Darlings, Ghost babies, let's talk about 2023. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff, so buckle up. If you're a note-taking type, get your pen and paper. We've got lots to talk about here.

But before we get into it, I just want to take a moment to talk about the value of prediction. There are very strong pros and cons about predicting something like the year ahead, what's going to happen this year, what's going to happen in five years, ten years, whatever. Any tool can easily become a weapon. Now, that's just a truism for you, but it's true with astrology for sure. It's really all about how you hold the tool, whether or not it causes harm or it helps you build yourself up or build up your place in the world.

So, when it comes to predicting what's coming up this year, I want you to know a number of things. One is that what you're getting here is my interpretation and my take based on my research and expertise. And there's lots of astrologers doing lots of projections into the year ahead. It is really important if you are a consumer of such data that you don't use these kinds of things to freak yourself out. I see a lot of people saying, "I can't take anymore. Don't tell me anything negative," or, "I've had too much change in my life. Don't tell me there's going to be more change." If you are that person, then listening to horoscopes that are netted in prediction isn't for you⁠—if you want real horoscopes, because real horoscopes are going to have the good, the bad, the ugly.

So it's important to make sure that you're using astrology responsibly, not to freak yourself or other people out, not to play gotcha with yourself, not to torture yourself⁠—using it in a way that helps you to prepare, to think more deeply or consider new angles, and as a tool for reflection and strategy about how you're going to live your life, how you want to participate, and how you want to engage with the world, because at the end of the day, it is your actions that define you. So be bold enough to act right, whatever that means for you, whether or not it's easy, whether or not anyone else is looking.

Now, this year is going to bring a lot of transition. That's not inherently a good thing or a bad thing. As the expression goes, the only constant in life is change. So what I want to kind of put forward to you before I do any delineating or predicting⁠—because I'm about to do both⁠—is ask yourself, how will you engage with the shifts that emerge in your life, with the shifts that are happening in the world, in society? What do you want to co-create in your life? Because truthfully, none of us exists in a vacuum. None of our successes, our failures, our struggles, our resources⁠—none of them exist in a vacuum. So it's all really co-creation. What do you want to co-create? And how are you going to remember to return to yourself, whatever that means for you?

I want to encourage you to kind of take note of these questions, maybe add your own, and to keep them close to your chest when you consume any kind of predictions or delineations with astrology now and as the year progresses, because astrology is an analytic tool and we can use it to inspire emotional and spiritual evolution, but on its own, it doesn't exactly do that. It articulates these things, but it doesn't do the work for you. You do the work for you.

So let's get a little more astrological. The Saturn/Uranus square that I've been talking about for the last two years is finally over in 2023, which means that this struggle we've been having with reality, like what's real, what's not, and the major shifts around creating more progressive systems and structures in the world and also in ourselves⁠—all of this, it's easing out. It's coming to a close. So it doesn't mean those things are gone. It just means that the Saturn/Uranus square is no longer responsible for them; it's no longer egging them on.

That said, we are still going to see major shifts with the outer planets this year, creating big societal shifts in their wake. And within those societal shifts, of course, is each and every one of us. We are stepping into a time of paradox, especially from March onwards, thanks in no small part to both Pluto and Saturn changing signs this year. But I want to really name this, this time of paradox. And for those of us who have a hard time with multiple and contradicting truths and need or prefer things to be black and white, this will be a much more challenging time than for those who are comfortable staying present within paradox.

Now, unfortunately, a lot of people are not especially comfortable with paradox. But I want to just again put that in your head as something to be on the lookout for and to be conscientious about. What is your relationship to this and that being true? How you relate to paradox is going to have a meaningful reflection on how you feel through the ebbs and flows of this year.

Now, all that said, I think it's time to giddyap and get into the astrology of 2023. And of course, this year starts off wonky because when we think about a new year/new you, so many people are focused on or have this idea about moving forward and galloping into this new year. But we are kicking off 2023 with not one but two Retrograde planets. Mercury and Mars are both Retrograde at the start of the year. Mars will remain Retrograde until January 12th, and then its Retroshade will last until March 15th, which is kind of a long time. And Mercury will remain Retrograde until the 18th and will stay shady until February 7th.

That gives us a very introspective start to the new year. The first couple weeks of January 2023 are an important time for reflecting⁠—for reflecting on the year we've come out of, your own conduct, your ego, your passions, your relationship to anger, your ambitions, maybe your sex drive, your relationship to your body, and also your friendships, your attitudes in general, your beliefs, how you listen, how you express that you're listening to others, how you communicate, whether or not you're forthcoming, what that means.

Retrogrades want us to do that kind of reflection work, and that can be really powerful. If you try to rush past the demands of the Retrogrades, then you're likely to have wonky results. So, straight out the gate, we have this paradox. New year, great time for starting fresh. And also, we're still supposed to stay connected to the inner work of reflecting on where we've been, what we've been doing, how we got here.

And it is worth noting a couple things here about these two particular Retrogrades. The first is that when Mars leaves Gemini, where it's been for, it feels like, forever, it'll leave Gemini on March 26th, which will be a great shift. But it's going to move into Cancer. Mars is all about how we move through the world, and Cancer⁠—and I'm not talking about people who have Cancer in their birth chart. I'm talking about the archetypal energies of the zodiac sign Cancer. Cancer is a crab, and the crab moves sideways, not forwards. So there's definitely an indicator here that even though the Mars Retrograde ends in mid-January and then the Retroshade is over on the 15th of March, we don't have the most assertive Mars in the first quarter of 2023.

And when Mars moves into Cancer, you want to keep in mind that in terms of social and collective issues, Cancer is a nationalistic sign. And so we go from all of this kind of scattered-around conflicts that we have been seeing with the Mars Retrograde, and it's going to then shift into a nationalistic, self-protective Cancer. So we definitely want to pay attention to Mars in the first quarter of the year. And to pay attention to that will, in part, require that you know how to find the planet in your chart, notice where it's moving through and what parts of your life it's going to light up.

Now, when it comes to Mercury Retrograde⁠—I mean, since we're in the Retrogrades, let me talk to you about Retrogrades for a moment because, of course, this year, like every year, we have a bunch of Mercury Retrogrades. Mercury goes Retrograde several times a year every year. Now, this year, all of the Mercury Retrogrades are happening in earth signs. And this can be really grounding for all of the Piscean energy that is to come; I will tell you about it in a moment. So it doesn't bum me out to see that the Mercury Retrogrades are happening in earth signs.

Now, if you're a note-taking kind of guy, let me give you the dates. The first Mercury Retrograde started December 29th of 2022, and it will be over, like I said, January 18th, '23. And that is in Capricorn. Now, the second Mercury Retrograde of the year will be April 21st through May 14th, and that'll be in Taurus. The third is on August 23rd through September 15th, and that will be in Virgo. And then the final Mercury Retrograde of the year is a quickie. It is December 12th, 2023, until January 1st, 2024. So we'll have two years in a row where we've got this Mercury Retrograde right at the tip of the new year. And in this last Mercury Retrograde, Mercury starts its Retrograde in Capricorn and it ends it in Sagittarius, so retrogrades back into the zodiac sign of Sagittarius.

So it is valuable to pay attention to the pros and cons of Mercury Retrograde in earth signs. Both the pro and the con is that it's an opportunity for us to reflect on how we're doing what we're doing, on our material values, our material goals, and our material concerns. So there are so many ways that our material concerns articulate themselves, from a relationship to our bodies to our things to how we're perceived in the world at-large⁠—material concerns.

