Planet Waves for November

Aries (March 20-April 19)
What you seem to be reaching for is an understanding about some deeply sensitive matters. Nothing we’re normally exposed to in our culture, certainly not on television, prepares us for the kinds of discussions that you will have in the coming weeks. It’s also fair to say there’s no right way to do it. But we could establish some basic guidelines. Nothing is going to be resolved quickly, and by that, I mean in one day or one conversation. Anything that matters will take a few weeks. Also, given all the circumstances, listening counts for more than speaking. The better you listen, the more you’ll understand, and the more what you do say will make a difference. But if others do not feel heard, you can be sure that they will not trust what you say. Last, you need to leave a lot of space for misunderstanding, which means everyone has plenty of room to be wrong.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You may feel like you’re under pressure to live up to the expectations of others. Indeed, expectations may abound right now. At the same time, you may experience a tendency to alternate between how important you are to others, versus doubts that you’re actually making the cut. You need to question the basis on which you decide whether or not something you perceive is true. If you are deciding on the basis of your doubts, a lot of bias can slip in, particularly now that everyone’s credibility is on the line. If you’re deciding on the basis of what you want to be true, you can skew your perception by making assumptions or only seeing the factors you want to see. If you’re going to assume anything, let it be that what is true and healthy often takes time to establish itself, often after a lot of wiggling around or a long trip into the psychological and emotional unknown. You can arrive safely at this seemingly remote destination with love, faith and patience as your companions.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
There is a simple way to establish whether anything you’re assessing is valid, legitimate or worth pursuing, which is asking the question: who does this serve? You can also size up a person pretty well using this same question. Everyone and everything works to some end. People will often try to conceal that result with language or various psychological techniques, but you can always see the result if you look closely enough. Ask simple questions: who benefits from this? Is this person giving or taking? Do the spoken motive and the obvious results have anything in common? If you stick to relatively simple and straightforward questions, you will see through a turbid situation like it was clear water. Make sure you apply the same questions to yourself, but once you’ve reached an understanding of your own motives, let it go, and keep your eyes and ears open to what’s going on around you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Evolving as an individual is more complicated than upgrading your computer’s memory or adding a line to your resume. To the chagrin of control freaks and those who pretend to be alive more than they actually manage to do it, there is a chaos factor involved; and there is a sexual aspect, which is deeply involved with any process of becoming an individual. And there’s always a risk. So it’s necessary to trust your own higher intelligence in the midst of apparent uncertainty, including about whether you will succeed or fail at any particular effort. If you can do that, you’ll tap into something larger than yourself that is expressing itself through you. You’ve been living with that ‘something’ for a long time, and it has been trying to acquaint you with itself. You alone can mediate your responses; you decide what value fear holds, and what value freedom holds.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Establishing your home space and creating an authentic sense of security for yourself have been themes of the past year. No doubt your living situation is better today than it was four seasons ago, but now the time has come to take advantage of that fact. Being settled in a space conserves energy and allows you to focus. An internal orientation helps you get clear with yourself about how you feel and where you stand with the world. These things having been accomplished, you will soon be faced with one of two things: what to do with this energy, or the sudden option for something new, different and extraordinary. It appears, however, that through the next few perhaps long weeks, a time of soul-searching is in order, making use of your sanctuary and the peace of mind that it offers. One phase will follow the next distinctly: first the journey deeper in, then boldly out.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
How deep do psychological patterns go? Well, they seem to reach back many generations, but for a version of the story with good practical application, we can learn a lot by considering the years before we learned how to walk. We bumped into a lot of things, people, feelings and experiences in those days. We were picked up and carried around against our will. We had a lot to say but lacked the words to say it. Think of yourself as going through a phase as a cosmic toddler. Notice, over the next few weeks, what just comes to you, what you bump into, and what you are told without having to ask. Notice what seems to pick you up and move you. Apply the metaphor to the contents of your mind. What has been coming to the surface lately, and why does it do such a good job of defying words, or even coherent ideas?

