Horoscope Principles for the week of January 5, 2026
This week, we continue to be in the dark of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and we are entering a new year that has a number of astrological challenges. I say that not to be bleak but because the winter is a time of rest and renewal. It is a time to let your frozen ground lie dormant under leaves the trees released.
If you plan for challenges ahead, my hope is that you take more seriously the chances you have to rest now (assuming they present, and holding the awareness that for some people rest is a privilege). Now is the opportunity to release anything that drains your energy but does not replenish it.
(Photo by me in the Palm Springs leg of my Inanna Underworld journey.)
For horoscope principles this week, I am primarily looking at the following celestial events:
Jupiter continues in Cancer, and the Sun, Venus, and Mars all join each other this week in Capricorn, as they approach opposition to Jupiter. (Mercury is also in Capricorn and quickly approaching the same conjunctions/opposition.) The conjunctions start on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, and continue through the week. The first opposition becomes exact on Friday, January 9, 2026. This emphasizes the Cancer/Capricorn polarity in the sky. Both Cancer and Capricorn are feminine or yin signs, and both are cardinal signs. Cancer is a water sign and Capricorn is an earth sign. They have similar emphasis on safety and stability, and yet they are opposites in many ways. Cancer represents the hearth an home, or the nest. Capricorn represents the outer institutions. This polarity asks how our loyalties are in tension with our ambition. They ask how our local community is in tension with broader institutions.
On Saturday, January 11, 2026, at 8:13am, Venus squares Chiron, and then the other planets in Capricorn approach that square as well, as we go into the next week. This puts the spaces where we are wounded on blast, though at this point Venus and Jupiter both square Chiron and offer some healing, despite the spotlight on pain.
Uranus continues in Taurus, and Pluto continues in Aquarius, as long-term themes.
These are the principles to consider for each rising sign (visit astro.com to find your rising sign) in the week of January 5, 2026:
Aries Rising: When your roots are solid, the branches of the tree of your life can grow more expansively. This week, you continue to experience expansion in your home and inner world, while you have activity and focus on your public life or career. You may feel busy with ups and downs in your public life, but grounding into the nest of your home will stabilize the rest. If you have felt wounding around your identity and what it means to be you, these will experience some opportunity for healing, even if healing is painful.
Taurus Rising: Your inner child is the root of the tree of your ideals and higher beliefs. The more you expand your inner child’s presence and allow them to occupy space, the more the shifts you’re experiencing in your ideals will have room to become something tangible. You may be more comfortable with ideals that seem structured and logical, or ideals that support you in getting the results you want, but this week asks you to make room for the expansion of childlike ideals. What are your ideals around play? What are your ideals around imagination? What are your inner child’s dreams and visions of possibility? Sometimes the most practical ideals are the most innocent.
Gemini Rising: Other people’s projections about your version of abundance is just information for you to consider as you expand how you think of an abundant life. What you value and your version of abundance is expanding, and other people might have thoughts about that. If they approve, you might be inclined to be drawn toward their version of abundance. If they disapprove, you might want to rebel against them or shame yourself. What you see as abundance does not need to be the same as other people’s, and being different and uniquely you does not have to threaten your ambition. You have a structured understanding of what other people value (cookies=good, punches in the face=bad), but abundance is not that literal. Look inward to what you value and use other people’s projections about you as information, not as a rule you need to follow.
Cancer Rising: What feeds you feeds your partnerships as well. Because of activity happening with your closest accomplices, you may feel a push-pull between what you need in order to expand into who you are becoming and how you show up as a partner. Filling your cup allows your energy to overflow to your partnerships rather than getting into a tug of war. Relationships are not pie, and so expanding you expands others as well. If you feel wounded around your experience in your public or career life, taking time to deeply know yourself and who you are becoming, while you pay attention to the partners who support you will offer some healing. It doesn’t change the past, but it can help you grow into a new version of you.
