Sunday 12/31/23: Sneak Peek at the Week; Happy 2024

It’s New Year’s Eve day…and I’d be remiss if I didn’t share Beth Owl’s Daughter’s most excellent list of rituals for getting 2024 off to a great start. As soon as I finish this forecast, I’ll be sweeping the kitchen floor.

It’s also 12/31/23 — or — 1-2-3…1-2-3!

I can tell Mercury is in the spotlight because after working on this post for several hours today, Mailchimp (so far) is refusing to ship it to subscribers until tomorrow (January 1). I may be able to coax it to ship sooner, and it’s a good thing I’m aware of the trafficking glitches that often coincide with Mercury madness!

We have four noteworthy patterns this week, two which we discussed in the last forecast:

  • Venus squares Saturn on Monday.
  • Mercury turns direct on Monday.
  • Mars enters Capricorn on Thursday.
  • Sun squares Chiron on Saturday.

It goes like this:

  • MONDAY:  Happy New Year! The Virgo Moon drives the next two days with a need to make things right, in exacting detail. It travels effortlessly through the cosmos, in easy alignments with the Sun at 3:58 AM ET and Uranus at 10:09 PM ET. All the better to fix those inevitable Mercury Rx in sloppy Sagittarius typos, which may be in focus today as Mercury turns direct at 10:07 PM ET. Take it slow if you’re in transit; triple-check the news and communications. It will take time for our collective brains to turn its focus outward, after a few weeks of productive REview and RElaxation (we hope). You are more personally affected by Mercury’s turnaround if you have planets or angles around 22 degrees of Sagittarius, Gemini, Virgo and Pisces. Off the top of my head that includes the former guy, now known in some social media circles as Stinky McCoupCoup. It also includes the United States, and just about any prominent figure the U.S. has embraced. Why? Because those in that category have planets that connect with the Mars-Neptune square in the U.S. horoscope. It’s a charisma thing. Gavin Newsom is another example, as you can see from his horoscope. So is Randy Rainbow. If Randy releases a new song parody today, I won’t be surprised.
  • MONDAY: Meanwhile, Venus squares Saturn at 8:26 AM ET, getting the New Year off to a sobering start, especially in matters of women, values, money, social expression, and aesthetics. You are more personally affected by this pattern if you are Nikki Haley and the Republican Party, and I can’t wait to tell you how that’s already worked out in the news.
  • TUESDAY:  Note your dreams and make adjustments in matters of communication. Moon squares Mercury in boundary-pushing Sagittarius at 3:54 AM ET; it opposes Neptune at 9:49 AM ET. Take it slow — or take the day off. Assertive energy requires a work-out around 5:13 PM ET, as Moon squares Mars. Note that Mars (assertion, aggression, cars, iron, red, war, firearms) is gathering steam as it travels through the last degrees of Sagittarius, close enough to the Aries Point to command extra attention. Watch the headlines…and watch the for news of Liz Cheney, Ted Cruz, Alexei Navalny, Ronna McDaniel and others with planets or angles at the verrrry end of Sag, Gemini, Virgo, Pisces…or verrry beginning of Aries, Capricorn, Cancer and Libra. Depth is added to assertive measures, reflecting the trine between the Moon and Pluto at 6:36 PM ET.  Chill for an hour during the Moon void; reset your focus at 7:46 PM ET, when the Moon shifts gears into Libra.
  • WEDNESDAY:  The Libra Moon’s need for fairness and balance is happily supported this morning, as it sextiles Venus at 7:15 AM ET. Tensions rise as evening approaches, building to a necessary adjustment on the Third Quarter Moon, exact at 10:30 PM ET. The need for social graces challenges the Capricorn Sun’s drive for achievement? We shall see, especially as Mars pushes boundaries to the nth degree (well, OK, the 29th degree) of Sagittarius overnight.
  • THURSDAY: At 9:58 AM ET, Mars enters Capricorn, where it hasn’t been since 2022. Mars is high-functioning in Capricorn, so take advantage of this time until February 13th for projects requiring practical, enterprising, status-improving expression. Get the word out around 5:24 PM ET, when Mercury sextiles Moon.
  • FRIDAY: Moon squares Pluto at 6:40 AM ET, suggesting an early morning power play or catharsis. Chill during the 60 minute Moon void. Moon enters Scorpio at 7:39 AM ET, ready to take control and prove itself to be an entity of substance. Its agenda is supported by Mars (action!) and Saturn (authority), at 9:03 AM ET and 2:48 PM ET, respectively. If the results are over-the-top around 6:35 PM ET, it reflects the exuberant potential of Moon’s opposition to Jupiter at 6:35 PM ET.
  • SATURDAY: Sun squares Chiron at 3:35 AM ET. Chiron is called the Wounded Healer, and I wonder what news we will have today that involves leaders of business and state. There’s no Moon void today to dissuade you from scoring yard-sale bargains and other impulse purchases; the only speed bump in the Moon’s path is the opposition between Moon and disruptive Uranus, at 8:24 PM ET, which may be experienced as a jolt or surprising revelation.
  • SUNDAY: Another morning to note your dreams, as Moon’s trine to Neptune has visionary potential. Moon sextiles Pluto at 3:21 PM ET and goes void for all of 47 minutes. At 4:08 PM ET, Moon escapes the silence of the Scorpio Moon (when have you ever heard a scorpion talk?), and soars into Sagittarius, determined to share its righteous, possibly high-flying, opinion with the Entire Free World. Days with Moon in Sagittarius are excellent for broadening your horizons and getting out in nature. If the weekend ends on a sobering note, it’s reflecting the Moon-Saturn square, exact at 11:11 PM ET.

