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Horoscopes | Week of May 18-24, 2015

ARIES (March 21-April 19): This may not be the most successful week to directly express your frustrations, Aries, should you find yourself blocked in your ascent by an inept boss, a stubborn family-member, an intolerant power-tripper, and/or a corrupt system… not if you'll still have to participate in a functioning relationship with them for some time to come. Your exasperation, critique, or offense may indeed be totally justified, but that's not enough to deem any head-on showdown a shrewd move at the moment. For now, you should probably hold it together on the job and/or out there in the world… and then seek your less-stoic-and-constrained self-satisfaction after your day's responsibilities have been met and you can chill at home, with a good book or a cold brew or some lovely quiet-time with your closest intimate(s). You must create the peace from within when it cannot be readily found in the external circumstances. Meanwhile, if you feel you just can't sit back and do absolutely nothing about the person, entity, or organization that's holding you down, I recommend having unassuming, low-profile chit-chats about loosely relevant topics (and/or other people's scandal-dramas) with colleagues or cohorts… letting your curiosities collect supporting data, while stopping short of specifically speaking your concerns in any way which might come back to bite you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The appeal of some low-key, unassuming social time with your nearby chums, neighborly mates, or other local-color characters is an increasingly strong one for you, Taurus, especially in light of that personal hustle you're (hopefully) tirelessly working, in support of your own financial welfare. You have so much industrious mental energy pouring into such concrete 2nd-house considerations, it's no wonder your soul is craving the effortless ease of palling around with folks you're very familiar with… and who are familiar enough with you that you needn't explicitly spell out every last detail on your mind, allowing you to casually dip in and out of the conversation as you're so moved. Only problem is, familiarity, though it may not necessarily breed contempt (as the old adage goes), surely increases the likelihood of erroneously presuming a certain commonality with these familiar folks which doesn't, in fact, exist—which can create a real disturbance in an otherwise-pleasant association, should this familiar face casually toss out a provocative statement (about politics, religion, society, the latest local drama, somebody you care about, etc.) which hits your inner staunch-ethicist as an unacceptable trespass. Finding yourself in such a spot, your integrity will only allow one rightful choice: Call 'em out, and risk both the pleasant moment and the relationship. Of course, if they're articulate and nuanced in their thinking, the ensuing discussion just might offer you a subtle shade of new understanding or two… even if they are as dead-wrong as you first believe them to be.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Plan on a lot of juggling, Gemini, in order to productively push your agenda along, while simultaneously confronting whatever interpersonal challenges or complications must be dealt with… in the process of being at once (1) autonomously self-serving and (2) respectful to considerations or limitations placed on the situation by a partner or critical player. With Mercury now retrograde in your sign, it'd probably prove appropriate to visibly shift your outward presentation from where it's been, to shuffle the words you're using and/or flip the order in which the relevant topics are prioritized, in an apparent show of considerate-minded flexibility—all the while, never letting your primary self-interest(s) in this situation veer from the forefront of your mind, regardless of where the conversation may swerve. With Venus-in-your-2nd sparring off with Pluto and Uranus, your best shot at personal profit will likely come accompanied by extenuating hoops to jump through, strings that bind, and/or a non-negotiable from the other party to build into the equation. Yet, with some fancy footwork and clever ploys which play up whatever you and they conveniently share in common, you can make pivotal headway. Just remember there are a lot of moving parts to this, each requiring its own responsive fiddling and finagling.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Even with Venus confidently on your side—or perhaps because Venus is confidently on your side, Cancer—you are under an exaggerated threat of attracting attention, admiration, and/or affection from those who might also too emphatically or persistently expect something from you, in gracious return for receiving their good graces. Be very wary, therefore, of any interpersonal pressure to proceed into shady, secretive, or suspicious territory… or to do anything which causes your tummy to tie itself in knots, in an intuitive dispatch caught somewhere between nervous excitement and impending danger. If you have to ask yourself whether you're excited or frightened, it's presently wiser to lean toward self-preservation over throwing caution to the wind. At the same time, you should also be sure you aren't being the pushy or manipulative one, using your Venus-gifted advantage to goad someone into submitting to your grand plan for their unfolding. Should you gratify your interpersonal desires through overtly or covertly controlling maneuvers, you'll have to keep on enforcing this structure indefinitely into the future—and, at some point, the other party is likely to overthrow your rule. Under this astrology, it's exceedingly important to make sure everybody reserves the freedom of their own self-determination, you and them.

