The Aeon (or Judgement, Last Judgement, Atonement, Resurrection) is numbered twenty and often shows figures arising from graves in answer to the clarion call of an angel. The Thoth deck veers away from the Christian overtones and instead we see the goddess Nuit, a primal sky goddess from the beginning of creation. Her body is arched above our heads and curves to imply the ankh cross, a symbol of immortality and life. A child-like male figure stands within the ankh’s loop with his finger to his lips in the traditional mystical gesture of silence. A seated regal figure is behind him. Both figures are said to represent Horus, first as child and then as ruler.Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis. When his father was murdered by his brother Set, Horus was protected and raised by Isis. Horus’ ascension to manhood triggered a series of battles with Set, culminating in his assumption to the throne of Egypt. Set was sent away defeated and thus Horus is seen as a god of redemption.The Aeon forces us to acknowledge that our actions set up a chain of cause-and-effect for which we are solely responsible. Here we pass through the fire of purification, shedding dead and dying wood as we go. We judge ourselves frankly, forgive, and leave the past behind. And then we are free to step into the light.This is a card of healing, especially on an emotional level. It promises hope and happiness, along with a new sense of safeness, protection and recovery. We are at the place where miracles happen.
“A personal journal is an ideal environment in which to become. It is a perfect place for you to think, feel, discover, expand, remember, and dream.” — Brad Wilcox
When I was 20, I was serving a humanitarian church mission in Pennsylvania.
This included working 80+ hours per week. It was highly fulfilling but also highly taxing. There was one day I was in a very low point emotionally. I was facing extreme challenge and difficulty in this experience.
During this time, I experienced a divine intervention.
I found an article written by a person who explained that journaling had changed her life and brought her tremendous insight. She had experiences filling hundreds of journals over 30 years.
I was amazed. For some reason, this article hit me like a ton of bricks.
I don’t know if anything has impacted my life any more at any point in time than reading that single article.
She was referring mainly to spiritual insights and connections she had gotten while writing in her journal, but I realized the far-reaching implications that my journal could have on everything in my life.
I got out my own journal after reading that article, inserted a copy of the article, and wrote something like this:
“I just read this article. I believe this is going to be a life-changing thing for me. From this point on, I will journal every single day.”
That was 15 years ago.
I have journaled nearly every single day for the last 15 years.
Sometimes, I journal for an hour at a time. I have filled hundreds of journals during that time.
Doing this has completely changed my life, probably more so than any other single practice. Doing so can change yours.
I would not have a PhD without journaling. Nor would I have published 6 books.
As you may guess, I journal very differently from the way most people do. Over the last 15 years, I’ve compiled 15 lessons that will fundamentally transform the way you look at pen and paper. I’m excited to share these lessons with you.
In this article, you will learn:
How to optimize writing in your journal to get bigger and better insights each day
How to re-shape the way your see yourself, others, and the world to become healed emotionally
How to become a much better writer, planner, thinker, and strategist
How to think in better ways that will dramatically increase your income
Let’s get started.
#1 — Ignore And Discard The “Right” Way
There is no “right” or “wrong” way to journal.
Most people get so caught up in the “right” way to journal that they never start. In reality, there are thousands of different ways to journal, and they are all very subjective. How you journal is completely up to you.
I just take a plain piece of paper and start writing. Honestly, every journal session I have is different. There are core models, frameworks, and questions that I ask myself (which you’ll learn in this article), but ultimately there is no right or wrong way to journal.
See your journal as a “private tool-kit.” Your journal is a space and a place for you to write down your thoughts, ideas, goals, and challenges.
Let go of the need to find the perfect way, and just start writing every day.
#2 — Only Write To Yourself From Now On
When I first began journaling on my mission, I was writing with others in mind. I was writing with the thought process that someday, someone would read the record of what I had written in my journal.
While that can be very valuable, simply cataloging your history for somebody else to discover later on is very different from the type of journaling I am inviting you to do.
The type of journaling I am inviting you to do is both highly therapeutic and can transform your entire life.
From this day forward, only journal for yourself. Your journal practice will become more effective, powerful, and enjoyable when you solely write for yourself and not for other people. You’ll become a lot more honest and flexible in what you’re willing to write down.
Consider that psychologists have studied the practice of “writing and burning,” where people write in their journal and then burn or throw away what they wrote.