And now, the news.

In the last forecast, I offered these thoughts about today (New Year’s Eve):

Though the New Year’s Eve soirees start on a festive note, as Jupiter trines Moon at 6:10 PM ET, there may be a bit of streamlining in matters of money, worth, women and social expression the closer we get to midnight. Venus squares Saturn on New Year’s Day…

…and I as wrote, I wondered what possible financial streamlining we’d see, given how gangbusters the U.S. economy and stock markets are going. For a list of all the awesome U.S. economic news, historian Heather Cox Richardson spells it all out for you, as one would on day with Jupiter (abundance; growth) stationary direct in Taurus (material comfort and security). It helps that Jupiter is in supportive contacts with planets in the U.S. horoscope.

And while HCR continues to remind us that the Biden Administration’s approach to governing is much like that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, it might be fun to revisit my comparison of those horoscopes, published in Mountain Astrologer in 2021. Meanwhile, A 2022 review of Pluto transits to the U.S. natal Pluto over the past 100 years also reflects the astro-logic.

But about the financial streamlining we’d expect to hear about when Saturn squares Venus…once again, I thank Richardson for being on top of the story.  On December 26, she reported:

In 2021, Congress addressed this threat by including the Corporate Transparency Act in the National Defense Authorization Act. It undercut shell companies and money laundering by requiring the owners of any company that is not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file with FinCEN a report identifying (by name, birth date, address, and an identifying number) each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercised substantial control over it. The measure also increased penalties for money laundering and streamlined cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities.

The Corporate Transparency Act takes effect on January 1, 2024. HCR’s full post explains much about financial shenanigans that have been enabled because of loose regulations.

In other Saturn square Venus news (of women, values, money,  and gravitas)...

In other news…

As noted earlier, the horoscope of Nikki Haley (running for the Republican nomination in the 2024 US presidential election) is affected by the Saturn-Venus square. How so? Haley has an exact square between her Venus (in Pisces) and Neptune (in Sagittarius). Translation: a need for idealism, especially idealized empathy and compassion…though given that the Venus-Neptune connection is a square (a hard aspect). we see a potential for fog, escapism, and/or duplicity. Venus is considered high-functioning (exalted) in Pisces, a sign known for its need to be accommodating. Transiting Saturn engaging with this pattern suggests a reality check — for her — or about her.

So…what happened?  ‘Cause otherwise, transiting Pluto on her Sun has been reflected by a surge in the polls, and in access to resources. Right?

At an event in New Hampshire, Haley was asked to explain what caused the Civil War, and her first reply was that the conflict:

was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do.”

You can watch the video here. It would be jaw-dropping, if you didn’t know she has this rose-colored Venus-Neptune square.  The next day, when a nine-year-old asked her if she would pardon the former guy were he to be convicted of any of his 91 felony charges (as of December 31, 2023), Haley spelled her apparent forgiving nature out in Saturnian black and white. She said she would most definitely pardon TFG, citing concern for the well-being of “an 80-year-old man.” TFG is 77, FWIW. Here is that reality check on tape, too.

In the horoscope I prefer to use for the Republican Party (7/6/1854 at 1:01 PM in Jackson, MI), Venus is at 5 Gemini, in the 8th house, ruling a Libra Ascendant. Translation: this horoscope is also receiving a harsh reality check about its values, which can’t help but define how it is seen. Transiting Saturn is squaring its Venus, too. Haley’s horoscope and this horoscope are connected!

Heather Cox Richardson, always the historian, gave her readers the facts in her very next column:

Haley has correctly been lambasted for her rewriting of history. The vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, was quite clear about the cause of the Civil War. Stephens explicitly rejected the idea embraced by U.S. politicians from the revolutionary period onward that human enslavement was “wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.” Instead, he declared: “Our new government is founded upon…the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.”

Richardson goes on to explain the noble origins of the Republican Party, a.k.a. the party of Lincoln, which I encourage you to read…because it’s super-cool to know these things, if you ask me. Richardson ends her history lesson with these words, which are astonishingly-in-sync with planetary patterns…and it is why I’m sharing this bit with Avid Readers. Astrology. Is. Amazing.

When Nikki Haley said the cause of the Civil War “was how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do,” she did more than avoid the word “slavery” to pander to MAGA Republicans who refuse to recognize the role of race in shaping our history. She rejected the long and once grand history of the Republican Party and announced its death to the world.

Whew!

What’s going on in your horoscope?

And now, I’m going to sweep my kitchen floor, with gratitude to Beth Owl’s Daughter.

My New Year’s wish for you is the same as what a dear colleague just wished for me:

May 2024 be better than we expect!!

I’ll drink to that.

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