Learn how to get the most out of my forecasts.

by Brian Habit

NOTE: The following forecast is based on your rising sign (Ascendant), not your Sun sign. If you do not know your rising sign, please visit www.astro.com and enter your birth date, time, and place to determine it.

Happy birthday to those of you who are Pisces, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini!

During the first half of this quarter, emphasize playing energetically. During the second half, emphasize working energetically. Aim to act more resolutely on your enthusiasm, in your private life or your closest ties, starting in early April. Between mid-April and mid-June, reflect on old feelings that color your preconceptions, thinking and communication. From late April till late May, plan, communicate and travel more deliberately, in ways that will broaden your horizons. Throughout May, focus on letting go of old values and public roles that you have outgrown, so that you are freer to greet the future with open arms. In mid-May, approach your responsibilities toward others from a more reflective, tentative, spiritual perspective.

That's the brief blow-by-blow. Now, let's look at these trends in detail.

On March 4, energetic Mars bursts into Capricorn and your 5th house of self-expression.

From then until April 21, fight for what you want in your “play time,” and choose your battles wisely.

If you choose to struggle with your kids or your romantic partner or your golfing buddy about who’s in charge, your morale could take a major hit. If you impulsively go after physical pleasures or other delightful possibilities, but you don’t exercise any self-restraint at all, you could waste your energy and end up with a nasty hangover of one sort or another. If you let all your energy get tied up in working now, then you can expect to feel drained or frustrated. Doing any of these things would only make it harder for you to go after whatever you want as this year continues.

What’s more, you won’t really enjoy yourself. The 5th house is about enjoying yourself. You need to play now! You need romantic or recreational or creative activities that challenge you to act in goal-directed, energetic, strategic ways. With Virgo rising, you need to approach life in a generally hard-working, service-oriented way. That doesn’t mean becoming a workaholic. It also doesn’t mean swinging from one extreme to another: going from denying yourself any pleasure at all to going overboard in your love life, in gambling, or in other creative or recreational pursuits. It means acting responsibly toward yourself as well as toward others. The heavens have given you some serious homework. Your assignment? Have fun.

Doing whatever you enjoy for the sheer pleasure of it now can help you go back to work or other responsibilities with renewed energy later. Having that energy to work hard will be helpful after April 21, when Mars move into your 6th house of responsibilities. Have you been working too hard lately? Do you need a break? Then try to take some time off now. Throw yourself into some hobby, or enterprise, or creative outlet that you enjoy. If you can’t get away, then focus as much as possible on whichever responsibilities allow you to act independently or act as a leader, manager, or planner.

Acting assertively, not aggressively or submissively, will help you do a good job on your cosmic homework now. That means taking a stand to play on your own terms, while still respecting other people’s rights, too. If you do that, you’ll have more energy, not less. You’ll feel refreshed, not exhausted.  You’ll feel bolder and prouder, not like a coward. You’ll also be more effective.

If you want to develop some creative idea of yours, but others are less than enthusiastic about it, then don’t let that hold you back. You don’t have to ignore any words or wisdom or caution, but don’t settle for playing by someone else’s rules or following someone else’s timetable.

If you need to get your romantic relationship on a more realistic footing, pipe up about it. The same goes for your relationship with your children. Focus on doing whatever will help you have the kind of relationship that you want in the long run; but don’t treat your sweetie like a child who has misbehaved, and don’t bully your kids or let yourself be intimidated by them.

If you don’t have anyone in your life romantically, and you’d like that, then look for fun, yet practical ways to socialize with others. Activities that demand physical energy or courage are especially good for Martian energy. For example, take a craft class. Go to a seminar for entrepreneurs. Spend time with a gardening club or a running club. Help build houses as a volunteer for people with limited incomes. It’s easier to show your best qualities and meet people who appeal to you if you throw yourself into rewarding self-expressive outlets now.

On March 10, freedom-loving Uranus catapults into Pisces and your 7th house of intimacy.

Uranus represents your evolving individuality. While he spends about seven years rumbling through your 7th house, he’ll agitate for you to relate to others as more of an individual. It’s time to establish and maintain close, supportive relationships with others—and to do it in a way that is all your own. You’re learning how to both be yourself and be with someone else now. You might feel like you have to choose either togetherness or freedom. The choice may be real and necessary. It may be an illusion.

If you’re in a marriage or friendship or business relationship that can’t accommodate you’re growing need for freedom, then yes, you’ll need to choose your freedom. Not choosing your freedom would risk you becoming alienated from yourself and your companion. Staying put might keep the appearance of a relationship alive, but it wouldn’t be a healthy, interdependent, vibrant relationship. It would be a sad dance of victim and persecutor, of one person acting like a manipulative brat and another making a deal with the devil. If you squelch your unique way of thinking and acting for the sake of making a close connection with someone else, then you could feel trapped or melancholy. If you try to keep your companion from acting independently, then sudden or unexpected changes could leave you feeling like a victim. That’s what could happen if you take the low road now.

