We have many festivals again this week, all occurring on Thursday. Chinese New Year, Full Moon, Purim, Holi. Chinese New Year always ends at full moon with the hanging and releasing of lighted lanterns. It is a Festival of Lanterns and Light.

The festival of Purim celebrates the freedom of the Hebrew people from the cruel Haman (a magistrate) seeking to destroy them. Esther, the Queen of Persia, who was secretly Jewish, saved her people from death. It’s a joyful festival and one bakes the sweet cookie, Hamantaschen (Haman’s pockets), to celebrate this festival.

Holi is the Hindu Spring Festival of Colors. Bonfires are lit the night before warding off evil. Holi is the most colorful festival in the world. It is also a Festival of Love – of Radha for Krishna (the blue-colored God). It is a Spring festival with singing, dancing, carnivals, food and drink (Bhang, a drink made of cannabis leaves). Holi signifies good over evil, ridding oneself of past errors, ending conflicts through rapprochement (returning to each other). It is a day of forgiveness, including debts. Holi also marks the beginning of New Year.  

Thursday is the Pisces solar festival (11.23 degrees) under a full moon. The Soul’s meditative seed thought for Pisces, recited with the Great Invocation, is “I leave the Father’s house and turning back, I save.” In Pisces under Soul direction, we are here to help “… close the door to evil and restore the Plan on Earth.”

ARIES: In the next days, weeks and months it’s important to see yourself as resourceful and valuable. Perhaps this is difficult. Make lists of all your gifts, abilities, talents, good deeds, thoughts, ideas and plans. And then all your blessings. In these your value appears. Place these lists on doors, walls and mirrors. Read and review daily. These offer you a new self identity as server for humanity—the task for all Aries in the Aquarian Age.

TAURUS: Things hide away, especially you. Or you find someone else in hiding and join them. Someone close is quite mysterious and valuable to you. They’re knowledgeable and have the skills needed for your next creative endeavor for humanity’s future. Resources are hidden away too, though still available. Call these resources forth in prayers and mantras and sacred words, while tending to practical daily tasks. Eliminate (give away) as much as possible.

GEMINI: Past friends, experiences, events, relationships, and resources are contacted, re-discovered and renewed. All of these are valuable for reasons later revealed in your future. A certain group, also from the past, holds great Love/Wisdom (Ray 2, Gemini’s ray). They hold out to you a way to enter the life stream of humanity through study and understanding of the mysteries. You should renew your study of astrology and your transits.

CANCER: Ponder upon how you want to be seen, known and recognized in the world and how you want to help build the new culture and civilization. You are to nurture the new era at its foundational stages. Begin your garden soon, have a worm bin, create biodynamic soil, use organic seeds. Parsley and cilantro are most important for you this year. Teach everyone what you learn. Cancer needs to move from feeding the world to helping the world feed itself.

LEO: The Earth (soil, trees, plants growing) is very important for your well-being. Make sure you’re out and about in the Sun at dawn and dusk, out with the devas and in nature—the most balanced kingdom. The Sun’s radiations strengthen your heart and mind, refocuses your enthusiasm (“filled with God”), rebalances your entire system. When we are balanced and in rhythm, practical health emerges. Where is your garden and who are your companions?

VIRGO: You may struggle mentally to maintain equilibrium between what you desire and what is actually possible. It’s good to study the subject of sacrifice—the First Law of the Soul. At the center of sacrifice is Love. Love and sacrifice are the same. We are on Earth because we sacrificed (chose) to be here. You may feel you’ve become the warrior. Spiritual warriors are practical, poised and always triumphant.

LIBRA: You will assess your relationships in terms of their value. Not value as in money but virtues. Simultaneously, assess the values (virtues) you offer others. Is there more Goodwill you can offer others? Goodwill creates Right Relations. Allow only the goodness of yourself to be radiated outward. Goodness is an inner purity. What goodness do you offer others? Remember true love isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice.

