If you feel disillusioned in career areas, don't retreat to lick your wounds. Until June, you are still favored to establish some of the firmest career projects of your life. It doesn't matter that the rewards don't shower down on you right away. Your assets here are a steady will and a patient belief in time.

Mercury retrogrades on your birthday, hinting that you'll spend much of 1998 re-examining your direction in life, especially in work, health, communications and travel zones.

Despite a feeling of urgency, this is not a good year to act on your impulses, nor to charge ahead in the hopes that your personality will conquor delays and obstacles on worldly fronts. To tell the truth, your personal charm is at a low ebb all 1998.

But your insight is strong, and your spiritual self grows by leaps and bounds this year. However, spirituality is not without its dangers, of egotism, wrong pathways, bad gurus, etc. Until March, it's impossible to separate the good and bad inner paths; after this, to late October, the good path will be marked by an inner cheerfulness, optimism and honesty, the bad path by subtle feelings of temptation. After October, all is well spiritually.

These same phases also apply to charitable, governmental, administrative dealings, to contacts with institutions, and to your attempts to increase or solidify your security, materially and emotionally. In all these, good luck grows stronger as the year matures. You could be promoted from November onward.

If you were born before April 7, sweet new friends enliven your life -- one of them could become a life-mate. If you were born after April 6, your private life grows more affectionate, and you'll have luck in dealing with government agencies, large corporations and institutions. But be careful that you don't end up in a "gilded cage" -- that is, in a circumstance that, while comfortable and semi-lucky, prevents your seeking greater luck and freedom elsewhere.

You'll exhude sexuality this year, especially if you're male. This can prompt a fair amount of clandestine temptations. Some of you will cheat (even if only on a present prospect); some of you won't. You certainly won't lack romantic attention and adventure!

You remain bouyant and cheerful until early June. Then a sober note enters your mood, subtly at first, to grow stronger over the next several years. This is Saturn, nudging you to "get serious" about all legal, cultural, educational and travel prospects in your life. Saturn has a lot to do with growing up, with preparing for the next three decades of your life. After June, it might prompt you to enter school, to wed, or to assume more cultural duties, such as heading your local arts league.

Your career continues to evolve, sometimes in jerks and starts. After April -- and for the next fourteen years -- you will find that groups, socializing and sympathy, while questionable for love, do bring rewarding career developments.

If you were born before May 4, you'll purchase a luxury item in the year ahead. You'll see a bright future for yourself, one involving more relaxation. If you were born after May 3, clandestine attachments are highlighted; so are benefits from research and spiritual investigations.

1998 brings more of the same until October, yet in a changing way that eventually leads to huge good fortune career-wise. First, Neptune (your career planet) moves into Aquarius in late January, where it will stay for fourteen years. This whole period will gently but massively shunt your career goals away from the secrecy, financial and power obsessions of the past decade, to a more humanitarian, legal, communicative, educational phase. Some of you might begin to write for a living; others return to school; others will work for a humanitarian cause. Whatever you do, you're going to find your career and business endeavors bring you a welcome sense of satisfaction, of being able to use your mind and soul, rather than being a cog in a wheel.

At first, your entry into this vast new career influence might be a little confusing. In February and March, good and bad luck mingle inextricably. I'd lie low, and take nothing at face value. From April to October 20, your career options separate into very lucky (characterized by a cheerful, sharing, partnering, honest, optimistic feeling, and perhaps a relocation) and unlucky (characterized by a feeling of temptation, of something for nothing, of delay, or of chasing a carrot that you never quite catch). Now that you know how to distinguish between the two, simply aim yourself in the right direction. From October 21 to February 1999, your career luck is unabashedly good: fire away on all cylinders!

You'll be impulsive, courageous, and basically hopeful from June onward. These qualities will attract the opposite sex, but they could also make you smoke too much, drive too fast, invest too fast, or "play with fire" in another sense. Don't create a liason where society's rules say none should exist.

The quiet pall that's hung over your popularity for the last two years dissipates by June. From this month forward, you'll feel more comfortable and bouyant in society, at parties, in meetings.

Complete all your dealings with government, head office, and institutions by early June, as barriers (though not insuperable ones) will begin to rise in these areas from June through the year 2000.

The whole year ahead prompts both luck and pitfalls in legal, educational, cultural, travel, import-export, and similar involvements. In February/March, bad and good mingle so closely you'd be wise to just sit back and study the situation without acting. From April to late October, optimism and a determination to work hard in these areas will lead you the right way. Any attempt to get something for nothing could land you in a legal tangle, in the wrong country, in a cultural fiasco, etc. From October 20 onward, everything leans toward luck, so earlier snarls can be ironed out.

