Your December Horoscopes Are Here

Dear Reader,

I hope these horoscopes find you well-rested. I hope they suffuse you with faith in yourself and your ability to get to the end of 2019 with energy to spare. There's a reason that December begins in the fiery ambitious sign of Sagittarius and ends in the ardent, tenacious, sign of Capricorn. Winter solstice, the longest night, will mark the shift from seeking new ways of being to creating structures in our lives that make those ways of being possible. The bridge between these two signs, two states, is a very long darkness. Darkness is where all life comes from. Darkness is the tunnel through which spirit takes human form. Four days after the winter solstice this year, while Venus settles into the sign universal love and radical rebellion, and Mars burns in the sign of spiritual surrender and transformation, we will be invited into a still deeper darkness: a solar eclipse in Capricorn.

Let the nights between the solstice and the solar eclipse be nights of awe. Welcome the darkness that pervades as a sacred stranger who, entering your home, shares with you the story that has been coming to you all your life. The information that comes to you during the nights of awe will prepare you for what arrives on the solstice. This tunnel of darkness makes way for a great spirit, a new life that will be your charge to love and protect and rebuild for. As precious and powerful as the light of day, returning.

Aries

Despite everyone's interest in breaking the binary, lots of binary thinking has entered our common lexicon in the past few years. Gender is a part of it, sure, and it's jarring how even the most nuanced thinker can recline so easily into old notions of what femininity and masculinity is and who it belongs to. But there's a wider pattern of oppositions. Take the opposition of the empath and the narcissist for instance, how quickly those of us who have been hurt take up the mantle of the empath and place those we have worshipped into the narcissist category. I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that everyone believes they are the empath. Everyone is sensitive. Everyone feels like they have spent some time prioritizing the other. The abused and the abuser is another, and I should state firmly that if you are someone who survived an abusive relationship, your experiences are valid and the healing you seek is valid. To trouble the defining line between what we consider opposites is a meditation on witnessing all aspects of ourselves, it is not an invitation toward erasure.

That said, one line that might be getting troubled for you, dear Aries, is the line between the one who is wounded and the one who wounds. Or, the one who is wounded and the one who heals wounds. Teachers and healers come in many forms, after all, and sometimes our teachers are the ones who bring pain into our lives and show us the many ways we write the invitation.

This month, Chiron the wounded healer begins direct motion in your sign. His presence in your house has been rising to your attention over the past year, and his tenure under your stars is not short-lived. Chiron's direct motion is an opening in your consciousness, and the influence of this asteroid, paired with the full moon in Gemini this month, might find you longing for like-mindedness. A desire to feel understood. This desire is born of a shift in the way you relate to what has made you who you are. Oppositions: seeing oneself too much and then not enough, codependency and isolation, over-working and then crashing — these are extreme conditions that keep you apart from yourself. Inside of extremes, we test the limits of what surrounds us and never learn the complex parts of us that exist — even thrive — in a state of balance. The farther you get from intense oppositions in yourself, the closer you get to knowing what makes you feel centered, grounded, and free. The more you will feel the healer inside yourself and carry that healer confidently into the world where she is meant to make a difference.

Taurus

Venus is in Capricorn right now, so there's a yearning to figure out how to build a foundation under what you value. Especially since Cap is in your ninth house, and Jupiter and Pluto are in Cap, this is about getting your ethos to match your endeavors. When one feels powerless, one stagnates. When Venus moves into Aqua December 20, you'll feel a little bit more free to experiment with your resources. Especially since Aqua hits the 10th house for you. You need to feel that what you value is in line with your unique vision of the world.

To know what one needs, sometimes one must live for a long time with very little. To know the value of a resource, live in poverty of the resource. To know estrangement is to yearn for the familiar. To know abandonment is to relish companionship. To know hunger is to be hungry all your life. Knowing, dear Taurus, can lead you to a great deal of doors, but it won't tell you what's behind them. If you have found yourself standing before opportunity after opportunity, afraid to turn the handle and make a choice, consider what parts of you govern your will.

If you are governed by a memory of scarcity, you cannot serve your present self. If you wish to move forward with integrity — that is, the state of being whole and undivided — you will have to incorporate what you know of the bridge between lack and abundance within you.

