Commonsense Almanac By Ben Commons | December 2024

Tips for almanac use: All the aspects can be felt in advance. It is good policy to view these as due dates for various energies and prepare accordingly for your context. It’s akin to bringing an umbrella with you when rain is expected, but it also helps us to not take the weather personally. When we proactively manifest these symbols then the world doesn’t have to do it for us. Choose to be con(with)-siderate(the stars). Reach out to me for personal explorations of these times.

Hey December, you’re here. The first half is a veritable whirlwind of tempted extremes versus some liminal middle ground that will surely throw us all around. Hopefully we can still make it through the figurative hoops. It’s all too much to think about and lots to feel through to release and there is a lot of growing up to do, regardless of age. The second half shifts course slightly and takes the oscillation demonstration on a depth plunge of existential contemplation, exploration, and rumination. There’s no telling where that could lead us if we support that process with parts of ourselves with which we are still getting familiar. And then pow, a new Moon will launch us into a new year. Let us allow and dance to this medley like a chorus line of improvisational self-discovering oneironauts.

Venus trines Uranus on Monday 12/2 at 6:42 am pacific, offering a chance to break out of routine. The drudgery of taking care of the practicalities can be stimulating, but we need to think outside of the box and imagine new solutions to ongoing tasks and projects, or at least streamline things in ways we haven’t tried yet. Stick with what works while infusing innovation.

Mercury opposes Jupiter on Wednesday 12/4 at 2:15 am pacific, pushing our minds towards more expansion. We need to somehow take immense complexity and edit it into bite size packages that our brains can assimilate. We should brainstorm with others, while being cautious about oversharing personal issues and grievances. It’s safest to keep things theoretical to avoid any cross-contamination and tension. Think big and edit hard.

Sun squares Saturn on Wednesday 12/4 at 8:18 am pacific. This will require us to take out the measuring stick to assess progress. It better serves us to take stock of progress instead of harping on lack and what is left to accomplish. Which is easier said than done, but adding unnecessary stress is not recommended. Give credit where its due, adjust course where needed, and stay resilient.

Venus sextiles Neptune on Wednesday 12/4 at 10:51 am pacific, allowing us to take a soak in the grounding nature of our beings. There’s always a push to do and grow, and this gives us room to simply be and soak. The main purpose here is to soothe the nervous system, so take a nature walk, an herbal salt bath, have some good old comfort food, or whatever else helps relax. Put your troubles aside for a few.

Mercury conjoins the Sun on Thursday 12/5 at 6:17 pm pacific, urging us to reevaluate ourselves. Life is a meandering menagerie of story upon story. Now is when we can choose again with what we relate and what we could consider outdated, or no longer serving us. This is easier thought than done, because we must let these mental suggestions flow into our body and being to truly achieve progress here. Quiet the mind between flurries to facilitate release.

Mars goes retrograde on Friday 12/6 at 3:33 pm pacific, remaining so until 2/23/25. This will force us to revisit again and again how we respond to life’s ups and downs. On a simple but deep level, this is about finding what currently brings us joy, but this requires layers of unwrapping old programing, retained trauma-response tendencies, old desires and wishes, along with family patterning, love histories, and so much more. Somehow, we need to make a path that will ultimately bring us into the present, but hopefully a present that is not constantly in fight-or-flight and continually reacting to all the noise. Honor the past while catching up to here and now.

Mercury squares Saturn on Friday 12/6 at 5:53 pm pacific, demanding some mental restructuring. There could be a tendency to indulge in doubt and defeat patterns, but this is best utilized to take the new theories out for a test drive on the reality-check track of intuition. Which is complicated by itself. But, above all else, we should be wary of extremism of all varieties. The goal is to middle ground it all and focus on the next steps instead of outcomes and worries.

