Words For The People

Personal Evolution Astrology with D.K. Brainard

Horoscopes for Week of February 8

Image: Piano Yoga by New Orleans artist (and Pisces reader) Johnel Logan. See more of Johnel's wonderful work on her Facebook album or at Hallowed Grounds coffee shop in the Marigny.

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Aries - Reality check: You've got about one more month of this infernal Mars retrograde to deal with. Having your ruling planet backtracking on itself, as has been the case for the last two months, is tough on an action-oriented Ram. You tend to be one of those "work hard, play hard!" people and with Mars retrograde in your 5th House of pleasure, creativity and romance, it feels as if you're being dragged back through your personal pleasure history in some way, perhaps sucked back into old romantic entanglements or addictive behaviors you thought you'd left behind you. The suggestion here is that the Cosmos is pushing you to get to the root of what you really want out of life. Do you understand the difference between fulfillment and satisfaction? What makes you chase after fleeting pleasures rather than pouring your energy into your heart-felt goal? To answer that question you'll have to figure out how to bring presence into your process of acting out! A good place to start is by opening a dialog with your inner child. Rather than punishing or withholding, just observe; be the witness for yourself. Saturday's New Moon encourages you to name what you really long to create in your life and be willing to release pale substitutes. Share With A Friend!

Taurus - Set aside quality time this week to review your goals for 2009. What did you set out to create last year? How successful were you? And here's the kicker: Which of your goals brought you the most joy and fulfillment? You see, Saturday's New Moon in your 10th House of career is kind of like the exclamation point on a process of self-definition that engaged you for most of 2009. This process has been trying to free you up into pursuing the career and public life that will make your soul happy. Which, by the way, may not be at all what you were programmed by your parents, teachers, TV programs and peers to believe was respectable, important, or worthy. If you use this week to understand which career actions bring you joy, you can make an important shift in your thinking that will bring you much more fulfillment not only in 2010 but also in the years to come. By the way: With the two good luck planets, Jupiter and Venus, both in your 11th House of friends, colleagues and dreams for the future, this is an auspicious week for connecting with people who share your vision of what life could and should be. Share With A Friend!

Gemini - It feels to me as if you've turned a major corner of sorts. Rather than life feeling like a struggle for sanity or survival, you're starting to realize just how powerful the challenges of the last few years have made you. You're starting to glimpse possibilities that you'd perhaps long given up as fantasy. With Jupiter in your 10th House of career this year (and the other good luck planet, Venus, occupying this same house for the next month), you're a magnet for opportunity, expansion and abundance. Your chart shows that your ability to receive the goodness that is flowing toward you largely depends on how you're working with your thoughts. With Mars retrograde in your 3rd House of the lower mind, you are being guided to the past disappointments and repressed anger that are working on a subtle level to undermine your success. Fortunately Saturday's New Moon in your 9th House of the higher mind is designed to make you aware of at least one limiting belief (probably disguised as a tantalizing fantasy) that it's time to let go of. Releasing this old pattern frees up your thoughts to flow in the direction of your goals. Share With A Friend!

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Cancer - I don't know a soul that's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
But it's all right...
-- Paul Simon, "American Tune"

That's one of my favorite songs from the Concert in Central Park album, and it reminds me that we've been through this before. Your chart is intense this week, as it has been for the last year or more. But you've been through challenging times -- on both the personal and collective levels -- before and you've come out stronger. And this is what will happen again, so please keep the faith. You've got another month of Mars retrograde on the money/power axis of your chart and a New Moon (end of the old/start of the new) in your 8th House of other people's money and energy on Saturday. You might want to look back at what you were learning about money and relationships from 2003-2005, because you're at the next level of that particular soul lesson now. And remember, that at the ultimate level of design, all of this challenge is conspiring to (if I may quote another song from the same Simon & Garfunkel album) "Get yourself free." Share With A Friend!

Leo - You have some rather extraordinary money luck hanging around, with both of the good fortune planets Venus and Jupiter in your 8th House of other people's money for the next few weeks. Interestingly, to what extent this financial good fortune (which could come as a gift, a one-time payment, or a raise for your spouse, as examples) can find you seems dependent on how you're dealing with the Mars retrograde in your sign. Specifically, I would spend some time this week answering the question: "If I could have whatever I wanted, what would I want?" The next step is examining the limiting beliefs that keep you from asking for what your soul really wants. You'd probably be surprised about just how reasonable your soul's demands would seem to any sane person, i.e. anyone not carrying the load of old parental, social, or relationship guilt that you've been saddled with for most of this lifetime. Saturday's New Moon in your 7th House urges you to extend this same calculus to your relationships: What kind of relationships would you be enjoying, if you didn't feel ashamed to ask for what you really wanted? Share With A Friend!

Click here for an easy-to-print PDF version of the horoscopes. As featured at these fine New Orleans coffee shops: Yellow Moon (Bywater), Hallowed Grounds (Marigny), and Cafe Envie (French Quarter) -- as well as Short Street Cakes in Asheville, NC. (If you don't have Acrobat Reader you can get it free from Adobe.)

Virgo - Some fabulous relationship energy kicks in this week. With both Jupiter and Venus in your 7th House of relationships, other people naturally want to support you and encourage your growth. It looks as if one person who is either in your life now or is about to enter your life will step into the role of personal coach and mentor to you. This is someone who understands who you are and sees what you're trying to do with your life and has the experience and the vision to help you get where you're going. But in order to benefit from this person's wisdom and good will, your chart shows you need to do a little soul-searching about what it means to merge with integrity. When did you become convinced that if you trusted another person, they'd only take you for the proverbial ride? What did you do with your anger over this episode? When are you going to do what it takes to let that anger go and learn how to trust again? You have so much wonderful relationship energy flowing into your life, it would be a shame to miss it because you're still nursing a wound from ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Share With A Friend!

