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This week holds inside it the sacred shift of the winter solstice, a rebirth of recent life, gentle, and beginnings. As Capricorn season commences, Mercury continues its retrograde and reenters Sagittarius, providing us one other alternative to re-write our story as we retrace our steps.
Winter Solstice
Solstice. A phrase derived from the Latin phrases “sol” for “Solar” and “sistere” for “stand nonetheless.” December 21 represents the darkest and shortest day of the 12 months because the northern hemisphere of the Earth is tilted the furthest away from the Solar it can ever be. It’s area. It’s silence. It’s the chilly of winter.
As we attain the height of the solstice, the Solar seems to face nonetheless, or rise and set in the identical place, for a couple of days. It presents us our longest night time of the 12 months. It’s distance. It’s darkness. It’s vacancy that permits for fullness, silence that permits for noise, stillness that permits for motion, reflection that permits for perception.
Similar to a brand new Moon can’t be seen within the darkness of the night time, it’s from this area of vacancy, of our shortest day and longest night time, that we discover ourselves in a rebirth. The winter solstice is a last tipping level, a preparation for the rebirth of the Solar. After right this moment, the Solar will proceed to develop in affect, lesse its distance, and strengthen its expression. Our days will start to elongate, our nights shorten, and extra gentle will discover its means into our lives.
The solstice is a vital cycle within the yearly dance of the Solar and Moon. The times will proceed to elongate following the winter solstice because the Solar attracts nearer and nearer till we attain the equinox, an ideal steadiness of sunshine and darkish, day and night time, after which in the end we attain the longest day with essentially the most gentle and shortest night time till it begins to wane and launch and we meet our second equinox of the cycle. It’s a cycle of progress, steadiness, and launch. Development, steadiness, and launch. Nature reveals us, time and again, that we’re cyclical beings, simply because the Moon grows into fullness the place she then begins to launch. We’re destined for varied seasons of ourselves.
Solar Enters Capricorn
Because the Solar is reborn and continues to develop in its providing, it additionally shifts into the zodiac of Capricorn on December 21, 2023, the place it can stay till January 20, 2024.
The grounded, decided, devoted, and affected person Earth signal of Capricorn understands the knowledge in cycles, for it doesn’t rush, it doesn’t pressure. It continues planting its seeds of needs, claiming its path, and taking step after step after step alongside its path. It seems ahead, it dedicates itself, and it bows its head to the accountability of its personal life, its personal model of success, and its personal turning into of what it must be earlier than it may possibly notice its imaginative and prescient.
Because the solstice brings the start of Capricorn season, we’re gifted a possibility to bow our heads not solely to the cycles of nature however to our personal inner cycles and to ask ourselves the place we’re going on this new chapter. The Earth is starting once more, the Solar is starting once more, we’re starting once more. What seeds will we want to plant into the Earth? What desires are we able to commit ourselves to? Who’re we able to develop into?
Mercury Retrograde Reenters Sagittarius
When a planet is in retrograde, from our perspective on Earth it’s retracing the steps it has not too long ago taken. As if it had been strolling once more on the trail simply journeyed, to see it from a brand new vantage and discover all that was unseen the final time.
Mercury entered Capricorn earlier than its retrograde started on December 1, 2023. Previous to this, it was shifting by means of the hearth signal of Sagittarius, inviting us to increase our horizons and narratives of what’s potential for us.
This week on December 22, 2023, Mercury takes one other backwards step and returns to the zodiac of Sagittarius. It is a chance for us to obtain what was missed by means of its prior moments on this signal, an invite to obtain the knowledge that comes with reflection and the perception that meets us as we expertise issues from a distinct vantage.
This dance of Mercury’s, shifting between Sagittarius and Capricorn, holds inside it lovely alternatives and invites, particularly as we start to ponder our 12 months forward and what it’s we need to expertise in our lives. Whereas Sagittarius is right here to discover that means, function, risk, and journey, Capricorn is right here to floor, construct, and grasp its imaginative and prescient.
This imaginative and prescient is usually born in Sagittarius, as this signal encourages us to increase our concepts and narratives of what it’s we will do and who it’s we may be. It invitations us to witness the limitations of our thoughts and acknowledge that what we consider is obtainable to us on this life—and it’s precisely what is obtainable to us on this life—till we stretch that perception of what’s and discover far more that exists outdoors of our inner constructs. Sagittarius is the growth of the thoughts. Capricorn is then the tangible constructing of the dream.
As Mercury retraces its steps in Sagittarius, it can stay in retrograde till January 1, 2024. It should then start shifting ahead, touring as soon as once more the trail not too long ago taken. It should proceed in Sagittarius till January 13, 2024, when it can reenter Capricorn. It’s a story of dreaming, redreaming, reviewing, considering, observing, enjoying with potentialities, receiving new insights on these potentialities, after which constructing, grounding, devoting, and bringing our chosen potentialities into our lived expertise.
Your Invitation
Like most good issues, the week to come back holds each a rebirth and a assessment. A constructing and a reflecting. A ahead motion and an internal journeying.
Because the Solar comes to a degree of stillness in our skies, there may be an invite to come back into a degree of stillness inside ourselves. To watch the sacred inside as we observe the sacred with out. To honor our cycles and seasons and mirror on the season that’s drawing to an finish. To start to query what’s birthing by means of you, too.
The shift from Sagittarius from Capricorn invitations us deeper into the physique and into our connection and relationship with all issues tangible. What a present it’s to be on this physique and on this world, seeded with our desires and potentialities for the restricted time we have now right here. Capricorn invitations us to start trying forward at this new chapter that awaits in 2024, and whereas Mercury returns to Sagittarius in its retrograde movement, there may be an invite to start curiously exploring concepts for this new 12 months and letting them be simply that, concepts, a minimum of for the second. Capricorn could love committing to its course, however till January 1, we’re sitting inside an area that asks extra for reflection and exploration than final resolution.
While you really feel into your 12 months forward, what are a number of the methods of being you need to embody? While you consider your most fulfilling day, what involves thoughts? While you consider the hearth in your coronary heart, the place does it information you? Open exploration will probably be your ally this week.
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Be taught extra concerning the affect of astrology in your life, together with astrological occasions, the Moon cycles, your Solar and Moon and rising indicators, how journaling might help you join with the present influences, and extra with Jordane Maree at Woman and her Moon.
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About Our Contributor
Jordane Maree is the founding father of Woman and Her Moon, a platform and group exploring Soul by means of the lens of astrology, tarot, and vitality therapeutic. She is a author, intuitive astrologer, vitality and soul information, and host of Woman and Her Moon, The Podcast. She is impressed, each single day, to be the mirror so that you can see all that you simply actually are, you in all of your infinite skills, in complete growth, in infinite alternative and love.