BY ERIC FRANCIS COPPOLINO
ARIES — You must have the discipline not to take things personally in your relationships. This is challenging because relationships are so personal; and yet now, more than ever, people are inclined to live in their own world. What someone is going through may be an unfathomable mystery. It may involve making the same mistakes repeatedly. You might use what you’re witnessing as a kind of therapy process. Are you doing any of this? More significantly, to what extent are you orienting your life on your involvements with others? If you do, you become subject to getting lost the moment they get lost. Start with your own feelings, remembering that “how you think someone feels about you” is coming from you. Your ideas and feelings about sex may provide additional details to your mind-map. Tune in even deeper and you will hear a clear, steady and seemingly new source of information.
TAURUS — You seem to be a few steps ahead of the complication that’s gripping so many people in your life. You can safely offer your assistance and guidance without the risk of getting too involved. Yet when your ruling planet Venus changes signs Tuesday, you’ll feel more willing to be drawn into someone else’s world in a way you may have never experienced. There is an emotional depth coming through your charts now that’s inviting you to take deeper risks. You may even be feeling a craving to be more vulnerable, which will come as a refreshing development. The people closest to you, including intimate partners as well as the people you collaborate with, have something unusual to offer; though you need to bring yourself fully to the experience, and be willing to hang out a while. Live that day-by-day. You don’t need to double-book your evenings. One plan is enough.
GEMINI — Use your sense of humor, even if you’re dealing with dark subject matter. The world is a mess right now. You have it pretty good. Using your sense of humor does not mean that everything is so funny. Rather, it keeps your mind on, and evaluating your experiences, and what you see and hear, rather than merely being subjected to them. That you’ll be aware of the serious side of any situation is a given. Yet you are not trapped. You’re not subject to anyone’s power. And the way you maintain your freedom is by keeping your perspective open and circumspect. Walk all the way around something a few times before you decide how you feel about it. If you’re in a meeting, get up and stretch, just so you can see the view from the other side of the room. Note people’s body language. It will reveal more than their words.
CANCER — Keep guiding yourself into adventure, whether creative or romantic or erotic. Adventure means the unknown and unfamiliar. This is currently not the way of the world and many people in it: being stuck to familiar patterns is the modern psychic safety net. You don’t need it. You can make new friends and go new places and try things you’ve never done. If you’ve ever had a creative impulse in your life, such as to write or paint or make music, or to dance or act or take photos, or to create lavish dinner parties: now is the time to get busy. This is the year you come into your own as someone who contributes, who feeds the universe with soulful beauty. A year seems longer than it is. Four seasons pass quickly. Dare to experiment and step into your self-expression in a way you never have before.
LEO — You can say anything you want, as long as it’s true. You might over-share, fumble around a bit, feel stilted, or need to repeat yourself: it’s all good, as long as you’re saying what is actually valid and honest. Even if you change your mind or your point of view, you’re still covered: you won’t have to issue a retraction, only a revision. This is the creative process in action. As one artist said, paintings are never finished; they just pause in interesting places. So, by that measure, even your silence matters. Hesitation is a creatively pregnant place. One reminder your charts are offering is about not needing to prove anything. Your true colors will come out when you don’t have to establish the validity of what you say, do or make — as long as you know you’re being real. From your point of view, experience is its own reward.
VIRGO — Don’t be quick to make financial commitments, or to decide that having money is a lost cause. The single most important thing to remember about finances is that motivation is the key ingredient. From the outside, it may seem like luck or opportunity intervenes in the lives of successful people. That’s merely the window dressing. On the other side of that display is hard work, imagination and the willingness to delay gratification. And behind that is drive. You now have that power flowing through you; and you merely need to harness it, and be steady and dependable about getting your projects done. Your solar chart is vibrating with the message that your ideas are your most valuable asset. This relates to your experience and your base of knowledge. Don’t talk yourself out of this, or let anyone else even try to. Put your mind to work, stick with it, and watch the results.
