-
January Horoscopes
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Capricorn Rising
This January is about choosing the real you and letting the right ones in. As you foster a deeper understanding of your self, you find pleasure in relationships. The more true you are to your creative style and taste, the more you invest in what matters to you. Focus on the objects you want in your life, the values you want to live by and how to connect with people in a meaningful way.
For the objects you want in your life, think aesthetics as well as what feels good. Think of the things you want to make, acquire, sustain and treasure. For your values, think “life purpose”. Consider how the objects you choose, your personal values and the people in your life are all interconnected.
For example, Japanese architect and art collector, Takeo Obayashi, develops relationships with the artists whose work he collects. His Yu-un Guesthouse in Tokyo is accessible to the public and according to Artsy, “yu-un” means “a space for people to gather and connect with each other through arts and culture”.
Takeo wants to create a space for everyone to meet the artists he is passionate about. He said, “Art collectors should have their own eyes and their own tastes. You probably won’t feel the investment, but so what—as a collector, you should sometimes make mistakes. Buying works from emerging artists is risky, but I don’t mind risks, I don’t buy for investment, I don’t sell.…I always make mistakes, but I never regret anything about my collection.”
You month-long goal is to patiently narrow down the things, values and people you want in your life. January 1-8, go with your intuitive joy and know that you don’t have to know everything to enjoy the company of loved ones and the company of yourself (if you fight this it could be stressful). Mid-month, from January 8-20, you are getting back to business and incorporating more parts of yourself in the work you do. After the 21st you have some yummy astrology, especially January 22-23, which could be a pay day. It may be the money sort of pay day, but it could also be the reward of choosing the things, values and people that feel true to you.
Aquarius Rising
Steve Reich described minimalist music as a “musical process” which could be made by a machine, a musician or probably even the sound of dripping water. He said, “I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.”
This month, your relationships are going to be highly perceptible processes. Your role in relationships will be noticed more than usual, as you deal with close relationships, especially at home. You don’t have to do an amazing job living up to the status quo as the ideal leader. Nor do you have to “problem-solve” an exceptional solution, showing everyone the way. All you have to do is listen carefully and contribute your part when it is time.
Reich said, “To facilitate closely detailed listening a musical process should happen extremely gradually. Performing and listening to a gradual musical process resembles
pulling back a swing, releasing it, and observing it gradually come to rest;
turning over an hour glass and watching the sand slowly run through the bottom;
placing your feet in the sand by the ocean’s edge and watching, feeling, and listening to the waves gradually bury them.”
The first week of 2023 is a mix of enchanting, exciting and tiring exchanges. Although there are some fun new breakthrough moments, there is a lot you are processing under the surface. Around January 14-18, you can feel like you’re rubbing up against instability at home. This is an opportune time to observe, to practice listening. Trying to fix it will wear you down. Listen to patterns and let the fabric of the patterns take on a life of their own, a universe more expansive than the sum of its parts. Notice your own patterns too.
Steve Reich said, “While performing and listening to gradual musical processes one can participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of ritual. Focusing in on the musical process makes possible that shift of attention away from he and she and you and me outwards towards it.”
Noticing and listening will veer you away from rigidity and veer you towards suppleness, which will prepare you for some positive attention and warm affection beginning on January 20 through the end of the month.
Pisces Rising
Just today I was talking with someone on Ascendant Assemblies about how having planets in the 12th house is like not having all your senses available to you. It reminded me of how when a person loses their sight, they rely on their hearing, and their hearing improves. When you have planets in the 12th house, you have to rely on your 6th sense, needing to take a more spiritual approach to the archetypal functions that planet represents.
This January, Pisces Risings have some planets moving through the 12th house. And this month’s New Moon on January 21 is in your 12th house. In some ways you are having to navigate life without your usual senses or other aides that you normally rely on. So you may benefit from using a more intuitive approach.
On the other hand, this month you will have a new lease on life, especially in the area of making money through something that is meaningful to you. The past few months have a slower, reflective time, which could have felt stagnant, eye-opening or worrisome, depending how you looked at it. But now, you are getting a glimpse of how you can move forward.
This January offers a chance to get excited about the possibilities and starting to have fun, in creative conversations. Mixing it up with family, friends and colleagues will benefit the things you make, and in turn your own self worth. Around January 13-14 you could be recognized for your talents, your compassion and what you bring to the table in friendship and community.
With forward motion and excitement in the air, it’s still important to preserve your energy. Take stock of the last few months, and some of the insight you collected, that has since unfurled. Take time to soak up the extra-sensory information you may receive through your dreams, your imagination or your gut feeling. Notice how you interpret information, how you determine meaning based on your memories and your own emotional field, your animal radar. Evaluating your way of finding meaning in the space around you, with the sensory and extra-sensory information you perceive, will show you more about your values so you can gravitate deeper towards a vocation that feeds you.
In case you want to watch a cute short about how we navigate our world through senses, perceptions and imagination, watch this animation short.
Aries Rising
For the past several months Aries Risings have been dealing with the retrograde of your ruling planet, Mars. I personally believe this Mars retrograde has been hardest on Aries Risings, so kiss kiss hug hug and/or fist bump. Good job survivng it all. It’s been a communication challenge, working out the kinks in how you react or respond to your perception. As you make sense of the facts, you can finally get a handle on how what you presume (based on perception) may not always be exactly right. It has been a lesson in waiting until the whole story is available before taking action. Learning not to just lash out. Learning to give people the benefit of the doubt, and learning the art of inquiry, asking questions to fill in the blanks when you don’t know the whole story.
The first week of 2023 has helped assuage some of the rough spots, and you are being seen in a good light, maybe even a forgiving light. There is more space for everyone to get a chance to explain and be seen with more understanding. From January 6-8, it’s a good time to take a step back, recharge your batteries. From January 8-10, you can have some good conversations about practical affairs, about money, appearance, career or public projects.
Your ruling planet, Mars, goes direct on January 12, which will feel good, but it’s a gradual process to warm up your engines before zooming off. And you are still processing information with the people around you. January 13-16 is a good time to use your new skills of giving people space, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
From January 21-30 you can experience good times with friends and colleagues. Some of this can be very public, and concurrently can have a healing effect internally. You are learning to ask questions in a way that isn’t like a harsh interrogation that shuts people down. Hear them out before jumping to conclusions. You have an opportunity to make amends, move on and lighten your load.
Taurus Rising
The new year starts strong for the Taurus Risers. You are back in action. Projects are re-ignited after having stalled out/ put on hold while you handled more pressing interpersonal, personal resource issues. Now you are drawn to do things in the public eye, which can mean anything from being interviewed for a new storym being recognized at work or that you are just getting out of the bubble of your internal affairs. The first week of the year, there is a clear shift to being out in the world more, and being busy with taking care of business.
Midway through the month, from January 12 on, as you gradually have more energy to create your material world, there will be this choppy resolution period. You may run into obstacles January 14-15, when a big change that has already happened within yourself becomes apparent. You realize that with this “new you”, your relationship to the goals you strive to accomplish has also shifted (could be that colleagues need to catch up with your different approach). By January 19, you will reconcile differences and be ready to move forward.
The New Moon in Aquarius on January 21 will jump start an old project in a new push to see it through to the end. Ask yourself what it is that you are ready to get back to work on. Your “car” has been parked at a rest stop or in the shop (I know, more car metaphors lol), and now you are ready to get back on the freeway. Give focused strategic energy January 22-23 and 29-30. Capitalize on this new creative spark to create a project that has some longevity, that makes sense (and money) in accord with your values. This will likely involve brainstorming conversations with others.
As an inspiration for you: this Dennis Cooper blog post I stumbled on (he often has guest bloggers so I don’t know who actually arranged this). It’s a collection of paintings by non-painters. I mean, anyone who paints is a painter. But these are paintings by musicians, actors, politicians… basically all people who are not known as painters, who haven’t committed the bulk of their career to painting, but had the urge to put the bulk of their focus into painting for a short spell, or as a total career shift. There are quotes from each non-painter painter, many talking about how they followed this urge, this impulse or a visualization that crept in their mind and they became obsessed with following through on making it into a painting.
Gemini Rising
This month is an opportune time for picking up on things that got missed in previous go-rounds. Applying intuitive perception to sniff out overlooked secrets. By the end of the first week of January, you are downright snorkeling your way within to expose the unseen, which could be wordless insights. January 8-9, you are exploring the unseen, within your past, in the ether, in all the feeling spaces around you.
Like actual snorkeling or scuba diving, expect surprises, like oh my damn a real walrus is swimming right beside me! Ahhh! Thrilling, disturbing, enchanting and weird in the best way. It can open up your world, by way of opening up the conduits between conscious and subconscious knowledge. Spill the beans of your inner journeys with others around you, it could be fun to chat about your findings while also bolstering your understanding.
As Mars goes direct in your first house on January 12, take is easy as you slowly get your engine purring again. I picture you buffing a classic car, getting it ready to cruise with some old school classics. Continue your exploring, and keep it super chill and juicy vibes. Go for looooong rides and deeeeeep dives. And create good circumstances to talk with others about it.
Songs that promote an easy cruise:
Is It Any Wonder? – Durand Jones
I Like It – DeBarge
Baby Love – The Supremes
Lonely Teardrops – Jackie Wilson
Dreamland – Marcia Griffiths
Weak for Your Love – Thee Sacred Souls
Two Slow Dancers – Mitski
I Think It’s Going to Rain Today – Bette Midler
Over and Over – The Altons
Paloma Negra – Chavela Vargas
The Stranger Song – Emmylou Harris
The Martyr – SRSQ
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Cancer Rising
The ever-changing Moon (which rules Cancer) can promote various perceptions from the world around you that vary, from reactionary resistance to enveloping compassion. Able to flow and grow with the tides while creating a space that sustains natural development. While things have been heavy for Cancer Risings, and this may continue through January, you can moderate how you work through this time. Keep your energy up by playing music, dancing and finding pockets of joy. Don’t let black-and-white “reality checks” bear down on you, sinking heavy into your bones. Keep moving. Keep momentum. Keep hope effervescent.
Social situations lighten things up throughout the month, as you may be noticed for who you are, or at least having delightful conversations in your public projects. January 7 may bring confusion with a partner, but wait for several translations before you jump to conclusions. And on January 13-14 issues at home could be hard, so try not to make small things into a big deal. Try to gently respond over a reflective pool of time, not react bigly in the moment. Try to listen and allow space for movement, rather than a heavy label that traps the person into something they didn’t really mean in a forever way. With the annoying things that people do day in and day out, notice how your reactionary stance is coloring their possibly benign rhythms. Consider ways to soften, make light, dance and sing in rhythm with the situations you find yourself in.
After January 21 you will be busy with professional relationships and career projects, mixing it up with lots of different people, from colleagues to comrads. While all this socializing provides enjoyable connections and pleasant soirees and shindigs, it will be all the better if you are also learning the aforementioned communication skills with your more intimate relationships and partnerships. It’s like Bill Murray on Groundhog’s Day, where it’s not about their god-awful predictable idiocy, it’s about you learning to expand your perception, to change your response to and interaction with the familiar faces around you.
