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Horoscopes | Week of December 3-9, 2012

ARIES (March 21-April 19): When two people or entities are tied together, the movement of one's arm or leg necessarily causes some related motion in the other. This may prove a benefit of the union, if both parties are essentially headed in a similar direction. Each movement of one supports the continued momentum of the other… though, obviously, at certain points of simultaneous enthusiasm or vigor, their contrasting styles may end up disrupting each other's rhythms. C'est la vie, such is the mixed-bag of unions! However, if the two are harboring oppositional agendas, these ties quite dramatically inhibit both parties in their ability to move anywhere really—except, of course, into continuing standoffs with each other. (And there's very little utility in that.) You, Aries, are presently faced with accepting you are now (1) more tightly tied together with another person or entity than you were before, (2) cut free from such a tie, and/or (3) in the midst of adjusting the relative tautness or slack of such ties. This may not be the critical week in this development, but it is one in which you're actively trying out how to make moves with either more or less interdependence.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Take a moment or two to settle into this newly-elevated degree of unembellished forthrightness, Taurus. Whether or not sharpening the full-brunt honesty between you and a certain someone was a goal you set out to achieve (and even if you were sort of pushed there against your initial best-judgment), this development will ultimately bring a deep sigh of relief along with it… though you might not have attained this quite yet. You're still processing through a lot of naiveté-shattering information about this other person, their perception of you, and/or the underlying dynamics your relationship plays out—and it may take a bit more time to fully integrate this knowledge (which never can be un-known henceforth) into the life-rhythms you're already well-accustomed to. Each time you look at this person from behind these now-suddenly-much-clearer eyes, you'll see a slightly different image come into view. Even if it's hard to keep looking at their oddly-unfamiliar visage, please remember, for better or for worse, you're seeing them more and more for who they really are.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): (1) I believe you know exactly what you need to do on the practical level, Gemini, to move your situation forward, inch by precious inch. (2) I also believe you have a trickster's mind, one that too conveniently adopts a different focus right at the very moment you really can't afford to wiggle away, which you presently must restrain in order to do what you know you need to do. (3) Therefore, before you can legitimately hope to do what you need to do, you must first engage with this mind-corralling exercise so that, once you roll up your sleeves and really dive into this work (which I see occurring in the next 2-3 weeks), you won't interrupt yourself with red-herring concerns that aren't as critical as your trickster's-mind might have you believe. (4) Go ahead, then: Indulge the wild carousel of distractions for one more week. Each time your clear beacon of purpose gets sidetracked by another 'what about this?' curiosity, calmly restore your concentration with soft reinforcements of what your main practical priority must remain, no matter what else.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Naughty and nice are not mutually exclusive attitudes after all… are they, Cancer? You can be the sweetest and most empathic caretaker and pleasurably participate in some pretty deliciously dirty deeds all the while—with absolutely no conflict in personality caused by this apparent contrast. You might be an artist moved to paint in shadowy tones, to address controversial themes or depict graphic sex or violence, and still be involved in lovingly 'prettifying' the world. You may be a highly morally sensitive individual who also enjoys the occasional raunchy one-night-stand (and who's to say that such an encounter is not meaningful?). You could identify as a competent and dedicated parent, but sometimes deeply demand an evening or weekend away from the kids, during which you release all the pent-up resentment and irritation over bloody marys with your happily childless friends. Play, in one of its many forms, even occasionally involves destroying things with an exuberantly reckless abandon (though, hopefully, nobody actually gets hurt). These are just a few items to consider under this continuing astrological invitation to explore your 'less polite' side.

LEO (July 23-August 22): Whatever's recently emerged regarding your family (and how you've internalized, replicated and/or rebelled against their patterns), Leo, is ready to wrapped up in a neat package, at least for the time being. This voyage of self-discovery is far from over, as you probably surmise, but you've now taken a big enough bite of the psychological meat-and-taters to fill you up for the next several laps… and it's, therefore, a good week to encapsulate those stirred feelings and prepare to take a momentary breather. Due to the magnitude of personal work you're continually confronting these days, you need to take it piece by piece, so you don't become inundated by this voluminous unsticking. Spend this week pulling yourself together, prepping for a hard-earned blow-off period… one in which you may be happily surprised by how much more thoroughly you can enjoy your own good-time attitude precisely because of what you've been going through. The 'deepening' that's now underway in your personality may superficially seem like it's all about encounters with the shadow and other such dark matters. In fact, it'll also help you more deeply appreciate life's lighter fun parts.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): During the week ahead, Virgo, it's more important you simply continue engaging in the conversation, rather than worrying about reaching any particular outcome or accord. Coming up, you're going to have plenty of time to quietly chew on everything that's come out of these talks, to pinpoint which details are making you nervous or excited, and/or to reach a firmer conclusion on what you'd like to happen next. For now, it's smart to just keep on gathering information, trying different perspectival angles on for size, asking probing questions and allowing others to spill their guts accordingly. And by the way, you don't have to feel like you're committing to anything, should you opt to openly share one emotionally-charged current or another that's running through your thinking. Emotion, by its very nature, is not expected to remain consistent. Bothering to bring it up at all may actually shift it markedly… though you'd never know it as long as you stay mum and refuse to really participate while you're 'participating'. You can move into quietly analyzing and strategizing starting next week.