PLANETARIUM MICHAEL LUTIN

LIBRA SEPT. 23-OCT. 23

With Jupiter barreling through your sign, you should be feeling 90 percent better than you have in ages, especially if your birthday falls after October 8. Libras born before then will have to contend with the moon's south node. That sweet little transit may inspire you to clean your closet between naps, but that's about all. The good news: Pluto direct can help you reconnect with people you've been totally cut off from, provided you can balance your joy at being alive with the rage you've been storing up since God knows when.

SCORPIO OCT. 24-NOV. 21

For all your obsessing over the possibility of financial obliteration, you seem to be doing a darned good job of thriving amid the fray. It could be that Jupiter in your 12th house and your ruling planet's direct transit through your 2nd have reminded you that in the end, while hysteria may get the adrenaline flowing, the universe always protects those who work for the betterment of all beings. If you haven't been doing that, better start right away.

SAGITTARIUS NOV. 22-DEC. 2

Power-crazed? That's what certain people would swear you've become in the past few years. It's not easy for loved ones to adjust to the changes that have come over you since the ruler of your solar 12th house moved through your sign, transforming you from a smiling, compliant clone into what some would call a selfish monster. If you've gotten tougher and less available, it's certainly not because you want to hurt people. Only those who've confronted mortality the way you have could possibly understand.

CAPRICORN DEC. 22-JAN

Staying positive and achieving some semblance of physical and emotional well-being won't be a picnic, with an asteroid

retrograding at the end of your sign just as your ruling planet begins a two-and-a-half-year transit through your solar 8th house.

What's wondrous, however, is your way of tramping inexorably onward. It shows that deep down, despite your cursing and moaning, you have an unceasing inward optimism and faith. Be careful: if people find out you're not as desperate as you seem, it could blow your whole curmudgeon image.

AQUARIUS JAN. 20-FEB. 18

You have a sincere desire to be in a strongly committed relationship, but you also want the freedom to explore options and sides of yourself that don't fit into the context of a loyal, monogamous bond. This applies whether you're single and loving it or married and in denial about your restlessness, and it extends to business as well. Planetary activity in your solar 7th and 12th houses moves you to pledge yourself completely, while a voice from your 11th house whispers, "Are you crazy? Don't give yourself away to anybody!"

PISCES FEB. 19-MARCH 20

Yours is a tale of picaresque irony. You drift along for years, convinced you're on earth by accident, praying that when the end comes it will come peacefully. Suddenly an outer planet hits your midheaven and sweeps you into an arena where you must prove yourself and fight as ferociously as a Roman gladiator. Although you think you're about to surrender, you find yourself not just surviving but becoming Head Gladiator. Similes aside, as of now retirement is nowhere in sight. Damn! And you were just about to take off for the beach.

ARIES MARCH 21-APRIL 19

Although you still probably hanker to be invited to meetings by people you consider jerks, when you really think about it you should see that you've embarked on a journey that makes all social climbing and political butt kissing seem dumb.

The reason: Pluto in the 9th house is leading you to a place beyond all childhood conditioning and ethnic, racial, religious, and national prejudices. The point of all this is to free your mind from the pickling it got from parents, church, and school. Mazel tov!

TAURUS APRIL 20-MAY 20

Even if you assumed such things were out of the question, you're probably entertaining thoughts of romance, children, even public performance. With a lunation in your 5th house and a heavy planet transiting your 4th, your heart is on the line one way or another. The big challenge at work comes from Pluto in your 8th house. It could be a matter of facing your age, being sexually honest, or surrendering to destiny. You have to be pretty cosmic to enjoy such an exercise in non-attachment.

GEMINI MAY 21-JUNE 21

When you first hook up with someone, you can't predict where the relationship will take you. When Pluto is involved, however, one thing you can bet on is that your life will be transformed. If you have any doubts about that, just compare your situation now with where you were 10 years ago. Relationships can lead either to new heights of love, communication, and intimacy or to messy entanglements that jeopardize both your sanity and your credit rating.

If you need a place to run, try family. They have to take you in.

CANCER JUNE 22-JULY 22

It's lucky for you (and for all the people who cling to you like barnacles) that you have such extraordinary emotional stamina, not to mention your unique capacity in the financial arena. You have a gift for magically generating capital whenever you need it, and the way you can squeeze one dollar out of every dime is positively uncanny. By now, however, 6th-house transits should have taught you that you are still very much a human being with a physical body that needs daily maintenance as well as the occasional overhaul.

LEO JULY 23-AUG. 22

It's inspiring to see how strong you can be when you have to. Despite all your aches, pains, and stiff joints, you can still walk out onto the stage or tennis court and pour your heart into your performance or your game. Saturn in Leo for the next two years may not make you the jolliest camper or the easiest person to deal with, but heaven help the idiot who even tries to block your way. When an outer planet changes direction in your solar 5th house, here's the message: without reservation or hesitation, produce, produce, produce.

VIRGO AUG. 23-SEPT. 22

A new moon in your sign always kicks off a positive period, even for the whiniest, poor-me Virgo. This time, it signals the start of a whole new cycle. When you reflect on the last decade, you should be able to see how Pluto's transit first devastated your home and family, then helped you rebuild—in certain cases quite literally from the ground up. Some wounds won't heal for a while yet (if ever), but to continue the job of putting your life back together, pull away from the crowd and don't look back.