Aires   Taurus   Gemini   Cancer   Leo   Virgo   Libra   Scorpio   Sagitt   Capric   Aquar   Pisces   Overview

Although you are making terrific headway, your massive transformation is not anywhere near complete, Aries. This month you are shifting, along with the cosmic tide, into higher gear. Important partners provide new twists, and become an increasingly vital priority for you as the month unfolds. You are coming into a greater understanding of what you are really up to, at soul-level, both in terms of outer performance and interior realignment. Having just gone through a cycle of inner renewal and reexamination, you are more than ready to move ahead, spurred also by the changing of the year, and the perspectives of helpful partners. Your higher mind vision of where you could be with your life is profound, and speaks to you of unknown vistas that lie ahead, yet to be explored.

As an overview for the entire month, it is important to note that trickster Uranus is standing nearly still in the sky, and located in your identity sector. This means that through many turns and twists in the road, you coming to a form of enlightenment. As singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan put it once, you are "fumbling toward ecstasy." When you come to your triumph it might not appear to be the way you once expected it to be, but it will serve. Over these last few years the unexpected has become your everyday, and you are suddenly seeing through what once held for you only acceptance. The Grateful Dead lines from the revolutionary sixties might currently apply to you; that "once in a while you can get shown the light / In the strangest of places if you look at it right."

As mentioned many times in these pages, Uranus has been these past few years in collusion with Pluto as well, producing for the population as a whole, and for you in particular, a push toward meaningful revolutionary change. Your very way of being in the world is in major flux, as you forge ahead with producing and furthering both career and other forms of showing up for others around you. Out with the old and in with the new is a terrific idea – and the devil is obviously in the details. A major paradox is that you must simultaneously accept the potential in your life for radical change while going ahead with what you must as you continue to take care of business. As you do, you are coming closer to what you were meant to be doing all along.

Another major theme for you this month is revealed in the Sagittarius New Moon, taking place on December 2nd in your higher mind sector. This stimulates the evolution of existing perspectives on beliefs and values, and new ways of seeing the world around you. In keeping with the thrust of this New Moon, learning and growth are therefore your most important products.
This month could see a plethora of possibilities unfolding for furthering your unofficial education, such as travel opportunities that unexpectedly arise, or perhaps you have arrangements in place to matriculate officially. The various potentials from alternative education and Internet research and presence form another possible example.

The expansive archetypal presence of Jupiter in your home and family sector reveals that a focus there is spiritually relevant for you now, in obvious keeping with the holiday season. You are invited to more deeply explore the hidden places within you in the context of familial and tribal relationships that you cherish, all the while attempting to remain as aware as you can of your own contribution to whatever reactivity arises. Your ruler Mars enters your relationship sector early in the month as well, so that the potential is high for the influence on these matters from the standpoint of partnership connection.

The last third of December, following the Winter Solstice on the 21st, is always a powerful time for you, and is especially so this time around. With Venus turning retrograde starting this same day in your career sector, businesses themes involving partnership issues could well come up, and it is also possible that matters of relationship will be emphasized and possibly reexamined. You are also getting closer and closer to the finale of the year of 2013 and the entrance of the baby of the next, which from all indications will grow to be as intense as his older sibling. This is more than a little daunting, but also exciting, seeing as how your changes are far from over, and are vitally important to your future happiness.


Taurus   (April 20 - May 20)  Earth.  Ruling planet Venus.    Top

This is an interesting and quirky month for you, Taurus. You are being pulled like taffy in several different directions all at once. Not the least of these is toward stability and along the lines of responsible partnership. Surprises also abound in the relationship area as well. There are also major implications for inner exploration, and for discovering a better basis for your work in the world, as you ease into a stronger interior foundation that is slowly emerging over the course of an intense year. In the transition to 2014 and beyond, the energy for profound and meaningful change doesn't stop, or slow down, and might even be said to speed up. The activity takes on a different coloration and form of integration however as the ending of this powerful year continues to unfold.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of great interest to you and indeed all Taureans that your ruler, Venus, is this month changing to retrograde motion on the 21st, in a rare event that happens every two years or so. This is the same day that the Sun enters Capricorn, namely the day of the Winter Solstice. Venus retrogrades at the very end of Capricorn, corresponding to your sector of Higher Mind, and spends four months there, until the beginning of March 2014. She begins a new Synodic cycle in Capricorn on January 17th, rising that day reincarnated as the Morning Star, so that in some important sense we are entering into a new 584-day cycle of earth-sign Venus, connected with Capricorn and with the practicalities of life in the earthly plane. At her most exalted, Venus here symbolizes a higher vision to bring society into better alignment with new emerging spiritual values representing this pivotal decade of the new century.

