Horoscopes | Week of August 29-September 4, 2005

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The sound you make by pounding on your drum, trying to keep your own steady rhythm regardless of what else transpires around you, reverberates so loudly through the forest as to drown out any other rat-tat-tats. Your beat repeats its mighty meter, setting a pace and tone to faithfully follow… reliable as long as you charge along the trail exactly as you've set out, no room in the march for others' contributions, thumps, thuds or throbs. Steady only takes the race when the finish line is clearly demarcated, and neither loneliness nor isolating alienation are factors at play on your emotional ability to enjoy the spoils of victory. Bring down the volume to hear what other tunes would otherwise pervade the airwaves, who else's melodies and bass lines might establish a different mood, a fertile foundation to inspire more-inspired improvisations in you. You're likely to find even greater freedom in playing your part with somebody else conducting the whole orchestra, alleviating pressures to perfunctorily perform and creating more space to (wow!) learn, innovate, and enjoy.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): If you let events unfold over the next week as they will, without trying too hard to assert your will into the mix… to consequently sway the results in what you imagine to be your favor… you'll find yourself set up to do a lot of good. I'm dubious in dishing out the stipulation, alas, because the position in which you'll find yourself isn't exactly what your headstrong ego had in mind—too uneventful, airy-fairy, frivolous or dry. Whatever your complaint, its basic gist also includes the exasperated rhetorical wonderment of 'What's in it for me?' In certain cases, the answer is obvious but annoyingly goody-goody: A compromise made now brings better health later. (That's where the smaller portion, the extra lap, the longer-night's-sleep or the one-less-drink comes in handy.) In others, you'll just have to take my word for it… that what you want to do isn't necessarily the best manner for spending your efforts… and concede when the currents carry you toward a different shore. In either situation, you've been placed in a position of service, to your own eventual highest benefit and/or for the good of the greater whole. Fight against this mandatory service, and you're swimming upstream.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You are the hummingbird and the bee, flitting frenetically from flower to flower and tree to tree, extracting powders and juices from one and distributing them to the next, in rapid motion, spreading treats across the points of nature. The week is one in which every blooming plant begs to share its seed and stalk with every other… and, rooted still in place, peels its eyes for creatures like you to aid in dissemination. It's a week when social swapping swells the ante, generating more for everyone to divvy up through the exchange of strategies, letting individuals' ideas interpenetrate each other. That's where you come in, Gemini, a quick worker with ample energy for giving everyone her five minutes' due… peek in, poke around, pull out… and finding time to preach some gospel, ask a couple leading questions, and offer thanks for the involvement. Work your magic. Connect the dots. Remind us we're not alone. Lead those of like minds to each other, that they may fertilize the other's efforts and reap supportive acknowledgment for their own. And buzz right by.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ride the even emotional keel into support for a wide array of acquaintances' occasions, showing up to offer them some choice words of encouragement. It's better to say the obvious than not to speak up at all, especially with a Virgo New Moon in your 3rd house gifting you the right words for the right situation, given you don't overstay the welcome you granted yourself and you don't get too involved. Solidify social connections based on particular areas of shared interest, and stick to those commonalities rather than risking the cordial contact by attempting to expand the basis of relationship. You flirt with presumptuousness to assume more than the already established mode of familiarity. Over this coming month, go for 'less with many' rather than 'more with fewer. As I see it, it's worth the smoother emotional sailing to practice mannered precision in all interactions, instead of diving headfirst into more careless cavorting and consequently flirting with head injuries or seasickness. Of course, if you're more in the mood for a wild roar on the rapids than a safe and boring harbor cruise, by all means, jump right in and splash around. Just plan for the extra time you'll need to reestablish equilibrium, once you make it back to the shore.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Stroll around like you haven't a care in the world, and uphold that perfectly polite posture as far as anyone can see. All the while, though, you might as well use this period of slipping beneath the radar to take care of more serious business, with a cool collected smile plastered on your face. Without setting off any alarms, assess what you've got in this world… what is legitimately and unambiguously yours… those valuables you'd wrap in a blanket and throw on your back if you had to get out tonight. Please do not read this as a call to depart or escape; that is not my point. But at any moment, you (or any of us, really) might have to jam in a jiffy, and it'd be instructive to know what you have to work with, what would save you and what could be left behind, and which contentious items raise messy custody issues. This audit will not only empower you with real practical data, it's apt to surprise you with additional insight into how you really feel about those ties that currently bind you… whether they're more or less important than you tell yourself, whether you'd be better off without them or if you're deluding yourself into underestimating their worth. Merely gather information, and leave no one the wiser but you.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): As long as Uranus stays in your 7th house (which is still another five years), people will continue to surprise you at various irregular intervals. Their darned unpredictable behavior—and your at-times unpredictable reactions to their unpredictable behavior—serves to keep you on your toes, leaving you unable to just fade off into the sunset with dull replays of the same old routine, still wondering if that was all there is. The reassuring fact (especially for as structured a soul as you, Virgo) is that, over time, the intrinsic unpredictability of human encounters actually helps stabilize our instinctive responses, bringing us closer in line with how we genuinely want to react. The spontaneous volatility shakes us free from all the old crap, that which spurs us to evade or erupt or disparage in ways reminiscent of how we've been hurt in the past… and if we're brave enough to call it what it is, we grow free of this past and root ourselves firmly in the here and now. We respond newly, as we truly desire. On account of this week's Virgo New Moon opposing Uranus, plan accordingly for a month of such opportunities for newness in relationship. And if all goes well, the biggest shocks will arise when you choose to do it differently… thus changing the tone of future interactions, towards your better liking, forever.