January 2021

Published by chris on

I hadn’t planned to write a special post just about this month. But yesterday’s insurrection and attempted coup in Washington, D.C. made me realize that there’s so much going on; and my daily almanac posts may not allow for the continuity of understanding all of these things together. So I want to focus a little bit on what’s going on now and for the rest of the month.

What’s in the Skies

January 1-7

I’ll write a little bit more below about Mars in Aries, but let’s start off with his placement on January 6, 2021, in the last degree of Aries. Astrological tradition holds that the last degree of any sign has a quality of desperation about it. Here we have Mars, the warrior/fighter/director of chaos and mayhem, in the last degree of one of his two signs, Aries. Now, both Mars and Aries are considered hot and dry. Hot means that they are high-energy. Dry means that they are separating; i.e., they distinguish or discriminate between things (e.g., “this is not that”), and that they therefore don’t connect easily with others (people, things, and situations). This is the sign where Mars can be the general in the bunker, pushing the red button to destroy people and property, without a second thought or a single emotion about it. After all, orders are orders. (This is very different from Mars’ behavior in his other sign, Scorpio.)

From January 4 until late on the 6th, Mars was in the last, desperate degree of Aries, a sign where he is dignified because he rules it. That “dignity” has allowed him to do whatever he wants and to get away with it. On the evening of the 6th, he was going to enter Taurus, which is opposite his other sign, Scorpio. This represents an immense fall from dignity, going from a sign where he rules the castle, to a sign where he is considered an exile. So there is an extra sense of desperation here.

(It’s important not to confuse what I’m talking about here for the universal Mars through the signs with having him there in a person’s birth chart. People who have Mars in Aries in their natal charts are not all war-mongers, and those with Mars in Taurus are not all “in exile.” We’re talking archetypes here.)

January 6, 2021

On January 6, at about noon in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump began speaking at his “Save America” rally on the Ellipse near the White House. This rally was focused on his claim that the recent election, which he lost, was “stolen” and “fraudulent.” The president, and other speakers, used fairly violent language that day (e.g, “trial by combat” [Rudolph Guiliani], and “And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” [Trump]). After more than an hour of ramping up the crowd, the president ended the rally with:


January 6, 2021, Noon, Mars Rising

You can see in this chart for noon, that the desperate Mars is rising in the east (the Ascendant). Planets that are on the horizon (east/west, but especially the east where they are coming above the horizon) are powerful while there. They will tend to mark that hour, or anything that begins at that hour, with their character.

This shows perfectly the bellicose nature of the rally. As Trump was speaking, Mars rose. The rest of the action will occur as Mars rises toward the Midheaven, the zenith due south, where a planet is at its highest elevation for that location at that date.

Moon starts to oppose Mars

While this was going on, the Moon, which is the “universal timer/trigger” for all astrological things, was moving to an opposition of Mars. At noon, the opposition was 9º apart and closing.

In this image, just before 5:30 PM EST, the opposition is only 6º apart. The opposition is an even greater conflict than the square, depending on the planets involved. It’s safe to say that whenever Mars is involved, it falls into this category.

So all afternoon, warlike tensions are rising and growing stronger, leading up to what would happen in the mid-to-late afternoon.

Trump’s Mars
Donald Trump, June 14, 1946, 10:54 am EDT, Queens NY

I’ll take a moment here to point out that when Donald Trump was born, Mars was also rising. It was tightly conjunct the Ascendant, and so Trump will exhibit Mars-like qualities throughout his life: belligerence, conflict, litigation, fighting of all sorts, etc. So the chart of the moment was mirroring his own birth chart, making him feel “in his element” or at home. In some way, his fate is tied to the fate of Mars and what happens to it.

(There are other factors at work here, but I think you see what I’m saying.)

Late Afternoon

Of course, we all know what happened next: protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol building and somewhere along the way became rioters. They ended up by forcefully entering the building while the House and Senate were conducting the official count (and debating) of the electoral college votes. They were disrupted and had to take cover.

As I was watching this all online, I was looking at Mars, rising toward the Midheaven. But I knew that Mars was about to leave Aries and enter Taurus just before 5:30 pm. I figured then that things would start to settle down a bit. Another thing to consider is that when Mars goes into Taurus, the opposition from the Moon is not quite as intense, since they are no longer in opposite signs from each other. Eventually, the Moon will go into Scorpio and catch up to the opposition again, because she moves a lot faster than Mars. But until then, a lot of the tension backs off.

Still, I was cautious until Mars crossed the Midheaven just before 7 pm, since being on the Midheaven is also a powerful place. Just after that, they announced that the building had been cleared, and after some clean up, the Congress resumed the counting of electoral votes around 8:30 pm.

Cardinal vs. Fixed Signs

Before looking at the rest of the month, let’s talk a little bit about where things are in the sky generally.

Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) put energy out into the world. But they are chaotic. They set things in motion, but then sometimes don’t stick it out. Fixed signs are, well, fixed. They are stubborn. Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius are less likely to get the ball rolling on a project, but once it’s going, they can cling to it like a right-winger clings to God and guns. (See my post 2021 – A Look Ahead in the “A Shift in Modality” section.) They are a lot more stubborn than cardinal signs.

This is important: I am not referring here to people born with the Sun in these signs, but to the energy of the signs themselves. A planet passing through a cardinal sign will be unrestricted, but chaotic. A planet passing through a fixed signs will be far more reserved, but more focused.

