Aries & Aries Rising
We can’t get much done without some help from those around us. While you are starting a lengthy process of reviewing the ties that bind you to those around you, lessons surrounding intimacy are deepening. Listen, on a good day you tend to ruffle feathers. On these days you are more like a walking lightening rod; really fucking cool to see but something that may be hard for folks to be around unless they are also running the same kind of wattage through their veins. That is more than likely what you need, other wild horses that are ready to run free under the wide open skies. There may be some relationships lost, or they may just appear to go missing for a while. Be patient with friendships that are struggling. From here until mid March friendships will go through a series of tests. Just because some may fail one test doesn’t mean that they are out for good. More than likely what you’re doing right now is learning about what you need in these agreements. This is far more important and frankly way more interesting than what anyone else actually does around you.
Taurus & Taurus Rising
Whatever you have been studying and learning lately is about to be tested and put to use at work. However, you aren’t completely unhindered. Because of Mercury’s next journey backwards (the next Mercury retrograde is from February 6th-28th) and it’s squares to Saturn (January 25th, February 18th and March 10th), issues around whom you are choosing to partner with in your career and how you communicate with them will be on deck. Whatever started back in October and November may give you a clue. Did you start talks about a joint project that you are now working on? Did you make adjustments in your intimate relationships that are having a direct affect on the way you engage with your work? Are you able to speak your mind more freely now that you have created solid boundaries as part of your self-care regime? Boundaries really are key at the moment. You may be tempted to give everything over to an authority, guru or teacher. Being obliterated by another doesn’t help you or them. In fact, it looks like you are holding a tremendously important piece of the puzzle. You’re going to have to work with your fear in order to allow yourself the freedom to express what you know. No one can hold back your truth unless you give them permission to do so.
Gemini & Gemini Rising
Pack your bags Gemini, a trip awaits you. However, this looks a little more like a pilgrimage than a pleasant pop down south to a sweet B&B. The cosmos has plans to school you in a subject or 20. Good, right? Variety, versatility, new experiences! Except the new seems to loop you back to the old and you are in this magnificent moment of getting to see what parts of your own internal dogma is holding you in place, treading water because you refuse to think about things in a new way. In case you couldn’t yet tell, your ruling planet, Mercury, is about to go retrograde again. This week it will enter its “shadow” phase. This means that we are living in a week and a half of foreshadowing as to what the actual Mercury retrograde (February 6th-28th) will bring about. Not all Mercury retrogrades are difficult, quite a few go by without much disturbance actually. This one looks to bring with it some opportunities for contemplation, self-inquiry and stabilizing the fluctuations of the mind (don’t believe everything you think, just keep coming back to the breath). I’ll be honest, one of the reasons that I fell in love with astrology was because I thought it might tell me what the “right” thing to do would be. More often than not it’s just been a systematic approach that once I followed seemed to reveal all the things within that I need to heal. I don’t think any system worth its weight ever gives us answers. I think any system that is valuable has a way of nudging us towards the right questions so that we can learn to live in an open ended query.
Cancer & Cancer Rising
Chase After No One. That’s right my friend, I am serving more of the same dish (how not to lose your mind in relationship stew) with a new side salad. Chase after no one while being able to cultivate the courage to be permeable and affected by everything around you. Fuck me, I know, not easy. However, this kind of astrology slays us so that we can finally let go of the things that we have been relying on. Our reliance on said components of our personality have kept us safe. It also keeps us small, running our hearts out on the hamster wheel of fear, so it turns out. Your also getting a tune up in terms of digging a little deeper into your own personal, psychological reasoning for doing what you do. Scary stuff but the next few weeks will be encouraging (may feel more like forcing at times) you to get clearer on why you sabotage the very things that you say you want to cultivate. The problem with living in a culture that sees everything in black in white (or worse, claims to be “colorblind”) is that we lose the ability to see the places within us that are also nuanced. We lose the ability to see what may appear as unskillful behaviors as resilient talents that kept us alive. When we point fingers at a single source, we may miss seeing how the entire system it is within is also guilty of perpetuating injustice. When we see only the light or only the dark of the outside world we turn the same eyes in on ourselves. In that we are sure to miss some of the most complex and interesting components of who we are. This week see if you can get in between the lines.
