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Aries (March 20-April 19) — The seeming problem with taking care of oneself is that it involves making sacrifices. For example, of food you love, of time and money invested, and of restrictions on your conduct. Yet there is another approach, if you apply the Holistic Principle: that all facets of our lives are not only related but fully integrated into one reality, which in the case of your health and wellbeing is your reality. We are taught to think of our lives and ourselves being organized into parts — the relationship part, the work part, the physical health part, the mental health part, the creative part, and the recreational part (among others). But what if they are all facets of the same thing? It’s obvious that they are, though we tend to not live that way. We are trained to live as if we will fix them one at a time, each separately from the next. Take the opportunities to see and experience the connections. Notice, at first, how you may apply some changes or make changes that influence two or more of these seeming facets. Notice how this is about you, not about anyone or anything external to you.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You may feel that if you do what you want, you’re going to displease others. This may be true, though it’s mostly a perception that you have. This is based on social conditioning that begins before kindergarten and for some, never ends. Many people who staunchly maintain their independence through much of their lives will suddenly take an opportunity to yield to authority. Why does this happen? Being responsible for oneself is often experienced as a tremendous burden. Actually, it’s the key to your freedom, and that always includes a level of responsibility of the highest order. Yet now you’re also being called to take on the challenges of your community or your society. To respond, you may be giving up some of your personal privileges in order to follow this calling. You are also likely to be in unfamiliar territory — such as actually working with ideas that you’ve only considered in theory. You may also feel like if you give yourself a little, you will need to give yourself totally, and this can be a cause of hesitation. It is true, however. You cannot be fully committed part of the time.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Mercury has stationed direct in the angle of your chart where you are called to explore the world. Because Aquarius is the sign involved, you have the idea that “virtual tours” or online conferences are enough. That might seem true, until you start to need or desire the kinds of benefits that can only be attained from making personal contact with people and places. You need direct experiences. The young people in your life need direct experiences and face-to-face meetings and group encounters. For many, there is tremendous fear around these things. And the way society is structured today, there are more opportunities than ever to challenge that anxiety, but unless you do so it will persist. Yet neither you nor the rest of humanity will be happy for long having only virtual experiences. We came here to exist in the world, not on a synthetic astral plane. We came here to be together, to experience physicality, and to get to know one another and the planet we live on. Do you really want the digital version of Planet Epcot Center? I didn’t think so — but to have more, you will need to take a risk.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — As I have been suggesting lately, your current astrology is all about contracts, agreements and negotiations. Now that Mercury is direct in this angle of your chart — Aquarius, your solar 8th house — it’s time to do a review of the past month, and of all the rearrangements in your life during that time. Go back to late January and conduct a kind of audit, both human and of documents. Mark who has arrived in your life, and who is no longer in your life, and whose roles have changed. Keep track of all of this: you need to make careful lab notes, even if they are not contemporaneous. (In other words, make some notes after the fact, and collect any notes you made during discussions.) The past month will prove to be a pivotal time for you, a time when the worm turned. The rearrangement and renegotiation are still underway; with Jupiter, Saturn and many other influences still present, you have much power and leverage to make the changes that you need to make. You are in a much stronger position than usual, in particular when it comes to standing up to others who may try to apply pressure. Trust your inner authority and no other.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You may finally be able to get a sense of where others are coming from, or you’ve recently figured it out. Most likely you got it in someone’s own words, which may have been long withheld. It’s also possible that you finally heard what someone was saying. And if not, it’s definitely time to listen, and to listen between the words. Also, remember: a group dynamic is involved. You may notice that certain partners or close associates conduct themselves one way when in a group setting, and another way when in a one-to-one setting. Note the differences, and also note whether this is true for you as well. For example, do you express different opinions when you are conducting yourself among several people, or publicly, than you do privately? This is normal enough, though it calls for some scrutiny. Part of acting in integrity is being the same person consistently all the time. The concept may be shocking, as there are things your lover or a close friend knows about you that your boss does not. Leave some room for situational appropriateness. But that is merely window dressing.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — The Full Moon in your birth sign on the 27th is a wakeup call to notice the pattern of mistakes that you make. You don’t have to wait; a little self-analysis will do you good and help you solve one particular problem that has not gone away on its own. It’s easier to find something with a map, and that’s what you need to make for yourself. This one will be easy because it involves noticing things that keep happening repeatedly. There are likely to be a good few of those, whether we’re talking about knee injuries or attracting a certain kind of partner. You are in a moment where you can liberate yourself from a kind of deadlock with yourself, and move into new territory. Yet it’s essential to see the world how it is, rather than how you want it to be. This is not easy, because it’s a true challenge to see what often disappears into the invisible environment, or fades to the back of your mind once it no longer stands out. Yet the key to seeing what you’re missing is to study the ground and not the figure.