December is a “3” Universal Month [9 (2025) + 12 (December) = 21 = 2+1 = 3] in a “9” Universal Year. “3” is our first number of manifestation and creation, it combines the two “1”s of “2” energy, representative of birth, and following the base laws of humanity. “3” energy comes together; it is a joining. It’s worth noting that this is the “natural” number of December (12 = 1 + 2 = 3) – it takes three people to create a gathering, and December – at least in the Western World – is a time of gatherings.
The Set Up
We begin the month with the Sun Venus and Mars in Sagittarius, Mercury moving through its post-retrograde shadow in Scorpio, retrograde Jupiter in Cancer, Saturn and retrograde Neptune in Pisces, retrograde Uranus in Taurus, and Pluto in Aquarius. By the end of the year, the Sun Venus and Mars will have moved into Capricorn, and Mercury will have moved into (and almost all the way through) Sagittarius. Neptune will also station direct.
The Nitty Gritty
December, overall, looks like a no big whoop month with a couple of potentially big whoop aspects. All eyes are on the mutable signs as the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars transit Sagittarius throughout December, each creating squares with the lunar nodes in Pisces and Virgo, and later to Saturn and Neptune in Pisces. These are the death throws of the end of a cycle – Saturn, Neptune, and the North Node all exit Pisces in 2026. We are being challenged to review the lessons of the last few very Piscean years. Some of us will need to make last-minute adjustments; some haven’t risen to the tasks at hand and may feel beaten down by Saturn this month.
It is what it is; this is just the astrological weather. We still need to live in it.
In order of importance, this month we need to focus first on the planetary squares to Saturn, second on the lunar nodes, and likely not at all on Neptune. The outer planets don’t not matter, but they also don’t matter if you can get what I am putting down here. Beyond that, Neptune is the veil to the unconscious; it is the most unknowable of the unknowable planets.
Saturn
Saturn stationed direct at 25° Pisces of 11/27, setting the stage for its inevitable ingress back into 00° Aries in early 2026. At only a 05° orb from 00° Aries, we are already feeling the pressure of the new beginning that we have been teased throughout 2025 as Saturn moved into and back out of the 1st sign of the zodiac. This is the real deal. Saturn completes one rotation of the Sun every 28 years (approximately) – we haven’t seen a new beginning like this since the 1900s. (lol, I couldn’t resist)
That said, we have to get there, and this month is a series of significant pop quizzes on this progress. As the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars move through Sagittarius this month, each will square off with Saturn in Pisces in its time.
12/08 – Mars square Saturn
12/16 – Sun square Saturn
12/19 – Moon square Saturn (New Moon in Sagittarius)
12/21 – Venus square Saturn
12/30 – Mercury square Saturn
I want to be clear that this includes both our luminaries and all our personal planets. These squares (and this month as a whole) are sitting deep inside our individual lives and inside our homes and family lives. This may look like family restructuring, and I would expect a few permanent separations. Nothing to worry about if you’re in a healthy relationship, of course, this definitely refers to the people who shouldn’t be together but may have stayed because of obligation (a big Saturnian theme).
We can see Saturn entering Aries in 2026 as a clean break. Saturn is detrimented in Aries, its most independent sign. People who don’t want responsibility will absolutely use Saturn in Aries as an excuse to shirk theirs. Ultimately, that can leave us grappling with all of the duties, but it’s also a sign of an unequal relationship. With that information, we can decide whether to carry it all ourselves or move on.
This will sit pretty heavily on our families as we enter the holiday season, which is often marked by age-old tensions and expectations. With Saturn so heavily in play, boundaries will be an absolute must. Pay attention to who leaves you high and dry this month and who absolutely cannot handle their shit. With such deep Piscean energy in play, people may be weepy and manipulative. If it’s not yours, it’s not your job to carry it.
Who are your obligations to? Are you trying to do too much for too many people?
Mutability, by its very nature, tends to bend rather than break. That always creates an opportunity to bend too much, straining your psyche and your relationships. If you have to pretzel yourself to fit into a particular situation, you may lose your own shape in the process.
Demands always get really high at the end of the year; see where you can carve out space for rest and downtime this month.
Read more: 00° Aries
Our Lights: The Sun and the Moon
This month we round out Sagittarius, the last month of Autumn, and enter Capricorn, the point of the Winter Solstice and first month of winter. We celebrate the darkest day in the Northern hemisphere on 12/21, and welcome the rebirth of the Sun the day after.
Although using the Gregorian calendar, we track the new year as 1/01, there are many reasons to mark it instead at 00° Capricorn, the first day of Winter. This is a day to set intentions for the new year ahead and it is also a day to put down what you don’t wish to carry with you into 2026.
Other than the Sun’s squares to Saturn, Neptune, and the lunar nodes, there is little solar action this month. This is mostly because the personal planets are quite closely clumped together in Sagittarius – we will see significant planetary conjunctions as they move together into Capricorn and then Aquarius in the new year.
For now, we focus on our lunations.
Our full moon is at 13° Gemini on 12/04, tightly square to our lunar nodes in Pisces (North) and Virgo (South). This is our halfway point between eclipse seasons. We only have one eclipse season left before the lunar nodes switch to Aquarius (North) and Leo (South) later in 2026. This is the time to decide, but with all four of our mutable signs triggered, there will be a lot of indecision in the air. We are being asked both to decide and to go with the flow, which gets confusing. It might be that some are being prompted to act, and others to bend. Or we might need to do both at once. We may have to face the consequences of our past actions – sort of eating our fates, hopefully with big smiles on our faces.
