This Week's Horoscope

Aries (March 21-April 19)

In Inglis, FL, the delusional longtime mayor Carolyn Risher recently made international news by forever banning Satan from her town. While I personally find the existence of Satan preposterous (except as an iconic embodiment of an abstract idea), the notion that?assuming he exists?he'd willingly heed a mayoral proclamation is even more absurd. Even while you have a chuckle at Ms. Risher's expense, consider her method. It might be worth a try. I suspect that, unlike Satan, the foul force you wish to expel from your life can be exiled from your soul as easily as ordering it to go. Even if it doesn't work exactly as you hoped, your act might also reap some beneficial fallout, like Inglis (which will probably receive an influx of hyper-Christian tourists). What's to lose? Satan, be gone!

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

If you've ever caught even a glimpse of any Star Trek show or movie, you've probably seen the ship's doctor instantly diagnosing patients by running his palm pilot over them. NASA is striving to make that far-fetched scenario a reality, with Robodoc, a complex medical computer. A handheld monitor would scan the body and make diagnoses and the main computer would issue medications. You probably never thought you'd live to see the day when a doctor would look a lot like a garage door opener, yet here it is (almost). Similarly, a wish you made long ago has appeared in your life, albeit in a compact, unexpected and less than ideal form. Still, if you were on a space shuttle and needed medicine, you'd take it, even though it came from a computer instead of a human doctor, right? Take the medicine that's being offered now, too.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

A French court recently ruled that Dr. Raymond Martinot and his wife Monique be removed from their refrigerated basement where they were placed after death (to await revival at 76 degrees below zero Fahrenheit). Their son Remy hopes that they won't rush to enforce the ruling, so that he has time to appeal the decision. You can probably appreciate his position. The frozen dreams you put on hold ages ago are about to be thawed before they're ready to come to life. Though I can't predict whether the Martinots will be preserved, I have a feeling that the circumstances requiring the premature defrosting of your ambitions will soon change. Thus your job this week is to buy them some time; because, like a pair of hopeful immortalists, once they're thawed, you just can't freeze them again.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

"I have tremendous respect for the process," says my wisest Cancer teacher. This focused attention on the path and not the destination is exactly where it's at for you Crabs this week. That's not always true: when tightrope-walking, for instance, it's best to keep your eyes on where you're headed; looking down can only lead to disaster. But when navigating through a murky bog, rife with snakes, gators and pits of stinking sludge, paying attention to where you put your feet is vital. Go ahead and keep your endpoint in sight and be sure to head in that general direction; however, make sure each step along the way is as stable and solid as you can find.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

You'd love to ride into your high school reunion on a magnificent albino elephant, preceded by beautiful girls strewing rose petals in your path and followed by a caravan of harem beauties, admirers, reflected glory-cravers and general hangers-on. Once there, according to your long-embellished fantasies, you'd distribute bejeweled keepsakes and copies of your bestselling biography to your stunned ex-classmates. Your backup plans (Nobel, Oscar or marriage to foreign royalty) are almost as unlikely. It's good to have grandiose dreams. But the next few weeks are all about recognizing the difference between flights of fancy and those ambitions (which are significantly impressive in and of themselves) you can actually achieve.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Your ruling planet, Mercury, also presides over your magnetically attractive cousins, the Geminis. That fast-moving planet confers on them a manic changeability and flightiness, while you're usually gifted with an excess of energy that you divert into more diverse pursuits than seems humanly possible. Unfortunately, that hyperproductivity is about to shift over into hyperactivity. While the Gems will be blessed with a focus and direction that they usually lack, you could end up so busy bouncing between all those activities that completing a single one will be almost impossible. It's priority-setting time. Accept the fact that you'll only be able to actually finish a fraction of your usual workload. Now decide which handful stays on your to-do list and which truckload gets lost.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

After spending months sharing an apartment with an immensely codependent, melodramatic and incessantly bickering couple, I was soured on relationships for ages. Witnessing that terrifying example of the poisonous connection that's possible between two people, I almost forgot about synergy. Synergy, as I'm sure you're aware, occurs when multiple people or forces working together are more powerful than the sum of their parts. It's time to assess your partnerships, romantic or otherwise. Are you more or less as a result of your collaboration? You know what to do: celebrate your synergy if it's there; move on if it's not.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Mourning an idea (especially a treasured illusion) can be subtly similar to grieving for a beloved friend. When forced to let go of a mental crutch, you could experience stages of lamentation that resemble denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. Does acknowledging the reality of that process help you get through it? Maybe not, but knowing what to expect can at least keep you from picking up the discarded crutch and bringing it back to life to help you avoid the suffering caused by its necessary loss. Limp onward, baby. It's only for a little while: once you accept your life sans crutch, you'll be able to fly.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

I hope you've been taking a yoga class or at least doing some morning stretching, because you're in grave need of some resilient flexibility this week. Since you've so effectively padded your butt, protecting yourself from outside butt-booting, the only person left to give you a helpful kick in the ass is you. You're on the verge of freeing yourself from slavehood of one kind or another, and no one else can help. Since your liberation depends on your ability to keep moving, I recommend repeatedly kicking your own ass into gear from now until the moment you're finally free.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

I respect that you take your time to make a decision, and that once you do, it's one that can be counted on. But I worry about your ability to rationalize bowing to fear, explaining it as natural caution. That's a copout. Break free of the shackles of careful forward movement. It's the difference between creeping across the galaxy on impulse engines and activating the warp drive. Don't be left behind. Risk leaving the overfamiliar universe you know and enter the thrilling new one you've been craving all along.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Someone dissected your teddy bear and revealed that deep within its fuzzy softness was a sparkling chunk of diamond. Ouch: so your anthropomorphized comfort toy is much more hardhearted than you ever imagined! Naturally, being the pragmatist you are, it wouldn't take you long to visit a jeweler to get an appraisal. How does this relate to this week's truth? Looking inside a treasure from childhood?real or in memory form?may alter your sentimental perception of it forever, but could also be of incalculable worth to your present moment.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Although glass seems solid, it's actually an extremely slow-moving liquid. Evidence of this can be seen in old houses, where the bottom of the windows is much thicker than the top, because over many years, the pane has oozed downward. Similarly, if you scrutinize an ancient, self-imposed inner blockade, you may notice that it's glacially squatted and made itself that much more intractable, solid and immovable (and easier to get around) or it's stretched itself out to become tenuous and fragile. Either way, you're psyched. Moving on has rarely been this simple (and satisfying!).