Venus moves into Aquarius on Friday 12/6 at 10:14 pm pacific, until 1/2/25. This passage will be about forming and maintaining deep connections to those around us, which can be hard when our social batteries get spread too thin before recharge. It’s rather contradictory because we will want different things concurrently; buoyant randomness and straight-to-the-essentials depth. Maybe we should oscillate between the spectrums. And make sure to stay hydrated.

Venus conjoins Pluto on Saturday 12/7 at 6:08 am pacific, emphasizing deep connections over all else. The challenge here is if old hurts get in the way of new levels of relations with whom we would like to be closer. Keep releasing ancient wounds, along with their narratives, remove them thoroughly from the expectations list, and be open to uniting with people on fresh levels. Let us be cautiously relaxed, open-minded, and gentle in our approach.

The Sun opposes Jupiter on Saturday 12/7 at 12:57 pm pacific, demanding more enlightened perspectives on our beings. There is so much going on around and inside us, but this wants us to take a bird’s-eye view and appreciate how far we have made it and all that we have learned about life and ourselves along the way. Life is both a fleeting dream and a long slog through the wilderness, but we should occasionally take a stop to give thanks for a good view.

Neptune stations direct on Saturday 12/7 at 3:43 pm pacific. This begins a resolution period regarding our existential quandaries and spiritual yearnings that will ultimately launch us into an unforeseeable rebirth only to then dive back into these ethereal depths briefly from 10/22/25 until 1/26/26. But for now, the goal is to figure out what has been going on inside us in the ultimate depths of our being, except this can’t be done directly, or by way of the mind, it has to be allowed to come forth, felt in the gut, and seen only peripherally through the mist. Ruminate on the numinous.

Venus opposes Mars on Thursday 12/12 at 2:45 am pacific, tossing lots of sparks here and there. This could be very fun and fulfilling or rather volatile and dangerous, depending on circumstances. The ideal is to combine politeness with assertion, enjoyment with desires, and all sorts of equations. Watch out for frustrated people looking for an outlet, and try not to be that person. If the air does need clearing, take a graceful approach.

Mercury sextiles Venus on Thursday 12/12 at 11:44 pm pacific, prompting a lot of re-evaluations. This is the last celestially assigned task for this retrograde. The idea is to bring all the ideas and their revisions into focus according to the real-world value, even if it is a long-term prospect. Sometimes we are best served when thinking way ahead, like when we plant a tree long before fruit will be available. Yet, there is still a strong urge to not let the travails or triumphs of the past skew our choices or resolve. All is proper in its place.

The Full Moon is in Gemini on Sunday 12/15 1:01 am pacific. This is another big lunation that by itself is expansive to the Nth. However, once again, it’s almost mellow by itself, despite the times surrounding. It’s practically begging us to feel as if we are truly home in our bodies and selves within the vast strangeness that is existences. We always wonder why we are here, as ourselves, and why the occurrences, and why everything else. Now we can allow ourselves to receive inner peace to quiet the whys and make us wise. Do a simplistic ritual of giving thanks and bask in the moonlight.

Mercury stations direct on Sunday 12/15 at 12:56 pm pacific, lurching us towards resolution town. Now is when we should start putting all these grandiose and revised ideas more concretely into action. Of course, choice is the most important factor here, and we should lean heavily on our intuition and what comes through a quiet, tired, or distracted mind. This is also a crucial moment to choose to release anger, reaction, and grievances, lest they simmer and stew into something almost new. Let us move forward with greater understanding.

The Sun squares Neptune on Wednesday 12/18 at 6:28 am pacific, urging towards a less defined center. This could find us tired and confused, or inspired and hopeful, or anywhere between. The ideal is to find a new inward center, so new and fresh that it lacks definition enough to fully comprehend within oneself, much less to convey. We don’t need to know the unknowable, but having relative peace while imagining it is vastly superior to the other options. Access the highest you and let it take seed.

