Horoscopes | Week of May 6-12, 2013

ARIES (March 21-April 19): No two ways about it, Aries: You've got to get real about money. Over the years, you've established a particular method for managing your material means which, simply put, may no longer support your present life-goals. The metaphor that comes to mind is a small-but-stable business suddenly experiencing a major growth spurt, a radical change in the marketplace, and/or a need to transform its productive capabilities… while its leadership is so accustomed to a consistent grind, they're stuck in old habits and need to get unstuck in order to respond to these dynamic circumstances. You may be good (or at least perfectly adequate) at making sure the essential bills are paid from a survival-instinct mindset, but perhaps haven't yet made the required leap to create space for increasing affluence. Or perhaps you still budget your expenditures based on a certain financial stability, yet are actively taking transformative risks with your professional life that demand you build in a responsive cushion to counterbalance an increasingly erratic landscape. In short, what worked for you in the past (just barely?) will need to be refined and revised in the months to come, so that you can continue moving forward rather than staying where you are (or, worse, starting to sink). Begin investing your resources differently now, and you'll have something to show for it within about six months. It's not that you have thus far fallen short or failed… merely that you're laying groundwork for even greater success.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Thursday's south-node-conjoined super-Taurean solar eclipse is an outstanding occasion for you to bid a firm farewell to self-identifications that just don't serve you. As you well know, Taurus, the mirror-reflection of your sign's steadfast reliability is a fierce resistance to too-much-too-soon change: Why make a move until you're damned sure it's the right one? Yet, after too long, the motivational self-talk about how you want to change your life (but only once this, that, or the other has been completely taken care of or solved) coagulate into hollow words you subconsciously start to doubt, much as a disappointed friend might learn to ignore that one more promise made to them when it's uttered atop a field of broken ones. When I say there is no time like the present to actually make the change, I am not speaking idiomatically: This is literally the most excellent time to force those rooted feet out of the indentations they've eroded into their cushy resting-places, and onto unfamiliar terrain. Ritualize this moment with at least one risky step… an initiatory adoption of some behavior which, though it may go against the constantly-rerunning stories you tell yourself about who you are and what you do, is absolutely essential for enacting the change(s) you already know you want to make. To help this along, I strongly suggest physically removing some material item from your life that symbolizes who you aren't anymore.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Being 'the ideas person' doesn't excuse you from getting sweaty, Gemini… and in case you think I say that in a punishing way, let me be clear it's only you who ends up cheated when you bow out of the hard labor. Ideas are as fleeting as feathery seeds scattered on the wind—look at that! how gorgeous! there it goes!—unless and until they are planted in the ground and regularly tended to with the necessary nurturing elements. Think of it as the 'magic of life', not merely a Promethean burden assigned to the sorry gardeners of the world. As you consider how to get from the reality of your present existence into the manifested splendor of your next great idea, you'll have to rid yourself of any dread related to how hard you'll have to toil to make it real… when it's the very toil itself which transmits this splendiferousness through every drop of perspiration you drip, exerting the capacities of this masterful bodily machine you've been blessed to create with, of your own doing. Right now, in the midst of a kinda-sorta lost feeling finally giving way to a distinct readiness to find yourself again, you have a great chance to demystify any overly dreamy notions of how this 'magic of life' really functions. Wishing on a star, then getting struck by another lightning-bolt of brilliance, only gets you part of the way… just like the union of a sperm and an egg isn't enough in itself to yield a fully-formed baby. As responsible guardian and carrier of your 'baby', you have daily steps to follow to ensure a healthy delivery.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Make new friends and keep the old, Cancer, but only if they are legitimately silver or gold in the here-and-now, not in some quaint past or hypothetical future. Your principal social allegiances (whether personal, professional and/or community-related) are at a key point of reaffirmation and/or breakdown… which is why this is not a good time for just 'continuing along as it's been' with anybody, out of habit or blind (and falsely nostalgic?) loyalty. This week's solar eclipse in your 11th is asking you to get up-to-date on how you're able to lean on others, or not: Is their consistency a quality you've come to count on for grounding relief, or is it a repetitive trap you increasingly feel smothered by? Can you rely on them to see you as you really are, with a spark of recognition that you are genuinely kindred spirits? Or are they only seeing what they want to see, imposing a predictability upon you that stifles the relationship? You're rapidly approaching a soon-to-dawn high point, with copious personal opportunities to expand in new directions—and your people will either support you atop the solid foundation of their love or stubbornly stand in your way. (Don't, in other words, expect much neutrality.) In readying yourself, you may need to divest your energies from certain social attachments (even if with a longstanding 'ally') that simply won't be able to grow with you.