For most of May, this isn’t too much of a problem, but Mercury does decide to tick off the outer planets right at the time of your birthday new moon on the 8th. Since Pluto is in your other financial house and since Pluto likes to keep things very close to the vest (and perhaps downplay the extent of your assets), Mercury could decide it would be hilarious to spill the beans on some financial matter you hadn’t intended to discuss. You will likely not be amused. It isn’t that this exact thing would necessarily occur, but the clash is between revealing and concealing, expressing and suppressing.

Mercury will challenge Uranus a bit more frequently, mostly in July, but once on June 8. In this case, Mercury will probably endeavor to irritate one of your friends or colleagues. Again, it would be a case of unwelcome blabbing (not necessarily by you). Not a big deal, but not very soothing either.

To add to the not to soothing vibe, Mars, the planet of war, will be in your sign until mid-July. Conflict could ensue. If you are a creative type, though, Mars can you give the boost you need to get things done. Or it could make you feel like engaging in non-stop monologues. Mars has that effect on some people.

What is soothing is the influence of Neptune, which stations and changes direction on the 7th. Neptune in your career house gets along fabulously with Mercury in Cancer and forms a happy threesome with Saturn in Scorpio. Money coming in through work and career look good in June. Saturn reminds you to be particular and meticulous (and realistic) on the job, but you can do that, and overall, Saturn is in an excellent mood in June.

There’s even better news on the financial front for the coming 12 months. Jupiter moving into Cancer at the end of the June bodes well for your finances for a full year. This influence only happens once every 12 years, so make money while the planets shine. The flip side of Jupiter moving into your financial sign is that Jupiter will no longer be in your sign. Some of you will feel a bit less verve as you lose the stimulation of Jupiter’s companionship.

Although the strong financial focus for your year ahead begins this month, next month is when it really becomes first priority, as your ruler Mercury goes direct in the 3rd week of August and Mars enters your financial sign as well. Saturn also goes direct in your solar house of job and work next month, enhancing the favorable angle with Neptune in your career sector.

Uranus also goes retrograde in July, making July a rather special month in your year ahead with lots of changes in planetary direction. Next month won’t be the month for travel, nor will the next year really. Uranus and Pluto will continue to bare their fangs at each other for awhile over the next year or so and you might be better off sticking close to home and dealing with necessities rather than attempting to escape to exotic lands.

Your own birth chart will make a big difference in terms of how the next 12 months as a whole play out, but themes relating to the past and to possessions and to the concept of usefulness will be prominent.

For some people, this will mean getting rid of things that no longer seem useful (getting rid of possessions from the past). But for others, a different definition of usefulness may emerge. For example, with Saturn in your solar 6th house (which rules pets in addition to work and health), some of you may find that a new pet is far more important and useful in your life than some fancy new gadget. Others will be doing things like feeling the need to update or re-evaluate the tools they work with. September of 2013 will bring these themes to the fore.

By October of 2013, we’re in eclipse season again, with a new series in Aries and Libra beginning. This new series will not necessarily affect you too strongly at first. But in November, another solar eclipse in Scorpio occurs. Scorpio is your work sign. With Saturn in this sign and eclipses occurring, you should prepare to work harder over the next 12 months than you may feel you should. Hard work presents opportunities for you, although it may also be a trial of your patience.

Expect the fall of 2013 to be quite intense. Again, your own personal chart will have a big say in how you personally will be affected. But the bottom line is that the stars are making a strong effort to have you start a new chapter in your professional life this year.

Mars in Gemini is also precise about numbers. If you mean 3, it doesn’t want you to say ‘a few.’ In short, you have great energy for technical precision with words and numbers this month. The sun in Gemini (until the 21st) will want to use your verbal prowess to tell other people what to do, give them advice, boss them around. Mars can go along with that.

At the top of your chart, Pluto in Capricorn finds the sun’s verbal pretentiousness in Gemini a bit amusing and perhaps bemusing as well. Pluto is plotting your way to power and authority and it doesn’t think you can get there by correcting other people’s grammar. Instead, Pluto is allying itself with Neptune in Pisces, which is particularly powerful this month (around the 7th; Neptune is not the least bit precise), because it stations and turns retrograde. When planets change directions they often like to do so with a flourish. Neptune’s forte is working behind the scenes.