While you don’t have to burn or throw away your journals (I keep my journals and don’t throw them away), it’s important to recognize the immense benefits that come to those who do.
They learn, grow, and benefit tremendously from their journal regardless of if they or anyone else ever comes back to it. Even if the ability to come back to their journal is intentionally destroyed, they benefit from letting their thoughts out on paper.
The benefit is gained through the act of journaling itself, not an unspecified moment in the future. The same is true of you.
Someday later, an older version of yourself, your children, or their children may find what you wrote.
Don’t worry about that for now.
Your journal is for you.
Write whatever you want. Be completely honest.
(Paradoxically, your posterity will likely find your honest and open entries far more fascinating and valuable than any other form of journaling.)
#3 — Don’t Feel The Need To Re-Read Your Journals
I don’t really re-read my journals. I have hundreds of them.
Once again, your journal is for you.
It’s for helping you heal, emotionally regulate, think, plan, strategize, and create.
Your current journal is the best tool for this.
Your previous journals don’t need to be re-read to have inherent value. The value that you gained was by using them in the present moment, whenever that was.
You can go back and re-read your journals if you want, but that’s not the primary purpose of journaling and certainly not an obligation. Such an obligation would require enormous amounts of time and emotional energy.
I very rarely read old journals except in specific cases. As an author, I will often strategize new ideas and insights for upcoming books in my journal. If there’s an idea that I created in my journal, I will go back to that idea so that I can add it to my book.
There is also one key page that I re-read. In the front page of every journal, I answer 5 key questions.
1 — Where am I now?
Here, you can literally write down whatever you are doing in your life. What projects am I working on? What are we doing as a family? What did I recently buy or do? What are the challenges that I’m solving and the things I am thinking about? The purpose of this section is to give a clear snapshot that will help you picture what stage of life you were in at the time.
2 — What are my wins in the last 90 days?
Here, I put personal and professional wins, whatever they may be. This is whatever happened between the day I started the new journal and 90 days prior to that.
3 — What are the key wins I want to have in the next 30–90 days?
What would make an absolutely amazing month for you if you did all of those things? Write it down.
4 — What are my goals for the next 12 months?
Put the biggest three things here. As Jim Collins said: “If you have more than 3 priorities, you have none.”
5 — What are my goals for the next 3 years?
This is where you can think and strategize imaginatively about a really big future that’s still close enough to focus on.
I keep these 5 questions and their answers in the front of my journal where I can easily access them and go back to them. Besides this page, there’s very little time I need to spend re-reading old journals.
The primary purpose of journaling is to re-frame the way that you think, and to re-shape how you view yourself, others, the world around you, and God.
Focus on the journal you’re creating right now.
#4 — Journal Every Night For 5 Minutes
“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” ― Thomas Edison
Most people procrastinate sleep. This sets them up for less sleep, poorer sleep, and a poorer day tomorrow.
Rather than procrastinate sleep by engaging in distracting activities before bed — what if you proactively prepared for sleep by writing in your journal?
At night, simply spend 5 minutes journaling. Start by writing down three things you’re grateful for, which can transform the quality of your sleep.
You get to choose how you frame each day.
Frame the day in a positive and useful way so that you can use it, rather than be used by it.
What I write that proactively prepares me for sleep is the answer to this question:
“What are the main ways I am different than who I was the day before?”
This question helps me see how I truly am different from who I was even 24 hours before.
This question helps me to document and remember important experiences I might have glossed over otherwise.
Here are some other variations of that same question to get you started:
What were the important experiences that I had today?
What things did I learn today?
Where did I see the hand of God today?
How am I different because of the things that I learned today?
How am I now better and more informed that who I was yesterday? What do I now know?
Simply writing the answers to these questions will help you find, analyze, and reflect on different things.
You’ll realize a lot more happened than you originally thought. You’ll view the events of the day positively, and then imprint them deeper into your memory.
You’ll begin to view each day differently, and you’ll have a higher expectation and vision of success tomorrow.
#5 — Journal Every Morning For 5 Minutes
Journal before input.
Inputs include your texts, emails, social media, phone notifications, and even books and courses.
All of these things are adding more things to your brain.
Before this, journal. Give your mind space to let new insights and new connections come as you learn new things for the day.
