Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg: “Regentag in Kyoto. 1901. bez. s.l. (seinem lieben) Pankok. Farbradierung. Bl. 8 der Mappe aus Japan”. Photo By ArishG CC BY-SA 3.0

Every day our world shifts a bit under our feet, we see things appear and disappear from the horizon, our vision is more or less trained to our own short- or long-term expectations, and these are the changes we anticipate, plan for–we’re not even talking about real change, the kind that forces our hand, makes us choose in the moment, or requires us to make a choice that puts one option away for all time. Today our world shifts, but it’s tricky: it changes as we’re creating, healing, or moving closer to our dream. The change may have everything to do with what we’re up to, or it may have nothing to do with it, but almost certainly, we won’t be aware of what’s happening until it’s already over. And that’s okay. We may be asked to change our beliefs, because of it, or to commit assets or talents to that dream, more or more quickly than we thought we would, and we definitely will need to make our ideas of what’s wise and our ideas of empowerment line up. But it’s all for the good–enjoy the day!

(Pallas sq Juno, Venus nov Neptune, Mercury semi-sq Mars, nov Chiron, and parallel Juno, Sun qnx Jupiter and trine Pluto)

Setting the table for your year ahead. Art by Peter Ilsted {{PD}}

For those born with the Sun at 23 Taurus. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–together these offer a more complete picture of your year ahead). This year for you, dear Taurus, ‘luck’ and other good fortune seems to reside in your willingness to do two things: to expand your world, and to be on top of the details, to a hair-splitting degree. Take time to examine carefully both the Dream, and the reality picture that surrounds you–they’ll be a nice pause that will allow assessment and modification, should you see the need. Opportunities will be numerous and probably surprising–choose your commitments with care. Good luck!

‘Leaping Carp under the Cherry Tree’ By Iijima Koga 1874 {{PD}}

It’s all about the instincts today, and they may manifest in two forms: as a sense of ‘knowing’ without knowing how you know, a kind of psychic reflex, or as a situation where we blunder into our ‘blind spot’–that is, we think we know what we’re doing, but we’re missing a vital piece of the puzzle–and everyone else can see that. In effect, our minds are at odds with the social order, with our own beliefs, or with ‘the facts’, and the key to making it work, to accessing the instinctual knowledge rather than suffering within the blind spot, is to be willing to acknowledge just where we are wounded and how this may have shaped (or more accurately, misshapen) our goals. It’s another day where our level of honesty with ourselves is all-important; it’s what ends up dictating the impact of this Finger of God with base of Sun sextile Neptune, apex Zeus. If we are free of delusion (creative while still realistic) we can see a goal reached or desire fulfilled; if we are steeped in one or more illusions, we see the result of that, as well, maybe through feedback or cooperation (or the lack of it) from others, and how this affects the goal and desire picture (Zeus in Libra).

(Pallas sesq, Vesta nov, and Venus parallel Sedna, Mercury sesq Jupiter, Sun semi-sq Chiron and qnx Zeus)

Setting the table for your year ahead. Art by Peter Ilsted {{PD}}

For those born with the Sun at 20 Taurus. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–together these offer a more complete picture of your year ahead). Dear Taurus, This coming Solar year, through to your next birthday, promises stability, security–or is that boredom, a rut you can’t get out of? That really depends on how you approach it. If you can embrace stability as a steady platform from which to launch efforts, even dreams, you can go a long way, especially if you are willing to work out the discrepancies between where you imagine your ambitions will take you and where you are actually headed. If seeing patience, hard work, and an even-keeled attitude sounds like dullsville, and seems to you to be taking you exactly nowhere and accomplishing nothing, then you are in for one long, boring episode. If during this year you can accept the beauty of persistent effort, you’ll come up with both the needed knowledge and the personal power/ transformative energies to make your like anything you want it to be. Good luck!

‘Choir, Angels of Paradise, from the Beethovenfries’ (which I read as ‘Beethoven oven fries’–is that wrong of me?) Beethoven Frieze, 1902 By Gustav Klimt {{PD}}

We encounter surprising beauty today, in the form of spontaneous, original, even genius thoughts and inventive plans, in surprising abundance of one kind or another, in the surprising way that beauty makes us want to create change or transform ourselves or our world, and in the surprising way the past acts as a guide for the now. Enjoy what’s revealed, what you see–it’s all for your benefit. Dangers include overeating or over spending (out of sheer exuberance and appreciation for life, so maybe that’s a good indulgence, after all), and massive generosity with Love or Money (just make sure it’s with an individual or entity you feel truly deserving–we don’t want any Friday morning regrets). Too, we may be surprised to find our current direction doesn’t actually serve our ambitions–but that’s okay–not everything we do has to tie into our wants or lead us closer to a goal. Nostalgia is a possibility, as is consideration of trying to roll back the clock–just be aware that’s not the direction of time’s arrow, and that the word ‘nostalgia’ actually means, ‘pain of the past’–and nobody wants to visit a painful scenario, especially if the pain comes from missing, or believing we should reconstitute, what was.

