December Horoscopes

AQUARIUS _ Most astrological predictions for Aquarians were glowing this year, with some of the most monumental energy pouring through your sign since the early 1960s. But the Aquarians I know haven't all had it easy, and I've received comments over the months from people asking why this is. The answer is that real change is rarely easy, and you're really being pushed by some very, very powerful planetary forces. It's time to update, upgrade and reinvent yourself as a being who feels a lot more like energy than like solid matter. You cannot navigate outer space with antique tools. You now need to learn to think in ten dimensions, not just one. And it's crucial that you hold the fields of potential wide open to allow in (or out) any possibility. However this past year felt, whatever seems to have happened, give it time to get results. ARIES _ You may feel as if you haven't come as far as you think you should have in the past 12 months, and I want to remind you of the hazards involved in attempting to judge your own spiritual progress, i.e., being wrong. It is clear to me that you have come much further than you believe, and equally clear that you have more to accomplish in some very specific areas of your life, though some of them can wait. Just what aspects of yourself I am talking about only you know. I will leave you with two queries as we end this moment called 1997: One is, what within yourself do you still have to come to terms with? And the other, what else would you need to do in order to call this phase of your life an authentic beginning? CANCER _ The laboratory of your mind has been a fascinating place this year, filled with some unusual psychic chemistry. The theme has been making practical your most worldly vision, and living with the unusual clash of realities that this has required. You have resolved some of the most important issues on the theoretical level; now comes working on the level of experience. I ask you this: Are you willing to live in such a way that you have no use for the word "tomorrow"? What if you put all your limitations to work for you? And what would happen if the creative children to which you are giving birth turn out to be very different than anything you ever thought you were, or expected to be? CAPRICORN _ If I had to pick one theme for reflection in this end-of-the-year message, it would be your changing relationship to your past. Capricorns are the real time travelers of the horoscope, and have the ability to move in and out of the decades and centuries like they are the streets of a neighborhood. Yet the past and your connection to it are being cleansed out of your life. Family bonds that held you down are disintegrating, and the strong push toward independence you're experiencing is very much a result of this. Good fortune is very much upon you, my dear goat. The more you let go of what was, the more you'll become conscious of what is. GEMINI _ I get the sense that you don't know quite what you believe, but that you may not be aware of this. There are a lot of possibilities in heaven and earth, and lots of them may be very exciting. We live in a time when "anything is possible." Many ideas that the world would like to be true don't even come close to being helpful, and some that seem the most ridiculous or strange or impossible at first become the most obvious as time passes. But what you believe in, you will give power to, whether it serves you or doesn't. For the next segment of your journey, I offer you this tool for distinguishing truth from lies: "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists." LEO _ Whether you are faced with total chaos or perfect growth opportunities is all a matter of perspective, and this largely holds for your relationships. Your options remain the choice between plugging into everyone else's dysfunctional trip, or making some very easy choices that foster the next perfect steps in your own process. But choose you must, remembering your choice is always one between your life working or not, and remembering that there are always going to be at least two other options besides the most obvious one. One last thing _ don't expect your relationships to be stable. Expect them to be innovative and full of surprises. LIBRA _ This has been a year of some serious tests in your personal relationships. Even the best partnerships have gone through some serious trials, and people around you have held the line in some major ways, forcing you to adapt and become very self-reliant. Remember now and for some time to come, the path back to yourself is going to be your creativity. While relationship partners may be taking on parental roles, the mischievous child you really are has always got something cooking, and will stop at nothing. Count on it. My question for you: How do you account for the discrepancy? PISCES _ In the final months of the year, I find myself doing two things in particular: One is going through a lot of changes, and the other is uncovering fraud in my other literary role as an investigative journalist. With all the South Node eclipses going through our sign over the past year, it's no surprise that this is a major time of self- reinvention and releasing the past. As for investigating fraud, let's just say the veils hiding it have become rather like clear shower curtains, revealing the naked truth on the other side. The interesting thing about fraud is that it's usually designed to conceal itself. The other interesting thing is that the first layer you reach moving toward the truth is usually total confusion, which is how you know you're making progress. Then the story comes together, to borrow another image, like the moment you recognize the big picture of the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle you're assembling on the kitchen table. This is your life. TAURUS _ This has certainly been a year with its ups and downs, with its triumphs and setbacks, with opportunities lost and equally surprising gains. As it winds to a close, the affairs of one important part of your life may come to a halt, as you enter a very necessary time of reconsideration of your most important goals in the context of your entire personal history. Less obvious is the role that relationships will be playing in your life over the next year. They are potentially the most powerful, as well as hurtful, aspect of your life. They are not going to be easy, but they will be very meaningful. And as you reconsider your highest aspirations, remember, working with the people closest to you on the deepest aspects of your growth holds the key to your happiness. SAGITTARIUS _ This morning, my friend Annabel (who is a Sagittarius travel agent) started dictating the December horoscope to me. "Saggies are always going somewhere or on the way back from somewhere. They never stand still. And they're the hardest people to find because nobody changes their names more than they do." All very interesting. Something else is happening, however: The very continent upon which your life is situated is in motion. Not fast motion, not particularly noticeable motion, but very definite motion. It's possible to observe using scientific instruments, like astrology. Go back to your birthday in 1995 and carefully plot the course of your life from around that time. Measure the distances and angles very carefully. Small shifts in direction you observe now will account for thousands of miles of distance in 10 years. SCORPIO _ Astrological fact: Scorpio is a fixed sign, and astrologers have noted for centuries the place most Scorps are fixed is within the deep, dark privacy of their own minds and feelings. Two current factors are changing all this: Uranus, the planet of freedom, invention, upheaval and revolution, is squaring your sign, and Chiron, the planet of radical consciousness, is probing your depths with its 10,000 watt lamp and incredible focusing power. You are getting to know you better, and the fact is, so are we. It's not that there's nowhere to hide; rather, there is nothing to hide. From working through Chiron transits with hundreds of people, the best advice I can offer you is that the crisis is always one of consciousness. If you are struggling, are you missing (read: denying) something? The question is, what? This I promise: living with truth is always better than living with anything, or anyone, else. VIRGO _ Chiron is astrology's best kept secret. A secret planet, you ask? That is weird. Discovered twenty years ago, it's not listed in most ephemerides, the books of planetary positions, and even the 21st Century American Ephemeris lists its position just once a month. Chiron, more than anything else, has helped us understand Virgo, which means understand the nature of holistic healing, the nature of the environmental crisis, and the nature of just how it is that our minds work when they are really working. Adding Chiron to astrology is a little like adding the Internet to your desktop computer; more than any other factor, it represents a visitor from the galaxy beyond our local solar system, and explains why many Virgos are such far-out people. Chiron in Scorpio says that your mind is capable of going to some very deep places, experiencing some peculiar powers of concentration and developing some unusual psychic healing gifts. Explore these worlds. They are yours.++