The July 1 eclipse in your birth sign is/was about tying together many loose ends, and reminding you that despite the many stories these threads represent, your life has one theme. We tend to think of existence in categories: self-development, work, relationships, home life, and so on. This is a glitch in consciousness that veils the fact that we are each one person living one life. Indeed, thinking in boxes does something more detrimental—it creates the notion that we are separate people within ourselves, dividing our character between worker, parent, individual who grows, person who aspires, and so on. Many who have attempted can report on the challenge of seeing yourself as something beyond all of these concepts, and indeed recognizing yourself as something other than a concept. Yet I am intimately aware of the sense of a divided self that afflicts many humans, and which can be especially tricky and tiresome for those born under your sign or with Cancer rising. If you start to feel an inner division, I suggest you turn it into a dialog. Get the aspects of yourself conversing, and consider the viewpoints of both of them, or however many there are. You may be aware of how testy this dialog can get, and thus might want to avoid knowing too much about it. However, you’re on the verge of a major self-discovery that could go a long way toward resolving your differences with yourself. You will then discover that your differences with others were a kind of shadow.

Leo (July 22-August 23)
You may have discovered that you’re more driven by your emotional nature than by your intellect. While this is true for most people (otherwise, advertising would not work as well as it does), in your life this factor can have a veil thrown over it. That veil is being pulled back by the July 1 solar eclipse in your adjoining sign Cancer. If you can see and understand this tendency, it doesn’t have to run your life. There are more creative ways to live, and the other side of that very same emotional aspect of yourself is a deeply nurturing spirit that is both generous and conscious. You can get into some conflict if you resist that quality, and you may be figuring out that you’re a lot happier when you’re offering others the best of who you are. The eclipse is focused on your 12th solar house—the part of the mind that we rarely get to see, or which disappears into the waking dream of life. The 12th is an inner environment, and the eclipse resembles an opening through which you can allow fear, negativity and attachment to the past to be flushed out of your psyche. Let it do its work. The process is not over; it will go on for months, and speed you through the many self-improvement projects you have going. On that note, I would paraphrase Abraham, an entity I started looking into while researching Leo astrology a few years ago. He suggested that the only thing worthy of discipline is feeling good. From that, everything else will follow.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)
You’re rather sensitive to what others think of you, though it looks like you’re seeing the benefits in setting some limits to how much you let it affect you. There’s something deep here, and very likely something old. All humans and many other critters need affirmation and approval. That much we can all agree on. What we might disagree on is whether it’s a healthy impulse. I would say that it is, if we can manage to be the first place we go for that approval. Here’s why: If you seek acknowledgement outside yourself, you may be validating your doubt with greater strength than the affirmation providing nourishment. That is counterproductive. If, instead, you get into the habit of answering your own questions (primarily with yes) you will gradually discover that you exist, and that you have a right to exist. That’s what it all boils down to, kid. It’s not about winning the Grammy, the Oscar, or even a ribbon at the county fair. All of these things are, at least in theory, designed to inform you that you have a right to be here and to do what you really want to do. At this stage of your life, certain primal instincts are starting to wake up and inform you just how true this is. So if you feel your passion stir, don’t go back to sleep. If you feel your curiosity get restless, go seeking clues rather than assuming you know the answer. And if you desire validation, remind yourself that not only do you belong here—you’re actually here, and you know it.

Libra (September 22-October 23)
You’re figuring out how not to overreact in relationship situations, though there seems to be a good bit available that you can overreact to. The skill of maintaining your balance no matter what others are going through—or offering you, or luring you with—is something that you seem destined to learn. As you do, remember that balance is not a static position. Rather, it’s the art of continual adjustment to your environment. This keeps life interesting and perceives experiences as creative fodder. Saturn currently moving through your sign is a moment of reckoning with yourself: of discovering what it means to be fully authentic with yourself, and then as a direct result, with everyone else. This will teach you to be balanced, stable, and optimistic. Saturn moving through your sign will only last a little more than one year from now, which is providing a constant reference point of your boundaries. But Uranus will be in Aries, your opposite sign, for the next seven years, stirring up your environment and offering a steady flow of interesting people and situations. There will, as a result, be plenty to test how steady you are on your pins. Remember that much of balance is flexibility, and you may want to consider embracing models of relationship that offer that above all else. It’s not just that you need freedom; you need to live in an environment where it’s considered healthy.

Scorpio (October 23-November 22)
Mars in Gemini may be making obvious certain splits in your opinion, desires, or intentions that have been lurking below the boards for some time. I suggest you not hold yourself as someone of “low integrity” because you have a divided opinion, or seeming inner conflict, or have discovered that you might act some ways and speak other ways that seem to contradict them. We all must come to terms with dualism while we are here in the world of duality. It is ultimately the unified mind that can make this recognition and have the desire to do something about it—though that unified mind can be a challenge to dial in consistently. The more we do so, the stronger we become. As you observe many ways there are two of anything in your life—viewpoints, people you care about, financial options, diverging ways of life—remember that the mere observation of this indicates both an advanced level of awareness and the power to do something with the information. Seeing the pattern is the first step in the healing process, assuming it’s even bothering you. In fact there are many times in life when we get to have our cake and eat it too; the either/or choices for who we are tend to be false dichotomies. By that, I mean the two viewpoints or possibilities we are presented with conceal something deeper, greater possibilities, or alternatives to the problem that take us to a higher level.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 22)
The most ordinary matters are the most meaningful right now. You don”t need to worry about big goals, grand destinations, or even your personal destiny. Stay focused in what you’re doing, and in particular, take care of the material aspects: Focus on keeping things running more or less on time; keep your sink empty and your sheets fresh and live the life you’re living. This is a moment when the very larger and seemingly more significant things are incorporated into the seemingly most mundane. Here’s the thing, though—they always are. When you’re working at your very highest potential, what you’re doing is part of life. And as part of that, you always have a basic need to maintain yourself, take care of basic creature comforts, and be present in the moment. What you have now is a setup where focusing on your immediate environment leads you to a sense of a much larger world. This could come from, for example, being more attentive to your phone messages or e-mail, which directly leads to an opportunity. Or the effect may be indirect: You’re feeling rested and like you’ve got a handle on your life, and this gives you a little more space to have ideas and engage people in conversations. One overarching message of your solar chart is enjoy what you have. Enjoy the health, the well-being, the opportunity to serve and create, that you have at this moment. Relax into this space and you will find it offers you lots of unexpected potential.