Leo & Leo Rising
You’re moving into a time of reviewing, reworking and redefining your relationship agreements. Contracts in fact seem to be a hot topic right now. How do you find your way towards a healthy and mutually beneficial commitment with others? If you are single and on the prowl, might I suggest writing a short paragraph about your optimal relationship? What are the key components that you must have in order to be happy, healthy and whole? What are the things that you need from yourself while in a relationship? If you are in a partnership already then schedule some together time and have a good old-fashioned and thorough check-in. If you are single and fine with it then I would look to your closest friends and partners of all stripes for how you might work at being clearer in your boundary setting and intentions. Do you constantly chase after people’s affections? Are you able to notice when the need arises and give to yourself what you tend to ask others for? Are you asking for appropriate things in all your partnerships? Are you able to adjust the contracts when you or they aren’t? Are you hanging out with folks that are good for you and your mental health? Most spiritual teachers that I have ever studied give the same advice: hang out with people that inspire you to be a better person, not enable you to be merely functional or worse.
Virgo & Virgo Rising
Your ruling planet, Mercury, is entering the “shadow” phase of its next retrograde cycle this week. Shadow phases bookend the retrograde with terrain that the planet will cover once it changes directions. Think of a car backing up and moving forward, the shadow phases mark where the backup starts and ends. This part of the shadow period is like a kind of foreshadowing of things to come during the retrograde cycle. Meanwhile the shadow phase that occurs after the planet has gone direct can help the sediment to settle in the sometimes muddy waters that retrogrades produce. This upcoming Mercurial move backwards is echoing the last one that occurred in October/November. It has something to do with how you choose to construct your time and how you feel about what you accomplished come the end of the day. What exactly are you serving during those 8 hours at work? If you don’t help to create the time it takes and commit to chase after what you truly love, the universe and its many angels will never know your true intentions and how to help you realize them. Speaking of intentions, I am going to plead that you make it your intention to not see anyone person in your life as an all-knowing, perfect, pedestal-pirouetting wonder. Perhaps there are some big feelings brewing and/or some larger than life personalities on the scene. At the end of the day everyone is just another human being, fully flawed and fabulous in their own right. Keep your wits about you, especially if you find that somehow your knickers came off.
Libra & Libra Rising
I want to talk about desire. The word desire comes from old French, de sidere, which literally means “from the stars”. Of course to me this implies that not so long ago we considered that a clue to our greatest desires laid both in the positioning of the planets in the sky when we were born and in the current skies in which we live under. From looking at your chart it seems like your desires are changing or are about to. This may include feeling ambiguous all of a sudden about a romantic partnership. Or this is just a general ambiguousness about what fuels you, feeds you and rouses you. For some of you it looks a little more like bumping up against (what is appearing as) reality, as in “I can’t do what I really want to because the dishes and stuff.” For others, this week will start a series of reality checks that look a little more like a sergeant in your face yelling, “Listen, this life is short. What are you doing that you actually feel excited about?” For everyone it’s a good week to take out a pen and paper, but for you especially. Perhaps you can journal about the last time you felt excited about something. Or you can write about the last time you let your anger take over, or the last time you felt like you expressed yourself well. I’m not promoting any kind of manic attachment to being juiced up; actually it is best for you to explore what that elusive state of balance might look like.
Scorpio & Scorpio Rising
If you can remember back to your birthday month you may recall me going on and on and on about reconstructing the neuro pathways in your brain. I suggested rerouting yourself to a more positive thought process, or at the very least just understanding how what you think shapes your experience in the world. I said all of that because Mercury (planet of communication) was making a series of conjunctions (merging with) Saturn (planet of boundaries and making things real) during its retrograde cycle (reviewing) in your sign (bad-ass sorcerer). Throw in a couple of eclipses (OMFG what is happening?!) and we had a powerful potion for self-study. This month brings us the beginnings of what will turn into the next Mercury retrograde cycle (though not official until February 6th) that also has a series of aspects to Saturn, this time a waxing square. I know that this is more astro lingo than I usually write, but bear with me. A waxing square brings us to the first crisis point of whatever we started at the conjunction. This means whatever we began back in November now gets tested, revealed or gains some sort of movement. It may be something subtle that you have to root around for. Thinking back to October/November of 2013, ask yourself if something went missing, went AWOL or went rouge. Watch to see if this period of time brings it back, resolves it, frustrates it or moves it in some way. This is also a time for reviewing your living situation, family dynamics and relationships with parents and siblings. By the looks of it your have plenty of opportunities to understand the communication dynamics that help and hinder your relationships with all those you call “family.”
Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising
This goes for all of us but especially for you, stay away from labeling things as good and bad, right and wrong or yes and no. You run the risk of becoming ridiculously dogmatic, overzealous and answer seeking right now. Answers aren’t as cute as questions. Some of the questions that I recommend meditating on are: Can I stop trying to figure everything out and just let my life lead the way? Can I get up every morning and give my day and more importantly my thoughts over to a higher power? Can I remember that I am absolutely, without a doubt unable to think my way to happiness using the same mind frame that landed me in discomfort and disease in the past? For some of you I would also add: What are my relationships to my siblings at the moment? Do I have a healthy connection to them? Do I still seek for their approval? Am I able to wrangle myself back into my center once I realize I am in old childhood behaviors?” For all of you, these upcoming weeks will lead you into the crevices of your unconscious. It will in a way that is ultimately helpful if you are interested in understanding why you do what you do (you may want to just get on your knees and start praying now). It’ll be so bothersome, to say the least, if you don’t.
