You’ve been carrying hot hustle energy through every season, but now, as we’re tipping into Spring in the Northern hemisphere, there’s something about everyone else getting ready to catch up with you that has got you slowing down. Not one to blend in too readily, you’re more likely to be taking a step back this week and sussing out your next move. Shifting gears is one of your favourite activities, but this time the moves you make can come as a direct result of the state of your relationships. Sometimes, having personal discipline is all about learning how to apply that discipline while collaborating with the reality of other people. Can you stay true to your vision for what comes next while also being open about how getting there might affect those closest to you?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
The small things really do add up, don’t they, Taurus? While some part of your psyche craves wide open spaces and freedom to experiment, it’s become increasingly clear over the past month that routine is an integral part of maintaining your sense of physical and mental health. What’s more, a new routine that incorporates a faithful effort to break new personal ground can be a great deal more transformative than the sands of the hourglass sprinkled freely around an endless beach. Even if the transformation itself sneaks up on you under the cover of mundanity, well, most transformations are that way, aren’t they? Why wait for the big push when you already know that the internal shift is ever-happening? All you have left is to let yourself know it. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
You know you have work to do. You can feel the flow of energy building up behind you and you haven’t been ignoring it, not exactly, and yet. It’s just the way life keeps happening — keeps stealing your attention and asking you to attend to everyone and everything else. There’s always a mess to clean up, always a reason to avoid what matters most to you. After all, what matters most to us is dangerous to the ego, because it proves that we are not without aspirations. What matters to us is what gives our days meaning. For what it’s worth, time is functioning in ways most of us haven’t yet learned to understand. It stretches and constricts at will. Time in your hands can take on a new shape, if you want it. Give yourself the ordinary solutions, dear Gemini. Dedicate one piece of time a day to what haunts your psyche, what keeps you feeling unfinished with your day. Don’t compromise your commitment, make it a ritual. Use a red pen to strike out what you’ve done.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Cancers are well known for representing the home and for, occasionally, being the homebodies of the Zodiac. But, being a Cancer isn’t all soft home-decor and snacks. Many Cancers live a double life as vivacious entertainers, giving Leos a run for their money when it comes to the spotlight. Just look at Chloe Bailey or Ariana Grande. So, while it’s wise to hold tight to the hearth and all its sacred meanings, it’s just as wise to consider the way that you, dear Cancer, make a home for yourself in the world. This week has you negotiating what sharing yourself with others is worth to you; what it is you value about your public image and what you wish to transform about it. Of course, these questions are ongoing, but, if you’re bold about the choices you make regarding these issues, you might find yourself having a breakthrough.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Often, the first step to true connection is a shared language. Sometimes, that sort of intimacy springs up on us — a stranger who makes you laugh like a family member might or a first phone call with a crush that lasts well into the night. Other times, a shared language feels like a return, you go to places where you have felt understood in the past and attempt to share who you are now. You challenge the listener to offer you recognition, of who you are and how you are changing. This process is necessarily reciprocal although it takes work to make it so. To grant the stranger an opening, you regard the stranger’s possibilities, you take in not only what you perceive but also what you have yet to know. If you ache to be seen — to be known in the present tense — regard whose attention it is that you seek. In what ways do you seek to know them?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
So much of life is a necessary tug between wanting things to stay the same and needing them to change. Since those of us who retained even a bit of elementary science knowledge know that change is a constant, we can acknowledge that this tug is an emotional one rather than a logical one. What is it that keeps us gripping so tightly to something that’s already gone? While some might chalk it up to fear, many Virgos might more readily identify with a feeling of unfinished business — that you didn’t give it your best, that if you could just hang back and revise, you could offer up something you’re truly proud to stand behind. The wisest part of you knows perfection is impossible; even the idea of it is a distraction, a way to keep you from your future, because you’re too busy paying off the past. The interest is too high, dear Virgo, it’s time to close the account. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It’s not true that you need to have it all figured out before participating in partnership. It’s not true that you can’t love someone else if you haven’t figured out how to love yourself. We spend our lives learning how to love ourselves, learning what we need in order to feel good and taken care of. If we had to wait to love someone until that process was over, we’d wait until we were dead. For those who would like to feel accompanied in this world a little sooner, there’s another way to have healthy connections — but it isn’t easy. It involves real honesty, the kind that begins with you and radiates out. It involves acknowledging that sometimes you need to be selfish; put yourself first even if that disappoints somebody you love. It involves prioritising your creative time, your pleasure, even if it feels insensitive to do so. It involves recognising that your reasons, your desires, your interior wilderness is no more or less wild than those with whom you seek to partner.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Even if you don’t feel “on,” it doesn’t mean you’re not on. Being “on” for a Scorpio is very different than being on for other signs. The superficial stuff — outfits, errands, social media — these things take care of themselves because they are your small breaks from the very real work of being a psychic sister, a devoted lover, and a true crime detective. As it happens, the superficial stuff does pile up and what once might have felt like Adulting Drag can start to feel like a new life threatening to eclipse the life that you hold sacred. Don’t let The Man get you down, Scorpio. No activity, no job, no length of time spent using the precious crystal of your mind to redirect light into an institution has the power to define your role in this world. The crystal inside you is always charging, always powerful, even when it’s used for the mundane. It belongs to you and it stays on, stays ready.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
If all you want to do is have some fun until the Sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard, you are most certainly not the only one. What’s the use, dear Sagittarius, of talking about having fun when you don’t prioritise it? Are you really so willing to let capitalist notions of what productivity means get in the way of what nature teaches us about being productive? Yes, in the Northern hemisphere the birds and cats and trees are mating, but more than that they’re spending time together — communicating, and playing. Your exuberant presence is valued and your wealth of stories are a rich resource to your community. Times are what they are, but you thrive when faced with restrictions like social distancing-limited indoor time. Sometimes, the only way to feel a part of things, to feel a sense of connection, is to actively seek it out. Letting yourself be seen, be known, is an integral part of becoming. What could be more productive than that?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It all adds up, dear Capricorn: your consistency, your tireless support, your refusal to compromise on your values, your ability to hold someone accountable while working to not let them fall through the cracks. It’s not nothing, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Even when institutions fail you or the people you care about most make you their last priority, there is never a moment in this life when what you do for others loses value. This week, the temptation to weigh your efforts against your flowers might be difficult to resist. Or, conversely, to explain your accomplishments away by playing down how hard you’ve worked to get this far. Do your best to stand up to whoever it is that lives within you and challenges you to never stop proving yourself. The bread is proofed enough. The dough is ready to rise and turn to gold.
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
How we spend our lives becomes our lives. What else is real? Not the stories we carry about what might have been or what never was. Only today and the numerous things you can name around you in case you panic: What do you see? What can you touch? Beyond that, what comes next is anybody’s guess, so while you’re in the business of contemplating what comes next, you might as well make your guesses educated. This week is a great time to assess the situation as it is and not as you believe (or fear) it could be. It’s a great time to focus on yourself and what you know to be true. You have a talent for objectivity with other people — don’t you owe yourself the same clear-eyed assessment? Where have you focused your energy this past month? If you find yourself wishing you’d spent your time otherwise, then redirect your attention. But, if you find yourself enriched by the challenge you face then let the engagement be the reward.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
In a capitalist culture, we’re raised to think that what we secure for ourselves is proof of our worth. A job that promises us a position and title, a house we can work to own, a car in our name, a child that might carry our name after we are gone. For many of us, these milestones are not only unattainable, they’re undesirable. They uphold the value systems of a world already altered and they hinge on our ability to deny what we know about the future: systemic collapse, financial insecurity, climate disaster. It is okay to admit we are complicit, we all play a role and being agents of change requires owning what we can’t change. It’s not hard to recognize that as long as healthcare is tied to a job, for instance, it’s fair to commit your time and energy to that job. It’s okay to acknowledge these things about ourselves, even as we seek to build a new relationship to our resources and what we think the world owes us.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
What Is A Venus Star Point? So Glad You Asked