Your stars for 2010

★ ARIES 21 March-19 April Aries is the zodiac's starting point, and its subjects make assertive, inspiring leaders who are unafraid of conflict. After all, real life Rams crash heads together for fun! This year you have some clear signals to charge, and equally clear warnings to be careful with whom you lock horns.

It's a chequered picture that especially involves those born in '67, '68 and '81, though it's hardly a placid year for the rest of you. Timing, as ever, is important. Saturn, already challenging birthdays close to 21 March, moves into long-term opposition at the end of July, making the second half of the year time to draw in your horns and get down to work.

The ringed planet's trek through Libra (your partner sign) offers assorted lessons in tough love. For relationships it's time to make up your mind – put brutally, commit or quit! – while professionally you're up against the status quo (Saturn equals the establishment). You may have to play stupid and conform. Take your opponents seriously.

On the "go for it" side of the equation are the planets prevailing between the Spring Equinox (21 March) and August, favouring ostentation and bravado. Your birthday month is a delight. Summer may suggest it's time to tear up the rule book – Jupiter and Uranus haven't been in your skies since 1928 – but don't get carried away by lucky breaks. You'll be back in harness come autumn. Look upon this phase as a preview of 2011.

In August and September you can forge an important business alliance and/or have your head turned by a romantic interest. As significant others (including foes) dominate your time, put yourself in their shoes for an accurate perspective. Hard work and healthy obsessions see you through to a dashing November and December; good months for travel.

The first month of the year, which includes a pair of eclipses, is slow but offers valuable clues about what's in the pipeline. Network like crazy!

★ TAURUS 20 April-20 May Like its real life counterpart, the astrological Bull is a powerful, persistent creature but prone to plough the same old furrow. During 2009 you may have got a push to change that even you couldn't ignore, as Jupiter and Neptune occupied your career house, asking you to excel and move right along.

2010's planetary picture repeats that message in modified form. Jupiter's change of sign in late January opens a more accommodating professional phase, albeit one that favours radical action above staying in your comfort zone. As Jupiter is linked with the non-conformist planet Uranus until 2011, cutting-edge ideas and people are your allies – and alliances are crucial this year. Teamwork and co-operatives help your cause (so can dotty Pisceans), and if projects have a digital/internet dimension, so much the better.

Your first deadline for Getting Things Done is 18th April. Mercury then turns backwards in your skies until 11 May, putting you on repeat loop until the new Moon of 14 May (handy for a birthday) gives you a green light. There's a similar stutter between 20 August and 12 September, but the more challenging planetary picture of the summer leaves Taureans largely alone to tend their fertile plot.

Fair Venus, the Bull's planet, lights up your social and creative life in April and June before spending the last four months of the year in your partner sign of Scorpio. You can forge a solid business partnership in September and October, or find yourself falling for a femme fatale or moody prince, but try not to lock horns with enemies. Any battles next autumn look protracted and bitter. There are other people (and signs) just as stubborn as you!

Back here in January 2010 (a slow month), you're asked to polish off outstanding tasks and repolish your CV and reputation. Neptune continues to favour a touch of spin and bluff throughout the year, but outright deception, as one Taurean ex-leader will testify, comes back to haunt you.

★ GEMINI 21 May-20 June Gemini is the mental acrobat of the zodiac, with a restless mind quick on the uptake and delighted by novelty. As The Twins symbolism suggests, Geminis can hop between contradictory viewpoints: who's talking, Tweedledum or Tweedledee?

In 2010 you're asked to focus your intellectual faculties and turn bright ideas into material reality. Saturn, planet of the long haul and tough task, spends most of the year (and all of 2011 and 2012) in the sign of Libra; perfect for undertaking a major project and for revealing (or discovering) your deepest talents. The second half of the year, in particular, is a voyage of self-discovery, calling for you to act from the heart as much as the head.