(Venus trine Jupiter, sq Pluto, and contra-parallel Zeus, Mercury parallel Uranus, Sun trine SN)

Setting the table for your year ahead. Art by Peter Ilsted {{PD}}

For those born with the Sun at 19 Taurus. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–together these offer a more complete picture of your year ahead). You are set this year to make amazing strides, dear Taurus, with your ability to transform the reality picture–yes, you really are that powerful, from your center all the way out to your surroundings–and much of what results will heal difficult situations through a growing emotional clarity and understanding. What works best for you? Taking lessons from your past. What will you have to adjust to? Goals, new ones or shifting/ morphing ones, as your emotional perceptions will quite naturally modify what you want. Action, and emotional action in particular, will lead to gain, and use the ideals driven by the creative impulse for best, and most true to your inner you, results.

‘Bullfights- Banderillas with Firecrackers’ By Francisco de Goya 1923 {{PD}}

Ideas will be like firecrackers today, ones accidentally, spontaneously set alight–and though the creative energy that pours from it is not only valid, it’s highly empowering, those ideas may also be shocking, come out of left field, or could be radical, taking the imagination to new, previously not considered heights. That means that the most important thing we can do with these ideas is think them through, taking adequate time to examine potential implications, and to vet impact. We’ve got a strong creative impulse overall today, and one that operates free of our normal roles or constraints; the trick is to glean all the best from ideas and impulses that present, without blowing anything up.

(Mercury conj Uranus, both semi-sq Neptune, Sun sxt Neptune and contra-parallel Ceres)

Setting the table for your year ahead. Art by Peter Ilsted {{PD}}

For those born with the Sun at 18 Taurus. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–that offers a more complete picture of your year ahead). This year, dear Taurus, you’re a bit of a genius when it comes to ways of acting effectively, to empowering yourself on the current scene. This comes from taking your highest values and applying them to healing–and you may do this unconsciously, simply enjoying the results of this application. But we save the best for last. This Solar year, through to your next birthday, you also have a spectacular mandate: you can be a pure conduit for the creative, specifically so that it can be applied to ambition or desire fulfillment. So, one of your most important energy investments to make before the year gets started is to really think about what you want–because this year, you have the juice to make it happen. Good luck!

‘Distribution of Bread in the Village’ By Frans van Leemputten 1892 {{PD}}

It’s all down to the reality picture, how honest we’ve been with ourselves, and how we’ve dealt with relationships and finances. It will all be laid out before us, with the undeniable results of our ‘investments’–and if we don’t like what we see, get crackin’–only you can change it! We’ll have to face what we’ve denied or buried, and we’ll see both the costs involved with those relationships we’ve nurtured and those we’ve neglected–and our money will speak just as eloquently, with those things we’ve been willing to support and those abandoned. Really, if you make it a practice to be honest with yourself, there’s little that will surprise you–it will be more a matter of reminders–but if you’ve been hiding from your own reality, you’ll lose protective cover, and see what you’ve created, with time, sweat, and love.

(Saturn nov Black Moon Lilith, Venus sq Saturn)

Setting the table for your year ahead. Art by Peter Ilsted {{PD}}

For those born with the Sun at 17 Taurus. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–that offers a more complete picture of your year ahead). This coming Solar year, dear Taurus, you have a major creative period at your fingertips–how will you use it? Inspiration and opportunity are laid before you, the kind of thing that can fulfill a long-term ambition or desire, and you can get quite a lot of creative mileage out of it, especially if you allow the feeling nature to guide actions. There is a danger that you will allow yourself to be seriously misled. I do say ‘allow yourself’ because this will be as close to a conscious decision as any you ever make–so if you get to the end of the solar year, reaching your next birthday, and realize that you’ve been chasing illusions, apparitions, ghosts–then you’d better ask yourself why you would avoid pursuing your dreams–the answer being, those weren’t really your dreams, and you knew it. The psyche is a marvelous, and often sneaky, thing, keeping us from a wrong direction. Trust yourself. Good luck!

Check out this article by astrologer Alex Trenoweth on the British Royals, featuring the role of Algol!

The Fortune card from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck, By Bonifacio Bembo, Antonio Cicognara c1450 {{PD}}

Today we get a surprisingly crisp look at what our actions and choices have wrought. We see the price we’ve paid for fulfilling desires and ambitions (and if we’re lucky, we see what it would’ve cost, if we’d gotten our way in some area denied or only partially fulfilled), and we see how that is currently presenting us with a kind of existential crisis: has all that desire chasing been worth anything, or is it irrelevant to both our life’s meaning and purpose? It’s a health check of a sort, the kind that lets us know if our focus has been too personal, too petty, or if in committing to our values we’ve had to bury a body or two–and if so, today you may have to dig it up, and decide what to do with it, once and for all.

(Cardinal Grand Cross of Venus opp Zeus sq the Nodal axis, Mercury enters Taurus and sxt Black Moon Lilith, Sun parallel Hygeia, Vesta semi-sq Black Moon Lilith)

Setting the table for your year ahead. Art by Peter Ilsted {{PD}}

For those born with the Sun at 16 Taurus. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–that offers a more complete picture of your year ahead). You are on the way, dear Taurus, to a future-determining creative surge–and the question this Solar year, through to your next birthday, becomes: How well will you handle it? Will you squander that creative impetus on pleasures or ambition fulfillments, will you make something lasting, will you make choices that bring you farther along your path or simple dawdle by the wayside for a pleasant interlude? Either is possible–it’s up to you to make something out of this very useful energy and creativity that you’ll be offered. And, with careful preparation, correct use of your ability to manifest will result in Love or Money. Good luck!