Your December Horoscopes Are Here

These are your horoscopes for December. They prepare you for an abundance of shifts. The ordinary shift, of course, of the Sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn, which promises to be equal parts playful and emotionally disorienting. But also, Mercury retrogrades in Sagittarius this month, so we're all quite likely to say a lot of things we don't mean and have arguments about things we personally have no investment in (and that's in addition to all the arguments we do have investments in, I might add). And then, Venus moves into Sagittarius, providing lots of flirtatious energy that refuses to cling to any one location long enough for you to actually know where it's coming from and why.

Also, Saturn finally moves out of Sagittarius and into Capricorn, which is a relief to all good centaurs out there, as well as to every one of us witches born in this year of the fire rabbit, who are completing their Saturn Returns, as the universe has willed it by sheer force of orbit. Finally, Chiron is going direct, which Pisces straight-up needs just to make it to the end of this year, and Neptune aspects Jupiter just enough to bless every woman who has the courage to stand before a world eager to discredit her. Now is the time when women can best speak back to the faces of their abusers or assailants, and cry, “I've come for the sole purpose of taking you down."

ARIES

Poor little ram, all you do is work. It piles up all around you like bundles of hay, stack by stack. Golden, itchy, and ceaseless. Poor little ram, you love work even when it exhausts you, you love putting all that fire and drive behind a machine and toward an end goal. You can lose yourself in your work, you can forget about all the ways that you have disappointed yourself, and about the human bits that hold you back. The problem—oh, you know the problem—is that human bits don’t forget about you. They haunt you, they trouble your health, they erode the connections that you so desperately want to protect. Your human bits will do anything for attention, especially when they feel ignored. And, while you’re out there toiling at the job you vied hard for, with a veracity you’ve cultivated through years of self-discipline, your heart grows more and more tired, and your spirit thirsts for fuel.

You just want to make your magic and give your love freely, don’t you? You just want to step out from behind the big machine when the work day is done and be a human. To come home and rest and be easy on yourself and be easy on your heart and be sweet to everyone who’s sweet to you. You want to make something that matters and have someone be proud of it, to be wiser than you feel and softer than you’re willing to let on. I want you to know you can do all these things. I want you to know that friendship is powerful, and despite your proclivity to make each partner you’ve had your best friend, there’s something special in trusting in love not tied to erotic devotion. Love that is instead cultivated over decades on the premise of simply witnessing each other build your own lives, which are simultaneously separate, yet of one strand. 

Reach out to your friends, ask for guidance, fall in love with a mountain again. And, Aries, don’t worry about whatever face you’ve lost. There is no one who has ever loved you that will unlove you. Tend to your human bits, my ram, allow your disappointments to teach you something. 

TAURUS

There’s nothing like winter, like the daily hustle to afford life, like exhaustion and solitude and self-doubt, like feeling your smallness in this vast universe, to make you feel less powerful than you are, less perceptive of your purpose. But, Taurus, hear this and hear this well, everything you are doing is exactly what you should be doing. Every door you have closed in the name of dignity has opened a window that faces your most honorable landscape. Every brick you have laid in hopes of building the house where love lives is a sacred brick, and the house sings with each one. And, the one who loves you hears that singing from a long way off and is walking toward you with apples in their hands.

The full moon at the beginning of this month, a super moon, will affect your stars immensely and give insight into all the work you been doing. And, work is an operative word here, because I know you’ve showed up in more ways than one. You have put in long hours at the desk of capital, you have been the over-extended bridge for all who have come to you with the shoulders turned inward, you have come home bone-tired, and still, you have given care to all bodies in your orbit. What has felt like a drive born out of necessity has really been a call echoing out the well of your soul. You have put your body back into your own hands, and you have carried it a long way toward beauty. You have mapped the work of love, in books, in nature, in the sky, over your own gentle frame, and now you are a work of love. 

It’s no secret. The trees and the mountains and the streetlights and the apples, they offer themselves to you. Trust what you’ve cultivated, trust that you will always find your way back to the house you’ve built, because your heart will hear its own call. Trust that when the knock comes, and it comes, the one who stands at your doorway will be the one you searched for all along. 

