This week

The really big schtuff is heading our way next week – Uranus finally gets his cheese together, Pluto shifts onto a straight route after playing slalom with all our heads for over a decade, and a New Moon lands howzat! in goodtime Sagittarius. This week then is a brief howdo, a warm up act if you will, to the mighty metaphorical Saturday-Night-Live-at-the-Apollo of the w/c 24 Nov. Ayyathankewe.

Aries
What has been an irksome spell of sitting waiting, dusting off the past (or shovelling it under the hearth rug whistling ‘innocently’, and/or exploring the depths of your psyche is drawing to a close this week. If you’ve personality ticks/kinky persuasions*/loan applications to get in, crack on (*as long as it is consenting adults we’re tawking here and you’re not hurting anyone). Your boat is about to move into the Zone of your chart marked Open Seas, Open Horizons, Future Shores, and Learning. A happy Aries is a roaring Aries and as Mercury, the Sun, and your ruler Mars all shoofty into this Zone by the weekend you’ll be roaring at your future/the beach/your Open University degree like a goodun. And they’re under starts orders…

Taurus
Thursday is your day to commit to lovers or plans for creative ventures or chilun. Then from the weekend as the Sun, Mercury, and Mars all gather in your 8th house of Letting Go your Inner Cosmic Truth in Three Key Areas are due a looksee. Key Area 1) Sex. This is kink, persuasions, deep psyche-led needs (not beer-fuelled whoppsie in the queue of the taxi rank with someone called Jan.) It’s time to recognise your need for the sort of sex which opens your heart and mind and exposes your emotional self. Oobah. Key Area 2). Death... er, thoughts of your mortality and those around you occurs now as do – on a positive note - thoughts of what you want to accomplish this lifetime before shuffling off. Go get ‘em tiger! Key Area 3) Taxes. As in loans, inheritances, credit/other people's money - as in cash in your world that doesn't arrive via your pay cheque. It's debt as well as mountains of gold and planets here say it's time to stop de former and aim for de latter... So. This is the Eighth. Reality, letting go, chucking out outdated habits to allow true, new, refreshing influences into your world. Really going into the Eighth helps to reach down to de bottom of what’s stopping us live life to the max in the here and now. Handled honestly and openly, peeps can pass out of the Eighth House skippier and groovier dan dey eva thunk dey could and all the emotional excavation will be worth it. Phew.

Gemini
Cowabunga Airy. You’ll be pleased to know that for the first time in 12 years you’re about to get a focus on relationships that doesn’t leave you quivering in fear. The Sun, Mars, and Mercury are all lining up in your 7th house of one-to-one squeezes by the weekend. You’ve got cosmic energy to focus, tawk, and act upon the good, bad, and ugly of what’s right, wrong, and what needs sorting in your bidniz and squeezy partnerships. This time though, Pluto is moving on and that feeling that has plagued you for far too long - that your relationships were nothing but power struggle boot camps - has lifted. No doubt any new honeys (and any new approaches with existing honeys) will need oodles of patience as you learn to trust that you’re in new terrain and that the old ghosts have gone. Pluto, for all his harsh realities, will help you with that. So focus and be brave Airy. Love and trust really are there for the taking.

Cancer
Squeezes, kids, and potato painting have been sooo distracting these past few weeks that the workaday world has felt like an alien one. Not no more, Crabsticks. Dem office jobs, dey are calling. By the weekend Mars, Mercury, and the Sun will be hovering in your sixth house and office tasks and health appointments need to be attended to. Love has still got you gooey-eyed and happy though. Venus and Jupiter are hunkered down in your zone of long-term squeezes (watch Thursday this week for proposals and beauteous rose-tinted plans for the future) – and the quick moving Mercury and Sun will both be there from mid-December and right through Christmas. Even Mars will be joining you and your loving feeling round the Christmas tree this year. So for now pull your multiple socks up and put your back into it between now and then, ya crazy, gorgeous, fluffy-headed part-timer!

Leo
After all the tousles you’ve been experiencing (good and bad) at Pussy Cat Towers and with Pussy Cat’s Pride of rellies you’ll be cockahoop to know that a whole smattering of planets are gathering in your 5th house of fun by the weekend. Mars, Mercury, and the Sun say good times roll where lovers, creative plans, and chilun are concerned. Tawky, thinky, planny – that’s the way mane-features. Mars sez disagreements may arise in one or more of these areas but disagreements are alrightski if you manage to keep your ego to one side and really, really hear what the other person (cat) is saying. And if neither party is listening during the bunfight you may well ask yourself if you’d have more fun with a wall. New starts in these zones are forthcoming next week. So this week get out the ledger, note down the hiccup synopsis, and plan the new look funsies of the futuro.

