By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Springtime arrives early for you this year, with lust and sap rising and, with any luck, you feeling like a big juicy purple flower. This is not a mental exercise, however; the point is to touch and be touched, physically, emotionally and spiritually. If you feel like you've got to keep control over your attractive force, give it up while you're still young. You're visible, you're beautiful and you smell good, and that's going to draw people to you. Like the rest of nature, you cannot control this. The only control you need is to let people know exactly where you stand with them, today and every day. You owe nobody your perfect fidelity, merely your simple honesty. Romance is for wimps. Telling people what you want and how you feel is not.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)

It may seem like you're getting ahead of yourself or trying to be someone you're not ready to be. But change is on the horizon, change of a depth and scale you have not experienced for many moons. Occasionally life just happens to get better, but more often we make it so by tangible actions and conscious choices. These turning points need to be guided by a vision, and vision evolves with time, experience and the gradual raising of awareness about what we want from life. You decide who you are -- remember this -- every time you meet someone. Growth and change are alchemical processes; they are mutual reactions. Encounters will push you to be more or less like your authentic self. Either way you win, because you'll get to see the difference.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)

Some people will tell you they're too weak to have any integrity, and others reveal their lack of solid character in less obvious ways. Beware of those who blame the opposite sex for every problem they face. They're not your friends, and they are not facing something critical within themselves. You are beginning to see the world for what it is, and at the same time, to see through the world. But as the saying goes, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Therefore, I can offer you two bits of insight. One is don't be quick to articulate your judgements about yourself or others. You will certainly have those judgements, and they will surely change. Second, pay close attention to group dynamics. There are benefits involved, personal and professional.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Regarding a career matter, a series of careful steps lead to a breakthrough around the 20th. While this has all the markings of something you truly want and need, keep a close eye on the agendas of professional partners and don't underestimate the extent to which you must direct the whole show, no matter what other people may think. You need to be subtle about this, you need to practice the skill of mental analysis, and you need to gather your facts long in advance. Most important, you need to know what you require to get the job done. If you can identify the resources you need, whether they be human or material, you will open the most important door between you and well-deserved success.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)

Shining from your charts is the calling of faraway places, and a deep desire to begin your life over. But something deeper is going on, which is a moment of reckoning with where you stand in connection to the big picture of time, to your life plan, and how you're responding to the rather edgy state of the world. We live in a truly unusual time in history, and through all the movement, instability and turmoil around us, rare opportunity is created. There is plenty of cosmic force guiding you toward your destination, so you don't need to push. But in order to be guided, you surely need to listen, and listening may involve filtering out a good bit of noise. In sum, what people think about you matters a lot less than what you think about them.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)

The less time you spend trying to justify your insights to yourself, the more time you'll have to act on them, and the sooner you'll collect their rewards. Intense inner dialogue often reveals activity on the emotional level that can include resentment, unexpressed anger, or a sense of being misunderstood. You have certain things to say to people in your life. Those people have names and phone numbers. You also seem to have desires for pleasure and adventure that exceed what we're told are the normal boundaries in our society. What you are viewing as a moral issue is really about an issue of control. Morality is just a convincing costume for the game wherein you become convinced that the less alive you feel, the safer certain other people think they are. But it's getting quite old.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)

Plans and negotiations you're involved with now will change and evolve radically over the next three months and, by all indications, in your favor. But it's not going to seem like that every day of the week, or every hour of the day, and you've got to get accustomed to unusual developments if you want to take advantage of them. The more you facilitate communication, the smoother everything will flow. If you don't attach yourself to one outcome or one way of doing things, you'll quickly notice that flexibility is your greatest asset. In any international dealings, whether personal or for business, remember to honor the customs of the country in which you're involved. Start with knowing what time zone you're working in, and know how to say hello and goodbye in the local language. Your curiosity will get you the rest of the way.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)

Recent developments seem to have sent you back to the beginning where cultivating your security and stability are concerned. They've also reminded you how desperately you've struggled to escape from a particular lie you were told about yourself, and that you believed for quite a long time. The door to a more daring and creative way of life has opened, and with it comes a necessary blast of chaos and turbulence that will keep your ideas and perceptions fresh. We know that the world is a different place every day, and that we are different people every day. Since change implies that we can't know in advance what's going to happen, there is only one way to get to your destination, and that way is trust -- particularly when developments toward the end of the month go faster than your ability to analyze.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Knowledge is power, and you're about to encounter some that will change your world. You've also got an ethical dilemma on your hands, complicated by a struggle to see the big picture rather than a thousand tiny pieces -- minus, of course, the most important one. What you discover may feel like that missing link, and you may therefore be inclined to take a chance and act impulsively. Consider the implications well, because they could reach further and wider than you realize. Often, just knowing something offers you substantial influence. How you use that information is an entirely different question. Therein lies the ethical dilemma. The simplest way to proceed is to act within the different constraints you see. This will guide you toward a scant few possibilities. From there, the choice should be easy.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

Is there somebody in your life whose role it is to stop you from having fun, and if so, what are they doing there? You may well have put them there. This is a fairly common strategy of what some call 'ego' to thwart inner growth. One thing you can trust right now is that everyone else has your best interests at heart. The most important thing you can do is to have your own best interests at heart. It's time to draw a close to the psychological analysis phase and start feathering your own nest, because unless your security comes as a direct result of your own actions and choices, you're unlikely to believe it's real. Whether the world is safe or not is usually a reflection of your state of mind. That, rather fortunately, can change.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)

Aquarius has an overwhelming need to make sense of things. For now, I suggest you stick to pattern recognition. The most fruitful pattern to observe is that of your own sense of failure. Notice when you think you've failed, when you expect you're going to fail, and when you expect other people to expect you to fail. Not only are these expectations not accurate, they follow a specific course. See how far back you can trace it. Next, see if you can recognize the pattern of your learning. Perhaps take the failure pattern and reinterpret it so that you can account for the benefits. You will see, I hope, that how you ultimately assess your life is a matter of interpretation rather than a matter of absolute fact.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Changes are right on the horizon, perhaps the biggest ever, and the most surprising. The opportunity at hand bodes well for your financial future, but far better as confirmation of your sense of worth and value. Let the coming developments serve as the first reminder of many to come that you're real, and that you have an impact on a tired world that truly benefits from your passion, presence and commitment to integrity. If you can tune into these factors, you will feel a lot more easygoing about how "different" you need to be to make your contribution. One of the more pressing issues faced by any Pisces is maintaining a clear sense of her own existence. Usually, you find this through giving. At long last, you can also do this by receiving.

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2004 Annual Horoscope Pages

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