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Who you now are (and/or are becoming) as a professional—that is, the knowledgeable and experienced expert the public accepts you as—has changed somewhat dramatically, Leo, as a direct result of all the intensely personal trials you've recently navigated. This is not an objectively good or bad development in terms of straight-line career advancement (though, if you're growing more comfortable with a part of yourself that had previously been squelched, I'd say that qualifies as 'good'), just a natural part of your maturation process. But you may still need to make the necessary mindset adjustments in terms of external identity, to ensure your perceived self-image is matching up with what the world sees. Perhaps you no longer hold a certain responsibility you are accustomed to holding, and therefore need to detach from an outdated role that is no longer legitimately yours. Perhaps you continue behaving like the assistant, when in fact you're now in charge. Maybe you're just learning to speak with the confident authority you've gradually earned, like a baby animal still taking early steps on its not-fully-strengthened legs. This last possibility is an especially likely scenario if you took an explicit directional turn away from an established path… and towards something more potentially satisfying, yet still fairly unclear as of now. Get current with your professional self. Identify where you actually are, and root into it. Progress begin from here, slow and steady to regain habituated familiarity.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Your eclipse-inspired thoughts for the week center around the advantages of entertaining multiple truths simultaneously… which is a fairly radical departure from the typical Virgoan belief in there being a right and a wrong answer. Yes, the reappearance of the word 'answer' after last week's edition again emphasizes the value of honoring ideological diversity, though that doesn't mean you're supposed to accept some promiscuous notion that 'everything's relative'. That you feel passionately about certain guiding principles (and perhaps one that's especially relevant at the moment?) demonstrates strength of character, even as we are left to wonder where such passionate feelings in you have derived from. Could the knowledge you've reaped from firsthand observations in this experiential laboratory of life be predicated on confirmation bias (i.e., finding what you expected to find)… with the primordial expectations having been implanted, once upon a time, by someone telling you what is or isn't right, just as you might now wish to tell someone else the same thing? Looking at a situation without expectation of discerning right from wrong, meanwhile, might reveal new evidence that doesn't neatly support your hypothesis. Check yourself whenever you too quickly wish to believe or disbelieve one account or another, lest you corrupt the immediate findings—and cheat yourself out of a future discovery of note.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): At the other end of the spectrum from where you've been lately hanging, Libra, resides simplicity. It's a lovely destination to remind yourself exists, as a goal to perhaps aim towards over the months to come… though now would be an excellent time for distinctly recognizing the potential benefits simplicity carries, while you're still frolicking in and/or trudging through circumstances which are decidedly not simple. Your current dynamic has been largely determined by how willingly (passively? non-confrontationally? with an accommodating attitude?) you've entered into joint responsibility for the manner in which time, money, and/or psychic energy is being spent. And naturally, when more than one party has a say in the proceedings, there are differing attitudes and aptitudes that must be factored in, negotiated, integrated and/or surrendered: thus, the complexities of human inter-involvement. What may only now be coming to mind, alas, is a sharper awareness of where you've possibly hampered your own moment-to-moment free will—though, to be clear, because you handed over its reins—in order to 'get more into it' with something or someone else. This chosen intensification is not, in itself, a problem. However, I suspect that, at certain critical crossroads points, you probably could've spoken up or said no or asserted a contrary preference… causing a temporary snag, sure, but ultimately preserving a simplifying self-sufficiency you would've been glad to have. File this awareness away for the next time you hit such a spot, committing now to getting increasingly better at this, year after year.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): This is a lot of energy to be expending on angling for position in relation to that certain someone else. Not that this an unfamiliar role to once again find yourself in, is it, Scorpio? It's almost like you're built for constant preoccupation with the ever-changing psychological state of whoever's co-starring with you in the latest epic… and for constantly bouncing your own varying efforts-of-engagement at them, from one dramatic angle and then another, to determine what might stick the best landing. Interpersonal engagement, of course, is one of the greatest blessings of being alive. The insights into the human condition which you possess, likewise, provide you a shrewd ability to feel into the specific zones where you're likeliest to strike the most charged connection with your target-of-interest. But does that shrewd insightfulness sometimes work against you in relationship? After all, too acute an awareness of what makes another person tick, tingle, or turn on can actually cause you to play to their reactions—as opposed to, say, just doing what you would do regardless of what they're up to. In other words, you could get so caught up in successfully generating desired responses in others, you overlook what you as an individual most desire. Remember your approach to relationships is now actively evolving. To help it along, consider energy conservation as a goal.