Free will, and freedom in general, is among the greatest challenges that most people ever face. One common response is to panic at the notion of potential and the opportunity to choose. Another is to run away with power and see how much abuse one can foist on the world. But the most common response is to go to sleep and pretend that there is no freedom. As it works out, none of these are viable for you; rather, you’re finally in a position where you must take on both potential and the responsibility of freedom, as well as the power and the sense of danger that comes with it. These are all acting simultaneously on your chart, and therefore your psyche. You have the right to be nervous, but I would not call that a privilege, and I don’t suggest you indulge it any more than is necessary. Simmering down more aspects than I could write about in a good-length article, we get one bold theme: you’re ready to step into an expanded vision of yourself. This means being fully present for your own life and showing up for your relationships in a new way. If there’s a sacrifice involved, it’s a kind of habitual insecurity that you ignite on the altar of progress. This comes in the form of one decision that is imminent now that affects both your most intimate private life and your most assertive professional life.
TAURUS (April 19-May 20)
One thing you get to figure out this month is the extent to which your emotions and your thoughts influence one another. I guess a male chauvinist would call this “thinking like a woman,” but plenty of men are famous for it. Our whole society, supposedly so male dominated, seems to be based on an exaggerated form of emoting that passes for reason. To the extent you feel trapped inside something, it may be this very phenomenon. Part of where you get lost is believing that the opposite of sensitivity is brutal rationality: the kind found in law books. Therefore, the obvious place to retreat is into the soft world of sentimentality. By the way, such a trip may be an exaggerated version of your parental drama, wherein you are caught in the middle. Both sides in this supposed struggle for reality are cartoons. There is an emotional basis for intelligence, and all learning is a process of listening, reasoning, and synthesis. You’re an intuitive thinker, and you may indeed know things before you know them. If you find yourself demanding proof, the wise thing to do would be to pause for a little while and wait for confirmation. You’re probably not building skyscrapers, chemical plants, or nuclear bombs; you’re navigating your way through the uncertainties and creative opportunities of life. A lower standard of proof is appropriate. There’s such a thing as true enough, as long as you leave your mind open to learn more.
GEMINI (May 20-June 21)
You may be afraid that you’re going to lose your focus, so recently discovered after so much effort. But what good is focus if you can’t keep it? It’s a little like being fully committed part of the time. What would happen if you were fully committed all of the time? I know the C-word has implications something you cannot get out of. Yet if you’re unable to do what’s important to you, that also has a feeling of something you cannot get out of. Here’s my theory: You usually don’t know what you want, or you don’t let yourself admit it. When you do know, or when you do admit it, you’re perfectly capable of sticking to a goal. When your awareness slips, so, too, does your power to achieve. The only thing that’s really changed during the past couple of months is that you’ve been aware of what you want, in specific terms. Perhaps you’ve refined “wanting to be a writer” to “wanting to write screenplays.” Somehow you forgot the part about how doing the thing you want allegedly prevents you from doing everything else. Now all you need is to remember that one thing, without the reminders or accidental opportunities you’ve been lucky enough to have. You really can do this on your own. You have the strength to focus, and you’re finally a good enough sailor to move with the tides of your emotions without drowning.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
You’re getting a rare glimpse into how others experience you in your relationships. This is another way of saying you have an opportunity to feel how much you influence the people in your life—and how much they influence you. This is an important topic of study for you now because your relationships have the feeling of being under some unusual pressure (and I speak here for both Cancer Sun and ascendant). This involves the longterm placement of Pluto in your 7th house of partners. It would be an understatement to say that the metabolism of your relationships is increasing, and that you’re rethinking entirely your role as a partner, lover or spouse. It would also be an understatement to suggest that most people have little sense of how “their” concept of what it means to be in a relationship is an antique that’s been passed down through the generations, and is treated by each new generation like it’s some kind of precious heirloom or brilliant new innovation, when really it’s nothing of the kind. Pluto moving through this house is unearthing many previously concealed dysfunctional old values, at the same time bringing new life into your desire to connect with individuals, with humanity, and with your environment. An unusually potent total eclipse of the Sun in your own sign on July 11 emphasizes the point that one must be one’s own partner first, and anyone else’s partner second.
