By Eric Francis   December 20, 2012

The new year is a time to stop and think about your life and where you’re headed. As you turn your focus inward, Eric Francis suggests you may notice that what’s affecting you most are things outside of you that are affecting everyone. Events at the end of 2012 showed us that we’re in this together—that what happens to one of us happens to us all. As we look forward to 2013, we have the opportunity to recognize our interconnectedness and how our actions impact ourselves and the world. This year, have the courage to go off-road and into the uncharted territory of your own inner world. It’s our best chance at creating a better future.

Welcome to the 14th Baktun

We are now in the 14th baktun of the Mayan calendar, which likely means the second piktun of 5,125 years as well. The 13th baktun, the one that just ended, started just after the founding of the Dutch East India Company, and a lot has happened since, a lot besides the invention of penicillin.
The Cancer Full Moon was December 28, with the Sun in a close conjunction to Pluto—a fitting end for 2012, with the Sun aligned exactly in the 2012 aspect (Uranus square Pluto) and Mercury aligned with the Galactic Core.

The yod pattern in the 12/12/12 chart continues for months, which will hold the energy pattern of the solstice. This consists of Pluto in Capricorn, Saturn in Scorpio, and Jupiter in Gemini. These three points form an isosceles triangle (two sides having the same length) that points to Jupiter in Gemini.

Looked at one way, this is about the evolutionary process (Saturn and Pluto) that will lead us to revise our story of who we are, what we know, and what we are doing here. Jupiter in Gemini says: Get along with your neighbors, or nothing else is possible.

This message is emphasized by Mars being in Aquarius (the sign of groups and collective ideas; it arrived there on Christmas day). This is a reminder that cooperation is a matter of initiative. In order to work together, people have to want to do so. Usually it doesn’t happen spontaneously. Mars will be square Saturn through the first week of the month, so we need to get below any emotional resistance to doing that, which would include this thing we need to deal with known as “authority issues.”

The Capricorn New Moon is January 11. For that event, Mercury, Venus, Juno, and Pluto will also be in Capricorn. The lunation is conjunct asteroid Requiem, indicative of all that we will simply have to leave behind as we enter a new era in the history of the Meso-American calendar tradition.
The Sun ingresses Aquarius on January 19, in a conjunction with Mercury, and we enter the sign that is at the peak of the season, featuring Imbolc (Midwinter holiday) two weeks later.
Mars will be working its way toward a conjunction to the third centaur planet, Nessus, exact on January 26. This is a reminder to pay attention to the way that groups influence individual thinking in potentially cruel ways—people will do things as part of a group that they would never consider doing as an individual (it’s a long, ugly list). We need to be aware of these matters of unproductive social conformity, and address the individual integrity matters, as well as the leadership issues, that facilitate them.

Late that day (or on the 27th in the United Kingdom and Europe), is the Leo Full Moon. The Full Moon’s axis is square Saturn, indicating that it’s a point of restructuring. It is trine Jupiter, indicating that the energy reserves to do this restricting work will be available, if you remember that those energies will be liberated by communication, which in turn is facilitated by a clear state of inner communication.

On that day, Jupiter is the only retrograde planet. It stations direct a few days later, for a rare moment of all planets moving in direct motion.

