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Horoscopes | Week of January 23-29, 2012

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You may be temporarily changing your name to 'Worker-Bee', in light of the exaggerated amounts of energy your responsibilities will likely absorb as a result of Mars's now-retrograde loitering in your house of day-to-day productivity (the 6th). As we covered last week, part of this work will involve revisiting, reediting and redoing what you hastily assumed had already been put to bed, and/or what had slipped your mind altogether. Accept this reality, without a single (fruitless) grumble. Then, as soon as possible, announce to all relevant parties who will listen that you are now diving into this period of concentrated hustle… as an informational notice, a hype-generator, a publicized means for holding yourself accountable, a call for support. While much of the coming weeks' time is probably going to be consumed with the uncelebrated grunt-labor that'll happen largely behind the scenes, in the very short-term, you'll be well-served by drawing attention to what you're about to be doing. If you're to be called by your new name—'Worker-Bee'—for the time being, you'd better let everyone know. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Life is too short not to spend its precious leisure moments doing exactly what you want to be doing, Taurus, as opposed to what's easiest or requires little forethought. For the next 2½ months, as Mars retrogrades through your solar 5th, you're under astrological pressure to 'clean up' the manner in which you utilize your free time, essentially increasing the likelihood you're not frittering away this valuable resource on shit that doesn't actually add to your genuine savoring of life. Now is your time to excise any obstacles or excuses which have been blocking you from more avidly pursuing the art-form that interests you, the companionship of those who bring the biggest smile to your face, an engagement with games or sports or playful activities you thoroughly enjoy, and/or your aspirations for more action in the romantic zone. Start taking these matters into your hands this week. In other unrelated news, please be aware that your voice will carry more loudly (and self-importantly?) throughout this upcoming week, thanks to a Mercury-Jupiter square. Do with this knowledge what you will. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Difficult but necessary conversations, ultimately intended to regain your control over what's likeliest to bring you that much-lauded 'inner peace', are best conducted (1) in the earlier part of this week ahead and (2) with as much humble listening and personal-ego-wrangling as possible. This is not because your ego would be wrong in wanting what it wants, Gemini, but as a conscious method of allowing the other party to spell out for you exactly how to beat 'em at their own game. The more you outwardly argue with them, the less freely they're going to dispense the critical details you need to understand their tactics. By the end of the week (and into the next), if you've followed my advice, you'll be far better situated to develop your own tactical plan, combining (1) your personal drive to 'do what's fair and just' in this situation with (2) a few extra tricks-up-your-sleeve designed to address the particular quirks of their personality, specifics which they'll have essentially fed you. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ongoing conversations in which you have dropped the ball, left someone hanging on the line, and/or dodged the looming movement toward a decisive conclusion are awaiting your return, Cancer. Even if you don't know what to say or where to go from here, you still ought to get back in touch… acknowledging both your absence (but without excessive or whiny apologetics) and your uncertainty about what should happen next. You don't need a motive or agenda lined up before reentering the discussion—in fact, maybe it's better to go in open-ended—but merely a willingness to let the exchange unfold organically, revealing its best potentials in the moment. Of course, along the way, you might get called out on developments you missed, occasions you neglected to attend, or suggestions you conveniently tuned out. If that's the case, take any rightful critiques like a champ (but, again, without groveling or bending over backwards to demonstrate how bad you feel about it). It's time to pick back up with certain relationships you let drift, mainly because you're presently supposed to be more interactive than self-enclosed. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

LEO (July 23-August 22): Cleaning up and sorting out the financial end of things is an assignment unlikely to get resolved in only a day or two. Nor is it something most of us anticipate with eagerness, since any messes we might find ourselves in are usually a result of not having wanted to fully deal with the problem-at-hand when it first presented itself. Furthermore, we may not even possess the expertise needed to straighten our situation all the way out—if we did, it might already be done, but maybe we've been too ashamed to solicit the handy advice a close friend or colleague likely holds. Admitting where you may need help, Leo, is a good first step for ironing out lingering questions about your self-sufficiency, which are probably subtly detracting from your overall confidence levels (especially if you're looking at your money situation as a 'dirty little secret'). Even if you're just talking it out with pals who aren't necessarily the ones who will have workable suggestions to try, the very act of unburdening yourself of the unspoken fear attached to handling this task ought to feel empowering. The truth is, many people now find themselves in similar circumstances. No need to shoulder this familiar experience alone. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): While I'm not accustomed to opening Virgo horoscopes with a caution about your potential brashness or bravado, the stationing (or standing-still) of Mars in your sign as he transitions from direct to retrograde is liable to bring such qualities out in you during the earlier part of the week… especially with his trine to your ruler Mercury in your solar 5th, another placement where proudly self-serving expressions are favored. Under these astro-effects, you may find it nearly impossible to resist correcting others' faulty facts or improper implications—and though your motives might (or might not) be purely about impersonal precision or propriety, you can imagine how annoying (or outright infuriating) such moves could be from others' perspectives. I suppose here's where I could interject a pithy bit about 'choosing your battles wisely' or such, but I'm not exactly sure I should be encouraging you to moderate these irresistible tendencies. If you feel moved to blusterously assert your ideas of what'll improve the quality of a given situation, you might as well do so; the effort will certainly generate progress of sorts. Just don't be surprised if you rub someone wrong in the process and/or end up instigating a quarrel. