2011 Jupiter in Aries, opposite Saturn, A year of action and conflict

What a year is in front of us, with Jupiter moving into Aries on January 23rd where it will oppose Saturn's orbit through Libra. The most intense focus of these two great lights, and bringers of destiny, will be in March with the exact opposition at the end of the month. Then Jupiter will streak out of Aries into Taurus, oh the banks, the money, the gold....
and finish the year retrograding in the early degrees of Taurus. This is your money. Real estate will begin its climb again. Investments in early 2011, will pay off big and quickly, and land, gold, and real, that is, real things will become more valuable. This Jupiter cycle in real estate and money always peaks when the planet reaches mid-zodiac, in Cancer and Leo. This will take five years. By that time, the value is topped and it will be a poor time to buy as prices will be maxed.
The disturbing month for 2011 is April, when the Sun, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter AND Uranus will be in Aries. We are only dealing with nine planets, and so all but three of them will occupy the sign of beginnings. Aries also rules war, aggression, creation, fire and initiative. Everyone will be feeling change this year, wanting something new, different, and more alive.
The Mercury retrogrades for 2011 are all in fire signs, signaling that our emotions are high, and our feelings are whipping into a lust for action, and awareness that pioneering into the world's needs is our only way through. This is not a safe year, or a stable one, but it is a year of immense motion. Every person will feel this drive to create and start something, and all projects that are new are favored. In the most staid situations, try the unexpected, and say the thing that makes it all new again, and interesting.
Year of the Rabbit will start in February, and is a most interesting sign to combine with the violence of the Aries group. Notice the opportunism everywhere, and who gets lucky. Many will get lucky in year of the Rabbit, but not by holding still. Throw me in that briar patch, brother fox, and see what the Rabbit can do.

Winter Solstice Full Moon is a total Eclipse of the Moon

Among omens in the celestial world, eclipses are the most profound. They are the moment when the light that we regard as eternal leaves us, and unless you are an almanac reader, the departure is sudden and strange. Remember the daring rescue described by Mark Twain in the Prince and the Pauper?, In this story the modern time traveler dupes the illiterate populace of an earlier era by predicting the total eclipse of the sun, in the middle of the day. This ruse has been repeated in many fables, and capitalizes on the necessity of knowing your cycles and keeping up with the cycles of the sun and moon.
Already this year, a full moon has coincided with the cardinal point of the Autumn Equinox, a coordinate of remarkable rarity. Now with the next quarter point of the year, the Winter Solstice, the most important one in the human archive, we have another perfectly placed full moon, and this time the full moon will be eclipsed by the earth's shadow passing between the sun and the moon.
Eclipses are the reminder that the dimensions of our earth, moon, and sun are more perfectly aligned than we can comprehend. In one of the coincidences of staggering proportions, our proportions are aligned so that at these moments the yearly orbits of earth and moon, all three bodies are the same size.
The Winter solstice will be December 21st at 6:38pm EST. This event is the most celebrated in human culture, being the time of the return of light. Christianity has deposited its whole iconic history on this date, making puns of the sun and the son, and the birth of light, as the return of the solar cycle.
Lunar energy is emotional and the Moon is the indicator of the soul. An eclipse of the Moon is always the astrologer's judgment of emotional change, or elimination of a level of feeling that won't be returning in the same way. On the winter solstice of 2010, our very souls will be touched, and we are going to be welcoming the return of the sun's light from a place that lies too deep for ordinary understanding.
Refer to the article on the Autumn equinox full moon Jupiter conjunction of September, 22nd, 2010.

Mercury retrogrades as the Meteor Shower pops

In the grand cosmic design, there is included a rest period. All nature appreciates this, but humans who are trying to evolve out of the design find these a nuisance, and manage to get it wrong, most of the time. Seriously, it is good for us to crash the hard drive, stall the battery, and get summonses that we had hoped were all forgotten. It is dearly, the time to slow down and catch up. But when we can't, of our free will do that, well, as we say, cosmic design is greater than us.
This winter retrograde of Mercury began to roll backwards on December 9th, but us observers always notice that the whole week before the retro date is full of stops, blunders and signs of niggling might. In Capricorn, on the same degree as Pluto, Mercury slowed to a virtual stop, and all kinds of things also crashed, viraled, and hacked where no hackers have gone before.
The exciting thing about these three week episodes that happen three times a year and cross a place in space three times,is that the unexpected always happens.
Capricorn rules the rules, and since Pluto was so close, the bigger impact under all our foundations, is that the rules are changing. As if you hadn't noticed. Deep in the disturbances that are the fairly minor ones of Mercury (communication & trade) just met the thunderous ones of the mighty god itself, Pluto smasher of atoms, bringer of the nuclear age. hmm. No itchy trigger fingers (hands are ruled by Mercury)on the uranium have bothered us yet, but watch for what is not being said.
And lest we forget, the most exciting Meteor shower of the winter, starting the week of December 13th is of Mercury's sign, Gemini. The Geminid Meteor shower this year will last all week, peaking on Monday night. Look at great Orion in the east and notice the two equally bright twin stars to the left and down: there is Gemini, and that is the direction of the brightest part of the meteors. Make your wishes on these falling stars be a Mercury retrograde kind of wish, that all our mistakes become enlightenment, and all our crashes be healed in better ways than we knew.

How to experience this joyfully? Well. Act natural. Be Cool.
Watch your traveling, expect all the usual discomforts, prepare for them, like take your food that would sustain you on a desert island, or O'Hare, and relax. The best you can do, is go with the disasters, enjoy them, have a real hot toddy, learn from them and above all, don't buy technology until after the direct dates. Like is natural, they are, of course, after Christmas.
True dates: December 8-9th until December 29-30th. Mercury started its retrograde motion in the early degrees of Capricorn, and will finish in the late degrees of Sagittarius, oh dear, the sign of travel... say your aves, our fathers, and all the other appeals to nature that you know, and then the only way through, is to enjoy yourself. Long lost communication in people and in devices will appear, some to thrill you and others to amaze. Be hearty, and look for the humor in all things. Mercury is the trickster, the joker, and the thief.