Horoscopes | Week of October 4-10, 2004

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The best advice I can give you this week, Aries, is to read this week's Libran horoscope. And while you're at it, you might also want to read this week's article… and maybe even last week's too. Yes, all this other reading is compulsory, if you want to understand where the planets are coming from for you, Aries… and it involves a lot of information that might not seem directly relevant to you and your (self-)interests. That horoscope for your polar opposite sign Libra is full of declarations of me-me-me-ness—but if that's your opposite, then the logical theme for your horoscope must be not-me-not-me-not-me-ness. Everything is tilting away from you, and your responsibility is to see all the positive results of those spotlights shining on others. What a tremendous amount of karmic brownie points you'll collect by wholeheartedly committing yourself to the proactive support of those you think deserve to achieve their dreams. Be there for them. Concede your will to whatever they think is best for mutual happiness, and rediscover the joy of empowering someone else. It really does make you feel tingly all over. (That's the hidden selfish bonus of other-centeredness.)

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Inhalation. 'What is the intended service for my raggedy piles of bones on this hungry planet that needs my contribution?' Exhalation. 'I'm overtired from giving too much value to what doesn't serve the purpose of my health.' Inhalation. 'What must I bring in only to benefit the substance and never to hurt? How not to overpoweringly shut down through excesses?' Exhalation. 'Only as much as I need. Never too much, but always enough. I deserve to neither be stuffed nor starved.' Inhalation. 'But what if my work removes me from others… for they never seem to heed duty as I do, and never care past a single now?' Exhalation. 'They are them, and I am me. I cannot avoid standing out from the group, when my love goes thoroughly through myself and transforms into ego fortitude. I am me, and want to be what I am, which is me.' Inhalation. 'Why don't they love me? Or why don't I feel their love?' Exhalation. 'They block the it. And it's the it that loves you, the process you are required to participate in, for reasons that lack personality but explain the growth of plants from dirt with water and sun. Because.' Inhalation. 'I invite in duty with questions asked and unanswered.' Exhalation. 'I release resentment in welcoming duty with the answer of doing in faith.'

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Favorite games lead to pleasure in happy competitiveness. Attractive clothing and jewelry, with that particularly desired hat or bauble or way to wear your hair, bring stares. Say everyone will call you 'Sheila' or 'Tank' for the next three days, and don't give a reason. Hang the poster you drew out the window, with instructions for enjoying exhibitions of your most prized silliness. Yell 'look at me! look at me!' until they look, at least one person. Look back, and remember how every look at you is a look you've made worthwhile for them to direct at you. That reminds you of a song. Sing it in all your favorite colors, and ask them to single-file beneath the color that matches their aura. Welcome to the Gemini Dinner Theatre Café and Sandwich Shop, you've been a wonderful audience… if all you want is a little love, here, let me give you my love so all I have left is love. Funny how it works that way, always giving back just what you've given and never running dry. I'll take Famous Entertainers for $400, Alex… and the answer is, 'This zodiac sign is known for its profusion of pop stars.' Recognize yourself in it? Play along, and even if you don't win the grand prize, you'll still win. For more information, check back.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): From the inside, out. From the inside (where you will delicately reconfigure which wires connect to which heart-valves), you will eventually move outward (fulfilling the more public piece of your destiny only once the proper stimuli are conjoined with their requisite reaction). You're beginning the slow process of funneling emotional robustness from its hibernated storage state into workable real-world fuel for achievement… but, as I said, you're just at the beginning. This is the preliminary stage, where you unlock the storage unit, open the door ever so slightly, and slip inside without letting the cold air in or the drippy fluids out. There's the internal cleansing, sifting, arranging and positioning to be done first. What do you feel? What makes you happy? What makes you angry? What makes you sad? Are you discriminating enough to tell the difference between one emotion and the next? This much, at least, is required to reorient from 'moody' to 'emotionally robust'—the ability to call a hurt a hurt instead of crying and laughing so hard the bulk mushes together. Meanwhile, control the outside view as much as possible without constraining movement or breath… they don't need to see.