(Photo Credit: Cristian Kishborn/Shutterstock)

Sun sign horoscopes cannot replace a proper analysis of your birth chart and transits of the moment. They are meant to be a broad insight into certain time signatures. If you want a more detailed forecast, you can book a reading with me at 9thhouseastrology.com. It will be my pleasure to help you unlock and prepare for any upcoming opportunities or challenges. The rising sign is essential in understanding our personal dispositions, please read your Sun sign and Rising sign for extra clarity. Happy explorations! -Elodie

ARIES/ARIES RISING ♈︎

In the last few months, Aries, you spent a lot of time over-analysing your situation, yourself and everything that is possibly wrong with you. You might not have been aware of this ongoing internal critic, but I urge you to start the year with a clean slate in the self-esteem department. It’s ok to use a magnifying glass to look at ourselves,,all our little flaws and every little wrinkle, but sometimes you have to take a breather, take a step back and look around at what is going on outside of your immediate periphery. Make a New Year resolution to let go of a bad habit and then get your priorities straight. The urgent matter at the moment and the place where you need some restructuring have to do with your work, your career, and your place in society. The New Moon on January 9th is connecting you to “the boss that lives within”, your inner CEO, the person in charge. You are looking for more autonomy. You want to do your own thing. How bad do you want it? What do you have to let go in order to get more financial autonomy? The Full Moon is in Leo on the 23/24th, and it ILLUMINATES the part of your chart that connects you to your creative center. You want more freedom, more fun and you have a lot of creative juice brewing at your core. January is an excellent month to revise your ambitions, what you have to contribute to the community and the role you want to have in society.

TAURUS/TAURUS RISING ♉︎

January is a solid month and there is a lot on your plate to start the New Year. You have creative power at the moment. If there is someone able to bring ideas into reality this year, it is you. The New Moon in Capricorn on the 9th is happening in the part of your chart that deals with what you believe in, which to some extent has been under revision. How do your spiritual inclinations and what makes you rise above the mundane fit in with your surrounding, your friends or the people you associate with? Are they at odds or do you feel supported? Now would be a good time to take stock since you might be hyper aware of the disparities between your philosophies of life and the community you are a part of. A serious appraisal of the situation is called for. Mercury retrograde in Capricorn for most of the month is an excellent time to revise your overall direction and where you see yourself going in the long term. Your ruler Venus will conjunct Saturn which calls for maturity in all of your dealings and personal relationships. You might be working overtime and feel weighed down by responsibilities but since you are an Earth sign you can totally pull this off and come out strong at the end of the month. With all that work, your partner or loved ones could feel neglected, so make some time for them. The Full Moon on January 23/24th is in Leo and it is in your home sector. Take a breather, have fun and relax.

GEMINI/GEMINI RISING ♊︎

Oh the sobering effects and realisations that come with another year gone by and a new one beginning! This could be an emotionally churning period when you are asked to find the sweet spot in winter Gemini. Your personal relationships have been undergoing a huge transformational shift that has left you somewhat cynical about love but you are also learning to find faith within. The New Moon on January 9th is a heavy-handed one that makes you hyper aware of any structures that no longer sustain you. All work and no play can make Gemini a dull girl/boy. Your ticket to finding luck again has a lot to do with your foundation and your base of operation, your home and where you retreat from the world to charge your batteries. If you are setting New Year resolutions, I would suggest to set them around your home, your inner sanctuary and what that means to you. Where you would like your home to be, what you envision your home to look like or any actual renovations that would update your space and your living quarters. In order to expand and succeed in the world, we need to feel solid within. Your ruler Mercury will be retrograde in Capricorn for most of the month in the part of your chart that deals with other people’s money, taxes and inheritance. Be clear about your role within any partnership and anticipate possible misunderstandings. Double-check any paper work that involves taxes. I don’t want to make a big deal about Mercury retrograde but better to err on the side of caution. It might be a good idea to wait (if you can) till the end of the month to secure a commitment, a financial arrangement or sign a contract.

