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Horoscopes | Weeks of December 18, 2017-January 7, 2018

ARIES (March 21-April 19): With Saturn now landing at the top of your solar chart (the 10th), Aries, you should consider this the dawning of an extended 'progress-marker' phase in the evolution of your career, your public-sphere reputation, and/or your efforts to hit benchmarks-of-achievement with your leading life-goals. As the coming months progress, you'll receive clear signs of whether you've earned a new level of stability, authority, and/or authenticity in your outward enterprises… or if you're bumping up against the limits of your capacity to thrive in a particular environment, vocation, and/or role. (In fact, paying symbolic-minded attention to the situations arising just during these few weeks—and the self-reflections they stir—should give you a hint as to which way this is heading.) This isn't, therefore, a time for storming defiantly ahead on mere firepower or moxie alone, but instead calls for a prudent analysis of all the contributing factors and relevant facts… including what type of recognition and/or reward is presently available to you, whether the structure you're operating within can support the success you're seeking, what additional mastery you must attain in order to advance, and if the other current players are likelier to lift you up or block you from further ascent. Regardless of whether you're at your peak performance or struggling to stay afloat, you're due for this full-spectrum reality-check, to ensure your ambitions are both up-to-date and sensible, and that you're not setting yourself up for future disappointment or regret. If, at this early point, you're feeling relatively satisfied and optimistic (with the appropriate touch of self-protective caution, of course), then this is a ripe moment to consider involving yourself more deeply in a potentially lucrative-though-risky collaboration, giving you a chance to see how much further you can take these already-reaped gains… provided, of course, you're prepared to work your ass off (possibly closely alongside someone else). If, however, you're starting to spy more sobering writing-on-the-walls, beware of amplified urges either to take a hasty escape-hatch gamble and/or to aggressively project your discontentment onto others. It'll take patient persistence to turn this ship around. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Though you're usually seen as the type who concentrates on whatever's concretely in front of you and flourishes best with familiar routines, Taurus, you're now reaching a pivotal juncture at which you must stand back from the day-to-day grind, screw on your visionary-thinking cap, and reconsider the ultimate purpose, self-edifying upshot, and/or overriding ethical consequence of what you've been doing with yourself. Life is too short (as Saturn's always reminding us) to take your habitual behaviors and attitudes for granted, lest the existential buzzer unexpectedly go off while you're still biding your time, leaving you to wonder where all those years went and why you didn't follow your heart more faithfully. The 9th house, where Saturn now looms (in slow approach to Pluto), leads us far enough outside our customary everyday expectations—through far-off journeys, mind-expanding adventures, comprehensive philosophic reflections, and/or exposure to foreign courses of study—so that we can see with fresh eyes, helping us to put our life-priorities into clearer perspective and highlighting any places where our rote carryings-on conflict with our ideals. Your current circumstances call for such fresh perspective, both as a warning against resigning yourself to increased mundanity or meaninglessness and as an incentive to delve further into your intellectual interests or moral concerns while you've still got the chance. To step outside what's expected of you, of course, necessarily brings the discomforts of novelty with it… a particularly anxiety-provoking situation for the Taurean soul, since you can't know what you're 'supposed' to be doing. This opens up an opportunity for you to proactively reach out to individuals with more knowledge or experience in these frontiers, to seek encouragement or advice, and to cultivate closer relationships that foster mutual development in the process. Regrettably, this same 'opportunity' could be just as easily squandered if you use it to antagonistically fixate on what a certain someone is doing with their life rather than examining your own. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): When I say you're hitting that point at which logical eventualities will be coming home to roost, Gemini, I don't mean to freak you out. By setting any events into motion (but especially those which expressly interlace our fate with another's), we establish a course of developments that naturally leads us somewhere in particular, unless we interrupt and/or reroute its flow. I consider the 8th house a place where the arrangements, agreements, and attitudinal dynamics we've settled into with other people reach a climax-of-effects. Our intimacy flourishes. Our most glaring disparities intensify. Our cooperative efforts yield their magical fruits of synergy, while our competing drives clash ever more spectacularly. Our investments in one another pay their due dividends, making us richer than ever or leaving us vulnerable to someone else's control. The lord-of-cause-and-effect Saturn now moves from your 7th to your 8th, where it escalates what's at stake in any emotionally demanding collaboration, life-partnership, or financial commingling—with both greater rewards and deeper risks. More than anything, though, this is astrology that urges you to confront your full reality (even the scariest parts) with both eyes wide open. There's an indomitable potency of character you can tap into only once you resist the defensive impulse to compartmentalize the different aspects of your life, instead acknowledging all its circumstances and how you contributed to their manifestation. But as long as you resist this acknowledgment or disavow your share of the accountability, you're doomed to remain tied to the very circumstances you silently know are holding you back from greater personal freedom. Though this fuller awareness will emerge gradually over many months, your shorter-term struggles on the job, health, and/or mundane-duty front are presenting you a magnified glimpse at your emotional response-patterns: Do you feel like all this extra work actually matters? Does it serve your interests? What are you getting out of it? Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The arrival of taskmaster Saturn to your one-on-one relationship house (the 7th) is major news for you, Cancer, as it ushers in a three-year period during which you're slated to work really hard on yourself in this interpersonal arena… with the goal of thoughtfully prioritizing those partnerships (whether with friends, spouses, romantic interests, business associates, or other collaborators) which appropriately align with your other life-goals, offer mutually grounding support to all parties, and encourage you to become a better version of yourself. Though these relational aims sound straightforwardly self-evident, many interpersonal couplings don't play out with such an emphasis. Perhaps we feel such a powerful chemistry and/or have shared such an emotionally rich history with someone, we cannot deny our care for them. Yet, is continuing to so extensively mingle our destiny with theirs regrettably limiting our options for individual evolution? Maybe we're committed to another person merely or mainly by obligation, staying in it at the expense of personal satisfaction or happiness. Are such tradeoffs worth the long-term costs? Will we grow increasingly bitter or resentful? Some of us resist taking such interpersonal risks at all, maintaining our safe autonomy but missing out on the self-transcending chance to profoundly give and (critical for you Cancerians) receive within a conscious vessel of relationship. Can we nudge ourselves to try harder, despite the vulnerability and fear? This matrix of lessons is due to be addressed in your life in a big way, starting now… and while there are no objectively 'right' paths forward, I do believe you quietly know when a certain involvement or manner-of-relating is wrong for you. During these few weeks, as impulses and flirtations and desires run extra-high, you have a ripe opportunity to reconnect with the pleasure principle, to realize what's been missing, and/or to run head-on into the tension between 'what feels good' and 'what's good for you'… any of which could serve as insightful fodder for this critical new challenge. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

LEO (July 23-August 22): You're lucky enough to soon start more markedly relishing the joys of hard work, Leo… and, no, I'm not just being a smart-ass about this. But to truly bless yourself with such good favor, you must be willing to turn a very serious eye toward more efficiently and effectively utilizing your productive energies. If you're properly attuned to the astrological timeclock, you may already suspect that you're due to ratchet up the quality, consistency, and/or strategic orderliness of your day-to-day efforts in 2018 and beyond. Whether an increase in daily duties looms, an excess of balls-to-be-juggled must be reined in, a chore or personal project suddenly demands your critical concentration, and/or a health concern calls for some significant habit-reorientation, you're likely to face some mundane obstacle or obligation that, if handled responsibly, could impact how everything gets done on your watch. The potential 'joys' I'm hyping will stem from your earnest acceptance of 'what is' (meaning: you can't smile or sweet-talk or emote your way out of this), your understanding that progress or achievement will only occur bit-by-bit over longer stretches of time (no singularly spectacular moments of crowning completion), and your intentional experience of these realities as simplifying, stabilizing, and hopefully strengthening (rather than boring, restrictive, or tragic). With the right attitude, your methods and routines will grow sleeker… relegating any tail-chasing, navel-gazing activities to the scrap-heap, since you can't afford to waste your worktime on ineffective crap. Your physical self, too, can improve its functionality (or at least learn to functionally adapt to the changing conditions), provided you treat your bodily well-being with the added attention it'll need. Alas, none of this will you reap without sustained by-design industriousness. ('Winging it' won't be enough.) And for those of you who don't want to embrace the joyful promise in a simpler, stabler, sober-minded approach to everyday life? I expect the resistant, rebellious, rowdily reactive instincts to already be rising up. If you're mad about your existing reality, you won't get anywhere by throwing a fit, shrugging it off, or lashing out. You are quite able to change plenty of things about it… but only one day at a time. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): When you're overly concerned with 'doing it right', Virgo, you can easily forget to ask yourself whether you want to do it the 'right' way… if, that is, you want to do it at all. And now that Saturn's making it into your 5th, this matter of personal want is starting to become that much more urgent. But before you launch an exacting analytic inquiry into why someone in your situation might want one thing over another, let me stop you. If you're dissecting a personal inclination into pragmatic pros-and-cons and/or seeking to rationalize it with data-driven bullet-points, you're already complicatedly muddling the rather straightforward truth of desire. You either want it, or you don't it—and not necessarily for some particular defensible reason, but maybe just because it warms your heart, boosts your personality-shine to a brighter magnitude, or fits your distinct preferences to a T. The desired 'it' can refer to an activity or art-form you take pleasure in, a place or setting where you prefer to spend your leisure-hours, a person whose affectionate or amorous attention makes you giggle or blush, and/or a type of behavior you'd model to the younger-ones to demonstrate how to genuinely live your happiest life… whatever you would choose to entertain yourself with because you like it or it's fun, not because you're supposed to or you must. Don't we have to spend enough time on the supposed-tos and musts? Aren't you already pretty good at those? It's arguably a harder challenge for you to set those practical pressures aside, and to actively invest more of yourself in the lighter side of things. If you don't, though, you'll only doom yourself to a progressively cheerless existence, by simple virtue of your not having prioritized your own cheer as another important duty among the many. Think twice, then, about agreeing to someone else's less-than-enticing suggestions or forcing yourself to override your desires with prohibitive 'realism'. While your mind could convince yourself it's a sensible sacrifice, your heart begs to differ. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): What do you consider 'home', Libra? Who qualifies as 'family' in your heart? Where do you go… who do you turn to… what do you do for yourself to re-center, to connect with your roots or some other source of nourishment-for-the-soul, to experience that sense of 'this is where I belong'? These questions will be coming on ever more strongly, as Saturn drifts into your solar 4th and prods you to rank your inner need for emotional security and self-nurturing higher on the list of most-pressing concerns than you recently have. The two most significant topics represented by the 4th house are where you live ('home') and who you come from ('family'), both of which either hold you safe-and-snug or interfere with your capacity to tend to your comfort and care as you see fit. For the record, let me be clear that enduring an inhospitable domestic situation (whether it's the dwelling, the housemates, or the geographic locale that's sapping your spirit) or tolerating the expected pressures and manipulations from parental-figures (though they may just as likely be voices-in-your-head as they are living breathing family-members) does not constitute a genuine 4th-house success. Rather, stoically withstanding the distress that comes from such self-treatment sellouts will only lead to an increasingly drab or deadened internal landscape, as if it doesn't matter how you feel as long as your outside obligations and duties are met (with a pleasantly-performed demeanor, no doubt). On the other hand, if you devote a heightened dose of attention to your tender insides, and put concerted effort into building or solidifying your version of a restorative home/family safe-space (which could warrant drawing firm boundaries with unsupportive players), this next phase will repay your work with hard-to-measure soul-food sustenance. Don't discount the importance of your responsibility to your own well-being as you continue making forward moves on the material plane. Your worth is limited by what you're willing to settle for, both economically and emotionally. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): At this time of heightened self-determination (or is that inflated self-importance?) on your part, Scorpio, your relative success may hinge on whether or not you take the time to painstakingly angle your driving agenda into your peers' accepting arms through lots of deliberate, purposeful conversation. The coming-together of Mars and Jupiter in your sign (which builds over these few weeks to a Jan 6 crescendo) can't help but exaggerate the assertive power behind your every move… emboldening you to undertake heroic feats, make provocative stands, and/or push hard when facing obstacles or backed into a corner. This decisive forward momentum is tailor-made for unsticking you from any recent cynicism or inertia, like a catapult thrusting you towards the hottest new growth opportunity on the strength of your own spirited eagerness. And it's also a whole lot of energy to be carrying around with you, immediately infusing any environment with the psychic fumes of your latest hunger as soon as you've arrived. Obviously, not everyone you encounter will enjoying being exposed to all that… particularly if they're repelled by your manner, envious of your position, or pursuing an aim that's in conflict with yours. While I wouldn't presume you're bothered by the likelihood of hitting up against contentious characters (for you Scorpios don't often shrink in the face of adversity), let me suggest that perhaps some of those initially unwelcoming folks are worth the effort to woo. Too radical an insistence on brash individuality or uncompromising autonomy—even during this peak of personal potential—may end up cutting off your nose to spite your face. Trust me, you'll gain an immeasurable advantage by complementing your ambitious actions with the important work of selling your agenda to as many different types of people as you can, even if it requires sustained communicative efforts to reach various audiences. The more cleverly and conscientiously you can talk up your interests, the fewer interpersonal stumbling-blocks you'll hit. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): As your happy-new-year gift, allow me to present to you, Sagittarius, the delightful news that Saturn is finally leaving your sign after nearly three years. In blunt terms, this astrological development takes you off the hot-seat that's been frying your ass pretty steadily since 2015. Does this mean you should therefore expect your life to imminently return to a smoother rhythm? That directly depends, of course, on what you've done in response to Saturn's transit… whether you've risen to the critical challenges, or let them beat you down… whether you've sharpened your life's-focus to better target what's most important to you, or continued chasing each moment's most riveting adventure or dazzling spectacle with little tactical planning… whether you've stopped trying to be someone you no longer are or never were, or are still stumbling in fear of putting your realest face forward… and whether you can now see yourself as a wiser-and-more-mature version of the younger you, or if you just can't leave your former glories or goofs in the past. Whatever the specifics of your case, you ought to realize there will be no 'returning' to what used to be—merely moving on from here, having been stripped of the excesses, improprieties, and irrelevancies. Both the good and the bad must be banked as experience, mined for practical insight, and creatively built upon as a foundation for future prosperity. If you've made proud strides, you'll have to tackle the follow-up work that sustains the gains. If you've fallen down or faced disappointment, you'll have to dust yourself off and keep on going… though you might first need to take a few moments (the holiday break's an excellent time, actually) to thoroughly feel the upset and grieve any losses, preferably out of public sight. Looking ahead, your ruling benefic Jupiter will land back home in your sign late in '18, kicking off a super-awesome-looking 2019 during which you can expect new opportunities, bigger thrills, and a renewed optimism. This year ahead, then, is mainly for your recovering and rebalancing after Saturn's arduous visit—and for your responsibly tidying up the unsecured practicalities, in preparation for Jupiter's blessed arrival. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): I'm not just being dramatic when I tell you, Capricorn, this moment represents a critical turning-point in your life-trajectory, thanks to your ruling intention-setter Saturn now landing back in your sign for the first time since 1991. Over the coming three years, members of your zodiac tribe will be under increasing pressures to walk your talk, to step into a shrewder and more sure-footed version of yourself (minus the inauthentic attempts to posture as someone other than who you are), and to release any self-imposed standards for conduct which often leave you feeling unsuccessful or not-enough. While any Saturn transit through one's sign suggests we extra-insistently strive to be our best, it works a bit differently for you Capricorns who are already pretty strict and demanding with yourself. Your experience of Saturn-in-the-1st isn't necessarily a call to become even tougher… as much as it is an invitation to separate your own personal aspirations from those you've assumed you're supposed to meet (whether because of familial guilt, societal expectation, peer competitiveness, and/or other outside forces), and to focus your efforts more explicitly only on that which you are motivated to develop, while unburdening yourself