A skeleton of trust / Right beneath us / Bone by bone / Stone by stone. These are the words to a Björk song I start a lot of my mornings with. It's called "Who Is It?" and in it, she asks the listener, "Who is it? That never lets you down?" I want you to imagine, dear Taurus, that the person who never lets you down is you. Even if there have been times when you felt that you betrayed yourself. Even if you have been the source of your own disappointment. This is an invitation toward a ritual of sacred trust. Trust that even when the path your chose led you astray, it was a choice you made in service to your greater becoming. Trust that all that estrangement you experienced was meant to teach you how to feel at home in yourself, and know, no matter where you are, you're where you're supposed to be.

Gemini

While it may be winter, and while the sun might be shining on Capricorn, the full moon this month in Gemini has your name all over it. Full moon energy is all about reflection and restoration, it's about sitting down by the well of yourself and noticing its state. Is your well full? Is the stone fortified and the rope tethered? The full moon occurs mid-month, but there's no reason to wait. Better to tend to yourself while you have the energy to do so, better to replenish a well before it runs all the way dry. But, what does tending to yourself mean? This month, tending to yourself might mean spending some quality time alone. It might mean journaling for a long time and asking yourself some good questions.

Like: How has your image of yourself changed? How does it feel to communicate this image to others? In what ways do you feel witnessed and beheld? In what ways do you feel invisible? Are there aspects of yourself and your ideas that you have trouble communicating or sharing with the world? What would it take for you to alleviate that trouble?

Basically, take your ego out on a date and spend time getting acquainted. Try your best to create space for new answers to surface. Don't assume you already know before you ask. Attention, done with care, is a kind of love. Offered generously, this self-tenderness can do a great deal to prepare you for the end of this month and the solar eclipse in Capricorn, which promises to bring deeper emotional concerns to the surface and challenge you to begin a new chapter of self-healing work.

Cancer

If someone were to ask you, point-blank, if you feel like you know everything, you would say no. Because you are reasonable and because you have witnessed events you could have never anticipated, you are comfortable admitting that the future is a mystery. It's harder, isn't it, to remind yourself that you don't know everything when disaster brain kicks in. It's hard, amid overwhelm and uncertainty, to remember that there are no guaranteed outcomes. When you are facing a difficult decision, Cancer, when you negotiating what is right, the only thing you can know for sure is what feels right and true for you. And, even that is liable to change.

Good thing you're adept at working with a changing tide. Good thing you've had a lifetime of practice around shedding some old version of yourself and growing into your future forms.

This month, things that have remained unsaid and unacknowledged will feel more palpable than ever — even if you're nowhere near uncovering them. The solar eclipse in Capricorn at the end of the month aims to shed some light into your darkness, but only if you're willing to accept the terms. The gap between your public and private self is closing and what cannot cleave will create dissonance. A desire to attach old meanings and reactions to new emotions could lead you astray, especially regarding your partnerships, romantic and creative. Instead, work on prioritizing your budding connection with your inner voice. Note the moments when that voice feels harder to hear and when it rings clear as a bell. The heavy unknown is easier to hold when you recognize that the limits of your power are also unknown.

Leo

For a while now, you've been longing to shift how you relate to the wider world. In incremental doses, you have sought out new philosophies, new companions, and new practices. If you were shy about these explorations, you might have sought to enter aspirational worlds through the invitation and company of others. For many people, but especially certain leonine personalities, being social and spreading yourself thin can have the semblance of personal expansion. And, in some ways, there's truth to that. After all, going out means putting yourself in the way of fate, and fate has a way of reminding you that life is much wider, much wilder, than what you know of it. And, going out of your way to connect with new people can help you learn to identify shared patterns of behavior and their emotional implications.

Still, every Leo knows that no matter how many interpersonal webs get caught in their mane, one's healing, and consequently one's growth, is situated inside the private self.

This month offers you the opportunity to recognize that the various qualities you are drawn to in others around you already exist within you. Or, alternately, to recognize the fact that you are the one that you have been waiting for. If you are disappointed in the weakness of other people's arguments. If you are tired of the way your loved ones practice self-betrayal. If you are waiting for something genuine and brave to come, consider what it would take for you to be that something. December will call you back toward your body in more ways than you can imagine. Listen to that call and spend time tending to yourself with a deep focus on your mental and physical well-being. A daily check-in practice on your state of presence vs. dissociation will give you a deeper sense of your capacity and capability. The closer you get to being inside yourself, the clearer you'll feel about what your role is in the world you seek.

