Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for April 2023

April brings another wave of astrological intensity, but before you get tense and brace yourself for impact I invite you to just duck under water with me and pause — maybe holding each other’s hands with bubbles rising from our floating hair, just noticing how quiet and gentle it feels underneath it all. Waves will keep moving overhead. Waves will be waves. What matters for us is to make spaces to feel our togetherness right now.

The world continues to be a lot. Overwhelm, anxiety, and burnout are common and appropriate reactions to the scope and scale of alarming change right now. I want to you to hold the astrological details of this month as a mirror, not as a warning sign. The chaos of our world is reflected in the stars is reflected in the world, and so on. If reading about the astrological indicators of this will stress you out even more, I’d say skip this intro and just go to your sign’s horoscope. My goal here is to offer tools, not contribute to overwhelm.

That said, April brings some unsettling energy. We’re entering eclipse season, which can always shake up our sense of safety and certainty (to whatever degree we’re at all holding on to those right now). And this month’s solar eclipse will be a second New Moon in Aries, which is itself a jarring repetition. Last month’s New Moon in Aries happened at the very first degree of the sign, this one happens in the very last. It’s rare, and a good reminder that even predictable cycles can throw us curveballs. And this solar eclipse, happening at 12:12am April 20th New York Time (it’s April 19th in some other time zones), will also receive a challenge from Pluto, newly in Aquarius. I knew you were waiting for that as soon as I started gentle-talking you through the first few paragraphs. “What godawful thing is Pluto doing now?” you were probably thinking, and you were correct to do so.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Pluto the way I love going to therapy and composting. It’s important to deal with the shit that might otherwise pile up and attract flies, quite literally (Pluto rules waste, among other things). Pluto aspects force us to get real and take care of what’s rotten, often by transforming it into fertilizer.

But I would not describe Plutonian times as “fun” or “relaxing,” two adjectives I have been longing to apply to my own life of late. Working with Pluto, we’re working with our anxieties, our pain, our recognition that nothing gold can stay. Working with Pluto, we can quickly move from courage to exhaustion, from interest to anxiety. And during eclipse season, our goal should be to keep calm and keep listening. Eclipses bring us important and sometimes surprising information that arises emotionally first. During eclipse season, your feelings may be bigger than usual and more changeable than usual. I’m a big fan of feeling the feeling and THEN making the decision. This is why astrologers generally recommend that you take notes, do some journaling, and pay attention to what’s arising but don’t take big dramatic steps to change anything until eclipse season is over and you have a little more emotional detachment. This particular eclipse season will end on May 19th with the New Moon in Taurus.

That can be a long time to wait if there’s an urgent decision you need to make, so please trust your own process and that you can make good decisions for yourself, even during eclipses. I’m describing best practices for anything that can wait, especially if it is prompted by new information you’re just learning. Mercury will also turn retrograde the day after the solar eclipse, so I invite you again into that slow, underwater space with me where the waves of the world are crashing above us without knocking us over. There’s a lot of noise going on up there, but you can always come back down here. I can hold your hand while we’re here together. Who else do you want to be reaching for?

My books are open for readings (a slightly less metaphorical handholding) so please get in touch. To know when I offer classes and deals, follow me on Instagram and for expanded horoscopes with each month’s significant dates and how to handle them, join me on Patreon for only $2 a month. May you find your sweet spot, reach out to your people, and most importantly create a calm space for listening this month. Underneath the emotions there’s always important information.

Aries

Get quiet and listen to: your enthusiasm. It may be buried somewhere under the rubble of daily life during global crisis, but it’s still calling to you. It’s not trying to distract you away from what’s serious and important, or ask you to shirk your responsibilities. It’s not being disrespectful to grief, your own or other people’s. What it is doing is insisting that you pick it up again and claim it, as a way of inciting a kind of fire in your own being that can burn away what’s hurting you and what was never yours.

Taurus

Get quiet and listen to: your desire to not be here. It may lure you all day long into daydreams or reading YA novels or doing anything on a screen that lets you forget that you’re here and now, in a body, subject to the rules and conditions of this universe. Or it may be more painfully pulling at you, tugging you toward depression and despair. Your goal, in listening, isn’t to surrender to those feelings. Rather, now is a time to acknowledge and gather up the parts of you that are in pain and need a goddamn break. The parts that wish you had an easier task ahead of you, a more just and kind world to call home. The parts of you that need to grieve. It’s okay to let them. Let them speak loudly enough that you can hear them and hold them. Feel their grief. Then let yourself good read a good book.

