astrology

Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of October 18

Bjork, a triple(!) Scorpio. Photo-Illustration: by Preeti Kinha; Photos: Getty Images

On Monday, you can breathe a sigh of relief as Mercury retrograde ends. The confusion of the past few weeks will subside. Now, in the clear light of day, the mistakes you’ve recently made will reveal themselves to be manageable, fixable, not so permanent after all. Then on Wednesday, a full moon in Aries will highlight your courage, freedom, and autonomy, giving you the confidence to keep going. And finally, on Friday night, the sun exits sweet Libra to enter provocative Scorpio. This is the season for secrets and passions and hidden depths, for walking fearlessly into the dark.

Weekly Horoscope Aries

Aries Weekly Horoscope

When you get completely stuck, when it seems truly impossible to move forward, there’s nothing like a little bit of recklessness to re-energize you and jolt you back into motion. This isn’t always the best way of making headway — you may make mistakes, or say things you’ll have to take back later. Even so, there are times when it’s the only way to shake yourself free of the doubt and hesitation you’ve been mired in. Taking a big, thrilling risk can be the best way to bring your excitement back to life.

Weekly Horoscope Taurus

Taurus Weekly Horoscope

In order to get through the day, you occasionally have to avoid the full weight of your emotions, particularly the negative ones. It’s much easier and more useful to throw yourself into practical matters, to attend to the material needs of the world and the people in it, so that you hardly have time to experience the full extent of your hurt or grief. This week, though, don’t try to dodge your feelings, or numb yourself to them. Once you fully acknowledge the dark feelings, then suddenly you’ll be able to feel the real sweetness, the genuine comfort and love that these days have to offer.

Weekly Horoscope Gemini

Gemini Weekly Horoscope

Often, you find yourself drawn to what you know you “shouldn’t” be: toward chaos instead of order, frivolity instead of sober, hard work, unreliable people who nonetheless light up your intellect. Sometimes, it’s wise to hold these longings in check. But right now, you can do more damage — to yourself, and to those you love — by denying your authentic desires than enjoying them. Your job isn’t to become “better,” according to some generic common standard, but to follow your own bright, unpredictable instincts wherever they lead.

Weekly Horoscope Cancer

Cancer Weekly Horoscope

The trouble with being as self-contained as you are is that people tend to underestimate you. When you’re kind, they assume that means you’re mild and easily manipulated; when you’re calm, they assume that you have no backbone, no fire, no passions of your own. This week, others may be surprised when you stand up for yourself, assert your full humanity, and refuse to be so easily disregarded. Good. Take pleasure in upending others’ expectations, in forcing them to see you, if only for a moment, for who you really are.

Weekly Horoscope Leo

Leo Weekly Horoscope

Committing to your work — not just your paid job, but your real life’s work of caring or creating or changing the world — sometimes means frustrating anyone who wants different things from you. But while it’s easy enough to disappoint the people you don’t much care for, it’s an entirely different challenge to let down the ones you love. This week, though, it’s okay to stand by your own priorities, even when those around you don’t fully understand. It takes courage to honor your commitments, and this is a chance to be brave.

Weekly Horoscope Virgo

Virgo Weekly Horoscope

It’s all too easy for you not to take your own loneliness seriously. There are bigger problems to tackle, you tell yourself, real problems, better ways to use your mental energy. And that may be true, but the fact remains that your emotions still matter. They color everything else about your life. And perpetual loneliness isn’t the cost of living on this earth (though some will tell you otherwise). There are people out there ready to love you, ready to be there, to support you, to have fun with you. This week, let them.

Weekly Horoscope Libra

Libra Weekly Horoscope

Lately, you’ve experienced what feels like a never-ending pressure to “open up”: to share every dream, every memory, every opinion that passes through your mind. To disclose every bad thing that’s ever happened, and every good thing you’ve ever wanted, to express every sorrow and every thrill. This week, and in the weeks ahead, remember that it’s okay to wait, to reserve full access to your inner life, to hold back until trust has been built. You can even withhold some entirely, holding onto some memories, beautiful or painful, so that they belong to nobody else but you.

Weekly Horoscope Scorpio

Scorpio Weekly Horoscope

You try looking for the best in everyone you meet, but that isn’t always helpful: so often, it’s people’s worst selves, the ones rooted in fear or greed or anger, that drive their behavior. Eventually, when your good faith attempts at kindness are exhausted, it’s easy to over-correct, to become paranoid, to search out the very worst in everyone. But right now, this won’t help you either. As hungry as you are for absolutes, people remain complicated. And when you let them be complicated — no heroes, no monsters — then real, honest relationships can finally develop.

Weekly Horoscope Sagittarius

Sagittarius Weekly Horoscope

When you assert your freedom, others might find you strange, unruly, difficult. Intellectually, you know that there’s nothing wrong with this, but in your heart it’s still not easy to rid yourself of the desire to be praised, respected, understood by all. This week, practice claiming your autonomy and defending your boundaries — even if in small ways that might go unnoticed by everyone except you, but that remind you who you really are. This is a week to live, and live right — not according to the standards set by everyone else in the universe, and not out of some vague notion of respectability, but for you.

Weekly Horoscope Capricorn

Capricorn Weekly Horoscope

It’s much more pleasant to think of life as a steady, upward climb, than as a succession of spirals up and down, a series of cycles to be lived again and again. In reality, though, nothing is ever that simple. Sometimes you move forward, other times backward. Still other times, you just seem to be spinning, gaining no ground at all. This week, it’s important not to be too hard on yourself for what you imagine to be wasted time. None of your efforts have been in vain. Even the ebbs and stumbles and long, boring days are leading you toward something wonderful.

Weekly Horoscope Aquarius

Aquarius Weekly Horoscope

So much of the time, this planet doesn’t feel like it was made for you at all — it’s too cramped, too noisy, too boring. You hardly get any chances, it seems, to really live: to stretch to your full capacity, to take interesting risks, to use your strange, sparkling mind in the ways you were meant to. But this week, pay attention, and opportunities for creativity will present themselves. The world, as a whole, may be less wonderful than you want it to be, but there’s still a place here for you. The magic you’ve been looking for might exist after all.

Weekly Horoscope Pisces

Pisces Weekly Horoscope

You can see other people so clearly, instinctively sensing their desires, their gifts, their maddening flaws. And you know that they’re deserving of love, in all their imperfect humanity. It’s just difficult to call on this same generosity of spirit when you consider yourself. It takes a leap of faith to believe that others might see your shortcomings and still love you anyway, that they might see you truly without thinking less of you. But this week, if you let the people you care about see your full, messy self, they’ll love you more, not less.

Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of October 11. The weekly horoscopes for the week of October 25 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 October 18