Cancer 2012 (Carmel's)

Overview
New beginnings have indeed arrived in your favor with the onset of 2012, Cancer. Although the biggest changes in the love realm won't arrive until autumn, romance will return as a central theme for you in 2012 - just when you'd started to give up hope of anything new ever returning to your life! Although Pluto has been working on deeply transforming your partnership sector since 2008 (forcing you to shed the outmoded), you were indeed beginning to wonder if anything new would ever come to fill the void. And alas, it shall!

Saturn has been weighing heavily on your family and home sector over the past few years, bringing plenty of challenges your way. On one hand, this has been an incredibly grounding time filled with enough reality checks to put you firmly in touch with truth. It's also revealed the importance of your roots, although it may have brought a wake of suffering, either through loss of relatives or a major strain on family relations. Take heart, dear Cancer - all is about to lighten up as Saturn moves out of a difficult aspect to your stars. When this cosmic taskmaster moves into your love and creativity sector in November, you'll get serious about making more time for romance and self-expression. This also means you'll be disciplined about your passions instead of throwing your precious energy around willy-nilly!

Expect to stay remarkably connected with others throughout 2012. Mars will be activating your communication for the first half of the year, keeping all your communication gadgets continually buzzing. During the first four months, the red planet will be retrograde, bringing mixed messages and retrospective reverie galore. Cancer folks are forever prone to dwelling in a nostalgic world, and this will be even more acute in 2012. The future is glorious - but first you've got to root yourself firmly in the present!

Romance
Cancer, this is your year to take romance seriously! If you've been a dilettante, your time is running out. Saturn will enter your love sector this October and ask you to make important choices about what you will - and won't - accept in your love life. The cosmic taskmaster planet will also require you to put up or shut up when it comes to romance. No longer can you say one thing and do another. Either you're in it for the long haul ... or you're a free bird. There's no longer any in-between.

Friends could easily become lovers, or vice versa, under the lucky auspices of Jupiter in your social sector. It also means you could meet someone very special through your circle of friends. You won't be spending much time at home this year, so your chances of meeting someone special are multiplied by the amount of time you spend out with friends. Always dress for success, because you never know who you might meet!

Pluto continues to rock the very foundation of your significant relationships. This has been going on for so many years now, it's starting to feel status quo. You've certainly been to hell and back so often in recent times that you've grown accustomed to picking up the pieces and starting over. The redeeming factor of this intense transit is that each time you go through a personal cataclysm, you emerge that much stronger. Your ability to regenerate is astonishing at this point. You've weeded out the toxic relationship patterns and - more importantly - the negative people from your life. When it comes to love, you are the Phoenix!

Career
The continued presence of future-forward Uranus in your career sector will insist you remain open to the big picture and be willing to put yourself out there in a rebellious way. Experimenting, taking risks and being a pioneer in your chosen field are all requirements in 2012! No longer can you remain in the safe protection of your shell. As the old adage goes: Life starts where your comfort zone ends. When Pluto and Uranus make an exact square in June, you'll be forced to make a major change if your career still isn't where you want it to be.

With action planet Mars spending most of the year in the workaholic sign of Virgo and activating your communication sector, you can expect your inbox to practically overflow; you won't get a break from networking until summer. In fact, you may have to impose your own tech fasts just to preserve your sanity! Especially during the first quarter of the year while Mars is retrograde, you'll be craving many pauses and will need to power off once in a while. Use the first few months of 2012 to reflect on where you've been and what you've learned; then, apply those lessons to your future goals. Have you written everything down? If not, now is the time to get clear in very deliberate terms what you want out of your career.

Another wave of eclipse patterns will rock your work sector this spring and summer. The new Moon solar eclipse in May creates a domino effect of long-lasting changes in both the way you work and the kind of work you'll be doing. Are you utilizing all your talents, Cancer? If not, this is your breakout year. All the planets are begging you to take a chance and expand your concept of what you believe is possible. The cosmos will reward you for any risks you take on its behalf!