Monday Morning Horoscope for April 10, 2017

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This is the week to take stock of yourself. Your accounting process might range from an actual review of your bank and credit card balances, to an investigation of what you’ve learned so far this year. Life has been a whirlwind, especially for those born under your sign. Now, although time spins on, you have a moment to reflect. Pausing and looking back is not a luxury. There’s vital information that you actually need, which is likely to respond only to your active inquiry. So keep your mind on and your curiosity busy, and start doing things like sorting out the mail, investigating what’s found its way into your wallet, and making sure all your paperwork in the glove box is in order. Nobody else has an interest in these questions like you do — and you will indeed be interested in what you find.

 

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — A constellation of rare events influencing you and your relationships takes place this week, which may spark up your curiosity about the distant past. In particular, you’re likely to make a series of discoveries centered around your emotional life that reveal why things were a certain way. While most people you know are content either to pave over the past or to dig in and camp out there, you can afford neither of those two seeming luxuries. What you need, though, you can afford: and that is peace of mind, based on resolving some lingering issues that have been gradually eroding your trust in yourself. This is because you’re still blaming yourself for events that, though you may have had a hand in them, were really the product of everyone involved, and also of the much wider environment. You were involved — but there was a heck of a lot more.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Mercury stations retrograde Monday, signaling a self-discovery that may change your life. Learning something about who you are, or who you no longer are, and then acting on it, is one of the most dependable ways to grow and evolve. I suggest, though, that you allow this discovery process to extend all the way through the end of Mercury retrograde, on May 3. Take things gradually, and do something rare for our era: when you learn something, put it into the context of the other knowledge you’re gaining. Keep your sense of context. Each day will bring new levels of understanding, and there’s something special happening with your life purposes and sense of mission. This has been a challenging aspect of your life the past few years, but your purpose is not an aspect of your life; it’s more like the thing itself. Feel carefully for what feels right, and what does not. Relevant information is on its way — from inside you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — It’s been a wild and exciting ride for you professionally the past few months. And though you need a little R&R, the adventure is about to continue, as the Sun moves through the rather energized career and reputation angle of your chart. You may not feel like you can handle more responsibility, but just as the last few rounds have compelled you to reorganize and align your priorities, so too will events of the coming week. This really is the name of the tune: prioritization. Ask yourself what really matters, and break out the reasons why. Notice what you devote yourself to, without any special coaxing or prodding. There’s something here about slipping into what you really know you want to do, for all the right reasons. Listen to the ideas of people you respect, and count the possibility that their dissent is a form of affirmation.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Take any delays in your professional plans as an opportunity to rethink what you’re doing. In these times, it’s essential that you not be stuck in old or outdated plans. If the planets are any indication, you’re craving work that comes with the human touch. Speaking of, you might set aside any intense activity in the professional realm and invest your time and energy into private matters. Close partners, especially anyone with whom you may share a bedroom, will appreciate your devotion to the most sensitive matters of relationship. Make yourself available, and express in words that you’re open to conversations that have been eluding the relationship. Here’s a suggestion — make sure you’re 100% sober; even a glass of wine can distort your emotions; and it’s better to discuss sex anywhere but in bed (such as the kitchen table, or the living room).