In turn, Neptune and Pluto are also allied with Saturn in Scorpio. Saturn is the reality principle and it is busy in Scorpio discovering that you do not have a vast pool of money hoarded away in the form of assets and investments. It is not especially happy about this, but it is working this year and next to remedy that. (By the way, the term vast pool of money is relative. You may actually have quite a bit stashed, but Saturn is not satisfied regardless.)

In league with Pluto and Neptune, Saturn’s aim is to work the system, pull strings behind the scenes and generally prod you to give the appearance to sticking to the traditional straight and narrow in your business and professional dealings right now. Discretion, these planets believe, is the better part of valor right now, and the concept of discretion may stretch all the way to secrecy and back-room conspiracy.

The underhanded, ruthless, and yet impressive ambition of the planets above your solar horizon right now shocks and dismays Uranus in your own sign. Uranus wants to bounce about being open, straightforward, impulsive, untraditional and eager to buck the system the other planets are trying to work to your advantage. The result of this is that powerful planets in your chart keep barking ‘No!’ at Uranus in your own sign. You may hear actual loud ‘no!’ phrases coming from figures of authority in your life these days.

For the time being, listen to and heed the ‘no!’ signals you pick up in your life. Now is really not the time to push the envelope even if you really feel like it. Besides, by the end of the month, you’ll have plenty to do to keep up with activities in your home and family sector. Jupiter is moving into your solar 4th house for a year and he’ll be taking up a lot of space.

Speaking of which, the sun and Mercury (which goes retrograde on the 26th) and Venus will also transit through your solar 4th house sign of Cancer this month. That’s a lot of home and family stuff to pack into your chart, so be prepared.

Venus in Gemini is concerned with your stuff, the physical stuff you own or want to own, and with being particular and picky about said stuff. It goes along with the sun, Mars and Jupiter, which are concerned about the same things in June.

Mars and the sun show your capacity for work or effort directed toward your possessions, getting or maintaining them. Mars is in charge of wanting stuff and Venus is in charge of picking out which specific things you want. Jupiter is in charge of trying to magically deliver them to you. This can be stuff you buy for yourself (clothes! Venus likes clothes) and stuff you buy for others (adorable gifts). The stuff in question can be large (a car) or small (a baby’s onesie).

Bottom line: if you need stuff, start getting it now before all this energy goes away in mid-July.

Now let’s turn to the Cancer energy. Venus spends the bulk of the month in this sign as does Mercury. The sun joins on the 21st and Jupiter joins on the 25th. The sign of Cancer in your chart is more concerned with people than things, people like relatives or neighbors. Like your sign, Cancer prefers routine and tradition. Routines and traditions, particularly those involving family, will make your chart happy this month. Jupiter’s move into Cancer at the end of the month signals a greater emphasis on these things during the next 12 months.

Finally, Venus in Leo from the 27th gives a preview of July. Leo is your home and family sign. Venus is a gracious host. Maybe not so much in June, but certainly in July, your chart will want to entertain or be visited by family (and perhaps friends) in your home.

Now for the outer planets. Pluto continues to rule the roost in your sector of education, learning and high-level intellectual growth. If you were born in the very beginning of May, Pluto is addressing his educational efforts directly to you. He is trying to make difficult subjects easier than they normally would be, to help you figure out how to learn smarter, not harder. It is as though he wants you to be able to absorb knowledge without undue effort.

Neptune may also affect you this month, and Neptune is in a tight alliance with Saturn these days. Neptune is in your friendship sector, but in a more general sense, Neptune is about increasing your attractiveness to a wider scope of people. Neptune wants you to look great, appear glamorous. This may be because Saturn is in your relationship sector. Being attractive, glamorous or perhaps slightly mysterious can be helpful in relationships. Neptune is the planet of rose-colored glasses, and it may be that letting your partners see you with a bit of a rosy tint is just what you need to seal the deal in a committed relationship.

The odd planet out, Mr. Unpopular and Disruptive, is Uranus in Aries. Uranus in Aries is busy stirring up world events or at least national ones (in April, you could see his explosive nature in the Boston marathon bombings and the explosion in West, Texas). Uranus in Aries makes you want to get out of town when you can’t, to escape when escape is just not in the cards. It may be behind the scenes, not visible to others, but prepare for a bit of teeth-gritting in June as you silently muscle your way through some tense situations. Things are actually getting better but it may not appear that way just yet.

