The Season of Showstopper Shifts Starts Now
Listen here:
It’s a month and year packed with intense transits, and in our first-ever two-astrologer panel, Nura Rachelle and Mark Borax will give you the lay of the land to navigate all of this.
If you feel like you’ve been on the verge of a huge energetic shift for years, and you’ve been waiting for something pivotal to happen. This episode is going to clear up and confirm a lot of things for you.
This shift into 2024 heralds a lot of big changes. Of course, the big showstopper (of the month and even the year) is Pluto’s move into Aquarius. But that’s not all…January 2024 also brings a new moon in Capricorn, Mars going into Capricorn, Uranus stationing direct at the end of the month, and the start of the year of the dragon.
On this episode, you’ll learn;
🌑 Why this month and year kick off a “make it or break it” period for humanity
🌱 Why it’s a good idea to put yourself “out there” and try new things socially
💫 How we’ll be “celestially resourced” this month
🎇 Why it would be a good idea to focus your energy and efforts on embodiment and your health
🔥 The “hot spots in the month” and how to navigate them
🧘 A mantra and tips for regulating your nervous system to help you through the intense moments ahead…
📆 Are you an astrology lover curious about what 2024 has in store? Discover your path with our FREE 2024 Astrology Blueprint. Our exceptional Astrologer Connect team offers deep insights, detailed transit reports, and tailored journaling prompts to help you harness the best of 2024. Unlock your cosmic roadmap – visit https://astrologyhub.com/blueprint and get yours today!
🎇 Ready to embark on a magical journey that transforms your year ahead? It’s not too late to join us in the ’12 Days of Solstice Challenge’ presented by Astrology Hub. This free, 12-day challenge offers daily videos, insightful astrological themes for each lunar cycle, personalized intention-setting practices, and a supportive community. Plus, there’s a chance to win exciting prizes! Start co-creating your incredible year now. Sign up at https://astrologyhub.com/solstice
🐉 Did you miss Mark Borax’s predictions for the Year of the Dragon? Tune into the episode here: https://astrologyhub.com/mark2024-prep-yt
📖 Discover the magic of planning with the cosmos using Magic of I’s astrological planners, a favorite at Astrology Hub. Get an exclusive 10% discount with code AHMAGIC, or a 20% discount as an Inner Circle Member (check your membership portal for the code!).
Visit https://astrologyhub.com/ahmagic to claim your offer and step into 2024 with clarity.
📰 Get your astrology week-ahead snapshot and tips for how to work with it in your daily life! https://astrologyhub.com/insider
📕 Check out our list of free resources! https://astrologyhub.com/free-resources/
Transcript:
Amanda Walsh: [00:00:00] Happy new year. It is so great to be back here with you with a new show format. We are trying out here at the Astrology Hub podcast.
You said you love our panel events. So we’re going to be doing a monthly year ahead panel. And today I
am joined by two soulful, deep, and beautiful astrologers,
Nora Rochelle and Mark Borax. They’re going to give you a lay of the land for the astrology of the month ahead, January, 2024. There’s some massive transits happening this month.
Some we’ve been waiting for, for years. So here’s what you’re going to get on today’s episode. You’ll find out why it’s the make it or break it period of time for humanity. Why it’s a good idea to put yourself out there and try new things socially. Why the start of this year is somewhat of a wild card, why Mark and Nora say we will be celestial, Celestially resourced this month.
Why it would be a good idea to focus your energy and [00:01:00] efforts on embodiment and your health. You’ll also learn about hotspots in the month and you’ll receive a mantra and tips for regulating your nervous system that can help you through the intense moments ahead. Make sure you have a journal or some other ways to jot down the dates we mentioned.
And another show feature we’re going to be adding to the podcast will be deep dives on the biggest transit that we’re navigating. So you’ll get an overall lay of the land here today, and then you can look forward to more deep dive episodes covering one transit or aspect as the month continues. I hope you enjoy this new format here at the Astrology Hub podcast.
And for now, sit back, relax, and enjoy. And enjoy your January forecast. Let’s start with January. If we had to anchor on a big picture theme for this month, what would you say? That is,
Mark Borax: I say that it’s a larger theme than only January, but it really gets implemented in [00:02:00] January with a radical awakening from disguise.
