Horoscopes | Week of May 29-June 4, 2006

ARIES (March 21-April 19): As enthused as you are about rustling up some fun, there's a good possibility of bumping up against rigid limits to your good times. In case you didn't know it, these are self-imposed ones, which stem from being only partly prepared to spend what you've earned to help make it happen. In other words, you're entertaining an inner disconnect between the fun-loving risk-taker and the responsible money-manager. A certain stinginess may hold your Aries impulsiveness at bay, by spurring you to save up your money and energy for only those experiences that madly, monumentally amaze your inner child. But too much miserly restriction will suck the life out of this moment, the one that's happening right now. You never know when It All Might End, and you'll likelier remember a fond memory over a reasonable decision. That said, beware of blowing the farm on frivolities… just because someone else insinuated that your judgment on such matters is poor. If you're going to let loose, don't do it to prove somebody else wrong—that's a takeoff waiting to backfire.

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Now that your ruling planet Venus is returning home for a 3½-week swing through your sign, you can't very well justify hiding yourself away and snoozing through her bountiful boost. And still, Taurus, you can barely keep from concocting an excuse to stay home anyhow… since there's just as much action in your 4th, the house where everything private goes down behind closed doors. Yet, despite perfectly good planetary reasons for evading contact with the outside world, I'm going to urge you to buck the nesting trend and expose yourself, unguarded, to Venus's rays. That you might choose instead to remain inside, to feed the flames of old emotions and indulgent explanations, saddens me—especially considering all the new emotional and experiential excitements are out there somewhere, awaiting your grand appearance. I almost get the sense you're afraid of giving up the sanctuary of familiar problems, that you'll lose a part of yourself by daring to move on. But Saturn's square to Venus from the 4th clearly indicates your need to place an appropriate cap on it. Otherwise, if you stay miserable or melancholy or mad while Venus is trying to support your peace and joy, it's clear that, to some degree, you're making that choice.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Will it be you or the person across from you who responds to an unremarkable remark with striking intensity… as if to rub the other's nose in whatever unspoken assumptions have proven to be offensive, in some fashion or another? I'm betting on you to be the casually unassuming offender, not due to anything other than your typical ease in going with the flow of any conversation… though it could certainly go the other way instead. Or the entire dynamic could play out through your utter openness to challenging long-held or under-explored ideas you hold, by considering their fuller magnitude in the context of their shadowy underbelly… and no externalized interpersonal tension need occur. All these possibilities center around a Mercury-Pluto opposition across your 1st and 7th houses, denoting a complex and potentially dark confrontation between (1) offhand, unexamined 'I' statements and (2) their powerful ramifications for someone else with a markedly different perspective. Either you delve deeper on your own and push past the blindspots in your thinking, for a greater understanding of the coin's other side… OR you and your 'someone else' face a clash of your varying belief systems. Take your pick.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you're struggling for just the right words to describe (or some coherent framework for understanding) your last few weeks' experiences, please give it until the end of the week, when Mercury moves into Cancer and helps pull your mind out of the fog, to join the rest of you on the favorable side of logic. Until then, though, it's better not to wager explanations, just because you feel you must justify your recent actions… or because someone holding power over you strong-arms you into answering their pointed questions. Contrary to the pressures (from society, your inner critic, or that pushy power-monger) to speak or produce analysis, your sixth sense knows what it's picking up—even if no one else speaks its language. The bottom line is your own sense of sturdy security, so you can feel you've got what you need to provide for yourself and prosper. And not what suits the suits, the executives, the hall monitors, or anyone else who demands to hear your case. Even as Venus moves into your 11th, enhancing your ability to get on well with others, you still mustn't please them at the expense of what stabilizes you.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): Need I detail how the week's major energy shift will function to fluff up your presence toward most beneficial ends? See, Venus moves into your 10th, acting as a magnet to pull in real, palpable, material symbols of your recent achievements out in the world. And then there's Mars heading into your own sign, injecting you with super-powered rocket fuel from head to toe, for the stamina and zest to motor through absolutely anything. Your worst risk is of coming off like gangbusters—too tirelessly energetic and brimming with spunk for certain folks to stomach. (Not everybody is comfortable operating on that jacked-up wavelength.) Your most stellar results will come by deliberate design… not that you won't also flourish by the grace of on-your-toes responsiveness. But for that extra helping of good fortune, take the time needed to establish firm impressions, to indicate you're interested in rewards that last beyond this passing moment. Otherwise, this present success will come and go as fast as Venus and Mars move in and out of signs. (A few weeks.) An ounce of conscious intention is worth a pound or two in staying power.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): No matter how rational or philosophic you try to be this week (especially regarding professional communications and considerations), you're still facing a week influenced strongly by emotions—yours, your family's, those of the supposedly 'strictly business' cohorts you consort with, and/or even those belonging to ghosts and other spirits invisibly occupying the same space. There's no use denying it… and there's also no use cursing it. You can use it to your advantage, Virgo, if you confront every situation by reserving wiggle-room for cosmic wild cards—an unforeseen mood, a serendipitous interruption, the familiar scent and flavor of a madeleine dipped in tea or some other involuntary-memory device that elicits an arty turn of dialogue, bringing you all together over a common bond. Fight the wild-card factor, and you're pitting your will-to-control against the entire cosmos (guess who'll win?)… with the final product being you left to mutter about the faults of this, that or the other, while sustaining an utter blindness to what you've projected outward.