Should I say, “I’m fine thank you, how are you?” like a cog in the greased wheel of social graces that grinds on and on, tamping down the dust that gathers upon the ruins of human connection?

Or should I say, “Actually I’ve been dreaming of my bones turning to liquid every night and I miss my mother so much that sometimes I cry when the rice cooker goes off because it reminds me of her, so on a 1-10 scale adjusted for pandemics and fundamental threats to the fabric of our society, like… a 6? What about you?” like a person who doesn’t have an aversion to prolonged awkward silences.

Honestly, at this point, neither of these options is doing it for me. The first one makes me feel like a ghost in a shell, the second is exhausting, and neither is adequately absurd or surprising enough to rise to the occasion of another Wednesday Zoom meeting. As a community service, I have devised a few fail-proof alternatives to “How are you?” to make your weird and stressful interactions in a weird and stressful world, weirder than they already were— but, like, in a fun way.

For the guy who says workweek platitudes like “Hump Day!” aloud in a way that he thinks is ironic, but actually he’s reaching that age and level of personality ossification where it’s not really ironic anymore:

To the co-worker who talks about the genuinely truly terrifying news as if it were E! News because she is either materially or psychologically insulated from catastrophe but you’re not and you wish she would just stop:

For the cool person you see on your daily dog walk that you want to be friends with, but you’re not quite sure how to break the ice:

For the manager who knows better than to tell you to smile but you can tell he really really wants to:

For the child of your friend who you must occasionally interact with and who is probably going to turn out okay but right now is just kind of “meh”

Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

The post Never say “How Are You?” Again! 5 Alternatives To Shake Up Your Small Talk Repertoire appeared first on Repeller.

If you’re convinced, step one is to get the book! This month we’re reading Bestiary by K-Ming Chang. 

K-Ming Chang

Bestiary

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In Chang’s debut novel, three generations of women, Grandmother, Mother, and Daughter, live at the center of a multigenerational, transnational story of family, memory, and desire. The novel itself is mostly narrated by Daughter, and is, in the most reductive sense, about her family, which immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan and now carves a life out of the margins in California. The novel weaves myths from Taiwan into the narrative of her family’s past, and into her lived experience in the present. We learn early on that in this novel, no single life is an island, and all bodies are permeable. Daughter lives in her own body as one presence among the many competing forces, including Hu Gu Po, a tiger spirit that wants to live inside a woman’s body. Daughter’s evolving sense of self is tied to the hopeful, gorgeous queer love story that begins when a girl named Ben spits a plum pit at Daughter’s feet, and a new thirst, for intimacy, for revelation, emerges in her body. 

These are the bones of the novel. However, the story’s breath and blood is made of Chang’s totally unique language. Chang offers us language at its most ecstatic, its most lyric, the whole world of the novel populated by impossible images and sensations that feel like the kind of truth I need right now, a truth that exceeds the literal without sacrificing its integrity. Right now, I crave the kind of truth that is not concerned with rendering the things of this world as they are right now, but instead is concerned with shaping beasts and heroes and heroic beasts out of the shadows that form in the silences of our lives—the silences of traumatic history, of queer desire, of diaspora and immigration and the particular form of violence and intimacy that passes from one generation of women who survived the unspeakable to the next generation of women who must live with the gravity of their history. 

Bestiary has been described as magical realism, a style in which the fantastical lives within a world recognizable to those of us stranded in the drab, predictable landscape of reality. I’ve always thought that this description misses the mark when it attempts to describe novels like Bestiary, in which the supernatural elements do not feel like they’re pulled from the thin air of artistic license or a fable-weighted imagination. Magical realism as it appears in this novel, and in the great examples of the style, is not a simple injection of fantasy into real life, but instead is the transformation of erased, abject, forgotten things into characters and phenomena that refuse to be buried, that insist on their place in the world.

I chose this novel for us because, right now, I crave stories that do not try to confine the wilderness of our lived experience to tight linear arcs. I crave stories that are expansive, ferocious, elegantly feral. I want to read stories that do not attempt to tame the world, but instead lead us further out into whatever lies beyond this. 

You can order the book from Bookshop.org and get started on this month’s Book Club expedition right now. If you can’t afford a book right now, keep an eye on our Instagram—we’ve got something special coming for you. 

If you’ve been here before (the virtual Repeller Book Club secret tree-fort clubhouse), then you know that this is not just any book club. I don’t care if you finish the book on time you’re not expected to show up to the meetup with a concise analysis of the major themes in the book and questions about the protagonists motivations. We’re here to connect, to reflect, to shift our perspective, and to expand our lives creatively. This mission (obviously) requires grand whimsy, mysteries, activities, and experiments. So here is this month’s experiment to get you out of the daily drudge and into a sweet moment of wonder.

Experiment #1: Cloud Watching

Do you remember laying in the grass or on a blacktop or on a park bench as a kid and watching the clouds form themselves into animals and monsters and faces as they moved across the sky? When is the last time you went cloud watching? Can you even remember?

Well, the next time someone asks you that, you will have an answer. Go outside—the beginnings of autumn are ideal for cloud watching. Find somewhere to recline where you can see the sky.

Next, set a timer for ten minutes. For these ten minutes (longer if you are an advanced daydreamer) do nothing but watch the clouds move and the creatures emerge. This is the start of your own bestiary. Let your mind wander and freely associate the billows and streaks into creatures or scenes. You don’t have to be able to explain why that nimbus cloud definitely looks like a shrimp or that cirrus is the Nile. 

When the timer goes off, or when you see a cloud creature that is too good to miss, take a picture. Post that picture on social media with a description of what you see and tag Repeller and use our #RepellerBookClub hashtag. At which point, you will receive instructions for the next experiment.

Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

The post Buckle Your Mary Janes! Book Club’s Back and We’re A-Going Cloud Watching appeared first on Repeller.

So many of my days recently have bled together in a watercolor hellscape of dark news and numb alienation, and I’ve been looking for a way to feel electric. I’ve found myself trying to emulate Sandy and Nicky’s (we’re on a first name basis after this many re-watches) ability in the movie to turn the everyday things of the world into magical, improbable delights and fiascos. I wondered how much magic I would notice and feel in my day to day slog if I wasn’t so numb, cynical, or distracted. I’m not saying I thought I would find an old love potion in my pantry that I had somehow forgotten about. I’m saying that perhaps there are all kinds of mysterious whimsies and wonders that I’m missing out on because I’m not paying enough attention. 

For example, if someone asked me to describe how a microwave works without using Google, I could give a word salad answer about water molecules sped up by microwaves that generate heat because… umm energy equals velocity something, something, Einstein? But in reality, the fact that I put some frozen fish sticks in a humming box for two minutes, and they come out edible (in the loosest possible sense of the word) is a mysterious miracle. Sure, if I had paid more attention in a class I didn’t/would never take, wherein they cover microwave science, this phenomenon would perhaps lose its magical wonderment dimension. But I didn’t, and so here I am, left with an experience of everyday practical magic as I’m redefining it for our purposes this month: 

Practical magic is the process of transforming something totally mundane into something mysterious and magical by shifting our perspective and looking at our lives with curiosity about all the things we do not know or can not explain. 

I don’t mean this prompt to sound like I’m being all touchy-feely, baby’s-first-acid-trip, universal-oneness about our lives right now, I’m definitely not on that vibe (you can ask my therapist if you need to confirm that I am constantly mired in polling data and dread). But I do offer this prompt as an invitation to experience our everyday lives with an attitude of curiosity, reckless wonder, and the seriousness of a child at play. For this month’s writer’s club, we want to hear about the practical magic you encounter in your everyday life. 

You can respond to this prompt in so many different ways, such as: Is there a curse on your family that you want to get to the bottom of? Did you once see someone on a train who looked like a long-lost twin/doppelganger and do you ever think about them? Did you re-meet your childhood best friend on the subway and realize you had basically lived parallel lives? Were you born with memories from inside the womb, and if so, how do you make sense of them? Have you ever shared a dream with another person or dreamed something that became reality? 

I want to hear about the fat raven that sits on the telephone wire across the street from your house and how you have started to wonder if he recognizes you and is trying to communicate. I want to read about how you’ve manifested love or transformed grief or re-created your late nana’s recipe for black-eyed peas just from the scent-memory. 

I want to hear about these inexplicable magics and I want to hear how you make sense of them now. I want you to 

Play with form! Take big risks! Tell that secret truth you never believed you could muster the stones to tell! I’ll be here, waiting to welcome you into the salt circle.

Please send your submissions (of 600 words or fewer) to writersclub@manrepeller.com by Monday, October 12 at 9:30am EST. 

Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

The post Writers Club Prompt: Where’s the Magic Right Now? appeared first on Repeller.

On the first page of the book, we learn that the market burned the day Vivek, a queer boy coming of age in the political upheaval of Nigeria in the 1990s, died. This is a cold fact, a still life of a life gone to ash, a closed door. Then, on the very next page, time is winded back for us and the door swings opens: “If this story was a stack of photographs– the old kind, rounded at the corners and kept under the glass and lace doilies of center tables in parlors across the country— it would start with Vivek’s father, Chika.” This image is the invitation over the threshold and into the world of the novel.

The choice to shape the doorway of the story this way does not feel like a rhetorical device so much as a setting of terms. Emezi says “The beginning image, the album and the coffee table, that’s something that to me means family history. That’s something that I grew up with. So we had that coffee table with the glass top and the family albums underneath it, and every time we went to visit another family, quite often the first thing would be, “Here, look at some albums.” We understand immediately that this is a story about and in the shape of intimate history, about kin and the blue distance between any family attempting to see and be seen by one another. We understand also that we, the readers, are visitors who can look but not own, who can stay for dinner as long as we wash our own dishes. In our conversation, Emezi and I discuss the ways that this novel tests us and asks us to come to the table, with a spicy tangent on tortured desire because you didn’t think I would be on the phone with the author of Vivek’s hot-ass sex scenes and not get a little PG-13.

(This interview has been edited for clarity and to spare you most of my fawning fan girl, chaotic big crush energy.)

Sarah:
It seems to me that this story’s relationship to the reader is more complex than a simple transmission of information. The reader can’t just walk in and receive the story—the reader has to give up some of themselves.

Akwaeke Emezi:
Yes. I definitely think that, and I think also, it’s an engagement, right? It’s an active thing. It’s not just like, “Oh, here’s the story handed to you,” and you passively take it in. I feel like it’s more active, and I feel like there are things in this book that in order for the reader to engage with them, you have to ask some questions about yourself.

Sarah:
Oh, yes, absolutely. Can you say more about that?

Akwaeke Emezi:
One of the things is, for example, how little Vivek speaks relatively to other narratives in the book. It’s a little test, of sorts. It wasn’t designed as a test, but it does challenge the reader, I think, to ask who they are actually listening to. Are they listening to Vivek, or are they listening to everyone around Vivek and those people’s fears and those people’s perceptions of Vivek? Or are they paying attention to Vivek’s perception of himself?

These are two very different things, and I think it’s relevant because it affects so much of how we engage young queer people and young trans people. Are we actually listening to them, or are we listening to all the noise around them? People’s fears, people’s assumptions, and often these fears will be louder than the person’s voice, just because of the power dynamics in our society, but I want the reader to pay attention to who they’re paying attention to, because if you’re paying attention to Vivek, you come away with a completely different reading of the book than if you’re paying attention to everyone around Vivek. You come away with different ideas of what Vivek’s life is like. Different ideas around the expression and freedom.

Sarah:
Right. I think that that’s one of the reasons for me that this book felt just perfect for the book club because with the book club, I want us to become aware of how the experience of reading the book transforms us. I want us to think like, “I’m making choices within my own reading of what this story means and what it means for me.” The test, then, of this book is to look through all these different eyes at Vivek and then analyze and come to an understanding of why I trusted who I trusted or believed what I believed.

Akwaeke Emezi:
Exactly.

Sarah:
And, as you said, in many ways this mirrors the experience of queer and trans people, especially the youth. Did you consider the possibility of voyeurism in a story that is revealed primarily through the reader gazing on or at Vivek, with very little of Vivek’s own voice narrating his life? It seems like it would have been an easy trap to fall into, but I think you absolutely avoided it.

Akwaeke Emezi:
I actually did not, but I’m really glad that I ended up avoiding it. Because, it’s like, when you’re writing a queer character who is dead from the beginning of the book, there’s a way to do it that felt right, and I feel like voyeurism would’ve been a way to do it that would’ve felt wrong.

Sarah:
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that’s because the looking we do in this world is a unique and active experience. Through reading this book, we’re training ourselves in a way of looking at another’s experience, and yet being consistently placed outside of the dynamic of voyeurism.

Akwaeke Emezi:
I’m so glad to hear that. That makes my day.

Sarah:
You know, I find it really challenging to conduct this interview as an interview, because I just have so many things I want to clap for you about in this book.

Akwaeke Emezi:
I read your book club guide on the website, and I was like, “This is the most thoughtful, tender approach to reading a book that I have ever seen in my life.”

Sarah:
Oh my gosh—

Akwaeke Emezi:
I promptly sent it to a bunch of my friends. One of them texted back, and she was like, “A meditation! Time travel!” and I was like, “Yes. I know, right?”

Sarah:
Well, I think the telling of this story feels so embodied, so generous with its weight! I just felt like it’s not a reciprocal reading for us to not move that same generosity into our own practice of reading the book.

Akwaeke Emezi:
That’s beautiful. I love that… because, look, I think a story isn’t complete until someone receives it. In order for you to be a storyteller, there has to be a story listener. Otherwise, the circle is not really complete, and I’m so appreciative of the chance to engage and talk about the work because I learn so much about the story from people who are reading it.

