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Horoscopes | Week of November 19-25, 2012

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Fateful turns-of-events continue to impact your career zone (and/or other public-life participations), Aries, lifting you to ever-higher heights… whether or not your present situation is able to contain your heightening potentiality. Alliances more powerfully solidify, or threaten to reach the end of their rope. Structures of authority (and the authority-figures who manage them) welcome you more deeply into their fold, or, sensing your ascendency as a growing risk to their throne, begin trying to spit you out more determinedly. As I said last week, there's no purpose in trying to back away from this intensification—it's happening regardless of if you think you're ready, and feigning ambivalence or polite diplomacy will only smack of faltering confidence. Welcome these developments like a champ. This is a necessary step in your continuing not to squelch your intrinsic go-getter-ness, no matter what outer-world identifications must change in order for you to go get more. That is not to say, even if such changes are pretty damn excellent, there won't be a few big gulps of psychological distress to swallow. But isn't that how evolution works?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your most gracious path ahead, Taurus, involves mincing no words about exactly where you intend not to budge… then allowing the other affected party to choose to accept this stance or not, and to remain a willing participant in the relationship or not. (See also: last week's scoop.) That hard-line approach might not seem so gracious, and yet it is if you don't in fact intend to yield any further on this make-it-or-break-it issue. Merely 'going through the motions' of continued negotiation is not worthwhile. Confronting the reality of unbridgeable differences, however, is. Of course, it's also wholly possible this astrology is playing out for you as a profound reaffirmation of your interpersonal commitment rather than as a stalemate, due in large part to a shared passion for a particular ethic or belief-system that unites you and this other party. If that's the case, this is no accident: It's the direct result of a past act of courageously saying no to something out of sync with your integrity, in order to attract this present situation so powerfully aligned with it. Be sure to give yourself the proper credit for it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The worst thing to do, even with the most caring intentions, would be attempting to spare a crucially relevant party—or yourself—a full unvarnished account of this serious situation. This is no time to 'spin' the story, Gemini, so it's less difficult to hear and digest. Deliver the news straight, without attempting to moderate it beneath an upbeat rallying-cry about what to do next… particularly if the reality is that you actually aren't quite sure how to respond. It's the collaborative process of designing a proper response together that'll provide everybody a bit of solace, an intimacy-building exercise which perhaps could offer a brightening tone to an otherwise scary situation. That's the point: You aren't alone in this. And any moves to put on a happy face or insincerely lessen the impact only separates you from those who could help, through the act of sharing. Plus, playing a shell-game with your emotions siphons energy away from the actual down-and-dirty work required to handle this all with aplomb.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Do you derive personal bliss from your current relationship situation? It's a simple enough question, Cancer… though I understand, of course, not so simple to actually answer. I've purposely used the word 'bliss' instead of, say, 'contentment' to emphatically sharpen the focus of this inquiry toward a more utterly ecstatic happiness. Word choice is important here because you could probably claim 'contentment' more easily, as I believe that term connotes the likelihood of settling for something that's okay, out of predictability or comfort or other 'why bother rocking the boat?' sentiments—not a problem, per se, though not especially deeply rewarding. Yet, here come the planets, poking at any such middling relational contentments, checking to see if you might actually want something more bliss-inducing… whether that means getting off your duff and back out into the dating world or finally addressing the pink elephant in your existing partnership. What's the activating development? Whatever less-than-blissful element you've settled for is likely becoming increasingly less blissful, and, oddly, quickly so.

LEO (July 23-August 22): That ol' physical body of yours isn't made of steel, you know… a (self-evident?) truth I share with you now, Leo, not because I foresee bodily catastrophe but to warn you against the potential of your overenthusiastic ambitions convincing you to attempt all the work and all the play. Strangely enough, however, it might in fact be your emotional body who'd secretly prefer not to stretch itself so thinly—and, if the rest of you refuses to abide by its murkily non-rational requirements, could manifest a reason to keep you quietly at home more than you'd intended. On the other hand, if you adjust yourself to a more modest scheduling game-plan, what you accomplish during your work hours promises to be quite extraordinary. In other words, if you aren't emotionally exhausted, you'll have the probing power to thoroughly complete a previously vexing item that's hung over you for a while. Mete out your physical efforts respectfully, therefore, with endurance in mind. And maybe, just maybe, you'll have to adjust your mind's ideas about how much after-hours fun you can legitimately make room for… unless, of course, you're a sucker for testing the extremes.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Speak up for personal desire, without feeling as if you have to justify it. Wanting what you want is enough of a reason to want it, Virgo… and the sooner you can get on board with that, the more quickly you can reassign that mental muscle you've been using to outline bullet-point justifications toward more fruitful purposes. I'm not sure, though, if it's more difficult for you (1) to accept your desire on its own terms, and just dispense with the hyper-self-analytical nitpicking, or (2) to tell others what you desire, and not be able to fully explain it in a way that they'll get assuredly on board with. Perhaps the latter is more of a challenge because it seems to jeopardize your reputation as the level-headed one? I don't believe such reputational jeopardy is much of a problem, incidentally, since you are a human (not, as you might falsely believe, a data-crunching machine). But to prove your humanity, you might have to participate in uncomfortable conversations where you rely more heavily on gut-notions—such as desire—and leave them (and maybe you) to just wonder about the thinking behind it.