GEMINI

This month the full moon is a super moon in Gemini, and that means the whole moon belongs to you. That’s how I feel about it, anyway, and I hope you feel the same way, too. The full moon is the completion of a cycle that began last month with a new moon in Scorpio. A Scorpio new moon roots the ground for unsaid truths, it asks us what we’re willing to release so that we may begin again with renewed power. Now that the full moon comes, good things arrive for those who took up Scorpio’s challenge. Certainly, you were one of those, Gemini, since you are always up for a challenge and you often aim to win even if the winning is a private thing. While there are certain parts of yourself you will not share with everyone, you tend to them in your own diligent way and you make of them treasures deep inside you. This past month was a month of restraint, a month of listening to your instinct and watching where your energy wanted to go before you lead it there by the reins. You have spent time studying yourself, your habits, the ditches you dig for yourself to fall into, the many ways in which you extend love and care to others.

What have you learned that you did not know? And what are you willing to do with the information you’ve got? It might have come to you that there are people in your life who take your sweetness for granted and it might have come to you there are amends that even you must make. The mistakes you’ve made along the way have made you who you are now, and you are under no obligation to keep making those same mistakes. That includes putting your trust in the wrong people, that includes building your life on some else’s fault lines, that includes being deceitful out of fear of being misunderstood. This month, while the full moon charms you, Gemini, practice surrender. Practice speaking your whole true when you are called to answer for yourself. Practice asking forgiveness and granting it in turn. The full moon wants to hear who you are, so you’ve got to speak up and speak clearly.  When you feel unseen, describe yourself to the ones you have learned to love. When you feel unknowable, write down everything you know about yourself and read it like a bedtime story, to the moon and to your heart.

CANCER

Another month, another full moon, amiright, Cancer? It’s hard to feel everything all the time, it’s even harder when people expect you to be sensitive, but half the feelings you’ve got whirring around your chest like errant birds are feelings that have everything to do with you. There’s little one can do with such a discrepancy, people expect you to nurture them, and when you show up as your take-no-shit-give-not-an-ounce self, people feel betrayed. They were expecting something else from you, they were hoping that you would come as advertised. But, you’re not here to meet the expectations of others, nor is it your job to nurture anyone who is old enough to nurture their own damn self. You don’t want the job if the job takes your sweetness for granted, you’re not willing to punch in if what you work so hard to maintain refuses to work as hard for you.

Ah, it’s beginning to sound a little tight, isn’t it Cancer? That Gemini super moon steeped with the influence of Mercury in retrograde will have you measuring your generosity out spoonful by spoonful, it’ll flare your temper, and make you break promises you resented making in the first place. Doesn’t sound good when it’s all on the table like that, does it? It’s not the person you want to be in this world, I know. To be spoken to in a love language we understand, we’ve got to learn the love languages of others. To build good boundaries, we’ve got to understand what boundaries we are prone to crossing with others. Take responsibility for the dynamics that flourish in your life, the difficult and the joyous. These are both your making. To be appreciated for the work that we do, we’ve got to be intentional with the work we do. Give it a name and offer it with pride. If there is work that you have been doing, in the world or in your private life, that keeps you small, how small are you willing to become?

LEO

The Sun is in Sagittarius this month—Venus, too—and the vitality of all that fire will have you feeling like a flaming arrow bent back and ready to fly gracefully toward your mark. But, when the sun squares Neptune, you might find your mark getting a little blurry, you might start questioning the truth of your aim. It’s good to interrogate your own intentions, it’s good to know what you mean to do with what you hunt before you go after it. If you find yourself in a place of disillusionment, if you are cultivating ambition toward something bigger than what you’ve had, make sure that you don’t mistake spiritual hunger for a faltering ego. There is no person out there and no job and no city and no new lover that will teach you who you are meant to be. You’ve been avoiding your role, which is the reason you’re here, and you will either keep avoiding it your whole life and yearning for it in turn, or you will learn to walk humbly toward it with a sense of renewed courage.

