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Horoscopes | Week of January 20-26, 2014

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Having other people who will back you up, reassuring you that you're totally justified in being as hot-under-the-collar toward that certain someone as you are, sounds like helpful support. Don't be fooled, though, Aries: From another angle, this same 'support' could merely get you more and more fired up, a snowball effect from hearing additional chorus-voices amplifying the volume on this one particular version of the story about who You-Know-Who really is and/or what they did. While your confidence in the righteousness of your perspective on this interpersonal situation will likely be strengthened, this affirmation also increases the difficulty of reaching a satisfying mutual understanding with the person-in-question. The surer you are you're 'right', the less able you'll be to actually hear the validity in this other version put forth by that certain someone… though I guarantee there's some substantive truth within whatever they'd want you to grasp, if you're indeed open to fairly considering it. For the record, it ultimately doesn't matter what anybody else but the two of you think about this case: It's all about how a sustainable level of containment between you can be reached, so extreme emotional responses to the other (especially those with a sanctimonious twist) don't overwhelm either of you. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): That individual who will inevitably dare to ask you that one most-dreaded question and/or offer that piece of idealism-deflating feedback? Well, Taurus, rather than trying to talk feelgood public-relations circles around them (in hopes, perhaps, they'll be hypnotically awed by your optimism and momentarily neglect their own critical-thinking savvy?), I instead recommend embracing their potentially problematic presence, with unfettered gratitude. What?!? Here's the deal: It's really so much better to engage with all devil's-advocate objections, constructive criticisms, and other-people-centered limitations now—and with this person, whose bedeviling attitude is already a pretty familiar entity to contend with—than to plug your ears like a stubborn child and wish away their participation, under the auspices they're just 'being difficult' or 'thinking negatively'. Their 'opposition' should be properly seen as a sounding-board opportunity to work out all the kinks in your grand plan before you're any further along. The 'harder' they are for you to deal with now, the less likely you'll hit any obstacles later on. Invite them, then, to disagree… and instead of getting personal about it, use this challenging energy to refine your vision. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): With your life on this gradual 'things-are-looking-up' slope, the last thing I'd want to do is offer any horoscopic advice that might unfortunately spook your blossoming optimism back into its hibernation hive. That said, Gemini, the main gist of what I want to convey to you centers on not lapsing too far from what's realistic. Now, the directive to 'be more realistic' is often used to squash dreams and aspirations, as if daring to imagine yourself living out a strikingly different circumstance than the one you're currently caught up in is way too far a stretch from plausible possibility (and, therefore, you ought to quit thinking big and resign yourself to these same four walls?). This is not what I mean. I am a big believer in our capacity to thoroughly reinvent ourselves, and strongly encourage cultivating dreams of 'something way beyond this'. But such transformations do not happen overnight, and not merely on the magic-power of the dream itself. At this particular juncture, then, please curtail any urges to dash speedily ahead on enthusiasm alone, in defiance of the obvious business-at-hand that mustn't be left behind in disarray. Whatever looming tasks, practical concerns, and/or bureaucratic hoops threaten to poke holes in your dream so you cannot simply take off tomorrow (and never look back?)… these annoyances are presently your best friends, and should be conscientiously treated as such. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): As soon as you're trying really hard to figure out just where they're coming from, you're already doing it wrong, Cancer. Under these astro-conditions, your impulse will be to put your intuitive feelers to good use, probing beneath their words and into their underlying emotional complexes (or at least your interpretive perception of what you're picking up), in order to help you determine a resonant strategy for addressing them in whatever language their heart will best understand. Stop right there. That's a lot of energy to expend on trying to play to their present psychological state… which not only implies you're adopting a fairly indirect or passive-aggressive approach to expressing where you're coming from (since it's overly dependent on conditions existing outside of you), but also borders on being needlessly intrusive on the psychic level. Rather than attempting to elicit a certain response from them, head off their potential criticism or upset, and/or spare them the pain you might otherwise cause (or so you think), then, please just dispense with all those convoluted acrobatics—and stand firm in what you want, regardless of how they're liable to react. If you don't, you're only prolonging your own dissatisfaction and/or setting yourself up for tougher exchanges later, once you have to explain why you didn't speak up earlier. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

