Celebrated since ancient times, this year’s Chinese New Year marks it’s 4,709th year of festivities. As the most important holiday in Chinese culture, the New Year is celebrated on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice, and is a time for family reunions and delicious feasts. This year our new beginning started on January 23, 2012 (China time), and on the afternoon of January 22 in America.

The Chinese lunar calendar is cyclical and is based on 12 animals, each with their own significance, plus having the years organized by yin and yang, color and elements such as fire, air, earth and water. Unlike our western counterpart, the Chinese Dragon is always seen as Divine and beneficial. Although somewhat unpredictable, the dragon symbolizes auspiciousness, creativity, generosity, altruism and charitableness. Also seen as the spirit of change, the dragon can represent renewal and regeneration.

So what does our dragon have in store for us this year?

The Black (or yang) Water Dragon symbolizes great creativity on one side, and stormy weather on the other. The yang part of the equation could mean a year when money flows easily with high returns, if we take a lot of risks. And it can also mean that there may be many natural disasters. In contrast, Water tends to tone things down, like putting out a fire. It exudes calmness and empathy where it can heal Mother Earth’s temper, and help us to reap spiritual progress from cleansing and renewing our body, mind and spirit.

In fact, according to the Taoist perspective, your whole year’s fortune depends on how you begin it. They say it’s a time to purify yourself and become humble enough to receive the New Year’s energies. If you would like to find out what the Year of the Black Water Dragon means to you personally, click here. I found my reading to be very similar to my 2012 Solar Return chart.

In keeping with the theme of this Newsletter, I thought the Birch tree was a perfect, synchronistic candidate for this column, for it brings in many of the same ideas as the Chinese New Year below, and the New Moon above.

One of the first trees to bloom in spring, the Birch or Beithe as it is commonly called within the Celtic tree Ogham, represents new beginnings and opportunities for the future.  This tree helps us to recognize our subtle change in consciousness when we decided to shift gears in our life and embark on a a different path.  The Birch tree says, make a statement of intent, now, to plan for the journey ahead.

Birch also helps us be unselfish, caring and work for the common good. And as the first tree in the Tree Ogham it serves to set things right from the beginning. Graceful and slender, with a characteristic white bark, it symbolizes cleanliness, (purifying oneself from the old) and a determination in overcoming obstacles.

So if you are having problems spacing out with all that Pisces energy this month, just focus on Birch to help you out.

All indigenous peoples honored our sacred collective connection, with the Element of Air for they knew without it, our world would cease to exist. This tutorial teaches you how to give voice to your truth by learning how to listen and speak with Right Communication. You will also learn how to contact and shamanically work with the Air Elementals.

Hancock’s basic premise shows these three civilizations all share the following:

• Pyramids were built in each culture
• Each culture worshipped Kings as Gods
• Their religion focused on a quest of immortality of the Human soul
• Their priests were sophisticated astronomers with advance knowledge of the star cycles
• Poisonous snakes were sacred
• Their monuments contained hidden meanings of the heavens.

Through years of collaborative research with other well-known archeo-astronomers, Hancock introduces new and fascinating ways to interpret these ancient sites, with evidence of an older, world-wide, Mother-culture.

This a must for anyone interested in ancient culture, archeology, astronomy or Atlantis. To view click here.

The Apple tree has been cultivated since the earliest of times, and is included in the Celtic Tree Ogham, an ancient language/divination system used by the Druids.  Here the apple is associated with Choice and choosing between two equally attractive things.  Since the alternatives seem to be equally promising, the choice my be difficult.

The original apple of course was the crab apple, and not the hybrid types we grow and eat today.  This original apple tree usually had thorns and held very close ties to the Celtic shaman. It was the tree that the shaman worked with while undergoing magical transformations in their Otherworld journeys.  The most famous of Otherworld places in Celtic mythology is that of Avalon; the word is actually derived from old Irish meaning “a place of apple trees”.

Perhaps this has something to do with why the apple represents the forbidden fruit for Adam & Eve?  Perhaps the Bible is hinting that we should stay in mundane reality and not venture off into the Upper or Lower worlds of the Shaman.  It’s certainly something to ponder on the next time you are munching on this favorite snack, or sitting under a beautiful apple tree.

Retrograde Mars in Virgo (from January 24th to  April 13th) Offers us an opportunity to gain insight into our unconscious motivations instead of worrying or brooding about personal health issues, work, or our daily lives.   

 February 3rd, Neptune enters its own sign Pisces and will stay there until January 2026. A gateway to higher consciousness in humanity, the abilities of clairvoyance, music, artistic sensitivity, mysticism, and healing will be highlighted, along with the beginnings of a more caring, peaceful society.

From May 14th to June 24th Venus the planet of love, beauty and the feminine principal is retrograde. When retrograde in a person’s birth chart it usually means a challenge in loving oneself, or finding value in who we are. On June 6th during this retrograde period Venus Crosses the Face of the Sun in a rare configuration that happens every 105 -125 years. Called an Occultation it always comes in pairs, both either in Gemini or Sagittarius .The last one happened eight years ago in 2004.

So What Does This Mean?

Past occultations of Venus and the Sun in Gemini have brought about new explorations in communication and brought humanity closer together. The Mayans see the 2012 configuration as an opening to higher consciousness. So if we do our inner work and release old thought patterns that no longer serve us, or the world, perhaps we can bring in the light of the Sun, evolve our consciousness and shift the collective thought patterns of humanity to serve the Earth and its peoples instead of harming them.

Although Pluto/Uranus remain square to each other until 2015, this year they form two exact squares on June 24th and September 19th. If you remember from past newsletters, Pluto is the planet that tears everything down first, and then builds something new from its ashes of destruction. Uranus is a planet that needs unbridled freedom to initiate the new.

