Oh, my sweet friends. I want to reach through whatever screen you’re reading this on and hug you, or maybe braid your hair and fix you a drink with fresh mint in it and let you tell me about all the ways 2020 broke your heart. And I want to promise you that 2021 will treat you better. I hope it will.

But we’re still in the middle of everything that 2020 ushered in, and it’s not going to suddenly reset because the Gregorian calendar has turned over. There is no clean slate this year. We have to drop the illusion that we’re in control of what happens to us next—that if we just make the right choices we can have the life we deserve. I’m sorry I can’t give you all the life you deserve. Or even a hug. I can just congratulate you on surviving what may have been the hardest year of your life, and encourage you to stick it out with us a little longer.

Because, though some of us might be feeling that everyday is grindingly like the last one, we’re actually in a time of tremendous change, and 2021 will be different from 2020 in some key ways. We’ve moved through what some astrologers have dubbed the “Covid cluster”—that once-in-a-lifetime crunch of planets in late Capricorn, sign of restrictions and responsibility, of doing what you have to and not what you want to. That was a game changer. That was intensely difficult. And that particular piece of astrology, while it’s informing what happens next, is over.

As we move into 2021, new themes are popping up that have more to do with tension between the old world and the new—do we cling to the past or rush toward the future? I’ve heard of people who survived a tornado and when all was clear emerged from their basements to astonishing sights: one house completely demolished while the one next door was unharmed, while yet another had been picked up and set down a few blocks over. Bits and pieces of the old world sat uncomfortably next to the new. They wandered through their neighborhood in a state of grief and wonder, not knowing what familiar landmarks would be gone or rearranged. If nothing else, 2021 will be a year of rewriting our maps.

Last year I posed some questions we might need to answer in 2020. One that still feels appropriate for 2021 is this: “How do we envision what comes next?” This year (and particularly this month) is heavily dominated by Aquarius energy. Aquarius demands change—specifically that we question the rules and structures of our society. Aquarius is the queerdo revolutionary of the zodiac—against assimilation, for free love and collective liberation, willing to be unpopular in pursuit of a better, stranger world. Both planets that have to do with society and its rules and beliefs (Saturn and Jupiter) are newly in Aquarius, and the Sun will meet them there this month. Mars, planet of hissy fits and catty vengeance, finally moves out of Aries but runs smack into a square with Saturn. When these two clash, it has all the subtlety of Dawn Davenport denied her cha cha heels.

Which is to say, we are moving out of a year of crisis and toward a remapping the world, which won’t come without some conflict. All year we see the theme of tradition vs. revolution, of old vs. new, of responsibility vs. freedom. And our allegiances may not be as clean cut as we think they are—is the kind of freedom we’re looking for the freedom to risk other people’s lives so we can party without the inconvenience of masks? This year will complicate any belief system you hold that needs only one right answer, only one good way to be. We are moving out of a need for security and toward a need to experiment — which might mean failing, dusting ourselves off, and trying again. It might mean breaking with an ideology that doesn’t allow for change or nuance. It might mean finding new friends. Whatever it means for you, expect this to be a year of surprises. And if you are aligned with any kind of movement for collective liberation, this is a year to get serious about the limitations of your imagination. Aquarius asks us to escape the limiting perspectives that trap us in “that’s just the way the world is,” and the tensions of this year ask us to better understand what is and isn’t possible.

I’m excited for the changes this year brings, and I have some exciting news to announce! First, if you want a much deeper dive into how the astrology of 2021 will affect your sign, hop on over to my Patreon for the complete download. It’s easy to sign up for one month and change your mind later if you don’t want to stick around—I won’t be hurt! And if you’ve been waiting for a reading with me, my books are finally open again so grab your spot now as I’m often booked at least a month in advance.

I’m also thrilled to announce I’m offering two new classes this year! Two of them! Both live on Zoom—one for astrology newbies and one for those who want to level up and use astrology as a healing tool. Check out my live Astro 101 class here, and my Healers and Weavers apprenticeship program here; registration for both closes soon!

