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Horoscopes | Week of May 25-31, 2015

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You always have the choice not to remark, not to actively participate, not to involve yourself so centrally in the goings-on, Aries. And while I don't mean to discourage you from remarking, participating, or positioning yourself in the middle of it all, I would encourage you to pause a moment or two before immediately and instinctively inserting your influence… and to consider what might happen if, instead, you didn't 'do anything'. Of course, the act of purposefully imposing a degree of restraint upon yourself is still an 'act', as are any number of less-externally-apparent maneuvers intended not to directly cause effects in the outside world… but to nurture inward understanding, appreciation, inspiration, respect, wonder, awe, and/or other such psychic benefits of a hands-off approach. In every moment of social interaction when you choose to listen rather than talk, question rather than answer, observe rather than disregard, or leave room rather than fill the space, something else will happen in lieu of what you would've made happen. Isn't it interesting to ponder all those alternate-realities you might help to create by not taking it upon yourself to mold this reality according to your desires, specifications, or impulses? Again, I reiterate: It's not about you refraining from taking any action, simply acknowledging that each one comes at the cost of what another person might do in its absence.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Don't forget about the other people involved, Taurus, and how they might feel about your presently-preoccupying pursuit of self-serving gain… particularly if your efforts are apt to strike them as insensitive to their interests and/or liable to have a collateral effect on them, though they may've been excluded from giving their feedback about that condition. That said, it would be unwise to sink your own ship or sacrificially moor it in a port with scant potential for producing riches, rather than continuing to sail onward on your earnest hunt for treasure, just because you don't want to alienate anyone else. This astrological muddle is merely asking for some mindful pauses… in consideration of the way in which certain steps you take, on behalf of building your personal worth (financially and/or in terms of self-esteem), will circumstantially carry you closer to or farther away from certain allies, affiliations, or identities. Whatever you do for yourself will have larger ripples of impact on your social position, based on the 'type' of person you're becoming as a result of such choices—and, therefore, on the 'type' of people who'd consider you one of them. Your calls-to-action may not need to change, in light of this horoscope; just don't overlook these likely social consequences, even if there are few immediately visible symptoms signaling their occurrence.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Let me cut to the chase, Gemini: This could prove a very precarious or perilous moment for you, if you allow yourself to run too footloose or fancy-free, wild, wacky, or weird, in contexts where such unrestrained and uncensored behavior is simply not appropriate. You are at the center of this week's astro-kerfuffle, with Mars conjoining a still-retrograde Mercury in your sign while both square off with Neptune-in-your-10th… a planetary combination that could blind you to how important contacts, bosses, clients, mentors, and/or authority-figures (yes, including cops) are seeing and interpreting your impulsive statements, unruly actions, self-starting advances, or restless attitude. What you think is innocent, clever, or fun might read quite differently to them—and the disconnect could cause lasting damage to your reputation in their eyes (though, as the 'damage' is happening, it probably won't announce itself as such). Don't forget that hosting Mars in your zodiac-home always adds an extra double-edge to your personality, helping you better assert your personal desires but simultaneously poking and provoking those certain folks who'd prefer you mind your P's-and-Q's. Mars's conjunction to Mercury-retrograde only emphasizes the fact that you might not know exactly what you're 'asserting'. In light of this, please protect your professional image and public safety at all costs… not letting loose (as your drives might prefer) until you're confidently out of the line-of-sight and off the record.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Stay out of the fray, Cancer. This is a piss-poor time to attempt to take a stand, make a point, or explain the fundamentals of your thinking. This is not your moment for flaunting your moral backbone, relying on your advanced knowledge, or promoting your lived-experience as a symbolic testament to some larger doctrine. Please refrain from any impetuous responses—even if you're clearly being baited—which would situate you in the line-of-fire. Feel free, however, to voice your opinions or vent your frustrations or defend your principles in private… in the pages of your journal, through creative self-expression, in your prayers or meditations, as a friction fertile for deepening spiritual reflection or ritual practice, and/or via any mode which is less interpersonal and more a matter of universal-level engagement. In other words, embrace the inner journey of reaping nuanced insights from these coursing-and-charging inputs, but don't play with them in too outward a manner, as they're liable to take on a life of their own, possibly compelling you to prematurely argue their rightfulness… and possibly leading to a clash which will leave you feeling bad afterwards. For the moment, it's all about cultivating awareness, within a relatively self-contained context. Wonderful developments can occur, provided you foster proper detachment from the need to correct or educate anybody.