Rather than opening your phone like most people do and
Put thoughts onto paper while your brain is creative, and while your subconscious is primed.
While you are asleep, your brain and your subconscious mind are working. When you wake up, capture the ideas that your subconscious has already been working on all night by journaling.
When you’re asleep, your brain formulates new memories and re-shapes your worldview based on new things that you learned the day before. It’s also letting go of old ideas, beliefs, and worldviews that are no longer relevant or useful to you.
When you journal in the morning for 5 minutes, you take advantage of all of this growth that happened during the night.
Write about what you’re grateful for. Write down your goals. If you just give yourself the space to receive insights, they will come.
So many times in those morning journaling sessions, when I am in a fresh environment clarifying my thoughts through writing, the greatest and biggest insights have hit me and come to me.
Life-changing insights will come through this morning time.
Give yourself the space to connect.
#6 — Get Yourself Into A Specific Environment
There’s a lot of research about the role your environment plays in your behavior. In fact, the entirety of my first book, Willpower Doesn’t Work, is devoted to this.
When you put yourself in an environment that encourages you to have the right mindset, the way you think changes.
Create a “sacred space” to journal. Rather than journaling just anywhere, create a special and protected place for this to happen.
This doesn’t have to be fancy.
For me, I get hydrated, drive my car down the road, park, and journal in my car. My car has become a sacred space for journaling. Create a sacred space and begin to journal from the right environment You can also prep further by saying a prayer or meditating (more on that soon).
Journal where nothing and nobody can distract you for those precious minutes.
Doing this will increase the perceived value that you have of your journaling experience. Ritualizing your journaling to a sacred environment will make it an experience that you look forward to every single day.
#7 — Meditate And Pray Before You Journal
Before I journal, I pray to God. I seek inspiration. I ask for guidance, for insights, and to learn things that I didn’t know before.
I ask Him to see things differently that I didn’t see before. I ask for help to be aware of things that I should be aware of. I ask Him to help me focus my ideas, my energy, my intentions, and my thoughts.
Whatever your specific beliefs on prayer or meditation may be, doing something beforehand to slow down and get your mind in the right frame of mind before journaling, can massively multiply the results you get. For me, prayer is very powerful. It gets me to a place of open inspiration and free-flowing ideas.
8— Journal From A Grateful State
Gratitude is the mother of all virtues. Gratitude can create abundance, excitement, and insight.
Be grateful when you journal. Get yourself into a grateful state.
Prayer and meditation beforehand help with this, but you want to continue to amplify that state while you actually are in the process of journaling.
One of the things I do to deepen the right frame of mind is to write down things I am grateful for.
Write down, feel, and review your progress from the last couple of weeks or the last few days. Measure your momentum. Become humbled and grateful for the AMAZING things you’ve already accomplished in your life.
Become grateful for your goals, and your future self, when you journal.
#9 — Learn That The Past And the Future Are Simply Drafts
This lesson is both crucial and massive.
The past and the future are simply drafts which you can refine and re-purpose in the words of your journal.
Write about your past, and re-frame it.
Your past is a reflection of your present self, rather than your present self being a reflection of your past self.
It’s who you are in the present that shapes the meaning of what your life. The past is a draft. You control the meaning of that draft.
As an author, I’ve learned that more drafts you’re willing to write, the more insight, clarity, and connection you get.
Your past is a draft, it’s not solidified. Your future is also a draft. You can change your future and refine it slightly each day. Yes, you should have goals and a vision, but you don’t need to have it all figured out.
A few weeks from now, you may see your past differently than the person you are today. Your future self will view your past differently than you do now.
Bit by bit, you can chisel away at learning who your future self is by refining your “draft” in your journal. Your vision, goals, and plans will be a little bit different 3–4 weeks from now, even if your overarching vision is the same. It’s helpful to continually update the draft of your goals.
Always treat your past and present as drafts when writing, reflecting, and journaling. When you view the past and future as drafts, you’ll be in a great place here and now.
Doing this frees you and gives you the comforting reassurance that you don’t have to have it all figured out right now. You just need to commit proactively to the very next step, every morning, while you journal.
Your drafts are things you’re getting better and better at.
