Through Sept. 2, Mercury is retrograde, and will be putting on quite a performance; get to a TV for a minute and have a look. The world-at-large is quickly shaping up to be an extremely interesting place that will be all the more palatable for having a secure, sanctified space to call your own. Looked at another way, you'll be able to tolerate, and participate in, how fabulously insecure and uncertain so-called reality is if you're feeling safe and sound within your own heart, hearth and home.

Jupiter enters Libra later this month, which arrives with a collective sigh, groan or moan of relief, in any event providing help just where it's needed: the sign most associated with relationships, with beauty and with justice. This year's Libra Equinox is a fabulously powerful event. Exact Sept. 23 at 12:30 a.m. EDT, it will stretch through at least the following week, as Jupiter, Mars, Ceres and Mercury all get ready to shift into Libra close on one another's heels, sparking the quark.

Some of these planets will make a difficult aspect to Pluto in Sagittarius as they cross Virgo early to mid-month; let these waves of awareness and tension pass one at a time. Virgo's message is ultimately that life is something you do with your fingers, toes and tongue rather than your cerebral cortex. But if your brain wants to have fun, just remind it to tune into the mind of the senses and the consciousness of creatures.

Jai Ma! Om Namaha!

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Yes, well, it could get worse, and it could get a lot better, and this you know. What you don't know is how much better, though from your persistent but not entirely successful efforts at making improvements to every aspect of your life, I could see you being a bit guarded in your optimism. You are, however, on the right track about one thing: you live in your mind, not your house. Relationship situations right now promise to be exceptionally in tune with your state of mind. You've been working on this one and you're about to see some excellent results.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)

I would not be surprised if you're experiencing the slowly-accumulating sense that it's getting on time to move. There's no rush, actually, and you're just being given opportunities to get accustomed to the idea. The thing is, while you know you may need to make a change, particularly to shift a family situation, you're likely to be aware of just how much you love your current space. At the moment, if you want to get your hands into a project, I suggest starting on your office or personal work area. Apply some creativity and spend some money -- you'll be very happy you did.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)

It would appear that you've recently passed through a stretch of time that's been dominated by seemingly ridiculous domestic complications. How much of this was in your mind? And doesn't your mind have better things to do with itself? It does, I assure you. I suggest you think of your entire physical space as an art studio. If you share your home with family, cordon off a zone for this purpose; if you have some space of your own, I suggest you decree it territory where experimentation with art or music is your daily meditation. This will be the best love magnet you could ever wish for.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

These have been some tense seasons, featuring various upheavals, persistent uncertainties and a nagging sense of insecurity that has not mixed well with your Cancerian nature. Yet the past is very rapidly becoming the past. While the world goes wild over the next three months, your world becomes more stable, and your home becomes a safe haven for both life's physical and spiritual pleasures. All the movement and uncertainty you've so boldly faced have had a deeply stabilizing effect on you. Maturity has its rewards, and you won't need to look much past your front door to find them.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)

If you will look, you'll see that the space in which you now live has nothing in common with just about every place you've ever called home. Okay, a few lamps, dishes and cups, heavy-duty tools, that kind of thing. But in the emotional sense, you have succeeded at exorcising your life of the ghosts of the past, and of patterns that have bound you to so many subtle shades of misery. I suggest that while this unusual astrology lasts, you make one final scan of your space for anything that reminds you of a time or person you would rather forget, and do a little forgetting.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)

The emotional struggle you've lived with so long has done more to raise your consciousness than just about anything "good" that's happened to you in recent seasons. But it would appear that you're getting rather sick of one particular source of injury or crisis that has worked its way deeply into your home life. The beauty of your current situation is that you know exactly how you feel. They key to making effective changes is remembering. True, most people immediately suppress pain. I suggest you act on it.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)

If you've learned one thing in this phase of your life, it's how incredibly sensitive to your environment you are. This is actually one of the most important qualities a human being can cultivate. Your deep responsiveness to the quality of the space around you has something to do with how rigid your early caregivers were. Slowly you've peeled back the layers of that conditioning. What's revealed around the time the Sun reaches Libra later in the month will reassure you that every choice made and tear shed has strengthened and nourished your roots. But don't clutch the Earth; merely grow stronger.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)

There are some things over which you have no control, and some things about other people over which you have no control. As St. Francis once suggested, we do need to be granted the wisdom to know the difference between what we can influence and what we cannot. There is a question that is persisting strongly in both your home life and your emotional life, which involves whether certain patterns are slowly improving, or slowly becoming more the same. Here is one litmus test: is your home someplace you can always tell the unmitigated truth? I would call that an improvement.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Do you have any reason at all to be indoors? I am sure you can find a few, but I recommend that you keep it down to a small handful. The god of fortune is smiling on you, and he's smiling wherever people gather. Even if you normally cannot stand the banality of social interaction, I suggest you take up every invitation to where people get together, and create at least one such event of your own, perhaps something to celebrate the Equinox. You need to be reminded how excellent your life is, and these should do the trick.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

Events of this month should add up to some brilliant developments in your career. Have faith in yourself and don't allow distractions, abstractions or purely intellectual theories to get in your way. Stick to reality in all its hot, glorious splendor. Keep your visibility high and state your intentions and goals clearly. The people in your life need to be enlisted to do more than tolerate you or "be supportive." If there is one super-potent, secret ingredient to making your dreams absolutely real, it is the cooperation of your family, your housemates, and those with whom you share life and love.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)

As Aquarius Carole King said, only love is real, and everything else is illusion, adding to the confusion. You're in one of those times of life when sources of confusion may be abundant, but when the power of love will be palpable. I don't doubt there is someone in whom you've taken a very strong interest. This person may provide a kind of organizing principle around which you may plan the next few months or years of your life. Give this situation time to work out, and promise yourself that you will have faith even in the face of not taking your own capacity for love seriously.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

There are some problems that money can solve, and I suggest you use money to solve them. Apply it with a spade, not a shovel, and you'll get the job done. This will free your time and energy for far more important priorities, some of which involve business and most of which involve love. The important thing is that your priorities now include other people in a way that's rather unfettered compared to many times in the recent past, when most of what you had to deal with was the drive for liberation caught in bindings -- bindings that are no longer there.

Eric Francis is a horoscope columnist, investigative journalist and counselling astrologer. His monthly and annual horoscopes are now free. If you don't want to wait a whole month, you can get his subscriber-only horoscopes every Monday and Friday by subscribing here. As a subscriber you get horoscopes, astrology news and articles twice a week by email from Eric, plus access to our subscriber-only website. Check out the details here or call us toll-free on (877) 453 8265. Thank you.