What does that mean, Mark? Well, I’m looking at this in the overall Pluto transit through Capricorn, that, because on January 20th, Pluto enters, re enters. Sorry, Aquarius. Pluto leaves Capricorn and enters Aquarius. And I look at Pluto as the stripper, the stripper of disguise, you know, to get you naked, to get you raw, to bring you back down to essence.
And I feel that that’s one of the main things that’s going to save the day at this strange, crazy time on planet
Nura Rachelle: Earth. Absolutely. I agree 100%. And I just love this reminder from Carl Jung. He says, one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. And so this beautiful unearthing of our power and this re empowerment through doing whatever it is [00:03:00] we need to do, sitting with ourselves, shadow work.
Ultimately, it’s self love work, which I think astrology is as well, because it’s that way of getting to see what’s going on through this lens of revelation and enlightenment, but really going deep with it. So I think absolutely this Pluto in Aquarius is taking us somewhere that I think we’re really ready for.
It’s like finally going over the precipice, even though we get to do it a little bit more over this whole year, but I think everybody’s ready for Pluto’s entrance into Aquarius. Okay, so
Amanda Walsh: astrologically it sounds like the big showstopper of the month is this Pluto moving into Aquarius. I know it’s not just of the month, it arguably could be of the year, right?
And maybe arguably the next couple decades. But so we have Pluto moving into Aquarius and that’s on January 20th. Let’s dive into that a little bit more. Will people be experiencing something new with this transit, or is [00:04:00] it something familiar? Like, are there going to be, is it, is it going to herald big changes?
Or is it, do we kind of already know what the themes are that Pluto and Aquarius is going to be highlighting?
Nura Rachelle: My thoughts are that we have quite a bit of acquaintance with this energy, but that we’ve been having to pull ourselves back a little bit and tune into how we would like to use it from the space of most empowerment.
It’s, you know, topics of AI and technology and how the economy is shifting and all of this new, like the future, the future is here. The future is now, I feel like we’ve been. really holding this in the field for the past few years, especially since Saturn was in Aquarius. And there’s a lot of this restructuring going on.
So I feel like more than anything, it’s this anticipation energy and this curiosity of, okay, how do I as an individual contribute to this rather than feeling overpowered by [00:05:00] all of these big changes? Well, what’s my role within all of it and how can I get started?
Mark Borax: Yeah, I, I agree with that. And it isn’t just January and it’s not just 2024.
It’s, it’s a 20 year period. And I feel like this is the make it or break it period of humanity that are, are we going to remember that we’re made of love? Are we going to turn toward ourselves on a primal level rather than hiding and disguising and, and turning away? So I think it’s a deep, yeah. It’s a deep truth moment.
It’s a real, it’s a real moment to awaken to something that I think we do all know deep down below, but a lot of conditioning and fear and pressure, uh, get in the way. And, you know, Pluto is, is the hell realm, the God of hell. And I think I think the main hell of our species is that we’ve gotten twisted against ourselves.
We’ve [00:06:00] forgotten that we’re made of love and magic and miracle, and so is Earth. And it’s going to take some deep Plutonian digging out to get to that.
Amanda Walsh: Have we been doing the deep Plutonian digging out while Pluto’s been in Capricorn? Or is this going to be a new deep uncovering with Pluto moving into Aquarius?
Nura Rachelle: I, I think of it more as we’ve been doing it in the earth tangible realm and especially with Capricorn being so connected to our structures and maybe tuning into how we’re restructuring. And now I feel like with Aquarius, especially it being a fixed sign, there’s going to be this new expression of sustainability.
Like what do we actually get to do within these structures? And it’s not just about the building, but what is the building for? What are we doing it for? Who are the people we’re serving? What is it all about? And I pulled the star tarot card for this [00:07:00] month ahead, which I think is so suiting, especially because the star is very emblematic of Aquarius, the water bearer.
And how there’s the connection of renewed faith and healing and inspiration that I think can actually be really uplifting after perhaps the overwhelm of all of the work that we’ve been doing with Pluto and Capricorn. There’s some deeper facets of this as well. If you study evolutionary astrology where we can tune into the north and south node of Pluto itself and Pluto being, um, having his north node.
in Cancer and the South Node in Capricorn and there being so much, um, this really heavy, deep ingrained karmic patterning relating to the Capricorn archetype that I feel like Aquarius to people represents optimism and hope and I think that more than anything, it’s the change of, oh, there actually is something different.
