a higher and more refined or spiritual approach. We learned a lot through our interactive magnetism and needed a less casual approach to some interactions.
In Nov 2020 Mercury went SD at 26 Libra, which is the exact degree it went SRX in September 2021. That means 2021 was about learning how to use both hard and soft power in dealing with situations, especially those which involved repairing or reconstructing something. We paid a lot of dues and balanced a lot of karma in 2021.
In early 2022, Mercury went SD at 25 Capricorn, which is the same degree it went SRX in September. That means 2022 was a review of our relative “transcendent security” accomplished by that point, with an eye to how the long wave Jupiter/Pluto conjunctions at 25 Capricorn in 2020 have developed in our lives since then. Mercury went SD at 9 Capricorn in mid-January, setting up the theme for 2023, since that’s the same degree Mercury will go SRX in December 2023.
In 2023, Mercury will go RX in mid-April at 16 Taurus, giving us all a new look at how the old forms can’t confirm our new conditions of existence. Take a look back at what’s been awakened since 2019 to find that which is enjoyable. It will go SD in mid-May at 6 Taurus, helping us all become good bridge builders.
It will again go RX in late August at 22 Virgo, giving us a look back to see how we’ve lived “venerable standards” since Saturn’s station on this degree back in December 2008, impacting our decisions of 2009-2010. It goes SD in mid-September at 9 Virgo, helping us all find our creative uniqueness in practical ways.
The final RX of 2023 runs into January 2024, beginning in mid-December at 9 Capricorn, giving us a look back at how this theme has played out in our lives since it went stationary direct in early 2023. This degree gives us techniques of attuning to the invisible world and an ability to find a “harmony of fulfilled selfhood.” This is the theme bookending 2023. It will go SD at 23 Sagittarius in early January 2024, showing we’ll be preparing for an entrance into a new life.
Generic Friction
As you know from the newsletters, I recommend that we not take transit to transit conflicts personally. Every generic conflict challenges us to express our planets in healthy ways, even though there may be massive tension in the air.
The good news this year is there are NO frictional angles between Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Jupiter makes a semisquare to Saturn in March, a square with Pluto in May, and a semisquare with Neptune in July. It then retrogrades back to a semisquare to Neptune in late October and early November. These are all the frictional aspects made by Jupiter to the outers.
Primary Mars aspects include a square to Neptune in mid-March, and then a quincunx to Pluto in late March. The next frictional aspect is the very powerful T-square in the last half of May made by Mars opposed Pluto and Mars square Jupiter with Jupiter square Pluto. Mars then quincunxes Saturn in late May and early June, and squares Uranus in late June.
Mars makes a Yod, or Finger of God, forming two quincunxes to Neptune and Pluto in early July, followed by Mars opposed Saturn in the last half of July. Mars opposes Neptune in late August and then quincunxes Saturn in early September. Mars quincunxes Jupiter in mid-September, then forms another Yod with double quincunxes to Uranus and Neptune in late September and early October, followed by a square to Pluto at that same time.
Mars opposes Jupiter in late October, opposes Uranus in mid-November, and squares Saturn in late November. Mars closes the year with a quincunx to Jupiter in early December, a quincunx to Uranus in mid-December, and a square to Neptune in late December.
2023 Brings Long Term Aquarian Transformational Growth
To sum it up, 2023 is a year of new beginnings and structured endings, of idealism moving to compassion, and enthusiasm settling into a comfortable groove. This year anchors the Aquarian era coming forth and sprouts new seeds of widespread change, so remember to navigate the shift from Aquarius to Pisces, from Capricorn to Aquarius, and from Aries to Taurus.
This year, stay focused on finding what you need to secure your life’s new beginnings of the past several years, and be patient as you deepen your connection with your larger spiritual community and your connection to the World Soul. We are approaching the end of the Pluto in Capricorn era, so resist the hyper-coercion in the air, be discerning about your spiritual function in the larger group work, and remember this is the “pre-dawn” of an entirely new era in human development. Keep your eyes on the emerging 20 year Aquarian era in the context of this new 200 year era where we leave Earth behind and move into being more focused on Air and larger themes of interrelatedness, shared ideas, cooperation in building for the future, and a detachment from materialism and materialistic ways of looking at the world and life.
This year will have several qualities:
January and February show Jupiter in Aries, Saturn in Aquarius, and Pluto in Capricorn.
March and April show Jupiter in Aries, Saturn in Pisces, and Pluto in Aquarius.
May And June show Jupiter in Taurus, Saturn in Pisces, and Pluto slipping back out of Aquarius into Capricorn.
This grouping holds until January of 2024 when Pluto moves back into Aquarius, giving us the relatively stable pattern of Jupiter in Taurus, Saturn in Pisces, and Pluto in Aquarius from January through late May, when Jupiter enters Gemini and trines Pluto. Looking ahead, Jupiter will then square Saturn 3 times between mid-July 2024 and mid-July 2025. The first square is from 18 Gemini to 18 Pisces in August 2024. The second one is from 15 Gemini to 15 Pisces in December 2024. The third is from 1 Cancer to 1 Aries in June 2025.
Once Pluto occupies the first degree of Aquarius, it “raises from the dead” all which is associated with that divine transformational pulse. It was first set into motion in March 2020 when Mars conjuncted Saturn at 1 Aquarius; it was set as a long term world changing force in December 2020 when Jupiter conjuncted Saturn at 1 Aquarius. Those long wave collective energies will take on a different dimension of importance in 2023 and 2024 with these initial appearances of Pluto in Aquarius. All of this prepares us for the long wave new era coming in 2025, when Neptune enters Aries and Uranus enters Gemini, promising an extraordinarily productive period in the spiritual field lasting many years.
© 2023 Robert Wilkinson
Comments