“No poet ever wrote a poem to dishonor life, to compromise high ideals, to scorn religious views, to demean hope or gratitude, to argue against tenderness, to place rancor before love, or to praise littleness of soul. Not one. Not ever.

“On the contrary, poets have, in freedom and in prison, in health and in misery, with listeners and without listeners, spent their lives examining and glorifying life, meditation, thoughtfulness, devoutness, and human love. They have done this wildly, serenely, rhetorically, lyrically, without hope of answer or reward. They have done this grudgingly, willingly, patiently, and in the steams of impatience.

“They have done it for all and any of the gods of life, and their record of so doing belongs to each one of us.

Including you.”

–Mary Oliver
 

“We are living in a demented world …

But immediately the antithesis forces itself on our minds. Never has there been a time when men were so clearly conscious of their commanding duty to co-operate in the task of preserving and improving the world’s well being and human civilization.”

— Johan Huizinga

From In The Shadow of Tomorrow
Animate GIF by ABVH from an illustration by Alexis Diaz.

Aries: You’re the equivalent of a quantum physics pioneer. The requirements of living in conventional time and space make you both agitated and bored. An awful clash of extremes. You continue to morph into the poster child for all things Uranian, meaning: If it’s wild and untried, you want to help usher in the ‘shock of the new’, regardless the fallout or damage. You understand instinctively that disruption and revolution are OK. No death, no rebirth.

Taurus: You’ve got to shake your own tree to affirm your independence in 2014. The bull must engage now! There’s a reason sloth is considered a misguided passion; it robs you of the desire to create, express and touch the world with beauty. Your inspirational output is connected directly to your sense of autonomy and freedom in 2014. You’ve been incubating a backlog of plans and surprises throughout 2013, and come June you’ll be ready to for the big reveal.

Gemini: Money is freedom. Better yet, having money means you don’t have to think about money. The caveat? Stop equating being poor with being unfettered. Money begets freedom and vice versa. Is there a magic money solution for you this year? Yes! Evaluate carefully your goldmine of friends and professional contacts. And then network and recruit like crazy come the spring. You’ll find the support you need and the money that follows.

Cancer: The dynamic Jupiter Pluto opposition this spring highlights sharp angles in your horoscope: Your identity, partner and career. Each particular is up for ruthless re-examination. The keywords for this transit are: Bigger, deeper and stronger. So extremes actually become you in 2014. This means amplifying your presence in ways you haven’t before. Say yes to everything. Hire a PR agent. Save the world! It’s the only way to cope with so much cosmic pressure.

Leo: The first half of 2014 finds you receiving transmissions from other realms. This sounds wonderfully unconventional, but it’s actually a realistic necessity — an important development in your process of ‘you’. This means exploring ways of thinking that minimize control and optimize faith. This is the year you discover that you aren’t the only lion in the jungle and that ‘higher powers’ really do exist. Take up a spiritual or philosophical practice that reinforces this insight and creates a foundation that is beyond time and space.

Virgo: A casual approach to romance isn’t going to cut it for you this spring. In other words hookups are out; as are sketchy schemes that don’t meet your high standards and quality control. But you knew all of this already. You’ve been on an unrelenting search for a partner or creative project that mirrors your newfound lust for life. Pay attention to your heart, everything you need to understand related to passion will arise through your feelings – not thinking. Note the distinction, it’s a crucial demarcation.

Libra: Each of the cardinal signs, of which you are one, are conduits for the ongoing Uranus Pluto clash. We’re looking to you to solve the riddle: “How to thrive when everything around me is collapsing?” The only sign that is not an animal or person, Libra has uncanny insights into the art of distancing and remaining objective and, well, balanced, regardless the mishegas. You instinctively sense that what’s unraveling is part of a larger pattern and movement – and you’re going to show each of us how to discover harmony amidst the discord.

