Weekly Horoscope for Friday, November 14, 2008, #740 – By ERIC FRANCIS
Aries (March 20-April 19)
There is little point getting ahead in life if you feel that others are more likely to take from than to give to you. You might feel your own gains are small compared to those around you, but you have to guard against being exploited. In truth, very little that anyone has is worth anything unless they have the opportunity to share or exchange it, and I speak mainly in terms of your personal resources and gifts. Why would you possibly have them if they were not of value to someone else? That is precisely how you would, under ideal circumstances, go about taking care of yourself. However, I suggest you think in terms of how your effort, talent and knowledge contributes to something larger than yourself. I am suggesting that you let yourself be used, in a conscious way, maintaining your identity in the process.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
A difficult experience unfolding in a sexual or contractual situation is in the process of bringing you a sense of grounding and stability. It’s also putting you in touch with your conservative values. I don’t mean to suggest that you’re against freedom, though I do mean to say that it makes you quite nervous. You’re still unsure the difference between necessary and unnecessary risk; you are still uncertain the difference between a risk and an opportunity. How you would discern one from the other is partly a matter of experience, partly a matter of intuition and mostly a matter of getting the facts. Someone is offering what seems to be good information, but you seem certain you can’t trust it. Or rather, whether you can trust the person giving it. Maybe you need to bring up that very issue before you can proceed with a clear head.
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Early in my astrology career, when Pluto had just entered your opposite sign Sagittarius, I wrote every Gemini horoscope with a degree of apprehension. I wanted to be sure that I was offering ideas about life and astrology from the right perspective, with a sufficiently light touch. Now another Pluto sign change is taking place, and this one will call upon you to use everything you have learned and many things you have forgotten. What have you learned these years since 1995? More meaningfully, what have you forgotten? The important times to consider were whatever developed in late 1999; whatever came to pass in the summer of 2001, into the spring of 2002; and whatever you are noticing develop right now. This is a crucial time of transition for you, and I would describe your whole job as being about taking stock of what you know. You will need it all.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
This week’s Full Moon aspects the most creative and passionate angle of your chart, full of strength, opportunity and desire. If that is true, then why are you feeling these doubts? Take the opportunity to learn a trick of the mind: let the doubt speak, and recognize it as one voice. There are others, such as the one encouraging you to embark on an artistic or sexual risk of some kind. There is the aspect of your psyche that understands that its purpose is creation, and with the sense that reaching into the void is potentially dangerous. You risk losing the approval of people you care about; this is true. You risk ‘failing’, this is also true. Now you get to ask whether these risks actually matter. Few ask, and therefore, few bother to dare.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Getting to know oneself is so difficult, few people bother. It is easy to assume that you already know everything there is to know, but that’s boring on the scale of television. The dimension in which you’re searching is that space where you are seeking the ability to express deep emotional sentiments in a clear way, first to yourself, and then to others. When the time comes to share your feelings, don’t be put off by someone’s apparent lack of interest; there is someone closer to you who will truly understand what you’re feeling, from your own viewpoint and not the ‘opposite’ one. Remember that you’re not seeking approval for what you feel as much as you are a sense of resonance, companionship and mutual awareness. True, those are forms of approval, but they are a subtle reward for approving of yourself for daring to feel.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
The revelations continue. Though you seem to be mentally obsessed and enjoying it, I suggest that on the important matters you trust your feelings more than your ideas, and on the one most important matter of your long-range security, you trust your spiritual foundation exclusively. This may be a challenge because you are so deep in thought, and you are a thoughtful person, if nothing else. If you were to recognize the source of your fear and put that energy into something else, you would have a lot less on your mind, and your abundant mental resources could be invested into something entirely creative. The fact is, you are taken care of, but it is fear and fear alone that blocks your ability to see and experience that. You know this intellectually; now it’s a matter of managing your energy.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
Humans find unusual and unlikely meeting points. And they often find some sense of authentic contact when they were least expecting it, leading many to believe that expectations drive away the people who might nourish us. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s a lot more complicated than that. Yet what develops in the current days will, I trust, give you some reassurance that the people in your environment can feel you and that they can — when they want, and when they choose to — offer you what you need. Certainly you feel you have plenty to offer them, and you do. What, exactly, is the thing that opens the way? That may remain veiled in mystery for a while. And the deeper truth is that any experience of receiving or of taking in nourishment that you have is yours alone.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
The Full Moon in your opposite sign Taurus is, at least, making some of this incredible potential that you sense seem tangible. Yet if the planets seem to take more than they are giving you, consider whether what you are being asked to relinquish is indeed something that you need, and whether it is keeping the things you truly want and need away from you. This is a crucial moment in spiritual development: deciding honestly what serves you and what does not serve you. I am not suggesting that you rationalize; to the contrary, that you simply assess what works for you and what does not. You are very close to the beginning of something, and you could surely benefit from leaving behind one or two unhelpful habits and pointless goals. Don’t worry if you have nothing special to replace them.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
So much is possible right now, and this is the time to lay deep foundations. I suggest you make a point of not thinking too far into the future, but rather keep your focus primarily on what you are doing now. You are going through a highly unusual transition in your life, and attending to the details counts for a lot; indeed, it may count for everything. You might want to forget entirely having goals and objectives and trust the trajectory that you’re currently on. In fact, your plans are coming to fruition, though unless you’ve been elected president, there’s not a marching band there to welcome you. When your plans work, you have work to do — good work, not trivial, productive and soul enriching. And if I am not mistaken, that has been your primary objective in life for a long time.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
I suggest you take a deep drink of the well. Feel the water, and feel what it’s like not to thirst. Feel your own commitment to stability work not as something that hinders you but rather as something that allows you to take the necessary chances required to thrive. Any tradition that does not change is dead, and you are very much alive, and you are changing, and that means you are open and vulnerable. Get used to it. To exist in a state of potential, of being both receptive and expressive creatively, is one of the most daring spaces that a human being can enter — particularly at the beginning, when you don’t quite know how to handle the energy or what to expect. Indeed, one of the first things you figure out, as you no doubt just have, is that you can expect very nearly anything.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You may be recognizing that an emotional element is currently missing from your life, and that you can’t make up for it with professional activity or any form of worldly activity. If events of this week are (once again) shaking your foundations and reminding you that there is a kind of vacuum in your life, go into that space. It’s not as empty as you might imagine — what is missing is your presence, your awareness of a need that you have; which is, in turn, preventing you from acting on it. You are insecure for a reason. That reason is not so mysterious, and if you explore it now, you will learn something about guiding your life toward a specific kind of balance that will gradually help you relax. Remember that success is not about conquering the world, and peace of mind is not about conquering yourself.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Simply trust that your strength will not only hold up, but increase. You know you’re working toward something that is deeply important to you; vital and personal and connected to your mission in the world. This week’s Full Moon may have arrived with what seems like choices, neither of which are viable, but what you are experiencing is really an outgrowth of your perspective. If you feel stuck, quickly look at the situation from a new angle. If you feel like you need additional information, get it from someone you haven’t asked before. Or, sit quietly for a little while and ask to be shown another approach to the question. As I have said many times, most dilemmas are false dilemmas. There are more than two options, and clearly the obvious ones are the least interesting, especially in your current world of brilliant possibilities.