Horoscopes | Week of December 14-20, 2009

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Bubbling over with the juices of ripe creativity, you're already in the midst of birthing something that has never previously existed. (Contrary to stereotypical cynicism, there indeed are originals under this sun.) Yet, precisely because you're midway through bringing forth an entirely new thing, Aries, you must allow for 'intrusions' (or are they actually 'serendipitous mutations'?) of outside influence… since, after all, you oughtn't feel wholly confident that you (and you alone) know exactly what the final product should be. Why block the organic development of this creation—which, despite having begun its cell-multiplication under your tutelage, is now a distinct entity all its own—from becoming what it wants to be? Continue investing all your passionate energy, but without forcing it too ill-fittingly into a predetermined mold. In the moments of seeing how your contributions interact with what else is out there (e.g., others' similar efforts, market forces, circumstantial realities beyond your control), revisions and reorientations will naturally occur. Don't just tacitly permit such 'serendipitous mutations'; actively encourage them.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Let the career/public-world growth you've been experiencing all year continue its thing unsupervised. You needn't do too much about it for the moment. All the most critical action demanding your attention, Taurus, relates to your private landscape… a subjective environment in which you're likely waging some sort of war for self-fulfillment, pitting your 'selfish' personal desires against forces (whether voices inside your head, unsupportive family members or unfriendly interlopers on the domestic front) who seek to prevent you from 'indulging' yourself. I've purposely used the word 'war' so as not to downplay how much disciplined militaristic effort may be required to (re)claim this territory for your own purposes of self-nourishment. The 'opposition', alas, would have you believe it's far more 'correct' to continue funneling your energies into a joint emotional account. Only problem is, who will ensure that everyone's paying into and out of it in equitable amounts?

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Even if you can spy the welcome gates, dangling wide-open as if to urge you to scurry past the customs agents into some exotic Wonderland, that doesn't mean you ought to rush through… while simultaneously rushing away from certain mundane bothers you'd just as soon never dirty your hands with again. This dazzling entrée to The Next Great Adventure will not disappear any time soon (despite whatever the hype-creators and/or your inner impatient youngster tell you), Gemini. In the meantime, there's a different sort of adventure… with lowercase 'a' to accentuate the understated, though no less potentially thrilling, variety of experience currently available to you if you stay put and closely follow social cues. At least one compelling character (maybe a good friend, maybe someone interesting you don't know so well yet) possesses a tempting alternative, perhaps without as clear a goal or vision and no guarantees. It may well be worth sticking with 'em for this leg of the unfolding, to explore what else might next happen instead…

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): 'Sure, grab as many as you want!' seems like the natural exclamation you'd offer, Cancer, when laying down that plate of your special homemade meatballs ('my great-grandma's recipe!') in front of the table of famished loved ones. It's always your initial instinct, isn't it, to make sure they're well-fed first? That's all fine and dandy as long as there's enough beef to go around. But if you're not watching the balance between hungry mouths and sufficient provisions, you won't notice you've slaved to stuff their bellies full of goodness… without bothering to save yourself more than an end-scrap or two, which is hardly the proper nutrition you require to keep your engines running and the meatball assembly-line in production. You may have to think before promising open-ended dinner invitations to every character in town, or you're liable to starve yourself of much-needed nutrition. (This, of course, is about money and emotional energy as much as it is food.)