LEO (July 23-August 22): Please don't jump the gun, Leo, and prematurely commit to joining up with whatever exciting activities, initiatives, or adventures are presently being dangled in your face by friends, peers, or comrades … particularly if the urge to do so is also related to an (unconscious? semi-conscious? totally consciously willful?) desire to ditch out on some dull or dreary day-to-day rhythm. First off, what your rebel-side might be brattily labeling 'dull' or 'dreary', I'd probably instead call dutiful or diligent. Keeping up with your regular routines and responsibilities, during this moment when there's a clear temptation to try (ahem) 'transcending' their limiting grip, is an especially important practice now—in large part because you're just a couple weeks from the official beginning of Venus's lengthy retrograde-rockin' visit to your sign, a historic span of activity, initiative, and adventure which will carry you through the end of September, fueled by a preponderance (perhaps even overwhelming in its magnitude) of personally-pleasing prospects and propositions. In short, there is no need to hastily jumpstart your forward-propelling enthusiasms straight away, with something that may or may not be quite right for you, just because your pals are diving into it as we speak. Chances are, if you did hastily commit yourself, you'd end up wriggling back out again once something better came along… and chances are, it will.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): A main reason it's so critical for you to leave your methodological options open, to simultaneously pursue multiple leadership tactics, and/or to be willing to engage in ongoing conversations which just might change your mind about a key tenet of your professional approach, Virgo, is to thwart yourself from impetuously forfeiting certain stylistic aspects or fundamentals of your aspirations which may be quite important to you. Contrary to what your stern inner statistician might argue in some detail-rich data-driven report, you are allowed to make career- and/or outer-goal-related choices based on what you want… and aren't, in fact, relegated to that narrow spectrum of 'what makes the most sense' or 'what'll keep everyone happy (and off your back)'. We can 'make sense' out of so many varying possibilities, though it's much harder to fake interest in an ambition or attack-plan which doesn't suit you or pulls you in a direction divergent from your own personal drives. And you can't keep everyone happy if you're not including yourself in that equation, as if your supposedly hyper-logical brain doesn't find dissonance in concerning yourself so insistently with other people's satisfaction while so heedlessly eschewing your own. Spend the extra time and effort to find ways to satisfy your own desires at the same time you 'do a good job'.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): You probably shouldn't proceed as if everything's about 'principle', Libra, and somehow, therefore, not about your personal stake. If you're being totally honest and forthright about your subject-position with regards to the path(s) now opening up for you, you cannot legitimately claim any sort of austere detachment from the specific emotional rewards you are seeking to reap, as if all of this is merely about you doing the fair and proper thing. Please don't take this to mean I'm indicting you for not sincerely caring about fairness or principles, as that would be, uh, unfair. On the contrary, I know you indeed do care about such concerns. But I'm not doing your principled mindset a disservice by reminding you how this 'care' developed over time, as a direct result of whatever specifics of your lived narrative helped shape you into this person who cares about such things… and you're not doing your own efforts any favors if you withhold these narrative details from your outward explainings, leaving people to wonder why you're this invested in what you're doing. Though it may seem 'beside the point' and/or uncomfortably confessional to so candidly include yourself within the frame (particularly because Librans often prefer to distance themselves from so personal a stake in the conversation), it would actually be distractingly antithetical to your purpose to leave out such relevant information.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Please feel free to continue flipping through the disjointed specifics of your various psychological attitudes, responses, and relationships to what's currently going on, Scorpio, as if they were to comprise a scrapbook commemorating the flavor of this phase in your history. These feeling-fragments are like precious souvenirs, representing, to the best of their ability, this moment in your emotional development. But souvenirs are always facsimiles—that tiny brass Eiffel Tower is but a paltry imitation of the real 1,063-foot monument—and these particles of partial perspective now dancing restlessly through your awareness are not, in actuality, the 'real' version of How You Feel about the charged topic-at-hand (and/or about a certain person who's at the heart of said 'topic-at-hand'). Your common-sense reality is quite a bit more cut-and-dry, a lot simpler than any up-to-the-minute news-bulletin might presently report… though that doesn't make those rapidly-shifting emotional fronts worthy of altogether dismissing or disbelieving. They are, in fact, quite interesting, informative, and insightful, insofar as they lead you to your next set of qualifying questions, concerns, and conversations. What they aren't, however, is a clear and unambiguous call to boldly carry yourself elsewhere. The whole story is still unfolding… and while you may, hour-by-hour, have some idea of how you're feeling, you do not yet know, in capital-letter terms, How You Feel.