CANCER/CANCER RISING ♋︎

We are now 6 months away from your birthday, dear soft one. Most of the light you receive around this time of the year is coming from your partnerships, your sweetheart, the ones you love in your life or in your dreams. The New Moon in Capricorn on January 9th is making you aware of how much you need someone to support you and to a bigger extent how much you need others to support your work. How is your partnership helping you to express yourself and what role do other people play in helping you generate ideas? Acknowledge and give thanks to the people that matter to you. To bring luck in your future endeavours, show gratitude to all who have helped you bring your ideas to fruition. If you are not feeling supported, now would be a great time to voice your concerns and revise your partnerships and the roles they play in your life. Sometimes we expect that others will return the favour but not everyone is as caring or attentive as you are. Your generosity might go unnoticed if you don’t kick a fuss about it. You might have to spell it out or carve it in a rock for others to acknowledge or understand what you expect from them. Revise the systems you use for getting what you want and adjust. The Full Moon in Leo on January 23/24th illuminates the resources you have available to you at the moment. Remember what you are made of, what you already know and what you are good at. Remember that you have enough wealth, fortune and power within you to sustain yourself no matter what happens.

LEO/LEO RISING ♌︎

Sometimes it can feel like we are working for very little in return. January might be one of these months for you, Leo. Keeping in mind that all the work you are putting in now will most likely pay off later might be a good idea. Your financial well-being this year is closely related to how much work you are willing to put in right from the start. The New Moon in Capricorn on January 9th is in the part of your chart that deals with your habits and general routine. Set your intentions around health, and support your immune system with plenty of sleep and good food. Your health is your wealth so be willing to invest in it. Now would be an excellent time to weed out any bad habits that are depleting your wallet, your energy or that are not helping you get where you want to go. I am not going to lie to you: everyone will have to put in extra hours in January. You can make money but you will need to be disciplined, serious and committed about your objectives. Long-term investments is your magic formula. Since this is the time of the year when the Sun is at the opposite of where it is on your birthday, you could feel an all-time low. The end of the month will ease off and the Full Moon on January 23/24th is in Leo, which could bring some form of recognition. Soak it in, and bask in the glory. This is your Full Moon. Acknowledge your accomplishments, your creativity, your amazing brain and give thanks to yourself for all the hard work that got where you are.

VIRGO/VIRGO RISING ♍︎

For you Virgo, the year starts with your ruler Mercury going retrograde in the part of your chart that deals with your creative center, romance, children or any projects that are like ”your babies”. Whatever you are working on at the moment will need to be revised, restructured and solidified in order to get the lasting result you are looking for. Start 2016 with the intention to birth or create a lasting legacy. What are the structures that are currently in place within your projects and what methods are you using to ensure maximum creativity within them? What brings you joy and are you serious about your pleasure? If you are not sure of what that means for you, now would be a great time to define it more clearly. Where do you get your inspiration from? Do you have a muse? If you are single and looking for love, what would an ideal courtship look like? How did you spend your free time before you became an adult? The idea here is for you to connect with your inner child. Make some room for playing and re-invent how you use your imagination. Have faith in your creative abilities and monitor the persistent internal critic that lives within. Your capacity for enjoyment is closely connected to the vision you have of yourself and your self-imposed limitations. It can also be that your ability to have more fun, flirt with life and connect to that child like innocence has the power to transform you. What do you love?

LIBRA/LIBRA RISING ♎︎

On first impressions you might seem to be gentle and agreeable, Libra, but the people closest to you know that under your charming demeanour hides a fierce and powerful will. This somewhat hidden side might become a lot more apparent in 2016. Your initiation into the warrior mindset began last year and you have basically been in training camp since then. You have learned to connect to your own needs while liberating yourself from the demands of the external world. And that is not easy for the sign that is most often associated with diplomatic compromises. The New Moon on January 9th shows that you still have some work to do in regards to communicating what you need to the ones who are dearest to your heart. And to do that, you need to have faith in your intuition as a guiding compass. Trust that only you know what’s best for you. There are a lot of opportunities for you to become a voice of authority in your field. In 2016, your opinion and expertise will be in high demand and you can make money with what you know. But you have to be serious about knowing your worth and knowing what you know. Take this month to revise your internal dialogue, adjust your base of operation. Liberate the skeletons in your closet. Let go of stale beliefs about yourself that you have inherited from your family and early childhood experiences. Find rooting in a new soil, a fresh soil, the soil of your own wisdom.

