Horoscopes for the week of Feb. 8

Romantic valentine tips for surviving life at the U of M

Damien Davis, staff ARIES

Your tarot card for the week is the Magician. You have the essence of a wise, experienced partner. Your working hands and kind smile reveal someone who knows that paying attention to detail makes all the difference. Strangers feel like they’ve known you their entire lives. You’re careful and precise in all forms. However, don’t allow yourself to be typecast. Being the master of something doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be taken care of, so allow the hands of someone else to run through your curls. Relinquish yourself just a little.

Taurus

Your tarot card for the week is the Sun. Are you ashamed of wanting attention? There’s nothing wrong in wanting to be cared for and spoiled. This week, you’ll find yourself channelling celestial sensuality and paying respect to the spirits guiding you. It is the polite thing to do. Keep acorns by your window and honour the plants beneath the ice, they have wisdom for you. Sunflowers crave and face the sun even when they’re dying and so will your soulmate when you enter your classroom.

Gemini

Your tarot card for the week is Strength. Ecstasy and liberation go hand-in-hand with this card. There is pleasure, joy, divinity and harmony in nurturing your body. Your dualities will strengthen each other: masculine and feminine, human and animal, earth and machine. When your fingers brush against another’s, the electricity in the air is real and it’s the universe spilling out of you. Some may not be able to handle a whole cosmos living inside a person, but were they ever worthy to see it in the first place?

’Toban Tips

Cancer

Your tarot card for the week is the High Priestess. People divulge their secrets to you all the time. They seek you out for comfort and advice, but do they ever get to know you? You might feel like the supporting role in someone else’s story. At the party you hold yourself like a longlost lover and catch glimpses of your reflection with bated breath. This week you’ll realize that the person who has carried you this far, recognized your beauty and tended to your wounds throughout the years has been you all along. Put honey in your coffee and let it carry you to kinder, sweeter and more whimsical horizons.

Leo

Your tarot card for the week is the Hanged Man. Pushing yourself to your limits appears like suffering to the untrained eye, but you know what you’re doing. The feeling of going farther than ever before consumes you. You’re chasing a feeling from the past that you can’t readily let go of. Blood rises to the surface. Remember — these violent delights have violent ends, but communication with those you let drink from your collar bones can change your fate.

Virgo

Your tarot card for the week is the World. You are starting over; you are shedding off the negativity and hardships of past relationships and transitioning into the next phase of your life. You are celebrating this week. It’s time to dust off your dancing shoes, put on your gold jewelry and drink in the atmosphere of a room full of laughter and music. You are never truly alone on a dance floor and true to your Virgo nature, once you’ve set your mind on something — or someone — there’s no stopping you.

Valentine’s Day advice

Dear Toby, I have a massive crush on a boy who works at the Starbucks I go to every morning. Whenever I see him, I get nervous and I hope he’s looking at me too. Sometimes he takes my order and I feel the room stop! How do I talk to him? Is there a way for me to ask him out or see if he’s single without making him feel uncomfortable in his workplace? If he’s not interested, can I ever go back to that Starbucks?

Thank you, Crushed and concerned

Dear Crushed and concerned, There’s a chance he’s looking at you, too. If you are a regular at the coffee shop, then you can make some flirty small talk when you order or when you get your drink and work your way up to having some rapport with this barista. Then, if you’re feeling a reciprocating energy, you can offer your social media, or if you’re feeling brave, your phone number.

You won’t know if he’s single until you ask, but if he’s taken, be respectful. And even if he isn’t interested, of course you can go back to that Starbucks! There is an element of confidence in that.

All the luck in the world, Toby the Bison

Libra

Your tarot card for the week is Justice. You are committed to perfect harmony and aren’t a believer in one-sided treatment. Do unto others what they do unto you. When kissed on the cheek, you kiss back. When gazed at with devotion, you gaze back. You do not love in a solo manner. While this has always been your strong suit, you need to make sure you’re giving yourself the time to simply live in the moment and enjoy the fruits fed to you without the worry of whether things are equal. Stop worrying about if it’s perfect. Start closing your eyes.

Scorpio

Your tarot card for the week is the Awakening. Contrary to your scorpion nature, you love wholeheartedly and you drink up affection and flirtatious manners like someone starving in the desert. You crack pomegranates in half with your bare hands and offer them up like sacrifices to hungry gods. You are the definition of passion. It’s time, however, to try moderation. Don’t lose your passion, but know where and how to use it. You know how to control and steer a room, use that to harness the wild fever that runs through you when your eyelashes meet the sunlight.

Sagittarius

Your tarot card for the week is the Lovers. It’s time to stop running. You’ve made it this long being satisfied with yearning from afar, with thinking that you’re not made for the long-term. You think that you pass through the night never being permanent in someone else’s life, but this is all untrue. Without even realizing it, you’ve started to unravel the red string tightly coiled within you. It’s made its way across the universe and tied itself around the wrist of someone who cannot wait to cherish the very air you breathe. Is it so wrong to take a journey as two, instead of one?

Dear Toby,

Since the pandemic began, I’ve found it difficult to get back into the dating pool. I feel like social anxiety is holding me back, but I really want to get back out there. What should I do?

Help, Depressed romantic

Dear Depressed romantic, The pandemic certainly has made the dating scene an anxious playground. If you want to ease your way back into it, download a dating app or two. You could also put yourself out there and talk to people in public places. It may be easier if they are places you don’t frequent. When out,

Capricorn

Your tarot card for the week is the Tower. You are feeling vulnerable, and while others may enjoy being at the whims of another, perhaps you’re having second thoughts. You understand that there’s no coming back from our choices, but that we can always make informed ones. Be sure that the person you’re giving your heart to has the decency to kiss it, flesh and all, without being a coward. Remember — anything can be a pact or declaration of loyalty if you give it that intention.

Aquarius

Your tarot card for the week is the High Priest. It’s natural to feel less experienced than others. Life does not go the same direction for everyone and some of us have had to make sacrifices that others haven’t. But you are not being left behind, waterbearer. You’re an adept learner, and despite what you may have been told love isn’t something you can fail at. Empathy and understanding, listening and paying attention, these are all traits that if harnessed allow you to see into the hearts of others just as easily as your peers. Don’t be nervous and don’t be afraid, drink from the cup knowing you can handle its potency.

Pisces

Your tarot card for the week is Wheel of Fortune. Make careful choices and take a few risks. Your ability to be open to the unknown benefits you greatly. Where others are afraid, you are thrilled. Fate and its seasons work in your favour and people are attracted to that. They can see the universe guiding you when you pass through the halls with confidence. Now is the time to self-explore — do you know yourself the same way future companions would? Or do you hide a piece of yourself so that you always have the upper hand? Basil was once considered a herb of love, sprinkle it on your meals for a helping hand if needed.

try to express open and welcoming body language and a willingness for people to talk to you.

You can also try classes and activities centred around things you like to find like-minded people to connect with, which can help you get one step closer to finding your special person. If you want more thoughts on the topic, check out this week’s comment section!

Good luck, Toby the Bison

To ask Toby a question, email comment@themanitoban.com