Professionally, this looks quite a year. Jupiter, the planet of opportunity and wide horizons, sails across the peak of your horoscope in late January, promising support from movers and shakers and rewarding a "can do" attitude. Public speaking and anything resembling a performance tour promises pay-off. Meanwhile, grab any chance to become president of your favoured society – what has so far been a personal passion or pastime may now evolve into a career.

The "lightning strikes" planet Uranus in the mix makes work a volatile scenario, however, with the year's major planetary action in late July and August a likely tipping point. Stay on your toes, then – the outlook becomes calmer once September arrives.

High summer is also a high spot in your romantic life, as a new or reactivated relationship arrives suddenly (something more than a holiday fling it would seem). Events close to the spring equinox (21 March) may also move along affairs of the heart. Since Venus in your skies in late April and May coincides with your planet, Mercury, going into retreat, consider an early birthday party, or at least make cavorting on the croquet lawn a priority over dull old work.

★ CANCER 21 June-22 July A deluge of water – which is what the cosmos has planned for 2010 – should suit Cancerians just fine. All three of the zodiac's water signs – Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces – are unusually active this year, calling on you Crabs to stay pro-active… or else be swept along by the tide.

That said, you're best keeping a low profile during a sluggish January. Thereafter, Jupiter, planet of wide horizons and great expectations, makes the five months until your birthday a time to seek excitement and seize any opportunity to travel, teach and learn.

In this potentially dazzling phase, playing safe does you few favours. The collusion between Jupiter and techno planet Uranus makes publishing and the web your friend. A TV documentary starring you paddling through the Amazon basin is a perfect fit for the planetary imagery, but a small-scale variant works just as well; local history, community involvement. The point is to leave your comfort zone; Pisceans can help pull you along.

Once your birthday season arrives, the atmosphere music changes. Birthdays on 11 July, faced with a new Moon cum total solar eclipse, have licence to rewrite their life script. Saturn, the planet that sets tasks and finds weaknesses, then begins a long residency at the root of your 'scope. Birthdays close to Midsummer (21 June) have already felt the none-too-tender touch of Saturn (and Pluto) in late 2009. The rest of you are now asked to resolve your long-term course and stick to it. Every drop of sweat expended in the second half of the year pays off in the future; for '67 and '81 birthdays that goes double. It's time to get your house in order, perhaps literally.

September and October lightens the mix. Venus, dallying in your 'scope's pleasure sector through to Christmas, augurs friendships, romantic sagas and, if you're the arty kind, a burst of creativity. In these closing months of the year, whatever comes from the heart finds a ready response from family and public alike.

★ LEO 23 July-22 August When they aren't stalking around being kings of the jungle or lolling lazily in the shade, lions can be terrifying, deadly creatures. No one is accusing Leos of being lethal (regal and lolling – yes), but with the warrior planet Mars in residence in your skies since mid-October, you are likely to be in fighting spirit.

The red planet doesn't leave you alone until June, so there is plenty of time for demonstrations of your fierier side, though Mars's backslide for the next two months favours patching things up with folks you've alienated, or tracking down the date you almost got in December. Your capacity to attract and impress others is high in the year's opening phase; enjoy, but dream boats who arrive in June, when Neptune is involved, may need their credentials checking.

2010 is kinder to Leo's tribe than to many other members of the zodiac, with the more challenging planetary patterns off to one side. Saturn, for example, doesn't conscript you on to his chain gang (unless you were born '67 or '81 – even then you have a great opportunity to step up professionally). What Saturn does suggest is to turn your attention to being more organised, and to have your infrastructure and information systems finely tuned. This is especially important around your birthday, when unexpected opportunities to travel are flagged.

Then there is money. Having endured skinflint Saturn in your money zone for the last two years, you may have discovered that living royally is only possible if you are in fact a royal. Finances are under complicated stars this year. On one side comes Jupiter, the money planet in your zone of shared resources, rewarding attention to mortgages and similar shared burdens. If you're hitched, don't expect your spouse to do all the financial heavy lifting. Saturn, meanwhile, comes back between April and July to ensure you have been frugal with the credit card.

