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Horoscopes | Weeks of December 15, 2014-January 4, 2015

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The principled path is slower, steeper, and rockier, Aries. But when you reach the top of that mountain, after faithfully sticking with the climb, you'll own the achievement of that victorious vista… and nobody could ever legitimately claim you didn't earn every step. Though you might, on another hand, have the chance to more forcefully lurch yourself upward in one sensational swoop, I'm worried about what—or who—you'd have to jump over, sneak past, or mow down in order to pull off that leap. Plus, by those accelerated means, you're likelier to accrue unintended baggage: premature progress, a torched or barren playing-field, an undesired reputation as a ruffneck, and/or a few irked or insulted colleagues-turned-adversaries. Though you might argue that none of those annoying side-effects can't eventually be cleaned up and shouldn't, therefore, block you from your ardent advances, I'd rebut with a simple: But why needlessly expend the extra effort? If you didn't have to go back and fix the messes you inadvertently made by sloppily crashing against walls, stomping on toes, and/or offending egos, just think of what else you could do with that energy and time. Yes, please do stop to think about this, with cunning foresight and composed conviction. You're transitioning into a phase where raw passion, brute force, and sharp instincts won't be enough to score the most meaningful life-goals. These traits must be blended with forward-reaching self-restraint, well-planned chess-player-type tactics, and as firm a handle on your personal integrity as you can muster. To be the boss (of a certain endeavor and of your own long-range destiny), you must be able to envision what everything's going to look like a year or two or seven down the road… and act accordingly now, while there's ample chance to steer this enormous vessel to its port-of-riches, one impeccable maneuver after another. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): As your year draws to a close, Taurus, I hope you're noticing what a damn good job you've been doing, cohering your disparate ideals and thought-patterns into an logical code of foundational principles, virtues, and calls-to-further-action… in other words, your presumably well-engineered guide for living life fairly, purposefully and uprightly. Kudos on this job well done! I imagine this difficult philosophic work has helped you clarify which direction you're headed next, where you need to travel and/or how you plan to further your education or experience in certain areas, to enable you to continue bettering the state of the world (or at least your small slice of it). And I'd expect you to want to share what you're learned, how you've grown and changed, with all the old pals and loved-ones and such who'll you come across during this festive time-of-year. Here's where I insert my advice: It's not in your best interests (nor in the best interests of the ethics you're striving to live by every day) to claim rights to an unerringly confident, totally inflexible and exception-less, absolute monopoly on The Truth… even if you've studied the topic at length, read the relevant books and visited the action-spots, drawn insight from the direct testimony of the most relevant players, and/or dedicated yourself completely to considering such matters. This is no statement on you personally or your credentials, merely an observation that you're fallibly human like the rest of us. Trust me, despite the understandable urge to stand firm in your knowledge with all that 9th-house activity going on, you don't want to tempt fate (via an at-cross-purposes Uranus-in-the-12th) to throw you an unanticipated shock, some encounter, revelation, or out-of-left-field development which inconveniently complicates your reasoning, exposes your blind-spots, or otherwise demonstrates what you can't possibly have known. It's better to willingly leave yourself an opening for surprising insight to emerge, assuming you can never have the all-encompassing understanding… and communicating what you do know (which is a hell of a lot) with a deescalating humility. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Uncomfortable moments are presently your strongest tool, Gemini, for transforming a displeasing interpersonal dynamic, (re)attaining a foothold, airing the full no-holds-barred story, and/or building true intimacy with someone based on what's really going on between you. But in order to deploy them to maximal effect, you must be able to endure your own discomfort—what? you thought it was only going to be uncomfortable for them?