#10 — Learn That You Are Not Your Past Self
When you’re journaling, regularly reflect on how you are different than your past self. This goes back to the evening question, “In what ways am I different than who I was the day before?” This also goes back to the questions I answer in the beginning of every journal measuring the past 90 days of wins.
You are different from who you were 10 days ago, and also different from who you were 10 years ago. By acknowledging that you are not your past self, it allows you to continually see how you are evolving and changing.
By acknowledging and learning those changes, you’ll set up your brain to change faster.
Be empathetic towards your past self. There’s no reason to be mad at your past self.
You know things that they didn’t know. You have resources that they didn’t have.
Have compassion, love, and understanding for your past self.
Measuring how much you’ve changed will reinforce your brain’s belief in your capability to continue to change. You’ll have the capability to believe bigger and better things about yourself when you measure how you have changed in the past.
#11 — Learn That You Are Not Your Present Self
“The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been.” — Dr. Daniel Gilbert
One of the core differences between people with a fixed mindset and a growth mindset is that people with a fixed mindset are overly attached to who they are in the present moment.
With a fixed mindset, you overly identify, and overly label yourself.
With a fixed mindset, you say “this is who I am.”
With a growth mindset, you’re a lot more open to change. As Brene Brown would say, you’re more focused on getting it right than being right. You’re open to questioning your own assumptions and ideas.
This is what happened to Andre Norman, whose full story I share in Personality Isn’t Permanent. Below is a brief section of his story from the book.
“Initially, he decided he wanted to get out of prison. He didn’t want to be there anymore. But then he thought to himself that just ‘getting out’ wasn’t enough. Seventy-five percent of people who leave prison come right back. Lessons are repeated until they are leanred. Instead of ‘being free,’ Andre made his goal to ‘be successful.’
‘Where do successful people come from?’ he thought to himself.
‘They come from college. If I go to college too, then I’ll be successful,’ was his reasoning. Having grown up in Boston, he knew of only one school by name, Harvard. Sitting in his cell, rethinking his life…he decided he was going go to Harvard…That single goal, his new purpose, gave Andre a path to getting out of prison and becoming a new version of himself.” — Excerpt from Personality Isn’t Permanent
Your future self tomorrow is going to be a lot less ignorant than who you are today.
Journaling every day helps you to avoid being overly defined by your present. You’re continuously and creatively adapting your ideas, goals, mindsets, and approach when you journal every day. You’re not overly defined by one specific circumstance or event.
#12 —Learn That You Are Not Your Future Self
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” — Albert Einstein
Most people project who they are now into the future, rather than realizing just how different that person is going to and can be.
Recognizing that who you will be in the future is different from who you are now is very healthy.
The past and the future are simply tools for operating more effectively in the present.
Your journal is where you can become connected to, become grateful for, and start acting from your future self. This goes back to the concept of “drafts”.
You can determine frames for your future in your journal.
The more connected you are to your future self, the better decisions you will make in the here and now.
#13 —Your Past + Present + Future = Tools
“The only way to make your present better is by making your future bigger.” — Dan Sullivan
Time is not sequential. It all exists here and now.
As you take these (past, present, and future) to your journal, remember the following principle.
Are these helping you? Are they healing you?
The way you use these tools in light of what you learned in #10-#12 is fully up to you.
#14 — Psychologically And Emotionally Heal With Your Journal
Your journal is a safe place. It’s a place where you can become healed emotionally.
Your journal is the place to build psychological flexibility.
Be continually becoming better at using the past, present, and future as tools, and by continually re-framing your past, you will become transformed by your journal. You’ll have freedom and space to make better decisions. You’ll become more inspired and more excited every day.
Your emotional flexibility will increase. You won’t be rigid and dogmatic if you’re willing to use your journal.
From this place of emotional flexibility, you can have the space to win really big. You can also easily recover if and when things don’t work out the way you originally thought.
Your journal will help you be more flexible every day.
#15 — Strategize And Make REALLY Important Decisions
Your journal is a place to make very important decisions.
In my journal, I have planned and strategized my career. I have written connections of who I need to reach out to. I have connected ideas and creative insights in ways that have propelled me forward.
When you’re journaling, you are able to map out ideas more objectively. You’re able to increase your own self-awareness.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’ll have begun to see your past, present, and future very differently and strategically.
