Last year, I did a workshop calling Processing 2021 Through Writing. This year, I decided not to do it. I’ve actually been working on another workshop about hatred for a few months now and that has been taking up most of my time. But then I did get emails asking me if I was going to do the workshop for seeing 2022 out. Apparently, people really enjoyed the workshop!

I decided to do a review of 2022 using the astrology of last year as a written piece instead. When I did the Processing 2021 workshop last year, we did some group journeys together. If you like that kind of thing, feel free to ask a friend or two to do this journaling exploration with you and to create your own exercises that feel fun to you.

Venus Retrograde in Capricorn

] The thing that I remember the most clearly from the beginning of 2022, that long winter, was the Venus retrograde. Venus had started its retrograde in December of 2021 and it continued to retrograde for all of 2022. I remember this time most clearly as a period of removal.

We got rid of things that winter. We might have lost things too. We left that winter feeling lighter and with less than we started it with.

Journaling prompts for reflecting on the Venus Retrograde in Capricorn in 2022:
Aries: Who did you no longer need to be last winter?
Taurus: What did you no longer need to search for last winter?
Gemini: Whose crisis did you no longer share last winter?
Cancer: What did you need distance from last winter?
Leo: What were you willing to work for last winter?
Virgo: What did you learn to love last winter?
Libra: What was guilt doing for you last winter?
Scorpio: What are you no longer in competition with last winter?
Sagittarius: What did you no longer want last winter?
Capricorn: Who did you no longer need to please last winter?
Aquarius: What was weighing you down last winter?
Pisces: What did you need to withdraw from last winter?

Jupiter in Pisces

This winter and spring time period was back when Jupiter had entered Pisces for the first time. Jupiter likes to blow everything up. I’ll always remember this time period as the time when inflation was at its seeming highest. I’m not sure what was going on but I remember walking into the store and feeling shocked as the price of eggs went up from $2-3 to $5-6. I don’t drive myself but saw people talking about the price of gas being as high as $6 a gallon in some places. Electric prices in my area also went up because they closed a nuclear plant nearby. A friend of mine’s rent tripled during this time. Other people didn’t have it quite so bad but so many rent increases went into the hundreds of dollars around this time.

But more poetically, Jupiter in Pisces was a time of bigness. It felt like there was nothing to lose and everything to gain. Maybe it was because of all of the inflation. We felt so out of control with our lives from buying everyday essentials and trying to keep up with all of the very drastic rent increases. Fuck it. What did we have left to lose? Why not make a big change in life and try something new if the old way is unsustainable anyway?

Journaling prompts for reflecting on Jupiter in Pisces from 2022:
Aries: How big were you willing to dream last spring?
Taurus: What did real joy mean to you last spring?
Gemini: How big did you want to grow last spring?
Cancer: How far could you see last spring?
Leo: What were you willing to lose last spring?
Virgo: Where were you going last spring?
Libra: What were you willing to accept last spring?
Scorpio: What did newness in love taste like last spring?
Sagittarius: What did you most miss last spring?
Capricorn: What did it mean to grow your impact last spring?
Aquarius: How much were you willing to grow last spring?
Pisces: What did it mean for you to be the bigger person last spring?

Eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio in April and May

Late April and May was when we had two eclipses in Taurus and in Scorpio. All throughout the last few years, a lot of us have been inundated with annoying ads about cryptocurrencies. Around the time of the eclipses was when I started seeing news about these currencies crashing. Around the same time, I started to see the popular narrative around workers no longer wanting to work in conditions that jeopardized their life or mental health change. The narrative went from “no one wants to work” to “people need to work.”

Now, I’ve only done a bit of shallow research into what happens with worker rights in a pandemic. While my research is shallow, I try to avoid online sources and stay with published books about pandemics so that the biases in my sources aren’t reactive to current events. I’ve only read five or so books about pandemics but it really seems like the idea of workers being desperate for work doesn’t make that much sense. It seems as though pandemics tend to cause two things: price inflation (due to ruptures in distribution networks) and labor shortages (due to more mortality and less working people). The labor shortages actually tend to result in workers leveraging their power better and getting some wins in terms of better conditions. It’s odd to me that the popular headlines would try to shortchange workers by utilizing our fear. Workers actually have a lot more power right now than reactive headlines make it out to seem.