The ideal of higher mind vision, whatever poignant meaning this has for you in particular, thus forms an important background theme for your month. This makes a nice chime with the Sagittarius New Moon that practically begins the month on December 2nd, since the sign Sagittarius is connected with this same modality. There is also a symbolic alignment with the outer planet archetypes of Uranus, Pluto and as well Chiron, that urge us forward into transformation and integration, activated by this New Moon. Because Uranus is located in your sector of dream realities and inner work, you are far more greatly attuned to your inner world over the course of this fascinating monthly cycle, and are as well tuning in intuitively to the way in which your conscious values align with your deep unconscious process. Uranus, stationing to direct motion mid-month and thus far stronger, is also highlighted by aspect to the Sagittarius New Moon that sets the stage for this entire lunar cycle.

Pluto in your higher mind sector is also currently activated by this New Moon energy at the beginning the month, standing in combination with Uranus for transformative vision to take you further down your chosen path of spiritual evolution. Once more the point here is that you remake the world around you as you are able to see and also to articulate the ideal of where you would like for it to go. Partners also bring their own perspectives to bear, either in support or in complementary viewpoint to your own, and their at times almost mentoring role is vital in bringing greater understanding to your own vision.

Uranus is also contra-parallel to Chiron for the entire month. Chiron, prominent in your chart over these last few months, represents dark places inside yourself where you have in the past been wounded, and where you still retain the difficult residue of these early life events. This means recognizing and removing the barriers to your progress, in the context of moving yourself forward into better total alignment with the deeper levels that you find inside yourself. Your only task, as you enter into the transition point of this climactic end-of-year period, is that you become as conscious as you can of all your various facets while staying as fully grounded in your own process as is humanly possible.

Gemini   (May 21 - June 20)  Air.  Ruling planet Mercury.    Top

This is an important month for remembering who you really are, Gemini. Relationship is on your mind in a big way, and in a manner that involves a sense of self-reliance together with an important and ongoing examination of your own inner word. It is perhaps a paradox that to be totally familiar and comfortable in your connection with significant others in your life, you must first be completely transparent and conversant in your own understanding of what makes you yourself tick, but it is nonetheless simply so. Old patterns of behavior based on prior wounding are also likely to arise. You are delving into the mysteries of life and this includes a healthy connect with your own demons – especially with the ones who are the angels in disguise.

As an overview for the entire month, it is important to note that you are coming out of a phase of strong Neptune, stemming from the Last Quarter Moon from the end of November, which leads into the new lunar cycle that begins on the 2nd of December. Neptune is highlighted when Mercury changes signs into Sagittarius in the early part of the month, and comes into square. Neptune is also currently angular within your Solar Chart, located in the first few degrees of Pisces and therefore coincident with the start point of your sector of career and professional life. This placement implies a more graceful and compassionate centering for your work in the world, emphasizing the "path with heart" above all others. This has been an important touchstone for you ever since the 10th of November when Mercury came out of its retrograde and changed to direct motion, and remains so for the current month of December, and beyond.

Uranus is also stopped almost dead still in the sky for the entire month of December, with its actual station to direct motion taking place on the 17th. Uranus is located in your sector of wishes, hopes, societal connection and future plans, so that there are likely to be insights that come to you in this area as the month unfolds. There could be a startling change of direction in some key portion of your friendships or groups to which you feel yourself connected with, or to your conception of your pathway forward.

Uranus is also in close connection with Chiron, the Wounded Healer, prominent in your life right now because occupying a place near the top of your solar chart. This implies that you have been at east somewhat wrestling with old patterns of behavior that have come up for your review, your recognition, and your acknowledgment. The issues that gave rise to these most likely originated in early childhood and are by now long gone, but still potent. Then, the only reaction that you had was to bury your hurt feelings away because they were too painful for the conscious handling of them. You have the chance to rectify their banishment by simply paying the most careful attention when they arise in your current context, either as reactivity or silent withdrawal. This could be in the midst of relationship connection or with regard to authority figures in your life.

As Mercury, your ruler, enters into its new sign, it also symbolically moves into your seventh solar sector where it brings partnership more prominently to your conscious awareness. The December 2nd New Moon that very nearly begins the month in this same sector also represents for you a fresh start with some part of your existing relationship dynamic. Since Pluto, activated by this New Moon, also resides in your intimacy sector, this month potentially provides a new plateau for close connection with important others, which has been something of a major theme in your life in recent years. As far as you have undoubtedly come in this important area of life, there could be further developments that will yet arise over the course of this monthly cycle. It may be that greater intimacy with significant others is possible, without sacrificing your own unique sense of yourself.