You’ll be on a plane where you can make BIG and BOLD moves towards your future self and receive what you truly want.
Write your biggest goals. Write your biggest dreams. Remember, nobody needs to read this except for you.
Your journal is where you can become extremely vulnerable, humble, and creative with what you are willing to and what you want to accomplish.
Your written insights will inform the strategy of your life.
What could you do?
Conclusion — How Will You Change?
With your journal, you can:
Attract money, people, circumstances, and ideas into your life
Deepen your relationship with God
Become psychologically flexible and emotionally unstuck
Re-frame even your biggest challenges and traumas
Absolutely change your life
The vast majority of people don’t know these things. But you do. You can help them and yourself. You can become your future self.
Iwon’t pretend that I’m remotely normal or even a fair representation of the male persuasion, but I do believe I have a better insight into the male condition than most. You see, I have no close friends, and this is so tediously common that I believe I can speak with a great deal of honesty, compassion, and clarity for my fellow brothers in arms — at least a significant subsection of them.
I’m certain there are plenty of perfectly happy men out there with lots of close friends and a wide-ranging medley of work associates, family members, and casual acquaintances that they enjoy palling around with on the regular. We call these people extroverts, and for the most part, they’ve never met a stranger. They are loud, proud, out, and about. They are the life of the party and represent the majority.
Roughly two-thirds of the population, at least in Western cultures, are extroverted, so the majority of people see the world that way. They get charged up by hanging out with others and are exhilarated by the noise and confusion. The other third, the introverted third, sees the world through an entirely different lens.
According to the research, introverted women are an even smaller minority than men, and while that doesn’t make the world any easier for those poor souls, our culture certainly seems to. The expectations of society on men and women are very different, but culturally, men have traditionally been expected to be more extroverted and women more introverted. The reality is the opposite, and that disconnect makes it even harder for the men who do not fantasize about being in the center of it all.
Yes, yes, we can hear you. You don’t have to shout. We know. No one wants to listen to men whine about how hard it is to be a man. Not today. Not ever. We get it. Maybe try and be patient, while I attempt to make my point.
Most adults reduce their circle of friends significantly over time. They get married, raise a family, and pursue a career. It’s not intentional. It just sort of happens. You are preoccupied, and by the time you have a chance to look up, everyone has moved on. Tack on the geographic isolation of most people in the suburbs, and we become further and further removed from neighbors, friends, and family.
This happens naturally for all adults, no matter their gender, but women not only seem to hold onto their relationships longer than men, but they appear capable of making new ones even later in life with less trouble. I don’t have any specific scientific evidence to support my claims or perceptions, but this has been my experience. Since I have no experience being a woman, I will focus on why I think men are like this.
I was as social as any other kid in the 1970s, even though I was perfectly capable of spending time by myself. We moved around a lot in those days, and then I attended a private Mennonite school outside of my local school district, so I never had what you might call a large, consistent group of friends. But I always had friends and people to hang out with.
Nearly all my friends were from school or church, and there’s only so much quality time you can spend with someone while you’re in the process of studying or praying. Only so much free time. I suppose this, in and of itself, might put me outside the confines of a normal upbringing, but I doubt it.
When my little brother Jason was about seven or eight, I had taken him somewhere where I knew a lot of people, and he asked me how this could be so. I explained that I knew everyone and left it at that. I didn’t think any more about it until a few weeks later when I came upon Jason and a group of young neighbors.
“Todd,” he said. “Tell them. You know everybody, right?”
“Of course, I don’t know everyone,” I said, immediately realizing my mistake when I saw his crestfallen face. I had told him what I thought was a meaningless lie, and he had repeated it with pride. I apologized and told them that I’d been joking but that I did, in fact, know quite a lot of people.
I’ve always known a lot of people, but few that I ever really spent any time with. In fact, for all my wife’s teasing over the phrase, I’ve always had a best friend. It’s just that the names constantly changed with my position, geography, and age. Sam, Jonathon, Randy, Greg, Jamie, Mark, and Bob. Three of the seven are lost to me. I have no idea where they are or what they’re doing. Two of them shuffled off their mortal coils far too early. That leaves two, one whom I just sort of lost touch with and another who the last time we saw each other was at our fathers’ funerals a few weeks apart. The cheese stands alone.
