2023: Starting Slow, Picking up Speed

We are a human community, so dig into your sensory body this year with all the earth energy compelling us to look for the good things, the delicious flavors of food, together with the beauty of our amazing planet. The top priority is to take care of ourselves individually and as a whole, to bring all our senses into equilibrium, together with truth and integrity. Simplification is also a strong note in 2023, to focus on what we truly need. And as always, tuning into everyone around us with peace, compassion, and care remains important.

Mother Nature will serve us well this year. The age-old question of “What does it mean to be human?” will remain on our minds. You can address this fundamental question by doing the following:

• Stay rooted in the earth
• Be grounded in your humanity
• Beware of losing yourself in digitization
• Deepen your relationships
• Visit the forest often—where there is no Wi-Fi—to enjoy your real connection with the “innernet” of life itself

2023 starts off rather slowly, with a feeling of introspection and reflection, as we are energetically called back to center to reflect. The two main elements that will affect us throughout the entire year will be earth and water. We are being asked to be grounded more than ever, to be practical and conservative, to consider self-preservation alongside being industrious, passive rather than aggressive, and to bring into form our visions and creations.

The water element will help us feel our way along through change as we break down old ways and build up the new. We will have access to greater imagination, and perhaps even psychic abilities.

2023 is a year to allow the visionary within to come out.

The Planetary Playground

We will have three planets retrograde, generating a yin harmonic. The year will unfold in the following ways:

Mars—the planet of action and initiation, courage and passion—has been retrograde since October 30, 2022, in the sign of Gemini since August 20 2022. The eclipses in October and November 2022 were the crucible of change, getting us to step off the hamster wheel of our busy lives to reevaluate just how and why we “do” the things we do.

Perhaps over the months of Mars retrograde you found new ways of doing things, reexamined decisions and choices, felt different desires, started a new project, and/or harnessed a totally new way of going forward. Some of you may have also experienced a realignment to pursuing a higher desire rather than just a personal one.

Mars will go direct on January 12, 2023 and it will be “go time” with no looking back. Make your choice and go forth with your venture.

Mercury will turn direct on January 18 in an earth sign, adding to the accelerating pace. In fact, all the Mercury retrogrades in 2023 are in earth signs, which is about being practical, dependable, industrious, and conservative with our thought processes and communications.

Uranus, the revolutionary game changer, will station direct by January 21, amplifying liberation and awakening. This will serve as an announcement that all planets will be direct, causing the pace to accelerate markedly. Change will be the focus.

The first three new moons of 2023 will each be at one degree of their sign, supporting new experiences and creating new potentialities. This is the ideal time to set our intentions and envision our future.

More Dancing with the Planets

Saturn will move into Pisces on March 8 for the next three years or so, transforming the serious hand of Capricorn into a more sensitive one. Creativity and compassion will become a greater component in just how we are going to change our reality. Also over the next three years, the water element will embody a karmic quality, empowering our actions and spurring positive consequences.

Pluto, the transformer planet, will move into Aquarius on March 23. Coming to the end of the Capricornian degrees, there will be an incredible buildup of intensity as the last degrees of any sign amp up that signs’ impulse. The planetary nodes—indicating where we have come from (the past) and where we are headed (the future)—will square Pluto intensely, urging us to let go of the old and start something new. They will square Pluto even as they change axis and signs in mid-July. As a result, the pressure to let go, to end what is over and begin anew, will continue to be relentless.

The United States’ “Pluto return”—when the planet returns to the same place in the heavens as on the birth of the country in 1776—will continue throughout 2023, allowing us to gauge how the country has fared. Top-down controls of all kinds—spanning government, education, the medical industry, religions, and media—have all been through the wringer since 2008, which is when Pluto entered Capricorn, exposing society’s underbelly and clearly showing which unacceptable practices must end.

Pluto entering into Aquarius for three months, an air (mental) element, will give us all an experience of what the 2024–2044 chapter will feel like. We will be shown which tools we can use to assert power and control over ourselves, rather than giving our power away to those who would be happy to control us. The ongoing demolition, shedding, and restructuring that began during the Capricorn years will accelerate.

