Capricorn season (December 21st to January 20th) oversees a flurry of planets in its sign this year. Venus, Mercury, Pluto, the Sun, and a New Moon (on the 3rd) all criss-cross the somewhat ornery Goat, ruled by hoary-headed Saturn. As such, these stars will feel a bit more sombre, earthy, heavy, and weighty. On the 20th, we move into Aquarius, another Saturn-ruled sign. Great. Expect a season of solitude and me-time, independence and autonomy, especially this year (as the Sun will be co-present with restrictive Saturn). Let’s be aware of two retrogrades happening this month. Venus and Mercury can and will cause some snafus around love and communication. The big bright spot to January (and beyond) is Jupiter’s exit from Aquarius and entrance into the ultramarine waters of Pisces, a sign it rules and delights in. Warm and expansive Jupiter-in-Pisces will function as an alternate tropical weather pattern to the chillier front of Capricorn and Aquarius.
CAPRICORN
A super busy month of cosmic comings and goings for you. Wow. The Sun, Moon, Venus Retrograde, Mercury, and Pluto are all in your 1st House of Self at some point. While your season basically looks like LAX (pre-Covid), what does all this air traffic mean? Let’s focus for now on Venus retrograde in your Ego and Identity sector. Venus going backward is a time to reflect on love and money (the things Venus governs). In the context of the 1st House, this transit can also be asking you to love and invest in yourself more. Indeed one of the negative aspects of Capricorn’s nature is that you can be super critical (that’s your ruling planet, Saturn, at work). Since Venus retrogrades are often times for break-ups, maybe it’s time to split with the self-critical inner voice (the bad boy - or girlfriend in your head). Obviously that’s a hard thing to do, but you can at least start the year with that intention. January 3rd is perhaps the strongest day of the year for you to state your resolutions, as a New Moon in your sign (always a time for fresh starts) transits your 1st House. Clearly the Stars are making the very beginning of January a moment to work on yourself, become yourself, change yourself, heal yourself. Be ready.
AQUARIUS
Farewell, generous Jupiter. It was nice to have your warming, mitigating presence in the Waterbearer for 2021, but on the 29th of December the Luck-giver leaves your sign for 12 years. Alas. Instead your ruling planet, task-master Saturn, will pilot your 1st House of Self solo next year. Saturn loves long term plans, so sit down and crack out your New Year’s Resolutions—but be serious about them because you’ve got a lot of grown-up energy in your chart for January (Saturn sans Jupiter + conservative Capricorn season + the Sun in your 12th House of the Unconscious and Endings). Communicative Mercury joining Saturn in your 1st House on the 2nd of January might be the best day to express your resolutions by putting them to paper. Be aware, too, that Venus is retrograde all month in your 12th House, which is the sector in our chart that ultimately asks us to “let go.” Perhaps there is an emotional attachment that needs to be released? Or maybe you need to let go of something in your own behaviour that is holding you back or others. Grappling with your inner self (12th House) during Capricorn’s reign will clear up space as you move into your season on the 20th of January. Saturn in your 1st House will provide the discipline necessary for self-improvement if you want to make real changes in the New Year.
PISCES
The big news for all of us, but especially for the Fishes, is that your ruling planet, generous Jupiter, returns to your sign on December 29th until May. In other words, your year is going to start with a greater sense of joy, expansion, and luck, as the Great Benefic luxuriates in the beach front property of Pisces. Jupiter in the 1st House of Ego and Identity indicates increased self-confidence, esteem, and recognition. It’s the planet that makes things bigger, so if you’re feeling more elated, buoyant, or beaming this January, that’s your ruling planet in your sign doing its work. Because Jupiter is the planet of luck, it favours bold decision-making, even if it’s out of one’s comfort zone. Do something adventurous in the first few months of 2022 (a new job, a new city). Until the 20th, the Sun highlights your 11th House of Friendship, where it sextiles Jupiter, indicating harmonious social interactions during Capricorn season. An fertile Full Moon in your Romance and Sex sector on the 18th looks especially fruitful for intimate encounters. This is a time of heightened libidinal energy. On the 20th, the Sun shifts into Aquarius and your 12th House of the Unconscious, suggesting inward contemplation until your season in February.