PS – Just because, aka for no good reason, let’s remember this quote from last month because I like how it feels:
“over waves rolling; I had grief before dawn”
Leo Rising
While you are busy with daily work and health routines, your relationships are on fire. It’s a busy time, where you may have more people and tasks in your life than you know what to do with. Decide who you want in your inner circle and move people around based on recent interactions as well as your current focus and bandwidth. Evaluate how they value you and how much you are mutually symbiotic at this stage of the game. Re-calibrate your attitude, energy and boundaries, pulling back on some people and warming up to other people. This will pay off later in the month (see below).
By the end of the first week, on January 7, you may feel a (continued) lack of clarity on some workplace drama (or could be health-related) that will eventually get resolved. Try not to engage with worried diatribes. As things continue to heat up, resist frenzy. Don’t get embroiled. Stay true to your own eternal essence and way of being. Don’t worry about power grabs and petty disagreements, just stay true to you. Own your own self, and either take accountability, walk away from or iron out issues by January 19.
Starting January 21, you get a fresh start in relationships, and you benefit from your interpersonal boundaries work earlier in the month when you sorted out boundaries, inner circle collaborators and who you want distance from. January 24-25 can be super fun, going on adventures, meeting new people and talking up a storm. While this is generally a socially awesome time for you, there will still be work to do in your interpersonal communication with co-workers, colleagues and stakeholders. January 29-30 is a positive time for networking and is a great time to pitch a project. Be with people you like working with and be in your own cat body, strutting your stuff in between murdering vermin, preening in the sun, cuddling your feline pals and wandering your territory.
Appreciate the cats in your cat pod. Balance the (healthy and necessary) negative energy of setting new boundaries, with positive energy and give extra love to the people in your cat pod. There are so many ways to spread positive energy to your people. For example, the Chinese tradition of hóngbāo, giving people clean, crisp new cash bills in red envelopes to celebrate holidays or life events. Traditionally meant to protect children from evil spirits, hóngbāo are usually given from older to younger generations, but can be from boss to employee. Leo Risings fare well when looking out for the children in their lives. Who can you recognize in your life with a little financial boost, tasty treat or special note of sugary love?
Virgo Rising
The first week of 2023 you are a busy bee, with lots of chances to collaborate and engage in creative exchange. Creative work is the name of your game at the moment, with a deep focus on developing your persona and refining your talents to express yourself in a way that is both true to yourself and engaging to others. Even though you may be kicking off new projects at whim and engaging in playful, witty banter, you are exercising discipline. You are consciously improving how you express thoughts and create output that the public will value.
On January 7, you will go deep into the basement to kick the boiler and go under the hood of your creative machinery. By January 8-14 you may come up with some breakthroughs that get results after a period of stuckness, getting a new light shone on work collaborations and creative exchange. Which can help your career and public projects as Mars in Gemini goes direct on January 12, you will gradually feel some forward momentum over the course of the month. Ditto for Mercury in Capricorn stationing direct on January 18.
Virgo Risings are known for managing the pieces behind the scenes, working out the kinks for everyone else. Like an alien brought to earth to save these humans who fumble about in a greed-infused shambles of a civilization. But right now you are forced to confront your own flaws, and it’s a pleasurable delight. Isn’t the ultimate Virgo Rising “me time” just time to correct our own flaws lol.
The truth is, you have something to say, in your own rhythm and style. As you finesse your self-expression and apply your creative intellect to reach solutions to everyday problems (like only a Virgo Rising can), remember YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY. Your story matters. Develop your raw words into a polished product and publish it – get it out into the world, you fine gem, you.
From January 21 through the end of the month, you will have lots of work on your plate, which tends to be something you love. Especially when you have some control in the matter and the gears are moving relatively smoothly.
Support my work in making these weekly horoscopes.
Libra Rising
Check out this didactic pair of haikus (17 syllables, 5/7/5) from a physics professor:
Just as in haiku
Earth imposes hard limits
We must live within–
It’s preposterous
To think that human imagination is lim…
The first haiku is hewn to fit within the bounds of the form. The second one is off-the-cuff, sloppily human, wasting space on superfluous, emotional overflow. While January started with a lot of energy and social excitement, focus on rhythm, pacing and crafting ways to live gracefully within your limits.After a boisterous first week of fun socializing and being seen, take downtime from January 6-10. Prepare for upheaval and excitement January 14-16, especially around how you innovate a regular safety net within your core unit VS freely expressing openly, playfully with other people. This can feel like a rough push, handling the unexpected in how you balance communication about money flow, earning, saving, risk-taking, indulging, sharing and/or cutting back.
Focus on an elegant solution that works within your means. Design within the bounds of your reality. Be real about the limitations of your resources, your own talents and the actual capabilities of people in your life. This way you can see the big picture and capitalize on your circumstances. Proactively making lemonade out of lemons, rather than realizing too late that you don’t have enough room for the whole statement in the bounds of your haiku.
From January 21-23, you will apply your evaluation of your circumstances to your benefit, creating a sound agenda, able to express your gameplan in a way that is concise, innovative and appealing.
Scorpio Rising
During the first couple weeks, you have a chance feel at home in the world, cozying into your closest relationships. While things are feeling good with the people closest to you and you’re setting good habits in your life, you may feel a little sluggish. This is a perfect time to slow down, tend to your home and nuzzle in.
Take note of your desires and actions. Not just what’s on the surface, but also how you instinctively act in response to others in your life. Give conscious attention to the little unnoticed reactions, movements to secure resources or to establish positioning.
If astrology has any truth to it, then a Virgo Rising like me gives lots of advice (like I am doing right now). A Mars-ruled Aries rising jumps into action to get things done. A Mars-ruled Scorpio Rising holds power under the surface, keeping tabs on a deep reality check. Let’s hope we are both doing our god-given astrological duties with understanding and benevolence. So how does a Virgo Rising like the advice to you that your power wielding ways are okay as long as you are respecting other peoples’ autonomy.
For the extra cozy time being, you can skirt by with some extra juicy power in your court. But it’s in your best interest be healthy (ugh) and to prepare for eventual blow back. Even though people go with things in the moment, on reflection, they may feel that you overpowered them. And later this month, your relationships have a chance for a constructive lift, which will only be possible if you have already built consensual boundaries through mutual agency.
January 8-10 is an opportune time to notice and co-build good relationships while things are feeling effervescent and delicious. January 14-15 there may be some unexpected upheavals, which is ideal to notice what’s not working and re-define boundaries together (which can be done through vibes or literal conversation). January 21-23, you can move forward with the healthy (ugh) close relationships you have been working on together.
The ultimate goal is a sound structure to hold your personal sanctuary, your home, your neighborhood, your coven, your safe space that is the root system that grounds your public life. Consider what is holding it together. In your case, what is being brought to light is the quality of communication among your loved ones and any tight partnerships (home or work). Even when you have the impetus to act with force and confidence, as a natural leader that everyone can rely on, how do you invite consensual dialog that deeply makes space for the authentic voice and insight of your companions, comrades and collaboarators?
Sagittarius Rising
Welcome to 2023 Sag Risers! You have a big creative burst through the first part of the year (until May 16 to be exact – if you want to know the astro-geekery, send me an email). You have abundant creative energy to express yourself in a way that can benefit you greatly. This period will be followed by a busy, nose-to-the-grindstone time, so use this creative expression period to pitch projects that you will want to work hard on later. Get people fired up about things you want to see come into fruition. This is a good time to inspire peoples’ confidence in you, and to ask for money. Take risks and leaps of faith. The astrology gods prescribes that you show extra love and kindness to kids. Bring them presents, money and play games with them to let them know they are special. Summing it up – throughout the first half of 2023, have a blast!
There are a couple traps you could fall into during this super fun time. With abundant energy, you need to be ultra generous. Give away what you have. Like that Chili Peppers song, “Give it away give it away give it away now.” Make sure you are letting your energy out by any means necessary. You can exercise, do sports, play competitive games, make art, music, dance and have fun! Also, for every pitch and proposal you make that will benefit you, make sure you are supporting other peoples’ dreams in the making. Bring people along and share the wealth. If you make things too much about you, the energy can become too one-sided, which can cause your dysfunction of choice… depression, anxiety, stress. Take breaks from making it about you. Share your enthusiasm, but also meet people where they are. At times you can limit your emotional expression to dial it in to where the room is at. You want to weave in grace and elegance. Showmanship is about more than just grabbing everyone’s attention, it’s also making a real connection.
The first week of 2023 will be generally pleasant, even though you’re still dealing with issues communicating with partnerships (at work or home). On January 9 you have an opportunity to make amends/ clarify some communication. It can feel like a tiny breakthrough, a load off your back. Focus on how you contribute to the home, and notice the positive: feel good about what you have and do little things to brighten up the place. January 21-30 is a great time for communication, whether it’s chatting, brainstorming, getting errands done, redefining reality with your partners or your own visionary creative writing. Some of the communication snafus from last year can get worked out during this period. You are great at getting your point across and you are seen in a positive light. Before January 20, pay attention to how much you have grown through the struggles of last year. Appreciate yourself and the people who helped you through their adversarial roles. Those uphills have strengthened you and now you are more mature, kind and thoughtful, ready for this next chapter.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
-
Horoscopes December 8 – January 8
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Sagittarius Rising
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that closed systems tend toward disorder. For example, a disordered scrambled egg doesn’t just turn back to a raw clear white and and yellow blob enclosed in its ordered shell again. Cosmologist Ludwig Boltzmann questioned the Second Law of Thermodynamics back in the late 1800s. Ludwig stated that over the vast scale of time, extremely unlikely things will happen, like some aging disordered system at some point could evolve into an ordered enclosed system (ridiculous!).
In his Boltzmann Brain Paradox, Ludwig took this one more step, stating that we humans could just be ephemeral brains thinking up life as physical beings in a made-up world full of seemingly tactile wonder and horror. Ridiculous, yet according to cosmologists’ calculations, the sudden existence of our universe in the big bang is far less likely than the spontaneous existence of a Boltzmann Brain.
Like Ludwig, you have been wrestling with annoyingly impossible questions, a cosmologist playing devil’s advocate against a basic law of physics. It can make you question even your basic perception, which can lead to questioning your assumptions and your conditioning. You are understanding your self and your existence by probing your memories (past perceptions) and investing in present relationships and ways of communicating (current perceptions). As you poke at things to see how they respond, your brain becomes more complex, old beliefs founder while new comprehension sprouts. Look for a noticeable shift ~December 20.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Capricorn Rising
“Is a wormhole beautiful math without physical reality?” pondered many a physicist. A wormhole connects two black holes. According to the theory of relativity, within classic gravitational systems, physicists described wormholes as non-traversable, because they are so chaotic, constantly opening and closing, with two unrelated black holes on either end. But using the math of quantum physics, the two black holes are entangled, and the wormhole that connects them can stabilize if blasted by a negative shockwave. Two different types of physics with two different theories as to how wormholes operate.
This past year, these two schools of thought merged when physicists created a quantum circuit that’s mathematically equivalent to a wormhole. They designed a set of entangled qubits to have the exact same physics as a gravitational wormhole. When they first set out to do this, it took a couple years to even come up with how to approach it. When they finally started, their best hope was that it would be a wacky experiment. But they actually created a working model of a wormhole, which became stable enough with a negative energy pulse to send a qubit through it!
