August 2008 forecast

Happy Birthday Leo! Your birthday month kicks off straightaway with a solar eclipse on the 1st in your solar first house of Me, Glorious Me (sorry, personality) which should make an impact on your life for the next six months. If you want to makeover your image, launch a personal pet project or concentrate on what you really wish to achieve by 2009, this is the time to do it. This is your month to accept worship, compliments, appreciation and other acts of deference to your rightful role as the local King or Queen of the urban jungle, with the Sun in your solar first house until the 23rd, with Venus here until the 7th and Mercury until the 11th.

If you haven’t already booked them, schedule charisma-boosting facials, manicures, hairdos, massages, wardrobe updates etc on the New Moon of the 1st, 5th, 9th and 21st which are also enjoyable (especially the 5th and 21st) for scheduling your birthday bash. If no-one’s available then and you absolutely Must-Have a birthday celebration, any parties scheduled for the 6th, 15th and Full Moon of the 16th could be fun, if pretty extremely alcohol-fuelled, flaky affairs and will long be remembered if they include dancing, photography and a dress-up theme.

Birthday money is a-coming your way with five planets in your solar second house of income including Saturn (until 2009), Mars until the 20th, Venus from the 7th, Mercury from the 11th and the Sun from the 23rd. While it’s virtually guaranteed that you’ll splurge a considerable amount of it on your annual beauty and fashion makeover, you could even receive extra money via a well-deserved raise or bonus, a better deal on your platinum Amexes, mortgage, or even from selling your now “so-2007” clothes and gadgets on eBay. If you’re a 9-5-er, the combination of the solar eclipse and the second house focus could encourage you to consider creating your own empire. Great days to investigate financial opportunities include the 13th, 15th, 17th (in the morning) 18th, 21st and New Moon of the 31st but steer clear of shouting at the bank manager or that nice man in the credit card call centre in Bangalore on the 6th, 17th (from lunchtime), 23rd, 28th and 29th.