Horoscope for the Week of April 28, 2025 - Mars Enters Leo

Energetic Mars advances into lusty Leo unleashing robust energy into various areas of our lives. It’s time to get going, going, going.

Here is my favorite book on astrology and a "must" for anyone interested in learning more: Secrets from a Stargazer's Notebook: Making Astrology Work for You and here's a guide to the best books available this month. This column is (c) 2025 MADAM LICHTENSTEIN, LLC., All Rights Reserved. For Entertainment Purposes Only. Madam Lichtenstein is the author of the best selling astrology book “HerScopes ” now in its 12th printing and available as an eBook

ARIES   (MARCH 21 - APRIL 20)

Whatever propels you to just have fun, do it Aries. You not only have ample creative juice, you also have the extra energy to make things happen. You attract others with your festive exuberance as you take to artistic world by storm. So take a calculated risk. Seek more romance in your life. Allow your spirit to soar.

TAURUS (APRIL 21-MAY 21)

There are more opportunities to gather your family around Taurus. Plan for more get togethers that boost the spirit and strengthen connections. You also have the fortitude and insight to take on a large home project. Planning carefully now as your enthusiasm is high enables you to successfully complete any dream.

GEMINI   (MAY 22 - JUNE 21)

You seem to know exactly what and how to say and to whom, Gemini. Your innate diplomacy and friendliness can be used to your advantage. So share your ideas and opinions and spread the news. There are those who are listening who help you achieve anything you desire. The secret is to know what you really desire …

CANCER   (JUNE 22 - JULY 23)

If you can turn your attention to money matters, you make a greater impact into your future fiscal success, Cancer. It’s a good time to turn up the energy, do your research, ask the right advisors, assume the right amount of risk for your comfort and make your big move. Who knows what can happen when you are so focused?

LEO   (JULY 24 - AUGUST 23)

You are in the center of the social universe, Leo, which means one thing; get out in front of the adoring crowds and see who you can impress. There are those who can make wonderful things happen for you and your long term goals. Check yourself out in the mirror, make any necessary adjustments and go get ‘em! Grrr.

VIRGO   (AUGUST 24 - SEPTEMBER 23)

Whatever craziness is going on in the background, know that it benefits you, Virgo. Keep your eyes open and ears focused on any intuitive vibe and be ready to take action when you know that the time is right. Meditating on a matter can lead you to new revelations and a stronger sense of self. This karma is a good thing.

LIBRA   (SEPTEMBER 24 - OCTOBER 23)

Libras are naturally sociable and now you are able to not only strengthen your connections to old friends but also vigorously forge new associations. This is your time to get more involved in a range of organizations and groups where you can meet new, interesting and even unorthodox people. It will be invigorating.

SCORPIO   (OCTOBER 24 - NOVEMBER 22)

Whatever career path you are on, Scorpio, choose to either supercharge your advancement or decide upon another even more interesting path. Your enthusiasm and energy takes you into successful directions whichever way you choose. Think of your strategic long term goals and see where your personal path leads.

SAGITTARIUS   (NOVEMBER 23 - DECEMBER 22)

If you have itchy traveling feet, Sagittarius, it’s time for you to get out of your rut and routine and seek interesting and exotic destinations. Anything that you can do whether closer to home or faraway proves to be exceptionally valuable and enjoyable. The most important thing it to get out of any narrow perspective

CAPRICORN   (DECEMBER 23 - JANUARY 20)

Are you feeling more connected to the world and to someone in particular, Capricorn? Your heart soars to new heights and you are more easily able to express your feelings to others. These are some deep emotional times. Allow yourself the freedom to demonstrate your love and passion and see what can happen.

AQUARIUS   (JANUARY 21 - FEBRUARY 19)

Relationships take on a more important role in your life, Aquarius, as you recognize the benefits and the pleasures of connecting with others on a more meaningful level. Remember that no one is an island unto themselves. See where you can apply positive energies to improve partnerships and interactions with certain folks.

