Eris is the goddess of discord and she will continue with her influence in 2019.
The year of 2019 will be a springboard for the great cardinal conjunctions of 2020.
Eris will be in 22-23 degrees of Aries, and along with Uranus transiting the end of Aries and the early degrees of Taurus will add the drive for more changes in women’s rights, and the LGBT movements. The drive for freedom from old customs and prejudices will expand as the year moves on.

Who is Eris? She is a dwarf planet beyond Pluto, but slightly larger than Pluto. She is the goddess of anger and revenge caused by not being invited to a meeting of the gods of Mt. Olympus. She shows up to the party and creates discord with her anger and revenge against the harmony of the gods’ party and manages to create discord and the final result is the Trojan War.

The “war” that will continue into 2019 is the persistent clash between the status quo and the growth of the drive for freedom to minorities. The “#MeTo” will now become more focused on “#NeverAgain” movement to establish clearly defined laws on building a better legal structure to promote the ideals of personal freedom and fight the restrictions on civil liberties. We will see more women’s marches.

What will be a large energy of 2019? Jupiter is one of the big keys to creating the energy for propelling onto the vast implications of 2020. Already the astrological community is focusing on 2020 and kind of passing over the implication of Jupiter in Sagittarius, a sign of expansion, and emphasis of legal, religion, communication, and cross cultural values. With its energy it will square Neptune deal with the ideals of defining those values of cultural goals. The clash will become stronger as the year progresses. The trade wars may become more dangerous to the world economy, 2020 will expand this complex situation even further.

Mars and Venus will not go retrograde as they did in 2018 and this will help propel the energy of both gods as they make hard and soft aspects as they transit the zodic, which will make spots of excitement as they take their impact on a personal level, especially Sagittarius and Pisces.

I will continue this with further and more individual notes at the year moves on.

Venus goes retrograde from October 5th to November 15th. During this time Venus with descend from being the Setting Star in the West — disappear– and emerge as the Rising Star in the East. This cycle was not missed by the Chaldean Priests whose myth of Inanna takes this sequence and has Inanna descending into the darkness to see her sister Ereshkigal who is having a hard time as Queen of the Underworld. After a soap opera of sibling rivalry, Inanna emerges in the East rather upset. The myth actually says East Rising Inanna Inanna is an aggressive maybe nearly volatile. The Mayans go further and name this phase of the retrograde the emerging Venus is more like Mars. Go figure. Cross cultural myths are always so interesting.

Anyway, that myth aside, Venus retrograde should at first be looked at as the part of the “re” (add key word).
Review, rethink, reexamine re-plan,re-imagine,regroup. This method is helpful and can lead to some great renewed perspectives in this introspective journey into the self.

However, I would like to suggest write down key words for Venus that show the polarities of the energy field.
On the one positive side Venus: beauty, gentle persuasion, balancing, affection, flirting, love, social graces, etc. On the negative side can be: not so beautiful, unbalancing, overly ambitious, envy, jealousy, slut, all around problem child of moods and twisted passions. This examination of the polarities should be a clue as to the field or spectrum of the planet. Old lovers could calls, a dangerous affair might be broached, a back stabbing. Or it might be re-birthing and energizing. The Chi may be enlightening. This could be a time of discovering past mistakes and make plans to do better, to try harder, to be more sensitive, or not as sensitive.

Change will happen. First I recommend breaking up or seriously rethinking all relationships which have gone flat. Or worse relationships which are like a vampire of spirit, sucking you dry of energy and time. We all carry some freeloading friends who take much more than they give. Time to weed the garden and get the ground open for new seeds of growth.

There can be a karmic aspect to this time as in retrospect you identify particular karmic points in your life and the positive and negative energies you have gone through. Sometimes even a phone call, a chance meeting, remark, can have more meaning when re-examined from a retrograde and reflective period. It can be quite rewarding to see the pattern of the flow of one’s life. This can also lead to spiritual matters which yield insights for personal and spiritual growth. Mystical experiences brought on by reflection is know to have happened. Also the theme of passing through a time of darkness is very instructive to help when depression or bad moods hit. All will pass.

Let’s not forget that Venus starts at 10 Scorpio and goes to 25 Libra. Note your fixed and cardinal sign configurations in your natal chart to see what aspects the retrograde will make and the possible results. Remember, the Chaldeans would say that Venus rising in Libra will be a more aggressive goddess with some active plans for action on settling scores. Since this will be during the 2018 election cycle will prove more that interesting.