LEO (July 23-August 22): Not everyone involved has an identical motive or psychic investment, Leo. In fact, I'll be bold enough to suggest that every individual's psychological stake in this matter is radically unique, insofar as it's a cumulative factor of all the life-episodes they've encountered, withstood, grown from, and eclipsed. This truth may be somewhat concealed from obvious view, however, as their apparent behaviors might suggest a more commonly-shared mindset amongst you than may indeed exist. Do not, therefore, judge what's going on inside the hearts and minds of pals, colleagues, or teammates based on their outward behavior. An 'acceptable compromise' to one person, for example, could be experienced as a dire threat to survival for another. An action which you might interpret as 'speaking volumes' may be, to someone else, a move totally not meant to convey any message at all. Due to this week's extra-slippery potential for social misunderstandings, be especially cautious to not assume where anyone else's beliefs, values, intentions, or identifications may reside… or you could cause a worse-than-it-seems schism with somebody you accidentally dishonor with some offhand remark. Just because you share something in common doesn't mean you're as similar as you may think.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): You're currently under a heightened risk of so thoroughly immersing yourself in the never-ending, constantly-changing details involved with advancing your career aims and/or chasing your big life-aspirations, Virgo, that you overlook an important relationship issue or critical interpersonal consideration. Your continuing progress must not come at the expense of anybody's well-being… whether it's a collaborator whose contribution is getting lost in the shuffle, your personal-life partner who isn't receiving the attention they require or deserve, and/or your own damn self who insists on bearing unreasonable expectations for how much you can take on (at the same time taking it off other people's shoulders) for the whole organization's benefit. There's too much room for toes to be stepped on (yours and/or someone else's) at the moment, whenever you casually jump in to 'save the day' with a quick fix, sudden gear-shift, or on-the-spot reversal of direction. Is the proper chain of command being respected? Are the necessary conversations being rushed through, with a tone unfortunately too urgent to sincerely encourage the expression of critical dissent? No matter what amazing feats we accomplish out in the world, our most meticulously mindful relations with one another in the process ought to take precedence.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Great ideas are still just ideas, Libra… and though you're presently working with an exceptionally brilliant and bright imagination, helping you invent your vision for a far more exciting and engaging existence, you're also not operating at your most concretely realistic. That is not a problem, however, as long as you know that's your situation at the moment. There are all sorts of glaring, gaping holes in your theories… places where, if you were to simply follow your current impulses to their logical conclusion, you'd likely find yourself in a pickle of contradictions and conundrums. So, just don't follow 'em that far, and everything ought to be cool. Be very suspicious, for instance, of any fledgling belief of yours which would rationalize a temporary halt to your ongoing daily efforts, as if you'd somehow be 'saving yourself' from some wrong turn by stopping what you've been doing and returning altogether to the concept stage. Why can't you 'rethink' while still continuing with your everyday work? This is not an integrative point in your process, so I can imagine why spinning these multiple plates (with distinct purposes and/or competing premises) might feel a bit maddening… and thus inspire you to try integrating the disparate threads. But that would be premature. You don't yet know what's what, or how it all functionally fits together.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): If you don't stay on your toes, Scorpio, and continually remind yourself of what comprises your own unique brand of authentic selfhood (and what, consequently, doesn't), you'll be imprudently prone to expend your psychic energies on an immersive interpersonal muddle which, at the end of the day, has very little to do with what you ultimately want. You may be going through these motions of engagement with this compelling character, entity, or twin-soul not because you've thoroughly thought through where it might ultimately carry you… but simply due to the fact that (1) they're there, (2) the back-and-forth between you is obviously interesting in some way, if not downright captivating, and (3) what the hell else is there to be doing? And it's that last point on which I'd like to call you out, and pose that supposedly rhetorical question back at you in a sincerely inquisitive form: What the hell else might you be doing? Let me be clear that I am not suggesting you ought to curtail your involvement in any such captivating comminglings (not that you'd probably listen to me even if I were)—merely to consider, all the while you're immersed in this participation, which personally satisfying interests or activities you might be forgoing (and, in the process, unconsciously neglecting a key aspect of yourself?), in sacrificial deference to this association.