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Once again, Libra, fortify your self-knowledge… in advance of that approaching moment when you'll need to be more actively involved in social exchanges which could jeopardize the relatively clear understanding you currently possess. Soon enough, you'll be directly exposed to loose-lipped opinions flying through the air this way and that, and you therefore need to foster the self-determination not to let them attach too invasively to your perceptive mind. These stray voices (which may or may not belong to anyone actually playing a principal role in your life) can too sympathetically resemble the ones in your head representing real or imagined people you might displease by holding tight to your truth… and the last thing you need to do, at this time, is bend and swerve on fairly unambiguous self-management matters in order to please somebody else. It's not likely (though, of course, still possible) you'll have to handle these actual exchanges this week, as much as during the weeks to follow. Yet, knowing about this threat a bit in advance will hopefully provide you ample opportunities to prepare for firmly holding your own.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): It may be enough, Scorpio, to basically spend your week repeating that most-striking recent realization or revelation to yourself… if only to get into the habit of believing it more often than not. This expanded understanding of yours is something of a game-changer, but only if you incorporate its ripples of interlocking relevance into all the 'games' you're actively involved in playing. Without enough self-reflective strengthening of your resolve to at last see things this way, you're liable to get a bit sloppy with the day-to-day interpretive work, falling back on stories you've told yourself for a long time now but which, if you think more thoroughly about it, aren't really true anymore. It's kind of like forgetting your pet has died and continuing to holler his name across the empty house, or ignoring how financially secure you've become and still acting like a poor kid: You know a big piece of life has irreversibly transformed, but your ingrained behaviors haven't quite caught up. Use this week, therefore, to help catch yourself up. Regular reminders about what you're now more acutely aware of should pepper your consciousness throughout the day.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Next week is a turning-point in your capacity to step into more direct action. This week, by contrast, is one for quietly consolidating the events of the past few weeks (and the bizarrely all-over-the-map responses you've witnessed in yourself), so you don't make a false start grounded on a shaky foundation. It's not like you to be so emotionally conflicted by what might ordinarily be a simple matter, Sagittarius… but so be these watery moments (Saturn, solar eclipse, and Mercury retrograde in Scorpio; Neptune in Pisces), working a number on your usual cut-and-dry attitude. Though the overall astro-outlook in the months ahead continues to present a fairly watery environment, you do have a temporary window of relative self-supporting clarity that opens up starting next week and extends into the following few. (This includes a sign-visit from Venus, which is almost always experienced as a good thing.) For the last pre-turning-point week, then, keep a low profile and as much pressure off yourself as possible. Steady yourself for re-entry into conspicuous presence. Privately cry a few closing tears or scream out those last remnants of residual anger. Next week initiates something else.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Let any illusions about both the upsides and downsides of being a social creature please fall away. You might as well swallow this full—and conflicted—truth about the politics of friend-groups or other such clubs, Capricorn, since you have pretty much no say in their obvious present relevance to your life. I suppose you could indulge the worst of Capricornian defense-mechanisms, which involves playing the role of the lonely hermit who'd rather keep to him/herself than contend with the bumps and jolts of others' unholy personality kinks. Yet, though there might be legitimately productive moments for such an indulgence, this is not one of 'em. You must own the profound benefits you derive from actively feeding your connections with those who see the world through similarly-tinted goggles… and quit falsely telling yourself, once you're alone again, that you'd prefer not to bother. (There are needless negative consequences for telling these falsehoods.) Likewise, you also must deal with how frigging uncomfortable the social scene gets during those unavoidable close-up encounters with someone else's 'ugly' side (i.e., one that you don't like, though it might not be objectively 'ugly'). Figuring out to hold your own in that discomfort is work that's essential to your growth… mainly because you can't opt in for the 'profound benefits' part without risking this other exposure.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Reality-checks, such as the one you're presently encountering, aren't always easy on the system. Sometimes, Aquarius, they can even trigger a veritable identity crisis. If we haven't hit the status we expected to earn, we wonder who else we'd possibly become if cornered into giving up this chase. If we have hit it, we wonder if perhaps it's taken over too much of our being and we'd be nothing without it. Yet, whatever variation on either of those themes comprises your current reality-check situation, you must strive to look beyond its seemingly all-encompassing everythingness… and realize that your outward achievements (or lack thereof) do not even come close to telling your whole story. That's not to say this isn't a significant juncture in an important sector of your life, warranting serious consideration and, potentially, a critical path-change—only, you have other less knotty components of grounding continuity (whether family, friends, home life, spiritual or creative practice, etc.) to rest on and draw inspiration from. Maybe you'll even do better in confronting one reality, overwhelming or difficult as it may be, by anchoring yourself in the relative solidity of another.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): This process of refinement in your big-picture thinking, Pisces, marks a certain 'goodbye' and/or just as certain a 'hello'. There really is a finality involved: Even though logistical loose-threads continue to flap in the wind, the main decision-making behind their upcoming wrap-up feels pretty darn complete. Wouldn't you agree? In case my question just stirred your internally nervous or doubtful self-questioning, let's please recognize that as more an emotional sub-reaction than any reliable indicator of actual uncertainty. You are clearly decided; you're just going through the natural freak-out that often accompanies such decisive clear-mindedness. As your astrological guide, I'd be falling short in my duties to you if I were to support, even slightly, a fear-driven backslide into delusional claims of needing to rethink things. That's not to underplay any disconcerting feelings, only to explain them as natural and par-for-the-course… and to demystify their phantom appearance as a clue not to go through with the 'goodbye' and/or the 'hello'. Take a week to identify these feelings as what they are, and to contain them within their appropriate role.