Cancer   (June 21 - July 22)  Water.  Ruling planet is the Moon.    Top

This is a time of reaffirming your most basic truth, Cancer. Home and family, always important for you, gets an additional boost through this month's cosmic currents that affect you most strongly where you are most deeply invested. Your voyage of discovery leads you to more profound connection with others, and with your own process as well, exteriorized out into the world at large. You are seeking a better match with soul purpose as you are coming to know it. Your dharma, or the your soul work that you came into this lifetime to perform, becomes clearer by the day. This month, you have an excellent chance to start fitting the pieces together in a more inclusive picture that allows the world its due, and partnership also, and yet enhances your own powerful sense of mission.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of interest that you are likely going through a series of epiphanies over the course of a thoughtful monthly cycle. These bursts of information and insight no doubt will involve both private and more public concerns, and also partnership issues, as the placement of Uranus and Pluto in your career and relationship sectors would indicate. During the first half of the month your ruler, the Moon, takes part briefly in a Grand Trine in Water signs involving both Jupiter and Saturn – factors for learning and teaching – that aligns with your sector of higher mind. Uranus is also stationing to retrograde motion in the mid-month time frame, indicating the potential for major insights as the month continues to unfold in regard to career options and plans.

With Saturn the ruler of your relationship sector as well, and in a line-up with Jupiter, exalted in your sign where it now resides and therefore more prominent for your natal chart, this entire month could be seen as one that features different sides of the relationship impulse. This is especially strong in the children of the Moon such as yourself, since the Moon shines by reflected light. Similarly, you may have in the past striven to understand and assimilate hidden parts of yourself by attachment to a significant other who has the functional power that you feel you lack. In Jungian terms this might be the realm of thinking, or of any of the four functions, the others being intuition, sensation, and feeling; what he called the process of individuation is the ongoing quest to take back the missing function and make it your own. This does not invalidate your ongoing process of coming to a better understanding of relationship in your life, although it might cast this process in a new light according to the extent of your being able to transform it.

The Winter Solstice of Saturday, December 21st, is another time when Saturn and the sign of Capricorn are each highlighted, because the Sun has entered into it. Additionally, Venus retrogrades in Capricorn, bringing an even more thoughtful and reflective presence to this important area. This could be a time when former partners show up again in your life, always for a deeper purpose, and when you will spend some serious time meditation on where you are headed, relationship-wise. A good rule is never to yearn for anything that is not there for you, because this distracts you from the present moment; this must be one of the most important secrets of life. Your wisdom leads you to the idea of accepting what the next wave brings without trying to steer, neither anticipating what you want to embrace nor pre-rejecting what you do not.

The December 2nd New Moon at nearly the very beginning of the month, taking place in your sector of day-to-day activities and also of soul purpose, makes a chime with the arc of your development along the entire stretch. Not only does it closely aspect transformative Pluto in your relationship sector, but Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in your higher mind sector, is also activated. This is the area of your solar chart where you are engaged in finding perspective on your life that brings wisdom and solace. In the final week of December there is massive activity as well, since a grand cross is forming – involving Jupiter, Pluto, Mars and Uranus – that gets tighter as the old year ends, figuring strongly in the chart for the New Year an the prognostications for another intense your of powerful transformation, in both relationship and in your individual spiritual evolution.


Leo   (July 23 - August 22)  Fire.  Ruling planet is the Sun.    Top

It's a paradoxical and in some ways difficult month, Leo. This is for you an essential time of regaining a more fun-loving sense of identity, and yet also represents a further searching out of the hidden places within you. Inner voices speak and, suddenly, your outer work comes to an inevitable pause. The New Moon at the very beginning of December signals expanded self-expression, which is just your cup of tea, to be enjoyed under the limelight. And still, the dark unknown within you calls, making you aware of the deeper questions, the ones without answers. Epiphanies flow and lead you toward important realizations and a renewed sense of soul purpose. No final solution exists, nothing but the determination to explore; to seek, perhaps to find, and never to give up.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of vital interest to you that the December 2nd New Moon in the second decant of Sagittarius forms a grand trine with Uranus together with your natal planet positions, especially true for those born a few days on either side of the very beginning of August. This implies that factors of identity, belief, and creative self-expression are powerful in the course of the journey of this current month for everyone with this Sun Sign or with Leo rising. This ties in with a pure and simple joy in expression that is a characteristic of your sign, and yet, with the powerful set of outer planet transits and configurations that have been operating lately, this simplicity has been altered in recent months to become a more complex factor. The trick is to keep some element of the naïve and simplistic while still being able to acknowledge the darker side of human nature including yours and everyone else's.

