Venus enters Capricorn at 11:42 am EST (16:42 UT) tomorrow with an implied sense of completion. Not an ending, please understand. As Eric recently pointed out in the context of the Gemini Full Moon, there are no endings in astrology because (with few exceptions) everything on the zodiac just keeps on moving without pause.

Completion in the astrological sense is not about endings. It is about meetings — or perhaps more properly, returns. So, in a very real sense Venus will be returning to Capricorn where it has traversed about once a year since before there were years.

For astrologers, completion can also mean two or more objects, points, or signs with complementary natures interacting so as to move into or away from balance with the the other(s) in some way.

You might call this interactive type of completion a form of continuous cosmic titration. It’s a process that hints at the constantly changing nature of a solution you might apply to a correlating issue in your life. Interestingly, this year’s ingress of Venus to Capricorn works toward finding the nature of a solution on several levels.

On the level of what you can see in the sky with your own eyes, Venus is returning to visibility after a long trip behind the Sun. Of course, whether you can see Venus in the West after sundown at this time depends on your weather, sight lines and latitude.

Before long, however, nearly all of us will be able to witness Venus rising on a new horizon. Which means that you will no longer have to wake up before the birds to witness the brightest planet in all its glory, as was the case earlier this year.

Hence, there is a sense of completion in having Venus appear on a new horizon in the sky. Perhaps you can apply that sense to understand and address any new horizons now appearing in your life. In order to do so, be bright like Venus and gradually rise to whatever occasion presents itself as a result of those new horizons. You might even want to emulate Venus to the point of gradually increasing your visibility after a long period of being less than apparent for whatever reason.

Speaking of new horizons, the spacecraft of the same name is on the last leg of its approach to Pluto (one of Eric’s top five events of 2015 featured in the readings and horoscopes of the upcoming annual edition: “Cosmophilia”), and we will soon get our first good look at astrology’s Little Big Planet. So happens Venus is entering Capricorn to conjoin with Pluto (and square Uranus in Aries) on Dec. 20.

Consider how the Uranus-Pluto square is a continuing story that is (as Eric has said many times) defining our era. Venus completing another cycle with Pluto on the zodiac (just as we are about get a good look at Pluto in space) indicates some possible solutions for how political events are playing out in your personal life.

First, make like the New Horizons spacecraft and go to meet. Especially if you can’t see things clearly, confront the personal problems that come with the political territory of our time by going to meet. 

Go to city council meetings, for example. Or go to meetings of activists in your community, and see what’s happening from up close as complementary points of view meet and moderate each other (or not). Do this to better understand where your own interest fits in with anybody and everybody else. Who knows, your own presence might bring some completion and balance just as Venus will bring the same to Capricorn.

For as Venus enters Capricorn it will ingress a slice of the zodiac ruled by Saturn, where Mars is also exalted. For some time now Mars, first from Capricorn, and now from Aquarius (where Saturn co-rules with Uranus) has been in what astrologers call “mutual reception” with Saturn.

That’s because Saturn is currently in Scorpio, where Mars co-rules with Pluto. As result, much of how astrology has been expressing in your life lately may well have seemed unbalanced, or at least incomplete. That’s how, with Venus entering Capricorn tomorrow, some completion is in order with yet another example you can emulate — with the objective of bringing further balance and completion for your own life.

So, let’s review what you can do to be in stride with Venus from tomorrow until it leaves Capricorn behind to enter Aquarius early next year:

First, look to new horizons, which may already be appearing in your life. Be bright, rise to the occasion, and be visible in a way others will welcome for the illumination you bring.

Next, go to meet. Nearly everything in the sky, on the zodiac, and in the world is moving. To the extent you can, so should you. Move and get a good look at what’s going on from up close and personal. You might be surprised at what you find.

Finally, look for where your own unique nature and qualities will complete what is already there. Not to end, please remember, but to help determine the nature of what have possibly been elusive solutions.

Who knows, by simply showing up for a look, you could ultimately be the final piece in the greater and heretofore unrealized peace we have continuously been trying to find for so long. Don’t think so? How will you know unless you try?

