The night is long, the day is short, and the sun will be at it’s lowest apex in the day sky before setting. But, as sure as the Earth still exists, it’s uphill from here. The light will increase more and more, even if it’s cold, snowy, and seemingly dead outside. The light will come back, and with it, it will bring warmth. The light will draw out the life that has been hiding underground, indoors, in seeds, in burrows, in nests, in roots.

This is a good time for gratitude, you know. You got a roof over your head? Food? Are you warm? Do you have running water? And how about the people you care about? Because if you’ve spent the fertile months of autumn preparing for the winter, this can be a time of abundance in it’s own right: Capricorn produces, Aquarius invents, and Pisces conjures. However, all of the winter signs do these things out of necessity rather than opportunity, because this is the season of scarcity, austerity, and rest, whether you like it or not, because all the necessities take more energy. So, you delegate responsibilities, you figure out a way to ensure there is no scarcity in the future. Then, you invent things that will ensure there will be no scarcity ever again. Then, you surrender to the fact that despite all your efforts, there are just some powers you can’t overcome, some mysteries that remain, and that maybe in the end, embracing this and then looking deep within is what actually will get you through, for even if the body is lost, the soul goes on.

And then the soul is reborn in Aries at the Spring Equinox, when the light has returned in equal portion to the dark, ever increasing until the summer solstice at the beginning of Cancer.

And I like this time of year. Usually. Always have. The Sun is on my Venus exactly, and it’s just my kind of pleasure: quiet, or at least preparing for the world to become quiet, reflective, and readying for what is next. This is a diplomatic season, a time when we reinforce our bonds with people so we know we are there for each other come the harshness of the season when there’s no leftovers, no decorations, no carols, no ugly sweaters.

And I tell you that somehow, this entire Christmas season has passed me by, and I live in America. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t go into the office, or I don’t shop at Target often enough, or I don’t have kids, or I don’t spend a lot of time with people big into Christmas, or that people just aren’t feeling the spirit and putting out their decorations, but it’s kind of like everyone else is sort of in the same weird place with this.

But I learned my lesson: I haven’t made my own pizzas since the last solstice. If the spirit is to head into the time of work and austerity, the long work that goes into home pizza just isn’t worth it.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not snowing. It’s not predicted to snow for the rest of the year. It’s going to be a relatively warm holiday, and even though it will get cold until January, it’s not expected to actually snow, so this means I’m going to have to figure out a way to celebrate the snow since I’m celebrating the end of the fertile seasons and embracing the time of austerity tomorrow.

And it makes me a little sad.

Look: the Moon will be in late Cancer, opposing Venus and Pluto in Capricorn. The Sun and Jupiter are forming a yod with that Cancer Moon, a handle of a bucket chart formation, and Saturn and Uranus are still square. In Chicago specifically, Mars will be exactly on the Midheaven in Sagittarius and the ascendant will be in Aquarius. That Moon is in the 6th in Cancer, so if you want to make merry, and you have to make it work somehow despite the lack of snow, you can do it. You have the imagination, the tools, the ethusiasm, and the inventiveness to make due with a lack of a reason to keep the Yule log burning.

Me? Mine will be on Youtube, and since my dinner and ritual plans aren’t actually going to take the entire day, I think maybe it’s a good time to get back out in nature again, at least for some sunshine to combat these seasonal blues.

Of course, I’m not so certain I want to be shopping during a lunar-Venus/Pluto opposition on the Cancer/Capricorn axis: while I don’t expect to get trampled, I suspect that emotions will be running high behind cool veneers that are starting to crack under the pressure, or possible, that there will be some question of what the point of all this, whatever your point of view but whatever: we’re going to make this the best fucking holiday ever, no tears, no fears, but thank god we don’t have to do everything we used to do in previous years, right?

The moon is going to go into Leo, then early Virgo for Christmas. The north node will have entered Taurus by then, so doing little more than eating yourself to sleep is going to be just what fate ordered. Or it will be the fate of a lot of people. Actually, I think we’re going to notice less of a desire to stay connected as we’ve seen during the pandemic and more of a desire to hold our own. The pandemic began with the north node in early Cancer (even if the disease itself didn’t begin then), and it was a lot easier to wrap our heads around the idea of stay home, stay safe. Perhaps if the Node spent more time in Cancer, or if it was in Leo to begin with, that wouldn’t have been such a difficult thing, but then it went into Gemini, and the mode was “but why? Why?” and now it’s going to be “I’m hungry, I’m tired. I’m just gonna sit this one out and let you guys fight it out. I have television, I have a fridge, I have a bed, I have a job I don’t have to wear pants to that takes me five minutes to arrive to each morning.”

Oh yes, the Moon: honestly, a Cancer Moon is probably the nicest, if it’s not in opposition to the Sun, that we could get during hygge season on the most cozy of holidays. Granted, the moon doesn’t predict how to rest of winter goes, but so far, Jupiter is still holding onto Aquarius, not ready to give up his iPhone to get into the sensory deprivation chamber of Pisces, and that’s a thing, you know, the last degree: we need to figure out how to get it together with everyone right now. What do you believe in? Who are your safe circle? Who do you want to reach out to before shit hits the fan?

Because it’s going to start getting confusing come January when Jupiter enters Pisces and we’re all wondering who we should trust, and if we should include ourselves among those numbers. And we may go to sleep after our big holiday meal and not wake up until Jupiter enters Aries. That may be a good thing in some ways, because it’s our shot to remember that we are our brother’s keepers, and they are our keepers, and that we were once magical and no one could tell us what to believe in, much less in institutions and gods that damn to hell and don’t give a damn.

But there will be a lot of others in the shadows, emerging like wolves in sheep’s clothing, Don’t expect the stupidest of conspiracy theories to go away any time soon – in fact, this could be a time when people really start to act on Qanon despite how stupid it is and how it distracts from actual child trafficking – and it could be a time when even more people refuse to treat diseases like they exist, or whatever reason people are abandoning reason to put their faith in their own fears instead.

But I want to keep this bright because there is a good side to everything, and the light will come back. It always does.

I didn’t make chicken wings for Thanksgiving this time around — I just skipped the day entirely — so I’ll be sure to make some for solstice eve dinner just to keep up my tradition. But the pizzas? Too much work, too many carbs. I’ll stick to roasts from now on.

Because why work harder today when the hard work is ahead of me in the coming months? At least I’ve got some buffalo wings to make me warm tonight.

Hello, winter.

Hello Capricorn.

It’s starting off a little intense with that Moon/Pluto opposition, so good thing Mars is in Sagittarius to bring us the levity we need, because you know Mercury in Capricorn isn’t telling anyone how crazy this all is.

Hello 2022.