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Horoscopes | Week of May 3-9, 2004

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Lucky for you, you're such a trailblazer, you've had a jolly good time of forging forward over these past months, thriving in this atmosphere of ardent advancing activity. Lucky for you, the ideas you tentatively molded from observing reactions to recent movements are solidifying into cumulative conclusions, with only minor adjustments, upon which your medium-range plans can be built and enacted. Lucky for you, there's a glaring lesson challenging you to grow as you move—that is, you will be unable to continue moving forward with such adroitness and aplomb until you accept that you can't do it alone. Help is required in certain areas, and you must ask the appropriate people, even if the request makes you feel awkward. Further, the end results toward which you quest make significant impacts on others, and they may have a thing or two to say about how it's all carried out, since their destinies are as wrapped up in it as yours. The next time you go to blaze a trail, remember that someone might be following you. Next time you finalize statements of purposes, notice who else might be affected by such conclusions, and ask for his or her input.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Three balls for you to juggle. (1) Staying strong and centered in self. It's Taurus time of year, and the flowering fertility in the air makes people all around you act crazy. You must remain the one with the clear head. (2) Compassionate giving in your outer-world situation. They know you as someone who actively demonstrates you care, but that is not all you are. How much psychically sensitive kindness can you dole out without crossing the border into unhealthy self-sacrifice? (3) Equal, intense partnership. Whether it's your life's love, your lifelong friend or your lively like-minded peer, you and him/her must meet in the middle. No deferring, no dominating, lots of depth along the way. Ball (3) is likely the hardest to keep midair, since the combination of (1) and (2) already require so much focus and you're the type to convince yourself that (3) is less important. Bah, that's not the story being told by the eclipse's emotional pressure bearing down on your need for collaborative pairings, of one sort or another. And no, extra credit is not given when you try to overcompensate for (3) lackings by doing more of (2).

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You ended up here as a product of combined faith, confusion, happenstance and cosmic phenomena out of your control or understanding. These spiritually enhancing tools are always valuable to draw upon, but they won't serve your oddly practical emotional needs right now. Your best bet is to commit your tender and sensitive side to the higher power of responsible work, to figuring out how to contribute your physical energies to whatever leaves you feeling like you've done a good job for its own sake. Lay the bricks of the foundation, and tuck away a golden egg or two, for your intuitive efforts crave a bit more stability and monetary certainty than your stereotypical idea-centered self often grants. Look out for yourself as a vessel of the divine, a vessel that must be fit and fed and feeling valued in order to function in any other capacity as social hub or superstar. Take on the expanded duties of your transformed position with a smile on your face because, secretly, you want to work more than you want to continue the same dull play.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Blushing, mild-mannered flower, no more. Well, at least not right now. See, Cancer, you have a double-dose of astrological factors urging you to leave the shell aside right now and bask in the direct glow with less self-protective protection. First, we have Tuesday's lunar eclipse falling in your fifth house, the place where you climb on stage and sing to the world about how much you love them and how much you love when they love you. Even if your timidity reigns supreme on the conscious level, your heart underneath craves the ego-stroking bombast… and there's nothing wrong with asking for the attention you want, or at least arranging circumstances so that attention comes to you. Don't analyze your motivations past the desire to generate a little more joy in the world. Second, Mars enters your sign this week, where it will stay through late June, perking up your physical energies and pushing you to go out and get what you want. This Martian oomph will keep you doing, instead of thinking about doing (or crying about not doing). Now simply isn't the time to be shy, despite the discomfort of certain intimates witnessing a bolder side than they're unaccustomed to observing in you. Yet, it's still you, so better they see it than pretend you're something other than what you are.