What beautiful math are you making reality in your life? You don’t have to have any guarantees of things working out to apply your new math to the old. You are finding expression, repaving the road to relate with more parts of yourself awakened. Follow sparks of inspiration to catalog information differently, giving voice to olde tyme inner child pains with the new physics of today. There are a million ways to make things happen, on this journey into the self, don’t work to try to know. Speaking in salves, you can re-see with new language to knit together relational gashes.
Aquarius Rising
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Mrs. Hutchinson chooses the paper with the graphite dot scribbled on it, which means the townspeople must stone her. She is the antagonist of that story. Pointing out the unfairness, she casts doubt and bolsters the logic behind neighboring towns’ decisions to do away with these old stoning rituals. But it’s hard to go against our programming; people are so robotic that way.
Yet our hope, our Aquarian nature acts as an antagonist to the world, going against the grain of unfair rituals that society adheres to “just because”. With Saturn in your 1st house, squaring the nodes, it’s not been been an easy year and a half for you. By now you have learned a lot, and developed your character. A theme has been what to do with yourself when there is not a provincial lottery-type ritual to fight against. Widdling. Fidget spinners. Sky gazing. I hope this has led you to lots of fun and enjoyment, toying with new ideas, playing games and chomping on ways to imagine a different world.
Keep a journal to capture all these butterflies, these flights of fancy. Enjoy the moment. Shake it up! Hold on to nothing (except the thought specimens you jot down in your notebook of ideas). Put your energy into following your bliss and feathering your nest. Your adventures can be in this world or the other world, through your dreams. So spend time at home, make your home extra comfy and get deep sleeps. Starting New Year’s Eve and into January, things are looking up for you, especially if you espouse this free and easy attitude. Sometimes old habits die hard, yet robot must ungrasp stone, run into wilderness.
Pisces Rising
One thing I was left with was a mixtape from the 90s, mailed to me by a friend who is now gone forever. He sampled Dr. Who and the Throwing Muses song with the line “don’t call me jailbait”. Cassette tapes were already nostalgic before CDs took over. Now they are full-on multiple screaming orgasm level nostalgia. My limbs tremor for them.
Now is the time to make your house good for all the things you want to do before you die. What I mean is create texture like the shhhhhh of the rolling tape. Remember how TV was softer too? Graininess happened. Now it’s like sharper than life. Watching TV at the doctor waiting room cuts my eyes with its high definition.
If lots of people want you’re attention right now, then at least do it softly. Frenzyless. Or at least soft enough to feel dreams like waves coming to the shore right beneath your surface. You are balancing responsibility to self and others. A lot can be said for DJing the right songs. If people are feeling the blade of your insistence then everyone can be extra work on you.
In the end what I remember about my friend is things like the mixtape. The dreamy moments that made me feel seen and cared for. Cooking for me, lots of little gifts with that guy. When you are balancing your own expressive conversation with considerate listening, think of your sounds like a mixtape you are making for a friend. Hahaha remember sitting by the radio or TV to tape record the thing that wasn’t just available always. Hurry and click record lol. I would have fuckin died to know how accessible music is now. But the action, the care is gone. Inconvenient things can be warm n fuzzy when they are gone.
Aries Rising
If something is petty, even if the issue is about something you share responsibility on, it’s still a petty thing. I’m just gonna be direct: focus on what really matters. For example, are you getting paid well enough. Ask for more money. Are people generally respectful. Keep your eyes on your own prize and don’t fight over unimportant procedural details that don’t matter. Don’t even waste one drop of energy on the tiniest bit of a lecture or a bitch fest. Put every ounce of your ample power towards getting what’s yours. The confusion of the moment might make things SEEM more urgent, emotional or heated than they actually are.
You are really testing your own standards and values at the moment. For example, you may value loyalty. But you are learning a new dimension of loyalty. Maybe you used to think loyalty was doing everything for someone else, getting things done on time. Now you are expanding to see how loyalty may mean letting another person take the reigns. It could mean just listening. Taking a back seat. Being patient is another form of loyalty. This is just an example, but you have a chance to see the importance of more relational values right now.
The key for this moment in time is going to be paying attention to what is really going on and not seeing every moment as an action item. Take in more information. Wait for the dust to settle. Keep your eye on the ball. Don’t let distractions confuse you. Analyze the meat of the situation, and patiently notice for days and days before painting things one way or another.
Taurus Rising
“I was the first one to drive a convertible on my reservation. And of course it was red, a red Olds. I owned that car along with my brother Henry Junior. We owned it together until his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought out my share. Now Henry owns the whole car, and his younger brother Lyman (that’s myself), Lyman walks everywhere he goes. “
– Louise Erdrich, from her short story, “The Red Convertible”
Taureans love their things, but they also give a lot in relationships. It is satisfying for them to collect objects d’arte, to feather their nests and luxuriate in their well-curated purchases. Even more satisfying to a Taurus is to share textures, flavors, sounds and indulge loved ones in warmth and comfort. In partnerships, a Taurus makes lots of sacrifices, not just financial, but sharing objects that hold meaning, that make pleasurable spaces, good memories and that can represent a big part of their relationship dynamic. In the Louise Erdrich short story, Lyman and his brother Henry share a red convertible, which takes them on road trips, to Alaska, feeling the different way light and time work. Dancing with long hair waving in a tent. Under a willow tree in Montana, watching dust kick up in the distance… sensory experiences that defined their relationship. Their convertible held this unique quality of their time together, a symbol of their brotherhood.
Right now, you may be negotiating a give and take, or contemplating loss. You may be dealing with some emotional component of handling your affairs, sorting out resources. The tides, winds and life experiences weather and shift us permanently. Even us. Even the people we love. In the Louise Erdrich story, the brother, Henry, changes over time, and I won’t give the ending away. Go read it. Share it with a friend, a mentor, to get an outside opinion, refresh your circumstances, go with the tide and move with the seasons.
Gemini Rising
You have another month or two of things “not working as they should”. Something any wise Geminician knows is that the “not-working time” is only a periodic thing anyways. Soap suds everywhere. Clean the instruments of the technological exchange. While you wait for your elite talent for accurate translations to be back on your hands like magic gloves, you have the immediacy of the poet. So while confusion is afoot, why not let’s dive into gel-coated language.
What if your face & eyes were stone & you looked at others & theirs were too. Then sand, then ocean. Cheeks, eye lashes, toe nails, belly buttons all smear through the wind’s fingers like sand, then liquid. All the materials are presenting themselves to you in all their possible exchanges. A new form is still there even after the waves crash the shore like a mythical beast smashing fists in a tantrum.
There is work to be done. So you are keeping one eye open. You have seer powers now. But practical things to be done. Real talk, and seeing beyond the veil, talking to selves past and present. In the language of primal motion and movement of objects, the world is your typewriter to send messages between other lives, the world of things and your body’s interaction with it.
The things you make in this playground sandbox are trivial but still are a blueprint you won’t be able to erase. Play with bubbles, sand and finger your patterns, honoring this time. When you leave your poet phase back to translator, you will remember some of this dream.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Cancer Rising
“over waves rolling; I had grief before dawn”
This is a quote from an anonymous elegy, a lament poem, from 10th century England. The speaker is picturing the love of their life on a distant shore, since they were separated due to some family drama, heightened emotions that let to fiasco. It was written in Old English, and this is the original line:
“ofer ȳþa ġelāc; hæfde iċ ūhtċeare”
While stewing in a pot of internet, I stumbled upon Medival English scholar, Eleanor Parker’s translation of the word, ūhtċeare, which I just love to death. It’s words that encapsulate something we normally need a whole phrase for. It’s words that we don’t need in our practical thinking. We know and invent words like “laptop” and “gasoline” and abbreviations like “lol” to engage in practical communication. But what about words for body experiences, whether emotional or based on the physical experience of being on earth. Here is how Eleanor Parker defines ūhtċeare:
“uhtcearu is a compound which means ‘pre-dawn-sorrow’, ‘grief at early morning’. In Old English uht is the name for the last part of the night, the empty chilly hours just before the dawn, and so a particularly painful time for grief and loneliness. (As well as other kinds of threat: the dragon in Beowulf is described as an uhtfloga, a creature who flies before dawn.)”
This month, you may be hyper-aware of the emotional and physical lament of being alive and caring about other people. You may feel personal drama surfacing, trouble holding things at bay. Some hot spots: December 16-18 and December 20-25. Try not to really fight. Try on new feelings like hats. Go with what feels strange. Stay soft n juicy, sizzlin. Find new words for pre-dawn grief and other things you feel. Howl like Beowulf would. Or write a lament full of gnomes (pithy advice) and riddles (thought eddies that help you consider that life makes no sense, so is not worth grinding your teeth over).
Leo Rising
Sometimes you have to show your public how to appreciate you. Otherwise it’s like casting pearls before swine. It’s a process to teach them what you have to offer. It’s a process of being unabashedly YOU while also accepting both positive and negative feedback. Goal right now = building real relationships, with authentic exchange to build something lasting. Even if things feel unstable, it’s in a good way. To test what’s possible. Be all about that negative feedback, the most honest feedback is pure gold. Don’t miss out.
We are god’s cowlick. The quirky mistake. We are the universe’s wild ingrown hair. We humankind revel in getting more ruined awkward while having this run of good luck. Things like how we make ourselves keep doing global warming even when we know better. But maybe it’s also good advice for you right now, Leo Rising. While going for the gold standard, remember to continually ruin it, and allow in terrible monsters and trainwrecks. Be like a hippo in a pottery shop. That makes no sense. I’m just trying to say to don’t get all precious or self-important.
Around New Year’s Eve all the way into the first week or two of January, you get a lift. Work in tandem with people around you and say YES to positive opportunities that fall in your lap (if they do). Let go of what isn’t working. Say YES to flow, and invest in it. Build something lasting. You are cultivating taste, style and pizzazz. Eat pizzas. You are upping your game and bringing the people around you on board.
Virgo Rising
You are making some good headway these days, even if it’s been a little harried at times. This past week was super busy, untangling wires, or maybe exploring the land of tangled wires. You can’t untangle an ecosystem, you just walk learn to live in it. You have been finishing up last things to get some final yardage before half-time. That’s a football term.
Speaking of athleticism and activity, your health has been suffering under the weight of work like a weightlifter popping veins under a bowing barbell. But somehow in the tangle, you are keeping hope alive. Around December 12, expect some positive strides in the health routines department.
Some of the confusing communication from other humans will come up again mid-month, yet there will also be a big shift around December 20-23. You are learning how to communicate gently when others are insecure, while also maintaining good boundaries for yourself.
Through most of January you will be dealing with a retrograde of your ruling planet, Mercury. Into the first few months of 2023, life will start to heat up for us Virgo Risers. But right now ain’t no slouch either. December 14-17, December 25 and January 2, get your dreams into conversation, sing, play music or listen to music. You also have lots of spastic sparky run-ins with Uranus that could lead to popping pressure point, cracking your brain’s back, go into the heart and sizzle away stubborn parts. I am imagining it like you’re doing stretching routines, hot rock massages in between wood-burning sessions and finagling different beasts and purring with birds of prey. Kneading all the different parts of your life to nurture their heartbeats.
