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Horoscopes | Week of June 20-26, 2005

ARIES (March 21-April 19): It's definitely worth reminding yourself what I wrote last week, which exalted the value of doing as you will without pulling away from everyone else, because this is the week when you'll really need to remember it. It's 'bad' enough when Mars travels through your sign… well, it's pretty darn good for you, actually… except that it accentuates your independence and your full-steam-ahead(-and-damn-anyone-or-anything-in-the-way) attitude at the potential expense of respect for cooperation or compromise. But when you add Jupiter in Libra to the mix, against which Mars pulls in polarizing opposition late this week, and you have the makings for an even larger level of self-possession (and self-importance). This influence is equivalent to firing up the booster rocket on your jet-pack: an amazing jab of extra energy and confidence. Yet, it also expands the external pressures you might feel to get with the team program or give in to someone else's demands for consideration. And since all you want to do is what you want to do, it could be enough to fan the flames of confrontation. Should you concede, against your better judgment? I cannot make that decision for you. I will say, however, there are different methods for agreeing to disagree, some of which are less combative and menacing than others.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): With the communion of Cancer planets in your 3rd, it's a week in which to practice precision with all forms of communication (including non-verbal) in order to prevent sending unintended messages or implications you think they won't understand. Because of your incomparable patience, you often choose to hold off on commenting… until, that is, you just can't take it anymore (which can be an awful long time), and then you let them have a matted mess of amplified emotion far beyond any immediate scope of relevance. I tell you this now, before you've hit a breaking point… before, in fact, you may even know you're withholding anything. Since Saturn's part of the mix (while still within uncomfortable influence of Pluto), your communicative actions this week will bear consequences, perhaps not immediate but definitely notable. And things not said but strongly thought are still likely to become visible, against any meager attempts to hide true feelings. Thankfully, with ruling goddess Venus's encouragement, you should be able to muster enough cosmic goodwill to speak the emotional truth aloud and with clarity—even when you imagine it's not worth the effort—and prevent the buildup of strain from self-containment.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): While you continue to endure some possibly anxiety-ridden concern for the real-world business of finances and such, it'll be helpful if you remember not to overdramatize your personal position. You are not the only one who has been where you are. There are plenty of folks around you who've experienced some of the same tight spots, question marks, purse-string tightenings, and overwhelming sense of pressing duty, and they've been able to successfully tackle them. I'm not saying this to diminish your concern, but rather to encourage you to seek advice and consolation from those who know this stuff from their own living of it. Connect with your community, and you will find more than enough helping hands and helpful hints to push through this patch. Certain finesse in how you express yourself is required, though, to temper the melodrama with audience-aware humility, to tell your tale not as if you're reveling in the narrative like a juicy serial, but as a open-ended prelude to your listening and learning. People want to help you, but only if you're willing to admit you might not have all the answers, and to speak your story accordingly.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You've made it to the home stretch, with only four weeks left of Saturn's two-year transit through your sign. That means, quite surely, that you should either feel as if (1) you've grown up so much over these last couple years, whether through conscious self-determination or interminable resilience in the face of challenges, (2) you've made some serious or less-serious mistakes, probably by trying to choose the easy way out and discovering it came with consequences, or (3) some combination of the two. At the twilight of this period, and with Mercury and Venus both conjoining Saturn this week, it's time to come to candid terms with whatever's happened since Jun 03. Your mind is ready to draw clear conclusions—especially if you are specific with framing the time period and thoughtfully considering exactly what's transpired—and you'll be able to spin it to yourself with greater acceptance and less self-judgment. Fully acknowledge that what has passed is unalterably set in stone, but is also over. You waste energy either resting on your laurels or lamenting your luck. Integrate the lessons learned, paint a white line on the floor separating 'then' from 'now', and start walking toward it and away from the recent past.

LEO (July 23-August 22): Scenes from the 12th House, starring You (and co-starring Mercury, Venus and Saturn)… You are sheathed in a costume that first glows with humming neon, then turns invisible, intermittently, at unpredicted intervals… the spotlight that surrounds turns from pink to green to gold, casting you in changing hues, centered, on an otherwise dark soundstage… as you speak, your voice vibrates hard and then cuts out, so we only hear a couple words of every sentence, drawn out, wrapped in roof-shaking reverb… you cannot distinguish, blinded by color and vacuum-packed in echo, if anybody's out there or whether either way would be a good thing, if you should speak up or slow down or stop… you want to keep going endlessly on, pushing outward from beneath your skin until you start to levitate, up above the rafters, out the flue and into stars… going as you stop, stopping as you go… stopping and going at the same time as the same thing… or shutting down completely, you roll like a fur-lined ball down the longest bowling lane in the galaxy, straight as unwavering arrow, no pins to hit and no gutters to swallow you… but, quiet on the set, it's not quite time for slipping past dimensions through this too-much or not-enough motion… if you listen carefully enough, muted direction from far off to one side yells, muffled, 'Cut,' and you are expected to return and reshoot the take.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): In every way, your current fate is wrapped up in the untidiest of fashions with the actions and attitudes of others. Sometimes, the best policy for proceeding from such circumstances is to step back and gain some solitary perspective on your drives and desires, without the undue external sway. But this is not the case now, Virgo. Stepping away simply won't do. You already know as much about what you want as you will in isolation, and now it's merely a matter of living out its evolution in dynamic interaction with those both intimate and peripheral. Alas, this cannot be done with even the most slightly passive of procedures. You must be blatant, and face the inevitable resistance where it arises. Otherwise, your chance is likely to come and go without fanfare—and a shitload of suppressed anger will come with the territory. The choice is between the risk of potentially pissing someone off (the same risk of possibly attaining unprecedented success and respect, which may indeed be scarier) or a near-guaranteed opportunity to piss yourself off. Is it so wrong to look out for yourself first?