Mars is going retrograde at the 26th of June to the 27th of August, two months for this cycle that happens at a key time this year. This time includes three eclipses (2 in July, 1 in August) and a Mercury retrograde (7/23 – 8/18). The first word of advice from this corner is to have a lot of patience. The energy streams around this ole planet will be going in various directions and it is wise to take one’s time and cope with an ambiguity that makes this easier to say than to do. A pilot has to trust his/her instruments when going through the clouds and the same is true for this personal period of time. Trust deep instincts be cautious, watch for riptides in the metaphysical wind which challenges directions. Check temperaments as the days move on.

A second word of advice is to go to the old standard and very true skills of coping by using the big “re” principle. The “re” stands for the prefix of action, rethink, review, re-plan, reconnect, research,regroup,restore, reassess,rewrite, re-edit, redefine, reconsider goals . . . etc.These actions are time tested. Expect confusing speeding up only to have a slowing down.

For most people the energy goes inward as the desire is to look at internal and personal modes of acting and receiving. This leads to the overview of the self and where you are at this at this time. Boundaries may need repair to protect from being overrun by outside and challenging activities or seductions that should be firmed up so that this work on soul and self can have some internal core that is the working self with the tendency of the ego involvement is something that must be coped with.

The core of Mars is exposed during this time, there is ripple of passive aggressive. Sure, sometimes there will be anger that strikes out, yet most profound is that this slowing down, this realizing that the heat has been turned down. The old fight or flight in Mars at this time is in thinking about both fight and flight as a type of flux of vibrations that can be looked at with more dispassionate eye and heart.

The inner self can look at sex and the physical strength as being slower and easier to understand because the retrograde motion sends the planet back from Aquarius to Capricorn where it will pivot. First imagine Mars in the realm of Uranus: which is shaking up with its entry into Taurus) as bringing electric amperage in a level of spark and synapses which bring cracks in what is looked at from this fixed sign ethos of struggling with the status quo. Sensitive awareness to this energy, a person is like a seismograph. There will be quakes as old ideas crumble to new ideas which promise more success and growth.

I gave a lecture recently and advocated that the best way of dealing with this is to work with a notebook. What is going on? Write it down, think about the implications. Note the eclipses and Mercury rx times and see what spice they add to your dreams, both as an aspect in a goal, dream job, etc. and the dreams you have at night. Dreams should be taken as notes from the subconsciousness to consciousness – actually like a message from the realm of archetypes. Past moments, future projections as well as hints of past lives which lurk in the substrates of the instinctive self and soul in dialogue. Check out the aspects and houses in your chart. Remember this is the time to review, etc.

Look forward to this retrograde for while this retrograde starts in Aquarius, an exulted Mars will go direct in Capricorn and the pragmatic and practical will return with the plan to get things properly grounded with the energy field and growth worked out. Then Mars goes down the road to re-square Uranus and the spark plug will start integrating and expanding on the new/learning it has gone though and changes will come. It will be interesting.

Wow! After 7 years in Aries, Uranus enters Taurus. This will not be pretty, even though Venus rules Taurus, Uranus has the greater trump power. Two signs could not be fathomed more different, and both are fixed and stubborn.

In a game of chicken one loses by being a “chicken” swerving out of the way of the other car and there by having common sense and self interest. In the game of the gods, one trumpets the call for change, even rebellion, and then there is Taurus Venus, staid pragmatic and in love with the big, the pricey, but still not gauche or beyond the common rules of esthetic.

Uranus is nervous, the uncle who always tapped his foot when he visited for Thanksgiving. Cud chewing Taurus is an earth Venus sublimely sitting in a green pasture, grass to eat. Always lurking in this content is the power of Taurus, the bull. When angry the power of Taurus is born of horn and muscle and an attitude that is extremely volatile. It is this bull that will test Uranus the Aquarian. There will be collateral damage as the social dust blows away.

