You seem to be watching calmly enough as others go through a kind of crisis: a growth crisis, or perhaps if they are the lesser-evolved or less conscious type, some other kind. In any event, you are witness to a transition. You may marvel at the feats of someone confronting their fears and desires directly, while not exactly envying them. Yet there is not only something here for you; there is something about you, though you may not recognize it quite yet. The directness with which a certain person, or key individuals in your life, are willing to engage with their deepest core issues is offering an example, as well as acting out a certain hidden drama that is brewing in your soul.

The more personal theme might feel a little like this; perhaps try it on. You are at one of those moments that is not quite the end and not quite the beginning. Yet if you shift your perspective just a little, you will notice that your life is moving toward a threshold so significant as to be daunting. There is pressure to change and grow; we both know you don't appreciate pressure.

Most of the pressure, however, is about being aware, and if people are reflecting anything back to you, it is this one factor. Yes, it seems radical and it can seem violent at times; it may seem unnecessary to see the world in such black and white terms. Yet contrast is one of the most useful teaching devices that exist.

You are being challenged now to give up all the lies of your past. I speak of the ones you were told, and the ones you subsequently learned for yourself, mostly for the convenience of others. There are the ones you know about, and the ones you have yet to discover. In essence, you are not the person you were told you were. You knew this, but there is a disturbing gap between the illusion that was given to you and the reality you feel within you. You know you have to close this gap, and now you are seeing how this is actually possible.

If you are on a search, look for limited or distorted ideas conveyed to you about the nature of the world, relationships, people, and what your life would be about if you took up authority over yourself. In fact, question everything that was told to you. If somebody told you that George Washington was the first president of the United States, make sure it's true (though widely believed, it's actually not true). To the extent you can question all your assumptions, you will become a person whose integrity and honesty are a source of strength rather than of fear.

When challenging lies, I also speak of your tendency to say things to people that are only half true, when you know the whole truth. This is often veiled as diplomacy, but this word translates from Greek approximately as two-faced. All of these things are closely related. Lies come in many forms, the most important of which is denial of your own reality.

You would be wise to make a map of how you came to be the person you are, or who you think you are. Children always take on the roles that adults play for them, tending to become like their caregivers in how they treat themselves and respond to life. We often say that humanity seems caught in a fog; that people are self-absorbed; that we tell ourselves what we need to get through the day. To the extent you do any of these things, we can surely point to factors in your early childhood that set up the circumstances.

Yet now, the hot rays of the Sun are burning through the mists, pushing you out of the comfort zone of beliefs and ideals. This is manifesting in the circumstances of your life, and the growth patterns of the people close to you, which are calling you out of your hidden spaces on an almost hourly basis. I agree, this is sometimes disconcerting. There is a confrontation involved, of the kind you don't find to be particularly agreeable, but which feels necessary, like stretching out after sleep, or building your strength after a phase of inactivity.

Yours is a fixed sign, and some of the most significant activity of the year is taking place in two other fixed signs, Leo and Aquarius. Specifically, this is the end of the long opposition between Saturn and Neptune. This astrological pattern has had many effects on your life, but they have in a sense been abstract. You have recognized things and had insights. You have "got the idea" of certain basic facts. Yet you are on a direct course for a test of all these revelations, where you will basically see them manifest in three-dimensional reality and walk through them empty-handed.

On some level, you must fear you have a great deal to lose. What you are heading for, though, is in truth an exchange. Pride can be transformed into healthy self-respect. Rigidity can be transformed into gentle persistence. Your insecurity can be exchanged for embracing uncertainty. Your idealistic sense of what you want to do with your life can find a home in your heart as a clear vision of how you want your work and other forms of expression in the world to feel, rather than specifying what you want to achieve. Indeed, your notions of what you want to achieve are among the obstacles that have been the most difficult to overcome.

Living from your inner core in this way will have some odd effects on you, one of which will be that instead of feeling good as you retreat into a haze, you will notice the inherent toxicity of denial. Another is likely to be the kind of creative breakthrough that can only come with clear personal integrity. And finally, as someone once wrote, only the truth is erotic.




Aries (March 20-April 19)
It won't be long now before everything appears in perspective: that is, before your sense of reality snaps into clarity like Nikon autofocus on a bright day. What were you dreaming all this time? What were you missing by looking in every direction but straight ahead? Open your eyes, the answer is obvious.
 
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
This birthday season has nearly come and gone. Have you finally gotten the message that it makes no sense at all to define yourself by your fears? We could well ask what, in that case, you would use. Your friends see the truth about you, but they are only glimpsing something from the outside that you can live and breathe within.
 
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
If you allow the currently abundant ideas and reactions of others to pass through you, your own thoughts will become apparent. If you cling to what others may say or feel, you will have no room for an honest assessment of your own mind, and in particular, who and what you have decided is of primary importance. Stay loose and watch the world like it's a movie.
 
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Now that you have noticed that feeling good about yourself is a decision, you may be wondering what kept you from deciding all along. The answer to that mystery is pretty simple. All decisions have a basis. We make them based on something that we have decided, whether in advance or based on new information, is true. This cannot be rushed.
 
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Keeping your creative integrity and your professional integrity is a little like walking on a slanted high wire, but you have remarkably good balance. You also have ideas you are not expressing, and these are likely to advance you in every aspect of your life, be it love, work or play; art or business. You are brilliant, so be brilliant.
 
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You are safer than you feel. You are also not, at the moment, flying quite as high as you think you are, which is another way of saying you can go higher -- and that you probably want to go higher. This moment may not be the very pinnacle of your life, but you will certainly get a rare glimpse from above a high mountain.
 
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
Mars has entered your opposite sign Aries, and you are free at this point to take the example from those whom you feel actually have some clue how to live with the kind of guts and gusto that you only dream about. Don't steal their fire; just borrow a little, feel the heat and moreover the combustion, and then stoke your own flame.
 
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Let others do all the negotiating for you, particularly with themselves. If you don't rush the process, that is, push them in any particular direction but instead allow them to find their own direction while keeping a clear sense of your own, the agreement that you reach will be genuinely that: agreeable to everyone.
 
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Protection is all around you, following you every step. So, too, is a sense of your limitations. Remember the first when you are striving to exceed one of the second. There is at this point also something to be said for living within your current metes and bounds, within your means, and within the confines of your own ideas.
 
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
You are a pioneer, the quiet kind. Yet the wave of bravery and boldness that is currently boiling your pot is also a calling to make sure that your reserved demeanor in life is not tainted by timidity, false modesty or even ordinary insecurity. The main thing is, you are loved, and that love is not your courage -- only its reflection.
 
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You may at this point be more awake than partners and loved ones, but don't count on it. Rather, there are things they are feeling that they don't know how to say; things they know for which words don't exist. Words are easy for you. For others, they carry the weight of material objects that form slowly and, in their minds, somewhat permanently.
 
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
If I may interrupt the flow of introspective, circumspect, psychological and relationship or growth-oriented horoscopes with a word of mundane advice, let it be this: go for the money. You are not only worth it; you have that one special thing that makes the honest acquisition of cash, credit and capital possible: you know you are worth it.

CREDITS: Managing Editor: Priya Kale. Webmaster: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Proofreader and Fact checker: Sara Churchville. Horoscope Editor: Jessica Keet.