It will serve us well to consider how we apply our efforts, how willing we are to honour collective boundaries, and how often we’re able to accept responsibility for the marks we miss — despite our best intentions. Mercury in Leo is a proud transit, and it makes several challenging aspects this week. But, Leo magic is more than ego, more than showmanship. This week gives as many chances as we have words to speak from the heart, to align on a common goal, and to create something big and beautiful together.
It’s highly likely that whoever first said “do what you love” had strong Aries placements. The kind of person who could hardly be compelled to do anything else. Someone who, once they recognised the cost of such a venture, either ran it into the ground or found something else to love. While it may sound noble to bet it all on a passion — whether that passion is a project or a person — the feeling of nobility only lasts so long. Over the years, you’ve learned that there’s got to be something else securing your interest and investment, financial or otherwise. This week is a good time for you to honour those lessons and apply them when necessary. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It can feel like a conflict of interest to prioritise what’s behind you when everything within is revving to push forward and make something new happen. Whether you’re spending reparative time with family, or you’re finding yourself returning to familiar haunts, or you’re simply caught in a reflective groove, it’s vital to remember that while looking back might seem counter-intuitive, it rarely proves to be so. Growth, we know, isn’t linear, and our path through it isn’t either. In fact, the act of return can be a greater catalyst than a sprint forward. Sometimes, the only way to recognise what you’ve outgrown is to immerse yourself in it.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Although you might not hear this very often, it’s not always such a bad thing to move through the world like you belong to it and it belongs to you. While it’s important to be conscientious of your impact and whatever privileges you possess, it’s also important to acknowledge gifts the world offers you. Claim what wants to be claimed, Gemini. Remember that to receive and give thanks, to sing out and create art because there’s always room for more beauty — even the painful kind — is to participate in the sacred rite of being human and the ritual of communion. One need simply look at the ancient petroglyphs in the canyons and caves to confirm it.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Most of what we place value on is temporary. Money, a feat of national delusion, burns up with bad decisions. Homes are vulnerable to elements, both natural and interpersonal. Even the elements themselves are vulnerable to our human interference. Given all that, setting boundaries and goals around your tangible resources, learning how to not only preserve the old but to cultivate the new, is only half the story. The other half is the work you must do on your vision of the future, on your radical imagination. It invites you to consider the collectives you are a part of, the roles you take on, and how they inform your sense of your own worth.
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
There are many ways for one person to misunderstand another, to see them only as they might see themselves. All human interactions have some level of projection at the outset and all human interactions suffer from them to some degree. To work against assumptions is to work tirelessly and it’s safe to say one doesn’t always have the energy or the time. When you feel your position being challenged and you start to wonder whether the work you’re doing matters to others as much as it matters to you, ground yourself in what is true only to you. Do you feel proud of what you’ve learned through the process? Do you have a reason to keep on?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
If getting your ducks in a row and your money right is a priority for you right now, you’re on track. And, while you may not see any significant changes right away, there’s a lot to be said for clearing the channel so when change does come, you’re more than ready to switch gears and build up. As you go about your business, it’s important that you do so with a clear sense of what is and isn’t within your control. Not just when it comes to setbacks regarding your own efforts, but also in regards to the efforts of others. Your priorities are yours alone and they won’t be anybody else’s. Collaboration, if you choose it, will only thrive through mutuality.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Everyone keeps house differently, and there are many ways to keep the hearth as there are people. But no matter who tends to it, one thing is certain, the home that depends on you most is the home of your body. It has, for better or worse, carried you a long way and deserves your attention. To focus on yourself, to tend to the house of you, is in line with your desire to be creative and fruitful — even if it doesn’t always feel that way. One need only look to the cycles of soil to understand the way one thing nurtures the other: Fallow periods follow harvest so that the earth can regenerate its richness and sustain future crops.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Sometimes, life comes at you fast. And, sometimes life comes at you slowly, steadily pushing its cycles of change upon you. Whether one welcomes it or simply withstands it, it can be hard to weather the seasons and stay confident in the space you’re meant to take up in the world. You needn’t doubt the shape you’re slowly taking. Your commitment to healing what you carry with you is beginning to shift your understanding of love and of loss, how everything is a cycle. It is this process, this work, that’s transforming you. It sustains your relationship to nature, to beauty, and teaches you what it means to be a part of it.
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
As an ambitious being, you carry certain ideas about your capabilities, beliefs about what you can achieve if you just push hard enough, and these beliefs become very vulnerable to circumstance. Sometimes, the odds are simply not in your favour, and it is wise to acknowledge this early on. And, sometimes, the conflict before you is not as drastic as it feels and it would be wise for you to push through. This week pushes you to practice discerning the difference between a losing hand and lack of faith, lessons that will ultimately help you conserve your energy and channel it toward something more meaningful — like spending time with loved ones.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
There are parts of you that were never meant to be productive in a capitalist sense. There are parts of you that need to prioritise ritual and modes of self expression which are perhaps only legible to you. Of course, sometimes those parts of you must necessarily take a backseat to the demands of a day job. Still, their desires are no less vital to your daily life and mental health. They serve the child that lives in you, that only wants to see what they imagine built outside themselves. The more that you attend to this private, creative, part of you, the more aligned you’ll feel. Not just in the life you’re living, but with whomever you’re living it.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
You know that sometimes, to do something well, you’ve got to take your time. And, what task better deserves your time and undivided attention than the task of building yourself? This isn’t some casual foray either. Not a “self-improvement” weekend either (although… why not?). This is about your persistent return toward the work of restoring and reimagining your own image. The more you commit to this work, the more the universe will affirm your efforts with synchronous opportunities, the more sure you’ll be about the course you’ve chosen toward creating something like a home for yourself in this great big world.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
These past few months have definitely done a number on your friendships and, possibly, your housing, too. Especially if you’d been living with friends and chosen family. The worlds we build with others are no small matter, filled with frequent exchanges that — over time — define the texture of our lives. It’s good to value these worlds, to invest in them, and it’s also important to acknowledge that a living world is necessarily a changing one. The way you engage these changes and live into them will determine what new kinds of relationships are possible. There are configurations and collaborations as yet unimagined by you, awaiting your discovery.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
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