Horoscopes | Week of May 4-10, 2015

ARIES (March 21-April 19): It's not whether you know or don't know, Aries, but how much hospitable panache you invest in the give-and-take act of jitterbugging and foxtrotting your way through the immediate scene, with various fleeting partners in tow. With everyone else nearby you tossing in their two-cents'-worth of opinions thoughtfully considered or mindlessly parroted, raising topics of compelling interest or numbing superficiality, asking you this and offering you that, it's totally all right to momentarily pass off the lead. Don't worry, for the moment, about losing your way; if you're not purposely trying to 'find' anything, you can't go wrong. But in order for you to draw your due solace from my previous statement, you must contentedly capitulate to staying relatively close to your familiar surroundings, relieving yourself of the need to stay on guard against too many unknown commodities. You'll get your 'unknowns' from the novel suggestions, spicy newsbriefs, and strangely inspiring insinuations ricocheting around right in your own backyard. Kick your feet up, grab some popcorn, and play around.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): This is the week in which you ought to start softening your approach, Taurus… though, for the record, that is not the same thing as weakening your resolve. Though Mars is still in your sign for this one last week (before moving into your 2nd house next Mon May 11) which might otherwise give you one more opportunity to assertively apply the muscle, I'm a bit concerned about Mercury's muddling square to Neptune-in-your-11th, an aspect that could leave you unwittingly tone-deaf to how self-serving and/or presumptuous your communications might strike your colleagues or teammates. On top of that, Venus's shift into your solar 3rd bespeaks of a favorably enhanced sociability on your part—provided, that is, you're intuitively receptive to the cares and curiosities of those you interact with, rather than too stubbornly attached to pushing your own unwavering version of the story. Now, I'm not proposing you ought to second-guess your version and/or self-sacrificially kowtow to contrasting attitudes which forsake your values. I'm merely letting you know that, if you want to eventually emerge with both your ethics and your alliances intact, you must make a pronounced show of openness and flexibility… at least for this next stretch.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): This is the final week of Mars's residence in your solar 12th, Gemini, before it lands in your sign next Monday (May 11) and relieves you of this presently-still-heightened risk that you won't know exactly what you'd be doing, should you take aim at a certain target and attempt to hit it with any accuracy. Come next week, you'll have Mars batting for your side through late June, giving you your banner shot to smack a few spectacular fly-balls out into the field. Yet, even as this shift in lineup improves your ability to confidently assert your will, there remains Neptune's lingering specter over your 10th house… a sort of chronic fog-bank obscuring your view of all those audience-members glued to your every move, a group which likely includes at least one very-important character whose perceptions and determinations could make or break your relative success in a certain professional venture or outer-world endeavor. As you increasingly regain your outward confidence, then, please don't permit your understandable enthusiasms inspire you to underestimate the significance of public opinion. You're totally free to behave however you wish, but not quite as free to do so and still uphold a certain level of esteem in the eyes of key stakeholders and gatekeepers.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Welcome Venus to your sign for the next four weeks, Cancer… then, please do as this blessing-bearing goddess wishes, and sit down, shut up, smile, and look pretty. Lurking behind Venus's well-wishes is a still-growing grab-bag of 12th-house roguery, anchored by a mischievous Neptune-squaring 12th-house Mercury who'd just love to convince you that your sudden awareness or out-of-the-blue epiphany holds the answer you've been after for quite some time. Bluntly put: I wouldn't trust the contents of any such 'eureka!' realization enough to vocalize, rely on, or bank future plans upon, not at this juncture. You needn't toss it out with the trash, however, never to be seen or heard again. Rather, it's sufficient to merely take note of it within yourself—in the 'hmmm, how interesting' style of considering everything which crosses one's path, observantly storing its identifying details in your memory bank, without attaching or extrapolating—and continue along on your merry way. Venus ought to help keep your external life-conditions fairly hunky-dory, so long as you don't start outwardly engaging the rogue impulse to abruptly reorient or redefine anything. Listen, look, and learn, remember?