ARIES
Capricorn season is a time to focus on your career, as the Sun highlights your 10th House until the 20th of January. Ruled by taskmaster Saturn, Capricorn is a grinder, loving hard work and long distance goals. As Cardinal fire, you also love to initiate projects—but your heat sometimes doesn’t last. With enduring Capricorn in your career sector, though, you can expect some “slow burn” energy instead of the quick bursts of fire that can mark and mar your output. While the Capricorn Sun leaves your 10th House on the 20th, your ruling planet, Mars, always amped, enters your work sector on the 24th. Mars is strongly placed in Capricorn, having an exalted status here. So you have a clear indication of work-related transits all January. Hot-headed Mars will lend energy but also some aggression to your work ethic—so make sure to play nice and by the rules. No meltdowns or heated exchanges. On the 20th, the Sun shifts into Aquarius and your 11th House of Friendship and Networking. Attend more to work, though. Mars in the 10th House is wanting you to grind at the workplace—not bump and grind at the club with friends.
TAURUS
Like a friend who has had way too many hot buttered rums at the office Christmas party, your ruling planet, Venus (Love and Money), is not in good shape this month. Why? It’s in retrograde and wobbly until the 29th of January. While romance and finance look accordingly dicey for the Bull, your 11th House of Friendship appears quite lovely, with generous Jupiter moving into this sector on the 29th of December. Jupiter has its “joy” in the 11th, meaning it will be providing lots of love and support among friends, should your afflicted Venus cause romantic mischance. Jupiter is also associated with knowledge, which is auspicious given that you have the Sun, Pluto, Mercury, and a New Moon in your 9th House of Learning during Capricorn season. All of this energy in the 9th and 11th suggests either learning from friends or leaning on them. On the 20th, the Sun shifts into your 10th House of Work and Career during independent Aquarius season. This is an autonomous time. Work remotely for maximum productivity. And don’t worry: your friend, Venus, will be all recovered in a few months, a time which looks much better for love life.
GEMINI
It’s an odd month of transits for your ruling planet, Mercury, which will be zigzagging signs and going retrograde throughout January. To begin: It moves into your 9th House of Learning on the 2nd. In this context, Mercury can express its analytical nature clearly, helping to provide insights into things you’re reading, studying, or gaining knowledge about. On the 14th, however, it goes retrograde in the same house, which could impede your understanding and communication around 9th House matters (spirituality, travel, knowledge, learning, philosophy, higher truths). Travel in particular between then 14th and 25th could be vexed. On the 25th, Mercury further retrogrades into your watery 8th House of Transformation, Sex, Intimacy, Shared Finances. In other words, Mercury gets even murkier. Communication between intimate partners can get difficult and unclear toward month’s end. The same goes for shared finances (delays in processing payments, issues with taxes). While Mercury is a bit afflicted in these sectors of your chart, you do have lucky Jupiter moving into your 10th House of Career and Work on the 29th of December until May. This is a wonderful transit. Jupiter has been hemmed up in Aquarius for a year. Now it is happy in Pisces and is primed to expand work-related opportunities for the Twins.
CANCER
This is a month to focus on relationships. The Moon starts a new cycle on the 3rd in your partnership zone. This could mean a special someone entering stage left in your theatre of romance or the rekindling of a union now passed. Remember with Venus retrograde, it is best to take things slow. Mercury, the Messenger, joins grim Saturn, in your 8th House of Intimacy on the 2nd of January. Here’s the thing, though: Mercury and Saturn are allies. They help bring objective, non-emotional thinking (which you, the most emotional of the signs, sometimes have trouble with). So Mercury/Saturn suggests clarity around issues you may be having with the 8th House: intimacy, shared finances, taxes, sex. Because Saturn also rules Capricorn, you can also expect some clarity around your 7th House of Partnerships, too, where the Sun-in-Capricorn is camping until the 20th. Saturn is everywhere in your relationship sectors this month (it also predominates on the 20th of January, when the Sun shifts into Aquarius, also ruled by Saturn). But this Saturn-heavy set of placements should be seen in a positive light: You could see a relationship in a sober way, outside the changeable matrices of the Moon, your ruling planet.
LEO
Leo and Capricorn have no aspect in common (neither square, trine, sextile, opposition) and are not sympathetic by element (Leo fire vs. Cap earth) or modality (cardinal Cap vs mutable Leo). What’s more, this serious Capricorn Sun is highlighting perhaps the most boring sector of your chart this season, the 6th House, which deals with routine. It’s a bit of a monotonous January, astrologically. Your nature needs to shine, but solemn, Saturn-ruled Capricorn, which wants security, is casting a pall on your brilliance. The challenge for you, then, is to get some glow back, both during Capricorn season, which lasts until the 20th, but also during the pursuant Aquarius season (also Saturn-ruled). Change up your routine to keep light—work in different locations for the next few weeks, if you can do so remotely. Try to be outside, not inside. On the 20th, the Sun moves into Aquarius—which is an oppositional sign for you. This Aquarius Sun will be casting its cold light on your 7th House of Partnerships. As Saturn is co-present with the Sun, you might find yourself feeling aloof toward business associates or spouses (7th House) during this time. On a positive note, you do have lucky Jupiter camping out in your 8th House on the 29th of December for four months which can bring auspicious tidings around taxes and shared finances.
