MAY HOROSCOPES

Having written a piece defending Sun-sign astrology, I thought it might be an idea to actually try doing some. I also thought I'd keep them fairly short, knowing what my own attention span is like!

ARIES

As an Aries, valuing the other person’s point of view isn’t your greatest strength, but it is where you learn most. Since March, with your ruler Mars going backwards, you have been tested in this area – maybe through a difficult period in your relationships, or maybe you’ve been simply looking after a stray cat! Either way, this theme reaches a peak in mid to late May, and you’ll be able to look back and see how much you’ve changed. With Mars now moving forward again, it will be time for some unfettered action.

TAURUS

You had a nice, dreamy time of it in April as your ruler Venus passed through Pisces, making all sorts of trines and sextiles. This month is different as Venus moves into Aries and encounters a load of challenging angles! It is time to take action, to give birth to whatever has been subliminally cooking during the April dreamtime. This will involve struggle and challenge in the first half of the month, but by the 16^th you should have a handle on what it is you are trying to create.

GEMINI

As a Gemini you enjoy the flow of new ideas and friends, but during the first week of May you may find yourself forced to concentrate on one thing, and think it through in a practical way. This goes against the grain, and yes it’s a bitch, and it’s probably money, but it keeps the puer aeternus on planet earth. Into the 2^nd week, and Mercury is back on home territory in Gemini, squaring Neptune, so it will be time to move your life and your ideas forward again, dynamically and imaginatively. Anything you do in the last week of May will be revisited by Mercury retrograde in June/July, so that will be a good time for first drafts rather than finished products.

CANCER

You are impacted by eclipses more than most signs, and during May you will be absorbing the impact of the Solar Eclipse of 29^th April. During a Solar Eclipse, the Sun and the Moon meet: the roots and branches of the tree talk to each other, and the Moon is energised with the new possibilities that the Sun opens up to her. The eclipse occurred in your 11^th House of hopes and wishes. As a Cancerian, you are naturally conservative, you prefer to stick with the known and safe, but May is a month for leaving your shell and allowing yourself to dream of what is possible.

LEO

You are impacted by eclipses more than most signs, and during May you will be absorbing the impact of the Solar Eclipse of 29th April. During a Solar Eclipse, the Sun and the Moon meet: the roots and branches of the tree talk to each other, and the Sun drinks deeply of the nourishment and care that the Moon has to offer. The eclipse occurred in your 10^th House of career and vocation, so it is time to reflect on whether, in your desire to shine, something gets left behind. But also, a time to move forward, grow some new branches, renewed by your contact with the Moon.

VIRGO

As an analytical Virgo, you can sometimes get a bit stuck in abstractions. But you also have a great appreciation for the cycles of nature, and the first week of May is a great time to get philosophical about this, experience how the natural world can give meaning to your life. For the rest of May, as Mercury moves through your 10^th House, squaring Neptune much of the time, it will be time to engage your imagination in your career, your vocation, in a way that, as a Virgo, is of use to the world.

LIBRA

This month is particularly challenging and dynamic for you. As a Libran, your classic dilemma of what you want vs what others want is being highlighted. In April, with Venus in Pisces making lots of nice aspects, you were probably at your charming best. But Venus in Aries is now saying but where were YOU in all that? It’s tricky, because you do get your sense of who you are through your relationships, so becoming a hermit isn’t the answer. The great thing about Venus in Aries is that she doesn’t feel guilty about putting herself first. And that’s the key. It’s often not so much that you don’t know what you want, it is that you feel guilty about it, like you’re a bad person for not putting others first. So this is a month for doing both with a clear conscience, and events will conspire to highlight the issue.

SCORPIO

Intensity is one of your keywords, and this month is no exception, with Mars and Pluto, the 2 rulers of your sign, squaring up to each other. Think Ukraine, a country where long-standing issues of identity are being violently addressed. As an individual, you can be more conscious than a country. Since March, Mars has been reversing through airy, fair minded Libra. And he’s been saying to you it’s not enough to be true to what you feel, even though that is one of your strengths. You need to be able also to stand back and weigh up what you’re feeling, about both yourself and others, and ask yourself if what you feel is reasonable, does it always serve you or anyone else? And, like the Russians in the Ukraine, are there parts of you that are protesting, that don’t feel treated fairly? For example, with Mars being in Libra, maybe you have an ability to use your intellect that you back off from.

SAGITTARIUS     

April was a challenging month for you as Jupiter formed a Grand Cross with Mars, Uranus and Pluto. The aspects remain this month, but they are no longer applying. Your natural tendency is to expand, to reach for the light, to quest for meaning. But Mars and Pluto particularly have been pulling you down to earth, even under the earth. It has been a time for gaining self-knowledge, creating a better launch pad in this world for your questing among the stars. Jupiter has for a long time been in Cancer, a sign it likes, so this process hasn’t been too terrible for you. This month the emphasis shifts onto absorbing the catalytic changes and events of April.

CAPRICORN

The approach of summer and some good weather isn’t necessarily uplifting you. And that’s not because you are a miserable Capricorn, but because your ruler Saturn is going backwards, as he has been doing for some time now, making you more reflective and cautious than usual. And this is a good thing, it is setting up a sound basis for when he starts to move forward again in July. Meanwhile, there is a trine from Jupiter to Saturn all month, uplifting you. So enjoy this period, there is meaning to be found in quiet and reflectiveness. Expect something to come to fruition around mid-May as Saturn conjoins the Full Moon.

AQUARIUS

April was a time of intense inner pressure for you, as Saturn continued his backwards journey through Scorpio, and Uranus squared up to Pluto. The pressure eases this month, but it is still pretty intense. You are happiest, and at your strongest, in the mental realm. But life has a way of forcing us out of our one-sidedness, and with one of your rulers currently in Scorpio, and with your other ruler being squared by the ruler of Scorpio, it is clear where you have been headed: the Underworld. You are still there, recovering from the latest round of dismemberment. And actually probably finding you are more whole, things are starting to flow better, than ever before. But it is not comfortable territory for you. Put another way, you’ve been encountering your ordinary humanity in some of its less wholesome forms, but it has been dynamic; through becoming more conscious of yourself in this way you have changed.

PISCES

For most of this year your co-ruler Jupiter has been locking horns with Uranus and Pluto. This month, for the first time, he is starting to move away from that encounter. But it is still raw. You feel deeply and sensitively, and you probably want to lick your wounds. April was particularly challenging for you, as it was for a number of the signs. With Jupiter in your 5^th House opposite Pluto in the 11^th, much of the challenge has been around creative expression vs involvement with groups of friends. And that perennial issue: exposing what you have created to the rough and tumble of other people and their opinions. Criticism can feel like death, particularly to a self-doubting Pisces. This is a fire that all creative people go through regularly. The function of Pluto in Capricorn has been to give you form, get you grounded so that you can take what the world throws at you, and grow roots.