Support my work in making these weekly horoscopes.
Libra Rising
While you are feeling tied to home right now, you are also venturing out and bringing interesting people, ideas, foods and adventures into your home. It reminds me of the home of Una and Robinson Jeffers, where they had tiles and things from all over the place. Friends would bring them things to cast into the walls of their handmade stone house in Carmel before anything was there except shore and windbent cypress trees.
From December 14-20, play games, solve puzzles and play with ideas. Have fun at home, crafting and instilling your home with culture and story, pollinating your people with new ideas. You are rooting in, establishing your legacy and what is important to the beings you share space with. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is something ancient or universal about this need for people to track their story within their closest co-habitants. With those under their roof and those on their block and in their town. The Plains Indians used to do the Winter Count every year. Elders would decide on what the most defining event for the year was, and the keeper would draw that picture on the buffalo hide that had all the previous counts on it.
In Sudan, the Dinka have a tradition of hiring a Story SInger to give a person their song, based on their life. This hired Story Singer only sings the song once, and it can even be in the middle of the night. So, you also want to hire a Ping, a person with a really good memory. The Ping are the human recorders, who will capture the song in their minds and repeat it for you. Once you learn your song and then you sing it for others, and people will sample your song into their own song.
Scorpio Rising
Although the beginning of December may have been a little stressful, leaving you feeling off-kilter and a little drained, by mid-month you will have some positive interactions with people you are making something tangible with. After quite some time of dealing with some fraught conversation or misunderstandings over the past couple weeks, look forward to mutually satisfying exchanges. This could be with friends or with colleagues, whether planning a party or completing a project.
Feeling proud of what you have been up to this past year, you may be vacillating between wanting to go deeper versus wanting to totally shift gears. Tinker! Experiment! Let loose! What can it hurt? And from New Year’s Eve into the first week of January, you will have good talks with people about your next chapter, and what you want to do together. Not only does it feel great to make things together, to see your creations come to life, but it also feels amazing to grow together, within your own personal development ecosystems. It could feel both magical and satisfying to experience this level of partnership and symbiosis. In the second week of January, there is more of a focus on communicating what your standards are, detailing the design you imagine in a way that can be pictured by your collaborators.
-
October & Eclipse Horoscopes
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Libra Rising
Ruminate on what really matters to you and what treasures you are willing to part with. Even if you had some squabbles earlier this month, you have opportunities now for spontaneous adventures and open-hearted conversations. Whether through books or travel, wander curling pathways to gain fresh understanding. Around the 20th, some rough scrapes can foil your desire for everyone to get along. Your non-confrontational style can be your worst enemy. Now is the time to directly state what you need most. Stop trying to “make things work”. Take stock of what really matters.
October 23 through November 8, is an opportune time to make sacrifices. Choose wisely or the gods and demons will choose for you. Consider what really matters to you, especially with people in your life. Relationships are a bundle of affections, favors, tricks and treats. You may experience a clash of wills around November 5-6 that could involve deciding what alliances to keep and where to set stricter boundaries. Prioritize your most essential survival needs, taking note of who pays for your lifestyle and who agrees with your core values. By November 10, you will have a chance to lick your wounds and recharge.
Scorpio Rising
Let got of expectations, not people. Look at how other people may be bringing to light your conditioning that is due for an update. Don’t get mad, don’t get even. Just become a new alien. Change your own habits rather than blaming the current circumstances. Set yourself up with a robust healing sanctuary at home. Don’t try to untangle all the crossed wires from the day, just melt into a steamy bath and get some sleep.
Wanting too hard for everything to go according to agreed-upon plans can lead to confusion and maybe even hurt feelings. The mixed messages and elusive promises can feel disorienting and chaotic. On the bright side, you are learning to communicate your wishes to collaborators, employees and partners. You are building shared dreams with other people and it’s going to take some time for these communication lessons to set in. Try not to jump to conclusions or take harshly decisive actions. Wait til the dust settles, which may not totally clear up until January. If anything needs to slough off, it should come easily with little to no effort on your part. Just allow the process to work itself out.
Sagittarius Rising
A little extra understanding goes a long way. These days, you may feel like a stranger in a strange land. Your work and regular surroundings may seem unrecognizable to you, alien or uncomfortable. There may be a shift in alliances or a demand for new protocol or daily procedures. While you may wonder who or what you can trust anymore, remember not to take things personally. Even if conversations feel like a thousand tiny attacks and dredge up hard feelings and memories, see this as an educational life adventure. Like a college student with way more homework than seems humanly possible, exhaustion can stoke extra emotions. Keeping a good work/health routine can steady you through this time.
Pretend you are a guest, or an envoy, here to learn the customs of this strange planet. Take copious notes. Avoid squabbles. Even if it feels like people are teaming up against you with their annoyingly insignificant details, be a generous listener. October 19 is a good date to show you understand through words or actions. Through all of it, go for stability and kindness. Even if peoples’ complaints drum up big emotions or trauma patterns, keep it simple and grounded with a steady daily routine.
Capricorn Rising
This month you can push for achieving tangible goals that feel good to you. Swing for the fences. Take extra doses of T. Burst through the drywall while straddling a wrecking ball. Risk being destructive about the breakable items you have been precious about. Go for that grant that’s out of reach. Talk back to your boss. Tell the world that they need to move. But you aren’t just being destructive. You come bearing gifts: deliver the action plan. You won’t ruffle anyone’s feathers if you barge in with how you are going to turn things around, make something spectacular. Trust in yourself to stake your claim. Even if it’s a tall order, figure out the follow-through later. Around October 23, you can have some clarity on the path forward.
What you make in this life will last for eons. Right now, you stand at a crossroads. Will you choose the conventional concern-driven path following the lead of a hierarchical design. WIll you choose what you enjoy, believe in and know better than the back of your hand? This eclipse, give yourself quiet time to ruminate and scry up the answer to this question: What are you really working towards?
Aquarius Rising
Don’t fight the feeling. Now is the time to lean into your talent for going against the grain. But instead of going against the grain of cultural norms, can you go against the grain of your own prized eccentricities and steadfast convictions? This month you have the potential to see the world differently by dumbly romping through the wilderness of civilization. Actually listen to people. Find concord, harmony and understanding that brightens your heart. Allow a supple, gentle glow to permeate your bod. Go on adventures with friends and embrace the simple pleasures this world has to offer.
After October 24 and into the first half of November, you sort out an array of new perspectives. As you question your sense of reality, looking through a new lens reveals missing pieces about your origins and conditioning. If you fight against the “simpletons” and “sheeple” around you it will feel painful and you won’t see them for who they really are. This is an opportunity to reveal the origin story of your outlook, beliefs and patterns. Newfound clarity helps you see your current environment more clearly. The more you go with it and admit to not knowing, the easier this whole process will be.
Pisces Rising
As you zero in on what you want out of this phase of life, you are bombarded by thoughts about how things could or should be. Take in cues as to how to incorporate the things you most value, the things that matter, that nourish you, body and soul. While you experience this internal understanding, you are also on the receiving end of other people’s worries, complaints and concerns. Or it may be that a side of you is worried about how things are going financially and logistically. Worries about what is fair in the way assets are distributed in relationships can stem from emotions like fear and desperation. Take note of the real world observations that are being brought to your attention.
Building towards October 12, you could feel harangued by facts about how you share roles and resources. While it’s important to capture these concerns in writing (make a list), you can let the emotional intensity slide. Find a good compromise on October 19. This eclipse season (Oct 25-Nov 8), you are developing your cloudy visions into a realistic framework, like a photo developing in a dark room, to reveal how your true wishes will form the next leg of your journey.
Aries Rising
As you contend with confusing conversations with a yappy dog on a long leash, notice your emotions. Don’t let a tiny spoiled chihuahua trigger you. Ask yourself:
“What am I REALLY mad about?”
Go deep to find the answer. When our baggage rules us, the stuff we check off the to-do list will need to get done again the right way later on. Sometimes we have to walk with one foot in this life and one foot in our dreamspace in order to get things done well.
Around October 17-19, some of what the yappy doggos are saying might start to make a little bit of sense. New facts come to light, but may not be what you want to hear. Learn to not react bigly to every annoying detail. During the eclipses (Oct 25-Nov 8), stay tuned into your subconscious to guard against getting triggered by nonsense. You can process with more emotions than just angry reactions. Sob to your pets about your sorrows. Go swimming to rinse out your system. Make abstract splatter paintings about how you feel. After the dust settles, you will have a chance to give a measured response. But for right now, take in all the new information.
Taurus Rising
My grandmother worked for the county clerk in Youngstown, Ohio when Ella Fitzgerald married her bassist, Ray Brown. It was big news at the time. My grandmother remarked on Fitzgerald’s big presence and their positive energy as a couple. It was a happy marriage and they adopted a son together. Their son was raised by Fitzgerald’s aunt because they were both on the road constantly. Ray and Ella ended up divorcing 6 years later because they were both too busy with touring.
Sometimes you have to let go of what you love. This month there could be lots of give-and-take. You are measuring what you get out of your relationships and whether it’s really worth it when you add up the good and subtract the bad. You may be weighing the hardship and hustle that it takes to get all the things you love. Every one of the little comforts that make life feel livable may not all be necessary. Everything comes at a cost. Sometimes you take a loss in the short term to get rid of something that is not working out for the long term. Especially during the eclipses from October 25 – November 8, be ready to accept some sacrifices.
Gemini Rising
Lean extra hard on the Gemini skill of keeping it light. Try everything once, but don’t go all in. Pay attention, take note of the precise details, and clearly communicate while keeping your tone easy breezy. On October 12, there could be a war of words, but stay upbeat, positive and detached. Bring in a fun, rough and tumble energy. Shake hands and share a drink afterwards. Bring joy, play, the spirit of friendship. You can even let go of obligations, duties and routines that feel expired.
The eclipses on October 25 and November 8 are a renewal process for you, a dormant period to undergo transformation. I will leave you with advice on caring for a molting duck from fowlguide.com:
“Molting ducks need a little bit of understanding and patience. Molting periods are likely to be the times that your ducks are at odds with each other. Individuals are likely to be grumpy, as molting isn’t very comfortable, and the strain on their bodies can be great. Newly grown feathers can be sensitive and fragile and can bend and break easily. Do your best to avoid touching your ducks and give them all plenty of space during molting seasons.”
Cancer Rising
There is a lot going on in your world right now, both at home and at work. It’s a balancing act to conserve and manage your energy. At work, you are on the spot to perform and handle obligations, pressured by peoples’ expectations of you. Meanwhile, there is a lot to take care of at home, errands and relationship needs. The saying, “no rest for the weary” comes to mind. Work and home responsibilities are squeezing out much-needed alone time. October 19 could offer a nice little moment to get some peace and quiet.
