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Horoscopes | Week of April 1-7, 2013

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Though you're naturally carrying on with your continuing ascent like a well-focused machine of productively self-suiting purpose, your week ahead could probably benefit from consciously leaving room for the psychological adjustments required—both of you and of those who are still digesting their responses to your latest actions. While I'm most certainly not advising you to tone down the earnest force of your empowering intentions, Aries, you should simultaneously expect to contend with others' sense of personal threat. If you're on the rise, does that therefore mean they are falling? If you take on more, will that leave them less? The answers to such concerns on their end may not be clearly or immediately accessible, but it definitely behooves you to remain acutely aware that these types of questions linger in the air. Reserving some degree of sympathetic understanding for the discomfort your moves may be stirring would be a wise strategy (yes, even toward those undeserving asses who are finally being forced to eat crow). However, spare them the sickly-sweet 'everything will be okay' sentiments… and just hold the emotional space with silent dignity.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Beware of flare-ups from your inner know-it-all, Taurus. The temptation to preach at those who have apparently gone mad (and, good golly, there's no shortage of those folks flurrying around these days) is one you really ought to fight off… not because you're necessarily 'wrong' in your observations about their behavior (nor, for that matter, 'right'), but due to how the developments their mad actions are spawning still continue to unfold, revealing further glimpses into their motives that may better explain why this madness has arisen. Your commenting, with judgment, too early in this game might unfortunately slot you into the role of antagonist in their drama—and, as a result, prematurely reduce these developing complexities into blacks and whites, implicitly assigning you one of the binary categorizations. You remain in the more personally advantageous position by, for the current moment, watching and waiting. But at the same time, don't wholly dismiss whatever ethically-charged opinions are rising in you. Think more deeply about their ins and outs, and how you might stretch your mind beyond its usual conclusions to make room for a more diverse range of acceptable human behaviors (acceptable in other people, at least).

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Keep your perspective wide, community-oriented, and socially interactive, Gemini, as opposed to allowing that familiar claustrophobic sense of being 'trapped by circumstance' to reassert its domineering presence. That's not to deny, of course, the potential that you are still subject to certain hanging-over limitations which aren't going to magically disappear as soon as you 'look on the bright side'… and that you may be presently facing an unwelcome reminder of this fact. But a couple limitations do not equal a totally trapped existence. You will only unfortunately feed the trapped feeling as long as you let it overwhelm the other opportunities available to you through continued engagement with like-minded people who exist beyond the limiting-circumstance's confines—a camaraderie that promises you real deliverance from the claustrophobia, even as the challenging circumstantial reality also persists. Both these realities really can exist at once. Indeed, your consciously permitting them to simultaneously exist actually helps neutralize whatever excessive pessimism sits at the root of the 'trap'.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Divorced from the pressure to weigh your advancing efforts against the impact they'll have on certain other people's lives (whether self-imposed or patently pushed on you by them), the steps you'd need to take in order to create and/or further the desired change in your outer-world life are actually fairly straightforward. It's just those damned other people—whose well-being you, of course, care so greatly about that they also serve as a perfect excuse not to risk status-quos for dazzlingly self-enthusing excitement—who are making the whole thing so complicated and/or confusing. Right, Cancer? RIGHT?!? Well, on the one hand, yes, there is some truth to this assessment: Your moves will likely cause certain others to necessarily change their lives, too, where they perhaps otherwise wouldn't. But, on the other hand, is it your responsibility to uphold the reigning circumstances indefinitely (at considerable expense to your own enterprising energies), in a sacrificial show of consideration to someone else? And besides, who's to say you're actually doing anybody any favors by sparing them exposure to the winds of change? Everyone must evolve in their own due fashion. It's not your job to manage everyone's evolution, just your own.

LEO (July 23-August 22): The cropping-up of practical questions related to how the hell you're going to get from here to there may be currently casting a dark shadow over your zealous eagerness to get there already. I encourage you, Leo, to moderate any kneejerk resistance to confronting these questions. Rather than painting this situation with too broad strokes that hastily color any mitigating concerns as somehow 'spoiling everything', I'd instead remember that we always need to balance our purest enthusiasm with reality-check functionality. If you are going to buckle under the weight of managing the day-to-day logistics of expanding your lot in the world, then you probably need to work on strengthening your resolve a bit more. Your commitment to the direction you're going must be firm enough so that it won't waver just because one or another of the checkpoints along the way demands an uncomfortable change in behavioral habit. Thankfully, the astrology favors your ferocity of driving passion in this regard… enough, I hope, to overpower any resistance to doing whatever it takes to live by the passion, day in and day out. Each morning inaugurates another faceoff with the resistance, but I know you can hack it.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Any suddenly heightened drives to finally tell 'em what you really think, Virgo, ought to be nurtured and supported… freely allowed to rise, and to erupt from your often-too-well-controlled mouth, in a vibrant display of pride for certain qualities about yourself you refuse to tamp down into submission one minute longer. As uncomfortably surprising or surprisingly uncomfortable as it may be to witness such crude expressions of spirited vehemence ripping outward from your lips (and without carefully-reasoned-through attitudinal restraint, no less!), these sentiments obviously desperately need to come out. The more you put on the line now, the more deeply you'll be clearing out the psychological crevices… and of course the more unavoidably chaotic this interim moment is liable to be, though the less likely you'll have to revisit this acute level of purgation any time soon. If you're going to do something (such as, for instance, thoroughly scrubbing out the inner surfaces of Pandora's box), you might as well do it right by doing it all the way. If you aren't getting visibly hot under the collar, you're not delving far enough in.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Despite the obvious and seemingly unavoidable interactivity absorbing your time these days, I suggest finding a way to carve out some beneficial chunk of soothing solitude… even if, for a few passing moments, it causes that certain someone to maneuver for even more attention. An alternate read: Or perhaps it's you who insists on persisting with the constant back-and-forth, what-do-you-want, what-do-I-want, in-each-other's business-24-hours-a-day vibe (whether actually in the other person's company or merely playing out hypothetical dialogues in your heads)… though, even in that case, the prescription remains the same. Right now, your attaining greater emotional clarity does depend upon stealing yourself intervals of personal separation from the immediacy of everything going on relationally, allowing your unspoken intuition its fair independence from constant interactions with others' feelings, actions and motivations. I understand, however, this self-care responsibility may conflict with potentially strong urges in you to 'stay in the thick of it'. What can I tell you? 'Staying in it' isn't exactly a poor choice—it just makes it a lot harder to listen to your own most genuine truth on this matter.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): While we appreciate you're buoyantly surfing a wave of independence, Scorpio, we'd respectfully request that you keep us in the loop with regards to your goings-on. Your renegade actions might otherwise confuse or worry us, leaving us to wonder if you're all right, if you don't take the time to let us in on your thinking. Those of us who must work or live with you, for example, would probably want to know if you've made changes in your routine that will affect us. This is not the same thing as expecting you to ask our permission. We accept that it's 'none of our business' insofar as you are free to do whatever you want, of course… though it is 'our business' in the context of us caring about you, as friend or admirer or fellow human sharing the same niche. Maybe we are just curious to know more, not in an intrusive or prying spirit, merely innocently interested in an informational update. Be in touch with us, your touchstones in this otherwise isolating journey through time and space. Grant us the gift of your communications… and please do so without indulging that put-out feeling, fueled by needless suspicion about why it's so important to us. Isn't our cherishing your acquaintance a self-evident enough reason?