And so the Retrograde will both kind of junk up the flow of those things, which is a boner, but it will also give us much-needed moments for pause⁠—and these are brief Retrogrades this year⁠—will give us much-needed moments for pause and reflection so that if we are going on the wrong path, we're not going to get very far on that wrong path. So don't freak out about the Mercury Retrograde. It happens for a reason, and that reason is incredibly helpful and instructive.

Okay. Now, the other major Retrograde news for this year is that Venus is going Retrograde in Leo July 22nd through September 3rd, 2023. Now, Venus retrogrades the least of all the planets. You're not going to hear me talk on this podcast episode, or probably many ever, about outer planets going Retrograde⁠—outer planets, I'm talking Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. Those planets are Retrograde half the damn year, so I'm not paying too much attention to when they retrograde and station direct.

For the purposes of the kind of horoscopes and content I'm creating here for you, it's not actually that helpful to pay too much attention to that. But with these quicker-moving planets, the inner planets⁠—that's Mercury, Venus, and Mars, because the Sun and Moon never retrograde⁠—it is really noteworthy when they do retrograde. So Venus goes Retrograde, as I said, on July 22nd through September 3rd. I will talk about this much more in depth the closer we get.

But when Venus goes Retrograde, it is the famed season of the ex. We call it the season of the ex because it's often a time where exes come out of the woodwork. Relationships that you thought were done all of a sudden come back calling for your attention. It is not a great time to start or to end a relationship during a Retrograde. Again, Retrogrades want us to do inner work: reflection, reassessing, that kind of stuff. It's not really about moving forward boldly.

And so, whenever Venus is Retrograde, it is wise to do values-based reflections. Because it's not a great time for ending or starting things, it's equally not a great time for financial investing or for overspending. Oftentimes, what will happen under a Venus Retrograde is that we will all of a sudden have to deal with unexpected bills, or we have to spend money on shit that we weren't planning on, or they can be more social conditions that fuck up the economy in such a way that all of a sudden, you need to be a little tight with money.

So you definitely can plan for that because you're hearing this, hopefully, earlier in the year. It can also be a funky time for body-image stuff, for your relationship to gender, potentially, and certainly for the rights and standing of women and Transfeminine folks, gender queer feminine folks. So lots to pay attention to there. But that, again, won't start until the summer.

Now, that brings us to another piece of important news that I have to share with you, and this one is Saturn. It's Saturn. Welcome to Saturn in Pisces, my friends. So, on March 7th, 2023, until February 13th of 2026, Saturn will be in Pisces. Now, Saturn is moving just firmly into Pisces. It often retrogrades back and forth when it enters into a new sign. It will do that when it goes into Aries in 2026; it will kind of retrograde back and forth in and out of Pisces. But this time, Saturn is just like, "I'm done with Aquarius. I'm done. It's Pisces time."

And there's a lot to say about this transit. There's so much to say about this transit that I am considering teaching a whole separate class on Saturn in Pisces, so let me know if that sounds fun to you. I mean, fun? It's Saturn. But okay. So Saturn builds up walls. Saturn is all about reality and linear time and what we owe each other in a really wonderful way and also in a huge drag of a way⁠—in all the ways. And Pisces is a zodiac sign that dissolves boundaries. It flows and it escapes. It governs the high arts and spirituality and the crazy notion that we are interconnected and that we are all family; we are all one.

And so, when Saturn enters into the zodiac sign of Pisces, it's kind of a weird mishmash of energies. And I will say the last times⁠—the last three most recent times⁠—that Saturn was in Pisces were May of 1993 through April of 1996, a time where the internet basically became commercialized. So there was all of these major companies who owned parts of the internet and created all of these services, like America Online and Prodigy and Amazon, Craigslist, eBay. All these kinds of websites⁠—match.com⁠—started in this period.

It was also the last time that Saturn was in Pisces that Mississippi became the last state to finally approve the abolition of slavery. The time previous to that, March 1964 through March 1967, is a time frame in which the Black Panther Party was founded. We had sit-ins, protests, major social movements against the war. And what really surprised me in my research about the transits of Saturn through Pisces is there's lots of indications around transportation.

This is a time when the U.S. Department of Transportation was created. It is a time where the USSR landed a vehicle on the moon. There was a lot going on in this period of 1964 through 1967, and what we all know was going on then were these grassroots social movements. And then the time furthest away from us⁠—that was February 1935 through January 1938, and that last time happens to overlap with, also, the last time that Uranus was in Taurus, which it still is.

And at that time, '35 through '38, we had the beginning of the Holocaust, Spanish Civil War, Sino-Japanese War. We also had great relining of boundaries and national identities globally. We had worldwide aligning of powers against communism and moving in the direction of fascism. It's also a time where Social Security and unemployment were formed and the first broadly effective antibiotic was discovered.

So there's a lot that has happened through these periods of Saturn in Pisces. So what can we expect? There's two levels I want to speak to this on. One is Saturn takes about two and a half years to move through a zodiac sign. So, if you have Saturn in Pisces in your birth chart, you are in the general phase of your Saturn Return. But we want to really look for an exact transit before we call it a Saturn Return.

Now, wherever the zodiac sign of Pisces is in your birth chart is going to be activated by Saturn. And this is a really important thing to be able to check out because Saturn comes and teaches us lessons, and it often brings us consequences. And while a lot of people are scared of Saturn transits because they can bring about hardships or a time where you're really busting your sweet little buns and not always getting the validation or rewards that you would prefer, it's also really important to go through Saturn transits. They are times of maturization. They are times where we can really figure our shit out and make things happen.

But back to the general transit of Saturn in Pisces, as I was saying before, the one thing that really surprised me in my research into what has happened historically during Saturn's transits through Pisces is that we've had major breakthroughs in transportation through all of these transits⁠—in speed, in technology, from space travel to air travel and everything in between. It's interesting. And this is because what's happening is there are these advancements that become accessible to people in society in such a way that it changes our relationship to boundaries. It changes our access to land and location⁠—very Saturn in Pisces.

So that's just a really interesting thing that I think we can expect to see. Saturn in Pisces can lead to increase in paranoia, antisocial behavior, drug use to escape. I expect it to mark a shift in pharmaceuticals in general. This is also a transit that can be either really grounding in a Saturnian way to our use of social media and the mindless, endless scroll that is streaming services and the internet at-large right now, or it can simply increase those things. Saturn in Pisces is a time where, again, we have the breaking through of boundaries, the dissolution of boundaries within the arts and technology. But really, it's big within the arts.

We may see more psychedelics being used in mainstream medicine and just a real shift in how we relate to psychedelics in general. How we engage with the internet⁠—there are many different astrological indicators of this, but this is certainly one⁠—will change, and it is likely that our lives online will become more consuming. And again, this idea of paradox, this idea of it being hard to know which truth is true, what reality is real⁠—these kinds of questions require contemplation, nuance, presence. And so many of us haven't got a whole lot of energy for that.

There is the potential in this transit of Saturn through Pisces that the healing arts expand, and that's a really big umbrella term for a lot of things. But there is room for a great deal of expansion in this regard. And there may be major spiritual crises to state-run religions. When we have Saturn in Pisces, there's always the risk of martyrdom, a sense of disillusion and depression. And this may be reflected in the culture in many different ways.

