Happy birthday (Feb. 18): The more you give, the more people expect of you — a cycle you alternately celebrate and interrupt this year. You'll love lavishing someone with attention and care; it fulfills you. Then it's your turn to accept heaps of love, which is not as comfortable for you, but you will get plenty of practice and soon be used to it.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Since body language accounts for the majority of all communication, it only makes sense to prioritize physical education and to learn and experiment with movement in the same way you grow and update vocabulary.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You can and will get over a fear. You will prevail because you're willing to put in the time, make the mistakes and ride with the ups and downs of an awkward process.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21): Resistance takes many forms. It can come on as tiredness or arrogance, anxiety or apathy. Recognize its basis in fear and decide to be brave and move through it, not letting it stop you from what you want.
CANCER (June 22-July 22): You have a talent for acknowledging the traits of others without judging them, and this makes you an extremely desirable friend to have. The real progress comes when you point the same nonjudgmental spirit inwardly.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): You may start with the intention of being cool and laissez-faire, but, of course, once you see an opportunity to guide the situation in a direction you deem best for all you can't help but invest, care and be very much in the mess of it.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): If you needed permission to be keenly aware of the best within you and even to celebrate it openly, cut out this horoscope, sign it and give it to yourself while boarding the bus of self-appreciation.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23): Your main contract is with yourself. It plays out with other people, and you wouldn't be able to learn without them. But at the end of the day, and for every hour within, you're the one you get to live.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21): Small events happen throughout the day, moving your mood up and down the scale of 1-10; it's a crude measurement to be sure, but you need art, not math, to account for the colors and depths.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Here comes a wave of accelerated growth in your area of recent concentration. Because a focus is so natural and instinctive for you, you don't even consider this a learning progress, and it's free of growing pains.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): True, you favor certain people and relationships. And if the value of a relationship were strictly calculated on the improvements reflected in you because you participated, it would be an entirely different list.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You are compelled to expand your horizons. It's not done by singing optimistic songs whilst dancing toward the sun. Go toward the sun, but stay aware and curious about the unshakeable shadow that walks with you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You're trying to keep it easy breezy and what happens? Someone comes at you with an intensity that slows the process but also grounds it in some realities that need to be dealt with sooner or later.
IF WISHES WERE FISHES
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If wishes were fishes, we’d have some to fry…” goes the old rhyme. And now the sun moves into Pisces, favoring the wish, the fish, and all you can conjure in your imagination, too. Ruled by Neptune, planet of dreams, there is no need to limit your wishing to that which reality is likely to bring.
COSMIC QUESTION
This response is a continuation of the reader question of yesterday and Tuesday: “I experience crushing anxiety on occasion. My thoughts not being my own is a primal fear. My actions are dictated by responsibility, duty, care and accordingly are a partnership. My thoughts though, if not beginning and ending within me, then where? And why does it bother me when you suggest that thoughts can be in my head that do not originate there?”
I admire your sense of duty, so strong that it leaves no room for choice in matters that pertain to, I’m guessing, the care and protection of your family, loved ones, country, community, ideals and more. I do wonder if the anxiety is a symptom of not recognizing that this ironclad deal you’ve made with responsibility is actually a personal choice. There are plenty who do not choose to live or die by their responsibilities. When you claim your sense of duty as a choice, recognizing that you really don’t have to do anything at all, you can then reacquaint yourself with the reasons you’ve made that choice. Not because you have to. Because you’re awesome. Because “strong” is your brand. Because you enjoy the pride and results that come with being the sort of person your family can depend on and look up to. The reframing could have the effect of reminding you that you “get to” do these things, not that that you “have to.”
CELEBRITY PROFILES
Born on the cusp of Aquarius and Pisces, actor and director Matt Dillon is an Aquarius. His sun, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all in the friendly and forward-thinking sign. Known for his range, Dillon plays comedy and killers with equal effectiveness, finding the humanity inside even the most difficult characters, which is the Aquarian creed. Look for Dillon the 2020 bio-drama “Capone.”