from disproportionate responsibility for that which isn't yours to manage. Are you familiar with the trope that says Capricorns are meant to grow younger as they age if they're properly letting go of that undue sense of obligation to everyone-and-everything-else, loosening up, and only trying to control what's within their grasp? Now begins your Saturn-assisted chance to thoughtfully lighten your load, though this is a marathon rather than a sprint. In the short term, you can kick off this process (with Venus's kind assistance in tow) by not bending over backwards to accommodate others, angling to avoid obvious social tensions, or playing it neutral when your self-respect is at stake. Why expend energy on all that politicking when, instead, you could reserve it for your designated purposes? Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): I wouldn't exactly consider the start of your new year to bring a 'fresh beginning', Aquarius, as much as it merely ushers in a lengthier interval of more profound 'slate-clearing' on the existential level. As Saturn heads into your 12th during a moment of heightened emphasis on that privately contemplative house, your most vital evolutionary task becomes one of conscious retreat, introspection, and spiritually-minded (or at least philosophically-reflective) discernment. While of course you'll have to continue participating in all the worldly activity of your everyday life (unless you have the luxury of taking a monastic break from outside responsibility without consequence), you've reached a juncture where it no longer behooves you to do what you do without deeply considering why you do it. We often operate at a certain level of unconsciousness, carrying out behaviors we developed at different points to defend ourselves against perceived threat, in response to disappointment or hurt, as a means of impressing others or snubbing our nose at the very notion… any such reactive motivation serving as a potential hindrance to living our most authentic life, having unduly assumed imprints and expectations which aren't true to our being. Over the months to come, it will be your job to get current with yourself, by intently drawing the appropriate boundaries between (1) who you are now and (2) who you've been telling yourself you are, based on outdated descriptors or fear-driven inaccuracies—and the only way this work can be done effectively is by looking inward, coming to accept yourself more fully, and cultivating faith in that being enough. Your relative success handling Saturn in your 12th will help you embody a personal meaningfulness, made only sharper through your recognizing who you aren't. In the immediate term, then, the suddenly larger-than-life proportions of your latest opportunity or in-progress enterprise is not only something that demands plenty of attention: The way you're feeling about it should give you a clue as to whether you're growing into this or growing out of it. Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!

PISCES (February 19-March 20): The latest turn of the astrological wheel indicates ever more mindful discrimination in both the company you're actively maneuvering to keep, Pisces, and those you'd be wise to stay away from. Now that Saturn's in your 11th, you'll soon be seeing longer-range benefits from the efforts you've invested in those friendships, alliances, and social affiliations which genuinely provide you support and solidarity in expressing your truest convictions and identity-signifiers. But you'll also be bumping up against the cell-like cage of any relationships or community involvements which inspire you to pretend to be someone you're not to gain approval, leave you feeling bad about yourself or ashamed of your so-called pals' actions, and/or otherwise just don't fit you. Peer pressure is a real influence on us… not only in terms of persuading us to excuse others' poor behaviors or engage in our own, but also in offering us positive examples we'd seek to emulate. As such, one method for evaluating the relative suitability of a particular person or group is simply to consider whether associating with them makes you more or less likely to behave in ways that leave you feeling proud of yourself. Similarly, if you're entertaining an enthusiasm you'd like to explore further, spending time with pals who have experience and/or interest in the same area will productively feed your passion and open your mind to new possibilities (while hanging with folks who don't give a shit or mock you for your curiosities is apt to close you off from this novel stimulation). This last point is especially relevant now, when you're harboring a stronger-than-usual excitement about the burgeoning prospect of imminently participating in some way-out-there departure, edifying adventure, or experiential immersion which is loudly calling you. Should you go for it, you'll be broadening your horizons beyond where they've ever been… and, in the process, potentially becoming a bigger-and-better version of yourself. So, who in your life will encourage that growth? And who's likelier to try to knock you down? Please note: These horoscopes are good for three weeks. Your next horoscopes will be posted on January 8, 2018. Happy new year!