Aries (March 20-April 19) — Fighting chaos is like trying to smooth out the surface of water with a canoe paddle. You may be facing some challenging situations at work, though it won’t take much for you to turn them into opportunities. The first thing to do is take a different approach to any turbulence or conflict, which would begin by stepping back and observing. You may not be noticing how your influence in the situation is stirring up your environment. The best way to figure that out is to step back, observe and listen. The thing to study is relationships. Notice where people’s loyalty is invested, without judging it or saying anything about it. This is a matter of facts, not of opinion. The only way to get anything done — whether it’s a project of some kind, or your own professional advancement — is to work with others. And that is entirely based on who is loyal to whom, and why. What I suggest you remember about this thing called ‘work’ is that for most people, it’s merely the one means they know of to the end called eating. For a few other people, work is a creative endeavor that gives meaning to their lives. For a few others, it’s a political game or power trip. Know where you stand, and know who you’re dealing with at any time. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Consider sincerely the challenges your partners are facing. This isn’t some special treatment you would be offering; rather, it’s the essence of companionship and collaboration. Your own astrology has been compelling you to mature and take on more responsibility; not just for your personal life, but also for the world around you. You might feel like you’re being asked to give something up. You will no more miss whatever you think that is than you miss your childhood toys. As you expand your attention to the details of the world around you, you’ll close the distance between yourself and the people you care about. Indeed, you may make vast discoveries about how much you care. You’ll also feel a greater sense of satisfaction in knowing that you’re integral to creating a better, saner world for everyone. In many ways, doing this is a matter of perspective. You’ve experienced looking at something on the horizon and thinking it’s one thing, and as you get closer, discovering that it’s something else. This works with all facets of life: the closer you get, the more detail you will see, and the more you’ll understand your appropriate role. At the same time, shift your perspective other ways: look from above; consider how things change from a distance; consider how others perceive them. Factor this all into your own perception. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Gemini is said to be one of the more mental signs, but now there’s no avoiding an emotional situation that’s been vying for your attention for some time. Once you devote yourself to understanding and healing, you will discover a world of possibilities, by which I mean support from others and an opportunity to grow and create. One item to address is your sexuality, from the standpoint of healing. This can be challenging because few people have any concept of sexual healing until they’ve experienced it, and few healers or thought-leaders bring up the topic. You still tend to think of sex as something that must exist inside a social construct like marriage or commitment. Sex came first. The human body and its feelings came before anyone’s notion of right or wrong imposed over basic biology. One element of healing is living by your own personal code of ethics, one that realistically reflects who you are and what you feel. That’s predicated on knowing what you feel and seeking to discover the truth of who you are. This is opposite from trying to fit yourself into what someone else thinks you’re supposed to be. Just embracing that one idea will help you feel better and set yourself free. You might try this as your mantra for a few weeks: “I am not my parents. I am myself.” For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Better things are calling you — creative, amorous, erotic, adventurous. All you need to do is respond. This is usually easier said than done, because the demands of life and, moreover, the habitual patterns of life rarely support those aspects of being. Indeed, they seem designed to prevent them. If there is a key to unfolding your potential, it’s allowing yourself to feel and to be your secret self. By this I mean the self that you rarely speak of or reveal. Both true creativity and actual involvement and investment in your life require this one thing: the risk of revealing who you are; first to yourself, then in the process to the people around you. It’s true that authentic art and focused relating both take discipline. Yet before there can be discipline you must allow the flow of your personal truth to open up. There must be some risk involved in everything you express and everyone you relate to. Safe and predictable situations will not foster your growth. The opposite of safety is not danger; rather, you might say that the measure of authenticity is the sensation of risking something when you express yourself. You want the situations with uncertain outcomes. You want the people who challenge you to rise to the occasion of your own existence. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Belief is fragile. Most beliefs do not stand up to verification. Yet the starting point to getting real is discovering your assumptions and, one by one, popping them like balloons. That’s the big courageous thing involved in growth. Some forms of spiritual training and study give you a pin to do the popping; others give you more hot air to inflate more balloons. You could save yourself time by questioning every assumption you have, and by counting everything you think you know as such. This is not as harsh as it sounds. It’s more like opening up the windows on a cool autumn afternoon, and being grateful that you need neither heat nor air conditioning. Being ‘disillusioned’ is thought of as a bad thing; you might think of it as being shorn of your illusions. The more disillusioned you are, the more open you’ll be to that seemingly elusive thing known as reality. That’s the thing you want. The first benefit will be simplicity. What is so is more elegant and more pragmatic than what you hope is true, or are pretending is true. Yes, this takes commitment, but after a short time the energy that comes back to you will provide ample power for the whole project. It’s like cleaning closets. Once you clean one, going for the rest feels good and ends up being great fun. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — By all rights, being born under Mercury’s most potent sign would make it easy for you to get to the essence of what you want to say. Yet often it’s more difficult than that. Your ideas get mixed up with your emotions, and therefore lost in the sauce. That, however, is the simpler equation to solve. The more complex one is the influence that other people have on you. It’s easy for you to get lost in their notions of what’s supposedly true for you, or what’s true in general. The first thing to do is to notice this influence. It’s not so easy and it takes willingness and perceptiveness. Lately your relationships seem to come with a kind of haze that can fog over your relationship with yourself. It’s possible to address this in a peaceful and productive way. The thing required is a commitment to being clear with yourself. You cannot escape having feelings, nor do you want to; though it will help if you observe your feelings and notice how they change. You will benefit from a balance of reasoning process, intuition and instinct. Check in with all three. Notice when you’re feeling fear. Notice when you want something, or someone, and you’re not admitting that fact. Here’s a clue: when you feel like you might be betraying someone, you’re most likely to be honoring your own will. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You must do something about any lingering inferiority complex that you have, or the present one that’s driving you nuts. First, let’s get one thing out of the way: the world is designed to make us all feel inferior and inadequate. All the advertising and politics and catty, competitive social interactions that seem inescapable: all are designed to erode your confidence in yourself, which then can become a permanent judgment. There are alternatives to inferiority. One is finding people you sincerely look up to, who serve as models. You assign them a ‘superior’ role and then aspire to their greatness. We live in tough times because we silently expect everyone who seems good and decent to be revealed as a fraud. Be careful about that thought form, and take a balanced view of people you hold as exemplars. Another is recognizing that we all have equal potential, and what we get out of life is a matter of what we invest. Let’s put it this way: there are some aspiring guitarists who hear Derek Trucks play and feel inferior and disheartened. Others hear him play and think, “I want to play that well. I know it’ll take practice.” Which of these do you choose? One last bit: take everyone as your teacher. The wise, the nutty, the young, the old, the dogs, the cats and the bunnies. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

