How Are Your Growing Pains Refining You?

Labor Labyrinth - Watercolor I created while in & out of labor with my 2nd child, 2007

Week of December 29, 2025

What's in the air as we transition out of the calendar year 2025 into 2026?

How are you tending to your growing pains?

‘Three things about this week,’ according to Chani -

• In the beginning of the week, communications may be a bit messy.

• As of the 1st, we’re going to be asked to be super practical.

• We will likely be in our feelings.

These are my 'cliff notes' for the energy of this week, based on Chani Nicholas' astro forecast, with my own twist.

Starting out with Monday the 29th - Mercury squares Saturn. This is a day to whittle everything down, make your lists, be discerning about what gets on that list, and be very conscientious about what you’re choosing, and what you’re communicating.

We might start out the week being really definitive & even critical.

I say - watch that inner critic, and allow it to flex its skill instead in the area of discernment about what’s important right now.

New Years’ Eve - if you’re going out, you may want to double-triple check all the details, where you’re going, what’s the address, what’s the dress code, what’re you supposed to wear, what might you need to bring with you. It’s a good night for dreaming but practical details may get lost or confused in the mix, so be prepared.

New Years’ Day - Mercury moves into Capricorn, which is a great way to enter the year, being economical, identifying goals & resources, being aware of what we’ve got to work with, remembering that we don’t need more than we’ve already got. We can work magic with what we already have. So let’s get to work.

Then Friday - Chiron stations direct. There may be some pain that crops up; this is the planet of wounds and healing. (This isn’t a huge transit, but can be a reminder to focus in, listen up.) This Chiron transit is happening the day before the Full Moon in Cancer, which will definitely bring up some intense feelings. While in a placement that is good, abundant - it also is challenged.

Mars will be in Capricorn, opposite the Full Moon, so this adds a feeling of the tender spot being poked & prodded a bit.

Full Moon in Cancer is lovely, but just may mean some big feelings are coming up. She's with Jupiter in Cancer, which is an exalted position, but also sitting in opposition to Mars. Keep in mind one year ago, Mars was in Cancer, and we’re coming up on the one year anniversary of some awful things related to the Cancerian themes of homes, families, communities - the devastating fires in LA, inauguration of Donnie Drumpf, ICE descending into the streets (starting in LA), and many other things in the world. It was the feeling of being in a really vulnerable situation, loss of home, family, neighborhood. Mars now is in the opposite place, it’s in a good sign, Capricorn, where it’s exalted, about to cazimi with the Sun soon.

This Full Moon is articulating a pain point, including what we’ve learned in the past year collectively. Sitting next to Jupiter, the emphasis now is on talking about power, how to build power locally.

This weekend feels like a culmination of something having to do with groups of people, a wave of some type of response to something, a wave of feeling connected to one another, feeling like we need to collectively show up in a big way - like out in the streets - or like we are getting clear how we need to collectively care for one another.

Let’s ask:

• How do we care for our own needs?

• How do we care for our neighbors?

• How do we care for our communities?

• How do we care for what is local, in our immediate environment?

This is a time for solidarity, to let our care ripple outward, create spheres of influence that touch one another. Peace is contagious.

Mars in a good sign is giving us the juice to fight for what we know we want to fight for, and Jupiter also being in Cancer is giving us some ‘super-powered’ energy.

This weekend may be really emotional, roll with it, don’t stuff it down, feel your rage, bitterness, any negative feeling that comes up. Don’t stew in it, be ruled by it, ignore it, or numb out & just be unconscious of it. Move it through your body when you can, alchemize.

Let yourself feel the human feelings. Things don’t feel good all the time! We have a full range of emotions & experiences in life, if we’re lucky, & that’s normal, even if it can be uncomfortable! We chose this human life to experience the full breadth of it, the contrast is part of the experience. Just don't get stuck there.

Feeling the sorrow and loss and grief allows us to more fully enjoy the sweet parts, the pleasures, victories, love. We’d rather avoid the extreme kind of fighting conditions, but usually, whatever we go through then reveals the strategy that we need to go forward.

So - when you hear, “It’s going to be an emotional weekend,” don’t fear the feelings! Be grateful that you can still feel. The powers that be don’t want us to feel, they want us numb and distracted. Our feelings are what make us human, our feelings are our resistance, this is how we bring about change, create new ways of being in the world.

Let’s stay engaged, refuse to dissociate our way out of this, ground down, RECALIBRATE, and show up for one another! Enough of this hyper-individualization!

With this Full Moon in Cancer ending the week, let yourself be in the fullness of it all, hold space for yourself through it, and know that, like everything else, it will ebb & flow. Cancer and the Moon are great reminders that everything changes.

The Moon, ever changing, is a metaphor for how we are in our lives! We are in constant flux, but there is a rhythm and an order to it, even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes.

Remember your blessings. What a privilege it is to feel, to be able to take care of and nourish ourselves, to be able to nurture one another, to be able to meet our needs.

We are here to not only take care of ourselves, but to serve one another. Cancer reminds us that we’re supposed to experience the joy, the grief, and everything in between, and show up for each other, give what we’ve got to give, that’s the recipe for a great life.

(You can check on the part of your chart that contains Cancer to see more specifically what part of your life Jupiter has been growing something in.)

For example - I have Saturn in Cancer in the 2nd H of assets, resources, and livelihood - how and where I create boundaries (go figure! lol I got a master class in that this year). And it was retrograde when I was born.

• What have you grown over the past year?

• How have you been forced to grow, personally?

• And, with regard to your chart, what have you grown in this part of your life over the last six months?

• What has been really painful and challenging about it, and what’s been giving you a better understanding of what’s actually possible?

• Yes, there are things we wish wouldn’t have happened. But how did it make me grow?

• How did it force me to show up, what skills or strategy did it bring out in me?

Journal prompt from the Chani site:

• As Mercury enters Capricorn, what goals do you want to set for your collaborations or shared resources over the next few weeks?

Remember - the turning of the calendar year is just one day. Let yourself lean into the liminal space of winter, hibernation time, be aware of what you are growing in the dark, allow yourself to rest, and flow through this time in as easeful of a way as possible.

The Lunar New Year is February 17. The astrological New Year is the Equinox on March 20. And time is an illusion anyway, so ease in...

Change is the only thing we can count on, don't sweat the growing pains. You got this!