PISCES   (FEBRUARY 20 - MARCH 20)

Pisces begin to feel more robust and energetic as the week progresses. Use this happy oomph to help you develop positive actions to improve your overall health, strength and well-being. You also feel more driven to complete long postponed chores or detailed projects. Spring cleaning can come anytime in the year!

(c) 2025 MADAM LICHTENSTEIN, LLC., All Rights Reserved. For Entertainment Purposes Only. @thestarryeye Find astrology readings on tinyurl.com/TheStarryEye and a great sun sign book at tinyurl.com/Herscopes

Lucky Numbers for the Week of April 25, 2025

Lottery ads tell us you only need a dollar and a dream. But it is also helpful to have a list of lucky numbers to help spur the good fortune ... or fortunes. So with that in mind, here are some lucky numbers that can be used in any helpful way. I gazed into a pool of water, Nostradamus-like, and contemplated the cosmos. Then I mixed the tarot cards and allowed the spirits to guide me to the cards that represent the lucky numbers for this week. Nothing is guaranteed but who knows ....?

Here are the lucky numbers for the week of April 25-May 1, 2025:

I choose eight numbers because 8 is the number of wealth.

2, 5, 7, 11, 24, 41, 59, 69

There are many ways to delve into your own consciousness to find luck and intuition. Try reading Dream Power/Improve Your Luck (Super Strength Series) and see if your dreams give you any clues and premonitions. Here's a guide to the best books available this month

The Mystical Evolution of the Tarot Deck

Oh how I wish I could travel to London before this amazing show on the tarot closes! It is currently on show at the Warburg Institute.

Tarot cards are everywhere; but where do they come from, and what is at stake in the different forms they have taken? As tools to explore the unconscious, sources of artistic inspiration and emblems of counterculture, tarot decks have served as some of our most powerful shapers of fortune, creativity and even identity. Our major new exhibition, Tarot - Origins & Afterlives, will present a sequence of critical moments from Tarot’s long history, exploring the cards’ iconographic origins and the profound transformations they have undergone in the hands of artists, mystics and writers.

Highlights include:

• Rare and Historic Tarot Decks: Explore fascinating examples like the Austin Osman Spare Tarot deck (c. 1906), presented courtesy of The Magic Circle Collection.
• Historical Context: Learn about tarot’s roots in Renaissance Europe and its evolution through mysticism, esotericism, and modern reinterpretations.
• Cultural Significance: Trace how tarot has shaped creativity, influenced countercultural movements, and inspired modern artists and writers.

The Smithsonian Magazine has a wonderful overview of the exhibit's major takeaways:

In Italo Calvino's 1973 novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies, two groups of travelers bed down for the night in a forest. One group heads for the castle. The other goes to a tavern. Under normal circumstances, the travelers would pass the hours telling each other tales, but “it was clear that crossing the forest had cost us each the power of speech,” Calvino writes. Instead, they resort to using tarot cards to tell their stories, with a narrator at each location offering an interpretation for the reader. “I realized the tarots were a machine for constructing stories,” writes Calvino. “I was tempted by the diabolical idea of conjuring up all the stories that could be contained in a tarot deck.”

The story of how tarot evolved from a Renaissance card game to a ubiquitous fortune-telling technique is the focus of “Tarot: Origins and Afterlives,” a new exhibition at London’s Warburg Institute.

“Everyone knows that tarot is everywhere right now,” Bill Sherman, director of the Warburg, says. “But few have had the opportunity to see its long history, covering more than five centuries of cultural and countercultural work.”

The exhibition traces tarot’s roots back to 15th-century Italy. Although the images drew on classical and pagan imagery, the cards were still treated as a game, or, in the case of the gilded designs by artist Bonifacio Bembo, an art piece for elites to enjoy, as art historian Martina Mazzotta, who co-curated the exhibition, tells the New York Times’ Daniel Waite Penny.

Throughout the 16th century, the game spread across Europe as French troops returned home from the Italian Wars. Mass production in Marseille gave the deck its standardized “Tarot de Marseille” form with 78 cards in four suits, including 21 trump cards (also known as “major arcana”) and the Fool.

