Your 2022 Horoscope Is Here, & It’s Asking Us To Step Into The Light

The thing about predicting the future is, the moment you speak one into being it becomes a notion that is already past. What transpires after prediction, after ambition, is anybody’s guess — subject to the holy chaos that is the human world. All we can do is honor what we know, what has come before, and what it taught us. We know that we enter the year 2022 with a nod to the Sun and the equinoxes because the year 2022 is a solar year based on a solar calendar. With this in mind, we move toward the new year with reverence for the solstice and what our time with the night has restored in us.

In an attempt to mirror our luminaries, it might be balance, or our stumbling toward it, that remains the main objective in a world that is never one thing or another. The fact that we end 2021 with a full moon in Gemini followed by a last quarter moon in Libra is both a gift and a difficult reminder that all opposites live in relationship and all relationships are a meditation on duality. These lunations guide us into the new year, which begins with a Venus retrograde under the stars of steadfast Capricorn. Venus stationed retrograde on December 19 and will continue to mine our relationships and value systems, seeking balance and reparation in whatever way she deems honorable through the month of January, stationing direct on the 29th and casting her shadow until March 1. 

In the meantime, Venus manages to make a conjunction to Mars on February 16 and then March 5, a meeting that is bound to make an impact, for better or worse, on our Venus Rx journey. Truthfully, it isn’t until after the conjunction that Venus makes to Saturn on March 28 that the coast begins to clear and those of us most affected by the Venus Rx (Taurus and Libra placements, the cardinal signs and fixed signs too) can breathe a little easier. Of course, Venus and the aspects she makes impact the whole of Zodiac. Besides, with Jupiter’s transit through Pisces, four Mercury retrogrades this year, and a Mars retrograde in Gemini to close things off, our mutable friends have their own work cut out for them. 

Jupiter’s path under Pisces is a mixed blessing, magnifying feelings of interconnectedness while at the same time teaching us what it means to exist in a world where we are never not bound by one another’s choices. This includes, of course, the spread of viruses and abuses of power, but there’s also the power of collective spellwork, the faith that art and music can restore in us, the courage to believe that another world is possible. Jupiter’s influence in Pisces reaches a critical point when Jupiter aligns with Neptune in Pisces on April 12, a conjunction that last occurred in Pisces 150 years ago. In May, Jupiter steps away from familiar territory and slides into Aries. Under the stars of cardinal and initiatory Aries, Jupiter’s energy is renewed and redirected. Whatever possibilities the conjunction surfaced, Jupiter in Aries means to pursue them, an influence that is significant if not reassuring in the year that marks the first Pluto return of the United States.

Virgos and Geminis are both ruled by Mercury, so look to Mercury's transits throughout the year for a sense of their own forecast. That said, in addition to maximum frequency (four), Mercury retrograde also spends some time under the stars of Gemini and Virgo in particular. Our first Mercury retrograde, however, casts a shadow on Capricorn before stationing in Aquarius on January 14. Our second Mercury retrograde begins under the stars of Taurus on April 26 before stationing retrograde in Gemini on May 10. On August 20, it’s Virgo in the Mercury retrograde zone, although Mercury stations retrograde in Libra on Sept 9. Finally, the year ends with a Mercury shadow and retrograde devoted to Capricorn from December 12 through February of the following year.

Our year closes with a Mars retrograde under the stars of Gemini, with a shadow period that begins at the end of September before stationing retrograde on October 30 and continuing under Gemini until January of the following year before stationing direct again. The transit echoes the work that Mercury has done all year, reminding us that even some of our best laid plans don’t always lead us where we intend them to. Mars in Gemini loves to learn from their own mistakes and move forward by consensus, but with Mercury retrograde in Capricorn, agreement is a process that takes time and compromise.

Here, again, we return to the place we started: contradiction, dual impulses, a desire to build  something strong together even as we spend more time learning to understand and love ourselves apart. Sparked by a year that submits to Venus in Capricorn and anchored by the conjunctions that Mercury, Venus, and Mars make to Saturn in Aquarius on March 2, March 28, and April 4, respectively, before Saturn, too, stations retrograde. Whatever we build next year, we build it slow because we build it to last. To light our way, unflinching, are the eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio, beginning with a new moon in Taurus on April 30, then a full moon in Scorpio on May 16, followed by a new moon in Scorpio on October 25, and finally a full moon in Taurus on November 8. As ardent as they are enduring, these solar and lunar events give us the strength to love what we will ultimately have to let go.