Happy 2016, dear friends! Vedic astrology employs several charts for the New Year, with the two most important being the springtime charts for the New Moon in Pisces and the later chart for Sun’s ingress into Aries (sidereal zodiac). I like to also look at the chart for midnight on January 1 just because this is the beginning of the civil New Year and is a significant moment in time simply because most people consider it to be the year’s new beginning.

The chart for New Year’s Eve at midnight has an intense and somewhat “fated” partial Kala Sarpa Yoga, in which all the grahas are on one side of the chart inside the axis of lunar nodes ~ Rahu and Ketu ~ except for Jupiter which is slightly outside the axis but moving very closely into Rahu and at the fated 29th degree of sidereal Leo, and the nodes are sandhi (on the cusp) so this means that even more than usual, the cosmic circus of duality will embrace and entertain us with its usual blend of madness and magic.

I sat and studied the chart(s) for hours and wrote a detailed and somewhat depressing analysis, but decided not to post it after my younger son told me last evening that he is willing to listen to astrology but only when the message is constructive. He told me this while we were hiking and just noticing thousands of birds flying overhead, a beautiful omen of positive energy and powerful life force affirming his words to me. So I am going to start the year being constructive.

Paramahansa Yogananda said that in the current realm of duality, things are happening as they have to, according to the Divine Plan, and we have to deal with and confront the shadow side of the dichotomous world in order to develop and evolve. In the New Year chart, you can see how the sky mirror is reflecting this polarized play, with Jupiter outside of the karmic axis beckoning us to invoke grace as a real guiding presence and resource.

The planetary dynamics in America’s New Year chart are predominantly mutable, which is creative, restless, and oriented to the world of Spirit but can use some serious discipline and guidance, too. The Kala Sarpa is also highly sensitive and somewhat unpredictable, and this year will bear witness to many intense fated events and karmic conclusions, but there is nectar to be enjoyed too, since all the grahas including Jupiter are moving in the direction of Ketu, the Moksha Karaka indicator of wisdom and enlightenment.

In this January 1 New Year chart, the main theme for me is about living in a consciousness of Oneness, and I plan to focus on this a lot in my work and writings. The chart looks lopsided but that is the illusion similar to Yin-Yang, which also includes a third force beyond the balance of polarities (Oneness), or as the late Zen philosopher Alan Watts said, “Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.”

Rahu and Ketu are the overriding influence in a Kala Sarpa chart. They represent the polarizing karmic forces that emblematically eclipse the Sun (ego) and Moon (mind), and thus they have an intoxicating effect on consciousness. Whether they will intoxicate with the light of truth (Oneness) or the veil of misapprehension (Separation) is up to each one of us.

It is going to be an exciting year as many amazing new discoveries and awakenings will occur amid all the ups and downs. America’s presidential political battle is going to become quite hard to take for many of us (the chart says this), and there is potential for cultural/racial/political/ideological divisiveness such as we have not see in America since the War Between the States 150+ years ago. Europe is facing a similar fate already.

I say this about divisiveness also because we will have Saturn and Mars retrograding in Scorpio in the spring of 2016. The fixed star Antares, in the heart of the Scorpion, which is a symbol of malevolence and war, will also be activated several times by Mars and Saturn (close to 16 degrees sidereal Scorpio) in 2016. The last time Mars and Saturn retrograded in Scorpio like this was during the American Revolutionary War, our first civil war.

The Kala Sarpa here represents a super-schismatic situation ahead, and can also bring out the worst kinds of evangelists, crusaders and extremists willing to sacrifice everything for their sacred mission. It also points to self-righteous dogmatism coming from the left and right. The best advice my guides have given me is that it is important for each of us on this planet to now and regularly detoxify and do what it takes to get stronger physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, to help us manage what’s ahead of us in the coming two years.