I moved from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore in the late 90s. I met a woman on vacation and a year later married her and her three children. I’ve been here for 27 years but never really became a part of the community. I didn’t grow up here. Didn’t go to school here. I didn’t work here. If it weren’t for social media or a local magazine, I published for a bit, no one in the county would have even known my name.
I used to golf and surf, which added to the people in my circle, but I have long since given up attempts to drive the ball or paddle out. I had a surfing buddy that I used to spend a lot of time with, cutting firewood and drinking copious amounts of rum, not necessarily at the same time, but often enough. Then our kids grew up and married, the grandchildren came soon after, and there was less time to goof off.
I have known many people casually, but don’t spend time with any of them. There are the ones I see occasionally and communicate more often than the others, but for the most part, my work and family take up all my time. My interests have also gotten smaller until my only hobbies are solitary ones. I don’t even take pictures anymore, one of my lifelong passions, because portraits and fashion are what I was passionate about, and even that became too much trouble. I got tired of chasing flaky models and dealing with a studio.
You might be thinking that all I’ve done is told you about myself and not why that is a reasonable reflection of the American man. You might be right, but I’ll bet that most men near my age will find it rings true for them as well. Our fathers weren’t taught to express emotions outside of pride and rage.
They didn’t talk to us about their hopes and dreams, let alone their fears and worries. Expressing pain meant showing weakness, and they had been whipped into doing neither. So they kept it all inside, and most of us really didn’t know them at all.
We didn’t talk to our friends that way either. We watched sports or read comic books and discussed the heroes we found there. Courage. Fearlessness. Power. Intelligence. One day, we realized our heroes didn’t really exist, at least not as we thought. They weren’t real. They were all just ordinary men, flawed, broken, and human. Like our fathers.
Occasionally, I’ll get in my cups and do a bit of drunk dialing, but I never remember the conservations and couldn’t even guarantee that I was passably coherent. I guess it’s my way of trying to connect, but it’s not very effective. The following day, I simply hope they forgot I called and that I didn’t say anything too inappropriate. It rarely occurs to me to try to do it sober. That ought to tell you something. Better to stick to things I can edit.
So I write essays about the nonsense in my head and chat online with people I don’t really know but who often think they know me. The problem with writing personal essays is that readers believe that encapsulates who you are, but it’s only the part I choose to reveal. The part I feel safe exposing about myself. It’s little more than my own carefully crafted mythology based on a questionable memory, baseless self-confidence, and a bit of learned skill.
I don’t even like dealing with the comments, which I mostly appreciate, but never know how to respond to. The more complimentary they are, the less I have to say. It’s not ego, quite the opposite. It’s embarrassment. If they disagree and want to argue, I find that illogical. If I didn’t convince you with 2,500 words that I really thought hard about, what am I going to accomplish in the comments section? I try to be friendly and kind, polite and courteous, but I have a hard time finding the middle ground between thank you and fuck you.
The last piece of the puzzle, at least for me, is that as I’ve aged, I’ve begun to atrophy in how much bullshit I’m willing to put up with. I’m less patient. I’m more selfish. I know what I think and what I want, and it’s rarely spending my precious time doing anything I don’t want to. I believe this is a product of watching my time run out and not wishing to waste it on things I don’t feel passionate about.
When I first met my wife, she had three young children to support and told me straight up, “If you’re not in it for the long haul, walk away. I don’t have any time to fool around.” I might have walked away and had a completely different life, but I never would have known this one. I chose to stay, and it’s been more good than bad, which, by my calculations, is a profitable investment.
I’ve rarely been lonely, and I’m never bored. The only thing I sometimes miss is someone to commiserate with outside of my family, but really, how often did I really reach out when I had it? So I have to ask myself, what’s all the fuss?
I suppose the downside is that I have become a committee of one, and that may or may not be the best-case scenario when it comes to making decisions. The great thing about writing is that I can trot out my wacky ideas on a daily basis and get a reaction without ever having to show up to your house on a Saturday to help you build a deck or move your shit. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good reason.
Never mind.
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A cranky romantic searching for hope and humor. I tell stories. Most of them are true. I’m not at all interested in your outrage, but I do feel your pain.
January 2024 is quite a month. Pluto makes a very bold move into Aquarius – can we emphasize this ingress enough? – marking a very important shift from the Capricorn to the Aquarius sector of your chart.
