Initially I intended to post an overview of the astrology for all 12 months of the year. However, the word count on that post hit over 6000 (and counting) and I decided it would be way more digestible to break it down into single month chunks.
So, here’s the astrology of January 2021. I didn’t talk about every single transit or event, but rather focused on the main ones that I thought were most pertinent and/or interesting.
All times are in Mountain Standard (MST).
Photo by M. B. Louis on Unsplash
I feel like the new year really started back on the winter solstice, December 21, 2020, with the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 0 degrees of Aquarius. That set the stage for the year to come, marking a profound shift from Earth to Air – the next 200 years of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions (which happen every 20 years) will all take place in Air signs. For the previous 200 years, they all occurred in Earth signs (with a couple exceptions – I won’t get into the specifics here, but that’s the general gist of it).
Saturn resides in Aquarius for the next two and a half years. (For a more in-depth look at Saturn in Aquarius, see my 2021 general overview.)
The biggest piece of space weather in January is the Jupiter in Aquarius square to Uranus in Taurus, which goes exact on January 17. At the same time, Mars makes an applying conjunction with Uranus (it is only one degree away and goes exact on January 20). Look for a big development in the Uranus-in-Taurus themes (again, see my 2021 annual overview) that we will experience ongoing for the next several years. Taurus rules the home, food and finances, so there will likely be big, sudden disruptions in all three areas over the course of this year (and beyond). Mars’ conjunction with Uranus will be throwing more fuel on the disruption fire and Jupiter just wants to expand and grow everything, so there could be some really inflammatory developments around this time.
The stock market could tank again, or hit another record high (only to plummet when the Saturn-Uranus squares happen later in the year); digital currency will start to become mainstream; there will be more food supply shortages; millions of people are on the verge of homelessness due to the impending eviction crisis in the US; there might even be major earthquakes/volcanoes at this time thanks to the fiery Mars influence on Uranus in Taurus.
Over the course of January 2021, a procession of planets (Mercury, Moon, Sun and Venus) will move through Aquarius and make us all quickly acquainted with the various significations and possible themes of the water-bearer’s sign.
There will be a lot of talk about what to expect in this new year, how it is the different (or the same) from 2020. Most importantly, we’ll be talking about how society moves forward from the pandemic and how our world will be structured, particularly around healthcare, education and public workplaces. There will be discussion, debates and outright fights about the “correct” ways that we should order our society and how we should interact going forward.
By the end of the first week, Mercury has barrelled into Aquarius and will proceed to make a series of aspects with other planets as he goes, only to slam on the brakes on January 30 and station retrograde, retreading all that Aquarian ground to make sure we are good and acquainted with Mercury’s presence here. He will spend most of February plodding backwards over the terrain that Venus, the Sun and Jupiter will tread over very soon, inspecting it for sure footing and installing light posts along the way. Back up your files, things might blow away at this time.
There is a New Moon on January 12 at 23 Capricorn, just one degree off from the major Saturn-Pluto conjunction that happened exactly one year ago to this day (which was at 22 Capricorn on January 12, 2020), and only one degree behind Pluto’s current position. At this same time, Mercury makes a separating conjunction from Jupiter and Saturn in early Aquarius and those three are squaring Mars and Uranus in Taurus, the two of which are moving together in an applying conjunction.
This New Moon plants the seeds for a new year, a new cycle out of the old. It asks us to reflect on all that has come before and to cleanse ourselves of the emotional baggage and burdens of the past so that we can prepare for a truly new beginning. It asks us to identify our emotional support structures and determine which are solid and which are rotten and to be discarded. It also throws a few electric currents of action, perhaps even surprise commandments, that will form the foundation of the year to come.
A couple days later on January 14, the Sun conjuncts Pluto at 24 Capricorn – shining another spotlight on the past but also letting us examine all that has transpired in the last year with a critical, objective lens. This is the exact degree of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions on April 5 and June 30, 2020, so it will call to mind those periods and ask us how our consciousness has expanded and transformed since then and where we will creatively direct this energy in the future. For more information on Pluto in Capricorn, and the importance of these degrees of the goat’s sign, see my 2021 annual overview.
The end of the very busy first month of 2021 is marked by a tense full moon at 9 Leo on January 28, followed by Mercury stationing retrograde at 26 Aquarius on January 30. The Full Moon is making a very tight square with Mars at 10 Taurus, so there’s a big, tense T-square between the Moon in Leo, Sun in Aquarius and Mars in Taurus. This will be very activating for anyone with personal planets around this degree of the fixed signs.