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Horoscopes | Week of April 4-10, 2005

ARIES (March 21-April 19): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) That's right, the eclipse is in your sign. You are the star of this chapter of the story. You are the hero with the dramatic ups and downs, the grand victories and the tragic flaws, the one who can lead the rest of us with your quick-fire instincts and fearless ferocity. Now is a perfect moment for stepping into the great unknown, for embracing what you love most about life and asking for the universe's support in becoming who you've always wanted to be. The intentions you set are powerful. Be true, be real, and be unafraid. You can do anything you want to do. The big challenge is to recognize when the boundless potential for enactment of your unbridled will threatens to topple you from emotional integrity. You may be able to do whatever you want, but some of it will feel wrong. Some of it could burn bridges, jeopardize your personal safety, or create unnecessary unsettledness, just for the sake of a moment's satisfaction. Take care that being this powerful doesn't go to your head, at the expense of your heart.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Taurus, the eclipse falls in your 12th house, the domain of all those dreamy and cloudy and psychically stimulating elements of life that make no rational sense. To take fullest advantage of the eclipse's gifts, you must be willing to embrace the spiritual thrill of life's mysteries. Things you might not even know you want could rise from dreams, visions, vibes or chance encounters. Be open, and pay attention. And the best methods for getting what you want are through the backdoor, wishing on a star, something out of nothing, granted by a genie and/or elemental alchemy. Your biggest challenge will be battling your own inhibitions regarding what to tell people about what you're doing and/or how you did it. Are you going to let a little social timidity keep you from making magic?

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Gemini, the eclipse falls in your 11th house, which means you're most likely to succeed if you're working for the greater good of the whole committee, the entire community, the unified team, the soul group and/or all of society. Not only is joining forces the most effective approach, but you're especially well poised to be the person who joins the forces together. Be idealistic as can be, and share your ideals with anyone who'll listen. Use your chattiness to spread the good word. Your biggest challenge will come from worrying about the material requirements (e.g., the money) for enacting the grand vision, and this is a real concern. But rather than silently bearing that burden, talk up the worry with your comrades. Give others with more at their disposal the chance to help you out, to exchange what they have for some of what you've got.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) But because it forms a tricky square from your 10th house to Saturn in your sign, Cancer, you face a somewhat more challenging energy than many of the other signs. The challenge is this: to allow, invite and promote dynamic activity (perhaps even scarily dynamic) in your professional and/or achievement-oriented life without letting it disturb or destabilize the basic character of who you are. Too often, we define ourselves by what we become known for, especially in terms of our careers, when in fact this is only one element (albeit a significant one) of our lives. The bravest approach is to fully embrace what we do out there on the public stage… and, at the same time, be prepared to walk away from the comfortable role at any time and make a bold step in a totally new or different direction, without losing our sense of self. Whether it's time for a change in direction, bold acceptance of new responsibilities, a big step forward or to the side, or merely a recommitment to being who you are in a fuller way than the limited capacity of what you do for work, your best use of the eclipse energy is to grow in terms of your ego relation to your career.