During the eclipse period between October 25 and November 8, there may be a lot of push-and-pull and frenetic energy, but don’t get caught up in the swelling momentum. Ride the waves and position yourself to take advantage of the existing power. Work with the energy, like a surfer seeing a new wave on the horizon, paddling hard at the beginning, then letting the wave do the work and maneuvering on the board so it doesn’t go too fast or slow. Don’t fight or fret. work with the energy (not against it). Work it to your advantage. Find cushions of space for yourself to rest. Conserve your energy around the situation.
Leo Rising
Even though your foundation is being detonated and restructured, this could (in a way) be a positive time for you. If you are open to the unexpected and keep a curious mindset, you can have some cool conversations and learn to reuse things and ideas in an ingenious way. Embrace the new and accept a childish, imaginative reframe of life. There is no getting around that this is a disorienting time, like the story of Alice in Wonderland, where things grow “curioser and curioser” as she tries to make sense of what is really going on. If you worry too much, you could feel sunk, or despondent about it. Delight in weird perspectives, in “not-knowing” and frame the cacophony as a treasure box of jewels.
This eclipse season (Oct 25-Nov 8), open yourself to what may unfold during your soul’s journey. Say yes to unexpected opportunities that you never would have chosen, but that may turn out to be more wondrous than you could have predicted. Even if the ground is quicksand and the sky is swirling, just do your best. It’s the experience of the adventure that matters. Go along for the ride and you will come back a changed and more worldly person.
Virgo Rising
The Serenity Prayer was made for times like these. Although you may have new opportunities, you are also assessing if it’s really worth it. The question is whether the work aligns with your values in the way you imagined. Forward motion at work and taking responsibility pays off, but financial gains are at the expense of your personal mojo or may come with relationships that take a toll. A face-off on October 12 can be followed by finally being able to talk some sense into a delusional, idealistic or passionate partner, colleague, employee or boss.
By the eclipses October 25 and November 8, you could be feeling drained, and in assessment mode, taking names and making plans. Know your own agenda, set boundaries and don’t get pulled into nonsensical conversations. Step around the chaos. Take a last-minute flight to somewhere magical (or read a book or pray yourself away to another land). At the beginning of “Feel So Different” Sinéad O’Connor said the Serenity Prayer. After the eclipses you may feel so different.
“We spent a long time talking
I thought they meant every word they said
But like everyone else, they were stalling
And now they seem so different…
… The whole time I’d never seen
All I’d need was inside me
And now I seem so different”
-
Horoscopes August 24-31
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Aries Rising
Now is the time to ask a million questions. You may think you know the answers, but you really don’t. Everyone all together knows the answers, so the more you ask people, the more you will know the most. Here are some question-asking tips.
First, set your tone to open-hearted and neutral. Learn how to ask open-ended questions, where the respondent is able to describe things in their own words (not fill in your blanks). Inquire further, like a 3-year-old… but why? but why? but why? Get comfortable with awkward silence. Big quiet moments will get filled up with the best answers. Be a curious listener for days on end and watch your knowledge grow.
Taurus Rising
Kanye West’s struggle with bipolar disorder has led him to say and do a lot of things that don’t align with his core identity. But he has said profound things with his music over the years. In the song “All Falls Down” Kanye admits to having a “problem with spending” and talks about how people mask self esteem issues with having nice things. It’s the song with the chorus that goes, “When it all falls down who you going to call?”
The music video takes place at an airport, where his luggage is scanned. The security guard has him lie down and go through the luggage scanner too, and his whole body is X-rayed.
It’s important to take care of ourselves, wear clothes we look good in, have a home we love and do beautiful things with our lives. This week, think about the balance between the things you love and how your value yourself.
Gemini Rising
You’re still in a healing space, but suddenly there is more energy available to you. As the conversation heats up, keep tabs on how all the parts fit into the whole. You can work through some interesting ideas and solutions this week.
While there can be moments of headbutting, hitting a dead end or getting lost in the maze, remember to have fun. Turn it into a game. Twist out into a new perspective. Re-map your way of seeing, like toying with a Rubik’s cube. Maggie Appleton wrote that visual maps shift “us from an ‘egocentric’ view of the world to an ‘allocentric’ bird’s eye view.” Guided by your natural curiosity and playfulness, zoom in and then zoom out to get full coverage.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Cancer Rising
Before cars took over the streets, people used to walk in them and kids used to play in them. Cars killed lots of people in the early years until the car industry started a campaign against “jaywalking” in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it became common to designate special areas for kids to play.
Full of construction detritus, old paint cans and tires, “junk playgrounds” were proto-playgrounds. Over the decades, parents wanted safer places for their kids to play. One of the safest playground inventions, the ball pit, was invented by designer, Eric McMillan. He was inspired by imagining what it would be like to float around in a jar of pickled onions.
The internet has popularized urban legends about the dangers of ball pits, saying they are spiked with deadly bacteria, heroin-filled syringes and half-eaten chicken nuggets. These untrue stories gained traction, so now places like McDonalds and Chuck E. Cheese removed their ball pits for safety reasons.
This week, remember the things you used to do as a kid that were dangerous, fun or both. Consider what what seemed safe, but wasn’t, and vice versa and how memory is rife with misperception. Oh, and play like you’re a kid again.
Leo Rising
Even if there is a sense of urgency, a need to do things right and the heightened discussions that go along with it, you can still put on your charm. Consider what everyone brings to the table with authentic curiosity. Someone can offer a true gem, a perspective you had never thought of before. Look at all your conversations like tunneling through ancient caverns and mythical forests, where you could stumble on a magical key at any moment.
And as you consider what you like and what you don’t, you take a closer look at your values and self-worth, how you make a living and the objects you own that make you feel good. You may find that what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for everyone, and distinguishing that difference is part of your journey to self discovery.
Virgo Rising
Language has two purposes, 1) as a mode of public “expression”, a vehicle to communicate with others, and 2) as a tool for internal “reasoning”, to build ideas.
One can keep a personal notebook for “reasoning” and give a public presentation for “expression”. With visual languages, like drawing and map-making, one can use a sketchbook to “reason” through a composition and produce a print series to “express”. Consider how ideas can be designed with wiggle room or modularity.
While you build concrete ideas to express to other people, remember to not take yourself too seriously. Remember the malleability of thoughtforms, and the humanity of yourself and others. Even though you have constructed well-designed concepts, expressing this to others may change your hardened idea. To soften your designs, maybe you can sing an important algorithm in the form of a song?
Support my work in making these weekly horoscopes.
Libra Rising
Garden metaphor moment! Brought to you by Dulcet Loam Seeds.
By now, you know which of your seedlings have grown into full plants. And you know which plants didn’t make it, that you can toss into the compost bin, to help make rich soil for next year. Now is a time to enjoy that one tomato plant that is producing tomatoes at an alarming rate, like a 1950s horror movie, and to share with all the people around you. Some tomatoes you can can. Let me rephrase that, put some tomatoes in glass canning jars. You can can-can, as in dance while canning. Ultimately too outrageous with all the kicking.
The theme is resource distribution, using all the parts, some for now, some for later, some for you, some for your friends.
Scorpio Rising
Harper Forbes and Prakrit Jain used iNaturalist (an app where anyone can upload photos and collectively identify species) to discover two new scorpions in California. The scorpions, P. soda and P. conclusus, adapted for salty alkali basins with high pH soils. Scorpions fluoresce under ultraviolet light, so Harper and Prakrit used blacklights at night to find scorpions on the playa, in cracks in the hard clay and in bushes.
P. soda scorpions live on a few miles of federally-protected land, but P. conclusus scorpions can only be found on a narrow strip of unprotected land, and Harper says that “The entire species could be wiped out with the construction of a single solar farm, mine, or housing development.”
Rely on community for answers. Adapt to a changing environment. Glow in the dark.
Sagittarius Rising
There are tricks to make things easier. You can quickly learn a new language with spaced repetition flashcards that are timed to exploit the intervals that the brain most effectively remembers information. Linguist John McWhorter has an even faster language-learning trick: “Sleep with somebody.”
Drafting is a travel trick to conserve energy. Birds fly in formation to reduce drag. Trailing birds benefit from gliding in the lead bird’s slipstream. Cars can save up to 50% in fuel costs by “drafting”, or riding in the slipstream of the vehicle ahead of them (i shouldn’t be telling this to freedom-loving sag risers. do not do this in the wild. there are better ways to die). Bicyclists take advantage of this little trick, too. Stronger cyclists spend more time in the lead to help slower riders keep up with the pack while developing stamina.
This week, figure out teamwork tricks to make things easier for everyone.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Capricorn Rising
Spanish retail chain, Eroski, has both worker-run stores and boss-managed stores. A research study found that the worker-run Eroski stores had higher sales growth because workers “have a large financial stake in the firm”. In a boss-run environment, workers can be on auto-pilot, but part of the job can be to make the boss happy, sometimes to accept unfair dynamics or ineffective policies.
When workers own the company, they take on more risk and reward. At The Cheeseboard in Berkeley, workers train in customer service, baking, accounting and consensus decision-making. Everyone is involved at every level of the bakery business. It’s more work to work together, but also empowering.
Truths to weigh this week (sorry I know cap risers already do this all the time): More ownership amounts to more responsibility. Equitable exchange requires developing better communication skills. There is a give-and-take in how you set up value exchanges.
Aquarius Rising
If you live in a city, you likely live near a busy road or highway. You can get right on the road – a fast route to work or anywhere. But the downsides include lung cancer, asthma, heart disease and early death. Is the fun of living in a city and the convenience of living near a highway worth the health loss? Is the isolation of living in the middle of health-giving nature a better trade-off?
This reminds me of how even really good relationships have their trade-offs. Humans are inherently imperfect, and when they get close, there’s always a give-and-take. Sometimes you really love someone, but you just have a feeling that something is off.
This week, focus on the trade-offs in relationships. Identify what works and what doesn’t and find kind ways to co-plan for new relationship infrastructure design.
Pisces Rising
Geoff Manaugh wrote that post-wall Berlin “felt like a triple-exposure photograph… a haze of unbuilt architecture, whole neighborhoods yet to be constructed, everything still possible, out of focus somehow.” It held that dreamy, abandoned quality, places that your imagination could skateboard through with other poets, artists and adventurers.
As we now know, Berlin and other cities have been taken over, built up and claimed. As Manaugh writes, “The more that was built, the more Berlin seemed to lose this inchoate appeal.” Some of that natural rawness was preserved in a waterscape of bridges, underground pools and reeds filtering stormwater nestled within Potsdamer Platz, a huge, flashy shopping and business district.
Right now, you have that “inchoate appeal” of undeveloped land, layers of memory, overgrown weeds and shadows that slap in the wind. As you rebuild, keep some of this wild magic with you always.
-
Horoscopes August 17-24
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Aries Rising
There is a special timing to when a tightly-bound bud unfolds its petals, like a dancer’s arms and neck flaring back in an expression of emotional release. Coming into your own has been different than you ever could have outlined or deliberately chosen. To take on a new role takes listening to a special timing, with long boring waits and unexpected bursts of action.
