Janus offers New Year’s resolutions by sun sign

December 31, 6:38 PMAstrology ExaminerMaria Barron

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Janus sculpture in the Vatican Museum

“There are things known, and there are things unknown, and in between are the Doors.”  – Jim Morrison  

In ancient Rome, the mythical Janus guarded the doors between the known and unknown, between war and peace, between one’s pasture and one’s neighbor’s. As keeper of the gates, he hovered over all those places of passage between realities. So when the Roman Senate, in 153 B.C., declared that the year would begin January 1, they honored the forward- and backward-facing god as guardian of the door to the New Year.

The idea of the New Year as a time for “resolutions” has forward- and backward-looking faces as well. The original idea was to seek forgiveness from enemies and thereby resolve past issues – bring them to resolution. The forward-facing portion, resolving to do better, is meant to flow from the first.

This New Year’s, let’s see what advice on resolutions Janus himself might give to each of our sun signs as they pass through his door.

Aries: It may be true that you never mean to do anything wrong. But you do speak brashly, and sometimes people read meanings into what you say that you didn’t mean. It couldn’t hurt to ask those you love most whether there was anything you said over the past year that they have hurt feelings about. But only ask if you’re prepared to just say you’re sorry and that you really didn’t mean it that way and leave it at that! Do not turn it into a fight to defend your honor! Now, go and speak just a bit more carefully in the New Year.

Taurus: You’ve kept up pretty well with your friendships, noticing when apologies are needed, taking the time to keep things strong. But you don’t mind making an enemy if you need to do so to prove a point. That’s understandable, but you might want to search your past associations with the word “enemy” and see if there aren’t some people you shouldn’t have made into enemies, and seek their forgiveness. Moving forward, remember to choose your battles.

Gemini: You’ve thought all this through. You have your own take on the situation. You did your best, and your best is usually good enough. You find all this talk of “enemies” and “forgiveness” a bit maudlin and sentimental. Resolution doesn’t have to be a big deal end-of-year, beginning-of-year thing. Resolution is in every moment. Besides, that’s a discussion that’s between me and me. Thank you, Gemini. The two of you may go.

Cancer: Oh, the guilt! Wait a minute, where is the moon tonight? In transcendent Pisces, and it’s just a slender waxing crescent moon, a maiden of about 16. So Cancer won’t be in full-blown mama moon guilt phase tonight. That’s a good thing. Cancer, don’t worry about enemies and doing better next year. Just get out under the moon, just after sundown because the moon sets soon after the sun, and contemplate the slender crescent of light that will grown full as we move into the month and then recede. Stop apologizing for everything and give more thought to the few apologies that may be necessary. Make them authentic.

Leo: You have no trouble with forgiveness, although you enjoy picturing yourself dispensing it rather than having to seek it. When necessary, you do the noble thing and ask for it straight out, perhaps even with a bit of ceremony. Like Aries, though, you tend not to notice when you’ve offended others. When you don’t notice, others decide you’re arrogant. It’s a pity really. You need to recall the times this year when you’ve blown people off because you were overcommitted and couldn’t be so generous with your time. Consider people’s feelings when you schedule up this year.

Virgo: You tend to get secretly ticked off – and think you have to think it over privately for awhile before bringing it up later, later, later, sometimes so much later that no one else can get back there with you mentally and emotionally. Motto for the New Year: Bring it up immediately. Ask about it immediately, because it may be nothing, or it may be something you can hash out right then and there. Time does not keep in a bottle.

Libra: On the one hand, you’ve probably kept things pretty well in balance, but on the other hand, sometimes those scales do get out of whack. Being a dual-faced gate-dweller, I, Janus, have a great deal in common with the dualistic signs of Gemini, the twins of dual perspectives; Libra, who is always weighing both sides, and Pisces, swimming both ways through the gate. I will, however, advise you to resolve this much: lighten your scales. Issues of the year that have defied resolution may need to be relegated a place in the archive as Last Year’s Issues. Leave them alone and focus on the new.

Scorpio: “Love means you never have to say you’re sorry. Love means without a word you understand. Hold me and let the past just disappear …” The lyrics for the 1971 Sounds of Sunshine song capitalizing on the tagline of the 1970 movie Love Story pretty well summarize your feelings on this whole business of resolutions in the doorway of the New Year. You are resolutely going forward into the arms of come-what-may. And you’ve been strategizing, so you have an idea of what may come. And you’d just as soon let the dead bury the dead. Janus reminds you to call home.

Sagittarius: It’s a shiny New Year, and you have lots of ideas for making it a good one. Things have pretty well resolved themselves at this point. Whether they went the way you hoped or not, they’re pretty well resolved. If there are loose ends, all it will take to tie them up is a bit of straightforward communication. You are entering the year with a clean slate. Move forward. Aim high and shoot straight.

Capricorn: I’m sure you can think of a few people who really ought to be apologizing to you. You could make a fully supported factual case of why they should apologize, and you’d be right, but you know it will never happen. It’s hard to tolerate unpaid debts. But do this: give yourself the gift of imagining the offender apologizing to you sincerely. Imagine the offender’s higher self giving you the apology that the human being can’t give. OK, now move it off your desk and into the archives. Move into the New Year with energy.

Aquarius: Life is a doorway that leads all ways. If you’ve got amends to make, do so generously. If you can’t make amends to someone who is gone, pay it forward. Dust off your idealism and play the resolutions game as imaginatively you see fit. This is your year, Aquarius. Jupiter’s luck is in your favor. Play fair and lead on.

Pisces: Our friends the glistening fishes went into a dream of transcendent oneness before making it this far down the page. They’re considering how far away resolution would be on a spectrum that includes dissolution – the dissolving of all human conflict in a sea of psychic depth such that we all are able to recognize ourselves within one another. They’re also protesting that they were not off in any sort of dreamland at all and that they have a great deal more common sense than all of the rest of us combined. Janus gives Pisces a pass and lapses back into the eternal now.