And because we know this is coming, because we understand the energy of Saturn in Pisces, we have the opportunity to be mindful about it, to buoy ourselves, to support ourselves and the people around us, the world around us, by engaging with intention, because the other thing about this transit is it is about the breaking down of unnecessary borders, of ways in which we separate us from them. And that can be really powerful and can bring a greater sense of connection and communion, which is needed, I would say.

With the transit of Saturn in Pisces, we may see an uptick in ideological and political movements, such as communism and socialism⁠—basically systems that give more equal access and power to the collective. So that's a really potentially positive thing, depending on how you feel about those systems. But really, what it's about is how we share resources and what boundaries and lines we decide are real, what boundaries and lines we decide must be maintained with rigidity, and which we believe can dissolve or evolve.

And then, finally, on that tip, we are likely to see more religious, spiritual, and moralistic movements and reforms. So we again/still need to be increasingly concerned with conspirituality and cults and things like that, because I imagine that we will see more presentations of that, as well as other really great things in terms of spirituality and spiritual access. But we don't want to lose our critical faculties, and we want to stay grounded in this period of Saturn in Pisces.

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Now, as I mentioned⁠—I kind of referenced this at the top⁠—it's not just that Saturn is moving into Pisces. It's that Saturn is joining the planet Neptune in Pisces. Now, Neptune has been in Pisces for many years. It entered into Pisces in 2011 and will leave in January of 2026. This is actually pretty big news astrologically. This is not something that happens frequently, in part because of how slowly Neptune moves. Neptune takes about 165 years to move all the way through the zodiac. And so things have to work out just right for Saturn to be in Pisces at the same time that Neptune is in Pisces once every 165 years.

So, when this happens, it's very consequential. And what's even more consequential is when Saturn and Neptune conjoin. And that will actually be happening in Aries, which is a whole other conversation, which I'm not going to talk about now because it is not happening in 2023. But that will be a big conversation for us to have down the line. So Neptune and Saturn will conjoin at zero degrees of Aries in 2025/'26. But the last time that both planets⁠—Saturn and Neptune⁠—were in Pisces, they did not make contact. And it was April 27th, 1847, off and on through April 3rd, 1848.

I want to just speak a little bit to what happened the last time these two planets were in the same sign because, again, it was lots of land border shifts all over the world. In this period, there was the war between the U.S. and Mexico, 1846 through '48. Marx in 1848 published his Communist Manifesto. The U.S. was grabbing more land, more power, and then there was the revolutions of 1848, which was a series of revolts against the European monarchies. It happened in many nations all over Europe and actually beyond. And what is so Neptune and Piscean about it is that it was kind of ambiguous and that there was many different causes and motivations for the people of different nations to revolt, not one single motivating issue. And so that is, again, very Piscean.

But it is worth noting that most of them failed, that there were some lasting reforms that led to democratic developments, but most of them did fail. I think that this is a really important thing for us to note because we can learn from history. We can understand what the cycles and themes are for revolution, for social change, and what the potential pitfalls are. And we can put those lessons into motion so that we get better outcomes.

From my perspective, the fact that Saturn and Neptune are both in Pisces makes everything a little bit more confusing. It makes everything a little bit more paradoxical. And that is a good reason to get grounded into spirituality, and a spirituality that helps you to cope with the world and to cope with your life and your psyche instead of evade or avoid it.

We want to be on the lookout for puritanical thinking, puritanical spiritual value systems, that kind of a thing, because we already have been seeing this for many years now, but there is a very strong purist to white supremacist pipeline. And it can be very insidious online when you're seeking spiritual content and you don't realize you're falling down this very slippery slope of white supremacist ideologies. So it's something we need to be increasingly careful about in the coming years. That's until '25, '26, so we got a couple more years of this to pay attention to.

Let's talk Pluto. Pluto is doing the most this year. We are in the Pluto Return of the United States. The other thing that's happening this year with Pluto is that it's going to be in its anaretic degree, which means the 29th degree. It's a very strong, important degree this year of Capricorn, which is, again, going to be a lot. And Pluto moves into Aquarius this year. It doesn't stay there for long. It will move into Aquarius on March 23rd of 2023 and stay there until June 11th. And leading up to March 23rd, Pluto is in Capricorn.

And then, from June 11th until January 21st of 2024, it'll be in Capricorn. And then, January 22nd, 2024, through 2044⁠, we got 20 years of Pluto in Aquarius. And so this brief little taste of Pluto in Aquarius that we're going to have in the spring of 2023 will give us a real flavor for what's to come. But let's not jump the gun and get into Pluto in Aquarius until we take a moment to hang out with Pluto in Capricorn for another moment.

Now, we've been going through this transit for many years. Pluto entered into Capricorn in 2008, so you've been experiencing it for a very long time. And we know that Pluto in Capricorn has brought about revolution⁠—Pluto⁠—into our material world, the systems that we have to hold our psyches and our lives in place, our governments, our social orders in place. And it's not a chill transit. There's no chill anything with Pluto. That is just not what Pluto does.

So the United States became a nation July 4th, 1776. And the chart of the United States, which is⁠—I use the Sibley chart⁠—has Pluto at 27 degrees of Capricorn and 32 minutes. And so, now that Pluto has been hanging out around that degree, we have the Pluto Return of the United States. And this is the first time that the United States has had a Pluto Return because of the youth of our nation. And when nations have Pluto Returns, it is often associated with the fall of that nation. That can mean any number of things. There are plenty of countries that have existed for longer than 250 years. But there's a significant structural change to the nation when this occurs.

The Pluto Return of the U.S. is not just about Americans and people living in the U.S., because of its huge economic, militaristic, and cultural hand in so many other nations. So the Pluto Return is something that is meaningful to people in many countries around the world. What we are experiencing as a nation is essentially like a dark night of the soul as the shadow side of the United States is exposed and activated. What I'm referring to is many things, but in no small part the religious extremism that motivated the "founding fathers" of this nation⁠—whatever. I'm putting air quotes on "founding fathers."

This nation was created by white Christian nationalists. It has misogyny and genocidal tendencies, really deep racism, in its roots. And all of these things⁠—all of these things⁠—are up, and they have been up since 2008 when Pluto entered into Capricorn. But it has been especially intense in the last couple years, and it will stay activated throughout 2023. So we see social and legislative upsets, some that we will feel are a reflection of justice and some that we will feel are deeply unjust.

With the Pluto Return of the United States, we have the potential for healing as a nation, for reparations, and in some small ways, that has been happening. And there's also lots of energy there for us to further rip apart and to act worse as a nation. I think it's important for me to note that the way that the government has been responding to and will continue to respond to the ongoing pandemic is part of the Pluto Return, just like the social response here in the U.S. to wearing masks, being vaccinated, and toxic individualism is speaking volumes of who we are as a people.

This is a highly individualistic nation. That's part of it. Our mythos is we're the land of the free, the home of the brave⁠—very individualistic. But when your freedom comes on the backs of others, when we scapegoat others, it's not really brave. And we have a lot as a society to grapple with as individuals living in this society, for those of us who are in the U.S., and also legislatively/structurally. So there's a lot of intensity with the Pluto Return.

