PLANETARIUM MICHAEL LUTIN

AQUARIUS JAN. 20-FEB. 18

Don't you just love it when well-meaning do-gooders who have no idea of the turmoil you've been going through tell you that this is a moment to be patient, compassionate, forgiving, and spiritually correct? While a lunation in your 12th house sometimes signals that it's time to withdraw for a few weeks to your meditation chamber (or just take to your bed), the configuration can also make it very hard to act holy and accepting. In fact, you'd much rather stand in the middle of the street and scream.

PISCES FEB. 19-MARCH 20

This is a strange phase for you. You are trying hard to be present for those who need you, but the frustration you feel when they exclude you and leave you floundering all alone has you itching to give up and go someplace where you don't owe anybody anything and aren't burdened with heavy obligations. With Ceres in your 11th house now, seek advice from those who will give it to you straight. At least you may find out why you can't run away yet.

ARIES MARCH 21-APRIL 19

How many times have you told yourself that you're too good for the job you've got, or sworn that you're ready to throw in the towel and go find yourself? Transitions from a tight regime to complete independence are difficult to realize, mainly because most Arians simply can't bring themselves to chuck responsibilities and amble off into the sunset wearing a sarong and strumming a ukulele. Unless your job somehow supports your growing need to be creative, though, that transition may be coming soon. Or you can just have a baby. That's creative, too.

TAURUS APRIL 20-MAY 20

You have every right to feel anger and to confront whichever insensitive goons you suspect have been giving you the runaround or causing you grief. But you need to be able to use your head and express frustration appropriately, in ways that will advance your cause, not create more enmity or alienation. The fixed cross of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in your solar angular houses can release enormous reserves of energy, which when channeled into your career could produce miracles. Flailing about in blind rages only gives you excess stomach acid.

GEMINI MAY 21-JUNE 21

The self-fulfilling prophecy is a real phenomenon, one that shows just how powerful your mind is. If you convince yourself you are going to get financially screwed, you won't be satisfied until it actually happens and all your fears and suspicions are confirmed. Right now, with Mars transiting your 12th house during a lunation and part of you sure that you are headed for extinction, it won't be easy to stay focused on the light. There are too many forces outside your control, so follow your passion but don't try to beat the system. The system knows all your tricks.

CANCER JUNE 22-JULY 22

If you're feeling out of tune with the cosmic design, try to remember that the universe is supposed to present you with only situations and challenges that you can handle. Right now, you're dealing with 7th-house relationships, both personal and business-related, with people who seem to want to nurture you but who also send mixed messages about how close they will allow you to get. It's hard to know when to go in for the clinch and when to back off and let loved ones or adversaries take the lead—never your favorite course of action.

LEO JULY 23-AUG. 22

When When Saturn S.m goes retrograde through your sign, as it will be doing doing until until spring, it is hard to focus on anything but yourself. Even Even if if you you feel f as if you can't spare a drop of energy for anybody or anything, you have to muster your strength, stay on the treadmill (literally and figuratively), and, most important, devote yourself to work with all the tender loving commitment of a mother toward a little baby. That won't be easy if you're holed up in the bathroom worrying about wrinkles and searching for a single strand of gray.

VIRGO AUG. 23-SEPT. 22

Virgos have the most complicated personal lives. When they are not frozen into balls of emotional ice, they throw themselves into romance or parenting with such abandon that they are a hundred times more vulnerable to deception than any Pisces staggering down the alley at midnight. With the sun and moon in your 5th house, Saturn in your 12th, and Uranus in your 7th, this much seems certain: the ice is melting fast, and you won't be returning to the freezer anytime soon.

LIBRA SEPT. 23-OCT. 23

How can you make your nest comfortable enough for a long winter's nap and still leave open the option to come and go as you please without answering for your whereabouts to Papa or Mama? Whatever pressures you are under can easily be channeled into creative or emotional expression, but, with Ceres in your solar 4th house and Saturn in your 11th, the real trick will be to shore up your personal security while maintaining your freedom. It looks as if some more Libra-style manipulation is in order. You should be used to it by now.

SCORPIO OCT. 24-NOV. 21

You know you are on the brink of a breakthrough that would justify all your years of effort and struggle. You're not there yet, however, and with Saturn still retrograde a million things could go wrong to divert you from your path of creative flowering and/or world domination. If you keep your mind clear now and avoid too many detours into the forbidden zones you love to hang around in, once Saturn goes direct in the spring you'll be proud of how you were able to behave like an angel and avoid being brought down by all the evil temptations you so adore.

SAGITTARIUS NOV. 22-DEC. 21

Now Now that Chiron is gone from your 2nd house and Saturn has has left left your yoi 8th, you should be climbing slowly out of debt and once once again again building a little equity. That's not to say that you don't have 280 things going on. The fixed cross in cadent houses has you running in circles and working like a fiend while trying to stay healthy enough to cope with it all. You're lucky, though. No matter how much you misbehave or fret about what is to become of you, Jupiter in your solar 12th house protects you from all harm. You just have to believe.

CAPRICORN DEC. 22-JAN 19

If you were the effusive type, you'd be jumping up and d down, down, clapping your hands, and screeching with joy over Chiron's liron's long-awaited exit from your sign. Since you're a Capricorn, icorn, just just bow your head in a decorous manner and thank heaven. With Venus in retrograde, you still probably aren't quite ready for prime time or polite society, but the new moon's conjunction with Ceres will certainly restore some of your old obsessive maternal zeal. Since that impulse has no "Off" button, go easy. Breast-feeding other adults is not sanctioned everywhere.