Horoscopes | Week of March 28-April 3, 2011

ARIES (March 21-April 19): 'I, Aries, fully claim this window of opportunity as mine. I will accept nothing less than total immersion in my here-and-now. I commit to staying extra-busy for the next several weeks, fueling my second and third and fourth winds with the exhilarating excitement that "something is happening"—because I am making it happen. I promise not to expend more than a minute or two on frustrated reactions to any particular detail not functioning properly, to undesired results or minor snafus, as I will already be occupied with trying a different approach or switching gears. No time for bitching, right? I must remain in motion, no matter what, to take fullest advantage. That's also why I'm not bothering to waste these precious moments looking around for obvious signs of a successful result. It's too soon. I'll already be several steps beyond by the time such evidence of my efforts begins to appear. In any given instant, then, I'll just have to follow my instinctive knowledge of whether progress is occurring. So, by the power of my instincts (which are usually pretty good, as long as I don't tie myself up with too much distracting overanalyzing), I'm continuing along on faith… and I will not stop. Stopping isn't an option.'

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Float above it, in suspended animation. Breathe in, breathe out, letting thoughts of attempting to regain control escape with your exhalation. Nothing need be figured out, formed into particular shape, or distinguished from the haze. Hello, lamppost, what'cha knowing? I've come to watch your flowers growing, the people in my life passing in and out, the attachment to particular futures loosening their grip. Possibilities proliferate. Assurances fall by the wayside. Throw your pain in the river. Dip your feet in the ocean, unhitching your heels from their resting place. Hesitate, lovingly, as a poet would, pausing on tiny features that evocatively conjure universal sensations. Fill your cup at this fountain, renovating your senses. The madness around you is rapidly creating cracks, fissures. Some people may fall in. Some may plant seeds in the openings. Some may not notice anything at all. Watch every one, in austere gentleness… without jumping in to (try to) save the day, without contributing your two (or three) cents on how it 'should' be done, without screaming for those asleep at the wheel (or so it appears) to awaken. Participation, with fuller presence, is for later on.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I can't tell you enough times, Gemini, your present key to maintaining a forward-facing focus is your relationships within a wider circle of friends and/or like-minded allies. This astrological message simply won't let itself be ignored. That's why the advice I'm doling out this week is all about you taking the initiative to throw yourself into situations where you're surrounded by such people. I strongly recommend doing all of these things, but at least one or two will get the ball rolling. (1) Reconnect with a dear friend you haven't talked to in more than a year. Catch each other up on your lives. (2) Reach out to someone you barely know but with whom you share something significant in common. Advance the level of your interactions into new territory. (3) Seek contact with a group or organization of folks who could use your assistance and/or could usefully assist you. Why navigate it solo when the collaborative results will be better? (4) Organize a social plan involving you and two (or more) other people, whether or not they already know each other. The social synergy created when it's not merely one-on-one heightens the serendipitous unpredictability of interactions.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Up ahead, beginning to appear on the horizon… Is that one of those sensational 'about-face' moments, in which a major chunk of your life's focus suddenly and completely changes direction? It would make perfect sense, Cancer, if that's the case, considering all the planetary force currently stirring up your solar 10th. Particularly if your heart is informing you (in increasingly stronger intuitive language) to divert your emotional attentions somewhere they'll be more immediately and fully utilized, you mustn't fear taking the dramatic step. While the corresponding discontinuity of abrupt change is enough to rattle any Cancerian (who typically prefers 'connection' to 'sudden breaks'), there are times when it's the appropriate thing to do… to free yourself up from stale energy-sucks, to stay up-to-date with the ever-shifting sands, to keep your participation in the collective both fresh and personally interesting. This is one of those times, in case you hadn't guessed. What's most greatly at stake is your professional and/or public-world vitality: What you're doing ought to feel dynamic to you.

 

LEO (July 23-August 22): As quickly as you can open your perspective more widely, as I've been repeatedly endorsing (here and here, for instance), you'll find that what seemed like impassable impediments to your doing anything other than what you've been doing will start to magically disappear. Are these obstacles really dematerializing before your eyes, Leo, or is it merely a case of some situation becoming increasingly less important as your attitude changes? I truly believe this is a false distinction, since what we experience in life is always a factor of our recognizing exactly what we've come to expect… and often simultaneously ignoring that which falls outside our self-circumscribed vision. As you get bitten more and more intensely by the 'possibilities are abounding!' bug, your view of whatever so-called problems have left you dicking around this same damn pasture should shift pretty dramatically. Nothing—and nobody—is actually keeping you here, you know. You can choose to stay, or you can choose to go. And dare you opt for the latter, this choice will immediately prove itself to be a 'beginning' as much as an 'ending'… as you wonder why you ever let yourself get stuck this long.

 

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): If you owe anybody any apologies, clarifications, or humbling admissions of second-thoughts, Virgo, you're in a prime moment for it. Not only does the current buildup of planets in your 8th house (including this week's beginning of another Mercury retrograde) keep the psychologically-charged interactivity animatedly churning, but a 7th-house Venus/Chiron conjunction brings you compassionate favor in relationships whenever you forthrightly expose your vulnerable side. Release yourself from any (unreasonable) standards requiring you not to repudiate sentiments you previously expressed or long-held beliefs that now appear to be changing. For the present time, you cannot escape the evidence that, like any genuinely complex human, you are an internally contradictory being… and your real emotional truth cannot be neatly contained within clear blacks-and-whites. If you can digest this inevitability of ambiguity, you'll be perfectly positioned for unabashed honesty. Otherwise, you'll get caught trying to iron out wrinkles from certain chains of incomplete logic that don't totally connect. Forget logic; speak tenderly, irrationally, from the heart.