SCORPIO/SCORPIO RISING ♏︎

Mars, your ruling planet will be in Scorpio for almost half of 2016. That means that whatever happens, you will be able to tap into your incredible reservoir of strength, resourcefulness and stamina. Not that it is not usually available to you but you can find some comfort knowing that the year begins with a strong footing. Your strength came with a price and in the last three years you have worked really hard to be where you are. Basically, you rock. Now the question is can you apply your endurance in order to make more money this year? How will you apply all the will power that is available to you to birth a cool project that could be financially rewarding too? If you are working on something already, January should be spent tweaking all the details of that project. Prepare yourself for a month that will be spent going back and forth over details in what seems to be a meaningless dance. Keep in mind that your ability to go over things is closely linked to your ability to generate income. Spend time organising your thoughts and find a system that will help you be more productive. There might be an increased number of correspondence, phone calls and trips. There is a momentum building but it is important not to skip any steps. Everything will come in due time. Find your allies, the ones that can help you with your ideas, your paper work or anything you don’t have time to get to. A lot of luck can be generated if you team up with others. Define your plan of attack and put your army in order.

SAGITTARIUS/SAGITTARIUS RISING ♐︎

Who is this person in the mirror? Who is this responsible and productive human being? The little centaur is all grown up, how does it feel? Sagittarius, I am so impressed with you and all that you are doing. It is amazing to see the tangible ways in which you go about being the coolest sign of the zodiac. If there is one sign that deserves to have their philosophies broadcast loud and clear, it is you. Everything you stand for is finding a way to becoming a real part of your life and that is awesome. The first half of 2016 will be spent pretty much on the same path as the one you undertook in late 2015. You are working relentlessly at making your dreams come true: keep going. A big part of the work has to do with re-aligning your work and career so that they are in tune with what you believe and what you would like to do in the long term. Spend January calibrating your finances, calculate how much money is coming in and how much money is going out. Be realistic about the workload you want to take on because there are many opportunities regarding your career or how you could be making money. Be selective because the choices you make now will have an impact down the road.

CAPRICORN/CAPRICORN RISING ♑︎

The year starts with your birthday; you are the first in the line because you know how to tackle pretty much anything. You also get the first New Moon of the year on the 9th of January. People put a lot of faith in you and in the way you do things because you know where you are going and you make a great leader. If you end up getting lost along the way, you’re still pretty good at pretending to know where you’re going. So the New Year begins and you are in the lead, where are you going and what are you looking for? This is a great month to revise your ambitions and write your plan for the year. Mercury will retrograde in your sign for most of the month, which means you can take a breather and solidify your foundation before you keep moving ahead. It would also be an excellent time to revise what you believe yourself capable of doing. It is very possible that you are still following a course of action that is not suitable for you anymore but you are still going through with the motion because you feel obligated? You have changed deeply in the last few years and your transformation is not over. How can you take your more “out there” visions and make them fit into your overall scheme. You might actually feel like throwing conventions out the window completely. Would you dare?

AQUARIUS/AQUARIUS RISING ♒︎

The New Year starts with a major internal reform that will mostly take part behind the curtain and in the dark. What does that mean, you ask? Well, you are shape-shifting but your new shape hasn’t really taken up an official form yet. You can start seeing the changes but you haven’t grasped entirely what it means. It is exciting, but it is also nerve-wracking because you are not clear yet on what is emerging. You can sense the major impact your decision will have in the long run but you can also sense the hand of destiny at work and how small you are in the overall picture. You want to do something meaningful, you want to be meaningful and you are willing to work hard to bring your dreams to reality. To connect to your center, I would suggest that you spend January in a semi-quiet and meditative state. If you can retire from the world and into a stilled place for a few weeks, do it. It might end up being the most productive move you will do. Study your visions, listen to what your dreams are saying, smoothen out your new wings. You will also need to clarify your intention in regards to your partnerships: what you need from them and why you need others to be a part of your projects. Because you do. You need to have faith in others to help you complete the puzzle. The successful outcome of your ideas and projects in the first half of 2016 is closely linked to your alliances and collaborations.

