| An Astrological Note: Sign dates below are approximate. They now overlap by one day -- this is the day the Sun changes signs in 2001. The date and time of the Sun's ingress to the new sign varies a little each year, so check with an astrologer if you want the exact position of your Sun. Or you can use a free chart service, if you know your time of birth (if not, the chart will be a close approximation, minus your ascendant or rising sign). These horoscopes are written for your Sun (birthday) and rising (birth time) signs. Astrologically You Are Your Ascendant. But let's say you get fancy and you know you have Taurus on the midheaven. You can look at the Taurus horoscope for some clues about your career, and work this little trick with any house you know how to read. For more information about how horoscopes work, take a look at The Horoscope Story. |
| Mercury Also Rises |
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| The way is slippery this month in your interactions with others, particularly close partners. There's no telling what they think or feel, or, more precisely, what they mean by what they say -- but they are in the same boat. They still have so much to figure out that that it's not possible to come to any conclusions. I say "they" and I mean people in general, but particularly one person, especially if that person is (or seems) younger than you. Your challenge, and it's not a minor one, is to not take developments so personally, and to respond with compassion to confusion. If you can hold out for three or four weeks, if you can wait for awareness to rise and understanding to flow, then you're headed for some really good times with this person. Impatience, being a parent or resorting to anger will be more costly than usual, and it won't get you anything for the price. And if you must discuss personal matters, do it in person. Not, for instance, by email. |
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| While on one level it may seem like you've unleashed a torrent of confusion in your work life, other stabilizing and enriching influences are at work that promise a great deal more in the way of peace and contentment. Meanwhile, it would be worthwhile to consider the uses of disruption and minor chaos as growth opportunities and power sources -- perhaps as creative fuel or an opportunity to work outside normal patterns of reasoning to balance out your mind. The off-kilter sense you now have was not born yesterday, even if you just noticed it yesterday. It will, though, soon become obvious that there are more important things than work and projects. While work-related activities may come a long way this month toward matching the sweetness of your imagination, they will still be no match for what people have to offer you on the emotional level, and for what you have to offer them. |
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| The allure of taking a gamble in a personal situation may be more than you can resist, but your speculations would be better made along the lines of creative activity for a while. If you'd like to work with the best of both worlds, engage potential love partners in a month or so of creative collaboration. This will bide time and give them an opportunity to show you their true colors. But it's something else as well. Love is a creative art. Though psychology and its related professions would have us believe that it's primarily a communication art, if we are not creative in love, it ceases to be love. At its heart, this is a spiritual issue. When all is said and done, the most important ground that two people can stand on in a relationship is that of their spiritual values, and the first attribute of what we call Goddess or God is creative. It works beautifully in human terms, too. |
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| In The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, the author describes people's experiences of real-life holograms, such as images of steam locomotives running through modern-day parks as they stand there and watch. These are time overlays in which the past, still extant in another dimension, intersects with our physical, mundane world. Such is your life right now, though the metaphor of a locomotive doesn't take us all the way. It's more like a whole cosmos of your hidden world has taken up residence in your home. You can still get to your couch and dish closet without falling through the universe, but you are relating to two worlds at once. In one of those realities, your own past and all you don't know about it are very much a factor. It may be an interesting show you get to see, some things may be a bit unpleasant, and you will surely have a chance to make decisions about those things. Anyway, I suggest you keep in your pocket the helpful words of A Course in Miracles: "The is past gone. It cannot touch me." |
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| Much comes home to you this month, or perhaps you return home to your own most familiar state of emotional reality. The prejudices of astrology tend to view Leos as bright and sunny, but this disposition conceals a tropism for the depths of your own soul. It's not all blue sunshine down there. You may get the sense, more so than ever, that at this depth, nobody really knows you, or ever will. But taken as a message, this sense raises another subject. If we turn the clock back to 1998 or early '99, you may recall that there was some kind of shift that initially felt like a whole new level of potential opened up for your partnerships. It did, but to access it, a new level of clarity and honesty was demanded of you. This becomes highlighted as the Sun journeys through Scorpio after the 24th, when so much will seem to change, and after Mars enters your opposite sign Aquarius the 28th. If you want your life to change for the better, be really clear with yourself, and those important to you, about how you feel. |
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| The money angle of your chart is so... I'm going to say interesting, and you're more likely to say something like demented, twisted, or bizarre this month, that it's worth a close look. It may be that you are moving fast and furious in one particular direction and the world and its values seem to be moving in another. Naturally, you have your doubts, because you're not looking for a sure thing, just the right thing for you. Keep in mind, though, that much is not what it seems today and for the next month, but I can assure you of one thing: if keep going the way you know you need to be going, you will arrive in the right place. That means pursue and develop your ideas no matter how odd people say they are or how strange they seem in comparison to the background. You're headed for a very, very interesting breakthrough: an idea so intelligent, so profitable and its so ingeniously simple that you might miss it if you don't really pay attention. Be on the lookout as you see the Full Moon begin to rise in the sky toward the end of the month, and for about two weeks beyond. |
