This Week

It’s a big ole crazy week, campers, with Mars, the straining let-me-at’em-let-me-at’em egomaniacal pugilist of the skies honing his pea shooter right at the nose of Pluto, the Zodiac’s renowned and feared No 1 demolition ball on Friday. Messy. Pluto is always about revealing the truth, even if it means stripping away things we wish to cling to for no good reason except old fashioned stubbornness and self-delusion. As we’re all prodded to relinquish our hold expect intensity and impatience in and around you in spades. And yet… even amidst the feathers flying there’s potential for beauteous, surprising, outtatheblue ripeness in dreams, truth, plans, and friendships. And with a New Moon for a cherry on top also on Friday, life is never EVER going to be the same again.

Aries
It’s not over til the fat lady sings but something in your life, as you well know, is due a darn loud aria to speed its exit once and for all. And this is the week for our songstress to open her throat and let it all out. Your ruler, Mars, hasty as a young buck in season, wants to take on the world and as he moves from a delayed stay in your house of everyday living and into what should be your welcoming house of home, womb, family, and mother, he’s not in the mood for freeloading squatters. You’ll be feeling a tension bubbling already. By Wednesday you’ll be ready to explode and by the weekend those squatters are going to cop it. What you’re really angry about is not getting what you want in the way that suits you (vis those areas of home, womb, family, mother). Anger is only ever fear in disguise and if you dig a bit deeper you’ll discover that you don’t get what you want because you’re too scared to stand bare chested and unarmed, in front of those you perceive to be authority figures to negotiate. Reaching this stand off is your greatest gift. In recognising this fear you’ll be able to turn it on its head and by Sunday you’ll surprise even yourself with the results. Pea-shooter down. Face the fear, Ram.

Taurus
After an overlong dally round your bank balance Mars moves into your everyday world of siblings, neighbours, community and communications with his Oasis swagger. This is a call he makes every two years, stirring things up, socialising, and picking the occasional fight but this time around Pluto is watching. Pluto says authoritatively, ‘Where do you want to be in 10 years time?’ And Mars, all sun-glasses and tabs, replies, ‘Don’t care. Live fast die young.’ And then shows Pluto ‘the finger’. Eejit. Pluto is going to triumph, natch, so you may as well forget your quick fixes and focus instead on the long haul stoic approach to your larger dreams. Don’t fight it. With delightful ting stacking up in your house of dreams and wishes even Mars with all his bluster and impudence will come to realise that Pluto’s way is the win-win way. Pluto is going to MAKE you walk the walk into a sunnier future Bull whether it’s moving overseas, getting yourself published, or getting back to school to improve your future lot. The Sun and Moon mean friends may be involved even paving the way if you’ll let ‘em. Onwards! Back in the here and now: If a career offer is made late in the week wait til Monday to read the small print. As if all the above isn’t enough, Neptune has you foggy as a drunken Lord from Thursday and through the weekend.

Gemini
When Donald Trump fancies a light lunch do you think he nips to Boots for a cheese and pickle ‘wrap’. Probably not. More likely he flies in some of the finest Fortnum nibbles and afterwards, having dabbed the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin, is then burped by a gentle army of Japanese masseuses. You on the other hand probably go the way of the cheese wrap meal deal and have to burp yourself – and it’s that sort of limit on your pocket book that is causing your eyebrows to knit into a cardigan again this week. Mars moves into your second house from Wednesday auguring more money coming in and yet, irritatingly, the same (or more) money going out. As Mars makes this stride into your bank, Pluto is watching from the other side of the counter in a Saville Row suit and our fiery friend is left popping with jealousy. The clash for you this week is about tycoonery and how you go from where you are now to being burped by Japanese masseuses. The key to that doorway lies in your status and what you can do to raise your importance/indispensability to the people who have the dosh ensuring that they willingly part with it in your direction by the hod-ful. Neptune is clouding the way from Thursday through the weekend but trust that right behind the cloud your ideas are ripe for plucking. Do not – I repeat – do NOT allow the mists to trip you up or put you off your stride. Your inner radar really is on the money and leading you to the pot of gold at the end of the (currently slightly obscured) rainbow.

