Get ready to try on a cool, crisp mindset. The conceptual part of the human animal wants its time in the limelight.

The sky is full of Aquarius right now. Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn are in this sign the whole month, and Venus and the Sun are there for most of it. During the couple of days when the Moon is there, too (2/8^th -11^th), wow, we’ll be getting a massive dose of fixed air.

The tension of fixity

Whenever fixed signs of different elements meet up, there’s a certain kind of tension. This happens a lot in February, when the two planets currently in Taurus run into those passing through Aquarius.

Both these signs represent their element at its most tenacious: Taurus is earth at its most inflexible, Aquarius is air at its most intransigent. Neither is prone to give way. If your chart features planets in either one, this month will challenge you to think about how you use your tenacity: as stick-to-it-ivness or as pointless pigheadedness. Planets in Scorpio and Leo, the other two fixed signs, will be sensitized, too.

Fixed signs get a bad rap for being stubborn, and they certainly can be. But their resistance to outside influence is what makes them strong. These signs have to be obstinate, in order to focus. They stand their ground. Fixity settles, consolidates and firms up the element in question.

Even the air element, which we usually think of as being fluid and quick.

Strong and steadfast

Aquarius is the non-flighty air sign. It stops mental energy in its tracks, so as to  dig into a concept and mold it into a purer state. Seizing on an interesting idea, Aquarius concentrates it, holding on tightly while it does so. That’s why Aquarian opinions are relatively unshakable.

With Taurus, it’s earthy affairs that get concentrated and solidified. A Taurus planet will grab hold of something in the sensate realm and try to get it rooted. It does its best work when digging its hooves into something somebody else has started. When Taurus moves in, the project gains traction.

Mars is in mid-Taurus as February begins, trying to stabilize the arena of life where it’s active (check the house it’s passing through in your chart). Right away, it runs up against the Aquarius Sun, and we’ll feel the stress of two fixed signs colliding.

This doesn’t have to manifest as “stress” in the psychological sense. Think of it as the natural friction that you’d expect to find in equally-weighted energies: they have the same strength and density, but one is made of earth and one of air.

Taurus vs. Aquarius

Taurus is prone to get attached to possessions and security issues, so ego dust-ups around finances and territory are possible during the Mars-Sun (2/1) and the Mars-Mercury (2/7-10) squares. More ideally, we’d use these transits to reveal our resourcefulness. Try looking at whatever happens as a lesson about using what you have in new ways, or about discovering new means of acquiring what you don’t yet have.

Meanwhile, Venus will be conjoining Saturn & Jupiter and squaring Uranus (2/5-11), followed up by a square to Mars (2/19). Competing urges arise when the planet of contraction (Saturn) is this close to the planet of expansion (Jupiter). Relationships (Venus) will probably be where we work them out.

On the one hand, our social impulses – relatively cool already, in Aquarius – will try to negotiate the boundaries of Saturn, leading to social distancing in more ways than one. On the other hand, because of Jupiter, there may be broadening of our social circle, an urge to reach out.

When Mercury (communication) enters this degree range (2/12-14), take note of the role intellectual stimulation plays in opening up your heart.

Creative disruption

Then there’s the Uranus influence, which urges us to try new ways to make and keep friends; even to redefine friendship altogether. Some people will probably be jarred out of their comfort zones, but trying out novel ways of getting together seems appropriate in the era of Covid.

Probably the sharpest sparks will fly around the 17^th, when Saturn squares Uranus at the 8^th degree of Aquarius/ Taurus. Identify where an urge to conserve is being triggered (i.e. the house of your chart where Saturn is transiting). It may be threatened – or inspired, depending on how we approach it – by a compulsion to break free from the way things are now (per the house where Uranus is passing).

It’s a confrontation between the planet of stasis (Saturn) and the planet of change (Uranus). We all know who holds the stronger hand in this game. Resistance is futile.

Remember, we’re not being asked to jettison our boundaries. Just to redesign them, to make them more flexible and more imaginative.