There is a bit of growing chaos in some of Uranus energies — all of which Venus will have to take awareness of, and sensitive to, for she is diplomatic and esthetic, socially skilled, masterful in the acts of love and art. Yet to the electricity and high voltage of Uranus there must be surrender, for the status quo cannot be sustained and a brittle point will mean there will be fissures on political and social allegiances that will precipitate an energy when the fear of what is happening?? A good question to ask, but who knows, really, The shock waves of the growing instability of profound democratic institutions is something that needs to be met with elasticity and willingness to pull the ropes of the contest to the side of Taurus. It will need to be flexible and still pull off the needed earthy stability. The bull is too strong to be just shunted away, even by Uranus.

Either way we look at it, the only thing we can bet on is that this transit of Taurus by Uranus will last seven years and then it is hello Gemini. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have, immediately facing us, is the knowledge that the year 2018 will be a politically hot one, not that it hasn’t been inconceivably hot enough at present with all the different fronts that are now blazing like little fires that are about to come together to create a huge blaze that sets new records. We have seen fires like that, coming together and becoming a monster of flames and doing some real, measurable damage, some of it quite painful. Seven years, remember, and we have ringside seats. Sit back and hold on.

Considering the total eclipse of August 21 2017, we have hardly recovered. Since that eclipse there has been a long list of huge natural disasters all across the United States, which, incidentally, was the course of the eclipse. I personally went to Oregon to see this one and it was like seeing another dimension. The sky darkened, wind started, dogs howled and at totality I had a vision of what a worm hole or black hole might look light. It made me filled with AWE.

Since that time (August 21) the list of natural disasters, record setting at that, has become a list that has defied the imagination while I was up in Oregon going ooh with awe at the eclipse.
Fires in California, three hurricanes, Puerto Rico laid waste, level 7 earthquakes around the world. I live in LA and worry about our “big one” coming. The weather has gone wacky and new high temperatures have emerged as well as record low temperatures. And the record fires yielded record and deadly mud slides.

February 15 2018 Eclipse is the brother/sister, choose your gender, of the August 21 2017 eclipse. The August was at 28 degrees of Leo, this February 15th is at 27 Aquarius. This opposition is something to be taken seriously. The same acupuncture area is hit with a new needle.

Hopefully when there is another eclipse that follows the preceding one, we try to see if we can fully understand the preceding and possibilities for a change in the upcoming. However in this case the power of August 21 was so strong that we would be crazy not to put some mental energy into trying to figure out what the impact of February 15 might be.

One of the things that worries me is that this eclipse quincunxes the Mercury of the USA chart (Aquarius-Cancer). I point this out as this can’t help but make the difficulty of fake news and honest news increasingly puzzling and not only in terms of the President and the collusion investigation,but all the other news on the diplomatic area, as well as the “me too” and other social events, as well as the way the congress has become more divided than even recently could have been thought of. The world politics are not much better with deep issues as climate change, increasing water shortages and drought. The issues of the haves and have not will come into sharper focus. The 99 percent will have even more to grumble about and this issue will add more weight to social tension. Look for more street marches on a larger scale.

Speaking of drought, The July 12th eclipse at 20 degrees of Cancer opposes the transiting Pluto which is slowly creeping its way to a Pluto return of the USA Pluto at 27 Capricorn, beginning orb in 2022–an supplying a topper to all the events of the Saturn Pluto conjunction at the end of 2020. These are evolutionary times my friends. The yelling of warnings in the last couple of decades about the reality of climate change will become acute–and the drought in Asia, African, Australia, SW US, and parts of Russia will bear witness of what the great Cardinal Cross foreshadowed in the beginning of the century. The focus at that time was around 20 degrees of Cancer and now we have an eclipse hitting that point. Wow. There will be huge immigration problems starting down the road as people parched for water will head to borders where there is something to drink. Lets hope that I have been taking too many critical and cynical pills, so I will stop on this eclipse for the time being.

Looking at the August 11th eclipse at 18 Leo is exactly opposite the US Moon at 18 Aqueous. This eclipse definitely points to some serious strain on the institutions of our country, especially as we will be in the heat of the 2018 election campaigns. One might hope that this points to a bringing of new emotional and nurturing changes in our country. It could, however point to serious challenges to the fabric of our democracy. It could point to some attempts to clean things up. I will need more time to consider this eclipse and will write more specifically about it after the July 12 eclipse.

In the meantime wait until I write about Uranus entering Taurus in May. That will bring challenges to fixed concepts and institutions as well. When two fixed signs collide, the fall out will be immense.