Welcome to December star seeds.
We are under the full sails and buoyant influence of Sagittarius this month, with the sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars all spending part of December in the sign of shooting your shot and shooting off at the mouth.
While Mercury, that lewd minx, is stationed direct on November 29, we are still under the shade of its shadow period through December 16.
The month begins with a full moon in Gemini on December 4. This lunation is a cut to the quick for clarity and will do its work to leaf-blow some of the bull–t accumulated during this latest retrograde cycle.
If you’ve been avoiding a tender or challenging conversation, this is the day to let the truth tumble off your tongue and the pitch of acceptance lick your ears.
The fog of discontent blessedly begins to lift on December 10th when Neptune, our planet of dreams and possibilities, stations direct after a five-month retrograde.
Neptune retrograde is something of a harsh but necessary wakeup that smashes our rose colored glasses into the unforgiving concrete so that we might see clearly, albeit painfully.
When Neptune goes direct, clarity meets intuition, and our decision-making is bolstered by their braiding.
On December 15, warlord Mars marches into Capricorn, the sign of its exaltation. When the planet of action moves into the sign where it is best suited to express itself, our ambitions are anointed and our get-up-and-go gets a cocaine kick start.
Mars will remain in Capricorn through January 23, 2026.
On December 19, we welcome the new moon in Sagittarius, the last and most optimistic new moon of the year. Now is an opportune hour to take a trip, literal, metaphorical, or chemical, and have an open, honest dialogue with someone with whom you frequently experience discord. This new moon tells us that better days are not only possible but probable.
Sagittarius is the sign of abundance and adventure, of hopeful action and resilience as resistance, and this lunation asks us to take stock of inner riches and set a bold course for the year to come.
The winter solstice and the longest night of the year arrive on December 21, and with it comes the call to celebrate what grows, glows, and slows in the dark as we begin our march towards the burgeoning light of spring.
That same day, the sun enters Capricorn. The transition from Sagittarius to Capricorn feels a little like the brilliant, albeit burned-out, high on hope hippie passing the baton (or pipe) to the power broker.
In reality, these two archetypes are not so much separate entities but a continuation of the same sage. Sag seeks and Capricorn stabilizes, integrating experience and structure.
Here’s to a wind-down that feels easy and a new year that’s better than where we’ve been. Onward, ever forward.
Read on to see how the stars will have their way with you
ARIES (March 21 – April 19)
Ahoy, Aries!
The sun in Sagittarius lights the lamps in your ninth house of expansion, education, spirituality and soujurns.
In her collection “Ninety-Nine Stories of God,” Joy Williams writes of a woman on the lip of death who sits up and clearly asks, “Where is the refuge for my bewildered heart?”
Your homework for December is to ask yourself that same question, and to seek the strangest shores and most curious company for the answer.
TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)
Hello, Taurus!
The cluster of Sagittarius energy this month puts your eighth house of sex, death and other people’s resources into focus.
The eighth house is more a walk through the valley of the shadow of death than a picnic in the park, but it is no less nourishing.
In a recent class, instructor Karla Misjan shared the following bit of tough truth: “You can make yourself miserable or you can make yourself strong — the effort is often the same.”
No one understands ROI or the force of making more than you, Taurus. Call it in and let it out.
GEMINI (May 21 – June 20)
In their book “Undoing Gender,” Judith Butler writes,
“One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to…but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel.”
As the sun in Sagittarius highlights your seventh house of trusted partnerships, Gemini, I implore you to accept the invitation to be undone by another.
However you stitch yourself back together, you will be richer for having been ravaged.
CANCER (June 21 – July 22)
Hello, Cancer!
The concentration of Sagittarius energy this month highlights your sixth house of the body, rituals, habits, and daily life.
In a letter to Gertrude Tennant written 149 years ago this month, Gustave Flaubertgave her his daily bread for living and feeding a creative life:
“Be regular and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
I hope you will heed this wisdom and take great and tedious care of yourself so you are fully prepared to rage and riot in your chosen pursuit. Let fiber fuel your fury and your flossed teeth whistle loose your unassailable truths.
LEO (July 23 – August 22)
Hello, Leo!
The sun in a fellow fire sign lights a match in your fifth house of pleasure, play, risk and romance.
A teacher and dear friend of mine recently sent me a picture of her holding what appeared to be a chunk of concrete. She said that at recess, a kindergartener presented it, telling her the gift was “a piece of the moon.”
I offer this story to you in the hopes that you will both see the world and deliver it to others with the same wondrous slant.
VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)
Hello, Virgo!
The sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars in Sagittarius this month pull on the tender apron strings of your fourth house of home, ancestors, and origin stories.
I read recently that the advice we give is the sound of us talking to our younger selves.
I hope here and now, in the last month of the year, you crouch down low, and speak soft and sweet to who you were. Give thanks for the simple, miraculous fact that you have survived yourself and are alive to whisper this wisdom.
LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)
Hello, Libra! This month throws its weight behind your third house of communication, language, and exchange.
In the spirit of those subjects, I want to talk to you about the etymology of the word “obedience.” Though its meaning has been bastardized, obedience comes from the Latin word ‘oboedire,’ which means to listen, to hear.”
I trust that this month and the holiday crush of familial confrontation will offer myriad opportunities for you not to submit to anyone but to obey the divine, human imperative to listen, to hear, to witness.
SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)
Hello, Scorpio!
The sun in Sagittarius activates your second house of wealth and worth, value and valuables.
As a fixed sign, you are built to hold tight to whatever you believe is or should be yours, yet in truth, nothing and no one belongs to anyone.
In his novel “Farewell Summer,” Ray Bradbury writes, “Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled.”
I hope this month sees you loosen your grip from deadlock to feather light. Remember, Scorpio: a closed fist accepts nothing more.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)
Happy return of the sun to you, Sagittarius!
As the sun, Mercury, and Venus all move through your sign this month, you are filling out every inch of a new form with a new alphabet in which to love yourself.
As you stretch your strength, I bring you the gift of these words from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.”
So, too, without equal or comparison, are you.
CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)
Ahoy, Capricorn, the sun in Sagittarius throws a light on your shadowy twelfth house of endings, enemies, and the unconscious mind.
I recently read a eulogy for the poet Andrea Gibson. In it, their wife Megan Falley shared that, during their battle with ovarian cancer, Andrea would say a Hawaiian prayer, repeating the lines “Thank you, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me” as an exercise in returning to the present moment.
As you ready yourself for the rebirth of your solar return, I offer you the prescription of that very prayer.
Say it out loud, say it to yourself, say it until it feels like the only true thing.
AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)
In the dedication of her novel “Lush,” Rochelle Dowden-Lord offers thanks “to the people who love and forgive me.”
As Sagittarius season highlights your eleventh house of community and wishes, Aquarius, I suggest you make a list of everyone who has granted you those twin graces and thank them.
Thank them in thought, in word, or in the forward, beautiful momentum of forgiving someone else.
PISCES (February 19 – March 20)
Hello, Pisces!
The sun, Mercury, and Venus in Sagittarius throw open the doors of your tenth house of legacy, soul calling, and elders.
I recently read an essay by the writer Will Self that explores his relationship with fellow writer J.G. Ballard. In it, Self writes of Ballard’s death, his inheritance of his typewriter, and his fear that he would become so influenced by the words, sensibilities, and legacy of his dead friend that he would cease to be himself.
Eventually, he comes to realize that “Jim would have wished me to articulate my own weird music, not play second fiddle to his.”
I hope this sentiment is solvent for you, Pisces, and that you can love a song so well that you bend its sound to yourself.
Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture, and personal experience. To book a reading, visit her website.
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