June Horoscopes from Galactic Rabbit
by Gala Mukomolova
Dear June Bunnies,
Are you keeping your cool in this summer heat? I hope you are. In a parallel universe we are all tender animals, in dapply shade, chewing down tall dandelions. As for this universe — well. I have made these starscopes from rose quartz love notes and aventurine vibrations. I am sending them from Deep Space Bunny, an uncharted area just beyond the Milky Way.
-Galactic Rabbit
Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18): Dear Aquarius, looking at the transits in the sky, it would appear on the surface that your sea is still. No great planet or moon rides through you. Each wind is a low wind, a soft howl or balm. Yet this has been a year of great stirrings for you, hasn’t it? You’re only half through 2014 and each revelation feels like a new spring. How many seasons can a heart have? Endless. Perhaps the reason lies in Uranus’s (your ruling planet) position in Aries: god of action, matter, desire. Aries loves the mind but privileges the body. Aries pulls Uranus on a quest towards true attainable longing. I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same, slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones, icily free above the stones, above the stones and then the world. If you should dip your hand in, your wrist would ache immediately, your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn as if the water were a transmutation of fire. Can you feel that pull, Aquarius? Have you already surrendered?
Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20): Do you know about Chiron? Chiron is the Planet of Healing. It helps us on our spiritual path in the midst of pain and disease. Chiron teaches us about the nature of wounds: how there are no seals for them, only ongoing care and awareness. For years now, Chiron has ruled over you — and whether the wounds you carry are physical or emotional (most likely both, most certainly both), Chiron has challenged you to face them. Perhaps you have already begun moving toward a stronger and more cohesive you, taking responsibility for the part you play in determining the course of your life. Perhaps you haven’t. Ready or not, you will soon learn that there is no way to the other side but through. A warning: Chiron does not deal in false journeys; any attempt to escape into a veneer of spirituality (or intellectualized enlightenment) will only hold you back. Move toward self-love and self-acceptance with only your deepest, most honest heart, Pisces.
Aries (Mar 21-Apr 19): This May, we lost a great spirit in this world — Dr. Maya Angelou. One particular remembrance that has been popping up all over the internet is an interview between Dr Angelou and David Chappelle on Iconoclasts. Chappelle queries Angelou about anger, about his, about her own, about what to do with it. Angelou replies, “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.” Aries, channeled well, your anger is your medicine — your creative fuel. And, with Uranus still in your court, great revolutions and revelations come to you. Have you felt love open wide within you? Did it surprise you with its lushness? Take what you want, Aries, it’s already yours.
Taurus (Apr 20-May 20): In an interview for the Grammys in 2011, Barbra Streisand said: “I guess if you have an original take on life, or something about you is original, you don’t have to study people who came before you. You don’t have to mimic anybody. You just have a gut feeling inside, an instinct that tells you what’s right for you, and you can’t do it in any other way.” Taurus, I think this is summer you re-invent yourself. Not into something wholly different, mind you, but into your best image — the one that is always already a part of you. Venus has been with you, your home planet nesting in its familiar orbit, and asteroid Juno sheds her influence until mid month, fortifying true friendships and introducing you to great loves. What better time to take a risk? If there’s a person you want to be, some gut instinct, some current pulling at you, don’t just dip your toe, Taurus be brave — jump in.
Gemini (May 21-Jun 20): Forgive my cheesiness, but here are some Melissa Etheridge lyrics: If I wanted to I could do anything right. I could dance with the devil on a Saturday night. If I wanted to I could turn matches to gold. I could smoke drink swear and I would never grow old. I wouldn’t have to be in love with you. If I only wanted to. If I only wanted to. My deep-lez heart is reaching out to you, Gemini. We always wind up here, don’t we? I tell you I adore your generous heart, the endless fount of talents that pours forth from you. I want you to take care, to honor your truest self above all. Instead, do you find your wheels spinning while you stand still? Or are you falling back into old habits that bruise your heart in bad replay? Maybe it’s Mercury hanging out in your house, or maybe it just feels safer to spin and spin out than it does to move forward. After all, the path ahead holds only the promise of itself, and there’s vulnerability in that. If you want to, you can put yourself in drive and drive anywhere you want. Do it now, Gemini. Something beautiful is waiting for you, I know it.
Cancer (Jun 21-Jul 22): In her fox poems, Lucille Clifton writes of a fox who visits her: when she is not satisfied/who can blame her for refusing to leave,/ Master Of The Hunt, why am i/ not feeding, not being fed? Cancer, I’ve offered you the wisdom of Lucille Clifton before — I just can’t help myself; at the core of my spirit, she is exalted always. Speaking of exalted, the planet Jupiter is exalted in your house and enters you mid month for a long while. What does that mean? Jupiter, planet of growth and self-realization, loves emotional and cardinal Cancer. In Cancer, Jupiter invokes intense personal expansion. Listen, I know Cancers have been slogging through health setbacks and Mercury in retrograde is just around the corner, bringing something of a communication breakdown. Even so, I encourage you to go after what you want. If you are hungry, then feed. Don’t wait for permission or validation. Expand to be everything in the picture: the poet, the fox, the Master of the Hunt.