These dark and relatively unknown portions of the psyche have likely been coming up for you in some way over these past few months, since both Chiron and Pluto have been recently emphasized in relationship-oriented sectors of your solar chart. These two planetary archetypes in particular refer to the deep inner process in which we all share, and to which the seminal psychologists of the twentieth century, Freud and Jung, addressed themselves, as they brought these difficult factors to the light of more conscious understanding. It could be that you have observed situations – perhaps arising through relationship circumstances – where ancient conditioning, and old and largely dysfunctional patterns of behavior, the result of the wounds of early childhood, have come to the fore; and recently with a greater ability on your part to understand such a mechanism of the deep psyche that still cries out for attention and conscious recognition.

With Uranus stationing this month, standing almost completely still in the sky, from a geo-centric standpoint, as it changes from retrograde to forward motion, you have a leg up on this situation. Your faculties of intuition and higher mind reflection are powerful now, and over the course of this entire lunar cycle. This can stand you in good stead as you go through the challenges of this climactic end-of-year time. You are transforming in the way that you see your purpose going forward, so that these interior revelations affect all your future plans and aspirations, to the extent that you can tune in to them. You are coming to a more spiritually based cosmic flavoring as you reassess your life purpose and the way that you relate to others around you.

Venus is stationing this month as well, a relatively rare occurrence, turning to retrograde motion in Capricorn. Since Venus rules your career sector, you are, especially in the second half of the month, engaged in a subtle process of re-attunement and redefinition in the way that you relate to professional objectives. As is becoming more and more apparent, your outer world presence depends on inner world premises and beliefs. All of this is in flux and yet in some ways returning to a former stability, the application of natural law over and above any system of rational belief and even prejudice that is man-made.

Virgo   (August 23 - September 22)  Earth.  Ruling planet Mercury.   Top

This month you are entering into a very special time of exploring your roots, Virgo. Home, family, holidays, chilling with close friends, social groups that you favor, some or all of these are there for you to savor. As you morph and grow in self-understanding you are still finding that lightening flash of sudden illumination of dark places within you in the most unlikely of places and coming out of near tears with a smile put there by unexpected connection. You have been these past several weeks on a huge learning curve, no mistaking that. There are still further waves of fruitful exploration still to come, but you might be able to pause for a moment to glance behind you and see just how far you have truly come.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of interest that you are likely going through issues of family dynamics this holiday season. This is not necessarily because you are religious, or traditional, but in this case because your ruler, Mercury, is, early in the month, entering into your fourth solar sector of home, family and tribe. This event takes place mid-week of the first week of December, just after Monday's New Moon in this same solar sector. The focus on this area could manifest as alterations to your actual physical home, potentially of a transforming nature, or of course the symbolic home base provided by family roots that run deep, both through time and within your psyche. In Western culture, American style or otherwise, this time of year seems to be especially crafted for issues of all kinds to arrive, from long-awaited gatherings and special times of connection, to other possibilities that can exacerbate old wounds.

The current planetary configurations point to both of these potentials, including the possibility of an increase of intuition regarding where you might have in the past been wounded with grief and anger not fully expressed. This can lead to acceptance of the dark places within you, important recognition of where these old complexes get stuck and become walled away, and eventual healing. This corresponds to the fact that the planetary archetype of Chiron, the wounded Healer, is fully activated by this New Moon that very nearly begins the current monthly cycle, and is aspected as well by Pluto and by Uranus on either side.

Additionally, Uranus is stationing to direct motion in mid-December, so that all month long it occupies the same zodiacal degree, a placement that stands in your sector of intimacy and personal transformation. Uranus represents among other things the ability to tune in to cosmic information that is not available through your normal senses. There is fluctuation implied here, but also the potential for this placement within your chart to allow for greater intimacy with yourself, and in the deepest possible way, as long as you can remain open to it. By becoming more in touch with your own deeper places you are more available for intimacy with others, and in order to transform the nature of your wounds you must first of all fathom them. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is interesting as well, namely "A seer gazes intently into a crystal ball." Indeed by reaching inside yourself, in some important way you become the seer.

The station of Uranus in your solar sector described above can also represent a shake-up, affecting partnership harmony and relationship status quo; this can of course be in the end a good thing, since relationships often benefit from a shake-up. Another factor that can shift in the course of this powerful month is represented in terms of partnership by the possibility of projection. In particular, if there are powers within yourself that, rather than acknowledging them as your own, you have habitually projected onto a partner, there could be a shifting of this pattern. This is because at the time of the December 9th First Quarter Moon, a grand trine forms in emotional signs, affecting your relationship sector and making a newly positive and yet also more grounded viewpoint available, while in key configurations through to the Winter Solstice on the 21st, further developments of this same configuration arise, involving Jupiter and Saturn.

