Aries (March 20-April 19) — Your most important work is bringing people together. It does not matter in which context this occurs, though it’s likely to have manifestations in your professional life. Taking part in this will be helpful to the world, though also essential to your healing. One of the problems undercutting human harmony is a degree of nearly obsessive toxic competitiveness that you can find almost anywhere. Your current spiritual project, as I read your chart, is to resolve this in yourself. That means taking a different approach to professional and social situations: extending yourself more, doing things for which you’re not paid and don’t get recognition, and where you set the example of being helpful for its own sake. You may not be able to ‘make’ everyone get along; not all of them want to, though it will help if you study their differences. Imagine the politics you see in the environment surrounding you in some way reflecting attitudes and values you possess. As well, the helpful actions of others will provide a positive example and a map to your healing. Note that you may be feeling an increasingly intense need to compete with others. This is precisely the impulse you are learning to transcend, on a quest for new ideas about both success and what it means to participate in a community. The message is that life is not about what you do. Rather, your life is about who you are.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You are changing, faster than may be comfortable for you. But this has been going on for a while, in the form of your most rigid, antique beliefs being dismantled by the combined efforts of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn. You no longer have those old concepts fully intact to stand on, get lost in or distracted by. You may be feeling the competing impulses to cling to a notion of tradition or old ideas about who you are, and at the same time rebel against, well, something. I would propose, however, your true role is to invent: to see problems (yours or those that seem to be collective property) in new ways, and to invest yourself in developing helpful approaches to them. Though it may have worked for you in the past, you can no longer go from day to day following some rote program. You can no longer use your “personality tendencies” or being “set in your ways” as an excuse. And dependence upon conditioning and belief must finally give way to full reliance on your knowledge and your learning process. In fact, no two days are alike. No two projects are the same. Relationships evolve from day to day; reality forever changes. Therefore, face the unknown with courage and love in your heart, and allow something new, different and potentially better to happen.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — There is now a rather massive collection of planets gathering in Capricorn, including (among others) both Jupiter and Saturn — which have more mass than the rest of the solar system combined. Capricorn is your 8th solar house, “the crowded house” because of its complicated collection of intertwined themes. They include all the places where human nature haunts, stalks or otherwise engages us. The major themes of the 8th are where sex meets money, where relationships meet commitment, and where death meets transformation. Needless to say, this is a significant time in your life and in your relationships, and you may be feeling overwhelmed by the kinds of potentially wrenching changes you are having to negotiate. Change can also mean exchange, which is an essential theme of the 8th: there is often a transaction going on, a contract being entered or terminated, or some circumstance forcing you to stand up for your values. This relates to the power theme: who has power over you, who do you have power over, and how did things come to be this way? The pitfall of the 8th is that it covers all the material most people make excuses for avoiding. You could say that means avoiding the truth, first and foremost, which is barely possible at the moment, and which will become impossible over the next two months. It is fair to say that in a very short time, everything will be revealed. Make peace with who you are and what you’re dealing with in life. Take a more transparent approach, so you can get the help you need. The result will be a better life, where you are free from the fetters of the past.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Your world is changing. For a long while, change seems to have meant everything but improvement, due to many challenging aspects influencing your sign. The immediately forthcoming astrology, among the most significant in a generation, is going to level out the ground you stand on. If you’re in tune with your ethics and willing to grow and make adjustments, this will work out well for you. If you are someone who resists progress and constantly prioritizes yourself over others, you will find yourself in circumstances where you will need to be more generous. The question to ask is: what is the purpose of your life? The answer by the standards of society will usually be some form of “every man for himself” or the need to survive. This is often lubricated by some version of, “If I win the lottery, then I will help people.” Please — forget it. You have work to do now, not in the future. Work means a purpose to serve, and people in your life who need you to invest in them. Most of all, work means that you are being called to lead by example. You can have no ideals except for the ones you personally embody. Nothing else counts now except what you demonstrate to be true by your actions and your choices. You’re being called to step up to the challenge of living, with your full sensitivity, even here in our era of duck and cover. In a phrase, it’s time to get real.