Journaling prompts for reflecting on the eclipses in April and May of 2022:
Aries: What makes you willing to play with more dominance?
Taurus: Why are you willing to be yourself even when it’s not allowed?
Gemini: What does privacy do for you?
Cancer: What sustains you in friendship?
Leo: What are you proving yourself for?
Virgo: What hones and refines your perception?
Libra: What really happens if you lose control?
Scorpio: What are you willing to let someone else do for you?
Sagittarius: What does worry do for you?
Capricorn: What sustains you in love and pleasure?
Aquarius: Where are you willing to stay?
Pisces: What more do you have to learn?

Jupiter in Aries

In May, Jupiter had entered Aries where it stayed until late October. This transit was harder than I had expected in many ways. Jupiter isn’t exactly bookish when it transits Aries. It’s a Jupiter that likes to learn from doing and from fucking up. It’s not a Jupiter that does a lot of preparation or studies the problem. It’s a Jupiter without foresight. It wants you to simply plunge in and try doing the thing.

Journaling prompts for reflecting on Jupiter in Aries from 2022:
Aries: What were you ready to try this summer?
Taurus: What did you recover this summer?
Gemini: How did you celebrate this summer?
Cancer: What put pressure on you this summer?
Leo: What did you feel far away from this summer?
Virgo: What did anger bind you to this summer?
Libra: What did you leave behind this summer?
Scorpio: What needed your attention this summer?
Sagittarius: What did desire do for you this summer?
Capricorn: What did you get sick of this summer?
Aquarius: What blew your mind this summer?
Pisces: What did you have to do yourself this summer?

Saturn Retrograde in Aquarius

All summer, Saturn made time feel like it passed slowly and patiently. This summer, the COVID-19 variants omicron BA 4 and omicron BA 5 were circulating around quite rapidly. I did get sick myself this summer and it took about a month to recover, making me lose quite a bit of work and forcing me to rest. Maybe that was part of my experience with the slowness of the Saturn transit this year. Even after I got better, it kept feeling like plans were falling through because someone else would get sick. It felt like a time period where it was impossible to plan things or to make things happen.

Journaling prompts for reflecting on the Saturn Retrograde in Aquarius:
Aries: Who do you not want to spend time with anymore this summer?
Taurus: What are you no longer willing to spend time doing this summer?
Gemini: What were you obsessed with and why this summer?
Cancer: What did commitment do for you this summer?
Leo: Who was the most stable presence in your life this summer?
Virgo: What did you refuse to change about your routine this summer?
Libra: Where was the intersection of commitment and love for you this summer?
Scorpio: What were you unwilling to change about your life this summer?
Sagittarius: What made you feel trapped this summer?
Capricorn: What resources make you feel stable instead of fearful this summer?
Aquarius: Who are you really?
Pisces: What was your biggest time suck this summer?

Mars Retrograde in Gemini

The next big transit of 2022 was when Mars entered Gemini in September. Currently, as I am writing this, Mars is still in retrograde in Gemini. Mars stays in Gemini for the entirety of seven months from September 2022 all the way to March of 2023.

September was when the protests in Iran started. Later in the Mars transit, there were nationwide mass protests in almost all major Chinese cities. In my yearly horoscopes for 2022 that I wrote back in 2021, I actually thought that this Mars retrograde would bring struggles around labor issues. This also did happen with the railroad strike for sick days, the strike of postal workers in the UK, the strike of Harper Collins workers, and the strike of faculty at The New School. These are just the strikes that I have heard of and kept track of. In fact, there was a study done by Cornell that showed that worker strikes increased by 39% in 2022 as opposed to 2021.

Now, Mars is typically seen as an inauspicious planet. Its retrograde signifies all sorts of things: disruptions, illnesses, theft, political disputes, and road blockages. And, yet, a lot of astrology is written for those with social and political power. I’m sure that there will be those who see the protests and strikes happening under the Mars retrograde as a sign of ill luck but I’m sure that there are many more of us who see these things as a great relief. Mars can be a much needed salve during times of injustice.

Journaling prompts for reflecting on the Mars retrograde in Gemini:
Aries: What does rivalry bring up for you?
Taurus: Who has no control over you?
Gemini: Do you trust your ability to express your own pain?
Cancer: Whose pain do you avoid?
Leo: What is painful about friendship?
Virgo: What happens if you change your mind?
Libra: How does spite motivate you?
Scorpio: When do you trust your survival impulse most?
Sagittarius: Who are you angry with?
Capricorn: What are you no longer willing to be too busy to do?
Aquarius: What is painful about love?
Pisces: Whose anger do you no longer have time for?