astrology

Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of July 19

Whitney Houston, a Leo. Photo-Illustration: by Preeti Kinha; Photos Getty

On Wednesday evening, love planet Venus enters earth sign Virgo, and grand, extravagant gestures lose some of their charm. Instead, you will find beauty and intimacy in small, practical gestures, in simply showing up for one another. Then on Thursday morning, the sun enters bright and confident Leo. This is the season for expressing yourself, for being seen and appreciated, for finding real joy in generosity. Finally, on Friday night, a full moon in Aquarius illuminates your wild individuality, but it also reminds you that you aren’t alone. There’s a place in this world for you, just as you are: unique and wholly yourself.

Weekly Horoscope Aries

Aries Weekly Horoscope

Moving constantly forward is one way of feeling useful in this world, like your ideas and energy aren’t going to waste. But remember that this isn’t the only way to live a valuable life. You don’t have to continually innovate, advance, create. You don’t always need to know what’s next. This week offers you the chance to pause, at least for a while. You can take a break from progressing onward and upward, from trying to wish yourself someplace else. There’s abundance to be found right where you are. Sometimes, it’s enough just to be.

Weekly Horoscope Taurus

Taurus Weekly Horoscope

It’s difficult to face up to the fact that you can’t control other people. You can’t tell them what to do or how to feel, can’t force anyone to be kinder, more competent, more generous. Still, it’s tempting to keep trying, forever hoping that sheer determination will move mountains. This week, you have better things to do than try to change anyone else. There are people who will never give you what you yearn for, but there are others who will. Turn toward those who nurture and support you, who can offer the dependable love that you need.

Weekly Horoscope Gemini

Gemini Weekly Horoscope

Your mind is so quick and lively, and sometimes it seems like everyone else can hardly keep up. Life develops gradually, and change takes much longer than you’d like; you’re constantly struggling against a tempo that keeps dragging you down. This week, do your best not to compete with the world’s rhythm but to match it. If you’re asked to take things slowly, then try to. If news comes less frequently than you want, let it. You have your work to do, and it will take as long as it takes. The goal right now isn’t to do it all fast, but to do it right.

Weekly Horoscope Cancer

Cancer Weekly Horoscope

It’s rare for you to truly understand your emotions while you’re experiencing them. Growth is almost impossible to recognize except in retrospect. But this week might be one of the times that you can actually perceive that you’re learning while it’s still happening. You can sense yourself working out something important, solving a puzzle, leveling up. The change may be small, the transition a minor one in the grand scheme of your life, but try to appreciate it anyway: this awareness of becoming wiser, your heart bigger, your vision clearer.

Weekly Horoscope Leo

Leo Weekly Horoscope

You understand, better than anyone, that you need no excuse to love yourself. Nor do you require justification for seeking the care and admiration of others. It can just be hard to remember this in a culture where so many people never get what they need. But this week, you can cut through all the noise to get back to the truth again: Your own capacity for love is vast. You can love those around you with utter generosity, and still have plenty left for yourself. You don’t need to ration out your sweetness and warmth. You have enough to share, and enough to keep.

Weekly Horoscope Virgo

Virgo Weekly Horoscope

This week, you might find yourself in desperate need of some magic: something to clarify the future and render the present less chaotic, something to quiet the storms inside your head. It’s possible that you’ll want to go big, to demonstrate your power to the world and to yourself in a dramatic fashion. But it’s worth starting a little smaller. Try putting the physical space around you in order, first: sweeping the floors or organizing your books or cleaning the windows to let the light in. There’s astonishing beauty in what seems ordinary at first.

Weekly Horoscope Libra

Libra Weekly Horoscope

Sometimes, it feels like you’re starving for support that just never arrives. Even when you make your needs known, even when you state your desires, everyone else is too distracted, too careless, too caught up in their own problems to offer the care that you need. Eventually, you will be loved and encouraged the way that you want. And for now, while you’re still waiting, don’t let it stop you from living. This week will give you the courage you need to keep going, to keep trying, to maintain a bright and unstoppable faith in yourself.

Weekly Horoscope Scorpio

Scorpio Weekly Horoscope

It can feel as though you’re always fighting over scraps with the people around you, constantly locked in battle over every little shred of attention, affection, good news. There never seems to be enough happiness in the world, never even enough fun to go around. But this week, you can reconsider the role of competition in your life. Success doesn’t have to be zero sum. Right now, it’s possible to turn rivalry into solidarity, even into friendship. It’s possible to find comfort and affection alongside others. The stress of antagonism can turn into the joyful magic of collaboration.

Weekly Horoscope Sagittarius

Sagittarius Weekly Horoscope

There’s a lot of pressure on you to perform, to put on a brave face, to live up to other people’s expectations. You try very hard to be as strong or as kind or as funny as they want you to be. But it’s possible for others’ ideas about you to weigh too heavy, to burden you until you can hardly move. This week, as always, it’s your right to act however you need to, to be sharper or stranger or softer than anyone else expects. None of them get to decide how you’re going to live. Only you can do that.

Weekly Horoscope Capricorn

Capricorn Weekly Horoscope

For so long, you’ve been playing defense, focused on self-protection. Even as you build friendships and community, even as you fight for a better world alongside people you deeply love, there’s a part of you that’s wary, closed off, aware of all the dangers that litter the landscape. This isn’t a foolish approach; many of your fears are founded in fact. But at least for right now, there’s value in letting down your guard. You’ll be rewarded for your openness, boldness, honesty — for meeting life with your whole heart, brave and unashamed.

Weekly Horoscope Aquarius

Aquarius Weekly Horoscope

Your imagination is filled with grand and wondrous scenes; you have a genuine talent for dreaming up audacious projects, envisioning new worlds. The hard part isn’t having big ideas, but in bringing them to life in our ordinary, difficult reality. It can seem as though your bold plans require equally bold action, but this week, don’t disdain the small steps that must also be taken. There’s beauty in the everyday, and immeasurable value in the modest acts that slowly, steadily accrue. By taking little steps, you aren’t giving up on your wild dreams, but building the foundations for them.

Weekly Horoscope Pisces

Pisces Weekly Horoscope

People sometimes talk about confidence as though it’s an innate trait that you either have or don’t. Really, though, it can be developed and nurtured. It comes and goes. It lives inside you, but it also responds to your surroundings, the people around you, the ways that others reflect your image back to you. If your confidence has been shaky lately, if you’ve felt less bright, less brave, that doesn’t mean that you won’t believe in yourself ever again. This week, the world will show you the best, most courageous version of yourself, and you can have faith in yourself again.

Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of July 12. The weekly horoscopes for the week of July 26 will be online next Sunday.

Get Claire Comstock-Gay’s book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, out now.

Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of July 19