You'll need funds to make the most of what promises to be an exceptional summer. In June, Venus the romancer makes a visit, just as Jupiter and the futurist planet Uranus cross the border into your fellow fire sign of Aries. This could well offer a glimpse of what lies ahead in 2011 and 2012, when the pair make the move for the long term.

Planets in fire signs always favour you, making March, August and November potential hotspots for a cavalier social life or a keen flirtation. For proud homeowners comes Venus at the root of your chart for an unusual four months from September; ideal for a domestic makeover, but get the colour right first time. Something garish and bling-bling? Maybe not!

★ VIRGO 23 August-22 September What's wrong with hard work and a simple life style? As far as many Virgos are concerned, not much. Virgos may have an immaculate wardrobe, a bathroom cabinet groaning with remedies and a kitchen scrubbed like an operating theatre, but deep down they are plain, unpretentious folk, honest.

After the past two years even you might have had enough of hard graft. Saturn's passage through your skies will have demanded you contribute on a major scale and, perhaps, bring to a conclusion a work or relationship cycle that started 15 or 30 years ago. With Saturn now moved on, you have effectively sloughed off a skin, maybe even feel reborn.

Those of you with birthdays at the end of your sign – 19 to 22 September – have a revisit from Saturn from April through July, when the taskmaster planet ensures you have set your house in order. Saturn's style is lean and mean; abandon whatever or whoever is outworn. Take responsibility. Those of you born anytime in 1967 or 1981 feel Saturn's touch in the second half of the year, when you can advance your cause through relentless diligence.

The other planetary players in 2010 take the opposite of Saturn's methodical approach. In late January, Jupiter moves into your partner sign of Pisces, emphasising fruitful partnerships and introducing you to mentors, teachers and power brokers. All one-on-one relationships, including romances, are favoured this year, but with the contrary planet Uranus also involved, there's a maverick streak at work; sudden crushes, oddball people, taboo liaisons.

September – once more the climactic month of your year – sees such influences peaking, but the electric quality of relationships persists until the end of the year. Your birthday month is further accentuated by having your planet, Mercury, backsliding in your skies (between 20 August and 12 September). A retrograde Mercury is always a pest, but this one is personal; postpone launches, openings and such like, or stage them in July, when Venus and Mars combine to lighten your load and pull in admirers.

Earlier in the year, March is an ideal time for hot dates, nuptuals or networking. January, with Mercury again staging a go-slow, is best used for completing what's left undone from 2009, including ringing all the numbers you collected during the Christmas party season. A pair of eclipses help shake up your social life, while healing planets in Aquarius urge a mind-body-spirit tune up, and a chance to use up those remedies cluttering the bathroom cabinet.

★ LIBRA 23 September-23 October What a bundle of contradictions is a Libran: pushy but eager to please; shrewd but oddly indecisive. This is the sign of the well-dressed charmer with a hidden agenda – not you, obviously, but those other, dark side Librans. You just do charm.

In 2010, what counts is not your easy smile but your inner steel. With Saturn dominating your horoscope for most of the year, it's a time for tough, long-term decisions, for ambition tempered by pragmatism.

Even among non-astrologers, Saturn has a weighty reputation; it's the planet of age, maturity, responsibility and hard work. In a related guise Saturn is about exactitude and turning a bright idea into reality; it represents the patience and persistence that allows masterworks to be written and cathedrals to be raised. Such projects invariably demand rather more effort than we anticipate, but once completed, become defining achievements.

Plan the new year with that perspective in mind. Indeed, since Saturn is resident in your skies right through to, gulp, October 2012, it's a perfect time for a major undertaking; restoring your mansion, founding a company, becoming prime minister (take note David Cameron, born 9/10/66) or casting the Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doom. Prioritise ruthlessly and stick to your chosen quest.

Until April, it's birthdays between 23 to 28 September (and 1980 Librans) who feel Saturn's touch. From September onwards, the rest of the Libran tribe are in the frame, especially 1981 birthdays who complete one cycle of Saturn's 30-year orbit (the well-noted "Saturn Return").