It’s not just an idea, it’s a frequency, it’s an energy, and maybe now that I’ve maybe overcome some of my [00:08:00] fears of change with Capricorn because it’s arguably the hardest element to change, you know, dependence on structures and what makes you feel grounded. It’s like, oh, I can actually do something different.
I, I believe that change is possible. Um, Versus that feeling of like, I’m just going to be stuck in the same old same old. Nothing’s going to change. I actually think it’s been pretty pessimistic. So this, this optimism and renewed faith, I think, is really also connected to the Pluto and Aquarius transit.
Is there anything you
Amanda Walsh: would want to say about Pluto’s move into Aquarius this month, and specifically, either questions people can ask themselves? Or tangible specific things we can do with this energy specifically this month as it’s Is there anything else you’d want to
Nura Rachelle: add? I just love to remind everyone that Aquarius is about human resources.
And if we tap into the digging component of Pluto, it’s really digging for those [00:09:00] human resources. And so, especially because we’re shifting from Capricorn into also the sun entering Aquarius and illuminating from that space, that we can. really do our work really practically to extend our energy to our community like what what are those community resources who are the people and also allowing ourselves to receive in that space so that feels pretty practical you know kind of getting out there and connecting with people especially after we do all of the deep Work around the solstice.
It’s like we kind of all come into our inner descent and we’re still and reflecting on ourselves. And then we’re coming back out with our new year’s intentions and really wanting to start something fresh and new. I mean, the North note is still in Aries and That I think also this month with the new moon, January 11th, the new moon is at 20 degrees.
Capricorn square the nodes perfectly, which are also very connected to the Pluto [00:10:00] story of evolution. There’s this whole new expression wanting to come through. And I think if we can find our allies, connect with our alliances, all of this will feel a lot more manageable rather than feeling like. We’re stuck in any old story and I definitely think it’s a social trust thing because one of the shadows of Aquarius is the fear of alienation, the fear of rejection, you know, really wanting to belong.
I know for me, I have Moon in Aquarius, so that’s been a theme I’ve been working with my whole life. I almost feel like I’m prepared for this time because I’ve been working through these. Themes. And I think it’s leaning into trust, maybe extending some trust. Like this is a little bit of an experiment.
I’m going to put myself out there in a different way to different people so that I don’t feel like, Oh, nobody’s allowed to look at each other in the eye. Nobody’s allowed to smile. It’s like, what if I just decided to trust in another person’s evolution that maybe they would be interested in meeting me there.
Amanda Walsh: Picture this. You step into the new year not just with a list of resolutions, [00:11:00] but with a pocket full of insights from the stars that help you make choices about timing, direction, and focus. Put together by an all star cast of our best astrologers, our free 2024 Astrology Blueprint is more than predictions.
It’s your personal cosmic playbook for the whole year. Think of it as a chat with the universe, a way to catch those sparks of clarity that light up your journey. It’s about syncing up with the stars and making the most of every moment. Consider it our holiday gift to you. And here’s to a year of tapping into cosmic wisdom and personal power.
Let’s make 2024 a year to remember together. Get your free copy at astrologyhub. com slash 2024 guide. And experimenting with it. I was speaking to some of my teenage. My teenage daughters and their friends and this one of their friends went to a new school and [00:12:00] she was so sad because at this new school they all had phones.
And so at lunch and recess and everybody was just sitting there staring at their phone. And so she’s like, it was hard to like talk to anyone because everyone was just on their phone. But it’s such a. A thing that people are leaning on when they feel uncomfortable. Like, I don’t know how to talk to anyone, so I’m just going to look busy on my phone, but that could be a really fun experiment.
It’s just be like, I’m going to not do that. And I’m going to try and connect with someone else who maybe isn’t on their phone and see what happens and see if there’s a connection that can be made. I love that. How about you, Mark?
Mark Borax: Yeah, this, this month is what I call the tail of the cat, T A I L because it’s the end of the year of the cat.
In next month on February 9th, we entered the year of the dragon. And the cat is an intimate animal concerned with its immediate space and territory and vibrations. So here in January, if you can [00:13:00] envision what the broader world is that you want to create and be a part of what the big Aquarius thing is, and then take it down to your intimate space, what needs to be changed right in you and around you.
