Welcome back to Leo season, star children. In the Tarot, Leo corresponds to the card of Strength. A fierce lion is depicted under the serene presence of a woman in white, a marriage of physical ferocity and gentle power. Venus, the planet of love and relationships, enters Cancer this week. Venus is at its most unabashedly tender, and while I encourage sweetness and caretaking in all incarnations, I ask that you not neglect the primary relationship of your life, the one you cultivate with yourself.
Leo
July 23-Aug. 22
Uranus goes retrograde this month, inspiriting you to liberate yourself from whatever or whomever is preventing you from existing as your highest self. Heed the words of your fellow lion, James Baldwin, “You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.”
Notable Leo: Cees Nooteboom / July 31, 1933
Virgo
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
A shaman tells one hunter he would find a single elk if he climbed the nearest mountain. He tells a second hunter he would find a dozen in the same location. Why the two different predictions? The first hunter would never have believed he was capable of so much good fortune. The lesson: Your ability to have directly corresponds with your ability to believe you can have.
Notable Virgo: Rita Dove / Aug. 28, 1952
Libra
Sept. 23-Oct. 22
Fellow Libra, writer and illustrator Shel Silverstein credited his creativity to a lack of success
with girls and baseball in his early years. How much better and brighter the world is because of
that! If you accept your failings as a way to narrow your focus, what gifts will be born from what you lack?
Notable Libra: Víctor Jara / Sept. 28, 1932
Scorpio
Oct. 23-Nov. 21
I recently met a Scorpio who sleeps beneath a copper replica of the Great Pyramid. He said the triangulation provides a conduit that allows him to remember dreams and tap into energy sources. The magic and the benefit come from his faith in it. Whatever totem or canopy you choose will similarly reflect the power you already possess.
Notable Scorpio: Albert Camus / Nov. 7, 1913
Sagittarius
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
A fellow Sagittarius and old flame once wrote me a love letter in his own blood. Mentally unsound? Probably. Among the most memorable gestures of my life? Definitely. I share this story, archer, to illustrate that bold actions lend themselves to a kind of immortality. Whatever you do, do it in a way that is unmistakably your own, and remember that in the bank of memory, a little blood goes a long way.
Notable Sagittarius: Gordon Parks / Nov. 30, 1912
Capricorn
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
As Victoria Erickson writes, “Transformation isn’t sweet and bright. It’s a dark and murky, painful pushing. An unraveling of the untruths you’ve carried in your body. A complete uprooting, before becoming.” The becoming may be arduous labor, but what comes next will be sweeter, better and brighter than you can imagine.
Notable Capricorn: Recy Taylor / Dec. 31, 1919
Aquarius
Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Indie filmmaker and fellow Aquarius Jim Jarmusch’s advisers at NYU’s Tisch School of
the Arts deemed his final project a failure and refused to award him a degree. Jarmusch later released that same project as “Permanent Vacation,” his award-winning first feature film. Take heart in the knowledge that going your own way pays off in the long run.
Notable Aquarius: Babe Ruth / Feb. 6, 1895
Pisces
Feb. 19 to March 20
A favorite Pisces recently confessed that the onslaught of emotions she has been experiencing lately have left her feeling like a turtle on its back. Her four-point plan for getting right side up? Breathe, don’t panic, ask for help — and recognize that need is not a weakness, but evidence of our humanity and the invitation we give others to express their own.
Notable Pisces: Kurt Cobain/ Feb. 20, 1967
Aries
March 21-April 19
Irish satirist Jonathan Swift wrote, “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” For
too long you’ve struggled to make others see what is so clearly apparent to you. Mercury, planet of communication, is moving through your fifth house, rams, meaning whatever you’re transmogrifying from vision into being will finally be seen for the shining achievement it is.
Notable Aries: Selena / April 16, 1971
Taurus
April 20-May 20
No one doubts your work ethic, Taurus. Yet, if you treat everything you do in your waking life
as a privilege of being alive rather than an obligation of being an adult, you’re likely to cull any
sense of drudgery. Heed the words of Naomi Williams: “It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.”
Notable Taurus: Harvey Keitel / May 13, 1939
Gemini
May 21-June 20
Geronimo, famed Apache warrior and fellow Gemini, once heard a voice in the wilderness that
assured him no gun would ever kill him. He survived countless attempts on his life and though he died a prisoner of war, his death came from pneumonia, not gunfire. What you accept as truth manifests as reality. Arm yourself accordingly.
Notable Gemini: Breonna Taylor / June 5, 1993
Cancer
June 21-July 22
Fellow Cancer and “Taxi Driver” screenwriter Paul Schrader said in an interview that he created
the character of vigilante cabbie Travis Bickel to save himself from becoming that character. I
trust this choice will resonate with you, moonchildren. What demons are asking not for exorcism, but creative expression?
Notable Cancer: Jake LaMotta / July 10, 1922
