Shifting the Paradigm in 2024
In mid-December, I, and other astrologers who contribute to her website, were asked by fellow astrologer Yasmin Boland to record a brief video for her Podcast focusing on what to watch in 2024. As in any year there are any number of events occurring in the skies yet as I was preparing for this I noticed three things that wove together the fabric of 2024. These three archetypal shifts create the context that impacts us all as a collective but also personally.
The month that begins each year, January, is named after Janus, a Roman Deity so revered he was invoked at the beginning of each ceremony, no matter which deity was being honored. He presided over beginnings, gates, time, duality, passages, and endings. Rome even had ceremonial gateways, Jani’s, that one could pass through in either an auspicious or inauspicious manner. Janus was a testimony to the power of liminal space. A liminal deity is a god or goddess in mythology who presides over thresholds, gates, or doorways; "a crosser of boundaries" The Romans recognized the power of intentional beginnings.
Today, January 1, 2024, begins with another liminal deity, Mercury, stationing and going direct. The ruler of the crossroads in essence stands still and then shifts direction right as the year begins. Mercury always shows up in myth to intervene, to move the story forward. This opening act captures the energy of 2024; we are both individually and collectively moving our story forward.
We are being offered an invitation to shift the paradigm that we are dwelling in. When we shift the paradigm we shift the pattern in which our life unfolds. Which means our life cannot help but transform.
Mercury’s station happens in Sagittarius, a fire sign. This shift in direction points the way forward. All of the Mercury retrograde periods in 2024 are in fire signs, whereas in 2023 they were in earth signs. Earth and fire are two very different elements and two very different mindsets. Earth is about making a plan and then making that plan real. Fire is about intuition and imagination. Throughout 2024 the Messenger of the Gods is in essence asking us to reimagine ourselves, to reenvision what is possible for our lives every single time he goes retrograde. He is moving us between worlds.
Shortly after that on January 20th, the Sun enters Aquarius, and Pluto follows just 11 hours later. Whatever the Sun shines its light upon it illuminates. The Sun is the giver of life. It is no accident that these two begin their journey together. It is almost as the the Sun is pointing an arrow at Pluto saying watch this space! So let’s talk about this both collectively and then personally.
Pluto as an archetype is the God of the underworld, the things we don’t see that are invisible to us hidden within our subconscious. Like all of the outer planets, Pluto transits are a process that takes you somewhere beyond yourself as you and your life are currently constituted. Pluto brings transformation, rebirth, and empowerment. A Pluto transit excavates the subconscious, the shadow. It represents the unseen, the mystery, and our inner frontiers that have not been journeyed. No one and no thing emerges from the underworld, in this case, a transit, aka a Pluto process, unchanged.
Pluto transits urge us to give up something that no longer serves us. During Pluto transits some part of our life must die, in order to be reborn. When I speak of this I think about the process that a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly: When a caterpillar cacoons itself his entire body literally redigests itself. In essence, it becomes goo, something unformed and then reassembles itself, emerging as a butterfly. A form that is radically different than its original. The process is messy.
Pluto like Mercury is moving out of an earth sign but he moves into an air sign. The Air signs, Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius are about listening and connecting. They are about paying attention. As astrologer, Steven Forrest says “Air is what connects our hearts and our minds to the world around us.”
Then on May 25 Jupiter, the sky God, also moves from an earth sign, Taurus, to an air sign, Gemini.
Jupiter is the guardian of the abstract mind. Associated with the principles of growth, expansion, healing, prosperity, good fortune, and miracles. Jupiter is connected to what we believe, the quest for truth and the search for meaning.
Jupiter and Pluto are brothers in myth. Jupiter is the God of the great above, Pluto the great below, and Mercury the Messanger is the one God who moves back and forth between both worlds.
Psychologically and spiritually, Jupiter is connected to know beliefs, Pluto to our subconscious beliefs.
When I was contemplating 2024, in particular the movements of both Pluto and Jupiter I was reminded of December 20, 2020. Everyone was speaking about the Bethlem Star, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn where that were so close they appear as one object in the sky. This was the first time it had happened since the year 1226, and prior to that, it is believed that it happened around the birth of Christ. At the time Jupiter and Saturn were both moving from the sign of Capricorn an earth sign into Aquarius an air sign, two very different elements. And we see that echoed again in 2024. Both Pluto and Jupiter move from earth to air. This is a very real and significant inflection point. We are beginning a great shift in consciousness both planetarily and personally. But it isn’t going to be quick, and it’s not going to be easy as we all have a certain resistance to change. We tend to lean towards the familiar, the habitual. How many times have you not done something because it just doesn’t feel comfortable?
The new, the growth-oriented doesn’t feel comfortable. Neither does a caterpillar while transforming into a butterfly. In 2024 the invitation is that we move forward individually, then collectively towards a wider perspective. We are living through a paradigm shift.
Part of the reason transits, really from Saturn outwards, are so profound is that they take time. They are a process of evolution. Think about it; every month the Moon transits over every element within your chart, briefly illuminating, for a couple of hours some aspect of your life, your soul’s journey. With Pluto, this process is minimally 2-3 years vs 2-3 hours. A 2-3 years period has a far deeper impact on our lives.
While we will all feel it collectively those who are going to experience it most viscerally in 2024 are those with planets in the early degrees of the fixed signs: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius.
Walking in Beauty is the Navajo term for the spiritual path of celebrating the sacredness of life. Thinking and acting in a Beauty Way is to pay attention to how we move through the world, and how we feel physically and emotionally. To walk on the “beauty way path” is to sense the beauty that exists within us and around us as the light reflects through a rainbow. This path calls us to explore our own inner wilderness while seeing it in connection to everyone and all life.
In many ways, the astrology of 2024 is beckoning us to listen and just imagine what this would be like. Then to breathe deeply and take the first small step down the pathway ahead.