We’ve moved beyond the big pileup of planets in cardinal signs that marked much of 2019 and 2020. Pluto, Saturn, and Jupiter were in Capricorn all last year, along with Mars in February and March, and the South Node for much of 2019. Mars then spent an unusually long six months in Aries, another cardinal sign, much of that time squaring all the stuff in Capricorn.

A square is an aspect where planets are approximately 90º apart in the circle, so if you drew lines to the center, they would form a right angle. Planets with this relationship to one another are in some sort of conflict.

Think of two cars that come together at an intersection. If there were no stop signs or traffic lights, and they arrived at exactly the same moment, there would be a “conflict.” Who would win the conflict? Well, in both cases, it’s usually the one with the bigger vehicle (or the one with more insurance).

For the rest of January, we are going to have a lot of action in fixed signs.

After spending all of 2020 in cardinal Capricorn (where Pluto remains), Jupiter and Saturn are now in Fixed Aquarius. Mars spent February and March transiting Capricorn as well, and then spent an unusually long six-month period (June-January) in cardinal Aries, much of that time squaring Pluto/Jupiter/Saturn in Capricorn. He’s just entered fixed Taurus, and is moving into a tight square with Saturn, then Jupiter. You can see here that even on Wednesday evening, just after he slipped into Taurus, he was already applying to square Saturn, planet of restriction, delays, denials, and destruction.

The exact square happens on January 12, but we’re already into the effects of it, and it will last past that date, too. But watch the news right around then for “flare ups.”

The “good news” is that Saturn is in his favorite sign. So while he’s still considered “malefic” (he’s a bad boy who makes life difficult for us, even if it’s sometimes necessary), he’s much more inclined to “delay” than to “deny” or “destroy.” But having a Mars-Saturn square in fixed signs is not easy. We have two aggressive drivers at cross-purposes at the intersection, fighting about who gets to go.

January 13 New Moon

The New Moon occurs one second after midnight on January 13th.

New Moon, January 13, 00:00:01 EST

You can see the Moon and the Sun at the bottom of the chart in Capricorn, at 23º. They are only 4º from the IC (Imum Coeli = the “bottom of the sky”), which is the point opposite the Zenith. That means that they fall on the cross that makes up the horizon/zenith axis and are therefore powerful. You can also see that they are exactly one degree from Pluto, god of the Underworld, plutocracies, oligarchies, abusive hierarchies, etc. They also fall in the 4th house of the chart, which is the land, the country itself, one could even say “patriotism.” (One of the main topics of the 4th house is that it rules the “father” [pater] which is where we get the word for patriot, that is, a lover of the “fatherland.”)

This indicates some serious trouble potentially, for the whole month, but especially right now and the next day, when the Sun crosses Pluto. The Moon and the Sun in the chart rule the 10th house (Cancer) and the 11th house (Leo). In mundane astrology, these houses represent the congress and the president, respectively. So congress and the president will be involved deeply during these days in matters of patriotism, from one side of the coin or the other.

Since the Moon in Capricorn is seriously debilitated due to being opposite her own sign Cancer, and she rules the president (10th house), the likelihood is that the congress will have the upper hand this week. But it won’t be smooth. For more information on the Pluto connection, please see my post Happy Pluto Return, USA!

Inauguration Day

The chart for noon on Inauguration Day is a pretty heavy-duty one. Mars will be just past the square to Saturn, but still close enough for lingering effects. He’ll be squaring Jupiter, who is a benefic planet, and usually adds a measure of civility and peacemaking to the picture. The Sun will be just about to conjoin Saturn there in Aquarius.

But the more worrisome pileup is the one on the Ascendant. Because Mars is rising each day right around noon, we seem him in the east. But now he’s sharing the same exact degree with Uranus, which brings revolution, reversals, surprises, chaos, etc. And you can see that the Moon is there in the last degree of Aries, where Mars was on January 6th. She’ll only be there for two hours, but this chart becomes one of the important charts for looking at what the next four years will be like. And the Moon being where Mars was on the day of the insurrection hints at some real trouble, not only on Inauguration Day, but for the four years of the administration.

The Mars-Uranus connection on the horizon could potentially be quite explosive, metaphorically, but also literally as well. And the Moon will enter Taurus two hours after the inauguration, and from about 2 am on January 21 to about 6 am, conjoins these two planets.

I am hoping that with this past week’s events will spur the security forces in charge of the inauguration, and the capital in general, to take their jobs more seriously than ever, and that what we’re seeing in the charts will be worked out in the realm of metaphor and ideas, rather than on the physical level. I’ll be watching with bated breath.

Final Words

This post does not take into account elements such as President-Elect Biden’s chart, most of President Trump’s chart, and other things that are sure to be important to note. The astrology here is really complex and a blog post isn’t enough to do a thorough investigation of everything involved.

But at least this is a look at January. It feels a little bit like the Epilogue to 2020, rather than a New Year and (technically) a new decade.

Look for coming posts on Jupiter and Saturn together in Aquarius and what it means in your chart; the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction moving into Air signs after 200 years of occurring in Earth signs; the Spring Equinox chart, which we use to forecast the coming year; and more.

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Valerie · 2021-01-14 at 17:06

FASCINATING. Thank you so much, this is brilliant.

    chris · 2021-01-15 at 08:46

    Thanks, Val. I’m really hoping that they take security seriously on the 20th and that these planetary energies work themselves out as “gently” as possible.

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