astrology

Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of May 15

It’s Taurus season. Illustration: Sunny Wu

This is a busy astrological week, with a noteworthy occurrence happening nearly every day. On Sunday, Mercury retrograde ends, and you can breathe a sigh of relief as communication becomes less muddled and frustrating. At last, life starts going according to plan again (at least, as much as it ever does). Then on Tuesday, Jupiter, the planet that speaks to how we find and create luck and abundance, leaves impulsive Aries and enters determined Taurus. Know who you are and what you value, stand firm in that knowledge, and the universe will reward you. On Friday, a new moon in Taurus invites you to think about what you need to feel secure, and how you might contribute to a world where everyone can be safe. Finally on Saturday, action planet Mars leaves Cancer and enters Leo. The time for fear and defensiveness is over; this is your moment to get fired up, to take risks, to trust that your passion is every bit as useful as your cautiousness.

Weekly Horoscope Aries

Aries Weekly Horoscope

While you’re always happy to rush to the assistance of the people you love, you don’t enjoy it when the tables are turned and you have to ask for help. Your preference is to work independently, maybe because you enjoy the freedom of doing things exactly how you want, maybe because you don’t trust others to deliver. But life will be easier if you stop trying to carry more than your fair share of the load. As much as you might wish you didn’t have to rely on other people, that’s not realistic. You do so much for others. This week, let them return the favor.

Weekly Horoscope Taurus

Taurus Weekly Horoscope

Whenever you start to feel good about yourself — loved or popular or great at your job — you almost immediately begin to worry that perhaps you’re only being arrogant, that you’d be better off being hard on yourself. You’ve seen how others overestimate their own capabilities, how quickly confidence can turn to hubris, and you’re afraid to do the same. But don’t fret. Self-criticism is easy. Loving yourself is much harder. So this week, when someone else praises you, or when you think well of yourself, hold onto that feeling. Don’t chase it away.

Weekly Horoscope Gemini

Gemini Weekly Horoscope

Sometimes you struggle to sit still for long. Not because there’s a particular destination you’re impatient to get to, but because you get bored when things stay the same. There’s so much in the world to learn; repeating experiences seems like a waste of your time. This week, though, you’ll find more joy in familiarity than novelty. You can go to a place you’ve been a hundred times and discover something new, spend time with the people you’ve known forever and be surprised by them. If you slow down and pay attention to the world around you, adventure will come to you.

Weekly Horoscope Cancer

Cancer Weekly Horoscope

It would be so nice, you often think, if other people could intuit your needs as well as you do theirs. You’re great at anticipating what friends and partners want before they say a word — sometimes before they themselves are aware. More than anything, you wish that someone could do the same for you: take one look at you and offer whatever you’re yearning for. But nobody can read your mind, and you can’t expect them to. This week, it’s up to you to take action: to ask for what you want, or to go out and get it yourself.

Weekly Horoscope Leo

Leo Weekly Horoscope

When you see people who look brave or cool or self-assured — qualities you’d like to embody — you occasionally get jealous. You imagine that their confidence has come naturally to them, while you’ve had to fight for yours. You don’t perceive their self-doubt so you assume that they don’t have any, which makes you feel like you shouldn’t have any, either. But that’s just not true. Everyone experiences moments of insecurity. You worry that there’s something wrong with you, that self-love should come more easily. This week, try to trust that everyone needs to work at it, and that you’re right on track.

Weekly Horoscope Virgo

Virgo Weekly Horoscope

You understand that there are no shortcuts in life. Genuine growth takes effort; there’s no way around it. You know that progress isn’t linear, that healing won’t observe your preferred schedule, following its own meandering timeline. Even so, lately you’ve been wishing you could fast forward, rush through the painful phases to get to the rewarding ones. But every once in a while, life’s unpredictability works in your favor. You can’t force happiness to arrive when you want it to, but you can open the door to it, trusting that sometimes it arrives when you least expect it.

Weekly Horoscope Libra

Libra Weekly Horoscope

You’ve been worrying, recently, that you’ve failed to live up to your potential. Maybe you wish you were farther along in your career, maybe you imagined you’d be an entirely different person: more creative, more daring, more special. You keep beating yourself up for not having followed a different path, but you haven’t done anything wrong. The problem is that you’re comparing yourself to others, or to an ideal in your head. Trying to become “better” or push yourself harder won’t help, but turning your attention to the present and focusing on your daily life — quiet or ordinary or imperfect as it is — just might.

Weekly Horoscope Scorpio

Scorpio Weekly Horoscope

You tend to keep your expectations low, and often enough, your skepticism is validated. But every once in a while, you’re surprised to find beauty where you thought there was none, to encounter ease where you expected struggle. This week, if you pay attention, you’ll experience small, miraculous moments of loveliness and grace. Don’t take this as a sign that everything’s going to be effortless from here on out. Accept it as a gift, a sign that even in the strangest of times, sweetness can find you.

Weekly Horoscope Sagittarius

Sagittarius Weekly Horoscope

Life feels like it’s out of your control these days. You’ve been forced to juggle much more than you can comfortably manage, always scared you’ll mess up or fall behind. Sure, there’s a thrill and satisfaction to be found in pushing yourself to the edge of your capacity, but a person can only keep that up for so long. There are limits to how much you can balance, how long you can sprint. This week, take a moment to catch your breath and find your footing. Give yourself a chance to rest, to recommit to your boundaries and reclaim time for yourself.

Weekly Horoscope Capricorn

Capricorn Weekly Horoscope

Certain people in your orbit seem happy to live in a world of imagination and wishful thinking, but you refuse to pretend everything’s fine when it’s not. You can’t convince yourself the outlook is brighter than your logic says it is. You’re stuck here living in the real world, and it sometimes feels like a curse. This week, though, try to notice the ways that it’s also a gift. You know what needs to be done to make actual change. You’re not easily fooled by appearances. And when you are moved by beauty or kindness, you can’t trust that it’s real.

Weekly Horoscope Aquarius

Aquarius Weekly Horoscope

You may be stuck in the mindset that you have to wait for conditions to improve before you can really start living. Once things calm down at work or once you meet someone special, you tell yourself, you’ll get out more. You’ll have more fun. Once you become somehow better — once you start exercising or meditating or waking up early — everything will be different. This week, your job is to stop waiting for an ideal future version of your life (or yourself) and focus on the present instead. Yes, the world is a mess, and yes, your life is imperfect, but it’s yours, and it’s up to you to make the most of it.

Weekly Horoscope Pisces

Pisces Weekly Horoscope

Lately, you’ve been trying to take it slow, to avoid getting carried away by a new project or passion. You’ve been scared of making mistakes, so you’ve tried to be careful and take one step at a time. It’s been agonizing, probably; you’d so much prefer to rush in wildly and see what happens. This week, though, you might be surprised to find that moving slowly can be pleasurable, too. There’s excitement in anticipation, a thrill in settling in for the ride and trusting that things will unfold beautifully, exactly as they’re meant to.

Read the weekly horoscopes for the week of May 8. The weekly horoscopes for the week of May 22 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 May 15