Neptune has adulterated your relationships with suspicion, illusion, and misplaced trust for the last fourteen years. On January 30 this illusive influence will shift to your sexual, health and "big finance" zones. So start now to convince yourself not to fall under the spell of huge, unrealistic monetary or lustful temptations. Don't be a con artist's "dream client." If you handle this influence beneficially (by keeping spitiruality, unselfishness and sympathy uppermost in sexual/financial dealings) you'll be deeply inspired, and ride a wave of almost magical protection.

The bottom line is, this Neptune shift will create a much calmer, clearer atmosphere in your vital links, and a general relief in your life. The tough slog you've experienced in career matters over the last two years continues through early June, and returns briefly in November and December. But the summer and autumn bring the first hints of what that tough slog has earned you. By 1999, you'll collect the rewards for all that hard work -- and they could be massive rewards! So don't be lazy.

1998 is mildly yet solidly romantic, especially after June. You could fall in love; you might meet someone in a social setting who would make a good, viable, practical and fitting mate. At the very least, you'll experience sweeter relationships than you have in the past several years.

April to October 20, good and bad financial luck separate. The lucky road will be characterized by a feeling of optimism, cheerfulness, good fellowship and honesty. The unlucky path will lure you with a carrot that promises something for nothing, will whisper that you can get away with just a tiny unsavory act. Look in the mirror: if you're frowning thoughtfully while contemplating a financial course of action, reject it.

From October 20 right into late February of 1999, your financial luck will be at a 12-year high. Invest, seek investors, sign a mortgage, etc! The same advice, timing and results apply to lifestyle changes, to occultism, investigation and research, power plays, management roles, and to your more consequential sexual urges (ranging from the desire to involve yourself in a mysterious, exploratory liason, to the innocent desire to have a baby) -- luck and karmic tests co-exist! If in doubt sexually, keep it casual, without commitment.

The first ten months of 1998 promise a smooth, fruitful path in simple earnings. Seek a pay raise, buy, sell, chase clients.

This year is one in a series that promises exciting meetings with the opposite sex. You'll meet challenging but very vital people; sparks will fly, leading to sweet bliss if you can compromise, to fiery arguments if you can't.

Tremendous, sudden and unexpected opportunities and oppositions face you in business, relocation, and legal zones. Look for the bright, humanitarian side of every unexpected event, and you'll open a door to a better life. March, April and June are very social. Your sexual magnetism soars in September. Money flows in October/November. You talk in a loving way in December. This accompanies the start of a long, blessed period for you. From October 20 all the way to April 2000, be very slow to commit yourself to a binding contract, marriage, or business partnership.

Jupiter, the planet of great luck, resides in your marriage, partnership, litigation, relocation, and opportunity sector from February right into late February of '99. Normally this would bring unprecedented opportunities and honorable people. However, this year, until October 20, an indicator of bad karma also remains in the same sector. These two, good and bad luck, are closely intertwined during February and March. But after this, until October, you can tell the two apart. Cheerfulness, optimism and honesty (and a bit of long-windedness, on your or another's part) signal good luck in partnerships and opportunities. Tricky circumstances, delay, temptations to gain a lot for little, a "dark" atmosphere, signal a false, destructive opportunity or link.

After October, you should trip over yourself to form a bond, shake hands, sign an agreement or relocate -- only good luck can result! (I mention relocation so often because all Virgos are under pressure to change their homes until 2008.)

Those delays in financial and sexual circumstances might have already begun resolving themselves by the time you read this, but there will be a lingering slowness in this area until June, and another mild slowdown in November (to Feb./99). This slowness, however, is also an opportunity to put your financial affairs on a more solid or creative footing. Be careful not to fight with a lover over sex, or a boss over money and your power late May through June -- just as you're at your most determined to blast away old restraints, they're dissolving on their own.

You're hyper about money, and not afraid to say what you mean the first nine months. The autumn generally blesses you with a sweet, loving, mellow mood.

But work has an even deeper, wider-ranging import this year. By late January, you enter a fourteen-year phase in which your employment or duties will take on a more creative, pleasurable tone. You could work as an artist or writer, or handle more creative clients, or assume the role of raising/teaching children -- a creative challenge if there ever was one. After October (not before) follow your hunches, your intuition and sympathy in choosing a work direction -- they'll lead to reward.

