This Week's Horoscope

Camping out on the toilet sucks. You know how wretched it is to eat something you shouldn't have and spend the next day and a half miserably expelling it from your body. I can't usually predict actual food poisoning from planetary movements; however, more esoteric concerns occasionally make themselves plain. For instance, if I were you, I'd be careful about what I said this week, and how I said it. Since eating your words is a distinct possibility, make sure they're ones that won't make you choke, cramp, or puke.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Friendships are like trees. They can sometimes grow stiff and brittle with age and crack under unexpected strain, but usually the good ones have an arboreal longevity, and an ability to weather fierce storms and harrowing droughts. New friendships, however, are not so robust, whatever their potential. At this stage in their lives, they're like barely awakened seeds or springy but fragile saplings; don't make the mistake of treating them like the mighty oaks they might become. This week, nurture those delicate and promising new sprouts. Don't piss on them or make them endure forest fires, just because you think they should be able to. Pamper them now; they'll survive disaster later.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Viewers of a mysterious videotape in the movie The Ring are doomed to die seven days later. Readers of this horoscope are likely to suffer a similar fate: you won't die in the next week, but two of your oldest and most hampering viewpoints are likely to quietly croak in their sleep. It's about time you were freed from their hindering effects, and I'm thrilled that current astrological influences make your escape a near certainty. In fact, the only thing that could possibly save you from this delicious liberation is a stalwart refusal to let it happen. Please don't dig in your heels out of fear. Freedom from illusion may be scary, but being its victim is worse.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Chameleons, like you, vary their colors to suit mood, situation or environment. Your similar changeability, in both cases, is a survival tool. It helps them avoid predators and stalk prey; it helps you attract the huge variety of strange bedfellows (both literal and figurative) you crave. You also share a powerful intuition with that fascinating lizard, which can predict an insect's movements accurately enough to nail it with a long, sticky tongue. Long sticky tongues aside, trust those gut feelings, which can help you find things to feed you, spiritually. Bear with my metaphor: don't settle for undeveloped larvae. When the substantially more nourishing bulk of a full-grown rhinoceros beetle lumbers by this week, be sure to reel it in.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Risk-taking is one of your fortes. I never have to coax you to be more adventurous, like I did for Taurus this week. Instead, your friends and I usually waste breath exhorting you to exercise some restraint, and look before you leap. Not this week; I'd rather not spoil the surprises you have in store by counseling you to check them out ahead of time. But since the leaps required to get to them are quite a bit farther than your usual extravagant jumps, I'll say this: go ahead and jump blind, since it's more fun for you that way. But strap on a hang-glider, or least a bungee cord, before you hurdle off the cliff.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

You got so tired of nearly every risk-taking venture blowing up in your face that you've pretty much stopped attempting anything the least bit chancy. Although taking unnecessary risks can liven up your life?and are a part of what makes life so great?I'm not going to advise you to start doing bong hits, shoplifting lipstick or having sex in the office. However, don't let yourself become boring and overcautious. Sometimes life requires that you take risks that I would consider quite necessary (and might involve the aforementioned less-necessary risks), like giving love a chance, nurturing a hidden talent or adopting an orphaned idea. One of those great and spiritually lucrative opportunities approaches; please take it.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Shyness is your worst enemy this week. Since an even higher percentage of people than usual are likely to find you too intimidating, different, boring or potentially annoying to approach, based on nothing but your appearance alone, you can't leave them to draw such superficial conclusions. Ideally, everyone would just come to you and converse, to find out what you're all about. But the world doesn't work that way. Increase the odds that people will actually speak to you (and consequently like you) by not giving them a choice; talk to everyone, whether it's likely you'll become friends with them or not. You (and they) will be pleasantly surprised at how often your preconceptions were wrong.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Cancerian psychology dictates that you're designed to worry. Supposedly you're fed and defined, to some extent, by your anxieties and their relief. Fine. However, if you must worry, at least worry about the right things. Out of your two chief concerns?emotional and material security?one's more realistic than the other. Go ahead and fret a little about money?just enough to keep you from making the extravagant purchases that'll shunt you too deeply into the red. But don't worry about the loyalty and resilience of your inner circle of friends; their occasional annoyance with your moodiness is just that, and won't more than temporarily disrupt the deeper current of love beneath.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

Faith is the cornerstone of any Leo's optimism. If you believe good things will happen, they usually do. Even when bad shit goes down, you take it in stride with all the blessings that also come your way?the balance always comes out positive, eventually. Still, when Leos experience prolonged periods of less-than-amazing luck, they can occasionally suffer long-term damage to that self-fulfilling sunny outlook. That's why I'm reminding you now, during the pleasant oasis of a Sagittarius sun: winter sucks for Leos. Things won't automatically go your way. Nevertheless, don't leap to the conclusion that the world has turned specifically against you. Just dial your hopefulness to a longer timeframe. By spring, you'll be the zodiac's lucky golden child again.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Your Muses want you busy. Fuck that business about idle hands being the devil's tools, but since your best ideas will emerge only when you're not looking for them, keeping your brain partially occupied with some task is the best way to allow your subconscious to divulge its brilliance. When you're actively seeking inspiration, it'll hide like a shy child. Don't waste energy fruitlessly pursuing it. Instead, distract yourself with something productive, be it whittling, knitting or washing dishes. The afflatus will come, and you'll be able to do something about it as soon as you finish the project you began so it could.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Mistaken identities will be a recurring theme in the next fortnight. This week, people are likely to believe you to be someone or something you're not. Indulge them, at least temporarily, by allowing them their illusions. You're currently expanding to occupy more of your full potential, and someone else's shoes might fit you better than your own right now. It's not totally a lie, either: The delicious irony that's only possible this week is that by pretending to be something you're not, you invent the possibility of becoming exactly that.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Stay. Don't go. Complaints have been coming in about your lack of consistency. When you're present, you're warm, loving and all-around wonderful. But your recent absences?physical and mental?are distressing to all concerned. Everyone who loves you is aware of your unfathomable depth, your dark feelings and unknowable concerns. But retreating from everyone until you've arrived at a lighter mental place is the wrong move; it's too easily interpreted as a rejection, instead of an admirable bid to shield those you adore. We don't need protection from you. It doesn't matter if we understand your troubles. It just matters that you're willing to let us try.

[Caeriel@yahoo.com](mailto:Caeriel@yahoo.com)