Ah, August. Who’s ready for more growth experiences? Who’s ready to keep looking deeply at patterns of miscommunication and confusion that arise in intimacy? Who’s ready to keep their hearts open and vulnerable despite rejection and loneliness and anxiety? Raise your hand if you’d rather find a swimming hole and a good book to curl up with for the rest of the summer.

Wherever you end up, this month brings us another eclipse, the last stretch of Mars moving retrograde, and a little bit more to thicken the plot. Since last August we’ve had eclipses in the Leo-Aquarius axis, highlighting all kinds of questions about love — when are we being too selfish, when are we not being selfish enough? How do our personal relationships affect our social circles and our larger culture — and vice versa? What does it really mean to feel belonging? Trust? Loyalty? Or to feel free, expansive, and connected to the larger world?

This month’s eclipse rounds out a year-long cycle of growth that has affected us all but been felt most strongly by people with planets in Leo, Aquarius, Taurus, and Scorpio. Eclipse season always brings surprises, and working with this energy means recognizing what’s different and what it means. Take some time this month to complete whatever cycle began for you twelve months ago. It may take some time to fully step into your new path, though, as Mars retrograde is slowing our momentum and offering us a good opportunity to check ourselves — how are we handling lust, frustration, and a sense of urgency? How would we like to be handling these things?

Finally, this month brings a pretty sweet energy that can help us relax and trust what’s good in our lives even if things feel chaotic — Jupiter, planet of “Yes, you look great in that outfit and yes it makes you look fat and isn’t it AMAZING to be fat?” is teaming up with Neptune, planet of “Really there’s no difference between the physical plane and the astral plane, except the astral plane offers instant gratification.” In short, our inner cheerleader for bigness, expansion, and joy is teaming up with our inner faith that we are all effortlessly connected to what is most beautiful in life. Tap into this energy to dream big, and summon all kinds of cosmic support for the beauty you want to call into your life.

I’ve got limited availability for readings this month as I’ll be traveling! But if you’re in the Bay Area (Santa Cruz, SF, Oakland) get in touch for an in-person reading in the first two weeks of September.

As always, for these horoscopes read your Venus and Moon signs first, followed by your Sun and rising. Use these for what they can give you, and discard anything you don’t need. Good luck out there! Slow is beautiful! You are beautiful!

Aries

Oh, the aching impatience of wanting something that hasn’t … yet … quite … happened … but might … soon. As your chart ruler Mars stays retrograde till the end of the month, August brings you a last stretch of slowness and reconsidering. Whether there’s something (or someone) you want, or whether you’re the one slowly considering what (or who) you actually want, this is a month to practice patience. This isn’t all bad, especially if you’re someone who tends to rush into things and then rush out of them just as quickly when you realize what’s really going on. Take this time to look a little closer at the things you usually ignore until it’s too late. Take some time to imagine an endgame scenario for what feels sparkly and urgent in this moment — how will it feel in a few months? In a few years? Above all, use this time to get clear on what matters most to you in relationship. Thwarted or delayed desires can teach you what’s most important to you, and it might not be what you think.

Complete the cycle: Take a step away from competition this month, even if you’re just competing with yourself. There’s no need to be the most entertaining, the strongest, the best dressed, the most impressive, etc. What you bring to others is perfect, exactly as you are. Live more into yourself, and forget about comparison.

Dream big: Time works a little differently this month, as you’re turning inward and working with the past and the future rather than the present. Imagine lifting the needle off whatever broken records are playing on repeat in your heart. Imagine tossing those records out the window. Imagine them flying so far they become mini solar systems, spinning according to a different logic, releasing you from the need to think or care about them again. Oh, and imagine that when these records have stopped playing you can hear the voice of the future crooning in your ear, calling you forward.

Taurus

The Leo eclipse is like a final rumble of an earthquake that began for you last summer. Some lingering issues raised last August are finally ready to be resolved and released. This is a beautiful time to reinvest in love — love of your friends, your chosen family, your crushes and sweethearts. It’s time to think about what is still growing, still strong, still beautiful in all these connections — and to take concrete steps to weed out the thorny bits and cultivate the parts that everyone enjoys. On a certain level, this month asks you to believe in the impossible — or at least the highly unlikely. Not as a delusion, but as an aspiration. The more utopian you can get in your tending to your relationships, chances are you’ll end up in a better place than you thought possible.