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Be cautious of how much you’re willing to sacrifice for what you consider a cherished goal. Sure, you will have to give something, though you need to be making conscious decisions as you do so. Right now the end result is not the question; how and where you travel is. You could easily lose yourself in all the endless activity and potential stress (particularly at work) suggested by the Capricorn alignment now in progress. Yet in truth, you are being guided by a bright star to discover something about yourself you’ve never known but have long suspected. The notion of finding yourself is no longer something you have to read about in books, or practice in some structured way, such as a workshop. Rather, your whole purpose for existing is now making a series of discoveries that will lead you to a new understanding of who you are. This is a process; yes, it’s true that some people report those stunning sudden breakthroughs. Usually, self-discovery is a journey of putting one foot in front of the other. The question is whether you look down at the ground, or up at the horizon, while you’re traveling. Now, I say this knowing you are probably involved in some important, time-consuming and high-pressure situations, such as related to work or health. By all means take care of those, though at all times remembering the central nature of your life mission. That might be described succinctly as true self-awareness, which you can and indeed must practice all the time.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — For those who don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, and for plenty who do, the central struggle of life is figuring out how to express themselves. Your chart embodies this entirely, as if you are a sculptor at work 18 hours a day bringing a piece of marble to life, or welding scraps of metal together into a bird that so convincingly wants to fly. Yet you are the marble, the metal and the bird. You want to shape yourself into those delicate flight feathers and talons, and into the person you’re becoming; you are the ideas you are making into a painting that you want to reveal to others. There is also something about your chart that describes you wanting to forget something: an experience or aspect of yourself, or perhaps a long phase of your history. However, I don’t think you can just let it go and have it be gone. Being human is not that simple. You’re not a device from which you can delete things. The purpose of your creative process is to move your experience through yourself and into a new form. In this way, art and evolution are related to one another. Talent does not matter; having something to say sort of matters. What counts is that you need to address something urgently, and you find an outlet for doing so. You don’t bury it, or go on a head-trip. You work it through in the process of recreating yourself.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Just in time for the holidays, the family angle of your chart is lit up like the decorating department at Lowe’s. This looks like a kind of last tango when it comes to certain ways that family of origin relationships influence you. You tend to be heavily dependent upon bonds with close relatives for your sense of stability, which has not exactly been working out in recent years. Very little has been stable, and whatever benefits you get appear to come at way too high a cost, in terms of your peace of mind. What seems to happen is that when you get around these people who knew you way back when, all of your growth and hard work on yourself can be disappeared with a single dismissive insult. Now, there may be an exaggeration effect, and you will see all you’ve been missing, and much that you have not been missing. Here is the thing: it may seem like this is about them. Really, the topic is resolving what happened to you at the hands of others, and under their emotional influence. If you are experiencing conflict, you can be sure that you are the one who is not stuck and who does not want to be so. Being stuck means that nothing seems to change, when you know that in fact, everything has changed, or needs to. You’re not going to take them along; nobody is going to finally announce that they approve of you. You’re the one who needs to make the adjustments and changes, first by finding an element of emotional independence, and then approving of yourself. If others up-end you, then spending time with them constitutes a conflict of interest.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You have a lot to say and you may be inclined to say it. Yet I suggest you practice some discipline: refining your message to something with focus and actual thought. You may be tempted to blurt everything out at once. That might feel good for a while but won’t get much of a result. Be particularly cautious what you say, text, tweet or otherwise broadcast when you’re under the influence of alcohol. Even one sip could have a profound effect on your consciousness, such as by tipping you in the direction of slightly depressive, which alters your confidence, and starts a cascade of some kind. Stick to Perrier or cranberry juice, particularly when you’re around relatives. Then, as the magnification effect of Jupiter conjunct Pholus takes effect, you will hear certain thoughts loudly and clearly — stuff you might want to avoid. I suggest you pay close attention, because you’re being granted access to a tap into the distant past. You will have the opportunity to hear and feel with a certain energy that has been coursing down the generations, twisting everyone around it. Do not confuse this with “your own thinking” even though it’s percolating through your own brain. It’s as if you’ve dug up an ancient burial ground and you can see all that has been denied or ignored. Be conscious and careful around this material. Take notes! Think of it as an ancestral entity with a life of its own. Most of all, learn from it. The more aware you are, the less it can control or even influence you.

