Horoscopes | Week of June 10-16, 2013

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Sssshhhh! Save your breath, Aries, and every ounce of effort it takes to articulate a sentiment to somebody else. If you don't have to—meaning: if there's not an urgent reason or a pressing work-related purpose—don't bother going through the motions of pulling yourself together enough to interactively participate. Stay quiet. Keep to yourself. Find solitary, wordless pursuits to fill whatever spare moments aren't packed-to-the-gills with worldly responsibilities or obligatory attendances. It is important to differentiate between (1) the public you who's been under the spotlight, striving for success, fearlessly facing challenges, waking each day into chaos that keeps changing shape as soon as you think you've got it sorted out, and (2) the fullest self you are, which, though it includes the high-performing you I just described, also contains so much else. In other words, you are not merely what you're producing, what people are observing of you, and what you're telling them about what you're producing and what they're observing. And for the time being, the totally invisible, anti-social, unproductive, and disinterested-in-outward-success part of you simply wants permission to happily shut the fuck up and be left alone, whenever possible, so long as it doesn't screw anything else up.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You're likelier than usual to experience social impatience, Taurus, if you have too distinct or preordained a notion of what your desired outcome from any given exchange ought to be. Let's not forget a 'social interaction', by its very definition, implies more than one person is involved in what happens… and who's to say their desired outcome need resemble anything you are hoping to get from it? For that matter, they may not even have a 'desired outcome'. Perhaps they just want to shoot the shit, vent their stress or share their good news, relish in lively expressions of your salty sense-of-humor, and basically just connect with you for a few passing moments. What's the harm in that? Any struggles you have with just 'seeing where the conversation goes' reflect a fear that you're somehow wasting your time when accommodating someone else's agenda (or lack thereof)… that you might lose control of where your social investments are 'leading', leaving too much up to chance and, possibly, foregoing opportunities to 'move things forward' or 'get things done'. Please forget about all that for a moment, and accept this opportunity to just be with other people, as if you had all the time in the world and nothing better to do.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Be direct, unapologetic and purposeful about catering to your own bottom-line, Gemini. You've presently got a winning blend of finance-related intuitive shrewdness, renewed inclination to work harder, and the necessary faith that rewards will come your way if you're authentically supporting some vision for a better world. In spite of these advantages, alas, you must still contend with echoes of that stubborn psychological sense of being 'trapped by circumstance' or 'stuck in the mud'… and I'm sure the experience of that, no doubt, feels at moments quite dark. The feeling does not, however, constitute an especially accurate glimpse of your actual reality. You are neither 'trapped' nor 'stuck'. Rather, you may need to continue integrating (1) fair consideration of whatever intricacies or impediments still exist and (2) an uncompromising commitment to work with (or work around) these circumstances while simultaneously strengthening your work habits, building your career, and/or making more money. If anything, this is simply a creative challenge—how to use what you've got to pull off such great feats—rather than a non-traversable roadblock.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Pursuing your own personal bliss in light of whatever else is going on around you, especially during these Uranus-square-Pluto years of collective tumult, is unquestionably a test of self-determination. But the good news, Cancer, is that it does seem to be getting somewhat easier for you. Maybe it's because you've had uncomfortably close encounters with the dead-ends that await down any path associated with putting others' needs before your own (because you're the friggin' caring one, so it is said)… and you can no longer convince yourself of its supposed promise. Perhaps you've grown sick and tired of endlessly repeating the same steps within organizations that lack the visionary guts to try something different… and you find your knack for 'going along with the flow' is becoming compromised by a growing rebelliousness in your attitude. Or have you just read enough astrological writings (and/or tapped into your intuitive genius) to recognize that you're on the precipice of one of the most advantageous periods of your life? The 'hook' that's likeliest to obstruct your ease in pursuing your bliss remains your odd (guilt-ridden?) sense of obligation to other people and/or a certain other person. But who the fuck are these people, anyway? And/or why the hell do you care so much more about their expectations (or your false perception of them) than your own, particularly if they can't support you being more blissfully contented than ever? Food for deep thoughts, for sure.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): While you've certainly earned a reputation as one who delights in being the center of attention (at least judging from all the wisecracks and extrovert-envy projections your sign receives from everyone else), that is decidedly not all there is to you, Leo. Nor is that a role which you (or any of us) can satisfyingly fit at all times. With an increased 12th-house emphasis in your solar chart both in the shorter-term and from a year-long visit to your 12th from Jupiter beginning later this month, you should start acclimating yourself to the many benefits of a more backstage stint. Favored activities might include: rinsing off residual exhaustion from your most recent impressive efforts; cheering on any comrades who are now having their precious moment in the spotlight; shrewdly watching the unfolding dynamics between other actors, without playing any part in them yourself; gathering new inspiration for future productions and performances; investing spiritual energy in visioning what your future might look like a year or two from now; giving thanks. Not only can it feel like a great relief to take something of a break from non-compulsory public appearances, you'll also be readying yourself for another headline-grabbing comeback, details still to be announced…

