The week begins with a heavy and emotional full moon in Cancer, which opposes the Sun in Capricorn conjunct Pluto. There’s an understanding between the stars and between the Earthlings who study them that even those of who have private cause for celebration are steeped in the thick grief that weighs down the collective, a grief that runs deep even as it nurtures resilience in many of those who observe it. Resilience is not the same as vitality, however, and with Mars still making a waning square to Neptune, a sense of general exhaustion is enduring. Still, we, like the planets, press on, however recklessly. Mercury in Aquarius, stationed retrograde on the 14th, makes a sextile to Chiron in Aries on the 18th, tempting us toward more than a little wound-dwelling. While results may vary, chances are good that the more you can limit your excavation to healing spaces (like therapy, grief groups, or dedicated internet spaces) the better for everyone involved. On January 18, ungovernable Uranus stations direct at 10 degrees while our true node retrograde transit shifts under the last degrees of persistent Taurus, still working off a tense square to Jupiter in Pisces. Perhaps this a tension between what Taurus knows they can will into existence and the que sera sera mentality a Pisces brings to the very end of a rope. Of course, in reality, the rope doesn’t end. Or, if it does, then it’s simply one of many ropes, many ways of getting from here to there — something the Sun in Capricorn’s trine to Taurus true node is sure to remind us on the 19th before the Sun shifts into enterprising Aquarius later that day. The Sun in Aquarius makes a conjunction to Mercury in Aquarius on the 23rd, and while retrogrades abound, there’s something to be said about taking the time to make sure that everyone is not only on the same page but on the same planet before moving forward – especially if those moves affect a wider audience.
Aries Sun & Aries Rising
The last days of Mars in Sagittarius are upon us, and so too is a kind of exhaustion most associate with the end of a year rather than the beginning of one. Perhaps, then, this a great time to reevaluate our relationship to numbers — however arbitrary — and recommit our attention to what the seasons mean to teach us. Whether you’re in the Northern or the Southern one, the Capricorn Sun has done his job turning the wheel and what lays before us, on the other side of that thrust, are days that require rest. Of course, Capricorn season would not let you lie down idle, not when all that cardinal energy stirs in you. So, don’t think of it as idling, think of it as a time for inventory. The full moon in Cancer that opens this week is an invitation to get comfortable, to settle into the place you have landed and assess the grounds. How does it feel to be where you are? How can you make where you are feel more like home?ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Taurus Sun & Taurus Rising
When you come up against the edges of what you know, it might feel like whatever lives on the outskirts of that boundary is beyond you. In those moments, it can be enough to simply revel in a very human experience: the relief of limitation. Yes, humans love limits, though they rarely admit the depth of that love — how, often, the absence of a line can feel like a current dragging you toward a cliff, how tempting it is to throw oneself deeper and deeper until the bottom can be known, felt. To be on the other side of that feeling is a kind of freedom, even if it appears to be just the opposite. It’s available to you, this freedom, to rest and to revel in knowing all that you need to know for now. But so too is the other option that arrives on the other side of acceptance: re-learning to live into your body, your spirituality, your education as the self you have and not the self you are looking for.ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Gemini Sun & Gemini Rising
It may not feel appropriate, but joy and our yearning for it is a vital part of what binds us to each other. There’s a book that I think of very often. It’s a collection of essays written in exile in 1918 called From Moscow to the Black Sea by the Russian satirist Teffi. In particular, this passage comes to mind this week: “With my own eyes I have seen sailors taking a man out onto the ice in order to shoot him – and I have seen the condemned man hopping over puddles to keep his feet dry and turning up his collar to shield his chest from the wind. Those few steps were the last steps he would ever take, and instinctively he wanted to make them as comfortable as possible. We were no different. We bought ourselves some ‘last scraps’ of fabric. We listened for the last time to the last operetta and the last exquisitely erotic verses.” The pull you feel is an ancient one: the thread of beauty as the enduring thread of survival. ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Cancer Sun & Cancer Rising
If you look up synonyms for the word moony, you’ll find words that don’t necessarily belong together: gentle and nightmarish, fanciful and pensive. But there’s something about the fluctuations of meaning in those descriptors that feels befitting the moods of the moon, since she too is known to fluctuate. The week that follows the full moon in Cancer invites you to sit with the many feelings that the moon generated. Like a good host, you create space for all that you’ve been feeling and working through, you give your emotions a container to pour into. Yes, a container is a good thing, but it need not be a container that has a lid or a container that stifles you. It can be as simple and transformative as a haircut, as private and powerful as a night of bedroom dancing, as introspective and contained as a goodbye letter that you seal with a kiss and bury in the ground. ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Leo Sun & Leo Rising
Sometimes retreat from the known world has to take on a couple different shapes before you know what it is and what it’s not — avoidance vs. meditation, fear of love vs. self discovery. Imagine the various ways this shows up in the Tarot, for instance. The Fool leaves the world he knows for the vast unknown; this kind of retreat is also an endeavor, an enterprise. The hermit requires withdrawal and solitude; the kind of retreat is interior and into the realms of consciousness. The Hanged man, on the other hand, remains present but on his own terms, seeking a new perspective. His is a retreat from expectation and old ways of being. The days after the full moon in Cancer are days that offer you glimmers of insight about the retreats you have chosen and the ones that chose you. As the Sun shifts into Aquarius, use these insights to examine the space that’s grown between you and your web of relations. Are you ready to return?ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Virgo Sun & Virgo Rising
