Cafe unter den Linden. Photo by Deirdre Tanton.

 
Aries (March 20-April 19)
It's unlikely you're leaving any stone unturned or taking any insecurity for granted. How could you, when your mind is working overtime attempting to figure out the source of what troubles you? The figuring may be part of the problem, however. It does not help that there are moments when you really do feel like you can calculate the nature of your emotional needs and odd hesitancies. That little taste of success is enough to keep you going in what amounts to the wrong direction (forward). Try orienting yourself in reverse: in time, in your assessment of what you want, and internally rather than externally. Consider the child you are rather than the adult you are forced to be. Consider what you do not say as being the most significant indicator of what you truly want to say. Look for your reflection in the fears and dysfunctional beliefs of others. Imagine what they are not saying, and you'll have a clue what you are not saying. Then listen to yourself.
 
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You may well be asking whether current developments amount to a union, or a separation. Let's say they are both, and that one depends on the other. Many seeming opposites at the moment depend on one another, and what all the different factors have in common is encountering something, some situation, that feels much larger than yourself, perhaps more compelling than you're accustomed to admitting and even way over your head. The separating factor is about letting go of a past experience or model of yourself that you cannot bring into the new phase you're entering. This transition has a lot to do with your parents; you are seeing, maybe for the first time, how vastly different you are from them. However, the intellectual awareness of this difference matters not. What is happening is an energetic experience of being entirely different with every cell in your body, sloughing off so much weight and expectation, and emerging somewhere new with the ability to choose what you want, based on who you are.
 
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
You have better things to count than your pennies. Since you seem to be intent on counting, what I suggest you consider is yourself. You need to start in the past. I can tell you from working as an astrologer for more than a decade that most people have no clue, none at all, the effect that their early family environment had on their psyche. We all need to stop being defensive about this, stop being afraid to piss off our parents, moreover, stop kissing their asses, and get honest about what was done to us as kids. For those of us who are parents, this will make you a better parent, which is not beside the point, at the moment. While you're doing your damage assessment, I suggest you also note the ways that what happened to you has helped you; we are never injured without being given some corresponding, often greater, reward. But understanding just what was going on in those early reaches of the past deserves your full attention at the moment, and much of that involves the value you were taught to put on yourself. This is a rare opportunity to reckon your accounts.
 
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You have a right to change your mind. To do that, you have to know your mind, and for that, you need to find out what's there. I trust that you'll discover many things -- ideas, beliefs, patterns of thought -- that you don't need, and once you identify them, you're in an excellent position to let them go. I don't propose you concern yourself with what is new, what you want to create, or what you are seeking, but rather with the process of identifying and releasing, in that order. In essence, you will be making room for what is new, and at the same time, learning to identify what is what, so that you have a basis for deciding whether you really want it; whether it's useful; whether it helps or hinders you. Current aspects are providing you with the potential to reach an astonishing depth in this process, and to see and understand yourself in a way that is typically impossible for human beings. To do this effectively, you will need space and time, hopefully something more than evenings and weekends.
 
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Gestation is a sensitive process, as anyone who has gone through pregnancy has learned. It's delicate for the fetus, and equally so for the host. The relationship compels us to explore the boundary between the two, recognizing the ways that we are one with what we create, and the ways we must distinguish ourselves from it. And more than anything, on some level we come to terms with the creative process being something that works through us and with us, but which is not entirely under our control. What exactly are you creating, and how? Whatever it may be, it's leading you on a deep journey into yourself, and very likely deep into your past. The image that comes across in the astrology is something akin to diving into a deep, watery inner world, swimming down to the bottom of the ocean, and retrieving yourself down there. If you feel limited by any factors in the outer or waking world, remember that a large part of your consciousness is preoccupied. Shape your life with that awareness and you'll have enough energy for everything.
 
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You are in a long stretch of life where others are providing a great deal of your impetus, motivation and creative fire. You have some excellent teachers, just the right kind: not just iconoclasts, but inventors. When you look back on these years, you will be blown away by how much you learned from the people who are closest to you, the people who you chose and those who chose you -- and they are not done coming into your life. Once again, this energy comes to a peak, but now a strategy involving a group becomes the focus. This may not be apparent until later in the month, and you will have plenty to keep you busy until then. The extra energy you put into your professional activities will be well worth it, as long as you remind yourself that your success is not a popularity contest. In actual fact, a little dissent is a good sign, and it will prompt you to invent the strategy for cooperation that seems like an inevitable development. If you find yourself searching for the right people with just a little edge of emotional irritation, you're on the right track.
 