What vibe, what. What feeling? What do you want to do it in this final moment before the dragon takes off?
Amanda Walsh: Tell us a little bit more about the dragon. You came on the podcast a few months ago and talked about the year of the dragon. Can you just give us a little summary of that? What, what we can expect with this year of the dragon?
Mark Borax: Yeah. The, the difference between the dragon and the cat is a huge, it’s a huge difference because the cat is, is concerned with its immediate vicinity. And the, and the dragon flies farther and higher and longer than any other animal. It’s, it’s the only magical animal out of the 12 animal years you You know, you have a cat and an, and you have a dog and an ox and a tiger, then you have a dragon.
So this means you have to [00:14:00] see beyond the expectations, see beyond societal norms, bust out of conditioning, dare yourself to be a fire breathing dragon who can burn up the old karmas. Okay, so
Amanda Walsh: we’ve talked about Pluto going into Aquarius. Noora, you brought in that new moon a little bit. What other major transits do we need to be paying attention to in January?
And if you do want to go into more depth on that, feel
Nura Rachelle: free to do that as well. Um, I think we have a lot of beautiful Capricorn energy this month. So Mars enters Capricorn January 4th and Mars is out of bounds. So we’re opening up the year with this sort of wild card energy around how we can take action, how we can maybe reconnect with our passion.
I love the word reactivate with. Mars, rather than being reactive, it’s we’re reactivating something. And especially when it’s out of bounds, I love [00:15:00] tuning into this idea that the planets are also like, you know, soul journeyers who are going off into the cosmos and kind of retrieving some information or retrieving some sort of download.
And then when they come back in bounds, they’re sort of handing us off that message. Or we get to embody it in a new way. And so I have a feeling we’ll have a lot of energy and also kind of wildcard maverick style as we come into this new year, because. Mars is there. We also have Venus entering Capricorn near the end of the month as well.
So there’s a lot of opportunity to polish and refine and maybe reconnect with what we are building. We’re coming in with some fresh thought cycles. Mercury just recently opened up a new thought cycle on the solstice back in December. So there’s this whole new way of thinking coming in and a lot of energy.
And I love what you shared, Mark, around bringing the heaven to earth with the dragon. I feel like that is just, [00:16:00] it makes so much sense, especially with this new moon. Um, the new moon in Capricorn is also out of bounds. So there’s this sort of wild card reaching from and sourcing, being celestially resourced and I always tune into New Moons with the intention that I can just clear the space, declutter, and make sure the ground is fertile to receive rather than forcing any intention, but just receiving something and trusting that it’s divinely seated.
And then kind of, you know, off to the races because we have so much energy supporting us, but it’s this really careful methodical building combined with this beautiful reawakening energy. Mark,
Amanda Walsh: do you want to add anything to the new moon or is there another, I know you also were going to be touching on Mars, moving into Capricorn, anything you want to add to that?
Mark Borax: To the Mars and Capricorn, I’ll, I’ll add, um, I have Mars and Capricorn and what I’ve had to learn a lot is [00:17:00] how to choose my battles. Cause I see Mars and Capricorn as the spiritual warrior that, that there is a battle to be fought here and it’s for the return of love. It is for the return of, of truth, the return of understanding.
And there are a lot of twisted stories going on around the world that, that need a spiritual warrior, but it’s really important to choose your battles and, and, and that involves facing your own shadow. So you’re not always fighting yourself. So I think this Mars and Capricorn is a real summons to wake up, to show up, to sign up, and it’s going to raise shadow for sure.
And that’s what needs to happen in order to free that kind of, uh, breakthrough energy that Mars really wishes to conjure.
Amanda Walsh: So Mars is moving into Capricorn. What is the date on that? January 4th. So we’re kicking that off in just a few days. Yeah. And how long does Mars stay in Capricorn? [00:18:00]
Mark Borax: About a month and a half.
Nura Rachelle: I just love all that you said around the choosing the battles, but also especially when it comes to how we are doing what we’re doing, if we can take this time, especially while Pluto is in these final degrees of Capricorn and really tune into all that we have learned. By, you know, deconditioning any of perhaps the hustle and grind or any ideas around how we think we’re supposed to do what we want to do, but rather tuning in more from that embodied self awareness that it will really, it’s just that, like you’ve all been saying, it’s that consciousness shift, like what are we bringing to it?