In February/March, beware of taking on too many chores: an employment situation you feel optimistic about will be a bit of a trap. From April to October 20, an optimistic, cheerful, honest feeling will point you to good luck in work, whereas a tempting, carrot-dangling, something-for-nothing urge will slide you into a real trap of long-term drudgery. After October, you can pick the luckiest job for yourself.

Until early June (and again, a wee bit, Nov./Dec. through Feb. of '99) partners and/or prospective mates will continue to be skeptical of your intentions, and slow to agree to anything. You yourself will continue to be attracted to much older or younger lovers. Be a little wary of your own intentions here -- attraction might mask your true desire, which seems to be slanted more toward security than toward true love.

In June, and late August through October, you'll gain a much clearer idea of what you really want in a lover/mate, which can prepare you for a more exciting romantic phase in 1999. This same period (June to October) gives you a key to turn (slowly, for the process extends into the year 2000) to effect a basic, long-lasting change in your property, security and family set-ups, a change which is certain to benefit you and put these affairs on a more solid foundation.

Until October, good and bad luck lurk in love. During February and March, the two are impossible to tell apart, so you'd be wise to remain cool and uncommitted. From April to October, you'll win in love if you treat someone openly, cheerfully, gallantly -- and refuse to tell a lie. But you'll lose if you put the other person on an unrealistic pedestal, promote a false idea of yourself, or constantly chase a romantic carrot which continues to dangle, but never quite lets you catch it. (This might be the case with someone you met in 1997.)

By November/December, you make all the right decisions in romance, and your luck soars without prompting. The same phases and times apply to your creative, artistic, child-raising, teaching, pleasure-seeking, and speculative projects.

From June, right through 2000, you could fall for a person much older or younger than yourself. Conversation with this person will flow smoothly, comfortably; you'll travel well together, and scheduling your liasons will never be a problem. You'll feel unusually duteous toward this person. A love partnership could form which carries you safely through the fourteen year "deep love" phase that begins this January. This is more likely to occur if you were born after November 6, any year. (Those of you born before November 7 will meet many opportunities for casual sex, and your money flow surprises and pleases! But don't overspend nor contract debts.)

Work has been heavy for two years now. It stays that way until June, then you can breathe a sigh of relief. Such drudgery will not return again until 2005.

Your home life and property affairs continue to surprise all year. A huge new influence enters, combining both indecision and mistrust on the negative side, creativity and great intuition on the positive side. If you want to move or buy property, do it before October 20. (After this, to April 2000, avoid such action.) You'll benefit most, now to 2011, if you let children, beauty, emotional tugs and love outweigh other factors in choosing property and making family decisions.

Now your ruling planet, Jupiter, enters your sector of home, soul, security and property, to give this "inner transformation" its first go-ahead to successful results, to a smoother, more rooted and satisfying life.

But the process won't be simple. Here it is: before April, don't even try to figure out who you should be with, where you should live, if you should stay or leave, quit or re-grow.

During April, you'll be reminded of past loves, and of old fascinations of a creative, child-oriented or pleasure variety. This isn't meant to send you flying back to a former situation; its purpose is to nudge you to re-examine the pleasures and hopes of your life (some of which you've forgotten, recently!).

From May to October, this re-examination bears fruit: you will know how to choose between a false security and true satisfaction in home, property, family and soul zones. Some hints: the true will be new, the false contains elements of old temptations, old "if onlys." The true will have a sheen of optimism and honesty; the false will lure with darker temptations.

From October 20 onward (to late February, 1999) your luck soars unadulterated in these zones, making this a superb time to purchase property, establish a family, adopt a child, etc.

Your romantic life has been weighty and duteous, perhaps slow, for the last two years or longer. By June, this sober, sombre weight dissolves, but you don't face stunning, intense romance right away. Instead, you have two options: casual sex, or a friendly romance. (The latter is reserved mostly for those of you born after December 13, any year. If you were born before the 14th, your money picture looks excellent, all year.)

A two-year period of serious work efforts begins in June; prepare to knuckle down and earn your keep. If you don't, you could find your income is "slim" for the next decade or so.

That distressful last decade and a half did have some good points, though: it opened you up to the problems many other people face. For the first time, perhaps, you understood poverty, or the psychological, emotional and spiritual terrors others experience. Of course, you might have been poor yourself, or frightened, say as a child, long before this last uncertain period, but you were forced to contemplate a deeper understanding of the problems of existence. Your sympathy has truly grown, and your spirituality.