For those of you who have been thinking, "Trump's out; we're in the clear," unfortunately, I think you're likely to have some rude awakenings this year because Trump was a symptom of a very deep and ugly problem that we have as a nation, both culturally but also politically. I think it's really essential that we stay engaged in 2023. Do the work of exploring your shadow, of doing your own emotional work, and conserve your energy because the emotional part of dealing with Plutonian energies as a collective, Plutonian work as an individual⁠—it's exhausting at best.

And it's easy to want to turn away from the intensity, injustice, and pain that is all around us all the time. And it certainly is important to pace yourself. Again, we're dealing with Pluto in Capricorn. But with all this Piscean energy, it can really deepen our drive to disassociate. And between these movements of Pluto and a bunch of other stuff going on, it's really important that we stay connected to our humanitarian values. I mean, I'm not trying to speak for you and tell you that you have humanitarian values. But I think, what is the point of spirituality if not to help us be better neighbors, better participants, better people? Not just for our own individualistic betterment, but that rising tide lifts all ships. Let's try to lift each other up.

So the Pluto Return is messy, and there's also a Chiron Return of the United States to talk about. But give me a minute. I'll get there, okay? So there's a lot we can expect here in the U.S. this year. But first, let me give you a little bit of information about Pluto in Aquarius. So there's a lot of interesting stuff with Pluto in Aquarius. One thing that I think is particularly interesting is what's going to happen to boomers. And I am not a fan, honestly, of all of these generational names and the way that we just kind of use it to shit on each other and not understand each other.

As an astrologer⁠—as astrologers, if I may involve you and invite you into this⁠—we understand that these generations are essentially dictated by Pluto. When we understand that, what we really can understand is that our different generations⁠—boomer, gen X, millennial, gen Z, yada, yada⁠—we're talking about trauma. We're talking about our collective survival issues. And so I am not sharing this so that anyone can shit on boomers. I just want to be really clear about that.

But I do want to say that boomers are a generation of Pluto in Leo. And they are stepping into their Pluto oppositions, and they're young for it. They're experiencing it at a younger age. It's not like all people experience Pluto oppositions. But the cultural implications of a generation going through Pluto opposition to Pluto, which will deeply engage survival issues, is⁠—I mean, I don't even know what to make of it except for to say it is big. And I think it is important for us to remember when we're dealing with Pluto in any context that we're dealing with our flight-or-fight mechanisms. We're dealing with our survival issues, our triggers.

And if you see that a whole generation is going through a really traumatic shift, it is a good thing for your soul to be empathetic because the Pluto opposition to Pluto is deeply transformational. And whenever we're going through Pluto transits, especially the hard ones, we're asked to let go of something that we don't want to let go of or we don't know how to let go of; again, we need it to survive. So this is going to be an important cultural shift, yes, for people who are in that generation, but also for the world because there are a lot of people living in that generation.

It is essential that we don't lose or compromise our humanity as we seek to participate in the world. And so I say this because Aquarius⁠—people associate it with humanitarianism. I don't really know that Aquarius is a humanitarian sign. I would say Pisces is more of a humanitarian sign. But Aquarius is about movements and movements of people. But oftentimes, what can happen within movements is we get "us versus them" thinking. So, in other words, Aquarius is a fixed air sign. We're dealing with fixed energy. "I want things to change, but I want them only to change in my way."

And so this is where we see, sometimes, social justice movements. But often, we see this with innovations in technology that are supposed to make our lives better, but they kind of come at the expense of human connection, empathy, real inclusion. Now, we've all learned in the past few years how important inclusion is. So every big brand has pictures of inclusion on their websites without actual fucking inclusion. So, yeah, this is something we're going to have to pay closer and deeper attention to.

The transit of Pluto in Aquarius can be a time where we see power to the people from the people. So it's not going to happen by magic, but we may see coalitions of people coming together to demand our rights. And this includes women's rights and Queer rights, and within that, I mean gender queer rights. Pluto in Aquarius can bring us transformations of capitalism, transformation of currencies, so real deep changes in these topics, as well as scientific advancements. And this can happen for good or evil. This can happen on so many levels, and this is happening not long after AI has really landed.

I imagine that we're going to see massive and rapid shifts with AI in 2023. We may also see major shifts with space travel and our access and relationship to space. But with scientific advancements, you don't want to forget we're dealing with Pluto. So we unfortunately are likely to see the potential for more technological warfare, from robotic policing to drones to surveillance. I think we're all going to need to become much more conscientious about how we engage with surveillance culture, including buying "smart" products that are really just listening to you and watching you in your home.

This transit is likely to really force us to deal with⁠—probably not in the most pleasant terms because it's Pluto⁠—the ways in which technology has advanced leagues beyond our legislation and even our culture is ready for. Pluto in Aquarius is likely to be a time where we have to grapple with that. On the positive, unions and worker rights may become strengthened. Now, with Pluto, again, it's always strengthened through having to fight, having to really come together and work on this.

But there is the potential for great shifts in this area, just like there is within the climate crisis. I mean, it is a fast-developing crisis, and we need as a society to stop talking about it as something that's going to happen in the future instead of something that is actively happening right now. We have the potential with technology to develop resources for coping or, unfortunately, for isolating ourselves⁠—more specifically, the very wealthy isolating themselves. So, again, we need people-powered movements in order to create the best possible outcomes within our society. That's now, that's always, but certainly within the transit of Pluto in Aquarius.

Now, I kind of already said this, but I feel like it's important enough it's worth me repeating because Pluto is associated with kind of big wars. It's not the only thing it's associated with, but it is. And Aquarius is technology, amongst many other things. We may be dealing with more hacked systems, information wars. We may need to learn how to live more analog lives for the first time in generations.

And I imagine that there will be more and more off-grid communities built in this period of Pluto in Aquarius. And I imagine that, with both Saturn and Neptune in Pisces, that will be both from very right-wing communities and very left-wing communities because we are going to continue to see this great polarization, certainly through Pluto's movement through the anaretic degree of Capricorn and the Pluto Return of the United States. So we're not out of the woods yet. I mean, out of the woods? I feel like "out of the woods" means the woods is a bad thing, but isn't the woods kind of tender? Anyways, we are not out of the shit yet with Pluto.

Now, on a more personal level, again, you want to pay attention to where Aquarius falls in your birth chart. Now, Pluto is going to hang out around the last couple degrees of Capricorn and zero degrees for quite a while. So, if you're looking to figure out how Pluto in Aquarius is going to affect you, you're only going to get a taste test, an amuse-bouche, if you will, this spring. And you'll have more amuse-bouches in 2024, but the party doesn't really get fully started until '24, '25.

And again, you want to keep in mind that Pluto moves really slowly. So, if you're looking to figure out what part of your birth chart is getting lit up by Pluto, you want to look for where the end of Capricorn and the first zero degree or one degree of Aquarius lies in your birth chart. And if you are like me and you don't use a whole sign or an equal house system⁠—I'm deeply not a fan of those house systems for birth charts⁠—then zero degrees Aquarius can be pretty much anywhere in a house. So that's what you want to look for. If you have a planet or an important point in your birth chart at those degrees, you really want to pay attention to Pluto's movements this year.

Staying aligned with the things that you care about and making sure that you are both pursuing actions that reflect that⁠—because Pluto's in Capricorn⁠—and building community with people⁠—and it can be online or IRL, but building community with people⁠—around the things that are the most motivating to you, that you find to be the most important⁠—so that's the Aquarian part⁠—is a really good use of this energy because Pluto wants our engagement. Pluto wants us to heal.