This week you drive right into the heart of your most authentic center. Proxy parts of yourself fall away, those that you held onto while waiting for the real parts to be born. You are able to listen more calmly, patiently and thoroughly, IF you choose to. (that’s a big “if”)
Taurus Rising
The nature documentary, Castles of Clay, examines the architecture and homekeeping of African termites. Outside, the structure looks like a miniature mountain, reminiscent of a Gaudi residence. Inside, the termites have a well-organized structure of caverns, a section for the dead, for breeding… there are ventilation shafts and even a mushroom garden. These fungi cannot live without the termites, and the termites are fully dependent on the fungi for their survival as well.
What is home to you? How are retrofitting, rearranging and remaking your home? This is the time to dig deep, excavate, navel-gaze and create the home that feels super cozy and spiritually nourishing for you.
Gemini Rising
Dear gentle, ladybug. Time is one of those interesting subjects that a Gemini could flit on forever about, right? In that case, let’s give time a glance. If today is today and the time is feeling like rest is needed, then take it.
Assuming your throat is saying to your mind, “Let’s sing and shout!” Then, by all means, let it. It’s time for singing and shouting! But if your throat says to write and whisper, then it’s time for that. Find a cozy, soft closet to huddle in and lean your head against the pillow and let the cat purr on your lap.
When it’s time to come out of your soul-searching, singing and automatic writing escapades… you will feel it. And when that happens, you can always say yes to that impulse too.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Cancer Rising
You know that feeling when you are having a chill drink under the moon under a tree listening to twanging guitar country music that sounds like water and you’re allowed to stare off wistfully without feeling too cheesy because so much shit is actually going on that you legitimately earned this moment so may as well take it and let the vibe take care of you for a moment or two while you picture scenes from your day or years ago even and then fade in a sliver of moon and the cool of your drink and the sound of leaves and let it all make sense in its own way?
Leo Rising
Telephone companies did not serve rural districts until after the 1940s. Farmers ran wire from their home phones to their barbed wire fencing, which they gave a slight electrical charge so it could carry a signal to the neighboring farm.
A region may have dozens of local farmhouses all connected up together by a “party line”, mostly connected by barbed wire. The phone would ring in all houses, and everyone could listen in on the call. Sometimes a neighbor would play music or read the newspaper for everyone to listen to.
As you learn new ways of setting boundaries and connecting with people for practical shared goals, take inspiration from this example of crafting ways to creatively reuse and restructure communication.
Virgo Rising
In 1815, Ada Lovelace was born to Lady and Lord Byron, a mathematician and a poet, respectively. It was a polarizing time, between the Industrial Revolution automating daily life and Romanticism idealizing nature with emotional indulgence. Lovelace’s parents split up before her birth, and she was gifted with both her dad’s poetic vision and her mom’s analytical mind.
In her description of Charles Babbage’s “analytical engines”, Lovelace penned the very first computer algorithm. She distinguished that a calculator just crunches numbers, whereas a computer can manipulate any data, including images, words, music. Whereas most people thought Babbage was mad as a hatter, Lovelace was able to picture what was possible and put it into clear language.
This week, you may feel pressured to describe what you mean, and illuminate a new dimension in the process.
Support my work in making these weekly horoscopes.
Libra Rising
Sometimes you can catch more flies with knowing your endgame, and honey. You may not want flies though anyways. Who wants flies? Or, maybe it doesn’t really matter what they are, as long as they like you.
In the late 60s Ursula Le Guin sent a story to Playboy. “Unwilling to terrify these vulnerable people,” she sent it under the non-gendered name U.K. Le Guin. When they asked for a bio, she “saw the whole panorama of U.K.’s life as a gaucho in Patagonia… the abbot of a Coptic monastery in Algeria. We’d tricked them slightly, though, and I didn’t want to continue the trickery. But what could I say? ‘He is a housewife and the mother of three children’?”
Playboy printed the story and fabricated bio. With the check, Le Guin bought a new red VW bus in cash.
Scorpio Rising
A creative movement grows like a tree, the trunk twisting and scabbing with the environment. The branches reach towards the sun, in flux with the wind and creatures that live in its hair. Growing above and below, intertwining with different living beings, from lychens to mycelia.
One of my favorite diversions is to explore how music styles proliferate new music styles, growing organically. Right now you are steeped in multilayered social inter-influencing. At times, actively nurturing, other times letting nature take its course. How will you take snapshots of this nascent phase – like a baby scrapbook so you don’t forget? Here are some Music Trees to inspire you:
Sagittarius Rising
The 2015 Paris climate agreement works on the basis of “reciprocal action”, meaning that countries follow the lead of each other. For example, when Trump stopped the US effort to help the global climate, other countries stopped trying too.
Yesterday, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes a climate tax bill that will significantly cut US greenhouse-gas emissions. The US is the largest greenhouse gas emitter, so this will have a HUGE impact. But even bigger is the US influence other governments to mirror this positive action to reduce emissions.
You have some great ideas on essential next steps and visionary ways of doing things. Zoe Chance offers good tips on how to persuade a group to accept a good idea – I hope it helps you this week.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Capricorn Rising
Yesterday I told a dancer that I had knee surgery in December. The change in my movement is a point of pride, how a scar adds character. But it’s both sad and joyful. He offered hope, but also understanding that there is permanent loss. Some of his friends fully recovered from surgery, but their dance will always be different due to having a different body mechanics.
Artist-collaborators, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, make work that is about not forgetting. They explore “how experiences of loss and expressions of resistance from Arabic-speaking contexts can be communicated, archived, and preserved.” Their work is about creating community from a place of honoring loss, painful history, cultural pride and its unique expressions.
Can you move forward without “letting it go”, with all your parts, but some in pieces, a fractured wholeness, a living archive?
Aquarius Rising
Western science used to describe the world in more mechanical terms. For example, the belief that the planets were arranged in perfect order of spiritual perfection, held in unchanging orbit by an ectoplasmic substance called the celestial spheres. Darwin’s theory of evolution was interpreted as a ladder of development, starting at inferior and moving towards superior. Old science paralleled the social strata, the rules of how bodies were (and still are) policed according to class, race, gender, etc.
With the science of quantum physics, we observe the smallest particles as waves, which may change or take shape, with the act of observing affecting the outcome. Parallel to current science, our cultural understanding is more open to complexity and change, and conscious of how we affect each other through observation and identification. I hope your internal structure is undergoing a demolition and weird experimental regrowth (not a cold hardening) that reminds me of this shift in viewpoints.
Pisces Rising
There are so many levels of reality, and it can be hard to point to what is real, and what isn’t. Layering can give a more complete and satisfying representation. But it can be more confusing, and hard to tell what is really going on when you are tuned into multiple layers at once.
It reminds me of watching a documentary movie, where as a viewer, I am clocking the story as it was edited, the subjects themselves, the facade the subjects want to front, the lighting, the sound design, the network, the historical context, additional info from Wikipedia, the popcorn I am eating, the sound of a car alarm outside, the late summer breeze… Reality is gleaned piecemeal, I think. Yet deception abounds, I think. What do you think?
-
Horoscopes August 10-17
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Aries Rising
In spite of pressure to align to the established conventions of your social sphere, you are making headway in the value you place on your work, and the things you contribute to this earth place we live on. Everything is fresh, fractured and exciting all at once.
Moving forward without needing to force a typical motivation towards a congratulatory type of success. It’s leading with all the parts of you, unapologetically. But without all the parts in working order, it is an even more bold move, more self-assured. Everything will figure itself out as you become more, and lose more parts of you that now, at this point in time, were never really you anyways. I am thinking about the first three lines from this new Ocean Vuong poem, “Beautiful Short Loser”:
Stand back, I’m a loser on a winning streak.
I got your wedding dress on backwards & playing air guitar on this dirt road.
I taste my mouth the most &, let me tell ya, what a blessing.
Taurus Rising
In “Crying in H Mart”, Michelle Zauner talks about how her mother would often ask for “the usual” when ordering food and drinks.
“What I never seem to forget is what my mother ate. She was a woman of many ‘usuals.’ Half a patty melt on rye with a side of steak fries to share at the Terrace Cafe after a day of shopping.”
She went on to describe a scrumptious list of things her mom liked to order. Zauner’s mom observed other peoples’ favorites as a way to show affection, to notice what gives them pleasure.
“I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it… She remembered which banchan side dish you emptied first so the next time you were over it’d be set with a heaping double portion, served alongside the various other preferences that made you, you.”
One way to show love to yourself or others is to acknowledge personal tastes, the things that make you (or others) feel comfortable and alive. The things that fulfill you may not always fit into the cultural norms or align with sober agreements you made in an important way. You can break the rules like eggs, fry them on a griddle and eat them for breakfast. If that is delicious to you.
Gemini Rising
“Black and orange stray cat sittin’ on a fence
Ain’t got enough dough to pay the rent
I’m flat broke, but I don’t care
I strut right by with my tail in the air”
– Lyrics from The Stray Cats song, “Stray Cat Strut“
Even if you feel a little rudderless these days, you still got cat class and you got class style. Strutting through the night, taking a second look, to re-orient yourself and re-map your terrain.
Nighttime, speckled with stars, planets and a changing Moon is a time of dreams, the half of our day where we peer what’s underneath. These days you are able to talk about things that are under the surface. To have words for what was previously in your subconscious understanding. Feeling out new truths through conversations with all kinds of cats. Tabbies. Black. Orange. All the varieties known to Cat Fancy Magazine, and then some (the strays breed how they want to breed. meow.).
Revealing insights. Excavation of ideas, perspectives and understandings. Trying out new ways of capturing ideas. Breaking the mold and experimenting out on the town, or in your imagination. You are free to prowl.
“Wild stray cat, you’re a real gone guy
I wish I could be as carefree and wild
But I got cat class, and I got cat style
Meow”
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Cancer Rising
When you are raised with a certain framework that was passed down to you, you hold onto that as an adult. It isn’t until you see it with adult eyes that you may alter or expand on the given way of seeing things.
It reminds me of a This American Life episode, “Kid Logic”, where they investigate how when you assume a thing to be true as a child, and don’t re-evaluate it, you may continue to believe even a false belief. For example, one woman told the story that when she was like 9 or 10, she came up with the idea that unicorns are an endangered species. Why not? A narwhal is a whale with a horn that is endangered, it’s feasible that there could be a horse with a horn on its forehead.
Through her twenties, she hadn’t ever dusted off that old belief and re-examined it. She had let it be true in her library of facts. It wasn’t until she asked friends, in all seriousness, if unicorns were still endangered. In a moment of embarrassment, she realized that this “fact” was not true.
Some of the stories from the podcast episode were white lies that parents or siblings told them when they were small, in order to save them from a harsh reality that a little kid can’t handle. Some were handed-down beliefs, unique to their own weird family.
Now is a fine time to dust off and question some of those ancient, crusty beliefs. To get out of your box, travel, read, philosophize, fact check and re-envision your values, beliefs and what could be.
Leo Rising
Things are heating up in your kingdom. You are receiving lots of attention, some of it resoundingly wonderful, some of it is more challenging. In particular there could be an upset or a clamor for change, in an area of life where you are being seen and taking leadership. People are asking you to suddenly shift, a change of strategy to get better results on a collaboration. A sudden request to drastically change your tune. It’s like, “But this is me! And this is the song we’ve been rehearsing!”
