January 2022
Happy beginning of a new year. In January, we stew in the corner and fall even deeper into the world of our most private pain and most spiky secrets. We see pus ooze out of our pores and dead skin carpet the floor near our bed.
Before the month goes too deep, we find Venus in the heart of the Sun. The Sun bathes and burns all things in its inexorable light. We find what collected moisture and mold within us and offer it to the sun as sacrifice. For this moment, we may see the pain of relating and losing, the intensity of desire and of rejection, no longer as a mossy tendril growing and burying us underneath its heavy weight, but as a barrel of dried seaweed, useful for all types of soup stocks and broths. The intensity is pungent but savory. Not everyone can handle it, but the taste is incomparable.
And before we can attempt to scurry away from the clutches of desperation and darkness, the rest of the month asks us to stay on hold and please answer the survey at the end of the call. Mercury turns retrograde on January 14th and moves slowly throughout the month towards Pluto on the 29th, which coincidentally is also the day Venus turns direct after her 40-day retreat into the underworld. The last half of the month, we are challenged not to run desperately towards the light, but to sit with this very urge to run or to lash out or to force the fear away with brute force. And as we gain our bearings, we use language, stories, and long phone calls with friends to create mantras for ourselves. We recount how we found companionship underneath the mossy blanket and sticky mud of a thousand-year-long curse.
The Cancer Full Moon on the 18th is a peak date of these themes. During this time, the planets highlight how you nurture your emotions and your closest familial bonds. You may feel fleshy like the inside of a clam, and careless words and actions may hurt you or others more than otherwise. To retreat is not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of deliberation.
The Aquarius New Moon on February 1st (JST) is also an eventful moment. As we near the end of the month, we start to hear the crackling sparks of Uranus, planet of liberation, shock, earthquakes, and revolution. This new moon sets off a cycle of breakthroughs and frustrations, putting the work in and watching it grow cracks, smashing through only to find yourself in a new maze.
During this month, schedule some time with your anxiety and your paranoia and with the part of you that doesn’t feel safe. Spend time with the fermented parts of you that are on the border between the wilderness of rot and the legibility of harvest.
horoscopes
read for your rising sign
Aries
This month, don’t make a beeline towards the highest place. Look and observe the pedestal, how stable it is and what happens to those that fall from it. Find the forms of empowerment that make you feel like you can make the world you want. And find ways to bring your friends or group power into the fold.
Taurus
You are rethinking the ground on which you stand. What beliefs you hold dear and which ones propel you forward. If doubt makes your world fall apart, find the new ground that has doubt built inside of it. Your questions are more precious than your ability to predict problems.
Gemini
Witness how deeply you want intimacy in this moment. This intimacy is a belief that what you share with others is a collective sacred space. But witness as well how this intimacy provokes your greatest fears. To make space for death is to make space for life. To grieve is to create a sacred space with death.
Cancer
See how your hand outstretching moves the air around you, just like how when you move things, something moves within you too. This month you’re in a dance with what may seem like the devil but is also a deviant dream inside of you. This relationship is not just about the other person, but also about the you that sees, observes, and perceives.
Leo
It’s a tender time. That tenderness plays out in how your skin and hair and body long for a certain type of touch, oil, texture. Or a certain type of rest, a sleep that might be evading you as you hum through to-do lists and piles of papers. Amid laborious concentration, meditate and see what your work is in service to. What is the god inside your buzzing around?
Virgo
Your prayers these days sound like love poems, slightly knotty but deeply erotic. The gifts you are used to, the art that accompanies you, they keep changing faces every time you look away, and you may not be wondering, if I don’t know what I desire do I still exist? You do. Your questions are proof that you, and the universe, exist.
Libra
Rock bottom can be the comforting feeling of lying on the ground. When was the last time you prostrated yourself, felt your cheek against the cold floor? Staring at the ceiling? There’s a sense of salvation, but not one that uplifts. In this salvation, you can feel the salt rub of the ground, and realize you, much like the earth, contain the ocean’s work and legacy. Your roots go beyond familial bonds and trauma, but to a devoted water mother who carries you still.
Scorpio
This season feels like a scratchy microphone. Where you whisper, the words get magnified and distorted. Or you’re live with a big audience, but lagging inside your own head. As you chew over the things you want to say or express, you can find a renewed part of what being an active member of your community means.
Sagittarius
Taking a look around you, do you feel comfortable in your home and in your body? Venus and Mercury’s back-to-back retrograde in your house of finances and material possessions can signal a bit of frustration in these areas and call you to do the slow work of realigning yourself. Build a shrine this month out of objects whose beauty confuse and enthrall you.
Capricorn
Do you look at yourself in the mirror and wonder, why? Why this body, why this face? Why me here in this moment, of all moments? There must be a transcendental ecstasy in the physical form, in being able to be perceived and to perceive others, I believe it must exist (!), in feeling, groaning, moving imperfectly. There’s a possibility of discovering that in this moment. Be gentle with yourself.
Aquarius
There is a loneliness in January that persists, and part of it is due to you evaluating the boundaries you need to happily exist. In this month, see if you can explore new places in your solo journey, inside your own private paradise.
Pisces
Friendship may be feeling quite tense, like a suit that is just a size too small. You’re redefining what community means and if the people around you can make space for the new you, the molting you, with your ideological revolutions and internal sobering.