I know it can feel when we're dealing with Plutonian energies like it's smashing us over the head, but I don't think Pluto is trying to hurt us. Pluto is trying to get us to heal and doesn't care if we kick and scream, if we suffer, if we gnash our teeth and pull out our hair. Pluto just wants us to heal. And so, if we can kind of get on board and seek⁠—actively look for⁠—the healing opportunity, the opportunity for identifying pain or suffering or harm and to take actions, whether they're internal or external, to bring about reparations, to bring about repair, that, my friends, is what we are meant to be doing with Plutonian energies.

And you want to keep in mind that there's this thing called the morphic field. So I've explained this on the pod before, but let me do it again. The morphic field is kind of like⁠—you know when it's like⁠—I don't know⁠—Halloween or Christmas, one of these holidays that everyone celebrates, you can kind of feel it. You can be walking down the street, even if you don't celebrate the holiday, even if you don't care about it, but you can be walking down the street and it's palatable. You can feel the energy is different.

That, my friends, that feeling you have, is a morphic field. It's you feeling the energy of the collective. When so many hearts and minds are focused on the same thing, even in different ways but focused on the same thing, it creates an energy. And so the morphic field of the transits we have been going through the past few years, the morphic field of the pandemic, which is a part of this Pluto transit or these Pluto transits⁠—the Pluto Return of the U.S. and also, simply, the transit of Pluto through Capricorn. As we are all going through the instability of the world that's happening on so many levels, there is this morphic field of collective fear, struggle.

Some people say, "I'm not going to resonate with fear. Fear is the problem." Some people are going to say, "Fear is getting me towards what I need to deal with." Some people don't even want to think about the fear. They don't talk about the fear. The fear is the thing that they evade, they avoid. It's not happening. There's a bazillion ways of dealing with it, but the reality is we are all dealing with it in our own ways. And what we would really do best to do is come together to support each other and to deal with it.

So, as Pluto is in its final degrees of the zodiac sign of Capricorn, we have the potential to build community, to conserve our energy, because that's what Capricorn is really about. Capricorn is about the conservation of resources, the conservation of energy, the conservation of time. And that conservation is an investment in the future, but it's also meant to be an investment in the present.

Capricorn⁠—it's not just a goat, my dudes. It is a goat with a mermaid's tail. It's a mythical feature. So we want to tap into our spiritual convictions and values and to make them material as Pluto is moving through its last degrees of Capricorn, plus we have Saturn shifting into tender and spiritual Pisces, meeting Neptune there.

Okay. Now, my friends, that brings us to this little thing called the Chiron Return of the United States. Yeah. So here's the thing with Chiron. Chiron takes about 50 years to return. So it could happen 48 years, 51 years⁠—there's some variance there. So, approximately every 50 years, we have a Chiron Return with the United States, and there is so much to talk about within that. And if you are a history nerd, or a deep enough astrology nerd, IMO, you can go back in time to look at the last several⁠—or you can look back at all⁠—of the previous Chiron Returns. I want to talk only about the most recent one because of time.

But I do want to say that what we have never experienced before as a nation is a Pluto Return at the same time as a Chiron Return. That is some fancy math. And it makes me want to just take a moment to acknowledge⁠—and I know not everybody who listens to me is in the U.S., so bear with me if you're not. But what are the chances that you'd be alive now and you'd be living in the U.S. now with all your particular personal circumstances, your hopes, dreams, your fears, and you'd be living through both a Pluto Return and a Chiron Return overlapping within this nation, the first time it's ever happened in this nation?

It's pretty special. And to that, I say I want to encourage you to be curious, curious about what this means, how you want to participate, what meaning you can find from it. And I don't want to encourage navel-gazing, which⁠—I think sometimes astrology, and new-age stuff in general, can kind of inspire a fair amount of navel-gazing, a.k.a. excessive introspection, which is essentially self-absorption.

So I'm not saying you are a perfect snowflake and you need to figure out the perfect place for your crystals to lay, but I am saying you're here. What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do about it? Because this is a special time. This is a powerful time. And I think being curious, being interested, and seeking to find purpose and meaning from your circumstances, from the time you live in, is a really great way to live. That's my take.

Anyways, I digress. Chiron Return, USA. So we start to feel it in June of 2023, but its first exact dates will happen in 2024 and then again in 2025. So the Chiron Return. When the U.S. goes through Chiron Returns⁠—or any nation, really⁠—we're dealing with activism. We're dealing with collective wounds needing to heal. And this is, again, related to women's rights. It's related to the economy.

And so we have now a couple of indicators that I am naming for you⁠—Pluto moving into Aquarius, this Chiron Return, and then we'll have a few more to talk about after that⁠—where we're dealing with the rights of people who have been marginalized. So I want to say not minorities. Women, as an example, are not minorities, but we are a marginalized class of people and have historically been a marginalized class of people. So the Chiron Return to the U.S. is happening at 20 degrees of Aries. So we have Chiron in a fire sign in the Sibley chart of the U.S., and we also have Chiron in Aries right now. So giddyap. Here we go.

Now, let me just give you a sense of what happened last time because I think this is really interesting. The last time we had a Chiron Return in the U.S., it happened between May of 1973 off and on until March of 1975. That marks the exact dates of what is called the '73 through '75 recession, and it was a period of economic stagnation in much of the Western world. It was caused by a number of factors, including but not limited to exorbitant gas prices and issues with oil as well as heavy government spending on war. And it was, at the time, the Vietnam War and the Wall Street stock crash that happened in '73/'74.

So, in this period, there were massive protests throughout the nation. In fact, in January of '73, so just a couple months before the exact dates of this transit, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution conferred the right to have an abortion. I'm talking about Roe v. Wade. Yeah, Roe v. Wade, '73, just a couple months before this started. So we also⁠—and this part is quite exciting to me⁠—had in this period the Watergate hearings, where Nixon resigned. And so it gives me kind of this delightful hope that there will actually be legal consequences to Trump for his actions. But this, again, is a larger conversation for another day. But I really like seeing this iteration and the potential based on what's happening now.

The other thing I want to name that occurred during the last Chiron Return of the United States is that the ethernet was invented. It was invented in '73, and then it was patented by the company that owned it, which was Xerox, in 1975. And so what this tells us is a lot of things, including that we can expect technological advancements that lay the foundation to things that we can't even conceive of yet in terms of technology, how we'll use it, and who it will be used by.

So, to kind of pull back and make sense of what I'm sharing with you, we've got this larger transit of the Pluto Return. We're already waist deep in it. And then, come June 2023, we're going to start to feel the Chiron Return overlapping with it. And I think that we can expect that this will mean increased activism within the world, consequences to how we engage in wars⁠—again, gas prices. We're going to be dealing with the economy, and we're going to be dealing with the need to address our wounds as a nation, as a society.

And when it comes to Chiron, it's always that part of us that feels like it can never heal. This is not just a Chiron Return; it's a Chiron Return in Aries. But of course the United States has Chiron in Aries. We're such a bully. We're so like, "Yeah, we're dicks, but we don't mind. We just swing our dicks around the world. That's what we do." Very American of us, very American. So this Chiron Return is an opportunity for us to deal with it, deal with our daddy issues, a.k.a. our patriarchal bullshit, and come to a greater level of healing. And healing happens through awareness and acceptance. That's the move.

