At 2:15 pm EST on 8 February 2022, the Sun enters the third decan of Aquarius, the decan that Austin Coppock called The Knot. While Aquarius as a whole is ruled by Saturn, it’s the Moon that administers this decan, papering over its hard truths with gentle delusions and lining it’s dark clouds with silver.

A knot does one of two things: it binds together what would like to be separated, and holds in place what may prefer to go elsewhere. We put knots in string to hold together stacks of unruly newspapers; we put hitches in ropes to hold weight off the ground; we tie the knot between two people that love one another, even knowing that love is a fickle and inconstant thing. Even BDSM enthusiasts who excel in the art of making knots aesthetically beautiful, know that what is bound must eventually be loosed.

The remarkable thing about knots, of course, is that they work at all! Put a particular kink, loop, twist and bend into a rope, pass all or part of the other end of the rope through the loops… voila! A bit of yarn, a line of string, a chunk of rope, has been made secure. The best knots will tighten under tension, yet can be released with a flick of the wrist — and the secret of their easy unraveling can be tucked inside, rendering it a mystery to the uninitiated.

Alexander the Great encountered such a knot in Gordium, a town in modern-day Turkey, where a complex knot with its bitter ends tucked inside joined the Chariot of Mars to one of the temple columns. Whoever undoes the knot, went the prophecy, shall be ruler of all Asia! Alexander, bemused, drew his sword and sawed through the rope rather than get sidetracked by tangles. He wound up ruling a third of Asia, for maybe a decade after that before his death.

Which brings up an unusual problem, really — a knot is a good way of securing something against intrusion or attack, as long as you trust the people around the knot not to undo it. The Egyptian god Set imprisoned his brother Osiris in a coffin-chest and bound it with ropes… and he trusted that his minions would not set his brother free. The knot is as much a mechanism of trustworthiness as it is a mechanism of constraint — the very nature of a knot makes it easier to undo than to create. Do you trust the ones around your knot work, to keep their hands to themselves?

The dodecatemoria or 12th-parts of each sign in Aquarius III revel in this: they start 2° 30′ chunks of the sky that recapitulate Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius before ending with Capricorn — first we obtain the rope in the marketplace or the hardware store; we learn its secret ways and study the wisdom of knots; we become expert at them in the abstract sense of learning to tie them; and then finally we discover that their practical application is a complicated and challenging power in the dark of the night — our skill at doing them ‘blind’ requires an expertise far beyond what seemed so obvious in the late afternoon light.

Planetary Positions

Aquarius III begins as a day chart, but with the Sun only 3° 35′ minutes past its annual conjunction with Saturn — a time when we’re likely to feel overwhelmed by our responsibilities and constrained by the limits imposed on us by others. With this conjunction present in the eighth house, those constraints may be more obvious and real than usual. While the Sun’s ingress to 20° Aquarius defines the period of the Decan, the Sun is in detriment in Aquarius, a condition likened to “being a princely guest in the house of a rival or foe.” Moreover the rival is at home: Saturn has the Sun under his watchful eye, and so the very people who impose constraints upon us are watching with more diligence and malice than usual. Step lively and handsomely where it matters, and take more care than you would normally.

The Ascendant in Cancer gives the Moon considerable sway in the next ten days as well. Placed more kindly, in the Fifth Mansion and in Taurus her sign of exaltation, the Moon has just crossed the celestial equator from south to north, and has a great deal of honor: it’s a good time to reconnect with friends and make petitions for a change in duties with supervisors and bosses. Trust your gut on this one: if the Sun’s debility strikes your mind as the more rational position, then button up and toe the line; if the Moon’s honor gives you a warm glow in your belly and makes you want to verbalize your rationale for a promotion or transfer, do that instead. But a decision, one way or another, is advisable — regular prayer is an honorable tool for deciding what to do.

Uranus in Taurus continues to make waves and bring upheaval to social cohesion. A lot of these may revolve around the theme of his current decan, The Lingam-Yoni. We may call them the Hindu representations of the ‘sword’ and ‘sheath’ of the God and Goddess, but another way of looking at them is to see them as arbiters of empowerment and personal agency. SO many people may be looking to this quack or that expert about serious questions about their health and safety in public places — and it looks like they’re giving up their liberty to some, or engaged in dangerous behaviors to others. But really it’s about finding a path of personal power through a maze of less-than-deal options. No one likes to feel powerless at any time. In a slow-moving crisis, people will take risks that would have been unthinkable just five or ten years ago. It’s best not to offer too much critique: shut your mouth, and decide your own course of action, without trying to rub it in with others. You may just be wrong, and don’t know it yet.

Chances are that the the change of signs of the Nodal Axis, from Gemini-Sagittarius to Taurus-Scorpio, hasn’t quite caught up with you yet. The Moon’s transit in the next few hours may bring an invitation from a friend, though, for lunch or coffee. It’s probably OK to accept. However, it’s not time to let our hair down completely or doff the mask completely. Collect your little shinies and engage in a testing of the waters… be prepared to get out of the pool, or the kitchen, if it’s too hot and sweaty.

