By Angel Lopez:
The new year wastes no time in making its mark, as January of 2020 has some of the most awesome astrology we’ve seen in some time. It’s important that we pay attention to the area in our charts where Capricorn lives, with four planets and the Sun all flying through this sign. Capricorn rules hard work, ambition, and our future plans, so it’s no surprise that this is the time of year when we set intentions and name our goals for the road ahead. Capricorn offers us that boost to take our lives more seriously and helps us strive for something beyond our current landscape. It also blends the spiritual and the physical, as we can use this time to turn inward for the messaging around where in life we need to head. With so much energy in this sign at once, including the behemoth coupling of Saturn and Pluto, we’re bound to feel a great need to follow our intuitive calling toward some profoundly transformative, personal growth.
At the top of January, the Sun, Mercury, and Jupiter are all near the beginning of their journey through Capricorn.
The collective soul urge is directed upward and onward, with the goal of building toward a greater dream.
Capricorn wants you to lay foundation and take responsibility for your desired life. With the Sun’s light, you can’t help but see your dreams reflected back to you in your relationships and experiences. And it’s possible now to see the cracks in your plan to achieve them. Mercury is there to help you take mental stock, as that’s where some of those major fractures may exist. How are you thinking your future into being? Capricorn likes to be a problem solver, so sometimes it’ll just recognize and focus on the problems. This can lead you to a descent into the pitfall of pessimism. Instead, use this energy to recognize how the inner voice cultivated by your past has been contributing to any thought-based sabotage and shift it. Direct your thoughts toward seeing your goals through. Water those fresh ideas and heartfelt compliments with optimism. Good thoughts can encourage good deeds.
Jupiter will be spending almost this entire year in the sign of Capricorn. Whatever this planet of expansion touches, grows. So, if you’re in sad-face land, he’ll only amplify it. And sometimes, you need to experience a time of major upheaval or turmoil to fully experience change. You walk through that valley of fire to come out cleansed and reborn. Jupiter will want you to see what you’ve come through and how you’ve challenged yourself to come this far. And by the way, those challenges may still be active. But we can utilize the strength from our past lives of this lifetime to motivate the forward movement. Think on all the different versions of you that have existed and be encouraged to envision the many more that are still yet to emerge. Then you’re free to let Jupiter expand the future possibilities that want to find your doorstep. Now, with these opportunities will come hard work, but do what you can to connect yourself to a reservoir of willpower. Be determined, and Jupiter can help fuel the change you want to see.
The main event of this new year is the exact conjunction of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn, and it occurs concurrently with the Cancer Full Moon on January 10th. The full moon brings with it a time of release and renewal; you may be feeling a lot of energy around endings and beginnings at this time. First off, this is the first time these two major planetary forces have come together since 1982. For those of you around at that time, it’s good to think about what was going on for you in November of that year, or even around the summer of ’83. Pluto is the planet that rules our deepest psychology, meant to shift us at a soul level. Saturn is the planet of our deepest fears and limitations, but it brings them up so that we can take responsibility and restructure our relationship with them. So, what does this all mean exactly?
January is a time for all of us to see how our greatest fears and self-limiting beliefs have taken root and been affecting some area of our lives.
For some of us, it could feel like our whole life is being held captive by some limitation, and we may not be aware that we’ve been imposing it on ourselves. Granted, some roadblocks seem to be coming from the outside. We’ve been hit by health, financial, work, or relationship stresses that have whacked us off course. But, we can use this time to see how we may have played a role and to take responsibility for it. And, we can also see how some of our past experiences may have become so deeply embedded under our skin that they’ve been, unknowingly to us, making some of our present-day decisions. Those childhood fears could be keeping us from pursuing the dreams we hold so dear in our soul, and our soul is calling to us in major ways now. If you’re unhappy in some area of your life and you haven’t taken the steps to make any change around it, you must be really feeling it. Encourage yourself to make some shifts that push you toward the dreams of your inner being. Be brave. Think about the bigger picture. Do you want to get to the end of this road we call life and think, if only I’d given that a try?
The astrology of now is urging you to acknowledge, in whatever way you can, your ambition and your self-respect.
You can choose to tell yourself that this is as good as it gets. You can choose to tell yourself that trying something out won’t get you any better results. You can choose to stay still and hope for life to offer a window of opportunity. Or you can step into your life and do things differently with your whole, complete self fully engaged.
You can believe in your power to manifest. You can know that you have the ability to live an authentic life full of joy and prosperity. You can try and fail. You can try and succeed. Either way, you’re taking leaps toward the life you are meant to be living rather than the life you’re simply accepting. It all may feel a little scary, but a part of life is facing our fears. Let January be an opportunity to show yourself that you can.
Angel Lopez is a film producer, writer, astrologer, and co-host of the podcast, THE SPIRITUAL GAYZ alongside his husband, our Spiritual Guru Brandon Alter. Angel has been studying and working with both tarot and astrology for twenty years. He hosted the astrology web-series, ASTRO TALK WITH ANGEL, and writes the blog ASTROLOGY REALNESS. He has also had pieces published on Upworthy.com and The Huffington Post.
On the film side, Angel produced the Sundance Film Festival award winning film DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, as well as the features THE DINNER and STATE LIKE SLEEP. He also wrote and directed his own short film, I CAN’T WITH YOU, which had its premiere at the 2016 HollyShorts Film Festival, and he recently finished producing filmmaker Justin Simien’s second feature, BAD HAIR.