If you take the high road now, then you could live the dream, not the illusion of dream. You could enjoy true intimacy. You could meet as equals with friends or partners, clients or professional consultants. You could also have the degree of freedom that you need, in order to follow the beat of your own drum. Now, you may need to march alone for a while. If you haven’t been relating to others in a way that reflects the person that you have become, then it may take a while to attract appropriate companions. However, the more firmly you insist on this, the more that you can expect others to dance joyfully with you. In fact, now that Uranus is in your 7th house, you need to collaborate with others, in order to dance to your own tune. In developing your individuality, you’ve gone as far as you can by dancing with yourself. Continuing the process requires close interactions with others. They just have to be interactions that encourage you to act with originality and independence and self-determination. 

Aim to interact with clients or partners in exciting, new, visionary ways. Aim to collaborate with close friends or romantic or business partners in an innovative, compassionate manner. It’s time to decide for yourself who you’ll pair off with and how you’ll approach your relationship. What works for others may not work for you. Following the advice of well-meaning friends or family may seem like the responsible thing to do. However, it may not be the realistic thing to do. It may not be the practical thing to do. Trying to mimic society’s version of a normal relationship may not fly. Avoiding close interactions may not work either. It might seem like less of a hassle, but it won’t help you learn he lessons that you need to learn now.

So what will help? It might help to act more on your vision of how much you could improve your close relationships. With Virgo rising, you need to become a paragon of something that is near and dear to your heart. While Uranus is in idealistic Pisces in your house of intimacy, you could become a paragon of an independent companion or a collaborative free spirit. Draw on your imagination and sudden insights. Hammer out a dynamic, intimate relationship that will work for you. Insist on lots of freedom of self-expression for both you and someone who is close to you. This will help you feel more inspired and satisfied. It will help you have an exhilarating sense of freedom and supportive social connections. This could make quite a winning combination as you meet the exciting challenges and opportunities of the years to come.

On April 3, expansive Jupiter starts moving forward again in early Leo and your 12th house of release.

Jupiter symbolizes your evolving urge to expand your life and to grow. He is your faith in life and your faith in yourself. In addition, Jupiter indicates how you approach your inner life, your feelings, your hopes, your fears, and how you approach forming and maintaining close bonds with others. For some months now, Jupiter has been sauntering through your 12th house. The 12th house represents circumstances that encourage you to identify with being more than your ego. It also represents how you respond to such circumstances. When you fall on tough times, do you struggle to hold onto something that needs to end? Do you feel disheartened when you are confronted with the limits of your power? Or do you tune in to your spiritual side? Do you meditate, or engage in religious practices, or act with selfless compassion toward others? Put simply, do you “let go and let God”? That’s a fundamental issue in the 12th house.

In December 2002, Jupiter threw his jalopy into reverse. (He makes such a retrograde maneuver once a year or so, for almost four months at a time.) Since then, you may have found that your expansive, philosophical inclinations have taken on a more reflective quality. They may have taken on added depth, especially in connection with your private life or close ties. Maybe you have been tempted to expand on existing opportunities related to real estate, your family, or other close associates. Maybe you have considered settling down with a romantic partner or starting a relationship with a business partner, client, or a consultant, such as a lawyer or astrologer. Perhaps you made such a start or expansion prior to December. Whatever the case, however, you have probably gone through a period of reflection and regrouping in terms of acting on your enthusiasm and your dreams. Normally, when we have an inspired idea, we want to act on it immediately. We want to make a beeline to success. However, this has been a time to slow down the pace of implementing such ideas. Hopefully, you have used these past few months to reflect on possibilities for either expanding on current ventures or starting new ventures in such departments of your life. The more you have used this period to plan and reflect, the better poised you are now to seize new creative opportunities and run with them.

Now that Jupiter is moving forward again, think about how you could finally move forward, by acting on your enthusiasm more freely. For example, if you have wanted to make home improvements but you ran into delays or other snags, see if you can make headway starting in early April. Maybe an opportunity for greater intimacy has been an unsettled matter. If you have considered deepening a relationship with a friend, romantic partner, or business partner, you may be able to see your way more clearly now about whether to act on that inclination or not. Maybe you could do some healing, growing, expanding, or celebrating in your dealings with some member of your “clan.” Mercury, the planet of communication and transportation, starts moving backward in late April, so make what headway you can by late April. Then change gears for a while, to evaluate the progress that you have made by then.

From late April until late May, restless Mercury moves backward through the middle of Taurus and your 9th house of experiences that lie beyond your everyday routine.

