As the year ends, I urge you to think back and pick out the very best day of the year, which made you smile, and the hardest day of the year too. If you have my annual calendars, you can see what aspects were at play on the days you choose, or the aspects very close to that day. Make a note of the aspects you find – they might be helpful to you over time…

The holidays must have exacted a toll on you, for you will enter January in need of rest. You are a gregarious soul, but in early January, you will want to retreat inside, perhaps to plan your coming year in a peaceful setting. If you have children, you may be laughing, saying that is simply not possible. I sympathize – I remember those days. See if your partner will take over child care to give you a needed breather.

The full moon of January 1, in Cancer 12 degrees, will fall in your twelfth house of privacy and creativity. If you are working on a creative project, you will have time to muse about how to proceed and what you can add to it to make it better. You will be quite prescient about events that are spinning around you, too, and you need to quiet down so that you can hear your small voice within. Your intuition will be operating at an all-time high, and lead you in the right direction, but you must screen out the cacophony around you long enough to even hear the message your intuition is telling you.

The New York Times recently ran a story bemoaning the fact that we all are overly busy, and how we run in circles, putting out fires, meeting deadlines, keeping up with developments in our industry, and trying to fit in friendships and fun too. All the while we don’t take time to simply breathe and think. The ancient astrologers believed that meditating on the state of our lives was the way we come up with vital new ideas. See if you can treat yourself to that peaceful time, if only for an hour.

A full moon in Cancer in your twelfth house can point to feeling run down in energy and in need of nourishment and sleep. Be aware of how your body feels, for your body will tell you precisely what it needs to perform at its best.

There is another reason I urge you to take it easy – a crowd of friendly planets are orbiting toward your sixth house of work, to arrive by the new moon of January 16, in Capricorn at 27 degrees. This is major, for we rarely see six planets in one sign in one house.

After that new moon, your work life will buzz with activity and your to-do list will grow. Details will matter on the assignments you focus on, so you will have to keep organized, lest one vital detail fall between the cracks. Fortunately, you have the first two weeks of January to catch your breath before this wave of important crop of new assignments lands on your desk. It will be vital to be very realistic and practical in your approach and to have a plan to attack these projects that seem to have many moving parts.

Saturn will be among the planets in your sixth house, and this placement is known to make it notoriously hard to find qualified helpers who would report to you that you would like to hire. This would be true at the office but also at home, in terms of a babysitter or housekeeper, for example, too. If you are a manager, start saving resumes that are sent to you – you never know when you will need to pick up the phone to invite that person to join your company. This inability to find the right workers will be a bit of a double whammy because the outlook for your work life is extremely busy, and you will need more hands on deck.

Saturn will remain in this part of your chart for three years, until December 20, 2020. During the coming months and years, you may find that projects take longer than usual to complete (Saturn slows things down) and subsequently make the project cost more money too – keep this in mind when estimating the cost of new projects.

Saturn usually asks for a sacrifice, and when in the sixth house, you may be learning the standards of a new part of your profession and need to do a lot more research and oversee details to gain mastery over your assignments. Saturn will demand complete attention to the task at hand, and ask you to be ready and willing to take responsibility for the quality of the work you turn out.

    January 31 will bring a full moon lunar eclipse in Leo, putting you in the spotlight and bringing to culmination a matter dearly important to you. This is a big moment and may relate to talks you had last August.

This same group of planets clustered in your sixth house to arrive on January 16 – the new moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Pluto – may give you the impetus to attend to health matters too. Capricorn rules bones, and the knees in particular, so you may be getting a consultation about a trick knee, or you might be simply getting a bone scan to make sure you have strong bones.

This is a good idea, for Saturn has just entered your sixth house last month for a three-year stay, and Saturn is known to drain calcium. Check with your doctor if you need to take a certain vitamin or other medicine, or change your diet to boost bone strength. At the gym, reasonable weight lifting helps too, so talk to your doctor about that as well.

Also on your list should be a visit to the dentist to make sure all is going well. As said, Saturn rules bones, but also teeth. Chances are, things are going well, but my theory is if you keep showing up at the dentist, nothing bad will happen. Well, sometimes we can’t help having a cavity or needing a root canal, for example, but at least you can nip a dental need in the bud.

The state of your teeth, gums, and jaw bone will affect your face and its expression, so see dental care as insurance for good looks. Additionally, scientists say that harmful bacteria can enter your body through your gums if they are receding or bleed. For some time when I was younger, my gums were bleeding a little and it was hard for me to get them to stop. I started going for dental cleanings every three months – voila, no more problems. My dentist keeps complimenting me on how healthy my gums have remained, and I want that for you, too.

Capricorn also rules skin, so you might want to see your dermatologist to see how to improve the quality of your complexion. You may also want to check your hearing, also ruled by Capricorn. Getting a baseline hearing test might be a good idea. Doctors have been alarmed by seeing young patients who are on their way to hearing loss because of turning up the volume when wearing their earphones.

My mother had extreme trouble with hearing as she got older, so I would accompany her to the hearing doctor at one of New York’s best hospitals. One day, her doctor turned to me to ask, how about you, do you want to take the same test we are giving your mother? You can do it now instead of sitting in the waiting room as I have an extra technician who can do it. I didn’t think I needed such a test, but the doctor convinced me that every adult should do it once, so I agreed. Afterward, it was exciting to be told I had the hearing of a newborn baby – perfect. Considering my eyes are far from perfect, this news was comforting!

Now let’s turn to your home situation. Are you in the market for a new apartment or house to buy or rent? Or, are you considering a renovation or making a new design to your home? Or, would you like to find a compatible roommate to share your space?