SCORPIO: Tend daily to all things small and necessary, offering your deepest attention. Observe habits, agendas, how you work in all environments. Observe how others work, too. Care and tend to yourself. Evolution occurs step by step. We begin with tending to our physical, emotional and mental bodies. Then we progress to things spiritual. Each day “brood” upon the service needed for the coming day. Ask for Soul direction. The personality then becomes calmed.

SAGITTARIUS: A long held creative dream seems to be all around you. You’re redefining, reassessing and reaffirming the importance of your life’s work. In the meantime, balance yourself with amusement and play, much needed and much missed recently. Acknowledge that your creative work reflects who you are now, and part of who you will become later. All parts of you are aligning in a close spiritual unity. You are building a Temple of the Soul.

CAPRICORN: You see the need for nourishment of the self and of others. One source of nourishment is financial security. Another is the beauty, design and organization of your home and gardens and outdoor rooms. Make sure as you tend to your home that you create a practical and private workspace for yourself. Your imagination, vision and creativeness are most important for your well-being, your home and family at this time. Create over time, the garden of your dreams.

AQUARIUS: Times seems to have sped up. At times, we can feel that life is a bit wild and out of control. We are entering the Aquarian Age, ruled by Uranus, god of Lightning. New things, in coming times, will appear. A new balance is attempting to come forth in the world. Know that you are a returned “angel” come to help humanity steer itself downstream in a new Noah’s Ark. You are to identify, work with and bring in the new culture and civilization. What part do you want to play? Think deeply on this.

PISCES: Life becomes more accelerated, yet more-subtle, at times feeling a bit out of focus and very different. In these difficult financial times, it’s good to tithe (give) to those in need—St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital; Catholic Charities; Doctors Without Borders; UNESCO. These are difficult financial times. The spiritual law is that what we give is returned 10-fold so we can give and give again. When we serve others, our life is spiritually cared for—the third Law of the Soul is Service. Hang lanterns everywhere. Then leave them there.