PISCES/PISCES RISING ♓︎

Happy New Year, Pisces! There is always a good reason to stay hopeful but wishful thinking alone won’t get the job done this month. January could feel like you lack the support that you need, so revise your alliances. Who is on your team? How are you going about getting the help that you need and is it working? Maybe it’s the way you go about asking for assistance. Are you invoking the right helpers and are you being precise? If you feel like people aren’t there for you, can you find a better way to formulate your desires to get what you want? The way you make a living is closely linked to your friends, your community and your genius. How it all ties in together has a lot to do with finding practical methods of putting it out there. If you can ground your vision, it will be easier for other people to see it. If you can build a bridge between what you imagine your role to be in your community and reality, you can make some pretty cool things happen. Being the most philosophical sign of the zodiac makes it is easy for you to find the silver lining in any situations. But that doesn’t mean you have to put up with difficulties. Others can really benefit from your set of skills, so be serious about the methods you use to promote yourself and what you know. It will be really worth it in the long run.

About the Author

Elodie Miaow blogs at 9thHouseAstrology.com

Horoscopes copyright Elodie Miaow, republished with permission.

The Hexagon 2016 Subscribers Drive Has Commenced:

Editor’s Note: This is an 1,100 word excerpt from a 5,000 word article on the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the NSA’s partner in surveillance, a black budget version of NASA that runs space based operations and rumored to be the agency responsible for tracking UFOs as they enter and leave the Earth’s atmosphere. It was originally published in issue #2 of Hexagon. -Matt

A chart’s rising sign describes the immediate physical appearance of the chart’s owner. For instance, when a spy agency has its ascendant in Leo, the sign of royalty and monarchy, it’s likely to have a headquarters so distinctive you can’t possibly miss it. As explained in the Summer 2015 issue of this magazine, the NSA has its ascendant in Leo (the king), ruled by the Sun in Scorpio (secrets). In true Leo ascendant fashion, the NSA headquarters is so large and ostentatious you can almost see it from space while its all-black, Darth Vader style outfit practically demands you take notice of it.

In contrast, an agency that has its ascendant in Scorpio, the sign of the “Covert Operative”, will likely have a headquarters completely hidden from public view. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the infamous Area 51 base in the Nevada desert is a Scorpio rising installation.

A Virgo rising agency like the NRO won’t have a headquarters that’s highly visible like a Leo rising agency nor will it have one that’s completely hidden like a Scorpio rising agency. It’s going to have a headquarters that people can see but are unlikely to take notice of. The building(s) can thus be expected to simply blend in with other buildings in much the same way people in often under-appreciated Virgoan professions such as maids, mechanics, plumbers, janitors, and computer repair staff who anonymously blend in with their surroundings while on the way to work.

In true Virgo rising fashion the NRO is headquartered in a large, corporate looking office park in the Virginia suburbs that, while quite sizeable, looks like pretty much every other large, corporate looking office park in the Virginia suburbs. In contrast to the NSA’s ostentatiously Leonine headquarters, the NRO’s subtle Virgo style headquarters blends into its background well enough that for years even people inside the highest levels government didn’t take notice of it. According to a 1994 article in the Los Angeles Times, even “Leon E. Panetta, former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and now President Clinton’s chief of staff, had no idea that the four office towers belonged to the government.” (Source) Virgo rising can be sneaky like that.