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Slow down the festivities just enough to check the inside of your wallet, Sagittarius, giving it a good once-over to confirm everything is where you expect it to be. Such check-ins ought to become an integrated element within whatever fun-time pursuits you participate in… to counteract any tendencies you might harbor toward willfully not considering the economic consequences of your actions, waiting until the bills suddenly arrive with much discouraging fanfare and it's too late to make any helpful course-corrections, leaving you to continue shamefully pitting your own welfare against your ability to enjoy life. You don't have to fuel this ongoing conflict. There's no reason you must perceive these two important life-priorities as incompatible with one another. Invite your inner penny-pincher to the party, rather than locking him out in the cold until he becomes so angry that he calls the cops and shuts the whole damn thing down. If you do him the honor and spend a few sincere minutes listening to his concerns and answering his reasonable inquiries, his anxieties will subside… and he just might happily stick around to accept your offer of a congenial cocktail or two, provided you haven't foolishly volunteered to buy another round for everyone within 50 feet.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Should you find yourself in the not-entirely-unlikely position of having to reassert a personal boundary, please do so with a firm but exceedingly conscientious touch, Capricorn. If you don't stick closely to the most precise statements of desired direction, you'll actually fall short of attaining your stated boundary-affirming goal… and instead embroil yourself in just the sort of psychologically-taxing exchange you were hoping to excuse yourself from. To avoid this result, you really do need to be clean with your intention. No muddying your grabs for emotional space with a haughty tone that essentially invites further emotional engagement. No trying to slip in a snottily sarcastic dig (as if your well-practiced dryness is enough to disguise the fact that you're being snide) and then feigning innocence. If you are grappling with feelings of frustration, it's far better for you to take some private time to let them calm down a bit or burn away altogether. If, later, you find the urge to engage with another party about how their behavior has disappointed or angered you, you'll be in a better astrological spot to have the conversation—without the added tinge of overkill that this present moment necessarily possess. (Unless, that is, you really want to hit 'em with 'the big guns'… in which case, shoot?!?)

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Be on the cautious lookout for another one of those periodic outbreaks of rather baseless paranoia, Aquarius… which hinges mainly on a rigidly limiting absence of faith that your current lack of a knowing game-plan might actually work to your ultimate advantage. There's just no getting around the dual fact that (1) you presently must 'make it up as you go along' and (2) you'll best do so through continuing open-dialogue with central and peripheral characters, opinion-offerers of different persuasions, and whoever else wanders into the scene by chance or divine inspiration. This does not mean you have somehow fallen short of some self-assigned duty to wisely anticipate and evaluate all possible paths forward. (Frankly, you really shouldn't indulge such self-indicting interpretations.) You have merely hit a point where your visionary brilliance just isn't enough to stave off the necessity of surrendering to the unwieldy crudeness of ad-libbed inventiveness... and that includes taking in suggestions and advice from others, without seeing it as a personal failing (and thus an excuse for indulging a cascade of bleak what-ifs and oh-fucks). If you can release yourself from this jail of unreasonable expectation, you may in fact improvise your way to a much-improved standing.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Please no apologies, Pisces, for blatantly catering to your own interests. Though last week we discussed this issue in terms of your present need to concentrate your attention on what supports your personal bottom-line, I do want to acknowledge the potential that this will be difficult to pull off, thanks to the intrusive emotional demands of others who'd perhaps prefer you to remain focused on how you can support them (and/or the 'good of the group'). Even if nobody's coming right out and saying they take umbrage with you diverting your energy away from their endeavors, we both know you can still sense the undercurrent—and naturally it pulls on your psychically sympathetic strings. For you to succeed at what you're trying to do for yourself, you'll have to consciously untangle any such snags caused by others' (possibly unconscious) manipulative motives… and to work toward a deeper understanding of camaraderie and collaboration, which honors the fact that each member of the team (yes, that means you too!) must be encouraged to meet their own individual needs in order for the whole team to function successfully, without hidden (or not-so-hidden) resentments and/or undue sacrifice from any single party.