By Lilly Roddy
Illustrations by David Eduardo Flores Perez
As we begin the new year, our friend Mercury is already retrograde and will continue in that direction through January 13. We will have three other Mercury retrogrades during 2017: April 5–May 7, August 7–September 9, and November 29–December 27. The April–May Mercury retrograde is further complicated by a Venus retrograde February 24–April 29, which adds a touch of chaos.
Mercury retrograde is always good for taking care of things from your past, reconnecting with old friends, finishing up lawsuits, and contacting your existing client base—or just getting your life more organized. It’s never a good time for signing contracts, buying cars or electronic equipment, or traveling to new places.
Venus retrograde affects elements of your life that are about desire, love, money, relationships, investments, and living the good life. It’s a good time to look up old friends or relationships. Venus’ money aspect also makes it a good time to review your investments or to take care of old money problems. But like Mercury retrograde, it is not a good time to invest in new stocks or bonds or to begin a new relationship. As well, you may want to avoid haircuts, makeovers, or clothes buying.
As the year begins, all of us are dealing with some harsh realities. We cannot escape the dark knowledge we have gained about people we have honored as heroes or heroines, as well as business tycoons or government officials with no integrity. We are seeing things as they have always been. What shall we do with this knowledge? Will you be able to face your own unconscious side of hypocrisy and avoidance? How have you contributed to where we are, and what will you do to make it better? Can you see past the limitations of your own beliefs?
Aries (March 21–April 19)
Your sign continues to be very active throughout 2017—full of change and opportunity—as you release aspects of your past that have outlived their usefulness.
Your career is going through a big downsizing and reinvention cycle. Some of you are considering leaving the industry in which you work and possibly starting a whole new career. Two other options are being considered: some of you are thinking possible retirement, while others will act as the agent of change within the organization where you currently work. Either way, this is a time frame where you are stepping into a position of power. This energy builds through all of 2017 and is even stronger in 2018.
This is a very positive time for relationships! The social energies in your sign provide potential for finding new friends, new business partners, or even new romantic partners. If you are involved, you and your partner will want to have more activity and fun. Relationships that are too restrictive—or demand that you change to satisfy others—will be coming to an end. Venus in retrograde between the end of February and the end of April will certainly test the viability of your relationships. Retrograde Mercury, the trickster, will also be active during that time in your sign.
Your financial picture is not bad, but you feel somewhat uncomfortable because of the potential for career change and shifting into something totally new. It would be best to maintain a conservative financial path through the end of 2018.
This is a good year for you to get involved in community organizations, possibly taking a leadership role. You will want to be more active with your children through 2017, as well, and this may open a path to new friends and new interests.
Taurus (April 20–May 20)
As the new year begins, you take a close look at your resources and financial base, especially with an eye to improving your current economic situation. You should continue to maintain a conservative financial path.
With the eclipses in February and August, there should be career opportunities or, minimally, better job opportunities. This will be tied in with being more connected socially within your own community. In order to be more successful with your career this year, you need to find a cause or purpose that motivates you from your core. You are not a halfway kind of person, and need to be fully committed to follow through.
This year Venus, your ruling planet, goes retrograde from March 24 through April 29. This will be a time when you are going to be more introspective about your life overall. This would be an excellent time to step back, review your life, and establish some priorities. Venus retrograde is the perfect time to question your commitments to the things you desire. Do these things really represent you? Your relationships with your coworkers may be most tested during that time.
Spiritually, you are going through a time of revolution. You have been suffering this upheaval strongly for the past three years. You are just now beginning to feel yourself move away from this to a freer expression of yourself. You are releasing the religious shackles that kept you safe. You’re seeking a life of adventure, excitement, and purpose. This is an excellent time to open yourself up to a new way of seeing the environment around you.
The psychological influence of family and its impact will also be strong throughout 2017. This is a good time to consider healing those old wounds via therapy or alternative healing methods. This will improve your relationship with your family, whether they are dead or alive. This energy also helps to improve your personal relationships, especially after September 2017; there may be new relationships developing for you at that time. Life improves generally for you, beginning in the fall of 2017 and continuing throughout most of 2018.
Gemini (May 21–June 21)
In 2017, you Geminis continue to be focused on long-term security, both financially and emotionally. You started working with this theme last year, and you expect to be making much more progress before the year is up.
In your career, you are looking for positions that offer refuge and reliability. You are also looking for something that offers a future, rather than just a place for you to work. The eclipse in February 2017 could open some doors for you. You might want to update your résumé, just in case. This could also be a very good time to form a business relationship and possibly start your own business. This energy will be a lot stronger from February through April of this year.