So we will see if, again, during this upcoming Chiron Return people come together and demand consequences for bad behavior done by this government, done by groups within our nation. This will also be a time where we can become more individualistic or we can take care of each other; we can be each other's champions⁠—Aries. The energy of Aries is so much of a champion.

I can't help but acknowledge that we are still going through a goddamn pandemic, an airborne pandemic that is global. And we are a very wealthy nation, a very individualistic nation, and we've just done away with masks. We've done away with caring for the vulnerable amongst us, the immune compromised, the elderly, the very young. There is the potential that we can come together with truly progressive actions. I mean, it's sad that I'm calling it progressive to care about each other in the most basic of ways and inconvenience ourselves in such small ways. But these things are very important for us to consider, again, as a nation, but as individuals that make up the nation. So each of our relationship to toxic individualism, each of our willingness to be a champion for ourselves, for others⁠—this is the time. But I think we can expect a massive shift this summer domestically.

Now, my loves, that brings us to a couple more transits that I'm going to tell you about. And we're going to be dealing with more fixed energy. So, just to be really clear here, Saturn moves into Pisces, joining Neptune in Pisces⁠—mutable energy, which is to say willing and able to change, responsive to dynamics. We're also dealing with Pluto in Cap. We've got Jupiter in Aries for part of the year and Chiron in Aries. This is cardinal energy. It's dynamic. It's like, "Hand me the ball. I'm going to run with the ball. I might not start it off. I might not finish it. But let me make it happen while the energy is hot." That's real cardinal energy.

And then we have Pluto dipping into fixed-air Aquarius. Also, we have got Uranus in fixed-earth Taurus. And Jupiter will step into Taurus⁠—again, earth, fixed. And that happens in May. I'm going to talk about it in a minute; don't you worry. I just want us to pay attention to these elemental shifts because they can be quite tangible, and it's helpful to know what kind of energy you're working with because when you are working with fixed energy, it doesn't mean it can't be changed, but it does mean we are more likely to engage with the parts of us which are a little more rigid. We're like, "No. This is how it has to be," or, "It cannot be in that way." We want to work with that. That is the kind of energy we need, often, to get shit done, but it can also get in our way if we're not open, if we're not curious enough, if we're not flexible.

Okay. Let's talk Uranus in Taurus. Uranus entered into Taurus March of 2019, and it will stay there until April of 2026. So we've got some years left on this bad boy. Now, the last time that Uranus was in Taurus was in 1934 through 1941, which was kind of an important time in history. And if you don't know about what was happening in 1934 through 1941, my friends, I urge you to be interested and to look it up because there was a lot going on in the world, including but not limited to a world war.

When we have the transit of Uranus through Taurus, we tend to see the rise of fascism and dictatorships globally. We tend to see the rise of these "strongmen" figures that seek to divide and conquer, and a meaningful way that they do this is by scapegoating certain demographics of people and saying, "These people have no value. They take value away from us. And we are the people who have value." And we're seeing this happen again. We're seeing this happen again in many nations around the world.

Unfortunately, this transit can be really hard on humanity. Something that we tend to really have to deal with during this transit is human value. I really think that this is a powerful time for us to become more humanitarian in our values, and not just in our ideologies, not just in how we think or in our spiritual aspirations, but in our actions, because again, we're talking about an earth sign. This is Taurus.

With Uranus in Taurus, we will often also see major changes in the economy and in currencies specifically. And we certainly have so far in this transit of Uranus in Taurus. I expect that now that Pluto will be dipping its toe into Aquarius, which is another fixed sign, we will see these themes deepened⁠—currency, economy, and the cost of human value.

Now, the potential here for revolution and for collective movements of people coming together for their rights⁠—this is including but not limited to women's rights and Queer rights because we're dealing with Taurean energy, and of course Taurus is a sign that is governed by the planet Venus. There's so much potential here for us to create change, to participate in change, to be the change, because that's Uranus. Uranus is all about revolution. It's all about change, the collective, and technology.

So it is important⁠—really, really important⁠—that we do not allow ourselves to become scarcity-based. And again, when we see the rise of dogma and we see the rise of fascism and fascistic thinking and leadership, as we are seeing here in the U.S. and many other places, it's all motivated by scarcity. It's all motivated by "We're running out of x, and therefore we have to blame those people. We're running out of y, and therefore we need to take more for ourselves. My comfort today is valid because of how I was uncomfortable yesterday, and therefore I'm entitled to take it from you or take from them tomorrow." That kind of thinking can get us into massive humanitarian binds and also can really steer us in the wrong direction in terms of our spiritual and material development.

So, again, it's important to really tap in⁠—this year and the next few years as Uranus stays in Taurus⁠—to your values, to what you value and how you are, in a material, tangible way, acting in ways that do or don't reflect your values, and of course to remember that all life has value. All life has value, and it's not up to you or me or anyone else to decide whose life has more value.

On a more personal level, Uranus continues to teach us about the value of the things that we care about. So, again, I'm talking about material possessions, the value of beauty standards, and the value of our relationships, as well as, of course, money. The potential for us to have massive changes in society around how we organize our relationships, how gender roles play out in society⁠—this is all classic of Uranus in Taurus. And there's a lot of potential for progressive advancements.

So yay for Uranus in Taurus. Again, we got a couple more years on this transit, so we'll continue to see it play out. And also, we want to remember we are not passive observers of any of this. We are participants. And so get weird, explore, and stay aligned with your values.

So that brings us, my friends, to Jupiter. You've experienced Jupiter in Aries in 2022 already. It was in Aries May of 2022 until late October of 2022, and then it popped back in on December 22nd of 2022 and will remain there until May 16th of 2023, when it goes into Taurus. So you already have a pretty good sense of what Jupiter in Aries is about, but I'll spare a few words for you, my friends.

This is a transit where Jupiter, which is associated with growth and expansion and luck, is paired up with Aries, which is all about assertion and identity, self-expression, adventure, courageousness, all this kind of exciting, dynamic energy. And so this transit can be excellent for motivating you to get out there and play or get out there and get things done, or at least get things started. Jupiter is great at starting things⁠—maybe not always a closer, but great at starting things. The part where it's fun is the part that Jupiter is the most excited about.

So this is a fiery cardinal energy and can bring us a great deal of motivation. Now, on the negative, Jupiter can lead us to being overindulgent, to taking chances without consideration, and Aries is also a sign that can be associated with selfishness. It's the "me first" sign. And so this transit can become problematic when we have groups of people feeling a great deal of entitlement that leads to defensiveness, which can lead to aggression or just basically starting shit.

And so the way we want to work with this is by taking those Aries vibes, which are like champion vibes⁠—which is to say Aries can be all about being first place, being the most important, being the first one there. Or a champion is also a defender, a supporter, somebody who bravely takes care of others or takes care of causes. So be a champion this Jupiter in Aries, in whatever area of your life you feel called.

And that, my darlings, brings us to the transit of Jupiter in Taurus. Okay. So Jupiter is not just willy-nilly hanging out in Taurus, because Uranus is already there. So now we have a second planet joining a slower-moving outer planet in a zodiac sign, and this is really important. It's also interesting to note that Jupiter does not retrograde in and out of Taurus. It just moseys on in and stays there, just like Saturn did.