All that we’re doing and not having to prove something. I see that a lot. It’s like, Oh, I want to build something. I’m going to have to work really hard at it and, and hustle and grind. But I feel like so many of us are just really over that paradigm and just understanding that, especially with this re empowerment of the Pluto into Aquarius, that it’s way more about who we are working with and making these really conscious choices rather than, [00:19:00] Oh, I’m just going to keep doing more of what brought me here.
It’s like, you can’t get there with the consciousness that got you here. We have to be in this completely radical shift of consciousness. And I feel like that all connects as well to what Uranus is kind of silently doing. So maybe we’ll talk about that, but Uranus has been retrograde and Uranus will station direct at the end of this month.
And I forgot to mention on that new moon, the new moon is trying Uranus at from that 19 degree and 20 degree points of both of their signs. And so there’s a lot of this underground energy. That I think near the end of the month is really going to be, it’s almost like kind of storing it to explode it a little bit is when I tune into when I feel into that, um, Uranus stationing direct.
Amanda Walsh: What is the underground energy like? I, I often think of it as like the, the drumbeat in the background that’s there that you, you, you can almost lose track of, but it’s still there and you might find yourself like tapping your foot to it. You know, we’re [00:20:00] dancing to it, but we might not be totally conscious of it.
So what is that under? undertone or background.
Nura Rachelle: It’s almost like this collection, almost like collecting static energy that we’re not even, it’s like, as soon as we press a button or switch the light on, it’s going to be ready. And it seems like, especially because Mars and Capricorn will be in that trying relationship with Taurus.
So Jupiter’s also in Taurus. We’ve been doing a lot of embodiment work, Uranus and Taurus. We’ve been really reevaluating our priorities and reconnecting with. Health perhaps and in the health of all of our systems. It feels like we’ve been, you know, forming all of these inner insights, but maybe now we get to take them out and actually apply them, which is something that I really love about Mars is he helps us to actually do it rather than just talk about it.
Mark Borax: One thing I want to add about, uh, Mars in Capricorn, especially with something that Nora just said about the embodiment part. Uh, Mars in Capricorn [00:21:00] is very sexual, is very, uh, embodied. It’s very hands on. I know, I’ve had Mars in Capricorn for 69 years. And deep passion and sexuality have been a major path, a major education, a shamanic transformation of my life.
So, with Mars in Capricorn, it really is embodiment, hands on passion. And some of that is for sure sexual, though that’s not the only way to express Mars in Capricorn. I think it’s one of the main ways.
Nura Rachelle: It reminds me too of the Kundalini element that could be really activated with that Uranus stationing direct.
Like maybe there’s this been building of the energy and then Uranus stations direct and it’s ready to be unleashed in some way. What would
Amanda Walsh: you recommend to anyone out there who is really wanting to work with their sexual energy in a very proactive, productive, way, you know, learning how to [00:22:00] harness it, learning how to use it shamanically and these kinds of things, Mark, what would you, what, what’s been really helpful for you on that path?
Mark Borax: That’s a good question. I feel it’s been an experiential track of learning for me because you can’t make love with some new current partner the way that you did with some previous partner. It’s like an entirely different universe. And so I’ve had to learn, first of all, that there is no norm with sexuality.
What’s, what’s incredibly, um, right and even like heavenly. For one lover is completely wrong for another one. And so it’s taken me a lot to tune into how to stay aware of the passionate force moving through me. And how to stay aware of the responses that that force is conjuring in my lover. So for me, it’s really a, it’s really a relational [00:23:00] dance to trust myself, stay aware of what I’m wanting, what I’m desiring, what I’m feeling.
And also as aware of the other person, like music, like, like dance, you’re not just playing a solo. You’re, you know, you’re in a band. I
Amanda Walsh: love it. Presence, awareness, like paying attention to the subtle nuances and yes, really good. Okay, what else? What else is happening this month that we need to be aware
Nura Rachelle: of?
I love the element too of what’s happening with Uranus and Jupiter in Taurus and Taurus being the sign of self cultivation, which I think really speaks to that self awareness that you brought in, Mark, around, okay, I know my needs and how to communicate my needs and that’s been a big market for me.
Theme in general, over this past year that we get to continue to work with for this whole year with the south node and Libra and the north node and Aries and really tuning into that. Okay. How do I discuss my needs and [00:24:00] what is it that I get to maybe, you know, step outside of my comfort zone with, so I do feel like.