If so, you would do well to harness the remarkable aspect coming on January 5-6 for home and family matters. The aspect will be Mars conjunct Jupiter in Scorpio, lighting your fourth house of home. Mars and Jupiter meet every two years, but always in a different sign. The last time these two powerful planets met in Scorpio and your solar home and family sector, it was August 8, 1982. The next time they’ll meet in Scorpio will be November 24, 2053. Clearly, January 5-6 will be very special, for Mars is the planet of action, and Jupiter is the giver of gifts and luck.

January 5 and January 6 would be a superb day to browse real estate options, to sign a lease, choose a contractor, buy a piece of furniture or a mattress, or do anything new you’d like to make your home more stylish and comfortable. You will also have luck in regard to your parents. This might come from family support, say, in terms of hearing that your parent will give you a loan or outright gift for a deposit or down payment on your new house, condo, or rental, for example. Conversely, if you have been looking for a solution to help your parent or other family member who needs your attention, on one of these two days, January 5 or January 6, the ideal option may surface. It is quite a brilliant five-star day.

You have another dazzling day, January 8, when Jupiter and the Sun will work in sync and again, the area of gain will be your home. As a Leo, the Sun is your ruling star, so this aspect, while a happy one for everyone, will be weighted doubly beneficial for you. With fortunate Jupiter working with your ruling star on your behalf, real estate matters, and one involving work projects and assignments, should go well.

That string of days, from January 5 through January 8, will be enchanting for you, and you have one more – January 9, when Venus and Mars will get into the act too, and bring more luck with work and real estate matters. Life can’t always be this sweet, but when it is, take full advantage.

The month will end with a major event – a lunar eclipse, January 31 in Leo, 12 degrees, putting you in the spotlight and bringing to culmination something that is dearly important to you. Something dearly important to you is coming to critical mass, and you might make a decision. It might be about whether to get engaged or married now, about a present partner, or about a business partner, agent, manager, or other person you will collaborate closely with on a certain goal.

By January 26, Mars will enter your fifth house of true love when Mars moves to Sagittarius, to remain until April 8, giving a big boost to your romantic life. I love that Mars will be in precisely the right place to help your romantic life, for Mars will be friendly to this eclipse, a good sign that you are likely to benefit from what happens at this time.  Think back to January 31, 1999 – you may get a clue of the theme that will come up now, for eclipses repeat to exact sign and degree every 19 years.

If your birthday falls on August 3, plus or minus five days, this eclipse will bring a message to you. The same is true if you have Leo rising at 11 degrees, or a natal moon in Leo at that degree, plus or minus five degrees. If you have your chart, look to see if you have a natal planet in Leo, Aries, Sagittarius, Gemini, Libra, or Aquarius at 11 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. If so, that natal planet of yours too will light up too in a dazzling way.

One last word: Last month, on December 20, Saturn left Sagittarius and finally released your love life to happier days. For three years, you found that your love life must have been subject to occasional (or continual) enforced separations. Your sweetheart may have lived far from your home geographically, or may have had the kind of work or study program that required long hours or travel. Or, you may have waited for your partner to leave a marriage to be available to you. Now, a change for the better is surfacing, and you won’t be frustrated by conditions surrounding a new relationship.

I am not sure if you decided to stay with the person you are dating or if the conditions finally improved. Perhaps your long-distance romance turned better when you or your partner moved to the same city, or that your partner finally did get that divorce. It is also possible that you decided to leave a relationship, exhausted by the separations. No matter what you went through, you learned a lot, and bright blue skies lie ahead.

January will be a strenuous month at work, so find frequent ways to treat your body, mind, and spirit with care. The full moon on January 1 might well find you longing to crawl under the covers, content to stay there for two days. You may need to catch up on sleep, so if you feel the need, give in. Saturn is now in Capricorn, which rules bones and teeth, so ask your doctor whether you should take calcium pills or change your diet to bolster this mineral, as Saturn is known to drain calcium reserves.

At work, especially at the new moon, January 16, six heavenly bodies will stack up in your sixth house, and you will see many projects come to your desk. To keep up with the active pace, you’ll need to get ultra-organized. You may want to streamline your assignments by building a strategy and forming a structure to handle all the incoming work. You may need to hire staff to keep projects moving forward, but you may discover that qualified, hard-working recruits are hard to find. Saturn in the sixth house commonly brings on this frustrating situation, so you will need to think ahead, by saving resumes sent to you by interested workers, and by asking friends and colleagues for recommendations for suitable candidates.

Six planets in Capricorn will require you to be realistic, practical, and cost-conscious in deciding how to handle the projects that will come to you. You may find that proper estimates and appropriation of funds consume most of your time. Uranus will be at hard angles to this new moon, so tension will be evident around you. You may have a legal matter to solve, or if you work in the international arena, a sudden difficulty from afar.

This month, if you want a perfect day to look for a new residence, apply for a mortgage, hire contactors, order the painters, buy new furniture, or close on a house or condo, choose January 6, when Mars, planet of action, and Jupiter, planet of happiness and profit, combine forces. It is sure to be a dazzling day, and if you can’t use that day, the day prior, January 5, will be a second runner-up day to use.

Your very biggest day of the month will be January 31, when the lunar eclipse in Leo will bring a grand conclusion to a matter you’ve been working on. Or it may be that a key relationship will reach an important culmination. Eclipses mark times of major decision points, with the choice to draw close or to leave – you will be asked to make a clear choice.

Another part of this question is whether you feel happier blending in with a group or expressing your individuality, separate from others – with this full moon in Leo, your own idiosyncratic talents and proclivities will win out. With all the choices you face at month’s end, you will be sure about your feelings and optimistic about the future. This eclipse is on your side, dear Leo, and a far more improved life lies ahead.