You have the potential to accomplish great things, and you know it. You also know that discipline and focus are the keys to doing this. You can no longer depend exclusively on exterior structures to keep your goals or work pattern in place. And it would seem that the reputation you worked so hard to cultivate now translates mostly to experience. Yet that experience, if nothing else, can remind you that you have what it takes to get the job done. The question really comes down to who will keep you focused—you, or some force outside yourself. If you depend on your own inner resources to build your structure, you will have the creative freedom that you want. If you depend on something outside yourself, you will be compromised in what you get to express. I realize that the high-temperature, erratic nature of your idea flow doesn’t lend itself well to focus, but that is precisely the point. You want to maximize your qualities of initiative and originality, and in order to do that, you need your own management structure. This will give you a sense of ownership of your ideas, and help you take full responsibility for their use. Whatever you’re saying, doing. or developing has more influence than you think—and you may have at least one experience this month of seeing the potentially negative impact when you pretend they don’t. This will remind you to align with your intentions, which means knowing what they are.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Over the coming seasons, I suggest you go light on ambition and put your energy into the quality of the work that you do. You may feel a temptation to climb, compete, or socially orchestrate your way to the top. It would be better to keep your focus on the integrity of what you’re doing, as well as an actual emphasis on ethics, even if you have to overdo that a little. You don’t need ambition because you’re already visible; you have a viable role. Your current astrology describes a question of what you’re known for, and you have a lot of influence over that, though this process works from the inside out. This is why I’m suggesting you keep your emphasis behind the scenes, with a focus on content and conduct, rather than appearances. It’s your direct impression on your closest collaboration partners that matters. Whatever ability you have to exert leadership or bring a message to an audience will be better effected by setting an example for others. It may seem that they have undue control over you at the moment, but the truth is—you are depending on their guidance, and they are intimately involved with your learning process. That’s a journey that never ends, and anyone who decides they don’t have any more to learn would be someone wise to avoid. But if you ever catch yourself thinking that, I suggest you pause and reflect. Your ability to learn is now intimately linked with your success and your contentment with that success.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Relationships always present challenges of growth, communication, and understanding. And when we’re involved with someone, it helps to know who that person is, their circumstances, and their intentions—which can take time. For you, it’s essential to know your environment. By that, I mean your physical environment and who inhabits it, as well as your inner mental environment, which colors your view of the world. We all have our points of view and our biases; that’s a fact of perception. Yet you need to be acutely aware of what those are at all times. This will help you sort out what is a verifiable fact from a belief that you have. There may be some conflict between how you see the world, and how certain intimate partners see the world, especially those in parental-type relationships or those you perceive hold power over you. Remember that you don’t have to prove your point in order to be free of their judgments. If that were a qualification, you would never free yourself, because they are unlikely to ever agree with your reasoning or your point of view. The truth is, you’re less invested in those situations than you may think, and you’re under no obligation to get into any new ones. Proceeding forward, having clear agreements will help, whether in writing or at least in words spoken and understood. When an agreement is broken you may never be able to convince the person or get redress, but at least you will recognize a fact that you might otherwise have missed.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You don’t need anyone else’s permission to succeed. You don’t need to build consensus. It’s nice when people agree with you and support you, though that’s meaningless unless it’s based on having mutually respected values with another person. What I suggest you do is gently exert your leadership, which is to say, be clear what you are doing when it impacts the lives of others, and live by example. A significant part of that leadership now involves listening, without challenging what you hear. If you do that carefully, you may notice that any position taken by another, that angers or frustrates you, is coming from some intersection of your own sense of injury. That’s the place to start the resolution process within yourself, and when you do, remember to not let it affect your confidence. What you are experiencing is part of learning leadership skills. That involves walking a straight and narrow path, but it’s essential that you not let others dictate your route. We all influence one another, and it’s clear that you’re being influenced by your social environment at the moment, though this much is essential to know: Leadership is not about popularity. It’s about respect, and that begins with self-respect. We can break that down to a few ideas. One of them is: Do you have a clear enough understanding of yourself to not be swayed by the views of others? Can you listen to what people say, and take that information on board without being pushed around? You will likely find out this month.

