Early Monday morning, Venus—planet of love, money, and all things that bring us pleasure—enters its home sign of Libra. Even if your ideals and desires once felt clear cut, self-evident to the point of dullness, there’s space now to see alternate potentialities, exceptions to each rule. Then on Thursday, Uranus retrograde begins. Uranus spends about five months of every year in retrograde motion; during these months, the frenetic pace of the world outside might slow, giving you the chance to reflect and process, to enact the inner change that you long for.
Aries Weekly Horoscope
It’s more crucial than ever to embrace the knowledge that there are better things in this world than the status quo, more important tasks than just preserving what already exists. There is wilder joy and greater magic than any you’ve ever seen before. And this remains true even when the future seems most fearsome, even when you start to doubt whether you can expect anything more than survival. If your choices are to fight for what is merely adequate, or for the possibility of something fair and shining and beautiful, this is a week to choose beauty.
Taurus Weekly Horoscope
It’s difficult not to blame yourself for all your imagined shortcomings: the times you wish you’d been braver or more generous, the decisions you wish you’d made differently. But while reflection is necessary so we can learn from our mistakes, it’s important this week to resist being sucked into a black hole of regret. It’s possible to look to your own past with understanding, not shame. You’ve already done more good than you realize. Perfection isn’t an option for anyone, and it shouldn’t be the yardstick you measure yourself by.
Gemini Weekly Horoscope
The idea of being all things to all people is an alluring one to you. There’s a certain kind of appeal in the dream that by observing others carefully enough—their speech and their movements, the shape of their desires—and by reflecting this back to them, you could heal anybody’s sorrows, bring sunshine to even their darkest inner world. But this week, it’s necessary not to forget your own needs, your own interior life. You don’t have to give and give until you’re hollowed out. Your duty isn’t to reshape your whole being to match someone else’s wants, but to strive to become ever more yourself.
Cancer Weekly Horoscope
It’s so easy to take everything personally, to sustain emotional injuries, both small and major, every time you venture out among other people. Other people’s feelings crash around, sharp and unwieldy, sometimes piercing your defenses without even meaning to. This isn’t your fault or theirs; it’s just part of being human. This week, though, will offer you some added protection. You won’t be quite so easy to hurt. There is a rich and beautiful world around you, filled with color and music and love, and it’s a good time to try to enjoy it.
Leo Weekly Horoscope
It’s vital to grant yourself credit for the ways you’ve grown, to recognize how many seemingly impossible situations you’ve made it through. It may not feel like you’ve become stronger, or like you’ve learned anything worth knowing, but you have. You’ve adapted to strange new circumstances. You’ve made the spaces around you brighter. You’ve brought kindness and warmth to the bleakest of places. So much of the work you’ve done has gone under the radar, but make no mistake: you deserve all the praise, all the flowers, all the sweetness the world has to give.
Virgo Weekly Horoscope
There have been plenty of times that you’ve been treated unfairly: by other people, by institutions, or by the universe itself. It can make you believe that kindness will never be repaid, that there’s hardly any point in trying. But all the care and decency you put out into the world will come back to you, eventually, in unpredictable ways. With all of your actions, you’re strengthening a community, an abundant network of relationships. You’re creating the conditions for the life you need, and this week, all the complex social bonds you’ve helped build can hold you, protect you, and lift you up.
Libra Weekly Horoscope
In spite of your better instincts, you sometimes find yourself searching for stories of bad news, heartbreak, doom—as though this will bolster your courage, prepare you for the worst possible future. The problem is that it doesn’t really work that way. Nonstop sadness and fear won’t strengthen you; they’ll only wear you down. So this week, as much as you can, avoid the spaces (often online) that offer nothing but gloom, that make sorrow appear inevitable. Instead, seek out the people who can nurture your sense of beauty and purpose, who will support your resolve even in the face of despair.
Scorpio Weekly Horoscope
Some situations require you to think three moves ahead, to make backup plans for your backup plans. Sometimes, it’s crucial to move with a map and a strategy. Other times, though, that just isn’t possible: there are too many variables, too many unknown elements and unpredictable people. So this week, try to loosen your grip on your plan a little bit and take the world as it comes. If you can quit trying to control your whole destiny, then you create space for wild joy to rush in.
Sagittarius Weekly Horoscope
When you really try to change your life, to build something fresh and new and beautiful, it’s inevitable that along the way you’ll encounter closed doors, dead ends, brick walls that block your way. It creates so much frustration and disappointment: when you’re badly in need of support, encouragement, affirmation that you’re doing okay, anything that impedes your forward motion can look like a curse. This week, though, you might start to see it differently. Maybe some of the barriers protected you from results worse than disappointment. Maybe they were signs to wait for the right path, the one coming into view now.
Capricorn Weekly Horoscope
Even when you know that you need a change, when you recognize there’s no way to go on in the same way you’ve been living, it’s so difficult to know what, exactly, to alter. New haircut? New career? New city? So many paths stretch out before you; how can you know which one is best? To move forward in any one direction is to choose not to follow the others, and the possibility of picking wrong feels overwhelming. But this week, remember that experimentation is still allowed. There’s no way to make the wrong choice, because you can always change your mind. You’re building your life as you go.
Aquarius Weekly Horoscope
Often, your tendency is to search for the meaning in everything: to puzzle out why you feel the way you do, or to dig deep into the purpose behind your desires. It’s an approach that leads to wisdom, most of the time, but occasionally, it distracts you from the fact that your emotions aren’t always supposed to be rational. They exist, and they’re genuine, whether or not you know where they come from. Just for now, try accepting the world, and how you respond to it, at face value. You don’t need to persuade anyone that your feelings are valid, and that they matter.
Pisces Weekly Horoscope
When you become fearful, even hopeless, about the future, it’s easy to imagine that you’ve run out of options, or that you’ve already used up all the meaningful opportunities you’ll get in this lifetime. But this week, if you pay attention, you’ll notice second, third, fourth new beginnings offering themselves to you. You’ll receive small messages from the universe that after all, it isn’t too late. Specific dreams may fade away into the past, certain futures may become more difficult to realize, but the possibility for a good and meaningful life always remains.
Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of August 9. The weekly horoscopes for the week of August 23 will be online next Sunday.
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