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): When it comes to any intricate situation where your destiny is interwoven with someone else's, Sagittarius, it behooves you to continue leaving your options open—but only to a certain point. As I mentioned a couple weeks back, Mercury's now retrograde in your relationship house (the 7th), which is only one of multiple astro-influences indicating the present need for relative versatility in how you're attempting to juggle your interests with theirs… and which clearly favors ongoing discussions over neatly-and-tidily wrapped-up resolutions, at least for the time being. Yet, though it might not serve you to readily disclose such truths right away, there are certain unambiguous personal needs you must protect at all costs… and no amount of negotiation or conciliation should be considered fair-game when addressing them, in the ongoing process of seeking to attain common ground. Specifically speaking, any prospective agreement which infringes upon either (1) your capacity to steer your own ship in the direction you know it ought to be headed and/or (2) your immediate ability to bank money or other tangible compensation, in direct proportion to how hard you are working (and thus not susceptible to anyone else unduly collecting 'their share'), should be viewed skeptically. However, you need not declare exactly where your do-not-cross lines are drawn. As long as you don't forget, you can keep this back-and-forth with them going a while longer—and your willingness to dicker-and-deal might just put 'em right where you want 'em.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Though Venus-in-your-7th is presently making it rather easy to lean into behaviors which will keep your other-half, best-friend, and/or partner-in-crime pretty happy, there's something about those go-with-the-flow expectations which come along with it that just doesn't sit well with you, Capricorn. You can't believably pretend not to care how things transpire between you, even if you unquestionably care about the person-in-question. You're not so good at 'leaving well enough alone' that you can feign ambivalence, just to signal relational support. So, if you want to actually collect on the happy interpersonal vibes Venus is provisionally offering you, you must be willing to accept and admit to that certain exacting quality to your personality… and to good-naturedly laugh about it (without, of course, backing away from its true expression), in a move to connect with them over how particular you can be. That'll help position you both in the same groove, while still reserving you room to be your authentic self upfront. And if you feel a need to assert your control over something? I'm sure there are plenty of tasks or chores which have nothing to do with your relationship with them where you can constructively direct that energy.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): It's common astrological knowledge that you Aquarians typically prefer to exist in the spacious and stimulating wonderland of your brilliant brain-ball… while finding the physically restrictive inconveniences of living in a body to be a real drag, more often than not. But this is a time during which you might not mind concentrating on how to best function within the built-in limitations of bodily reality, Aquarius—hell, you might even dig it—as long as you don't insist on drilling into your head a misleading notion that the opposite is true. If left to its own devices, your internal consciousness could attempt to persuade you into betraying what's most physically healthy for you, talking up all the ways in which it's more 'mystically' interesting (and, if we're being totally honest, more indulgently debaucherous) to pretend away the material-world consequences of going too far and/or wishing for utter escape. Trust me, that's a very fishy message… one which threatens to corrupt what could otherwise be a quite productive and health-supporting moment for you, provided you balance it with enough odd or otherworldly (but not self-destructive) entertainment to keep your prospective self-saboteur just satisfied enough. And once you're actively enacting the productive and health-supporting steps (instead of trying to talk yourself out of 'em), you'll actually relish the feeling.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Feelings, though important, aren't the only factor to take into account, Pisces… especially if they start spinning themselves into some tall tale, which might seek to cohere into a case for why you should cop out, cut it short, or quit bothering. What you're striving to accomplish is not easy. It requires ongoing commitment. And those times when emotional turbulence, ambivalence, doubt, and/or other self-sabotaging impulses cross your path-of-awareness are exactly when it's hardest to separate that moment's passing impression from the larger, less-variable picture of life-goals and purposes and callings. While I encourage you to acknowledge whatever feelings are now rising, please don't take them to be a universal verdict on the overall state of your life's-work. In other words, refrain from taking any actions, in response to how you're feeling, which might adversely affect your career or public-world position. Instead, I would deliberately use your leisure-time—not your on-the-clock work hours—as a salve for your edgy internal attitude, appropriately blowing off steam by actively participating in whatever sorts of activities make you happy. Any discontent may prove more temporary than it seems… and the best way to speed it along is by enjoying yourself, all the while, whenever you can.