LIBRA — You’re not as confused or as off-course as you may seem. It’s true there’s a lot going on, and there are those days you seem to be running in circles. Yet what you need to do is prioritize. Ask yourself what’s really meaningful to you and what is not. Ask yourself what’s actually necessary, what’s a sincere desire, and what is a whim. If you take the time to review your experience of the past few weeks, you may notice that you make the mistake of giving up what’s the most important to you, just when you have the chance to make it real. You don’t have to do that, and certainly not for the sake of another person. It’s true that you provide an important point of reference for the people you care about, though in that case, you would be wise to set the example of taking care of yourself.
SCORPIO — You’re doing well working with partial information. Said another way, you know some things and not others, and that may be working to your advantage. For example, your choices need to go beyond what will serve the purpose of a romantic relationship. Sure, relationships are important, though your emphasis needs to be on your chosen purpose. This is not about what you will do with “the rest of your life,” but rather about heeding the calling to do what you need to do. We live in the age of excuses and distractions. We also live in a time when what passes for the world has been shrunk down to the size of a hand-held video screen. The actual world is a vast, mysterious and unpredictable place, and you would benefit greatly from getting a sense of its actual scale by traveling with your physical body. Go someplace unfamiliar and notice how you change and grow.
SAGITTARIUS — Mercury has just entered your sign, which will clear up some lingering questions you’ve had about a relationship. Yet if Mercury is doing its job, you’ll have better questions, and you’ll ask them sincerely. You might do it now, while the subject is fresh in your mind and while relationship partners are in the mood to speak. Everyone will benefit from a real conversation, conducted in person, face to face, with all devices left in your bag or in the car. Relationships must never be taken for granted: not the brand-new ones, not the cute old couple sitting on the park bench, and not anything in between. Right now you’re the moderator of the conversation. You set the tone for the quality of communication, and the emotional content you’re willing to share. If you listen with open ears and an open heart, you will learn surprising things about the people closest to you.
CAPRICORN — The world is hungry for justice right now, and you can help provide it. The first way to do that is by being a fair and just person in all that you do, particularly in your most intimate relationships — but in truth, all the time. This will involve coming out of automatic mode, and consciously assessing every situation you find yourself in. While you’re doing this, you may notice the first five or six times how easy it is to go back into robotic thinking, which is another way of saying not really thinking at all. When you take over, you’ll discover that you have more power than you previously thought. You have the ability to intervene in situations where you do no harm — and that is the true metric of fairness. What seems unjust is almost always about one person taking advantage of another. You’re free to declare you’ve had quite enough of this.
AQUARIUS — You’ve been getting the message lately: you need to lighten up. This will take practice, though once you see how well it works, you’ll have additional incentive to stick with the program. You have significant and realistic goals you’re working with, and it will take some time and effort to materialize them. What will help you the most right now is a kind of public relations campaign. I don’t mean writing press releases: I mean relating to friends, colleagues, clients, customers, and whatever you think of as your ‘public’ in a direct and candid way. Go to them rather than having them come to you. Putting this in the simplest terms possible, reach out to people who matter to you, and with whom you want to make contact — and connect. At minimum this would best be voice to voice, though you will go a long way if you bring your body along; go for eye contact.
PISCES — You know that when you find yourself in the midst of an insecure spell, it wears off as fast as it came on. So you might skip it altogether, and focus on your confidence. Over and over again, you’ve proven that it’s worth having faith in yourself, because you so dependably come through. If you can remind yourself of that, you won’t hesitate taking on new commitments, especially the ones you truly care about. The theme of your life through the remainder of the year is completing a kind of leadership program that goes all the way back to late 2014. That was a very different time in your life, and part of why it was different is that you’ve put so much energy into making it so. You have other changes that you need to make, and reflecting on what you’ve already accomplished will feed your gumption.
