By Eric Francis

Sometimes the most frustrating times are the most creatively fruitful. While you may have to set certain professional plans and ambitions aside for a few weeks, you have an excellent motive for introspection. You have been feeling a push to express yourself for months, and yet you may seem to have no access to those desires now. I’m here to propose that, despite any challenges, you’re in a moment when you can make contact with some deep material in yourself, and begin to bring it out into the world. Start in the spirit of documentation rather than ‘making art’ or ‘creating something’. Experiment with energy — erotic energy, grief, anger, inspiration. You will feel better, and safer.

Stick to friends who are optimistic about you — and choose your new friends on this basis. The people around you need to live and breathe your potential. I know this isn’t how the world usually is, but it’s how your world can be. Part of that potential involves your income potential, which is linked not to a job but to fulfilling your vision for who you have always known you are. You are so idealistic, it scares you a little, and your vision of how the world should be doesn’t usually match what life serves up. At the moment, however, you have the potential for making contact and building community with people who both support you and to whom you have something to offer.

Now is not the time to come to any final arrangements, but it is the time to work out the wrinkles in relationships where there is any kind of contract involved. There may be some intense moments of negotiation, though I would caution against one thing: blame. I would also caution against obsessing over the past. Your charts show significant potential for both, including self-blame and regret; which is not the way out of the past or into the future. At a certain point you must state your needs honestly, and assess whether any situation works for you or against you. Once you agree with yourself on this particular issue, the wide-open door of potential will be obvious.

If you can manage to be clever and compassionate at the same time, you will work your way through this adventure you’re on. Part of being clever is about seeing the way that challenges add up to openings; part of being compassionate involves listening, and speaking to people in their own language. The beautiful thing about the truly complicated astrology of this moment is that it suggests you have the ability to change your mind about something, and in a sense, to change your destiny. Therefore, I suggest you practice confidence in yourself as an ongoing endeavor. Remind yourself you have the strength, the intelligence and the willingness to thrive, and you will.

Has anyone ever looked at a cat and not wondered what it’s thinking, and where its mind goes? You may be wondering this about yourself, and I suggest letting yourself ponder the possibilities. Mars is retrograde in your sign. For you, Mars is the planet of faith. This is one reason why you are able to do so much; why you are so dauntless. Yet you seem to be on a search for a new depth of inner strength. Part of that is going to be psychic, based on nothing but your inner orientation. And part is going to come from one, simple worldly choice to take a lot better care of yourself. Meditation, rest and nutrition will hold you up like the steel towers of a suspension bridge.

You have certain psychological qualities that could be positively excellent assets, but you tend to use them against yourself. I want to give you an image, and I suggest that you work with it for a couple of years: and that is of you, giving birth to yourself, and raising yourself. Envision this every day. If you’re a man and you can’t quite relate, envision yourself fertilizing yourself on an ongoing basis. The core concept is the same, which is the germination of new life within yourself, which then takes up life in the world. Each thought, choice or action you take is a birth; each needs to be nurtured, nourished and loved.

You may be wondering where you are actually safe, and I would say that work is a good start; but only if it’s work that supports your sensitive, even subtle, talents. For the next few months you will need to develop a skill of not letting the opinions of others you know in your social environment bother you. The litmus test is how you feel about yourself as a result of being in proximity to someone else. This will be especially true in groups — with the likely exception of at work. What happens after work with the same people is another story, and you would be well advised to sit that particular custom out for a few months. You have more enriching things on your mind, anyway.

Rarely has it been easy for you to change your mind about things, once you’ve made it up. This is why you take so long to make a decision. In the past, you’ve had to live with the results for a long time. But I wonder why that is; what is the core of your devotion? You will find it with a careful look at the past, and I would propose that one of the keys is an examination of the story about ‘what you wanted to be when you grew up’. I have found this to be one of the most telling questions. How did that childhood desire transpose into your experience of adulthood? You are in a rather beautiful moment where it is possible to make a new decision and change your course.

You are one of those people whose experience of life tends to be more outward than inward — but contrary to every astrological profile you’ve ever read, you’ve got quite the homebody and introspective streak. For years you’ve felt like you lived in a house where the electric current ran through every object. But lately your relationship to your home space has been changing, and it’s about to become the kind of sanctuary you always wished you had, but could never quite create. Put your energy here; invest time, effort and just a little money and you will work wonders for your peace of mind.

The key is to think gently, rather than obsessively. The thing about obsession is that it tends to get us from below or behind, so you need to cultivate some new habits. One of them is positive stroking. While it may be difficult to see how we ‘manifest things’ with our thoughts and feelings, it’s more obvious how we manifest our state of mind with our thoughts and feelings. Or is it? Do we assume that our thoughts are the result of how we feel, rather than what creates it? The next few weeks are designed to be one of the most effective lessons of cause and effect you’ve ever had on this topic. So remember — think gently.

Potential is just that — something that exists in potential. It has a value, but that value is mostly in the future, and requires development and refinement. The past couple of years have been taking you on a tour of what might be; what can be; who you may become. Yet the time for action has arrived. I say this with a wider view of time — the window for the biggest decisions starts around the equinox on March 21. But the time for refinement and development begins right now, no matter what anyone in your life believes, or how poor of an example of progress they may be setting. Your future is yours, and yours alone.

You are starting to believe in yourself. This is not merely about waking up in the morning and cheerleading in the mirror — though for a Fish that is a pretty good way to start the day. I mean that something is moving from the inside toward the surface, which is changing the way you think about yourself. It is not merely that you know your life is at a crossroads where significant improvement is possible; you also have the added benefit of knowing on a deep level that you have guided events in this direction, which is one of the most profound, helpful lessons a person can have.