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
In the long story that is your life, this month presents you with an unusual development. You seem to be looking for a person, a place or a specific niche in your community, and I reckon you are about to find it. The key is this: do not hold yourself back. I suggest you abandon judgments about things like pride, being a show-off, seeming like the queen bee, or charging too much for your wares. Forget it. Come on at full strength, in the full flush of your power. Then, prepare for some kind of humbling experience that puts everything into context. This could be a meeting with a person whose authority you respect, with an institution or organization that recognizes who you are, or with some kind of limitation with which you have to contend. Whatever happens, it begins one way and winds up another way: you're likely to start off feeling quite uncomfortable, and end up feeling like you're in exactly the right place at the right time.
 
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Don't you sometimes wish you could scream and shake people and get them to be less passive? Well, of course you do. But you may not need to scream, and you may not need to say much at all. Key people in your life seem ready to take the authority that you need, in order to trust them. You are an authoritative person by nature, though you tend to lose ground due to a certain passivity of your own, in particular your reticence to reveal yourself too much, to offer praise, or to clearly state your needs. On the other hand, you can be extremely aggressive about getting those needs met. If you can understand your own relationship between where you push and where you hold back, you will have some excellent perspective on someone who is working through a similar set of emotional circumstances. You'll also be a lot more likely to recognize when someone is actually taking leadership, offering ideas highly valuable to you, and in effect, saying yes -- in their own way.
 
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Peaks and valleys, rushes and lulls, are streaming through your life. Take advantage of a relative calm spell to redistribute your energy. This may actually be a brief phase when less is demanded of you, when your ideas come on a little less furiously, and when the situation in your household is easier to consider. It's all rather subtle, though, like the difference between a bolt of lightning (your usual state of energy) and a computer chip (what you currently have going on). There seems to be one particular belief or value with which you're struggling. I would describe it as a place where you want your ideas about life to be free, but where you feel you're stuck, restricted, or trapped in your ideology. Now, another person, someone you care about deeply, seems to be entering the same dilemma. I suggest you not fall for the limitation aspect of this idea, but rather go past that to the potential that it describes. Apply the concept of 'negative space'. Something you see as an issue describes the whole world around itself.
 
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Whatever crisis comes to a head this month, you're well positioned to finally resolve it. You can now see it in both of its main aspects, one that has seemed to drag you through certain key relationships that are based on obligation, commitment and some form of debt, and the deeper struggle -- you coming to terms with how challenging it is to be in any way idealistic. You are not, by nature, a cynical person, but something has done a good job of tempting you. You're not particularly hopeful, either, but you are finally making contact with an aspect of yourself that wants to live in a perfect world, and believes that we can create a perfect world together. You just know too much about human nature to be a pushover or a Pollyanna. The long story that seems to be coming to a conclusion has tested you, but more to the point, you've found out what you're made of, discovered what you're willing to tolerate, and made some difficult decisions about what is important to you. In the end, you will probably forget this whole entanglement, but you will surely take with you what you've learned.
 
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Humans have a strange relationship to difficulty. For one thing, we call it 'difficulty', but we seem to be motivated by little else. This comes back to our rather strange (in my view) relationship to change. We all say we want to change, we make plans to change, we try and try to change, and for the most part, things stay the same, until we encounter a difficult or painful situation that forces us to respond in a tangible way. I would propose that you reassess at this point in your life the extent to which you're responding to your environment, and the corresponding extent to which you're responding to your own intent. What responsibilities do you put on others that you really need to take up yourself, and what do others put on you (or do you take on) that really belongs to them? You need to take some things back in the coming weeks, and you need to give some things back in the very next gesture. Or, you can reverse the order; whatever feels right. Just be clear what you are doing -- and consider the possibility that you don't need to say why.
 
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Being brilliant is not enough. It's nice, but what you need is a strategy. Indeed, what you are likely to have coming through right now is precisely that, though it may seem like something that only has a value far in the future. I would differ with you on this point: what you are capable of thinking of now, you are capable of enacting now. The path to your goal, or rather, your next interesting destination, is unlikely to resemble winning the lottery, however. At this point, you're being guided by three things, to which I can ascribe astrological aspects for those who are curious. One, you are reaching the conclusion of a long process of professional development, but have yet to claim your real achievement (Pluto through Sagittarius, your 10th solar house, working its way across the Galactic Core). Two, you are restless and brewing new ideas that are freer and more creative than anything you've experienced lately (Jupiter square Uranus). Three, the process of invention can be extremely efficient (Pallas conjunct Uranus in Pisces).

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