Even if you don’t believe in all the hoopla around 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar, Scorpio, this is bound to be a big year for you and the end of something.  It’s just not likely to be the end of the world. The year jumps into gear with Big Daddy Jupiter moving right along in your relationship sign, Taurus. It’s likely, whether you’re in a relationship or not, that you’ll be thinking/brooding/feeling some kind of way about one and whether to make bigger moves.  And you’re ready for those next steps—to be more open than usual and to connect to the sensual experience of getting to know someone, not just the psychological ways that you like to know someone. In short, you’ll be dealing with some foundational issues of trust, my intense friend.  Trust doesn’t usually come easy to you, but you’re also pressed now to do the work of trusting yourself more too.  With Pluto in your Capricorn center of personal data management, you’ll be looking at your contacts and connections with more scrutiny, assessing whether these are people who are really meaningful in your life. There’s a flip side to that too, though.  Have you been meaningful in their lives too?  Have you really been willing to be there and show up with your whole self, or have you been only giving samples of yourself to see if you can trust them?  If the latter, then during the year you’ll see how the script will get flipped on you because you’ve been writing the same lines for years and using different actors.  It’s time for a new staging.   As Mars and Saturn venture in your sign in the early fall, you’ll have to be careful not to lose sight of the lessons from earlier in the year.  Your MO is usually that a good defense is a good offense too.  That’s not the reason why the planets of action (Mars) and discipline (Saturn) are parked in your Ego garage though.  They’re there to bolster your sense of ego to be bold enough to trust that being open to attack is not the same as being attacked. Being vulnerable is the only lasting way to love and self-empowerment—what you want most.  (Yeah, everybody knows that “secret,” Scorpio.)

WINTER

One of the reasons why you’re so good at figuring out other people’s motivations is because you’ve sat so long trying to figure out your own.  This year opens with you having a clearer sense of your own motivations and feeling motivated.  This will likely prompt some changes for you with people in your inner circle, though.  Let’s be direct, the way you like it:  you’re not going to be carrying around any dead weight in the new year with folks who a.) you can’t trust fully. b.) don’t understand well enough. c.) who are always in need of assistance.  You’ve got plans for some serious reaching this year and you know, instinctively, that if you’re gonna reach far and you can’t feel like someone is clinging on one of your limbs and pulling you in the opposite direction.  Keep in mind though that you won’t be able to drop “dead weight” with the same amount of stealth or abruptness as you’ve done in the past.  This will be more evident in the spring.

SPRING

Just before the start of spring, Neptune spirited into Pisces, your pleasure and creativity sign. This will stimulate a lot of interest in those two areas for you, but it will also prompt you to set into motion the softening you’ve been experiencing while Neptune was in Aquarius.  As a sign under the watch of the planet Mars, you’re a warrior, although many of your battles are internal.  Sometimes you extend that battlefield way beyond yourself, feeling beseiged by foes imagined and real. But now you have to be extra careful about your take-no-prisoners attitude as Neptune is prompting you to have your ego weigh less than your heart.  And ego doesn’t mean that you act like royalty or an arrogant you-know-what as much as any state of being when you privilege your fear of being hurt more than being aware of how you could also hurt others. So though you’re shedding toxic contacts and worn-out ideas, you can do so affirming and respecting what they had been in your life, not what they are now.

SUMMER

Old habits and “blasts from the pasts” don’t go away easily, do they?  It seems like the summer heat may resurrect some old feelings, thoughts and people that you thought you had put behind you.  This isn’t uncommon to happen when Venus goes retrograde, as she is now, but it’s probably going to seem a big deal for you as it may prompt you to dust off some of the scripts you retired earlier this year.  I can’t tell you the number of Scorpios I’ve heard say about someone who’s hurt them that “They’re dead to me.”  It may feel that way for awhile, but the truth is they’re usually not.  You’ve just decided to numb yourself up.  Ain’t nothing else happened to anybody else.  You just created an illusion of control to protect yourself.  A lot of that is gonna fall apart now and the more you attempt to maintain it, the messier things could get.  Don’t attempt to use silence or avoidance as a means of speaking your peace. Get real peace and say what you want to say, especially when you didn’t say it the last time…whenever that was.

FALL

Mars feels at home in your sign now, so you’re going to feel at home stepping out and making things happen.  Be careful not to come off too aggressively now as you are clear on what you want and how you want to get it.  This is when you can trust that some measure of your charisma and verve can work for itself rather than thinking that you have to do extra to make things happen. You don’t.  As the season moves toward your birthday, you’ll start to appreciate the changes you’ve made this year and get a stronger grasp on where you’re heading.  This will be particularly strong at the top of November when you’ll experience the first set of eclipses that will start affecting your sign over the next 1.5 years. Eclipses when they’re in your Sun sign are like shots of espresso in your cup of ego.   Of course that sounds lovely, but it depends on the size of your ego and what your intentions are.  If you want to finalize the new script of everyday dynamics you’ve been working on all year, then you might need less ego than more.  Use that shot of eclipse espresso to stay awake to your intentions rather than to fuel your ego.

If you want a personal Zodiac Lounge reading, reach Samuel at return2thesource.com. Follow him on Twitter @sfreynolds where he flows daily about astrology, politics and life.