It's nearly the Solstice, which means it's time to put on your best primal screaming sack dresses and break out the flower crowns and schnapps. Here are your 100% made-up horoscopes for the next season. If you don't like yours, simply choose another one—they are all equally true.
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Aries: Perhaps I can convince you to put down the phone and step outside for a while? Do you have access to some dirt and/or seeds? If you don't, think about acquiring some. If not, get thee to a natural area. Run your hands along the bark of a tree. Allow the sun dappling through the canopy to play across your face. Watch out for wasps. Enjoy the sensation of being in the arms of mother nature; if you are balcony gardening, enjoy the sensation of actual growth between your fingers. It is good to see things grow, yeah?
Kid's Book: Music Is... by Brandon Stosuy
Taurus: You, my friend, are the mellow pot-smoker, the grounded-out earthship designer, the person who can low-key assemble a salad or smoothie out of any old fridge mess. I want you to tune your vibration just a bit higher in the coming months, and focus on action instead of emotion. Mend your sweaters. Sign up for that course. Email the friend you've been thinking about for ages. Do your self-care, of course, but balance it with action.
Kid's Book: The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad
Gemini: I'm learning French and Japanese on Duolingo right now, and as a plague activity, I really recommend it. The French and I are old pals, so the sense of competency I feel as I blow through all the "je m'appelle"s is a great tonic for when the Japanese, with its whole other alphabet, is a PROCESS. This quarter, I challenge you to find something that is both old hat and new blood, preferably in the same moment.
Kid's Book: Ho'onani: Hula Warrior by Heather Gale
Cancer: In a moment of great optimism, I bought a yard of double-sided knit fabric with the intention of making a tank top. Sounds simple, right? But it turns out that knits require different tools and techniques than woven fabrics. You need new sewing needles, sometimes whole other machines, in order to make it look "right." So now I have a choice to make: get the right, albeit expensive, tools? Or live with something that is imperfectly done? Stay tuned, Cancer!
Kid's Book: Happy In Our Skin by Fran Manushkin
Leo: Right now I'm reading Akata Witch, which has been described as "the Nigerian Harry Potter" (it's not), and the concept of the "spirit face" has emerged: how your hidden spirit-self physically presents itself you and the world. The face is hidden even from you until you discover your identity and abilities, and it is both a mask and the truest version of yourself. Have you discovered your own spirit face yet? Have you learned to love her?
Kid's Book: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Virgo: Since the spring equinox, we've experienced infectious disease, racial unrest and uprising, global protest, an unforeseen flour shortage, and a general atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty. And then I think about 1919—when the Great War had just ended, American first-wave feminism was a still a year away from the Nineteen Amendment, and the Spanish Flu was in full swing—and I think, well, at least we have memes now. We are living in a history, book, Virgo. It's okay to feel overwhelmed. But also: we're living in a history book, Virgo. What will they write about us?
Kid's Book: It's Not All Rainbows by Jessika Von Innerebner
Libra: I recently had a long conversation with my mom about feeling left out of groups. I've always wanted to be firmly embedded in a really solid friend group, like the Babysitters Club but for grown-ups, and I was for a long time, but in the last few years, my friendships with two central members of that group ended, and it's made group dynamics weird! It's made 'em weird. I no longer feel as comfortable with the rest of the group. I love them deeply and fiercely, but it's just not as cozy-sweater comfy. Some topics feel prickly or edgy or just sad. I have grieved those friendships for a long time, and grieved the shift in group dynamics as well. But after that conversation with my mom, I'm going to try to focus more on those individual relationships, and pay less attention to the groups that I may or not be a part of. I am my own cozy sweater, as we all must be.
Kid's Book: One Family by George Shannon
Scorpio: Ah, my Samhaim babies in a Litha world! Are you feeling ready for crisp evenings and hot drinks? Are you ready to hang up your gauzy summer tops in exchange for slouchy long sleeves? Are you ready to trade neon for black, again? One of the most irritating features of the human experience is that we can't just skip to the parts that we like; we have to experience it all, highs and lows, strikes and gutters, and sometimes it's grievous, hard, or just not to our taste. Asking ourselves to see joy and beauty in the long unbearable stretches is like strength training for our emotions. Get lifting.
Kid's Book: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Sagittarius: Are we luxuriating in pleasure at this moment? Sag buddies, we are not! It's been stressful! We have had precious few opportunities to sink into beautiful bodily sensations: we've been encouraged to keep our distance; touching has equaled sickness or callousness; and stressors like money/work/health have a way of blunting our pleasure receptors. I've been looking at nudes more frequently: lusciously illustrated pictures of people, together, alone, sensual, sexy. When my favourite Taurus asked for birthday nudes, I sent her one (tasteful! nudes don't equal porn, yes?), and it was fizzy and empowering. Send platonic nudes! Send consensual sexy ones! Send one to your partner, who is one room over, when you're both too overwhelmed to actually do anything about the nude, and it's nice to just have sent it!
Kid's Book: From the Stars In The Sky To the Fish In The Sea by Kai Cheng Thom
Capricorn: There's a meme going around, featuring a unicorn with a skeleton face, that proclaims "Gay Pride is Cancelled, Now It's Gay Wrath," and frankly, I'm here for it. When I lived in a student co-op house, people joined the board of directors for one of two reasons: they were seasoned participants in leadership (think of your student-body leaders and GSA organizers), or they were pissed off about some issue. I was of the pissed-off school (something about the change to the dining hall had really riled me up), but I stayed on for eight years, learning and growing. My message to you is this: get angry. Stay angry. Learn. Use it for change.
Kid's Book: Counting on Community by Innosanto Nagara
Aquarius: We're in a complicated moment for faith and ritual. Us Millennials are one of the first generations raised without church-as-default (although plenty of us went, and plenty of Gen X and Boomers didn't), but the human craving for spiritual life hasn't disappeared. Instead, a cottage industry of witchery has emerged, but it's murky—Black and Latinx people with a cultural history of bruja work have been displaced by white women who buy a crystal off Etsy and proclaim themselves witches. My Polish heritage means literally centuries of Catholicism, so I feel you: it's easier to template from another practice, even one that isn't yours, than engage meaningfully in what it means to confront ones' ancestors, acknowledge the divine feminine, love on the earth mother, or whatever else I feel called to do. But friends: leave those crystals unbought and figure it out. There is enough magic in the world that we don't have to steal it.
Kid's Book: The Girl and the Wolf by Katherena Vermett
Pisces: JK Rowling is a trash fire transphobe who used to be a single mother on welfare, and I have complicated feelings about her role in the Harry Potter world: she is the creator, yes, but not the final word. If you've read the His Dark Materials trilogy, you can know that old gods sometimes turn to dust and their world continues on without them; maybe improved, because there is no overlording Authority that must be centralized. I don't think the wizarding world is a perfect place—there is racism, sexism, and homophobia doesn't exist only because gay people are as mythical as unicorns, even there—but it is a place with a lot of space, and into that space, the fandom has stuffed a Black Hermione, a Desi Harry, a non-binary Tonks, a bisexual Lupin, an autistic Luna, and a bunch of other non-canonical changes to the characters that enrich our readings of them and their world. Leaving space for a more-true version of a story to come to light is a gift, and Rowling, perhaps unintentionally, has given it. Let us be greedy with it.
Kid's Book: How Mamas Love Their Babies by Juniper Fitzgerald
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