December 2021 Horoscopes

There is a distinct sense of finality this December; an exhausted run from the starting line, we have all agreed that it is the last month of the year, we are looking forward to the fresh start at midnight, we are setting down heavy bags and putting things away and cleaning up real nice for the party. Our dance syncs up quite nicely with what is left of a cosmic calendar for the year: the last solar eclipse in Sagittarius, for quite some time, on December 4th’s new moon; our last square between Saturn and Uranus; our last month of Jupiter in Aquarius. Our lunar nodes in Sagittarius and Gemini showed us the reaches and limits of opinion versus knowledge. Shifting into Taurus and Scorpio, it is material security, and the secrets that help maintain this security will be lacking their camouflage. Our final Saturn-Uranus square on December 24th will show us the same structural failings that we saw on February 17th and June 24th (think: frozen and sweltering power outages.) What was shocking then is no surprise now, an inconvenient and uncomfortable Christmastime, one more thing to put away when our hopes finally grow buoyant in Jupiter’s ingress into Pisces on the 28th.

Yet we know it is to betray the truth to believe anything is ‘new’ based on the passing of a year, or that it is easy to cast off anything too heavy in the service of joy. (Or: how to deal with a houseguest that lingers). Our ‘fresh start’ is accompanied by Venus’s ingress into Capricorn. This was in early November, and Venus will stay there until early March, an uncommon stretch of four months to its typical one; it begins its retrograde on December 19th and stations direct on January 29, 2022. Uncommon is the theme of this Venus retrograde period. An unencumbered Venus in Capricorn is a stoic statue of beauty, a testament to time, an old ring, a valuation of preserved systems. Venus’s elongated occupation of this sign is ruled by Saturn, which is in square with Uranus at the time of Venus’s retrograde station, which is to say: that which is solid experiences shocks, phone calls to tell you something unexpected happened. Venus being conjunct Pluto for the station speaks in similar tones, flipping upright all the earthy roots which have kept things in place for so long. It is to question expectation, and valuation, of what is traditional or status quo. It is to remember that not only can Capricorn exemplify a stone faced leader, but of a laughing lechery, of an earth impulse, to sink your hands into the ground and touch. It is the simultaneous dance of virtue and vice, austerity and debauchery.  

Aries

It is between your social calls and your own carefully protected resources that you are running back and forth: it is hard to say no to the party, to the greater obligations of people you’ve known so long, but it puts its last hard strain on your own ability to provide for yourself. Instead, there is a development in your dreams to stretch out into another place or dive deeply into your mind after a yearlong buildup; this dovetails on with revelations on your own public identity, the funhouse mirror of seeing how others see you. By the end of the month, your focus is solidly on your desire to learn, see, and feel something new -  to get out of your house and into your thoughts, settling into far-reaching conversations with words of gold.

Taurus

It is a winsome beginning to the month, floating past old stress with cunning, and yet there is a change in what is being offered to you. Perhaps at first it seemed like freedom, and this blossoms into your own revelations of what you are able to offer yourself, what skills of yours you’ve let slumber while accepting the generosity of others. You maintain a secure face, despite the tensions of the past year, in between remaining steadfast and the sudden changes you’ve felt within yourself. Finally, it is a pent up release when you realize it is you you want to focus on over the next year. The eyes of others lose their power; you will speak your mind by the end of the month. 

Gemini

It is like taking a flame to your mind and seeing new ways of thinking you’ve abandoned in the past — a new change in how you approach others after a year of walking on floor that falls through. You have created instead, a fortified version of yourself, one that can withstand the shocks of introspection and exhaustion from this year’s marathon. It may be easy to idealize the world that you do not currently live in, to compare yourself to a grander idea that seems impossible to reach, but there is a promise that sits just beyond the standards you think you have to follow (you do not). 

Cancer

Again, it is a pulling outward, from outside, into a tension of interconnection, like every party greets you with a face from the past. What is the worst thing that could happen if you were to commit to someone else? List out your fears until they are just possibilities and they will lose their teeth. Until then, it is your care that you are turning to your morning risings, you back aches and nights writing words for only you to see. It is from this diving board that you will be inflamed to touch, drawn out again into the world’s curious interactions. After the surprises stop, it is your home to which you can retreat again.

