Aries (March 20-April 19) — You have some unusual and by all indications excellent opportunities to express yourself, in creativity, in love or both. What you might come up against, though, are some of your more rigid beliefs about life. These are likely to be values that were instilled in you when you were young, and which don’t serve you. Yet you seem to depend upon them, in a way, to protect you from your more exciting options and your true vitality. Now you’re pushing back against them; that is necessary, if you want any room to have some fun, which is another way of saying to get past the limits that were set upon your bliss. Look for examples of this if you decide you want to do something adventurous and then feel guilty about it, or you feel like something horrible might go wrong. That fear is a blockage, and it stands between you and the future. Now is the time to work it out.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You cannot look to others for validation of your feelings, or not at this stage anyway. For you, there is no compromise between the past that you’re leaving behind and the life that you want. You must use your power of persuasion, seduction or some other influence to convince a partner to slow down enough and hear the other sides of an issue. This includes their having a sense of your growth trajectory. One thing you can do for yourself is to evaluate your own beliefs. If you notice that your beliefs are rigid, which means firmly held and not tending to flex or bend, you would do well to soften up. Setting that example will be good for everyone. Allow for change, and for the passage of time. Notice the subtle points, which means listen carefully.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Learning is discovering that something is possible. The next week or so will be rich with this energy: of self-discovery, of your learning potential, and most of all, figuring out how much you already know. Please don’t resist this. Slow down and take your time with everything that you’re doing and everything you’re feeling. We’re not talking about knowledge that’s limited to what you’re holding in your head. For you in particular, authentic knowledge is rooted in your feelings, your blood and your bones. Your body informs your mind, not the other way around, and this quality of your being is coming on strong now. Along with this process, pay attention to what you eat and how it makes you feel. Pay attention to your sleep patterns and dreams. And if you have any connection to your ancestors, particularly on your father’s side, consider what they have taught you and what they are offering you now.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Be ready to negotiate for what you want. That means three things mainly: preparation, knowledge and flexibility. You must be coming from an informed place, to the degree that you know more than anyone with whom you’re working out business or contractual arrangements. Powerful forces are at work in your life, and you must be their master, or you face the risk that they will master you. Therefore, I suggest you over-prepare on every subject, but don’t show off your knowledge. Rather, use what you know to ask the right questions. Listen carefully and figure out what other people know, revealing as little as possible. Your astrology reveals that you have a rare opportunity to crack the code of one particular puzzle involving sex, money or some combination of the two. This discovery will lead you to rethink your relationships, and put yourself on much firmer ground when you’re done.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Always remember that your intelligence is your most valuable resource. You may have finances on your mind, and the key to whatever you’re puzzling over or trying to figure out is the power of your mind. You are about to tap into a much wider and deeper source of mental power than you’re typically accustomed to. This will, in turn, help you tap into greater resources than you usually have. Yet this is not like getting a loan from a bank. Rather, it’s much closer to you making your resources available, and seeing what that attracts. The more generous you are, the more you will figure out how much that you have, and that you know. It may be popular to withhold knowledge, as if that makes it worth more. Often this is a mask for lacking confidence. Ideas increase by being given away. You will gain self-assurance as you share what you know, and base your relationships on that sharing.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Relationships are always more than the sum of their parts. Working with others in a harmonious way allows for greater creative flow than people working alone, and opens the way for ideas that never would have emerged otherwise. Therefore, you might want to seek collaboration and cooperation on anything you’re working with. Many hands make lighter work, if you can keep people coordinated, though this goes deeper, to the level of a real exchange. Yet you must be the director of any collaboration, proceeding gently and respectfully but with a degree of quiet authority. Mostly this means setting the agenda based on real goals, being aware of the many factors involved in your environment, and consulting with anyone you’re working with. This process of consultation — with lots of listening involved — is where you will demonstrate respect for the ideas of others, bring out your own best ideas, and then create that something extra.