Astrology

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): A chemist named Marcellus Gilmore Edson got a patent on peanut butter in 1884. A businessperson named George Bayle started selling peanut butter as a snack in 1894. In 1901, a genius named Julia Davis Chandler published the first recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. In 1922, another pioneer came up with a new process for producing peanut butter that made it taste better and last longer.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): These days you have an enhanced ability to arouse the appreciation and generosity of your allies, friends and loved ones. The magnetic influence you’re emanating could even start to evoke the interest and inquiries of mere acquaintances and random strangers. Be discerning about how you wield that potent stuff! On the other hand, don’t be shy about using it to attract all the benefits it can bring you. It’s OK to be a bit greedier for goodies than usual as long as you’re also a bit more compassionate than usual.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Chesapeake Bay is a fertile estuary that teems with life. It’s 200 miles long and holds 18 trillion gallons of water. More than 150 streams and rivers course into its drainage basin. And yet it’s relatively shallow. If you’re six feet tall, you could wade through over a thousand square miles of its mix of fresh and salt water without getting your hat wet. I see this place as an apt metaphor for your life in the coming weeks: an expanse of flowing fecundity that is vast but not so deep that you’ll get overwhelmed.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Eighty-three-year-old author Harlan Ellison has had a long and successful career. In the course of publishing hundreds of literary works in seven different genres, he has won numerous awards. But when he was in his 30s, there was an interruption in the upward arc of his career. The film production company Walt Disney Studios hired him as a writer. During his first day on the job, Roy Disney overheard Ellison joking with a coworker about using Disney characters in an animated pornographic movie.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The School of Hard Knocks is an old-fashioned idiom referring to the unofficial and accidental course of study available via life’s tough experiences. The wisdom one gains through this alternate approach to education may be equal or even superior to the knowledge that comes from a formal university or training program. I mention this, Aries, because in accordance with astrological omens, I want to confer upon you a diploma for your new advanced degree from the School of Hard Knocks. (P.S.: When Ph.D. students get their degrees from Finland’s University of Helsinki, they are given top hats and swords as well as diplomas. I suggest you reward yourself with exotic props, too.)

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): According to my assessment of the astrological omens, you’re in a favorable phase to gain more power over your fears. You can reduce your susceptibility to chronic anxieties. You can draw on the help and insight necessary to dissipate insidious doubts that are rooted in habit but not based on objective evidence. I don’t want to sound too melodramatic, my dear Pisces, but *this is an amazing opportunity! You are potentially on the verge of an unprecedented breakthrough!* In my opinion, nothing is more important for you to accomplish in the coming weeks than this inner conquest.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “When one door closes, another opens,” said inventor Alexander Graham Bell. “But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.” Heed his advice, Aquarius. Take the time you need to mourn the lost opportunity. But don’t take more than the time you need. The replacement or alternative to what’s gone will show up sooner than you think.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): As far back as ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, people staged ceremonies to mark the embarkation of a new ship. The intention was to bestow a blessing for the maiden voyage and ever thereafter. Good luck! Safe travels! I suggest that you come up with your own version of this celebratory gesture. It will soon be time for your launch.

Be faithful to your innovative ideas, Scorpio. Don’t let skeptics or conventional thinkers waylay you.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I’m a big believer in the value of enhancing one’s innate talents with training and education. On the other hand, my assessment of your destiny between now and October 2018 impels me to offer a suggestion.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Simon & Garfunkel released their first album in October 1964. It received only a modest amount of airplay. The two musicians were so discouraged that they stopped working together. Then Bob Dylan’s producer Tom Wilson got permission to remix “The Sounds of Silence,” a song on the album. He added rock instruments and heavy echo to Simon & Garfunkel’s folk arrangement. When the tune was re-released in September 1965, it became a huge hit. I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because I suspect you’re now at a point comparable to the time just before Tom Wilson discovered the potential of “The Sounds of Silence.”