astrology

Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of August 13

Iman, a Leo. Photo-Illustration: Jenny Sharaf/Photo: Michael Ochs Archives

Mars is still retrograde, and it entered Capricorn yesterday. Can you learn to be okay if you aren’t in control? Can you learn to move ahead slowly? On the bright side, Mercury will finally go direct in Leo on Sunday. Your thoughts might become more confident again, and your words will be brighter. What did this period’s slowdowns and reversals teach you — and how are you ready to move forward?

Weekly Horoscope Aries

Aries

Normally, you can navigate your expectations and desires with no problem — you know where you’re going, and you know what path will carry you there. This week, though, your certainty might be shaken. You might find the world’s structures and rules blocking your path, like fallen trees across the road, like metal gates that keep swinging shut. Don’t take surprises like these as signs of some kind of failure, because they’re not. All this is just a normal part of living; for now, you may have to find another way to move.

Weekly Horoscope Taurus

Taurus

If you’ve been living in your head, this can be a week for living in your skin instead. If you’ve been reaching endlessly toward the future, this can be a week to remember the physical joys of the world. Live in the now, where there is color, where you can drive to the river and feel its cool water flow through your fingers. The world tells you, sometimes, that everything you do must be in the service of some kind of forward-moving productivity, but this week, allow yourself to do more than that. Let your thoughts become instruments of beauty and surprise.

Weekly Horoscope Gemini

Gemini

You know how to survive uncertainty, and you know how to thrive in the strangest kinds of wilderness, but this sort of continual action and adjustment can make it difficult to rest. There are so many demands to stay mobile and light on your feet; there are so many worries that chase after you from behind and ambitions that call to you from up ahead. But nobody can stay in motion forever — not even someone as adaptable as you. This week, if you need it, give yourself permission to stop. Sit down for a moment. Let your tired muscles rest.

Weekly Horoscope Cancer

Cancer

You might find yourself getting distracted this week: from your plans or desires, from the feelings you’ve nurtured so carefully for so long. If your thoughts keep scattering, don’t try to chase them all down just now. If your emotions keep spilling out from the boundaries you’ve placed on them, don’t worry just now about penning them in again. This isn’t a week for exerting control, but rather a week to stay open, to accept whatever fresh air blows in through your windows, to listen to whatever sweet music plays down on the street.

Weekly Horoscope Leo

Leo

This week, give yourself some credit for how hard you’ve been trying. In spite of the world’s darkness, in spite of the confusion that hangs in the air, you keep doing the work. You keep sparkling like the sun on the sea, the way you were always meant to. Try to remember what it feels like to know your own powers and know your own worth. You can keep getting better from here — not because you’re lacking the way you are now, but because there’s a whole world ahead of you and a fire inside.

Weekly Horoscope Virgo

Virgo

Usually, your high expectations for yourself are tools for good, helping you navigate, intact, through a difficult world. This week, though, they might start to feel burdensome, like you’re being crushed by the weight of your own quiet ambition. Try not to think of yourself alone, one isolated individual who must be perfect to keep everything from crumbling. Don’t calibrate your expectations for yourself as if you’re the only person in the world. You live in a community. There are forces and balances that keep moving outside you.

Weekly Horoscope Libra

Libra

This week, don’t turn away when you feel yourself drawn to beauty, even if it feels soft, even if it feels silly. You’re allowed to love something without a productive use in the world. If you want flowers on your kitchen table, it’s okay. If you want to wear bright colors, you can. There’s nothing wrong with softness and nothing wrong with boldness. There’s nothing wrong with the aching human desire — in your heart, in your skin, in your dreams — to live not only in a just world, but in a beautiful one, too.

Weekly Horoscope Scorpio

Scorpio

You might feel unsure of where you’re headed this week: squinting toward a faraway destiny, stumbling along a poorly lit path. And still, you don’t need to be afraid. Even when the world appears hazy, your mind will be sharper than ever; your insight will be clear and perceptive. Don’t underestimate this gift. If you can trust your own quick mind, you won’t be taken in by evil. If you can trust your own sharp wisdom, you won’t take a wrong step.

Weekly Horoscope Sagittarius

Sagittarius

This week, you don’t have to charge out into the world, map in your pocket, compass in hand. You don’t have to set your sights on some faraway city and start making your way there today. This doesn’t have to be a week for moving ahead — there’s a different kind of thrill for you here. This is a week for keeping your eyes open, and preparing yourself to answer the call when it comes. It’s a week for waiting until you hear your name, and accepting the challenge that comes to you.

Weekly Horoscope Capricorn

Capricorn

It can be easy, this week, to feel bogged down by all the things in the world that aren’t fair: all the times the world promised something it didn’t deliver, all the times another person didn’t live up to your standards, or the world’s standards, or their own. It’s healthy to cultivate a certain amount of anger toward unfairness like this; anger, too, can be a light that guides your way through the dark. Just don’t get lost inside it — there are other kinds of light, and other ways to stay warm, too.

Weekly Horoscope Aquarius

Aquarius

This is a week for thinking about the ways you need to be loved, and the ways you need to be known. Sometimes it can be hard to see your emotional needs clearly in a world so noisy and so big; even the people who love you best can’t see straight into your heart. This week, it’s okay to acknowledge your needs and desires. Even when they’re heavy or tangled or weird, they aren’t too weird to be spoken aloud. They aren’t too weird to be honored.

Weekly Horoscope Pisces

Pisces

Sometimes your love and generosity surprise even you. They’re so open, so expansive, so welcoming — like the plains, like the coast, like the wide-open sky. But then sometimes, it comes to feel like too much — like the sky is so massive that you might dissolve into it, like you need to close all the windows and doors to keep yourself safe. This week, you don’t have to swing all the way in the other direction. You can find some kind of space for yourself in the middle, where you can be generous without losing yourself.

Read last week’s horoscope here. Next week’s will be here.

Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of August 13