Sarah Varcas – We live in intense times: intensely unpredictable, intensely beautiful, intensely unsettling, intensely transformational. Both the best and the worst are rising to the surface, revealed in their fullness for all to behold. These are times of opportunity, when we can change the course of so much and challenge, like never before, the status quo of inequalities and power differentials, oppression, exploitation and deception. Things are not as they seem, nor are they as we’ve been led to believe. Truths are surfacing, along with feelings previously discounted, fears denied for too long and realities we dared not name.
Both brutal and nurturing in equal measure, current planetary activity speaks of great conflict and great healing, but the former may precede the latter with immense force. Truth rises like a bubble, breaking through what may be a hardened surface of complacency or denial, shattering as it goes. This fragmented surface may be our career that falls apart to reveal its empty heart just when we thought we should be at the top of our game.
It may be a relationship that dissolves into dust when we need it to sustain us the most. It may be our health as it falters and fails, a wider breakdown in social order or an unavoidable sense of deepening unease that something in our world is very wrong and in need of healing before it’s too late. The current conjunction between Eris and Uranus leaves no one untouched for we all, at some level or other, must be broken open to receive the truth and stop living our personal lie.
It is tempting to take sides at moments like this. To play ‘good and righteous’ to another’s ‘bad’. Current world events foster this tendency as acts of unspeakable violence occur on our doorstep, echoing events that have occurred for many years, but at a safe enough distance that we could happily ignore them and carry on our merry and unconscious way. But violence and hatred, fear and terror, despair and frustration don’t go away by ignoring them. Quite the opposite. Denial feeds them, as does refusal to acknowledge the seeds of truth in their darkened heart.
I will be back will a full report tomorrow, everyone. In the meantime, 
Henry Seltzer – The astrology of January 2016 features Mercury in retrograde, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, and Eris. As we slide into the new year we are treated to a large dose of outer planet interaction that ensures that the major changes of the past year are far from over.
summing up of the intensity of these earlier lunations in the cycle, and traditionally for this phase also a noteworthy alteration in point of view, which Rudhyar called a “crisis in consciousness.” This shift in perception is based upon successfully digesting the experiences of the previous three weeks of the lunation cycle thus far. Additionally, this configuration places the