Skip to content

Welcome to 2012

I had some quiet evenings, as the year turned, where a few people instinctively gave voice to Janus, the god of doorways and thresholds, and asked everyone about their most memorable experiences of 2011. It was surprisingly appealing to glance backward and scan the calendar year. I’m sure many of you had similar moments of marking the passage of time.

The media are full of reports looking back on the astounding series of mundane and geopolitical events of the year. As the Uranus-Pluto square becomes precise, astrologers know that the “astounding” and “unparalleled” nature of recent events is a harbinger of what is to come. (1)

Truly, events of the year were exhilarating (the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street…Your Heart…Your Higher Self, etc.); daunting (joblessness, under-employment, millions of Americans with no health care, etc.); incomprehensible (Fukushima and the resultant uncontained radioactivity); impressive (a halt, temporarily, at least, to the Keystone XL Pipeline); sobering (the ongoing brutality of the repression of such exhilarated and empowered human beings), and everything else.

Many of us have thought deeply and written predictions about 2012; there are many wonderful words and interpretations about what Janus is seeing just over the horizon.

Right now, having just come back inside from seeing the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus, all visible in the evening sky outside my front door, it seems this blog will be simple (and personal).

To Venus, I want to always remember to give loving appreciation to those around me. I have had some very kind and unexpected gestures come my way in the past few days and that is a gift beyond measure.

And to Jupiter, may your rolling thunder continue to guide us all in keeping unshakeable faith and boundless joy close at hand in 2012.

And to Luna, the Moon — Queen of Heaven, purifier of the soul, holder of unconscious powers, dreams, the One Thing referred to in Hermetic texts — may your mysterious allure always keep us drawn towards the potency of union within ourselves and with all that is.

Looking farther out in the planetary spheres, Neptune is in its waning days in air sign Aquarius. The interconnectedness made phenomenally and elegantly possible through technology is about to move into a different element and bring another quality of experience.

The transparency carried by Neptune moves into the tender sphere of water (Pisces) on February 3. Human intimacy and personal connection prevail in the world of water.

Saturn in Libra is now in trine aspect to Neptune, both at 28 degrees. This suggests the bridging of heaven with earth; the mystical life (Neptune) becomes an ordinary reality (Saturn).

Although I see in myself (and clients and friends) the connection between the two planets now, I will also defer to geometric exactitude and say that we haven’t fully seen the perfect, elegant, easeful and graceful power of that alignment yet.

The absolutely precise to-the-minute trine doesn’t perfect until October 10, 2012, in the water element, when Saturn at 0°37’ Scorpio will trine Neptune at 0°37’ Pisces. (The exact trine will also repeat in June and July 2013.)

The transparency and luminosity of Neptune shifts from air — the conceptual realm of thought, our global nervous system being wired to a frequency of interconnection — to water and the knowingness of the feeling function.

Associated with the dissolution phase of the alchemists, water softens the hardened places. There may be places inside where a metallic, slight numbness of soul melts into the emotional flow of the water element. “Dissolution works on the heart and id to release buried emotions that conceal or distort our true nature….. this means showing our pain and revealing our wounds, which is where the gold of our being is often trapped but still intact.” (2)

Neptune is protected by Saturn’s calm containment; there is safety in this melting, open vulnerability; proper guardians are witnessing and we won’t get too far lost in the vastness of Neptune’s boundarylessness.

For some of us, dissolution comes with a bit of a feeling of moisture, or a hint of sentiment. For others there are great floods of tears cleansing all corners of the heart and memory. As I wrote in a blog a few months ago: “The ‘breakdown of crystallized thought (or the altering of belief systems) is the primary objective of the first two operations of alchemy.’ To alchemists, ‘the release through the eyes of dissolved salt in tears signified that dissolution really broke down thoughts and feelings.’ ” (3)

Jnaneshvar, a 13th-century Indian mystic, wrote similarly: “When salt dissolves, it becomes one with the ocean. When my ego dissolved, I became one with Shiva and Shakti.” (4)

Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939) also writes beautifully of such matters. (5)

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
That I had a beehive here inside my heart.
And the golden bees were making white combs
And sweet honey
From my old failures.

In yoga traditions, there is an association with bees and the heart  chakra (anahata). The bee’s honeycomb is a hexagon, a six-sided figure that can be viewed as two interlocking triangles, symbolizing union of the masculine and feminine (Shiva and Shakti). The heart is sometimes called “the cave of the bees,” and there are specific breathing practices to open the heart. (6)

However we move forward from here, many are suggesting that an open heart is a reliable ally.

Welcome to 2012, everyone. I’m so happy to have your warm companionship on the way!

