Welcome to 2022

January from the Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry by the Limbourg brothers.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you enjoy reading this introduction to January’s astrology (below). This is part of the monthly newsletter for members of The Oxford Astrologer, along with the full-length individual horoscope for each sign.

This month there is also a video for each sign looking at the potential for the year ahead + a key dates crib sheet. The bi-monthly asteroids report for January and February is also up now.

Oh, and if you’re a member, don’t miss the Q&A this month which will be a look at 2022. It’s on 2 January and I’ll be answering your questions. Go to the members page.

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Uncertainty, revision, inner vision and dreaming: a vague, maybe illusory, mood pervades the first month of 2022. It may be hard to make decisions, as the future seems misty and unclear.

Of course, some of us will simply have to make some choices. We can’t put everything on hold while we find our feet in the green new year. But if you can, delay the big, important decisions until February.

This month is for pausing, researching, and imagining. It’s for drawing the sketch of your dream home and playing with colour schemes, not for laying down the stone. It’s for the soft launch of your shampoo, when you ask everyone’s opinion, ready to go back to the lab and rework the formula, so it comes out smelling of apples not durian fruit.

It is a fermenting time. Mars is burning a fiery streak through the sign of big ideas, fantastic exaggerations — and enthusiasm — until 24 January. Venus is in the underworld until 29 January. Mercury follows her down into the depths on 14 January. And Jupiter has arrived in Pisces, the sign of big dreaming, grand schemes and billowing sails. The planet of expansion and joy loves being here, and is running fast to cover the ground. By the end of January, he will be just shy of 7° Pisces. However, he tends to lose any sense of boundaries, and may also lose his sense of direction. Suddenly, the possibilities may seem endless … or where you thought there was something, there’s just a dream or a question.

We can thank our stars that Saturn remains steady throughout the month, helping us to keep some stability in this strange start to the year. With each day he takes a further step away from the disruptive influence of rebellious Uranus, who turns direct on January 18. This means anyone born on or around that day, or 1 May, will feel his divine electric excitement very powerfully.

Only towards the end of the month, when the Sun reaches the cool, high air of Aquarius on 20 January, will we start to get high enough up the mountain to see a little further ahead. Meanwhile other planets gathered in practical Capricorn are ready to start on some real work.

Remember January 2020? That was when a historically huge collection of planets gathered in Capricorn — and a global pandemic began, changing lives forever. This January, Mercury and Venus both choose to retrograde over that same ground, and in February they will go direct over that area. Mars will also tread on those same critical degrees next month. This smacks of a reassessment, rethink, and perhaps a cleaning up operation.

Join, or go to the members page.