Some strange guests will turn up for Christmas dinner this year. You may not be able to see them at first, but squint a little and look slantwise and there they are… blown in on a breath of winter, at your table giving you savage stares, shaking dirty, long hair, gnawing the turkey bones like dogs, exuding force, virility, cosmic muscle.

There is Death, there is War, there is Frankenstein, there is Bellatrix Lestrange — savages all four. They sit on the four sides of your table. Will you feed them cranberry sauce and brussels sprouts?

Ohhh dear…We call them , but they have had many at different times and different places.

We call them Pluto, Uranus, Mars and Lilith, but they have had many other names at different times and different places.

This coming Christmas week is powerful. There is a dangerous, volatile, fierce Grand Cross across the sky. On the day itself, Mars opposes Uranus, activating the Uranus-Pluto square that casts its shadow over this year and next. Jupiter still opposes Pluto and is close enough to Lilith to count as conjunct, so Jupiter expands Lilith power. Meanwhile, Lilith opposes Venus Rx, also in Capricorn.. Even the Sun and Moon are in a hostile square on Christmas Day, although too far away from the big boys to be part of the Grand Cross.

Then through the week, Mars translates the light from the god of rebellion and shock, to the god of the underworld, making an exact square to Pluto on New Year’s Eve. At the same time, the Sun and Moon gradually slide into the embrace of Pluto, so that by New Year’s Day, the New Moon conjuncts Pluto. 

Could be nuclear start to 2014.

There’s no getting away from Pluto or Uranus this Christmas. It’s no use pretending: this is not ho ho ho and jingle bells. But it is dynamic. This holiday season is full of energy: dark energy, yes, dangerous energy, yes, but also transformational, and with Mars involved, there will be action.

So should we all just hide under the covers for the duration? Well, that does seems reasonable response. But we could try another technique. We could invite the dark gods in. They’re coming anyway, so step aside, don’t fight it and see what happens. Please read the rest of the poem.

Uranus is the awakener. He is ignited by Mars on Christmas Day. Mars is a spark – maybe of anger, maybe of courage, maybe of lust for life. Mars, above all, shouts to us to live in our bodies, to be here now, to get physical, to act. Mars in Libra. Traditionally, this is Mars in a “bad” position, but, as my colleague Pippa has pointed out consider this: John Lennon, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama all have the planet of the warrior in the sign of peace. A knight sits at the round table and makes plans for the grail quest.

Uranus is electric, dangerous. He is on or off — a sleeping giant, who wakes with a start. Frankenstein, Prometheus. Uranus has just started moving forwards again, so he has energy to expel. He is the higher octave of Mercury, the rational mind. He is rebellion, yes, and the flash of inspiration, but Uranus also (like the sign he rules, Aquaurius) has a dual nature. He is the radical conformist, the woman who chooses to wear the hijab.

Together, Mars and Uranus are sudden flare-ups, accidents, migraine headaches, explosions, but also brilliant ideas, cosmic orgasm, fresh starts.

Nataraja, dancing Shiva

And then there is Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, of destruction, disease, corruption, crime – all that is dark and dirty.

But deep in the earth is where seeds begin to grow. Pluto is the lord of death and transformation. This is Shiva, called the destroyer. Ash-covered Shiva meditates for millennia on Mount Kailash, still as stone. And then he dances. The rhythm he beats with his feet destroys a weary world, breaks down illusion — so that a new era can be created by Brahma. Shiva’s dancing feet create a path out of the wilderness of cynicism, away from attitudes that are used up, spent, finished. He destroys what no longer works. In India, the Nataraja, as the dancing Shiva is called, is a symbol of civilisation, because only after the destruction of an old world can we create a new one.

Most of the time, Shiva is on the mountain, but when he dances in the ring of fire, the world changes. Shiva’s partner in destruction is Kali, she of the red tongue and the belt of severed heads, the heads, some say, of other people’s children. She is death. She is time. She is mother. She is Lilith. This winter week she opposes civilised Venus, debilitated by retrograde, from Cancer, the sign of mother, balancing Pluto in Capricorn, the sign of the father.

These gods are untameable, inhuman, uncaring. These are not gentle souls at the dinner table but powerful energies. They connect us with the great, wide universe.

We need this wild energy to break things open. You need to smash a pomegranate (or cut it) to find the seeds. You need those seeds for nourishment, but also to plant the next orchard.

Still Life on a Marble Ledge by Rachel Ruysch (Ceres 3° Libra)

Meanwhile, Ceres, the goddess of abundance, she who harvests the pomegranate, nurtures the children, squares from Libra, the sign of social grace. Ceres in Libra: a perfectly set dining table piled with good things to eat. Ceres is currently joined by her sister Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, who will be in Libra as long as Mars — until the summer that is — because of retrograde motion later in 2014. Vesta is the domestic goddess, the goddess we cherish most dearly in the dark of winter. For more on this and why Vesta can help us through Christmas week click here.

These powerful energies are all bound to play out on a much bigger stage than your own turkey-laden table. But this week the personal is political.

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