Leo (July 22-August 23)
One root of the word integrity is in the concept of wholeness, and another line stems from untouched or pure. Yet we have all been touched and none of us is pure in any meaningful sense of the concept. Is it possible for anyone to have their wholeness, after having been through as much as we have on this planet? That is your quest. As you reconstruct, recover, or possibly create your wholeness for the first time, you’ll encounter the feeling of being through much that has threatened it. If you know that, you’ll experience an easier and more satisfying journey. Wholeness for you means connecting the person you are on the inside to the person you show the world on the outside. This implies revealing some of what has previously been contained in the shadows, so that you can make peace with it, and have some evidence that you’re loved and lovable despite any perception to the contrary. This is a year when you will be making contact with your deepest sensitivity, and that means bringing your healing process into every aspect of your life. It means recruiting everyone you consider yourself close to as allies, and understanding that there’s a connection between your relationships and how you feel about yourself. Nobody can “make” you feel safe, though people can assault your sense of safety. You need, therefore, to be selective about who you let into your life, and more precisely, why you invite them into your heart or your home.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)
Cooperation is supposed to be the hallmark of human society, though in our time of distract, divide, and conquer, that’s becoming increasingly challenging. Your job for the seasons ahead is to be the facilitator of group effort. I don’t mean people pleasing, or politicking, or diplomacy, though you will need all of those skills. What you’re doing is more along the lines of asserting yourself, and taking a central role in the process of organizing others. It’s more the Virgo style to be organized; that remains true. Worrying yourself with what all these other people are doing, or must do, can be a bother. You may have the temptation to be bossy, but that will only work on a few occasions, and it might get you into some trouble. What will work a lot better is facilitating communication. This will require listening first, and speaking second. You may have the impulse to do the opposite, and I suggest you keep it in check. Before making a statement, ask a question. Make sure you know the viewpoints of everyone involved, and make sure you take them under advisement. That doesn’t mean do what everyone says; it means know what they are saying, and how you feel about it. The key element, however, is holding the vision. This may take some extra focus for you, especially if you have two sets of goals that seem to conflict. It’s okay to have two sets of goals—as long as they are in harmony with one another.

Libra (September 22-October 23)
Self-confidence is ultimately an emotional phenomenon. It doesn’t matter how much you know or what risks you’re willing to take; those are different qualities. True confidence in yourself, that is, the feeling of belonging in your body and in the world, and possessing faith in your ability to handle your circumstances, is a feeling and it emerges from your emotional presence. You may be figuring out the ways that you were taught not to trust yourself, which you then tend to project outward into an environment you think you cannot trust. You may be discovering the ways you’ve been taught to live within the constructs of the past, rather than in your true desires. I would call that a good thing, because if you see your adhesions to the past for what they are, you’ll be able to address them. That can set the template for your whole approach to growth: Be glad you see an issue for what it is, then take steps to work it out. Through this process, you may at times feel a deep, burning desire to be independent. You may find yourself making decisions that compel you to indulge a deep autonomy that you’ve never felt before. Take this as far as you can, but not so far that you isolate yourself. If you lean in the direction of emotional self-sufficiency, you’ll figure out that it’s easier to build healthy relationships from that state of being than from any other. And that’s what I would call true confidence.

Scorpio (October 23-November 22)
If you’re feeling burdened by responsibility, then exercise an option. The sensation of burden is your cue to make a choice. Easier said now then remembered later; I’ll remind you in the future, but please remember now. Saturn will be in your birth sign for two more years. This is a blessing, though few people see it that way at the time. It’s a get-serious phase of your life, and you’re about to go deep. Yet that seriousness, even in the form of focus, can be heavy, and it can come with a sense of being powerless. You may feel hemmed in by situations you feel you cannot control; you may be caught in the density or fixity of your own ideas. This is when to put your options out right in front of you. The expression “claim your power” means seeing your options—and I assure you, you have them. Making this move is the shift from passive to active mode. I suggest you play a game and notice how long it takes for you to go from recognition of your situation, to making a decision, to taking action. Is it a matter of minutes, weeks, or years? Saturn will teach you that in the life of a person, time is not infinite. If you find yourself acting as if you have all the time in the world, or if you’re going to make your important decisions “eventually,” then you have your most meaningful growth agenda laid out for you in clear, useful terms.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 22)
The question is: Are your feelings about yourself your own feelings, or are they the collection of everything that everyone said about you, projected onto you, and conditioned you to believe about yourself as a child? You’re probably thinking: Well, I wish it was the first possibility, but I have a hunch that it may be the second.The question is one of context. Everything new that you’ve learned was fit onto shelves and into compartments that were established by the first few layers, and also by ancestral patterns. When you try to put new information into the context of old information, it’s often hard to tell which is which. That, in short, is the beauty of the current moment of your life; the old context is being dismantled (which can feel like falling apart, disintegrating, or being shattered, depending on the day). When the structure of your mind is changed so radically, that can feel disorienting, and give you the sensation that you don’t know yourself, and you don’t know what’s really important to you. The thing is, you do. Yet what you’re doing in this era of your life is learning how to perceive that self-knowledge outside the framework of what has been done to you, said about you, or sold to you. It matters not how well-meaning anyone was; the framework is a root of your loyalty to the heritage that you’re freeing yourself from, and the truth is, you will be a lot happier with your own original self-understanding.