LEO (July 23-August 22): Dorothy said it best. There really is no place like home. No percentage of public success or professional glory, and no amount of philosophical or flirtatious fulfillment—none can substitute for that totally unconscious sense of comfort that warms your body all over when you are home. Whether home is the town you grew up or the room where you slept or the current residence you've worked so hard to nestle into, it's the only emotional location where your guard comes completely down and you reconnect with who you've been your whole life. The lunar eclipse is pulling the heartstrings connecting you to home, reminding you if you haven't been prioritizing a nurturing home-life (or at least a periodic homecoming), then your heart has a portion that is silently aching. Own that ache, even if you aren't in the position to immediately tend to it. But don't trick yourself into thinking that romantic, professional or friend relationships are adequate replacements, though they are wonderful aspects of a well-balanced life. You can draw on others' support when you are homesick, but remember that your truest home is somewhere you enjoy being alone… and from that perspective, you can recreate it anywhere. It might take more than a simple heel-clicking, though.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): You are allowed to participate on a trial basis, without committing resources or moral absolutism. If you are to choose your interests and acquaintances with the fullest knowledge, rather than settling for the low-hanging fruit of convenience, then you've got to get out there and experiment. And do it without the pressure to immediately define everything in relation to previously experienced experiences and the you that experienced them. You are still feeling your way around your environment—and, honestly, we are all always still feeling our way around—so following intuition rather than logic to find the next pitstop will likely produce more unusual and life-expanding encounters. You are positively not shirking responsibility on the grander scale, if you choose to do away with duty for a few hours or a long weekend. I don't just mean 'work' here, but also the irrational fears that behaving this or that way conflicts with your identity as a certain type of person. Let that need to live up to self-declared characterizations go, at least for moments here and there. That's exactly when you might discover some surprise that changes all the rules.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Watch your mouth, particularly in heated relationship situations, since all the words and thoughts are liable to move quite quickly, escaping through spontaneous blurtings that hold the power to release irreversible sentiments you're unable to control. Shy away from heat-of-the-moment declarations, and instead tend to the emotional meat-and-potatoes beneath. Weighing on your heart are real practical concerns about the material state of your life, what's in the bank, what's in the fridge, which closets store which long-forgotten belongings of value. With so much action and excitement socially, romantically and/or creatively going down, it's logical that you'd feel subtly ungrounded and unclear on reality (whatever that concept entails for you). So get real, despite the difficulty of taking efforts to momentarily detach from the appealing whirlwind, and get perspective. It might only take a day or two to discover the few practical steps to be taken so you feel less scattered and more on task.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): If you followed last week's advice to let your realized sense of emotional connectedness grow with the Moon's light, then your cup must be running over in line with this Tuesday's lunar eclipse Full Moon in your sign. I cannot underemphasize: This is a profound moment of recognition, Scorpio, of the fullness of your life experience and the broad emotional spectrum of highs and lows it has afforded you. Among the zodiac signs, you are the emotional wizard, one who instinctively understands the often-contradictory complexity of human feeling and can foster tremendous bonds with others on that basis. You contain so much, we sometimes fear you… until we finally learn to trust you, and then you have us for life. Draw on your connections and your emotional wisdom to embody that role of healer you were born to play by helping us all, yourself included, achieve peace with the perpetually commingled existence of beauty and ugliness, life and death. If you can feel anything, you can do anything. The courage to step into this role, to wear your conflicts and unsavory notions on your sleeve alongside your lightness and charm, will gain you so much respect and support, you'll find tremendous new opportunities will open up in proportion to your open honesty. And if you must let go of voices from the past that tell you to hide, keep your mouth shut, feel shame and never admit vulnerability, we will help you through those difficulties… because we know you have returned the favor, and will again.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): As I reported in this week's article, everyone's going to be floating through a larger-than-usual dosage of emotionality, in conjunction with Tuesday's lunar eclipse in Scorpio. You, Sag, will experience yours in a more mystical and senseless fashion, with additional emotional hints that arise from nowhere and lead to equally unknowable places. So accustomed to bluntly telling it like it is, you are more likely to find your words jumbled into patterns that inform those around you more about what it's like than you actually know yourself. You'll be the one left as if you're in the dark, which is only a problem if you're trying too hard to see something. Your sensitivities will be higher than usual too, so that your usual devil-may-care attitude toward others' opinions of you might momentarily shift into handle-with-kid-gloves fragility. In short, emotional flare-ups could present more impediments to your movement than they do to others, in part because you're usually so much less impeded by feeling than others. Now you'll get to feel (and yell and cry and jitter and snicker) how the other half feels. Feel through it, and you'll make it to the other side, picking up where you left off, only different.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Feel the appeal of playing your part as just another seat-filler around the group table, contributing wry one-liners and occasional wise truths in the give-and-take of social encounter. There's certainly a lot less individual responsibility—to which you hold yourself at a rather high level—in just being one of the gang, and your presence (sorely missed when you self-isolate) adds a unique voice to the mix. Let yourself draw the nurturance from such chatty group-minded interactions, but without letting yourself forget the reality of your own situation. Enjoy sociality for its benefits in moderation, but don't try to escape from pressing material concerns. And meanwhile, Mars is entering your seventh house to spend May approaching conjunction with Saturn… which means, those relationship issues I've alluded to over recent months will get a jolt of reactivation sometime this month. Whether it's through progressive action or conflict, self-realization or other-inspired evolution, you will feel the emotional ramifications of your current relationship limits and, thanks to those feelings, can decide what you want to do about 'em. No wonder it'll feel so good to enjoy the pleasant detachment of group fun, as an antidote to the more intimate relationship work going on at the same time.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): When water levels rise astrologically, my Aquarian friends find they bear it well, being water-bearers and all. But under the surface, the watery environment raises anxiety levels in all issues related to work that needs to get done, bills that need to be paid, and professional reputations that need to be developed. So confident in your abilities to tell the truth, to relate to people, to brainstorm amazing new solutions to long-worn problems… and then the tasks of simple sustenance and self-defining name-making trip you up. You may act like you don't care what the powerful people think of you, but everyone craves acceptance by authority, if only to throw it back in their faces once received. The open floodgates are drenching your public aspirations and professional dreams with dread and excitement and anger and hope and sadness—in short, your generally cool 'whatever happens happens' mindset has been temporarily placed with (gasp!) fierce emotional investment. You do care what happens, though you still have as little control over the end results as ever. You can't even pretend you control how people perceive you as well as usual, wading neck-deep in self-identity transition and the foggy feelings that come with it. Complete the tasks everyday, and the achievement trajectory will materialize as the dots begin to connect themselves over time.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): I'm feeling a ferocious exhaustion coming from you on the occasion of this week's lunar eclipse. This is not necessarily a physical exhaustion, as if you've just moved all your belongings to a fifth-floor walkup. No, you are friggin' sick and tired of being seen as the one who wanders aimlessly among situations, sharing support for others' visions without gaining respect for having one of your own. Over recent months, I've encouraged you to try out different forms of self-expression, to take measures of dramatic change to mold the Uranus-in-Pisces influence toward the chaos of your choosing. I will assume you've followed that advice, and that those measures have contributed to an emotional restlessness with not having a bullseye to aim for. Assuming some breaking-free has occurred, you are much more poised to craft coherent statements of ethical intention and goalworthy direction. By no means must you come up with any answers in the course of a single week. Rather, I'm simply giving you permission to confess the emotional yearning for something ('anything!') that you find meaningful enough to focus your next few months or years of efforts toward achieving.