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Stare your economic balance-sheet dead in the face, Libra… and make at least one major decision based upon what's actually there rather than on whatever vague impressions you've been entertaining. This advice holds true not only if there's less in the bank than you might wish; it's just as valid for those who aren't properly valuing what you do have, and have let irrational fears preventing you from making the most of your life. In any event, this essential exercise could likely be accompanied by a feeling of deeply disappointing expectations—though how legitimately yours these expectations indeed are is a question up for psychological excavation. To do what's right for supporting your own self-worth, you might need to launch some sort of jarring breakaway from persistent familial pressures that impinge on your ability to make rational decisions in line with your life-choices, not theirs. If actual conversations with family-members are required, do your best… but don't necessarily expect them to understand where your head's at.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): I'm charging you with a responsibility, and I deeply hope you're willing to claim it, Scorpio. Please help the folks around you cope with their uneasiness, in the refusing-to-sugarcoat-it manner unique to your kind. They're losing their shit left and right… and though you obviously have your own problems and/or panics to contend with, you're still better equipped to deal with this extreme vibe than most anyone. Plus, beginning this week, you've got Venus on your side, helping you look and act your proverbial best (even with the construction-zone filth still dripping off you). You can put gorgeously painfully true words to this situation, gifting others with a perspective-granting container they can use to hold their grief, anxiety and/or confusion within. You understand. And it is this understanding, put into service on behalf of all those who struggle to gaze directly into the eyes of the Devil (who is, in fact, nothing but God from a different angle), that fills you when you're behaving at your highest: You Scorpios are the most powerful healers. Please put this power to good use this week.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Though I generally advocate optimism, I'm moved to caution you against blindly and happily assuming, as long as you're zooming ever onward, things will 'just work themselves out'. It's not that this assumption is flat-out wrong, Sagittarius… only that, refusing to presently practice a bit of restraint may end up causing it to take even longer, and to ultimately require more effort on your part, until those 'things' finally do 'work themselves out'. Even though I endorsed spontaneously following your instincts just two short weeks ago, please recall that I mentioned this as a 'passing capacity'—and seeing as much has developed since then, that endorsement has now passed. It's not, by the way, as if your instincts aren't still sharp; this is merely a question of speed and timing. The best metaphor I can conjure: You might know what destination calls you, but you detract from your pleasure in arriving there if you don't make doubly sure to pack everything you'll need, and to confirm that whatever you've left behind has been adequately covered and/or accounted for.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): A show of unshakable strength is becoming increasingly imperative, Capricorn… a topic we already began to cover last week. Simply put, if you do not actively choose to assert how you'll be defined within the group of your peers or the community at large, those who are threatened by and/or in competition with you will do it on your behalf—and not in a complimentary manner. You have to get out ahead of the narrative now being written, in order to cast yourself as hero rather than villain, since the evidence itself could support any number of tales depending on who's the most engaging storyteller. I suppose we could moon over our idealistic yearnings for a world in which there weren't rivals waiting in the wings, folks who misread our motives due to projections of their own moral failings, and troublemakers more interested in destroying what they don't like instead of creating appealing alternatives… but there is no time for that. Those who will thrive (and I'd like to include you within this category) must face the uglier elements head-on and unapologetically refuse to bow to their cynical influence.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Beware, Aquarius: The darker parts of your imagination may be running away with the whole show, casting visions of suspicion or bleakness that aren't exactly accurate, but which you might help to manifest if you proceed as if they are. Put another way, should you fixate on the pessimistic read of your given situation—at the total expense of all the amazingly positive angles from which you might view your life, even knowing that certain elements (career or public-calling, perhaps?) remain a stiff challenge—you'll end up creating a fairly unpleasant time for yourself. Dare I lapse into touchy-feely territory, let me suggest this is one of those moments tailor-made for offering daily gratitudes, if only to remind yourself how fortunate you are in so many ways. (That you even have access to these online horoscopes, for instance, is a marvel of your being born in this sensational era.) Darkness is around you, that is true. And so is light. They always co-exist, for that is the manner of Divine Nature. Just because one chunk of your present circumstance may be scaring the living shit out of you, that needn't block out the luminous beauty beaming through so much of the rest.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): When I urge you to stand your ground on any moral issues which have presented themselves, this should immediately remind you of last week's horoscope, Pisces… and hopefully emboldens you to do exactly that, even if it means kissing a certain identifying relationship or affiliation goodbye once and for all. You may not know exactly where you'll be heading, in light of such judgment calls, but you will confidently know what you won't tolerate in your life any longer—and that's a good enough compass for now. Trust me, any short-term turbulence you invite in on the practical level due to the fallout (a result which isn't altogether unlikely) is nothing you can't handle… and is far more palatable than making the sort of ideological tradeoffs that'll gnaw away at your stomach over long periods of times. Jobs, relationships, living situations, cash-dollars, all these things come and go throughout our lives. Character, however, is one pillar-of-being that ought to stay solidly with you, no matter the rest.