| This particular horoscope column is based on the Capricorn New Moon, exact at 5:28 am PST on January 13. In my perception, Capricorn is one of those zodiac signs that people don't get all that excited about, which means they are missing a lot. Usually, the associations with this sign are things like responsibility, obligation and overdone structure. Corporations, churches and governments. Meth party!!! Why would a sea-goat be associated with these things? Well, forget that for a minute; let's visit this Critter Himself. I quote from Catherine Tennant's book, A Box of Stars, which tells us that "the Goat-Fish, known in pre-Babylonain times as the Antelope of the Subterranian Ocean is the god Ea, 'He of the vast intellect' and the 'Lord of the Sacred Eye'. "Records from the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh around 600 BCE, describe the ancient Sumerian vision of the world. The Earth, a round plateau ringed with mountains, which supported the domed sky, floated on the sweet, primordial waters, which broke through the Earth's surface as fresh water springs. The Tigris and Euphrates, the great rivers which watered the 'cradle of civilization', the Chaldean plain, gushed up from the domain of the Goat-Fish, which was the source of all knowledge and wisdom. Near his earthly palace by the Persian Gulf grew a mighty tree, whose leaves and branches shone like lapis lasuly, and which cast as much shade as a whole forest. Ea was the only one amogst the ancient gods who was always kind and was never angry, and he is responsible for saving mankind from the Flood." And so on. Ea reminds me of Neptune, or Ulmo, Lord of Waters from the Tolkien mythologies, the god who hath never forsaken us. Anyway: Capricorn! | Sign dates below are approximate. They now overlap by one day. The date and time of the Sun's ingress to the new sign changes a little each year, so please check with an astrologer if you want the exact positition of your Sun, and while you're at it, your rising sign -- this horoscope is written for both your sun and rising signs. Astrology Readings on CD by Eric Francis | | Aries (March 20-April 21) | | Career update: Ignore the fact that Mercury is about to be retrograde, or deal with it by making sure that anything you agree to now is renegotiable in 30 days. You are a hot item, and my intuition tells me that you know this in your bones. The idea is to get it past your horns and into your head, and further, to bypass or short-circuit all your guilt lasers that tend to blast all your best hopes into dust. At a certain point you have to decide what you deserve, and decide to have the use of your talents and that there is a place for you in the world. Usually, you must agree to this fact on faith, before you find it. Please. | | Taurus (April 21-May 20) | | You have crossed some difficult territory lately, though I wonder whether you can see that what you are really working through is the region known as your beliefs. We believe many things in life, though I am certain there is nothing more important or potentially dangerous than our beliefs about ourselves. To think something is true is one thing; to subject it to a test in the physical world is another. The test you are now undergoing could be called aspiration: climbing to the top of the mountain of who you think you are, and finding out that you're so much more. | | Gemini (May 20-June 21) | | Interesting times, yes? In the event that you feel like you're on some kind of drug but don't remember taking anything, I remind you that consciousness is a drug, as is the trance that we use to quell it. You could say that we are in a drugged state at any point except when we are either engaged in creative process, or making a decision. In the event that you feel yourself slipping into oblivion, either of these possibilities will serve to wake you up just beautifully. | | Cancer (June 21-July 22) | | Sitting here wondering just how to put into words such a beautiful new moon in your house of relationships, two Grateful Dead songs come to mind, both with the idea of rolling in their words: Let the Good Times Roll, and Franklin's Tower (roll away the dew). You can trust the flow of what is happening in your life. I know things got strange with people for a while there and it really shook your faith in the one attribute of this life you cherish the most. And we both know there can be no doubt that to open your heart involves risk. These days it's a risk well worth taking. | | Leo (July 22-Aug. 22) | | There is a paradox on your agenda, or better to say that you are in the paradox zone of your life. This is born of the fact that you want the world to be a lot simpler than it is. I don't blame you at all; I want that too. I also don't blame you for being as perplexed about a certain individual as you currently are, including the possibility that you're wondering whether they have a shred of honesty in them, and why you persist in being so deceived. I just think you're covering up for something, some grief from when you a kid that you have not fully resolved, but know you need to. | | Virgo (Aug. 22-Sep. 22) | | Virgos have a funny way of cutting loose and going funky. I don't mean to insinuate that you might do something like hold a study-party on your birthday, but if this week were your birthday, you would surely do something far more outrageous. I mean look, you need sex. You know you need sex. Yes, the world is extremely dangerous and there are those days when it seems like the universe is trying to suck itself down a clogged drain, but you don't need to make things any worse for yourself by pretending that all you are is a life support system for a brain. | | Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) | | If you'll read the horoscope above, you'll find out that I am recommending sex for Vigros. In our days of high integrity (read: anxiety) sex is like a high-potency homeopathic remedy that must be prescribed by somebody with extensive qualifications, like your astrologer, for instance, and taken exactly at the right time. And just to prove that I am not making this kind of statement for the advancement of my own pleasure, I will flatly rebuff the erotic advances of all Libras for the next six hours. Kid, you don't just need sex. You need deeply spiritual, cunningly intellectual, truly loving, wildly perverted inappropriate sex. By some time tomorrow. That, or break out the paints and canvas. | | Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) | | A lot on your mind? No doubt, but are you loving your strength and dexterity of thought right now? The water signs are rarely recognized for their intellectual potential, though those around you are highly unlikely to miss the fact that you are moving mountains at the moment. I will reveal to you the astrological secret of such fortitude and clarity: Venus. I am not speaking in metaphors when I say that the planet normally attributed to beauty, sensuality and erotic attraction is in actual fact, as far as I can tell, the planet of true intelligence. Just remember that if you get overwhelmed. | | Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) | | Are you insisting on looking at yourself through the eyes of someone else? And can you really do that? Or is that just another way to turn yourself into an abstraction so you don't have to take the plunge of full-on existence in the world of sensuality and pain? I don't mean to beleaguer you with questions here. But what you hold to be true on the most mystical level, if you really took it to heart, would have implications in your physical life. There would be messages and there would be choices to make and relatively few people, particularly people you used to know, would agree that you are doing the right thing. And? | | Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) | | The start of this calendar year, and your personal year, can dawn on you with a sense of relief and release of so much that has dragged you down, or it can emerge with a lingering sense that you are doing something wrong. I have always had a hard time getting to the core of the notion that we choose our own reality; it has seemed right at times, and I have felt it work at times. But I have rarely been able to just have it happen just like that. I know I don't speak just for myself here, but truth be told, this is your moment of deciding, and the other truth be told, the choice is really easy right now. | | Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) | | I mean really. What strange beauty, what peculiar knowingness, what unexpected contentment. Remember always that you are at home where most others feel completely outdone or alienated, and that your inner idiot savant has a remarkable gift for blissing out when other people perceive even the very same circumstances as unfair or too dangerous for comfort. I may have already mentioned that this is your season of solving problems, too, which is another way of saying putting happiness in the bank. | | Pisces (Feb. 19-Mar. 20) | | If you accepted your rewards, they would come to you. So I suggest you get about the task of doing just that -- of looking at your life, your email, the people who want to spend time with you, the kind things that are said to you, the benefits of your professional life (whatever they may be), whether you think any of this adequate or not, and receive it all. Take each one in like you were a saint whose job it is to absorb the offerings given to you. In this way, they will multiply, and you will find that you are not only getting what you need: you will actually notice when you have it. | Search | Horoscopes | What's New | Index | Updates | Consultations  Space graphics above from the Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur.
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