Together they are associated with cultural upheaval and change. Personally it’s a time to know how we want to transform our lives, and move forward. In this way we can ride the wave instead of feeling submerged in fear or resistance. The main message here is go with the flow, and don’t get caught in the undertow.

When Jupiter enters Gemini on June 11th for about a year, energetic changes in communication and learning can be expected, along with love of philosophy, mind expansion, and new advanced intellectual ideas in society.

An extremely rare Mutual Reception between Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn forms when Saturn enters Scorpio on October 5th and stays until Christmas Eve 2014.  Some astrologers look at the Mutual Reception to mean that the planets behave as if they are in their own signs, however  I see a Mutual Reception as mixed-up energies and a place of challenge before success can be met.

On an astrological chart Pluto rules the 8th House  (joint resources, joint values, power, transformation & death) and Saturn rules the 10th House (authority figures, career, destiny), so this configuration may indicate more power struggles for authority between the people and government, and further unrest in the global economy. However, once these energies are balanced, there is the promise of reorganization of financial structures and government that serve humanity.

Winter Solstice, December 21, when our sun and the entire solar system are in perfect alignment with the center of our galaxy, here on Earth we will also be undergoing an uncommon aspect called a Yod, or sometimes called  “The Finger of Destiny”.

A Yod is comprised of two quincunxes (difficult & awkward aspects) and a sextile (easy flowing aspect). This configuration has Pluto  (9 degrees Capricorn) & Saturn ( 9 degrees Scorpio) in sextile to each other, while both are quincunx to Jupiter (9 degrees Gemini). The Apex planet, in this case Jupiter, is the focal point for the energies.

Generally speaking a Yod entails a choice of two roads, yet not knowing where either one will take you.   Following instinct, we simply find ourselves veering off onto another path and changing the course of our lives.   Although undefined, the new direction has actually been gathering strength for many years. And after activating the Yod, you soon realize that you have a hidden knowlege of how to proceed and be successful.

Coupled with Pluto and Saturn’s mutual reception, the Yod of 2012′s Winter Solstice alludes to a time where we have the power to regenerate ourselves and the world from unrest and chaos through discipline and hard work, while learning to look at situations realistically, release our fears and dogmatic attitudes and move on toward new opportunities.

As discussed in past newsletters, the Mayans see this as a time of awakening and moving into a higher consciousness of reality for mankind. 

So I was fascinated when a friend happened to tell me a few days ago of Mayan Elders pilgrimaging from New York City to Los Angeles from October 27th ~ November 11th and making stops at many sacred sites along the way to  “reawaken the Spirit of the North American Continent so that it can reclaim itself as the sacred ground in whose soil would be sown the seeds for the enlightenment of all mankind.”

Wow! 

But that’s not all.  In collaboration with Cirque de Soleil, ‘Google’, NBC, Santana, Elevate Films, and others, there will be special performances in 2012 on the Equinoxes and Solstices to carry the Crystal Skull’s messages to everyone around the world.

Themes of these performances will embody the ancient wisdom of the Great Shift of the Ages, the mysteries of the heart and how the heart is connected to the awakening of human consciousness.

Prophecy has also said that when the Spirits of the Skulls are ceremonially awakened, ancient wisdom, that has been preserved in it’s crystalline matrix for eons, will enter our collective consciousness with knowledge of everything that has occurred on the planet during the last 26,000 years.

I’m looking forward to that.

Mistletoe is actually a parasitic plant that grows on the high branches of many kinds of trees, and if you are observant enough, you can see it’s characteristic green foliage in contrast to it’s host’s leaves. As an evergreen Mistletoe especially stands out during the winter months when deciduous trees loose their leaves. Because of this, it was believed in ancient times that this plant had life-giving energy and the power to bestow fertility.

From this grew the popular European idea of having good luck in marriage when lovers kissed under it. Oak mistletoe was highly venerated by the Druids and ancient Germans, and thought to have mystical properties such as protection from evil spirits, witches, poison and lightning. So our custom of decorating with mistletoe at Christmas and Solstice is a survival of the Druid and other pre-Christian traditions.

So the next time you’re out in the woods, look up and see if you can see the Mistletoe.

Folks from Alaska, northern Canada, to Australia, New Zealand, and central and eastern Asia will be able to view the eclipse for it’s entire 51 minute duration. Viewers in most of North America and Hawaii will see the moon set still in eclipse, while people on the west coast of the US and Canada will see the beginning of totality just as the moon disappears below the horizon.

This eclipse will pack a punch on all types of communication, giving an assortment of mixed messages. Mercury retrograde and the lunar eclipse will try to blunt what we want to say, while Uranus moving direct on that day, will give birth to new, spontaneous ideas, opportunities and the spirit of adventure.  And the Full Moon in Gemini can give us a vacillating, although quick witted and resourceful thoughts.

Venus at 16 degrees Capricorn also forms a quincunx to the Moon and Eclipse at 18 degrees Gemini. This awkward aspect may exemplify our feelings of inadequacy with our values, appearance, relationships, and self-worth.  Also in the mix is Mars at 13 degrees Virgo squaring the Sun and Moon, adding impulsive behavior, emotional turmoil, independence, frustration and anger.

Whew! I think this is a good to stay out of trouble by staying in bed all day.

Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year happens on December 21, and the New Moon at 2 degrees Capricorn occurs on Christmas Eve. Although this earthy moon favors practical activities, it will be conjunct (close together) to Pluto and square (challenge) to Uranus. Again watch out for your emotions and do your inner work as emotional depth, moodiness and emotional excitement abound.

And finally some good news! Christmas day Jupiter ends it’s four month retrograde period, marking the return of light, hope and optimism for the future