There’s a gazillion things that I wouldn’t have thought of as I was writing that readers can discern and pull out… It becomes a thing of intersection and reflection for me as well, like your whole comment about voyeurism. I’m just like, “Oh wow.” Absolutely. Especially when it’s like a queer character living in Nigeria. I knew that when I wrote this book that there was a strong chance that people were going to read it because of that voyeurism thing of like, “Oh, let me see how terrible it is for queer people in Africa and how violent it is, and how brutal it is.”

Akwaeke Emezi:
It was a struggle to balance the book in a way where I’m not pretending that it doesn’t suck, but at the same time, I wanted to hold space for the love and the care. It sometimes surprises me when people, what they pick up from the book is like, “Oh, Vivek’s parents fear that he was going to end up as a burned and butchered body,” and I’m like, “Really? Out of everything? That was in the book? That one part was the part?”

And it makes me think about the voyeurs. It makes me think of that specific gaze that wants to look at queer African people and be like, “Oh, poor you, living in a place that’s so intolerant and violent.” I didn’t want to feed that gaze.

Sarah:
These characters are rendered so tenderly that I wondered, do you fall in love with your characters?

Akwaeke Emezi:
I definitely do fall in love with my characters. I’m just like, “Oh, look at my little babies out there in the world. Poor buddies, having such a hard time! I really have a soft spot for Osita.

Sarah:
God, same! Poor li’l guy!

Akwaeke Emezi:
He’s just having a hard time, little buddy! There’s so much tortured desire in him, which is my favorite thing in the world.

Sarah:
Oh hell yeah, tortured desire. So relatable.

Akwaeke Emezi:
So relatable! Like why have simple desire when it can be tortured and stuff?

Sarah:
Exactly.

Akwaeke Emezi:
And he has so much of that in him. He has all these volatile emotions, and really this probably speaks to the folly of my dating choices in the past, that I’m just like, “Yes. Are you angry and guilty, and just not at peace with yourself? I’m into that.”

Sarah:
Oh I totally get that, like, yes you tumultuous dark spirit! You are so troubled and I’m… kind of turned on by that?

Akwaeke Emezi:
It’s like, ugh, you’re so not okay. It’s kind of hot, to be quite honest, and I think that there’s this idea of tortured desire and fighting against succumbing to it. This idea of like, “Oh you’re resisting, you’re resisting, and then you surrender, and that moment of surrender is like a victory.” It’s just like, “Yes, you have crumbled at my feet, fantastic!” This is why I really enjoy the scenes with Osita where he does that, where he’s fighting and he’s fighting and then he breaks. I’m like, “Yes, shatter. Shatter into many glorious pieces.”

Sarah:
I know that I absolutely shattered. I’m shattered just thinking about the steamy surrenders in this book. And, now, in a change of subject that has nothing to do with the heat gathering in my cheeks, Let’s end by talking about another “test” in the book.

When we’re thinking about the fugues and the sickness that Vivek experiences. This is another opportunity to have totally different readings. Is the wasting away that he experiences part of some malady related to the sin of his queerness like some of the characters seem to believe, or from repressing his queerness by not living in his “authentic identity” as some readers might suggest, or is there another more complex, spiritual cause?

Akwaeke Emezi:
Yeah, and I think that’s absolutely part of the test we were talking about as well—like, what is the reader bringing to this book? Because as far as I’m concerned, there’s actually no reason to assume that his sickness is because of his gender identity. So then I want the reader to ask themselves, “Why are you assuming that? Is it because queerness is pathologized in your society, and so you think, ‘Well, if someone is young, queer, and suffering, then they must be suffering they’re queer?'”

I’m like, that’s not something that came from the book. That’s something that came from you, because if you actually look at the book and if you actually look at Vivek, like yes, he’s figuring out himself like any other teenager would be, like any other young person would be, any person in their early twenties. It’s a typical coming-of-age thing, but when I hear people say things like, “Oh, Vivek was living an inauthentic life,” who decided that? If anything, he’s expressing himself freely and he’s exploring, and I generally do not understand what’s inauthentic about that because he’s not hiding any part of himself. He looks at himself courageously.

Akwaeke Emezi:
If you want an example of someone who does not look at himself courageously, you could find that in Osita. He’s actually the character who is having trouble expressing himself, who’s pressing himself down, who’s suffering because of that, but no one’s flagging his suffering. I’m just like, “Why?”

These are questions that have to do with the reader, not specifically with the work. That’s one of the ways in which I want the reader to reflect and think about the assumptions they’re making, and why they’re making those assumptions, and who told them those stories that led to those assumptions because the story didn’t come from this book. The story came from somewhere else.

The post Every Storyteller Needs a Story Listener: Meet MR Book Club Author Akwaeke Emezi appeared first on Repeller.

WHY!?

When Mallory at Man Repeller asked me what I would do if I could do whatever I wanted, I realized that more than anything, I wanted to feel less lonely.

It’s hard for me to talk about how lonely I’ve felt because I would never want to imply that those who love me are somehow insufficient company—that’s absolutely not the case. Loneliness is not about the amount of love that other people pour into us, but rather, it is about how our own hearts can suddenly feel strange, unknowable, untouched by all that the world offers us.

Before the pandemic created the space we now must put between ourselves and everybody else, before even brushing elbows with a stranger as you passed through the same doorway became dangerous, loneliness was called an epidemic. But now that we’ve spent months six feet apart and smiling through screens, there is even more talk about how incredibly lonely so many of us feel. I had read about ten of these articles when the inspiration for this book club hit me with the intensity of a Sunday morning waffle craving. I realized that my calling as a lifelong sadgirl who, in spite of it all, wants desperately to live in this world, is to invite our loneliness into the open and offer play, curiosity, and friendship as an attempt at alchemy. I want to transform the raw material of our shared loneliness into a beautiful new thing.

The goal of this book club is to create a shared world for us that does not just live in words on paper or a screen. Every month, the selected book will guide our experience, but instead of just taking in the story, we will do experiments with visualization, mini art or journaling prompts, games that connect us to each other. I want to move our community out of the regular-degular internet friends who hang in the comments section to co-collaborators in the creation of our own intimate world. Look, I grew up with you, the community of MR readers. I started reading this site when I was in high school and it inspired me and made me feel less alone. The site has changed since those days, and so have I. Writing the horoscopes for you every month felt like passing notes in class and I loved it. Now, I want to cut first period with all of you and hang out in the parking lot smoking doobies and reading Ntozake Shange.

But Wait, What’s So Special About This Book Club?

TLDR; This is basically like a book club / performance art project / month-long game / secret society of many-gendered mystical heauxs.

More than anything, though, this book club is an experiment in how to form new kinds of intimate communities at a distance. We are up against a lot: the limitations of internet life, a pandemic, etc. I want to create opportunities for the world of our monthly novels to penetrate our lives so that we don’t just take them in, we are transformed by them.

We are going to read very good, rich, brilliant stories together, of course. But I am also going to offer you experiments to make these stories live off the page and more deeply in your life. Then at the end of the month, we’re going to have a little disembodied virtual party and, yes, of course, there will sometimes be a dress-up theme and/or show-and-tell and probably some games and a mystery. I want us to find ways to connect with each other beyond the comments section, too: I’m talking massive secret Santas and pen pal networks and seed exchanges and scavenger hunts and all kinds of stuff that I have not yet schemed up a way to accomplish!

Okay, Sarah, We Get it. We’re in. Tell Us What the First Friggin Book Is!

The first book club selection is The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Pre-order it riiiiiiiiiiiight here.

This multivocal novel is a masterful winding and unwinding of the tethers of love, shame, identity, intimacy, and violence. Vivek, a queer boy born to a family in which gender and sexuality are rigidly defined, is the gravitational center around which the rest of the story orbits. We see Vivek’s life and the lives of those who loved him form intricate webs of cause and effect, of possession and loss, like a game of Cat’s Cradle—we know the strings will come apart but we are captivated by the shape they make in the air.

I chose this book because it made me want to live. It made me understand my own life as not a fixed possession that I am given at birth and take with me when I die, but instead as a dynamic, fluxing thing that is fed and shaped by so many other lives.

The story takes us into the intimate worlds of each character, with chapters moving fluidly between consciousness and the voice that sees all of them moving and making choices. In reading this story, I felt myself wriggle out of the lonely constraints of my own body and mind as I moved into the electrified heart of Emezi’s characters.

The book comes out on Tuesday, August 4th. You can pre-order it from Bookshop.org right now and it will ship out as soon as the book-birthing gates open next week. By the way, if you’re not sure you can afford a new book right now, keep an eye on our Instagram—we’ve got something coming for you. And speaking of Instagram, the author has quite a handle of their own (long story short a cat named Güs is involved). Wanna give them a follow too?

Ok, ok, ok—you’ve pre-ordered your book! Now, here are some activities I’ve created to help you cross through the threshold and enter the grand experiment of our book club and the world of this novel.

Experiment #1: A Wee Meditation

Of course there is meditation, silly! How else would we embark on a grand introspective adventure!? Tarry with me here. When you receive your book, before you even open it, you will do a short meditation as a kind of entrance ceremony.

Set a timer for 10 minutes. Begin by sitting comfortably. Close your eyes and take three deep breaths, making your exhale a deep sigh. Then, begin the 4-7-8 breathing technique to calm your nervous system and quiet your mind. It goes like this:

Inhale softly through your nose while counting to four. Hold your breath in without tensing your muscles while counting to seven. Exhale through your mouth, making a wooshing sound, while counting to eight.

Repeat the full cycle at least five times.

Then, start by imagining the presence of one of your most beloved people near you. Keep taking deep breaths and lingering on the sensation of their presence, listen for their laugh, imagine their hand on your shoulder or your hand. Gradually, allow yourself to call another beloved to mind and repeat the process. Keep going, paying attention to your breath, calling into the room all of the people in your life that make you feel warm and held until you feel a crowd of those who love you or have loved you surrounding you. It’s okay if you can’t see everyone clearly or other feelings and thoughts emerge, just keep breathing and return to that first strong bond. Linger here in this crowd for a few breaths and when you’re ready, blink open your eyes.

Experiment #2: Returning to Your Warmest Room

In the novel, there’s always the marauding threat of a mob, of violence, of the encroaching world that wishes to do damage to all beautiful and free things. And yet, there are these moments and spaces in the book where love forms a salt circle around the characters. These are the stolen moments between intimates that we’ve all miraculously been welcomed into at one time or another.

This is your middle school best friend’s house whose parents are never home, where you pierced your best friend’s belly button, where you fell asleep in your best friend’s bed and tried for the first time to imagine what it would be like to be a grownup who could sleep next to someone who loved you. This is your first apartment with your roommates who you don’t really keep in touch with anymore, but meant everything that one too-hot summer when you were too broke to do anything but lay around in your underwear and tell each other your life stories. These are the rooms that made you want to live, made you feel like the people with you were the whole world and if they were the whole world then this world was a good one.

Before we dive into the book and encounter the people who stood in these rooms with Vivek, I want you to return to a room where you felt totally held, even if it didn’t last, especially if it didn’t last. I want you to write for at least 10 minutes without stopping about this room. Who was there? What does the light look like? Which snacks did you eat or want to eat? What did you feel like in that room? What was your hair doing? What were you listening to? Build your room vividly for yourself. Keep this writing, you’ll want to refer to it later.

Experiment #3: Time Travel

This is the most important/fun part. We need to get ourselves a totem of the room, a physical object that sends you back to that place, that moment, where you were your freest. Maybe the bedsheets were buttercup yellow so you mask up and go buy yourself a sunflower. Maybe you drank more Diet Dr. Pepper than should even be legal and even though you’ve been abstaining for years, maybe you find yourself a can and sip it slow. Maybe your best friend always had beads in her braids, so you scroll through Etsy hunting out that perfect red glass. Find a detail from the room and then find yourself an object that, every time you touch it, it sends you back to that room. This might feel bittersweet, especially at first, but don’t worry! This is part of the project. Let those feelings rise up in you, acknowledge them and take deep breaths. If you stay with those feelings all the way through, they will begin to give way to the light, warm love at the core of the memory.

Record your thoughts and keep your totem with you all month. At our virtual party book club meetup make sure to have your totem handy, there will be an opportunity for some of you to share and I am absolutely dying to hear about it.

Want to make sure you get invites for the forthcoming #MRBookClub Facebook Group and our virtual meet-up later this month? Sign up here.

Graphics by Lorenza Centi.

The post Look, Over Here! It’s Our First Book Club Pick! appeared first on Repeller.

But here’s the thing: I can’t read any more stories about who I am. I can’t read any more stories about fate or destiny. I am stuffed to the gills with predictions and plans that depend on a knowable world when so much right now is unknowable. So I’m getting out of the prediction game for now, and taking a different tack.

The theme on Man Repeller this week is “Whatever You Want.” So the captains of the MR ship asked me what it is I want to do and this is what I told them:

I want to be honest. I want to say publicly that I believe that if Man Repeller doesn’t listen and respond to the readers and contributors who felt excluded, discriminated against, unseen, stifled, and fed up, then this platform really has no place in the moment we’re living through.

I don’t want to write horoscopes anymore. I want to make a new space where the focus is less on the energetic pull of distant bodies and more on the possibilities at hand when we respond, create, and connect with the bodies that are right here, on earth.

I want to start a Book Club! But not the kind of stuffy shame circle book club wherein 60 percent of people didn’t read the book because the book was 500 pages and basically just a Jane Austen novel set in Cincinnati. No, for our book club, I will select shorter, experimental novellas, graphic novels, short story collections, etc. that will push us to do the same kind of self-reflection and discovery that we’ve been doing in our time together in the horoscopes. We’re going to play games! We’re going to learn new things together! I want to experiment, and celebrate, and mourn, and play with the readers because you are, and have always been, the funniest, coolest, best part of this Man Repelling internet enclave.