So the last time Jupiter was in the zodiac sign of Taurus is relevant, obviously, and that was June 4th of 2011 through June 12th of 2012. And it's valuable for you to look back at what was going on in your life summer of 2011 through summer of '12 to get a sense of what it feels like to have Jupiter in Taurus. You want to keep in mind that we are complex beings. We've got a lot of math to us. And so Jupiter in Taurus may, on its own, have been great, but you might have also been going through a bunch of difficult transits at the time or vice versa. So it's not comprehensive data, but it's certainly interesting and can teach you a lot about what it feels like for you to have Jupiter transiting through Taurus.

Now, there was a lot going on the last time that we had Jupiter in Taurus. Occupy Wall Street is a biggie that we had⁠—also the English riots in London. While the Arab Spring protests started in Jupiter in Aries, they really continued out through the Jupiter in Taurus transit. We also had a massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and that created a threat of nuclear disaster. And it was also the time that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was overturned in the U.S. military, which was a very big deal.

So it gives you a sense about, again, economics, the values of people, different kinds of people, and also what is happening on this earth because, again, Taurus is a fixed-earth sign. So it is related to what is happening on this earthly plane. And funny little sidebar: now we have Jupiter, Pluto, and Uranus all in Taurus. It's a lot of earth energy in these outer planets. So, again, we really want to pay attention to the earth and what is happening with the earth, how we are engaging with the earth, and I mean this in the context, of course, of the climate crisis but also in the context of your spiritual practice, of your self-care practice, perhaps in terms of how you eat.

I mean, there's so many ways that we relate to the earth, that we connect with the earth or don't. And Uranus and Jupiter are both the most inquisitive, adventurous, and open-to-change planets in the zodiac. So, again, this is a valuable time to have considerations around how you're relating to the earth. Jupiter in Taurus can bring about delightful, delicious, hedonistic experiences. They are sensual. They are romantic. They are luxury-feeling. Jupiter in Taurus⁠—delightful.

And it can also lead us to situations and dynamics where we're stuck because we're overemphasizing the way things look or short-term pleasures over the way things feel, the way things truly are, and our bigger-picture wellness or thriving. So, again, we want to really make sure that we are staying grounded and mindful, that we are acting in accordance with our values. If we don't know what our values are, Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus⁠—excellent time to investigate. Excellent time for that kind of self-work.

Within Jupiter's transit through Taurus, which will last until May 26th of 2024⁠—Jupiter stays in a zodiac sign for about a year⁠—we have a couple very important dates for me to point to. Jupiter is going to meet up with Chiron at 14 degrees of Aries. That's going to happen on March 12th, where it will be exact. But more broadly, we're going to feel it late January through later April. And this transit is one where we can do a great deal of healing work, where we're wounded, where we struggle, and our capacity to be generous with ourselves and others and to really expand and grow into our wounding instead of growing around our wounding.

When we build structures in our lives, in our psyches, around our pain, we are essentially compartmentalizing. And the beautiful thing about this transit, even though it is a challenging transit of Jupiter conjunction to Chiron, is it empowers us to enter into our pain and to kind of blow open the walls. So, again, we have this reiteration of the dissolution of boundaries and of paradox. It's like stepping into your pain does not feel like growing. Stepping into your wounding doesn't feel like integration, usually. But that's exactly what it is.

So it's super important to pay attention to these dates, so again, very broadly, late January through late April, but in particular around March 12th. And on a more social level, I think it's unfortunately pretty possible that we will have angry, defensive, entitled actions from groups of people who feel that they are being marginalized. We may see spikes in white Christian nationalism and other horrors. So we definitely want to pay attention to what's happening in the world and how we're engaging, certainly if you are somebody who consumes a fair amount of new-age content online, because again, the new age to white supremacy pipeline is real, and it is a slippery slope.

There's a couple other Jupiter transits I want to name that will be happening throughout the year. The next one is a Jupiter square to Pluto. That'll be happening on May 17th. And to be clear, it will be Jupiter in Taurus square to Pluto in Aquarius. Now, this transit is happening between two fixed signs, and that makes it a little bit more tense in my view. When Jupiter forms a square to Pluto, there can be big developments in the world.

This may look like the transfer of wealth or the reckoning of debts, so this can kind of be yea or nay. There's a great deal of energy here for healing and the potential for reparations, or the other direction, further abuses of power, and particularly from the church or other religious organizations. And that's because Jupiter, right?

Now, on more of a personal level, the Jupiter square to Pluto transit is really powerful because it can increase our drive to succeed or to make an impact. And that is often the kind of juj we need to make shit happen or to take risks. For some people, this is going to feel like a drive for power for power's sake, a desire to kind of prove yourself to others. But for others, it's going to be this inspiration for collective thinking and action, for being generous and community-minded and taking care of others.

The key is to make sure that you don't slip into too much Plutonian energy, which is to say ruthless, manipulative, punishing⁠—that kind of shit. Unfortunately, this can be a period that is associated with religious or ideological extremism. So we definitely want to be mindful of that. And if you know you're somebody who's a little gullible or susceptible to this kind of stuff, talk to your most pragmatic friends and be like, "Hey. If I seem like I'm out on an edge somewhere sometime this year, please pull me back." Maybe come up with a code word or something.

But that's the Jupiter square to Pluto that I wanted to name, and then there's one last Jupiter transit that I want to kind of a bookmark for you, which will also be happening in May. This will be happening May 9th through the 31st, and it is a T-square between Mars in Cancer and in Leo⁠—because it's happening over the course of a month, so Mars will ingress into Leo⁠—opposite to Pluto in Aquarius squared to Jupiter in both Aries and Taurus.

So some of the time that this transit is occurring, Mars and Jupiter will be out of sign with the Pluto square. We'll get into it much more deeply closer to the date. But I do want to say that the month of May is going to be a real intense tipping-point energy. A T-square between Mars and Pluto focused on Jupiter is a little unpredictable, and it can be quite intense. Mars and Pluto are the two planets that govern war or combat, and Jupiter is expansion, religiosity. It's go big or go home.

And so this transit throughout the month, which will be closest to exact on around the 21st, is something to really pay close attention to in regards to man-made ecological tragedies, I'm sorry to say, abuses of power, major protests, and social shifts. I mean, there are so many things. There are so many ways that this could play out in so many different regions of the world. But we definitely want to pay close attention. And if you're like a world wanderer⁠—you're traveling all over the world this year⁠—yeah. May. Be really conscientious about where you plant your little body because May is going to be quite a time.

On more of a personal level, the implication of this T-square is reckoning with your ego, a confrontation with primal, intense energies. Again, Mars wants to fight it out, and Pluto is full of resentments. And so the opposition of these two planets⁠—again, with Jupiter egging them on⁠—can bring up a lot of anger. So, if you're somebody who represses or over-expresses anger, it is valuable for you to know that May is going to be intense, and not so that you freak yourself out, but so that you do the work of starting to more conscientiously, more gently, or more assertively⁠—whatever the case may be⁠—engage with your very natural human emotions of anger so that you can experience them and express them a little bit better, so when this transit happens in the month of May, it doesn't completely take you by surprise and hand you your sweet little hiney.

If you have something very difficult to do or something that takes a lot of bravery, a lot of energy to pull off, this is a great T-square for you. So there's a lot that we can do to use this energy, but it's about being conscientious about how we use our energy and the motives underneath it. When it comes to Mars, when it comes to Pluto, you always want to check the motives. So write that down in your dear diary. Make sure you remember it because it's going to be an important transit to look out for.

