#galactic rabbit

I like that both poetry and astrology seek to give words to a feeling, to give a pattern a fabric to cling to; it's nice when they come together on the same tapestry and inspire resonance. And, there's a little god in both these practices, one that pries your hands open and shows you what you've been carrying this whole time. That's empathy work and the reward is spiritual. When I tell people I write poems or when I tell them I write horoscopes, they give me the same face, a face like capitalism malfunctioning, a face which can't compute my role in this regime. I find that face soothing.

LIBRA Some things are given to us, Libra, and some things we’ve got to learn to cultivate for ourselves. This can be a tricky lesson to learn for someone who is otherwise self-motivated, an indirect adjustment for those of us who have had to scrap together new lives out of the rags of old ones. On the surface, you sail over solitude, build your boat, and show a map to any person who climbs on board—offering companionship where others seek to control. There is a compass in you that guides you toward an open sea with further possibilities, there is a magic that can easily find and amplify the magic in others. And so, love is always possible, a constellation you recognize through the deepest fog.

Let’s talk about winter, Virgo. I don’t mean the romantic snowflakes and twinkly lights donning the naked trees. I don’t mean one million holiday parties with delicious treats and libations that lead to wild reckless nights. I mean winter, the bare harvest and biting wind. I mean the nights your body will feel so exhausted from battling the cold, you’ll fold into your apartment and forget to see anyone you love. Virgo, I know you’ve got all the supplies you need to live through the toughest months. I know there are thermal sweaters and wool socks and if not a lot of money then at least enough. I am unsure, however, how you have prepared your heart. Don’t you know that life cannot be a series of mundane tasks and work hours? I know that you have been trying to get back to fine. I know that there are days when fine is as good as it’s going to get. On those days, Virgo, when nothing seems to sustain your soul, I tell you this so you might remember: I love your hands and everything you make with them.

What if the story of your life was not about suffering for the sake of benediction? Imagine a world wherein you have always been strong enough to forgive whatever harms you. It can be hard to finally feel strong but, Pisces, you are different then you once were—kinder at the core and luminescent. I wish you could see with clear eyes the many ways you were cared for—each of us your mother as if we knew how to be mothers.

I want to picture you walking along the Coney Island shoreline for hours, with the fog laid thick on the Parachute jump, and the ocean slapping the salt rocks. Dusk setting, the attraction lights rise up in the distance like new stars. Climbing into an empty lifeguard chair, you watch the sunset—a beautiful fluorescent gasp in the sky you suspect might be pollution. The moon is for you tonight and her abundance scares you just like the enormity of the night sky pressing up against the very breath of your body scares you. The fear of this world swallowing you whole in its starry mouth is not dwarfed by its impossibility. All night you’ve been feeling the very real fact of your aloneness in the world, the way we are made and the way we die. It will do you no good to think of these things further. When your lifeguards chair—your small oasis—rattles, it’s because a lone child climbs up the stripped metal rungs and finds you. She isn’t wearing a coat and she isn’t yours but, like you, she belongs to the ocean. This child is drawn to the strength in you, the very real sweetness that lives behind all your anxious gestures and moments of cruelty. She knows that it’s your turn to be the healer now. Tell her what beauty is, what living means. She is looking to you to teach her how to look fiercely back at the world and be the one who loves more.

Pisces, whomever you open yourself to next, whatever door you come to, it might do you good to figure out what you want before you knock and how best to say it plain.

The Piscean journey, I know, is that of a healer who must face their wound always. Who must, against all forms of outer and (especially) inner resistance, recognize the shadow side of their nature and reckon with its intentions. There are no self-less healers among us and cannot be. When you act, what part of you acts from the wound? When you listen, what wounds within you obscure your ability to witness the wounds of others?