Cancer
This week is about you and change at a deep, heart and soul level, squishy. As Pluto strides right up to you and shows you the whites of his eyes, your normal impulse would be to retreat. However, Mars, he of the fiery tantrum, pointy finger, scared-o’-nuthin, what-you-lookin’-at take on life has joined your side. With that energy around you can’t help but stand your ground. This will feel like confrontation and its purpose is to question why you get knocked off balance by the passing vagaries of life and in particular why you run a mile at the mere thought of intimate, equal, one-to-one relationships of a bizniz, or more likely poysonal, nature. Pluto’s lessons may come to you in the embodiment of powerful, penetrating, deeply honest people within your close circle; their mission to show you the truth. Mars will egg you on to put up your fists, throw up your defences and say you don’t need wat dey gat but that isn’t the truth. The challenge is to meet these significant others as equals, not to fight against them. With a New Moon and a series of links in your 9th house one of these significant others is offering you travel, study, or long-term solutions to boost your confidence and bring a new way of life even to the extent of a foreign business or new lover overseas. Why fight against that? It will be a fraught week as you await the Pluto – Mars conkers rally reaching an entente cordiale in your heart and soul. Exercise, such as trampolining and long sessions on a pogo stick, will take the edge off. I should coco.

Leo
No stone unturned, Catface. Big decisions, work pressures, money’s scarcity, and now big questions about who’s out to get you and why. What’s a Cat to do? Forwards, ever forwards, pussy cat one paw at a time. This week’s howl in the dark is happening between your sixth house of work, service and health and your 12th house of endings, deep recesses, and hidden enemies. The cry is how and why you are involved in establishing patterns within your working life or your health which aren’t healthy, don’t do you any favours, and could legitimately be called self-sabotaging. This, together with your growing frustration about spondoolics being thinner than a toasted pitta pocket, implies that the Universe is pushing you into Sort-it-out Corner. First port is learning from Mars. As he attracts belligerency wherever he blazes you will have the joy of facing a few irksome sides of your nature, either through irritating people or through imagined shadows on the wall. But in this a light should switch on about how you can make money grow (even your tax bill shrink), relieving stress and helping make the workload seem less of an underpaid prison sentence. In around six weeks you’ll be more level headed and better placed to talk raises and job changes. From the boardroom to the bedroom: Uranus in your 8th house of sex has been cranking up your experimental action. As the Sun straddles this planet of surprise expect a sudden and ardent reignition over the weekend. As an interesting combi, there’s been some real gentleness in your love life of late. From Friday and through the weekend Venus and Mercury both hook up with Neptune, the planet of mistiness. This is either fluffy, rose-tinted, soulmate stuff or fluffy, rose-tinted stuff and nonsense. With Mars in your 12th house making you scared of your own shadow, and some potentially interesting ideas surfacing in the boudoir, it's a heady mix. Be careful you don’t confuse good for bad.

Virgo
Is a pushy friend going to bring you closer to the love of your life? Is a powerful lover going to put a rocket under your dreams? Are your creative plans and children about to come under fire from a friend’s vicious tongue? For you this atomic astrology pits love, creativity, and children against wishes, friends, and future dreams. The love, creativity, and children will triumph but if you can hold on to your hat when Mars steps up to the bunfight, you’ll find blessings aplenty in the aftermath. Honest. An opposition of this potency is an opportunity for the two forces to clash and create something solid borne of both planets’ experiences. Mars is bringing fire, confidence, ego, power, and impatience to the joust. Pluto is bringing truth, darkness, inside, abandon, and a blank canvas. Plus the New Moon is linking to Jupiter. It’s going to be a raucous party, and perhaps not for the faint-hearted, but by gum is it going to be creative. Whatever the games deliver it can only be imbued with passion, primordial expression, penetration, and the ability to touch those around it at the deepest, most real levels. In the aftermath of this Friday’s It’s A Knockout a change of direction in your one-to-one relationships is due. With a broad grin on Jupiter’s face it looks good-with-a-capital Marry me! Have my babies!!

