Astrology Highlights for Jan. 6-12, 2025: Spirit and Spreadsheets

Backward and Side-to-Side

Retrograde Mars reenters Cancer (Jan. 6, 2025, 2:44 am PST) for the first time since it fled to more congenial Leo on Nov. 3, following a rough opposition with Pluto.

The emotionalism of Cancer creates thorny terrain for Mars, as the sign in which the warrior planet is in its “fall,” or particularly challenged. We don’t always take the most efficient or wisest actions when we’re feeling emotional about something. Also, Cancer is symbolized by the crab, a creature that doesn’t move in a straight line. That’s a good way to protect yourself from getting attacked, but it’s also a good way to frustrate yourself and others – and that’s especially so while Mars is retrograde. When we’re moving backward AND from side to side, and it’s hard to get anywhere!

On the plus side, Mars in Cancer will fight furiously and unabashedly for their family and close friends, for children and pets, and for the underdog. When it’s retrograde, examine the actions you’re willing to take to have a safe and nurturing home life, and to protect your traditions. If you feel you’re constantly being attacked or disrespected by others, take a look at your own behaviors and attitudes to see if you might be attracting that. By the time Mars leaves Cancer on April 17 and reenters Leo, you should be ready to move full steam ahead and stand up to anyone who is trying to put you down.

Campfire Stories

There’s a bonfire burning on the beach, and you’re sitting around it with a small group of fellow travelers and campers. Everyone is far from home; in some cases, you don’t share a common language. You take turns introducing yourselves, and when it’s your turn, you begin to recite the usual details – your name, your job, the place you call home.

Instead, you find yourself telling a different story. One about sitting around a similar fire with your family, back when you were too young to have much of a biography. How you and your sister got up and entertained the adults with a silly song, and your older brother made shadow puppets against the background of the tent. How mom and dad leaned into one another and laughed; how you all toasted marshmallows. Around your present-day campfire, this odd collection of strangers relax and smile, perhaps remembering childhood camping trips of their own.

It’s often harder to tell the story of who we are now, than it is to remember where it all began. Maybe it’s because we’ve told the old stories for so long that we know them by heart, have learned how to pause at the right moments for effect. Or maybe it’s because who we are is always shifting, and the ongoing story needs time to find its structure. As Mercury squares imaginative Neptune this week (Jan. 6, 5:56 am PST), there’s an opening to tell a new story around the campfire.

O Pioneers!

The Moon in Aries is a pioneer at heart. And this particular Aries First Quarter Moon (Jan. 6, 2025, 3:56 pm PST) is a pioneer set out on an unforgiving western landscape – not out of a love of adventure, but because it’s burned its bridges in the lush, verdant hills of its birth. Or perhaps, because its home had become a dustbowl with no economic prospects, and the only solution was to seek opportunities elsewhere.

It’s a tough combination, Aries and Capricorn; Mars, the brutal warrior planet, is the ruler of one and exalted in the other, and that pretty much tells us what we need to know about its ferocity.

But it’s a fearless and determined combination as well. Whenever we find ourselves on a hard road, beset by danger, these two signs serve us well. Neither will give up, give in, or be denied their objective. So, what was the quest you set your wagon to at the Capricorn New Moon on Dec. 30? Maybe you don’t remember, or maybe it wasn’t even a conscious decision; New Moons are dark times, after all. Sometimes we don’t realize what we planted at the New Moon until the First Quarter shines a light on the first tiny, stubborn shoots emerging on the dusty plain.

Cursive

I spent some formative years in Catholic school, where the nuns were pretty serious about penmanship. That was a long time ago; but take a look at the Christmas cards you received from anyone who learned handwriting in a Catholic school and you may see vestiges of carefully cultivated Palmer cursive.

In its recognizability we find both the virtue and the shadow of Mercury in Capricorn (Jan. 8, 2025, 2:30 am PST), which favors clear, well-ordered, and tidy communication—but can also mire thinking in rigid conformity. Use Mercury’s time in Capricorn (through Jan. 27) productively by taming the unruly stacks of paper in your office, crossing long-neglected tasks off your to-do list, and catching up on your thank-you notes. And if you’re trying to accomplish something in your creative work, start by stripping down the work to its bare bones, then rebuild it to greater clarity and integrity.

Spirit and Spreadsheets

Let’s say you’re the analytical type, elbow-deep in spreadsheets, skeptical of things that aren’t visible to the eye. In which case you probably wouldn’t be reading this excursion into something as illogical as astrology – right?

Or would you? Opposites attract, and in the same way your more artistic or astrology-loving friends might turn to you to defrag their hard drive, you might rely on them to give you an inside look at the world of the spirit and of imagination.

This week, the Lunar Nodes enter the signs of Pisces and Virgo (Jan. 11, 2025, 3:02 pm PST, through July 26, 2026). These Nodes mark the points where the Moon’s path around the Earth intersects with Earth’s path around the Sun; that’s the astronomy. Astrologically, the South Node is generally associated with what we’re already good at/experienced in/all full up with, while the North Node describes what we could use a little bit more of in our diets.

Sometimes, the South Node is painted as an evil place. Optimistic Sagittarius rising that I am, I don’t think of it that way. I imagine it as a storage unit that’s chock full of fantastic stuff that you don’t happen to have a use for at the moment, or that you have just too much of. In the North Node, we’re headed for someplace new, to find different sides of ourselves there; but it’s not as though we won’t find a use for anything from that storage unit.

While the nodes travel through these opposing signs, give your fanciful, imaginative Pisces side a chance to come out and play. Learn to read tarot cards, begin a meditation practice, or take up the guitar, safe in the knowledge that your practical side will keep you from quitting your job to join a rock band when you’ve only learned three chords.

Cease Fire

At dawn on Christmas morning 1914, in the throes of World War I, a heavy fog allowed both British and German soldiers cover to repair their trenches, and resulted in an unofficial truce. The Germans emerged from the trenches and called out “Merry Christmas!” in English. The British soldiers initially thought it was a trap; but when they saw the Germans were unarmed, they too emerged. The enemies shook hands, exchanged gifts of cigarettes and sweets, and sang carols together. Some Germans lit Christmas trees around the trenches, and there were even reports of an impromptu soccer match.

Imagine you’re far from home (Mars in Cancer) at Christmas, cold and damp and miserable, afraid for your life – when a wave of unexpected warmth, kindness, and humanity unexpectedly washes over you. Keep your eyes and ears open as Mars trines Neptune this week (Jan. 12, 2025, 1:16 pm PST); someone you’ve been protecting yourself from might actually welcome a chance to clink glasses and share a song with you.