Holiday Mathis

Understanding is a form of love. It takes time, focus and a soft, receptive attitude. It also takes courage. In the process of trust-building, our weaknesses and secret desires are revealed. As the sun, moon and Jupiter drift into an astute formation, the effort and risk intimacy requires will seem a small price to pay for the fortifying joy of connection.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Compassion will well up in your heart when you’re around those who need it. Today, your love will flow to someone who is usually self-sufficient.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). People root around to know what you need and want. This they do for selfish reasons, hoping you’ll pay a pretty penny for their offerings. Even so, wonderful, unselfish connections will be born of the interaction.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). You enjoy stories of surprise and transformation. To witness a character develop into someone different from where they started is intriguing, in part because it’s exactly what you’re doing right now.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). As comfortable as it is to just “be yourself,” you enjoy learning and growing too much to say definitively who “yourself” is. You’ll use different words, go to new places and talk to strangers, exponentially expanding your horizons.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Popularity and financial success work together, though financial success is not your only goal. Today you’ll get into something that will strike a deeper and resonant chord in you.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You don’t have to be greatly talented to sell your work; you just have to do something others want. Your experimental mood will allow you to sample many perspectives and understand where you can be most useful.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). You’ve a sense for how much to reveal about yourself and what to hold back — a social skill that will bring you into the imagination of many as they try to fill in the blanks you’ve left. You’re more fascinating than you know.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Friendly invaders will shake up your personal system of law and order. As inconvenient as it may seem at first, the disruption will jump-start your creative pulse.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). What’s in it for you? Most days, it’s fine not to know. Whatever you’re drawn to, you can trust it to work out more-or-less fairly. However… today is different. Figure it out up front.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Independent by nature, it’s unnerving to realize how much you’ve come to depend on someone. As steadfast as the relationship may be, you are uneasy with dependencies of any kind. Does it help to know they need you, too?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You are an excellent listener, and yet you’ll still make every effort to improve further. Your understanding of the people around you deepens, which provides an immediate benefit to your relationships.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). You’ll go about the day like you know the role; relationships play true to the script, plot on-track… and yet… your heart is a rebel whisper. Will it get louder? Overtake you with a rock ‘n’ roll swagger? Will you break the guitar?

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Oct. 14). Daily, you’ll be showered in gifts, such as the evidence that someone likes and enjoys you, looks forward to being with you and needs what only you can give. While you do make marked progress on your ambitions, it’s the way you treat people that attracts joy galore. A professional breakthrough creates financial ease. Leo and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 5, 1, 4, 44 and 17.

HALLOWEEN PANTHEON: WEREWOLVES: This Halloween costume classic dates back much further than the actual Halloween holiday. The lupine beast is referenced as far back as the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” circa 1800 B.C. Werewolves pop up again in ancient Greek mythology’s “Legend of Lycaon,” in which King Lycaon kills his own son and serves him to Zeus to find out if Zeus was really all-knowing. Seems he was, because he brought the son back to life and then turned Lycaon and his whole family into wolf creatures.

Centuries later, the werewolves who make the news are mostly heinous serial killers who claim to have wolf-morphing abilities and who often ate their victims, which included children. Some of the killers claimed to transform after drinking a tincture; others got their power with a magic belt. Most were ultimately set on fire for their crimes, as burning was thought to be the best way to kill a werewolf.

More recent additions to werewolf lore have been decidedly less vicious than historical depictions. From the likes of “Teen Wolf” to “Twilight,” it could be surmised that werewolves have gone soft, and that’s a good thing. If werewolves represent the wild dog of human nature that exists inside us all, I’d like to believe that it’s a wild dog capable of being tamed.

CELEBRITY PROFILES: Usher recorded his first album at 14 years old, and the love songs and Grammy awards keep coming. The Libran artist has said that his mother is his best friend — not so unusual for someone born under a relationship-oriented Libra sun. Usher’s moon, which represents mothers, is in Leo, the sign of children, creativity and the entertainment industry. The hitmaker brings a high-energy, technicolor close to 2021 with a Las Vegas residency.

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