Leo

It is the sewing together of your work and relationships that is set to shake in December, with changes first to create new form in your pleasures and dalliances, new codes of honor and agreement, culminating in a new social landscape. Perhaps in part of this you find yourself playing pretend. In your established relationships, it is the last gasp of the tensions between your livewire outward desires and the steady hum of consistency. Revelations are found in your day to day work, retreading a stable schedule. You have hope, most of all, as you dive headlong into your own concerns — and there is a stroke of genius when the clock strikes twelve.

Virgo

It is a push and pull of what you want to do, and what you should do; there are limits in your work and in your health that demand respect, yet are pushed and pressed by your desires and who you desire. There may be sudden costs for pulling yourself in two different directions —  it is an expensive endeavor to be everything to everyone. There are fantasies you want to achieve, but keeping them in focus is its own challenge. Too, you are turning a new face to your family, maybe through a sideways revelation, one that comes into full bloom in a public way. Your desires, your creative skills — they are all laid bare. A dreaminess returns, and you are given a chance to speak.

Libra

A change in your day to day environment lets you see your street a little differently. It takes you down new roads to further and faraway places — a bit of leeway and freedom, taking each next turn as fast as it comes. A final simmering tension rises between your passions and your commitments, and which is it that you choose now that you’ve been able to decide for yourself? There may be some surprises when it comes to family, jolts and plans going slightly awry. Again, you may look at yourself differently in the mirror because of it, but there is beauty in the changing of traditions that age brings. 

Scorpio

There is a change in your resources after a year of back and forth, coming and going; it is like you have been making up your bed, finding and building up what you want, creating a solid ground from which you can actually lean out and say hi. Maybe you’ll even feel the sweet impact you’ve had upon the people around you. Until then, your focus lies here: rereading your books, exploring the universe of your own creation. Someone loud wants to be let in, and is there room for them in your home? Outside your door, there are revelations, commotions of the people in your neighborhood, your friends. It’s okay to take a step back if it is too loud; the sounds will just become like the noises you expect outside your window from the past year.

Sagittarius

This year has taken off layers of ego in ways you did not expect; it has dressed you down, and you pick out something new to outfit yourself, leaving behind weighty expectations, letting yourself rest in someone’s arms for once instead of racing down adventures in solitude. Checking your ego at the door is an exercise in existence without expectation, and you are ready to inhabit yourself again after an exhausting year of endless, chameleon obligations. When there is a grand revelation of your own resources, you may surprise yourself on how you wish to proceed — forsaking the path of traditional success, now with a clear mind. There is an optimism, a basking in the sun, that will find you yet. 

Capricorn

The drawn out interplay between your insistence on your own ideas, standards, and independence versus the roiling comforts of pleasure has been like a repeated lesson, a storybook tale of decisions. Are you happy with what you’ve learned? You’re learning new ways of introspection, fully realizing new habits, marking down each lesson like a reminder. It will be helpful for you, as the new year will look a lot like the past, drumming up faces, feelings, and opportunities which had seemed long gone in your story. However, there is a perseverance to you now — an energy that knows the distance it must go, rather than wasting it by shoring up for shocks.

Aquarius

A shift occurs in your social network, a recalibrating of time spent with others and new contacts in your phone you must reply to; it is from these changes in conversation, redirections of subject that your creative abilities are fully realized, excited by what you have to say — a welcome lust for life after what has been a year of stop and go stress. All that which has been stable has been subject to surprise, and it is here that you are retreading your values of your alone time, looking at yourself through mirrors you had not yet before. This next stretch calls you to look at the ways you’ve hidden from yourself and to give yourself the sweetness of dedication.

Pisces

For you, it is a new opportunity to greet the world with an excitement for the future, to shoot outwards; this coalesces with an acceptance of your family, your old self, with the person you have become. In casting about your new face, values are unearthed in your social circles, surprises from old friends: what is the worst thing that can happen if you disagree? And you, who so likes the company of others, there is only one more bit of solitude before you are able to take the faraway path you have been dreaming. You will feel the waves of support as you push off, protected, into the new year.