December is a powerful month in astrology, especially in business. While the world wraps up loose ends and begins to focus on the new year ahead, the Sun cycles through Sagittarius and then Capricorn, ushering in the energy of structure and achievement with one of expansive vision.
However, other planets that are key to running a business are shifting signs too, bringing with them specific areas of focus for the collective, as well as for you and your business individually (you can run a birth chart for your business too! In fact, I have a podcast episode about how I’m using astrology to shift things with my podcast and Substack newsletter).
Mercury Retrograde in Capricorn for business
We’re a few days into Mercury’s transit into Capricorn, and in the 2-weeks shadow period before the planet stations Retrograde on the 13th (as we have the New Moon in Sagittarius). It will station direct again on January 1st, leaving the sign on Feb 5th.
Mercury Retrogrades are infamous and practically a meme for technology going haywire and communication issues left and right, but they are regular times to slow down, check-in with what we are doing, and adjust course of action where we find a bug.
Mercury as a planet governs two Mutable signs, Gemini and Virgo, and through that the III and VI Houses. Both are detail-oriented signs, and collectively cover things from communication to routines and health, and day to day life (including short distance travel).
Capricorn is the Cardinal Earth energy, ruled by Saturn. Represented by the Seagoat, there’s no oceanic depth it won’t swim to, or mountain top it won’t climb. Where people see problems and obstacles, Capricorn sees something to solve and climb over.
When Mercury is in Capricorn, the sometimes frantic energy of Mercury becomes more grounded. Natives with this placement (like yours truly) think carefully before they make a move. It’s like a professional chess player, keeping the whole match in mind when choosing each move intentionally.
We’re good at being succinct and using language that is to the point and powerful, with logical and analytical arguments that don’t beat around the bush.
This could be a good time to review your copywriting across your online presence (P.S. I have a newsletter for artists who want to build powerful personal brands to set themselves up for success in the creative industries whatever their medium).
Mars in Sagittarius: an energy of fun
The Ruler of Aries (and Scorpio in classical Astrology) is comfortable enough in the fiery sign of Sagittarius, even though it’s mutable energy. It’s an energy of activity, that can manifest itself from a desire to have fingers in all the pies, to a lack of patience to wait out slower rhythms.
The transit actually started on Nov 24th, and will end on January 4th, so it covers the whole month of December. Be mindful of making realistic plans (come back next week for more on that topic!) and not letting all this enthusiasm overcommit and lead you to burnout.
You can take this time of transition into the new year as an opportunity to have fun and play around, focusing on creative projects you left on the backburner in favour of the hard stuff that needs to be done, or that you never feel like you can allow yourself to pursue.
Not everything you do needs to be monetised and be a part of your business, but also you can take this energy into account and play more with your content if you use online media to market your business (a tip that was actually shared by Kelly “The Freedom Babe” in her Boozy Biz Chat last night and it hit me as such a Mars in Sag thing), or attend all the networking Christmas parties.
Venus in Scorpio: alchemising for success
The final new transit I want to bring to your attention is Venus, who entered Scorpio yesterday Dec 4th, and will be in the sign until the 29th. Like all Scorpio transit it goes deep, inviting us to face the shadows of our subconscious so that we can integrate them and not, in the words of Carl Jung, let them “run our life and call (them) fate.”
Venus in particular is the planet most associated with the Divine Feminine (since let’s be real, without the asteroids we only get Venus and the Moon) and the energy of receiving our desires.
While often painted as a planet concerned just with love and sex (alongside Mars, but the god of war doesn’t get it to be his main association…I wonder why…/sarcasm), she also rules over money and material possession as well as the body as the ruler of Taurus. She is also a patron of beauty and the Arts as the ruler of Libra.
We could see her energy in Scorpio as the possessive and jealous lover, which invites us to look at our insecurities. Are we getting triggered by what other people are putting out there about their businesses? Do we think that we aren’t good enough as we are and should be doing all the things other people say we should because that’s what the data says?
The planet of Personal Brands
One of my favourite mentors once posted on IG that many of us create mediocre brands because we don’t believe that we can be great, and I think that’s such a succing example of what a Venus in Scorpio transit means for business (and personal brands in particular).
It’s an opportunity to dig deeper into the things that are preventing us from fully embodying our seductive powers as who we are, even if a personal brand is not the totality of who we are and is a curated intentional angle to which we let others look at ourselves.
It’s also a good opportunity to look at our mindset and energetics around the direction we want to take with our businesses in 2024, especially since the transit will be alongside Jupiter Retrograde and Uranus in Taurus, and Mercury and then the Sun in Capricorn (which is a sextile, and a trine among the earth placements).
This high concentration of planets in feminine energy (we also still have Pluto in Capricorn until the end of January, and Saturn and Neptune in Pisces) invites us to let go of the compulsion to always do, and look at the ways we can lessen our load (by delegating to people or AI, or dropping things we do just because we think we should but aren’t a necessary part of running a business, or even just lowering the perfectionist standards we expect of ourselves) and be more into a receptive energy of being more rather than doing more.
What small shifts can we make to enter 2024 on a stronger energetic footing, rather than a frantic energy of always hustling and always chasing things just because that’s what the online gurus say would make us successful?