Relationships, overall, are going through a time of review and potential renewal. If you are in a good relationship, this could be a time when you and your partner discuss where your relationship is going. It’s part of the process of establishing new goals for your relationship to invite the innocence of renewal and more intimate connections. As your relationships are going through this period of evaluation, you expect adult behavior from the people close to you. You are not as easygoing and as flexible as you normally are, and you don’t want other people wasting your time. Some relationships will come to an end if they don’t have a purpose in your life. But you may not make those decisions until the very end of 2017.
Your financial situation is not bad, but you should be looking at ways to cut back. You are nervous about your finances, and you will feel better if you pay attention here. Your self-confidence is low, and that may keep you from doing what seems natural.
For those of you born June 1–5, the time is ripe for a spiritual quest. You will find the more mundane pursuits of work and relationships less fulfilling. This can inspire a hermit phase, perhaps even avoiding people altogether. You are putting your outer life on hold as you work on your inner emotional foundation.
Cancer (June 22–July 22)
This year proves to be another busy year with lots of options and lots of the necessities open to improvement. A lot of activity will be focused on home and family projects. You could be looking at remodeling or relocating. If you are relocating, this is in direct connection to changes in your work and career sector. This can also be a time when your family is growing through marriages or children.
With relationships, you are becoming more and more open about how you feel, and more willing to share your version of the truth. It’s very easy for Cancerians, who are emotional managers, to stuff their own emotions in service to their desire to make people happy. This can be a very trying time for your relationships, especially during March and August. What won’t work is doing things the same old way. With business, this could represent a mentor coming into your life to help you manage your career. This is a time of owning your own emotional power.
In your career, you are looking for something new to pique your interest and stimulate you. You will have opportunities for speaking, writing, or teaching—or becoming the student yourself. It is definitely the time to step out of the crabby shell you’ve been living in.
The March–April Venus retrograde, and the May–June Mercury retrograde will both be in your career sector. That is a very good time to take care of any problems at work or just to get your workplace in good shape. You also continue to make your workplace more organized, doing a massive amount of decluttering in the process.
You should also be making improvements in your health this year. Problems you’re having are chronic and can be corrected by improved eating and exercise habits.
The underlying theme for you in 2017: continue to work on improvements in your financial condition, your workplace, and your health. You are just working on your freedom.
Leo (July 23–August 22)
Relationships are highlighted for you this year with eclipses in February and August in the relationship area of your sign. This could bring new relationships, either business or personal. If you’re having problems in a relationship, the eclipse brings it back into focus with the possibility of some sort of resolution.
Your communication skills are enhanced this entire year. You can use this time to go back to school, teach your own classes, set up a social-media page for business, or add a lot more travel to your work. You will be speaking more of your own truth, and some people may be surprised by your behavior.
The communication devices associated with your office and work, your work routines, and possibly your work location are going through a period of cleaning out and reconstruction. This energy will also show up at home, where you are cleaning out closets and storerooms. This is a very good year to rid yourself of unhealthy habits and create some very positive ones. It’s very likely that the changes you make will become permanent ones.
You are paying a lot more attention to the progress of your children and your inner child, and investing in a personal creative endeavor. For those of you who are parents, your children will seem more mature and will want to test their boundaries. They will want to take on greater responsibilities. As this happens, you will have more time for yourself. This could be the perfect opportunity for you to take some classes in something that interests you.
And finally, you are continuing to challenge your early-life myths, religious dogma, and cultural bias that invaded your subconscious when you were young. As consciousness expands you will see things differently, possibly even rejecting your own beliefs. You may not always like what you see, but the knowledge forces you to accept the truth as it is.
Virgo (August 23–September 22)
In 2017 you continue to work on both the foundation of your security and career and your family roots, and how those have defined you.
You are being challenged by two different energies this year. One is hard work; follow your routines and plan ahead for the future. You are working on both your emotional and career foundations. This can express itself as something as mundane as doing home repair or remodeling, taking on a greater leadership role within the family, or reevaluating your own priorities. This is the practical side of you that wants to plan ahead and minimize risk.
The other energy is more effusive and less definite: the energy that stimulates our desire to escape our routines and responsibilities. This is the part of you that questions the meaning of life and pokes holes in what you thought was the truth. You may see things so differently that you are forced to entirely abandon some viewpoints, people, or religious dogma. This is the part of you that wants more time to yourself and to have fewer people around you. This energy wants you to do things that are internally satisfying, rather than being so security-based.
Ultimately, you have to find a way for both these energies to work at the same time, or you will go back and forth between them and get nothing done. Your creative side needs expression. Your practical side wants a focus to commit to. As long as you let the creative side run the show and not feel too driven by the outcome, you can make this work. This energy works best at its own pace, rather than being forced forward by an itinerary.
