A Full Moon for Recognition of Change and of Responsible Reaction

The Cancer Full Moon of Saturday, January 3rd, taking place at about 2 am PT, early morning for the east coast, and later morning for Europe and points east, represents another powerful juncture providing comfort as well as challenge. Most overtly significant in this intriguing lunation is the Venus—Mars conjunction at 12-14 degrees of Capricorn, with the Sun at 13° right in the middle, all three planets opposite the nurturing Cancer Moon at 13° of the sign. And we will want to note that Cancer is additionally the sign of the Moon’s rulership, while Mars is exalted in Capricorn. We might take this merger of Venus and Mars as referencing the importance now of relating to each other in beneficial ways, and of taking comfort from magnetic attraction or desire together with our exercise of right action, as we can come to this, in striving for what we most want to get out of our current situation.

This rare and fascinating configuration of Venus, Mars, Sun, and Moon is however only a small part of the plenitude of planetary connections involved in this lunation. There are for example, close parallels with transformational Pluto at 2 + degrees of Aquarius. We find Venus and Mars in nearly exact parallel alignment at -23.5° while the Sun is currently parallel to these at -22.8° and Pluto lies at -23.2, parallel to all three. Pluto is also partile semi-sextile and parallel to Mercury, at 2° of Capricorn. This is thus a potent highlighting of Pluto, as we also saw at the recent late Sagittarius New Moon from the fading weeks of December. We can take this to imply that the massive changes of the previous 2025 year – at both individual and collective levels – are set to continue into the new year, and perhaps even accelerate.

The other planetary harbingers of transpersonal metamorphosis, Uranus and Neptune, are also extremely well-represented in the multiple planetary alignments of this Full Moon configuration, with numinous Neptune in forming conjunction as well with conservative and contracting Saturn a few degrees away in late Pisces. We find Sun, Venus, and Mars in close quintile aspect with Saturn, Mercury in almost exact square with Neptune, plus Pluto in sextile, and the Sun and Moon in perfect sesquiquadrate and semi-square to Uranus, within 8 minutes of a degree, while Mercury lies in close bi-quintile to Uranus. We also can discover that the Saturn/Neptune midpoint of 27° 55’ Pisces matches quite precisely the Uranus position in late Taurus at 27° 53’ – an exact sextile therefore between the forming Saturn—Neptune conjunction and Trickster Uranus. We can expect the ideological divisions and gaslighting in order to sway opinion in one way or another that has been so common in our politics to continue, along with the surprises, unexpected revelations, and intuitional epiphanies represented by prominent Uranus. And we might note that one accepted keyword for Saturn and Neptune in combination is “deception unmasked.”

If we can thus recognize the inevitability in this new month and year of transformational change and constructive personal evolution, as represented by the featured positions of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in the January lunations, including the recent late Sagittarius New Moon from just before the Capricorn solstice of December, we must also acknowledge that Chiron, the Wounded Healer, now stationing to direct motion in the timing of this Full Moon, and thus additionally featured, is also currently prominent from close aspects in this recent New Moon, when it was trined by Venus and squared by Jupiter. We will therefore want to be paying close attention as well to inner wounding, the likely residue of early childhood trauma, incompletely digested, and surviving into our present tense mental and emotional environment, where it is up to us, and to our embracing of our maturity, and our movement toward authenticity, to handle, which begins with acceptance of these walled off part of ourselves that seek integration with our more conscious personalities.

So, once it is that we can accept the reality of the individual and cultural metamorphosis which we find ourselves in the very midst of – as we arrive at the landmark start of this 2026 year – what now? How can we respond to the vital mandate of this climactic timing for ourselves and for our world? The first requirement is that we do not succumb to the idea that we are powerless in the face of cultural change; in fact, the very opposite is true. As the ancient wisdom of the Tao Te Ching asserts, we have our yes, and we have our no. In our individual values that we espouse and in standing up for these, we are ultimately powerful. And when we band together in sufficient numbers, there is indeed nothing that can stop us. This is true to the extent that we can be clear about our priorities. This is therefore not the time for putting our heads in the sand as the ostrich is rumored to do, escaping the impact of events. This is on the contrary the time for taking our stand; for listening with care to the old adage that states, “Be sure you’re right [by your own lights] and then go ahead.” This is also the message of prominent Eris, Feminine Warrior in support of soul intention, positioned in close conjunction with Chiron in this month’s astrology.

While we are faced with challenging times, as revealed in these current astrological indications, we can also take comfort from the notion that the universe has our back and will reward our sincere attitudes, together with the studied actions that result, with eventual beneficial outcomes. As the reverend Martin Luther King Jr. frequently remarked, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

A Full Moon for Recognition of Change and of Responsible Reaction

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January 2026