Tarot only took on an explicitly mystical connotation in the late 18th century. In 1781, French pastor and occultist Antoine Court de Gébelin came across a tarot deck and concluded that “what he was looking at wasn’t an ordinary set of cards, but actually a concealed Egyptian religious text called the Book of Thoth,” co-curator Jonathan Allen says to the Guardian’s Nicholas Wroe. Under the pen name Etteilla, Jean-Baptiste Alliette, a Parisian print seller, pushed de Gébelin’s theories further, creating the first set of tarot cards meant to be used for fortune-telling.

Into the 20th century, tarot continued to endure as an occult activity in secret societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which Irish poet W.B. Yeats and occultist Aleister Crowley were members.

But at the same time, the cards entered the mainstream. German art historian Aby Warburg, the namesake of the institute, began collecting tarot cards in 1909 as part of his interest in how ancient images became popular in modern culture.

Examples of tarot cards as an art form include Pamela Colman Smith’s iconic Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck and the Thoth Tarot deck created by Lady Frieda Harris, which is on view in the exhibition for the first time since her death in 1962. A one-of-a-kind set from 1906 by Austin Osman Spare shows sparse images floating across multiple cards, which Allen discovered in the archives of the Magic Circle, a magicians’ club in London, according to the Times. More recently, tarot has become political. As Sherman tells ARTnews’ Karen Chernick, there’s “a lot of what I would call activist tarot at the moment.” Lockdown Tarot, for instance, created by artist John Walter during the pandemic, features face cards like Theresa May and Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Suzanne Treister’s Hexen 2.0 deck uses the card form to examine topics like mass surveillance, anarcho-primitivism and quantum computing.

As Allen tells the Guardian, these developments aren’t aberrations from tarot’s beginnings but instead represent a natural progression. “It seems to be returning to its humanist origins as a kind of serious game that allows individuals to mediate the complexity of the world around them,” he explains.

One version, Barrow Tarot, was created by Katie Anderson as a “conversational artwork” to encourage residents of Barrow, England, to participate in “fortune-telling for a future town,” per the Times. In practical terms, that meant helping residents decide how to develop a run-down area.

That the game has endured for nearly 600 years while evolving to match contemporary interests and desires is a testament to the power of tarot and the stories it creates. “It’s a very accessible form. It’s a given structure, a given symbol set and a given format,” Sherman tells ARTnews. “For the most part, it’s a small, handheld, rectangular object that pretty much anyone can make or buy. And I think that’s quite different from a lot of the art world.”

“Tarot: Origins and Afterlives” is on view at the Warburg Institute in London through April 30, 2025.

 

Horoscope for the Week of April 21, 2025 - Sun Enters Taurus

The Sun enters Taurus enabling us to be more practical and impactful. See where you need to create more of a foundation and then, get digging!

Here is my favorite book on astrology and a "must" for anyone interested in learning more: Secrets from a Stargazer's Notebook: Making Astrology Work for You and here's a guide to the best books available this month. This column is (c) 2025 MADAM LICHTENSTEIN, LLC., All Rights Reserved. For Entertainment Purposes Only. Madam Lichtenstein is the author of the best selling astrology book “HerScopes ” now in its 12th printing and available as an eBook.

ARIES   (MARCH 21 - APRIL 20)

Focus more on your finances, Aries, with an eye to making your future more secure and fiscally stable. There are actions that you can take that give you much greater insight into the best direction for your needs and values. There is a lot to consider but you have it in you to take matters into the right direction.

TAURUS (APRIL 21-MAY 21)

Find ways to put your goals into a positive and profitable direction, Taurus. You sparkle with potential and charisma that attracts others. Know that there are people around you who can lead you in the right direction and even lend you a helping hand along the way. You have the vision. Now you need to get into action.

GEMINI   (MAY 22 - JUNE 21)

Your intuition is strong and your ability to discern the motivations of others is very sharp. So what do you conjure as your next steps, Gemini? Find ways to inspire and affirm and elevate your creativity. Achieve your nirvana with any charitable effort or by meditation and wellness. Calming the mind helps calm the soul.  

