What You Need to Know About the Astrology of 2023
Happy 2023, everyone! It's a new year, so you know I'm gonna bring you some astrology goodness to help you navigate it. I don't know about you, but I always feel hopeful at the start of a new year. I consider myself an optimist, though, so I feel hopeful about the start of every new month, week, or even each day as an opportunity to start over, pick up a new skill, or just do something different. But if you're like me, you can probably sometimes get caught up in waiting for the “perfect” moment to start or leave something, make a decision, plan a trip, etc. And I don't think those perfect moments really exist, but having some astrological guidance can help give us a roadmap for how to make the most out of our year.
We're off to a slow start this year with Mercury and Mars retrograde. Many of my friends and followers confirmed they were feeling sluggish when I posted about it last week. Things will pick back up with the New Moon in Capricorn on January 21, and both retrogrades will be over by then. So, right now I'm just looking at this as a time to ease into the new year and getting organized.
There are some major transits happening this year, though, with Saturn and Pluto, Jupiter, and a whole new set of eclipses. I've enlisted the expertise of astrologer Danielle Beinstein to take us through them all. I've followed Dani and been inspired by her work for years. She did my birthday reading last year, and honestly, it was like more like a therapy session with an astrological twist. Along with studying astrology, she also has a masters in spiritual psychology—and it's clear that she brings a deeper understanding of healing to her work. She is deeply empathetic and kind, and at a time where a lot of astrologers on social media are using a fear tactics for views, Dani's approach is always encouraging. She never makes me feel like I should be fearful of anything happening with the planets.
Below, Dani shares how she came to be an astrologer and what the biggest transits of 2023 mean for the collective. It will be helpful to pull up your birth chart, so you can see what houses will be affected by the transits. This conversation has been condensed and edited, but hit the button below if you want to hear the full interview (listen time: 45 mins).
How long have you been an astrologer?
Dani: Wow, it'll be a decade, I think I started in 2013. I started studying when I was 19, I'm 42 now, so it's been a while.
How did you first discover astrology? Were you always interested in it?
Dani: No, no. I was always interested in past lives. My mom would always take me to the museums in Manhattan, and she'll tell you I was four and I was like, "I lived then. I was there." Both my parents are kind of atheist, agnostic, and I was convinced I was from the Egyptians and she's like, "No one taught you that." I always had that kind of perspective.
When I was 19, during my first North Node return, I was in college, I had a summer in San Francisco. This was in 2000 I think, San Francisco was still city lights and Allen Ginsburg and yoga. It's still yoga, but this was non-commercialized yoga. I remember at that time having my first real big awakening. I was like, "What is yoga?" Some random guy at a coffee shop handed me The Jew in the Lotus, which is all about Jewish Buddhists.
I read that, and then I went to an occult bookstore—the first thing that I really remember was I found that giant blue book. I read my birthday and I was like, "How does this know me?" That was the beginning. Then it was just a language that I understood.
That's amazing. How did you even know that this was something you could make a career out of?
Dani: I didn't. My dad is still, "How do you make money?" I was raised in Manhattan, it's like, you could be a doctor, a lawyer, finance, fashion, these are your options. I slept on my sister's couch in LA for a while and was teaching meditation, which you can barely buy a sandwich doing that when you're starting out.
I'd been in EdTech, educational technology, and different startups before I transitioned fully. I was let go from a startup and I was like, "Well, I better figure this out." Then, it just happened. I know that sounds so obnoxious, but it just did. But I'd always been really interested in morality, spirituality, the zeitgeist.
I created my own major in college around how literature, storytelling, and film is a window into the zeitgeist. I had studied Les Misérables, the text, as a gateway into understanding enlightenment and romantic philosophy. I'd always been a philosopher. It's strange because I feel like I get to use that now in my work, but I get to ground it in psychology.
n high school, I was always the person that people came to. Basically, it just evolved from my natural inclinations or tendencies.
Now, let's get into 2023. There are some major transits happening this year. Overall, do you think it's going to make for a good year or a less challenging year than perhaps the last two years?
Dani: Honestly, no, not less challenging, but it depends on one's chart and the degrees. 2021 and then late 2022 autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere was especially challenging because of the Saturn-Uranus square. Saturn takes 28 and a half years to go through the entire zodiac and deals with hurdles, they can feel like obstacles, but really it's just clarification.
Our souls are looking at what really matters, getting to the bones of the thing. Uranus, which takes 84 years to go through the zodiac, deals with disruption and change. Now, both of those planets have moved away from one another, so that was hitting people quite strongly. That's not going to be happening.
