When Mercury, the planet that rules communication, enters confident and outgoing Leo on August 4, your conversations become bold and dynamic. You love to embellish the stories you tell, and you might even throw in an extra fictional detail or two to see people’s reactions.

The thirteenth brings a powerful square between Mars and Pluto that is challenging at best. Passive-aggressive behavior is quite common now, and you’ve been known to get in more than a few sarcastic barbs here and there. There might not be anything you can do to control other people’s behavior, but you can control how you react to it.

Inventive Uranus goes retrograde in the Bull’s stubborn sign on August 15, urging you to look at the past several months and examine which plans you made fell through or which projects you attempted failed. It’s great that you’ve made efforts to succeed, but are the potential disappointments worth investing yourself in 100 percent? By the time this five-month retrograde period is over, you might find it’s time to dial things back just a bit.

The sun leaves exciting Leo for more predictable Virgo on the twenty-second, putting you more at ease as you revisit some of the goals you have. This focused, practical energy encourages you to forge ahead with the ambition you’re known for. Very few things can stop you now.