Can a tiger change it’s stripes? Can a sparrow change its morning song to the world? Well, actually, a tiger can sort of change its stripes (through natural selection). And, yes, sparrows and many songbirds frequently change their chirps. For example, the Great Tit (yes, Leo, your tits are great too), when living in an urban population sings faster and in a higher pitch. This is so that it can be heard above the environmental noises of the city.
After the Full Moon Thursday night, some of the tension may ease, but there will still be a pressing need to change your tune. Be ready to re-invigorate and re-structure the way you partner and get your work done.
Virgo Rising
This week the focus is on healing and soul-searching. There is a lot going on behind the scenes, whether with therapy, self care, new sudden realizations about life and self, or feeling the struggle to create a work-life balance.
Get to work! Just kidding… don’t overdo it. Keep showing up, stay present and stay focused on getting things done in the moment. It could be hard to feel organized with so much going on with real world responsibilities and inner revelations. Just be. One foot in front of the other.
You are learning a wisdom path towards simple things, the quest towards the mythical work-life balance. The thing you can never have, yet must constantly strive towards. Whether it’s a koan or a riddle or some random sentence I just wrote, you are working through the hard stuff. This week, you may get insights into past suffering, could stumble on new pleasure highways or suddenly find some other kind of lovely beastly treasure all your own.
Support my work in making these weekly horoscopes.
Libra Rising
Hey, how is my favorite shape shifting superhero doing? Able to be in all places at once. Capable of being all things to all people. Family, work, friends and even your own personal needs may all be clamoring for your attention this week. Public projects and group connections may be winning in this war of getting your attention. But your family and more intimate relationships are purring, pawing and meowing for your love.
The sign of Libra reminds me of the superhero, Plastic Man, whose body is malleable, somewhere between liquid and solid, he has complete control over his structure. He can bend and bounce and stretch and contort in all unimaginable ways. But it is because of his temperate, middle-ground nature that he is able to maintain such flexibility.
Plastic Man’s supple strength is vulnerable to extreme temperatures or sudden changes of any kind. If he is forced into a sudden shift of environment, his body could shatter, melt or solidify.
The Libra constitution is similar. You can bend to so many peoples’ needs, as long as you modulate your shape shifting at an even-keel, gentle pace.
Scorpio Rising
Is this sultry tango with others, or actually with yourself? You have sensed and probed on every level what works and what doesn’t, but you also want to hear out what your partner is bringing to the table. You want to avoid conflict, and all you are asking for is a teensy weensy bit of… complete and unadulterated control!
More than any sign, Scorpio knows the value of the saying, “With great risk comes great reward.” Important partnerships are bringing big change to the table that can feel unsettling or destabilizing, but you know in your gut that this disruption is towards a more generative future. Nothing can stay the same, and you know that sacrificing the old ways of doing things is key to staying alive.
Current relationships may bring up a love/hate dynamic, the very type of dynamic you love to hate. Maybe not that extreme, but there’s a back and forth between my way versus your way. The fulcrum is holding the center, while plotting how much to risk for eventual reward. This game is thrilling, annoying, but also really fun. Ultimately, being willing to lose your old communication style through play and experimentation will pay off.
Excerpt from an Untitled poem by Rosamond S. King:
“whose coagulation
pools below? don’t
worry
:your safe parlor
your safe larder await
. the flood is outside
your door”
Sagittarius Rising
There is what you want, and then there is where you are in the process of getting there. My Sagittarius Rising neighbor, Cleve, leads a fabrication workshop. He has designed puppets for Jim Henson, over-sized animatronics for Comic-Con and numerous sculptural pieces for the film industry. Cleve said that over a decade ago, when he was in his early 20s, he envisioned this job for himself. Through intentional magic and willpower… poof! his dream job appeared.
The ability to envision a reality for yourself seems to be a distinctly Sagittarian trait. Whether magic is true, or it’s just about enthusiastically positioning yourself well, that is up to you to decide. This week, the reality you want to be true is getting road-tested. As you experiment with how your creations are coming along, you may go back to the drawing board and rework your designs.
After work, Cleve, is always smoking on the stoop, ready talk about the woes of trying to make his visions a reality. Puffs of smoke fluffing around his head like dreams, Cleve also loves to share photos of his awesome creations when they successfully come into fruition how he imagined. As much as Cleve is a dreamer, he is also a materials guy, and knows every type of material out there, and puts in the hard work of collaborating to find ingenious ways to materialize an imaginary character.
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Capricorn Rising
Clout and self-esteem are inter-connected, whether or not they should be. In a way, we are all inventing our identity and self worth through achievements, important roles, personal swagger, social networks and the really cool things we have. It starts as early as preschool. Little kids use their first words to state the objects they identify with. They talk about their parents with competitive pride.
I used to take my nephew to preschool. His dad was not in his life, and when the other kids would boast about their dads, it was a huge blow to his 3-year-old ego. His eyes, so gentle and quivering. Protective rage bubbled up in me. I wanted to instantly fix humanity for him at that moment. To magically undo the status one gets from having the awesomest toy in their hands and the most importantest parental figures. (for the record, my nephew was qualitatively superior to every one of these toddlers)
This identification with stuff lasts through adulthood. Going to a party or bar, it’s important to have something in your hand. Even better if you are holding a drink that you ordered like you’re James Dean. You can saunter around with your “jack double rocks” like you own the place. But maybe this week, if you order your drinky drink like a know-nothing shrimp, be sure to tell yourself you’re still a top-notch human specimen.
Aquarius Rising
Sometimes there is nobody to ask for advice or help, even when you feel most naked and afraid. The friends, family and partnerships we rely on for support are sometimes so embroiled in the situation itself that we can’t ask them for guidance on the situations they are also wrapped up in.
In these cases, we rely on ourselves. There is a next level resourcefulness, getting inspiration from the internet, from reading stories or manuals, from wandering into rabbit holes that lead you to god knows where. It really is “god” knows where, because I think there is an intuitive stumbling on the answer that happens when we follow a wild hair. It’s in this seeming random derive style rambling that the answer is derived.
There is a parking lot in my neighborhood in Hollywood, adjacent to the LGBT Center, that is fully surrounded by towering spray-painted graffiti murals. When I walk the neighborhood, I often wind up in this mural grove. Being unofficial, made by local artists on their own volition makes it feel like a freedom zone, which opens up independent soul-searching for me. It’s an accidental destination. A place my magic 8-ball feet take me when I am looking for an answer that may or may not have a question.
Pisces Rising
G’day my sweet, slippery angel fishes. How’s it shimmering? Hope it’s been shimmering strangely. Your independence and personal power is to be found in the most flip-side of places. When life gets hard, reach out to the cement walk and soften it with your finger tips. Don’t let anything stop you from exploring in a weird and uncalculating way. You need to be appreciated for how you dig up the overlooked and materialize the way you imagine it.
“I sometimes feel like I am physicalizing elements that intrigue me from historical accounts, bringing them into a space where I—and others—can encounter them and renegotiate or recirculate their meaning.” – Candice Lin, artist referring to new installation, Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping
You are remixing meaning through creative envisioning. Don’t let doubt seep in. Bring in the people who are ready to appreciate your talents and way of altering perception. It is important that you fiercely protect your personal journey to define what matters to you about your world, about yourself, everything from your values to your possessions and how you make a living.
-
Horoscopes for August 3-9
Scroll to your rising sign to get your horoscope below.
Aries Rising
Go Aries! Hurrah! Pushing forward for what you need and deserve isn’t always pretty, but the results of your effort will be a thing of beauty. You need to get paid and feed your babies, both literal and figurative. You are showing us how it’s done, leading the way in how to stand up for your self worth. Even though there’s a lot of in-the-moment action, do what you can to plan for the big picture. Apply some moderation. Make a budget. Plan for the future.
With all the pressure of responsibility to family, friends, reputation and living up to your values, phew! I tell you what! You need to blow off some steam. Create little oases here and there to find your fun. Plan little pockets of time and space to be a kid again. Have a really good time with other living beings you like being around, whether it’s a summer BBQ, watching a movie with your cat, clowning around with little kids, playing cards or finding some romantic moments.
Blow off at least one of your obligations to find time to gaze at the stars. To picture a world that tends to the pain points that were ignored, labeled as too-small or in-the-way. You can create a world where people can be more authentically themselves. What is it all worth if not to give your inner child at least some of the dreams they imagined possible?
Help cheer me on with donations as I write horoscopes for all.
Taurus RisingYou aren’t the same Taurus we thought we knew. Sturdy. Reliable. What!? Not this week. You made it to Oz and are back again with a whole new level of appreciation for your unique way of being in the world. You are revealing your true self. Everyone is loving the new you. Don’t spend all your wardrobe, hair and jewelry money in one place. Set aside a monthly stipend for personal style. Come up with a strategy. Make a look book and plan on acquiring pieces slowly over time.
Get thee to a karaokery. Sing with friends. Write a song. Learn a song. Listen to music. Make art with your crew. Do things that tell or re-tell your story. Whether it’s long walks with friends, jam sessions with collaborators. Maybe it’s getting real with colleagues and co-workers. Or you could read or watch things that feed your perspective and then talk to yourself about it. Research studies show that talking out loud to yourself while re-thinking things makes you smarter. Write letters to community leaders or public figures. Translate your personal experience to your wider belief system, personal values and community aspirations.
You have an opportunity to grow through conversation and re-orienting your worldview. Kill off dead weight, old beliefs and stodgy ways of thinking that don’t hold up to your lived experience. Charge through old assumptions, crashing expensive tea ware into a thousand irreparable shards (sorry for ruining these valuables and for the bull in a china shop reference for the tauruses). Make way for a new you on every level.
Support my work in making these weekly horoscopes.Gemini Rising
You have really been going through it, my friends. You are getting down to the core issues, to the seed of your story. Take rests when you need it, but keep on going. Recharge. Refuel. Give it time. Over the next couple months, you will have a chance to make sense of things from your past, reorganize your memories and relationship to your family and origin story. You can reinvent what home means to you.
Invite new people in to your life. See the people in your life in a new light. Attract mutually beneficial relationships. As you resolve old issues, set boundaries or even say no to the dusty antiques old relationships hoisted on you, there is a new social fabric readying a soft landing, to welcome your arrival. People want to help you walk into your new light. Whether you meet them this week, or in the future, they are out there. Ask for help when you need it. People are there for you. Some of them have capacity to listen to your story and what you are going through. Just do what Geminis do best, and ask.
Speaking of things Geminis excel at, give yourself the freedom to think differently. Read a book with a totally new perspective. Go on a road trip. Get out of your box. You are rewriting your worldview and putting to rest the stubborn little unresolved scars that have been haunting you throughout your life. Getting perspective can help you shake loose those ghosties.
You don’t always know how the pieces are going to fit together exactly (even though you may want to lol). But you can imagine what it will feel like, allowing your hope and other peoples’ hope to fill in the blanks together in a way that ends up making perfect sense.
