If it’s your birthday

You may feel like if you venture too far or too boldly, you will be reined in by some mysterious force. Yet really, it seems you’ll have as much leeway as you need, and as you can use responsibly. You must live as the primary authority in your life; this way nobody has to do it for you. Patrol your own borders and be vigilant what you allow into your mind. You share a birthday with Leonardo da Vinci, Bessie Smith and Emma Watson. JULY 23-AUG. 22 You may have feared that you had to give up something in order to gain something else, though this does not appear to be true. You can have the best of both worlds. You’ve received the message to stay close to how fragile life is, and how precious is every moment. Remember. AUG. 23-SEPT. 22 Being honest with oneself is a truly challenging fact of existence. Perhaps it’s that the truth feels daunting, or maybe it’s because we’ve all had so much BS thrown in our way. Start by removing the obstacles in your path. Notice the falsehoods that cast a shadow over you. SEPT. 23-OCT. 22 The deepest lesson of this phase of your life is how important it is merely to be willing. By that I mean willing with your whole being to surrender to what is absolutely right for you. Though you tend to weigh and balance your decisions carefully, sometimes you just know. OCT. 23-NOV. 21 Someone you care about deeply may surprise you with their point of view. You may have been expecting them to be rigid or unwilling to compromise, though the truth is far from that. You know that people usually do their own thing in their own time. It pays to align with that. NOV. 22-DEC. 21 You’re now free of an obligation or commitment that had you feeling hamstrung or hemmed in. Now that you’ve acknowledged your options are open, the situation seems a lot better than it did even yesterday or last week. You remain free to choose what you want. DEC. 22-JAN. 19 You’re under no pressure to accept something as valid when you have your doubts. It’s better to be sincere and wrong than trying to fake your understanding and be ‘correct’. Think this through. As a Zen master once wrote, doubt is like chewing your food to render it digestible. JAN. 20-FEB. 18 It would seem you’ve now figured out the relationship between financial responsibility and positive self-esteem. Making sure you handle your money and your talent competently is an important aspect of self-care, in this particular world. It’s also an essential cornerstone of integrity. FEB. 19-MARCH 20 Once healing happens, it’s necessary to trust that it was real. Part of you that was perhaps abandoned or forgotten is now alive and thriving in your mind and feelings. Devise some way to remember what you learned during the past six weeks of the now-complete Venus retrograde, and, specifically, what you experienced.