It seems to me that this tension between wanting to contribute to society, be part of something – whether a movement, a team, a cause, or a community—and wanting to be alone, in order to connect with oneself and the vast non-human world that exists outside the self, whether that of nature and the stars, or other planes of existence and ways of knowing, will be baked into the years ahead, with Pluto more fully ushering in the Aquarian theme since its second ingress in January. The Pluto ‘game’ of transformation, if you will, will be an Aquarian one.

Fittingly, patience is one of the primary qualities that Capricorn, and its ruler Saturn, apprentices us to. When we submit to the task, waiting with attentive openness for the dormant to arise, keeping the inward gaze which this yin sign invites, we will have met this Elder/Teacher energy with all of ourselves, and, with grace, reap its rewards come spring.

Sagittarius, in contrast, is after a transcendent, over-arching truth, which it aims to bring into Life by grounding it in our hearts and our seeing, after first encountering it in high places—whether these be a mountaintop, a meditation cushion, or a seat of higher learning.

In keeping with the theme, Water sign Scorpio’s season is indeed a time of going within, taking stock, and doing the hard work of facing our grievances and our grief. And it wants us to do so not in a rational way, as prior Air sign Libra would do, but with feeling. If this is hard for us to do, we mustn’t be surprised if life throws us a fireball or two to get us in the mood.

On the individual level, the invitation in this season of Libra, further emphasized by Saturday’s eclipse, is to get centered in our authentic, grounded self, while still considering the needs and input of others. With eclipses said to be times of change and release of the old, this could mean letting go of relationships that may have become dysfunctional, or at least shifting entrenched ‘pleaser’ or dependency dynamics through Aries courage and self-assertion.

Virgo’s archetypal filter, which the Sun is now casting its rays through, is trained on the ordinary, on the tasks of putting our lives in order, of harvesting the fruits of the earth (bountiful during Virgo season) and getting to the careful work of separating the chaff from the wheat.

Poems of love and light abound, but these two strike me as beautiful illustrations of the Leo archetype, ruled by the Sun, the Light that makes all Life possible in its great generosity. As Mary Oliver say, when we allow that light in energetically, we feel ourselves infused with “something of inexplicable value.” We ourselves become a Light.

For many, this archetype marks where we feel ‘at home’. For others, less resolved around issues of family and home, Cancer energy can invoke, as Rilke says above, “the great home-sickness.”

Magic Weaver: Some of my recent awakenings about the sign of Gemini have pertained to its connection with magic, as well as how it asks us to leave our entrapment in rational linear thinking, and leap out of the very box from which it came. Because while we do associate Air sign energy with the thinking function in astrology, thinking was not originally intended to be a Descartian slam dunk.

Saturn asks us to give form and structure to, and, importantly, take responsibility for, what it touches. It’s a bit of an oxymoron, to take responsibility in a Piscean manner, as Pisces inherently seeks to move us beyond structures and ‘shoulds’, to other planes of consciousness, other levels of awareness, and other ways of knowing and feeling.