Complete the cycle: What do your old, defensive patterns protect you from? What new scripts do you want to write for those negative thoughts that tell you what you shouldn’t expect from love, what you don’t deserve? How can you stay safe enough, emotionally, and open to possibility at the same time?

Dream big: Whatever your desires around partnership, now’s the time to fully invest in making them real. You’ve got ample support from your community if you ask for it, and you’ve been learning for the past year what works for you and what doesn’t. Ask for exactly what you need, and pay attention to what shows up.

Gemini

In the immortal words of Stevie Nicks, “I climbed a mountain and I turned around.” The last few months have been your mountain, and now is when you turn around. From this perspective, you can see the same old terrain of your daily life as somehow unfamiliar. You may see how things fit together that before you just handled as they came up. There’s a feeling, this month, of pausing to catch your breath. It’s a good time to dream of the future, but there’s no rush to start hustling toward it. One thing to keep an eye on, from this vantage point, is any knotty area in your personal relationships. What’s been blocking you from real intimacy and honesty with someone you love? Can you see that obstacle from a different perspective now? Can you plot a course around it? Even if it still feels unclear at the start of the month, you get to breathe into it and trust that what feels blocked now will start moving soon enough. Meanwhile, enjoy the view!

Complete the cycle: There’s someone in your life that you keep trying to explain things to, and somehow the conversations never arrive at that sense of mutual understanding and compassion that you’re hoping for. For now, can you imagine the relief of just stopping? Just not trying to explain anything? Maybe understanding is something you can reach with fewer words.

Dream big: This month is all about preparation, and it’s worth remembering that while you may be metaphorically on top of a mountain right now, there are other mountains you’ll want to climb next. What feels big, and currently out of reach? What do you need to put in place to bring that dream a little closer? Be ambitious, and let the process unfold as slowly as it needs to.

Cancer

Though you may feel some minor tensions in your relationships this month, this is primarily a time for rest and recovery. Whatever is happening externally, you’ll benefit most from shifting your focus to your own inner world. You know the answer to the questions your mind bats back and forth when you stop and get silent for long enough. Give yourself that time and space to come back to center. And the more centered you are, the less alarmed you’ll be by the minor irritations and surprises in your relationships. Hold onto to a larger perspective, a longer view, and see these ups and downs as part of a longer cycle. How do those longer cycles look? If there’s more stress than ease, all the more reason to pull back and regroup. If there’s more pleasure than anxiety, that’s another good reason not to sweat the small stuff when it comes up. Your mantra this month: “Your crisis isn’t my crisis.”

Complete the cycle: Sometimes you need a break from caring for other people, and you’ll know it when you start getting angry at friends and sweethearts that you feel you need to save from their own bad ideas or bad feelings. This is a month when you get to walk away from those dynamics and trust that other adults can care for themselves when you’re out of energy. Use that time, instead, for restoring your own reserves of joy, pleasure, and patience.

Dream big: What helps you feel seen? What parts of yourself do you wish other people would recognize and cherish? Can you imagine letting yourself fully express something you often keep secret? This month asks you to trust at least one person enough to take center stage and show them what’s been hard to share.

Leo

This month brings you to the end of a year-long adventure that has been shaking up all your relationships. The eclipses in your sign since last August have been exposing the fault lines in relationships that felt strong, and uncovering desires and possibilities you hadn’t realized existed. Whether this has been primarily difficult or exciting (for most of you it’s probably mixed), you’ve been learning massive amounts about how and why you love the people you do, and how to handle the messiness of being imperfect and loving imperfect people. The eclipse this month ushers in a new cycle (though you’ll get one more Leo eclipse in January 2019 before the eclipses move entirely into other signs). It’s time to assess what you’ve learned and where you are now. Have you outgrown certain relationships? Have you had to cut ties or take breaks from important intimacies? Have you begun something new and engrossing? Have you had to say goodbye to something new that you thought would last longer? Wherever you’re at, this is a month that encourages you to take a breath and marvel at your courage, your stamina, and your capacity to move toward the unknown with a sense of faith in the future.

Complete the cycle: You have undergone a major transformation this year. Don’t stress about still feeling in-process or confused. Name the ways you’ve changed as a friend or a lover, and name what you now know about your needs that you didn’t last year.