LEO (July 23-August 22): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Leo, the eclipse falls in your 9th house, where we expand our horizons beyond what we've previously known by embracing foreign perspectives, high-minded concepts, religious inspirations, educational opportunities, and voyages of various persuasions. This 9th-house excitation was behind my horoscope for you last week, in which I encouraged you to get outside your regular life by creating a circumstance for yourself that fuels the search for Meaning-with-a-capital-M. It's time to put some fresh experiences behind the stuff that comes out of your mouth, for fresher breath and a smarter conscience. Your biggest challenge will be the lurking fears that threaten to prevent you from straying very far from the comfort zone. But fears of what? If you can't answer that, you can't let 'em stop you. And if you do know the fears, then you have the capacity to successfully move past 'em. Either way, fear is no real excuse not to live to the fullest.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Virgo, the eclipse falls in your 8th house, considered the most potent place for healing. I've been prepping you for this fantastic chance to heal for the last three weeks, through horoscopes that call on you to uncover the deepest darkest parts of your psyche, to bring forth the drives and desires you're accustomed to labeling 'ugly' or 'shameful' or 'bad' and doing your damnedest to avoid. By now, I think I've said enough. It's up to you to let it out, to purge, to make catharsis happen. Allow it to get ugly or shameful or bad, as long as there's an intended rebirth at the end of the mess. Your biggest challenge is the entrenched idea that no one individual is due that much intensity, as if it withdraws too big a share from some finite well of emotion that we all must share. Breaking news… the well has enough for all of us to dig as far and deep as we want, to let all hell break loose, and still not overwhelm or destroy each other.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Libra, the eclipse falls in your 7th house, the house of relationships, and I already addressed the ideal mode of capturing its enchanting power last week, when I had you explicitly detail the qualities of what you would most want to gain from a relationship. I gave you a headstart on the exercise of articulating what you want because Libra is one of the zodiac signs that has the most difficult time in being direct about your desires. That's not to say you don't pursue attainment of your desires, but you're more likely to use a roundabout routine of smiles and nods and agreements, all the while skillfully making the other person think it was his idea when really it was yours. If you don't like the way I've just characterized your sign, then prove me wrong by confronting the world one person at a time with what you want from them, clearly and unambiguously. And if you did like my characterization, that doesn't mean you should stick to such subtly manipulative maneuvers. In this hyper-Aries atmosphere, you're not likely to get what you want from others unless you ask them for it; they'll be too busy getting what they want to cater to unspoken assumptions.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Scorpio, the eclipse falls in your 6th house, where our jobs and our chores and our requirements for maintaining health combine to compile a laundry list of responsibilities that cannot be shirked, if anything else in our lives—career, family, romance, creative expression, spirituality—is expected to properly function. No doubt about it, there is a lot to do. And yes, you can do it all. Or no, you can't, and you must systematically prioritize the most-importants over the seemingly-importants, then start at the top and get through as many as you can. At this point, everything else is icing on the cake. Your biggest challenge is the temptation to focus on the big-picture stuff, the more 'exciting' issues rather than the dull duties, forgetting to eat or clean the house or file the necessary paperwork in the process. There's nothing glamorous in stating that good work and optimum health are their own rewards, but still you know it's true.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Sagittarius, the eclipse falls in your 5th house, one of the more exuberant and fun-filled placements for experiencing its call to action. The 5th house rules creative self-expression, romance, love, children, drama, excitement, and other such joys of being alive. Encouraging you to reach out and take what you want in this area of life, to initiate action and push into newness, is one of the easier jobs I have. The only caveat to this advice is that you make sure what you do and express authentically represents your desires, rather than standing in as a carefully choreographed holograph of what you think people want to see. The biggest challenge is to refrain from exercising these actions with the goal (specified or not) of coercing someone else into doing things your way. Instead, let your self-expression create a space for others to have their self-expressions with as much freedom and pleasure as you have yours. Otherwise, you're being manipulative.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Capricorn, this eclipse raises the big questions of who you are in your private life vs. your public life, and of who you are as a single individual vs. in relationship to another. The eclipse falls in your 4th house, which symbolizes how you create a nurturing nest for yourself, a private sphere of home where you can behave in whatever manner makes you feel warm and safe and self-loved. That means this is the time to work on your home life, committing to any necessary changes that increase your comfort level there and thus greatly improve the overall quality of your life. Of course, Capricorns instinctively worry more about what happens out there in the world, so prioritizing the more private parts also requires a conceptual shift in how much energy can or should be spent solely on outer-world achievement or reputation concerns. And then there's the inherent challenge involved when the choices you make to more properly care for yourself intersect (and possibly clash) with your responsibility to one or more someone-elses in the realm of relationships. You may have to hold back on interpersonal obligations, more explicitly negotiate the terms of the time spent or not spent together, or uncomfortably include the someone-else in your plans. In other words, the best approach for you in handling the eclipse activity is a mix of care, balance and synthesis in all major areas of life.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Aquarius, the eclipse falls in your 3rd house, an environment that favors rapid dissemination through sharing stories and telling tidbits, greeting and gabbing (maybe even a little harmless gossiping), and generally connecting in small but significant ways with a multitude of friendly faces and tall dark strangers, sympathetic ears and chatty Kathys. The only way you can go wrong here is if you keep to yourself, don't say what you really want to say, or spend all your time with one person or one project. Diversification is key, and every communicative transmission comes attached to a blessing. The biggest challenge is to balance work and pleasure in every moment, instead of too strictly dividing your time between the two and/or defining it as either one or the other. An integrated life is both all at once.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): This week, an Aries solar eclipse conjoins with Venus to create one of the year's best opportunities to ask for what you want. (Read more about the eclipse here.) For you, Pisces, the eclipse falls in your 2nd house, the astrological balance sheet where your assets and liabilities are recorded, added and subtracted, appropriately (or inappropriately) valuated (or devalued). We covered this last week, when I counseled you to keep your resources moving, rather than letting stagnancy reign due to anxieties about perceived scarcity. If there was ever a time to cast a little money spell, this would be the week. But don't expect a lottery ticket to fall from the heavens and make you a multi-millionaire. Use what you have, whether monetary wealth or intangible riches, to make more. As a Pisces, you innately understand that the universe provides, but you must be able to leap forward without fear in order to create space for it happen. Your biggest challenge is fighting the sensitivity that holds you back from expressing yourself. Like it or not, this life requires you to wear a thick skin, to contain your vital force within it while letting it keep others' neg energy out. All you've got to do is decide to put it on and leave it on, at least for now.