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): A trooper persists with the song-and-dance, even as bombs blast backstage and the bartender runs out of beer. His job is not to stock the fridge or clean up carnage, but merely to stand in the blinding light and belt out one spectacular showstopper after another until the last ticket-holding audience member claps himself silly. You have an incredibly glamorous position center-stage, Libra, with that most fortune-filled duo Venus and Jupiter conjoining in your sign this week… and I simply couldn't conjure any better indicator for just singing your little guts out and expecting to sound pitch-perfect to anyone listening. But not everyone gets to bask in the same planetary grace, and therefore not everyone will listen or care or bother to pretend listening or caring… because they're too busy defusing or detonating dangerous explosives or drinking away their anxieties. You're still the star of the show, whether or not anyone appears to hear your moving solo, so you should pay little mind to murmurs in the aisles, panicky power-plays behind the curtain or words on the street. And keep reminding yourself of this, or you're liable to be lured into another's tragicomic drama, where you only serve a supporting role in propelling someone else along his heroic journey.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Mars in Taurus in your 7th continues to loom menacingly, fueling a buildup in your aggression or acrimony toward one or more irritating individuals who seem to be blocking your progress. Thanks to a 2-month retrograde starting in early October, Mars will hang in this house for quite some time… but some weeks will be worse than others, in terms of how this interpersonal frustration swells or subsides. This week, Mars suffers an under-the-surface taunting from Venus, who joins with Jupiter to publicly promote peace and love and sugar and sweetness, in indirect conflict with whatever developing differences you're silently stewing over. As Venus and Jupiter are in your 12th, the best hope for finding this so-called peace is by looking inward, away from whichever pesky person persists in provoking you (whether he/she knows it or not) and toward private ways for blowing off the steam, knowing there's nothing you can really do to significantly alter the external situation right now. Mars in the 7th needn't indicate interpersonal conflict, after all… it also symbolizes standing up for what you want in relationship to another. But by worrying too much about what a particular he/she is doing, you simply cannot gain the clarity of what you want from any hypothetical 'other person'.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Certainly you've noticed how your past couple horoscopes have rested heavily on the notion of mutual responsibility as a method for connecting with your best luck. This collaborative focus continues this week, especially with the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in your 11th fueling the opportunities for finding agreeable accord with those who share your idealistic vision. But I also see that, in addition to actively promoting the team's agenda, you can also move ahead toward more self-determined goals in your career or public-sphere reputation… by leveraging the goodwill you've generated in the one arena, into actively soliciting supportive ears and helping hands for the other. The more clearly demarcated the division between your participation in shared efforts and your personal ambition for specific self-interests, the less likely your authentic assistance in the former will be mistaken for veiled self-serving of the latter. Still, those cohorts with whom you've worked so diligently in unison are great potential allies for you in unrelated fields of your own choosing. If your contribution was freely shared with them without strings attached, you may now call in suggestions and favors and expect the same in return.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): In the public light, you'll be able to squeak by on the fumes of pleasantry and polish… and, successfully enough, skirt the simmering dissatisfaction of not expressing yourself with the earthiest realness of your bonafide self. Mind you, you don't have to pick this circuitous route, a detour around the full truth, just to sustain that paper-thin surface of saccharine soft. However, considering the propensity for others to take this supposed 'high road' (a prettier view, but further from the action), if you choose the no-bones direct path to bluntly telling it like it is (at least from your perspective), you'll stand out even more. If everyone else is speaking so delicately, your bold strength will sound extra-jarring. Either approach has its advantages, I'll admit. Shall you bite your tongue and bide your time a little longer, or shall you open wide and let it out, knowing (for whatever it's worth to you) you'll come off that much more disruptive in this mood otherwise ripe with middle-ground concessions? This week, it's pretty much an either/or.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): There's virtually no getting around these associations with other people, no matter how hard you try or how deeply you think you wish for such autonomy. Even those among you who believe you've succeeded by freezing out interpersonal distractions are merely fueling the fire by assuming this wholly reactionary posture—they are still running the show, only with their conspicuous absence instead of their obtrusive presence. If you can't beat 'em, then you'd might as well join 'em, Aquarius. And that means using this week's New Moon in your 8th as an invitation to be up front, to methodically extend your sincere intentions and desires and ask for input and aid, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. It's hard to request assistance, especially when it feels so calculating to single out those with special qualifications or positions to help in particular areas in which their expertise promises the richest benefit. But that's just how it's done. You can't get through the door when your hands are full, unless someone else opens it for you. Make sure, though, that you're clear in how you word said appeals. If you need the door opened, don't ask her to close the window.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): When the Sun is in Virgo, as it currently is, it indicates you're halfway through the year that began with your birthday. Back then, what was your situation with regards to relationships? How has that since changed? Whatever realizations were emerging around late-February have hopefully been incorporated into your consciousness, and any necessary attitude adjustments made accordingly. This week's New Moon is a half-birthday progress report, an opportunity to ensure you haven't been pulled back into dynamics that were driving you crazy six months ago. Those Pisceans who can point to some significant discontinuity between 'old life' and 'new life' are on a good path, while those who live quite similarly to how you did before should at least be able to identify some sharp inner development or else. Recommit now to situations that foster your independence, even if while in a relationship unit, and return to areas you've recently let slide. Ignoring the need for personal freedom will continue igniting external disruptions… until, that is, you're willing to identify the connection.