This new moon kind of coming back to that is that new moon to set the seed for, okay, are there some new relationship dynamics? Are there new things that I need to initiate? Are there new ways that I get to, now that I’ve spent a little bit more time reflecting on myself, we had a Jupiter retrograde in Taurus, um, at the end of 2023.
Hopefully we’ve had that chance to reflect on our personal needs and now is there something that is ready to be communicated? And, um, yeah, I think that’ll be a beautiful way to use this time. Yeah,
Mark Borax: I agree. And in communication, and especially with Pluto and Aquarius, communion, really, you know, we’re all part of the same species here.
We’re all cells in one human body. If that can advance from just something we know to something we live, uh, I think that Mars and Capricorn, the [00:25:00] Year of the Dragon, the 20 years of Pluto and Aquarius, we’re going to get somewhere with that.
Nura Rachelle: I love that so much. It just, it brought something in for me, like this reminder that we don’t really need to be afraid of other humans because we’re all connected and I feel like that’s been a big part of our collective journey over the past few years as we’ve been, you know, in these stories of division and being told that we need to fear this group, that group.
It’s like, oh yeah, but we’re all connected. We may be that, you know, we can trust that there’s more of an opening than we think. Yeah.
Mark Borax: Yeah, absolutely. I learned that on my Harley ride. I rode through the United States and Europe on my Harley for a couple years. And I had this thing happen when I rode from Seattle to Boston.
Every time I stopped in a small town, like in the Midwest to get gas, the people there would say, You’re, you’re riding across the whole country and then you’re going to ride through Europe. Well, our town is safe, but when you go to that next town, you’re, you’re going to be [00:26:00] in trouble. This happened over and over throughout the world in France and Kentucky.
Everybody said, well, we’re safe. over here, but that other town you got to worry about. And I thought, well, then where am I not safe? And
Amanda Walsh: it brings me to like, even, even in the last few years, it’s been where could I live that is safe, but there’s so many elements that define safe. Right? Like, what, what elements do you focus on?
Is it political safety? Is it medical safety? Is it other humans safety? Is it natural disaster safety? Drought, fire, air, like, and so at the end of the day, it’s kind of like, well, nowhere is technically quote unquote safe or immune to all of the different factors. So where do we actually find safety? [00:27:00] Where is safety?
And to me, it seems like safety is in our connection to source. And in our knowing that life is eternal, and then there’s less this need to insulate or isolate or protect the boundaries and the barriers because the safety is actually within us. If that makes any sense, again, like I’m, some of these ideas I’m having today are not well thought through yet, but you know, they’re just like, they’re like inklings of new ideas.
Mark Borax: Yeah. Either everywhere safe or nowhere safe. So, so I had all my life on my Harley. I had no life anywhere else. You know, I had a guitar. I had all this baggage, you know, I, I was, I was writing and it just, I think people sensed that. I was taking my adventure of life into my, into my own hands. And they, and they kind of got off on that, but they were questioning [00:28:00] it.
So the things we have here, everybody knows are okay and you’re fine. But over there, I don’t know. And it just got to be this, um, this humorous thing that I kept finding all over the world. I guess there’s nowhere that’s not safe. If everybody thinks the place they live is safe. I guess there’s nowhere that’s not safe or else everywhere is not safe.
So you might as well just be anywhere,
Amanda Walsh: right? And you might as well just live your life and enjoy it. What do we need to look out for this month? Are there any like kind of energetic pitfalls we could find ourselves in? Are there any, any hotspots in the month where it’s like, Ooh, like there’s a knot of energy.
Like things could get pretty intense there. Anything we need to be aware of.
Nura Rachelle: I do think that January 20th is going to be a big day. It’s just when we feel the energy shifting, we can feel a little bit uncomfortable. But I think just kind of going off of this whole conversation, I think it’s learning to find a little bit more safety, even within those [00:29:00] shifting environments, those shifting energies.
It’s like, if we can become, Oh, a coyote just walked by. If we can become, Oh, two. Wow. Oh, there’s a third too. Okay. Hello, animal medicine. If we can feel more safe with the changing tides of energy, then what else is possible? Because so much of our patterning is based on not wanting to change and wanting to stick with the patterns and wanting to stick with familiar.