June’s new moon is in the sign of Gemini on the 8th, falling in your solar 12th house of spending time alone. If your home is your place of retreat, you might want to spend the couple of weeks after the new moon puttering around the house getting household tasks done. The sun, Mars, and Jupiter also spend most of the month in Gemini, so you’ll have plenty of planetary help in figuring out creative ways to use solitude. For example, you might find spending some time quietly observing nature brings you insights. Gemini is a learning sign, one willing to find a lesson in almost anything it encounters.

The month’s full moon is in the sign of Capricorn on the 23rd and falls in your solar 7th house of relationships. Full moons are supposed to symbolize endings, bringing a chapter to a close, and you only get one full moon per year in your solar 7th house. You may choose, therefore, to bring an end to a relationship matter.

With Pluto in your solar 7th house as well, you may realize that the time is right to eliminate relationships or elements of relationships that no longer serve a useful purpose. Pluto is a planet that teaches that taking a step back or even moving backwards and re-thinking the past can actually be the best ways to move forward in new and better directions. With Venus in your own sign for most of the month, it seems to be time to love yourself more than others.

Vague Neptune goes retrograde in vague Pisces on the 7th. This makes Neptune strong in your solar sector of things that are far, far away. Most of the time that can be taken fairly literally, as in matters relating to overseas travel and so on. But Neptune rules the land of imagination and need not be so literal. You may find yourself drifting into the never-never-land of pleasant fantasy and daydreams as a means of escape from whatever in your life is not exciting enough to suit your taste.

Another way to think of Neptune in your chart right now is that part of its job is to question purpose–to ponder the big picture of your life. When you combine a strong Neptune with lots of Gemini planets and a strong Pluto influence – you get a real chance to use that solitude and communing with nature thing I mentioned earlier as a way to really deeply reflect on your relationships, including the ones that are not working the way you want, in order to figure out why not and how they might be made to work more ideally. In short, lots of behind the scenes musing in your chart for most of the month.

And then – as the month ends, Jupiter moves into your sign. Jupiter’s official move-in date is the 25th, but you may not notice him at first. He’ll be in your sign for a year though, and he’s likely to bestow special treats during his stay. Something to look forward to as we move into summer!

Since Pluto is in your solar house of the office, some of you will be doing structural or renovation work on your offices. Others will be combining the two energies by setting up a home office this year. If things are not going well on the home front (Saturn can be difficult), home may be a place you’d rather avoid, but it’s probably best to face what you have to face and get on with things.

Vague Neptune in indefinite Pisces also stations this month, making him feel especially boundary-less. Prepare for a certain amount of spaciness in yourself and others. Perhaps we all need a little mental down-time and Neptune’s dreamy absent-mindedness might help us get it.

Mercury also goes retrograde this month, in the sign of Cancer. Since Mercury is the thinking planet, this retrograde is another sign that you should not be demanding mental sharpness of yourself this month. Instead, pleasant reveries and happy thoughts of escape should prevail. It’s a month to put into practice that old trick of imagining yourself on a beach in Tahiti every time you get stressed by the real world of job, other people, and finances (or whatever it is in your life that stresses you).

Meanwhile, the sun, Mars, and Jupiter spend most of the month in the tricky sign of Gemini. Gemini is the sign of transportation and particularly of travel by car. That makes June a good month to make your car your Leonine castle, tricking it out so that it meets your musical and comfort specifications. Most of us spend a lot of time in our cars anyway; we might as well find a way to make the time as enjoyable as it can be.

If you can’t bear to deal with your automobile, Gemini is also a reading sign, so maybe you could borrow a book from a friend and get started on your summer trashy novel reading as a way to give yourself both some pleasure and some mental downtime.

At the end of the month, Venus moves into your sign, the first of the inner planets to do so. Venus as a planet is happy to be lazy, and her kick-back vibe will clash a bit with Pluto’s tendency to drive you toward workaholism these days. See if you can sneak in some not-working-so-hard time as the month draws to a close.

Finally, as we get to mid-month, your long-distance travel vibes start to get better again after last month’s harsh clash with Pluto. Mid-July could actually be a good time for a trip, but you could start planning now if you’re of a mind to.

Even Uranus, who was so pissy last month, is in a better mood, making it okay to get together with friends and groups, especially in intimate settings. (Your mileage may vary, depending on your personal chart, and some of you may still need to exercise caution when it comes to dealing with things like exes and debts, or other items not so likely to cause harmony.)