And the Man Repeller team said: Giddy up, cowboy, let’s blow shit up.

So, instead of your regular-degular monthly forecast, I’m waving goodbye to horoscopes with an astrological superlatives page, before we all load up our friend’s pick-up trucks with all our Ikea furniture and get the hell out of Dodge. But you better believe I’m not leaving my horoscopes column without celebrating your sign’s unique gifts, and maybe peppering in some well-intentioned guidance-counselor advice (you already know I’m going to tell you to meditate, so don’t act surprised) that you can freely disregard because, hey, I’m not your real mom!

Think of me instead like an amalgam of Dumbledore/your high school guidance counselor/your drunk but wise auntie/Mr. Feeny/that one teacher you had a crush on but respected too much to masturbate about and I’ll see you on the other side, ponyboys.

P. S. If you stick around to the end of ceremonies, after everyone with a Z in their name has gotten their diploma, I’ll tell you more about my post-grad plans for my future at Man Repeller.

Aries: Most Likely to Already Be the Next Evolution of the Homo Sapien

Aries you are the beginning. Of all the little mushy-faced babies born on earth, heralding a new generation, your mushy face was illuminated by the most fiery baby energy astrologically possible, as Aries is the first sign in the zodiac and the avant garde of all signs. And, let me ask you a question: What do babies do? Correct. The answer is: Whatever the hell they want. That is what babies do. You were born under the sign that signals the charge, the will, the drive to exist. If you have this energy in your Sun or Ascendant sign, you have a lot of raw emotional horsepower under the hood. Aries is a sign that can think on its feet and rally others to their cause. This means that where others might get bogged down in the details, Aries has the energy to leap ahead. Though, when Aries is out of balance this can look like a mad dash and can leave you feeling depleted and unfocused. I know you are on to bigger and better things than this backwater imaginary planet can offer you. So, for what its worth (even though I know you don’t feel the need for advice) I think this might be the ideal moment to change course, to change the way you go about leading. Instead of jumping into action, choose to prioritize taking others with you. While moving slowly may seem antithetical to changing the world, it is the act of reaching out and pooling your gifts with others that will magnify your abilities. This is your access point. This is the place where you can make a different choice and arrive at a new place.

Taurus: Most Likely to Be the Proprietor of a Hidden Oasis of Luxury and Beauty in an Otherwise Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

Taurus, you are as magnetic as that one miraculous magnet that holds like four takeout menus at once to the fridge. It is an incontrovertible law of the universe that this magnet bears the slogan of a pizza place we’ve never been to or an autoshop we vaguely remember getting our oil changed at. I’m not saying that your inner brilliance is like a random pizza place, I’m saying that, although this magnet may look like any other magnet, it has some inexplicable gravity that holds more of the things of this world firmly in place than seems possible. In human terms, when you are in balance, you are a person that other people want to be around. People are drawn to Taurean energy because Taurus has an innate sense of how to cultivate the beauty, pleasure, comfort, and delight that is possible in the material world. The key to manifesting this gift is in the practice of developing healthy self-worth. In times of stress and imbalance, Taurus can become rigid, putting up walls and blocking out any influences or emotions that might disturb their homeostasis. If we dig down to the roots this resistance to change, we often find a scarcity mindset. And regardless of what that hack who we had teaching economics told you, scarcity is a big fat lie. This belief in lack hides out in the dark corners of our hearts and skitters away from the light. In order to break through into a future you want to live in, that is different and better than our present moment, you must coax that belief into the light and ask: What would my life be like if I believed that no matter what happened, I am capable of adapting, growing, and rising to the occasion? The different choice you can make, Taurus, you perfect miracle, you unlikely oasis in a desert, you first sip of a mojito at sunset, is to allow some of what you’ve been avoiding to enter your heart with the bravery that comes from knowing you already have everything you need to heal yourself.

Gemini: Most Likely to Meditate, Like, Two Times and Achieve Whole-Ass Nirvana

Hi, hello, Gemini, one quick question: What is it like being a megawatt supernova trapped in a rapidly decaying finite skin ship? It is an experience that few who do not share your intellectual and spiritual velocity can understand. Mercury, your ruling planet, influences communication and is tied mythologically to the Greek god Hermes. Hermes is the messenger of the gods. Traditionally, Hermes has no monolithic temples. A gentleman scholar in saddle shoes told me once that instead of temples, people built small shrines called herms to honor this god because he couldn’t be held in place, his power resided in his speed, his adaptability. His brilliance was velocity. Like your mythological buddy Hermes, you are always two steps ahead, flitting from shiny new idea to shiny new idea. When Gemini is stressed out, scared, or just generally out of whack, this energy can manifest as restlessness and anxious dissatisfaction. Because Gemini’s energy swirls in the head and illuminates the mind, it can be a challenge for Gemini to slow down enough to feel their heart and access clarity amidst the lightshow of their mind. The world needs our brilliant Geminati, but we need Geminati that are guided by their hearts. As a meditation teacher, I often find that my Gemini students have the hardest time with silent seated meditation. However, all the Geminis that I’ve worked with that give it the ol’ college try, end up being the most rapidly transformed by this practice. If you’ve let your meditation practice slip to the bottom of your to-do list, or you haven’t yet applied yourself to the practice, try a simple five minutes of Vipassana meditation. If you hate it, please slide into my DMs and vent about it and I will say, its okay Gemini, just keep at it! And then you can do it again tomorrow. How ’bout it? If you let all that internal buzz settle down in you, you will have the clarity you need to make the next right choice toward a future you want to inhabit.

Cancer: Most Likely to Walk Into a Party and Immediately Know Who Needs to Be Told That Their Mother Always Loved Them and She Did the Best She Could, Then, Coach That Person From Breakdown to Breakthrough

Cancer, you sentient hothouse flower, I hope you are taking extra attentive care of yourself right now. The most sensitive and emotional sign in the celestial menagerie, when you are particularly open you feel the emotions of everyone in the room, in the grocery store, in the Uber, everywhere. You, metaphoric crab, have sensory similarities to literal earth crabs. The fiddler crab, for example, has 8000 eyes distributed along their bodies. With these eyes, the see in every direction, taking in sensory information in this hyper-dilated way. This awareness is at once your greatest strength and your greatest challenge. Many Cancers, especially those with Cancer as their rising sign, have learned to tuck their emotions away behind an impenetrable carapace. Ironically, the most tender sign in the zodiac is often characterized by acquaintances as tough or invulnerable. The world teaches many Cancers that their natural gifts are a maladaptation to our society where true vulnerability, compassion, and care are treated as dangerous liabilities. The key to your healing during this time, wherein that toxic worldly message that tenderness is a liability, has rallied evidence behind it, is to challenge the lie that love is finite and must be hoarded. To help you access your courageous heart, try a Metta, or loving kindness meditation. This meditation technique centers you in your wise heart, and then gradually helps to expand the bounds of your love to encompass your larger community. Let me be clear, no astrologer worth their weight in salt would accuse Cancers of lacking love and compassion. This meditation is a technique to practice feeling safe in your ability to love and feel broadly, without losing integrity, without losing yourself. A world full of Cancers who extend their nurturing and generosity without fear of being over-exposed or taken advantage of, is a better world, it is the world we need. Go forth, Cancer, and love yourself and others intrepidly.

Leo: Most Likely to Be the Subject of a Biopic That Becomes a Miniseries Because People Literally Can’t Fit All Their Commentary on Your Life Into 90 Minutes

Leo, you human firefly, you luminous artisanal candle, I want to talk to you about your charisma. Now, I’m sure I’m not the first of your admirers to opine about this foundational Leo trait and I hope you’re not bored of talking about how charming and attractive you are. Oh, you’re not? That’s great, because the thing about charisma that is often lost in the praise that charismatic people receive is the actual secret nature of this quality. From the Greek root of the word kharisma meaning, “special spiritual gift or power divinely conferred, talent from God” we know that the quality of charisma is not something private, stable, and self-centered. We feel that a person is charismatic when that person makes those around them feel illuminated, interesting, vibrant. It is your ability to shine your light on others and awaken them to their own gifts that is your highest power. However, when the ego is unstable or threatened, this gift can become Leo’s downfall. A fearful or insecure Leo can hurt themselves by chasing approval and appreciation, and repeatedly find that no single person or group’s approval and validation will satisfy the need to be seen. Leos, especially those with Leo as their rising sign, can fall into the trap of arrogance, which is simply a misperception of the nature of their inherent gifts. Your light is not a shiny possession to be admired by others. It is instead a mirror intended to distribute and reflect the divine light that emanates from everywhere and every one. In order for you to experience the ease and power of your gifts, you can not attack the ego directly or punish yourself for wanting to be loved. Instead, try to start or reinvigorate a gratitude practice that, over time, will stabilize your awareness of how loved , cherished, and adored you are. It is this security and balance that will allow you to go out into the world and share your light with others in a free and healthy way, because trust me Leo, you have enough to go around.

Virgo: Most Likely to Make a Friend on the First Day of College That Ends Up Being Your Best Friend for Life

Virgirino! My dude! I’m so glad we have this chance to chat before we leave town. I don’t know what we would do without the Virgos in our lives. The most loyal, hard-working, and devotional sign, Virgos have the capacity to be the bedrock of a community. You are the friend that never shies away from difficult emotions You are the friend that bears the weight of your beloveds’ burden with them. You see it through, you stick it out, and you can be depended on. You have a talent for discernment in all things, especially in relationships. You are characteristically hard to get, as trust is never uncomplicated for Virgo. However, once you’re got, the lucky getter has access to a deep well of attentive and devoted love. As we look toward creating the future we want to live in, we will need your foresight, your grace, and your helping hands. These qualities grow with light, nourishment, and a consistent but gentle attention. You know how they say that a watched pot never boils? Well for you, Virgirino, the challenge will be in trusting that the pot will boil if you let it do its thing. You see, the flipside of your gifts is a kind of constrained hyper-vigilance that leaves you feeling depleted and leaves your loved ones feeling criticized. Choose to trust my friend. It is time you turn your powerful attention away from that which you can’t control and toward the things in your life that call to you by name.

Libra: Most Likely to Be the First Person That a White Tiger Chooses, of Its Own Volition, to Cohabitate With

Libra, you tree full of songbirds, you decadent silk sheets, it has been such a pleasure to tarry with you in this space of celestial expansion. When the sun shined on your lil baby face upon your emergence from the flesh cave, you were bathed in star juice from the most romantic region of the sky. This enchanted your life with a natural taste for luxury and a gift for turning everything you touch into a more beautiful, balanced version of itself. Yes, I am confirming that your suspicions were right and all of your exes got hotter and cooler by being with you. However, your gift for putting all things in harmony presents its own set of accompanying difficulties. One of the most significant challenges for your refined soul as it traverses the messy and chaotic world we inhabit is that in the attempt to make things pretty and neat, you may tend to avoid journeying more deeply into the murk. I, as a fellow Libra (sun and rising) share in the common Libra reaction to the prospect of murk and conflict which is basically: ugh, no. But this tendency can leave us Libras superficial, guarded and lacking in the kind of deep connection that comes with fully seeing and being seen by others. As you continue on your journey to becoming the human embodiment of a crystal vase (pronounced, in this case, Vuh-AWS) full of peonies, do not be afraid to dig your toes into the dirt. You are the sign of paradox, duality, and in your highest incarnation, you are the bridge that connects and balances the polar opposites of this world.

Scorpio: Most Likely to Both Join and Start a Cult, but, Like a Fun Sex-Magic Kind Where Everyone Has Free Will and They All Just Choose to Dress the Same and Tantric-Breathe Into Each Others Mouths

Oh boy, Scorpling, am I gonna miss seeing you in class. You brightened all my days with the poetry scrawled on the bathroom wall and the moody mixtapes you gave me. And sure, there was a LOT of D’Angelo, but really is there ever enough D’Angelo on a mixtape (hot take: no.) Scorpio you have the inherent capacity to act as a spiritual guide to those around you. Deeply feeling, passionate, and mysterious there are many in this world full of trifles that just don’t get you. But I hope you wouldn’t have it any other way, because for those who do get you, it is unlikely that they will ever get enough. The world we want to graduate into is a world that doesn’t throw out the mystic and mysterious in the quest for revolution. You encourage all of us to make space for the shadowy sides of ourselves. You teach us how to love the depth. You show us that there is nothing to fear in the dark. Oops, I am getting so hype about you that I think you just recruited me to your as-yet-undefined cult. … Okay, sorry I had to splash cold water on my face, I’m back now. The key for you moving forward is to realize the power that you have! More than any other sign, you have the ability to face the tumultuous undercurrents without drowning. Make a home of yourself, and you will be a refuge for many.

Sagittarius: Most Likely to Drop Off the Face of the Earth and Then Reappear Five Years Later on an Eastern European Cross-Country Skiing Olympic Team

Sag, you ol’ so-and so, you bag of tricks, you tan-legged adventurer! I know that you, more than anyone, are itching to get out of this place and set off on a grand adventure in a far-flung locale. But, if I can have your attention for just a moment longer, I want to tell you how much you contribute everywhere you go. Your optimistic, curious spirit encourages all those around you to seek truth, no matter how far they have to go to get it You’ve earned quite the reputation as a young buck that is wise beyond your years. Sure, you are a bonafide truant that can not be contained by the bounds of an institution, but you made it this far powered on wanderlust and protein shakes, so who am I to tell you to slow down. In fact, my advice is exactly the opposite. The world needs optimism, idealism, and truth seeking adventurers. Just be sure to temper your wandering with time for reflection so that you can let all that explosive knowledge you gain in your explorations settle into the kind of wisdom that heals and soothes. If you do this, I have no doubt that the beautiful world you imagine and believe is possible is within all of our reach. Now get out there scamp, and give ’em hell!

