Would you like to sharpen your attention in 2011? This is a New Year’s resolution that would be warmly received by the cosmos, judging by what the planets are up to. The New Moon on January 4th is the best day to send your intention forth. It’s an Eclipse, making it a doubly appropriate time to visualize a new beginning. And it is the day that Jupiter and Uranus re-conjoin to the degree of arc, setting the tone for the year to come <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img src="http://www.mothersky.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Jan2011Skywatch.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="160" /></span></span>Would you like to…

  In December we‘ll get a big blast of the Uranus-Pluto square, the transit I’ve been calling the longest arm of the Cross. The Cardinal Cross is the epochal configuration of planets that exploded this past summer, and will continue, with variations on the same themes, for about six more years.

“Illusions give such color to the world,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald to a friend, “that you don’t care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory.” This is a beautiful description of Neptune, the planet that dominates the skies this month. Neptune bewitches us with either transcendent imagination or self-delusion, depending on how well we know ourselves.

  The Cardinal Climax is giving us a breather as we move into October, offering us a chance to stand back and take stock. Uranus and Jupiter have retrograded into Pisces, easing off the fiery intensity of the Aries Point. Saturn is moving forward in Libra, past the relentless exactitudes of its square to Pluto and opposition to Uranus. Pluto is still (again) hanging out at the first couple degrees of Capricorn, biding its time.

People like to talk about their problems. This may seem contrary, even pathological; but I think it stems from something organic. Because we want to solve our problems, we focus on them. Just as Nature created itches to motivate scratches, She instilled in our minds a tendency to obsess about what we think is wrong so that we’d apply effort to get it right

As the month of August begins, the Saturn-Uranus opposition has just peaked for the final time, after two years of spinning us dizzy. Mars is conjunct Saturn and opposed by Jupiter, which is conjunct Uranus; and they are all squaring Pluto (dismantling) in Capricorn (nation states; the economy). Into this fraught setting the New Moon will arrive on August 9th.

When planets change signs (make ingresses), there are shifts in the ethers. The more we sensitize ourselves to the ingress, the more we benefit from its energy. It only makes sense to honor the planets when they do something noteworthy; e.g. enter a new sign, station direct or retrograde, or lend their heft to an important transit like the Cardinal Climax. The next major milestone of the Cardinal Climax centers around this month’s Full Moon (see lecture series box in right-hand column).

For years I’ve had up on my bulletin board a copy of the chart for this month’s Full Moon. The paper is now curling at the edges and the ink is faded from the Sun. What’s happening on June 26th not just any full Moon; it’s a Lunar Eclipse. (My lecture series on the powerful transits upcoming begins with this eclipse; see Announcements at right). And it isn’t just any eclipse: it’s the world’s formal debut into the Cardinal Cross years. Its chart features a tight Grand Cross made up of no less than seven planets. We’ll have Jupiter, Saturn,…