Your views of home and family, and both your business and personal relationships are being activated by both these energies. This will open some doors, and it will definitely close others. Onward through the fog!
Libra (September 23–October 23)
This is going to be an action-oriented and exciting year for you. There are opportunities for promotion, an expanded client base, potential new partners in either business or romance, and an opportunity to release and forgive past family dramas.
Jupiter is visiting your sign from September 2016 through September 2017. Jupiter is considered a positive and optimistic energy. This is a great time to expand your horizons, especially through travel or going back to school to increase your knowledge base. You may want to teach or increase your participation in social media. From a business perspective, this is an excellent time for self-promotion or advertising. This is generally a more social time, and you may directly benefit by meeting new people and forming alliances.
With your day-to-day activities, you try to be more organized and make better use of your time. You are trying to be more clear and concise in all of your communications. You can also use this energy to improve your health and eating routines, but you need to make a conscious effort to add this to your agenda. It’s easier to talk about this than to act on it.
You are looking for excitement and adventure in your relationships this year. If your relationship is going well, this can be a great time for a recommitment ceremony and celebration. If your relationship isn’t going very well, you will have to make some changes in order for it to survive. If you are single, you are looking for someone who is exciting, different, and out of your comfort zone. This very same energy can stimulate your desire to find new friends or organizations to associate with. In March and April, with both Venus and Mercury retrograde, you will have the opportunity to view these issues more closely.
This is the year you will notice the depth of change within your family. All the old roles have changed. Since you’re not sure what the new picture looks like, you fumble with the awkwardness of the new roles while hanging on to what used to be comfortable. You can be the agent of change and help everyone to adjust. The more that this is ignored, the more of a problem it will become. Don’t be afraid to take charge!
Scorpio (October 24–November 21)
Home and family, along with career goals, are highlighted by the eclipses in February and August. Eclipses signal a time of both new beginnings and bringing some things to a close.
With your career, you are looking to reinvent yourself this year. You need some stimulation in your work so that you feel passionate and committed to it. Even if you love what you’re doing, you are looking for a new spark.
With your family, you are trying to let the past go so that you can feel free. You will achieve this through detachment and by accepting the fact that this is the way it is. You can let go of the struggle and just move on.
Your long-term financial and emotional security is still a big issue for you throughout 2017. You tried to deal with this in 2016, but it was just harder to make decisions then. You will be more decisive in 2017 as you seek a more practical approach. This ties in directly with your efforts to reinvent your career. This is the risk-management or cautious side of your nature. You weigh out all possible scenarios before you make a decision. But don’t overthink things! Establish a list of priorities so that you keep the larger perspective in mind.
A big part of this process is getting a handle on your financial picture by establishing long-term financial goals to help you feel safer. This continues to be a time when you should be conservative with your finances and investments. You may also rediscover some of your old talents that you had put away.
For social activity and relationships, it’s a very good time for you to be connected to any type of social group or community organization. If you are single, you’ll be more prepared to invite someone new into your life after September 2017. If you are in a relationship, this year is a pretty good time, and should even improve as you move into September. There is a little bump in the road for your relationships in March and April. Avoid the bump and do something fun with your partner during that time.
Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)
This is a pivotal year for you as you evaluate your past actions and plans, all the while setting new long-term goals for your life in every area—but especially in relationships and career.
In your career, you are considering what direction you want to take. For some of you, this is a time of starting your own business. You feel confident and ready to strike out on your own. For others, you are working your way up that corporate ladder. You know what you want, and you’re willing to work hard to get it. And yet for some, this could be a time of semi-retirement where you step away from what you have done and look for new ways to express that part of your life. Change is coming, and it’s best to be in charge of that process.
If you’re in a relationship that is working, this is a perfect time to set new long-term goals to ensure the emotional intimacy that we all need. For the relationships that aren’t working, you are willing to work to make that happen. But if the other person isn’t willing to participate in the repairs, you will cut your losses and move on. You’re learning to set better boundaries!
On a personal level, this is a good time to get yourself in shape. You will have enough inner discipline to make some positive changes in your health regimen. One negative to watch out for is being too self-critical. Be sure to look at what you have accomplished, and not just at what you haven’t. If you judge yourself too severely, it can really damage your self-esteem. Look for a supportive mentor and not a critic!
2017 is a very good time for you to get more involved in business organizations or community groups. This will have a double benefit for you, because it will introduce you to new friends and at the same time expand your business contacts. Make sure you take some trips to break up your routine so you don’t lose your joie de vivre!
Capricorn (December 22–January 19)
In 2017, career opportunities are opening up for you. You began to feel dissatisfied in 2016, but there wasn’t a clear opportunity for you. For some of you, this is the time to start your own business. You’ve been wanting to do something different and innovative since last year. You need something to spark your interest in your career, even if you love what you do. You generally need extra mental stimulation this year. These issues will be especially strong in March, August, and December, when you will be making decisions.