Capricorn: Most Likely to Retire With Five Years Worth of Accumulated Vacation and Sick Days Left Unused

Capricorn, I love seeing your smiling face in the front row of every room, hand ready to be raised at a moments notice. You are the epitome of dedication, discipline, and ambition. The world can put any task in front of you, any challenge, any obstacle, and you will rise to meet it. Your strategy is a combination of interminable self-discipline and perseverance. With a natural gift and affinity for navigating even the most complex systems of rules, expectations, and traditions, there is no end to the list of ways that you can contribute to the world beyond these hallowed halls. The key, you wonderful collection of polished river stones, is in constantly working to expand your field of perception. The thing about the remarkable ambition that is a trademark of your sign, is that it can at times be all-encompassing. The focus that drives you to work harder than anyone around you to achieve your goals, is the same focus which can blind you to the meaning of the journey. Only you can appreciate the struggle, the self-mastery, the joy of pushing yourself to new heights, but if you are not present with the moment to moment experiences in your life, the goal will be only superficially satisfying. It is my duty, as a corny guidance-counselor/auntie/Mr. Feeny to advise you not to miss the forest for the trees. It is your duty as anyone receiving that advice to stick your gum to the underside of my desk. I’m not worried about you Cap, I just hope you remember all us little people when you rule the world.

Aquarius: Most Likely to Make Hella Money From an OnlyFans Account Consisting Entirely of Extended Eye Contact and Personalized Transcendental ASMR Videos

Aquarius, I would bet my left pinky (that’s my good pinky) that wherever you land after you leave this place will be transformed by your presence. I know that we certainly have been. As the astrological water carrier, you have the ability to make new life grow out of soil that the rest of us swore was fallow. You are the most fascinating and fascinated person to be around. When life gives you a Rubik’s Cube, you disassemble it and build a scale replica of the Guggenheim’s atrium. At your heart, you seek freedom for yourself, and for the rest of humanity. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, you might just be an alien. But, alien or not, this world will deal you your share of blows. The world is fucked up, and no one is more painfully aware of this than you. Which is why when you’re hurt or scared, you have a tendency to crave destruction for destruction’s sake. When you lose faith, you might put too much of your energy into tearing everything down, when really, you are exactly who we need to help us see new ways to build a society. As you leave this place, remember who you are. You are a dreamer and a guide. You are the kid who asked why so many times your parents went grey early. Never stop asking why the world is the way it is, never stop pushing the boundaries. We need your gifts now and always.

Pisces: Most Likely to Discover That Reality Is, Actually, Just a Simulation/Robot Dream

You know, when I got into this field, my supervisor (probably Zeuss or God or whatever) told me that I would end up learning more from you guys then you would learn from me, and over my years here, I can say that this statement is the gosh dang truth. As I think about you, Pisces, you disconcertingly psychic sunfish who may or may not be able to tell people how they will one day die, you have taught us all so much. You teach us all by your example, how to adapt to the ever-changing flow of life. As the last sign of the zodiac, you are the celestial gateway between this world, and what lies beyond. You have an innate mastery over adaptation, pouring yourself like water into a vessel, taking the shape of your surroundings. When you fix your gaze on someone, that someone feels truly seen, understood, and appreciated. You help us to release our inhibitions and open ourselves up to experience. You are a model of empathy and forgiveness, and in a world where there is such a profound need for restorative justice, the kind of justice that recognizes everyone’s potential to harm and to heal, we need you to show us the way. However, in order for you to show up during this time when your presence is vital, you must make sure to attend to your boundaries. Because of your grand capacity for empathy and forgiveness, you are more likely than many of the other signs to downplay your strength, to shrink, to allow the world to happen to you. Practice being on your own side, being the advocate you are for everyone else, but on behalf of yourself. Yes, yes, I know you’re probably all like, but what does it mean to advocate on behalf of myself when we are all actually one spiritual unity and anyway none of this is real? But humor me, you vast and boundless shade of cerulean, and treat yourself like a precious gift.

What a wild ride it’s been, you guys. Before I have Green Day play me out, here are some more Book Club teasers for my ride-or-dies:

1. We’re announcing the inaugural book next week.
2. We’re going to have our first virtual book club meeting in a few weeks and yes, duh, of course, it is going to be themed, and yes, we’re gonna be turning looks.
3. I can’t wait to meet you all virtually face-to-face as we learn and play and grow together.
4. If you’re in for the book club, and want to be the first to know about book number one, sign up riiiiiight here.

The post Your Horoscopes Are Here—With a Side of #PersonalNews appeared first on Repeller.

This question is the beating heart of astrology. However, in the horoscopes I’ve written for you here at Man Repeller over the last two years, this beating heart has been covered over with the superficial tissue of jokes, bits, and cute product recs. Month after month I’ve offered you horoscopes that are heavy on joke-recommendations to bathe in milk and pop yoni eggs into your orifices, while light on serious engagement with the world we live in. I am writing to you today, trying to make a different choice.

Here are some things that I, a non-black person, want to say to the other non-black persons who might be reading this. Right now, we must use every tool at our disposal to demand that those in power confront and answer for the racist violence that has been perpetrated on Black people in America by the state and the people who uphold the white supremacist institutions that constitute the state. The truth is that the genocidal institution of slavery functioned as a vehicle for the expansion of American capitalism and the continued brutalization, incarceration, and disenfranchisement of Black people in this country is the direct result of a system that continues to profit off of the destruction of Black lives. I shouldn’t have to say this.

Black people have been saying it, always. We, you, all of us, must fight for a national reckoning with this truth. To people who have the privilege of looking away from this truth, I am speaking directly to you: this is not the time to look up at the stars, seeking permission to tune out. If astrology has a place in our lives right now, it is as a tool to look inward and immediately identify our unique capacities to be useful to the movement.

I have formed a relationship with many of you during my time writing for MR and I have never appreciated the significance of those relationships as much as I do right now. I want to introduce myself to all of you in a way that I haven’t before on this platform. I am a 26-year-old, brown queer femme living in Alabama, raised by my mother and her mother who immigrated to this country from the Philippines and organized for the rights of the tenants of the i-Hotel, a landmark anti-gentrification, anti-racist movement in San Francisco. I was raised in the tradition of resistance and community-based action. I have worked in community organizing and I am currently a student and a freelance writer who writes these horoscopes to survive month to month and help support my family. I was raised and continue to live mostly below the poverty line. I am a very private person and this is extremely uncomfortable for me to share, but I believe it is necessary to be transparent about where I come from and where I stand.

This personal history, this body, this is the position that I am speaking to you from, and however imperfect this platform is, this is the platform I have available to reach all of you. If I don’t use this opportunity to drive home the point that the reflection and self-awareness astrology affords must aid in the mobilization of our individual talents and opportunities to bring about the destruction of white supremacy, then I have failed you, and we have failed each other.

I hope that everything I’ve said so far is old news to you. I hope that you already feel empowered to act. If you are a white person, if you are a wealthy person, I hope you have gathered the full force of your privilege and access to resources and that you have enlisted your networks and connections to stand alongside you as you do everything in your power to dismantle the white supremacy that benefits you and your family. I hope that you didn’t need a call to action found in Man Repeller’s Astrology section. But if you are feeling stuck or overwhelmed by the magnitude of this moment, I hear you, I feel you, I have love for you, and I believe you have a place in this too. More importantly, I want to help you find your way forward.

Instead of horoscopes this month, I want to help you direct the impulse for reflection and self-awareness, the same impulse that led you to astrology in the first place, toward action. The following exercise is an adaptation of a journaling technique I learned in the course of my work as a community organizer and meditation teacher. The goal of the exercise is to untangle the emotional and mental blocks that keep us feeling helpless and otherwise absolve us from our duty to resist and dismantle the systems that benefit us at the expense of Black lives.

I share this not from a place of expertise, but from a desire to provide you with a method that has been helpful to me and others I have worked with. I hope this exercise will be useful to you as you chart a sustainable path forward, support the work that is being and has already been done, and locate resources to educate yourself, without putting more demands on Black people to explain to us, over and over again, how we can be useful.

You’ll need a pen, paper, and a quiet space.

Start Where You Are: Strategies for Identifying, Organizing, and Mobilizing Your Personal Resources

This method uses embodied grounding techniques and journaling to release judgement around inaction and to develop a manageable plan based on your own personal resources to sustainably engage in the movement for justice.

1. Grounding

We can’t move forward until we have a firm grasp of where we’re starting.

Begin by sitting comfortably. Close your eyes and take three deep breaths, making your exhale a deep sigh. Then, begin the 4-7-8 breathing technique to calm your nervous system and quiet your mind. It goes like this:

Inhale softly through your nose while counting to four. Hold your breath in without tensing your muscles while counting to seven. Exhale through your mouth, making a wooshing sound, while counting to eight.

Repeat the full cycle at least five times.

Then, let your breathing return to normal with your eyes still closed and ask yourself: How do I feel mentally? How do I feel physically? How do I feel emotionally?

Without straining, let the words for your experience right now rise to the surface.

Write down those feelings and acknowledge without judgement what you’re feeling right now. Next, we’re going to train our attention on developing a full picture of what tools we have to move forward.

2. Getting Honest

Journal for five minutes without stopping in response to the question: What is keeping me from getting involved?

Try to write faster than you can censor yourself. Just keep your pen moving. It may seem obvious or embarrassing at first. That is part of the exercise. If you get stuck, keep asking, why? Why do I believe this? Why do I feel this way? Just keep going.

Now, you have a portrait of your inertia. You can look frankly at the beliefs and feelings that keep you from committing to a course of action. For many who feel stuck, it comes down to some form of I don’t know what to do or I’m afraid I’ll do the wrong thing. It’s important to confront our own limiting beliefs that keep us stuck in order to dismantle them. There is no barrier to action that can’t be overcome with honest reflection and strategy.

3. What Do You Have to Offer?

Now, you’re going to create a full catalogue of your strengths, passion, networks, resources, and abilities. Push yourself to think outside of the box about all the things you have to offer right now.

Write for five minutes, trying to write as quickly as you can.

After you’ve completed that list, go back and add specifics.

If you have time on your hands, how many hours a week can you realistically offer to support the movement? If you have financial resources, how much can you realistically plan to redistribute? If you are tech savvy, what specific skills can you offer? If you are a highly organized person, write down the specific programs or skills you use to keep things in order.

Can you add to your list of networks? Consider:
Alumni organizations
Schools
Professional organizations
Co-workers
Family
Friends
Religious groups
Social media following

4. Take One Step Forward

Look at your portrait of inertia next to your catalogue of resources. Side by side, you will see that your resources are greater than the sum of your inertia. Look at your resources and see if there are any obvious connections between what you have and what is needed.

This is an excellent list of ways you can contribute.
This is a list of resources on the Black Lives Matter website. The list includes the “Trayvon Taught Me Toolkit: For Black and Non-Black POC Organizers” as well as the “#TalkAboutTrayvon: A Toolkit for White People”

There are SO many more. Again, I am not the authority on this. Actively seek out the information by Black organizers and platforms that center Black life, about how you can contribute to the movement.

Once you’ve identified a way to leverage your skills, make one step forward today. Maybe you can make a donation, maybe you can send an email to someone who can make a bigger donation. Tap into your networks, ask for favors, spend your money, and spend your social capital. Look for access points that go beyond what is most immediately obvious to you.

In addition, no matter what resources you have, you can educate yourself, your friends, and your family. Do not read alone. Organize a reading group among people in your network.

This is an anti-racist reading list compiled by Layla F Saad
This is a list of anti-racist resources and books for all ages
This is an online library of free texts from Black women across the diaspora collected and made available by Bilphena Yahwon, a Baltimore-based writer and abolitionist.

Please add contributions to this list in the comments section so we can share with each other and amplify more of the work that is already underway by Black activists and organizers to educate and mobilize.

5. Commit

This movement does not end when the TV cameras stop filming it, it doesn’t end on election day. The struggle ends in liberation, in reparations, in the abolition of the carceral state, in the redistribution of resources, and in a public reckoning of the atrocity of slavery and its legacy.

After you have sent the email, gone to the protest, donated to the bail fund, whatever it is you did today, take a moment to reflect on how it felt. There may be feelings of inadequacy, or maybe self-congratulation. Whatever it is, take note without judgement. It is important to have a record of this process so that you can refer back to the experience if (when) you get discouraged.

Then, commit to another action on your list.

Write down the steps you need to take to accomplish that action. Remember to break each step into a small, manageable chunk. Finally, give yourself a deadline for each of those steps. In this way, you can hold yourself accountable to continued contribution. If you are in this, then you are in this until we see justice for Black people, or you were never really in it at all.

The post What Is Astrology for Right Now? Revolution. appeared first on Repeller.

Hello and welcome to another month!! I know it has been another month because the moon has waxed and waned and my cell phone and laptop tell me so but honestly what even is time anymore!! I have to say, writing horoscopes right now feels like a combination of doing standup and a TED talk while an oncoming stampede of thestrals (those horse monsters that are invisible unless you’ve seen death in Harry Potter) comes charging at us and I’m just like, wait wait what’s your rising sign!!? Was the thestral reference too dark? I don’t know! I haven’t spoken to a human being in real life in uncountable days! What do people talk about these days?!

