I’m not sure how many of us are more than happy to say good riddance to 2014 but I bet it is the overwhelming majority.  There is something to be said for doing all of the heavy, internal work required of us for the past two years while Saturn has cycled through intense Scorpio; however, the day to day living experience of getting through this work was grueling.  I know many days I felt I’d been put through a wringer and hung out to dry. In many cases, the losses and life altering circumstances have been profound.  Saturn in Scorpio was meant to change us on the deepest levels and in most cases we’ve had no choice.   As we lick our wounds, still learning the lessons in front of us, please remember the basis of each lesson is LOVE.  Often the hardest of these is self-love.  Once this is mastered, everything flows from there.  So now that Saturn has moved into adventurous and spirited Sagittarius, let’s point ourselves to the New Year with hope in our hearts.  Let’s say a collective BYE BYE to 2014:  all together now!
Except for a brief return to Scorpio in mid-2015, Saturn will be in Sagittarius through 2017.  Here, the cosmic taskmaster asks completely different questions and demands from us.   Where Saturn in Scorpio through us completely off course and dug up gnarly psychological wounds, Saturn in Sagittarius prompts us to ask why.  Do some deep, existential and philosophical pondering.  This does not have to be a chore.  In fact, look at this next two years as an adventure, a chance to explore, an opportunity to broaden your horizons.  Open and embrace the new.  Accept the different in yourself and others.  Remember:  we are one.  Each of us is a mirror to another.  So breathe. 
Sagittarius rules higher learning, travel, adventure, spirituality and long journeys.  The beginning of 2015 marks the next two years of wandering to the mountain tops of our lives, whether actually or metaphorically.   Travel to the mountain top, see what you can see, understand and learn, then decide what is important to carry on with for the rest of your days.
Sagittarius is a fire sign.  For a long while, radical Uranus has been hanging out all by itself in fiery Aries.  Then last summer it was joined by Jupiter in another fire sign, Leo.  Now, with Saturn in the third fire sign, Sagittarius, fuel is added to this blaze to really get our lives roaring.  Feel the energy shift?  From heavy, dense, wet blanket internal energy to exciting, risk-taking, enticing and adventurous vibes.   So very, very different.  A brief note how this energy shift has already affected me:  For my entire life I have avoided gyms and aerobic/cardio exercise of any kind.  I’ve been a yoga/walking/low-impact kind of gal.  Then late last month, as Uranus turned direct motion and Saturn shifted into Sagittarius, I shocked myself, my family and everyone who knows me by waking up one day and signing up for a gym membership.  Guess what?  I love it.  Love the facility, the staff, my new routine, new world of women and community opening up to me.  Needless to say, I have so much more energy, feel healthier and wonder what on earth took me so long to do this!  What a brand new adventure and it is just around the corner…You see, you can travel to another world and barely leave your neighborhood!
Where do you feel the cosmic fire kindling new life in you?  What are you urged to create?  Where will you travel, search and soar?  What will you learn and bring back to share with others?  2015 promises to be so exciting!  Like stepping out on a brand new stage of life.  As January begins, a powerful combination is at play:  the Sun (our will) is tightly conjoined with Pluto (transformation) while Messenger Mercury and Venus (love and money) travel together all in uber practical Capricorn.   The latter pair make an incredibly harmonious angle to the Moon in earthy Taurus, where she is exalted, meaning, in her dream home.  These energies create a magical quality enabling us to apply our will and desires, our thoughts and our hearts to manifest what we want.   Truly this year, with focused attention and continuous effort, what you sow and plant, so shall you reap.   If ever there was a New Year’s Day to make realistic, healthful and productive resolutions that will stick¸ this January 1st is it! 