Scorpio:: If you’re not working on a book that explains the ‘all and everything’ of existence, then, well, you are wasting precious time. Get on with it! You’ve upturned every rock in your backyard, studied the contents of those dark underworlds – and so – now what? Come March you must engage and commit to an active path that brings healing and rejuvenation. You’re all about re-creation and the ability to remain optimistic amidst the dimming of the light. Why? Because you know, instinctively, that a new dawn is just moments away. Yay!

Sagittarius: No other sign can conflate the notion of a divine plan with that of day-to-day existence as effortlessly as a centaur. And yet, what happens when doubt rears its head? You rewrite the script. You discover new moves that aren’t in your repertoire. The point? The first half of 2014 involves pushing beyond what you have taken for granted, namely your ‘always on’ optimism. Now you need to confirm your faith in very pragmatic ways, through work, love and newfound vision. Quite the koan.

Capricorn: Mars, the planet that dares you to win, forces closure to an awkward situation at home at the start of 2014. It’s a simple equation for the rest of the year: You can’t move forward until you’ve buried the past. Gain new ground by investing in a plan that involves partnership and cooperation. You can’t go it alone this year. Break free from your old mode of relating – it’s a requirement. But, good times and renewed vigor await those who dare to share. So do the later.

Aquarius: Get specific with your financial and vocational goals. Stop waiting for the perfect situation to fall into your lap. Ain’t gonna happen. Optimization comes when you pay attention to simple, step-by-step solutions, especially solutions that impact your health. You’ve got to move down from your head and align with forces that are earthbound. All of your charismatic ideas and inventions can’t take root without an anchored relationship to reality. Consider 2014 to be your wake-up call. Get ready for your close-up.

Pisces: The need to take on more commitments or obligations than you can handle is actually the universe’s way of confirming that you’re sitting on a wellspring of creative energy. But now the big riddle: What exactly do you want to create? You’ll need to define and finalize a choice come the early spring when your ruler, Jupiter, begins to move forward, out of its current retrograde phase. What felt like restraint turns out to have been a long process of refinement. And that’s a keyword you like very much, yes?

I’ve been waylaid by an aggressive flu, so plans for the site — some ‘best of lists’ and a music mix of highlights from 2013 — went amiss. Sorry about that.

But I do want to talk a bit about the fervor that’s building as we enter another new year. Many astrologers are declaring that this won’t be just any new year; no — this will be 2014. The year that commences with a New Moon exactly conjunct Pluto. The year that will frame the acutest of the ongoing Uranus Pluto squares. The year when the United States’ birth chart is severely PMS-ed by a grand square involving its Saturn and Pluto of origin (intermixed with the aforementioned Uranus Pluto square).

The Cassandra squawking just won’t stop. Which, to me, in my usual way of thinking about predictions, indicates that reality, being the slippery experience that it always is, won’t deliver the horror show everyone is expecting or perhaps hoping for. (There’s nothing like a full blown disaster to clear the decks and start things afresh).

As I’ve written many times throughout this site, astrology proves a disaster when it comes to predictive accuracy. And mundane astrology, the astrology of groups, nations and world events, has a particularly horrible predictive record.

I much prefer the work and style of astrology that an astrologer like Jessica Murray has mastered, where predictions are forgone in the presence of intelligent, in-depth inquiry into the present and what animates the present, which would be human presence. Because at the end of the End of Days, after we’ve read the last goofy bit of babble about upcoming ‘changes’ and ‘challenges’ and ‘transformations’ (terms that recycle through astro blogging like a virus), we are still left alone with our silly selves, unmoved, untouched because an event as profound as an actual ‘transformation’ involves working with a level of consciousness that is beyond our pea-brain capacities. As Gurdjieff repeated often, “Man can not do.” So until one does, all of the other noise is a distraction.

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Illustration by Ilonka Karasz from William Maxwell’s The Heavenly Tenants (Harpers) 1946

I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing … Silence …Waves…

— Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?

–Juan Ramón Jiménez