If courage is your choice, then welcome courage. Take stock of what you grasp tightly to out of fear: Have you convinced yourself that your wounds are who you are? Have you let your wounds write the story of your life? Reclaim your story, Leo, and release anybody who would have you do otherwise. If there are people in your life who don’t believe in the future you envision, understand that they will hold you back from achieving it with their own doubt. Understand that their doubt has nothing to do with you. If you lack confidence, go to the places within you where confidence is born and labor there. If you find yourself losing resources—money—for the plans you hold sacred, examine your net for leaks and mend accordingly. Money and other sustaining resources allow us to move through the world making the shape of freedom and while you might owe your beloveds certain forms of care, you don’t owe anyone your life. 

Welcome courage, Leo, and face yourself. Cut off what is dead so that new growth comes.

VIRGO

We all learn that change is inevitable, and most of us move through life trying hard to remember that it’s not personal when change becomes evident in our own lives. Since change is happening always and on every level, it can be hard to notice the big wave gaining its arc. In fact, it can feel as if you’ve been blindsided, as if this whole time you thought you were living one life, you were living another one entirely. That feeling is only a feeling, of course, the reality being that your life was leading to this very spot you’re in now, and a part of you knew it was coming. Knowing we are about to go through something difficult does not make us any more comfortable, but it does give us a chance to engage with difficulty on our own terms.

What to do with the discomfort? Where do you place the parts of your old life that no longer fit this new version? You’ve surely heard about the incredible Marie Kondo and her advice about only holding onto the material things that bring you joy, how she asks you to hold each item quietly in front of you and ask if it sparks joy in you? Okay, then imagine your life as a collection of things, places, and relationships that are not permanent. Everything within your power is within your power to change (which is to say, everything that stems from you). Does the place you live in make you feel excited about coming home? Does your spirit grow there or does it diminish? Do your relationships fortify you? Do you feel seen? Do you carry bitterness you no longer wish to carry? Perhaps you have begun to believe that you are unworthy of the big life-changing things you want, but that is only a belief, and beliefs change just like people do, just like you have.

Strip away the layers, the linoleum made of distractions, and look again at the places where you ache, where the foundation cracks. You can rebuild at the source if you want. You can even walk right off and build a new foundation entirely.

LIBRA

Once, I stood in a field of witches. When we faced each other, we faced each other across centuries. When we chose each other, it was without armor. “I am your sister,” we chanted, “take my hand, together we form a strong circle.” Tonight, I am thinking of the circles we make in perfect trust and the circles that seem to shatter over time, through space and in our hearts. I’m thinking about the ways we give measurements to things that are immeasurable in the name of understanding. We imagine that if we could know how something failed, we might be wiser for it, we might never fail again. We are also aware that we know nothing, that time erases what little we think we know, and that failing is a part of loving. But, it’s comforting, maintaining our sense of control, and so we do much in service to delusion.

This time of year, delusions start to stretch real thin, and even you get tired of your own bullshit, Libra. What I mean is you, who have sat in the field alone listening for the marked breath of your extraordinary heart, are tired of bringing people close just to push them away. You want to make connections that are real. You want to trust in the circles your draw around you, and you’re tired of the ways you undervalue your own work and care.

You want a world where something else besides all this hustle matters, but you’re stuck in this one, and it’s not adding up quite the way it should. It’s on you to remember that there is no “should,” and while you devote your time to showing up for your survival, there will be people who will forget what it means to show up for you. Or, perhaps they haven’t forgotten, perhaps they are protecting something else—something you can’t see—and that is their secret ritual. Accept that there are secrets within everyone we love which are not meant for us. Accept that sometimes that means listening to people who need to leave, letting go, and loving them anyway. 

In the field where witches gather, you take my hand and we form a strong circle. But, Libra, hold onto this: When you release my hand and you stand alone, you form a compass. Every arc you make is a circle on its own. Invite joy into that circle, invite light, invite sweetness, give them to yourself so that you’re used to them. So that you can trust them when they’re gifts from others.