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Pleasurably partial mini-acquaintanceships over the single big bang-boom bond is the only method by which to protect yourself from your currently unclear expectations of others. Among those many minis, Leo, may be one or more who qualify for principal status in the 'relationships worth keeping' category, but under this Neptune-in-7th light, I wouldn't bet the farm on picking the prestigious from the crowd of many. That kind of romanticism ('romantic' as in generally fanciful or imaginative) is only too inviting, but all those other planets congregated in your 3rd house would prefer you circulate throughout the whole gang, practicing your different character acts with charismatic aplomb, rather than thinking too much of one or two magoos. Go ahead, be that present and with it and full of the completest compassion… just a little at a time, without serving any single recipient so large a portion they expect that fourteenth helping. Light as a feather, not hopelessly together.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Venus in your 1st repeats her enchantment in circles around your aura: 'Look at me, I'm beautiful. You know you can't resist. Follow me a few more steps, we'll fall into a tryst.' What's not to like about that? Well, Uranus would like to speak up from your 7th, on account of his absolute insistence that all forms of one-on-one relating you engage in must be somehow or other strange, unorthodox and/or radically liberating (as opposed to any way limiting) to your soul. In other words, feel free to accept the affection and good favor aimed your way… as long as it's not asking you to adhere to traditional structures or to give up additional unusual bonds with others in the process. To take fullest advantage of the Libra stellium and solar eclipse in your 2nd, which inspire you to turn keen concepts into pleasantly pragmatic realities, you must remain unfettered by traps-disguised-as-treats. The truer treats will let you enjoy them without siphoning too much productive energy away from practical matters. If the interpersonal situation seems too bizarre to understand, it's probably more workable for your current position than if it presents itself as unremarkable in its regularity.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): How many creative ways can I say to you, Libra, that the whole planetary picture is about shaking you up? It's all in your court, with each week building intensity on the back of the last. Sure, being a Libran and all, your intensity is downplayed with discreet savvy—attempts to balance the boat potentially obscure the heavy-duty rocking continuing to go down regardless of protocol. Romance yourself. Fall in love with idealism, and let it mold the method of madness the shakeup will take up. There's something to how you do it that fits the spot so hot, we'll emulate then speculate its impact on your life's track. We fuel you fueling us, and you fuel yourself. Beyond all else, take pleasure in the superconnectedness casting these weeks' events in your light and making you an extension of everything. You can click into whichever groove moves you. This cosmic thing couldn't be more you if it tried to buy 'The Key to Being Me' (by You). That smile, that face, that sleek and soothing place. Whether careening chaotic or oozing smooth, keep a positive orientation and pull this tantric climax out to infinity. It is All About You.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Heed the call to prayer from two weeks ago. Autumn chill in air thrusts heavy feeling weighing down. You want to withdraw? Draft the bargain—in exchange for isolation, you must emerge transformed. If unable to pledge this promise of productive, we must wedge in. We won't look at the shame on your naked shaky limbs if permitted in to wet your face and fill with hugs. When you wail, address it to a certain god, if you plan on getting answered. Stay warm and covered, no getting caught in the cold without making physical reality a top-2 priority. Dance the words in circular ritual-rhythms, and make it rain down to sop the stew. Paint with the mud, characters that spell out a reason why you're bothering, and block the way out with affirmations of because. Beg yourself for forgiveness, and grant that wish for release… but hold on for life. 'Where have you gone, and will you please return the good body to its proper order?' Invite the thoughts of sabotage in, but do not let them attach—bid them goodbye on their way through, and conjure plum-favored heating sweets to pervade those vacancies. Simmer in the nonsense, but keep that promise. You're better than all that, even when head-deep in all that. Pay to play, and pray to stay.