2016-17 Scorpio Birthday Reading 

Unmask Your True Gifts

“I re-listened a few times for the deeper nuance and messaging — a good thing because I discovered so many ‘hidden gems’ throughout the reading! This was definitely a worthwhile investment in money and time. Thank you!”
— Dee McCrorey

Dear Friend and Reader:

Everyone knows the stereotypical ‘scary’ traits of ‘intense’ Scorpios. But there is so much more to this sign than that, and if you have your Sun, rising sign or Moon in Scorpio (or love someone who does), you know how truly devoted to a higher cause and transformation anyone born under this sign can be.

The true calling card of Scorpio is in fact that transformative ability: to bring shadow to the light, integrate it, and alchemize it into an expression of much higher vibration: creativity, passion, fearlessness, courage and the ability to heal deep wounds.

In a political season and general social context that desperately needs these life-affirming qualities, your 2016-17 Scorpio Birthday Reading will help you to zero in on your gifts — including personal power tools masquerading as ‘difficulties’.

You don’t have to wait until the day after Halloween to take your first step in removing the mask: if you pre-order your reading today, you’ll secure the best price we offer: just $19.97. When the two half-hour audio segments are ready, we’ll email you; when the video tarot reading is ready a little later, we’ll email you again. Along the way, the price will increase incrementally.

Sunday is the Scorpio New Moon, at 1:38 pm EDT (17:38 UTC). What will you discover in that richly introspective darkness? How will you bring it to the light and fearlessly transform it?

And if you have a Scorpio loved one, what will you give them for their birthday? This reading will not only let them know you get them, it will be clear you have their back as they travel along an unusual — yet fruitful and necessary — path.