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): While you may feel a persuasive draw toward the kinds of intense intimacy found only in private one-on-one connections (with hot lovers, deep true friends, or seriously passionate collaborators), you can't put as much of yourself there as you might like. Well, you could… but it would go against the other persuasive draw: toward participation in a wider scope of life, including those leanings toward becoming a driving force (and not just the 'yes-man/woman') in the direction your group is heading. If it helps clarify the situation, let me point out that the latter draw is actually more a duty to something greater than you…while the former draw, though certainly benefiting the other person involved as well as yourself, is more a personal pleasure. How to choose where to spend your energy? With maturity and conscious attention, of course… as opposed to excessive overindulgence, a blind eye and/or the unaware frittering-away of time. You can and should follow both draws, Libra—doing either, at the expense of the other, has its perils.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): You've got to stop trying so hard to try so hard… at least when it comes to creeping and crawling up the ladder of achievement (and to hell with whomever or whatever stands in your way, whether you come out and say that or not). That's especially true this week, when the gift of Venus moving into your 7th can remind you how pleasurably grounding it can be simply to get together with someone who delights you (or who, though you don't really know 'em yet, shows real promise in this area). But the simple joy of being in relationship—for an hour or a lifetime—is not the same path to ever-escalating societal respect or public glory. Instead, it's about sharing moments together for their own sake, as opposed to pathologically grasping for more and more. And therefore, your participation in relationships should provide solace from an otherwise stressful life, not add to its overbearing weight. If you're missing that point, then you're doing it 'wrong'—not as in needing to work harder to perfect the tasks involved, but because it's not making you happy right now.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): The next time you're displeased with the way someone speaks to you, or if you feel that impatient annoyance begin to rise, pause to consider what you're giving off. See, Sagittarius, an opposition between Mercury and Pluto in your 7th and 1st houses can create a state of power challenge, or two rights trying to make each other wrong by virtue of the idea there can only be one winner. Don't be fooled by the easy criticism you could lodge, that the other person is talking out both sides of his/her mouth (or certain other bodily orifices)… as if you don't do the same thing, if not in this very conversation, then undoubtedly in the very recent past. Listen, I don't care who is 'justified' or 'blameworthy' or whatever—I'm just here to help you. And trust me, worrying about someone else don't help you. If it's any consolation, you are rightfully stir crazy, as the planets in the sky goad you into doing more while simultaneously having you keep at what you're doing like a good little boy or girl. It's no wonder you might come off as insistent, edgy or defensive in such a climate. And that's okay—as long as you don't hide behind a pointing, scolding finger.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): The sign changes of all three personal planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars) this week work to your distinct advantage… if you think that exuding an enticing, extroverted (and maybe even erotic) vibe is something which could serve you well. This is a profoundly attractive week for you, Capricorn, however you choose to define that term—as a magnetic quality eliciting objects of desire, other people's good graces or the muse of creative inspiration, or in a specifically amorous context. This is, in fact, so much the case that you risk the possibility of becoming too hot for your own good… gambling easy agreeability for the promise of a fomenting passion underneath, and/or potentially jeopardizing your full mental attention to routine duties. And what'll happen if your passion clashes with another's, or if your practical thinking is wholly spoiled? Will you wish you'd never flirted with so much gusto of expression? I sure hope not. These disruptive possibilities are always the flip-side side-effects of sizzlin' and steamin' in open sight. And in this moment, it's better to burn your fingertips on the hot cauldron than to freeze yourself out.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): While your cool constitution and impeccable phrasings give the impression of someone wholly amenable to consensus thinking at every turn, I can see a little deeper, Aquarius. Oftentimes, when the scene reduces to just you and that special someone, you're less bashful about wanting what you want when you want it. Before you raise your voice in protest, I'm willing to grant this isn't always the case, perhaps. But with Mars jaunting into Leo (and thus your relationship-centric 7th house), it's likelier than not to pop up, now through mid-July. And it's particularly apt to crop up in your private home environment, where you'll currently be feeling your best and brightest… so long as you can bask in the domesticity according to your ever-changing moments' whimsical whims. There's nothing self-evident, incidentally, in why you'd want things your certain way, so you shouldn't expect your mate to be a mind-reader. If you've been a doting, darling, deal-making partner in the recent past, then you've got some leverage to brandish… and maybe you can get away with claiming some of your insistent preferences. If you've been snotty, however, expect a bumpy few weeks of karmic retribution.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): During the first half of your week, Pisces, you're exceptionally susceptible to wading in the murky waters of psychological projection… unconsciously drawing unkind or unyielding authority-figure types who'll turn your communications inadvertently defensive. Hell, these folks may not even be of that type, yet you cast them as such anyway—mainly because you seem somehow tentative about speaking from the subject-position of your own feelings. Take note: The judgment you fear (or actually create) is coming from within you, in the form of an external mean-guy who doesn't respect your truth. (Wait, who doesn't respect your truth? You, maybe?) Beyond this dynamic, though, is a wholly different vibe, pumped up by Mars venturing into your 6th… to bestow so much energy for exercise, errand-running and task completion, you can easily overtake the capacity for awkward, power-laden interpersonal exchanges with pure, unadulterated sweat. But, oh, the temptation to choose the people-centered, time-sucking, unnecessarily-embroiling blather over the sheer mountains of work you could accomplish, if…