Things are VERY interesting indeed since the first 3 weeks of the month are very heavy in Capricorn energy – with Sun, Mars, Mercury, and then later Venus in Capricorn – but then on January 20th, 2024 everything seems to change, when Pluto and Sun move into Aquarius.
With this powerful Capricorn and Pluto energy, January 2024 is THE perfect month for New Year’s resolutions and overall progress with your goals.
But let’s take a look at the most important transits of the month:
January 2nd, 2024 – Mercury Goes Direct
On January 2nd, 2024 Mercury goes direct at 22° Sagittarius. Woo-hoo!
This Mercury retrograde has been a doozy. “But ain’t all Mercury retrogrades challenging?” Some of them are more challenging – or in this case, more confusing – than others.
This particular Mercury retrograde has been squaring Neptune for weeks on end. Perhaps you haven’t even noticed all the confusion and havoc – that’s because Neptune has a talent to do tricky stuff behind the veil. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?
On a positive note, the same Neptune – even when involved in tense aspects – can also help us look at things from a different perspective.
Mercury – now direct – will apply one last square to Neptune in the next week; so there are more downloads to come. Open your mind, find the inspiration you need, and then wait for Mercury to clear the square to Neptune to do your yearly planning.
January 4th, 2024 – Mars Enters Capricorn
On January 4th, 2204, Mars enters Capricorn. Capricorn is one of Mars’ favorite placements; Mars is exalted in the sign of persistence and ambition.
The next 6 weeks are a great time to get intentional about what it is that you want to achieve.
Mars in Capricorn will give you that extra stamina and persistence so you follow through with your projects, no matter what.
Just picture a mountain goat climbing steep slopes and rugged peaks. That’s Mars in Capricorn. With Mars in Capricorn, ain’t no mountain high enough to keep you from reaching your goals.
January 11th, 2024 – New Moon In Capricorn
On January 11th, 2024, we have a New Moon at 20° Capricorn.
This is one of the most auspicious New Moon of the year – it is trine Uranus and sextile Neptune. What a great New Moon to start the year!
In fact, you may want to hold on to your New Year’s resolutions and wait for the New Moon. With its powerful cosmic support, it’s well worth the wait.
January 14th, 2024 – Mercury Re-enters Capricorn
On January 14th, 2024, Mercury re-enters Capricorn.
In the first week of the transit, – from January 14th to 21st of January, 2024 – Mercury will be revisiting the same sector of your chart it traveled through from December 1st to December 21st, 2023, bringing past matters back to the surface. It ain’t over till it’s over.
The goal of Mercury retrograde is to help us look at things from a new angle. Without Mercury retrograde, we’d be in repeat mode – doing the same things over and over again.
Now, having learned there’s a different way to go about things, we can implement those changes and – hopefully – see better results. Mercury In Capricorn is an invitation to move from “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” to “If you want to see different results, do things differently”.
Such an obvious thing to say, yet our routines and habits can be so ingrained that we need a cosmic nudge to break free from the familiar and embrace a more effective approach.
January 20th, 2024 – Sun Conjunct Pluto
On January 20th, 2024, Sun conjuncts Plutoat 29°59′ Capricorn. This is the last degree and the last second of the sign. This is literally the very end of the sign of Capricorn.
Sun and Pluto enter hand in hand in the sign of Aquarius. This is BIG. The Sun-Pluto conjunction will give us clarity around the major 15-year milestone we’re completing, as well as the upcoming 2-decade “Pluto in Aquarius” chapter of our life.
January 20th, 2024 – Sun And Pluto Enters Aquarius
On January 20th, 2024, Sun and Pluto enter Aquarius and what an ingress this is! Pluto re-enters Aquarius, and will stay in the sign until September 1st, 2024 (Pluto will spend some final weeks in Capricorn, before moving into Aquarius for good on December 19th, 2024).
Pluto first entered Aquarius in March 2023. This is when the world went crazy with AI and Chat GTP. That first Aquarius gave us a good taste of the themes we’re going to be busy with in the next 20 years.
Pluto makes it to 2° Aquarius (before retrograding on May 3rd, 2024) so if you have planets or angles in the first 3 degrees of the fixed signs, then you will have a first-hand experience of the Pluto in Aquarius transit.
