As the New Year opens, we are enjoying a lineup of planets in Capricorn that is sharpening our focus and our ability to ground ourselves into a plan for the coming year. Capricorn is achievement oriented and can be rather driven, but there is also a pragmatism and practicality to that sign that is very useful for life on Planet Earth. The planets involved are Pluto, of course, who will be in Capricorn until 2023; Venus, whose trip through Capricorn helps to solidify our relationships and help us to fulfill our responsibilities; the Sun, lighting the way to devise and create a structure that will provide room for us to grow within; and Mercury, traveling retrograde through Capricorn and causing us to revisit some areas in which perhaps we were less practical than we should have been, and requiring some do-overs. The North Node of the Moon is also in Capricorn which affects us rather less personally, but still there is a sense of moving forward (North Node) with our goals and the practical side of life.

The only other planet traveling retrograde is Mars which is in Leo. Mars will remain in Leo until June of 2010: driving us to express our Selves in a creative way, to have fun and seek pleasure, to be generous of heart and vibrant of spirit and ask the same of those around us. As long as Mars is retrograde, however (until March 10), it may be more difficult to actually accomplish our goals and achieve our desires until they have become perfected. Mars retrograde is rather like trying to move forward when the wheels are installed backwards. There is a pull in reverse that can hinder us from getting where we want to be. However, there is also an opportunity here to complete old unfinished projects and alter areas of our life that are affected by the retrograde, such as planets in our chart being aspected by the transit of Mars or houses in our through which Mars is traveling.

As January begins we also see Saturn slowing down to a standstill before turning retrograde on the 13th. Over the next two weeks Saturn will travel less than four minutes of arc after it retrogrades it will travel only 10 minutes, just one-third of one degree, so it is virtually stationary throughout the month. When planets are stationary their influence is powerful – like a beam of light coming from the sky, the energies of that planet grabs for our attention. Saturn is the ruler of Capricorn, the sign in which we have the big lineup of planets, so there is a very strong Saturn/Capricorn influence here. That Which Must Be Done takes center focus, and the emotional world recedes into the background.

As Saturn retrogrades it will move back into a position to form a square to Pluto for the second time at the end of the month. These two planets acting together demand that we surrender anything in our life that is no longer serving us – any dead weight that we are carrying around out of sentimentality or fear – and rise to the challenge of doing what is necessary and practical to move forward on the evolutionary path.

With all of this as a backdrop, it may be a relief to know that there are relatively few interplanetary aspects this month and most of the aspects that do occur are the harmonious kind, suggesting that we are working mostly with the larger issues and will be unfettered by day to day problems that distract us and provide small irritations. Once we have our vision in place of our Saturnian/Capricornian goals and objectives, it will be easier to find the pathway that leads there. This is made all the easier by the fact that the Sun and Venus will be traveling in tight conjunction throughout the month, softening all of our hard edges and opening our hearts to the beauty and harmony that is available all around us.