All these changes are in your eventual best interest, ultimately affecting your way of being in the world. How you manifest creativity, self-image as a fundamentally benevolent person, romance, and relationships with any children you might have, all these are affected going forward into another amazing year.


Libra   (September 23 - October 22)  Air.  Ruling planet Venus.    Top

Your transformational saga continues, Libra. One action-packed month follows upon another as December begins to unfold. The seismic shocks that have been running through your life lately take on new dimensions in this late fall period, which has a lot to do with how you relate to important others and to family and tribe. Interesting twists and conundrums add a very different flavor to this month's events surrounding this major theme, as your learning curve intensifies and as communication to others around you becomes even more the keynote to your evolving process, leading to further revelations and relationship activity after the middle of the month. Through the course of this climactic month, you are coming to see others in your life, including important family members, in a new way, as a fundamental component.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of interest that your ruler, Venus, retrogrades on the 21st, in your fourth solar sector, while Uranus stations direct in mid-December in your opposite sign. The entire month is a more thoughtful one for you because as Venus is slowing down to a crawl, she thus more potent and also more greatly internalized. It is significant that Venus is located in your fourth solar sector of home, family and tribe. This is called the nadir, or bottom, of your chart because it refers to the deep inner work that you require in order to keep yourself fully alive to all your possibilities, as do the so-called "Water Houses" in general. You might, during the course of this climactic month of December, actually come to a better understanding of the nature of your family ties and your connection to your home base, both physical and symbolic.

With Saturn, ruler of your home and family sector, in trine with Jupiter and given emphasis by the Moon, briefly, at the time of the First Quarter Moon of December 9th, this can also be a time of slower going and even of isolation, as you create long-lasting lessons for yourself in this area of life. You could be focused on repairs that create a better physical environment long-term, and also on how to repair existing social situations involving community and tribal connection within your local surroundings. Your family members, and those of your extended family, could also benefit from a more deliberate approach, a pacing of the stages in the necessary forms of bonding.

Your focus on family is further emphasized by the presence of Pluto, located in this same sector and highlighted by the New Moon that practically begins the month. Pluto also remains in continued intense aspect to trickster Uranus, standing still in your relationship sector. The symbolism of Pluto is dark and mysterious, partaking of the substance of death and rebirth, so indicating that there is indeed a massive process of transformation of your home and family scene, as mentioned many times in this column, that continues to unfold for you in a very poignant way, throughout this end-of-year and on into 2014.

Uranus standing stock-still in the sky also implies a greater and more powerful presence for his lightning flashes of illumination, and a further elucidation of the area in your chart that it rules, namely self-expression, and the area of its current location, namely your relationship sector. Given the nature of his symbolism, you might be on the lookout for epiphanies involving each of these important departments of life as you go through the current monthly cycle. The iconoclastic elements of Uranus' fundamental nature as astrological archetype is powerful for you as you negotiate both the issues of relationship understanding and of what your creative output might actually consist, were you to put your mind and heart totally behind your expanded vision.


Scorpio   (October 23 - Nov 21)  Water.  Ruling planets Mars, Pluto.   Top

The beat goes on, Scorpio. Another interesting month ensues, to close out what has been, on reflection, a rather trying and yet exciting year. You are getting a foundational feel for what you truly value and this is the heart of your current experience as you move further along the arc of your personal development and into an extremely powerful end-of-year time frame. It benefits you to continue to explore along the lines of accommodating to spiritual as well as practical realities, and to recognize where you can find the golden mean of allowing both of these almost antithetical sides of life to coexist. Over the long run, you win when you can travel your path of learning and growth without sacrificing earthly needs. This puts you in the right space to continue to move forward.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of interest that your co-ruler Mars enters your sector of dream imagination and inner work beginning on December 7th, where he remains for seven months or more, due to retrogradation, into the summer of 2014. This presages a period of time more intensely inward turning, which runs counter to the activity-orientation of our current culture. Instead of a human "doing" you are thus being gently nudged on the part of a benevolent universe into becoming a human "being." The ruler of this sector of your solar chart is Venus, located in Capricorn, and also changing to retrograde motion this very month, on the same day as the Winter Solstice and in the same sign, potentially taking you even farther to the inside. Matters of external communication might therefore lag in comparison to the richer illumination of your inner world.