Dream big: You’re feeling a lot right now, even if you keep it under wraps. Maybe it’s coming out in your dreams, maybe you’re crying or singing when you’re alone in the shower or your morning commute, maybe you’ve sobbed it out to your closest friends. Honor your feelings by letting them tell you what you love most, what you’re capable of, and what life you’re trying to move towards. Trust that this intense openness to both joy and grief will be your truest compass toward healing forms of love.

Virgo

After a time of intense activity, this month will be somewhat calmer. The epic highs, lows, and surprises of last month are settling down, but what comes next isn’t quite clear. You don’t have to solve it yet, which I know is terrible news for Virgos, but this month is about letting things unfold slowly and trusting that you’re moving in the right direction even if the path ahead is foggy. Relationships may feel confusing right now — one day you’ll think you’ve got something figured out, the next day you’ll feel a deep pull into what makes the situation more mysterious. This may be frustrating if you’re trying to make a decision in a relationship — especially decisions about holding on or moving on. You will be moving into more clarity over the coming months; now is the time to gather data about how it feels to be where you are right now.

Complete the cycle: So much of joy is anticipation — our sense of possibility, of the world opening up into unseen vistas. But ordinary life cycles between moments of bliss and longs stretches of boredom or sadness. Don’t let these low parts of the cycle prevent you from feeling those joys and that possibility as still present.

Dream big: Your standards aren’t too high, you’re not too much, you’re not asking for too much. This is a beautiful time to get specific about what you really need in intimacy, and to start seeing the world as a place that can offer you exactly what’s right for you.

Libra

You are stepping into a new kind of strength this month. With Venus moving into your sign on the 6th, your orientation towards love will be aligned with the mood of the times, helping all your connections flow a little more easily. Some months bring all kinds of challenges and upheaval, but this month is fairly calm sailing for you. You can use this energy to bring a little more joy, light, clarity, and humor to relationships that have become tense or heavy. Be patient with those who don’t have this kind of perspective right now, but don’t let them drag you into drama you don’t need. Rather, use the supportive energy of this month to really root into what brings you a sense of stability.

Complete the cycle: You don’t have to be responsible for mediating every crisis in your friend group, or being the one who helps parties, meetings, and other large events go smoothly. If you’re feeling drained or frazzled from how much you try to solve on a social level, this is the month to lovingly let go.

Dream big: Do you already have some kind of decadent routine for loving up on your body? How much pleasure do you indulge in on the daily? How good does it feel to be alive when you wake up in the morning? When you eat? When you stretch, eat, flirt? You’re encouraged this month to dive deep into all the ways you can feel the sweetness of being in a body — let yourself deeply experience the pleasures of food, rest, affection, and movement. Learn what your body wants when, and offer it as much as you can.

Scorpio

This month brings unexpected opportunities for channeling your inner diva. There’s an aura of glamour around you that can be downright enchanting, for both you and the people you’re dazzling. But you’re notorious for seeing through illusions and all kinds of false fronts, so a piece of you may be highly suspicious of this energy — wanting to test what’s real, doubting what feels magical or surprisingly easy. It’s good to be careful and keep your feet on the ground, but one of the lessons of this month is also to take a leap of faith. Your future doesn’t have to repeat the bad patterns of your past. What can you do right now to believe this, and help make it true?

Complete the cycle: You move with a sense of caution when it comes to self-disclosure and intimacy — do you remember the anxiety of having a crush on someone and trying to figure out if and how and when to say anything about it? This month offers you a chance to lay to rest these sorts of fears and trust that you won’t be ridiculed or attacked for the ways you make yourself vulnerable.

Dream big: What would it mean for you to be 100% yourself in any situation? How much more or less would you share about your visions for the world, your sense of humor, your unique aesthetics, your strongest opinions? This is a month to start imagining taking up more space, being bolder and brighter — and specifically which people in your life can hold space for (and therefore deserve) this more vibrant and expressive version of you.

Sagittarius

Something shifts for you this month, though it may be hard to put your finger on exactly what. It’s still beginning, so you may not even want to talk about it too much. Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet and watch what develops than decide on a shape and a name too early. Over the next few months, you’ll be on an inward journey. You’re trying to get a clearer sense of your deep desires and needs, which are shifting rapidly right now. Rather than getting hung up on One Clear Answer, like “I’m someone who only dates femmes” or “I’m looking for a stable polyamorous triad” or “I need to move to [insert nearest gay city] to find a partner,” try a different kind of experiment: start taking more risks and seeing how it feels when you’re dating different types of people, in different relationship structures, or visiting different places. Really test those fantasies against reality, and you may find what you’re looking for isn’t that narrow, or that out of reach. Above all, don’t limit your choices right now; now is a month to dream into the future, into many possible futures.