LEO (July 23-August 22): Despite the likelihood your conversational flow with a certain someone will glide eagerly and effortlessly along (or perhaps precisely because of it), you'll have to watch out for those instances in which it'll seem too convenient to just gloss right over some implication or mention that, should you pause to think about it when you're not enjoying the easy company of this individual, somehow doesn't sit right with you. Your own emotional authenticity might unfortunately come second to sustaining this happy-go-lucky vibe, Leo, if you refuse to interrupt this flow long enough to address any weird feelings which arise in you (because you fear they'll think you're being 'difficult' or 'a downer'?). A pleasant interpersonal dynamic does not automatically lead to increased intimacy (i.e., 'getting to know each other better'); on the contrary, an unwillingness to disrupt the pleasantries with real (and, thus, sometimes challenging) input on your current state-of-being could actually keep you two at a polite arm's-length, delimiting the relationship within the confines of only your most flattering angles. Resisting such intimacy-building disruptions now will only worsen the sensation once you two later discover how superficially you're acquainted, much in the way that pretending to know someone's name when you've forgotten it gets more and more embarrassing the longer you wait to admit it. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): It's another one of those weeks, which have periodically occurred over the past year or so, when your efficiency levels are likely to take an irritating hit… as a result of your need to conduct all the appropriate check-ins, permission-requests, feedback-solicitations, and any other such obligatory contacts. You are going to take care of these cursory interpersonal responsibilities, aren't you, Virgo? This is not an optional step, despite how much more quickly (and, yes, maybe more pristinely, too) this undertaking could be completed if you just quietly took care of it yourself. In this case, 'nobody's the wiser' is far from a safe presumption to make (if not also a somewhat questionable manner of working with others). Though you might be able to successfully pull off an under-the-radar advance or two, given enough intentional downplaying of any attention paid to you, you shouldn't expect these moves to escape notice indefinitely. Any supposed savings of negotiatory effort you bank now is merely a mirage: You cannot elude the other relevant players' rights to interactively participate, and, should you try, it'll only cost you more time and energy later. Trust me on this one. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): To neutralize the exceedingly feisty tone you cannot help but give off, Libra—not only continuing a trend that's been in effect over this past month-plus, but even potentially adding an involuntarily smarty-pants smugness to it—I recommend treating nearly every exchange as a chance to either increase or decrease your stock amongst the other players, and accordingly conducting the requisite cost/benefit analysis in advance of finding yourself 'caught up in the moment'. In a strange reversal of the stereotypical counsel we astrologers usually offer Librans, I urge you not to proceed with too much single-minded resoluteness or unabashed self-interest (though such an approach may reflect exactly where your head's at)… and instead to meticulously consider how each potentially loose-lipped remark, snide judgment, flubbed protocol, or unaccommodating gesture might jeopardize how calm, fair, and reliable you're perceived to be by those who could strengthen your standing or knock you down a peg. Because you typically are so considered in this manner, the recent astrology that's been coaxing your less-cautious side to come out and play threatens to sneak up on you, if you're not careful. The last impression you want to create, after all, is of that very type of self-centered steamroller which you yourself (in your more 'normal' moments) find so distasteful. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): If you're still on board with Saturn-in-your-sign's current expectation that you continue striving to be your best self, Scorpio, then you simply cannot allow yourself to express your inner emotional reality through secretive, problem-causing actings-out… but rather must accept the responsibility to yourself to communicate how you're feeling, no matter how vulnerable the process may leave you, to someone who can provide you the sense that you're not alone. These 'actings-out' I've alluded to are not a new development (for Mars has been in your solar 12th for a month and half already, stirring up the fiendish escapism); we've covered them in your past two horoscopes (review here and here). What is new, however, is Saturn's square to a 4th-house Mercury, an aspect which will repeat itself twice more between now and mid-March (thanks to Mercury's upcoming retrograde)… indicating that however you mentally process and articulate your present emotional state, it must be done with impeccable precision or else you'll almost certainly face some humbling consequence. I'm also reading this astrology as a warning against all omissions of relevant narrative details, insincere downplays of genuine upset, and tacit endorsements of attitudes you ultimately don't endorse. In other words, what you don't say now will come back to haunt you: You'll still be on the hook for its truth, plus you'll have to backpedal from your prior efforts to elude or deceive. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): I don't recommend floating passively upon the interpersonal currents, just letting yourself be carried to destinations (whether geographic, social, and/or conversational) farther adrift from your familiar shores than you'd intended to go. What may start off as an innocent enough ambling into the affairs and occupations of a pal or person-of-interest, Sagittarius, could ultimately take you way off the paths you're accustomed to traveling along… and into the damp foggy woods where, yes, many wonderfully enchanting discontinuities have indeed been known to occur, but where your navigational aptitude will no longer serve you and you're apt to get lost. The main danger, incidentally, is to your psychic clarity: After spending enough time with certain characters, in contexts where they may be quite comfortable with but you're rather out of your element, you could start to take on their defining issues or compulsive concerns as your own (whether in agreement with them, or in sharp contrast). Your mood might even be impacted, should the exposure to their gravitational emotion be too intense. Rather than consent to being vibrationally scrambled by others' static, then, please exercise good boundaries. Dip in and out, but stop short of total immersion. These riptides are strong. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): At the moment, your laser-sharp conquer-the-world mindset is especially well-suited for mobilizing all that you've got at your disposal, Capricorn, toward the pursuit of these formidable aims you've lain down in front of you. You've got a hell of a lot going for you, and a clear thoroughfare of continuing self-actualization ahead. Except, of course, your purposeful path will intersect with the numerous avenues others are now headin' down, toward their own aims—and it's at those junctions where you're likeliest to hit trouble. Let's just say it's hard to proceed safely and smoothly when certain drivers (ahem) are so hell-bent on zooming straight to their destinations that they consider everyone else on the road an impediment, an idiot, and/or an outright enemy… refusing to slow down enough to let others merge in or to signal their own intent to change lanes, barking unkind remarks at those who cruise by different rules, possibly even falling full-on victim to instances of rage at the collective obliviousness. If only they were all as competent and clever as you are, right? Truth is, even the most masterful master-planner must take into account the unruly behavior of every other member of humanity: this is the unavoidable variable that makes or breaks one's true mastery of any worldly activity. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Please enter any exchanges with professional contacts or clients, official agents, mentors, parent-figures, and/or the public-at-large with a certain degree of restraint, Aquarius. Though you may feel legitimately knowledgeable and passionate about the mission you've charged yourself with representing, this is not the best moment for a straightforward line-drive toward the goal… even while your cut-through-the-crap instinct to engage in this substantive discussion about the 'defining' issues as soon as possible rouses you to take just such a plain-dealin' approach. Though 'getting right into it' seems like the most reasonable tactic now that Mercury and the Sun are in your 1st, the rest of your astro-outlook says otherwise: Not only is Mercury squaring Saturn-in-your-10th, but he'll also be turning retrograde a couple weeks from now, to eventually retrace the very steps he's taking this week… and re-form this Saturn square twice more between now and mid-March. This sends a very clear message that any communicative overreaches, excesses, or demonstrations-of-disrespect will create lingering snarls you'll have to continually revisit over the weeks to come. It also suggests your mind, as sure as it may be about the conclusions it's recently reached, is liable to change. Therefore, treat such exchanges with cautious calculation, jockeying to satisfy your mission a couple months from now—but not right away. How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): We can both agree that you Pisceans are known to be pretty sensitive to what's going on in other people's emotional lives… quite intuitive, even, when it comes to sympathetically tapping into whatever aches or aspirations underscore an individual's motives for behaving as they do. Intuitive knowledge is a real thing, no doubt about it. But it's also nonverbal, elusive and shifty. You may catch a passing psychic whiff of some particulate of deep underlying truth… and then the wind picks up, changes direction, and blows its traces far from here, taking along any assurance that what you earlier detected will persist as a main strain. (In fact, multiple strains of conflicting emotional truth often exist simultaneously, though one's intuition may not pick them all up all of the time.) All this to say, Pisces, you probably shouldn't adopt an offensive strategy or otherwise probe too pointedly into someone's psyche based on what you intuitively know to be true about their present situation—which is not to imply that what you know is somehow 'untrue', but, more likely, remains unformed in their consciousness (and thus not entirely 'real' to them yet) and/or is merely one angle (and a conditional one at that) of a more intricate psychological landscape that you don't possess a full intuitive perspective on. Go ahead, and bank your intuitive knowledge in the annals of supporting data, but don't address it with the other party. As far as the actual interactions are concerned, take everybody at their word (even if you know there's something going unsaid), engaging with their 'side' only insofar as they've explicitly presented it to you. At least for now.How have you made it this far into the new year without ASTROBARRY'S 2014, my e-book with full year-ahead forecasts for all twelve signs? Get it, get it, get it.