Your ruler Mercury does go retrograde this month, on the 26th. That could have the effect of making your thinking less precise. And the month’s strong Neptune, harmonious as it is, isn’t going to make your mental faculties any sharper. Nope, the times are better for glamor, romance, sentimentality and making cute faces at cute babies. Tell your inner cynic (if you have one) to take a hike for the month of June so that you can buy summer sundresses and coo over kittens and puppies.

If your inner cynic will not be quieted, keep him busy with work, because there’ll likely be plenty of it. June is your annual career month, and this year Mars joins the sun at the top of your chart (and Jupiter is there too, waving goodbye and sending air-kisses to your professional colleagues as he gets ready to leave).

Your career sign of Gemini is the sign of attending to whatever is near at hand and screaming for your attention. It thrives on urgency, distractions, stimulation and variety. Mars is the planet of tools and when he’s in your career sign he likes tools like computers, smartphones, fancy gadgets and things that promise to increase your already prodigious productivity. If you’ve been eying some piece of technology that promises to double your output and save your time–well now’s the time to stop eying it and start trying it out.

Your one big danger of the month is overdoing it–whether at home or work. The skies are a bit obsessive these days and they could play right into your own underlying obsessive tendencies. Beware the impulse to overschedule.

Finally, I should mention that on the 25th, Jupiter enters the sign of Cancer. Cancer is the sign of homebodies and it represents your solar house of relating to society. For some of you that will mean that you’ll find great joy in relating to society by staying at home and watching a bunch of TV. There are worse fates, and some of you could use the break.

Neptune in your solar 6th house also influences how you approach your health and the day-to-day responsibilities of life. In this regard, Neptune’s preferred approach is to be as vague as possible. Maybe you’ll get around to exercising; maybe you won’t. Maybe you need to do a bunch of chores – or just maybe they’re not actually all that important. Sometimes taking it easy is wiser than taking it hard; that’s Neptune’s lesson, and it could be one worth learning.

Another way to look at it is that Neptune is encouraging you to recover from the rather trying month of May. Pluto, Uranus, eclipses; things were tough in May. All these ragged influences are trying to calm down and Neptune is trying to help them. Pluto in your solar 4th house of home needs to chill out and so do you. With Neptune’s help, maybe you and Pluto could spend some time in the backyard as summer begins, just listening to the birds and zoning out.

Uranus in your solar 7th house of relationships is also trying to chill out. Translation: if your spouse or significant other needs some space to wind down from whatever got him or her all wound up last month – let the person have it.

So far, we have a theme, the chillax theme. There is one tiny complication. Mercury and Venus are in your solar career sign this month. Even as Neptune is trying to get you to back slowly away from the extra workload, Mercury and Venus are trying to sneak back into the office at night. Furthermore, Jupiter will be joining in the sneaking as the month ends. That’s right, Jupiter is moving into your career sign on the 25th and he’ll be there for a full year.

What do about this? Nothing. It’ll all work out, at least for now. You’ll get your downtime (if you listen to the planets), you’ll take care of a couple of specific career things that need your attention this month, and it’ll all be fine. No sweat. For the longer term, the challenge will be figuring out how to get ‘me’ time into the mix of your life, which is why you need to de-stress while the de-stressing is good.

You might even take advantage of this month’s vibes to get in a vacation. When Jupiter enters your career house, he leaves your house of long-distance travel, not to return for 12 more years. You have until the 25th to use Jupiter’s influence to get out of town (or even the country). And during June, the sun, new moon, and Mars are also in your travel sector. If you can find a way to swing a low-cost vacay (Saturn in your second house is in a penny-pinching mood), it might be worth taking one.

Uranus is in your solar 6th house these days. The 6th house relates to things like health maintenance and daily chores. When Uranus in your solar 6th house is in a bad mood, you might be too tired to pick your dirty clothes off the floor, or the laundry room is always taken or your washer and dryer break. Little chores can become big hassles. That’s why you are very glad that Uranus and Pluto are backing off from outright confrontation during June.

Your solar 6th house also relates to your work environment and your job. So things should be improving in those areas during June as well. Pluto, meanwhile, has been in the part of your chart that affects things like your car and basic transportation. So if you’ve been having car troubles, those should also ease. Strangely enough, the third house of transportation is also the house of things like lessons, short classes, and mastery of technique. If you’ve been frustrated by an inability to learn something or if you need a mental breakthrough, you may get it in June.