SCORPIO

Remember when it was easier to trust your heart? Remember when it felt like there was less to lose? The expanse of emotional field, the reckless gallop toward something that was bound to disappear before you were even sure you saw it. If you’re stuck, if you’re wallowing, if you’re looking out of your window on a shady day, imagining that you could never love like that again, you’re probably right. The truth is, you have no more to lose now then you did then. The worlds we build around us are always tenuous, our partnerships, our commitments, they use nice words, but they prove no guarantee. In fact, it is this very understanding of how things work and unwork themselves that makes our heart learn new definitions for love each time. Now we approach our lives with one word and thousands of definitions. We write the book by living it, we don’t see what we’ve written until after.

And, this is also the way it must be with our purpose, with doing what we love, with showing up for ourselves and the lives that we want to live. Every morning, whether we know it or not, we choose to rise and meet the day and, so, we are responsible for our own condition so far as we acknowledge it and live with it. Illness, heartbreak, poverty, disaster, they make different things of different people. What has your condition made of you and what part of it is you and what part of you is bigger and how do you push back against yourself? With practice. With fierce belief. With a vow that you’ve got to make to yourself every day when you wake and every night when you rest: That you have powers beyond your own comprehension, that you’ve got sacred work to do and that work will shelter you, that you will not lay down when it’s your time to rise.

Remember that your self-doubt is product of trauma. Remember that the natural world is always waiting for you to visit. Remember that pain is a teacher, but you don’t need to summon pain to learn when love will teach you just as well.

SAGITTARIUS

What is it about your birthday that makes you so sad, Sagittarius? You think too much, you attribute ache to senseless things: an empty chair, a tasteless cake, the phone where all mothers live. Sagittarius, don’t you know the world wants to make it better for you? Sunlight and all the angles it makes across your face, the soft glow of Venus sweetening each connection you hold dear like a dusting of sugar, the new moon, too, with her optimism, opens dreamily in the winter night. Can’t you feel it? Something good is coming, something delicious, like an idea that stays with you growing wings in your mind until it overcomes your whole self and you’re buzzing with it.

Ah! This is the month when you are the archer, the goddess of the hunt, and all wolves lay at your feet. This is the month when everything inside you echoes. What will you do with that one and precious life?

So, what will you do Sagittarius? Will you cry on your birthday, mourning the young colt you were when everything felt possible? No. You are in it this time, my love, you are in the world where everything is possible right now. Look around: destruction, chaos, unbelievable news cycles. Whatever unimaginable lengths we’ve gone in the distance toward cruelty, we are capable of far greater lengths in the distance toward beauty. And you, dear centaur, are capable of the greatest lengths of all—what with your body half-horse and your heart half-horse, too. Keep in mind that Mercury will be retrograding in Sagittarius, so everything you plan now must be done with clarity. Just because Saturn is finally leaving your house doesn’t mean it’s the best time to make any new deals or break any contracts. Just focus on the fact that this month wants to bless you over and over. Ask yourself for what you want. Do whatever it takes, so that one day, you can gallop as far toward grace as you can get.

CAPRICORN

Preparing for the worst isn’t the same as living through it, you know this. Still, there have been days when you’ve sunk, shoulders sloped before the immensity of your challenges. It's not because you felt slighted by God (or whatever’s out there) dealing out adversity, but because you were disappointed in the caliber of your fight. Your own harshest critic, you’ve always beaten everyone else to the punch. And hasn’t that been a kind of armor? A kind of fortress? Who can bring you down when you’re already on the ground with a knife in your hand talking about mercy?

Listen, mercy is a funny thing. Mercy is akin to forgiveness, and the truth is that forgiveness ain't worth much when you’re not willing to forgive yourself. You are a strange animal, you want everything from the ones you love, and yet, asking for anything fills you with dread. You want to need no one, but then, who is all this hard work for if not the family you hope to summon around you? 

