ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’ve got a challenging assignment for you. In accordance with your current astrological omens, I am inviting you to cultivate a special kind of receptivity — a rigorously innocent openness to experience that will allow you to be penetrated by life’s beauty with sublime intensity. To understand the exact nature of this receptivity, study Abraham Maslow’s definition of real listening: to listen “without presupposing, classifying, improving, controverting, evaluating, approving or disapproving, without dueling what is being said, without rehearsing the rebuttal in advance, without free-associating to portions of what is being said so that succeeding portions are not heard at all.”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Government officials in Southern Sudan are proposing to build cities in fantastic shapes. They say that the regional capital of Juba would be recreated to resemble a rhinoceros, as seen from the air. The town of Yambio is destined to look like a pineapple and the city of Wau will be a giraffe. I’m confused by all this, since I know that most of the people in South Sudan live on less than a dollar a day. Is that really how they want their country’s wealth spent? Please consider the possibility, Taurus, that there are also some misplaced priorities in your own sphere right now. Hopefully they’re nothing on the scale of what’s happening in South Sudan, but still: Allocate your resources with high discernment, please.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You have cosmic clearance to fall deeply, madly, and frequently in love, Gemini. In fact, it’s OK with the gods of fate and the angels of karma if you swell up with a flood of infatuation and longing big enough to engorge an entire city block. The only stipulation those gods and angels insist on is that you do not make any rash decisions or huge life changes while in the throes of this stupendous vortex. Don’t quit your job, for instance, or sell all your belongings, or dump your temporarily out-of-favor friends and loved ones. For the foreseeable future, simply enjoy being enthralled by the lush sexy glory of the liquid blue fire.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Among the surprises spilled by WikiLeaks some months back was the revelation that U.S. diplomats think Canadians feel “condemned to always play ‘Robin’ to the U.S. ‘Batman.’” If that’s true, it shouldn’t be. While Canada may not be able to rival the war-mongering, plutocrat-coddling, environment-despoiling talents of my home country America, it is a more reliable source of reason, compassion, and civility. Are you suffering from a similar disjunction, Cancerian? Do you imagine yourself “Robin” in relationship to some overweening “Batman?” This would be an excellent time to free yourself of that dynamic.