Leo Rising: Healing your mind heals your body. This week is a good time to look at your daily routines and how they support your mental and physical health. You may have a history of setting rigid or ambitious schedules for yourself and trying to live up to idealized standards of mental or physical health. This type of ambitious schedule can be supportive or it can be punishing and destructive. The key is paying attention to the results you see. For example, Western culture (and many Eastern cultures for that matter) puts a lot of emphasis on skinniness as a symbol of health. But, the correlation between skinniness and health is tenuous. If you achieve skinniness, but develop a heart condition from the stress of your strategies, your routines do not serve you. As you expand your thinking around woundings you’ve experienced related to your ideals, you may receive important insights as to how to structure your routines in a supportive way.
Virgo Rising: Draw inspiration from your friend groups and social circles in order to focus on the creative projects you care about. The spotlight is on your babies right now, whether they are material, human, or otherwise. You may have somewhat rigid structures and set ambitions for how what you create looks to the world, and this week you may want to consider the more tender and loyal way you handle your friend groups. If you treat what you create with the kindness you would use toward a friend, you may experience the ups and downs of creation with more ease. Any wounding you’ve experienced related to other people’s judgments and values about your creativity may receive some healing towards the end of the week.
Libra Rising: Let your career nurture your home life and internal world. You have some ambition or maybe even external pressure to make your home and most personal spaces appear a certain way, and you may see your career spaces as places where you create nests and comfort. This week, the two are connected, and the expansion you’re having around your career may be able to offer some comfort to the chaos at home. The wounding you’ve experienced in partnerships should receive some healing, or at least some activation that invites a positive transformation, as you expand in your public life and manage the activity at home.
Scorpio Rising: Allowing your ideals to expand supports your local community. It is hard to let go of old ideals or belief systems, but allowing them to grow into something new does not necessarily mean rejecting the old. A lot of activity is happening in your local community, with your siblings, or related to your early childhood beliefs, and this activity is supported by the expansion you’re experiencing related to your ideals. In other words, it’s a good week to get out and protest. If you’re worried about your health related to protests, mask up. Reach out to organizers to ask about health-related accommodations. Stay safe, but now is a great time to support positive changes in your local community.
Sagittarius Rising: It is just as important to learn to receive as it is to give. Your finances, values, and concepts of abundance are experiencing major activity right now, both positive and negative. But, the abundance of people around you is undergoing major luck. If your partner got a big holiday bonus, let them support you in your abundance too. It is not either/or and abundance is not a competition. If you have been rigid or approval-seeking in how you see money or abundance, now is a time to question that. You don’t have to be the best to receive, you just have to be open to connection and support. If you have some wounding around children or creative projects, letting yourself receive may send some healing to that.
Capricorn Rising: Celebrate your partners and accomplices in their successes. It may seem like your ups and downs are creating chaos in your life, while things are smooth sailing for your closest partners, but what benefits one person benefits all. If you get into either/or thinking this week, you are the one who will lose. If you can celebrate your partners’ wins, their expansion will overflow to you. If you harbor wounds related to your home life, celebrating your partners and releasing some of the rigid ambition you hold for yourself could help ease some of this, even if it doesn’t erase the past.
Aquarius Rising: Healing the body heals the soul. We are spiritual beings in physical bodies, yes, but that does not diminish the impact our physical health and daily routines have on our mental health. If you are experiencing ups and downs, and even chaos, in your mental and internal life, take a walk, get outside. Do something that makes your body feel good. If that means eating ice cream, that’s okay, but consider expanding your daily routines and physical health practices to incorporate what makes you feel good long term, mentally and physically.
Pisces Rising: What you create is a gift to the people in your life. You are having a lot of activity in your friend and social groups this week, and if there’s a chance to show and tell your creative projects, take it. This is something that benefits you and your friends. It’s not selfish to offer other people what you’ve created or show off the baby pictures of your kids. People may love it one day or hate it the next, but that’s just the weather. The expansion you’re having around what you’ve created is the magic. If you have wounding around other people’s projections about your creations, remember that you’re allowed to listen to the support and throw out the rest.
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