Virgo

It takes a lot of work to keep up an image, especially a public image. In this age of social media and the clout it bargains with, there can exist a certain level of expectation around our ability to represent ourselves. For those of us whose work and livelihood depend on a certain level of media presence, this expectation can prove daunting. People are always evolving, always changing, and you, Virgo, know more than most about the drawbacks of being filed into the wrong box. Still, human minds relish classification. Neuro-typical brains seek to arrange things by familiar shape and size, and you have done your best to be true to yourself even when you felt you did not fit the space you were allotted.

Fall is a hustle, especially for a worker bee like yourself, and you probably haven't had enough downtime to truly decompress. Given how hard you've been grinding, trying to make an octagon a square, there's no time like the present to lay the building blocks down and survey the structures you've been working inside.

What all have you contributed to the situation? What has all this work done for you?

This month offers you the space and breath to assess all the labor you've put into your projects, whether they be creative endeavors or new friendships. This is a great time to balance the checkbook of energy. What has been communicated to you, and what has transpired? What was intended, and what was the result of your actions? How can you prioritize and create structures that put your pleasure first? Where can you unplug so that you do not leak electricity? Meditate on that this month, so that by the solar eclipse, you get to relish the fruits of your labor.

Libra

It's not unusual to feel that your childhood is the foundation of who you are. How we see the world is shaped by our time in it, and the beginning of that time has a great deal of power over our perceptions But, the mind is a malleable thing and, as we create our place in the world, we are given infinite chances to change our minds and how they govern us. Our childhoods might have been the foundation on which our stories began, but we are the ones in charge of the way they end. We can't control what we inherit, the traumas that get handed down through DNA and tradition, the financial security we do or do not have, the genes that mark us as among the privileged or among the underdogs. We can only control how we regard that inheritance.

Since much of our experience in this world occurs in our minds and the stories we tell ourselves, we can decide which stories are ours to carry forward and preserve and which are ours to change.

You, dear Libra, have spent a long time collecting stories of your past so that you might make sense of them or create a kind of order. Some stories were shared with you, but they don't belong to you and didn't. These stories have informed your ability to relate to others whose experiences appeared unlike yours, and these stories have kept you bound to people you might have otherwise walked away from long ago. What you carried taught you a great deal, and you are ready to revise; to figure out what's yours to carry. It's important to recognize that some drafts are only practice, and this month prepares you to identify old drafts you're ready to part with. Until you let go of the endings you thought were coming, you won't have space to imagine something new.

Scorpio

Perhaps you've spent a good portion of your life claiming that your word is bond. It mattered to you that people kept their word, and it mattered to you that you were perceived as someone who kept their word in turn. These kinds of verbal contracts and commitments were forms of intimacy. They allowed for a kind of emotional safety net when other forms of security seemed out of the picture. This past year has taught you a great deal about what intimacy is and what it is not. And, it'll come as no surprise to you that this month aims to further that theme with a heavy focus on — what else? — your vows.

Most people have no idea the length and width of the vows you make them, but they are extensive, aren't they? You make a vow to your friends when they are in ill health. You make a vow that you will only buy eco-responsible creamer. You make a vow and, by goddess, you hate to break it. Scorpio, your word might be ironclad, but your spirit is water.

Your spirit, despite its tenacity, needs rest, and sometimes rest means taking yourself a little less seriously. Levity is not always readily available to you, dear Scorpio, but it might prove to be the remedy for some of your troubles this December. Sometimes laughing is a hair away from crying, so why not laugh when you feel stuck in the dark? Make a dark comedy out of it and get some popcorn so you can enjoy the whole thing. By the end of the month, the information you've been rooting for will come to you, and you will be relieved with understanding that vows are made to be broken. There are days when you will not be able to stay true to others and stay true to yourself simultaneously. You will have to choose, and I hope you choose yourself.

Sagittarius

It's true that who we are is always changing, even if we stay stuck in the same habits and patterns. It can be a source of reassurance to know that, while our circumstances might appear unchanging on the surfaces, we are incrementally shifting underneath toward a future iteration of ourselves. What's harder and less reassuring, is understanding how those shifts affect our relationships. Logic would follow that since we are always changing, the way we connect and relate to others is changing as well. But, logic doesn't make change easy.

It's not that you find change impossible to bear, Sagittarius, you're mutable after all. It's just that the less information you have, the harder it is for you to know which way to move and the easier it is for you to retract and pull away from others while you figure it out.