Everyday Secrets: Sagittarius Astrology Studio

Dear Friend and Reader:

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Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — How you feel about yourself is your most important resource. It is the one that grants you access to all the others. Recent events may have shown you what is possible, though this is only so if you make the total investment of faith in yourself. While that always has a relational aspect — people will either affirm you, or not — be cautious about seeking approval from others. Most of those ‘others’ are voices in your mind, representing people from the past who were not supportive when you needed them to be so. Some may have done actual damage from which you’re still trying to piece together recovery. You have everything you need. You have all the talent, commitment and perseverance. (Skills need to be acquired ongoing, and I suggest you never miss an opportunity to learn one.) Yet what regulates your access to your array of abilities and ideas is your emotional state. This is often confused with self-esteem, because it affects the way you see yourself and the basis for the choices you make. Yet it’s much more utilitarian to think of this in terms of how you feel, and what might be interfering with holding yourself in positive regard. For anyone who works their way through this, usually it takes progress and learning over time, and also gaining the basic ability to navigate emotionally. Something impacting you profoundly has a source in the distant past. If you pay attention, you will see exactly what this is. And then if you want to — but only if — you can get some resolution.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Jupiter now enters your sign for the first time in 12 years. It does so in our tense moment, with you under some unusual pressure to make what feel like enforced changes. Indeed, you are fortunate if you have any influence at all in certain circumstances. You do, though it may not be what you think. What I suggest you explore is your own attachment to the very things that seem to trap you or hold you back. This might be some bond to the values espoused by your family, which you have said you want no part of. It might be an emotional approach to life that you know is not working for you. You may have decided you’re ready to go beyond a model of authority that does not leave you room to exist. In fact, at the moment you may feel pretty cramped in, and like the very things you’ve sought to transcend have only become magnified. It is fair to say that this is an important time of reflection for you. It is time to consider what change and progress really consist of, and what these terms really mean to you. In our world, it is easy to be conned out of your true potential. Usually, this is facilitated by wanting to stay in a comfort zone, which is another way of saying not quite being ready to face the unknown. Yet you will indeed be confronted by all that you do not know. The question is, do you turn toward it, or away from it?

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — The prevailing astrology of our moment has had a way of drawing you into yourself, though this has not always been pleasant. Jung once remarked about how people will do anything, no matter now ridiculous, to avoid facing their soul. Soul is not a thing; it is the process of integrating your consciousness into your existence: calling yourself fully aware and present for your own life. This has certain properties, such as commitment to truth. Seeing someone else’s interests as equal to your own is right up there, which implies generosity of spirit. Then there’s the part about facing your fears rather than denying them. If you don’t do these things, you’re likely to project your issues outward, and see them manifest as figments in the world. Of course, the world really does have problems, and is often mean and unfair. But at the moment, that is not your responsibility and it’s unlikely to be your situation. Striving for your own sanity and peace of mind is your situation, and this is going to require shifting or transcending certain mental and emotional patterns that have been running your life for years. You’ve circled around these issues many times. You’ve burrowed in on a few occasions, though this is not necessarily appealing. You are reaching the point where something must shift, or you are going to crack. I suggest you opt for the shift option. It is easy to invite necessary changes into your life. Start by questioning what you have denied or taken for granted. That is step one in focusing your commitment to truth.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — After a stunning series of events in your professional angle of Sagittarius, your ruling planet Jupiter is about to change regions of your chart, entering your social and public realm of Capricorn. The entire universe of what we call “social and public” is in chaos at the moment. You’ve probably experienced some of that firsthand, with the Saturn-Pluto conjunction brewing there for a couple of years. And now your own personal story is drawing you out of your shell and into a phase of your existence where you will be more directly involved in collective events. You don’t want to get too involved, though. A vital aspect of what you are being called to do is bear witness, rather than control the flow of events. You will have many opportunities to be a positive influence. Your viewpoint will be helpful — assuming you take a focused approach, and have respect for tradition. That’s the thing. There is revolution in the air, but it’s probably not your chosen variety. You must attune keenly to your bodily senses, and notice how you respond to both people and ideas. Many will pretend to be both savior and the saved. Others will be racing to the bottom to see who can win the gold medal of victimhood. You will witness many forms of the obsession with power. What you have to offer is a loving approach to reality, which implies being just a little above and beyond the fray. You do not need conflict, and you don’t want to be drawn into it. Just be an honest witness.