I wish you beautiful acts of bravery and experimentation in all your relationships this year. May 2021 heal your heart and help you remap your world.

Aries

Redraw your map:

Heteronormativity believes in all our needs being met through the couple, but queerness takes a goddamn village. And often, that village is a hot mess. So let’s talk about “community.” What communities are you a part of, whether you like to identify with them or not? What communities do you feel betrayed by? Which ones are literally saving your life right now? What failures have you experienced in community? These themes are coming up for everyone right now, but they’re especially important for you. In redrawing the map of your world, you need to address the core question of who you’re showing up for and who’s showing up for you—and why we mess it up. Part of your work this year is to learn why you can forgive and keep going with some people, and why you can’t with others. Part of your work is to remember that collectivity will always challenge you, on some level, even as you want it—you’re going to feel more in control of your life (and therefore safer) when you can act without stopping to get consensus approval. And yet—you need your community, and they need you. This is the year to work it out a little better than you did last year.

Taurus

Redraw your map:

If you’re being totally honest, you’re happiest when your relationships don’t have a lot of upheaval. You love the familiar, the comfortable, the predictable presence of the people you love. However your relationships changed in 2020, you’re probably still indignant about it, still unwilling to let go of their past forms—even if those changes were for the better! It takes you time to get used to new maps. So in this year of continuing change, when Uranus, planet of change, is still in your sign and stirring up trouble with all the planets moving through Aquarius, you’re being invited to notice where you do want change. Specifically, what about you do you want to be more visible? Are you trying to step into more leadership in your work or your friend group? Or do you need to take on less and open a space for others to come forward? What relationships help you feel capable and strong? Who do you trust to hold your vulnerability? If there aren’t at least two people on that list, how can you change that this year? What relationships drain your energy? What boundaries have you set in them? What boundaries do you need to set? 2021 is going to keep rearranging your relationships, but not all the changes need to be bad, I promise. Your job is to stay honest about what’s giving you life and what’s become a burden. Your job is to hold onto what you actually need and learn to lovingly release the rest.

Gemini

Redraw your map:

This is a year of growth and change for you, and most of it will be aligned with what you already know you want. You’re growing toward a future you can imagine, but 2021 wants you to stay aware of what is marvelous, unfamiliar, and even unimaginable in what you thought was familiar. Your map this year doesn’t need to get totally redrawn as much as defined: your existing map has many possible entries and exits, roads overlapped on other roads, landmarks that go by many names, possible future roads that haven’t been built yet….this is a year of making choices, of clarifying, of committing to certain paths and not others. And you can only do this by getting curious about why—what do you gain by delaying choices? Where do you feel that deep sense of truth that can help you decide? What stories are blocking you from feeling into that intuitive sense of rightness? Who’s helping you unlearn those stories? Who might be reinforcing them? You will always be love the questions more than the answers, but this is a year of making firm commitments. Let your sense of wonder and curiosity guide you.

Cancer

Redraw your map:

Whether you name it or not, the pain you’ve experienced shapes you. The pain of 2020 has reshaped your relationships, your daily routines, and even how you hold and move and love your body. In redrawing your maps this year, take time to commemorate the places where you’ve been hurt. Leaves flowers at specific landmarks. Rename the streets. Let yourself cry. Hold your beloveds in your body, in the way you are kind to yourself, in the way you let yourself rest. Remember that it’s hard work to feel grief, to remember what is lost, but that crying is an act of alchemy: it rearranges the places that pain has claimed for its own. Remember you have the power to reshape yourself in collaboration with your past, in collaboration with what you love. You have the choice to keep aligning with healing, and that doesn’t mean going back to a way of life that didn’t really serve you—it means renaming, reclaiming, and learning to love your current shape. Only then is real change possible.

