HOROSCOPES
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (August 18).
You’ve won a permanent home in someone’s heart. There’s comfort in this, also a distinct brand of discomfort that goes by the name “adventure.” Feeling loved and safe inspires you to take risks you wouldn’t have before. You’ll enjoy different transportation. A professional circle opens to you. Sagittarius and Capricorn adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 28, 45, 4, 9 and 30.
ARIES (March 21-April 19).
The spirit of play has more to teach you about the people around you than you could possibly get from more formal discourse. Today, you’ll learn a person’s nature and find a point of comfortable connection.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20).
This goal you’ve been working on might not bring what you’ve hoped for, but that will probably be its own kind of reward. If not, having finished will be the reward, which comes in the form of confidence.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21).
Complaining doesn’t improve things, but it can bring awareness to what needs improvement. From there, a decision must be made. There are three choices: stop, work around it or change.
CANCER (June 22-July 22).
The shiny new objects and opportunities will appeal to you far more today than the actions that feel safe and the environments that are familiar and comfortable.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22).
How can you tell life is going well? Various balances will be recorded and reported, but they say nothing of the kinship in casual banter, the laughter between friends, the way you felt when that song came on.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22).
Be careful with your help. If you help too much, you could be hurting by nurturing a dependency that will hinder a person’s ability to develop skills on his or her own.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23).
Finally, you’ll get the chance to sit down with someone you’ve been missing. As poet May Sarton suggests, “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.”
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21).
You may watch the weather, but unless it’s extreme, you don’t let it interfere with your plans. Focusing on what you can do in the moment is always better than worrying about all the things you have no control over.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21).
Take the temperature of the room. You’ll change it just by being there. The more you understand how things are, the better you can make them into what you want them to be.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19).
People assume that the heavy-handed oppressor is the bad guy to be feared. Actually, the one to watch out for will come in soft form. That which tempts, amuses and distracts us can have dangerous potential.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18).
You can either fix what’s broken or wait a few months more for the availability of the new version. Likely, this is about something other than technology.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20).
What seems like a very small distraction simply takes up too much of your time. You’ll be so much more productive when that one diversion is no longer a part of the picture.
FORECAST FOR THE WEEK AHEAD:
Mercury and Jupiter form a wonderfully auspicious trine right in the center of the week, bringing the focus to getting the most out of communication. These days, the endeavor involves a fair amount technology. The question is, “How do we use it well?” It’s worth considering that the communication advances that were created to help us connect also help us not connect. Texts, emails, voice messages and the like make it possible to distance ourselves, to create a social buffer zone and control the pace and visceral impact of our interactions in a way that’s not possible in real time and space, in faceto-face dealings. There is nothing inherently good or bad in any means of communication, but there are various levels of awareness to bring to the situation that will make a huge difference in, for instance, whether a dependence on voicemail leads to isolation or improves the likelihood of making an actual connection.