In their book Skymates II: The Composite, astrologers Steven and Jodie Forest tell us that people with their ascendants in helpful, highly competent Virgo are the sort of people you want around should your jeep break down in the deserts of Africa. Along these lines, the NRO has developed a technology called “Red Dot” that utilizes spy satellites to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs), home-made, landmine type weapons that have been the leading cause of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Source) In other words, the NRO is not literally out “fixing jeeps in the deserts of Africa” but they have designed technology to prevent Humvees and their human passengers from being destroyed in the deserts of Iraq. Virgo has an eye for the smallest of details and the “Red Dot” technology is thought to work by detecting energy emissions in IEDs as infinitesimally small as those given off by cell phone batteries all the way from satellites in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the planet. (Source) Even those of us opposed to the war economy, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex, etc. can acknowledge that detecting emissions that small from that far out in space is a pretty astonishing example of Virgo’s reputation for precision, service, and technical wizardry all rolled into one. Given the horrible carnage inflicted by IEDs, the NRO’s “Red Dot” technology can even be analogized to a form of preventative medicine, a practice Virgo has long been associated with.

Virgo rising people are often quite organized but also prone to “testiness.” For instance, the hissing cobras depicted in this NRO morale patch are believed to represent a series of classified spy satellites.

They also happen offer an excellent approximation of what happens should you mess with Virgo’s filing systems or database management protocols.

Pisces on the Descendant: Spooky Spouse(s)

While the ascendant sign represents the chart owner’s physical identity, it’s the sign on the descendant (7th House cusp) that represents “the other”, ranging from spouses and business partners to clients and patrons to rivals and open enemies. In the chart of an intelligence agency it will also refer to other intelligence agencies. With Virgo (analysis) on the ascendant, the NRO has Pisces (imagery) on the descendant. Symbolized as two fish, Pisces is the sign of the Psychic and the Seer, the Mystic and the Mist, the Specter and the Spook. People with Pisces on the descendant often partner with others who possess the ability to move in and out of unseen realms as naturally as a fish moves in and out of ocean currents. Pisces’ orientation to the non-material means it’s also the sign most likely to simply disappear from the radar of society, whether for tragic reasons or more strategic ones. Astrologer Linda Goodman warns her readers that once a Pisces disappears, “Don’t try to use your binoculars to spot them. Binoculars don’t work in the Deep.” The NRO’s 7th House partners include an armada of spooky, hard to spot (Pisces) defense contractors that can be likened to a large, predatory species of fish (Pisces) gorging themselves amid the oceanic depths of the black budget. Many of the NRO’s corporate partners such as Lockhead Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) prefer to stay as deep beneath the radar of the body-politic as much as possible.

Furthermore, while the NRO is responsible for generating imagery, it’s the NRO’s partner agencies such as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency responsible for interpreting that imagery. In this way the NRO can be analogized to the technicians and repair people (Virgo rising) who handle the machinery at a sleep lab while the NRO;s partner agencies (7th House entities) can be analogized to the dream interpreters and mystics (Pisceans) who make sense of the imagery produced by the technicians at the sleep lab.

With Pisces on the descendant, the ruler of the NRO’s 7th House is Neptune (planet of imagery, intuition, and revelry but also deception) in Scorpio (sign of secrets), in the 2nd House (house of income and skill set). With the ruler of the house of partnership in the house of income, the NRO is married (7th House) to the contractors it pays money (2nd House) to for the processing of imagery (Neptune) regarding covert operations (Scorpio). Neptune (deception) in Scorpio (covert operations) in the 2nd House (money, resources) has “black budget” written all over it.

About the Author: Matt Savinar is a California licensed attorney (State Bar #228957), voluntarily inactive as of June 2013. He can be reached for questions, comments, or consults at his contact page.

Photo Credit: Jari Hindstroem/Shutterstock

This is an 850 word excerpt from a 7,000 word article on the transit Saturn (planet of suppression) through the sign Sagittarius (truth) by Astrologer Willow of Willow’s Web. It’s scheduled to appear the second issue of Hexagon this January. -Matt

For more on GM alfalfa, make sure to check out the primer on GM alfalfa available at Willow’s blog. She also has several articles in the premier issue of Hexagon, including a feature length piece on the astrology of the feminine asteroids titled “Ladies of the Zodiac: It’s Showtime”.

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