Libra - Saturday's New Moon in your 5th House marks the start of a new chapter in your creative life. You went through a lot of healing in this area in 2009, with the historic alignment of Jupiter (abundance), Chiron (awareness) and Neptune (ideal beauty/fantasy) in this part of your chart. This week's lunation urges you to become aware of any habits, programs or rescue fantasies you're still harboring rather than taking the risk of fully living your creative self. Examples of these would include fantasizing about the new lover or the gallery show while sitting home alone in front of the TV, or looking for Mr. Right at the local bar. You are incredibly creative and it's not your fault you grew up in a time when we are all brainwashed to mistrust creativity; but it is your responsibility to honor your gift and, to quote that great creator Henry David Thoreau, "Go where your heart is white on the chart." Share With A Friend!

Scorpio - It's amazing how often over the last decade of my spiritual life my guides have led me back to the same basic premise: When you have a problem, create. "But my problem has nothing to do with art," I say. "It's about money. It's my relationship." Create, they whisper. "When you are creating, you are joyful, you are in the flow. Then it is that good things can come to you." I mention this now not only because the two benefics, Jupiter and Venus, are in your 5th House of creativity, romance and giving birth to the new this week. Nor because the modern ruler of your 4th House of roots, family and feeling at home in the world is in this same house and being activated by Saturday's New Moon. I mention it also because the promise of this week's New Moon -- that you take a major step toward letting go of destructive fantasies and doing what it takes to build a firm yet flexible emotional foundation for your life -- seems to hinge on your finally getting the same message: We are by nature creative beings and all of our problems are ultimately remedied by unblocking that creative energy. Share With A Friend!

Sagittarius - Cultivate a new and improved relationship with your home this week. Saturday's New Moon in your 3rd House of writing, thinking and communicating inaugurates a new cycle in how you use your mind to reach out to the others in your world. This continues a process of "mind healing" that characterized much of 2009 and -- if you're paying attention -- you'll probably get some powerful feedback that shows you just how far you've come in mastering your own mental space this week. (New moons often involve the need to release something old, so welcome the appearance of any left-over negative mental patterns that surface this week.) But your chart shows that 2010 is the year when you can really learn to feel at home in the world. And both your inner and outer communications benefit this week when you take the initiative and make peace with your living space. Burn sage or sweetgrass to chase out the old, stale energy; rearrange and prettify until your home feels good around you. Remember Voltaire's conclusion at the end of Candide, that the world grows beautiful when you cultivate your own garden. Share With A Friend!

Capricorn - Saturday's New Moon -- and the plethora of planets clustered around the money axis of your chart -- could have you thinking obsessively about finances. There's a pretty clear picture in your chart this week that looks to me something like this: "When you are willing to surrender your demands that life (and the people in it) treat you differently than everyone else, you'll discover there are plenty of creative, constructive, resonant ways to get money flowing for you again." Saturday's New Moon offers you the chance to build on what you were learning all last year: that when you align your money-making activities with the needs of your community, you can create true wealth. This may not look like the picture of success you were programmed with in decades past, but if you define wealth by having the freedom to do what you love, this is definitely attainable. To unlock your creative money genius this week, just find where you're acting like a spoiled child and change that behavior in one key way. Share With A Friend!

Aquarius - You have some fabulous financial aspects on your side this week, so please do everything in your power to keep an open mind. Remember that money (or the freedom, time, or possessions that you truly desire and that you think you need money in order to acquire) can come from anywhere. There's a virtually unlimited amount of the stuff out there and they're printing more of it every day. So don't limit your possibilities, because you don't do well when you're boxed in. Saturday's New Moon in your sign activates the wound you've been healing over the past year and encourages you to let go of a pattern of holding yourself aloof from society because the others just wouldn't understand. The world is catching up quickly, my friend. Give us a chance! Share With A Friend!

Pisces - This is the kind of week in which -- provided you're in the right frame of mind -- good fortune could find you anywhere. With a host of planets and a New Moon Saturday in your 12th House of the deep unconscious mind, you might feel more like hibernating in your monk's chamber than meeting the public this week. In fact, that's a healthy attitude: this week seems designed to help you do some important visioning work for the rest of the year and you'll need privacy, rest and quiet to help you create a bridge between your dreaming self and the material world. But you can make it easier for Fortuna to get in touch with you by staying in touch with your friends and community. If you don't feel up to a lot of company, use email and the Internet. You're directly tuned in to a much more beautiful potential future than most of the TV-watching people you know and your friends and colleagues are eager to see the world through your eyes. The right frame of mind, by the way, is something along these lines: "I have faith in the future and I am open to accepting the good that wants to flow through me." Share With A Friend!

Ever wonder what if would feel like to sit down and actually examine the map you created to help you navigate your life's journey?

Imagine if you could look at this map with a skillful, loving guide who helps explain it in a language you can understand. How would it change your trip if you felt like you know where you're going and also understand why you've had to take some of the difficult roads that have led you to this moment?

That's what a good astrology reading does for you. Why wait any longer? See what a Personal Evolution Reading can do for you. Or check out testimonials from a few of my hundreds of clients on three continents.

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