References:
(1) To say it in a few words: “Pluto lets us look directly at what is most ominous, difficult, threatening, or dark, and experience a hint of the eternal radiance that that fearsomeness is masking. Uranus takes us — wildly and willfully, fearlessly and fiercely — to let shock have its moment, and to respond to life’s strange newness with reverence and openness.”
Return to Basics

(2) Dennis William Hauck, The Emerald Tablet, Penguin Arkana 1999, pg. 159

(3) Mars, Saturn and the Moon

(4) One True Name

(5) Last Night As I Was Sleeping

(6) Bhramini Pranayama is known as the “Humming Bee Breath.”

22 Comments

  1. Wow…. such a very uplifting and timely message! I love the poem and the symbolism of the bees making honey with our failures. I want to remember it – thank you so much Mary.

    • Thank you Rebecca..

      Glad you liked it…I love the bee poem too…

      Warmly,

      Mary

  2. Dear Mary,

    thank you so much for sending this blog, very inspiring!

    am in Brazil right now, for a few months and it
    seems like this year it will be my definite moving
    back! it is now in the Will of God!

    much love to you and best for 2012

    Vera

    • Dear Vera,

      So good to hear where you are..

      Much love to you,

      Mary

  3. Liz Greene made a connection, in her book ‘Neptune’, between composers and Neptune/Saturn aspects.

    And here is a lovely one (and potent- 0 and 29 degrees) to guide us through most of the year ahead. Perhaps we should be listening for the music of the spheres, and for a new song to enter our lives.

    Thank you and Happy New Year.

    • Hi Carl,

      Yes, lovely, a new song indeed..

      Warmly,

      Mary

  4. Thanks, Mary, for your always thoughtful and knowledgable comments on astrology! I loved this blog and especially look forward to that joining of Neptune and Saturn and the resultant softening and movement towards compassion that it might bring us all. Thanks for doing this, and wishing you a new year filled with love and blessings! Susan Stedman

    • Love to you too, Susan..thanks for the note..

      Mary

  5. Thanks Mary, And a bright full new year to you!.

    On my personal birth card the sun and pars are between Saturn and Neptune. It feels like; the feet on the ground and the heart in heaven.But it has taken many years to scope with THAT!

    Dhyana

    • Nice Dhyana…Sun (and pars, is that Part of Fortune?) between Neptune and Saturn..

      Some things do improve with the passage of time..;-)

      Mary

  6. Your message lightened my heart with both a positive view of Saturn (I’m a Capricorn) and the joining energies of Neptune and Saturn regarding water as the essential resource of all life. Timely, as rumblings of “who” owns the water seem to abound. Perhaps the trine signals a peaceable solution. A happy year awaits us all.
    And I love the poem!

    • Hi RCarina..

      Thanks for commenting…who owns the water, yes, may peaceful solutions prevail..

      Happy New Year to you..

      Mary

  7. Wow, so true and potent, these words.
    Softening with tears has been a wonderful and terrifying process recently, as I have opened many an old envelope of memories and pains. So too, a sudden desire for honey in everything (I recently discovered from a friend, honey in sake!). So funny how the little signs always point to the big ones.
    Thank you for this blog.
    Hope 2012 serves you well.
    Love from Japan.
    Mira Dodd

    • Good to hear from your exquisiteley sensitive self! (I’ll never forget you in that wedding dress..)

      Love to you and yours..

      Mary

  8. Thank you, Mary, for the nectar of your wisdom. I read this post with a gasp of surprise. As my daughter and I were preparing the New Year’s Eve feast, a swarm of bees found their way down a gap in our stovepipe and fleww in to the kitchen. My first thought was”Bees-messengers of the gods.” Bees have an exquisitely well-organized social structure; the idea of a harmonious, cooperative society seems to be a possible way for the trine between Saturn and Neptune to manifest.

    • Yes, bees are magical and they keep showing up these days in my life..

      Thank you for your warm comments..

      Happy New Year..

      Mary

  9. Mary, your message is uplifting, insightful and knowledgeable. Like a wonderful wave of wisdom inspiring my mind and lightening my heart. I appreciate how you generously share your astrological knowledge it is always informative and thought provoking. Thank you for being the person you are…… Warm regards and blessings for 2012, Rita

    • Dear Rita,

      Your words are so sweet….thank you so much..it’s so nice to get feedback….writers kind of take a leap in the dark and hope it lands somewhere (at least, that’s my way!)

      Lovingly, onwards into 2012..

      Mary

  10. Thank you Mary for such a warm and insightful perspective of 2012. So lovely to think of breaking down the barriers of the heart and our personal fears and the power we have to ride that wave, rather than the doom and gloom forecast of what may happen outside of us.

    Over the years, you have provided such solace to the unknown and how to navigate my inner questions. I feel forever fortunate and grateful to have found such an ally and companion on the path.

    May your 2012 be soulful and joyful,

    love,
    Peggy

  11. Hi Mary, i really like what you write, and would love to read more. You refer to the fact that this is a blog, but…how do i add you to my bloglist and where are the other posts?
    Thanks


Comments are closed for this article!

STUDENT SECTION