SCORPIO HOROSCOPE

Count to ten before answering because almost every request or favor will start to rub you the wrong way when Mercury enters your opposite sign on May 10th. Not only will people show a remarkable insensitivity to what's going on in your life, but they'll be mulishly thick about it. Try not to get too exasperated because you'll only meet with blank stares. Be patient and resolve to explain things more than twice. There are times when the planets in their courses make people dull-witted and this is one of them. Thankfully the lights come back on again after Mercury departs Taurus on May 25th.

Pluto turns retrograde on May 4th and will remain dormant until October 13th. Theoretically speaking there should be no more social upheavals, government shutdowns, or bottoms dropping out of economies for the foreseeable future, ,but that doesn’t mean you're off the hook. Indeed you may be facing a seemingly impossible task. It looks like you need to set history straight about something in your life. This might require you to exhume family skeletons, exorcise personal demons, or lay to rest vampiric anxieties that have been draining you dry. It won’t be easy but Pluto, planet of the Underworld, always rewards those who brave its ordeals.

As the only fixed sign that doesn't have a planet traveling through its constellation you may think that you're Switzerland. And this would be true if your planetary rulers weren't Mars and Pluto. Unfortunately they are, which means you'll find yourself in the center of tug-of-war as two parties try to win you over to their side. Both sides of the dispute feel wronged so both sides will appeal to you for understanding and support. Unfortunately neither party is interested in settling their differences so the rift will only escalate – and given the intensity of the opposition, there probably won't be any relief until late August.

Ruling Planet Mars back in Leo on April 18th restokes that gumption and drive that's been missing for weeks. It's nice to feel that energy again, but things have changed since Mars retrograded out of Leo last January. You don’t have the clout you once had or that sense of stability that made you feel invincible. There was a time when this would have troubled you, but now you're not sure. Do you really want to go through the aggravation of reclaiming something that's no longer yours? Most people would say “skip it”, but you're a Scorpio. You won't go gently into that good night.

Co-workers, clients, and even your boss will be treating you like their personal confessor this week. They’ll be sharing their doubts, confiding misgivings, and divulging some sensitive information. It will be tempting to chime in with some criticisms of your own – especially when they talk about faults that you yourself have accused them of – but don’t. They trust you and really feel like they can open up to you and that’s the highest compliment that anyone can hope to be paid. Trust that they are working things out for themselves and will come to the conclusions you want them to come to on their own.

Sometimes you can have a brilliant idea but if it's so far ahead of its time that it doesn't take. It's seen by others as being too “out there.” You know this from experience. You can't even begin to recount all of the projects, enterprises, and innovations that never took off because they lacked the support or interest. That's why you'll be surprised this week when you're contacted by someone who knows exactly what to do to make one of these ideas work. Yes, you'll have to dust it off and update a few things but its time has come and it's ready to take flight.

You’re apt to be short-tempered around demanding bosses and persnickety clients (which is OK), but this might spill over to friends, colleagues, and the barista taking your coffee order. Everyone’s working your last nerve these days. What’s going on is that you can sense that change is afoot, but you don’t know what it is yet and it’s driving you nuts. It’s like having a name on the tip of your tongue with a bunch of people calling out what they think it is. They’re trying to help, but it only makes matters worse. Thankfully you’ll experience relief when Jupiter enters Cancer on June 6th.

The annual Sun/Neptune conjunction always makes you nervous. It's kind of like how ancient civilizations used to forgive debts or free prisoners once every seven years. This impulse towards clemency floods your horoscope and makes you do something that you wouldn't normally do. This year you might try embracing it instead of resisting it. Yes, part of you feels like you're letting culprits off the hook, however another part of you recognizes that people don't become better people if you don't get give them a second chance. It's good to remember that everything born into Time comes with an expiration date – and that includes grudges.

This is a purging time for you. Not only will you be rejecting things you once believed in, but you’ll be unbuckling yourself from the hopes and wishes that held you hostage. You need to see that you have paid your dues. No more working hard to impress those who can’t be impressed or waiting outside closed doors with no one on the other side. People either recognize your merit or you’ll move on. This also includes those who can’t give you what you need emotionally. Let them go because they’re getting in the way of meeting those like-minded (and like-hearted people) who truly understand you.

For weeks you’ve been trying to figure out what was wrong with your approach. If you weren’t making things harder for yourself then it felt like you had developed a knack for choosing paths that lead to dead-ends. Thankfully Ruling Planet Mars coming out of retrograde on February 23d helped to orient you, but you’ll find that it’s the Sun/Mars trine on March 8th that shows you the way forward. You can expect this energy (and your momentum) to increase over the next few weeks. This all comes together on April 4th when you finally accomplish what you had set out to do last September.