Archetypically, Aquarius revolutionizes, awakens, and liberates. It shatters barriers, with no concern for the resulting disruption or destruction. What has been frozen begins to thaw. What needs shaking up will be jolted—earthquakes and weather extremes will continue and recur.

The air element will come to the forefront, suggesting we are quickly heading into incredible decades of evolution. Unknown territory, for sure. The world will pick up the pace at breakneck speed. The development of technology, phones, and computers will take place at a stratospheric pace. Discoveries, innovative inventions, and collaborations will intensify as the harmonic will empowers us to embrace the global population, so we can move forward as a single collective with a focus on humanity.

The last time Pluto entered the Aquarius cycle was during 1777–1798, when the cries of the French Revolution in 1789 rippled across the channel to England, with the dawning of the first abolitionist movement.

For the 2024–2044 chapter, know that mainstream life will not look the same, as every level of our lives will be altered. Forward-directional thinking and innovative ideation will be the keys to unlocking our passage now as a planet. The period from March 23 to June 12 will be a taste of what’s to come in the coming decades.

The eclipse season will begin on April 20 and May 5, ruled by the confident and fiery Mars, which means that there will be strong forward movement. Remember to pause and reflect before you act impulsively.

On May 17, Jupiter will move into the sign of Taurus. This great benefic planet, which embodies expansion, future trends, optimism, and higher consciousness, will magnify our gifts and talents, and our confidence too. Perhaps you will have a desire to learn new things, go on a quest, or simply allow positive energy to flow in. Remember to stay grounded, as it is easy to be swept away and lose your center. Remember to breathe. The North Node, still in Taurus, will join Jupiter and influence us to seek the simplicity we need, impelling us to become more resourceful and resilient, striving even more for our happiness.

The sign of Taurus is all about simplicity, inviting us to root deep down within ourselves, and to become enterprising and buoyant. Taurus rules money, the Earth, food, agriculture, and what we value—in a word, sustainability. All these will be growth arenas to watch. Get involved. Harness the trend in your work or business as there will be great potential for growth there.

On June 12, Pluto will retrograde back into Capricorn for the rest of the year, heading back into the earth element but also wanting to complete all the structural renovations within us all, including achieving internal control, finding the toxic elements that remain within us, and learning to hold ourselves back and not work too hard. Sound familiar? The focus will be to amend these behaviors that some of us have become experts at hiding, even from ourselves.

We will need to restructure and get ready for the air element next year: the creative, expressive, receptive, humanitarian, and cooperative energy of Aquarius.

The planetary nodes will shift out of the survival axis (Taurus Scorpio)—an intensity we have been in since mid-January 2022—into an Aries-Libra relationship axis from July 17, 2023 to January 12, 2024. The north node in Aries is where we are meant to head toward as a collective.

The change of focus will be palpable, spotlighting a sense of autonomy and sovereignty, freedom(s), being courageous and brave, initiating and experiencing multiple new ways to create the new, and, finally, having a sense of our own power.

Let’s shift our focus to bringing back the nobleness of integrity while also engaging the heart into all components of our lives. Remember, we are all co-creators of what our new world will become, and how we will get there. It won’t become without us.

Venus will retrograde in the sign of Leo from July 23 to September 3. The goddess of beauty, unity, and love will inquire of us: “How can we improve our relational experience with harmony, refinement, and cooperation, awakening our ability to actualize our creative selves?” Leo represents creative actualization, vitality, and a magnanimous heart. Our relationship to these qualities will be up for review.

We will be asked to deepen and refine our creative joy. Gotta love that, right? We can beautify ourselves and our environment through Venus, furthering our inspirational juice, and our rhythmic play with life itself. And if we lost any of that juice over the last few years, the summer of 2023 will assist us in retrieving our forgotten inner child and play again, to extract true happiness from within.

October will herald eclipse season again, but this time ruled by Venus, extending a gentler feminine tone, softening out the edges of all we have been through. This will enable us to experience self-care, generosity in relationships, harmony, and balance woven into what we value and what feels so right—now that’s something to look forward to!

A tremendous journey of renewal lies ahead of us in 2023 and beyond. Enjoy the ride and heed the planets. We are all in this together.