Horoscopes | Week of June 20-26, 2011

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Whichever piece requires the writing, the asking-and-answering, the transmission of messages… well, that's the piece which deserves the next month-and-a-half of your renewed dedication, Aries. And acknowledging the possibility that, no, this isn't exactly where you most wish to devote your time, you must also make room for any emotional backlash your inner-child spits at you. Moodiness may serve, therefore, as a passing symptom… a token of frustration with the communicative demands of getting anything done these days, with all the bureaucratic hoops to jump through and hearts to win over. Don't curse the onset of swinging moods (which might also be a cover for a deeper exhaustion), since they are reassuring signs of life (which can only motor along without the intrusive reminder of feelings wanting attention for so long) and indicate the need for self-nurturing comfort. At the same time you deal with the compulsory check-ins and informational updates, check in with and update yourself about how badly you need a hug or a cry or Grandma's chicken-pot-pie—then, go on and pamper yourself with it, whatever it is.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Showing up for people, even if for five minutes or sandwiched between twelve or twenty equally important appearances, means actually delivering them your undivided attention. While I'm aware you have a multitude of practical commitments to secure your own situation, Taurus, it is your responsibility not to let those handlings bleed into your social moments. Please don't insult anyone, whether pal or the clerk behind the counter making nice, by constantly futzing with your smartphone or allowing your mind to wander undisciplined ahead to the next destination. The person in front of you at any given instant could be the only other living individual left with you on Earth, and what kind of relationship would you like to establish with this now-no-longer-peripheral figure? Practice such mindful consideration. After all, I'd be willing to bet a sizable number of those tasks gnawing away at your patience-level will involve some perfunctory small-talk with any number of folks who, while you're expecting some degree of service from them, are already thinking about what to do after clocking out. We're all in the same boat.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Keep yourself on the proverbial straight-and-narrow, Gemini, restraining your brain so that its main occupations are logistical and/or financial-sustaining in nature. In other words, this isn't the time to dump the box of art-supplies on your living-room floor and play at being creative—unless the end-result will actually solve some real-life dilemma, and leave you feeling more materially secure than before. All flights-of-fancy ought to be temporarily postponed. With the upsurge in initiative on deck for the several weeks ahead, thanks to Mars's arrival in your sign, you have a chance to profoundly unstick yourself from anything (or anyone) that's left you feeling stuck… but you'll need focused, self-serving determination to do it. I threw in 'self-serving' as a reminder that, by the time you've begun weighing whether what you're determined to do will 'serve' somebody else's desires, you're already losing the focus needed to get yourself unstuck. (Too hard to consider both things at once.) Though you needn't be an asshole about it, your primary concern has got to be stable personal independence. Everything else follows.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): While the pressure to evolve may be bearing down on you from every angle—and not just this week, but periodically throughout the past year and still ongoing—your call to rise to, Cancer, doesn't presently require much overt action. Of course, just as much effort may be expended in order to stubbornly reserve your emotional integrity, which is the main 'action' demanded. No matter how your career or outer-world circumstances throw you shocks or surprises, how certain persuasively opinionated individuals attempt to insinuate their dominance over you, or how the voices in your head may try whittling away at your determination by injecting doubt where none is due… you must continue to stand regardless, maybe not making too much outward fuss about all that's out of your control, but still refusing to care any less completely about the people and things you care about. Nobody can steal those most-personal priorities from you. For now, just watch the Wheel of Destiny spin the playing-pieces into new slots, content that you have no means to stop this development. Your heartfelt emotional commitments are what hold you in place, not superficial details.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Practice the hands-off approach, should you cross paths with someone else's potentially dangerous situation and begin falling victim to the misguided urge to step in and try to save the day. We're still in an eclipsed-crazed interval of time, Leo, where plenty of other people are likelier than ever to sabotage themselves and/or self-destruct before your very eyes. This has nothing to do with you. Like the ocean's currents are often much stronger than they look and may suck both the potential drowning victim and his underprepared 'savior' out to sea, this situation possesses components that are more hazardous than appearances may betray. You, lacking both (1) the full story to adequately inform your rescue effort and (2) the divine wisdom to understand why this so-called 'victim' probably needs to be exactly where they are for their own evolutionary purposes, really ought to stay a safe distance from the storm. If you truly want to help, the best thing you can do is take detailed notes (literally, if not in your mind) as you observe the situation; your third-party testimony should prove quite useful later.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): There's an undeniable challenge to your current outside-world situation, Virgo: to somehow take the lead by looking into the functional pros and cons of various options (a la the scope from two weeks ago), but without too fiercely advocating for your personally-preferable stance at the expense of team-minded thinking (a la last week's). To pull it off, you must envision yourself as a servant to the dispersal of solid information… thus fostering increased mutual understanding in your key strategic relationships, by dutifully ensuring the other people involved are that much more well-informed. By seeing it that way, you'll hopefully refrain from coercively leading your fellow participants down only certain paths, forcing them to receive the data through too insistent a filter and/or essentially slaughtering the alternatives with bad reporting. If you are motivated by both (1) the facts and (2) using them to form the best decisions for everyone, you really don't need to push an opinion. Tracing the situation's options to their logical ends will produce methodological insights that speak for themselves.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): If you're exercising it shrewdly, the conviction in your voice shows that you care about how your ideas will actually help improve the quality of people's lives… not that you want to be right for merely selfish reasons. Play to their emotions, Libra, rather than their cool logic. Even when we operate in a world of heady abstractions or disjointed tasks to process, the ultimate relevance of all we do is its effect on real human beings. Instead of stressing about how cleanly your ass is covered, flip the focus to one of altruistic, protective nurture of others' well-being. Whether or not your actual work puts you into direct encounter with those your efforts help, you really ought to get this distinctly human 'Them' at the forefront of your priority-setting. Gold-stars and elite-statuses aside, your triumph comes when your face cannot resist forming a smile in response to their happy grins, as they enjoy the benefits your attentions yielded them.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): With your eyes planted firmly on the 'prize'—that latest life-goal you've selected for your next evolutionary stretch, as a result of having straightened your priorities out—you'll more handily execute, over the coming six weeks or so, the rather intricate psychological rewiring necessary to ready yourself for receiving said prize. Required steps may include limiting your contact with individuals whose presence in your life demands an unreasonable amount of your emotional energy (no matter who's officially 'responsible' for that fact)… or at least dramatically changing your dynamic, with increased distance and/or stronger boundaries. (And as a corollary to that: Some earnest grieving may be in order.) But, Scorpio, as long as you perpetually remind yourself the guiding reason why you know such a potentially disconcerting re-designation of your emotional energy is essential to moving forward, the imminent gains should surely justify any passing pains. Without your eyes on the prize, however, you can easily lose sight of your 'personal North' in the process… and find yourself bogged down in an all-too-familiar field of quicksand, where the only means of freeing yourself is repeating something you've already dealt with before.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): If, by chance, you've been blabbing about that pink elephant per your prior horoscope, you may be justifiably on the receiving end of some pushback. Nothing you can't handle, right, Sagittarius? A lively snowball-war between two savvy commentators certainly isn't anything to hang your head in dismay over. Instead, think of it from the angle of: Now we're gettin' somewhere! As the conjectures fly and further details emerge, please reserve mental space for the possibility that you'll end up with a very different idea than you started with. (If you can't deal with that, then why stir shit up in the first place? Just to reaffirm you already knew everything there was to know? Talk about an exercise in futility, geez.) And should this continuing momentum of honest exchange reveal any previously mistaken impressions on your part, I urge you to investigate the fingerprints left all over that premature conclusion you jumped to—they are dirtied with the residue of past psychological shocks, which this current situation has brought back to the surface. What a moment for moving beyond all that, by recognizing you aren't that same naïve person from the past!