VIRGO
“Make hay while the sun shines”—a bit of folk wisdom arising from agrarian ways of life forever damaged by the bureaucratic march of modernity, urbanisation, and agri-business (whose malefic corporate strategies have turned the poetry of wheat fields into laboratories for the manufacture of genetically modified commodities). But we digress. The bottom line, Virgo, is that you really should make hay while the sun shines this month, as you’ve got the Sun and Venus in your 5th House of Fun, Entertainment, and Creativity until the 20th. Venus is retrograde at the moment, true, but it also has its “joy” in the 5th, meaning that even though slightly injured, it will still add some magic to your life, especially with expansive and lucky Jupiter in your relationship sector from the 29th of December onward. The advice: have fun, write, be creative, and express your love for the first two weeks of January. Why? Because on the 14th, your ruling planet, communicative Mercury, goes retrograde. Creativity, accordingly, might be impeded; your way with words more jumbled. To mix metaphors completely, Mercury will rain on the parade of hay you should be making to start the New Year. If that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, that’s kind of what your Mercury retrograde is going to feel like, as you try to communicate in a couple weeks. So: make hay while the sun shines.
LIBRA
Pretty much for all of January, your ruling planet, lovely Venus, is retrograde, which isn’t so lovely. Money, beauty routine, and romance all get discombobulated during these Venus cycles. While most everyone might be feeling somewhat unlucky in love until the 29th, when Venus goes direct, your sign is particularly sensitive to the peregrinations of Planet Love. As such, indecision about partners and partnerships may be exacerbated. In terms of appearance or your surroundings, you may also be questioning your look or the look of your home. Something similar could be happening with your finances—buying when you should be saving, saving when you should be spending. This is the topsy-turvy world of Venus retrograde. With the Sun-in-Capricorn highlighting your 4th House of Home until the 20th, some difficulty in particular around money, romance, beauty and your hearth could arise. On the 20th, the Sun shifts into independent Aquarius. The nature of your sign, the Scales, is to find meaning through the counterweight of a partner—but maybe take a cue from Aquarius and have more autonomous time until Venus corrects its course on the 29th of January.
SCORPIO
Generous Jupiter, our astrological Santa Claus, enters your 5th House of Fun and Creativity on the 29th of December and will stay there till May. This is an illustrious way to start the year. It is said that even malefic planets can’t do bad in the 5th and that the benefics, Venus and Jupiter, can only do good. What’s more: Jupiter has been pent up in cold Aquarius for a year and is now looking to bring, among other things, love, abundance of crops, authority over temples, and relief from bonds and troubles. In the 5th House, the Luck-giver will increase creativity and enlarge creative output. And, because the 5th House forms a glorious trine with your 1st House of Self, Jupiter might alleviate some of your obsessive Scorpionic inclinations. Perhaps you might feel a bit more relaxed or within the flow of time rather than editing your world/work from the outside. A New Moon on the 3rd in your Communication zone——marks a great day to begin a project, memo, application, essay, article, speech, story or any other such conveyance of signification.
SAGITTARIUS
Your nature tends toward optimism, so your glass is going to look even more than half full to start 2022. Your ruling planet, magnanimous Jupiter, the Great Benefic heads toward your friend Pisces on the 29th of December, where it will be energising your 4th House of Home until May. Recall that Jupiter enlarges, increases, and expands whatever it comes into contact with. Moving into a bigger place is a classic manifestation of this Jupiter placement. It could also mean enlarging the family unit. The Sun-in-Capricorn will be emphasising your 2nd House of Money. The Capricorn Sun is serious and functional, so the beginning of the year very much centres around practical ways to increase your earning potential. Finding ways to add to your comfort at home is also highlighted. Given the Jupiterian emphasis on the hearth, it can also mean inviting more people in. Think about entertaining friends in situ. On the 20th, the Sun transits into your 3rd House of Communication and Short Distance Travel. Mercury, which governs both speech and journeying, is retrograde for this part of the month; if you are flying, try and factor in some extra time in case of unexpected hiccups.
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