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Ask your friends what they think. If you don't like what we say, listen anyway. Store the information for a later date, perhaps… then ask more friends. If you run out of friends to ask, ask your friends' friends or go make new friends of your own. Incidentally, this advice shouldn't seem like too much of a chore, and if it does, you're forgetting how much fun it is to let lively discussion furtively evolve into lessons learned. If need be, make it a game—solicit one and all to anonymously drop handwritten suggestions into the suggestion box, and promise to read each one with equal attention. In the brainstorming phase, all ideas are good ideas. We are only hoping to slow down your quick-draw assessments of 'useless' and 'potentially useful'… not even for our benefit, but for your own edification. Not to mention how charming a cohort you can be, adding that fast wit to the mix when we sit together and chat while moving our hands toward a united goal… in addition to those individual goals we each hold separately but secretly hanker for assistance with… but that'll just come up in conversation. The development of each of our ideas organically stimulates each other's developmental processes when we're all in the same room together. We can't help but ask, and we can't help but tell each other.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): There's a seat in the boardroom, a corner office with a view, a director's chair or a gilded throne with your name on it, waiting for you to show up and assume your rightful position. Not a single professional skill is required that you don't already possess, or at least know exactly how to obtain with fairly minimal effort. The core of what keeps you working beneath your potential can likely be traced, in its most reduced form, to basic one-on-one relationship dynamics—what you fear in others or inhibit in yourself. Just as Saturn plugging up your leaky 7th house insists on interfering with the upcoming Libran solar eclipse and planetary pileup in your 10th, your emotional investments in one-on-one interactions may threaten or obstruct your polite climb to the top. Is someone else pulling you down into mediocrity or pushing you so hard ahead to make you crave that rebellion? Are you tentative about holding your ground out of emotional identification with another's real or imagined reactions, or are you so hell-bent on not bowing to emotional pressures that you purposely generate that hard-ass mentality and create relational strife in the process? Unload some of the weight unintentionally wrapped up with achievement—play back those hypothetical conversations preventing your higher success in slow motion, and look for clues there.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): The message gets bigger, both in your scope of understanding and the social breadth in which you're able to spread it. Center on the enhancement of knowledge, yours and theirs, and worry less about the ramifications for who you are. See, Aquarius, the Libran lineup lights up your 9th house of higher education, philosophies, ethics, and exposure to foreign cultures and mindsets—it's like you're in constant attendance at a peacekeeping, mind-expanding summit of thinkers and thoughts, and all you're expected to do is participate. Don't try to run the show or claim to see its conclusive tenets too early in the gush of insight. Neptune in your 1st has inserted its gauzy involvement, obscuring views of your mirror-reflection so you can't quite see your own stake nor determine your current bearings in relation to that grandiose 'Journey of the Self' you're supposedly on. Somehow, someway, you're there… but you don't need to know exactly where, for the time being. Truth is all that matters—spend your energies reaching for it, exploring its facets, debating its relevance, and massaging its aura with fellow seekers.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): The appeal of this other must favor your radical independence, or you're in for some degree of internal or external discord. Are you up for the challenge of fighting codependence while embracing coexistence? Pisceans are known for struggling with issues of self-identity, as if developing and maintaining your own independent ego is a caustic distraction from the desire to merge, to seek identification through deference to another person, an all-encompassing idea or the unit of coupling. Uranus, transiting long-term through your 1st, demands you forge your own bizarre path to individuality—even if a certain amount of isolation is required—and will not take 'no' for an answer. This week, Venus opposes Uranus from your 7th, asking, 'Will you willingly succumb to the charm you're receiving/transmitting in thrilling electricity with another… and still stay, somehow, free as a bird? What does "together but separate" actually look like?' With all your 8th-house Libra business goin' down, the answer likely lies in cordially unpacking the uncomfortable psychological goop behind your tendencies in even-tempered discussion, then gracefully asking to maintain boundaries along with the alliance. The 'old' way is too total, all-encompassing; what it suppresses in you will eventually hanker to bust out.