Venus, the planet named for the goddess of love and beauty, gets a different look today — a straight and sleek blowout in contrast to the wildness of her recent retrograde. With the direct motion of Venus, matters of love, beauty, glamour and attraction will move up in priority, and aesthetics will seem to represent something essential in our identity.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Sometimes your natural inclinations are not quite enough to bring the situation in order. Think ahead. Anticipate problems. What can you learn or practice to ready yourself?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). It is good to have a broad understanding of how things work, though it is not necessary to know all about all. Once you have an overview, step back and decide which part interests you enough to drill down deeper.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Greatness behaves greatly. Smallness plays in petty sandboxes, prying too minutely into unpleasant matters. Your results will be commensurate with the scale in which you are playing.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). Generosity is the mark of class. It will be noble and gallant to see what matters and overlook quite a lot else. Effectiveness requires some things be judiciously left unnoticed.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). People are doing their best. When you believe that all are acting in accordance with their own heart and understanding, it is hard to fault anyone. It is better to leave the scene than to hover around the object of your annoyance.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You have it in your head that you owe people, although your feelings on the matter make you less than objective. What would an incredibly loving and supportive advocate say about the situation?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Of all the things in life to be wasted or lost, time is among the most precious because you can never get it back. You'll make the most of your hours now, thinking ahead and bringing something to do while you wait.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). When you want to know what your face is like, you look in a mirror. When you want to know what your mind is like, you need a different sort of reflective agent. A friend will work beautifully for this today.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). If virtue is its own reward and vice is its own punishment, why does it feel so hard to be good sometimes? And why is it so much fun to do bad things? Moral dilemmas will be a theme.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Learning is like cardio. It activates pleasure centers of the brain while energizing the whole body with greater health. You have not even begun to know the force of your own intellect.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Most people don't devote themselves to futile activities on purpose, but it so happens that there is futility hidden inside some activities that seem like perfectly good ideas on the surface. Look into the layers today.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Your thoughts have even more power than usual, so be careful how you focus yourself. Realities will be quickly borne of your ideas. Fill your head with enjoyable outcomes.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAY (June 24). The year is marked by an openness, and in many ways, you will be continually renewed over the next 12 months so that, by your next birthday, you'll be younger. You'll look for inspiration and find so much of it that you'll become an inspiration to others. Schooling, charity work and novel routines are all part of the fun. Scorpio and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 8, 10, 3, 40 and 37.

ASTROLOGICAL QUESTIONS: "My grandfather, a physicist, recently passed. Before he died, he was questioning his choice to devote his life to scientific pursuits, telling me that he's not sure his work wouldn't be used for evil in the end. I am now in medical school, shaken by grandfather's regrets and doubting my scientific path. Do you have any advice for a Pisces?"

Yours is one of the healing signs. It is also the sign of wisdom. You can avoid having the same regrets as your grandfather if you seek wisdom first and foremost, with knowledge in second place or even further down.

Knowledge is power. Power isn't inherently good or bad. It can be creative or destructive. You won't know how to use it well unless you are also wise. When you seek wisdom, you will gain knowledge along the way, and it will be just the knowledge you need to do the right thing.

Of course, there is no university of wisdom. And though it takes time to grow wise, age alone does not a wise man make. The only way to become wise is through experience, an open mind and heart, and a sincere desire to live in a way that is moral and ethical for all.

CELEBRITY PROFILES: From "The Office" to "The Morning Show" Mindy Kaling brings intelligent humor to every project she's involved in. The bestselling author will reveal the secrets of her superstar life as a producer, writer, movie star and mom with a new collection of essays released this summer. Kaling is a maternal Cancer born when the sun and Mercury were all in the emotional sign of the crab. Her lucky Jupiter is in Leo.

Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.