Relationships that require commitment or closure also come under Saturn's remit. Here, August looks pivotal. The duo of Mars and Venus (your ruler) in your skies lend a forceful, magnetic touch for either finding or consummating a romance. July and August are – not just for Librans – a potentially incendiary phase; keep your cool with friends, family and partners. Show grace under pressure.

February promises enchantment in your personal life, whether you're collecting Valentines or rekindling old flames. The unusual movements of Mars (your partnership planet, whether in love or business) make the first five months of 2010 ideal for networking, mixing business and pleasure, or changing your favoured in-crowd. October and November, with Venus in retreat, is a time for adjusting finances and having second thoughts about decisions made in the summer.

Other people are invariably vital to Libra's mission, but part of Saturn's message is that when push comes to shove, no one helps you but yourself. Take a sidekick shopping to help choose the right colour ("I should have got the blue") but the big decisions should be taken alone.

★ SCORPIO 24 October-21 November Maybe it's that basilisk stare you are known to flash, or the reputation bestowed on you by suspect astrology books, but people get Scorpio so wrong. Sure, you can do intense and power-crazed, ruthless and withholding, but deep down you're just plain passionate. Tender even!

Whatever stripe of Scorpio you are (including evil genius), this is the year to let the world know about it. In 2010 your emotional core is nourished and your talents encouraged. Rarely will so many planets be aligned in your favour. Even the year's most challenging configurations fall largely to one side (unless you're born in 1981). You probably don't have to leave your comfort zone, but you'll regret it if you don't.

Jupiter's arrival in a fellow water sign, Pisces, is the first reason to be cheerful, promptly rewarding your initiatives from late January to early June (the three weeks between 18 April to 11 May are the exception – Mercury's in retreat and you have to be patient). The presence of independence-oriented Uranus in the same sign boosts all matters of the heart; not just romances but your private passions and hobbies. Time to reform the band or rejoin the hockey team. This pair of planets also light up the months from September.

Your career zone is no less prominently starred. You begin the year with Mars, Scorpio's planet, there, where it's been since October; a recipe for a bun fight, for sure, but as Mars rewinds you can repair any damage ready to relaunch world-domination in March. Thereafter it's a sweet run through to summer, with an emphasis on teamwork and winning allies (2009's theme, too).

Saturn in the most hidden (and Karmic) zone of your 'scope (until April and after July) brings altogether different themes into play. This is where people confront inner demons and discover the mad half-sister in the east wing. All kinds of psychological work are favoured, including sinking into the mysteries of mind-body-spirit. August is a key month; book a yoga retreat.

You cannot spend too long in the flotation tank. Mars and Venus arrive over your horizon in September, ushering in a frantic phase when you can project your revived personality and, if you're in commerce, trade cannily. There's a sense of rediscovery about autumn. Venus spends the last four months of 2010 crisscrossing your skies, so a physical or wardrobe make-over may be part of your scheme. Or a charm offensive. Either way your silky skills and winning smile remain in place at next New Year's Eve. Just be careful with the stare.

★ SAGITTARIUS 22 November-21 December The bow-wielding Centaur is meant to travel far and aim its arrows with high moral purpose, quests that have surely been compromised over the last two years, when dealing with the powers that be has been the overriding demand of your horoscope.

The good news is that Saturn is no longer stuck to the roof of your horoscope, signalling a lighter mood over the last couple of months and for most of 2010. Either a strategy for "fitting in" at work has presented itself, or you have decided to break from a grey, unsympathetic regime (the "patriarchy" perhaps).

This year a friskier outlook prevails. Jupiter, the Archer's ruling planet, crosses the root of your horoscope in January, promising a new buoyancy in your private and domestic life. The family becomes a source of support rather than an energy drain. Those of you planning to relocate or add a new wing to Sagittarius Towers have a green light.