I don’t know how to interact with people in normal, non-macabre Harry Potter-based ways anymore because I am one of the incredibly fortunate people who is able to still self-isolate, and it just feels incredibly gross to talk about this moment as if we’re all experiencing it in the same way. And, look, I know you don’t come to the horoscopes to contemplate your station in a broken system, but I want to take this opportunity to say that if astrology has a job right now, that job is to be both a mirror that encourages us to reflect on how we are attending to our emotional and spiritual needs, and a window, which allows us to look out at the world beyond us and cultivate a more generous worldview. And, if you are looking through that window right now and wondering how you can help, here is a great list of orgs to donate to, plus other, non-financial ways to lend a hand.

This month’s horoscopes will focus on two celestial events that manifest this mirror/window function. The full moon in Scorpio on the 7th will amplify all signs’ emotional aspects and encourage us to look inward, at our relationships to resources, to our domestic lives, and to ourselves. Meanwhile, the Sun in Taurus encourages us all to tune into our commitments and stubbornly stand for what we believe is important, all while taking care of ourselves tenaciously.

Taurus

Omgosh birthday bull!! Yayy!!! If you are a regular consumer of these dispatches from the celestial realm, then you know that I am not generally one to pick favorites. But! Today, Taurus, you are the anointed one!! Imagine a 100-gun salute in your honor, but instead of guns it’s kazoos sustaining one long, strange, celebratory note. Because that’s what I would get you for your birthday if kazoos weren’t possible disease vectors just shooting spit particles out into the air like tiny gross invisible missiles. Anyway! Come full moon in Scorpio on the 7th, you’re in for some catharsis, although it might not be an easy row to hoe at first. Scorpio is a sign full of secrets, and the full moon is all about the completion of cycles. This means that it’s likely that some buried info could come to light, and most likely in the more intimate realms of your life.

Have no fear, you perfect, sun-washed creature that miraculously exists in a universe full of primarily darkmatter.not only should you take heart in the fact that you exist when it is so statistically improbable that anything at all should exist, but also in the fact that this month is chock-full of opportunities to cut dead weight and make space for new things, such at Venus’ retrograde on the 13th! This celestial event will have you taking the long view of relationships. What patterns can you notice that span from 2012 to now? Take stock of who and what brings you that comfy cozy sweet feeling of when you’re falling in love and you have finally decided that the person you’re doin it with might be, like, your actual partner and you get a drawer at their house. That is the vibe we’re looking for. Amp that up and minimize relationships where you don’t feel soothed.

Gemini

Hello there, you human hummingbird—welcome to Taurus season! With the sun in Taurus, you are called to consider whether or not you’re getting as much as you’re giving. Being friends with a Gemini is like the friendship equivalent of someone at a rave doing a sick light-up glove performance in front of your massively dilated pupils. It’s awesome. It’s so friggin awesome in the moment that you’re like, Whoa, I really am gonna be okay. And then you weep from the beauty. That is how good Geminis are at being friends! This month the stars insist that you ask yourself: Are you being that good of a friend to yourself right now? My mother always told me, Honey, don’t wait on someone else to change your life, you’ve gotta be your own light-up-finger-glove show. And I’m telling you the same thing. You better hop-to, because Venus retrogrades on the 13th, and if you’re not taking a good, long look at the ways you may have over-extended yourself for others (and under-extended yourself for yourself), old patterns in your love and friend life could really get out of hand.

The biggest celestial theme this month is taking stock of patterns, integration, and learning. The full moon in Scorpio on the 7th welcomes you into May sort of like a swift slap on the ass—but in the cute fun way. Like a tap—a tap between friends! Like you just scored a goal on a hypothetical sports team. Only instead of setting up a little good-natured eroticism between athletes, this full moon will ask you to reflect on which crutches in your life you’re strong enough now to shed. I, for example, have been eating a cubic ton of ice cream nightly for second dinner. Which is morally fine in my estimation, but also according to many internet sources, probably not the best idea, long term. So find your version of eating the weight of a human baby in ice cream every night, and see what it feels like to scale back. By the time your solar return comes around on the 20th, you will be ready to celebrate in a more moderate, balanced state.

Cancer

Hello there, you perfect, completely whole and brilliantly made star child! Welcome to Taurus season! The Sun in Taurus this month is all about filling up your own chalice, so that you have abundant internal resources. Use this time wisely by tuning in to the things that make your body feel good. I suggest sensual self massage and setting reminders on your phone throughout the day to scream creative profanities into a couch cushion.

Also, I think that if Cancers were a candy bar, they would be a Snickers bar that someone put in the freezer. Like, a hard shell of chocolate that is delicious in and of itself, but the star of the show is that rich, nourishing, nougaty inside. And sure, you may be all, like, Sarah, that metaphor could have worked with any number of chocolate-coated candy bars. Which is a fair point. But I am really angling for a Snickers sponsorship, so bear with me. This rich internal world you’ve cultivated will be of real benefit come the full moon in Scorpio on the 7th. This celestial event will have everybody getting real emotionally contemplative—which, lucky for you, is familiar territory, since you’re generally such an internally oriented candy bar. I mean, human.

Respond to the influence of this full moon by listening to those nagging intuitions that won’t leave you alone. That idea for a short story about the internal life of the toaster oven you feel might be secretly a super judgemental personality and burns your toast out of malice? Write it! The weird recurring dreams in which you are both a baby and a Tudor prince? Start a dream journal and/or call a therapist! Actually, in general, call a therapist. That is just always good advice.

Leo

What’s good, mon coeur? No, seriously, I need someone to tell me what’s good because I just listened to way too many news podcasts, and I could really use some lists of things that are good so hmu in the comments if you have a cute cat or baby or, like, you made a great pasta. I’ll take anything.

Here’s my list of things that are good rn: your fortune! Also air conditioning, popsicles, songbirds, and tiny versions of things that are still functional. Back to you! The sun in Taurus lights up the sector of your chart that rules your fortune. This is an encouraging energy that will push you to align your choices with your innermost dreams and goals.

You also have a full moon in Scorpio coming your way on the 7th. This will be an emotional peak this month, and around this time, you may feel that weird pressure in the back of your eyes like you’re going to start crying at any moment. My professional advice is to go ahead and get those tears pumping at full capacity. If I were you, I would watch a playlist on YouTube of unlikely animal best friends, like a goat and a duckling or a li’l teacup pig and a cockatiel. If that didn’t work, I would pull out the big guns and listen to “A Seat at the Table” by Solange while I looked at pictures of myself as a child. What I’m saying is that you have a lot of options.

When the new moon in Gemini comes to town on the 22nd, you will be revived by the chatty, flirty Gemini energy. This is perfect timing, as you’ll be freshly cleansed from your period of ugly-cries and maybe an ego-death. All signs point to you finishing out the month like a newborn lamb with a tiny (but functional) bell around your li’l lamb neck, ready to be adored as you lightly bound across the pastures of your social life.

Virgo

Hey there, Virgirino, fancy seeing you here—and by “seeing you” I mean visualizing a crowd of many-gendered maidens with label-makers sharing pointers on how to effectively label the jars of preserved tomatoes and jams and things to prepare for the new world order. I’m not saying that all Virgos are preppers (#notallvirgos). I’m just saying that many of you Virgos would likely be very good at doomsday prepping, if you and your Virgo-kin were so inclined. Also, if you get rid of the hyphen the word “Virgokin” sounds like the name of a German electric car company, doesn’t it!? Oh man, Virgo, we have fun. Speaking of fun, Tarus season is here, and she brings you good tidings. The Taurus sun shines in the sector of your chart that rules learning. Think of all the things out there that would be so fun to learn! Some possible topics that might appeal to the Virgos out there: tying knots, non-alphabetic languages, French sauce techniques, and candlemaking.

When the new moon arrives in Gemini on the 22nd, you will enter a new cycle in your vocation and in your public persona. Again, I’m not saying that all Virgos are or should be doomsday preppers, but I am saying that if you learned how to tie some good knots and make some bomb candles, there might be a thirsty market for that kind of content and the new moon would be a great time to launch your new career as a tastemaker in that cultural enclave. Think about it. Let me know.

Libra

Hello Libra, it is I, your fellow Libra, writing this dispatch to you in the fetal position while wearing the same WFH shirtdress I have been wearing for days. And, when I say “shirt dress” I want you to know that I am using the term “dress” very loosely. In fact, tunic might be more appropriate. Fine, what I’m saying is that I am not wearing pants and I am sad. How about you? The stars say that many of us Libras are in the same, stained, pantsless boat right now.

No, it’s not just the global pandemic, PMS, and weeks of eating boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner that’s getting us down, it is also the Taurus sun illuminating the sector of our chart that deals with transformation. Perhaps you are a highly evolved sunofagun that takes transformation on the chin and asks for more. Or perhaps you respond to the transformation urge by acting like a sleepy toddler that knows they need to take a nap but will fight with their life to continue having a tantrum and stave off the inevitable oblivion of sleep. Honestly toddlers resisting nap time is the energy that our elected officials need to have in their advocacy for our basic human rights and universal access to affordable healthcare. But I digress.

This transformation will hit us Libras in the deep, challenging parts of our hearts. We’re talking love, shared resources, and grief. Luckily, Taurus is an earth sign and the prince of grounding energy and nourishing. This will give us a stable foundation upon which to hurl our weeping bodies. Sorry baby, transformation comes for all of us and this is our time. The good news is, on the other side of Taurus season lies the self we are becoming, and that bitch looks great. The Sun in Gemini on the 22nd will find Future Us glowing and attracting all kinds of new opportunities. So buckle down and meet me in June, you got this.

Scorpio

O, my long lost Scorpling, how I have missed you. I have a growing stack of odes written in praise of your dark and sexy depths and if I wasn’t busy delivering astrological guidance I would spend this whole horoscope comparing the first blooms of Spring to the terrifying set of “lateral eyes” that Scorpions apparently have along their bodies ( some species even have photosensitive “eyes” on their scary little tails) and O! how I love each one! But, there is pressing astrology business to attend to and I am, as you know, a professional.

The big theme of Taurus season for you is relationships, specifically the way you are communicating with your special so-and-sos. Scorpios are known to have a bit of a suspicious streak, or a tendency to spin a narrative wherein their worst fears are true. This energy might be amplified this month so be sure to make a special effort to extend grace to your partners and ask the questions that you are afraid to hear the answers to.
When the new moon in Gemini comes to town on the 22nd, you will be moved toward a light and easy version of yourself. This is good news for those who are languishing on the infamous Scorpio shitlist. If you have it in your heart to bury a hatchet or two, this is the time to do it. I promise you will feel lighter and more ready to embrace all the good things coming your way.

Sagittarius

Sag, don’t you hate it when snacks are labeled “guilt-free” like, as if guilt is some hidden evil ingredient in all yummy things that you can expunge by way of air-frying or stevia? As if indulgence necessitated guilt! You know who is totally anti-guilt when it comes to indulgence? Taurus. That’s right baby you know what time it is! Taurus season, known around town as full fat ice cream season, is in full swing and this cosmic energy asks you to take some time to find out what truly makes you feel cared for and nourished. I am not saying that we should all grant ourselves carte blanche to engage in a wild tailspin of hedonistic delights, although I am also not not saying that. But consider what activities or objects make your body feel really good in a sustainable way. The full moon in Scorpio on the 7th encourages you to do the kind of soul-searching that will help you figure out what this looks like for you right now.

On May 20th Gemini season sweeps into the room and brings with it a flirtatious je ne sais quoi that will make your relationships sparkle. Like, the new moon in Gemini on the 22nd is the new moon equivalent of an excellent body glitter, dusting everything with a previously unrealized lustre. So spend the full moon going deep to find out what gives you joy and trust that by the end of the month you will feel renewed and ready to get your flirt on.

Capricorn

Taurus season has you vibrating at a whole new frequency, my friend. Like, have you burned toast recently and swore that you could see a portrait of Leslie Knope smiling defiantly up at you from the charred surface of your bread? Have you been having vivid dreams that compel you to jump out of the bed in the morning and begin sketching vistas and still lifes? Have you been making your bed in an extra skillful manner? Your creative mind is working on overdrive this month as the sun in Taurus illuminates the sector of your chart that rules fun and creativity.

Now, if you haven’t been feeling a harmonic resonance with the divine source that animates us all, that is totally understandable. When our minds are taxed by stress, we tend to lose the bandwidth required to be inspired. Spend this month using your infamous Capricorn-style focus and problem solving to take stock of the things that drain your energy and see what you can do about insulating yourself from these forces. If you spend Taurus season clearing out all the unnecessary stuff in your emotional and professional life, the new moon in Gemini on the 22nd will be especially rewarding. This will be the optimal time to make fresh choices and launch creative projects that have been percolating in all that proverbial space you made. What a perfect set up! Yay for stars! Yay for growth! Yay for ruthlessly blocking the numbers of people you actually never want to hear from again!

Aquarius

Aquarius you wonderful water-carrying, ever-generous, benevolent alien wearing a human suit, I am here to say, Good job buddy. Do you feel the sensation of someone approvingly patting you on the back? Nope, that’s not a ghost! It’s me! Which, to be fair, you can not be one hundred percent sure that I am not a ghost, haunting a laptop somewhere and just tapping out messages from the stars to goad you onward toward your destiny, but hey! That’s just the uncertainty of the digital age, amiright?