Gemini

Get quiet and listen to: a message from your future self. Imagine them shouting to you as though from some yards away—maybe from across a subway platform or from a backyard a few houses down from your own. It’s a little hard to hear, but their tone of voice seems encouraging. Don’t be startled if they wave their arms, it’s not a warning but a celebration—see, they’re giving you a thumbs up. They are grateful to you, standing where you are in the past, facing what you have to so they can celebrate right now. If you can, give them a signal back.

Cancer

Get quiet and listen to: your oldest, wisest self. You as the queer elder you will someday be for the kids, the one you wish you had had when you were younger. Notice what your experience is telling you to remember, which is different from what your anxiety insists you never look away from. This isn’t about hypervigilance, but about all the nuance and complexity that comes back into focus when you get centered in what feels right. Reframe your life history so far through the lens of what it has taught you, what you’ve survived, and what you can now teach to others.

Leo

Get quiet and listen to: your improbable optimism. The voices of panic and pessimism are loud enough, don’t worry about the risk of ignoring what they need you to know. Instead, pay closer attention to where you are improbably and perhaps deliciously being called toward joy right now. It can be a small one, like the joy of being able to walk outside after a few days of being sick in bed. It can be the joy of perfectly ripe grapes, or a phone call with a friend whose laugh you missed. It doesn’t have to change the world, but it will change you. Remember that as much as anything else, it’s why you’re here.

Virgo

Get quiet and listen to: the part of you that hates change but knows you’re ready for it. Somewhere in your life, your metaphorical recycling bin is full. You’ve maybe even balanced things precariously on top of it—a tin can dangling from a bottle neck, an empty plastic salad tub covering them both, all rising architecturally above the bin itself. Your kitchen may or may not look this way, but how you’re running your life right now does. It’s time to get rid of some things that will be hard to release but so satisfying to be rid of. The process may feel messy or uncomfortable, but you get to make choices that mean the past is no longer piling up around you.

Libra

Get quiet and listen to: the voices you’ve internalized from people you love. Not because those voices are more right or valid than your own, but because you need to be able to tell them apart from your own. Whether it’s a phrase of judgment or praise that you repeat to yourself, an anxious reminder you picked up from your mom, a flare of pride about your talents—recognize what you’ve absorbed. Keep listening for what’s underneath all that. Libra energy often discovers its own center through being mirrored by others, so this is a time to listen for the parts of you that need to be seen more clearly, more compassionately, or at all. And yes, you can do this with someone but they also need to promise to listen well.

Scorpio

Get quiet and listen to: what you’re body has been waiting to tell you, either with a polite cough or a full-on tantrum. This means being in a process of attunement over time, with the goal of learning more and more about how you fluctuate and what helps you feel that you and your body are not enemies and may even be (or become) friends. Reach for where you’re hurting with compassion and curiosity. Pay attention to what small changes might improve conditions within your skin. Remember that you are the miracle that your ancestors longed for, even if it hurts to be here sometimes.

Sagittarius

Get quiet and listen to: the part of you that needs this all to be more fun. Something that used to enjoyable may have become a chore lately. Listen to the part of you that needs to feel more energized and less exhausted, and consider all possibilities for how to get that spark back. You can say no to something you thought you might like but don’t. You can change course if your current trajectory is dreary. And remember you don’t need to decide anything just yet, but it’s good to let yourself reconnect to your desire for a different future.

Capricorn

Get quiet and listen to: what the youngest part of you has to say. Whether you cringe at the thought of your inner child or embrace opportunities to reach for care and comfort, this month brings an opportunity to reorient and deepen into conversation with you-as-a-child, you-as-a-family-member, you-as-a-body-that-deserves-care, you-as-a-temporary-ecosystem-with-moods-and-cycles. If the idea of listening to this part of you prompts resistance, start by being kind to the part of you that feels that resistance.

Aquarius

Get quiet and listen to: the conversations happening beneath the ordinary chatter in your mind. What beliefs or fears are scripting your thoughts from backstage? Can you invite them into the spotlight to speak frankly? Your goal is to be better positioned to know what’s motivating you and how that shapes the way you think about your life. You may find some beliefs that are outdated or contradictory, some fears that are overblown. Hearing them more clearly can help you change and heal them. You are more than a set of ethical principles imperfectly applied. You are more than an engine of activism or future visioning. What is that more saying?

