JONATHAN CAINER

How does astrology work? I have been trying, this week, to explain why there is no point in trying to explain! In the last century, science grew ever more obsessed with logical, rational explanations, based on experiments that produce statistical ‘proof’. Yet, as the Large Hadron Collider fires up once more in Switzerland in search of the mystery behind ‘dark matter’, a new generation of physicists is heading towards what, to them, seems a disturbing conclusion. The universe simply cannot be explained. Mysterious coincidences are in the essence of existence. Astrologers, of course, have always known this!

ARIES Mar 21 — Apr 20 IF A FAIRY offers you three wishes, what will you wish for first? Now, don’t be clever and say: ‘I wish for more wishes.’ If you are such a rational strategist, you probably don’t believe in fairies. And if you do, why are you going to show disrespect by questioning the offer being extended to you? If you really want to do something wise, try making this your first wish: ‘I wish that whatever I wish for in my next two wishes will be the right thing!’ Now, try a principle like that for today’s opportunity. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5601.

TAURUS Apr 21 — May 21 YOU are who you are. What can we add to this — ‘You are who you were’? That doesn’t allow for the process of genuine change you have undergone over many years. It doesn’t allow for what you have learned. And how about, ‘You are who you will be’? True, too, but that is perhaps a much more useful statement if we modify it to say: ‘You are who you believe you will be.’ Nowhere does the law of self-fulfilling prophecy apply more strongly than to that little statement. So believe something positive about yourself today! I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5602.

GEMINI May 22 — June 22 WHEN you try to imagine what your life will be like one day, do you see yourself looking back on the way things are now and wondering whether you should have made some other choice? Let us hope not, because, with a future full of regrets, why would you ever want to get to it? Now ask yourself this: do you ever look back and wish you had made other choices? Well, then, no wonder you used to feel so apprehensive. Today’s most important vow? Never to question what has been decided. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5603.

CANCER June 23 — July 23 WE HAVE been talking this week about the wings that are now protruding from your back. Yes, of course, they are imaginary. But that does not, on its own, render them unreal. Think about your closest emotional connections to various people, some of whom are alive and some of whom have passed on. Aren’t those deep, powerful bonds invisible and, to some extent, imaginary, too? This is no time to question your own gifts and abilities. It is time to have faith in them and to use them. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5604.

LEO July 24 — Aug 23 THE sign of Leo is not an ephemeral constellation with boundaries that are subject to debate and which vary in any event as the millennia pass by. It is an exact, equal division of a tropical ecliptic as defined by the annual equinoctial points. Thus, we can say that Venus is now, indeed, rising high in Leo each evening, passing M44, the Beehive Cluster, while wending its way towards an eventual conjunction with Jupiter. That is inarguably auspicious — for you! Ignore please, all that makes you doubt yourself today. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5605.

VIRGO Aug 24 — Sep 23 YOU were not, as we have been at pains to point out this week, ‘born under a bad sign’. Now, I must take care, for if I go on — as I am tempted to — to declare that there is no such thing as a ‘bad sign’, I must surely, by dint of the kind of relentless rational argument of which you, as a Virgo, are so fond, be implying that an opposite assertion is also true. But if there is no such thing as a good sign either, why are you starting to feel as if it is particularly good to be who you are? Never mind why, just enjoy yourself today. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5606. LIBRA Sep 24 — Oct 23 WERE things different once? Or were they much the same? Perhaps, back then, we hankered for some idealistic vision based on a false memory . . . just as now? Maybe, ever since eternity began, the human race has been walking forward while looking over its shoulder wishing it was going in the opposite direction. But then, did eternity ever ‘begin’? Is it not the epitome of circularity? In which case, who is to say what is forward and what is back? Don’t look where you are going today, go where you are looking! I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5607.

SCORPIO Oct 24 — Nov 22 SOME people speak of the seven deadly sins. Many Asian philosophies and religions embrace a similar concept but they count only five. This is not because they have greater tolerance of certain infamous failings. It is just, I recall, that they lump greed in with gluttony and lust. Should we in the West feel slightly resentful because our cultural views have been somewhat superseded by this more economical way of counting character defects? Of course not. Envy is one of the sins! Watch out for it today. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5608.

SAGITTARIUS Nov 23 — Dec 21 SAGITTARIUS is usually deemed to govern politics. So, today, more about the politics of astrology! These days, we hear much about the need to protect the rights of minorities. It is a noble ideal, the more so because there really are very few majorities. Even where it might appear that many share the same views, if we drill deeply enough into the sub-sectors of a society, we will always find division. Today, the universe neatly shows that you can triumph, even without numbers on your side. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5609.

CAPRICORN Dec 22 — Jan 20 WHEN something seems wrong, we usually try to work out why. We may wonder: ‘What particularly is it I don’t like?’ We may even think: ‘Perhaps, if I tried, I could change my mind.’ But when something feels right, we rarely subject it to any further analysis. We don’t think: ‘Is this right because it fits in with a plan that was made for me by the spirits, before I was even born?’ Quite right, too. Who needs such airy conjecture? But it is interesting how what is turning up now feels so very right indeed. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5610.

AQUARIUS Jan 21 — Feb 19 LAUREL and Hardy. Two funny men in bowler hats. Different natures — and shapes — and a somewhat abusive relationship. Stan, though, rarely needed to get his own back on the bossy, bombastic, Ollie. He just knew that if he waited long enough, Ollie would come a-cropper — even though he would, of course, still blame Stan. The celestial suggestion now is that if you can just stop blaming everyone about how a situation will turn out, it may yet turn out differently. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5611.

PISCES Feb 20 — Mar 20 THEY say that before you judge anyone, first walk a mile in their shoes. That may be good advice — if the person you are trying to judge is a cobbler. Then at least you will know how seriously they take the business of comfortable feet. None of us can know what it feels like to be anyone else, regardless of how far we stretch our imaginations. Sympathy is something we either allow ourselves to feel or decide we are going to withdraw. Empathy is rare and involuntary. Treasure it where you find it today. I have important news about the big changes due in your life. Pick up the phone for a very special message: 0906 751 5612.