Leo (Jul 23-Aug 22): With your ruling planet (the Sun) visiting the house of Gemini for most of June, then moving on to Cancer, and Mercury couch-surfing between the two, I bet you’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on communication: how to best represent yourself, how to be precise about what you do and do not want. These are worthwhile intellectual pursuits and they will benefit you professionally. I wonder if you are spending as much time meditating on how you want to act. Are there personal or professional risks that you are avoiding? Do you find yourself taking lack of opportunity as a personal affront rather than a challenge? One fearless Leo named Amelia Earhart once said: “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.” I think she was onto something.
Virgo (Aug 23-Sep 22): Virgo, while your ruling planet Mercury hangs out in Gemini and retrogrades in Cancer, I invite you to meditate on communication and emotional duality. The space between what is felt and what is communicated can be a place of wild growth or shadow and deception. It may seem impossible, out of your hands, but the truth is: you get to choose which place you inhabit. The asteroid Pallas Athene is with you this month. She rules the feminine (of course, the feminine is a part of all sexes) wisdom principle: body-mind connection, intuition, manifestation. Pallas Athene invokes the goddess of war and wisdom. She asks you to achieve balance by honoring the strengths she inspires in you. With her in your court, you can vocalize your deepest, most guarded needs without fear, and this will lend you strength of character. Yet her influence can also rattle you and make you sacrifice truth and integrity for the sake of acceptance, love: an un-realized ideal. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s your home. What face do you want to wear when you greet the goddess at your door?
Libra (Sep 23-Oct 22): Dear Libra, I bet that for as long as you can recall, horoscopes and astrology blogs have waxed on and on about your ability to keep the peace. You, after all, are the sign of the scales, the measure of equality and balance. Yet, that isn’t always the case, is it? In fact, I wonder if you spend more time avoiding the balancing act than you do actively engaging in it. Libras, after all, are very good at spotting bullshit but they have a hard time knowing what to do with what they know. While conflict is a reasonable thing to avoid, it can also usher (sidenote: Usher is a Libra) in a great deal of growth. With Mars direct and Ceres casting her shadow, it might be time for you to use your conflict resolution skills for good. Something in you longs to feel a part of a greater community and it is in your best interest to reach out. In the act of speaking up when those around you are treated unjustly, you garner a greater understanding of yourself and your beliefs. Also, here is an Usher video. Just, uh, because.
Scorpio (Oct 23-Nov 21): Scorpio, have you been feeling heartless lately? Like your pocket is full of matches just waiting to take whole bridges down? Saturn in Scorpio refuses whatever is unnecessary and it’s been two years so shit is getting realer by the moment. You’re quick to burn what you can’t change and what doesn’t serve you. For the time being, this has kept you strong, safe. It will continue to. But, Scorpio, there will be instances (oh, you already know which ones I mean) when the greatest most unsustainable risks will feel vital, inevitable. So you must learn, again, how to recognize what will hold you down and what will open you. You must accept that there are things outside of your control. The full moon in Scorpio this month asks you to shed the weight of expectations (yours and others), to surrender. If you’re interested in a fire, burn down the house you hide in when the world seems unable meet you on your level, when you feel manipulated or mis-read. Your home is a wild place — don’t waste your time acting tame.
Sagittarius (Nov 22-Dec 21): Sagittarius, with Jupiter spending so much time in Cancer, it’s no surprise your mind has been on the home: how to create it, how to better it. Well, I’ve been reading Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking, and here is a piece of wisdom within it: “We are not idealized wild things. We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.” As the summer unfolds, I see big changes coming up for you, Sagittarius, but I’m not worried. At your core, you know what it means to strive with integrity toward your deepest desires. Even if you make a wrong choice here or there, even if — at this moment — you can’t claim to be 100% sure: if you can move away from mourning whatever version of yourself are leaving behind and commit towards this moment, you will be exactly where you should. Your home will be more than enough, wherever you make it.
Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19): In her collected journals, Susan Sontag writes, “It’s so effortless to let my loneliness defeat me, make me mold myself to whatever would (in some way — but not wholly) relieve it. I must never forget it… I want sensuality and sensitivity, both… Let me never deny that… I want to err on the side of violence and excess, rather than to underfill my moments.” Capricorn, take heed, your loneliness is a part of you but it cannot have you. Your capacity to create the world you want around you is tremendous. With your ruling planet hanging out in Scorpio, it’s time to dig up all your selves and put them to work. Don’t let yourself believe that what you want was never meant for you. Don’t underfill your moments by succumbing to the influence of disappointment and defeat. What I mean is: If you find yourself roasting your heart on a small blue flame one of these nights, make sure you have the first bite. And, if you offer it up to anyone else, make sure they know how juicy it is, how rare.
Gala Mukomolova is a poet ruled by Pluto, a planet in our hearts.