New Year’s Day is fast approaching, and the pressure is on to set new resolutions and intentions – basically reinvent your entire life on January 1st.
But is this the best time of year to begin making big changes? Let’s consult the stars!
Most of the world follows the Gregorian calendar which begins on January 1st, in the middle of the winter. The Gregorian calendar was established in 1582 following a decree by Pope Gregory XIII, and was slowly adopted by the rest of the world all the way into the 1900s. Prior to this, every region had their own calendar beginning at different times, often beginning on significant cultural dates or religious holidays.
The astrological New Year begins on the first day of Aries season. Aries season begins on the Spring equinox, when day and night are equal in length. This is the time of year when warm weather returns to the northern hemisphere, plants begin to grow and wildlife become more active. Aries energy reflects this time of new beginnings and spring’s new life, offering a driving force that can carry forward any intentions or resolutions we set at that time.
Meanwhile, the Gregorian New Year on January 1st falls in the second week of Capricorn season (December 21 to January 19 this year). This time of year the days are short, the weather is colder, growth is paused and much of nature is sleeping. Our ancestors would have used this time to rest, sleep, be with family, tell stories, pass down wisdom and skills, craft, play music, plan and dream for springtime.
The zodiac sign of Capricorn is a cardinal sign, which brings energy for new beginnings and new action, but it is also an Earth sign, closely tied to nature and the seasons. Capricorn season can be a great time to reflect on your structures, systems, values, legacy, and to plan and dream up your next steps, practicing using your wisdom to know when to rest and when to act.
So Capricorn season can provide some of this high-level, new-beginnings energy that folks are seeking for their New Year’s resolutions. However, January 2025 is a unique year in that we will be in the middle of a Mars Retrograde period (December 6th, 2024 – February 23rd, 2025).
During Mars retrograde we can experience a lot of stagnation in our lives. It can feel like things are harder to do, harder to start, harder to complete. We can feel more tired, apathetic, uninterested, and unmotivated. We can also feel a lot of frustration, conflict or tension, and our emotions can feel pretty leaky. We can experience communication issues, struggle to express ourselves effectively, notice unresolved feelings bubble up, and lack patience. Not only are our efforts frustrated during Mars retrograde, but our desires can be really confused. So even figuring out what you truly want for yourself in 2025 could be challenging, frustrating, and confusing.
Therefore, this January 1st, 2025, might not be the best time for traditional new years resolutions.
So what can we do instead? Mars retrograde gives us an opportunity to take a step back and discern what it is we truly want to go after. We are being asked to step off the hamster wheel for a moment – what do we want to work towards when we get back on? Are we meeting our creative and emotional needs in our regular daily actions?
We are also asked to reflect on how we go after what we want. What values and ethics do we want to uphold with our actions? How can our actions deepen our commitment to our values and improve the world around us?
Take time to acknowledge the past efforts and accomplishments of yourself and others. This is a time to give yourself and others a lot of grace and practice patience, empathy, and compassion. Capricorn season also encourages us to begin to explore how our daily systems are supporting us and how we can slowly, sustainably build better systems that better help us care for ourselves and others, keep our commitments to ourselves and others because we making promises from a place of deep self-understanding, and practice true self-discipline. Tune into your body’s needs at this time, stay curious, and follow your intuition in your self-care practices.
When Aries season arrives on March 20, 2025, we will be ready to receive a new burst of ideas and inspirations. Once Taurus season begins on April 20th we will be past Eclipse season (March 14th + March 29th, 2025), we will have finished the major retrogrades of the first half of the year (Mars, Venus, and Mercury retrogrades), and we will be experiencing some major collective ingresses (Neptune enters Aries on March 29th; Saturn enters Aries on May 24th). All this combined with the Taurean ability to build new things will provide a much more fertile landscape for planting new seeds of growth – a much better time to rebrand your life!
If you’re wondering how you can best navigate 2025, book a Year-Ahead Reading with Maggie! Read more and schedule on her website, egressastrology.com.
