TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your word of power this week is *yua.* It’s a term the Yupiit people of Alaska use for the spirit that inhabits all things, both animate and inanimate. A rock, for instance, has as much *yua* as a caribou, spruce tree, or human being, and therefore merits the same measure of compassion. If a Yupiit goes out for a hike and spies a chunk of wood lying on a frozen river bank, she might pick it up and put it in a new position, allowing its previously hidden side to get fresh air and sun. In this way, she would bestow a blessing on the wood’s *yua.* Try living your life like this in the coming days, Taurus: as if absolutely everything is alive, has a soul, and deserves your loving kindness. (Thanks to Earl Shorris, “The Last Word,” *Harper’s,* August 2000.)

You are Optimus Prime! You are a natural born
leader, brave and selfless and you will fight
to the bitter end for peace and freedom. You
have extensive knowledge in just about
everything from art to the art of war. You
would be a better leader if you were more
ruthless, but then you just wouldn’t be Optimus
Prime. Roll out with your bad self!

Transformers Generation One Personality Test
brought to you by Quizilla

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You need to laugh more this week than you’ve ever laughed before. I’m not exaggerating, Taurus. Mirth is not just food but also medicine for your soul. It’s an absolute necessity, not a luxury. I’m talking about amusement as a way of life, not a pleasant diversion; as the attitude that underlies everything you do, not just an occasional escape into frivolity. You probably have some ideas about where to begin: which funny friends you should hang out with and which comedians you should expose yourself to. But in order to fulfill your assignment, you’ll also have to track down *new* laugh-inducing stimuli; you’ll have to expand your capacity to be delighted.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Are you the type of person who is capable of altering your trajectory in midair? Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that you worked in the circus as a human cannonball. Let’s say you had just been shot out of a cannon but sensed you were headed towards a spot on the ground a few feet beyond the safety net. Could you wiggle or shimmy in such a way that you accomplished a mid-course correction, ensuring that you landed where you wanted to? In my astrological opinion, Taurus, you could.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Naturalist John Burroughs was addressing your current needs when he wrote the following: “The lesson which life constantly enforces is ‘Look underfoot.’ You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Every place is the center of the world.” Let’s finish up this little pep talk, Taurus, with some advice from Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): One of my readers, Elizabeth Whitsage, told me a story of when she was working at Disneyland selling mouse-eared balloons. Every so often a mother, father, and young son would come up to her, the parents asking in enthusiastic voices “What color do you want?” and the son answering “Pink!” One parent, usually the father, would recoil in horror and say something like, “No, son, don’t you want red or blue?” But before the child could reply, Elizabeth would whip a pink balloon out of the bunch and wrap its string around his wrist. Then she’d smile and say to the dad, “That’ll be one dollar, please.” Keep this story uppermost in mind during the week ahead, Taurus. Make sure that you always get and always give your personal equivalent of the pink balloon.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In his book *The Gulag Archipelago,* Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn documents the Soviet Union’s oppression of many ethnic groups between 1918 and 1956. “Only one nation would not give in, nor acquire the mental habits of submission,” he noted. “These were the Chechens. They never sought to please, to ingratiate themselves with the bosses . . . No one could stop them from living as they did.” I don’t mean to imply that the manipulative pressures coming to bear on you, Taurus, are anywhere near as severe as what the Chechens experienced. In fact, your version might be rather covert or subtle. But I urge you, nevertheless, to stand up in defense of your independent spirit with a Chechen-like clarity and ferocity.