Pisces

Get quiet and listen to: the part of you that responds to your fear of scarcity by giving everything away before it can be taken from you. Can you negotiate with this part a little better? Maybe bring it into conversation with the part of you craving the stability of having enough—asking them to get on the same page together, not retreat into feeling irreconcilable. Pisces energy often prefers flow (of resources, of feelings, of time) to containment, but this month reminds you that you may need more containment. It’s okay to fill your own cup. It’s okay to let your cup overflow and fill other cups, as long as it also stays full. It’s less advisable to empty your own cup into someone else’s and then walk around thirsty all day.

Meg Jones Wall on Queer, Expansive Tarot

Interview has been edited for length and clarity. Feature photo by Meg Jones Wall.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Meg Jones Wall about their new book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation, which Dani Janae reviewed and which is out now. Meg will also be joining us as our featured author for the A+ Read a Fucking Book Club on May 3rd. We talked our personal histories with Tarot, the nuances and necessities of reading “bad” cards and about divesting from patriarchal Tarot traditions.

Nico: Let’s kick it off by pulling a card. Do you have cards you wanna pull from?

Meg: I have so many. Let’s see. This is the problem; I actually have too many decks. I have reached critical mass.

Nico: Yeah. I was like, what deck will you choose?

Meg: God, there’s so many. It’s out of hand actually. I need to cull them badly. They’re so pretty, and I love them all. And that’s a problem. So what’s your shuffling method? How do you pull?

Nico: I shuffle and set the intentions of the spread and the questions I’m asking as I’m shuffling. But then I will fan them out and I’ll feel for a card. So, I don’t pull from the top.

Meg: Oh, I love that. I love different shuffling methods. I think they’re all so interesting. Like, people do things that are a little bit unexpected or unconventional. I don’t think there should be a “normal” way people shuffle. But I love to see how people decide which card they’re gonna work with. I think it’s really cool.

Nico: How do you do it?

Meg: I do overhand, but I also do bridge style. I generally divide into three, choose the middle stack. I like to put my hands on it and kind of breathe, get into the zone. My partner only reads jumpers. She gets a ton of jumpers in her readings. And it’s very interesting, cause when I’m reading for myself, I don’t get a lot of jumpers, but if I’m reading for her, even if I’m using a deck of mine and not one of hers, the cards will jump for her.

Nico: Interesting! I read mostly with this Thoth deck. It’ll do jumpers for people who aren’t in the reading. Sometimes like, cards will like fly out while people are shuffling and float and then land in front of someone else.

Meg: God, that’s kind of rad.

Nico: It’s a sassy deck. Once I was reading with my sister, and my mom was just like drinking on a chair and getting belligerent. Not super, but you know, inserting herself, and then she got a jumper that floated under her feet, and I was like, “pick it up, pick it up.” It had landed face down. And it was, um, I think it was the eight of swords. In the Thoth deck, it has the message at the bottom on it, right? And it said ‘interference.’

Meg: Just a casual little drag. That’s very funny.

Nico: So what are you asking or what intention are you setting with this pull?

Meg: I think I’m gonna ask what should we be thinking about during this conversation? What’s something we could tap into or what’s something to explore or to keep in mind?

This is the Gentle Tarot. The court cards are seed, root, flower, harvest. And I pulled Harvest of Stones, which ends up translating to the King of Pentacles. The King of Earth. I kind of like that. It gives us some room to grow.

Nico: So what does that tell you then? What are you feeling having drawn that?

Meg: So to me, the suit of Pentacles or the element of earth is this really steady, kind of intentional, responsible, long-term thinking sort of element. It’s like the roots and the things that live underneath our feet and the things that make us feel tangibly physically grounded into a space. I’m also connected to a place in time. I see Kings numerologically as being five. So I see them as card 14 of their suits. So, one plus four brings us to five, and so for me it ties to higher fives and Temperance Energy. Five in numerology is this pivot point, right? It’s the midpoint of the cycle of one to nine. So I see fives as thinking about where we’re coming from, thinking about what boundaries need to be broken, thinking about where freedom and movement is needed to kind of break through friction and where that friction’s gonna bring us.

And so thinking about long-term legacy, what kinds of changes need to be made to create future stability? And doing that in a really earthy, deliberate, careful, thoughtful, responsible and patient way that still keeps in mind ideas like generosity and abundance and community care. As opposed to, you know, the king of Wands, which might be much more bright and dynamic and fast-moving. This is very slow, like, okay, what systems are broken and how can we repair them or rebuild them or leave them behind? And how is that gonna impact not just this generation, but future generations? It feels very grounded, intentional. How are we moving and what does that movement mean, and how does that impact everyone around us? So as a conversation between two Tarot readers in the queer community, that feels kind of cool.

Nico: That’s really interesting.

