I’ve posted the January Skywatch article on my website, so take a look. If you are not already on my mailing list please sign up on my website and you’ll start receiving my newsletter each month which includes a translation of Skywatch into English which is easy to understand and strips out the technical language.

Here’s a tidbit to get you started for the month:

(Happy New Year!  For an overview of the planetary energies for 2011, please listen to this free mp3 of the Astrology of 2011. While the upcoming cycles of change are larger in scope than what we have been experiencing over the the past few years, they are less personal in nature and will likely offer relief from the intensely emotional transformation that many of us have experienced.)

As January begins Mercury has just turned direct after a three-week retrograde period, and for most of the month no planets are traveling in retrograde motion.  There is a sense here of forward movement now after a long period of apparent stagnation. It’s important to remember, though, that even when we feel stuck as we often do during retrograde periods small changes are occurring as we are forced to find greater perfection in “that which is” as we prepare for “that which will be.”

Jupiter and Uranus made their first conjunction last year in Aries, and the second phase occurred in Pisces.  For the past few weeks they have been moving ever closer towards their final conjunction which culminates on January 4th.  This is an explosive planetary combination that demands authenticity and freedom from restriction, and the dance of these two planets has fostered revolutionary fervor throughout the globe over the past year.  Both Jupiter and Uranus seek freedom, but they manifest somewhat differently.  Jupiter seeks the freedom to expand personally – to feel more confidence; to engage in adventures that expand the mind.  Uranus is more of the revolutionary, resisting confinement and shattering the status quo.  Together they create opportunities for breakthrough that are exhilarating but can also be challenging to those of us who are afraid of or distrust change.

During the first week of January we are approaching the second in a series of eclipses that began with the lunar eclipse at the Winter Solstice.  This eclipse, a solar eclipse at the New Moon in Capricorn on January 4th, features a lineup of four planets in Capricorn including not only the Sun and Moon, but also Pluto and Mars.  An eclipse occurs when one of the lunar nodes conjoins the Sun or Moon at the time of a lunation (a full or new Moon), and in the case of this eclipse Pluto is the bridge between the New Moon and the North Node.