Well, it’s that special time of year again when the internet floods with humans who are shaking their fisticuffs at the sky due to technological errors and communication breakdowns, wondering aloud if Mercury is retrograde. Yep, Mercury is retrograde and in Aquarius, which is a sign often associated with the internet and with friend groups and, well, with humanity as a whole. And, if you’re a Virgo rising, then Aquarius governs your place of work and your general wellbeing. The message might be “stay home and be patient, expect clerical errors,” except such a message might as well be a description of the past two years. So why not tack another message on top of the one that proves enduring? To your caution, add your creativity; to your patience, add a bold belief in your inventiveness and innovation. If you can’t get whatever it is to lift off, then get comfortable on the ground.ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Libra Sun & Libra Rising
You must be keenly aware that the Capricorn pile-up is slowly dispersing, especially if you‘re a Libra rising enduring constant tensions between your first and fourth house. With a full moon in Cancer to begin the week, it’s clear that the stars have a story to tell the cardinal signs, a story about cycles and about letting go of things that once helped us feel safe (rigidity, walls) in order to recognize what security can look like with an open heart, a shared life. Like all water signs, Cancer teaches us about transformation. But unlike Scorpio or Pisces, Cancerian transformation begins in the interior. Here, you can relate as you see fit to a crab who recognizes that the shell around her can not hold all of who she is and so she sheds it at great risk and begins the slow process of growing a new one. Let the crab guide you into this week and remind you that what you shed is only a container. Who you are and what you lived through remains within you. ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Scorpio Sun & Scorpio Rising
It’s never too early to prepare for eclipse season, Scorpio, especially when the true node has entered the Taurus chat. It's a conversation, not just between you and your partners, but between Capricorn and Taurus: between what one is capable of doing and what one is capable of becoming. And, when the full moon in Cancer is in the mix, it's a negotiation — a reminder that throughout your becoming, your worldview has been a testament to the feelings you were strong enough to feel all the way through. Proof of who you have cared for and who you’ve allowed to care for you. While you spend the next week patiently putting certain things at home to rights, you might find yourself facing the results of spells you cast a long time ago. Here is your chance to recognize two similar but very different things that will be of great importance in the months to come: your inner sense of what is right and your ability to know when it’s not right for you.ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Sagittarius Sun & Sagittarius Rising
With willful Mars continuing to make tense aspects to watery Neptune (albeit waning) and a full moon in Cancer sitting heavy in your house of debts, this week sure doesn’t seem like the kind of week when a lot of things get done. In fact, you might find that the more that you endeavor to contain your emotions, the more uncontained they feel. Most transformative journeys begin this way, with various forms of resistance (denial that anything is different, for instance, denial that what you do from now on matters). Because you are a creature of habit, there will be days when you reach for old coping mechanisms, or desperately seek practical material things that might help you actualize the change you (finally) admit is coming. It’s okay to seek out these things, and it’s an eventual reality that while some of them will be useful, none of them will be necessary. All that you need you already have, and all that’s left to do is surrender or at least move out of the way.ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Capricorn Sun & Capricorn Rising
Even the most disciplined and independent Capricorns deserve a little tenderness, a tucking in, or simply a date where someone else foots the bill. Even hardworking sea goats can have a little bit of respite, as a treat. Or, in all honesty, as more than a treat — as a consistent and sustained life practice. But, we all have to start somewhere and starting small is the next easiest thing to not starting at all. Perhaps, in service to the full moon that shines in your house of relationships, and in acknowledgement of Venus’ work in your house of self, you might move toward this week with a kind of vow to yourself: that you will only say yes to what is within your capacity in this current moment, no matter how urgent the matter is to someone else. That you will reclaim your time as you see fit and cancel plans at your leisure. That you will choose what you do by tuning into what feels good in your body. It’s only a week, after all. What the best that could happen?ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Aquarius Sun & Aquarius Rising
It’s not an act of ingratitude to grieve. It’s not a privilege to lie down alongside your sadness even when you know that there’s so much abundance around and above you. While you may not always have the strength to do it in a sustained way, it is your job to bear witness to this world, to be one with both its joys and its sorrows. And, while certain kinds of joys — consistent, meaningful work, wealth of opportunity, revitalized connections — might be more obvious than amorphous sorrows, they are not more significant. If an amorphous sadness covers you, remember that an amorphous feeling can be a blurred boundary between your own spirit and the spirit of the world. It can be a collective feeling — both ancient and ever-new — that is not so different from the amorphous gladness that the susurration of a river or an aspen forest produces. Try to remember that sweetness and sadness take turns with you, that one dance is followed closely by another. ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
Pisces Sun & Pisces Rising
It’s not a shame to want to be known for the love and care you offer others. It’s a kind of instinct toward pleasure that’s easy to identify in nurseries both human and floral. The green-thumbed gardener takes pride in both the progress of her plants and the role she played in that progress. The role is not mundane, but it is earthly and it is erotic. Between living things, something new is nurtured: a child, a flower, a poem. It would be a blessing if you could stay there ongoingly in all that you do for others, in that energy exchange where eros reigns. But have you noticed how often one part of a plant must fall away in order for another part to thrive? The flower for the seeds, the narrative for the metaphor. Of course, pain is inevitable. But, it’s not a betrayal or a loss if you don’t want it to be one. It’s just proof of a season, of a garden and a gardener.ILLUSTRATION BY barbarianflower
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