TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the series finale of the long-running TV show, "Touched by an Angel," the angel Monica was offered a promotion. All these years she has struggled to help one bumbling human after another climb up out of the gutter; now she had a chance to move up to the cushy job of supervisor, where she won't have to wrestle with so much chaos. But she chose instead to stay at her job of redeeming the ragtag multitudes. I believe you'll come to a comparable juncture in your own life during the coming months. One path will lead to more comfort and prestige, the other will bring more interesting challenges and inspiring surprises. The sooner you start ruminating about it, the more likely it is you'll do what's wisest for the long-term.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You're in a phase when you may be tempted to start food fights at fancy dinner parties, wrap toilet paper around the trees in front of your adversaries' houses, and regard the juvenile delinquents of "South Park" as worthy role models. I hate to discourage you from indulging this instinct for uproar, since so much of it could be fun and liberating. Therefore, I'm going to authorize you to go right ahead. But please keep a fraction of your adult brain working in the background, ready to step in and halt the proceedings if you're ever about to, say, imitate the South Park kids' "How to eat with your butt" routine for your boss.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you're swallowed whole by a whale or a dragon this week, don't panic: It's much better than being chewed into little pieces before being swallowed, which is definitely not going to happen. While you may spend a few days in the belly of the beast, you will eventually be, uh, expelled intact out the other end. Then it'll just be a matter of navigating the winding path back home. The experience will be humbling, but it will also of scour you clean of a whole mess of karma.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "Can you find an imperfection on Halle Berry? We can't." So writes Scott Huver of hollywood.com about the Oscar-winning beauty born under the sign of Leo. Huver also notes that People magazine has five times named Berry one of the 50 Most Beautiful People and that Playboy called her one of the 100 sexiest women of the 20th century. And how does Berry herself feel about her looks? "To be totally honest," she told the German magazine Journal fur die Frau, "most of the time I think I'm ugly." I absolutely forbid you to exhibit this kind of self-abasement in the coming week. You may not, under any circumstances, denigrate your own gorgeous radiance.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood," said pioneer psychologist Carl Jung. If you think what he said is true, take action immediately — you're in imminent danger of being well-understood by at least two people. If you're confident you can handle the odd sensation of being seen for exactly who you are, do nothing other than what you're already doing.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Marriages in India are usually arranged by relatives of the bride and groom, and most couples who wed come from the same religion or caste. There are daring rebels who ignore those customs, though, and choose to marry for love. One of their champions is a social worker named Biswanath Ramachandra Champa Swapnaji Taslima Voltaire. He has launched a new political party for lovers called the Lovers' Green-Globalist Godfree-Humanist Party. "Only those who love can effectively change society," he says, "and my new party will be their platform." It's time for you to launch your own Lovers' Party. You have a growing knack for bringing intimacy and tenderness into political struggles. When helping your tribe deal with its dilemmas in the coming weeks, you'll be able to summon ingenious expressions of compassion.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): My dream last night said that if I hoped to compose an accurate horoscope for you, I'd have to go to the Outback Steakhouse near my home. Since I don't eat red meat, I felt irked. But it's dumb to ignore a direct order from my dreams. And it's not enough just to go through the motions — my dream wanted me to have the full Outback Steakhouse immersion experience. So I obeyed, dropping all my vegetarian sensitivities as I devoured "The Mad Max," described as "a serious burger for warriors only." By the end of the meal, I'd intuited the advice you need: You should seek out encounters that are as unlike your usual inclinations as this one was for me.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In the generic science fiction movie on TV last night, the hero's spacecraft happened upon the interplanetary equivalent of a junkyard. Aging shuttle pods and out-of-commission satellites floated around a decrepit space station. Soon a salesman appeared, trying to convince the hero to browse through his extensive collection of valuables, gathered from more than a hundred different planets. "Take a look," the huckster chirped brightly. "You may find something you never knew you wanted!" Those words or something similar will be coming your way from the entire universe this week.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "History is made out of the failures and heroism of each insignificant moment." This observation by Franz Kafka has special significance for you right now. Every little action you take will have unimaginable weight, and the cumulative effect of your many little actions may alter conditions you'd assumed were impervious to change. Even your passing thoughts and idle fantasies will have more influence than usual to shape your future. Until June 20, there will be no such thing as a trivial detail for you. My advice? Act as if each moment is a promise of the life you want to be living next October.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "The universe is full of magical things," said British novelist Eden Phillpotts, "patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." It's another way to express my belief that life is a conspiracy to shower us with blessings, but most of us have developed ingenious strategies for eluding those blessings. But your wits have recently grown sharp enough to detect magical things that were previously invisible to you. You will soon rise up and divest yourself of one of your main methods for avoiding joy and success.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I'm of the opinion that the psychological problem known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) is merely the pathological version of a normal phenomenon. Most well-integrated people have a variety of selves, any one of which may reign supreme at a given moment. The difference between the healthy folks and the unfortunates who suffer from MPD: Each of their many selves is in pretty good shape and on friendly terms with all the others. I encourage you to celebrate your own flourishing multiplicity in the coming week. It's time to throw a party for your entire community of selves! What's the most important truth you keep forgetting about? Testify at