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Don't let another person's seemingly unkind comments, combative tone, or threatening posture goad you into a full-on war of words, Sagittarius, if you're going to end up fighting them with a weapon you might later regret having used. On the other hand, you probably shouldn't give another person's bad behavior a free pass by giving in to their childish attitude or selfish demands just to 'make things easier on yourself', a choice you might later regret having made. What these two pieces of otherwise opposite advice share in common, as you likely noticed, is my encouragement not to set yourself up for later regret by veering too far from your emotional center, due to someone else's riling influence. All this current 7th-house activity can too easily situate you in constant reactive mode, allowing their conduct to set the relational rhythm… and consequently resulting in you having to bounce your every possible action-choice off their beat, in how it responds to whatever they started up and/or what their potential response to it might be. That's a dangerous recipe for losing your way in a heated moment, whether positioning you to win at any cost or to alleviate your discomfort as quickly as possible—both scenarios in which it's all about your relationship to them rather than your relationship with your own inner well-being. Stop stressing about a moment's specific interpersonal outcome, then, and worry about living with yourself.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): Why would you discount the potentially insightful outlooks and opinions of those in your immediate vicinity, Capricorn, when even the most cursory conversations will likely spur your problem-solving ingenuity to branch off in fruitfully different directions? A open-minded willingness to talk out what you're working on is decidedly not the same thing as relying on others to give you the better answer. The process need not be a matter of choosing this over that, your way or their way (but hopefully not the highway), right or wrong. Rather, the interactivity itself—the reactions which arise between distinct individuals bouncing words and notions and fancies off one another, in an exchange of mental energies—is its own central player, attributed to no singular owner-of-the-credit, but nonetheless pivotal to the successful emergence of divinely-inspired 'eureka!' moments. Don't kid yourself into believing that the busier and busier you keep yourself, the closer and closer you'll get to a golden solution or ideal productivity. By not consciously including the interpersonal factor, you're needlessly (and obstinately) making things harder on yourself. You'd really rather hit your head against a wall than pick somebody else's brain?

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): Sorry to be the buzzkill party-pooper, Aquarius, but finances do matter. Just because you're forward-thinking enough to understand the socially-constructed illusion of currency's worth, that doesn't exempt you from still having to play by the same rules as everybody else. Part of why you ended up in this dense dimension on this planet, my cosmic oddball, is to actively work toward mastering the straightforward equation of how material needs get met… a formula that always directly depends on the collectively-agreed-upon framework of your particular time-and-place, which, in your case, presumably revolves around money, wage-labor, and other capitalist trappings. I'm spelling out the obvious for you in this week's horoscope mainly because the current slew of astro-actors you're now hosting in your solar 5th is incredibly inspiring, insofar as stimulating in you all kinds of wacky impulses and pleasurable enthusiasms and excellent reasons-to-celebrate—but, as awesome as all that sounds, it could also prove majorly problematic if not properly offset by fiscal responsibility and/or other relevant strains of unapologetic pragmatic realism (and by 'realism', I mean an attitude which honors this dense, earthly, agreed-upon reality). Have as big a blast as you possibly can, but not at the expense of keeping both feet firmly on the ground… and both eyes watching your account balances.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Please don't disappear, Pisces, whether from others' literal view or by showing up as a mere bodily placeholder while your actual emotional self is elsewhere. In the absence of your providing regular updates to the most integral folks in your life—even if you aren't yet certain how you feel, or it's a different story every day, or you fear 'bringing them down' with your latest shades of internal discontent, or you don't even know what to say but are willing to at least say that much, so they know you're okay—you'll surrender your capacity to make an impact with your presence. Though you might try to convincingly spin any number of reasons why your inner instability and/or confusion (a temporary sensation, may I remind you) should serve as a shame-based incentive to withhold your influence, your continuing participation in the developments unfolding around you remains a fundamental necessity for your longer-term emotional well-being. You must understand the self-sabotaging irony in attempting to escape notice when you're not feeling your best: By disappearing into your own uncertainty, you leave yourself out of the very process of interacting with your surroundings—and the other people who lurk there—which will help ease that uncertainty over time, instead digging yourself deeper into that hole of feeling powerless. Disappear, and you're, by default, handing away your power.