So speaking of consciousnesses occupying your home, the sun in Taurus is illuminating the sector of your chart that rules home and family, making this an excellent time to lean into the terrestrial comforts the world has to offer us. Many of us are separated from our families right now and longing to be closer to them. Many of us are spending more time with our families than ever and struggling to cope with the sudden overexposure. Take this Taurus energy as an invitation to step back and consider how you might make your home feel more comforting and how to make your relationships with your family more harmonious, no matter whether you’re sharing one bathroom and haven’t beaten everyone else to the hot water in days, or if you would trade a week of hot showers for a hug from your Aunt who always smells like peanut brittle.

The new moon in Gemini will arrive just in time on the 22nd to mark the beginning of a new golden era of creativity for you. This doesn’t just mean painting watercolor portraits of your cat in a variety of snazzy outfits and tropical locales. It could also mean getting creative about the way you connect with others. It could mean holding hands like two lil cupped paws rather than laced fingers style, or it could mean a little roleplay in the sext thread. Whatever it is, give yourself permission to dive down that rabbit hole for a while and take stock of how vast your creative potential is.

Pisces

Oh Pisces, you dreamy gift from another realm, what a month you have ahead of you. The sun in Taurus is supercharging the sector of your chart that deals with all things communication. This is a season where you will feel compelled to express yourself and reconnect with people on the more peripheral reaches of your social circle. The full moon in Scorpio on the 7th is another striking presence in the forecast for your month. Scorpio is the sign of secrets and transformation and the full moon is always an emotional time that signals the completion of a given cycle or era. Trust your Piscean intuition and let it guide you toward the area of your life most in need of some closure.

Many Pisces have an aversion to conflict, which is totally understandable as they are notoriously empathetic. A Pisces is the sign most likely to come to a confrontation, well prepared by their therapist and best friends, with a written out opening salvo full of I statements, and also to start crying within the time it takes to utter the first sentence. This isn’t a weakness, the compassion you bring, even to the relationships that you have conflict in, has the capacity to heal and traverse the walls people put up to protect themselves. The new moon in Gemini on the 22nd will help clear the air and you will start to see the payoff of the difficult transformational work you’ve been doing all month. In the meantime, take really extra good care of yourself and try and notice when your intuition is speaking to you, or when your inner critic is shouting into your temporal lobe and generally just being a dick. Give the intuition a cookie, give your inner critic a one-way ticket to shut up town.

Aries

Greetings you grab-life-by-the-horns, never take no for an answer, front of the pack phenomenon! Taurus season will present you with exciting opportunities for growth, if you’re willing to shake up the status quo in your life and inquire more deeply into your motivations. Case and point: the full moon in transformational, mysterious Scorpio on the 7th. Full moons are always energetically oriented towards a fulfillment of a cycle and to emotional release. A full moon in the highly emotional sign of Scorpio, will amplify this equation. Aries tend to run hot. Anyone who knows anything knows that crossing an Aries is the quickest and most efficient way to ruin your life. That said, there are likely a few people on your shit list that you miss, even though you’ve been telling everybody that they’re dead to you.

The stars suggest that this is the perfect time to release some anger and or bury some hatchets. Train your sights on a relationship in which a secret has festered, maybe there is something you haven’t told them, maybe they spilled the beans about a secret you trusted them with.

This generous act will prime your spiritual pumps (which organ would be your spiritual pump if there was a spiritual pump organ? I think that that’s probably what the appendix is actually for ) for the new moon in Gemini on the 22nd. Gemini energy is light, fun, and craves connection. So hurry up and get your forgiveness and mercy renovation on because you’re gonna need that software updated, 2.0 refurbished spiritual infrastructure to embrace all the new love coming into your life.

Illustration by Olivia Healy.

The post Your May Horoscope Is Here and It’s Going to Help Your Cabin Fever appeared first on Repeller.

To bake banana bread or to document one’s stress dreams on a burner Twitter account? To do a spin class without a stationary bike, just straddling a stool and peddling madly? To decide now is the time for a new eyebrow shape? These are hard decisions. Unfortunately, astrology and I can offer you nothing but a gentle golf clap of permission and support for whatever you decide.

While attempting to get this article cooking, I was hit with a multi-day bout of does anything even matter anymore blues. In that state, I listened to the podcast Staying In With Emily and Kumail, which, if you haven’t heard it, is an absolute joy. The couple that co-created The Big Sick and other stuff (such as Kumail Nanjiani’s abs) chat in a weird and warm way about life in the great indoors and donate all the proceeds to charity. On the pod, they posed the question: Who do you want to be during The Weirds (a.k.a. right now)? And the possible answers were divided into three zones: the Fear Zone, the Learning Zone, and the Growth Zone. My big takeaway was that whichever zone we’re in right now is totally okay, but it is also important to ask ourselves not just who we are right now but also who we want to be amidst the chaos. I find it inspiring to think about how I might learn and grow right now, no matter which zone I’m currently in.

This pleasant taxonomical system for self awareness got me thinking about who I am and what matters to me and of course all of you, and then it hit me like a bolt of cartoon lightning—this system is perfect for astrology because every zodiac sign has Fear, Learning, and Growth expressions! The astrological archetypes are not static: They transform in their expressions as we move through times of comfort and abundance to times of stress and anxiety!

So without further ado, welcome to your horoscope’s special Quarantine Edition, featuring this cute new system for insight and self-acceptance. We (you and I) will be talking about proclivities and possibilities, rather than predictions and dictums. We (astrology and I) are not in the business of telling you what to do or making value judgments during times of widespread planetary chaos, but we can offer you one hell of a behavioral buffet to choose from, according to your sign.

Aries

As I’ve said in prior horoscopes, I like to think of Aries as tiny baby Joan of Arcs, galloping into battle with a proportionate baby sword, ablaze with conviction and the confidence of a being who has not yet been battered by the slings and arrows of fate. The first sign in the zodiac, and also the most audacious, Aries are fundamentally individualists (like babies). Life according to these fire rams is generally an “every ram for itself” situation, although they also have the capacity to be excellent advocates, channelling their natural proclivity for taking no shit and leading the pack into the greater good. When Aries is deep in their fear, they are likely to claw their way to the top in the sharpest stilettos they own, eyes alight with the ecstasy of being the ultimate alpha. But when Aries is moving from a place of abundance and gratitude, they are benevolent leaders.

Fear Zone Aries: Hoarder extraordinaire. Aries was the first one at the zodiac’s neighborhood Super Target, toilet paper and Lysol piled into their carts.

Learning Zone Aries: Works on gratitude journaling to cultivate feelings of abundance and ward off feelings of scarcity.

Growth Stage Aries: Gives away an item (or five) to someone (who a fear-zone Aries might have considered a sucker, with just two weeks’ worth of dry goods). Uses their fiery, direct nature to advocate on behalf of a more timid friend.

Capricorn

Capricorn, the sea goat, a mythological overachiever who was not content to dominate the terrestrial realm but needed to sprout a fish tail so as to propel its weird body through the aqueous realm. If you encountered a Capricorn in the grips of existential terror and asked them like, Hey Cap, you’re feeling a lot of scary things right now, huh?

Capricorn would be all like, hahahahaha what are you talking about!! Emotions are a waste of my time and also nothing is even wrong everything’s fine excuse me I have to get back to this workflow infographic I’m designing for my team members who didn’t ask for it!!

In a quest for ruthless optimization, Caps can block out the world and white-knuckle it. But, if someone grabs them by the shoulders and is like HEY. STOP IT. you are a human who requires extracurricular pleasure and meaning, then you might just find yourself with a wave of Capricorns excelling at jigsaw puzzles, capoeira, and competitive cup-stacking.

Fear Zone Capricorn: Work from home just means they don’t have to interrupt their day with silly human rituals like lunch and rest. Also just realized they can send emails while they deep condition, if they put their phone in a plastic bag and bring it into the shower.

Learning Zone Capricorn: Wonders if those “30 days to the best ass of your life” challenges actually work. Schedules time to put the claims to the test.

Growth Zone Capricorn: Chanels their drive for success into a passion that no one wants to see on a CV or in a bikini; it simply gives their life joy and purpose.

Aquarius

Aquari have a heart full of benevolence for humankind, and in times of duress, they tend to worry about the world’s suffering until they collapse in on themselves like a dying star. This is totally understandable and also fundamentally unsustainable—like, do you know what happens when stars die?! (Turns out, the answer is lots of stuff that doesn’t work with this metaphor but does make for a super fun read if you’re into stoking intergalactic mortality dread). Anyway, Aquari can also work to separate the world’s pain from the fear and distress that it triggers in them personally, and then processing that more human-sized sadness.

Fear Zone Aquarius: Deep dives into conspiracy theories and/or spends all day reading the news while biting their nails.

Learning Zone Aquarius: Sets timers for how long they will read the news, journals about how the news makes them feel, and considers what those feelings require—maybe just a glass of water and to rub their own belly while whispering you’re doing so good lil angel.

Growth Zone Aquarius: Picks one way to use their skills or resources to alleviate someone’s burden: knows how to build a website, hits up a local business that has a trash website, and gets it cleaned up a bit and more prepared for online orders.

Libra

Libra, the sign most likely to be featured in a highly rated episode of Cribs because of their stunning shoe closet, the sign most likely to guess which perfume you’re wearing from the scent alone, the sign most likely to actually have a fainting couch and actually use said fainting couch to faint upon when receiving startling news. Libras are intellectual aesthetes given to decadence. They love a good stress nap, or a joy nap, or a post-nap nap. These tendencies toward beauty and indulgence makes them excellent cuddlers, superb charcuterie curators, fantastic interior designers, and probably great kissers, but they’re also prone to dealing with unwanted emotions by avoiding them altogether (by way of delights such as milkshakes, makeup tutorials, and weed).

Fear Zone Libra: Paralyzed by inertia. Sighs around the house like the heroine of a lesbian Victorian romance who is forlorn about her doomed romance. Spends government stimulus check on dank indica and a vibrator that doubles as a statement ring.

Learning Zone Libra: Tries their hand at watercolor-painting a self portrait that expresses their emotional sense of self while in a semi-reclined position, à la Frida Khalo.

Growth Zone Libra: Picks a bouquet of flowers that they find on public bushes in front of businesses on their daily walks. Starts birdwatching. Sends artfully curated gift baskets to their loved ones.

Pisces

Pisces is probably really going through it right now. I haven’t seen The Shape of Water, but I feel like I get it from seeing the trailer, and I feel like Pisces is like that fish dude who appears (from the trailer) to really need a hug. As the most empathic and intuitive sign, Pisces can tend to become overwhelmed with emotionally trying situations. They also often struggle with boundaries, specifically in making the differentiation between their own feelings and needs and the feelings and needs of others; this can spiral into a cycle of anxious, preoccupied clinging, followed by avoidant, withdrawn self-isolation. Me and astrology are here to say: It’s okay, lil fish, the universe doesn’t care if you’re good or bad or needy or hermetic. You’re just doing your best out here, and we all need each other now more than ever.

Fear Zone Pisces: Is inappropriately intimate and excessive in the office group text. Obsessively thinks about their crush and lets their crush know about these thoughts. When said crush responds with “oh that’s sweet of you!” instead of an equivalent outpouring, Pisces feels humiliated and rejected, deletes crush’s contact info, and re-activates Tinder.

Learning Zone Pisces: Notices when they are in a thought spiral, makes a conscious decision to process feelings in their journal before texting anyone about it. Decides they want to Facetime their best friend for lunch.

Growth Zone Pisces: Is out here offering a virtual shoulder to cry on to friends and acquaintances. Is the best listener anyone could hope for and offers a compassionate ear to those who really need someone to talk to (just like a certain fish guy and cleaning person apparently do for each other in that movie I haven’t seen).

Virgo

(Content warning: This astrological profile is actually just Harry Potter Fan Fiction featuring actual Harry Potter Virgos. Please read in a posh British accent.)

Virgo at their best is Hermione Granger: dedicated, clever, helpful, and annoying in an admirable way. Virgos at the top of their game are the glue that holds together an improbable mission to stop the Dark Lord. They might use their smarts and their eye for details others would miss to propel a ragtag bunch of Hogwarts troublemakers to the save the wizarding world. However, a Virgo living into their stress-personality shadow-self is Dolores Umbridge, a control freak to the point of villainy and sadism in a neatly pressed polyester skirt-suit. Don’t give in to the temptations of ultimate power and unlimited access to kitten-themed decor! Be the Granger you wish to see in the world.

Fear Zone Virgo: The nit-pickingest nit-picker that ever slid into your DMs to police your punctuation on a heartfelt Instagram caption, in which you incorrectly used a semi-colon.

Learning Zone Virgo: Instead of berating others for their inferior command of being a human, learning Virgos take their thirst for order and apply it to organizing their own lives and downloading a host of health-tracking apps. Also probably trains their cat to use the toilet like the internet says is possible apparently.

Growth Zone Virgo: Is the unofficial organizational mastermind for the apartment building. Slips surveys into everyone’s mailbox with check boxes for things they need. Organizes a beautiful, minimalist website where people can volunteer to help each other out. Is well-loved.

Scorpio

Scorpio is a water sign with all the benthic chaos of those deep sea creatures that come in shapes hitherto unthinkable in the terrestrial world. A Scorpio at their most stressed out and paranoid is like an anglerfish. Hear me out: Just like a Scorpio who uses their well-documented sex appeal and passionate appetites to make weird and sneaky choices, these lil monsters are named for the fleshy, bioluminescent growth protruding from their heads like a floating lantern, which they use to lure prey into the horrorshow of their gaping mouths. Scorpios in their secure, balanced state, are like perfect angel dumbo octopuses, who look like they belong in Totoro and are just deeply feeling, mysterious miracles, hanging out at the bottom of the ocean. Dwelling in the depths, but remaining transcendent squish-babies that anyone would love to engage in a trusting, long-term relationship.