The Lot of Fortune is in Libra in the fourth house. With few exceptions, there’s great benefit in staying home if you can. The decan here is called Two Links of Chain, and it warns us to keep to the bonds we have already established. There are knots that are going to be loosed in the next ten days, but being at home is likely to bring benefits of wrought-iron certainty. It may not be fun, but it’s beneficial.

Four of the planets are now in Capricorn, having a kind of council of war: Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Pluto. Over the next 10-20 days, Mars and Venus will be in a kind of conjunctive dance with one another, with Mars sometimes approaching Venus with aggressive, ardent lust; and sometimes with more gentle forms of love on his mind. Similarly, Venus will be playing hard-to-get at some times, and at other times will engage in her own forms of enticement. Mars and Venus, Mr. and Mrs., will be in the same sign on Valentine’s Day just once more in the next fifteen years — and this time we get an ongoing conjunction, strongly suggestive of the kind of experimental passion with a new lover where you try out every definition and technique in your favorite sexual guidebook in the space of a few days; hard n slow, hot and heavy, toys and costumes, you name it. Mars may take the lead here, but Venus also has plenty of time to call the shots and put forward her own demands.

BUT… take care. Mercury and Pluto are both here, too. Before you get down to business in the bedroom (or on the back porch, or in the back seat of the car, or in the back of beyond…) be aware that Pluto lends an intensity and a magnification-of-mistakes to all that occurs under its watch; while Mercury promises greater benefits to those who engage in clear communication both before and after. Even various kinds of transactional romance, such as one night stands and pay to play, may be badly affected by going beyond the agreed-upon boundaries… and it will be easy to go beyond those boundaries at this time. Take your agreements seriously in all romantic and “temporarily romantic” situations.

These same issues are likely to crop up in other relationships beyond just romantic ones. Business partnerships may come under strain as allies cope with questions of who must be in charge, and who must compromise; who communicates and negotiates the deal, and who actually does the work. Who gets the money? becomes an overarching question which can’t be delayed, either, because of the aforementioned Saturn-Sun conjunction just concluded. It may be unpleasant to decide, but decide how the money gets allocated, even if it takes hours to negotiate. Put your decisions to paper, and sign it, and hold to it — agreements in these ten days are going to be set in stone for a while, but they’re also likely to improve your allyship with one another.

In the ninth house, Jupiter and Neptune inch a little closer together for a conjunction which will be exact on April 11-12. Jupiter’s placement indicate that there’s benefit from taking the journey you’re contemplating — whether that’s the journey through a higher education program toward a graduate degree or professional certification; or whether it’s an overseas trip to an exotic destination. Yes, the Lot of Fortune says “stay home” — Jupiter says, “make your decision, and either cancel your ticket and stay home; or commit to the ride.” Neptune indicates that the trip isn’t going to be what you thought it was going to be — but it doesn’t say either whether it will be better or worse. Just … different. Not what you expected. For an educational journey, that may be freeing; for foreign travel, it may be disappointing. For a small number, it may be that an art or a writing project doesn’t turn out as planned. One way or another, though, the Midheaven is inviting you to set out — Robert Frost said that the roads that diverged in a yellow wood were more or less the same, but that ages later it seemed that one was essential to your experience. So it will prove for you: you will be defined, one way or another, by whether you stay or go.

Horoscopes by Rising Sign

Horoscopes of Decan I of any sign are free to the public; Decans II and III are available to the $3/month tier and above on Patreon.

Leo:

Virgo:

Libra:

Scorpio:

Sagittarius: 

Capricorn: 

Aquarius:

Pisces:

Aries:

Taurus:

Gemini:

Cancer:

Colophon

have a Patreon account for those who want to support this column as it approaches the midpoint of its third year (I began with Leo I in 2019 ). We’re currently doing a decan walk through some Tarot, astrology, mythology, and magic. If you don’t want to become a regular patron, you can also buy me a Ko-fi in $3 increments, and any column I write after receiving a Ko-Fi donation will be open to the public.  You can also schedule an appointment with me using Accuity Scheduling, for a natal or solar return consultation.

I use iPhemeris for my charting software, and screenshot it to make charts. I want to thank the team that develops iPhemeris for the addition of Terms and Decans to their charts, appearing here for the first time! I use Hugh Tran‘s Physis typeface to craft logos for this blog, as well.

I use Christopher Warnock‘s The Mansions of the Moon as the basis of my Moon placement delineations, and Austin Coppock‘s 36 Faces as the basis of much of my planetary delineations. Neither gentleman endorses me. My own book, A Full Volume of Splendour and Starlight, is now available as PDF download from my Etsy website, as is my Almanac for 2021. I follow T.Susan Chang and the Reverend Erik Arneson for insight into Tarot. Any errors in these columns are my own.

If you’d like to schedule a consultation with me, you can find additional information on the Services and Classes page.

If you want to read some of my other astrologically-oriented poetry, “A Full Volume of Splendour and Starlight” contains these smaller collections: 

• To the Mansions of the Moon is a collection of hymns to the angels of the Mansions 
• For the Behenian Stars is a collection of hymns to the first/brightest sixteen stars. 
• The Sun’s Paces are hymns to the thirty-six Hellenistic-era deities and ascended souls of the Greco-Egyptian Decans-calendar. 
• Festae, hymns to some of the older Roman gods and spirits.