What a strange way to end the year. How strange to talk of personal love, right now, as though we can separate it out from love for everyone who is suffering and endangered. But queer love can and must encompass that—what are we here for if not to create new ways of loving, new communities of care, and a world with less repression and hatred?

Astrologically, this is a milder month than many this year. With the Sun in Sagittarius we have a chance to tap into that boundless optimism and faith in humanity that this month always signals—the needed bonfire in the dead of winter. Mars and Venus, planets of passion and love, are hanging out in Aquarius for most of the month, which is the sign most associated with detached analysis, aloof curiosity, and revolutionary idealism. With this unusual placement of both our relational planets, all our relationships this month can benefit from the cool and unconventional energy of Aquarius. To tap into this, take a step back from any personal crisis or ongoing drama and try to see your connections from a larger perspective. What creative solutions can you devise when you feel less emotionally raw? What might be possible that you haven’t been able to imagine? In this light, we’d do well to focus more on encounters than relationships—those moments that help us shift perspective, connect deeply, experience some needed joy or catharsis.

Finally, as Mars moves into Pisces on the 20th (to stay until the end of January), all our fiery motivations, outrage, and passionate intensity will be dissolved in a watery ocean of sensitivity. Mars isn’t at home in Pisces, and we can flail about it a bit, not knowing exactly what we desire or how to get it, or how to defend our boundaries. Watch out for a rise in avoidant or passive aggressive energy towards the end of the month, but also know that you can activate the highest expression of Mars in Pisces by integrating your compassionate nature with your fierce desires to defend and protect the vulnerable. There’s no better time to start doing that than now.

For help navigating all your relationships, I’m available for personalized readings, relationship readings, and I’m offering 25% off my Astrology 101 course till the end of the year. You can also give the gift of an astrology reading. Stay tuned as well for my Skills for Sensitives course in 2017, with a free offering available soon. As always, take only what resonates from these horoscopes! The astro-literate are advised to read their Venus and Moon signs first, followed by Ascendant and Sun signs.

Aries

This is a month when nothing is moving fast enough for you, except perhaps your restless heartbeats. You want to throw yourself into life as though there’s some momentum that can pick you up and swing you faster through the coming days. At the same time, it may feel there’s never enough time for what you need to be doing right now. Don’t let urgency and anxiety take over your life. Take advantage of the first few weeks of the month to act on your passions, declare your intentions, and rally your crew. Once your ruling planet Mars moves into Pisces on the 20th, your pace will change and you may need slower days and more time alone. This can be a good time for healing wounds in relationships, grieving and releasing old pain, and dreaming and scheming about what you desire now. In the meantime, direct your ardor at any effort that will help out the communities you love.

Embrace encounters that: encourage your engagement with a broader conversation and bigger ideas, and help you contribute something meaningful to the world.
Clarify your desires around: how much time you need alone in thought and reflection.

Taurus

It’s not always easy for you to feel the way you’re connected to other people, especially when you’re hunkered down trying to weather the storm of the current political climate. Nevertheless, this month is asking you to tap into a larger perspective, situating your personal crises within a map of others striving to create a better world. Friends and lovers who help you know what your strengths are should be first on your speed-dial right now, and anyone you know that helps you see the world differently is worth talking to at length—as long as the world they see is in line with your deepest values. Spend this month exploring beyond what’s comfortable, without getting trapped in another community’s small-mindedness or ignorance. If you’re careful, you can forge some lasting connections with people you never imagined you’d be able to team up with.

Embrace encounters that: help you get the attention you deserve for what you’re best at.
Clarify your desires around: your relationship to a larger queer community, or any other group you might belong to (without really knowing if you belong anywhere).

Gemini

Are you ready for a fresh perspective? This month brings a Full Moon in your sign on the 14th, a perfect time to review and revise how you communicate with your sweethearts—and yourself. Gemini energy helps us look and listen more closely, and pay better attention to what’s being said underneath the words we use. You have a chance to do something really well this month, whether that’s finishing your novel or just listening well to your girlfriend as she confides in you. The mysteries we each carry inside us are so vast we will never fully plumb their depths, but your special gifts for understanding the human heart and mind are at their peak right now.

Embrace encounters that: broaden your horizons and restore your optimism.
Clarify your desires around: what you’re uniquely able to offer the world.

Cancer

Relationships are risky enterprises. We spend a lot of time making lightning-fast judgments about what to reveal, what to ask for, how and when to ask for it, and what the response might mean. Intimacy gets rebuilt every day, and the more conservative amongst us might try to build it to look the same from day to day, little realizing that this strategy won’t prevent time from shifting our desires. You’re in a time right now when it pays off to take bigger risks, especially in your sexual relationships. This doesn’t mean abandon barriers or emotional accountability; it does mean getting into that sticky territory where your fears and desires might be evenly mixed. Who do you trust to go there with you? What kind of adventures can make this feel more fun than nerve-wracking?

Embrace encounters that: turn you on, push your buttons, edge you out of comfortable terrain.
Clarify your desires around: what you most deeply believe, and why it matters.

Leo

Early in this month you’ll be reminded why it’s gorgeous and joyous to be alive. Perhaps irrationally, perhaps in the middle of some personal disaster, the world will rise up to meet you and remind you that the dawn rises in your own heart and its fire can warm you through all the days to come. Issues around partnership are your primary focus right now, whether or not you’re partnered. It’s a good time to reassess what your real needs and desires are around sharing your life with another complicated and messy human. The tension between stability with a steady someone and cathartic sex that breaks down taboos will be extra strong right now, so if you’re only experiencing one or the other (or neither), you’ll want to find a way to incorporate both in your life, in whatever ways you can. These may be obvious or subtle, constant or intermittent—but give yourself permission to want them both and seek out ways to have them.