Uranus in Taurus is going to continue to destabilize the market. I think we're going to have a volatile market. On top of that, all three of the [Mercury] retrogrades, or four if you're including the one that we're in until January 18th, are in earth signs. April 21-May 14 is in Taurus. August 23-September 15 is in Virgo. December 12-January 1, 2024 is in Capricorn. Earth signs are physical world reality material.
I think in terms of our relationship to the material world, the earth, climate change, resources, even things like beauty standards, because the emphasis on Taurus, especially once Jupiter moves into Taurus on May 17 and Jupiter's that planet of expansion, and Uranus is also in Taurus. We'll be questioning, what is beauty? It used to be a very singular, defined thing. We're seeing, in a good way, a destabilization of that.
So Saturn is moving into Pisces on March 7. What does Saturn really represent? I think most people's relationship to Saturn is just hearing about their Saturn return.
Dani: There's so much fear, which is funny because Saturn rules fear. Saturn is really the structure of our lives. When we want physical world goals—we want to meet a partner, we want to move up in our career, or find a fitting career. We want to buy or rent or lease a home, these are all physical world reality things, and they deal with Saturn. When Saturn moves from sign to sign, there starts to be structures or limitations or containers around whatever that sign governs.
In Aquarius, we had the beginnings of a real look at censorship and container around technology, because Aquarius rules technology and the sciences. Pisces is mysticism, healing, forgiveness, creativity. Tapping into being a vessel for it to come through you. That sense of healing, compassion, and the belief in spirituality.
I think there's going to be a clamp down on snake oil salesmen, saleswomen. This idea of who's selling, who's a false prophet, that kind of energy. I think we're going to start to see lessons around that. I'm hoping that we start to give structures to unification, healing, things that bring people together. We create structures around that. Also, structures around the unseen world or acknowledging the unseen world, which seems a bit paradoxical, but Pisces, and people with strong mutable signs, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius, over the course of Saturn moving through Pisces, depending on the degree, are going to feel a bit more like they're going to have to pull things together in a structured way.
Your Capricorn moon brings the structure, you're not going to feel the heaviness of Saturn on Pisces that someone who is all mutable might feel in the same way.
I know. I feel like I'm ready to move into Pisces because I have seen some astrologers say that it's going to be a really challenging time for mutable signs, but if you're someone who has already been putting in the work, and I feel like I have in all aspects of my life. I'm hoping that structure will actually be beneficial for me.
Dani: It will, and you have a Capricorn moon, Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, so you're actually very comfortable with that energy. If things are completely disorganized and one is all over the map, it's going to bring some containment to that. I think the fear doesn't help because life is peaks and valleys, and it's more about building up resilience and building up skills, tools, and recognizing where it's moving in your chart.
Where is Pisces in your chart? Where will Saturn be moving? What house? That is incredibly helpful information.
Look at which house in your chart is ruled by Pisces (or any other signs mentioned) and then find the number on the wheel that corresponds to see which area of your life will be activated.
Let's move into Pluto. Another transit I'm very excited about because Pluto has been on my moon, and while it helped me start a whole new career it's also been an emotionally intense time. Now, it's finally moving into Aquarius on March 23.
Dani: Congratulations! I had Pluto on my moon around 2014- 2016, and it's really something. So, Pluto takes 248 years to go through the zodiac, it roughly deals with revolution, change. The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We've been in the Pluto return of America.
Pluto in Aquarius was the French Revolution. Never thought that my college thesis would come into play. Not right away, but Pluto moves into Aquarius and it's going to feel like a relief for people who've had Pluto sitting in anything late degree cardinal. That's Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. Early fixed is going to start to feel this, that is Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. Pluto is about death and rebirth. The chaos that's needed in order to birth something new.
It's going to be very interesting moving into Aquarius because it really feels like the conversation around AI surveillance, not to get dark, but that's what Pluto is. Also, group think because individualism is Aquarian, but so is collectivism. Aquarius is really paradoxical in that way. It's both about the uniqueness of the individual, and the collective. How do we work with that with technology?
I think we are going to see more exposure of the Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried types. I think we're going to see continued fallout and reversals of fortune among the technological elite.
That makes sense when you look at how the last decade-plus has gone with the evolution of technology, but also people who create the technology amassing so much wealth in such a short period of time. Look at what's happening with Elon right now…
Dani: Dani: Dani: Exactly. If you look at history, and like I said, I'm a nerd, and I love studying history. If you look at history, there's been no time where you've had such a market wealth gap where there hasn't been something revolutionary. If we look here in America, you can look at the crash of '29. It's interesting because the last time Uranus was in Taurus, I think it was '33 to '42, which was World War II.
Totalitarianism, the rise of that and then the fall, it just feels like there's going to be a lot of shakeup in terms of people's perceptual reality, which has really, really started to kick up with the Saturn Neptune square in 2015, 2016. What is real fake news? This is a bigger wealth gap, it's not sustainable. The housing industry isn't sustainable.