CANCER   (JUNE 22 - JULY 23)

There is strength in group efforts, Cancer. Getting more involved in a club or organization that expands your social circle and brings you in touch with new contacts will not only spur you in new and favorable directions, it can also lift your spirits. Who knows what great ideas burst forth when you have all this new stimuli?

LEO   (JULY 24 - AUGUST 23)

Your path to success may seem slower than you prefer but it is also steady, solid and foundational. The extra insight you have now enables you to go in the right direction, impress the right power-brokers and get the recognition you deserve. Remember, putting in the effort now, Leo, enables you to reap ample rewards later.

VIRGO   (AUGUST 24 - SEPTEMBER 23)

Virgos see an opportunity to expand their world in many new ways now. What is it that truly inspires you? Where can you go where you see things from an entirely new perspective? You get a few hints and can use this time to get out of any old and no-longer-relevant routine and into something vastly different and fun.

LIBRA   (SEPTEMBER 24 - OCTOBER 23)

Delve into something deep and profound, Libra. Your airy nature is in for a reboot as life forces amplify your soul-searching feelings and profound expressions. It proves to be rewarding and eye opening. Embrace the liveliness of life and enjoy the deeper connections this time brings. Live and love large. No, even larger!

SCORPIO   (OCTOBER 24 - NOVEMBER 22)

Are there some relationships that are in need of a reassessment or a reboot, Scorpio? If so, attend to them now while you are seeing things more practically and carefully. Find ways to find accord or compromise but try not to give in too much. At some point a happy balance is reached where both of you feel good.

SAGITTARIUS   (NOVEMBER 23 - DECEMBER 22)

If you are feeling a bit achy or in need of an energy boost, you find it (interestingly) through more sedate or restful means, Sagittarius. Decompression or relaxation techniques help you recharge and muster vitality and vigor. Sometimes it is taking a step back that enables us to eventually take quite a few steps forward.

CAPRICORN   (DECEMBER 23 - JANUARY 20)

How creative do you feel now, Capricorn? There will be times where you feel greatly inspired and ready to get more involved in a range of festive activities. Maybe it’s arranging a party or event or taking a class in the arts. The most important thing is to seek new ways of expressing yourself and just have fun with it.

AQUARIUS   (JANUARY 21 - FEBRUARY 19)

Aquarians find that their most fertile and satisfying activities now center more on home and family. Whatever you need or want to do around the house, attend to it while your enthusiasm and energy is there. Invite family or friends over, plan a much needed renovation or redecoration or just cocoon and relax.

PISCES   (FEBRUARY 20 - MARCH 20)

You communicate effectively, Pisces, and that is because you sound calm, collected and in control. Choose your words wisely and present your ideas constructively and carefully. You wow the masses and find many new followers. Concentrate on local issues and you find they potentially expand to national audiences.

(c) 2024 MADAM LICHTENSTEIN, LLC., All Rights Reserved. For Entertainment Purposes Only. @thestarryeye Find astrology readings on tinyurl.com/TheStarryEye and a great sun sign book at tinyurl.com/Herscopes

Lucky Numbers for the Week of April 18, 2025

Lottery ads tell us you only need a dollar and a dream. But it is also helpful to have a list of lucky numbers to help spur the good fortune ... or fortunes. So with that in mind, here are some lucky numbers that can be used in any helpful way. I gazed into a pool of water, Nostradamus-like, and contemplated the cosmos. Then I mixed the tarot cards and allowed the spirits to guide me to the cards that represent the lucky numbers for this week. Nothing is guaranteed but who knows ....?

Here are the lucky numbers for the week of April 18-24, 2025:

I choose eight numbers because 8 is the number of wealth.

1, 16, 17, 22, 24, 33, 35, 76

There are many ways to delve into your own consciousness to find luck and intuition. Try reading Dream Power/Improve Your Luck (Super Strength Series) and see if your dreams give you any clues and premonitions. Here's a guide to the best books available this month