This month, let yourself expand into what you don't know rather than contract in it. If you feel yourself on a different wavelength with people you care about, try your best to imagine both those wavelengths as existing in relation to each other. The value and significance of your relation persist despite varying frequency. And, it's okay if being on a different wavelength means you're finding yourself a little more alone these days. You won't feel alone for long. It's possible that the more you accept where you're at, the more you'll attract new company and collaborators who are on a similar path. Or better yet, have something to teach you.

Capricorn

The beginning of December might still be Sagittarius season, but make no mistake, this is the beginning of your year, dear Capricorn. While some of you might be waiting until January for your solar return (birthday), all of you will be feeling Jupiter moving into your sign beginning December 2. Jupiter means to expand your vision for yourself and your work in the world, but this will be a year-long aspect whose influence is only just revving up. That said, don't be surprised if the end of the month finds your spirit buoyed with a new sense of possibility and a wave of ambition; this month's new moon is a solar eclipse, and it's in Capricorn.

A solar eclipse is no joke, and a solar eclipse in Capricorn is hardly interested in playing games. Part of an eclipse cycle that switches off between Cancer and Capricorn, this is the first solar eclipse in Capricorn since January 5 of this year. Venus, too, will be in Capricorn until late December, and while few people know what to do with the planet of love under the star of discipline, you do.

Venus in Capricorn prioritizes ethic over showmanship. She knows that love is sacred, and what is sacred is sacrosanct, precious, and worthy of respect. Respect for what you create, what you value, what you build with others. It would be useful, then, for you to think about the events which transpired in January 2019 and how they have shaped your current reality. Especially as it relates to old family dynamics and their effect on your ability to show up for yourself in your work and partnerships. A solar eclipse doesn't show you something you don't already know deep down. Instead, it asks you to focus your attention on your own light, its trajectory and its destination. Where are you coming from, Capricorn? And where is it that you aim to land?

Aquarius

I know it's hard to admit to yourself, let alone others, but the rubrics by which your common society measures success have a great impact on you. Somewhere, deep within that rebellious human suit of yours, exists a kid that was inundated with the old markers of accomplishment: lasting romantic relationships, jobs with clout, degrees, financial assets, and creative notoriety.

Despite all your best efforts to strive for and imagine a life that troubles and rejects normative measures, you can't escape the many ways that you are marked by the expectations of others.

Perhaps, then, escape is not the goal. Rather, it's your work, sweet star, to practice accepting the parts of you that exhibit insecurity. The parts of you that hunger for reassurance of a life well lived exist to remind you that there are material needs in this material world. Especially when your rebellious spirit is in space cadet mode.

The child within you, that yearns to make a recognizable impact or make an authority figure take notice, is not without wisdom. That child is your charge, and it is your job to give them the necessary things: shelter, security, stability. Even if, ultimately, they look far from the common iterations of those things. In fact, the more you can accept that you are not without normative desires and ambitions, the easier it will be to challenge the many ways you have overlooked your own accomplishments. Take time this month to really practice gratitude for all the ways you've created a beautiful life for yourself — even if it's marked by moments of loss. By December's end, you'll know how to turn that gratitude into a toolbox for dismantling the "master's house."

Pisces

With Neptune finally direct again, your vital energy will feel like it's flowing back through you and out toward the directions you've been hoping to swim in. If you're tuned in, and chances are that an intuitive like you is practically an antennae, you're already making big moves. Well, the phrase "big moves" is relative, and it's just as likely that you're making travel plans as you are returning home. The focus here is not so much on place but on energy, directing it with precision and without hesitation. In fact, wherever your adventures take you, whether it's by plane or by way of your mind, there's a huge focus on your connection to your roots.

Now, for some of us, roots are a murky idea. For a fish, murkiness makes for lots of shadow swimming. Whether the term "roots" is evocative of your childhood, your adolescence, your birth country, your intellectual beginnings, or your past life, it is a term that will surface, over and over again, in the murky waters of this December.

You're no stranger to sorting through the past when it bubbles up, but you might find it hard to direct this energy toward a greater purpose this month. The holidays bring up a lot for people, and you are someone people reach out to when they feel "a lot." Sometimes, it can be difficult to communicate your own needs clearly when you're not sure if the needs of others are more valid or more pressing. I promise you, they are not. Focus on your water, Pisces, make your moves and let the phone ring. When it's time, you'll be able to show up for others with clarity of mind and a greater sense of what you've got to offer.