The wheel turns: sometimes we ascend, sometimes we descend, and there are lessons to be learned at all stages. When I pull the Wheel I am reminded that the invitation is to find myself at the still centre, mindful that success and failure have no bearing on who I am in essence.

Taking this invitation and looking at the year coming to us, I'm thinking of the difference between reacting and responding. Politically many of us are facing a descent into fascism, and queers, people of colour and other minoritised, under-served and over-policed folk are most aware of this. Whatever our reactions might be to this awareness, the invitation is to take a moment to consider, though the world may be whirling around us, how we might stay mindful and centred and cultivate the ability to respond. The people of Minnesota have shown us the importance of organising, building community, and sharing responsibilities - shifts on street corners with warning whistles, community food parcels for those in hiding, and guarding school gates are as vital as the very valid immediate reaction of wanting to go outside in numbers and scream our protests at the perpetrators.

We don't know what will manifest this year, and the Wheel suggests it will be surprising and not of our own doing. Uranus heading into Gemini suggests the same. But whatever strange events unfold this year, the stronger our mutual bonds the better prepared we will be for them, and the more able to respond effectively from the still hub, forcing our enemies to the discomfort of the spinning rim.