When we first sit down with our Solar Arc Directed planets for the year, Frank Clifford provides us with many useful points to consider. One is to identify any planets which have just directed into a new sign, or which are in the last degree of their current sign. In a new sign, the planet has taken on a new way of expressing itself, moving from one element and mode to another – and so it is particularly energized.
To take a Solar Arc directed chart of someone currently in the news as an example, we see that Vladimir Putin’s SA (Solar Arc Directed) Neptune is now at 0° Capricorn after spending the past 30 years in Sagittarius. According to Clifford, Neptune can represent, among other things, our visions. While Putin’s visions have been fueled by fire and mutability in Sagittarius, they are now avidly seeking concrete form in the earth sign of Capricorn, where cold-eyed strategies and sharply trained troops are employed to make his visions a reality.
At 29° of a sign, a SA planet has been steeped in the energy of its sign for many years and so may be demonstrating the worst excess of that sign before it must relinquish its powers. Putin’s SA Jupiter is now at 29° of Cancer, where it is exalted and explains much about Putin’s rise to and retention of power over the past decades. Putin’s intense nationalism, his longing for a return the glory days of the USSR, and his deep insecurity regarding his country’s neighbors all reflect the shadow side of Cancer. Because the SA planet is Jupiter, this shadow is inflated and expanded to the point that it seeks global domination.