Writing this, I imagine a part of you bristles. I know you want to defend the soft parts of yourself, by putting them in the foreground and asking that they be acknowledged, that they be loved. I have seen the soft parts of you, Capricorn, and they are worthy of incredible tenderness. You don’t need to obscure the hardness of your horns and hooves, you are lovable when you’re difficult, and especially when you’re direct. With Venus, Eros and Sappho (asteroids), and the Sun making way through your house, there’s no way you’re not slated to receive exactly the kind of relief and care you’ve been praying for. Just remember that when Saturn finally moves back home into your house, you won’t get what you want exactly the way you’ve envisioned it, but it’s gonna be your birthday and—by goddess—you will get what you need no matter what.

AQUARIUS

You know how to prepare for winter, gather round your precious things, and make the most of ordinary days. You know, deep down, that while this world wants abundance for you, abundance is not without its limits. Learn from your past mistakes and regard the red flags that come up with respect rather than doubt or avoidance. Love is not blind. Love is learning how to see, and seeing is not easy. Seeing is a study, and seeing takes presence. If you’re watching the light fade in the creek, you’ve got to listen deeply for the croak of frogs and the rustle of brush. You’ve got to teach yourself to see animal life that makes a veil of the natural world. How else will you know for certain the color of a frog? The texture of an otter’s coat? The primordial reverence a snake strikes in your heart?

Seeing life as it’s happening around you, bearing witness, is a work of love. So, if you’re going all in on a project or a personal commitment, make sure you’re moving toward the thing itself and not the idea of the thing. Sit down with yourself and listen deeply. This new path asks you to offer yourself, but is the self you offer your full self? Are you capable of being the self this path requires for the foreseeable future? Choose the path that allows you to not only sustain yourself but to thrive. On the other hand, if you’re letting something go, if you’re mourning, now is the time to catalogue the different kinds of pain you are capable of, and make of them teachers. Mars in Scorpio might tempt the ruiner in you, might have you scribbling the secrets you’ve protected on a scroll for all to see. Write it out, but keep the scroll to yourself, Aquarius. Harm done harms all, and you’ll be no exception. Focus the strength of your wind on your friendships when love ships won’t sail. Practice seeing the generosity and love of your friends through the veil of the chaotic world, practice recognizing those moments when they refuse to let you feel alone.

PISCES

With Neptune going direct in our night sky, you should feel a kind of relief. It’s been a tough year for you, Pisces, a year of reckoning, a year that has asked you to look directly into the eyes of what sabotages you and recognize what feels familiar, what is your own. With recognition comes acceptance, and with acceptance the will to change. Yes, you’re changing, Pisces, though it might be hard for other people to see. Especially if you’re unwilling to let those you care about in on your process lest they get in the way of it. You’re good at veiling your vulnerabilities, good at plastering your façade with emotions and stories that are easier for you to reveal and harder for others to question. You know how to make of your grief a palatable exchange so that others are drawn close enough to love you, but never close enough to drive the second arrow into the original wound. And, you want to believe that it makes you stronger, and you might think that it keeps you safe, but you are wrong. Muscle builds where it tears, ligaments grow sinewy as they are used, the spirit strengthens as the body does, with challenge and with discipline. Where you are weakened is where you break, and if you break in secret places, then the angels of healing have a hard time finding you.

The answer, I’m sure you know, is asking for more than you’re able to offer. It’s not about looking for a savior, because you don’t have to look very far to find yourself. Vulnerability is not the same as codependence. Vulnerability is claiming the places where we ache to grow and asking guidance. With Chiron finally going direct again, the wounded healer in you will be asked to turn back to her old work. What wood is left to for the ax to split? This distance can feel like a long way off, and no one has taught you how to separate the good wood from the bad, so you’ve got to teach yourself and recognize the blessing in being one’s own teacher.

Pisces, this time you’ve got learn to build a small fire and make it last a long time if you intend to stay warm through the winter. You’ve got to learn what it takes to tend to yourself, not in dreams, not in ambitions, but in acts of devotion to the waking heartbreak of the ordinary world.