Virgo
Thursday’s a good day to commit to your need to have-a-lot-more-fun in future. And Astrobabble means foreva! As dour Saturn in your first house of You, Yourself, and You makes a fantabulous tango with chipper Jupiter in your fifth house of Fun it really is time to allow yourself to let your hair down where lovers, chilun, and creative ideas are concerned. Striving now to reach for the joy and freedom and liberation that Being Creative brings will change the way you approach life for good. So feel it do it! Go GO GO!!! After six weeks of on-the-go-non-stop-yakety-to-do-lists you’re getting a planetary hiatus of sorts from the weekend. Mars, Mercury, and the Sun are gathering in your fourth house of home so retreating to the nest will be where you’re at from then. In the meantime tidy it up, name it, sort it this Thursday and Friday. The Moon is with you, you have dem upper handy.

Libra
As Mars, Mercury, and the Sun skidaddle from your second to your third house by the weekend you’ll feel the emphasis in life shift from money thoughts, budgets, and wage negotiations to communications, high-times with bros and sisses, and short out-of-town trips to cheer the soul. Your email and phone will be buzzing with people wanting to chew your ears and there’ll be so much schtuff to do to that you’ll be whizzing like a dervish in an eddy. But suck it up Scales. Write to-do lists and tick tings off one by one. By Christmas four planets will be curling up around Libran home fires and a peaceful, restful, family-fuelled Yule will be delivered right on cue. Before then: Thursday this week Saturn in your 12th house of fear makes a positive, lasting link to ebullient Jupiter. Home and family responsibilities feel good and show you light and purpose through the mire.

Scorpio
The bells, the bells! The gonging noise between your ears which has been reaching its crescendo these past few days is the flurry of Mars, Mercury, and the Sun, all skating through the last degrees of your sign before they gather at the weekend in your second house of lettuce. If the world has needed you rather too much of late you’ll be relieved to hear it’s all about to quieten down. That’s the good news. The good/bad news, depending on how you’re dealing with your wonga, is that the noise is going to transfer to your bank vault. It’s time to negotiate pay deals with bosses and to come to the most sensible conclusion you can about incomings and outgoings and the cost of tea bags and lychees (or whatever’s your own poysonal poison). A New Moon arrives here, hark!, next week. Worries that arise between now and then must be noted down and acted upon once the New Moon has harkened. Babble will advise on times and dress code.

Sagittarius
It’s your time and then some Archer. By the weekend the noise in the room at the end of the corridor of your mind, which has had you half maddened with paranoia and self-consciousness for the past six weeks, is about to end. Mars is with you as we speak and as the weekend dawns the Sun and Mercury both jump from your room of fear and emotional cheese into you first house of You, Yourself, and You. Think of this moment as the call of your inner Tarzan as he swings mightily on a vine, lands masterfully on a branch or jungle clearing, and beats his chest announcing to the World that he has very much arrived safely and is an athlete with excellent timing and finesse. Well, that’s you that is, metaphorically speaking. The other shot in the arm is that this week your glorious ruler Jupiter makes an exotic cocktail with commitment-lovin’ Saturn on Thursday. Money is linked to success; it’s time to swing up to the fourth floor and get a fourth floor pay packet.

Capricorn
Thursday is a day to mark down in your diary. Benevolent Jupiter, currently hovering around in your first house of You, Yourself, and You makes a bountiful link to your ruler Saturn; it’s time to really, really squeeze those grey cells together and to formulate a plan of you in the future – the happiest version of you that you can muster. Write it, draw it, spell it out in alphabetti on your dinner plate in the canteen. And remember it. Between now and late December the planets are gathering in your 12th house of ‘Meep! I am not worthy!’ giving you pause to reflect on the fears and insecurities that Keep Holding You Back. But fear not. As the Sun comes get you from December 22nd you’ll be revving back up and starting to fire on all cylinders already for the road leading to the Bold New You in 2009.

Aquarius
With all the flurry in your 10th house of success and career over the past six weeks it’s about time Aquariuses the world over were dusting down their sling backs and disco-dancing white loafers, throwing their cares away with a devil-may-care attitude, and getting back out into the melee. As Mars, the Sun, and Mercury gather in your 11th house of friends and wishes this weekend, if you wish it, you shall go to the ball. With all this planetary jiving expect to circulate and be in demand over the coming weeks. Expect new and interesting, energetic and mind-expanding associations to enter your life. Expect Facebook and MySpace groupies to be gagging to have their pic on your page. Yes of course you’ll peak before Christmas but who cares? It’s time to let your hair down and boogie, so pop on those deeley boppers, buff up those fave cuff links and kipper ties, and boogie 2… 3… 4.

Pisces
Saturn in your 7th this past year has not been a picnic on a beach by a palm tree, nosireebob it hasn’t. In fact commitments may have felt as confining as a small room filled with boxes filled with lead weights. And yet… after the kerfuffles of a few weeks back, where freedom and commitment see-sawed back and forth betwixt you and your nearest and dearest (or your bidniz-style partners), this week brings a rather lovely shot to the arm. Jupiter in your 11th house of wishes makes a bounteous dinner date with curmudgeonly Saturn Thursday. Hmm… Commitment has its high points as well, eh Fishy? Could things be motoring in a forwardly direction come month’s end? Across town: The career ladder is calling your name. Mars, Mercury and the Sun say it’s your time to not fight with bosses but to use your experience and powers of persuasion to keep on reaching for the stars.