Fear Zone Scorpio: Divides their time monitoring the many internet fights they are waging in myriad comments sections and texting their ex erotic videos of themselves peeling and eating clementines.

Learning Zone Scorpio: Creeps on all their enemies from burner accounts but does not actively engage in malicious or petty schemes.

Growth Zone Scorpio: Makes it their mission to go through all their friends’ social media accounts and leave elaborate affirmations and encouraging comments on shit they posted two years ago. Eats clementines privately, for their own pleasure.

Sagittarius

Captain of every ship, pilot of every maiden voyage, zodiac class president who as a kid went to summer camp every year. A Sagittarius in their happy place is the leader of any given pack, happily ensuring that everyone has a great time. They are effortlessly magnetic and can capture and hold the attention of any room. A Sagittarius who is cooped up for weeks at a time, with no social situations to excel at, however, can become a dictator du jour, dominating the Slack channel, designing overly ambitious, no-screen no-sugar homeschool plans for their children, and generally being a micromanaging tornado of pent-up energy. Basically, the difference between a balanced, grounded Sag and a stressed-out repressed Sag is the difference between a border collie on a sheep farm, joyfully wrangling stinky fluff ball sheep, and a border collie in a 550-square-foot New York apartment with zero sheep.

Fear Zone Sagittarius: Wakes the household up with a bugle, wears a whistle, will use the whistle. Shouts corrections to strangers on the street who are 4.5 feet apart rather than the requisite 6.

Learning Zone Sagittarius: Designs indoor scavenger hunt. Turns all the bananas that were originally meal-prepped for boring oatmeal into extra sweet and fun banana bread.

Growth Zone Sagittarius: On Instagram Live every night telling yarns and leading virtual dance parties.

Taurus

Taurus is deeply in touch with the pleasures of the material world. A Taurus at their best is that friend of yours whose house always smells like incense and/or like someone just got out of an expensive shower. They are the friend who actually knows which wine to pair with the discount wheel of brie and semi-fancy rosemary crackers you brought over. They are the friend who had an abundance of healthy, joyful plants even before Instagram told us that plants are what we all need to silence the metronome inside our heads, counting down the moments of our lives as we realize that no CBD facial treatment can ward off our own imminent mortality. When Taurus isn’t doing great, that house becomes a pleasure sty, decorated by a mountain of takeout containers and littered with overpriced candles they don’t need and can’t afford.

Fear Zone Taurus: Takes five naps a day and instead of cooking any of those dried beans they bought, they’re single-handedly keeping their neighborhood restaurants afloat. The hitachi is worn out and all of Netflix is now considered “recently watched.”

Learning Zone Taurus: No naps during the day. Makes a concerted effort to tire themselves out with Pilates and chores rather than marathon hitachi sessions, in order to go to sleep and wake up at reasonable hours.

Growth Zone Taurus: Applies sensuality and genius for delight into many areas of their life. They cook with new spices, they listen to a live recording of their favorite artist beginning to end, they iron shirts—not because they will wear shirts that require ironing, but because they discover that they love the smell of hot cotton.

Gemini

Geminis like their cups the way they like their dance cards: full. I want to confess to you that I was thinking of a significantly more vulgar simile here, but now that I confessed that, I’m sure you can fill in the blank with your own human-contact-starved sex-monster brains. Anyway! A Gemini at their most self-actualized is flitting from engagement to event to soirée and back again like a beautiful songbird, tittering away and bringing delight to all whom they encounter. A Gemini without focus, who feels insecure and ungrounded, falls into a high-risk category for waking up frantic, starting a bunch of different projects, somehow finishing nothing, and ending the day utterly adrift with a palmful of melatonin, praying for the sweet oblivion of sleep.

Fear Zone Gemini: Wins award for most time glued to their screen in a haze of unfulfilling scrolling and shitposts. Beats out teenagers, TikTok stars, and Donald Trump for said title.

Learning Zone Gemini: Still on their phone a lot, but keeps a little notebook so they can jot down the brilliant ideas that come to them as they scroll.

Growth Zone Gemini: Recognizes this as a moment when inspiration is not only enough, but is a gift. Revels in their capacity for big ideas. Does not punish themselves for failing to follow through. Takes email notifications off their phone.

Leo

Leo, you are the sun, and we are all but heliotropic flowers that turn our blossoms toward your dazzling light. At peak Leo, you can catch these superstars crushing an Alicia Keys classic at karaoke, teaching the whole room how to dougie, and coming home to be a stable, supportive, inspiring partner to their friends and to the people with whom they like to make out (non-exclusive categories) When a Leo feels threatened or ignored, they have the capacity to wreak absolute havoc. All of that vitality and power can easily shift into jealousy, arrogance, and maybe even a touch of megalomania. A chilled-out and secure Leo is the Uber driver who emanates such a positive energy that when they ask you how you’re doing you actually tell them, and when they respond with wisdom, humor, and grace, you feel as if you’ve truly made a human connection and that perhaps there is hope for us all in the smithereens of analog intimacy left over after the atomic blast of late-stage digital capitalism. A Leo gone bad is the solipsistic Uber driver eating a pungent curry and smoking a cigarette while telling you to smile more before launching into a monologue about how white men get a bad rap these days.

Fear Zone Leo: Ignores social distancing guidelines because they feel like it and because no strangers have stopped them on the street to compliment their shoes since February and they WILL NOT BE IGNORED.

Learning Zone Leo: Does their best with social distancing, stages avant-garde tableaux vivants in their window to attract the gaze of passersby. Hopes to be featured in a New Yorker article for their efforts.

Growth Zone Leo: Repeats self-love affirmations throughout the day to develop a more robust capacity for internal validation. Tries their hand at a new type of performance. Launches a stand-up career on Instagram Live.

Cancer

No one who’s ever met a Cancer would be surprised to hear them described as one of the most sensitive varieties of human. The star crab navigates the material and the intuitive world with dexterous aplomb, reading the energy of a room and responding in kind with ease. Due to this sensitivity to their environments, I bet that there are a lot of Cancers out there who have scuttled back to their favorite rocks, contenting themselves with hiding beneath said rock fortress until salvation or the end-days—either way, you won’t be able to get them on the phone for a while. A Cancer who is scared or overwhelmed is likely to withdraw, not just in the social distancing way, but, like, in the way where they pretend they dropped their phone in water and came down with a rare form of blindness that impacts their ability to read emails. However, a self-soothing and balanced Cancer is the role model we need right now. Adept at staying inside and only talking to three people, they could really contribute by hosting Zoom lectures on how to stay your ass at home.

Fear Zone Cancer: No one knows. We haven’t heard from them in weeks. We know they’re doing okay because we’re still logged on to their YouTube account, and they are watching a steady stream of Bon Appétit videos and listening to hours of binaural beats.

Learning Zone Cancer: Will text you back if you’re sad.

Growth Zone Cancer: Leans into their nurturing side and checks in on their loved ones regularly. Listens to music with lyrics sometimes because they are stable enough to transition away from ASMR videos and would like to experience joy again.

Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

In the mood for something else to read? Might I suggest…

– Quarantine: Bad for My Mental Health, Better for My Rosacea
– 7 WFH Dressing Ideas—All Collar, No Pants
– 5 Therapists on What Counseling Is Like During a Pandemic
– A Running List of Fashion Brands Making Donations, Offering Discounts, Trying to Survive Right Now
– The 5 Canned-Food Recipes I Recommend to Everyone I Know

The post Your Quarantine Personality, According to Your Sign appeared first on Repeller.

I offer this month’s, and every month’s, horoscopes to you as a tool I hope can be useful and delightful. Imagine that I am holding out a small wooden whistle that I carved, just for you, in my outstretched paws. I say: Please accept this humble gift from the bottom of my wee heart. I can’t offer you the answers to the questions we all want answered right now. I don’t know the way forward, and honestly, neither does Pluto.

Without further ado, my fellow mammals striving to find meaning and maybe even brief glimmers of joy in the anthropocene, let us get weird.

Aries

Happy birthday season, you perfect fire ram!

I know, I know—it’s a hard time to have a birthday. For many signs, just the thought of mustering an elaborately themed virtual birthday party would be exhausting. But I believe that you, Aries, can pull it off. You and your fellow rams have an unparalleled energetic disposition. It may seem frivolous to apply that energy to something like a whimsical fete, but hear me out: The full moon in Libra on the 7th urges all of us to think about our relationships, and for you, this means turning to your IRL social network as a source of levity and light during the dark days. As the moon wanes and you continue to apply your energy to keeping your personal connections fresh and uplifting, you may feel a newfound sense of confidence and security, surrounded (even virtually) by the people you care about and who care about you. When the new moon in Taurus arrives on the 22nd, take a big deep breath and allow yourself a period of reflection. Take stock of how this month has been lived in your body, and then lay that body down in a warm bath. I’ll be here when you get out <3

Taurus

Taurus, you celestially cherished, spiritually fortified, sexy-never-left lookin ass bovine, I want to start off by directing your attention to one of my fave qualities about you.

Y’all are notorious for being what some people might call set in your ways, but other people might just say you know what you like. I am among the second set of people, who believe that you just know what tf you like. Secondly, I would like to direct your attention to the full moon in Libra on the 7th. Full moons signal the completion or fulfilment of a cycle, and this full moon in Libra is all about letting go of some stale habits in your relationships. This period of economic anxiety and social distance and just general large-scale grief has transformed the way that we express and receive love; it has challenged our boundaries and our communication styles. Take some time around the full moon to consider which parts of your communication style have maybe been on autopilot for a while. Try and make yourself aware of the aspects of your life that you can let go of before entering into this next phase.

On the 19th, it’s Taurus time, baby! By the time the new moon arrives in your sign on the 22nd, you will have entered a fresh period of self-knowledge and refined intimacy. Under the cover of the new moon, indulge in some highly personal pleasure adventures. Think of something that gives you pleasure and think about how you might stretch out that pleasure, or amplify it. For example, let’s say you’re really leaning into your 10 p.m. comfort waffles, which you normally eat with some Log Cabin syrup and some Earth Balance. Think about how much more decadent you could be, Taurus! Waffles are an amazing base food. There is a world full of waffle innovations— Monte Cristo waffle sandwiches, cinnamon roll waffles, chicken and waffles nachos!!! In fact, this horoscope is now primarily waffle erotica, but you get what I’m saying, right? Taurus, please stay knowing exactly what you like. Also, harness the lunar energy this month to let go of whatever doesn’t serve you, so that you can make room for bigger and better things (like waffles).

Gemini

Oh, Gemini, what a challenging time to be the astrological equivalent of a fireworks show.

Without credit, against the onslaught of constant internet shade, Geminis have been out here, keeping parties interesting, keeping their followers thirsty, and generally being fascinating as heck. First of all, I want to thank you for joining me here in the horoscopes, as I assume that many of you are making yourselves busy with a variety of virtual linkups. My favorite Gemini recently invited me to a Zoom dance party, but it was 9 p.m., and I was already deep in my nightly ritual of eating a pound of noodles and waiting for the darkness of sleep to take me.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the astrological communicator—and during this challenging time, it’s especially important for the world’s Geminati to continue to fill up their spiritual gas tanks and find ways to grace us with their sparkle, even at a distance. This will never be more evident in April than on the 7th. With a full moon in Libra, we’re all going to turn our attention to the relationships in our lives. Your strength for communicating and building connection can sometimes result in carrying more than your share of effort, in terms of relationship maintenance. Are there any relationships in your life where you feel that you’re doing the heavy lifting? As generously as possible, consider asking for more support. If there’s someone in your life who is on some bullshit, consider this horoscope your permission to gracefully, compassionately choose to get some space from that person. The new moon in Taurus on the 22nd marks an opportunity for a new beginning. The earthy energy of Taurus will encourage you to ask yourself questions that you may have been moving too fast to consider back in the before-times. Why do you want what you want? What makes all of the effort worth it? The support you receive from your loved ones–along with the space you’ve made around the full moon–will set you up to receive the answers to those questions with fortitude.

Cancer

Cancers know how to nest.

If, a few months ago, you had given a Cancer an enchanted bottle full of wish-granting genies or witches or whatever, the Cancers may have actually wished for the opportunity to spend an indeterminate amount of time holed up in their own damn house. Unfortunately, if you’ve ever watched a movie, then you know that that is the trouble with magical creatures who offer you stuff–it really all comes down to context! Although many Cancers are inclined toward staying at home, social isolation is not the same as taking a cozy self-care staycation, in spite of what many of the life-optimizing seize-the-moment-type articles circulating right now would have you believe. This can lead to domestic strife and tension, which cuts to the Cancerian quick because of how much y’all love a peaceful home. The full moon in Libra on the 7th will draw your attention toward the balance, or imbalance, in your life, especially in terms of your relationships. Libra’s intellectual, airy influence can offer you a productive counterpoint to the deeply feeling water in your chart. See if you can lay out some practical, pragmatic ways that you can ask for support in your relationships. Try and take the risk of putting yourself out there, or asking for something that you are afraid you won’t receive. Then feel your heart grow two sizes when your family and friends rise to the occasion.

The new moon in Taurus on the 22nd is a chance for a new beginning, specifically in the world of sensuality and embodied experience. This presents an excellent opportunity to take up a new self-care practice that you’ve been curious about but haven’t tried for whatever reason. Maybe it seemed frivolous or embarrassing, but whatever–it’s apocalyptic as heck out there now, so why not try to learn hula from YouTube tutorials? No one is watching! No one cares! Let those two phrases be your mantra as you plumb the depths of buried impulses and find something silly and sweet that feels good in your body. Every time you hear a negative thought or self-judgement, just repeat after me: No one is watching! Nobody is okay right now! No one cares if I look like one of those inflatable noodle guys in front of car dealerships when I dance!
Take these and call me in the morning, Cancer.