Only two days later on the 3rd, planet of love and money, Venus, enters inventive Aquarius, prompting an interest in unusual people, relationships and opportunities to earn that we ordinarily would not consider.  Step out of yourself.  Go on that date, sign up for a trial membership of anything, explore alternative job prospects.  What have you got to lose?  Nothing.  What do you gain?  Experience.  Who knows what might come of it?  Two days later:  Mercury joins Venus in Aquarius where it is exalted, meaning, offers us our highest expression, keenest insights, break through ideas.  Coupled with Venus now, this pair creates a beneficial angle to Saturn in Sagittarius.  Aim your arrow high.  The inventive, out of the box, outre, and avant garde are completely available to you now, and, have it all over the ordinary, hum-drum, run-of-the-millers.    Under the bright light of the Full Moon on January 4th, we step out.  Do a different dance.  Let it all hang out.  Let it all go.  Be groovy.  Be bold.  Tell a different tale now.  Sing another song. 
Like an engine driving the wheels of ingenuity, the Sun-Pluto combo are smack in the middle of Saturn and Mercury-Venus, demanding how.  So you have all these brilliant (and I mean brilliant) ideas.  How are you going to make it/them work, apply the genius, roll it out for your use or better still, make money from it?  Consider:  throughout this month and in fact all of 2015, Saturn challenges Neptune.  At odds with each other, this energy begs us to dream and dream BIG.  But the Sun-Pluto mid point between Saturn-Mercury/Venus insists we pull our dreams into realistic vision.  We can do anything we desire and dream up…but how?   Sun-Pluto in Capricorn says we must think through what we want to accomplish, create an action plan.  A step by step guide.  What is too much or too little?  It’s great to be excited for the future and all there is to do.  Just be sure to enlist help (and the right kind…you know what I mean:  not the energy-draining, vampire sucking kind but rather, the down-to-earth, get your hands dirty kind) to get the job done.  Otherwise it is easy to be overwhelmed or lost in the details.
On the 12th, Mars enters watery Pisces adding a visionary lens to this wildly creative mix.  While fiery Mars is not typically at its best in sensitive Pisces, there are significant benefits as it cycles through this reflective sign.  Conjoined to Neptune and challenging Saturn in Sagittarius, motivating Mars heightens our dreams (day and night), meditations, intuition and sets the stage for Mercury to turn retrograde the following week.  Music, prayer, writing, channeling ideas flow abundantly now and/or are deeply soothing.  Be very careful not to dismiss the signs and messages, both seen and heard and often delivered through other people including loved ones, that are given to you now.  Pay attention.  Be open to receiving, hearing, following through.  What are you invited to hear and know?   How can you apply what you learn and encounter to grow, manifest your desires?
This same day, the Moon joins the north node in Libra (our directional calling) to form a gorgeous angle to the Mercury-Venus duo.  Emotionally connect to your magic, your ideas calling you forward.  Creativity unleashes this week.  WOW.  Remember, each of us is essentially and vitally creative.  We all offer creative ideas, products and solutions that enhance our world.  Someone once said to me that she didn’t think of herself as creative because she didn’t paint or draw.   Her remark is a very limited vision of what creativity is.  Creativity is not limited to artists.  Athletes, business and technology people, spiritualists, not-for-profit workers and volunteers bring critical and essential skills and know-how to our lives every day.  Where do you creatively contribute to life and how can you build, expand and develop your potential in 2015 and beyond?  For if there is one word for 2015, it is expansion.

The planetary combinations at mid-month are ripe and rife with limitless direction.  Take advantage!   The Sun enters Aquarius on January 20th, the same day as the New Moon.  Because Mercury turns retrograde motion the very next day, this New Moon is especially strong for meditating, prayer, writing, creativity of any kind, and setting intentions.  Meditate on what you DO want, not what you do not want.  Yoginis of all varieties will love this period of time.   Now in the dead of winter, we can settle in for a long winter’s nap.  Embrace all of the retrograde RE words:  Reflect, Review, Renew, Restore, etc.  Imagine, dream and vision forward.  Channeling and intuiting can be particularly mind blowing and/or deeply healing now at a minimum, especially as Mars joins wounded healer Chiron in Pisces during the 3rdweek of the month, making a greatly helpful angle to Pluto.  Resolution to deep-seeded wounds or matters are available now.
And when Messenger Mercury reaches a critical degree of Aquarius on January 25thforming an extremely beneficial angle to Radical Uranus, the Lunar Nodes and the Moon, you may have lift-off.  Emotional, intellectual and creative barriers and blocks be gone.  Stand back and behold.  Expect surprise.  The shocking.  The key insight or phrase you’ve needed to hear, believe, understand and digest, answers long-searched for, breaks through now.  GET IT?

Two days later on January 27th, Venus enters Pisces where she is exalted.  The Mother Theresa effect I call this.  The magnificent giver of Divine Love.  As Venus slowly joins Neptune, Mars and Chiron in Pisces for the remainder of January, we are invited to think of others as much as ourselves, to envision our ideal world, what it looks like and how we may go about creating that ideal.  Your thoughts create your actions.  Create with the highest intentions possible.