Uranus, corresponding to the planetary archetype of The Trickster, is also alive and well within your chart, and highlighted this month as it stations. Uranus standing still in the sky symbolizes an increased presence in your sector of health regimens and day-to-day realities, including your work place. This energy can be wild and impulsive, and include the rapid-fire emergence of deep insights into your entire life condition, so forming an exciting backdrop for the ongoing transformational import of this year-end time frame.

Saturn, planet of restriction and limitation is currently located in your sign, or the identity sector of your solar chart. There it is amplified in meaning so that you have been no doubt feeling a sense of increased responsibility since the fall of the previous year. Saturn receives a boost this month by a trine to Jupiter, augmented by the Moon at the time of the First Quarter, and is therefore even more greatly activated. This energy is antithetical to that of Uranus, also emphasized in this month's evolving cycle, creating an energetic tug-of-war with no particular winner. You are feeling pulled in fact in several different directions in the midst of another month of tremendous change.

Transformative Pluto in your communications sector and Chiron, the Wounded Healer, located in your self-expression sector, one of the identity sectors of your solar chart along with the first, are also both activated this month, and in high degree. The presence of Chiron indicates that you are dealing with issues of where you have in the past been wounded, and where you are now in a progression of healing, so that you benefit by placing greater conscious attention to these deeper places inside you, as they come up, and as far as you can actually detect them. With Pluto's influence, you might find yourself communicating to your peers in a deeper way than you might normally choose. This again runs counter to the run-of-the-mill practice of consensus normative behavior, but it might in the end serve you better.

Sagittarius   (Nov 22 - Dec 21)  Fire.  Ruling planet Jupiter.   Top

This is the month you have been waiting for, Sagittarius, one of unexpectedly enhanced creativity and greater spiritual grounding that runs all the way through you from your toes up to your head. As this monthly cycle unfolds, you are linking play and work in a meaningful way that enhances both. After assiduously dealing, over a period of months, with the parts within yourself that were wounded in the distant past, you are being given another chance to work your issues from a new angle. This is so, as long as you are willing to witness your behavior from a dispassionate position, while staying as open as you can to non-judgmental acceptance of everything that continues happening to you. When you allow yourself to let go of what no longer serves you, it turns out to be the most magical of seasons.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of interest that the ruler of your sign, namely Jupiter, is highlighted this month in your sector of personal evolution. You are likely to be going through a real focus on the exploration of your depths as you reach for intimacy with yourself and others, forming the basis for entering into a new stage of the arc of development that you have been on all year long. On the first full weekend of the month, Mars enters Libra, and all the planets will be placed within the 180 degrees of the Zodiac between Libra and Aries, except for one; your ruler.

Jupiter also participates in a strong trine with Saturn, representing restriction and focus, and highlighted especially during the first two weeks of December, when the difficulties of the First Quarter Moon — after the first week — are balanced by a grand trine that forms between Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. Somewhat paradoxically, this sense of constraint and limitation affords you with in some ways the very best channel for making progress, as you concentrate on getting your ducks in a row heading into the New Year. Just as poetry is improved by the limitation of imposed form, your own creativity needs the focus of Saturn to be at its most productive.

It is also interesting to note that Uranus is standing almost completely still in the sky in December, occupying the same ? degree of the Zodiac all the way through the entire month, and thus is more powerful. In the case of your solar chart, Uranus is located in your self-expression sector, symbolizing new realizations and greater focus for that area of your life, and remains in square with transformatively oriented Pluto in your sector of resources and values. You are likely to be seeing the financial aspects of your life taking a new turning over the course of this monthly cycle, including your attitude toward them. This attitude shift might equally apply to the way that the material aspects of your life in general operate for you and enable what you do to move forward with your life in important ways. You are seeing both the beauty of what you have and how it is working for you, and perhaps also making adjustments to the way that you regard possessions and finances.

With Uranus standing still and strongly aspecting Chiron, the Wounded Healer, residing in an important area of your chart, what is also emphasized this month is your fourth solar sector of home, family and tribe. As is certainly entirely appropriate for this time of the year, you are dealing with issues raised by family connections of all kinds, including looking more closely into the deeper places within you that have become stuck and dysfunctional and in need of airing out. These can be conceived as the residue of early trauma, unaddressed, and greatly benefit from attention, just as children do. While in the past it was a good strategy to keep painful feelings away from your conscious awareness, the time has now come t more closely examine the places where you were wounded in the past with the goal of better understanding the reasons for their becoming originally walled off from consciousness, and for the acceptance of their presence within your psyche.