Mercury zips through your 9th house once every year or so, for a few weeks each time. This time he’s there for longer than usual, from early April till mid-June. This is because he will first move forward, then backward, then forward again through this same territory. While Mercury moves through your 9th house, act like you’re Gemini, whether that’s your Sun sign or not, and do it in some sort of 9th-house pursuit. Pretend you are a philosophy teacher or student. Explore your values and outlook on life, and discuss them with others. Pretend you are a consummate networker. Mingle with artistic or practical people, people who are from a different walk of life then you. If you have an artistic background, go talk to an investment banker. Maybe her perspective could help you reconsider ideas or plans for developing your hobby or creative pursuits in a new and helpful light. If you have a practical background, and you have been pushing to get ahead in life, slow down the pace. Simplify life for a while. Go hang out with a potter or a musician. Study the craftsmanship that he puts into his work. Work with some clay yourself. Learn to play a chord or two, or learn a new song. One way or another, broaden your perspective on life, by using your mind or your intellect in a new way, and emphasize reflection and simplicity as you do it.

Mercury retrogrades three times each year for 19-24 days at a time. Around the times when he changes direction (near April 26 and May 20), you may experience some important change involving communication or travel. Mercury rules your 10th house of public pursuits and your 1st house of style. In your career or other activities that you pursue in the public eye, slow down your thinking and communicating. Approach Mercury-related matters in a more deliberate, detailed, reflective way. You might be tempted to speak without thinking, or to go with what might seem like obvious or straightforward choices, but if so, resist that temptation. You will get better results, and you will get them more efficiently if you take a well-considered approach to deciding how you want to proceed. This is especially so if you have a role that emphasizes communication or travel, for example, as a teacher, trader, student, traveling salesperson, or lawyer.

Use the time between late April and late May to reflect on the results of ideas that you have implemented in the past. Take time to "debug" ideas that you plan to implement later, especially in connection with imparting information or ideas to others. Revisit people, places and ideas from the past. Clean out old files. Look up past associates. Travel to places that you visited some time ago. Double-check the details of any matters that you do not want to revisit again before you try to finalize them (contracts, sales, purchases, travel details, etc.) Plan carefully for later, and then move forward on your ideas in late May or afterwards. By that time, you will probably be able to express act on your thoughts, ideas and information more openly and with less inhibition. The more you emphasize communicating or traveling quickly, especially in new ventures, the more frustrated you might feel. However, the more you emphasize reflection, review, and reconnecting, the more satisfied you are likely to be during this retrograde period.

On May 16, Neptune starts drifting backward through the middle of Aquarius and your 6th house of responsibilities.

Neptune, the planet of idealism, intuition, and imagination, is currently drifting through your 6th house. He will do so over the course of 10 years or longer altogether. During this long passage, you can expect to feel a fair amount of “divine discontent”—a restless longing for more than you, or other people, or life could ever quite deliver through work or other service, no matter how hard you might try. If you try to take the easy way out in fulfilling your responsibilities, or if you confuse your fears or wishful thinking with reality, then you’ll probably feel confused, disillusioned, or spiritually unsatisfied. This could take a toll on your physical health and your spirit. On the other hand, if you let your spiritual values and your compassion be your guide, then you could feel inspired and uplifted. You could find a great deal of spiritual satisfaction through learning skills, working for an employer, or acting responsibly toward others in your personal or vocational life. You could benefit from a healing touch in your health. You could also benefit others with a healing touch.

Now, all of that applies throughout Neptune’s passage through your 6th house. From mid-May until late October, this planet makes a temporary change in direction. He sails backward through your chart during this period. Around the middle of May, then, expect to turn much of your Neptunian energy more inward for a while. Neptune rules your 7th house of close one-to-one interactions with others, so you may allow for a subtle, yet significant shift in the flow of your closest relationships. These could include your close friendships, business partnerships, romantic partnerships, or dealings with clients or expert consultants. They could even include dealings with legal adversaries or competitors. If you expect to have clear, precise, straightforward, or practical arrangements in terms of your responsibilities toward others and their responsibilities toward you, then this can be a tricky time. Neptune brings an impressionistic, fluid, imaginative quality to everything that he touches. As he shifts momentum backward in May, sharp clarity and resolution about mutual responsibilities may seem elusive. To ride this wave successfully, emphasize treating yourself and those closest to you with sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and a live-and-let-live respect for the self-determination of all involved.

If you are considering taking on new responsibilities toward others now, and you have misgivings or doubts about doing this, consider waiting till late October to make your decision. If you are not willing or able to wait that long, then treat yourself and others with patience if someone feels dissatisfied with the arrangement later this year. Plan to draw on your resourcefulness as needed later, to accommodate changes in your vision or ideals, whether or not these changes make sense. Spirit and imagination sometimes have a wisdom all their own.

On May 16, a lunar eclipse in late Scorpio activates your 3rd house of information exchange.