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Leave your confusion unremarked-upon, instead of constantly repeating to yourself (and anyone who'll listen) how unsure you are about what's happening, about to happen, or in need of happening. Putting anxious or desperate words to circumstances which aren't nearly as problematic as your rationale-seeking brain would have you believe, Libra, is not only a fairly futile proposition; it actually worsens your experience of this presently inescapable limbo. Your mental faculties can surely do you a better service than perpetually reminding you, like a nagging mother, to prepare yourself for something you can't really prepare yourself for. For instance, you could instead concentrate on appreciating the companionship of individuals and/or participation in leisure pursuits that you may know (or at least sense) you'll be leaving behind in the relatively near (or not-as-near) future… a far more immediately useful way to spend your time than worrying about what may or may not occur after that. The here-and-now has plenty to occupy your attentions with. Resist the temptation to project yourself ahead in time. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Where are your people? Hopefully not too far from wherever you are, Scorpio, since it's become increasingly helpful and rewarding for you to feel 'part of something'… rather than, say, indulging the 'lone brooder' role you're far too adept at portraying. But I can imagine why you might prefer preserving an isolationist vibe if the folks you're surrounded by are not quite your type, therefore cornering you into going through superficial motions simply to have so-called 'pals' to hang out with. More than a few passing moments of superficiality is akin to character death for a Scorpio, so you're not doing yourself any favors by 'playing nicely with the group' if you're in the wrong group. Likewise, if the people you genuinely adore—those who get where you're coming from, who revel in hearing the uncensored uncomfortable truth about what's up with you, and who want nothing from you other than your friendship—aren't presently in your immediate sphere of influence, you're due to take whatever measures are required to get more of them into your daily life. You and your tribe need each other. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Possible tensions could ignite on the job and/or with authority figures based upon how irritated you find yourself with inefficient methods, pointless chains-of-commands, and other bureaucratic bullshit. Though you may imagine you're maintaining an unflustered front, Sagittarius, you're probably leaking your rightful irritation into your surroundings, where its whiff might get detected by those who'd be implicated by your unspoken judgment. Reverberations from last week's horoscope should remind you that your best approach to addressing what displeases you in such settings would involve you happily volunteering to assume responsibility for it, rather than merely pointing to a problem without willingness to do anything about it. Of course, even that suggestion might grate on the type of supervisor or stakeholder who'd rather everything stay the same, with their word being the final one. If this is the direction you sense the dynamic is going, you might need to contend with the likelihood your presence in that situation has an unavoidable expiration date… if, that is, you don't want your ire to simmer indefinitely. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): This period in your history, Capricorn, is not the time for the short-sighted corrections, the band-aid solutions, or the pragmatically reasonable compromises. It's a more fundamental check-in on the bigger questions—on whether your overall track is carrying you toward the destination you'd consider the most meaningful—and demands of you an impeccability of evaluative ethics. You're reaching the end of a line, in terms of how certain tradeoffs are affecting the eventual path your cumulative decisions will have carved… and, as the sands of the big hourglass drop quickly through the hole by gravity's pull, what's at stake is nothing less dramatic than what you'll be able to look back and say, with all confidence, your life has stood for. Uttering sincere-sounding declarations of principle, by the way, doesn't mean you've actually lived according to them. If there are parts of your present existence that stand out as sore-thumbs you'd prefer to conveniently set aside when conducting this sort of analysis, those are obviously the problem-spots, aren't they? It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): As this week progresses, your mindset will be sliding from (1) a culminating retrospective of all the leftover bits of residual resentment, insight and ambition to (2) a crisp enthusiastic readiness to address the current circumstances with a newly rarin'-to-go creative edge. And how exciting for you, Aquarius, to leave this old way of thinking behind. However, to move forward with this fresh creativity will still require some degree of head-on confrontation with tangible elements of yesterday's manner-of-being. In other words, changing one's mindset isn't enough—after that comes the heavy lifting needed to actually remove the remaining structures, symbols and/or items which represent the old-guard. This isn't a task, thankfully, that must be completed overnight. (Good thing, too, since it's highly unlikely you'd be able to pull off such a purging that quickly.) In the short term, then, it's most important simply to commit to disentangling yourself, over the coming months, from the trappings of arrangements and agreements that no longer sense you… and perhaps prepare yourself to begin the sweaty part of the work within the following week or two. It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Which seemingly minor (but maybe not as 'minor' as you think) infractions of someone else's doing have you let slide for too long, Pisces? Which particular preferences have you not spoken up for, perhaps because you don't want to seem too picky or difficult? Who in your life has been doing a great job in supporting your authentic being… and may deserve some explicitly thankful recognition? And who, on the other hand, continues to serve as a perpetual thorn in your side… stirring more self-criticism and doubt in you than providing much comfort or care? These questions (and others of a similar interpersonal vein) are ripe for consideration over these next many weeks, now that Mars is retrograde in your relationship house and potentially instigating conflict over the so-called 'little shit' (which isn't actually so 'little'). There is no immediate action to take this week, other than orienting yourself to the awareness that you possess no good reason to 'grin and bear it', just because you may love someone and prefer to see the best in them. This phase just now beginning is an exceptional interval for fixing what isn't working in how you relate in your one-on-one partnerships. Remember, though: You can only 'fix' you.It's my birthday, so you should buy my book, ASTROBARRY'S 2012. Thanks, you're the best!