Neptune is also especially strong in June because he stations and then goes retrograde. Neptune is in your solar house of happiness and fun and love and children. Think happy thoughts this month. It’s worth the effort even if you’ve been a bit gloomy because Neptune is in a good mood with Saturn in your own sign. Thinking happy can do more than just make you feel better, it can lead to satisfying insights about your life.

Mercury in Cancer also goes retrograde this month. The combination of Mercury retrograde and a strong Neptune can make it difficult to nail down specifics, make decisions, keep appointments, or make wise purchasing decisions. You can either try very hard to make sure you are very precise and detailed this month or you can go with the flow and let things stay sort of up in the air for awhile. Almost half the information you need to nail things down probably isn’t visible right now anyway, so you may be better off going with the flow.

Finally, the end of June sees the beginning of a year-long emphasis on your solar house of long-distance travel. Once Jupiter moves into Cancer on the 25th, you’ll have the foreign travel planet in your foreign travel sector. You may not be planning any overseas trips right this minute, but getting out of the country will be on your chart’s mind soon and for awhile to come.

With the endings come beginnings; that’s the way eclipses work. May also saw a solar eclipse in the sign of Taurus, which represents your solar 6th house. The 6th house relates to things as diverse as pets, your job, your health and your daily chores. Some of you will get (or have recently gotten) a new job, others a new pet, and still others spiffy new tools with which to get necessary stuff done.

In general, the world of things and tangible stuff is also better in your chart in June than it has been. Pluto, in your solar second house of possessions and physical stuff, is backing off from the nasty argument it had with Uranus last month. With Uranus under less pressure, you may also feel more confident in your own knowing as to what is right for you and what makes you happy.

In fact, I would venture to say that one of the goals of Uranus’s transit through Aries, from your perspective, is to aspire to know what makes you happy on a day to day basis.

If you own property, June may make you happy in another way. Neptune in your solar sector of real estate is strong this month and in a very good mood with Saturn. If you are selling, you could make a lot more money on the sale than you might think. Next month looks good too, with your ruler Jupiter moving into the part of your chart that deals with income through means other than work. To top it off, Jupiter will be in the sign of property and home ownership.

If you aren’t selling any property, Neptune could still be of benefit in terms of helping you make your residence more desirable, perhaps with some structural improvements.

Your earned income may also improve a bit in June, as Pluto has been depressing that part of your life a bit of late. Don’t expect miracles, but things could get better than they have been.

Finally, there’s a lot of energy left in your relationship sector in June. It goes away soon, so if you have goals with respect to a relationship, now is the time to pursue them.

There is also good energy in your relationship sign of Cancer this month. Mercury and Venus will visit (Mercury will actually stay a long time, due to retrograde), and the sun will enter the sign. More than that, though, is the fact that Jupiter will enter your relationship sign on the 25th of June and stay there for a year. That’s typically considered to be good news for relationships. This energy also benefits partnerships, such as business partnerships, as well as romantic relationships.

If you’re not bouncing on air due to the happy solar eclipse and relationship developments, you may notice that June seems to have an awful lot of emphasis on your work, on responsibilities, on service to others. That’s because June is brimming with Gemini energy and the sign of Gemini represents these things in the Capricorn solar chart. You may also feel responsible for your friends, neighbors, or close relatives. There should be more than enough going on to keep you busy.

If you don’t work, or if your work, family and social life are cakewalks for some unlikely reason, you may notice more of an emphasis on health. Gemini is also your health sign. Take care of yourself!

On the 27th, Venus moves into Leo, where she likes to spend money, often to impress people. Check with your partner if you get the urge to splurge, unless the urge is to splurge on something that will make your partner happy. If you are spending money on others as the month ends, Venus will be happy and you probably will be too.

Other parts of your social life, however, are raring to go in June. There’s a lot of Gemini energy this month, and Gemini is a very social influence for you. So it seems as though you will still be busy with activities and outside concerns, but just in a different way. Gemini is also your love life sign, so that may be what is keeping you out and about. At month’s end (on the 27th), Venus also enters Leo, your sign of committed relationships and partnerships, so it seems you will be surrounded by people all month and into July and August.

Your career continues to be highlighted in your solar chart, and in a financially advantageous manner through most of June. Saturn in your career house is sometimes considered to be difficult, but Saturn is in such a good mood with Neptune this month that things seem to work out in a satisfying way.

