Frida Kahlo, a cancer. Photo-Illustration: by Preeti Kinha; Photos Getty
On Tuesday morning, the sun goes into Affectionate and Introspective Cancer. Over the next month, your attention may shift from the world around you to the inside. If you’ve been neglecting your inner life, ignoring your need for security or company or healing in favor of constant socialization, this is the time to do things right. If you’ve felt away from your loved ones, Cancer Season offers a chance to find your way back. Then, on Wednesday evening, the loving planet Venus enters Joyful Gemini, preventing things from becoming too sentimental and encouraging you to see beauty even in relationships and experiences that are not necessarily deep. You won’t take yourself so seriously that you forget how to laugh, how to flirt, how to just enjoy the company of the people around you.
While caring for others makes your life richer, it can also be stressful. The more invested you are, the more vulnerable you are to being hurt. The more you appreciate and value a relationship, the more you will lose. When you feel especially pessimistic, you worry that loving is not worth the risk, which can only lead to a painful end. This week, your job is to be brave enough to continue caring for others anyway. Because right now, love will not make you weak or exhausted, but quite the opposite: strong and fearless and willing to fight, because you know why you are fighting.
Sometimes it surprises you (even though you know you shouldn’t) when others are as firm in their convictions as you are in yours, when they prove to be equal to yours in determination. Your first instinct in these situations might be to prepare for conflict. What other outcome can there be when two stubborn people touch their heads? But this week in particular, competition is not your only option. If you are open-minded, you may discover something better: a friend who is willing and able to stand by you, to fight as hard for you as you do for yourself.
No matter how charming, fun, or loved you are (as Gemini, you probably are), there are still times when you feel invisible. You know people enjoy your company, they even admire you, but you’re afraid they’re not paying enough attention to see you. It would be easy, this week, to respond by getting stronger, impossible to ignore. But look at what happens if you give others the benefit of the doubt. You may be amazed at how they really perceive you and the value they value, not just the mask you wear in public, but your true self, after all.
Lately you are very aware of how much in this life is completely out of your control. You cannot force those in power to develop a consciousness that they do not have. You can’t even persuade certain people close to you to act in the way you would like. The sun rises and sets, and the seasons change, and humans act on their own chaotic, individual impulses: you can’t control any of that. Still, you’re far from powerless. Every day there are situations, no matter how small, where your care and attention make a difference, and this week, your job is to find them.
It’s hard to live in a ruthless society and not be cruel in response, dealing with greedy and indifferent people without being changed for the worse. Violence creates more violence; people who benefit from this truth trust everyone else, including you, to forget that there are other ways to be. So this week, it’s up to you to remember. The world seems to be getting worse every day, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Protect all that is kind, brave, and good in you, and you will be rewarded for it.
When you ask too much of others for attention, effort, or attention they are unwilling to give, you inevitably end up disappointed. And after too many experiences like this, you may begin to believe that you will never be satisfied, that there is no one who really shows up for you, or that you are only cursed in love. But that is far from the truth. Also, it prevents you from appreciating the sweet but imperfect ways in which the people in your life show you that they care. This week, try to accept what gifts they offer you. You may find that all these odd forms of affection add up to be what you needed after all.
These days, you’ve been thinking about how our reality is just a little different — sweeter, fairer, less precarious — you might be living a fuller life. You dream of the most satisfying ways to use your creative talents if you don’t have to work so hard just to pay the bills; Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic driven world of Earl. But this week, do not imagine for a second that your potential will be wasted. You already do a lot, in this imperfect world of ours.
Sometimes it seems like the people in your life, even the ones who love you the most, can’t … handle your complicated self. They continually try to box you in, label you, discover you once and for all, and feel frustrated, even annoyed, when they find out they can’t. You wonder if it would be easier to be the person that others have decided you are, stop changing so much, give up the messier, knotty sides of yourself. But it is not your job to make yourself small for the comfort of others. It’s just your job to live it to the fullest.
It’s heartbreaking, fueling the suspicion that others are undervaluing you, knowing that you are capable of doing bigger and more wonderful things than anyone thinks. You wonder what your life would be like if the people around you had more faith in you, what would have been different if you had received the support you needed. No matter how much you trust, feeling invisible and unappreciated takes its toll. This week, you have a chance to start recovering. Don’t wait for anyone else’s approval. You are capable of more than you can imagine.
It’s tempting to wait for the ideal conditions before acting, or the feeling of certainty that a relationship is worth it before you dive in. In a way, it makes sense. Why should you accept less than you deserve? But the truth is that change rarely comes at the “right time” and there are no perfect people. Consider this knowledge a gift, not a disappointment. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. You can act right now. You can create the world, the relationships, the conditions you need at any time.
When faced with a confusing relationship or a difficult decision, your tendency lately is to think too much. This can be strangely rewarding. Give your brain something to do, and all the mental effort states that you are making good progress. This week, however, do your best to resist the urge to spin the same dilemma over and over in your mind again, to obsess over and theorize relentlessly. Right now, the answers you’re looking for are more likely to come when you loosen up and stop trying so hard. Give yourself a moment just to be.
Have you ever wondered if you are really strong enough to get through the days to come? It’s not that you’re particularly weak, or that you’re otherwise deficient. Is that the future is so terribly uncertain, and issues that you will not be prepared for the change that is on the horizon. You worry that you will not have time to develop the inner power you need to overcome it. But strength is not something new that you have to generate out of nothing: you have had it all the time; all you have to do is remember how brave you can be. You’ve proven it to yourself before and you’ll do it again.
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