Capricorn   (Dec 22 - Jan 19)  Earth.  Ruling planet Saturn.   Top

This is an interesting and even quirky month for you, Capricorn, when you are more fully coming into yourself while exploring your roots. Over these first few weeks, with one important part of your mind you are quietly internal as is perhaps typical for you for this time of year. You are also unusually expansive and future-oriented with an urge to be out and doing, so that this is a paradoxical period. The Winter Solstice, as the Sun enters your sign, is always powerful, and this time even more so, with overtones of deep reflection and a reexamination of partnership and your own creativity that extends well into the New Year, as you continue to find ways to visualize the potential for significant connection with others to revitalize and empower your life.

As an overview for the entire month, it is of interest that you are strongly affected by two retrograde stations as the month unwinds, one backward and one forward – in what is termed a station out of retrograde into direct motion. This latter applies to Uranus, located in your sector of home, family and tribe, and stationing direct in mid-December; for this reason, Uranus occupies the very same zodiacal degree for the entire month. Planets that are standing still in the sky are far more powerful in their symbolic impact. Plus, the position of Uranus is highlighted by the New Moon that begins the month, taking place on December 2nd. This monthly cycle therefore represents one of startling insight that applies most directly to issues of your home base and the familial connections that allow it to thrive. These lightning flashes of inspiration throughout the month also apply to feelings of security and your sense of psychological rootedness, with the implication that Uranus represents a form of deeper intuitive understanding that bypasses mere logical thought process.

The other retrograde station is that of Venus, in your sign, beginning on the 21st and coincident with the Winter Solstice, when the Sun also enters Capricorn. Her period of retrograde motion happens every two years or so, in this case culminating in January, although Venus does not escape your sign until March. The Venus station takes place in the penultimate degree of Capricorn on the solstice. This is of course the shortest day of the year, and thus a magical time that has been celebrated for millennia, from pagan era right through to the modern Christmas celebration with its evergreen tree symbolizing the return of the light and the springtime color of renewed life.

All this symbolism is available to you most directly since the Sun is entering your own sign, representing the identity sector of your solar chart, and with the further magic of the Venus station near its ending degree. Venus symbolizes relationships of all kinds and their impact on your life. There are also implications for your work in the world and your creative self-expression, since Venus is the ruler of these sectors. All of these areas, identity, relationship, outer presence and creativity are subject to review and reexamination as Venus retrogrades. This process reaches one culmination on January 17th, when Venus makes her return as a visible "star" in the sky, a time known as her helical rise as the Morning Star, and another on January 31st when she stations direct.

With Pluto highlighted this month and located in your identity sector, there is transformation in the air for you, as it has been all through these past few years. You are slowly getting more familiar with your inner realms that speak to you in a subtle way and yet one that becomes discernable by doing the inner work required to become conversant.

As you go through the magical changes and challenges of this monthly cycle, there is a fundamental optimism that you can always draw on, based on renewed faith in the surrounding cosmos and the highlighted presence of expansive Jupiter located in your opposite sign, symbolizing partnership with others. It is true that we need to go it alone, as your sign is fond of recalling when in stress, and yet it is equally true that we need each other to provide a different perspective and to help us through the difficult patches. This provides food for thought as you enter into yet another year of transformative power and radical personal evolution.

Aquarius   (Jan 20 - Feb 18)  Air.  Ruling planets Uranus, Saturn.   Top

This is a time of terrific outer world presence and performance, Aquarius, with yet a distinct pull to the inside. In the midst of a fundamentally future-oriented month, with a powerful focus on being visible out in the world, you have the overtones of deep internal process to consider, as you make your way forward. Your plans are brilliant and will serve to align you with important direction long-term. There could also be old patterns of behavior that you have grown increasingly conscious of over these past few months and that could in some way be coming to a head. If so, simply witnessing and quietly observing your reactions takes you a very long way. Since your life consists of both sides now, it benefits you when each is equally honored.

As an overview for the entire month, it is vital to be aware that you are likely going through an important realignment in the course of it. Your ruler, Uranus, is stationing to direct motion mid-December, so that the aspects that it makes to other planetary archetypes become extremely heightened, including those to Pluto and to Chiron, the Wounded Healer. A long-running aspect there brings issues of internal wounding to the fore, perhaps drawing your attention to places inside you that may have been walled-off from the time of early childhood. If so, it is actually of huge value for you to simply acknowledge these hidden places. As they say, the journey of one thousand miles is off a great start with that one first step.

With outer world affairs also pressing, it is interesting to note that your co-ruler, Saturn, is also activated this month in your career sector. The grand trine that Saturn makes with Jupiter and the Moon at the First Quarter Moon is a highlight, but all month long there is extra attention on this position. Saturn at the top of the chart is known to herald a period of relative fame and prominence for worldly concerns. With the Jupiter aspect you are looking forward, and also with the December 2nd New Moon as well, taking place this month in your sector of goals and societal orientation. Careful attention to both inner and outer concerns pays extremely rich dividends as this climactic month unfolds. Although they seem to have little to do with one another, these twin motivations are actually inseparable as each underlies and forms the foundation for the other.