In your home environment, you are looking to lighten your load and free up some of your time and energy. You are certainly wanting more light and plenty of windows wherever you live. Some of you will want to live in wide-open spaces, while others will seek out high-rises. With the family, this can be a time of cutting the cord with aspects of our past. This could be something simple, like your parents retiring or new babies in the family, or a time where we have to acknowledge the passing of elderly relatives. This energy stimulates your career sector, reminding you to live in the present and not wait for everything to be safe before you do what you like.
As for relationships, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. Capricorns have been going through a rapid growth process since 2008, and that has forced them to be more authentic instead of just safe. As a result of this, relationships have been very rocky for you. There should be less turmoil in your relationships in 2017. In order for relationships to work for you, you need clear boundaries so that you have time for yourself, as well as being that supportive partner in a relationship.
And finally, with the eclipses stimulating the money and investment areas of your life in February and August, this is a good year to review where you have your funds invested. You will be stimulated both mentally and creatively. Don’t be surprised if a talent that you haven’t used in a long time resurfaces.
Aquarius (January 20–February 18)
With the eclipses in February and August activating your relationship sector, this can be a year to set new goals and improve your existing business or personal relationships. For those of you who are single, you might be meeting someone through your circle of friends. If you are experiencing trouble in any of your relationships, you will want to resolve those problems, or you may be ending some of your relationships.
On a personal level, this is about your ability to commit to yourself. This can also represent a time when you commit to a new endeavor, new project, or even a new career direction. Although your relationship area is stimulated throughout the year, at the core of it, this is about the process you use to create relationships and establish boundaries. At the heart of these eclipses is the ability to commit to yourself and follow through . . . and stop abandoning yourself!
Your communication skills continue to improve throughout the year. This is a wonderful time for self-promotion, advertising your talents and skills, publishing your writing, and establishing a presence on social media. You will be very mentally stimulated the entire year, and you are certainly looking for something that stirs your passion and interest.
This intellectual stimulation also involves challenging your early-life religious beliefs and myths, and re-examining the relationships that you had with siblings and cousins when you were very young. For some, the truth will generate stronger connections. For others, the deception will be too much and some relationships will come to an end.
Aquarius is the sign that rules friends and friendship, and this has been a difficult period for you. You have been evaluating your friendships and determining if they are really worth your time. This is also true for any groups or organizations that you belong to. They must serve a purpose in your life, or you will not want to spend your time there.
And finally, the Mercury retrogrades that occur in April–May and August–September will have a strong impact on you. Pay special attention to those times.
Pisces (February 19–March 20)
2017 is a busier and more decisive year for all you Pisceans, including those of you who are on your pilgrimage. You can make some progress this year, since there will be much less of the sluggishness that dominated 2016. You are certainly focused on getting back on track with your job. You may be looking for a position with higher status or greater power. If you are older, you may be considering some form of retirement, setting new goals for yourself, and possibly reinventing your own career. Time is money for you this year.
Those of you born March 1–5 will not be having that decisive experience. What’s important for you this year is fulfilling your inner self and giving greater meaning to your life. This will make you rethink all of your choices that you have made throughout your entire life. Enjoy this time of self-reflection and personal spiritual retreat! You’ll be back from the retreat in March 2018, and ready to make some decisions.
All you mermaids and mermen are looking for alternative ways to utilize your talents and skills this year. You feel bored and trapped, and are looking for ways to reinvent yourself. You’re also gaining a sense of directness and authenticity. You place more value on your own sense of self, and you’re not as willing to sacrifice if the cause is not directly related to you.
This same energy is having you examine who your real friends are. You will be much more selective about the people you allow to be close to you. This part of
you is also looking for new like-minded people to connect with.
Relationships are doing fairly well for you in 2017. You are looking at setting some new long-term goals for your existing relationships to help regenerate a sense of commonality. Mercury is retrograde in August and September, which will have an impact on your relationships. That will be a good time to have a heart-to-heart with your partner. If you are single, this just means you are being very selective in finding a suitable partner. And as always, if the relationship is doing poorly, the Mercury retrograde will give you the opportunity to either fix those problems or go your separate ways.
Lilly Roddy has been an astrologer for the last 33 years. She counsels individuals in personal, business, and financial matters, as well as teaches classes in astrology. Her original interest in astrology, like most people’s, was to come to a better understanding of who she was and how to make the most of her life. She continues to study all areas of astrology and metaphysics to expand her base of knowledge. Roddy’s approach is to bring together a mental, physical, and spiritual combination that has real application in the world. Roddy can be contacted at 713.529.5842 or [email protected].
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