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Horoscopes | Week of August 10-16, 2015

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Though, on the one hand, you're correct to understand your current spot as an opportune moment for reviewing personal preferences and/or confirming whether you actually enjoy what you're doing, Aries, it's also probably a good time to start including a bit more practical thinking into your mix. The present preponderance of fire-sign influences administers an intrinsic goading-into-action liable to motivate you to move your situation forward (or at least somewhere different), in hopes of (re-)injecting a spark of creative interest and/or pleasurable engagement into your days. But unless you carefully consider what a given day in the life of your reinvigorated being would actually look like—that is, how you would integrate this new spark into a functional routine that still meets your work demands and/or other obligations, and remains in pristine alignment with the goals you've already long been striving to achieve—your reinvigorating acts will likely bring only temporary relief, followed by a lot of common-sense questions which must be urgently answered and/or some clean-up efforts which retroactively address any disarray you stirred up in the process. Whatever steps you're hungering to take, in order to make life more gratifying or giddy, may well be exactly what the doctor ordered. I'm just encouraging you to first devote some plan-making, problem-solving analysis to matters of logistics, scheduling, and proper prioritization.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): A critical part of figuring out what exactly your self-care-promoting new-beginning ought to entail, Taurus, is being willing to begin the process of outwardly articulating your moment-to-moment desires with more specificity and candor… even knowing that, for now, you still might not be entirely certain how you'll feel if and/or when you get what you request or suggest. Remember Venus remains retrograde, so this temporary juncture is not about fixating on particular outcomes (i.e., attaching too intently to whether any certain desire is fulfilled), as much as it is an opportunity to play around with different approaches to procuring self-gratification. Before you can become better at satisfying your own needs, you must first foster the inner confidence to believe you deserve to have those needs met. And what better way to foster that confidence than by practicing the fine art of explicitly speaking your wishes and wants aloud? If you can't articulate the specifics of what'll make you happiest, then you cannot reasonably expect anyone else to adeptly suit those preferences. This is not a practice you should expect to master this week or the next, by the way. As I indicated above, I'm only recommending you begin this process now—and, all this while, allow Venus its ample opportunity to complete this retrograde, which will hopefully help expose any recurrent familial patterns that may be obstructing your inner self from believing it's appropriate to ask for what you want. If you start now and keep your practice consistently going, you'll be considerably happier six or nine months from now.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A certain level of discretion, with regards to what's really going on inside you and/or behind those closed doors of your home-life, would likely serve you wisely, Gemini. This advice is not about keeping secrets as much as simply giving yourself a wider berth of psychic space to decide how you feel about the latest developments… and, sometimes, such 'decision-making' can be sullied by too many other people's endorsements, objections, defenses, and conscious-or-not manipulations. Though, as a verbally-articulate, interpersonally-driven Gemini, you probably do a lot of your best emotional processing through dialoguing with one or another character in your life, the capacity to look inward for 'The Truth' is one which you're slated to become increasingly skilled at—if, of course, you choose to value the continuing development of this skill by independently feeling your way through the mental noise (and we've all got plenty of it clogging our intuitive pathways), rather than automatically defaulting to externalization and then, perhaps only semi-consciously, attaching to someone else's reading at the expense of one wholly your own. This is an important moment to consider honing your inner sense-making capacities, in light of how your current social rhythms remain at an exaggerated level of activity: Just because you'll be talking to a lot of people about a lot of stuff, that doesn't mean everything is to be shared with everyone… or that some things wouldn't be better kept to yourself.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): One of the truths I suspect you'll be learning a lot about in the months to come, Cancer, involves the additional benefits you can tangibly attain from a willingness to talk out all the details… as opposed to, say, assuming unspoken understandings are as mutually clear as you wish them to be and/or refusing to ask a key question or share a problematizing specific so as not to 'upset' anybody. Your relative silence probably isn't saving anyone from the imagined hassle of needless conversation, since the relevant facts and inconvenient inquiries will come to light eventually—and, if held to yourself longer than is helpful, could actually cause you a much more significant hassle down the road. Likewise, you aren't reflecting a quiet confidence by concealing your concerns, critiques, and confusions under a veneer of 'hey, I've got this' self-containment… as much as willingly falling short of your own potential by cowering in fear of someone else judging you for seeking assistance, requesting additional information or interactivity, or challenging conventional wisdom. Flip the script on any self-imposed inhibitions around broaching conversations, considerations, and follow-ups: You'll show great faith in your capacity to do whatever it takes to get a job done well by speaking any pertinent thoughts and questions, letting such discussions carry out a good deal of the work.