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): No doubt about it… thanks to the cooperative guardianship of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune, you will be quite the charmer this week, Leo. People will want to buy whatever you've got on offer. But before you lower the hard-sell boom and too assertively direct 'em to the specific model you already preselected, release those firm notions of how you think it should go. Just because you momentarily hold the influential power (and you definitely do), you mustn't assume you also possess all the answers. In fact, with Mars now reversing his direction toward a retrograde retreat in your sign, you may soon find your impulses steering you toward ideas or intentions other than those you've most recently found so central. Don't insist, then, on fixing your focus in one certain area... in direct disavowal of the obviously shifting sands. Effortless charisma gets the people on your side. From there, let the interactive qualities of your interactions with them divert you this way and that.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): All work and no absence-of-activity leaves Virgo as somebody who is definitely missing a certain enigmatic part of life. Every appropriate box might be checked, and every account balanced, yet the embodied experience may still feel oddly empty. Looking at, touching, nailing each last detail down, the question remains: Is this all there is? It would be too easy to dismiss that lingering sense of some hard-to-pinpoint absence, threatening to leave you doubting that 'success' as you've previously defined it is really all it's cracked up to be, as a phantom woe. I beg to disagree with that classification. Instead, I see the uneasiness as a potentially productive internal sensation, intended to spur philosophic (or, dare I drop such a term, metaphysical) wonderment on your part. While I don't think full-on existential panic is necessary, I do believe you're at an appropriate moment to ponder—with a suspension-of-usual-skepticism open-mindedness—what other non-rational phenomena of insight are knocking at your back window with a message.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): To go completely silent is to effectively remove your voice from the chorus that, in the end, will be seen to sing a song representing your interests. Trust me, Libra, you don't want to sacrifice your shot at contributing sentiments which will indeed have a significant effect on the group's ultimate statement. The trick is to make noticeable waves, but without the corresponding turbulence that's apt to tighten or turn any crewmates' stomachs. You've got the suave swagger (minus the unpalatable ego-inflation) to pull this off. Yet, it won't work if you sit back and simply respond to what comes at you. You've got to get ahead of the parade, enlisting fellow believers before they're unduly exposed to appealing-sounding alternatives. Otherwise, your attempts to too-subtly seduce them in your desired directions will prove too little too late. Their minds will have already been made up, thanks to the influence of others who aren't afraid of forcefully pressing their agenda.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Still aghast at not having clinched what you're convinced is deservedly yours? Keep the offended attitude in check, Scorpio, if you intend to continue stalking the treasure chest. Even the most valuable players must sometimes swing several times before connecting with the ball. And allowing emotional desperation to accumulate between each at-bat won't help your concentration either. Simply put, you've got to return for every new encounter with a freshly eager demeanor, much in the way a happy-go-lucky puppy always greets his person just as lovingly, no matter how bummed he was at having just been left home alone all day. Whenever back in a position to vie for the goodies, your disappointing histories (and their corresponding resentments) must be magically divorced from the present moment. Most endeavors, after all, come with their fair share of disappointments. We rise to the image of 'successful' by refusing to let them overshadow the entire season.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): The widely popularized idea of 'staying in the Now', helpful enough (and fairly innocuous) advice from the self-help industry, doesn't always serve your needs, Sagittarius. Sure, we can only effect actual motion through what we're doing in any given moment. But that reductive truth says nothing to address the benefits of defining a vision, the guiding light that unites each moment's actions toward a particular future of one's choosing, in advance of haphazardly moving this way or that. You forward-thinking Sagittarians are masters of visioning, so able to aim your archer's-arrow at whatever you determine to be the target that you can save yourself a lot of wasted time (though, just as easily, miss key details that you prematurely dismiss as unimportant). While everyone else is mired in hangovers from a difficult '09 or obligatory holiday-burdens, you have a unique opportunity to spend your week anticipating—and setting intention for—what 2010 will bring. That said, if a certain item or issue that seems totally 'beside the point' stubbornly refuses to heed your dismissals, give it a second (or third) glance.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): The storm will not merely pass you by in a straight line, entering from one direction, blowing overhead, then predictably exiting the other way. This one is stubborn, hard to call, and mavericky in its surprise reprises. The keen among you will need to be ready to hunker down for days at a time, holding your ground… and, at a moment's notice, to pick up your weapon and defend your livelihood against any spiteful opportunists. There may even appear protracted spans of clear skies, potentially fooling you into lowering your guard and prematurely removing the storm shutters for the remainder. Don't be so short-sighted. You can walk away with your resources—and your clout—wholly intact, as long as you stay on your game, Capricorn. However, your slightest minimizing miscalculation of potential foes' unwavering intent to snag the winning point at your expense could leave you ill-prepared. More than ever, you'll need to use those eyes in the back of your head, watching and formulating.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): You can't mask your own interpersonal challenges behind the gleaming rhetoric of your 'people skills'. The ideals you espouse about fairness and respect for individuality fall short, Aquarius, when you dodge head-on confrontations in order to save yourself the hassles. Just how 'evolved' is it to hold your relationships at arm's length, so as to reserve yourself the breathing space to remain relatively unimpacted (or so you might claim) by the differences between you and others? You stunt your own development by refusing to explicitly express longings for what you want from them, and/or by letting their longings which you aren't enthusiastic about fulfilling slip by without mention. That's akin to settling into a situation that's only partly satisfying without even trying for the real prize… and essentially stating that's all you ever expect to get from your relationship life. Left unaddressed, it's also a roadmap for future loneliness or isolation—without, that is, the freedoms of being alone.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): A trusty intimate of mine often quotes these words of some talking dog from the pages of sci-fi literature: 'It's always better to be doing.' Whether or not that adage takes into account the periodic need to restfully not do, Pisces, it still goes far in describing your best approach to this now-beginning Mars retrograde period (lasting through mid-March) in your 6th. Uranus's ongoing presence in your sign has eased your knack for busting out, breaking free, and otherwise expressing erratic undisciplined desires for 'something else'. But to actually create the 'something else' requires regular increments of progress over lengths of time—without constantly entertaining worries about how far you've gotten, what'll happen when you get there, and what it's supposed to represent. Stop such metaphoric clockwatching. Creation can take a while. You just keep stacking the stones. One day, a few months from now, you can step back and appreciate the monument you've constructed.