—past the point where you might ordinarily change the subject, crack a joke, check your phone, or toss out a perfunctory tie-it-up-with-a-pretty-bow statement of 'moving forward'. If you stay faithfully fixed on the awkwardness-inspiring topic, returning to it whenever they try to squirrel away), they'll have to stay there with you… if, that is, they wish to engage you. And then, you'll have 'em right where your inner strategist wants 'em (even as your outer people-person would probably rather do anything to regain a more relaxed flow). Another tactical suggestion: Don't succumb to impersonalizing the terms of the discussion, which only creates a psychological distance between the words being used and the full power of what's actually being discussed, as if talk of viewpoints and principles and cultural differences would be a fair substitute for real-life, first-person accounts, confessions and such. Let your language convey that more emotionally-gripping immediacy, to demonstrate just how much impact these matters have had on your everyday life. Don't soften the tone of authentic feeling so it's more conveniently chit-chatty; that'll merely downplay the brunt of its significance. How you really, truly, deeply feel is not fluffy fodder for chit-chat… and it just might make the other party deeply uncomfortable. So fucking what? It's how they respond to their discomfort which speaks volumes about their capacity to honor all of you (not just the fun parts)—and, truth be told, show you pretty clearly whether they're someone you ought to be in any kind of relationship with. More and more, you're going to face such judgment-calls about who to invest energy in. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Through these holidaytime weeks ahead, Cancer, you'll be caught between (1) following a consistently-and-carefully-calculated approach to how you behave in your most critical one-on-one relationship(s) and (2) publicly venting your impatience or fed-up-ness with the restraining 'business-as-usual' template in how you're pursuing your driving ambitions. As awesomely liberating as it'd probably feel for you to drop a sensational bomb on your supervisor or colleagues, clients and supporters, family and friend, I again urge you to lean more decidedly towards the careful interpersonal calculations side of this showdown. I'm not, for the record, advocating that you mindlessly defer to the conventional 'way-it's-always-been-done' wisdom… nor that you shouldn't, at some point, drop that bomb. It is going to feel great to challenge or upset that status-quo, to catapult yourself elsewhere in your career (or some other outer-world participation). I'm merely suggesting your most effective path to do so will require more than just a spirited assertion of rebellious discontinuity or radical independence. Saturn's arrival to your 6th on Dec 23 kicks off a good three years of building more competent, capable day-to-day work patterns, so you can reach those healthily-sustainable heights only accessible through cumulative effort—not merely a single spectacular statement, a few all-nighters, or a committed heart. The enemy of competent consistency is, naturally, impatient impulsivity. It's far easier to declare you'll be 'doing things differently, damn it!' in your public life than to actually demonstrate how productive your 'done-differently' practices and priorities proved over a span of time, letting the concrete results of your cumulative efforts speak for themselves. Of course, you almost surely don't yet possess such results. At this time, then, it's better to keep your relations with the other players as tightly controlled as you can… until that later point when you can actually back up your insurgent ideals with something tangible to flaunt. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

LEO (July 23-August 22): With Mars protruding sharply from your 7th house through year's-end, Leo, you'll be something of a lightning-rod for oddly antagonistic or aggressive reactions from folks who might feel they have some battle to fight with you… even when you have no friggin' clue what you did or why they're aiming their upset so pointedly your direction. You could have totally legitimate cause to fight back and/or to call them out on the blindingly unfair treatment they're subjecting you to, and, with your righteous exasperation, you could surely put up a formidable defense—if that's what you really want to do. I'm not voicing an official opinion either way, by the way. To fight or not to fight: That is your question to answer. Which is really important to remember, as you watch those who are all riled up attempt to lure you into combat. Despite the understandable instinct to leap in, loudly and proudly, to protect your good name, you don't actually have to concern yourself with what your apparent opponent thinks, says, or does in trying to misrepresent you or challenge your honor. Putting so much stock in their perception of you that you feel you must wage a counterattack even though you'd rather not… well, doesn't that already essentially hand them a certain advantage? I repeat: You get to decide whether a battle is personally worth fighting, based on your agenda and timeline, not someone else's provocative tauntings or arbitrary sense of urgency. Please understand, of course, that refusing to accept the conflict-challenge is, in itself, a battle tactic—one which could both prove quite effective and threaten to further inflame the agitated party. Still, shrewdly selecting your tactics is an important issue of energy conservation (since you know there are, for instance, certain pieces of productive work which would be better served by your stirred passions than a dumb fight). Besides, if you'd rather focus on what makes you happy rather than what someone else is all bent of out shape about, that seems fair. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Why take on their complicating conditions, Virgo, when it'd threaten to ruin your good time? If it sounds like I'm simplifying a far more complex or convoluted situation, you're right. That's exactly what I'm doing—and what I'm encouraging you to do, too. That embodied experience of feeling frazzled and scrambled and unsure which of a dozen interdependent items to address first is, dare I say it, not necessarily deriving from in you… but may actually be a product of someone else's influence penetrating your psyche, inspiring you to react to their trials-and-tribulations as if they were your own. (They are not.) My glances at your astrological outlook instead suggest you ought to be enjoying both more mirthful merriment and an increased initiative for getting your most pressing work done. As far as I can tell, that's a fairly simple formula to follow for near-assured personal satisfaction: a lot of work, and a lot of play. It's only as soon as you must take into account each new day's unpredictable effects of what this other person or entity is stirring up or freaking out about that you'll start to lose your cool. And so, it seems, even the solution to that unsettling possibility is pretty straightforward: Detach your psychic well-being from what's going on with anybody else. That doesn't have to mean you behave like a heartless asshole toward loved-ones immersed in chaos; merely resist the pressure to jump in there alongside 'em, as if you could calm things down or balance it all out from them. (You can't.) Consider it a basic lesson in emotional boundaries—a lesson, incidentally, you can expect to arise with increasing frequency now that Saturn's headed into your 4th. The trick is to demonstrate the depth of your support without drowning in the depths of their drama. Under these astrological influences, you ought to be able to authentically celebrate personal satisfaction, unfettered and guilt-free, no matter what's going on with anyone else. Their complications needn't infringe upon your happiness, just to prove you care. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): In the weeks ahead, what you outwardly say or do in response to being pressured or needled or baited, Libra, is far less important than what goes on inside you. Your consciousness will be far more wisely utilized by concentrating on your internal resolve… on fortifying the roots of belief in your capacity to know what's right for you, better than anybody else in the whole damn universe does, and to know you owe nobody (not a pushy parent, controlling housemate, self-righteous friend, tyrannical boss-figure, emotionally distant partner, or mischievous character of any kind) an explanation for why it's right for you. That's not a total prohibition on speaking up. But often, when our first-instincts thrust us into an impassioned or indignant response to someone challenging our ideals, actions, or decisions, we express a noticeably shrill defensiveness which (perhaps unbeknownst to us) exposes traces of the inner inconsistencies, uncertainties, or doubts we're quietly harboring—and though we may string together an articulate rationale that logically argues why we're right and they're wrong, we actually emit a subtly weak-willed vibe. This externalization of heightened emotionality only mirrors the fact that we're hunting for our affirmation from external sources, as if winning the argument will validate the worthiness of our personal choices. Meanwhile, the real confirmation that we're advocating for our own emotional well-being comes from within: Do we feel taken care of, or put upon? safe, or under constant threat? self-empowered, or reliant on others' approval? That's why 'having it out' with other people over what's best for you is, in a lot of ways, wasted energy. Why give them your attention when you can keep it for yourself? Rather than advising you to choose your battles, then, I'd rather phrase it in terms of choosing what's worth communicating about. If you can speak your piece in a few concise sentences (because you've thought it through to the point of distilled clarity, and there's no emotional charge from lurking insecurity), go for it. If it's likelier to open into a heated exchange where you'll lose your cool and, in the process, your clear focus, channel that energy inwardly… and figure out where you might be doubting yourself, and why. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Not sure it's a prudent maneuver to air any dirty laundry during the holiday-season festivities, Scorpio, even if that 'laundry' really is as filthy as you feel it to be. The question isn't whether you have a legitimate right to be angry, sad, or hurt by something that happened (or, for that matter, by nothing in particular). Not only do you of course have that right, but why in the hell would I ever try to convince a Scorpio not to leave room for their full range of emotions? My advice is more about constructive and less-constructive contexts in which to express your feelings, particularly when others' (perceived or actual) wrongdoings are concerned… and not because I'm encouraging you to compassionately spare them the embarrassment, but in service to your own ability to benefit from skillfully maintaining social