LEO (July 23-August 22): While you remain at the spectacular center of some pretty influential astrology, I want to remind you, Leo, that this moment (like all moments) will not last forever… and neither will your palpable advantage. In fact, as of this week (Tue Aug 11, to be exact), your year of hosting option-expanding Jupiter in your home-sign is officially over. That's not to say, however, you should expect all your advantages to cruelly disappear or your popularity to suddenly plummet. You still have many weeks of both Mars and Venus (first as a retrograder, then back direct again) moving through Leo, which reserves you a chunk more time to collect on favorable impressions, push your personal agenda markedly forward, and generally make yourself more conspicuously known (hopefully for good reasons). But with Jupiter (along with Mercury) now in your 2nd house and ushering in an earthier period, this is also your moment to meticulously devise practical methods for continuing to bank on this fleeting window of opportunity, well into the future—in a concrete fashion, which hopefully includes greater sustained confidence in your functional abilities and, importantly, an increased earning capacity. When you're at a high-point such as this, you'll want to strike while the iron's hot. Otherwise, once you naturally start 'coming down' from here (because what goes up must come down), it'll require gradually more effort to pull off the same self-securing feats you could carry out now with major planetary assistance.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): Yes, it is true, Virgo, traditional good-luck planet Jupiter enters your sign this Tuesday (Aug 11)… and will be opening up opportunities, broadening your perspective, and supporting you in all your efforts to stretch beyond previous limitations between now and September 2016. On a more immediate time-span level, too, you receive positive effects from your ruler Mercury's return to Virgo (lasting through Aug 27), helping to restore your analytic astuteness to its brilliant best. But before you go crazy with externalized glee or start taking lots of riskier moves under the belief that Jupiter's going to protect you from every possible hazard, let's be real: For now, you're still hosting a lot of untrustworthy 12th-house activity in your solar chart, which perpetuates a certain threat of unwise or immoderate reactions (yours and/or someone else's) to some perceived ego-slight snowballing into a bigger mess than anyone had bargained for. As such, it's best to begin collecting on your new Jupiterian advantages slowly. In the short term, start with retraining your brain to acclimate itself to believing said advantages exist… to evolve your read on any seeming obstacles or obstructions, so they no longer feel just like disappointing or discouraging signs, but also look like golden chances to improve, openings for a creative departure, endings which will ultimately prove fortuitous, and/or an impetus to think bigger. This is a practice best handled independently for the time being, as others are currently likely to either not totally understand you or have their heads up their own asses. Soon enough, though, nobody will able to miss your obvious rising-up.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Though the social-circle shakeouts continue to expose glimpses of who's really got your back (and who doesn't), who's surprisingly compelling (and who's proving to be a bunch of hot air), and/or who's behaviorally consistent (and who's liable to skew any which way, based on that day's popularity polls), I see you growing increasingly mum, Libra, about your changing opinions or offended sensibilities. You must still play your role amongst the wider group—which might necessarily include agreeably fraternizing with your cohorts, lending your hand to collaborative efforts, or even taking a controversial stand about how such collaborative efforts will be most efficaciously carried out—but I'd stop short of offering evaluative commentary about particular individuals or getting into outright conflict over personal styles or attitudes. While all these other-people-related dramatics play themselves out, you're headed into a more mentally-removed mode of private contemplation: observing carefully how their casual words and deeds unconsciously reveal their true motives, taking scrupulous note of which narrative details support the emotional responses now coalescing in you, shielding yourself from too much on-the-spot social pressure to endorse or indict when it doesn't serve your own interests to do so, and, most of all, actively planning for a future which may feature a markedly different cast of characters. These contemplations, remember, should stay private for now. Say too much, and you'll cause an immediate leak in your energy-field… causing you to waste time, lose focus, and/or not feel too great.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): For now, Scorpio, please don't attempt to handle it all on your own when you will get better results—and feel that reassuring sense of being part of something beyond just your own damn self—by handling it with other people in tow. Though you're still brandishing a fairly pronounced leadership edge that unquestionably positions you at the enterprising forefront, everyone knows the most competent leaders rely heavily on the talented and knowledgeable people they've smartly surrounded themselves with. You won't want to merely issue instructions you've pre-established as the way to do things, of course; that would be an utter waste of the talent and knowledge your pals, peers, and teammates possess. Yet, you probably shouldn't just blindly accept their ideas or approaches as gospel either. The whole point of working together alongside capable collaborators is that you are actually working together—cheering each other on, calling each other out, playing devil's-advocate or squeaky-wheel, and essentially allowing these dynamic threads of dialogue to set the agenda (under your masterful overseeing tutelage, naturally) instead of just going through the motions of 'collaborating' when everything's already set. With the right colleagues and comrades in tow, you get to 'lead'… and get a whole lot smarter in the process.