Things may well be busy at the office (and they may stay that way for a full year thanks to Jupiter moving into your work environment sector near the end of the month), but not unpleasant. Mercury does go retrograde on the 26th of the month, so it is possible it may be difficult to get other people to make decisions for awhile. Mercury retrograde affects the entire globe, though, so it’s not like it’s picking on you particularly.

Furthermore, your ruler Uranus is reconsidering his beef with Pluto, at least for the moment, and that could mean that it’s a little easier to pursue your goals than it was in May.

Pluto, meanwhile, has been haunting your solar house of the unconscious, and attempting to lead you on some stiff journeys through uncharted terrain. He’s taking a bit of a break in June, so whatever it was that has been making your life such an unyielding effort should start to dissipate. Do not forget, however, that Pluto in this position means that downtime is essential for you these days. Being amidst others this month is great – as long as you remember to carve out some time for solitude and decompressing.

Fortunately, Neptune is in a good mood with grounded Saturn in Scorpio this month, so you won’t be straying too far from the comforting confines of reality (which Neptune is prone to do when he doesn’t have a buddy to keep him from going off the trail).

Scorpio is in your solar house of long-distance travel, so maybe a trip is blowing your mind and opening up all kinds of ponderings in your head. Scorpio is also the sign of things like taxes, joint finances, and debts. So you may be more consumed by trying to figure out how to untangle a complicated financial mess. Uranus in Aries has certainly been doing his best to get you into one this year.

Another potential with Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn aligning with Neptune is that your social life and participation in the community-related matters will keep you grounded as you try to sort things out. The greatest danger you face is going too far inward. Make sure you get out of your head and into the world.

Another approach to the month is to start by writing down some goals. Last month, Pluto and Uranus were really fighting, and they are starting to back off this month (for a while). When they were at odds it was hard for you to feel like things were settled enough for any real goal-setting. Now it’s time to cautiously start doing that, partially because tangible goals will help keep you from getting lost in Neptune’s fog.

Next, we need to talk about your house, as in where you live. There’s a lot of energy in your home sector in June, so things will likely be active on the home front. Jupiter leaves this part of your chart on 25th though, so a cycle is coming to an end. Jupiter makes everything bigger and more abundant, so that can mean things like having a lot of people living your house. As Jupiter leaves, the crowd should start to thin out, and things should get back to normal in your residential life.

What’s happening this month, in a broader sense, is that your chart is transitioning from a focus on family to a focus on children, creativity, and your love life. It’s not that family will become unimportant, just that things should start become more fun!

Saturn represents the limits put on you by other people. These can be good, although that doesn’t necessarily mean enjoyable. For example, there’s a lot of energy in your sign right now, and when there’s a lot of energy in your sign it can represent attention to your health. Saturn in this case would be the designated nag in your life, the significant person who cares about your health.

She or he would say ‘now, watch your salt intake, you know what the doctor said about your high blood pressure!’ Or, ‘eat more fish, you know that’s supposed to be good for your heart.’ Or ‘keep it at the speed limit, it’s dangerous to drive so fast.’ And so on. Like someone trying to spoil all your fun and get rid of all your favorite vices.

But…with your own planetary power, you push back and come to a reasonable compromise. Limited salt, not no salt. Some fish, not 8 times a week. Close to the speed limit, not driving like an old lady. And so on. One of your main jobs over the next couple of years is figuring out how to incorporate functional limits into your life. That’s the point of the whole Saturn exercise.

This May, though, you might just feel that you are reaching the edge of your patience with all the limits and whatnot. That’s because Mars will be in your sign all month. Patience is not Mars’s strong suit. Be prepared.

Thankfully, for your money-friendly sign, the limits this month are not likely to be financial. Your financial sector is quite happy throughout the month. That’s one good thing. Your senses are also heightened this month, which can be another asset.

Now, about that eclipse. It’s a very personal one, occurring in your own sign. A solar eclipse in one’s own sign often does is give a person a renewed or new sense of purpose. You might not wake up on the 9th (eclipse day) with a brand new purpose, but some time between April and June, it may well sneak up on you and introduce itself. That’s another good thing.

There is also a lunar eclipse in Sagittarius on May 25th. Sagittarius is the sign of foreign travel, so something foreign-travel-y may occur or something involving someone from another country. Sagittarius is also an educational and learning sign, so something intellectual might jolt its way into your consciousness. You have Pluto at odds with Uranus in your own personal foreign travel and educational sector, so things could be rather tense.