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Before attempting to speak to all the members of this very diverse group (or, god forbid, attempting to speak for all of them), I strongly urge you to ask a most-trusted friend or ally to properly vet the content of what you intend to share, Leo, to make sure there aren't any glaring blind-spots, unconscious biases, or problematic presumptions you've unwittingly included. Please don't take this advice as an unfavorable verdict on the content of your heart. This is merely a straightforward matter of my interpreting the threat presently posed to you by Neptune-in-your-8th, a planetary agent that can blur your view of the often-rather-dramatic differences between your psychological reality and that of other people, especially those who have directly endured pain or disappointment from lived experiences quite dissimilar to yours. You can have the purest heart in the world and still goof up, by virtue of miscalculating where the triggers in someone else's psychic makeup may reside. Therefore, to save yourself an accidental rift, adopt an exceedingly humble and inquisitive tone when dealing with conversations and communications in which multiple other parties are involved. It's better to be tentative and respectful than overconfident and inadvertently insulting.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): As befitting your present role as public face or official spokesperson, be especially meticulous and thorough in how you treat whoever's the other principal voice(s) in this picture, Virgo. You'll neither want to drown out their divergent outlook (whether by persuasively implying they aren't 'seeing the facts' or altogether failing to consider the roots of their divergence) nor bend over backwards to accommodate it (at the potential expense of what'll best serve the whole enterprise). For now, lead from the relatively uncontested middle-ground… making room for all critical viewpoints, responding with a diplomatic watered-down blend of encouragement and dubiousness (while stopping well short of committing to either), all the while understanding that you're still a fair distance away from deciding. It does not currently serve you to either alienate any key player or lead them to believe they've got you in their back pocket. As such, your own strong feelings in one direction or another shouldn't be of as much immediate concern as holding space for this collaborative phase of the process. That won't void your capacity to assert strong personal agency over the longer term.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Even with the added professional/public-world good-favor of Venus's arrival to your 10th, Libra, you should probably strive to disprove the perception that you're 'all ideas'—with less of a talent for understanding practical real-world applications. Though you and I may both believe in the inaccuracy of such a perception, you're presently under a certain spell of ideological idealism, bringing you a cavalcade of refreshing propositions upon which you might base your next steps… though some would clearly be characterized as unworkable, were you to ground your lofty visions and try to figure out how to actualize them on a day-in-day-out basis. That said, this doesn't mean your ideas are wholly without merit. On the contrary, you do have a rather fruitful brainstorming flow now coursing through you. Only, instead of becoming too hastily sure about any particular angle and running all the way with it, I encourage you to simply present your thoughts as part of a larger interactive discussion... and then to earnestly take in others' tangential add-ons, creative departures, and problem-solving critiques, without taking any of it personally. You might have an excellent sense of the overarching structure, but could certainly benefit from a few nuts-and-bolts pointers.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Fix your eye on the prize you've already identified for yourself, Scorpio… or else the conversational contortions which current circumstances may be bending you into could scramble your perspective, to the point where this circumstantial snarl incorrectly turns itself into the main event. Your instinct to 'keep things going' (which, by itself, isn't altogether improper) mustn't be permitted to overshadow whatever distinctly personal desires would've been front-and-center, were you not involved with this. Any such renunciation on your part rests on excessively idealistic thinking, based in a potentially self-sabotaging belief that the stimulating charge these current circumstances are providing you is more precious than what you might independently create yourself, solely for your own gratification. In the short-term, this estimation might feel accurate. Over a lengthier span, alas, this excitement would fall short of providing you the deeper nourishment your soul craves, much in the way that sugary treats or caffeine-packed energy drinks are no substitute for the longer-term health benefits of a nutrient-rich meal-plan. Further down the road, would you be happy with the tradeoff you're considering?