control. You'll walk away with certain functional advantages by working overtime to charm the pants off everyone who comes in contact with you—except, that is, any person with whom you actually have beef, who instead deserves to be directly confronted but privately. Yes, I'm strongly advocating a low-profile, behind-the-scenes confrontation rather than a dramatic fireworks show at the supper table in front of everyone. Such a strategy not only increases your chances of genuinely being heard and understood (for guilty parties are likelier to disavow their guilt in a group setting than when sitting face-to-face with a singular individual calling them out for their shit), but it also preserves your outwardly delightfully charismatic persona in everyone else's eye (since, let's be honest, even if you're 100% in the right on this one, certain sideliners will still convict you of the crime of 'spoiling a pleasant evening'). I know you're not one for fake bullshit, so don't think of my counsel as endorsing that. Instead, consider the fact that you don't know who else at that proverbial table might, at some undetermined later point, provide you a profitable leg-up… and if you don't have a problem specifically with them, it's practically wisest to shield their perception-forming eyes and ears from your more, um, confrontational side. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Trust me, Sagittarius, you've got far bigger fish to fry than petty sisterly-or-brotherly spats, neighborhood squabbles, gossipy kerfuffles, and/or splitting hairs over semantic incongruences. Though you face a somewhat increased chance of facing such fleeting headaches or noisy interruptions through year's-end, it's really nothing you can't distance yourself from… if you consciously choose to do so. That's hardly the big astrological news, though. Instead, try this on for size: Saturn lands in your sign on December 23 for the first time since the late 1980s, where he'll spend roughly the next three years kicking your ass into fitter-and-finer shape. And it's up to you whether to get on board with the toning-and-tightening program, in order to emerge on the other side as a more mature, conscientious, and self-possessed version of yourself—or whether you wish to put up a struggle against the necessary structure and self-restraint, and end up confronting disappointing or displeasing effects from refusing to grow up and take better charge of your fate. Of course, such a monumental life-marker as Saturn's transit through one's sign won't show all its cards (or, perhaps, any of them) right out of the gate, during these first few weeks of a three-year initiation process. Yet, I feel it's deeply important you begin to internalize an awareness of what you're now on the earliest edges of experiencing, so as to put as quick and sharp a stop as possible to any behaviors which aren't intentional, in alignment with your most critical life-goals, and a sincere expression of your best efforts (even though, as a human, you'll continue to fall short of perfection). Your worst mistakes on Saturn's watch, especially during these astrologically fiery times, will come from you acting with impatience, sloppiness, and/or hastily reductive black-or-white oversimplification. Remember this in the weeks ahead, then, when your far-view pragmatism can operate with far more wisdom than your kneejerk provocateur will... if, and only if, you first consider all the possible practical side-effects to you voicing an opinion or stirring a pot, just because you feel like expressing yourself. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): During the remainder of '14, Capricorn, you have a lot of astrological dynamics working distinctly to your favor… including the triple-threat of Venus, Mercury, and the Sun cruising through your sign, each of which will form an energy-concentrating conjunction with Pluto-in-your-1st. Not only has Pluto been your longtime conferrer of ever-increasing self-empowerment, he's also brought the difficult lessons about how best to wield your personal power, neither holding yourself back from actualizing your potential greatness nor scaring the crap out of those folks intimidated by the influence you hold. With a trio of personal planets now up in Pluto's kool-aid, though, this powerful influence is easier for you to practically apply—and less likely to terrify others and/or polarize them away, if, that is, you deploy relational prowess, communicating in ways deliberately crafted to defuse discomfort and actively invite earnest engagement. In service to such strategies, you may wish to downplay any cataloguing of achievements, ideals, and understandings you believe you've mastered, maybe even throw in a few trademark self-deprecating cracks… any extra lengths you might take to show you respect the other person as an equal (not, incidentally, because I think you don't, but to help neutralize their fears). Though you'll hold the capacity to almost control your interactions with this intentional charitableness, the biggest threat to your control will come from family-members or other intimates whose snide self-importance, vocal disagreeability, and/or undermining knack for implicitly questioning whether you indeed are who you identify with being have a way of really getting under your skin. As soon as you feel you must react in self-defense (rather than remaining stoically polite, in unwavering faith that you don't need their acknowledgment or approval to validate your self-perception), you're likely starting to lose your cool… and who knows what might happen after that. Get used to more consciously employing such emotional boundaries: Now that Saturn's in your 12th for the next three years, it's becoming one of your main jobs. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): How can you spend the remainder of your year, Aquarius, simultaneously proactive in advancing your intentions, initiatives, and ideals and, in another way, strangely removed from the expectation of receiving anything (good, bad, indifferent or otherwise) in response or return? This is the astrological conundrum of leading with an unmistakably assertive energy (whether or not it's on purpose), courtesy of Mars poking through your 1st house, yet still living under a strong 12th-house influence that innately encourages a relative retreat from earthly activity. Feel free to use your creative sense-making skills to interpret this odd combination as you will. I'm reading it as an endorsement of following your impulses out into public view only when you're driven to do so by a critical purpose, a battle you're compelled to fight, an urgent need to step up or risk losing an opportunity, or a passing object-of-desire which you don't want to pass you by. Beyond those spontaneous calls-to-action, the bulk of your preoccupations are better relegated to the proverbial retreat-center (whatever your most replenishing and non-self-destructive version may be). It's perfectly fine, for the time being, for you to be publicly viewed more in a Mars-charged guise—as courageous pioneer, tireless laborer, energetic activist, or fierce warrior—than to be fully and authentically seen for who you are. As long as you're clear on what exactly you're pushing forward with such exceptional force, it's not really as important to totally understand all the dimensions of what impact it'll have on your broader standing. You do know you'll probably be gambling certain alliances (albeit questionable ones) by putting forth your agenda so baldly and unconditionally, right? That's probably an appropriate cost-benefit tradeoff, if you legitimately feel this fire to stake your claim (rather than merely a rambunctious urge to indiscriminately stir some shit up). But I don't think you should worry too much about what'll happen after you do what you're driven to do. Behind the scenes, you're (hopefully) working to solidify your most important relationship of all—the one with the Divine, your Higher Self, your conscience, or whatever you want to call it—which demands being true to yourself. Life can be utter hell if you fuck that one up. Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!

PISCES (February 19-March 20): 'Doing your own thing' or 'agreeing to disagree' or adopting any of this live-and-let-live thinking during 2014's last weeks just won't cut it, Pisces. Just because you may be spiritually wise enough to see beyond the trappings of our ugly-and-unkind earthly existence, to the exquisitely beautifully perfect higher-self souls we all really are, that doesn't buy you an out from having to situate yourself among the actual here-in-this-world people… some of whom are not honorable or decently-behaved, and therefore not folks you should really want to be identified with, even if you wish them well (or catch occasional glimpses of the good-heartedness in there somewhere). You obviously also have friends, peers, and allies who are solidly consistent in their attitudes and behaviors… who you know you can trust to do what they say they will, to defend what they believe is right, and to stand supportively alongside you because your interests are theirs, and theirs yours. Please emphatically express your solidarity with this latter team of trustworthy peeps, now more than ever. Don't just thank them or send them good energy (though that's always appreciated), but full-on join them in their efforts, in their communities or out on the streets. Speak aloud potentially controversial opinions (if, indeed, they address how you genuinely feel), defending your comrades' rights to self-determination just as you'd want them to defend yours. And in this process, please don't fear being judged or rejected by those folks who 'don't get it', who take issue with your vocal stance (because they flat-out disagree or because they simply think you're taking things too far) and/or try to pressure you into conformity or silence. Should you not stand somewhere and instead passively opt out, don't kid yourself, you're still making a statement of sorts—with possibly unseen or late-onset ramifications that'll damage your ability to belong. As the pressure on you to become more publicly authoritative mounts, you must be able to outwardly assert proper discernment.Listen up, folks: This extra-long horoscope is good for three weeks. I'm diving full-force into finishing up ASTROBARRY'S 2015, my latest year-ahead e-book, with in-depth forecasts for all twelve signs. When I finish that, I intend to indulge in my deserved merriment. I'll post your next horoscopes on January 5, 2015. Happy new year!