The frog's year

2027 is a year of one sign and one long correction. Saturn and Neptune both spend the whole year in Aries, the sign of starting. Saturn asks what you actually begin and finish. Neptune blurs the edges of who you thought you were. Together they make an odd pair, a ruler and a fog on the same road. The year rewards the person who starts small and keeps going after the applause, and it embarrasses the one who announces.

Jupiter opens the year in Leo and walks backward until April 13. Pride, play and ambition are generous but slow to pay out in winter. On July 26 Jupiter moves into Virgo and stays there to December. The mood shifts from stage to workbench. Growth comes from repair, from routines, from the dull fix that nobody photographs.

Mars is retrograde from January 11 to April 2, starting in Virgo and backing into Leo on February 22. The first quarter is a season of redoing: projects return, old arguments warm up, the gym plan restarts twice. It is not failure. It is the year's draft. Mars goes back into Virgo on May 15 and then moves steadily through Libra in July, Scorpio in September and Sagittarius in October, before reaching Capricorn on November 26.

Mercury turns backward three times: February 10 to March 4 in Pisces, June 11 to July 5 in Cancer, October 8 to October 29 in Scorpio. Each time, leave room in the calendar and keep the receipts. The slow planets rest too. Uranus in Gemini is retrograde until February 9 and again from September 16, Pluto in Aquarius from May 9 to October 18, Neptune from July 10 to December 16 and Saturn from August 10 to December 24. The autumn reviews what the spring started. By December the answer to most questions is plain, and usually shorter than the question.