Capricorn (December 22-January 20)
I suggest you be vigilant for “survivalist” thoughts and ideas, which may show up as Pluto reaches a new peak of activity in your sign in 2013. Capricorn has that gritty quality of being able to get through anything, but it’s not serving you now. In fact, if it flares up, it’s likely to be a response to an inner sense of instability, of a particular kind: the sensation of not knowing who you are. Yet you would be wasting your energy if you tried to defend yourself against that. There is truly beautiful creative energy in not knowing, because then you leave the space open to find out. I must credit a therapist and teacher named Joseph Jastrab for pointing this out, in one mention that I heard and thought about for the next 20 years: it’s powerful to hold open the space of not knowing. I mean powerful in that it connects you with the strength of your quest for self-understanding. If you think you know, you cannot find out. If you fill in missing knowledge with false information, you clutter the space where the truly meaningful wisdom could come in. This is partly why “quick answers” are so perilous to growth: they prevent it. If you honor your lack of knowledge, the discomfort of admitting that you don’t know who you are will, fairly soon, give way to the experience of your authentic quest. And that is an expression of your commitment to yourself, a commitment which now moves to front and center in your life.

Aquarius (January 20-February 19)
If you haven’t figured out that it’s useless to keep secrets from yourself, now would be a fantastic time to come around to that discovery. Indeed, the essence of your life is all about self-discovery, which implies a courageous inner quest. To go there, you will need to learn how to work with fear. Though it’s usually put down as unnecessary, that’s of little consequence when you’re confronted by it. The question is: What, within yourself, do you have to fear? Well, there is a source, but it’s a lot older than you. It’s so old you would be shocked, and that’s precisely the point of why you will benefit from a conscious embrace of the issue. Think of yourself as dancing with it instead of running from it. Or, perhaps, as a kind of homing signal back to its source, which may be one single ancestor whose thoughts and feelings got a grip on your entire lineage, or on you personally. You’re on a kind of search and rescue mission, to search out the fear and rescue the substantial piece of your soul that’s being held hostage by it. This has been going on for a while, but through the next few seasons you have the benefit of knowing what you’re looking for, and how it feels. You’re closer than you may think, though I can suggest a kind of secret portal into the place you want to get to. If you carefully consider any idea, thought, or relationship that involves authority, your use of it or its use on you, you will have big clues.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)
You may not be sure if you can create yourself, but in that case I would ask: Who can? You must assume one way or the other, and your own creativity is far more trustworthy than anything anyone might impose on you. You have full access to all the resources you need to do this; tune in and listen. And you’re called to do one other thing: Engage with what may seem like opposite or competing psychic currents. One is inviting you to open up and experience the full flow of inspiration. This allows you into the realm of vision, fantasy, and empathy with the world and the cosmos, with no special agenda. (That’s one description of Neptune in your sign.) The other is focused, purpose-driven, and oriented on your relationship to yourself. You will find yourself needing to stand apart or stand out, and to know yourself in a way that calls for deep acceptance of who and what you are. (That is one description of Chiron in your sign.) These two cosmic forces are more than you may have ever experienced as direct influences, and they are significantly different than what you have lived through in many recent years. Note the changes in your inner and outer climate. Speaking of outer: There is suddenly a lot more room in the world for you to be yourself. Walls have turned to doors. What at one time demanded formality now welcomes originality. Try to see.

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