Leo

Redraw your map:

When you were younger, you might have confused getting positive attention with being loved. Even so, attention never really filled that empty feeling. Whether you were single or partnered, friendless or wildly popular, it was hard to shake a feeling of deep loneliness. This year, you’re being asked to grow up a little. And I don’t mean that in a shaming way, like “grow up and stop feeling so lonely!” I mean that in a profoundly loving way: Grow up and start claiming that loneliness as something you need to address for real. Grow up and recognize you can tell the difference between what’s nourishing and what’s a temporary thrill. Grow up and learn how to choose the kind of love that sees you in all your wholeness—not only how you dazzle and impress, but also how you’re sometimes kind of selfish or ordinary or boring. Love that may not shower you in praise, but does keep collaborating with you, keep prioritizing what you can build together, keep showing up for the project of growing up together. Are you ready to grow up and commit to being loved this way, and to offering that kind of love? Are you ready for loneliness to be just one chord in your symphony, and not the diva running the whole show?

Virgo

Redraw your map:

When we talk about revolution, I don’t want you to think about something as literal as violent overthrow of the government or as meaningless as an advertisement for a new kind of soda. I don’t want you to think of the hippies in the 1960s, I don’t want you to think of the antiglobalization movement in the 1990s, I don’t want you to think about anything that was ambitious and failed and became a slogan for capitalism. Instead, I want you to think about what you see happening in your everyday life that’s giving you a glimpse of how the world could be different. I want you to think of what small acts you could be doing regularly to support this change. I want you to notice where in your body you hold the stories and trauma of oppression. I want you to start moving your body in ways that offer release. I want you to start understanding your own healing as part of and in service to collective healing, which is the same thing as revolution. The map you’re making in 2021 is a map of devotional, restorative, audacious, unthinkable, somatic, and deeply personal interventions that will help you show up as a mentor, as a healer, as a friend to those who are trying to change the world. If you are descended from enslaved Africans, I encourage you to check out @TheNapMinistry for guidance and support. If you’re descended from white settlers, I encourage you to question your need to produce and perfect instead of being and being with. If you’re in any other category or in many categories of identity, I want you to remember that what you demand from yourself you will demand from others. What can you offer yourself, instead, that will also benefit others?

Libra

Redraw your map:

Ah, Libra, what a sweet change this year brings you! Many of the pressures of 2020 are easing for you, and the new Aquarian energy is stimulating your need for creativity, playfulness, and romance. If the current map of your relationships is a little too weighted toward other people’s needs and interests, 2021 is the year you start balancing this out with more emphasis on what gives you life, whether or not your friends or lovers share that interest. You are learning about your own desire nature this year, and I’m not just talking about sexual desire but about what makes life joyous for you. Do you remember joy? Do you remember the paths that take you there? Is it time to map out some new ones? I recommend trying your hand at anything that feels like it might be really fun but maybe not exactly productive or worth your time. Make some really bad art. Write some incredibly self-indulgent poems. Dress up and take selfies. Play some silly, time-wasting games. As long as you’re having a lot of fun, it’s worth doing. And if it feels strange and frivolous to be prioritizing fun at a time like this, remember that joy is what’s going to keep us going. Flirtation, romance, and exciting new friendships are also good compass points for you this year—don’t feel that any of them need to get too serious, though. Practice being in the moment. Practice sharing passion and playfulness for the shared endorphin boost. 2021 will have its pain and obstacles, but your main responsibility this year is to stay aligned with joy, and how joy opens up a space of possibility.

Scorpio

Redraw your map:

Let’s talk about your past. Maybe you had an idyllic childhood with only good memories, but more likely you’re carrying some kind of wounds from your early life into all your adult relationships, including your relationship to yourself. Aquarius, key energy of 2021, isn’t any easy one for you—it’s all future-focused and excited about what’s possible, while you’re holding the scars of what went wrong. You have the wisdom of the past guiding you, which can make you suspicious of any progressive project that looks too idealistic, that seems to ignore the traumas and obstacles that arise when people try to work together to change the world. And yet, it’s time to redraw your map. Not to erase or ignore the wisdom you hold, but to allow for the possibility of the future looking different than the past. This means drawing deeply from your roots, but aiming yourself at an unknowable future. This means holding your pain with love and attention, but not letting it tell you what your future will look like. This means making family with those you trust and letting your witnessing of each other redraw all the maps you were given—maps that told you what parts of you weren’t worth loving. 2021 will be a year of intense change for you, and you may not always welcome it, but you can always choose to align with what heals your heart and keeps you able to trust and witness.