Free will astrology for the week of February 28, 2018.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): On Sept. 1, 1666, a London baker named Thomas Farriner didn’t take proper precautions to douse the fire in his oven before he went to sleep. Consequences were serious. The conflagration that ignited in his little shop burned down large parts of the city. Three hundred and twenty years later, a group of bakers gathered at the original site to offer a ritual atonement. “It’s never too late to apologize,” said one official, acknowledging the tardiness of the gesture. In that spirit, Aries, I invite you to finally dissolve a clump of guilt you’ve been carrying . . . or express gratitude that you should have delivered long ago . . . or resolve a messy ending that still bothers you . . . or transform your relationship with an old wound . . . or all of the above.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Committee to Fanatically Promote Taurus’s Success is pleased to see that you’re not waiting politely for your next turn. You have come to the brilliant realization that what used to be your fair share is no longer sufficient. You intuitively sense that you have a cosmic mandate to skip a few steps—to ask for more and better and faster results. As a reward for this outbreak of shrewd and well-deserved self-love, and in recognition of the blessings that are currently showering down on your astrological House of Noble Greed, you are hereby granted three weeks’ worth of extra service, free bonuses, special treatment, and abundant slack.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): No one can be somewhat pregnant. You either are or you’re not. But from a metaphorical perspective, your current state is a close approximation to that impossible condition. Are you or are you not going to commit yourself to birthing a new creation? Decide soon, please. Opt for one or the other resolution; don’t remain in the gray area. And there’s more to consider. You are indulging in excessive in-betweenness in other areas of your life, as well. You’re almost brave and sort of free and semi-faithful. My advice about these halfway states is the same: Either go all the way or else stop pretending you might.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The Appalachian Trail is a 2,200-mile path that runs through the Eastern United States. Hikers can wind their way through forests and wilderness areas from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia. Along the way they may encounter black bears, bobcats, porcupines, and wild boars. These natural wonders may seem to be at a remote distance from civilization, but they are in fact conveniently accessible from America’s biggest metropolis. For $8.75, you can take a train from Grand Central Station in New York City to an entry point of the Appalachian Trail. This scenario is an apt metaphor for you right now, Cancerian. With relative ease, you can escape from your routines and habits. I hope you take advantage!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Is 2018 turning out to be as I expected it would be for you? Have you become more accepting of yourself and further at peace with your mysterious destiny? Are you benefiting from greater stability and security? Do you feel more at home in the world and better nurtured by your close allies? If for some reason these developments are not yet in bloom, withdraw from every lesser concern and turn your focus to them. Make sure you make full use of the gifts that life is conspiring to provide for you.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “You can’t find intimacy—you can’t find home—when you’re always hiding behind masks,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Díaz. “Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.” I can’t imagine any better advice to offer you as you navigate your way through the next seven weeks, Virgo. You will have a wildly fertile opportunity to find and create more intimacy. But in order to take full advantage, you’ll have to be brave and candid and unshielded.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the coming weeks, you could reach several odd personal bests. For instance, your ability to distinguish between flowery bullshit and inventive truth-telling will be at a peak. Your “imperfections” will be more interesting and forgivable than usual, and might even work to your advantage, as well. I suspect you’ll also have an adorable inclination to accomplish the half-right thing when it’s impossible to do the perfectly right thing. Finally, all the astrological omens suggest that you will have a tricky power to capitalize on lucky lapses.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “If you do not love too much, you do not love enough.” American author Henry David Thoreau declared, “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” I would hesitate to offer these two formulations in the horoscope of any other sign but yours, Scorpio. And I would even hesitate to offer them to you at any other time besides right now. But I feel that you currently have the strength of character and fertile willpower necessary to make righteous use of such stringently medicinal magic. So please proceed with my agenda for you, which is to become the Smartest, Feistiest, Most Resourceful Lover Who Has Ever Lived.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The state of Kansas has more than 6,000 ghost towns—places where people once lived, but then abandoned. Daniel C. Fitzgerald has written six books documenting these places. He’s an expert on researching what remains of the past and drawing conclusions based on the old evidence. In accordance with current astrological omens, I suggest you consider doing comparable research into your own lost and half-forgotten history. You can generate vigorous psychic energy by communing with origins and memories. Remembering who you used to be will clarify your future.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): It’s not quite a revolution that’s in the works. But it is a sprightly evolution. Accelerating developments may test your ability to adjust gracefully. Quickly-shifting story lines will ask you to be resilient and flexible. But the unruly flow won’t throw you into a stressful tizzy as long as you treat it as an interesting challenge instead of an inconvenient imposition. My advice is not to stiffen your mood or narrow your range of expression, but rather to be like an actor in an improvisation class. Fluidity is your word of power.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It’s the Productive Paradox Phase of your cycle. You can generate good luck and unexpected help by romancing the contradictions. For example: 1. You’ll enhance your freedom by risking deeper commitment. 2. You’ll gain greater control over wild influences by loosening your grip and providing more spaciousness. 3. If you are willing to appear naive, empty, or foolish, you’ll set the stage for getting smarter. 4. A blessing you didn’t realize you needed will come your way after you relinquish a burdensome “asset.” 5. Greater power will flow your way if you expand your capacity for receptivity.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): As you make appointments in the coming months, you could reuse calendars from 2007 and 2001. During those years, all the dates fell on the same days of the week as they do in 2018. On the other hand, Pisces, please don’t try to learn the same lessons you learned in 2007 and 2001. Don’t get snagged in identical traps or sucked into similar riddles or obsessed with comparable illusions. On the other other hand, it might help for you to recall the detours you had to take back then, since you may thereby figure out how to avoid having to repeat boring old experiences that you don’t need to repeat.

Homework: What good old thing could you give up in order to attract a great new thing into your life? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.