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): With your ruling monarch Jupiter hitting your solar 10th this week for the first time since 2004, you're about to enter your yearlong moment in the spotlight, Sagittarius… and, therefore, you'd better be ready for every valiant triumph (and every little embarrassing gaffe) to find itself prominently broadcast for all the world to see. This is the quintessential astrology of auspicious career prospects, though it only pays off with any lasting significance if you invest sustained intentional effort toward goals of your choosing. It can just as easily open impressive-looking doors which don't lead anywhere personally meaningful or interesting to you and/or make a currently underwhelming situation just satisfactory enough to dissuade you from progressive action, both time-wasting examples of Jupiter's less-benefic expression. That's why, as long as Venus is still retrograde—and now also joined by Mars—in your 9th, it behooves you to truly and deeply reaffirm that you are presently headed in a properly meaningful and/or interesting direction. This is your chance to double-check your professional positioning and/or driving outer-world ambitions are in alignment with your ethics, principles, and spiritual values. And if there is a gap between where you're now headed and where you believe you should be headed, in order to live a life that'll leave you proud of yourself two or three decades from now, spend these next few weeks narrowing it to the best of your ability. Sometimes, one's most fortunate opportunities first begin with appropriate closure or a timely ending.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): You're reaching that point where you feel really ready to make your judgment, apply a meaningful perspective, and decide what to do next, Capricorn, in response to whatever interpersonal cross-interests, conflicted emotions, or muddy messes you've been dealing with for a while now. Yet, though you are likely more 'over it, through it, past it, or beyond it' than you were two weeks ago, the situation is continuing to unfold. Rather than immediately claim a resolving judgment or final meaning, then, I'd merely begin a purposely-slow-but-steady process of moving towards that judgment or meaning… all the while, starting to make it even clearer to the other involved party than you already have exactly which direction such a conclusion would point you. This gives you a fair chance to stretch this rubber-band to its farthest limits, to see whether you can fruitfully remain bound to this person and/or situation—or whether it'll just snap under the pressure of your utter forthrightness. Pose those most-critical questions, not as a threat but with a sincere desire to hear their answers. Present your speculative findings, while willingly admitting to them you could be missing something. This gives them a fair chance, too, to demonstrate (intentionally or inadvertently) that your almost-drawn conclusions are indeed correct (for you, that is, rather than objectively)… or to fight for some angle to this complexity which they hold dear, and/or which you perhaps haven't been comprehensively considering. You may be close to a principled resolution, but, trust me, you'll really really want to be sure.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): It's okay if you aren't entirely certain about what's exactly true for you in a particular relationship at the moment, Aquarius. It may presently be far easier to determine what definitely isn't working for you (even if you aren't quite sure how to 'fix' it), what someone else is doing that bugs the crap out of you (though you might not know how to bring it up fairly or respectfully), and/or what general topic or issue is creating the most psychic dissonance or disturbance in the dynamic between you (yet lacking clarity on which triggering specifics would be most constructively addressed). So, proceed from where you actually are, right now, in this relationship… without adopting a posture of certainty about desired outcomes you don't, in fact, possess. Instead, what you ought to be 'certain' about is a staunch commitment to ultimately airing (over the course of a protracted period of processing, that is, rather than in one giant undigestible gulp) all the unsettling observations and true-confession disclosures which, in their currently raw and disorganized state, comprise the root of your current uncertainty. In other words, you should be hell-bent on getting to the bottom of these questions—no matter any potential consequences—but with patience, persistence, and painstaking precision. That also means: No premature claims to 'having figured things out'.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Recent horoscopes have centered quite a bit on your day-to-day work, Pisces… and that remains a key factor in your astrological outlook for another several weeks. With Mars now alongside Venus in your solar 6th, this phase could prove to be one of your most tangibly productive of the whole year. You are presently wielding a stronger concentration of get-shit-done initiative than you have in quite some time. When we factor in Venus's retrograde influence, this continues to be an excellent moment for rearranging your routines, schedules, and habits so they flow more sleekly and elegantly... both for the benefit of the results you're trying to produce and your own improved experience. Hard work doesn't have to full-on hurt, either your body or your soul, even when it's strenuous and demanding. Just as exercise is meant to challenge your physical capabilities without overtaxing your system or risking injury, all the daily efforts you expend should strive to actualize your highest potential but not go so far as to jeopardize your well-being. And thanks to benefic Jupiter's arrival to your 7th, you're also at the very beginning of an encouraging evolutionary process with regards to your central one-on-one relationships. To take fullest advantage of it, though, you'll have to apply more discriminating criteria to how any given individual specifically supports your other life-aspirations… or siphons your attention away, as the case may be. Right away, any certain character's response to your present need to work hard will provide some fodder for critical consideration.