It’s like we have these two competing desires. I want everything to change and I want nothing to change. But what if it was about that? Body resonance, you know, regulating our nervous system and just reminding ourselves, you know, we have it all within. I definitely say that, you know, my body is the safest place for me to be.
I think that can help help us with any tendency to become disembodied or escape when things become really hard. You know, some of the shadow of Aquarius might be dissociation. Or, you know, dispersing our consciousness too much so that we’re thinking about what’s happening somewhere else around the world and then [00:30:00] feeling powerless and impotent because it’s like we’re so far outside of ourselves and we don’t actually have any connection with it.
We don’t have any influence. So why it’s not to say we shouldn’t inform ourselves and think about those things, but it’s not really our place of power and it’s not really our sphere of influence. So I think it’s that, you know, coming back into our body and realizing like what’s in front of me is my purpose.
Like what’s in front of me is mine to work with. And I think it comes from a regulated nervous system. And I also think it comes from reminding ourselves that we’re human and that this is all part of what we signed up for.
Amanda Walsh: What’s your favorite thing to regulate your nervous system and what’s the thing that you feel helps your clients
Nura Rachelle: the most?
I absolutely think it’s connected to breath more than anything and also doing any sort of sensory noticing. I love the five senses, quick meditation, like what are five things that I’m seeing? What are four things that I’m hearing? What are three [00:31:00] things that I’m smelling or tasting or touching things like that?
Even just like really simple things like, you know, throwing a ball back and forth between one hand or the other, you know, bilateral stimulation, like just the really simple sort of mind hacks, brain tools that we can do to just. Remember that we’re in a human body because I think especially if we live from here up, we have all of this expectation that things shouldn’t bother us or that we should never feel ungrounded.
It’s like, well, actually, our bodies are so intelligent. They’re made to respond to these things. And so we’re having a natural response to something new or different or something scary or traumatic, but that we are also resource to come back in and say, okay, What am I going to do with this information? I have to slow myself down enough to be here in this moment to come back into the now.
I love doing a simple meditation where I sort of imagine a horizon line and then a central grounding cord. And I’ll just imagine all of the thoughts from the past and the [00:32:00] future, like little golden beads of light coming into the now and grounding. And so it’s all these little things that take me. 10 to 30 seconds, and it’s kind of, you know, I believe we are what we repeatedly do, and it’s about the tiny habits, so if I can just do a whole bunch of those things often, then I’m in a lot better place, rather than feeling like I need to have this one peak experience, and
Amanda Walsh: yes.
Yes. Or like the hour long morning meditation or the, you know, yes, I love that. Okay. Those are some really great suggestions in there, Nora. Mark, what about in, in, from your perspective, any hotspots, any knots of energy, anything that we need to, any pitfalls that we can just be aware of so that we can work with it and, you know, navigate to the best of our ability.
Mark Borax: I absolutely agree with Nora that January 20th. It’s the hot spot. Um, especially because when everyone, when, when consciousness all around the planet is [00:33:00] sensing that these are the final moments of Pluto and Capricorn consciousness tends to act out and, and, uh, and Pluto and Capricorn has a lot to do with false power, the abuse of power by leadership by government and, and sensing that Pluto is going to be leaving Capricorn could easily ignite false power, inappropriate power, both on a personal level in, in your own life and also on a governmental level as Aquarius is coming on.
So I think watching January 20th. And, and the therapy for that is, is, is just what Nora was talking about, which is embodiment, presence, um, there, there is no clearer, simpler way to deal with the changes of our time now, except becoming present, which means you have to feel there’s something worth becoming present for, rather than checking out, like your story, Amanda, with the teenagers and [00:34:00] their cell phones, we, we really, of all ages now, need to feel there’s something so worth showing up for.
Amanda Walsh: Okay, any other things that we need to be aware of as We’re celestial navigators out there, aware of the cosmic energies, but acting in our own lives here on the planet Earth. What else do we need to be aware of? Anything?
Nura Rachelle: Well, everything you just shared, Mark, reminded me about the full moon in Leo. at the end of the month, January 25th.
And this is also two days outside of that Uranus stationing direct. So it’s interesting that both of the major lunation cycles this month are featuring Uranus in some way. So there’s this awakening. So it’s like, it seems like we first get this new dimension of consciousness and tuning into ourselves and setting that fertile soil with the new moon, but then the full moon, it’s like, Oh yeah.