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You can’t be keeping secrets from yourself. That’s like the sound of one hand clapping, only weirder, because you know everything you think, say and do. The word for “keeping secrets from yourself” is denial. That is a coping mechanism that consumes a lot of energy and can wreak havoc on your peace of mind and your relationships. It is true that you want the world to make sense. You may be obsessed with this. You need to see the logic in everything. The questions really begin when what you see makes absolutely no sense at all. Then you have a choice: attempt to smooth it over, or confront the contradiction. For a while, you may need to hold several possibilities open in your mind, and these may be irreconcilable. This is a crucial spiritual exercise. And you may have to do this for a while. It’s a truly important inner practice, particularly since we use spiritual means to address such issues — and most of them are rushed jobs that do not directly engage a paradox long enough to learn from it.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You must not be afraid to stand out. All standing out involves sex, even if no sex is alluded to. It is the underlying thought of ‘being revealed’ that is the driver of most anxiety about being seen and known. Currently, everything in your chart is describing you drawing people to you. It’s as if you are the center of a family or community that is gathering. That means you will be getting a lot of attention of a kind you may not be comfortable with. Yet it is not the attention that is the issue; it’s whether you feel good in your own skin. It’s whether you are feeling daring enough to live like you are alive. If you are, you may decide that you need to shape your environment more than it shapes you. Under the old rules, you did what you had to in order to be accepted, including living under the moral codes of others. This is something that I reckon you resented. Yet to live by your own rules, it’s essential that you be who you actually are — and be seen for who you actually are.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You may be coming up with the best ideas of your life. Do you recognize them as such? Are you having fun? That would be a positive sign that your creativity is fully engaged. However, all ideas need to be tested, and find their value in their development and expression. Sometimes this seems easier than it is. Sometimes it seems harder than it is. You don’t know until you try. At the moment, your life is the perfect laboratory for experimentation. Here is the thing. Any creative process involves you changing yourself to make room for new possibilities. Whether that is an artistic, technological or scientific kind of experiment, your mind is the thing you evolve, grow and modify each time you make a run-through. This is true whether it seems to succeed or fail, whether or not you get the desired result. You change a little with each expression of what you are doing. You are the poem, the painting, the song, the book, the movie, or the business enterprise. There are no abstractions. There is only you.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — The Sun in Pisces is good for you. It brings out your soft side. Pisces has a way of drawing you friends, and reminding you that you live in a community of humans. Venus will soon join the Sun there, which is giving some substance to feelings you often have but cannot usually articulate. Now the reality test is some physical expression of what you’re experiencing inwardly. It is easy to get lost in your head (that is a typical trait of Earth signs by the way). I suggest that you get lost in experience, and that you challenge your theories by experimenting with them. There are many ways to do this: cooking and baking come to mind. (Cooking is more intuitive and baking is more scientific; you have to follow the recipe or you risk a total fail. So they are different media in that sense, or two sides of the same thing). Sex also comes to mind. This is not thought of as something done for its own sake, but more often as a token of relationship or expression of feelings. Any of these approaches will work.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You determine who you are, and you do so every day. Others do not choose for you, and your past does not choose for you. Nor does karma. While it is true that you respond to your environment, you also get to decide how you do that. And right now, you have your options open. You are in a moment of both potential rethinking and of expansion. One necessary element of this is scraping away all that did not serve you; breaking down and peeling off the crust of your personality so that you can stretch out and make room for who you are becoming. While you are doing this, push yourself to perceive the present as it is now, not the way your past opinions or prejudices have guided you to experience life. Be cautious of the ways you take on the views of others, for whatever reason. I suggest you take as your motto the words of Groucho Marx, who once wrote, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as one of its members.” Being true to yourself is far more relevant than being accepted by others.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Now more than ever, the people around you are a reflection of who you are. To a greater or lesser extent this is always true, though at the moment the effect is particularly strong — with rich potential. This is a holographic property of the universe: our minds and personal experiences are inseparable from the environment that surrounds us. Yet you have a special gift right now, and if you can tap into it, that will make up for much that has been vexing you the past few years. So it would be well worth your time and effort to make a study of your inner environment. At the same time, look for sources of both cooperation and conflict in your external environment. Study the ways that you connect with people, or not, and align your inner life with your seeming outer life. For now, reality will flow from the inside out, so the deeper your introspection, the more you will learn. Think of the outer world as a kind of analogy. Practice saying things to yourself, and then expressing them outwardly. Soon enough, you will get your message right.