Regarding inner work, not only is Chiron, the Wounded Healer, activated in your sector of values and resources, but Pluto is also closely aspecting Chiron as Pluto's square aspect to Uranus continues as a powerful presence in your solar chart. This represents, as the mythology implies, a journey to the underworld of the unconscious, there to determine more poignantly your true desires and how to actualize them. This Pluto symbolism is particularly appropriate for you amongst all the signs, since he resides in your sector of dream imagination, the doorway to unconscious process.

Uranus, ruler of your sign, resides in a sector of your solar chart involved with learning and communication, areas that are vital for you now. Sharing your thoughts with others can help to make these more concretely available to navigating your own path, while the learning and growth implicit in what you are dealing with, on all these different levels, constitute a most important cargo to carry forward as the year comes into its transition toward 2014. Next spring, the square with Pluto continues to accelerate, reaching for a new crescendo on April 21st, and you find yourself in a continuation of radically transforming not only your attitude toward your inner world, but also your very sense of identity in this one. This is obviously an extremely powerful time for you, when it helps to be paying the most careful attention to each step of your process.

Pisces   (Feb 19 - March 20)  Water. Ruling planets Neptune, Jupiter.   Top

It seems that the universe is really out to amaze and startle you with its wonders, Pisces, and that, as another remarkable month ensues, these include a glimpse of your own interior process, perhaps the greatest wonder of all. You are flying straight, right on target for career goals, yet you also find yourself in fluctuating circumstances requiring cosmic grace to get you through. Your finances could be shifting once more, and your course on your own future evolution has yet to present you with your final certificate even though many hours have been spent on the leaning. Through it all, a fundamental optimism prevails. Another important step forward can at least be taken over this powerful cycle that is currently unfolding, one that involves a detour into your own inner workings.

As an overview for the entire month, it is important that trickster Uranus is stationing to direct motion in mid-December in your sector of values and resources, the area of life in which you feel a sense of stability, or its lack, The fact that Uranus is standing still in the sky for virtually the entire month makes this quirky factor, of lightening-like flashes of realization and unexpected fluctuations, incrementally even more potent in symbolic influence than recently. There are insights to be gained in this area of life, stemming from meditating more fully on the material resources at your disposal, including financial ones. Ideally, the ups and downs of outer circumstances would be less important than spiritual connectivity within you, although of course this ideal is difficult to realize in the actual working out of events. A compromise must be acknowledged. There is a way of holding simultaneously the thoughts that material world is necessary for your self-satisfaction and that it is not.

Pluto is also quite active this month and on into 2014, as it draws nearer to another hit of its perfect square aspect with Uranus. The two in combination represent nothing less than a revolution in the way that you network socially and see your path ahead. This has implications for friendships and for group interaction, and for your essential intention in participating in society around you. It is true that the perceived frame provided by society determines some of the way in which you see yourself as actively engaged in this area of life, although such consensus thought cannot remain viable in the long run as your only motivation. You are becoming increasingly more conscious of other factors that come from your own point of view, and from the deeper intention that you have for yourself going forward.

Recent insights into old patterns of inner wounding are also accelerated in the midst of recognitions inspired by this month's cycles, since Chiron remains highlighted in combination with Uranus. You have been gradually exploring what could be seen as a difficult region to get a grasp on, since the factors that have been subsumed were at one point at least largely unconscious ones. The best way to continue working in this important area is to silently witness your reactions without necessarily changing anything, but while beginning to notice where your defenses habitually come up.

On the plus side of this month's symbolism, there is also a focus on heightened self-expression that is implicit in these planetary archetypes in combination, since Jupiter is highlighted and grounded by the forming trine aspect that he makes with Saturn during the early going. You are in a position to paradoxically gain greater freedom of expression by accepting and acknowledging your limitations. Resistance leads to reactivity, while acceptance leads to a feeling of satisfaction that blossoms outwardly, generating an overall feeling of expansiveness.

The way that you handle the realms of social function also becomes the subject of even greater introspection on your part when Venus retrogrades during final third of December, beginning with the Winter Solstice on December 21st, in this same sector of you solar chart. With the Sun entering into Capricorn this same day, this event also brings greater conscious focus on this important area, consisting in the way that you interact socially to create an amalgam between what you conceive as possible and your intentions for your own future. Your attitude toward what you value obviously comes into this, as well as recent depth researches into what indeed ultimately makes you tick.