And remember like, this can be fun. This can be actually really joyful and I think it’s recultivating that romance with [00:35:00] life and I always love to look at full moons as this both diagnostic and prescriptive energy because it’s great. illuminating something. It’s showing us the result of something so that we can actually go back and start to tune into, okay, would I like more of this?
If so, you know, yes, thank you more, please universe. Would I like less of this? Okay. Where do I get to look at myself and kind of tune into it? How did I contribute to this? full moon energy in my life. Um, so always taking it back to the point of power, but I absolutely agree. It’s that reconnection with joy for me.
I’ve been spending so much more time playing music too. I play piano and, um, with my daughter and she’s learning and that’s really fun. And I’ve recently taken up watercolors and just playing. And I love this feeling of like, I’m doing this. just because it feels good to be a creator. I don’t know that it has to have any specific outcome.
I don’t know that it has to be productive for something. It might end up becoming something, [00:36:00] but I don’t have that attachment to it. It’s really just play. And I feel like we get to that space of play and it does so much for us. I think it’s kind of like this, um, you know, one side feeds the other where we feel more safe when we’re playing.
And more solutions come to us and more aha moments and insights come to us when we play. But then we also, if we are struggling with getting into the place of play, we need to do things to regulate and come to safety. So safety and play feel really central to navigating all of this. This
Amanda Walsh: is so good, you guys.
Thank you so much. So some of the takeaways that I have here. We obviously have the big showstopper, which is Pluto moving new Aquarius. This is the much anticipated transit that we’ve been talking about for a long time. It’s going to be there most of the year with a tiny retrograde towards the end of the year, like a couple of months, right?
That was that September,
Mark Borax: October, September 1st through November 19th.
Amanda Walsh: There you go. Thank you. So [00:37:00] essentially, the future is here. And now we’re in a place of how do I contribute to this? How do I get started? Mark, you said we’re in a make it or break it moment as humans. Are we going to remember that we are made of love?
No, you brought in that isn’t there’s an opportunity for us to put ourselves out there in different ways to experiment. To break out of some comfort zones there with the year of the dragon, we have an opportunity to envision a broader world that we want to create, take it to our intimate space. So we have this big vision.
But then how are we actually living that in our lives? How are we implementing that in our lives individually within this fear that we can control? We talked about the Mars moving into Capricorn, that there’s a wild card energy around this Mars moving into Capricorn. It’s a lot of energy. There’s some maverick energy.[00:38:00]
We also talked about Venus moving into Capricorn. An opportunity to polish, refine, reconnect with what we’re building. The new moon in Capricorn. I love what you brought in here, Nora, about creating a clear space around the new moon, decluttering, and opening ourselves up to receive and trust that we’ll receive what we need to, that it’s divinely seated, and Picking our battles.
So Mars and Capricorn choosing our battles, using Capricorn tactics, uh, spiritual warriors for return of love, truth and understanding that theme around, around getting in our bodies in lots of different capacities came up a lot. And it sounds like just in general, I think this year it’s going to be really big for all of us, but this month we can, we can start to practice.
All right. So as we venture into the realm of this month, is there anything you want to leave us with? Anything that we can keep in mind as we
Nura Rachelle: go on our ways. I just [00:39:00] love the reminder that in expecting the unexpected, we can expect miracles, we can expect beautiful things, especially when we’re finding ourselves in play.
It’s like we can become more magnetic and then these beautiful miracles can happen. And I think it’s this reminder that there’s something operating outside of just, you know, all of our mental decisions. There’s a soul, you know, we’re bringing more soul into the world, the more that we choose to be conscious creators.
So I feel like. As much as we can connect with that is as enjoyable as we will experience these transits.
Mark Borax: You are made of love and soul and magic and determining how to express that is your life art. And this is the time. Breathe that in,
Amanda Walsh: everyone. Beautiful. Mark and Nora, thank you so much for being here with us and helping us get a lay of the land as we venture into this new year, this new month.
Thank you so much for being here with us. It’s been [00:40:00] such a pleasure. And thanks to all of you for tuning in to the Astrology Hub podcast. Thank you for being a part of our community. I look forward to connecting with you on the next episode. In the meantime, take care. And thank you for making astrology part of your life.
See you soon.