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Relationship-wise (and this isn't strictly limited to your romance zone, for the record), you're better off not seeking the quickest-and-easiest solution to any question that arises between you and the other person, Sagittarius. Though you're typically accustomed to (and rather skilled at, I might add) uttering the first sentiment which crosses your mind and treating it as the truth, allow me to suggest that your feelings on such relationally-relevant issues may likely be less immediately accessible at present… and, therefore, to ensure you don't give a response which you later determine to have omitted critical elements of how you really feel, you'd do yourself a big favor by offering your feedback in a tentative or provisional tone, while making it clear you still intend to mull it all over a while longer. Where you're totally agreeable and understanding today, you might, a week or two from now, find yourself uncovering a contrasting strain of anger or unwillingness-to-compromise. Or not. But if you want to be as honest and forthright as possible about this, please accept that the best way to address an intricate relational situation is over time, letting each mood-shade intermingle with the next. Besides, Mercury's going retrograde in your relationship house (the 7th) a couple weeks from now, and there will be more to discuss…

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): 'People are more important than things,' you might want to tell your fixated brain, Capricorn, in light of its current utopian-style inclination to invest all your attention in getting things done. While it is true that this is an excellent time for productively re-conceptualizing your workflow (a la last week's edition), you're also welcoming Venus into your relationship house (the 7th) this week… and it would be a damn shame to overlook what could be a wonderful opportunity to bond, reconnect, and/or show your appreciative support in any central partnership (personal, professional, or otherwise). In fact, if you're not sufficiently aware of how too intent a thing-focused mindset may blind you to the impact your work has on the people around you, you might skip a critical due-diligence step and/or altogether stomp on someone else's toes… potentially even causing a breakdown in essential communications, right at a moment when Venus says you should be getting along better with others. If you don't choose to value interpersonal consideration up front, the subsequent reactions you'll get will probably end up forcing you to do so anyhow.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): The time's ripe to sincerely engage your fun-loving, light-hearted, artsy-fartsy, extracurricular creative-visioning side, Aquarius… but not so totally and completely that you dismiss all the practical voices in your head, which might tell you, for instance, whether you're overstating your capabilities, overstepping the bounds of reasonable behavior, and/or spending too much damn money. Though you may be feeling optimistic about what lies imminently ahead—and justifiably so, I might add—you mustn't greet this anticipatory excitement by throwing all caution to the wind, as if you suddenly don't still have to wake up tomorrow morning, as alert and healthy as you can be, and make it to work on time. Funny thing is, in the midst of all this near-intoxicating potential, you're in a pretty decent spot to actually enjoy the experience of meeting your daily duties, too, perhaps more than you have in a while. But if your inner party-planner is given full authority over your mind's-eye, it might seek to convince you that any-and-every responsible gesture and pragmatic consideration is nothing more than an infringement on the recreational indulgences now due you… which is both misguided and a waste of Venus-in-your-6th's pleasurable productive possibilities.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): The astrological weather has turned since I reported three weeks back that your outward exchanges required a more deliberate in-control approach, Pisces, while your private at-home world might provide the relaxation or relief. It's as if that script is presently flipping, now that you're diving into those 'many weeks of internal processing and re-processing' we discussed last week and can expect a somewhat uncertain and/or unsettling emotional landscape for this next span. Thankfully, just as inward life is becoming more mentally demanding while you search for the appropriate language to describe your emerging feelings, you have a corresponding chance to lighten up socially. This hinges on your understanding that the next benchmarks of awareness and resolve can only come from within, and, therefore, you no longer need to concern yourself as emphatically with changing minds or winning hearts as you had been… leaving your interpersonal dealings, hopefully, with less of a driving function or sense-of-urgency, and more of a free-for-all 'just for fun' vibe. Now that the serious conversation has metamorphosed into an inner one, intentionally use your interactions with others for your breaths of fresh air.