Zora Neale Hurston, a Capricorn.
Photo: Photographic illustration by Preeti Kinha / Photos: Getty, Everett Collection
On Tuesday night, a new moon will take place in the wise and cautious Capricorn, opening a door and offering the opportunity to define new intentions with consideration and care. Late Wednesday night, Uranus’ retreat ends and the planet of progress, revolution and surprise begins to advance again. On Sunday night, the planet Jupiter squares Uranus, marking a moment of unpredictable opportunity. Now, anything is possible – a new world is doing its best to emerge – but the path is still full of obstacles and surprises and will require you to move with patience, with care and with all the wisdom You have.
When it comes to listening to other people, taking into account their desires and opinions, it can be difficult to find the right balance. Listening to others is a valuable skill that can bring great rewards, but it is not possible, or even desirable, to listen all. There are so many people with nothing to offer you, so many people spreading bad information, bad analysis, bad feelings. This week, being open to the world does not mean that you should listen to any advice you receive. Be as judicious as possible with your attention.
Even though you have grown stronger in the past few months and years, it may not necessarily be so. At the very least, you may be more aware of how tired you are, how your emotional reserves have diminished and drained. But, all this time, you have strengthened new emotional muscles by practicing new types of movement. And now, this week, in a rough and imperfect way, you will begin to feel some of the power you are slowly building. This week, by leaps and bounds, you will be able to remember that you are strong and worthy, and you are right to make demands on the world.
This week, you will benefit from thinking carefully and clearly about your loyalty and commitments, about the values that mean the most to you. It is very possible that these things have changed; if so, it is important that you can express – even if only for yourself – what is important to you now. This week, that clarity will be crucial. When you are clear about your deepest values, you can respond to any situation with integrity. When you know what’s most important, you can find your way around any unmapped terrain.
This is a week to think seriously about your desire and to treat it as the formidable power it really is. It is very easy to imagine it as a kind of soft, thin mist, as something melancholy, dreamy, light as air. But that is not the only way that desire can feel. Sometimes desire can propel you forward, it can fill you with strength, it can put some surprising steel in your voice. You are not stuck forever, yearning for the world you want. Instead, you can go out and find it, go out and build it.
It can be very difficult now to maintain any kind of perspective. This is not your fault: everything around you is always changing and reversing. What seemed important may turn out to be inconsequential; what seemed unimportant can turn out to be life changing. It is difficult to know what is important and what can be ignored, and even more difficult to know what your own role should be. This week, don’t let yourself be convinced that your life is trivial or that your own abilities and gifts are inconsequential. You are more needed than ever; over time, the world will show how.
Reality does not progress along a smooth upward path. You know that perfectly, but it’s still so hard not to wish that everything moved in a linear path. It still seems unfair that your hard work and your good heart don’t lead directly to the rewards you deserve. But that does not mean that your efforts have been wasted. All this time, you have created the foundation you need. All this time, you have been building service networks. You may be surprised, this week, at the ways in which all your love comes back to you.
The weight of other people’s analysis can weigh heavily on your shoulders. There are so many opinions and so many angles, but nobody knows nothing for sure – no one can see the future and no one has figured out how to fix everything that went wrong. This week, make sure you don’t get too involved with everyone else’s ideas. It just prevents you from seeing all the possibilities available to you, all the opportunities to live the best you can.
This is a week to avoid games and intrigue, a week to avoid all kinds of petty maneuvers by power. There is a lot of unpredictability in the air, a lot of potential for wild and unexpected results. No matter how hard you try to plan everything, the world can still surprise you; this is especially true now. While this can make you feel painfully vulnerable by being very frank about your intentions, this week, it is best to plan simply, take each day as you come.
It can be difficult to find the right balance between trust and wisdom – to allow your trust to feed you without taking you away and your wisdom to soften you without overwhelming you so much that you can’t move. This week, it will be especially important to pay attention to that balance. For now, things are going to be up and down, messy, unclear. At this point, it is possible so much that you have not yet dreamed. Trust alone will not help you do this, and not all the practical wisdom in the world – you will need both.
Sometimes, when things are particularly challenging or when you are feeling very tired, it may seem like it makes sense to give up on your unfulfilled ambitions. It may seem like a good strategy to somehow trick your brain into being satisfied with the things you already have. But this week, there’s no reason to pretend you don’t want what you really do. This week, there is no reason not to dream beautiful long-term dreams. You don’t have to do all the work yet – you don’t even have to plan – just don’t convince yourself to dream.
Determination and clarity come naturally to you – you know who you are and you know what you really value. The difficulty lies in taking that clarity with you through a confused world. The difficulty lies in maintaining that clarity without holding it too tightly. This week, the world will surprise you. It will require you to bend over, adapt and change your mind. Your job is to continue living, to trust that your values and integrity are strong enough to resist a changing world, a change you – because they are.
Lately, the emotional ups and downs of everyday life seem so intense, so intensified, that it’s hard to see beyond them. Lately, each day has been so full of drama and surprises that it’s hard to have the energy for anything else. This is not your fault; there are times when the mere act of survival is sufficient. But as much as you can, try to remember the long term as well. Try to remember that this is not the end – that you still have a future and that you can enter it with intention and courage.
Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of January 4th. weekly horoscopes for the week of January 18 will be online next Sunday.
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