Libra
Your hankering for success on the world’s stage is reaching fever pitch as Mars launches a six-week chant of ‘look-at-me-look-at-me’ from a mountain top. As he does so a brooding sense of what undermines you gathers. For all Mars’s shrieking, there’s still a part of you that doesn’t believe the hype. Pluto is rolling through your house of mother, womb, family and home bringing deep change as he reveals the truth in all these areas. He faces Mars, mid-rant, this week and in the confrontation exposes the truth of what our clamouring egos are trying so desperately to achieve in the outside world in lieu of a lack of mother love. Pluto wants to know what would a kind and fair mother do to help her child along in the world – to succeed but to do so without arrogance, selfish damage, and without the clamouring? Firstly this is a call to recognise why you’re clamouring. Secondly it's a chance to give the peace of mother love to yourself. Man. But importantly too, as Jupiter links to the Sun and the New Moon lights up your house of work and service, the answer strongly includes embodying an ethos of hard work and giving something back. Balance the scales, Libra, and at last the circle of life is complete. In other news: This weekend sees the re-linking of Mercury and Neptune in your house of lovers and children. This time though he’s joined by Venus. These are either magic moments of transcendence and unity or little white lies which smother the truth. In this equation don’t be the opiate. What would your inner mother say about that?

Scorpio
Speaking the truth isn’t always easy. Firstly how do you know what you’re saying is true? (As in how often do our minds get in the way and muss it up with some old fading memory of something involving a barn, Uncle Joe, and the local constabulary?) And secondly isn’t our truth in a different language and different time zone from the person sitting opposite us with the soy latte? The truth is a gut feeling, deep as an oil drill, that makes your heart go ping. Speaking the truth, however, takes confidence and right now you may feel like your mouth is taking on a life of its own, and like the Golden Pancake is on a roll with no way to stop. And you’d be right! This is a long-term trend so get use to it!! The ting wid truth ees, uther peeps they no likey. And this week a feisty contact no likey your soothsaying and sticks the boot in pouring scorn on your long-range plans whether that’s study, travel, or expansion and growth. While you’d like to put them in a pressure cooker for their impudence this is a chance for you to rolly roll roll with it, intense as it may get. Just as a cross-examining barrister tries to unsettle an innocent defendant, so this yawping naysayer is trying to rattle your cage. But you know your truth – gut feeling? Oil drill? Remember? So don’t get rattled. The truth will out in the end. Random next comment: Surprise news is on its way vis children. This could be your sister up the duff. Or you. Although on perhaps a less gorgeous/terrifying/life-changing note – this could be an idea like a light bulb going on vis a creative venture.

Sagittarius
You may need to reel yourself in this week, Archer, as big decisions and deep penetrating truths come up against cheeky-chappie Mars leaving you slightly at a loss and potentially mit egg-on-face. Cheekiness has its place but, for example, during an interview with Customs and Excise it’s perhaps not the smartest approach. As Mars skips into your 8th house of sex, death and taxes, his resistance to give into some of the more penetrating/ meaningful/ cosmic tides of life are likely to show his immaturity clear as a shadow puppet on a white-washed outhouse under a spotlight. What can you do about that? Well Pluto, natural ruler of the eighth house, is currently doing its stuff in your second house of money. His work here is getting you to grips with the power of money and your need to respect its potential. If you can draw from those lessons then when the eighth house calls for you to let go – whether it’s of a job, a person, a relationship, a habit, or into the abandon of truly penetrating unity, Mars won’t attack or defend or fight but respect the power of the call and give in completely. And as if two pages of a book were stuck together non-sequential news this week: If you’re selling or valuing your house this week the money looks good!