Venus trines Jupiter on Thursday 12/19 at 6:10 pm pacific, expanding our horizons and bringing that buoyancy. This is a very pleasant configuration that supports enjoyment and connection of all sorts. The only danger would be over-doing it, but that is well counter-balanced if we keep it mellow. This is also perfect for expressing appreciation and reminding people that you care. Let’s enjoy all we can.

The Sun moves into Capricorn on Saturday 12/21 at 1:21 am pacific. This Capricorn season centers on bringing ourselves into a fresher present, lightened significantly of past loads if we have been working with the whole celestial syllabus. We need to honor the cold, the dark, and the quiet inside, while concurrently bringing a revived warmth to the daily grind. So, put practically, we should keep doing what we got to do, but hopefully with way more peace and less attachment to the past. Let us look forward to going inside.

Jupiter squares Saturn on Tuesday 12/24 at 1:59 pm pacific. This is part two of this trilogy that started on 8/19/24 and ends on 6/15/25. This is the revision version writ huge. We should be unraveling belief systems that swing too extreme, balancing expectation tendencies with reality, getting more practical with our long-range trajectories, and generally balancing most polarities imaginable. Faith and fear could both be excessive, but trust and openness are always good, and helpful for mental/emotional/physical health. The only way to truly find the middle ground is to be the middle ground as it witnesses the clouds float by and the Sun and Moon cycle through the heavens. Be still now and ritual up.

Mercury opposes Jupiter on Thursday 12/26 at 2:47 pm pacific, throwing the mind towards one extreme before interacting with the other later the same day. This highlights all the mental inspiration that has developed and then been whittled and rewritten over the last seven weeks. Now life needs final answers and choices, and plans should start being established. The whole is the parts and the parts make the whole, the dichotomy is unity; forest and trees, et cetera. Turn away from figuring others out. Keep your eyes open and find the part of mind that answers ‘Why not?’

Mercury squares Saturn on Thursday 12/26 at 11:28 pm pacific, emphasizing the other end of the spectrum as the afternoon. Practicality ultimately rules all, despite how much we would love to levitate and be swept away by the magic of imagined potential. Let’s not indulge in doubt, but let’s make sure reality could support our visions and plans. Let’s seek to understand how we got here without indulging in blame, but surely taking responsibility for learning our own lessons. And practice gentle but firm boundaries, especially internally. Be thankful for the inner adult, and respect the necessary.

Venus squares Uranus on Friday 12/27 at 11:41 pm pacific, bringing out the wild and rebellious from us all. Hopefully patience was enough in supply for the previous couple of days. Now we truly let it all go, with well-moderated abandon. The highest expression of this is to not care enough to have reactions and instead just hold the high vision without attachment. So, let us relax, connect, enjoy the comforts of life and closeness, and appreciate every little thing that warms us. And, practice anticipation.

The New Moon is in Capricorn on Monday 12/30 at 2:26 pm pacific. This lunation is quite relaxed relative to the ongoing wow. Now is our chance to take it and us back to the ultra-basics. As they say, in the beginning we chop wood and carry water, and the same is true of the end. We are still and always will be animals trying our best to fulfill ourselves while wrangling big brains. We can further relax out of the mentalness and bathe in the beingness and feel the weight of our bodies and the tiredness ready for slumber and honor the strange journey that is our lives. And from the depth of slumber and allowance, we shall be refreshed for a new era and the new year that brings it forth. Happy New Us and New Year.

December, that was a trip. So much, almost too much, certainly for some, yes, and still digesting we are. And then we plow right on into the new year, sowing these seeds that have been gestating and germinating within us and around us. So much newness is coming soon to a sky theater above you, and hopefully we are all thoroughly refreshed, ready, and poised for this new unknown.

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  Ben Commons

ASTROLOGER | Ben has been studying astrology since 1994 and started doing readings professionally in 2002. He is also a practicing Reiki master, and works with stones for healing. He uses astrology as a strategic tool and calls himself an Astro-strategist..

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