Yours & truly,
Amanda Painter

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — It’s time to make contact with your drive for social justice. This is a real value that you hold, and it can transcend many other distractions. You believe in the truth, and deep in your heart you want the truth to prevail. You believe in the right thing, and you want the right thing to happen. Taking action on this in small, tangible ways would be more helpful to you and the world than, say, texting money to a charity. Take any opportunity to make the right thing happen. Look around you anywhere and you will see people who need help, who need someone to stand up for them, who need any small advantage. Many times a day you’re in a position to offer that. Make it your business. One benefit of doing this is that it siphons energy from the jealous, competitive and needy side of human nature. You are drawing power from some of the most toxic personality traits and social conditioning and reinvesting it in making yourself a positive force in your environment. Another advantage is that by positioning yourself to be only helpful, you will discover how abundant you are. Notably, much of that abundance is in the form of ideas. Let them lead to action, which will lead to more ideas. Let that ripple out into the world and count it as progress for humanity. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — We all have limited time to accomplish what we came here to accomplish — and we don’t know how much time we have. Making peace with those facts is the first step toward bona fide maturity. The presence of Saturn in your birth sign will be reminding you of this in some way every day. Sometimes this might manifest as a sense of limitation; others times as a sense of urgency. I suggest you take it as an entirely practical matter. You are being invited to take charge of your life, which in the first instance means your time. That’s your single most important resource, and you must treat it that way. By fully embracing the finite nature of time (at least as it exists in our consciousness) you will expand your potential into something wider and vaster than you thought was possible. You’re likely to become aware that there is something far greater than time or this one lifetime, though what you have is now, and your sense of your mission. The more seriously you engage with your mission, purpose or however you think of it, the more wisely you will use your time. The more you recognize time as finite, the more strength you can draw upon to act on your most deeply held values without delay. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — You’re starting to make contact with your own desire. By that I mean you’re removing the obstacles between what you want and admitting what you want. You might think this is too simple to be effective, but all the complexity — the wrangling over appropriateness and guilt and your fear of personal anarchy if you let go of your precious self-control, even just a little — is all a distraction. Sooner or later, you will admit to what you want, which is another way of saying admit to who you are. Then what, exactly, is the fuss? I would remind you that you no longer have to prove that you’re a good girl or good boy. You no longer have to impress your parents or your teachers. Who you are is in fact none of their business, no matter what they may have convinced you. This extends to partners, friends and people in your community whom you think you have to impress as morally upright. Even if you dispense with all of this mental meshugas, there’s one last point to consider: your need to feel safe. Under your current astrology, clinging to security is the last thing that will give you a sense of confidence. Dancing with the possibilities, with your own potential, and the current chaos of the world will, however, do wonders for you. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Every decision you make stems from what you think you are. When you make contact with who you truly are, you will feel your own grandeur and the beauty of your life. When you feel small, or weak, or inferior, you can be sure you’ve lost contact with who you really are. When you feel that your life has meaning, and like your presence offers strength and encouragement to the world around you, you can be sure you’re in contact with who you are. One theme of your chart is expanding your vision for your life. This story is being told by Jupiter moving through your house of your ‘higher self’. At the same time, Saturn is compelling you to take the opposite approach, and narrow your focus to a specific role. The two processes are not at odds. In fact, this month they join forces, with a rare meeting of Saturn and Jupiter. This will help you prioritize, which is exactly what you need to do. It’s a fact that the possibilities are endless. It’s a fact that you can only embrace and express some of them. It’s also a fact that you need some better possibilities, and those exist if you will see them for what they are. As the month progresses, some key facts will come into focus, and you will be well positioned to take advantage of rare circumstances. Pay attention. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You may have noticed that you have more traction than usual: you’re getting things done. You have respect and self-respect. Now it’s time to expand your mission. The past few years of Chiron in your sign (actually, back to 2010) have been a time of profound introspection, dealing with your insecurities and taking care of your healing agenda. The majority of that work is behind you. You have a better sense of who you are than at any time in the past (and you knew pretty well as a kid). I suggest you count those gains for what they are, and embrace the confidence that is available to you. A greater sense of purpose is calling you, though it’s vital that you take this on more than the generic level. Reflect carefully and get clear about what you want to accomplish. Then, without hesitating, move forward and let nothing stop you. The conditions of your chart are supporting you many different ways. The more you step up to the challenge, the more support you will feel and be able to take on board. In a world that is running out of control and that in many ways seems utterly insane, it’s easy to miss the fact that you have actual worthwhile ideas, and the ability to carry them out. Remind yourself every day. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.