The week ahead beckons,
and we need to be ready for it to feel right.
For our specially feminist horoscopes, our resident tarot reader Madam Zeenat reads the New World Tarot Deck, which envisions a world where justice relies on respect and revolutionary love. And this week, the tarot images are from The Hardy Tarot Deck. Written by Jugal Mody
July 16-July 22, 2018
This week, Madam Zeenat talks about the TV soap villainesses, the warmth of rain, your personal limits, and the potent narcotic of fixing problems.
Cancer
June 22 – July 22
It’s time to say goodbye to the sun this week, Crabcake. This means that these are the last few days of your birth month. (No, put that air guitar down! You don’t need to start singing “Those were the best days of my life…” already! Unless you’re seven beers down and at a karaoke bar.)
Also, apparently, Mercury is beep-boop-beep-booping through your finances and values and next week, it’s going to crash right into a retrograde. This is the week to be careful with your spending. There’s a risk of making some bad decisions which might end up with you in a tight spot during the retrograde. The good part about this? It’s going to be a week of cooking at home and pot luck dinner parties.
The cards send you The Devil, who asks you a simple question: What are your limits? With your spending, with how many you can cook for, with work that you’re willing to do to replenish your finances. I mean, yes, compromise is a part of survival but not this week. This week, be kind to yourself else the retrograde is going to suck you down the sewers like a rat in a Bombay flood.
Leo
July 23 – Aug 23
Shera, the Sun is coming, the Sun is coming! For you, it’s Sun square (not Sunskaar) because the Sun is also your parental planet. You are the most you and you are the best you during your birth month. So this is the week to prepare yourself for the month that is waiting for you.
Thankfully, Mercury is in your house right now so you need to make the most of it. Mercury is going to enable ideation and communication that will put things in place. You need to find ways to tackle and handle your insecurities and keep safeties in place because you don’t want them screwing with your work and life during your birth month.
The cards send you The 6 Of Cups. The 6 Of Cups is here to nourish your roots. It asks you to not forget the depth of your connections to the ones you hold closest. They’re the ones to fill you up with the warmth and love that you need to not chase your insecurities.
At work and in relationships, find that sense of home, where you feel validated, reciprocated, where you can put your feet up and get past all that you need to get past.
Virgo
Aug 24 – Sept 22
Work will be tough because your relationships with your colleagues will be tougher since you might be preoccupied. And decisions you need to make at work will be tougher even because of this lack of focus.
The 2 Of Wands is here to give you your mantra for the week: Self-sacrifice makes you magical and trauma makes you human. And you need to pick what is it that you wish to be? Magical or human. To make the sacrifice or to protect yourself. Doing both or even trying to do both might just lead to wounds that might never heal.
Libra
Sept 23 – Oct 23
Tarajuku girls, here’s the thing with forever seeking balance: Sometimes, it’s not possible. Sometimes, there’s always an extra weight you’re carrying in one of your scales and that leads to imbalance. That usually wrecks your sense of being, doesn’t it? This fortnight (last week and this week), Venus has been at all kindsa angles between five different planets and if you’re doing this without inner balance, you’re hurting yourself.
Work will continue to be the pinball machine it was for you last week as you ping-pew-ding across the board, lighting up every buzzer and bell that you hit. You’ll continue to score but you’ll need to ask yourself if those points are just numbers or do they have a deeper meaning.
The Empress is here to help you see the truths that you most need to feel the freedom and sense of balance — both in your relationships as well as at work. The one thing she asks you to do is ask your heart before doing anything. If you’re not feeling the love, push that work, push that relationship off to next week. Or even later. It’s alright. Your colleagues and loved ones trust you enough to keep you around. Else it wasn’t meant to be anyways.
Scorpio
Oct 24 – Nov 22
To start this week, put on Demi Lovato’s Confident and listen to the chorus: “So you say I’m complicated, That I must be outta my mind, But you had me underrated, Rated, rated, What’s wrong with being, what’s wrong with being, What’s wrong with being confident?” Because that’s what’s going to happen this week. Your interpersonal communication skills are going to be absolutely tatti and nobody will get you and you won’t get anybody. Everything will be a big mess.
But on the other hand, the Mars retrograde and the upcoming Mercury retrograde are honing you for other, better things. (Don’t ask if they’re bigger or not. Napoleon ne bhi nahin poochha thha!) This Mars-Mercury retrograde remix is going to keep you confident.
At work, revisit stuff done before and you’ll see that some little redoing and tweaking will make them glow. In creative hobbies and ventures, bring back older ideas, put them in motion.
The Knight Of Wands is here to help you have that confidence in yourself and asks you to be deeply intentional in your work. Relationships fudged by your communication mess will find themselves at peace even if they don’t find resolution. Unless of course, you just want to keep “communicating” through the mess.
Sagittarius
Nov 23 – Dec 21
The cards send you The 6 Of Swords to remind you to smile and not brood in that cabin of yours. She represents the end of failure, toxicity and full of subtle mist (for the firefly to glow in) and hope.
At work, you will want to put your headphones on and sit alone in a cabin (real kind, the office kind) and finish as much work as you’d like. But it’ll be alright if you let in that one colleague, who will have his/her own earphones on and his/her own shit to finish.
In relationships, please tell your loved ones about your need to be alone. Else they’ll be lost, without a way to feel your love or without a way to love you. It’s not a kind thing to do to yourself or your loved ones. Keep talking to them, even if it’s a word or two, a meme or two, a link or two.
Capricorn
Dec 22 – Jan 20
Sometimes sorting out problems, untangling issues can feel amazing. Sometimes those problems are yours and sometimes they belong to people close to you. This can become an addiction. And like all addictions, when you don’t get your fix, you can turn into a violent and anxious beast. This week, Jupiter is going to act like a slow-releasing IV in your bloodstream. Don’t abuse it by trying to fix everyone around you. Use this week to work just on you.