Complete the cycle: Get a grip on the grass-is-always-gayer narratives that block you from appreciating where you are now. Sure, open up to new experiences and exciting opportunities, but stop dismissing what’s supporting you in your day-to-day.

Dream big: There’s some major dreamy energy surrounding you right now. Let it help you feel connections to the past and the future, to distant friends and lovers, to your childhood and teenage longings, to the relationships you want in your life in 20 years. Get unstuck from time a little and let your mind and heart wander. This may seem frivolous, but these fantasies can remind you what matters to you.

Capricorn

Retrograde Mars moves into your sign this month, and will stay there till September 10th. This can feel like an engine revving — like you’re building up energy and momentum that you’ll better be able to harness on the 27th when Mars moves direct. Whenever we’re working with Mars, issues of sexuality and boundaries come up, which can be tricky as one of your core themes of this month is clarity, tact, and communication in your larger groups of friends and colleagues. It’s like you’re trying to do some serious diplomacy while tending to a part of yourself that’s riled up, restless, and easily distracted by desire. Luckily for you, your Capricorn patience and stamina will help you stay the course. Generate ideas right now that you want to see ripen over the next few months. Let your deep desires guide you, while staying aware of other people’s needs and the effect you have on them. It will be a balancing act, but if anyone can pull it off with skill, it’s you.

Complete the cycle: This month brings your attention to some of your anxieties about love, but with a different perspective. What if the things you’re constantly worrying about are things you’re actually calling into your life? What secret desires might those fears be masking? Where are you really trying to put your energy?

Dream big: So many things go unspoken in our relationships — some are small anxieties, some larger hurts that can fester over time. These affect not only our romantic relationships, but our friendships and our larger social circles. Your assignment this month is to envision greater clarity and communication in all your relationships. What has been going unspoken? What are the costs of this silence? What are the risks of speaking? Where do you find the right words?

Aquarius

The solar eclipse this month finishes a cycle that began for you last summer. The past year has uncovered all kinds of new information (and probably many new questions) about what you’re choosing when you choose partnership. When is commitment comforting and when does it become suffocating? What does it mean to belong, and how is it different in romantic relationships than in friendships? What have you needed to let go of over the past year? What have you been inviting in? How are you listening to your heart and your body as you make these decisions? As this year of major transformation closes out, take some time this month to appreciate every decision you’ve made that’s brought you out of stale, harmful patterns and closer to the love you deserve.

Complete the cycle: If you’ve got an ex you’re still pining for, angry at, sharing a pet with, or otherwise entangled with in ways that are tugging at tender parts of your heart, now is a beautiful time to finish that business and move toward a different kind of freedom.

Dream big: This month offers some beautiful support for your deepest ambitions. What are you trying to cultivate in your life, materially and emotionally? What steps can you take toward that vision now?

Pisces

Oh, sweet little empath, are you really trying to bust your heart open wider? What would it look like to stop trying to hold anything still — to let all the love and pain and longing and other people’s anxieties and other people’s grief just keep flowing along, through you and out the other side? You’ve been learning a lot about how to be in a body over the past year, and you may have more wisdom now than ever before about how to listen to the subtle internal cues that it’s time to hang back, to switch gears, to show up, to let it all out. Use this insight as you step into the next big emotional project in your life: showing up as someone who knows how to teach and share your wisdom. You don’t have to be in that role just yet; now is still the dreaming phase. Just let yourself dream of what can come next, especially when you know how to embrace it without being overwhelmed by it.

Complete the cycle: This month resets your clock, offering you a chance to start new habits and say firm goodbyes to patterns you’re no longer interested in. Focus on your daily life and small changes that will have big longterm effects.

Dream big: Your sense of self may feel expanded or exploded and lost throughout this month, but even as you feel you could become anything, there’s a core of truth and certainty that you can keep coming back to. Imagine how it would feel to have this sense of certainty and the possibility of transformation support each other, effortlessly.

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