Horoscopes | Week of March 21-27, 2005

ARIES (March 21-April 19): It's your time to make good on promises to yourself about how you want to be. The only thing supposedly 'stopping' you (not that you've necessarily been stopped) is the perceptions you hold of other people, who you may imagine to be holding you up when all they really want is a shot to play along. Rethink the concept of compromise so that it no longer feels as if its enactment requires you to give anything up (even if, in a certain sense, it does). Instead, it's about you keeping the promises you make to yourself and others keeping their own self-promises, with everyone doing everything you as a combined unit can do to ensure that everybody (you and them) is able to meet these personal obligations to themselves. In that sense, compromise is simply a combined promise being fulfilled… and no one is held back against his will.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Take the gentle maintenance approach to evaluating work, health and daily-duty areas of life, without necessarily making sudden moves, loud noises or wild swings that might destabilize the boat. This astrological moment's fiery blessings are best applied in the less obvious, non-practical, esoteric and faith-driven neck o' the woods, as literal or metaphoric candles you light with your best intentions toward manifesting amorphous impalpable results, such as optimism, daring or psychic scourge. Despite the fact that the energy is there to make socially meaningful and spiritually satisfying leaps ahead in your professional domain and/or public reputation, the way there this month is not through drastic alterations to your task routine, but rather in a radically dynamic shift in your ability to clear invisible blocks and believe, unfettered.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In collaboration with friends and other like-minded companions on this journey through life, you have a great chance, Gemini, to reconnect with your gutsier, readier-to-take-risks, try-anything-once side. Dismiss the myth that you've grown out of and past this daring audacity and settled into mature (read: blech!) adulthood, and recognize your inner adventurer has merely been hibernating while you've dealt with other stuff. Now, at this golden portal to the rejuvenation of spring, bounce back by helping yourself to a meatier portion of spontaneous fate, with all the potential discovery, disappointment and disarray that comes with it. And, I repeat, it'll be more fun and fruitful if you do it with others… not necessarily the usual day-to-day partner or family members, but with those particular troublemakers in your life who are best at such things.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): At this especially fertile time of year, with everybody exuding their extra doses of lustful or otherwise lively non-verbally-communicative cues, you are one of those most likely to get caught in the crossfire of too many mixed messages. When people speak with their bodies, as they undoubtedly are right now, misunderstandings are bound to occur. Don't allow yourself to become scrambled by the vibes shooting back and forth around (and also to) you. Adopt the 'observer' position, encouraging yourself to intellectualize what you experience by imposing verbal descriptions (internally or in conversation) onto it, so that you can participate without wasting your energy wondering. Sure, your theoretical explanations may be multitudinous and/or downright incorrect, but at least you're doing something with your sensitivities rather than letting them run the show.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Mars and Chiron, conspiring in your 7th house, propose that you cannot hope to garner the broader perspective on which higher values ultimately define (or, as you see it, should define) your life unless you engage more directly in one-on-one interactions with that goal in mind. You need the distance of an outsider's opinions (that is, not yours)—even if that 'outsider' is a good friend or your romantic partner—and, similarly, you must assume a detached role as you listen, in order to actually hear what is being said without defensiveness. The semi-conscious fear of the conflicts that might arise if you let the truth flow back and forth between the both of you must be faced in order to be true to yourself. Conflict in such a scenario is apt to be very healing, so long as (1) personal insults are absolutely forbidden and (2) the ultimate intention is to be truthful, rather than right.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): I'm going to return you to last week's horoscope because I think you need to hear it again. Now that you've been reminded of your filthy humanity, I'll take the advice one step further: Not only must you acknowledge your shadow-side so that it doesn't slip out and inadvertently injure others, you must also recognize its link to your physical wellness and practical efficiency. What you don't admit and accept in yourself creates obstacles to the fullest expression of your energies, whether through bodily symptoms or mysterious frustrations to your getting stuff done. Don't merely push past these uncomfortable clues; listen to what they're telling you. Though you may usually rely on pragmatism to solve your problems, something tells me the causes of any current snafus are closer to psychological in nature and require the more unorthodox gestalt approach to solving… that is, releasing the pent-up 'nastiness' I described last week.