Astrology Highlights for Dec. 15-21, 2025: Brightness, Patience, and Ascent

Motivation

When we’re comfortable and well-fed, with a roof overhead and no immediate threats to our safety, it’s hard to find the motivation to save the world – or even just to think about the future. But Saturn’s ongoing journey through Pisces insists that we do just that.

As the Sun in Sagittarius squares Saturn this week (Dec. 16, 2025, 8:33 pm PST, at 25º28’ Sagittarius-Pisces), we find out why our efforts to get comfy and enjoy the crisper weather of this have been thwarted by limitations, obligations, and a nagging sense of unease. A changing landscape is calling us toward action, and the future can no longer be ignored.

Brightness

In the Northern Hemisphere, December tends to be one of the coldest months of the year. For most of us, its weather is better suited for bundling up in front of the fire with cocoa, safe and warm, than for taking off into the unknown. Even our winter holidays shine with a slightly desperate brightness, their songs and parties a kind of spiritual CPR meant to coax us into staying alive through the long, cold season.

Perhaps it’s the faint karmic memory of some recent Scorpio lifetime, but Sagittarius is better equipped than most to handle December’s cold, dark solitude. He doesn’t scare easily. He is exhilarated and dizzied by the long, dark nights; their stars are proxies for the faraway lands he may never see, silent and twinkling assurances that no matter how much of the world he explores, there will always be new lands waiting to be discovered.

At the Winter Solstice, the Sun enters Capricorn and its lowest point in the midday sky. The calendar year is almost finished, and we begin to plot our resolutions for the new one that lies ahead. But at the Sagittarius New Moon (Dec. 19, 2025, 5:43 pm PST, 28º24’ Sagittarius), we’re not yet ready for resolutions; we’re still exploring possibilities. We stand beside a frozen lake in the flat, white winter light, wearing a scarf knitted for us by some tender, Cancerian sort of person, pondering questions big and small. What happens after we die? What happens if we forget to live? Overhead, a few straggling winter birds fly in formation; we wonder where they’ll end up, and whether it might be worth following them on their journey.

Homesickness

To understand the Sun’s square to Neptune (Dec. 20, 2025, 5:02 pm PST, 29º24 Sagittarius-Pisces), imagine you’ve traveled far from home, to a place where you don’t speak the language and you’re not sure you’re dressed quite right, or that your natural personality is acceptable. Your usual persona has become a bit melty; the sense of self shifts, and confidence is a bit low. It’s uncomfortable, being a stranger.

But when you don’t have your usual bag of tricks to fall back on, when the construction of who you are and what you are doesn’t fit with your surroundings, you have the unique opportunity to figure out who you are without those constructions. Turns out, the real you has little to do with those things.

If you find yourself feeling a sort of yearning homesickness in the days surrounding this transit, consider that what you’re homesick for is not necessarily a different place or other people. What you’re homesick for is you.

Patience

Venus in Sagittarius squares Saturn in Pisces this week (Dec. 20, 2025, at 9:09 pm PST, 25º37’ Sagittarius-Pisces). It’s not the jolliest combination of planets. Think of Venus in Sagittarius, a lover of the outdoors, going out to do some sledding or skating and instead, finding a lot of sleet or rain making things muddy. Or planning a festive solstice party and then coming down with a virus. If you have to do some last-minute holiday shopping, you may have trouble finding what you want at the right price. Or maybe you’re looking forward to a weekend with your significant others, but they end up having to work, or they’re stuck out of town due to a storm.

Venus in aspect to Saturn often brings delays or disappointments. But sometimes, the lesson is to have patience – and in the case of Saturn in Pisces, acceptance. Maybe the thing you wanted to do gets cancelled so you can do something different – and more enjoyable – later on. And you might just enjoy it more because you had to wait for it.

Ascent

At the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun enters Capricorn (Dec. 21, 2025, 7:03 am PST, through Jan. 19, 2026) and reaches its lowest point in the midday sky. Energy and spirits can be low. We’re headed for the finish line, and as we look back over the calendar year, we may be tempted to chastise ourselves for what we haven’t accomplished.

At the Capricorn solstice, there’s no place to go but up. Over the coming months, the Sun will begin its gradual ascent, eventually reaching its highest point at the summer solstice.

Fittingly, we make resolutions at this time of year. To what heights might we climb in the year ahead? Meanwhile, it’s dark and cold, and we light fires and candles and plug in sparkling lights to remind us that it won’t be this dark forever.

I think many of us are feeling the need for some light at this Solstice. Things have felt pretty dark for a while, and it’s really nice to be reminded that everything is part of a cycle, and that the light is on its way back.