Embrace encounters that: remind you how it feels to be truly seen and recognized by a partner.
Clarify your desires around: sexual desire, sexual activity, and sexual identity—all very different things.

Virgo

Recent events have shown that you don’t always see clearly when it comes to love. You pride yourself on being practical and having strong reasoning powers, but when your hopes or fears come into play you can convince yourself of stories that aren’t necessarily true. This month, you’ll have a few good opportunities to dig deep into your own psyche and do some healing work—whether that happens with a therapist, a friend, or just your early morning thoughts and a journal. Often, the stories you adopt are a way to feel in control; this month you may have to sit with the understanding that you’re not in control, and that it’s okay. Be extra gentle to yourself in this process, and seek out the support of everyone who sees you clearly and loves you deeply.

Embrace encounters that: help you feel consistently cared for and tended to.
Clarify your desires around: which kinds of partnership help you thrive and flourish, and which kinds leave you exhausted and confused.

Libra

This is a contradictory time for you. On some levels, your life is going better than it has in years. On other levels, things feel like they’re falling apart all around you. Your relationships will thrive or fail right now depending on how well they hold space for these very different experiences. The good news is you’re feeling creative and full of ideas (on your good days) that can help you handle the chaos of the bad days. Your passions are running high right now, so take a chance to woo someone with something handmade or written from the heart—but don’t be surprised if any romances you begin this month include the range of highs and lows the rest of your life does.

Embrace encounters that: delight you, surprise you, and give you a chance to be admired.
Clarify your desires around: what it means to love yourself in your body, and tend to your emotional and physical health.

Scorpio

You may be surprised by some of your desires this month, especially when it comes to the choices you’re making around home and family. What might have been a deal-breaker once no longer even alarms you; dynamics or people who might have made you clam up and avoid them now feel easy to navigate. This month brings a breezy, detached, curious attitude to the relationships that can sometimes feel unbearably thorny. Use this time to make clear-headed decisions about what kinds of connection are moving your life forward, and what you’re willing to tolerate or experiment with along the path of self-discovery. The last week of the month brings a flirty, daring energy that could see you canoodling with some hot new boo—or rekindling a flirtatious vibe in with an existing bae.

Embrace encounters that: help you understand your needs around home (which may shift over time).
Clarify your desires around: what it means to open up to someone new; where is the line between nervous excitement and downright nausea?

Sagittarius

As the Sun moves through your sign this month, you’ll be thrust into the spotlight, and a variety of opportunities to charm and scandalize new friends. Opportunity is your key word this month, as so much now feels possible that hasn’t for a long time. Remember to pace yourself, especially on the 9th as the Sun crosses paths with Saturn, planet of slow and steady progress toward your goals. Whatever positive attention you receive right now may feel sweet, but can’t replace the satisfaction you’ll feel from following through on what matters most to your right now—and prioritizing your chosen family over new dates or crushes. Enjoy the whirlwind, but remember you can always choose a quiet night at home.

Embrace encounters that: help you feel lively, witty, fascinated, and socially connected.
Clarify your desires around: that thorny problem of home: where it is, how it should feel, who you want to share it with, and how many you get to have at once.

Capricorn

Last month initiated something new in your relationships; this month you’re building a solid foundation for these new seedlings. Don’t be alarmed if the shape of your connections is unfamiliar, but do find ways to feel grounded and stable through even the most unconventional situations. For example, if you’ve just opened up a relationship, gone from domestic partner back to dating, or experienced any other kind of shift that defies the normative trajectory (two queers fall in love, become monogamous, move in together, and live happily ever after)—you’ll want some kind of assurance that you can still trust your partner or partners. Freedom is all well and good, but you also require integrity, honesty, and commitment. Cast a spell on the 29th when the New Moon in your sign offers you a chance to renew your commitments to building sustainable, loving relationships.

Embrace encounters that: emphasize what is most familiar, stable, and supportive in your life.
Clarify your desires around: what kinds of social interactions are good for you, and which ones drain your energy and kill your peace of mind.

Aquarius

This month offers you a serious awakening in all matters romantic or sexual—if you’ve been in a dry spell or a rut, expect new romance to blossom. If you’ve been happy in your connections, expect this month to help deepen and refine how you relate to your beloveds. With Venus and Mars moving through your sign this month, you’ll be getting all kinds of attention. Use the opportunity to rally folks to a cause you care about, ask for support for a project, or publicize anything you’re trying to launch. In intimate relationships, this is a perfect time to explore kinks or desires that you may have been too shy to speak up about before. What haven’t you come out about? What have you been afraid to try?

Embrace encounters that: remind you what is truest in your own nature, and help you feel loved for exactly what you fear makes you “too much.”
Clarify your desires around: what you value, what resources you need for yourself, and what you have to share with others.

Pisces

As Mars moves into your sign on the 20th, expect to get stirred up. This could mean a heightened sex drive, more ambition, more physical energy, and also more unfocused anger or anxiety. Just because you’ll have extra intensity this month doesn’t mean you’ll have extra clarity, so do the work to examine and process what any strange urge or fantasy is trying to tell you. Feelings are often so strong they get us to rationalize them somehow (“I know you’re cheating because I feel betrayed!” or “I know I’m unattractive because you’re not looking at me!”)—often, the feeling is letting you in on an insecurity you need to tenderly dissolve rather than an external issue you need to solve. Don’t give in to paranoia this month if you’re feeling a little vulnerable or foggy—instead, let yourself enjoy the heightened sensitivity that is yours right now by surrendering to your lover’s soft touch (or your steamiest homo fantasies, if you’re flying solo).

Embrace encounters that: transport, enchant, and delight you—especially if they let you offer compassionate support to someone in need.
Clarify your desires around: what’s most important to you, setting aside what anyone else wants from you.

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