Virgo:: In early spring, some of our forebears made love in newly seeded fields, hoping to magically propitiate the growth of the crops. Right now would be an excellent time for you to perform a similar ritual on behalf of what you love. If you're game, find a secluded outdoor spot on a warm day. Bring a partner if one's available, or take the earth or sky as your lover. Then carry out a rite of pleasure in which you offer up the spiritual essence of your bliss to the health and success of a beloved person or creature or situation that you want to thrive in the coming months.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: go have sex outside. Best horoscope ever.

It's gorgeous outside again, and I want to go wandering in search of fresh flowers. I have forbidden myself to procure some, however, until my room is clean and ready to receive them. I've yet to see orchids in Pikesville, but perhaps a bunch of Gerbera daisies will do.

I'm planning to re-vamp my altar space. I've got the cerulean blue sari fabric for an altarcloth, and I bought a garland of fake flowers to drape. Instead of an altarplate for offerings, I went to the craft store and bought an old-fashioned taper holder, the kind with a deep well to catch wax drippings. I can put a taper in the center, and fill the well with water and rose quartz and shiny copper pennies.

Jacques seems to be doing a little better. He's still mostly in hibernation mode, but his back is scabbing over nicely, and I haven't caught him scratching since I switched his bedding and sprayed him for fleas.

I'm still undecided about the weekend-- I really should go dancing, but I keep thinking just how nice it would be to sit out on the porch and share a bottle of Frontier Red, or up on the roof, or take a walk down by the creek. Everything in me is screaming "go outside!" Either way, I'd better figure it out by tomorrow.

I wonder if I can sneak out a half hour early and go play on the swings. Yes, I am five.