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Sarah Taylor

The three cards in front of you together offer a simple, potent, and deeply transformative reading, with the figure in the central card, the Seven of Disks, as the initial point of focus.

The Seven of Disks speaks of Failure. But in this case this is failure from a limiting point of view — the view of the person sitting under the seven disks, arms resting on his knees, shoulders hunched, head lowered. Despondent.

Death, Seven of Disks, Six of Wands from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

He is sitting facing towards the card on the left, which he has come from: the Death card. He is dwarfed by it; it is writ full in his current experience, sitting as he is at the level of the skull that emerges from the shadows in the lower half of the picture. This is what he is associated with — an ending; the falling away of something whose time had come to an end, like the dried leaves that are blown from the bough of a now-invisible tree.

The Death card is a major arcana card, which means that the shift that accompanies it has a depth to it that indicates a shift in the Soul’s journey. The death may be an ending in the day-to-day world, but it is also the transition from one inner state to another. Like the shedding of the leaves, it is the shedding of a skin. However, what the figure seems to be identified with is that old skin, and not what the skin makes way for.

Look back at the Death card and to what emerges from the skull. It is the figure of a woman, holding to herself, young, the harvest of wheat giving a golden shine to her hair and dress. Note this: what was harvested is the bringer of light and life. She is in a protective position, though, which suggests there is something that is not yet ready to emerge fully, because it needs time to strengthen and to grow into itself. It needs time to adapt to its new surroundings, to become fledged.

And so back to the card at centre. Are you able to see it differently now? You, who might be that figure who sits, pressed down upon by the weight of something that felt too much to carry. Was it yours to carry in the first place?

Can you now look up and see what that burden was concealing: a source of light that lies at the level of the woman in the Death card, in much the same way that you, the seated figure, are at the level of the skull. See how a shift in perspective can reveal more than you might at first have thought?

Notice, too, that the sky behind the disks is clear for the most part, the clouds dissipating as the eye moves towards the darkness along the top of the card. The figure is alone, but there is an atmosphere of beauty, and a place of space. There is a depth to this card that confers a feeling of grace if you are able to look past — with your mind’s eye, your intuition — the oppressive opacity of the disks.

And what if you were to change your position completely, to see what is opening up at your back? The final card brings the nascent light in the Seven, that was birthed in the Death card, into the centre of the picture. Now, it is a Sun. And here, right in front of you, is a road, the ‘wall’ of rock before you blasted open to reveal something that is calling to you. It is compelling, impelling — the energy of wands quickening the atmosphere, calling you onwards, fuelling you for your journey.

“Victory,” “Success,” “Clear breakthrough,” “Combination of power.”

I’m intrigued by the word “combination.” A combination of — what? Maybe that is part of the journey too.

What’s clear is that there is a turnaround here, and it may be one that you feel quite palpably because it has at its foundations a major arcana card. And if the hints weren’t enough to look at what you’re not seeing in your situation, then the face hewn from the rock to the left of the road in the Six of Wands is perhaps the final sign you need to know that there is a route leading you somewhere. It is there. You don’t need to find it immediately. In fact, it may well be that it finds you.

What you will feel, though, when you see it, is that quickening of the wands; a stirring in your body; a fire ignited; a job well done!

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Death (Scorpio), Seven of Disks (Saturn in Taurus), Six of Wands (Jupiter in Leo)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

Life has been so packed for the past however long it’s been. In the past few days, I’ve been able to unwind a bit, due mainly to forcing myself to take the entire four day Thanksgiving weekend off from all five (six?) of my jobs.

OK, I was forcing myself at first, but then the sheer pleasure of not working sunk in.

And let me tell you, three and a half days without doing anything I’m obligated to do was so very much needed, even if I folded on that last day and did a bunch of work because a strange bout of inertia kept me away from anything else.

I’ve now entered what some friends and I are referring to as Self Care December (SCD). I hate December. It’s true.

Growing up, I was all about the carols and the tree and togetherness, but then shit got weird: family started disintegrating and death anniversaries became a reality and I realized that even though I’m perfectly fine with my oodles of outsider status the other 11 months of the year, it’s way too hard to be ‘different’ in December. I don’t like consumerism or plastic; Christianity makes me pretty uncomfortable; I don’t have a traditional romantic relationship; and the complex emotions that arise, coupled with some dear-hearted friends who really try to help, just make the experience kind of a mess.