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Remember when I told you to prepare for the 'what comes next' (and refused to tell you exactly what it was because, frankly, it's beyond the scope of my knowledge)? Well, it's time now. This week's Full Moon in your sign is (according to me, at least) the official kickoff to an all-new, highly dynamic, very exciting period of your life. We're rapidly approaching the chapter-marking solar eclipse on Apr 8, which falls in Aries in your 7th house, in conjunction to your ruling planet Venus. That means, in order to best enjoy and prosper from the coming weeks' head-spinning events, you will need to embrace two ways of being: (1) As I encouraged last week, move first and worry about it later. If there were ever an auspicious time to let automatic, un-self-conscious thought, speech and deed pour forth from you without concern for dignity or politeness, now is it. Yes, you might fluster others… but it's you and your self-expression that matter right now. (2) Even if dealing with others has the potential to re-raise your overly mannered inhibitedness, dealing with others is still essential. The energies abounding are about social flirtation, collaborative synergy, and burning-hot connection. When in doubt between alone and together, do together… but do it with reckless abandon, spontaneity and oomph.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): No more putting off your own self-care. Do you hear me? Your emotional health is now a top priority… at least as important as (and, realistically, more important) than money, friendships, love, work or family, although one or more of these entities may end up being involved in the process of tending to nurturing your needs. It's about conceptual prioritizing: Tell yourself that your own soothing comfort (the real kind, not the escapist pretend variety) and spiritual regeneration (feeling happy to be alive, not dull and weathered) is the overriding theme around which everything else must revolve, for the next few weeks (if not forever), and simply and calmly refuse to engage in those practices that work counter to this theme. No more putting it off. Got it?

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): In those moments when you rub people the wrong way—and let's be honest, you know exactly what I'm talking about—it's usually because you've ranked the essential core principle of what you're trying to convey as more important than either the manner you use to convey it or that moment's connection to the person you're rubbing wrong. Generally speaking, there's absolutely nothing improper about that approach; in fact, it's that very ethical earnestness which earns you the respect of thinkers of all persuasions. However, for the time being, it would behoove you to swap the places of 'message' and 'method' so that you apply those high standards to the quality of the interpersonal contact, no matter how casual or fleeting or 'only about the work' it is, rather than on preserving the perfect integrity of what you're saying. Bend your own rules a tad, just to grease the social wheels and keep strangers and comrades alike unperturbed. It'll go far in its unconscious effects on your happiness level.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): A fundamental mechanism of capitalism is that you take what you have and make more out of it. It requires that initial investment of capital, which goes on to expand and multiply and fill the coffers with more and more and more capital, and then one day you're filthy fucking rich. But of course, if you have nothing, all you can make from it is more nothing. And herein lies the problem, Capricorn—it's in the act of defining 'capital'. You may or may not have the cold hard cash needed to buy yourself entrée into the free market, but, in either case, you don't have nothing. You most certainly have a whole bunch of something… and whatever that something is, that's what you need to invest in order to make more something. Trust me, until you choose to see your elusive capital as monetarily valuable, no one else will. Yet, once you do, watch out world… another wealthy Capricorn will arrive on the scene.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Thank the heavens for Mars entering your sign this week, conjoining with Chiron in the process, and gifting you with an injection of get-up-and-go to assist in rising to every occasion in which your presence is requested. This double-shot of planetary espresso prevents you from using 'no time' or 'too tired' as excuses for being distracted, spacey or overly self-protective. (A few frenetic jitters, alas, are an inevitable side-effect… one that many find downright enjoyable.) The main goal is easy enough to articulate: Show up. But don't underestimate what is entailed. When I say 'show up', I mean completely and totally, with every bit of your body, mind and spirit. Don't let the future-thinking genius pull you away from this-right-here-right-now moment longer than it takes to realize what's happening. Gently and compassionately return your attention to the present, and have faith that you'll get everything done that needs to get done. Mars and Chiron in cahoots won't let it happen any other way.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): What does being a Piscean mean to you? What are the things you like about it? And if you thought my next question was going to be, 'What are the things you don't like about it?' then you are only half-right… because I want you to be able to look at those things too as facets of yourself that are worth liking, despite how you may have misused them (or let them misuse you) in the past. The healing Mars-Chiron energy in your 12th house is the perfect opportunity to embrace every last bit of your being as likable—especially those aspects you've habitually interpreted as flaws. Habits are made to be broken, Pisces, and one of Chiron's job is to point out how our most despised defects are truly our greatest gifts, though we cannot utilize them as such until we drop the misnomer. In terms of practical wealth-generation, these former 'wounds' worn on your sleeve—relabeled 'blessings'—could comprise some of the best money-making skills you possess, if you dare to own and expose them.