All of that is going to become clearer and clearer, like BlackRock buying up all the properties in America. All of those questions around physical world assets, resources, we may love our technology, but if the chips are made in the Congo and the Congolese people are suffering as a result, it's all very complicated.
How long will that transit last?
Dani: Pluto in Aquarius? Until 2044. It's a long time. Pluto is not fast. Uranus is fast. Uranus comes in and it's fast. Pluto is more of a slow groove. You look back and, like so many of us, I'm a xennial; you're a millennial. You won't really understand it until we're elderly. Pluto entered Aquarius in 2008. We've been seeing the breakdown, if Capricorn is the establishment, we had the Wall Street crash in 2008, the recession, we had #MeToo, all of that, the breakdown of these established structures and Aquarius is, "We've climbed that mountain." It's less interested in hierarchy. It's theoretically, and I mean this with a small d, democratic.
Pluto is a wrecking ball. What does that mean? I think it's a wave that we're going to have to ride, but we are not returning to normal, we're in a new landscape. I think a lot of it is really recognizing our values and what matters to us. I put on Erin Brockovich recently, and I hadn't seen it since it was in the theaters. I was like, "This is strangely ahead of its time." Also, there used to be all of these movies that were David and Goliath movies in the '90s, I always think the media is so representative of the collective unconscious. Now, it's all these Marvel movies.
We have superheroes against evil, but it used to be David and Goliath. It feels like that energy needs to come back because this idea that we all need to be superheroes in order to fight off evil instead of using our own humanity.
I've never seen Erin Brokovich before, but that's a good point.
Dani: I think this is funny because, on a personal level, I actually think a lot of people are going to experience an expansive 2023. On the collective level, it feels more challenging, which sounds strange, but I'm seeing with clients during my readings, I'm like, 2023 feels expansive for you. It just feels like the collective is going to go through a thing.
Let's also talk more about Jupiter moving into Taurus.
Dani: Well, Jupiter is that planet of expansion and luck. It's in Aries, it's going to increase our entrepreneurial spirit or our courage, our bravery of trying new things and taking on new challenges once it moves into Taurus [on May 17th]. Taurus is slow and steady, it's sensual. It's all about the senses and the sensual experience. That can feel expansive in terms of assets, the growth of assets.
Assets can be qualitative and quantitative. I think that it feels like, in terms of beauty standards, have you noticed that no matter what the race or ethnicity, everybody's starting to look the same on Instagram? It's like a Kardashian effect.
Yes, of course. I think it started off like that. I think it's changing a little bit, but everyone loves this racially ambiguous look with the pulled up eyes and the lips, and it is very homogenous.
Dani: That's why Pluto going into Aquarius and also Uranus in Taurus is like, "We need to bring back individuality in beauty." For example, I love when people have a gap between their teeth. I don't have it, but I think it's so sexy and beautiful. This idea of the imperfections and the quirks. Even if you watch old movies, like '80s, '90s movies, those faces are interesting. I do wonder if there's going to be a return to it because the pendulum swings, they just do.
We also have the nodal axis moving this year as well, right? It's been in Taurus/Scorpio.
Dani: Yes, that's part of the eclipses. The eclipses are going to start to swing into Aries and Libra. The first eclipse on April 19th that I mentioned is in Aries, followed by an eclipse on May 5th that is in Scorpio. Then, on October 14th, there's an eclipse in Libra, followed by the last in the Taurus/ Scorpio, and that one's on October 28th in Taurus.
I'm looking forward to getting out of my nodal return.
Dani: I hear you. Look at where late Aries/ Libra and early to mid Taurus/ Scorpio is in the chart to see where you are undergoing these eclipses. Eclipses are attached to the nodes because the nodes take 19 years to move around the zodiac, and they move retrograde. They're always retrograde moving from Taurus into Aries.
If you are 19, 37, or 56, these ages are the north node returns, so they're really significant ages where we feel the whispers. 19, I started reading about astrology. 37 is when my career really started to take off. I started doing it earlier, but I would say 37. The past five, six years is when it's really taken off, so being aware of that. Then, the eclipses run on 19-year cycles because eclipses are when a new or full moon is in close proximity to the nodal axis.
It's historically related to fate, but it really whispers and destiny. I always say just pay attention to what information comes down or you're presented to. It's an ongoing unfolding story, but it can accelerate time or collapse time.
I also want to talk about the summer of 2023 because I've already started hearing it's going to be very challenging for love because we're going to have a Venus retrograde for most of the summer.