Part of SCD is that I’m taking a lot of walks. I love walking. I love focusing on a given color, or my breathing. I love getting a feel for the city, or talking to the trees and bushes, even just in my mind.

In the past two days, I’ve wandered around walking a lot. A LOT. Someone mentions Christmas, I feel my anxiety start to rise — even though my life is pretty rad and amazing (which just compounds the anxiety) — and I just take off down the street.

As I’ve engaged this practice, I’ve felt a familiar longing creeping back into my soul. It’s hard to articulate, but it has to do with the urge to wander the world combined with the urge to establish home.

At this point in my life I can feel these different paths in front of me. I feel like I’m at a crossroads. The sacred sexuality route is calling, amplified by a sudden preponderance of opportunities to explore it at all levels. Do I want to explore it just for my own personal sake, or bring it into my work with clients? I don’t know. There’s the energy healing path. Mostly for my work with clients, but clearly it would be an experiential path as well. There’s the part of me that very much wants to follow the path that is partially laid out already, working with ancestral and earth-bound spirits, and incorporating that into my work. And there’s my commitment to furthering my understanding of astrology, particularly in the therapeutic context.

Clearly all of these things are connected. But there’s that whole ‘time’ thing to think about.

Days like today have made me feel homesick in a way. For the days in grad school when I got to wander and just do what my soul wanted me to. I would wake up, write, go on a walk, come home and make food, take a long walk to a coffee shop, write, ponder, drink coffee (or whiskey) and stare out the window, walk home, make food, write… That kind of behavior feels like home. And it feels like freedom.

Space and spaciousness are themes lately. Breathing into spaciousness. Imagining space around the parts of my body and my emotions that are constricted or anxious, breathing spaciousness into the bad emotions and breathing out to create space for the new. Finding the space to do the work. Finding a space to live. Finding a space to call home.

Then there’s that conflict that always arises. My soul longs for the space to do the work I love on a full time basis. Working with people. Striving for change. My soul also longs for the space to wander empty beaches and silent forests. But I have to pay rent. I have to pay rent in a city that is seeing rent increases more pronounced than anywhere else in the country — and the home I’m currently living in, while incredible, is temporary.

It makes me think of the Devil card in the tarot. It makes me think of my own general interpretation of the card, which emphasizes an understanding that we are here, in the material world, for a reason. That reason is not to shun the body and materiality, but rather to play here. To enjoy. To learn how to work with stone and steel and flesh and bone.

It is when those things, the money and the desire for tactile goods to create security and comfort, take precedence that we find ourselves chained. The gravity of the material is real — but there has to be space, too. Space for the mind and the heart and soul to merge and be explored. Finding the balance — honoring the structures while not making them the center and becoming chained to them — is an ongoing lesson.

So I wander through the city, now that I’ve been able to do something other than focus on work and family drama, now that I’ve started coming back into myself and the work — MY work — and it hits me: I want a home. I’m ready for a home — for MY home. But I also want to wander.

This dichotomy is so present in so many areas of my life — the tension in my life as a person practicing non-monogamy, for example. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that I want primary bonds and long term intimacy and someone(s) who feels like home. But I also want freedom. I want the freedom to explore other people, other places, other things. And people keep telling me that the two things — home and freedom — can’t exist together. That I have to choose.

I’ll admit that I’m stubborn, and that when people tell me I can’t do something I’m prone to dig my heels in. But I don’t think I’m doing that now. I want home, and I want freedom. I want to do the work I’m meant to do and I want the money to be able to live where I want, and probably on my own. I want a home base and the ability to wander the globe. I want primary intimate and sexual bonds and I want the freedom to explore that with more than one person if needed. I want core commitment and family, too. I want the space to explore anything that’s going to help me help others. And I want the freedom to do it my way.

And so I leave you with a poem by Rilke, who really says everything I need to, much better than I ever have:

You see, I want a lot
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
Of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.

— From Book of Hours