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Don't let your inner 'responsible one' get it twisted, Virgo. Even more so than ever, it really is all about the people. We touched on this last week, too, but I am passionately wanting to convey this idea… hopefully as a way to reframe any depersonalizing frustrations into opportunities for tapping into previously underexplored resources. As long as you concentrate on what certain individuals are unable, unwilling or ill-equipped to do, you will experience your current situation—which, as I see it, unavoidably involves joint participation with other folks—as one with glaring restraints and restrictions. But that's only because you have the grounds of your analysis flipped upside-down. Instead of thinking about how you're going to reach your specific self-determined goals using this particular cast of characters you've been given, I encourage you to start by looking at the people themselves first. What makes each participant special? What do they do best? How can you better utilize the talents they actually already possess (rather than wishing they possessed something different)? Perhaps it's not the people who are the problem, but the limiting expectations with which you're articulating the shared aim… which may in fact be overlooking certain undervalued strengths among the team's players.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): As you well know by now, Libra, life-circumstances are not so easily organized to allow for you to attain enough order in every other area so that you may fully focus your all on that one area with the most immediate promise. Leading-ladies-and-men of a successful theater production, for instance, must arrive to their curtain-calls each evening, immersed in their role… no matter if their real life may be falling apart due to family emergency or relationship disaster. When opportunity knocks, you really don't want to turn it away, even if you're nervous about opening the door because of the unknowns you'll be inviting in ('will I be able to handle this, too?'). Who knows when it will knock again? Or if? Very few blessings arrive at what we would consider the optimal moment, if we were the ones in charge of cosmic timing. Yet, what we might hastily presume to be a rather inconvenient arrival could ultimately prove to have been perfectly timed, insofar as our need to dive right in actually gives us something else to concentrate our energies on… something new and rather life-affirming, considering the other crap we'd been wading through for what seemed like an eternity. Hear that knock? Please answer. You're as 'ready' as you need to be.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): While I'm obviously an advocate of your eager embracing of some 'next adventure' to keep life interesting (as judging by last week's scope), I also think it's quite important that you not skip any significant conversational steps in the process, Scorpio. Trust me, the people around you won't take kindly to waking up one morning with a 'dear John' letter from you on their kitchen table and all your belongings mysteriously missing. Maybe your relationship with them is part of your eagerness to zoom away. Maybe it hasn't a damn thing to do with them. Whatever the case, it does feel nasty to be left hanging, to wonder what wasn't said (ahem) and whether there might be something meaningful to learn (yes, of course there is) from the events of this moving-on. But because this is your horoscope, let me also be explicit about this: If you cannot vocalize the sentiments (however thorny or uncouth) which symbolize the wrapping-up of this episode now, the life-themes therein will follow you to the next destination. The universe will make sure you don't escape this challenge, 'next adventure' or not.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Chew a bit on the different dimensions of 'doing what feels right'. There are the actions we take when seeking to alleviate our present-moment pain, which may seem to be 'right' (at least from the short view) because they provide immediate relief from this moment of heightened intensity… but which, after we've acted to extricate ourselves from the peak acuteness and have returned to our non-climactic emotional senses, we might reflect back on and conclude we could've 'done better' had we not been acting purely in survivalist, self-protective mode. And then, there are those actions we take which, despite the fact they may prolong agonizing circumstances and/or require more psychological engagement than perhaps we'd initially intended to invest, we deeply know really are right: because they are the most fair, because they do honor to a longer history of genuine care (and, as such, don't needlessly hurt anybody else), and because we will be able to look back on how we handled this climactic moment and believe we did our very best. So, Sagittarius, what will it mean for you to do what feels right in this situation?

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Presently in your life, Capricorn, the relationships most worth participating in are those that mirror back to you all the ways in which you unconsciously rule out, kneejerk-style, certain types of behaviors or experiences without even pausing to consider their seeming irrelevance to your totally purposeful (or is that totally habitual) manner of being. You owe a big fucking thank you to the people in your life, therefore, who keep you on your toes… who refuse to neatly adhere to your expectations of them, as they first zig one day and zag the next (why? because they felt like, period)… who ask you to talk out your thought processes behind certain details you take as an unspoken given, not because they're necessarily challenging you but out of sincere curiosity… and, above all else, whose open-ended explorations of the world indirectly (or, in certain cases, quite directly) offer you permission to try things out yourself, without commitment or certainty or clear rationale. If you find their unpredictability annoying, maybe it's due to you having made very little room in your own life for veering off the proverbial grid.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Don't believe the hype spewing from your inner rebel-demon, who'd have you believe that the bane of any Aquarian existence is too smoothly-flowing a daily routine… as if your willingness to give into certain conventional habits (which just might be 'conventional' for a reason?) is essentially a surrender of your non-conforming eccentricity. There is no need to purposely rock the boat—especially if you're counting on this metaphoric 'boat' to actually carry you somewhere, safely and a reasonable clip—just to prove you're not like everybody else. Forget about those hypothetical everybody-elses for a moment, and instead concentrate on all the benefits you might reap from establishing a more fluid rhythm with your day-to-day responsibilities… the most immediately noticeable of which could be a significant decrease in moment-to-moment stress, which you might be causing more of than is necessary, simply by insisting on not putting consistent expectations on yourself (on behalf of your cherished, though not-all-it's-cracked-up-to-be, freedom). Spend your week consciously decreasing the intensity of choppiness in your waves of productivity/non-productivity.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): What if you spent your whole week ahead affirming that everything is exactly as it should be? What if you had nothing about yourself to fix, apologize for, attempt to underemphasize or hide, or otherwise disavow? What if Divine Perfection requires its kinks and quirks, frictions and fussings, misfits and mismatches, just to irrefutably illustrate its fundamental point that universal diversity is an essential element of our surviving-and-thriving? I don't intend for these rhetorical questions to whitewash-with-white-light any potential areas of life you're actively attempting to improve (or less-actively thinking about attempting to improve), Pisces. We've all got our work to do, if we take conscious evolution as a self-developmental goal. But just as every yin needs its yang if it hopes to express an existence, the call to 'keep doing our work' must be properly balanced with the grateful receptivity of 'all is always already well'. Astrologically, this is one of those pendulum-swing moments during which I encourage you to simply take it all in… appreciating the obvious beauty everywhere and acknowledging the less-obvious beauty in all that's supposedly broken, flawed or fucked up beyond all recognition. You, my dear, are that beautiful, too.