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Were I to ask you, 'Why did you work so hard?,' I definitely wouldn't want you to respond with too rational a reply. Superficially, you might explain this is merely what your job demanded of you… this arduous chore just had to get done… or maybe even your backbreaking schedule doesn't afford you the luxury of contemplating 'why's. But you and I are deep enough thinkers to see right through all that, aren't we, Sagittarius? We both know you could have easily not attended to these tasks or fulfilled your duties. You could've, for example, just flipped your slave-driving boss the bird and unceremoniously quit. (I'm sure you've done this sort of thing before. Hell, maybe you even did it this time, though I'm sincerely hoping not.) My take on your situation is that you chose to put yourself through this hard labor for more elusive, transcendental reasons… as part of a larger reorientation, to better align to that subtle psychic sense of our each having a special role to play in the universe's divine drama so we may evolve our individual self in union with the collective evolution, which required you to invest tremendous effort over these recent weeks, on behalf of a greater spiritual benefit, of confidence, of faith, of willing to serve. Feel free to rephrase these way-out-there sentiments however best appeals to your style, but make no mistake: Work takes on a light, beautiful quality (and loses some of that old yucky charge you've long attached to it) when you look at it from this metaphysical perspective.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Have you fallen into a leisure-time rut, Capricorn? Do you entertain yourself with those same diversions and distractions that theoretically 'make you happy' as you have for years now? And how happy do they make you? Your past couple weeks of horoscopes [here and here] have been needling you to do whatever will bring immediate happiness… and perhaps, in the act of heeding this advice, you have noticed an automatic response kicking in, spurring you to reach for familiar comforts that merely provide a complacent contentment rather than being what you really want. After all, there's a lot of cool stuff out there to fill your spare time with. Not that I want to lay any added pressure on you, but, gosh, I want you to invest as much diligent consideration into experiencing excellent life-pleasures as you do with all your other responsibilities. Routine may indeed provide its own reassuring solace, but it's not likely to inspire a childlike gasp of wonder. And how to get outside of the progressively dulling familiarity? Let's turn your recent horoscopic advice on its ear: I'm curious what would happen if you followed along with one (or more) of your favorite people to participate in whatever makes them super-happy. This is not capitulation to others' desires, but an experiment in exploring your own.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): 'Goodbye, internalized parent-figures who claim to want "what's best for me" but really just want me to do the thing that'll assuage their own anxieties,' remarks the Aquarian. 'I am my own person now. Have been for a while, actually, though I'm just now stepping into a new phase of heightened self-assuredness as we speak. I cannot tolerate resting all this adult-level self-reliance upon the quicksand of ancestral patterns any longer. I need to be able to handily lift my own limbs up and down as I so choose, without having to automatically question whether it's okay for me to do it with the unconventional movements and odd postures that distinguish me from all the so-called "normal" people. Didn't you know I wasn't "normal" from very early on? Were the messages of conformity you fed me really to keep me safe? I know you thought they were, really you did. I believe now, in retrospect, they were to keep you safe, parent-figure from the past. You were basing these judgments on a social reality that existed back then; yet I've always been a visionary and a progressive and a highly unusual individual. I needed you to affirm those qualities in me for my own good, not issue me an instruction booklet on how to look more like the neighbors. You probably meant no harm, though you left me a legacy of self-doubt in the wake of your (ahem) "corrections". You did what you could, but I'm going to take it from here. I am in charge now, though I'll honor your memory every time I hear your voice rise inside me one more… and then talk my way through it, and towards what's really best for me.'

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Some people send cute little postcards through the mail to their pals. Others are constant Facebook likers-and-commenters or re-Tweeters, actively keeping up with their network of friends, friends-of-friends and friends-not-yet-met-in-real-life. Some will pick up the phone old-style and give you a ring just to chat, while others will send pithy texts throughout the day to pleasantly distract you from work. Of course, then there are the super-neighborly types who'll show up at your front door unannounced or talk your ear off in the supermarket checkout line. What is your typical strategy for staying connected, Pisces? And how is it working for you, in terms of leaving you feeling like you're investing genuinely affectionate and sociable energy into acquaintances great and small? Lest you have become too rote in going through the motions of keeping in touch, let me encourage you to adopt an alternative form of contact… one that perhaps you haven't used often or recently, but which seems kind of nifty when you witness others using it. If, for instance, you pretty much always communicate by text, try placing an actual voice call. Or write a letter. (Remember letter-writing?) Drop by a friend's house with an extra pan of lasagna, and maybe you'll end up shootin' the breeze at their kitchen table for a lovely while. Not only will this exercise renew your creative interest in the art of social intercourse, you just might receive some surprisingly meaningful responses from shaking up the patterns.