Dani: July 22nd to September 3rd, yes, it's in Leo, so that fixed energy. Taurus is fixed, Aquarius is fixed, so the focus is on fixed energy. I don't know, I met my partner the day Venus went retrograde. We've been together for over five years. It can feel fated. Sometimes there can just be a delay in money coming through. I think going into it being like, it's going to be very challenging, but it can also be a review of values.
People forget that Venus is also values. Would I plan to redecorate an entire home in that window? No. Make a giant purchase design-wise, fashion-wise during that time? No, but I think one, you look at it as you change up your style, you find yourself attracted to someone that you'd never been attracted to before. Would've never, that was my story, and I think it's also looking again where Leo is in your chart.
I was a little bummed when I saw that because I feel like the summer is always the best for my love life, I'm sure a lot of other people feel that way too.
Dani: Maybe it'll feel fated, or maybe you'll meet someone that you had not even considered earlier, and you randomly meet them and you start up a love affair in London. You know what I mean? Don't limit the perspective with it.
Well, I think that's an important thing for people to hear in general, though, because people hear Mercury retrograde, Venus retrograde, and they're like, "That means you're not going to find someone or whoever you meet, it's not going to work out with them, et cetera."
Dani: Everything's par for the learning. If we always waited until it was the perfect condition, nothing would ever happen. Speaking of retrogrades, though, Mars is retrograded until January 12th. Then, Mercury's direct January 18th. I do think at the start of the year, there's a lot of focus on Capricorn energy getting things in order every single year. I think we'll start to feel more of a burst forward with that January 21st new moon, which is also the lunar New Year, the Year of the Rabbit.
Let's talk about the fear-mongering that happens a lot within the astrology community right now. I even felt like I needed a break around eclipse season since I knew I was in the line of fire since my North Node and South Node are in Taurus/Scorpio. So I paused all my notifications on astrology apps and generally just tried to avoid that content on social.
Dani: I just think it taps into the amygdala and the reptilian brain that's always scanning and looking for things that can go wrong. If you're focused on that, you're more bound to co-create that. Instead of like, "Let me use this opportunity to review things or re-think things or reassess that." Things from my past may resurface, but growth is not linear anyway. It's that spiral that's upward trending.
Finally, share a little bit about how you work with people and all the things that you're doing. I know you have an eclipse retreat coming up.
Dani: I do. A Solar Eclipse retreat in Costa Rica at Hacienda AltaGarcia—the property's insane. You can participate as much as you want, or you can lay back by the pool. There's going to be all kinds of activities. It's the Aries eclipse and then jumps right into Taurus season. I plan that on purpose, and then it's Earth Day. It's a deeply sensual experience.
Otherwise, I work with people one-on-one, long-term, three months, six months, a year, if someone wants. I'm doing a small group right now where it's a mix of group calls and one-on-one sessions. I'm going to launch for Saturn and Pluto shifting signs for the spring starting in March. I'm doing five online group calls and then a Voxer support group.
I lowered the price point for that to make it relatively more affordable, so people can learn about how to figure it out in their chart because these are major, major shifts. We'll address Jupiter changing signs, the eclipses, all of the astro around there. Then, I do new moon circles at my house out in Nashville.
I'm absolutely going to come to Nashville for a new moon circle!
Dani: You've got to come for one, they're so lovely. Come in the spring.
For the coaching, what do people come to you wanting to work on?
Dani: Well, it depends. Someone might be really looking to meet a partner, I work with someone on that. Someone who is going through a shift, their kid is a little bit older, what do they do with their time now? Someone who is thinking about or wanting to make a transition in their career, but not quite sure.
I have the background of working in offices and in different industries, I bring that. It's a mix, it's not just astrology every time, it's therapeutic, because I have that master's in spiritual psychology. It's all-encompassing and we meet one-on-one and then there's voice messenger support.
It's been really beautiful and there's just something about working with people longer term that really getting into the nooks and crannies of behavior patterns and really looking at different techniques of how to work with that because we often, we need reminders. Yes, yes until we shift the pattern.
Danielle's Most Recommended Reads
Parker's Astrology: The Definitive Guide to Using Astrology in Every Aspect of Your Life
A gorgeous encyclopedia of all things astrological. Beginners and experts alike can really benefit from having this book at their disposal (plus, it makes a stunning coffee table book!)
The Inner Planets: Building Blocks of Personal Reality
the mother of Psychological Astrology, another must for any astrological library.
The Twelve Houses: Exploring the Houses of the Horoscope
This details the 12 Houses of the Natal Chart, a key facet of Natal and Transit interpretation.
Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender
I keep this one on my nightstand, always. The illusion of control keeps many of us chained, feeling separate, lonely and anxious. This details a path to another way.
Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential
Caroline Myss' fierce intelligence and profound wisdom is a constant source of light and guidance in our noisy, distracted world (also see: Entering The Castle)