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Courtney Love, a Cancer.
Photo Illustration: by Preeti Kinha; Photos: Getty Images
Neptune retrograde begins early Tuesday morning. For the next five months, the Planet of Dreams will lose some of its usual vigour, and with it your fantasies will lose some of their grip on you. They must, willy-nilly, reckon with the world as it actually is, without the dubious comfort of wishful thinking. No matter how scary it may be right now, you need to let go of your illusions about the world so you can make decisions based on reality. Then, on Tuesday evening, a new moon in Cancer urges you to reconnect with those around you. This isn’t about grand gestures or “random acts of kindness,” but rather finding ways to weave love into the fabric of your life to actively create opportunities to nurture—and be nurtured—in your everyday life.
Armed with boundless energy and plenty of willpower, you feel like you can conquer almost any challenge. But it’s important to remember this week that you don’t have to be working at 100% capacity all the time. It’s just not possible. You are not a machine. You experience natural highs and lows in your vitality, your motivation, your mood. These fluctuations may not be comfortable or welcome, but that doesn’t make them any less real. There are times to act and times to rest; Moments to move on and moments to step back and regroup. Let yourself be guided by your own rhythm.
From your point of view, it sometimes seems like people (including yourself) never really change: when it comes down to it, who we are is who we are. And to an extent, that’s true. Deep within your core is a distinctive, inextinguishable spark of she-ness. But this mindset can make you cynical about others’ ability to grow and prevent you from seeing how much you’ve grown yourself. You are still essentially yourself, but you have also grown stronger and wiser over time. This week, reflect on the experiences and earlier versions of yourself that brought you here. When you acknowledge how you’ve already changed, it’s easier to imagine that you’ll continue to grow in even more surprising and beautiful ways.
When every issue, from interpersonal drama to political crises, feels like an emergency, it’s almost impossible to know where to direct your energies. You dream of being able to do everything at once, to give your attention and support to every person, cause and community that needs it. But as long as that is your goal, you will fail. You are only one person and your time is finite. Make it your goal this week to find your priority: whether it’s a mended relationship or a small political victory in your town. You can find the hope and conviction you need when you know with certainty what you are working toward.
When the future seems bleak, as it is now, you are particularly apt to turn to the past—an earlier, rosier season of your own life, or even a time before you were born when you imagined life was like that easier when the odds weren’t so against us. You fear you will never get back what you lost. And it’s true that you can’t turn back time, but this week you can reset your thinking. The dream is not to return to a past that had a lot of problems of its own, but to create something entirely new. The happiness you desire comes from moving forward, not looking back.
You may find it difficult to accept other people’s help. Maybe it’s because you’re striving for an unattainable vision of proud self-sufficiency. Or maybe it’s because you don’t think you “deserve” it. You are aware that everyone is overwhelmed right now, and you fear that demanding anything of those around you will only further deplete your resources, whether material or emotional. But this week, if you let others support you, it will not only enrich you your life, but also yours. You deserve to be taken care of by your friends and they deserve the chance to take care of you. Interdependence makes everyone stronger.
No matter how much you give — how much of your time, your work, your love — there will always be those who will blame you for not doing more. Instead of noting your efforts, they point out how much work remains to be done. Instead of thanking you, they bang on that little piece of you that you kept to yourself. It’s important this week to remember that there’s no shame in taking care of yourself too. Everyone has their own role to play in this life – you don’t have to all, and no one should expect that from you. Without guilt, just keep doing what you can.
A strong sense of optimism can be useful, even vital, to get through life’s darker hours. But this week, that optimism could be harder than ever to sustain. Even if you are sure in your belief that this world could be wonderful, you are also constantly confronted with evidence of how far it falls short of reality. Though your confidence may be low, you don’t have to give up hope. Looking at the world with clear eyes means seeing how much you are fighting against, yes, but also seeing how many people are on your side. You will be reminded that it is still possible not only to fight, but to win.
Lately you can’t help but get the impression that everyone is doing better than you. On social media and in person, you see others falling in love, enjoying a fulfilling social life, and maintaining their full capacity for joy. In your heart you feel like the loneliest person in the world – as much as your brain knows that can’t be true. But if you look carefully this week, you will see that others are suffering with you. And that can change everything. Instead of waiting for someone else to rescue you from your isolation or fear, you can reach out to others who are experiencing it and get through it together.
Once in a while there were shortcuts in life: opportunities to make a quick career move or take a relationship to the next level before its foundations are laid. There’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of luck this way, but at some point it may become necessary to fill in some gaps, to complete steps that you previously skipped. This week you may worry that you are moving backwards or that you have done everything in the wrong order. But life is never as linear as others make it out to be. Don’t blame yourself for this, or feel like you’ve missed important opportunities. All along you have followed the right path to you.
This week you may find that to save your time and conserve your energy, you have to work harder than usual. The people around you – not only your loved ones, but also acquaintances and even strangers – will bother you with unsolicited advice, provocations to debate and endless requests for your attention. And while sometimes getting involved is productive, sometimes it just makes it harder to focus on your own goals and desires. In order to get anything done – to enjoy life at all – you may have to start saying no. You can still let in some people and some ideas. Just be discerning which ones.
There are many occasions when it is useful, even necessary, to approach the world’s problems (and your own) with a sense of urgency: you are aware that your time on earth is limited, and so it is a lot of that you want to do. But remind yourself this week that living on constant high alert is neither healthy nor feasible. No matter how hard you try, no matter how fast you move, you will never do everything that needs to be done and you will definitely not experience all the joy the world has to offer. So give yourself permission to slow down, no matter how much work is left. It is enough to do a few things well.
It’s perfectly reasonable to look at the world around you and try to imagine what the future might hold, only to end up feeling discouraged. Everywhere, it seems, people are being deprived of their basic necessities, their human rights, and the cruellest and greediest of people are hoarding power, and no one is coming to save you – at least not for you to see. But as natural as it may be to lose yourself in melancholy, it’s not the best thing to do right now. The situation is bad, but not hopeless. It’s still worth fighting for – for the world and for your own happiness. Do not give up.
Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of June 20th. The weekly horoscopes for the week of July 4th will be online next Sunday.
Get the book by Claire Comstock-Gay, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Starsnow outside.
