DECEMBER 30 - JANUARY 1, 2017: VOID OF COURSE DAY - GOOD AQUARIUS DAYS! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

After a VOID OF COURSE DAY on Friday December 30 from 3:07am EST, the MOON ENTERS AQUARIUS at 8:29pm. VOID OF COURSE cautions apply: Important practical actions initiated during this time tend not to work out as expected. This is a time for inner creative work, planning ahead for future implementation. See Dec. 7th post for more. MOON REMAINS IN AQUARIUS  until January 2, 2017 at 2:59am. LAST ASPECT OF MOON: Moon Conjunct Venus in Aquarius! Ruled by Uranus, this Fixed Air sign - the Water Bearer - reflects our impulse for community, humanity, equality and uniqueness. It also represents enlightenment as sudden awareness of true reality. As an Air sign it reflects a more mental than emotional approach to life. Uranus, also symbolizing the principle of Separation, breaks things apart so our individuality and need for Freedom, as well as a more detached objective emotional condition is emphasized. This is a GOOD time for community activity, especially Artistic projects with the Last Aspect Conjunct Venus. Actions along these themes are blessed by Venus and tend to have GOOD results. Mercury Retrograde cautions still apply! See Dec. 19th post.

2017 CHART FOR THE YEAR: With the Aquarian /Uranian Moon carrying us into January and the North Node in Virgo in the 11th House, Aquarian's natural home, this new year wants us to think in terms of our local and broader communities. What will get us through this eccentric, upsetting, disparate time of shocking and eccentric leadership (the least optimum expression of Aquarius) is its most optimum expression: attention to our larger family of humankind, all manner of community, our sister and brotherhoods, our unique individual contributions of awareness to these communities as well as the creative use of innovative technology and science - particularly computers and the internet. 

See Planet Waves Eric Francis' many articles on Mass Media Philosopher Marshall McCluhan's ideas (The Medium is the Message) and the effects the internet is having on our psyches, collective and personal. While unifying us by making communication faster, easier and long-distance access possible, it simultaneously separates us into non-local sound bytes, tweets, simplifications and other undeveloped and unstudied self-expressions. Just listen to the broken (non) verbal language of the most unpresidential figurehead the electoral collage has declared to be our leader. We tend to be more detached than ever, with social media not affording us human Face to Face encounters - apart from our digitally pixelated, breathless images giving the illusion of unity. This is also the least optimum expression of the Aquarian/Uranian archetype.

Because the New Year Aquarius Moon is in the 4th House throughout much of the world, the Feminine more sensitive and inclusive Cancer presence exists. The Aquarian/Cancer combination could be described as a more objective expression in the Home and Family arena, or objective meets subjective perspective - a perfect opportunity for a kind of Marriage of Opposites (the signs aren't opposite - they are inconjunct or quincunx 150 degrees - but the meaning can be interpreted as such). We can step outside our personal perspectives within this localized community and allow a less emotional attitude to color our experience in larger global communities - less bigotry, pitting group against group, culture against culture, male against female, human against Nature. Notice all the planets except Uranus fall in the lower hemisphere of the chart. This adds to the increased focus on the more personal aspects of the psyche. (Uranus will continually rise in this chart until it reaches the Midheaven in 2035-6, symbolizing its conscious prominence in our collective psyche.) Pluto conjuncts Sun/Mercury in Capricorn at the bottom of the chart, reflecting a range of expression between the Tranformational Power of the Healer and the Overpowering Egocentric Leader. Which end of this spectrum will we choose to empower? While the Sun and Mercury always reside here at this time of year (because at 12am the Ascendant is always around 11 Libra), and all the outer planets have been placed in this hemisphere for many years (having been transiting through Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Capricorn), we have been continually asked to do the work on our own individual psyches to evolve our humanitarian consciousness and bring this expanded awareness of kindness, compassion and presence to the global experience. The Last Aspect of Moon Conjunct Venus reflects Blessings on this endeavor - for these Aquarian Moon days and for the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HdOHrc3OQ&t=60s

SCENE FOR THE DAY AND THE NEW YEAR: The Great Dictator, 1940; Director, Screenwriter and Actor: Charles Chaplin. The film's title obscures the satiric narrative that unfolds in this profound drama. Chaplin plays dual roles - as lowly barber as well as political demon. Looking alike, the barber is mistaken for the dictator at one point and this speech about war finally ensues. "Machinery that has given us abundance has left us in want...more than machinery we need humanity, more than cleverness we need kindness...without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost." This film from over seven decades ago, sadly still resonates with our contemporary war-torn world. Chaplin's speech is remarkable in its clarity and force. It is every word an Aquarian declaration...in its Most Optimum Expression! Happy New Year.