What does this card sound like? Or what does it taste like? What does the card smell like? What does it feel like to be anchored in this moment with this particular card? I think that can also be a really useful experience when you’re thinking about what this card might mean for you when you pull it out in a reading.

Meg: We’re talking about long-term shifts, and we could be talking about all kinds of things, but thinking about how ideas of Tarot might be shifting or how the conversation around Tarot is shifting. And how queer creators might be part of that conversation. We have pushed it in a certain direction.

Nico: I got, so it’s interesting. Um, different suit, completely different card. Six of Swords.

It’s ‘science.’ Which to me is, you know, it’s about a journey in a lot of ways, and it’s much more intellectual as far as the suit goes, because it’s air. But it’s interesting tying into what you got, because it’s asking questions of, where have we come from? Where are we going? What are we actively cutting away and discarding in the name of pursuing something better? Thinking about how that ties into the work you’ve done with this book and the work that queer people are doing with Tarot and asking, what are the systems that we are sort of saying are antiquated or not working for us? And what kind of new methods can we apply to the Tarot and create for ourselves? I think in the Rider Waite, they are literally in a boat in this card, on a journey.

And it’s, it’s an Aquarius card too, so it’s definitely that sort of fixed that get-through-the-middle part, which is really interesting in when we think we’re talking about, like, this book is finished and complete and it’s like, actually no, the book being finished and complete is the midpoint. So that’s a really interesting revelation.

*laughter*

Meg: It’s a little terrifying. Publishing is so confusing. I just can’t stress that enough. I don’t actually know what comes on the other side. This is a book. Now that it’s in the world, that messy middle, you don’t necessarily know what’s gonna happen on the other side. You just know that it has to be done and to be present.

Nico: It lives and evolves as more people read it and have their experiences and bring their interpretations to it.

Meg: It’s now its own entity. It’s its own thing. It’s gonna go and have its own adventures, and it’s gonna go build relationships of its own. But the people that buy it and work with it…I helped make it, but they’re not having a relationship with you. They’re having a relationship with the book. Or they’re having a relationship with their cards, with support from the book.

Nico: Aw, that’s like the book is its own little Fool.

Meg: Yeah, exactly. It becomes this Fool, and it’s like sending a kid off to college or something. It’s very you’re in, you’re done. Go do your thing.

Nico: That’s so funny. Thank you for that.

As I was reading through the book and experiencing how you’re talking about the cards and also the broader aspects of the text and journal prompts and things like that, it caused me to reflect a lot on how I had learned about Tarot, which started in the 1990s. And of course, the literature at the time was very heteronormative, very white, very ‘some of these cards are going to be blonde people,’ and this card represents ‘a happy, healthy marriage with kids.’ And so a lot of coming to Tarot as a queer person was reading between the lines of a lot of the meanings I had been working with in order to be like, well, what would this kind of energy mean to me?

And then, reading the book was super refreshing because I didn’t have to do that. I could just engage. This caused me to realize I had been doing a lot of something like translating in my head when reading other Tarot texts. And I really loved that about it.

What were your goals for this book, and what did you set out to do? And how do you think that this adds to the canon of new and queer Tarot books that are out there?

Meg: So much of what you’re talking about is actually what I wanted to set out to do. Cause I didn’t pick up my first step until 2016, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I had similar experiences, even though I feel like there were more accessible, inclusive resources. But a lot of the resources that were so often recommended were still really heteronormative. And I had the same experience of, okay, if I can only see this Page as a blonde young man, what does that mean? Is this supposed to be a person that’s in my life?

I mean, court cards are their own confusing thing, I think, but I didn’t really understand how to engage with cards, and I was like, I can read these meanings, but I don’t feel like I’m learning Tarot. I feel like I’m just trying to memorize and internalize what someone is telling me this thing means. If I’m learning to read in this way, then what is the value of me reading for myself if I’m just actually utilizing someone else’s understanding of the cards in my own readings? What’s the point of me reading? Why wouldn’t I just hire a reader to do this? What am I bringing to the cards?

I was missing something. And it took me a long time to figure out where I could live in the experience of reading my own cards. I write about it a lot in the introduction, but this idea that you pick up the cards and you just should know how to read them — I found that really isolating because I didn’t know what to do with them.