 

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): Erratic interpersonal cadences are par for the course, due to the unsettled electrical charge currently zipping through your relationship zone (the 7th). As I described last week, Libra, the onus is on you not to behave by habit or presumed expectations… but instead to meet each moment you share with another person on its own terms. By the rules of astrological expression, the more you resist this essential freshening-up of your relational conduct, the likelier that other people will throw you a curveball, forcing you to dash to a less familiar spot in order to cinch a hit. So treat every meeting like a chance to recreate the entire dynamic of your pairing (because, as always, it is). Re-create the conversational wheel by posing conspicuously direct questions and proffering bluntly forthright answers. Nurture that 'edge of your seat' feeling whenever you're with someone else, rather than lapsing into yawn-inspiring recitation of impeccably cordial scripts. Boldly confront whatever comes up. Barrel toward the bumps, and you just might catch air.

 

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): Taking full leisurely advantage of your off-hours—to indulge in romance, to express your creative brilliance, to romp and cavort like an impish rascal—is not merely for entertainment purposes. It is nothing less than your salvation, Scorpio. It fills your soul with the nectar of the gods, who surely didn't relegate us to this earthly playground merely so we could endlessly stress about turning raw materials into finished goods, as though we are nothing more than a bodily assembly-line. We are meant to drink this elixir of life (in reasonable amounts, of course) because it is delicious and it reminds us of the beauty all around. Remember all this especially now, with both a Mars-Uranus conjunction and a Mercury-retrograde in your solar 6th disrupting your ordinary rhythms of productivity, upping the chances you'll have to redo a chunk of already-completed work, fix a problem, swiftly switch methods, or otherwise respond to unplanned hiccups. Your workdays, therefore, could prove a bit bumpier or more unpredictable than usual. (The flipside: If you're willing to dive in with intentional immediacy, you can quickly effect major on-the-spot improvements.) A moment's grumpiness here and there may be hard to avoid. But if you have other after-hours activities to look forward to, any case of the grumps should be short-lived and context-limited.

 

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): For those Sagittarians who have felt somewhat out of step with your recent horoscopes (examples here and here), you may be rapidly approaching a definitive lack of patience with how you're not experiencing the types of immediate bliss presently due you. At least I hope you're hitting that point… since there's no financial conundrum or relationship snarl, domestic discontent or familial headache so terrible, it's worth surrendering your trademark joie-de-vivre optimism for. Still not feeling it, Sagittarius? Consider the likelihood that you're just really tired (whether physically or existentially)—and thus glancing out at life-circumstances through a lens of cranky exhaustion. If taking a 'mental health day' (or three) just isn't possible, then try to at least reserve yourself a few extra hours of restful slumber, sofa-bound nothingness and/or communicative unavailability. By next week, following the 5th-house New Moon, I want no more excuses for hesitating to do what pleases you, in some fashion or another. That's what life's all about.

 

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): If you live north of the Equator, then the calendar should now read 'spring cleaning time'. And if you don't… well, who says 'spring cleaning' must be reserved for a certain season? Certainly the astro-energies of clear out and break from the past, which presently shake up your 4th house (the private-home sphere), are pushing you to dump the excess stuff and simplify your domestic environment sooner rather than later. 'Starting a new cycle' (the current Aries rallying-cry) becomes far less theoretical a piece of advice, Capricorn, when you can actually assert the newness on a physical level by choosing some slice of space for a purge and scrub-down. Because of the additional 4th-house connections to both (1) relationships with the family we came from and (2) our own emotional well-being, I encourage you to particularly focus your cleansing efforts on any hanging-over belongings from a prior chapter of life that's no longer very relevant (or which really ought to be left behind). Dump that residual crap. You might be surprised how much freeing up of self can occur just by literally removing the physical reminders of prior limitations from your space.

 

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18): You can't know what—or who—will prove to be 'important' further down the road. Therefore, curtail your know-it-all tendencies, Aquarius, when it comes to determining which exchanges to devote your time and attention to. As long as you're caught in your head, attributing value to a potential interaction in advance of seeing how the moment spontaneously flows (or doesn't), you're still operating in a world of abstracts... a place where it's too easy to overlook the actual people right in front of your face, offering you something you probably couldn't have foreseen, because you're too busy orchestrating 'best-case scenarios' and 'ideal situations'. Please let random remarks divert your focus, scramble your priorities, throw a wrench in the works. Bless the sudden shift in scheduling. There's nowhere else to hurry off to; you're already where you need to be. Nonchalantly explore the cast of curious characters populating these environs. Speak the strange thoughts swirling around your lips, inviting the adjacent human to respond as she or he sees fits, and see where it goes. Flexibility and responsiveness are winning strategies; forcefully struggling to 'stay on track', not so much.

 

PISCES (February 19-March 20): If part of what's keeping you from 'getting real' about your material conditions is residual shame or insecurity about past actions or decisions, Pisces, this is a wonderful moment to clear the slate. Don't put on falsely confident airs about situations in which you actually feel lost or clueless. Confess your ignorance to supportive pals or colleagues who may be able to help… or if you're lacking those, then actively seek assistance by educating yourself, reading resourceful writings or making an appointment with a professional. With Venus conjunct Chiron in your sign, you're in a prime spot for turning prior missteps (real or perceived) into opportunities for growth. And under this influence, other people are likelier to be sympathetic, non-judgmental and responsive to what you want from them. Please be sure to ask those very questions you've been afraid to ask; it's better to know than to 'spare yourself' the truth. But do not, under any circumstance, simply hand over the entire responsibility for your getting-real to another person who might be all too willing to gladly accept the authority—leaving you in the disempowered position of, once again, tying your destiny to somebody else's. You need to learn how to handle all this as an independent entity, accepting counsel perhaps, but surely not giving yourself over completely.