Now, as you move into a calmer phase and feel your strong, solid faith in life slowly regenerate, don't forget these experiences and the compassion they taught you. I say this for your spiritual sake, but also, quite practically, for your financial sake. These two qualities, sympathy and compassion, will be your most effective, productive "job skills" for the next fourteen years. They might even shunt you into "sympathy fields" such as counseling or health. But no matter what your vocation, they'll help you communicate, emphasize, climb the administrative hierarchy, and gather more clients. One of life's great truths is that people respond to what you are inside, as much or more than to who you are.

1998 features good money/income luck for all of you, but make hay quickly; by October, that money luck begins to grow complex. (After October 20, to April 2000, you'd be wise to ease up on the self-interest, financially.) All year, avoid incurring new debt -- it could grow beyond your ability to handle it.

Romance hasn't exactly thrilled you for awhile, but from June, through the year 2000, your thoughts begin to slowly curl toward pleasure. This, combined with the new calmness that's coming, begin to make you ready for infatuation. A romance that arrives after June could become a long-lasting feature in your life. September could bring a person who lights your mental fires while providing much intimate thrill, too. For some, children and their care will be a new or increased burden, but a happy one.

From April to October, you'll be able to separate the lucky and unlucky roads in finance. The lucky road will involve friends or a social atmosphere, cheer, optimism, honesty. Keep your fondest wishes for the future in mind; they'll be like a beacon, guiding you to the right actions. The unlucky road will tempt, delay, and promise large gain for little effort; these trap you in a complex, losing situation. If unsure, be moral -- it's your "safeguard."

From late October to February '99, your income luck soars without impediment: charge ahead, and collect it!

This year is a landmark for many signs, but particularly for you. You've already "woken up" to new possibilities, new horizons and a new feeling of your strength and capabilities over the last two years. Now Neptune enters Aquarius (until the year 2011) to add a sense of sympathy, compassion, poetry to your recent "alertness."

On the negative side, these fourteen years can bring you increased indecision and uncertainty, emotions that soar and fall, and a belief in subtle but ever-expanding illusions. On the plus side, Neptune will vastly add to your spiritual and psychological understanding of life and humanity. You'll become more magnetic, more photogenic. Health-wise, you'll have to be disciplined about alcohol and drug ingestion.

The same fourteen year period will inspire you about ways to earn money, but you could also become a scam-artists' best client. Sprinkle some skepticism into your dealings.

1998 doesn't offer a lot in the romantic department (though you could fall in love in June) but it does emphasize physical embraces. Consequential sex is better than casual sex until October, but after that casual sex wins.

A certain dullness which has impeded your written and verbal communications over the last two years evaporates by June. You'll speak your mind much more freely. This month marks the beginning of a three-year period in which you will need to build security and solve family conditions. Accept this as a steadying anchor, rather than rebelling against it.

If you were born before March 4, you'll simmer with a new magnetism that draws the opposite sex. Your social life will teem with affectionate people, and some of them are quite open to a bit of intimate mingling. If your birthday occurs on March 4 or later, all that sexy energy is channeled into money-making efforts. You're treated with kindness and favor by civil servants, institutional workers, advisors and therapists, and your own head-office. You could climb easily up the management ladder.

1997 was one of your unluckiest years in memory. This changes dramatically in 1998, as lucky Jupiter enters Pisces from February '98 to February '99. However, the road ahead is somewhat complex. Most of your luck will center on career, business, relations with VIPs, and your status efforts. In February and March, these efforts are inextricably interwoven with the delay, sadness and dullness you've felt in 1997. (You're paying off 18 years worth of karmic debts, that's why the sadness.) During these two months, you're best to maintain the status quo.

From April to October 20, old karma will continue to offer you an easy road to self-pity, anger, wrong motives, selfishness and ego-centricity. But Jupiter will offer you a happy, gleaming road to career success. Try it! (If in doubt -- eg., maybe a career project is self-sentered -- then make sure your project is linked to a partnership or group involvement.)

By October 20 onward, your career luck simply chugs on all cylinders -- the bad karma is gone. But remember, your career is destined to change: so the best luck will surely manifest in new situations, new career directions, even entirely new careers.

All year, karma or not, Jupiter gives you a lighter step, a song, a happier, lifting mood and sense of personal luck!

The biggest change of 1998 hardly needs mention, as it will seep in slowly and subtly, to grow over the next twenty-eight years. Your spiritual, charitable, meditative, empathic, psychic, and management capabilities begin to grow. Since these are natural Piscean attributes, you're sure to benefit from this new influence.