On January 23rd, 2024 Venus joins the Capricorn party, or should we say, the business networking event?
Venus is what we like and what we value. Capricorn is ambitious and strategic. When Venus is in Capricorn, we become more intentional and more strategic about what we want.
Capricorn is a sign that likes clarity, so if you are a bit unsure about where you’re at, Venus in Capricorn will help you nail your priorities. Once you know what you want, there’s nothing that is going to stop you from attracting it into your life.
January 25th, 2024 – Full Moon In Leo
On January 25th, 2024 we have a Full Moon at 5° Leo.
The Full Moon is opposite Pluto and square Jupiter. There is a tremendous drive to “go for it” – go for your goals, your opinions, your beliefs.
Jupiter in Taurus is the apex of this fixed T-square; the tendency is to hold tightly onto your guns.
However, Pluto opposite the Full Moon might challenge your perception of what’s true and what’s not. Are your beliefs truly yours – or a reflection of society’s conditioning?
January 27th, 2024 – Mercury Conjunct Mars
On January 27th, 2024 Mercury is conjunct Mars at 16° Capricorn.
This is the 3rd and final successive Mercury-Mars conjunction, an invitation to put your money where your mouth is and take strategic Capricorn action.
Mercury and Mars meet for the 3rd time in the last 3 months. The first time they met was on October 19th, 2023 at 12° Scorpio, the 2nd time (with Mercury retrograde) on December 27th, 2023 at 24° Sagittarius. This time they meet in Capricorn. 3rd time’s a charm!
This is a very auspicious transit sequence for moving things forward. The houses in your chart where you have Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Capricorn will reveal the areas of your life under focus. Pay attention to the themes that have surfaced during each conjunction to connect the dots and see the evolving story.
January 27th, 2024 – Uranus Goes Direct
On January 27th, 2024, Uranus goes direct at 19° Taurus. Since Jupiter is also direct as of December 2023, this means we officially have an applying Jupiter-Uranus conjunction.
Uranus changing direction is not your usual Uranus station. Uranus moving direct will give you the first glimpse into the themes and the unfolding dynamics that will emerge when the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction perfects in April 2024.
The Priestess (or High Priestess, Papess, Pope Joan, Isis) is numbered two. This is the representation of the Goddess. She is the complementary partner of the Magician, possessing all his skill and ability, but with far more insight and psychism. She is more subtle yet somehow far more noticeable.
She is almost always shown with the Lunar Crescent, conveying her natural affinity with the forces of Nature and natural cycles. The Magician generates his own power, whereas the Priestess draws upon the forces of life itself.
She sits between two pillars with veils suspended between them – it is the Priestess who allows us to penetrate the innermost secrets of life. She is also the bridge between our conscious and Higher selves, by teaching us through our dreams and our subconscious. It is in our subconscious that we hold the keys to the Universe.
“Within each person is a unique goodness that will come forth”
February 17 and 18, 2024
Mara Pennell H.W., Monitor
Emotional blocks present us with challenges that can lead to the most profound insights. Releasing the Hidden Splendour™ teaches how to trade in painful or unpleasant feelings for insight and freedom by practicing the Joseph Technique™. Employing the principles of Ontology in a practice of loving and thoughtful self reflection we come to release the past and embrace our true heritage of freedom and grace.
• This cycle is based on empirical data meaning enough data was observed and recorded to make it possible to suggest attitudes and reactions. Keep in mind that we all have free will and thus results will vary from one individual to another.
• The graph shows the energy high at the beginning of the cycle (not unlike any other astrological aspect) followed by a slow down before it gets strong and again this reflects years of tracking and noting feedback from our many students.
• If you are making a decision during this time you might want to let it set for a day or two then check your decision again to see if it still makes sense. However, you can feel into the ebb and flow and find good times to work on self emotionally in both the low and high points. Impatience, emotion and acts without thinking are common.
• With practice you can feel when the energy is there to help bring completion to tasks, goals and projects you may be working on.
“If the cask is to hold the wine, its water must first be poured out.“ — Meister Eckhart (1260–1327)
Eckhart von Hochheim OP, commonly known as Meister Eckhart, Master Eckhart or Eckehart, claimed original name Johannes Eckhart, was a German Catholic theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Wikipedia
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