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Most arguments are a waste of time, and this will be especially true this week. I suggest you do that Libra thing and figure out how to sidestep conflict, or turn it into something productive. It’s true that you feel important principles are at stake, but are they really? And do principles really matter? Given the astrology, I would say that part of what you’re doing is re-evaluating your position on matters of deep personal importance that have little involvement with the lives of others. You must make up your mind about what works for you, and you can be more flexible with yourself. If you find yourself feeling certain about something, you might inquire whether that’s not a cover story for feeling utterly clueless. Knowing that you don’t know is a far better option than thinking you know and being wrong. And if someone has an opinion and is right, concede the point quickly and move on.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Finances remain an important theme for you now, and you need to get your house in order. The first thing to do is to prioritize, which is likely to involve making what seem like difficult choices. The question is, what exactly is the difficulty? You appear to be in conflict between what you want, and what you think other people think is right for you. This can be a subtle level of psychology, where you sort out the influence of authority figures in your thought process. Once you start setting your own priorities as a fundamental matter of living, it becomes easier to see where you’re letting others have an influence. I am speaking specifically about parents, siblings and various authority figures from your past who seem to be in a kind of inner debate. None of this is real unless you pretend that it is. What matters is what you say matters.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You must work with your resistance rather than let it slow you down. The question, though, is what are you holding onto? You must beware of orthodoxy in any form. Checking the semantic roots of that word, we discover that it’s based on the idea of “straight, upright, rectangular, regular; true, correct, proper.” Seen another way, it means stuck in the past for its own sake. The allegedly proper way to do things back then may have little bearing on the way you need to do them today. That might mean breaking tradition, and you might worry this is going to offend people. That is irrelevant. What truly matters is that you understand the wisdom of the past and actually assess its value. It might be relevant; it might not be. Does it help you accomplish what you want to accomplish now, or does it get in your way? The creative process is based more on mistakes than it is on purity.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — You’re working to break free of something that has often hindered you in the past: a thought form, an idea about yourself, or an attachment to a belief. (Those are all ways of saying the same thing; choose which one you relate to.) What I suggest you notice is any time you take something on the level of a religious belief. I don’t mean religion per se but rather that style of ‘true believership.’ There are a few qualities that such might have, one of which is that it’s born of an attempt to simplify something complex. Another is that it’s a response to a fear, with a palliative value (it makes you feel better, or is supposed to). Last, it’s the kind of idea that leads you to avoid something rather than to engage it directly. In case nobody has told you yet, you have a bold, brilliant imagination, and you’re capable of coming up with ideas that far surpass any form of simplistic viewpoint. Those ideas have life and they have energy, and that’s what you’re feeling now.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — When one goes against popular opinion, one is often playing with fire. I suggest you switch ‘playing’ to ‘working’, and use fire carefully and consciously, as the tool that it is. Bucking popular trends or opinions can work well, if it’s done with a level of Jedi awareness. Our current environment is set up to feed counter-trends, and people love them. Remember that you cannot do this alone. You need allies; you need the experience and the wisdom of others who have done similar things before, and who are capable of studying the environment. This may be your friends, your clients, your colleagues or the general public (depending on what you do). The question to ask yourself is: what is the core belief that you’re working with? I could just as easily have said ‘working against’ but in fact you will be working with the very thing you’re working against. Figure out what that is, and you’re well on the way to succeeding.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You might have the feeling that you’ve found the perfect relationship or the perfect person. You’re certainly being drawn in that direction. At the same time, you are being bold about focusing your purpose and your mission. It’s essential that these two seemingly different aspects of your life not conflict. That would be a waste of a phenomenal opportunity to create harmony between your personal involvements and your most important missions in life. Those missions all require cooperation with others; nearly everything does, though this particular fact is emphasized in your current solar chart. Yet you’re also in the position of setting your own agenda, rather than following what others think is the right thing to do. You must trust your own sense of mission; though remember that you need to reevaluate your goals constantly. There are certain items that have been on your to-do list for a while, and among them are a few that deserve a real investment of your time and your energy.