The lunar nodes bring a distinct eclipse-like feel to this lunation which makes it a day to do eclipse magic without as much of the unpredictability of eclipse magic. A grand cross is controllable if you know when to guide and when to let things happen.
The Sun’s t-squares to the lunar nodes goes exact the next day, carrying this energy through longer than average for a full moon whose energy – despite what many will claim – passes quickly.
In a similar vein, the Sun squares Saturn on 12/16, energy which will still be in effect on 12/19, as the Moon directly squares Saturn in the hours before the new moon conjunction goes exact. At 28° Sagittarius, this new moon is the last lunation of 2025 and a chance to reflect on the year that has nearly ended. Try not to get too doom and gloom about things (difficult, I know) – Sagittarius is by nature a glass-half-full sign due to its planetary ruler, Jupiter, but Jupiter is retrograde. Acknowledge the bad – I’m not advocating for toxic positivity here – but remember to acknowledge the good, too.
Saturn in Pisces is known for its rose-colored glasses. As you begin to set goals and aspirations for 2026, make sure they are realistic and achievable.
If you want to work with the natural lunar energy of the year, it might look like setting intentions of 12/19 with the new moon, putting your first magic into them as the Sun enters Capricorn, and further working them on 12/31-1/1 and then again on the Capricorn new moon in January.
Mercury
Mercury is still in their post-retrograde shadow until 12/16, so we all, collectively, have some catching up to do. We should note that Mercury has one unique major aspect of the month as it meets up in a water grand trine with retrograde Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn in Pisces on 12/06 and 12/07. This is Mercury’s third pass of this trine as a part of their retrograde cycles, and it coincided with the change in directional status of both Jupiter and Saturn, indicating one of our deepest slowdowns as we enter the cold season.
When Mercury trined the two in October, Jupiter was in direct motion, and Saturn was retrograde. When Mercury trined the two in November, both were retrograde. Now, in December, Jupiter is retrograde, but Saturn has stationed direct. Both planets changed directions during Mercury’s retrograde.
Mercury is the great messenger, the facilitator. Here, they are taking our hands and leading us into the darker, deeper nature of wintertime.
This is all the more apparent as Mercury crosses the border into Winter proper, entering 00° Capricorn, on 1/01/26. If you need a new start, work with Mercury this month.
Venus and Mars
As our two relationship planets, Venus and Mars, by sign placement and their aspects to one another, tend to give us a sense of the type of interpersonal “vibes” we will experience all month long. We want the two to be in very different signs from one another; even more particularly, we want them to be in opposite signs from one another – the aspect of perfected “marriage”. We see this in Venus’s two domains (Taurus and Libra), which are naturally opposed to Mars’s two natural domains (Scorpio and Aries).
This month, they both occupy Sagittarius and then Capricorn. We can infer, from this, that we will be getting too much of each of these types of energies. When the two are both in Sagittarius (until 12/15), everything will likely run too hot and too fast. Sagittarius is mutable fire; it burns out of control, maybe, and a bit inconsistently. This can be fun, but it’s hard to maintain. From 12/24 to the end of the month, when both Venus and Mars are in Capricorn, we might all be overly controlled and pessimistic.
It may make this month feel like all or nothing, where 12/01-12/15 is all and 12/24-12/31 feels like nothing.
It’s worth noting that Mars enters Capricorn, the sign of his exaltation, on 12/15, which is highly auspicious for hard work of all kinds, but we all know that very little work gets done in mid to late December due to the holidays, so it will be harder to access this energy than normal.
Watch out for the day that Mars squares Saturn (12/08) because that’s a hard stop, and very few people like running into a wall. Schedule it off if you can to spare yourself the headache.
Looking Ahead
January is going to be a lot as the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars can all now be found together in Capricorn, which is going to really draw us back to January of 2020, which had a similar occurrence but also included Saturn and Jupiter. Take that as you will. Maybe it’s a cosmic do-over. It’s certainly the end of a five-year cycle. Expect my 2026 report soon.
The Details
12/02 – Venus in Sagittarius sextile Pluto in Aquarius
12/04 – Full Moon 13° Gemini
12/05 – Sun in Sagittarius square the lunar nodes
12/06 – Mercury in Scorpio trine retrograde Jupiter in Cancer (3)(water grand trine)
12/07 – Mercury in Scorpio trine Saturn in Pisces (3)(water grand trine)
12/08 – Mars in Sagittarius square Saturn in Pisces
12/10 – Neptune stations direct 29° Pisces, Mercury in Scorpio opposed retrograde Uranus in Taurus
12/11 – Mercury enters Sagittarius, Mercury in Scorpio trine Neptune in Pisces, Venus in Sagittarius square lunar nodes
12/13 – Mercury in Sagittarius sextile Pluto in Aquarius
12/14 – Mars in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces
12/15 – Mars enters Capricorn
12/16 – Mercury exits its post retrograde shadow 06° Sagittarius, Sun in Sagittarius square Saturn in Pisces
12/19 – New Moon 28° Sagittarius
12/21 – Sun enters Capricorn, Sun in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces, Mercury in Sagittarius square the lunar nodes, Venus in Sagittarius square Saturn in Pisces
12/24 – Venus enters Capricorn, Venus in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces
12/30 – Mercury in Sagittarius square Saturn in Pisces
1/1/26 – Mercury enters Capricorn