Holiday Mathis

In the modern world, we recreate our experiences constantly. We talk, tell stories, draw it out, map it, take a picture, all in an attempt to share, compare and validate our experience against that of others. We need the feedback to know the nature of our own existence. Venus squares Neptune calling for responsive people who can reflect us well.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). When you stand where you can see, you stand where you can be seen. What should you expose, and what should you protect? This is the big decision of the day.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You may be detached from the place and time when a feeling was born, but there are portals that bring you back — symbols, images, smells — and you can feel it as sure as the first time.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Hardships strengthen people. Of course, it’s a concept that’s much more palatable in hindsight. While in the thick of it, a person may not feel strong at all, but getting to the other side is its own badge of endurance.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). You will fill in for something or someone who is absent. You do not have to be as the other would be. Do you in the space and everyone, including you, will learn something new.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Resistance may or may not be futile, but it’s certainly not the best way to get leverage. Turn into the force that comes at you. Give way, or join it. Then wait. You will sense your moment of power.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). If you know exactly how much you’re going to win or lose, it’s not a risk; it’s a transaction. Doing a thing so many times that your prediction about the result is almost always right takes the risk factor plum out of the equation.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Tackle the most difficult issues first and the other ones will either suddenly seem like nonissues or actually be nonissues, swept into the current of bigger solutions.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You’re in the process of a rebuild. This is not going to be what it was, but it’s also not an entirely new creation. You’ll take the best of what worked before and bring it into the future.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). It’s silly to waste time on the question of who deserves what. Credit and blame are seldom distributed according to what people deserve. Focus on doing the most with what you have.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). There may be dozens before you, but your eyes keep returning to only one. It’s because what you exchanged has become a tether secured firmly to the core of your attention.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). What affects one person makes others feel vulnerable, as they realize the tenuous fragility that is life. This is why you like to spread good news wherever you find it. Today, you’ll find it in plenty.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). There are things that belong inside of you and things that would be better placed outside of you. You’re the one who gets to decide, though note that, as a rule, burdens get lighter when you share them.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (July 27). You set out to hone your skills, amplify your assets, pick up new experiences — and then you learn an entire volume that you did not seek and were not expecting. You’ll be embraced in a different type of family. People will lean on you and need you, pay you and pedestal you. Your big investment pays in March. Scorpio and Capricorn adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 8, 40, 2, 25 and 10.

VENUS SQUARE NEPTUNE ADVICE PART ONE: As the love planet forms a difficult angle to Neptune, the vision planet, many of us want to be something other than what we are. We see an ideal version of ourselves, though certain habits hold us back from embodying it. It may feel like there is something to quit. If this is the case, consider another tactic.

Quitting is hard. Graduating is easy.

Quitting involves a dramatic struggle between participating in something or not.

Graduating involves walking across a stage and accepting the diploma that says you’re now moving on to other things. There is no going back with a graduation. The door closes behind you. On the other side of it, you are someone else — someone with a degree.

Quitting often involves recidivism. It’s a ping-pong dance. It’s the love relationship that splinters and cracks under the blow of a dozen blunt breakups and yet won’t fall completely apart. It’s the cigarettes you give up for a week before you wind up shamefaced back in the bodega, mumbling the name of your brand. Or the alcohol you give up for a month until a particularly lonely Friday night devolves into you lapping gin from the cat bowl. A spirit of incompletion rules here. Your connection to the thing is lousy with invisible, elastic strands made from a recipe of deficiency, wanting and irresolution. (Continued tomorrow…)

CELEBRITY PROFILES: From “Saturday Night Live” to “Up All Night,” Maya Rudolph is a muse of nocturnal laughter. Born into a show-business family, Rudolph also has the stars for entertainment, with her natal sun, Mercury and Mars in Leo. Moon in Aquarius shows madcap creativity and a generous, philanthropic heart. Rudolph will be saving the world from a tech uprising in the upcoming animated comedy “Connected.”

Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.

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