Sagittarius

Redraw your map:

You are quite good already at redrawing maps—no sooner have you drawn one possible map of your life than you want to draw a dozen more. So what this year is asking from you isn’t to lean into your flexible, adaptable, adventurous side, but rather to notice what you’ve been overlooking when you fly off into a new adventure (or flight of fancy). There are problems that you can solve if you sit with them, give them more of your time and attention. There are conversations you need to have that you’ve been avoiding. What will help you feel ready? What gives you the courage to look more closely at the present moment? In this year of Aquarius energy there will also be eclipses in your sign, so this is a year when anything you’ve been trying to ignore is going to come up and demand your attention. Start now, and start small. Remember that you have the power to connect, to act, to call a damn friend when you’re thinking about them. Remember you can use your words and not just your imagination. Get specific about what you’re trying to make happen this year. Get up close and personal. Listen more closely to what the people you love are telling you. Let yourself be surprised, and then let yourself be still long enough to be surprised again.

Capricorn

Redraw your map:

You are so talented at being able to do without. You’ve got a map of where you’ve stashed only the most essential supplies and when the shit hits, you’ve got your bug-out bag and you’re ready to roll. In intimacy, this means you’ve got a lot to give and you don’t always remember that you get to receive as well. The thought of asking for care might even feel distinctly uncomfortable. But the map you’re drawing in 2021 asks for more than scarcity mindset, it asks you to recognize the value of abundance. What could you accomplish if you had not just barely enough (money, love, support, feedback, learning experiences, sex, food, etc.) but more than enough? Enough to share, enough to trust that you won’t be out in the cold if you take a risk or take a break? Having enough material resources may or may not be in your reach, but what about having more than enough inspiration, love, and trust? What about having more than enough creative ideas and people to share them with? What about risking more vulnerability in your closest relationships and seeing what grows from these acts of courage? These are your goals for 2021—to increase your capacity by increasing your resources, so you can be prepared for all the surprises to come.

Aquarius

Redraw your map:

However 2020 reshaped your world, now is a time to start asking yourself what you’ve given up to stay in some relationships, and what you’ve given up by drawing back from others. Specifically, this year asks you to question the logic that intimacy (or independence) means making big sacrifices: you’re damned if you’re loved and damned if you’re lonely. Old experiences of rejection have taught you what you needed to learn. Don’t knit them into a tight, itchy sweater of I Will Never Truly Belong Amongst the Humans and commit to wearing that one outfit until you die and being buried in it. Instead, consider what you are maturing into and how the people who may have hurt or disappointed you are also maturing. You’re all a little older and some of you may be much wiser now. As you embrace this year that calls on your specific gifts and perspective, remember that what you’re learning about possibility is that it can’t be all or nothing—that you are capable of adapting to changing circumstances, and capable of learning how to feel safe even if you’re uncomfortable.

Pisces

Redraw your map:

It’s normal that as we age we start to give up on certain dreams—we’re not all going to be astrophysicist opera singers with a side hustle of hip-hop dance. But what happens to the parts of you that are still attached to the motions of the planets, to singing, to expressive dance? For so many of us 2020 was a year of dreams deferred, or maybe cut off entirely. Maybe you’ve learned to do your dreaming as pure fantasy, getting high in the bath tub or binge watching gorgeously designed TV. I’m not saying that 2021 is the year you’ll get to be all you’ve ever dreamt of, but I am saying it’s worth reconsidering some dreams you’ve given up on. Specifically, now is the time to clearly map out how you get in touch with your deep intuition, to what restores and heals you. If you have a way of accessing those, you don’t need a clear map for anything else. When you’re feeling lost, point yourself in the direction where you find beauty and hope.

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