We have said goodbye to 2020 with a resounding “Good riddance.” The new year begins, buoyed by the world’s fervent hope that now things will turn around.

But let’s keep in mind that there are no clean breaks in Nature, nor any sudden endings and beginnings in astrology.

Thinking it through

Four days into 2021, Mercury meets up with the formidable trio that made history with the Capricorn stellium  a year ago. Those three heavy-hitters – Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto — are still squaring Mars and Eris.

Mercury’s entry into this degree range (Jan 4^th – 11^th) asks us to subject the dramas of 2020 to critical review. In Capricorn (sorting, organizing), the planet of rational thought is able to apply reason, soberly and constructively, to the madness we’ve witnessed.

How will the mass mind process the implications of crumbling infrastructures (Saturn-Pluto) all over the world? How will each of us make sense of the systemic problems 2020 laid bare? Mercury is asking us to use our capacity to think — clearly and relatively objectively — to give it our best shot.

The transit is putting our intellects at the forefront, to ideally give us a break from all the reactivity and emotional furor that’s been swirling around. By the time Mercury enters Aquarius (Jan 8^th) it will be conjunct Jupiter, the planet of perspective. This puts both mental planets at the service of a world sorely in need of a modicum of detachment.

Impeccable timing

When quickly-moving planets like Mercury hit a clump of slower-moving planets, one by one, it’s always instructive to consider the order in which the series unfolds. There’s a perfection to the sequencing.

In this case, the first planet Mercury hits is Pluto, with a conjunction that’s strongest on Jan 4^th & 5^th. This opener roils up our gut feelings about the global and personal storms we have undergone.

Pluto represents the primal fears of annihilation, inspired last year by a deadly virus coupled with governmental, economic and climate breakdown. On a group level, the skeletal structure of the global body politic has been crumbling, bit by bit, during Pluto in Capricorn (cohesive structures), now nearing the end of its 15-year tenure. The situation is exaggerated in the USA (Pluto Return), where political norms, now all but demolished, are flailing in a ham-fisted attempted coup.

On a personal level, we have been feeling this destabilization each in our own way, most pointedly in the part of our lives signified by the house through which Pluto is passing.We have all had to face the mortal dreads that arise when survival needs, triggered for example by the mass evictions now looming, are thrust into the foreground.

These dreads are ever present, given that Pluto is always somewhere in the sky. But we prefer them to stay safely tucked into the background. Mercury’s first order of business is to snap them into consciousness, as January begins (echoed by the Sun’s conjunction with Pluto on Jan.13^th-14^th).

Worldview shift

Mercury’s second order of business will be most apparent when it hits Saturn on Jan 9^th & 10^th. That’s when we get a salutary splash of cold water in the face, to get us down to earth again. We’ll be tasked with getting our tactics together and coming to grips with our responsibilities. We’ll have to summon the inner adult.

Mercury finishes up its riff with a conjunction to Jupiter (Jan 10^th-11^th). At this point, we are prompted to get philosophical about things. There are broader ways to regard this turbulent world moment than we have been using; this transit may open our eyes to them. It might do so by introducing us to thinkers and ideas that offer a wider vision, or to experiences that release us — in spite of ourselves — from prejudices, ignorance, parochialism and other confining points of view (see the New Year blog).

Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn will all be in Aquarius. As transit-trackers know, the entry of Jupiter and Saturn into the air element is a momentous global shift. Relatively abruptly, the group mind is changing its emphases from the material and conventional to the theoretical and scientific.

Earth vs. Air

Each of us may find our worldview subtly taking on more of the detached curiosity of air, and setting less store by practical considerations.

It’s quite a contrast. January will be buzzing with the clash between the tenacity of the earth realm (security, territory) vs. the obduracy of the air realm (opinions, abstractions). Pay close attention when these elements collide:

— Mercury and Jupiter square Uranus in Taurus (1/12^th and 17^th),

— Mars squares Saturn (Jan 12^th-13^th),

— Mars conjoins Uranus while squaring Jupiter (1/20^th-23^rd), and

— the Sun squares Uranus while conjunct Jupiter (1/25^th-28^th).

These frictions will show up differently for each individual. Wherever in your chart the first degrees of Aquarius fall, that’s where Air will begin to make inroads over Earth. Ideally, some of our fears about the future will be displaced by a genuine interest in how the world works.

Open the windows of your mind and let the fresh air in.