Jupiter's foray into Aries, a fellow fire sign, between June and August is equally auspicious, favouring travel, creativity and your most exhibitionist tendencies; a summer to push your luck. Events around the spring equinox (21 March) may offer clues as to what's in the pipeline.

The timetable during the year's middle passage is complex, for while Jupiter and Mars push onward, calling to Sagittarian gypsies and philosophers, Saturn retreats, like a boss sneaking back to ensure you're still on the job. Birthdays circa 19 to 21 December are those most likely to find themselves under pressure during April, May and June; what wasn't fixed in 2009 returns for your attention.

Saturn's position in the sky for the rest of 2010, and onwards until late 2012, promises professional success on easier terms, and asks you to make common cause with fellow travellers. Your involvement in committees, federations, movements and similar collectives can be selfless and idealistic and pay off personally in the long run – find your team, form a group.

August, if you're not off on a Mongolian pony trek, is a promising month for raising your career profile. As this is also the time of the year's biggest planetary showdown, your attention may be on your private life and a fiery affair. For Sagittarian romantics, 2010 offers a more promising scenario than you have enjoyed over recent years. March and June are hotspots, while the arrival of warrior Mars in the Archer's skies in November lets you see out the year in combative or ardent style. If you are determined to lose a lover or semi-ex, make 21 December a deadline, when a total lunar eclipse in your partnership zone will swallow anyone surplus to requirements!

★ CAPRICORN 22 December-19 January Slow and steady is famously Capricorn's way of climbing the lofty peaks of success that are the Mountain Goat's natural habitat. Abrupt change and uncharted events bring alarm, threatening the Goat's all-important need to feel in control.

Two sets of eclipses across the zodiac's Capricorn-Cancer axis are a clue that you may have to be more adaptable in 2010, a year when your sign is never far from the planetary action. Birthdays between 22 to 27 December may already be feeling the mixture of professional pressures and opportunities that accompany Saturn's attentions, and which are extended to later birthdays come the autumn.

Being your ruling planet, Saturn's demands – prudence, pragmatism, graft – hold few terrors for a Capricorn, though the planet's back and forth motion across the pinnacle of your 'scope this summer are a cue to reassess your career arc, and to ask where you'd like to be in three years' time, when the ringed planet moves on.

In the immediate future, 2010 gets off to a slow but sweet start. A lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve and a solar eclipse on 15 January are both accompanied by Venus, planet of partnership and happy connections, making for bright birthday parties. With Mercury backwards until the 15th (until when little happens quickly) that day's new Moon is the springboard of your year.

At the same time Jupiter shifts sign. The giant planet ("the greater fortune" by tradition) has hopefully helped you maintain money flow in 2009. Now it focuses on commerce, networking, neighbourhood organisations and the power of the printed or spoken word. As Jupiter is allied with technology planet Uranus for most of 2010, consider raising your internet profile or upgrading your software. Those involved in teaching or fashion are promised an expansionist year.

This pair of planets crisscrossing the root of your 'scope from June through August, signal a possible shake-up of domestic arrangements, or a glimpse of how you might rearrange them in 2011. As another pair of eclipses arrive on 26 June and 11 July, summer finds change in the air. If you're not busy with bucket and spade on an idyllic beach, August is a potent month for relaunching your professional life, ready for the sterner terrain of the autumn. If you were born December '80 or January '81, autumn's "Saturn Return" is the time to gain promotion… or change career.

Finances – especially those involving outstanding debts, inheritances and the like – threaten to drag until Mars' resumes forward motion in early March. The same time-frame applies to a rocky relationship, and if you want to dump an outworn partnership those eclipses are all in accord.

★ AQUARIUS 20 January-19 February Pleased or sorry to see the back of 2009? Astrologically, 2009 was an exceptional year for Aquarians, with a rare and hopefully inspirational conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune dominating your skies. This duo signalled a chance to prove that you are not – as less visionary signs are wont to suggest – a mere space cadet or doe-eyed utopian, but someone with practical skills, cool creativity and a sound instinct for the tenor of the times (the last having nothing to do with The X Factor).

