February’s skies encourage trundling ahead with minimal drama, compared to recent months. Excitement does bookend this one, though, with flashes of insight and calls to action at February’s start and finish that keep you moving along.

In between, stairsteps help processing and assimilating much that has gone before. None of this means calm or boring, and definitely not unimportant. We’re in a transition month in a transition year, preparing the way for energies coming in March.

The first few days are awakening and liberating, while paradoxically pushing for fantasy and love. A Sun/Uranus square on February 3 is a cosmic prison break, blowing open internal constraints (undervalue yourself, maybe?), external limitations, preconceptions, and labels. Relationships feel the brunt the next day. Sweet talk may suffice, with Venus in love with love in Pisces squaring Mars in Gemini’s communication hub.

Then again, you’ll probably want more than words. Applause, bouquets, and other acknowledgements of your existence are more like it. The Leo Full Moon on February 5 spotlights who notices and appreciates you. Loyalties may break in a flash to those who do not. Chapter closings are continuing that began at November’s Taurus lunar eclipse. This is the fifth of seven full moons at 16 degrees of their sign, each pulling in quick-change artist Uranus. He’s in the middle of the action now, flipping switches that end certain associations and reroute others.

Yet the potential is enormous for sweetness, gentleness, kindness, and compassion. Those qualities are on offer February 6 from Mercury’s sextile to Neptune, ruler of dreams, illusion, and Hallmark Channel movies. Meanwhile, Uranus’ quick action gets softening the next day from a sextile from love goddess Venus, unleashing unexpected or unconventional approaches, alliances, and inspiration.

You’re in little danger of getting lost in clouds of romance or fantasy. A Mercury/Pluto conjunction February 10 delivers candor and fierce self-awareness, with a psycho-beastie or two squirming in the process. It’s worth staring down whatever surfaces; the aspect favors dropping baggage and streamlining both your thinking and communication channels. Minds and tongues loosen the next day, when the cosmic messenger moves into the observer mode of Aquarius, where he stays until March 2. We’re less focused on the bottom line, more aware of the big picture, and at times more rigid in what we think and say.

Valentine’s Day could be memorable, in a good way; it falls this year as some lovely forces are coming together. “As above, so below” rules February 15 and 16, with the Sun and hyperrealist Saturn grounding a magical meeting of Venus and Neptune, overseers of love and creativity. The first pair stabilizes the second. Stars may be in our eyes, but vision is on the earth. Love is indeed in the air, but cloaked with responsibility and commitment (to yourself, if not also to the person across the table). The window for confessions of affection and other bold statements is open into the weekend, since Mercury sextiles indulgent Jupiter in risk-taking Aries February 17.

The Sun amplifies the dreamy, loving potentials of Pisces when it enters the sign February 18. Questions are stirring below those waters of what you truly want and what you’re willing to do (or give up) for it, when Venus sextiles Pluto and his subterranean domain February 19.

The role of love, earthly and higher, moves into fresher water on the Pisces New Moon February 20. Amplifying the newness of the energy, this is the final of four new moons at 1 degree of their signs. Last month’s Aquarius New Moon set the stage for the collective gear shift coming late in March, when Pluto enters that sign for the first time in close to 250 years. This month’s new moon is a coming attractions trailer for the first big gear shift of March, when Saturn enters Pisces for the first time since the mid-1990s.

While we’re dipping our toes into pure interconnectedness and other gifts of unfiltered Piscean waters, the rest of our being is hungering for adventure. Venus is leaving the water and gentle ways behind and bent on going after what she wants, and our social mode follows. She enters Aries February 20 for nearly a month’s stay, igniting interactions and desires with spunk and fieriness and fearlessness and disregard for risk.

The month ends much as it began, with bursts of insight leading to action. The two rulers of the mind, Mercury and Uranus, force out surprises, startling news, and split-second shifts in perspective when the pair square February 21. As stunned as we may be, sitting quietly is not an option. A compulsion to share follows, with Mercury trining action hero Mars the next day. The jolts provide abundant fodder for thought, but we’re doing a lot more than thinking and talking. We are acting on them, implementing them, and sending them throughout our networks and communities.

The result is noisy. It’s hectic. It invites juggling multiple text threads and setting records for number of open browser tabs. It’s also another stairstep in moving from what has been to what will be. The back-to-back aspects are a short form laboratory in the concept “Change your thinking; change your life.” Have at it.

Re-blogged on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Kathy Biehl.