Welcome to the second half of the journey.
As the year 2020 rolled to a tumultuous close, the planets of structure and growth, Saturn and Jupiter, united in Aquarius, signally the start of a twenty year story in each of our lives. In the time since, Jupiter has moved into its echo chamber of dreams, Pisces, while Saturn continues its slow churn through the clouds, refining a vision that will take shape over the coming decades.
And now—at this very moment—if you’re listening, cosmic orders are being revealed. Somewhere a blueprint is rising into clarity out of the aches and pains of the previous year. A new career. A marriage. A divorce. The birth of a child. An idea.
Forged through the 40 days and 40 nights of the Venus Retrograde journey through the vast desert of our souls, these revelations follow a period of intense reflection, marked by a series of setbacks, gridlock, and/or heartbreak. For many of us, this has been a time of revisiting our lives before the global pandemic—reaching into the physical structures of our desires and aspirations. To bid farewell as we enter the unknown.
The sky now moves forward and so do we. On February 16th, 2022, the Moon waxes into a standoff in Leo, squaring the Nodes of Fate in Taurus and Scorpio, in what Astrologer Spencer Michaud calls a “do or die moment.” This is a full moon marked by an inescapable decision, a cry to bring your heart to ideas that run the risk of becoming too restrained and lifeless.
This Leo full moon is a glimpse of things to come.
Somewhere each of us is being called to reimagine and reinvent. To step into the freedom of the crisp, treeless air—
What follows is a series of meditations through the Zodiac. Read for your Rising Sign. Or your Sun or Moon, if you insist. For best results, read all twelve at a leisurely pace with a warm beverage and snack——as you drift gently into Pisces season. 
ARIES
The Modernist poet Gertrude Stein once wrote, “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop.” Money can also buy friends, but it can’t guarantee they’ll stick around when the money goes.
TAURUS
Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb. A British inventor named Warren De La Rue executed the idea in 1840. This was thirty-nine years before Edison claimed the patent and forty years before he took the light bulb to market, thus securing his place in history as the giver of light.
(In an ironic twist, Edison himself is rarely given credit for inventing the cat video. Which he did.)
Let this be a reminder: the person who takes all the credit is rarely the one who’s done all the work. 
GEMIINI
Once upon a time there were two twins, Castor and Pollux. One was mortal. One of them was not. One day, the mortal one, Castor, was killed in battle. His brother Pollux–well, naturally, he was devastated and pleaded with Zeus to bring Castor back to life. Zeus agreed. Sort of. Going forward the twins would spend half the year on Earth and the other half as stars in the heavens.
Not even immortals can get what they want all the time. In order to accomplish anything, one of your ideas must die.
CANCER
“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”
—Werner Herzog 
LEO
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Famed Chinese Military General and author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu said that. Honestly, I had no clue. I’m a terrible person and thought it was something from an old Western movie.
Anyway, the point is: be careful who you entangle yourself with—or how you untangle yourself from them. If not, you might find that your intimate life is, at best, distracting you from work, and, at worst, has landed you in the center of a highly publicized and messy scandal.
VIRGO
Fun fact: our body's biggest serotonin reserve is stored in the gut. Which means that major functions such as happiness and sleep quality have more to do with the belly than the brain. Similarly, chronic anxiety can manifest as stomach issues. In short, worrying yourself to death is absolutely a thing.
LIBRA
A list of women sent away to institutions because they were deemed out of control by their parents, husbands or society at large:
Frances Farmer
Zelda Fitzgerald
Vivienne Haigh-Wood
Leonora Carrington
Sylvia Plath
Anne Sexton
Yoko Ono
Britney Spears
This is disturbing. Whatever vision you are bringing into the world, I hope you do it bigly and boldly and without fear of suppression. 
SCORPIO
Tami Erin is best known for her leading role as the nine year old Pippi in the 1988 musical adventure film, Pippi Longstocking. After that her career goes silent until the 2000s when she makes an appearance on Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job! and releases a sex tape.
In the movie, Pippi’s father is lost at sea, leaving her in a crumbling mansion in the care of her talking pets. The neighbors go wild, put her in an orphanage. Blah blah blah. Cute antics ensue.
At the end of the movie, her father returns to take her “home” to some distant island he’s recently conquered, offering her the title of Princess.
She declines. While she was going mad with sadness waiting for her father’s return, she was also making a home for herself. Even if she didn’t realize it at the time.
SAGITTARIUS
“I was in the Bahamas, and the people I was with said, ‘We’re on fucking vacation. We haven’t been on vacation in a long time.’ And then they threw their phones in the ocean.”
— Kim Kardashian
CAPRICORN
When the comedian, Dave Chappelle, walked away from his $55 million Comedy Central deal, people thought he was mad. Literally. There were rumors that he was mentally ill. At the height of his career as one of the most famous entertainers in the world, he just disappeared.
Seven years later he told David Letterman, "there are other things in my life that I do not purchase with money that are very valuable."
While you too may be forced to choose between your desires and integrity, it probably won’t cost you millions. So there’s that.
AQUARIUS
“Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.”
—Sylvia Plath
From Lady Lazarus
Chances are you’re not actually dying. You’re just astrology-dying. That’s when your entire life is upended, so that you can be rebirthed into a new you. I’ve never actually died, so I can’t compare, but I think it might be worse.
PISCES
I don’t know who has it worse this go around, Pisces or Aquarius. On the one hand, read the section for Aquarius (above). On the other hand, Pisces, your general outlook on life could be described as a ‘dark night of the soul’ mix of tragic and romantic.
For example, Johnny Cash, whose famous words will carry all of us home:
“I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire”
CV Henriette is a writer, maker of Cosmic Apothecary, and consulting Astrologer at ART of the ZODIAC. To book a reading, send a message to cv@artofthezodiac.co
Follow her on Instagram at art_of_the_zodiac.