Leo

A little known fact about Leos is that they come out of the womb with jazz hands.

Instead of crying, they hit one Mariah-Carey-style-Champagne-glass-shattering vocal run before asking someone to wipe them down. It’s true. I don’t make the rules. If you have a problem with it, ask science. Leos are born to be adored, and it’s generally not without cause, because generally y’all are incredibly charismatic. But if a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Or in your case: Take our Leo, fantastically dressed, learning the ukulele, alone in their apartment. If there’s no one around to applaud their pared-down rendition of “Skinny Love”, does anything even matter anymore!?

The answer is yes, Leo. The full moon on the 7th signals the end of a cycle, and with that moon filling out in Libra—a sign that’s all about harmony and relationships—you already know we’re going to be doing some work on how we relate to other people. This brings me to the point, Leo. The social distance and isolation that most of us are experiencing has thrown a lot of people into a crisis of identity, a crisis of affirmation. When we’re cut off from the normal sources of external validation, we must get more intimate with ourselves. Can I get an amen? (I heard you.) This means that you need to channel Libra’s harmonious relationship energy as you examine how you may have been giving away your power to define and affirm yourself.

This will most likely be a bumpy journey of discovery, you Calabrian chilli pepper of a human being! Happily, the full moon in Taurus arrives on the 22nd, and God bless it. We will all be grateful for Taurean preference for slow, steady, pleasure-based activities. If the full moon asked you to move past aspects of your relationship with yourself that no longer served you, then the new moon in Taurus on the 22nd will ask you to implement and anoint your new relationship with yourself. Yes, Leo–of course I’m talking about sex stuff. So many of us are afraid to become deeply intimate with ourselves. Many of us are afraid that whatever is down there in the murk of our heart is bad or shameful or wrong. Don’t be afraid of seeing yourself, Leo, because I promise that whatever you discover down there is worthy of your love and attention. Scout’s honor.

Virgo

Hey there Virgirino, how are you doing these days?

What are you eating? Intuitively I feel like Virgos are devoted to overnight oats. They are the perfect Virgo food: cost effective, time efficient, delicious, and how satisfying is it to look at perfectly lined-up jars of overnight oat varieties? Come to think of it, overnight oats are actually a perfect metaphor for one of Virgo’s big-time strengths: prudence. That’s right! Prudence is not just a name for Victorian ghosts and hot witches on the Sabrina reboot, folks! At your fullest Virgoan potential, you achieve your goals by visualizing the future you want for yourself–and then by making careful choices everyday toward that future.

Virgos delight in control, order, and making sure everything goes according to plan. We need these qualities right now. Even if you don’t feel like you’re embodying your highest Virgo lifestate, you can have a stabilizing influence on the people in your life. Feeling out of control is challenging for everyone, and it can bring out sides of people that would normally stay tucked away. That’s why the full moon in Libra on April 7th will illuminate the many irksome ways that love and friendship do not always conform to our expectations. Take this as an opportunity to practice acceptance, because denial and repression do not yield sustainable futures–only a clear-eyed, hands-in-the-dirt understanding of reality can bring about a future built on solid ground. Acknowledge your chaotic side and acknowledge it in others, while also asking yourself what kind of structure would make you feel more comfortable. So many of us are aching for regularity, for something to depend on, and maybe this looks like scheduling a recurring check-in with a loved one instead of random one-offs. Maybe this looks like having virtual coffee every morning with your mom or your best friend. By the time the new moon in Taurus arrives on the 22nd, you’ll have more space for the inevitable chaos of the world, balanced by the comfort of stability and routine in your relationships. You deserve to have needs, Virgo, and you deserve to have those needs met.

Libra

Libra, you astral aesthete, how have you been spending your indoor days?

I am betting that there have been some days when you might have felt moved to try and perfect a gazpacho recipe and rearrange the living room. Perhaps there have also been days spent primarily in the fetal position, letting your eyes glaze over while Bob’s Burgers plays on an endless loop. Lucky for you, one of the most important strengths attributed to Librans is your ability to see what needs to be changed in order to bring a situation back into balance. We’re living through a time when many of us are swinging wildly from one extreme to another. It’s like we’ve hit a patch of black ice on the highway, and many of us are overcorrecting and swerving into a tailspin. We must resist the totally understandable urge to overcorrect–and instead we must do whatever it is that dads and tow-truck guys have told me to do in that scenario that I can’t recall but hey! I’m not perfect and I’m not driving anywhere these days anyway! Take that, black ice! Anyway!

On the 7th, we get a full moon in your sign. This is a moment when your Libran powers for discernment, balance, and beauty will be amplified and best put to use in your relationships and the domestic sphere. You have the opportunity to reflect on areas of excess in your life and consider how elements of your relationships or your home life might be adjusted to support equilibrium. This is especially important because the new moon in Taurus on the 22nd will likely encourage you to indulge— a proposition to which any Libra is immediately like bitch, say less. But! Armed with your full-moon energy from the beginning of the month, you will have the discernment and grace to indulge wisely, rather than maxing out your credit card on luxury candles and sumptuous house slippers. A lack of moderation often comes from a deep-seated belief in scarcity–like, if I don’t eat the entire tub of ice cream I’ll be a sucker because I’ll never get to have ice cream ever again after tonight. Libra, ice cream isn’t going anywhere. There is more abundance in our lives than any of us manage to comprehend, trust.

Scorpio

Precious Scorpling, what have you been dreaming about?

Seriously, I want to know. Hit me with dream descriptions in the comments. I want to make a compendium of things that happen in Scorpios’ dreams because I have always imagined that it’s like a club scene from Queen of the Damned, and I just have a bit more time on my hands these days to dig in and do some research. Now, I am not only interested in your dreams, so as to dispel or confirm my stereotype that all Scorpios have freaky-sexy subconsious lives. I also bring up your dreams to draw your attention to one of the strengths associated with your sign. Scorpio is known for emotional depth and bravery, two necessary traits when we try to interact with the shadowy parts of ourselves, which are expressed in dreams, sex, and intuitive practice. With the full moon on the 7th in Libra, a sign that is all about relationships, you will have the opportunity to lean into the deep well of your emotional intelligence and ask yourself if you are holding onto grudges that stand in the way of intimacy. Like, the world is in chaos and tragedy is everywhere–do you really need to continue cold-shouldering that person who you actually really like but felt slighted by a few months ago and haven’t hit up since? Now is the time to dig deep and bravely examine that running list of People I No Longer Fuck With, which I imagine Scorpios recite like Arya Stark did her kill list. (Wow I just Googled it and, as a matter of fact, Arya Stark is a Scorpio. Congratulations.) When the new moon arrives in Taurus on the 22nd, maybe you’ll have rekindled the platonic or erotic flame with a previously counted-out person. If so, take Taurus’s sensual lead and have a candlelit, socially distanced dinner to celebrate the reunion. If you ever feel misunderstood, Scorp, just know that your depth and passion are necessary, beautiful aspects of who you are, and your complexity doesn’t make you any less deserving of generosity, patience, and love.

Sagittarius

Seeing a Sagittarius out of sorts breaks my heart.

It’s like if that Nickelodeon show where people got slimed was back on the air–only instead of celebrities and eager youths, it was, like, plump and unsuspecting housecats getting slimed, they would have no idea why they were suddenly gooey and no coping strategies! You see, Sags are the camp counselors of the zodiac, but even Sags are getting slimed by the weight of the world right now–especially if they are cooped up indoors and unable to go adventuring. This can be especially hard if the people in your life have come to rely on your indomitable optimism and your proclivity for starting impromptu wrestling matches. Think of a social distance wrestling match: It would be like watching a mime show with way more Spandex and glitter, which, honestly, is the feedback I have been giving mimes for years–like, c’mon mimes!! But now is not the time to demand more of mime aesthetics, nor is it the time to demand super-high energy positivity from yourself, no matter what other people want from you. When the full moon in Libra arrives on the 7th and your attention turns toward the relationships in your life, it might be time to lean away from your posi-leader of the pack vibes and lean into your signature Sagittarian independence. Think about who you need to be for yourself right now, and keep that in the foreground. Having a full moon social media break could do wonders for you. Take that self-focused energy and spend this month tuning into what you need throughout the waning cycle of the moon. If you guard your energy in this way, the new moon in Taurus on the 22nd will be a powerful boost to your confidence and sense of self. Beneath your surface, Sag, you are a deep well of warm, generous care. No matter how dark or heavy your heart might feel right now, know that your true identity, your true home, is that warm generous love, which is always just a deep breath away.

Capricorn

When I think of Capricorns, I think of Michelle Obama.

I also think of Michelle Obama when I am doing push-ups, and when I am considering my ideal romantic partners. (I’m not saying Barack hasn’t done right by you, Michelle, I’m just saying that if you’re ever looking for something on the side, I’m right here.) Now, Michelle Obama’s excellent biceps are the embodiment of Capricorn’s signature persistence and notorious discipline. During times such as these, when so many of the avenues for demonstrating your ambition and your dogged persistence are thrown out of whack, all my Caps out there might be feeling pent-up and frustrated. On the 7th, the full moon in Libra, the sign of relationships, offers an opportunity to channel some of that energy in ways that might have been neglected in the before-times. This is the perfect moment to reflect on the ways that your achievement-focused mindset has impacted your ability to show up for loved ones, or to take solace and comfort from those closest to you. Here’s the catch: You are not allowed to be hard on yourself about it. Right now, you are only allowed to take stock of the past in order to learn about what you need right now and in the future. The Libran energy of the moon encourages you to resituate relationships as an area in your life where you can derive satisfaction, affirmation, and meaning. If you’re feeling the itch to strive for greatness right now, strive for being a great friend, a great partner, a great parent. Take the new moon in Taurus on the 22nd as an invitation to run a bath, put your feet up, and celebrate the love you’re cultivating in your life because you are fundamentally, inherently worthy and loveable, and none of the outside world’s accolades or lack thereof will ever alter that truth.

Aquarius

Aquarius, you tender-hearted alien, how have you been holding up?

Have you been finding ways to occupy your busy mind? Hopefully you have been occupying yourself with things that bring Aquarians joy–like arranging Hubble satellite images into a calming slideshow (theme: the smallness of our planet’s strife on the galactic scale). One of Aquarius’ greatest strengths is the humanitarian impulse, and right now, many of you may feel utterly bereft about the state of the world. That is, of course, an entirely reasonable feeling, but it is not necessarily a livable place for the duration of this crisis. The full moon in Libra on the 7th encourages you to scale down your concern for the whole world and focus on the people closest to you, where you can have the most impact. One of your strengths is your independence, but right now we need each other more than ever–and there are surely people on your contacts list who sincerely want to hear about the latest developments in whatever esoteric field ranks as your current obsession. You will be glad that you pulled your attention away from lofty and abstract places (read: your favorite places) when the new moon in Taurus arrives on the 22nd and insists on a new beginning w/r/t your self care. Aquarians can be so wrapped up in their inner world that they would easily win the “most likely to forget they have a body” award on a zodiac yearbook’s superlatives page. If you spend this month connecting with other humans, even virtually, you will likely be more grounded and more inclined to apply your curiosity to self care. What would feel so, so deliciously good to you right now? That is the question the new moon will ask of you. The answer might be caramel sauce, or some risque sex stuff that you want to try by yourself or with a human that shares your home. Whatever it is, luxuriate in it, because you are a really good person and you deserve it.

Pisces

Welcome to Aries season, Pisces, you interdimensional transcorporeal son-of-a-gun!

How many times have you been told to meditate in the last two weeks? If you’re anything like my friends, family, or the random neighborhood man I lectured at a safe distance while he was watering his plants, then you’ve been hearing it a lot. As a yoga teacher and translator of celestial goings-on, I am compelled to tell people to meditate like an evangelical Christian or a brand-new vegan is compelled to share their own personal salvations. That said, I think there are times in our lives when the advice to be still and meditate can feel like someone saying “You know, if you stopped worrying so much you’d be a lot happier.” Which is, like, good advice, I guess? But also annoying and unhelpful.

What I’m saying is that your Piscean strengths are emotional and spiritual, but sometimes even the Professor Trelawneys of the world (is that a Harry Potter deep cut or common pop culture reference these days? I don’t know, I don’t care, what is time, etc.) might find it difficult to cut through the world’s noise and locate some inner silence. Lucky for you, the full moon in Libra on the 7th will illuminate your sensitive heart and encourage you to connect with yourself through connecting with others. Yes, I am talking about virtual eye-gazing sessions. I haven’t tried it myself, and the way it’s playing out in my head is a little creepy, but I think you might be into it. If you have another human in your home, you can do it IRL. If eye gazing isn’t your jam, then maybe just sitting in silent meditation with one of your mystic friends (I’m sure you have a homie charging up her crystals as I type) On the 22nd, when the new moon in Taurus casts the world into a darkness that signals new beginnings and new opportunities, nurture the budding intimacy with yourself by trying your hand at creating something. Even if you’ve been in a slump, just take out the colored pencils and start scribbling. Draw the outfit that you’ll wear the next time events are a thing. Color an entire page black and feel like a statement-making goth Rothko (omg, Gothko!!! That’s my new artist moniker no stealsies!). Whatever you are moved to do or make this month, Pisces, trust that your inner world is valuable and worthy of expression. You are not too much, you are not excessive, your inspiration transcends you, and all you have to do is let it move through you.

Illustration by Olivia Healy.

The post Your April Horoscope Is Here to Deliver You a Tiny Glimmer of Joy appeared first on Repeller.