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): The goal proves meaningless, if you must attain it at the price of quality companionship. If you're working with people, let's hope they are folks whose company you actually enjoy and/or whose attitudes line up with yours. Or maybe you've forgotten that these individuals ended up sharing a set of duties and principles with you for a reason... that you were meant to spend so much time together for mutually edifying growth purposes? And as for those significant others with whom you share the rest of your time (perhaps in a less 'official-responsibility', but no less important, context), Capricorn, please don't neglect to nourish their hearts, explicitly so, with your love. There are a million-and-one items that will call out for your attention, presumably with much louder urgency than will those special souls who are 'always there for you', though you may overlook their presence because no immediate action on your part seems to be warranted. Then again, maybe there is something you could do for You-Know-Who…

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): It's that time again, Aquarius, when you must revisit what it means to healthfully relate to 'living in a body'. Heady air-sign types like you often lapse into willfully ignoring the needs and limitations of physically maneuvering through this flattened earthly reality, wishing perhaps you could simply exist as a disembodied head, miraculously manifesting the fruits of your brilliance by remote-control or other tech-enabled device. Sorry, Charlie: You better check back in with your flesh, which is probably due for some sort of fitness reset, dietary detox, slumber catch-up and/or 30-day laying-off of god-knows-what. This, of course, isn't unrelated to last week's announcement that your work demands are picking up; the connection between bodily preparedness and productive efficiency seems obvious. And if you're already needing to get 'on task' in your day-to-day life from one angle, why not synergistically build upon that attention by simultaneously getting 'on task' healthwise? Only snag: With Mars entering your solar 5th this week, you'll find no lack of tempting diversions… which, if mindlessly chased, will leave you conveniently 'forgetting' to heed your body's care.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Refuse to play host to their unjust projections, Pisces, despite how convincingly they may argue their (mis)perception of you is correct. Are you going to let somebody else dictate your dominant defining narrative? Rather than fight back, I endorse you slyly slithering away… to enjoy a relatively hassle-free exploration of a self-selected version of whatever story interests you, without the threat of having to compete for the final word. Already upon feeling another person's heightened emphasis bear down on an encounter, you must identify there's a 'power-dynamic thing' going on that you probably want to avoid—for no other reason than it'll unnecessarily weigh down what was supposed to be pleasantly pleasant. Once again, with feeling: If the best method for getting away from any such unduly demanding exchanges is to simply stay home, why bother trying to coax yourself out the door? If you get lonely, you can always invite the easy-breeziest of your compadres over for a private giggle-party.