If it’s your birthday

Focus on completing what you started, and a new life will rise to greet you. Completions, closure and making conscious transitions are your most useful tools, and using them will help you clear the way to a greater sense of personal freedom. You cannot enter the future if the past is in any way holding you back, so embrace this process joyfully. You share a birthday with Albert Einstein, Diane Arbus and Quincy Jones. MARCH 21-APRIL 19 You must use what you know, and stretch your awareness to make observations about what you don’t know. Together they give you a picture of events as they unfold. What you don’t know is by far the more significant factor. Hold that space open for forthcoming information. APRIL 20-MAY 20 You may have some brilliant insights into how to get people working together. However, it will help if you put them into operation soon rather than saving them for a rainy day. Take action and begin experimenting; then adjust your plan, emphasizing what works best, and tossing the rest. MAY 21-JUNE 20 With Mercury preparing for one of its retrograde phases, you will need to take certain precautions, particularly where your reputation is concerned. It should go without saying, though these days it does not: when you do something, you must think of how it would be perceived, if widely known. JUNE 21-JULY 22 Despite recent frustrations, keep aspiring to excellence. The only way to get results on our planet is to devote yourself to something for the long run. That means valuing your goals, and accepting that there is no instant success. Keep pointing yourself in the direction you want to go, and move your feet. JULY 23-AUG. 22 If you want others to get on board with an important project, you must speak their language. The challenge here is that some may be in tribal mode, while you’re in individual mode. So you’ll need to do something like convince everyone that they really are thinking for themselves, even if they’re not. AUG. 23-SEPT. 22 Certain habits are more difficult to break than others. While you do well being methodical, it’s better not to take your training from robots, who do the same thing all the time. (The entire internet, in every manifestation, counts as one.) Be human, and vary your approaches to work, and to people. SEPT. 23-OCT. 22 If other people have better ideas than you do, then collaborate with them, or adapt what they are doing. It’s good to get into the habit of valuing the intelligence and creativity of others, rather than (for example) getting jealous. Aspiration means aiming higher than your current situation. OCT. 23-NOV. 21 What seems like a financial issue is really a question of imagination. You can tell something is the product of creativity when you haven’t thought of it six times before. Be bold and experiment with what is actually different, and maybe a little odd. Then, go through a process of refinement. NOV. 22-DEC. 21 Keep an eye on a family or household matter the next couple of days. While it may seem to get worse before it gets better, that’s an invitation to see the problem for what it is, so that you can solve it. The alternative is to see things as they are not, and have them stay the same. DEC. 22-JAN. 19 You may fear that if you give yourself a little freedom, you will go totally out of control. Where would you get such a thought? It’s not original. When was the last time you actually jumped the rails? You will be happier if you invest less energy in trying to restrain yourself. JAN. 20-FEB. 18 Over the next few days, you will likely come to the conclusion that you need to make major changes in your financial life, including how you organize yourself, and what your priorities are. Take this as a creative project, and be happy you’re doing it. You’ll get much better results that way.