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| It would seem that you will begin the month as one person and end it as another. Not bad for a birthday project: you won't forget this one. It's worth remembering the deeper truth that we begin each day one person and end it as another. But consider this. The conscious among us, you included, all struggle with the apparent dichotomy between who we are, and who we are not. We must work it through other ways, too: who we are versus who we were, combined with who we are becoming. It's as if there is no 'I' inside us, only a we, and as if there is no now, only now in relationship to the web of time extending in all directions. It all seems very complicated. But within the webs and spheres and layers of awareness, there is available a clear sense of self, now, that can move through the mazes of consciousness and still hold its identity. The real evolution from the beginning to end of the Sun's current journey through your sign is the birth of clarity of your sense of I, which is free to move and free to change its name. |
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| I cannot imagine what you must be dreaming, what your imagination is handing to you, or what you're afraid of now. This is extremely personal material, beyond the vision of a horoscope, but not beyond your own capability to embrace and have compassion for what you are living through in a dimension that you cannot express or explain. What's important is that you not doubt yourself or presume there is something strange going on; just let it all be, which in part means not discussing your revelations beyond the confines of the deepest intimacy. There is a process in motion, alchemy in the delicate midst of formation. You must endure some weeks of freefall-style uncertainty, but soon after, the Sun, Mercury and Venus enter your birth sign. So much that seemed irrational or frightening will emerge as something far more precious and tangible and, most important, expressible in language. You may be a year older, but you'll be ten years wiser. |
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| There may appear to be no escape from a situation that seems to now dominate your life, and threatens to narrow your viewpoint to a dangerous degree. There are challenges coming from all directions, though the nemesis appears to be someone close who you presumed was a friend who is now acting in some strange ways. Pay attention; you can get out of the way before it gets any more complicated. There's no pressing need to "tell the truth" or settle the score. Their actions are not malicious, they are just finding their way. But just about the worst thing you can do is play into this person's escapades; they have spun quite a web, and the more you respond, the more ensnared you are likely to become. And, not coincidentally, the more distracted from the real priorities of your life, which require you to have wide and far-sighted vision. While you're in the midst of this, remember you do have an actual friend who is accessible to you. In the end, this episode will probably work out better than it may seem mid-month, and you'll still receive the real gift of these events: learning what the word friend really means, and using it with discretion. |
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| What is a strong man? I think our modern minds still struggle with the division between male strength as sexual prowess, physical stature and the capacity for violence, and male strength as an expression of flexibility, honesty and vulnerability. Few have come forward and acknowledged how difficult it is for men to play both sides of this game, particularly without the cooperation of women and, more notably, without the support of one another. In terms of how women can be supportive, one way is feeling they have a real role in the lives of men who do not require them to be their mommy. Men seem to understand that if they stand on their own, many of their female partners are out of a job. It would seem that the corresponding lesson for women is rising to the very equality they say they want, meeting men not as territory to conquer or be conquered, not as a parent, but rather eye-to-eye as their fellow humans. Culturally, we are still a long way from home, but individually, I see many of us taking long steps on this particular theme this particular month. |
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| The world community is being handed a gigantic opportunity to learn how to deal with fear. We might ask whether your particular situation involving fear is something set off from the larger picture, or is a direct attribute of it. Could it be separate? Is not our collective fear the sum total of all the fear we feel as individuals? Ah well, maybe it is not. I would propose that the collective fear, in our particular lifetime, has a life of its own. Being taught to feel collective fear is part of the process of tapping into the overall negative energy source on the planet, which drives so much forward. You are now in an interesting relationship to this whole business, which comes down to deciding whether you're going to cast your vote for fear or faith; weakness or strength; spirit or ego. Many face this decision now, but few so clearly as you. So please don't be alarmed if your fear level seems to rise for no reason, or if your negative imagination is working overtime. You are being presented a choice. |
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| That Piscean blessing of being able to see the big picture, as in the cosmic picture, is not always a party, not when the people around you are bent on small-thought and small-talk and a lot of it involves property and violence. But it's fair to say, understanding that you've noticed the state of the world in which you live, that you're also in a position to notice when something or someone stands out from the rest of reality. If you look, you will see all kinds of figure-background contrasts in the coming weeks, and if you note them carefully and invite them into your home or heart, you will have far fewer reasons to complain about the world. But figure-background observation exercises are really games of awareness. Please keep yours on high, and hold the light around yourself and those you love. The world is going for a little ride, but you know it's all going to be just fine. Okay, you read it here.++ |
 | And now for an endorsement for a free service. For more than a year, I've been reading Planet Forecast readings from our friends at StarIQ.com (on the other side of Lake Washington), which are transit reports keyed directly to your natal chart. They come by email, a few per week, depending on the week. They are excellent. To sign up free, use this link. I can't tell you who wrote them, it wasn't me, but he's one of the best astrologers in the business. |
