Horoscopes | Week of February 28-March 6, 2005

ARIES (March 21-April 19): As the week progresses, the need for temporary meditative seclusion gives way to a raw eagerness to bring your new, refreshed or properly-incubated-at-last ideas onto the conscious scene. Indeed, the more diligently you followed the pull to cocoon, the bolder and more beautiful the resulting glances of epiphany turned out to be. At the height of any quiet you've allowed yourself to enjoy, the unexpected presented itself in electrifying ways of seeing old connections. The zeal to share, once your mind suddenly emerges from the cloud-cast near week's end, is too much to contain… but watch for the potential to get yourself and others so overexcited by the instinctive prospects promised by cooperation that perceived reality blows up too big to carry. I'm a full supporter of the zeal and all the words and concepts it brings forth—it's just I know that Mercury, the bearer of the conceptual spark, will soon go retrograde in your sign (Mar 19-Apr 11) and retrace the very steps you're so excited to be speaking. Keep it real, in order to see it through to the beginning of May. A lot can happen between now and then.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The higher delight spawned by strange bedfellows (metaphoric ones, mostly) can only be discovered and delighted in if you bother to put yourself out there… and not necessarily in those same predictable venues. If you've wearied of the trap of familiar players rotating in and out of the same positions and wondering why the game is still a dead-heat, then go looking somewhere else for the folks you suspect are your honest-to-goodness peers. Like minds are often encased within widely varying contexts of bodies, environments and institutions, many of which would serve to fan your inner idealist by revealing it has allies in the vision… but because the physical landmarks may generate discomfort in you, you've been hesitant to look in these not-so-secret hiding places for that sense of belonging. Still, they're saving a seat there for you. They have no choice—it is your seat, and can be filled by no one else. How long will you let them operate without your badly desired participation?

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Don't attempt to think through the strategics in logistical isolation, or you'll miss the deeper personality issues that underscore the situation. When the dream-messages expose you're more intertwined now, even as you've been telling him/her (or yourself) how disentangled you're becoming, it can only mean there's another layer to unpeel. The psychological bind—clearly about a certain person or relationship at its root—can be worked through in an entirely different arena, saving both of you the frustration of re-dirtying one foot every time you try to clean the other off. I suggest courting the breakthrough in the realm of career or public achievement, where an electric grace of charmed persuasion is charging your efforts to a higher radioactive level of appreciating and being appreciated. The sense of needing to grab control can play out by reaching higher toward your own best efforts, flirting with greater success (and those casual contacts who can help it happen), instead of your comfy old boo or a reactionary new woo. Let pride be a tool you use for you, rather than against that certain someone else.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Near-religious realizations hover at the far bounds, awaiting your readiness to embrace their revisions in the moral codes by which you live. The onlookers would never guess what daring dreams of adventurously living out the meat of your beliefs—for real, not just in theory—lurk beneath your shell of its traditionalist makings. The proof you care as much as you do is in the radical act of bravely fighting your inhibitions, which do nothing but suit your selfish excuses for staying still, all in the false name of modesty. I'm not being harsh… I'm stirring you up so you might live those dreams in the fullest embodiment of participation in the human condition while you still have the chance. Sure, if you start to run like a crazed cougar hungry for the spirit in its preying hunt, there's a much greater likelihood you'll take a couple spills… but those skinned knees and scraped shins will heal, quicker than you'll know… and at those rapid speeds, you'll get so much further, pass by so much more landscape and meet those who dwell there… and you will never, this I promise, regret the risk you took by journeying farther from home, to know and to grow and to show who you are, however, wherever, you are.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): A liberation, in surrender to the feelings that are already there, that have been lingering underground for a while, but endangered the pretend bliss of never-speaking-it, not aloud, not even wordlessly. The acknowledgment, now, of nothing ever goes away if not allowed to fully be here first. The fear of being forced to throw in towels with that special monogram that tells you who you are, which never gets to be you if you need its terry wrap to tell you who you are. Repeat: 'I cannot help it if it's true. It just is.' It just is. Judgment is a figment from the parrot, carbon-copying its master's slaving sentences for one more cracker in a series never leading somewhere; train it with new tricks. Be the watcher of the mind, outside its greedy reign, when it resists reprogramming. That you who knows the truth—above, outside the messy feelings of unworth and disappointment, grief and violent wishes—deserves to win its rightful place on earth.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): The brilliant promise of manifesting renewed relationship peace is yours, if you've been able to speak your truth from its source (as I unambiguously advised last week) without the need to interrupt the flow with unnecessary fine-tunings. If you've feared (or continue to fear) what funnels forth, I'm relatively certain the reason is this: You want some personal space, and don't want to hurt the person from whom you want it. Perhaps the sacrificial-lamb suit suits you, so you think, and 'what is the need for personal space, if not selfish?' Under this system of understanding, it seems your emotional well-being is not a worthy goal to pursue, especially if you must involve somebody else in the adjustments essential to its attainment… so it's another passive-aggressive brick in the wall, and a bit more unconscious distance and resentment in the very bond you say you don't want to disrupt, all because you refuse to confess and request the breathing room you require. Is it possible a couple steps away will, in the end, bring you closer?

