If it’s your birthday

Your life is full of surprises, and that’s the advantage that you have going for you. We live amongst many unknowns, and you can surf them like one of those Australian experts riding a 30-foot curl. Just remember: The wave is bigger than you, and you need to work with its energy, rather than against it. Mostly that means timing and keeping your balance. You share a birthday with Thornton Wilder, Lela Rochon and Rooney Mara. APRIL 20-MAY 20 Venus in your sign is meeting face to face with Jupiter in Scorpio. Under this aspect, you need to verify whether your feelings are in line with your true desires. You might want something today, and give it to yourself, and then regret it tomorrow. But you can do a lot better than that. MAY 21-JUNE 20 With Mercury now running in direct motion, you should be thinking more clearly, with a greater emphasis on the future than on the past. You have already worked out your most pressing concerns and vexing problems; now, you need to trust your thought process, and remember what you came up with. JUNE 21-JULY 22 Current planetary activity reveals some radical shift in your career prospects, which may be coming in the form of a series of shocks, or seeming revelations. You are being set free from a pattern you’ve lived in for a while, and your creative potential is only increasing. JULY 23-AUG. 22 Your life is not ruled by blind chance, or by fate. A better authority would be food, and paying attention to how you feel. This places you closer to the Earth, rather than up in the sky, like a bolt of lightning. Stick to the basics: love, nourishment, companionship and work. AUG. 23-SEPT. 22 You may feel consumed by a creative fire that you’ve never experienced and don’t understand. Something new is indeed happening to you, and it’s ignited in the angle of your solar chart devoted to curiosity and creative passion. This is something you’re being asked to submit to deeply. SEPT. 23-OCT. 22 There would seem to be no end to family matters, and the unresolved material of the past is filling up the kitchen with a mountain of rice, like that scene in “I Love Lucy.” It will help if you step back and let the energy release, and keep yourself at arm’s length for a little while. OCT. 23-NOV. 21 You are working up to saying something. Take your time. While you don’t have forever, there’s no rush — and you want to get it right. So develop your thoughts and evolve your way of expressing them, sooner rather than later; then, when the time comes, you will be ready. NOV. 22-DEC. 21 Keep your finances manageable. Make sure you work with tangible goals that are defined in such a way that they can be attained: for example, being the best musician you can be, rather than striving to win a Grammy. As well, state your problems in a way that they can be solved. DEC. 22-JAN. 19 Mars making its way through your sign may feel like a meteor burning a streak across the sky. However, it’s more likely to represent a steady desire to which you’re devoted on a daily basis. If you put in the thought, time and effort, you will get an excellent result. JAN. 20-FEB. 18 You’re likely to be feeling some extraordinary pressure in your life, though if you consider that the issues are contained within you, it will be easier to address. Yet you may have to get over the illusion that all the real events are in the world without, rather than the world within. FEB. 19-MARCH 20 There must be something unusual happening in your public life, however you define that. Yet it would be wise to stick to the material world rather than the digital one. You are a misty Pisces, which means mountains and streams are your home much more than a little device.