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
Financial matters may seem overly perplexing now, but it’s an illusion. There is a complicating factor involved, and it’s entirely psychological. If you feel hindered from cultivating the resources you need, or from cleaning up old financial karma, break the situation down to the most essential facts. Emotions will deceive you now, because you’re likely to be over-reacting, and also unconsciously dwelling on the past. Precisely what you must do is find the present, and conduct yourself in a realistic way based on your actual circumstances, potential and resources, as they exist now. If nothing else, the planets this month will give you a fine lesson in some of the hidden ways you may feel about yourself — and how you can feel a lot better. Take things slow, take them one step at a time, and keep an eye on the metaphors between the inner and outer worlds.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You may feel you can do nothing right, and this may be giving you an urgent sense that you need to do something extreme. Mercury retrograde in your birth sign, and a variety of other factors, are creating an exaggeration effect, and this you need to be aware of. I suggest you let your mind go wherever you want, but keep count and notice whether you tend toward the negative outcomes or the positive ones. Now is the time to rewrite some of these psychological scripts on the deepest level. Rather than taking some kind of extreme action in the outer world, these are weeks where you can reach into your psyche and purge some of what has been troubling you for a long time. If you have the feeling that something is bothering you, let me give you a clue as to what it might be. You are designed for greater challenges than you’ve allowed yourself to take on in recent years.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Planets are now stuffed into your 12th solar house, which is a cosmic blind spot, of sorts, full of distortions. You’re living through one of those alignments where you may feel like you get up in the morning having worked all night. At times, only the worst possibilities may seem true. But I suggest you not let any such difficulty trouble you too deeply. Instead, keep track of your fears. Get over on them by being aware of what they are, and what they are not. Skip intuition for now, and apply some logic. Stick to the known facts, not what you’re concerned about or hoping to create. As many planets — including your ruling planet, Jupiter — work their way into your birth sign over the coming weeks, you’ll discover that what you feared had nothing to do with an actual threat, and that what you were hoping for was selling yourself short of your true potential.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
What is true and what is not? Sometimes the more we’re able to expand our awareness, the more we can embrace possibilities that seem to contradict themselves or one another. Everything at the moment is calling on you to stretch — most particularly, your own desire to do so. I hope this year has shown you not only that you live in a world that’s too small for you. But I trust you’ve noticed that the larger world, where the possibilities are far more diverse and the expectations on you are less boring, is an experience you really want. Certain friends may be pushing you to take a wider view of life, and someone who seems bent on causing you mischief may, at least, reveal the wisdom in hanging a bit looser where your ideas about reality are concerned. With so many planets heading for Sagittarius, your life is about to become the story of something bigger than your dreams.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
An assortment of slow-moving aspects to your ruling planet Saturn are gradually compelling you to create the life you want. Somewhere in the process is the ‘lesson’ of admitting that what you thought was impossible is, precisely the opposite: not only possible, but also actually available. You may have long felt that your life is stuck in a pattern, but if you look, you’ll see there is a more pervasive pattern at work, something that is using your tendency toward long-term commitment in your favor. Saturn is about making use of time, and this you have been doing more effectively than you think. Once you see what has developed, it will seem like it was inevitable all along. You can help the process along by being aware of what you want, what you don’t want, and what you actually need, rather than what a lot of conditioning and sense of lack has convinced you that you need.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Possibilities are opening up, but you’ve not seen anything yet. Keep an eye on the long-term — as in years rather than months. Also, I suggest you do something that may seem to go against the grain of what I usually suggest and that is to keep track of what annoys you the most about certain people, places and things. In your long-term planning process, it’s vital that you know precisely what you don’t want; that you recognize what constitutes a breach of integrity in a personal relationship, and make sure you can spot it at a distance; and that you recognize what kinds of environments foster success and creativity in your life, and which environments drain your energy. Before very long, you will have more possibilities and options available than you ever dreamed possible. You will need to choose, but I strongly suggest that you know the basis for your decisions before making them.