And that, my friends, brings me to the last transits I want to talk to you about for 2023. And I'm talking Eclipses. Here's the thing. Eclipses are so important. They're important for the world. They're important for you. And I will absolutely talk about the Eclipses closer to the date, but here's the thing. Eclipses are Lunar transits, and the Moon, a.k.a. La Luna, is all about your emotions. And the only way to effectively do emotional work, a.k.a. Lunar work, is by being present.

And so this is where I struggle with astrology because when I'm making predictions for you, you're in your head. You're thinking about it. You're planning. You're worrying, maybe⁠—not in your heart. So you may have strong emotional reactions to astrology, but really, these predictions are projections into the future. And they've come from my analysis, and I have communicated them however I have communicated them. But when it comes to the Moon, I want you to know that we are meant to be present.

And the only way to prepare for an Eclipse is by doing the work to be aligned with your emotional integrity, to have the capacity to feel your feelings as you feel them, and to honor that. That doesn't mean indulge all your fucking feelings, obvi. But it does mean to not abandon yourself, punish yourself, or overindulge yourself around your emotions. Having a healthy relationship to how you feel, having emotional maturity and emotional accountability, is really central to feeling happy or at peace in life.

So I'm going to give you some words about these Eclipses, but I'm not going to overdo it. I will say this. 2023 is the year to do shadow work. So what is shadow work? It's a bazillion different things. There's not just one way of doing shadow work. But it does mean sitting with your emotions, sitting with your shadow parts, the parts of yourself that you're not proud of, the parts of yourself that are not integrated into your identity, the parts of yourself that you don't know what to do with, or maybe even your memories of fucked-up shit you've done in the past.

Cultivate accountability, acceptance, and presence with those parts. That's what the Eclipses of 2023 want to teach us and so much else of the astrology of 2023 wants to teach us. Invest in what and who you care about as a reflection of your own emotional integrity. You can't game the system when it comes to emotions, when it comes to the Moon. All you can do is cultivate emotional accountability, and that can only be developed on the foundation of acceptance, which requires presence.

So that's what you need to know about the Eclipses, but I'm going to throw in a couple more words. There's going to be four Eclipses this year, per usual. The first one is the most important one of the year. It is a total Solar Eclipse. It's happening on April 19th, and it's at 29 degrees of Aries and 50 minutes. Again, the 29th degree is the anaretic degree, and the anaretic degree of any sign is a very intense degree.

We are at the end of a zodiac sign. We are at the end of a cycle when a planet is at an anaretic degree, a.k.a. the 29th, sometimes the 28th and 29th degree, depending on the astrologer. And when that occurs, there's a couple things. One is there's a great strength of presentation of that zodiac sign. So, in this case, we're talking about the Moon. We're talking about an Eclipse. This is not just an Eclipse in Aries. It is a very intense Aries Eclipse.

The other thing that's important about the anaretic degree of any sign in general⁠—and as you may remember, Pluto is going to be in and out of the anaretic degree of Capricorn throughout 2023 and into 2024. So, when a planet is at an anaretic degree, what we're dealing with is the end of a cycle, the end of that planet doing what it can do in that sign with those energies. So some people⁠—and there's solid astrology behind the idea that an anaretic degree is a fatalistic, bad thing, that it comes with bad vibes, bad karma, whatever⁠.

But for me, I'm a humanistic astrologer, and from my perspective, when we see planets in these degrees, we often have the opportunity to see what we've done, the culmination of how we have worked through or integrated the energies of whatever planet it is we're dealing with, whatever transit it is we are dealing with. This means that there is a massive amount of potential present with anything at an anaretic degree. But it's kind of like we gotta use that potential because it's so much energy that it's got to go somewhere.

And if you haven't done the work or if we as a collective have not quite done the work⁠—whatever it is, if we're thinking about this personally or socially⁠—then it can be explosively bad, for sure. But it can just as easily be explosively good, transformative, healing. So, anyways, this Eclipse is not just at the anaretic degree of Aries. It is also going to be squared by Pluto in Aquarius. So it will be out of sign by less than a degree. This is going to make it the most important Eclipse to pay attention to this year.

Again, if you do your homework leading up to the April 19th Eclipse of working with your shadow, of being accountable to how you feel, to mobilizing where that's needed and not allowing your ego to get in the way, then you are preparing for the Eclipse, and you got nothing to worry about. Now, Eclipses always happen in pairs, and so when we have one, there is another close by.

On May 5th, we have a Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio. So here's a fun fact. Eclipses⁠—they happen in pairs, right? And so, usually, if we have an Aries Solar Eclipse, we would have a Libra Lunar Eclipse. Because it's happening at 29 degrees and 50 minutes of Aries⁠—so close to Taurus⁠—that Lunar Eclipse is happening in Scorpio. And so, again, we see this articulation this year of the energies just being a little unsettled. There's so much shifting in the energy this year.

So this Eclipse will happen with, again, a Pluto square activated. Pluto will be square to Jupiter and the Nodes, and there will be a stellium in Taurus. So, again, this reiteration of being aligned with our values and the confrontation of what are we willing to let go of, what are we willing to do, how are we willing to get messy for what we truly care about, will emerge.

The next Eclipse will happen in October. That will be a Solar Eclipse on October 14th at 21 degrees of Libra. This Eclipse is going to further the themes of checking in with our values as we have a little stellium in Libra with this Eclipse and a Saturn opposition to Venus to look forward to.

And then, finally, we've got the last Eclipse of the year, which will take place on October 29th and will be a partial Lunar Eclipse. That will be at five degrees of Taurus. Again, Pluto plays prominently in this particular chart. This Lunar Eclipse has the potential to kick up a lot spiritually and emotionally. And because of all of the Scorpio energy and the Neptune opposition to Venus, we are going to have to cope with a lot of intense energies and emotions and likely have some pretty intense relationship dynamics going on or, at the very least, dynamics in which, again, we are needing to get grounded in our values.

So big themes going on in the Eclipses this year. I'll get more into it closer to the dates for the weekly podcast. And that, my friends, concludes my year-ahead forecast for 2023. I will continue to break down the astrology week after week on the podcast, but hopefully you've gotten a good hit on what's to come for the year ahead and a sense of what to look for in your birth chart to see what's going to be activated there.

We've covered a big variety of topics within the forecast, from politics and social conditions to economics to technology, a little bit of culture. And I hope that you found it informative and that you're able to use the insights captured here to have a better understanding of what to expect in the coming year and to make your plans, including your self-care plans, accordingly.

As always, it's important to use a lot of common sense with astrology, especially with predictions. So, if anything feels off to you or strikes fear or bad feelings inside of you, my advice to you, my friends, is to simply ignore it. Don't give it any energy. Astrology is a tool. Don't use it as a weapon against yourself or others. That's the damn move.

I want to encourage you to stay informed, to stay curious, and to stay kind this year and every year. If you got value from this episode, it would mean so much to me if you would hit that Subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it's a small, stupid thing, but it does make a big difference for podcasters in general, and especially independent podcasts like Ghost of a Podcast.

If you would like to learn more with me, there's lots of ways of doing it, including joining me over on my Patreon, learning from me in one of my many webinars on my website, or buying my book. You can even listen to my book if you like the sound of the old pipes here.

I hope you have a safe and happy New Year. I want to thank you so much for listening and for being an active part of this world that we are co-creating/flailingly responding to/trying to survive.

All right. I will talk to you in a couple days. Buh-bye.