Capricorn & Capricorn Rising
*Trigger Warning* Self-Absorbed Privileged Problems That May Make You Puke In Your Mouth A Bit. It’s come to my attention that my crowning glory is now faltering. Yes, it’s true; my hair is losing its curl. Horrors! I know. I get it; I am a white, able-bodied, middle class woman living in the western world who has her health (and still fairly good mane). To complain about my fucking hair of all things is to expose my absolute, self-obsessed, privileged self. However, to be completely honest it feels like an identity crisis. A central component of my persona is slipping through my fingers (like I can literally run my fingers through my hair, something previously unheard of) and it makes me uncomfortable. I feel like a superhero that is losing her powers, but that’s what you get for living in a society that esteems women’s looks over their intelligence and for falling for it. All that to say dear Capricorn, you have been on a steady diet of change and a rigorous routine of letting go of any artificial props that you could hide behind. The point is that it’s time for you (and apparently me too) to understand your real value and to stop sourcing it from bullshit props like hair. Can you see your true worth without getting caught up in the trappings of tempting social status symbols? Can you value the kind of humility that is cultivated when life takes turns to show you just how out of control you actually are? Can you value who you are without anyone else having to do so first? Some of you may go through a money snafu or two during this next Mercury retrograde cycle (February 6th-28th). More likely than not it’s just a check lost in the mail type of scenario. Remember that it’s not about the money, it about how it makes you act, react or worse, retaliate.
Aquarius & Aquarius Rising
For the past year and a half, one of the main focuses in your chart has been about reorganizing your career path so that it can better serve your soul’s desire. Recently there have been opportunities to manifest your visions and stabilize some parts of your dream. This next leg of your journey depends on how you feel about the adjustments that you have made thus far. We are entering into the “shadow” phase of the next Mercury retrograde (which will spend a great deal of its retrograde period in your sign). The issues that start to surface this week are the ones that want your attention for the next two months. The retrograde period is officially from February 6th-28th, but when we add the shadow periods (i.e. the period of time when the planet inhabits the degrees it will traverse during its retrograde motion), we are under the influence of the next Mercury retrograde from January 22nd-March 20th. This does not mean that you need to hide your head in the sand for the next two months. Mercury retrograde, especially one that happens in our own sign, is a phenomenal time for self-inquiry, self-discovery and self-knowledge. It’s also an infamous time for revelations. Secrets that have been held for decades have a way of finding a loop hole to slip through so they can get to the light at long last. So how does this apply to you personally? Well, there is a situation this week that looks to challenge, test or frustrate your current understanding of who you are, what you say and what you stand for. It’s about your identity and your public persona and whether they feel congruent. You’re in a process around these issues. You aren’t supposed to know the answer. You are meant to be hanging out with trickster Mercury who wants to ask you a million riddles to distract you from your usual ways of knowing. This next leg of the journey is, in part, about learning to think about yourself in a new way.
Pisces & Pisces Rising
If any other sign was undergoing the transits that you are, I would warn a little against getting too lost, depressed or full of self-pity. However you are more prone to run away with the fairies than with Eeyore right now. Just remember to visit us back here on earth once in a while. If you haven’t ever or if you haven’t recently, I am going to urge you to get a dream journal going. Just have a note pad and pen by your bedside and when you wake up write the first five images, words, thoughts or impressions that are still with you. Don’t worry about making sense or getting it right. Just make an effort to communicate with this part of yourself daily and you’ll see that more than likely those things will show up during your day. If you can remember, check the list before you go to sleep to see if there are any parallels. Of course feel free to write entire dreams, but often we don’t do this because it feels too overwhelming. Do what is doable. It’s also a good time to acknowledge any spirits that walk with you, protect you and guide you. Sometimes people that we knew that have passed on are with us, sometimes folks from way back in our ancestry walk with us. Different traditions believe different things. If you don’t have much clarity on this and want to gain a deeper understanding of your own spiritual connections this would be a perfect time to pray for guidance. Trust that you’ll pick up the right book, bump into the right person or stumble into the right class. I want you to get used to communicating in different ways; backwards, upwards and down. Don’t worry too much about the time on your timepiece or the date in your datebook, you’re slipping into a realm that wants you to access the multiple directionality that time actually exists in and to use it to your own advantage.