One name for the fear of Friday the 13th is friggatriskaidekaphobia, from the Norse Goddess Frigg, the fierce, farseeing householder archetype after whom Friday is named. Friggatriskaidekaphobia is relatively new but built on medieval traditions that Friday isn’t a good day to begin anything. There they may have a point, Frigga would ask us to get things in order, finish rather than begin, and make room on the 13th, for lunar and Venusian events (associated with the number 13) over the weekend. Friday the 13th is apparently one of the safest days of the year because we walk so carefully. April 13 and July 13 also fall on a Friday this year, so let’s find a positive way to frame the day and indulge in friggatriskaidekaphilia, the appreciation of Friday the 13th instead.
This Friday does ask us to release and let go as Mercury conjuncts Pluto while Venus conjuncts Neptune and then enters Pisces. We may have to look some fear square in the face and look for the positive within. It is there. We can look at a challenge in our life and wonder what we’re being trained for.
While we were making our New Year’s intentions at the end of December, the Sun conjunct Pluto and asked us to make those resolutions real, make this year different from last year. Now Mercury wants to know what we’re doing about those intentions as it conjuncts Pluto and adds focus, depth, and obsessiveness to our thinking process. All while Venus conjuncts Neptune and nudges us to keep our dreams alive.
We may need extra time in the dream-world this weekend to work things out or to rest up if we’re feeling permeable. The collective unconscious is bubbling, brewing, and our psyches absorb the brew in dreams and visions. But what is ours, what is the collective’s and what is pure fantasy is for us to find out.
The Sun, Mercury and Pluto now in Capricorn help us with this, as they loan us a really practical attitude to compete or balance the totally magical Venus-Neptune conjunction and help us stay solid under an ever-so-sensitive Venus in Pisces. Pragmatic dreaming is lovely, so is a Capricorn-disciplined approach to our spiritual and creative life, but we can also become willful about our delusions or make emotional assumptions laced with our own wishful thinking and then obsess on how to make them happen. Watch the campaign rhetoric with this in mind. It’s up to us how we use it. Work for the dream, but keep doing a reality check.
Mercury/Pluto in Capricorn brings power and persuasiveness to our thinking and our way of communicating. This week, even the dog will let its will be known. This aspect will crank up the debate about the effects of money on truth in politics. We will need to listen and consider, but also advocate ourselves for what we believe and know. Let’s value truth over power and use the keen curiosity also offered by this Pluto conjunction to look beneath the willful push we’ll feel from canine, spouse, or politician.
All week long, we need to rein back the control issues. Under stress we’ll tend to become managerial and controlling as Venus trines Saturn and the Sun squares Saturn. But it won’t sit well if we do. Yes, we need to take real leadership, but let’s be honest about the difference between leadership and control. One look at international headlines and we know people are just are not tolerating that level of control while Uranus squares Pluto for the next three years, so we need to find another more dynamic and inclusive form of leadership both at home and abroad. Clashes of authority are likely. Share goals, but please let us react to those goals in our own way; it will be so much more successful.
Any Pluto and Saturn aspects (and this week we have both) can exacerbate depression unless we deal with our issues directly. This week keep an eye where people do not have work, or where the work they have doesn’t feel worthy. If we feel this way, it helps to set short-term goals we can comfortably achieve that will take us one step closer to our longer goals. Learn one new skill, play tiddlywinks, but play better today than yesterday. Any sign of improvement of our lot can help break that trapped feeling of saturnine depression. To help those around us, notice when someone has made an improvement and load up the praise.
The weekend begins both practical and dreamy, stirs up interesting relationship dynamics over the weekend, sends us inside to do our own emotional homework early next week, and then asks us to re-engage the world with dynamic responsibility
Friday, Jan 13: Let’s not be hard on one another with the Moon in Virgo, but instead proceed in alignment with our true intentions. Speak up, but keep the focus on the audience to ease self-consciousness. Overnight events or dreams may have us churning this morning; listen and assess what needs to be done in wise response. Midday drifts with emotional clouds, late afternoon calls for a decisive but un-cranky response as the Moon conjuncts Mars. Walk as if it’s Friday the 13th. Tonight, emotions catch up with us as Venus enters Pisces.
Saturday, Jan 14: Our feelings are suddenly sensitized and need attention, gentle shifts in the right direction; we need kindness, beauty and compassion under a Libra Moon. New connections blossom with some common work to share; old friendships need attention, more than time. Acceptance heals. It’s a good time to make an emotional agreement, to fan the gentle embers of caring as Venus settles Jupiter. Early evening is sociable, later it is easy to long for something just out of our reach when it would better serve us to see the beauty in what we have.
Sunday, Jan 15: The mood is friendly but a little off: be open hearted and understanding if nothing goes quiet as planned, do not look for fault, do look for the way to make the most of it. If social obligations tug us away from where our heart really wants to be, let’s see if a compromise is possible.
Monday, Jan 16: The mood is internal, distracted this morning, but the week needs our attention as a p as the Moon conjuncts Saturn then enters scorpion. Give people their displaces, and keep all expectations clear and not eh table, watch the tendency to manipulate just to see if it’s possible, and don’t response id foemen jerks our chain. A few people will sharpen edges merely to entertain themselves late tonight.
Tuesday, Jan 17: We can get really lost in our imagination today, and our imagination tends to walk on the dark side and look for trouble. Write a gothic novel but don’t pretend to see the future or clearly read what’s going on as Mercury semi-squares Neptune. It can feel good to research how to fix things, but even then we may have trouble seeing the situation clearly. Clear perceptions leak in, but are easily distorted by our hopes and fears. Put imagination to good use, and take moods with a grain of salt.
Wednesday, Jan 18: We’re prone to sulking or meditative obsessing about our inner workings this morning, so don’t ask us to articulate or cooperate until the Moon enters Sagittarius this afternoon. Later, clear the mind and clear up misperceptions; look for inconvenient truths and make amends.
Thursday, Jan 19: Responsibility tugs with restlessness. Pay attention to some impending decisions or ripening work as the Sun squares Saturn, handle responsibilities wisely. Deal respectfully with people who think they’re in authority but don’t give up personal authority in the process. Slightly sarcastic edginess keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously. Focus dissipates later afternoon, but our minds want to go back and process the week, so give us talking room.
Starcodes 
Your forecasts are usually full of typos, no surprise there…… but today’s is really illegible…….can possible help our your audience and clean this up so we can understand and read freely what you are saying and not have to go over it 3-4 times and try to figure it out?? Or how about hiring a typist???
yes– I’ve been sick and missed quite a few- I am working on it…