“Ours is an age between worldview, creative yet disoriented, a transitional era when the old cultural vision no longer holds, and the new has not yet constellated. Yet, we are not without signs of what the new might look like.” – Richard Tarnas.
2022 is a year of healing and integration as we expand our consciousness throughout this COURAGEOUS DECADE, where endings and beginnings commingle in our everyday lives. 2020 started with a bang as Saturn & Pluto joined forces, kickstarting a 33-year cycle. In many ways, this decade is sitting on the foundation of Capricorn, a dimension of experience that rules the structures the govern our lives.
Halfway through the decade, we’ll undergo other massive changes when the slow-moving planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto move into new signs (aka new dimensions of experience), thus shifting the collective zeitgeist in very visible and tangible ways.
I invite you to think of slow-moving planets shifting signs as to when you have a new roommate move into your house. The entire Feng Shui of your home will shift. It’s a definite mood transformation. Because Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are so slow, they spend a longer period in a sign, thus really sinking in and shifting things at foundational levels, deep into our collective unconscious.
Now 2021 and 2022, in their own ways, are intermediary years.
Think of your favorite show. There are some episodes where a lot of action doesn’t happen, but it sets all the dominoes in place for the more dramatic episodes where everything speedily unfolds.
That’s 2021-2022 for you – intermediary years that help us integrate the changes and prepare our consciousness for the more significant shifts to come.
Uranus and Saturn matter because these two speak to two essential elements in our human story: how do we dance between our desire and fear of change (Uranus) and keep from throwing the baby out with the bathwater (Saturn.)
2021 had the signature of the square dance of Uranus and Saturn.
This dance reached its third and last exactitude on December 23/24, but it will still be within earshot during 2022, especially around October 2022, when they’ll be close to an exact 90º square dance move, but won’t be exact.
So we have the bulk of 2022 to integrate what we’ve learned from the ‘bust-out-of-your-comfort-zone’ square dance that has left us exhausted from dancing between CHANGE & RESISTANCE. Thus far, it has felt that Saturn has been ‘winning’ since we had to deal with so much bureaucracy, obstacles, and impediments to our freedom (Uranus) of movement and making it happen.
2022 shifts that because we have Jupiter & Neptune dissolving much of the hinges of the gateways that have held things back.
Now, this can be experienced both as a positive or challenging dance. Proper boundaries and limits (Saturn) are healthy and keep things from crumbling down. Think of a strong foundation for your house. You don’t want water infiltration in your basement.
We sure need some healing and smoothing out our fractured relationships – across the board.
Nevertheless, we also need some soothing of the pathways for things to start shifting toward healing and improvement. This is where I see the creatively affirming aspect of Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces.
So we can take the first half of 2022 as a prime time for us to focus on bringing the salves and balms to heal our wounds.
With Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces, compassion gets its 15-minutes of fame, and we can – hopefully – experience a wave of compassionate empathy for ourselves and others.
This is akin to what happens in fairy tales (a very Piscean dimension of experience) when the enchantment happens to heal what has been hurting. Jupiter teaches us about answering the door to the opportunity that knocks to help us expand and get out of our stuck zone.
But opportunities are not a given.
They require that we notice and respond. So keep your eyes and ears open to them. Also associated with Jupiter is luck. Lady Fortuna/Luck isn’t a given either. She requires that we engage in a relationship with her by noticing how she shows up in our lives.
So notice the small opportunities and synchronicities of luck, like when you get the perfect, perfect parking spot. That’s Lady Luck smiling at you. Be gracious and grateful. Build up that relationship.
I’ve been emphasizing this a lot in my Astro coaching sessions, classes, and speaking engagements: we’re a NODE in the collective fabric of our world.
What happens in our lives will ripple out further than we can imagine because we are all born as an answer to a question of our times.
Your inner work, you following the thread of your joy, you healing the fractured elements of your life matters not just to you or your close family; it matters to the collective fabric.
I feel this is the biggest lesson about this COURAGEOUS DECADE. The courage element is about us getting to the HEART OF THE MATTER and doing our inner healing work. Salvation isn’t an external thing. It’s an inside job.
So as we stand on the threshold of a new – intermediary – year, we can follow the wise advice of Capricorn – get back to what is essential and foundational in your life. Venus Retrograde dance and extended stay in Capricorn at the turn of the year, accompanied by Pluto, really underlines this wisdom.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this big picture overview of the astrological dance of 2022.
Featured photo credit: Keith Hardy
Second photo credit: Tianshu Liu