To give financial encouragement…Cancer Rising
You get a true fairy tale this week. I recently saw a Street Food: Latin America episode on Netflix. Emiliana Condori, a successful street vendor in La Paz, Bolivia tells the story of establishing her business. As a child, she found great satisfaction in street vending, but after she got married, her husband would not let her work. They were broke with two little kids, but he still wouldn’t let her work. She caved.
Finally, she decided that she needed to take care of her children by making a living. With fierce conviction, she confronted her husband and began selling rellenos de papa on the street. She was immediately successful. But she continued to run into obstacles.
Most street vendors in La Paz, including Emiliana, are Cholitas, native Bolivian women, recognizable by their bowler hats and super wide, colorful skirts. Racistly, street vending was quasi-legal. Emiliana spent many days and nights in jail. To avoid incarceration, she hired little kids to keep watch, and whistle when the cops came around. Even though she wasn’t getting arrested as often, having to shut down shop at the spur of the moment slowed down the momentum and significantly cut into profits.
Emiliana got political and eventually her community organizing led to legal street vending. Her business sky-rocketed. She opened several stands, but then other vendors, jealous of her success began attacking her. Yet again, she fought tooth and nail, confronting her main attacker and eventually coming to blows with her. It was a physical brawl between two Cholita vendors! It was the final boss level of her life (video game reference).
After this show-down a couple decades ago, the obstacles to her business ended. She easily expanded and was able to send her kids to college. You can see the deep satisfaction she gets from her business and from her children and grandchild.
And that, dear Cancers, is your horoscope for this week, to soak in and unravel in a way makes sense to you.
Leo Rising
While I hope you are getting the attention you need, want and freaking deserve, I also hope that you are still giving yourself time to contemplate how far you really want to take things. Let’s shine a light on some of the enticing prospects in your life right now.
On the one hand you may be thirsting after someone who can help take the thorn out of your wounded paw. Or it may be you needing this alone time to help yourself, with the help of loving guides or spirits, or just you to giving yourself some gentle TLC. You may be getting help from someone close to you, a therapist, someone from your past, a family member or tight friend, helping you soften some experiences of loss that you have been wanting to resolve.
On the other hand, you have some interesting characters, project ideas or new potential work opportunities waltzing into on the scene. It’s fun. It’s jazzy cool. Yeahhhhh. There is lot’s to play with and riff on. You have great ideas for how to make something beautiful, unpredictable and “next level”. It could end up infusing your life’s work with meaning and depth.
The word to the wise is to pace yourself. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Keep it experimental. Wait and see before going all in. If you’re signing contracts, let it be within a limited time frame. If you’re kicking off a new professional career idea, do it as a one-off or limited run. With people you are signing on with, keep it in the probation period, for now. Step out into the spotlight and get that performance high you crave, and reserve for yourself an escape route to a secret hideaway for after the show.
Support your local astrologer.
Virgo RisingYou are cataloging some big breakthroughs that are helping you understand the world differently. It’s been a bumpy ride, but also satisfying. Reminds me of the Edwin Starr song, War, but changing it. We all get to replace a word from a lyric once in our lives, so give me this one. I promise to never again. “Triggers, huh. Yeah! What are they good for? Absolutely everything.”
Recently re-experienced memories freed up some space, which leads to a fresh take on reality. This week you get to experience some of the joys of having re-categorized life and re-oriented yourself. Clear-eyed and excited to weave a new pattern. You will have a couple months to submerge into deep analysis of yourself and your way of thinking. So, you don’t need to know everything right now. Savor this new tome you are perusing.
The exciting thing is that not only do you have this new lease on life and some newly blossoming perspective shifts, you are also connecting with people who excite you. Even if work-life balance or a stressful work situation is hemming in the open skies of your new worldview, it’s part of the story. The forlorn, oft-overlooked oboe section bringing in that doleful tone. For auditory complexity, they say. Odditory complexity, more like it.
There is an aggressive breakdown of your old standby ways of doing things. At the same time, there is a surge of hope, and maybe even some people gracing your social sphere, helping some of your dreams take flight. The view is great from up here.
Can I be a dork today and give us another song lyric but not change the words this time? Okay then, I will. I am thinking of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen:
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”
A few bucks goes a long way to support me as I write.Libra Rising
Access to wealth, gifts and favors sometimes affects social dynamics in our closest relationships. Imagine a sepia photo from the 1800s of a distinguished banker standing tall, his wife, seated, holds an infant. Standing about them are three adult siblings and a 6-year old child in a sailor suit. This “head of the household” has status in the outside world. He may have status in the home too. Or he may have lost status, at some point, due to an indiscretion or due to losing his wealth. Maybe several decades after his death, his great grandchildren are ashamed for the way he made his money.
Looking at a faded magenta photo from the 1970s of a 3-year-old baby with their 18-year-old parent. Their grandparents resent them. But the young single parent adores the baby, the apple of their eye. Let’s look at another snapshot of a 13-year-old wearing a boarding school blazer and acid-washed GUESS jeans. It’s the late 1980s, and this kid hasn’t seen their parents in months. Even though their birth was planned for, their life is an after-thought.
The way you appreciate your closest relationships has recently shifted. You are seeing the interpersonal dynamics and the give-and-take in a different light. Asserting your independence helps you blossom and come into your own, reinforced by a stronger sense of poise, it could feel like a hard-won windfall benefits your life goals.
Publicly, things are going along swimmingly. Even if it’s not ideal to ask for a raise, you could negotiate better benefits or receive a gift, as appreciation for what you do. Whether it’s just words of recognition or one co-worker you are vibing with, there is a positive note being played here.
How will you remember this moment and the people who mean something to you? How will you remember the time before?
Writing requires caffeine, to a certain extent. Buy me a coffee?Scorpio Rising
People are coming from out of the woodwork now, interested in partnering or starting something new. In older relationships, you are seeing each other differently, but you want to get down to brass tacks, and wanting to gingerly find out what the other person is bringing to the table. This role may feel like a new one to step into, or one you hadn’t taken as seriously until now. You are giving more energy to relationships than usual, so be sure to give yourself alone to to rest and recharge.
Some of the people who roll into your life right about now might astonish you. There could even be quarrels, misunderstandings or a sense of just not knowing how to handle this, but wanting to see them for who they are, from their own vulnerable position of investing in the things they love.
You are excited to connect to people in ways that feel authentic to you and what you stand for. You are investing in mutually beneficial partnerships that matter to you, to build something meaningful, persistently and patiently over time. In part, you want to create a world that reflects your ideas of universal truth, faith and togetherness. In another way, the pressure to create a meaningful network is more heavy than that.
It stems from a lineage, and the structures and traditions passed down from those who came before. Mentors and/or parent figures have worked hard to lay the foundation, and you have followed suit in building up from the root, in accordance with the universal laws of nature. Riffing on the fundamentals, you are altering the technique, updating it to be more in line with new information, and more true to your individual identity, and the causes you believe in.
Sagittarius Rising
Just as you were about to clock out and go home, the alarm sounded. Working non-stop, running on fumes, eventually your instincts kicked in. You have been going deeper into your most authentic expression, its delicious raw snarl being key to a meaningful life. There is irony to the idea of animal aggression carrying with it the seeds of truth, meaning and joy.
More than ever, you see how you can’t move forward, grow into success, until you embrace the most childish, raw and base parts of your essence. You are learning to trust these parts to lead the way. And to speak up, in order to survive, and to redefine what survival and prosperity means. To bring your group to safety, to a place you can all thrive, using your knowledge and skills in an inventive way. Your drive and determination kicks into a new gear.
Your primary motivation stems from people you care about. You notice their pain, and you want them to know that you see them. But it’s not just empty promises or simple acknowledgment. You want to deliver the goods, to send them money, care packages, real opportunities and set them up for decades to come. It could be blood relations, or people you have come to depend on like family. You feel indebted to them, not as a burden or obligation, but as a life-affirming belief in your inherent connection.
Unexpected responsibilities, when you have to dig deep, to sacrifice for something you believe in – these are the moments when you cut a path more true to your calling than you could have planned for.
Capricorn Rising
You are reinventing how you earn your livelihood, on the fly, by the seat of your pants. I ask you to look underneath the surface, to the roots of what is spurring you ahead, and you may find both pain and joy.
Let’s start with the joy. The innocent heart, bursting forth with an expression of love and creativity – this is the kind of joy I am thinking of. The joy of sprinting on fresh grass, of a butterfly landing on your finger, of blowing bubbles in the shade or spending all day making a sand castle with kids you just met.
Now let’s talk about the pain (you know you like it, baby). The peer pressure to shut off the open valve of creative flow. Giving in to the threat of a queen bee policing a stifling hierarchy. The shame and burden of going along with what you know to be wrong out of fear that it will sound out of place in the social order, get you called out, or worse, castigated.
The money-making work you are doing now, is an important fortifying step to heal old wounds and reinvigorate your creative impulse. Invite your inner child back in. This is one of those moments when pure, innocent fun and games will win the day. Bolster your pride, and go for the gold, confident in your inner knowing. The wisdom of the a child innocently speaking the truth will set the tone and establish direction towards a lasting game plan.
Aquarius RisingYou are taking your time to completely reinvent yourself. It’s complicated, and a long story how you got here in the first place. There’s family expectations and burdens. You are trying to live up to said expectations and handle the damn burdens. Here you are, in your workshop laboratory, industriously freeing yourself from these weights your born into. It’s more laborious than meets the eye.
Your efforts towards home, property and exploring your past will pay off. More profitable than career pursuits seem to be anyhow. You can find some profit in connecting your career and worldly pursuits to your origin story or hometown.I want to point out a little window of light that opens onto a vast world, where you will have more freedom. At one time, as we grow up, we treat our child selves as a country cousins. On the run towards sophistication, we crumple up and stuff down our earliest memories and beliefs, seemingly immature ideas that didn’t add up.
Now is a chance to look back, not just for therapy or reprocessing. Rediscover the grace and simplicity of your child’s eye view of life. Go back to something that worked for you when you were young, and trust its country wildflower way of just being plainly itself.
Pisces RisingYou are rediscovering who you are and what you offer the world, but instead of marching triumphantly forward, it’s been a slog. A humbling wait in a long ass line. Core pieces of your identity feel more complicated than ever. You can try to plan what it is you want to do, the valuable role you want to play, but the secure sense of purpose that you envision escapes your grasp.
Why not let sleeping dogs lie for the moment. Let that figure itself out under the surface for now.
Let me lure you away to a gem-filled lagoon of enchantment. Why not practice your talents. While away the hours playing music, making paintings and writing little stories. Romp in the fores-
But… Get gainfully employed, they said. Life’s a bitch, they said. That Pisces weirdo better figure out a way to pay the rent, they said.
Ignore them. If you want to prove that you’re “being responsible” then commit to something wholesome and edifying. Keep it basic. Stay hydrated. Go on a 10-minute walk every morning. Take a social media break. I mean definitely do that. Just be with the wind in the leaves and your natural creative talents. Talk to friends and collaborators who you like to play with. Be with kids, and let their wonder lead your days. Explore nature. Lie on your back with a pal and have a conversation while peering up at the stars. Write down your dreams.
Clarkinia Astrology | BLOG
Horoscopes and writing about art, astrology and ritual.
Clarkinia Astrology | BLOG 