Sometimes a lunar eclipse actually signals some sort of a loss related to foreign travel or education, although rarely a hugely significant one. You’ve been through a number of eclipses in this sector over the past couple of years, so you may actually feel that something settles down around this time as though a final piece of a puzzle has landed.

For your year ahead, the themes of this month actually continue to loom quite large. That sense of purpose thing is likely to have a significant impact on your next 12 months are you are energized by new goals. Throughout the normal ups and downs of life, the new found goals will persist. In fact, whatever you attach yourself to in the near future, you are likely to remain faithful to for some time, whether that is a person, idea or even a cause.

The overall energy of the next 12 months will also include energy in your solar third house of talking, quite a bit of it. Your sense of purpose may include a real effort to improve communication, reach out to certain people or brush up on your linguistic skills, perhaps even learning a new language.

Pluto in your travel sector will continue to exert an outsize influence, not always a pleasant one. If you like to travel, you may feel your options are limited. If you don’t like to travel or have fears of flying or something similar, Pluto may do his utmost to make you confront them. This is a good thing in the long run and will stretch your limits to a more comfortable size for you.

Pluto’s battle with Uranus in Aries doesn’t end this month, and Uranus wants to take something from Pluto that Pluto doesn’t want to give. You may experience a great desire for something that you find very difficult to obtain as continuing theme over the next year.

Saturn in Scorpio will also make relationships a big area of focus. You might spend a lot of time with your partner or find yourself compelled to comfort or care for a partner experiencing a rough time. Yours tends to be a devoted sign anyway, and the strength of your devotion may be extremely important to your partner over the next couple of years.

You may spend a lot of time thinking about family relationships as well, due to Jupiter in the family-oriented sign of Cancer. You may also put more effort into increasing your connections for various practical purposes.

Cancer is your solar sign of thinking as well, so you may put effort into thinking more carefully about big issues. This would be partly because the next 12 months have a rather serious tone to them, somewhat more so than the last 12 months.

With Jupiter leaving your financial sector, you may have to think more about the economy either in a general sense or in the sense of being more prudent with your own finances. You won’t necessarily lose money, but you’re not as likely to see income growth. Your finances may stagnate a bit, now that there will be less planetary attention given to them.

For Aries, this square occurs in parts of your solar chart that are very powerful for you. This could be seen as a true power struggle, one that you might not win. Uranus in your sign is likely to urge you to act, possibly against something that seems unjust. The square with Pluto, though, may make it seem that your efforts are not effective.

However, exerting your efforts to become more powerful (in any or all senses of the word) could end up making you much stronger than you would otherwise be, even if you don’t enjoy the process of getting there. You could think of this as resistance training. In fact, if you want to get philosophical, you could think of the next couple of years as an extended lesson in building strength and stamina.

Back to this month. The majority of the month’s energy is actually in the very physical sign of Taurus. But that energy is also restricted by Saturn in Scorpio. These very strong and competing energies are then counter-balanced by a lot of energy in very light and even frivolous Gemini.

There’s also a solar eclipse in Taurus on the 9th. That could bring Aries folks some good news financially. Or you might not even notice it because you are so busy dealing with Pluto and Saturn in Scorpio, which is limiting your financial options these days.

As if that’s not enough to deal with, there’s a lunar eclipse in Sagittarius on the 25th. We’ve had a lot of eclipses in Gemini and Sagittarius over the past couple of years, so in some ways, this one is old news. But given all the other competing energies in the skies, this added bit of disruption could be enough to push some people past their limits. Take care of yourself so that you don’t become ill by the end of the month with a sinus infection or other spring-type malady.

May is also a romantic month because Taurus is a romantic sign. For the first half of the month, Mercury in Taurus approves of romantic words, phrases and expressions of affection.

During the second half of the month, Mercury is in Gemini. Gemini is said to be a highly distractible sign, one that finds it difficult to concentrate. Actually, it concentrates extremely well in short bursts of attention, and it is an excellent observer of people, the subject that interests the sign the most. That makes the second half of May the time to pay attention to the people around you.

Finally, a head’s up for next month. A big bout of Cancer energy moves into town in June. This is actually going to be good for Aries because it will increase the quality of energy in your home and domestic sector. And, if nothing else, Cancer is the sign of good eats. Look forward to some tasty meals in the year ahead.