For the week of Aug. 27

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes, “Some stuff can be fixed, some stuff can’t be. Deciding which is which is part of maturing.” I offer this meditation as your assignment in the coming weeks. You are in a phase when you’ll be wise to make various corrections and adjustments. But you should keep in mind that you don’t have unlimited time and energy to do so. And that’s OK, because some glitches can’t be repaired and others aren’t fully worthy of your passionate intensity. You really should choose to focus on the few specific acts of mending and healing that will serve you best in the long run.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice,” wrote author F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is true even between the same two people in an intimate alliance with each other. The love that you and your spouse or friend or close relative or collaborator exchanged a month ago isn’t the same as it is now. It can’t be identical, because then it wouldn’t be vibrant, robust love, which needs to ceaselessly transform in order to be vibrant and robust. This is always true, of course, but will be an especially potent meditation for you during the next four weeks.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): As a professional writer, novelist Thomas Wolfe trained himself to have keen perceptions that enabled him to penetrate below surface appearances. And yet he wrote, “I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” In other words, it was hard even for him, a highly trained observer, to get a deep and accurate read of what was going on. It required a long time and many attempts—and rarely occurred for him on the first look. Even if you’re not a writer, I recommend his approach for you in the coming weeks. You will attune yourself to current cosmic rhythms—and thus be more likely to receive their full help and blessings—if you deepen and refine the way you use your senses.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): It’s sometimes tempting for you to seek stability and safety by remaining just the way you are. When life pushes you to jump in and enjoy its wild ride, you may imagine it’s wise to refrain—to retreat to your sanctuary and cultivate the strength that comes from being staunch and steadfast and solid. Sometimes that approach does indeed work for you. I’m not implying it’s wrong or bad. But in the coming weeks, I think your strategy should be different. The advice I’ll offer you comes from Cancerian author and aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work,” says author Sister Mary Lauretta. Have you been making progress in accomplishing that goal? According to my astrological analysis, fate has been offering and will continue to offer you the chance to either find work that you’ll love better than the work you’re doing, or else discover how to feel more love and excitement for your existing work. Why not intensify your efforts to cooperate with fate?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Self-love is also remembering to let others love you. Come out of hiding.” Poet Irisa Yardenah wrote that advice, and now I’m passing it on to you, just in time for a phase when you will benefit from it most. I mean, it’s always good counsel for you to heed. But it will be especially crucial in the coming weeks, when you’ll have extra potential to bloom in response to love. And one of the best ways to ensure this extra potential is fulfilled is to make yourself thoroughly available to be appreciated, understood, and cared for.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libran poet Wallace Stevens wrote that if you want to be original, you must “have the courage to be an amateur.” I agree! And that’s an important theme for you right now, since you’re entering a phase when your original ideas will be crucial to your growth. So listen up: If you want to stimulate your creatively to the max, adopt the fresh-eyed attitude of a rookie or a novice. Forget what you think you know about everything. Make yourself as innocently curious and eager as possible. Your imaginative insights and innovations will flow in abundance to the degree that you free yourself from the obligation to be serious and sober and professional. And keep in mind that Stevens said you need courage to act this way.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off,” writes author Michael Lewis. According to my analysis, the coming weeks will provide you with ample evidence that proves his hypothesis—on one condition, that is: You will have to cultivate and express a thoughtful kind of optimism. Is that possible? Do you have the audacity to maintain intelligent buoyancy and discerning positivity, even in the face of those who might try to gaslight you into feeling stupid for being buoyant and positive? I think you do.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Rebecca Solnit writes, “The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation.” Her statement is especially apropos for you right now. The experiences you’re yearning for will indeed change you significantly if you get them—even though those changes will be different from what your conscious mind thinks they’ll be. But don’t worry. Your higher self—the eternal part of you that knows just what you need—is fully aware of the beneficial transformations that will come your way when you get what you yearn for.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): At age 22, future pioneer of science Isaac Newton got his college degree just as the Great Plague peaked in 1665. As a safety precaution, he proceeded to quarantine himself for many months. During that time of being sealed away, he made spectacular discoveries about optics, gravity, and calculus—in dramatic contrast to his years as a student, when his work had been relatively undistinguished. I’m not predicting that your experience of the 2020 pandemic will prove to be as fruitful. But of all the signs in the zodiac, I do think your output could be most Newton-like. And the coming weeks will be a good time for you to redouble your efforts to generate redemption amidst the chaos.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The rapper named Viper has released more than 1,000 albums. In 2014 alone, he created 347. His most popular work is You’ll Cowards Don’t Even Smoke Crack, which has received more than three million views on YouTube. According to The Chicago Reader, one of Viper’s most appealing features is his “blatant disregard for grammar.” I should also mention that he regards himself as the second Christ, and uses the nickname “Black Jesus.” So what does any of this have to do with you? Well, I’m recommending that you be as prolific, in your own field, as he is in his. I’m also inviting you to experiment with having a fun-loving disregard for grammar and other non-critical rules. And I would love to see you temporarily adopt some of his over-the-top braggadocio.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “If you don’t ask the right question, every answer seems wrong,” says singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco. I suspect you may have experienced a version of that predicament in recent weeks. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I expect you will finally formulate the right questions very soon. They will most likely be quite different from the wrong and irrelevant questions you’ve been posing. In fact, the best way to find the revelatory questions will be to renounce and dismiss all the questions you have been asking up until now.