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): That current placement of Mars in Aries, the one giving everyone an added dosage of vigor and volition, is the same Mars in Aries that holds the potential to put you at a decided disadvantage, Libra. As the sign opposed to Aries, you are the master of all indirect means necessary to lure the desired delicacies to you without it even seeming like it was your idea at all. But the astro-atmosphere is working against such methods for the next six weeks or so. And this week, with Mars opposing Jupiter in your sign, is the worst. There is a heightened threat of conflict in any and all one-on-one relationships, especially if you make sly attempts to induce changes of heart. You may find yourself on the wrong side of somebody's wrath, if he/she cannot bear your circuitous subtlety or contrived charm one second longer. Alternatively, you could spurt your own spout in a seemingly uncharacteristic expulsion of assertion… and later recoil from yourself for having been so distasteful or blowing your cover. The best approach for circumventing it all is to concentrate on your higher worldly goals and refuse to partake in petty interpersonal dramas—but even that orientation could potentially backfire, particularly if 'petty' is part of your judgment on the situation. Consider yourself forewarned.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): You can easily eek out a rather pleasant and productive week for yourself, Scorpio, if you keep your eyes on your own paper and your fingers out of other people's food. The astrological climate is ripe for spontaneous conflict, but I intuit that you can avoid the fray with a bit of effort and a disciplined refusal to participate. You are on your own philosophical journey to moral judiciousness, one in which you needn't halt at every roadblock thrown up by needy attention-seekers headed to different destinations. If you play your cards right, you will let them all occupy each other with concerns irrelevant to what you're working on, and you'll stay out of it. Fly under the radar this week, as they squabble and sabotage each other. One note of caution, however: If you dare to get cocky over your uninvolvement as you obsessively watch them from the corner of your eye, they will sniff it out on you… and suddenly you've become part of the problem.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Don't get sloppy with your passions. For now, it's better to err on the side of tight control over your intrinsically probing tongue, as there are seriously serious complexities—perhaps even 'life-or-death' level—at stake between you, and you might not even realize it until you've already pushed the red button and launched the missile. You can continue to be forthright without unconsciously offering challenges along with the disclosures. Behave with kid-glove sensitivity to the other party concerned, past where you normally might, as if his/her very emotional sanity and spiritual stability depended on it. You may be startled to learn that a little extra care in navigating the roughest waters, which could require you to pull back on your natural tendencies, will dramatically increase the level of intimacy you feel with those whose lives you've taken into your hands. When someone believes his/her ship is in danger of imminent sinking, your move to throw the floating ring is appreciated far more than any valiant effort to sail along, assuming (incorrectly) that everyone is experiencing the same degree of threat.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): He, she and/or they could benefit, on the core emotional plane, from you serving as the strong, safe and secure influence in his, her and/or their life this week. The double conjunctions of Mercury and Venus to Saturn offer you an ideal occasion to put your new-and-improved relationship behavior to the test. Trust that you know just the right thing to say, the look to give, and the vibe to exude to provide true emotional nurturing and support, whether or not it is explicitly requested. Don't think too much about what you 'should' do or if your efforts will be misread. The idea of being somebody's 'rock' requires dropping the self-preservation instinct because concern for him or her trumps it all. Instead, you maintain faith that you have everything you need to care fully and healingly for another. When you are the 'rock', you are able to utter one of your favorite taglines—'don't worry about me, I'll be fine'—and actually mean it, not in isolating self-effacement, but in assuming a genuinely giving, purpose-driven authority over someone else's well-being. And this is one of the truest beauties of being a Capricorn.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): No grand expositions on what it all already means and what it could all mean one day, if only, and no theoretical escapes into each of us as tiny pieces of the puzzle that is humanity, who fit together into perfect vision only when everyone does what she does best and with most passion. Screw all that this week, Aquarius, and just power through that series of oft neglected and immediately important, though generally unrelated and seemingly 'insignificant on the cosmic scale' (or so you think, heh heh) tasks and errands. Get a lot of the little shit done this week, and stop using intellect and alignment with spirit as excuses to not clean up these mini-messes. The more you run around town and check things off the list, the better… not just for instant relief, but, yes, for the highest cosmic good, too.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): The way you are capable of loving, Pisces, is legendary—totally and completely, without limits or bounds, with ultimate faith and compassion, holy. But (and I'm sure you know this from personal experience) there can be obvious pitfall dark-sides to this manner of love—unrealistic, psychically overwhelming and all-consuming, self-sabotaging, painful. Just because love, at least in the style you've previously practiced, holds this potential to unseat everything else in your life so it can dominate and dictate, that's no reason to resist it completely. If the running water was so hot that it threatened to scald your skin, would you turn it off altogether? Or couldn't you simply add just enough cold to adjust the temperature until it was comfortable? It's time for you to reconsider love from this perspective, as a healthy element of your life, not the only thing that matters nor the evil that most be frozen out so you can achieve goals. Whether you are currently in a love relationship and need to reapportion the energy you give it, or whether you are either too desperately seeking it or too shut off from its blessed promise, all these orientations can benefit from a mature fine-tuning. It's possible for love to take up just the right amount of room, enough for your best health but not too much.