You begin 2010 with the same planetary signature in place for a further three weeks, a chance to tie up loose ends from last year or, if things didn't work out, to lick your wounds. With your 'scope in retrospective mode, new initiatives are best left until 20 January opens a birthday month blessed by romantic Venus. Appropriately, you have a new Moon on Valentine's Day, 14 February.

That said, relationships might well remain something of a battle zone at the beginning of the year. Mars, planet of ardour and a quick temper, remains in opposition until mid-May. That may spell the odd shouting match with you know who, or a more serious dispute with an open enemy – if it's the latter, take any threats seriously as the person concerned is unlikely to back down.

You are, mercifully, out of the direct line of fire of some of the year's more difficult planetary signatures. The Saturn-Uranus clash of late April falls across your 'scope's financial axis, calling for prudence with money, especially as Jupiter, in the same zone for much of the year, is the planet of both easy money and spendthrifts. Accumulate! An even fiercer configuration in July spells, for Aquarians, a summer of high excitement, with "the shock of the new" as its motif. That applies to friendships, fashions, art and ideas (or, if you're in the dating game, a zany love affair).

The power of ideas remains a powerful motor in your affairs for the next three years as Saturn crawls its way through your kindred air sign Libra; perfect for writing a PhD thesis, staging a world-beating lecture course or producing a master work putting the world to rights. The humanitarian, societal ideals of your sign remain a badge to wear with pride, and can work for you professionally. Others may scoff, but Aquarians march to a different drum. If you're involved in healing, orthodox or otherwise, the tiny asteroid Chiron reflects that you're swimming with the current.

August through to year's end is a potentially dazzling spell for career matters, when, where and with whom you're seen matters almost as much as what you are up to. Dress accordingly!

★ PISCES 20 February-20 March Make yours the loudest cheer on New Year's Eve when you bid farewell to two years that, for all their fine achievements, are unlikely to have been your easiest. Meanwhile, 2010 comes roaring in on a wave of excitement.

Saturn in opposition (from late '07 to late '09) invariably signals the need to handle property issues and to work incessantly while the dullards in charge take you for granted, even though you're the one with the cutting-edge ideas. Don't fret, you still are.

Saturn hasn't quite gone away – the ringed planet slips back between April and July to ensure you have professional alliances in place and your lovely home in order, a process that applies chiefly to birthdays from 16 to 18 March. For now, however, you're off the hook.

Moreover, on 18 January Jupiter, Pisces's ruler, arrives in your skies to supercharge the opening five months of the year. Where Saturn is constriction, Jupiter is expansion, handing you a free ticket to distant shores or introducing you to a helpful big shot (this is the planet of presidents). By tradition, a Jupiter transit is "lucky", a "get out of jail free" card, though what it calls for is a spirit of optimism and self-belief rather than expecting pennies from heaven. You can review 1986 and 1998, previous Jupiter years, for comparison.

2010 is different, however. The giant planet zips through Pisces at top speed before heading into Aries's patch of the cosmos, meaning the summer may feel like a flat spot. Keep faith: in September Jupiter returns for the rest of the year – indeed this could be a pivotal month, bringing unforeseen work offers or a surprise love affair as Jupiter meets the other planet dominating your skies, Uranus.

Uranian themes, strong in Piscean lives for the past six years, emphasise independence, the future, dramatic change. Add this year's Jovian largesse and you have a recipe for personal revolution, at least a chance to overhaul your image, reinvent your professional act, or walk out on a glum spouse for an affair with a glamorous quantum physicist or guerrilla gardener.

You have, in short, to put faith in your high ideals, canny antennae and creativity. This year you're the fish with the brightest ideas in the think tank. February is sweet, but the new Moon of 15 March (dazzling date for a birthday!) is the real start of your year, after which it's a mad, exhibitionist dash to summer. From mid-September you have lift-off again, with autumn a high spot for romance, especially for long-distance love affairs. With Jupiter in residence you can fly clear through to January 2011.

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