Capricorn
A row with a significant other and/or some mind-blowing activity in your downstairs is galloping your way, Goat. As Mars storms into your 7th house all hot and bothered, like, he foretells of someone who is going to roger you senseless – or tell you ‘No’ (possibly to the rogering and/or other matters unrelated to your downstairs). How you react to the ‘No’ will tell you a great deal about where you are vis growing up. When crossed by a.n.other if you find yourself on the attack what you are actually doing is being defensive. But what of? An old insecurity that keeps getting in the way? The truth that you need to do better? Defending the outdated with rigidity is a numptee’s game, Goat, so Good Luck with that. Perhaps though, while you’re puffing your chest out, you may realise you are not a steel girder. Or an oil platform. You are a mushy person who is ready to grow and bend and change. As the Sun and this week’s New Moon light up your third house of communications and both have a life coach session with Jupiter, you’ll see the key to change (and avoiding attack) is communicating. Forget the sulking. Resist the urge to scream. Leave behind your usual MO of a horse’s head in their bed to show you are cross. It’s time perhaps to think of a middle road, something a little more jovial and self-revelatory and diplomatic than your usual approach. That way you get to the bottom of the ‘No’ and have a chance to tame both yourself and the beast. And then you can use your energy for other more, ahem, unifying approaches.

Aquarius
Many hands make light work. Too many cooks spoil the broth. It can be a fine line Pinky between assistance on one hand and getting in the way on the other. Mars is now high-jumping his way into your sixth house of health, work, and service to others. This can make you overegg these areas - turning you into a dervish in the office, an athlete in daily life with the robust health of a bison who knows no better, and give you the mothering energy of a dozen Mother Theresas. Contrarily Mars in the 6th can create the opposite making you fiery in the face of orders from superiors, competitive and overzealous in your choice of sporting activities, and impatient and combative in your counselling of lost souls and broken wings. Sometimes we can be too helpful. Sometimes we can just not be helpful enough. This week as Mars prompts you to over-meddle or to stuff your fat lips out in a huff he faces a showdown with Pluto, currently residing in your 12th house of OhLordeeThat’sWhyIKeepGettingItWrong. So. The confrontation isn’t necessarily going to be pleasant. The head chef may have words or the sous chef may break down in tears but either way, Pluto wants to show you whether your pendulum swingeth too widely and how to reineth it in. On an irrelevant trajectory: You’ve luck with money over the weekend. Winning lottery tickets, great finds at the jumble, ideas for a new source of income beckon.

Pisces
There are some beautiful moments this week, Fish, and yes some reality checks. The big clash of Mars and Pluto are cymbals resounding between your children, love affairs, and creative juices and your friends, dreams, and deeply held wishes. The upshot can be a new love affair which causes consternation within your circle of friends – like your new buck saying absolutely the wrong thing about feminism at the dinner table; a child causing a few snafus as you embark upon a dream project – such as throwing a hissy fit at the back of the hall just as you’re launching into your inaugural and eagerly-awaited talk on woodturning at the WI; or a creative endeavour with all your passion behind it hitting a ding in the road. And a deep ding at that - like discovering that someone else has already invented the two-sided spoon... Meep. The shock of it. Awful as this is, and mawkish as these turns can make you, have heart. The Sun, New Moon, and Uranus are holding you aloft and calling in friendly favours from Jupiter also weaving spells in your eleventh house. It would seem that if wishes, friends, or dreams wobble over the edge then that is either (a) genuinely for the best or (b) a repair job that can and will happen. You’ve been sewing seeds in good faith in the past few months, and those you’ve planted well will grow. If at times you’re chewing your own nails down to the elbow remember that times like these remind us who our friends are and why love, children and creativity keep us vital.