In an attempt to mirror our luminaries, it might be balance, or our stumbling toward it, that remains the main objective in a world that is never one thing or another. The fact that we end 2021 with a full moon in Gemini followed by a last quarter moon in Libra is both a gift and a difficult reminder that all opposites live in relationship and all relationships are a meditation on duality. These lunations guide us into the new year, which begins with a Venus retrograde under the stars of steadfast Capricorn. Venus stationed retrograde on December 19th and will continue to mine our relationships and value systems, seeking balance and reparation in whatever way she deems honourable through the month of January, stationing direct on the 29th and casting her shadow until March 1st.
In the meantime, Venus manages to make a conjunction to Mars on February 16th and then March 5th, a meeting that is bound to make an impact, for better or worse, on our Venus Rx journey. Truthfully, it isn’t until after the conjunction that Venus makes to Saturn on March 28 that the coast begins to clear and those of us most affected by the Venus Rx (Taurus and Libra placements, the cardinal signs and fixed signs too) can breathe a little easier. Of course, Venus and the aspects she makes impact the whole of Zodiac. Besides, with Jupiter’s transit through Pisces, four Mercury retrogrades this year, and a Mars retrograde in Gemini to close things off, our mutable friends have their own work cut out for them.
Jupiter’s path under Pisces is a mixed blessing, magnifying feelings of interconnectedness while at the same time teaching us what it means to exist in a world where we are never not bound by one another’s choices. This includes, of course, the spread of viruses and abuses of power, but there’s also the power of collective spellwork, the faith that art and music can restore in us, the courage to believe that another world is possible. Jupiter’s influence in Pisces reaches a critical point when Jupiter aligns with Neptune in Pisces on April 12th, a conjunction that last occurred in Pisces 150 years ago. In May, Jupiter steps away from familiar territory and slides into Aries. Under the stars of cardinal and initiatory Aries, Jupiter’s energy is renewed and redirected. Whatever possibilities the conjunction surfaced, Jupiter in Aries means to pursue them, an influence that is significant if not reassuring in the year that marks the first Pluto return of the United States.
Virgos and Geminis are both ruled by Mercury, so look to Mercury’s transits throughout the year for a sense of their own forecast. That said, in addition to maximum frequency (four), Mercury retrograde also spends some time under the stars of Gemini and Virgo in particular. Our first Mercury retrograde, however, casts a shadow on Capricorn before stationing in Aquarius on January 14th. Our second Mercury retrograde begins under the stars of Taurus on April 26th before stationing retrograde in Gemini on May 10th. On August 20th, it’s Virgo in the Mercury retrograde zone, although Mercury stations retrograde in Libra on Sept 9th. Finally, the year ends with a Mercury shadow and retrograde devoted to Capricorn from December 12th through February of the following year.
Our year closes with a Mars retrograde under the stars of Gemini, with a shadow period that begins at the end of September before stationing retrograde on October 30th and continuing under Gemini until January of the following year before stationing direct again. The transit echoes the work that Mercury has done all year, reminding us that even some of our best laid plans don’t always lead us where we intend them to. Mars in Gemini loves to learn from their own mistakes and move forward by consensus, but with Mercury retrograde in Capricorn, agreement is a process that takes time and compromise.
Here, again, we return to the place we started: contradiction, dual impulses, a desire to build something strong together even as we spend more time learning to understand and love ourselves apart. Sparked by a year that submits to Venus in Capricorn and anchored by the conjunctions that Mercury, Venus, and Mars make to Saturn in Aquarius on March 2nd, March 28th, and April 4th, respectively, before Saturn, too, stations retrograde. Whatever we build next year, we build it slow because we build it to last. To light our way, unflinching, are the eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio, beginning with a new moon in Taurus on April 30th, then a full moon in Scorpio on May 16th, followed by a new moon in Scorpio on October 25th, and finally a full moon in Taurus on November 8th. As ardent as they are enduring, these solar and lunar events give us the strength to love what we will ultimately have to let go.
Aries Sun & Aries Rising
For many of us who are part of the working world, or any world that demands a consistent version of us that can be commodified or coded to fit, the beginning of a new solar year can feel like the chance to quit one game and start another, to choose your fighter and, knowing what you know now, choose better. You are always allowed to begin again, dear Aries, but take note of how often “beginning again” just means making similar choices and expecting different results. Get creative. Get clear on what you value in the world and in the work you do, get clear enough to recognise when you’re compromise.This is about work/life balance; this your life is reflected in your work. Look again at what belongs to you and who inspires you to become more of yourself. There is no separation between who we are to the world and who we are to each other. Let this year be a devotional practice to that understanding.
Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Taurus Sun & Taurus Rising
Some stories begin with action and end with a lesson learned. But, this year begins with a story that you are learning to unwrite, a story about yourself and the world you belong to. The lessons fall away first, like losing one kind of religion in order to gain faith in something bigger. There are keys in this unwriting, in your refusal to let the story remain as it once was. Like any story, love is the message and the reason. It’s got you this far, and you mean to return to it with an open heart. This is the year of your becoming, not as it was written but as you write it. As the author, it’s your job to keep going, to follow certain story arcs back to their natural conclusions, even if it means reliving painful losses, even if it triggers new ones. Whatever position you relinquish, whatever chair you leave empty, whatever you lose in your quest toward yourself is what you need to lose, and you will not miss it where you’re going.
Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Gemini Sun & Gemini Rising
A mutable sign and a twin star, you are no stranger to the work of relationships. And, after the eclipse cycles and lunar nodes of the past year, you’re ready for a promotion. This doesn’t mean you don’t have more to learn and more to discover about yourself in other people. As long as you are alive, as long as you love, Gemini, you are learning. But, if you’re done running up that hill, if you’re ready to make deals on your own terms, then the universe is ready to make them with you. This is the year that you return yourself to yourself: your time, your energy, your ambitions, your touchstones. This is the year you listen to the wise counsel of your dreams and let them herd you toward days filled with purpose. Don’t let the restraint of each Mercury retrograde dissuade you; let it saturate you with certainty. Your intuition is as powerful as you allow it to be. Remember: No one has lived your life before, and you remain the leading expert on it.
Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Cancer Sun & Cancer Rising
It’s true that all the creatures of the Zodiac began this year wading through the heavy vibes of a Venus retrograde in Capricorn. But, not all the creatures of the Zodiac are cardinal signs and not all of them have Capricorn in their house of relationships and significant others. The tension of this opposition is not an easy one — few oppositions are — but it means to be a gate for you. A year like a doorway awaiting you: a portal outside the constant negotiation of what you owe others and what you owe yourself. Should you choose to go through it — and it is a choice — you might find that what awaits you is not one destination, not one role, or source of pleasure. To relinquish what has become familiar, rote, for the unknown is to begin a ritual whose results are not guaranteed. To claim your right to transform your life at any age is to claim your rightful place amongst everything and everyone you love, no matter who or what you become.
Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Leo Sun & Leo Rising
Cyndi Lauper was absolutely right when she sang that money changes everything. But, money isn’t the only thing that can. The body, too, has a way of reconfiguring our lives. You need only study the negative space around any figure to know what redrawing it might do. Whatever power money, or its equivalent in your life, has over you, it’s nothing compared to the compelling force of your body and what it values — what it needs to feel strong and steady in the world. This is the year that you learn to listen when your body speaks, the year that investing in your wellbeing provides more returns than any move against it ever did. Comparing yourself to who you once were, what you were raised to want, what you thought you’d become, doesn’t have to be a mourning ritual. It can be a celebration. A graduation, even. This is the year you let yourself define success on your own terms and in relationship to the world as you have grown to know it.
Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Virgo Sun & Virgo Rising
Most Virgos are guilty of doing much, of spreading themselves thin because they’re good at keeping many balls in the air. And if this is the kind of Virgo you are, you might have learned by now that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. You might be entering a new solar year yearning for the pleasure your passions brought you before you made a job of them. It’s a good thing, then, that this year is hell-bent on teaching you to set your own limits. Not based on what you can accomplish by sheer will but on maintaining a better quality of life for yourself, a way of existing that you can be proud of. Throughout the year, you will be called to reassess the roles you’ve chosen and the projects you’ve poured yourself into. This will not be the first year, or the last, that you adjust the standards you hold yourself to so that you can show up for both yourself and others in a way that feels both compassionate and commensurate. But it will be a year that validates those efforts and rewards you for them. Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Libra Sun & Libra Rising
If one only imagines beauty as something gentle, something that glimmers for a short time and disappears, then beauty is not enough. But if you can hold beauty the way one holds a sword, or a broken heart, then you can wield it. Not against yourself or against others, but against apathy, against a world that strips us of our intrinsic value so that it might try to sell us back to ourselves at a price we can’t afford. It’s not easy to hold beauty that way, and a broken heart can be as heavy as a sword if not more so. But you were born to carry that weight — to balance it with meaning. This is the year your sword returns to you. This is the year you cut through the fog of your own indecision, the fear that spread across your path like an impassable thicket. You will hold the sharp edge of love across your own days as a testament to what was lost. You will once again see the path before you, which you never abandoned. You will remember why you’re still here.Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Scorpio Sun & Scorpio Rising
It can be tempting to write and think of the body as a separate thing. To work with it or on it, as if it were a difficult friend or a car that you hope to keep running. That approach works in its own way. You start to feel your body getting stronger; you feel closer to yourself. Embodiment occurs like a glimmer on the water and sometimes as your own reflection. It takes a long time and a lot of faith to return yourself to yourself, to be your body, to say I am stronger, I am present, I am close to myself. Faith that you will not betray yourself, that you can share yourself with others without giving yourself away. And it has been a long time, hasn’t it Scorpio, since you’ve regarded someone else with a faith like that — since you faced the future with an unflinching desire to be a part of it? This is the year you allow yourself to feel it all, the depth of your desire, the strength of your power, because all of you is ready to feel it and none of you is afraid. Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Sagittarius Sun & Sagittarius Rising
Sagittarius placements have a sense of home, a shelter where they can rest when the day is through, a stable place they feel connected to. But, most Sagittarius placements have another sense as well, an inner knowing that home isn’t something that’s made for you — it’s something that you co-create, a living thing that changes along with you. This is the year that sense becomes a voice you can’t turn down, a song that invites you out of whatever shelter has served you thus far and into the wider field. This is the year that talking about it leads to being about it, the year that your closest relations try on the role of conspirators and collaborators. This is the year you make bold moves in your own self-interest, because you are passionate and one of the lucky ones. It won’t be a walk in the park. It will be rigorous, it will stretch the limits of your body and your spirit. But it will be a good stretch, restorative, and it will widen the doors of possibility within you. Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Capricorn Sun & Capricorn Rising
What, to a Capricorn, is a smooth road? You were born to take the difficult path up the mountain so that you might know the mountain for what it is and not what humans have made of it. To see the truth of the world and learn to love it through that truth. But being born to take a path isn’t the same as knowing how to take it. Being born with a power is one thing, knowing how to keep it from overpowering you is another. This is the year you learn what coming into your own can mean. This is the year that all that you’ve shed and all that you traversed lead you to the summit. Whatever mystery compelled you to keep going, what drove you up and over will reveal itself to you and you, in turn, will reveal yourself to that mystery. Like any great accomplishment, there will be grief in it–for what was left behind, for all the parts of you who could not make it — but it will be a grief you know how to carry. And, like any great peak, it will mark the beginning of a new chapter where what’s before you is bigger than you ever knew. Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Aquarius Sun & Aquarius Rising
Alignment is a word that has a good ring to it, like a bell that brings all the animals to the dining hall and gives each of them the same meal. But alignment is not the meal or the bell, it is the place that animals within you meet. What happens if there’s no food at the dining hall? What happens to the work those animals do if they are hungry? What happens to the wider world that depends on that work? This is the year you turn to that place within you and ask yourself: Why am I not feeding, not being fed? And the answers won’t come easy. They will require you to let down your guard long enough to rebuild it, they will push you to recognise how you’ve denied yourself what you needed so that you might not lose what you have. But any wager made out of fear is a wager already lost. Now, you know better. This is the year you honor your hunger by honoring the hunter within you who knows that life persists because of death, not in spite of it.Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
Pisces Sun & Pisces Rising
All Pisces know that magic endures, you feel it in cement, in the rain gutters, and on days when the pain of the world feels insurmountable. Magic is what brings a cardinal into your sightline, the mystery of a plant’s memory, the text from an old friend you were just thinking of. Magic is just one word for it and, whatever you call it, it has gotten you this far. What last year might have felt like a force beyond your perception begins to collect in you this year, palpable and powerful. Whatever faint song drew you toward certain people and certain places once is a song you now know by heart — a song you sing for yourself and for others if you want to. And, magic is not one thing or another, magic is everything around you. It’s all your possibilities, both painful and pleasurable outcomes. So, this is the year you become intimate with your own limits, the year your language is refined by restraint, because what you speak into the world is very powerful.
Illustration by Tan Sze Yan
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