At work, don’t go around pointing out what everyone else is doing wrong this week. Ask yourself, why is it that you feel that they’re wrong. Is it your gut feeling or do you have a way out that will help the whole project?
The cards send you The Moon, to help you push aside the illusion that other people’s problems are your own. She reminds you that as much as the validation of others telling us how awesome we are, we also need to listen to our own intuitions.
In relationships, put an out-of-order sign for all those who come to you for fixes. Instead, ask them if they have the tools to fix you or offer them something to eat and drink and kiss them bye for now.
Aquarius
Jan 21 – Feb 18
Last week’s solar eclipse has left your slate clean and you feel like you have nowhere to go from here. But you feel like you have a lot of energy and motivation this week but nothing to put it in. Don’t push for new initiatives in the middle of this Mars retrograde. It’s time to reorganize! You know basic things like sleep cycle, eating habits, time management, etc, etc.
The cards send you Suspension. Suspension is one of my personal favourites because Suspension is a dancer and grace and joy and a learning experience, all at the same time. Hanging off a horseshoe above the moon, look at your world, and let indecision turn into reflection.
At work, this is a great time to open up all your plans like you’re a four-year-old on a sugar rush with a toolkit, and a brand new set of motorised toys. Don’t worry, unlike that four-year-old, you will put them back together and even if they have some parts missing or you’ve added some extra parts, they will work fine.
In relationships, ask yourself, what is it that you’re not doing for the ones you love the most? I mean, you can always ask them what they feel you’ve not been giving them enough of. And give it to them if you can or hug them and say you can’t.
Pisces
Feb 19 – Mar 20
Paaplet, when it’s pouring, no fisherfolk are out there with their nets waiting to trap you to turn you into food. So that means there’s no stress and struggle waiting for you anywhere. You’re free to swim the deep seas of your subconscious, unhindered, meet other lovely fishitas and have a jolly good time.
The Ace Of Wands is the birth of the creative seed. Like someone set years of oil spills aka subconscious layering alight and you can see clearly and be clearly even in the storm. When swimming in the seas of your subconscious, stormy or otherwise, you’ll bump into not only other fish like you but also a lot of other wonders. You’ll revive older loves when it comes to work, art and people.
At work, you’ll find yourself figuring out ideas that nobody else will have thought of. If you’re the creative type, no better time than now to start making something brand new. It’ll all come to you. If your projects usually take a long time, take lots of notes this week. They will be great notes.
In relationships, meet your closest friends, family and lovers. You’ll be able to feel their needs by being around them, and they’ll be able to feel yours. Single surmais, it’s a great time to start a new romance.
Aries
Mar 21 – Apr 20
Ram-ola ji, this week, you’re a villainess in a soap. And you’re wearing long eyeliner and a bindi that can only be described as fantastic. And the camera pans across your face more times in an episode than any other character. (And a background track that says, Ramola-Ramola, every time you enter.) Your saris will also be every wedding ki shaan, where all the ladies will be discussing which one you wore in which episode. Oh yeah, this week is all about high fashion and high drama. Everything you do will feel like ek kadam aage aur pachpan peechhe but don’t worry that’s just your character.
All communications will be hasty, rough and perhaps even disruptive, be it at work or in your relationships. After all, the heavy demands of every plot twist are on you. You will be impulsive and impulses sometimes lead to mistakes. Don’t worry too much about the mistakes.
The cards send you Strength. Strength reminds you that all soapy dramas are built on mistakes that all of us make as humans. So study these mistakes and learn how they manifest in your everyday life. Strength is here to help you get through with nothing but radical tenderness. Toh Ram-ola ji, ho gaya na plot twist?
Taurus
Apr 21 – May 21
Baellisima, this Mangal is upto retrograde-wala dangal. So first of all, don’t try to do kushti in your work life because Mangal is definitely going to make all execution difficult. Please don’t be baited into giving up your greatest strengths: stability and structure while giving into your bullish rage.
Listen to The Page Of Swords, look at the Mangal monster in its eyes and laugh. Do kushti with the monster not your colleagues. Follow Michelle Obama’s advice, “When they go low, we go high!” (Not woh wala high.) The best way to tackle this retrograde situation is to do one of these two things: research and ideation. Create a dossier, document, whatever you need to to make execution easier when the time is right.
In the middle of this week, your relationships will start filling up with warmth, trust and good humour. The Page Of Swords asks you to build on this warmth and trust, don’t let it dissipate into nothingness. Nurture it and nourish from it. As a friend recently paraphrased from Eknath Easwaran’s Dialogue With Death: “When it rains on a hill, the water creates runnels as it tries to find the quickest way down. The next time it rains, it is easier for the water to flow down the runnels, making them deeper and broader.”
Gemini
May 22 – June 21
Twintastico, this week is going to be all about personal power. So if you have even a moment of doubt about who you are, what you are capable of, I would use that oft-used phrase from the all-time favourite cult classic Heathers: Fuck that moment gently with a chainsaw.
This week is nestled between last week’s solar eclipse and the coming week’s lunar eclipse. That makes this week prime for money-related insecurities, and transport and communication issues. These might feel like they’re here to hamper your personal power and growth. But The 5 Of Wands is here to tell you that the struggle to survive without self-destruction, competition and cyclical suffering is an indefinite battle. And Physics says that struggle is energy, like water crashing against the turbines, making them turn to produce electricity.
At work, you’ll find that persistence pays off. The 5 Of Wands asks for you to sit down with your truth, your stresses, your complicated decisions and your hopes for a better tomorrow, write them all down on a piece of paper, and just breathe. Every effort you put in right now is going to have payoffs for months once the haze making you doubt your personal power lifts.