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Pause for a spell, to clean out your body and tidy your workspace, organize your papers and tighten your routine of getting stuff done, all in advance of involving others too much in the strings at the moment too loose at hand. Even gently directing your mind to these matters intuitively unlocks the etymological link between sanitation and sanity. And in the process of attending to hygiene in its broadest sense (not just by battling bacteria), you're liable to spontaneously confront extraneous habits or tasks or belongings that call to be excised from your life, not because they're unattractive as much as they don't feel healthy. Whether you're ready to give out walking papers this week or whether simple recognition is enough, either way: No judgment, just awareness. The purification process needn't entail (self-)blame. Let your focus fall on your expanding into every last corner of your physical life with consciousness, identifying areas that are blocked, and beginning to decide what to do about it. The heightened self-centeredness required is something I'd warn against in other signs… but for you, Libra, it's well warranted.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Bolt of jolt exclaims, 'Life re-presents its sizzle! Featuring you!' This week, sprawl out in the therapeutic throbbing rays of why, no matter what else has happened or not happened or won't stop happening, it's always a palpitating prize to star in this exclusive tale. Is there someone new to tell it to, letting you reframe the events for a more heroic undertone? Has the backing band finally hit its groove, scored a better beat with which to accompany your lauding lyrics? Even if you're at a lowest low, don't forget to laugh at your misfortune—it has a funny way of laughing back, if you've crafted a safe space for stepping outside the trauma. Maybe the trauma's been real, or maybe it's self-made from a mysterious blend of security paranoia and fear of looking stupid to the fans. Whatever the case, ask yourself: Would I pay the full admission to watch this performance? Would it win an Oscar? Your skills for affecting the audience should at least place you in the running… if you've slipped into obscurity, remake the vehicle.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): At first, I wanted to lock you in your home and instruct you to look for methods to make that enforced house-arrest an altogether inspiring and encouraging experience, with lots of slow-motion sentimentality and rainy-day art projects… but I knew, even then, that it was all wrong. There should be no forced imprisonment at all, no strict boundaries or disciplinary measures. So excuse me for my authoritarian streak… I'm aware I can sometimes be a merciless, heavy-handed astro-consultant. On the contrary, what I should be doing is trying to make a little quiet home-time sound deliciously appealing to your ears—not because you must do it, but because there's much promise for creative invigoration and visionary enjoyment from volunteering for it. Have I made my case yet? What if I throw in the added benefit of a temporary respite from exaggerated financial concerns, which are only exacerbated by being around unfriendly outside-worlders who possess (and flaunt) what you covet and/or elicit that 'less than' feeling in you? At home, you already have what you need, certainly enough for this week and next (excepting a few fundamental fresh groceries). If it still doesn't sound tempting, I have one last addendum to sweeten the deal: 'Home' can be anywhere you want it, as long as it's a space that honestly belongs to you (at least in spirit). Now, will you give it a try?

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Okay, I don't want you to get too discombobulated, if you're trying to trace the progression of advice from last week to this, since I previously told you to loosen the self-control and now I'm compelled to warn against getting too big for your britches. That's why I'm prepared to clarify with additional specifics. The loosening-up part was intended to get you to open up to multiple viewpoints and opinions, rather than insisting on figuring everything out in the restrictive vacuum of Capricorn insistence on self-excellence—it was all the 3rd-house action, which continues this week, that spurred my encouragement to chit-chat about possible game-plans in an open forum. But there's also Mars in your 1st, which when squaring off with Jupiter as it does this week, bears the danger of coming off as aggressively confrontational, haughtily self-righteous and downright threatening to those in authority… and even when you don't speak, you're liable to give it off. Mantra: 'I don't know better; I'm just coming from a different place.' Maybe if you say it to yourself enough times, at least you'll dull the piercing edge you might otherwise emanate. Exercise will help to channel the boost in energy, as will dedication to projects where others' judgments are not a factor. But please, please, please don't allow yourself to snap, lunge or attack… it won't be pretty.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): (1) Read this week's article. Meditate briefly but intently on its weight for our world. And keep fresh in your mind that you, my privileged Aquarius, are the ambassador for this transition period. This is nothing less than an astonishing honor… and a mammoth responsibility. (2) The riches you need to do it are all around you, but may require a trade of one currency for another. With as much accuracy and as little criticism, assess what you have and what you need. There will plenty to go around, but try not to worry so much about the perceived (in)equity built into the exchange rate. (3) If all of this gets you a few leaps more keyed up than you've recently been, all the better… except for the potential strain on your nerves. Hyperactivity gets you high, a state of being the Aquarian soul loves but which takes you out of that body, the mechanism you need for carrying out your earthly works. Lots of conscious breathing (deep and yogic, slow and measured), reaching out to the friends and peers with more than two feet on the ground (try a Taurus!), and remembrance that Now is all we ever have (even if you know you glimpse the future) are three strategies for staying grounded.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): It's another week like the last for you, Pisces—a harmonious backdrop for leaping into the unknown, the exciting, the unusual-for-you, and, most of all, the freeing. This week, Venus and Uranus will come all the way together, making it even more pleasurable to risk the droning continuation of more-of-the-same for the pursuit of that wild and crazy dream: to be someone radically different. The paranoia of wondering if the powers that be (and who will probably continue to be just who they are indefinitely) will take you back, lest you pick yourself over deference to them and forge off on your own, is just that—paranoia. Trust that you'd be properly respectful, amiable and acquiescent, should you need them again later on… and then leave it at that. I'm almost certain you won't have to look back, once you bound forward. Just watch that the madcap actions you take aren't unduly influenced by too close an alliance with some other fixed system of guiding principles, no matter how liberating its doctrines seem. It's good to have allies… but the guiding force in this huge change must come from you, in radically independent form.