Astrologers have been buzzing about the tip of the tail of this calendar year. It will feature the Cardinal Cross lit up in all its glory, with Mars poised to light the fuse. Between Christmas and New Year’s, all four Cardinal signs will square each other down in a full-on Grand Cross.1
But the month doesn’t start out that way.
New Moon in Sagittarius
On an energy level the month begins on Monday the 2nd, with the New Moon at eleven degrees Sagittarius. Be poised to shift gears as the Moon and the Sun conjoin in the sign of the galloping archer. Mercury enters Sagittarius a couple of days later, introducing three weeks of widened perspective. However broad-minded you may think you already are, this transit wants to tempt you further.
Take advantage of the bold curiosity in the air as the month begins: leap outside of
your everyday contact range. But stay aware, under the square to Neptune (exact on the 6th) of the fine line between expansive thinking and self-delusion.
The mass mood hits a rolling boil around the 10th, when Mercury trines Uranus. Now the mental process speeds up. The metabolism may, as well; you may not need a second cup of coffee.
Make an 
effort to notice the difference between genuine enthusiasm and nervous agitation. Before committing an idea to action, consider whether it’s a flash of true genius – perfectly likely this month — or a self-congratulatory brain hiccup.
Mars ingresses into Libra on the 7th and will stay there until late July, a period of sudden twists and turns all over the world. This series of months is going to make history.
On the personal level, the focus should be on finding the sweet spot between extremes. This is a teaching about negotiating between antipathetic poles. We will be coaxed to identify with antagonistic positions simultaneously: even to make sense out of conflicting motivations in our own minds.
At its highest level, Mars in Libra understands what the Buddhists mean by seeking the Middle Way. On less conscious levels, it can manifest as ambivalence, vacillating behavior, co-dependence or passive aggression.
Over the next eight months, when (not if) conflicts arise in your relationships, watch out for defaulting to Nice Guy mode. People who were taught to always try to make everybody happy now have the chance to break through decades’ worth of conditioning. This question will be put to us: Do we genuinely desire to cooperate, or are we just trying to avoid conflict? For those who recognize this distinction, the Uranus-Pluto-Mars T-square will offer up ingenious ways of achieving resolution.
Make use of the water trine this month between Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn (exact on the 12th), which allows for principles to meld nicely with pragmatism.
Full Moon Uranus Station
The Full Moon period, about five days in the middle of the month, peaks on the 17th at 1:28 am PST. Uranus stations that very day, so prepare to be unsettled
by the bright light of revelation. The cosmic intention is to zap us awake. Whether we’re creatively disrupted or thrown for a loop depends on our flexibility of mind, body and spirit.
The biggest dramas might seem to be coming from the external environment (other people, the communal vibe, the weather), but don’t kid yourself that what happens has nothing to do with you. Full Moons expose the results of what we ourselves have set in motion.
The Winter Solstice
Just as the reverberations begin to settle, the calendar year turns a page with the Sun’s ingress into Capricorn (I talk about the meaning of the winter solstice here). Eons of cellular memory have primed us to respond viscerally to the 
solstice. Our animal natures feel it as a turning point, a flicker of a shift perceptible only to our internal clockwork, that in the Northern hemisphere means warmth and light are coming back. Our psychic natures understand, too, that our attention will now begin to ever-so-gradually turn outwards again, and engage with the external world.
On the very solstice, Venus pivots retrograde until Jan 31st. Start parsing your 
relationships. For six weeks we will be reviewing our criteria for love (or, perhaps more precisely, like.)
On the 23rd Mercury, too, enters Capricorn, and it will makes sense to tidy up whatever’s in disarray. This frame of mind can be a relief after all those murky weeks of Mercury in Scorpio followed by the giddy restlessness of Sagittarius. A light dusting of Capricornian skepticism can be healthy as a corrective for the dramas of 2013.
Tail on Fire
It will be during the last week of the month that Mars and Mercury do their work on the Uranus–Pluto square, which is already being lit up by Jupiter.
The days between the solstice and New Year’s will serve as a preview of Spring 2014, considered by many astrologers to be the peak of the whole Cardinal Cross period (2008-2023). Of all the trigger transits that have provoked a roar out of the Cross over the past five years, Mars is the most explosive. 3
Mars’s opposition w/ Uranus is exact Xmas Eve and Xmas Day. Its square with Pluto is exact 12/30-31. Then Mercury joins in the fray, further stimulating the Cross from 12/29-31. It will conjoin Pluto & square Mars at the same time, exactly, on New Year’s Eve.
The whole latter part of the month is strident with geometrical tension, setting the stage for the mega-drama of Spring 2014.4
Notes
1 Uranus is in cardinal fire, Pluto in cardinal earth and Jupiter in cardinal water. Mars in cardinal air provides the missing link.
2 Mars’s long tenure here is due to the fact that, starting in March, it will go retrograde for more than two months. This is expected to be the diciest part of its eight months in Libra, because it will be traipsing back and forth across the degree range occupied by the Uranus-Pluto-Jupiter T-square.
3 Mars transits in general bring to the surface volatile emotions, physiological changes, and eruptions of ego. Its manifestations are the most obvious of the ten planets, and the most likely to manifest in external events (details in this essay).
4 This transit, peaking in April 2014, coincides with the fifth exactitude of the Uranus-Pluto square.
