ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming weeks, I suspect you will have the wisdom to criticize yourself in constructive ways that will at least partially solve a long-standing problem. Hallelujah! I bet you will also understand what to do to eliminate a bad habit by installing a good new habit. Please capitalize on that special knowledge! There’s one further capacity I suspect you’ll have: the saucy ingenuity necessary to alleviate a festering fear. Be audacious!TAURUS (April 20-May 20): What standards might we use in evaluating levels of sexual satisfaction? One crucial measure is the tenderness and respect that partners have for each other. Others include the ability to play and have fun, the freedom to express oneself uninhibitedly, the creative attention devoted to unpredictable foreplay, and the ability to experience fulfilling orgasms. How do you rate your own levels, Taurus? Wherever you may currently fall on the scale, the coming months will be a time when you can accomplish an upgrade. How? Read authors who specialize in the erotic arts. Talk to your partners with increased boldness and clarity. While meditating, search for clues in the depths. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If there were a Hall of Fame for writers, Shakespeare might have been voted in first. His work is regarded as a pinnacle of intellectual brilliance. And yet here’s a fun fact: The Bard quoted well over a thousand passages from the Bible. Can you imagine a modern author being taken seriously by the literati if he or she frequently invoked such a fundamental religious text? I bring this to your attention to encourage you to be Shakespeare-like in the coming weeks. That is, be willing to draw equally from both intellectual and spiritual sources; be a deep thinker who communes with sacred truths; synergize the functions of your discerning mind and your devotional heart.CANCER (June 21-July 22): "People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty," writes Cancerian author and entrepreneur Timothy Ferriss. He doesn’t do that himself, but rather is quite eager to harvest the perks of dwelling in uncertainty. I presume this aptitude has played a role in his huge success; his books have appeared on bestseller lists and his podcasts have been downloaded more than 300 million times. In telling you this, I’m not encouraging you to embrace the fertile power of uncertainty 24 hours a day and 365 days of every year. But I am urging you to do just that for the next three weeks. There’ll be big payoffs if you do, including rich teachings on the art of happiness.LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Many 18th century pirates were committed to democracy and equality among their ranks. The camaraderie and fairness and mutual respect that prevailed on pirate ships were markedly different from the oppressive conditions faced by sailors who worked for the navies of sovereign nations. The latter were often pressed into service against their will and had to struggle to collect meager salaries. Tyrannical captains controlled all phases of their lives. I bring this to your attention, Leo, with the hope that it will inspire you to seek out alternative approaches to rigid and hierarchical systems. Gravitate toward generous organizations that offer you ample freedom and rich alliances. The time is right to ally yourself with emancipatory influences.VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Don’t wait around for fate to decide which decisions you should make and what directions you should go. Formulate those decisions yourself, with your willpower fully engaged. Never say, "If it’s meant to be, it will happen." Rather, resolve to create the outcomes you strongly desire to happen. Do you understand how important this is? You shouldn’t allow anyone else to frame your important questions and define the nature of your problems; you’ve got to do the framing and defining yourself. One more thing: don’t fantasize about the arrival of the "perfect moment." The perfect moment is whenever you decree it is.LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll regularly give yourself to generous, expansive experiences. I hope you’ll think big, funny thoughts and feel spacious, experimental emotions. I hope you’ll get luxurious glimpses of the promise your future holds, and I hope you’ll visualize yourself embarking on adventures and projects you’ve been too timid or worried to consider before now. For best results, be eager to utter the word "more" as you meditate on the French phrase "joie de vivre" and the English phrase "delight in being alive."SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): According to Popular Mechanics magazine, over three million sunken ships are lying on the bottoms of the world’s oceans. Some of them contain billions of dollars’ worth of precious metals and jewels. Others are crammed with artifacts that would be of great value to historians and archaeologists. And here’s a crazy fact: Fewer than one percent of all those potential treasures have been investigated by divers. I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because I hope it might inspire you to explore your inner world’s equivalent of lost or unknown riches. The astrological omens suggest that the coming weeks will be an excellent time to go searching for them.SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Some days you need god’s grace," writes poet Scherezade Siobhan. "On other days: the feral tongue of vintage whiskey and a mouth kissed by fire." I’m guessing, Sagittarius, that these days you might be inclined to prefer the feral tongue of vintage whiskey and a mouth kissed by fire. But according to my astrological analysis, those flashy phenomena would not motivate you to take the corrective and adaptive measures you actually need. The grace of god—or whatever passes for the grace of god in your world—is the influence that will best help you accomplish what’s necessary. Fortunately, I suspect you know how to call on and make full use of that grace.CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn poet William Stafford articulated some advice that I think you need to hear right now. Please hold it close to your awareness for the next 21 days. "Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk," he wrote. "Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing." By practicing those protective measures, Capricorn, you will foster and safeguard your mental health. Now here’s another gift from Stafford: "Things you know before you hear them—those are you, those are why you are in the world."AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "Love is an immoderate thing / And can never be content," declared poet W. B. Yeats. To provide you with an accurate horoscope, I’ll have to argue with that idea a bit. From what I can determine, love will indeed be immoderate in your vicinity during the coming weeks. On the other hand, it’s likely to bring you a high degree of contentment—as long as you’re willing to play along with its immoderateness. Here’s another fun prediction: I suspect that love’s immoderateness, even as it brings you satisfaction, will also inspire you to ask for more from love and expand your capacity for love. And that could lead to even further immoderate and interesting experiments.PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You will know you are in sweet alignment with cosmic forces if you have an impulse to try a rash adventure, but decide instead to work on fixing a misunderstanding with an ally. You can be sure you’re acting in accordance with your true intuition if you feel an itch to break stuff, but instead channel your fierce energy into improving conditions at your job. You will be in tune with your soul’s code if you start fantasizing about quitting what you’ve been working on so hard, but instead sit down and give yourself a pep talk to reinvigorate your devotion and commitment. [Editor: Here’s this week’s homework:]Homework: Make up a secret identity for yourself. What is it? How do you use it? Testify at freewillastrology.com.
Go to realastrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text message horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at (877) 873-4888 or (900) 950-7700.