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Relationship matters come into focus this week. While you may have one agenda, that thing known as ‘the universe’ may seem to have another. Your charts describe you trying to stabilize a situation, while they also describe a shakeup. Matters of finance and those of emotion need to be given equal emphasis. They should be treated separately, and also seen in the context of any common ground they share. The financial question may involve whether everyone is paying their fair share, or feels like they’re being treated equitably. Are expenses being shared proportionally to income? Regarding the emotional piece, the question seems to involve some baggage from the past that’s a holdover from previous relationships. Don’t blame current partners for what others did to you — and if you know someone’s weakness, do your best not to be exceptionally sensitive. A mutual commitment to healing will go a long way toward that end.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Trust and vulnerability are the most important qualities of love. There are others, though they can only flow in a space of sincere openness. If you’re working on your relationship, or your desire to be in one, this is the place to start. However, this is predicated on something else: being comfortable with yourself. Being close to another person is like seeing yourself through a magnifying glass. All of your traits and characteristics, the ones you like and the ones you don’t, can be blown up to what seems like larger-than-life scale. You can start by being forgiving, in an even-handed way: that is, of yourself and of others. And you must be willing to do your own healing work; in other words, to attend to your known issues, and any you discover. This is not the usual way to conduct relationships, for a good reason: it takes actual awareness and work to live this way. However, the time has arrived.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Sex in our society remains a fascination, a curiosity, a source of pain, something to gossip about, something to exploit, a suspicious activity, something inappropriate or undesirable, or even something special. In other words, sex (as presented publicly, and often as experienced privately) is everything except normal. If you’re going through a sexual awakening, I suggest you keep the ‘normal’ bit right where you can see it, experience it and talk about it openly. At first this may seem awkward, particularly with all the guilt, secrets and silence that are heaped around this most natural of human experiences. This is the first step in reclaiming your sexuality from various shades of ownership and expectation — the very things that kill relationships, so it’s a worthwhile cause. Just don’t let any initial awkwardness stop you. Explore until sex emerges as what it really is: beautiful and ordinary.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — If you stay aware of your feelings, you’ll be more in harmony with the world you live in. That’s because the world around you is experienced, perceived and colored by your feelings. It matters less what they are and more that you experience yourself honestly. This will remove a barrier between you and everyone around you; that, in turn, will open up your potential and your options. Slow down the movie until you meet your experience on the level of a poet or mystic: in full color, soaking in your emotions. You may discover a key to life if you practice that kind of mindfulness over the next week or so, as the distinctly Sagittarian planet Chiron merges its energy with Venus. This is more than a sensory trip: it’s about grounding in your existence: on a planet, next to a star, in a galaxy.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Though you crave expressing yourself, it’s never quite easy. You seek perfection of your message and your ideas, though the lines seem to blur, and the colors and ideas melt into one another. Yet if you focus your mind and put your favorite creative tool into your hands (be it a pen, a camera, a paintbrush or a musical instrument) you may discover that your abilities are suddenly more accessible than ever. This is not an accident and it’s not luck; it’s about long preparation, and an alignment with your reality. This experience involves your relationship to the sign Pisces, where there’s some truly unusual cosmic activity at the moment and through the week. Give yourself all the space and time you need, or that you can muster, because anything truly creative wants to find its own space and its own rhythm. And remember, never judge your own performance.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Don’t always assume you’re right. Though this may be annoying, you’ll appreciate the exercise because you’ll come closer to reality. It always helps you to be flexible. Structure and form, you have. An organized system of logic, you’re aware of and you can use when you need to. Change is something you expect but then often resist, which is why being open-minded is so vital to your happiness and your wellbeing. The overarching theme of your charts at the moment is healing any residual issues (or an overt crisis) of self-esteem. You may never feel that you measure up. But the question, if you ask it, might be: who is doing the measuring? And what is the metric? Both logic and intuition would likely tell you that comparison is irrelevant, though you cannot ‘not compare'; you can only live organically in your truth. Practice self-acceptance and you may make the pleasant discovery that it’s easier to grow and change from there.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — This is a momentous time in your life, though you may not know it. Of course, you might indeed be noticing how your inner world is opening up to you. You could be experiencing the activation of your potential. You may also be seeing your limits, and noticing how far you have to go, in order to have the life that you want. Don’t be deceived by your doubts. Remember all those times when you turned out to be much closer to answers, to fulfillment and to breakthroughs than you thought you were. Remember the times you’ve given up, only to find that your desires were in fact alive and that existence was aware of you and responding to you. We’re just days away from the meeting of Venus and Chiron in your birth sign, which is happening over the next week and cannot happen again until 2062 (in somewhat reduced form). Stay close to yourself, and close to your experiences, and close to what you want. Brush off your doubts, and remind yourself that you’re alive.