During a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow passes over the Moon. During this particular eclipse, the Sun in late Taurus faces off with the Moon in late Scorpio. Astrologers vary in which people they consider to be affected significant by eclipses. They also vary in how long they consider an eclipse to be in effect astrologically. Compared other astrologers, I take a somewhat conservative, middle-of-the-road approach in how I interpret lunar eclipses.

If you have your natal chart, check to see if your Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Mercury, Venus or Mars is between roughly 21 and 29 degrees of Taurus or Scorpio. If so, then topics generally associated with them and any houses that they rule are emphasized. For example, if your Venus is triggered, then how you approach your social or aesthetic or recreational activities, and what happens in connection with them, may be emphasized during the eclipse period. Which of your houses have Libra or Venus on their cusps? Their affairs may also be emphasized now.

Whether this Full Moon eclipse triggers any planets in your birth chart, it emphasizes your 3rd house and your 9th house. It does this most especially between roughly May 12 and May 20. The eclipse highlights the polarity between what’s “near and now,” what’s familiar and immediate (your 3rd house) and life’s larger issues and possibilities, what’s unfamiliar and distant (your 9th house). Attending to what’s of immediate concern, while also considering the overall direction of your life, can be an issue now.  How could you integrate these two threads of your life more effectively, rather than overemphasize one to the detriment of the other?

You might unexpectedly experience a confrontation with positive or problematic facets of your feelings now—facets or feelings that you have ignored. You might also experience a sudden confrontation with someone or something external to you. In any event, don’t be surprised if some of your subtler, deeper or most hidden feelings get stirred up and brought into the light now. Since the eclipsed Moon is in a water sign, you may experience challenges involving sensitivity, emotions, imagination or hidden or “watery” elements. For example, these could include emotionally charged conversations about taboo subjects, or even plumbing or subterranean water. Try to make room in your life to expect the unexpected and deal with it flexibly.

During this lunar eclipse, you may experience an ending of circumstances related to travel, education, sales or marketing. For example, maybe you give up on some old way of dealing with classmates, or neighbors, or siblings, or someone else in your immediate world. Maybe you let go of an old idea that life has proven to be unworkable. Maybe you give up on pursuing some contract of sale or certification program that just isn’t going to happen.

Although a ending might feel painful, it could also free you from your the past so that you can claim your future. You may feel tempted to act irrationally now. You may want to cling to some facet of yourself or your experience out of a heightened desire for security. This eclipse, however, is a reminder to step out of the past. It’s a reminder to move beyond acting reflexively on your feelings, to deal with issues more objectively. Emphasize wrapping up your activities that have outlived their usefulness. Emphasize letting go of outdated, limiting attitudes or values.

How long is an eclipse in effect? I recommend that you start by considering what you experience between roughly April 16 till June 16. See what patterns you notice during that time.

On May 31, a solar eclipse in early Gemini activates your 10th house of public pursuits.

During a solar eclipse, the Moon blocks the Sun's light. Sensitivity (the Moon) takes precedence over conscious strivings (the Sun). Between late April till late June, instinctive forces and past events (such as your memories and feelings) may take precedence over how you express your will, your personality, your ego-oriented strivings. Since the Moon is in an air sign (Gemini), you may experience challenges involving your social interactions, clarity of perception, or logical thinking.

Consider this eclipse a reminder to tune into your subjective reactions, your motivations and fears, your dreams and fantasies. You may find it difficult to make sound decisions, due to a narrow perspective or limited objectivity. Reflect on what you can learn from your past, and how you might use it as a springboard to grow in the future. Concentrate on responding to unexpected circumstances by focusing on your future, not your past. If your attitudes or behaviors keep you tied to the past at the expense of your future, then aim to let go of them now.

If you were born between roughly February 25 and March 3, between May 27 and June 3, between August 30 and September 5, or between November 29 and December 5, then this month's eclipse is particularly significant for you. You can expect issues to arise that impact your sense of who you are and the way that you express your general vitality.

Check your birth chart to see if your Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Mercury, Venus or Mars is within roughly 6 and 12 degrees of Gemini or Sagittarius. If so, then the affairs of the triggered planet and how you choose to respond to that planet are emphasized during this eclipse. For example, if your Venus is triggered, then how you approach your social or aesthetic or recreational activities, and what happens in connection with them, may be emphasized during the eclipse period. Which of your houses have Sagittarius or Pisces on their cusps? Their affairs may also be emphasized now.

Between May 28 and June 3, this month’s New Moon eclipse highlights your 10th house of public pursuits. Acting in public in a way that reflects who you really are and what you are really about is an important issue now. This marks a great time of year for you to target 10th house affairs for improvement. It’s a particularly favorable time to change habits and conditions in that department of your life. Think about how you want to improve the fit between a role that you play in public and who you are in private. If you start taking action to make that improvement between June 1 and roughly June 18, the waxing Moon will encourage the results of your effort to multiply.

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