I didn’t really know what to do. It just ended up meaning that I was researching all these different meanings and trying to find one that felt like it applied. This can’t be how one reads Tarot. I did feel like I was finding really great resources and slowly piecing together the things that felt supportive for me and learning how to read. I wanted a book that made me feel welcome and made me feel like this could be a tool that was actually for me, not just something I was trying to take and pick apart and translate into my own life. So I think that was kind of where the idea for the book started. And then anything that I started to include in this grand vague idea of what this book would eventually become was all sort of in service of: How can I make sure that anyone reading this feels like they could use this book to help support whatever their Tarot journey is going to be? How can this serve as a companion that’s encouraging and supportive?

So I guess in terms of Tarot canon, it felt to me like a lot of the 101 books had similar information or similar rules or similar structures or similar recommendations. That’s why I was kind of like, okay what if we don’t base the book on these same ideas? What if we think beyond that? What if we make space for, hey, do you not like the Rider Waite Smith either? Cool, let’s talk about that. I wanted to have a resource that existed in that space that felt like it was making room for lots of different kinds of Tarot experiences and lots of different ways to use the cards. A resource that would celebrate that. That’s expansive and making space for things instead of being like, this is the narrow box.

Nico: I think Tarot books treat the Rider Waite Tarot as the default and then everything else is like a reworking or divergence from that as opposed to just maybe accepting that if an artist creates a Tarot deck, that can be its own thing, right?

Meg: Yeah. Because the Rider Waite Smith’s not even that old. But it’s become so definitive. I think that if people like that deck, that’s fine. And I use a lot of decks that are based on that system. We do ourselves a disservice when every time we see a card, the first meanings that come to mind are only based on this one deck. I think it’s easy to get really narrow and like, okay, four swords rest. And nothing else, you know?

Nico: What did you learn about your own practice while writing this book? Did it impact the way you read Tarot as you went through this process?

Meg: I didn’t want the minors to feel small. Some books are the majors and then the minors get a little paragraph or something. When I was trying to figure out what felt like it was missing from the book, I was like, I want to talk about sensory experience and what it feels like, at least for me, to sit in the energy of each card.

And I actually wrote those separately. I wrote it in one big document as: This is a sensory story of what it feels like to move through the Major Arcana and then through each cycle of the minors. And then I split that into sections to put with each card. Having that sensory component as an exploration of the energy of a card and the feeling of the card and the experience of the card felt really important to me. How is sensory stuff and tangible physical experiences, how is that part of my practice? It turns out it’s pretty important to me.

That was a bigger revelation that I think I was expecting, but I think it is a cool aspect of the card descriptions that I’m really proud of. I like that it’s in there.

Nico: There’s a couple things in that that I really like that I really appreciate and also think belong as a divestment from patriarchal norms when it comes to viewing the cards. Because you talked about, for example, the Major Arana being something everyone is really focused on, right? And those are about big, big events or big things happening or big concerns, but the day-to-day is where we live. Why wouldn’t that be just as important as something you can write down in a history book or a newspaper? Why wouldn’t your day-to-day life be really important to you? Disregarding that is really patriarchal.

Meg: What does it feel like in my body to feel like I’m in a Three of Swords place versus a Six of Swords place versus a Nine of Swords place? Your physical experience of that energy, no matter how you interpret the card, is going to be different. I think sometimes we don’t always have language for how a card feels, but we might know how our body feels. If our breath catches, we might have an experience with the card that even if we don’t have the language for it, we might have a sensory experience of it. And I think that can be just as valuable, especially if we’re struggling to find language around it.

What does this card sound like? Or what does it taste like? What does the card smell like? What does it feel like to be anchored in this moment with this particular card? I think that can also be a really useful experience when you’re thinking about what this card might mean for you when you pull it out in a reading.

Nico: So the book is “a Tarot Journey for Radical Transformation,” and I was thinking a lot about radical growth through Tarot and divestment from harmful forces in Tarot. When I first came to Tarot, I was growing up in a Catholic household and, I don’t know how my friend and I were allowed to have this deck.

*laughter*

Meg: Did you have to hide it?

Nico: It was a Greek myth themed deck, so I guess that was okay. So no explanation other than they were just like, ‘yeah, let those nerds have their Greek myth thing.’

Meg: Honestly, that’s incredible.

Nico: It was the 90s, Xena was on, Hercules.

Meg: Kid in the 90s. It’s gonna be Greek Mythology.

Nico: It felt very forbidden, but also it was an interesting tool for starting to crack open the world and look at it from the different angles, angles I wasn’t fed. I know you have an evangelical background, right? I was wondering, what part, if any, the Tarot has played in your growth and healing beyond that, and how you maybe see that as a potential part of the journey for other people, especially queer people?

Meg: I’ve written a few essays about this, but I think I’m still trying to figure some of those things out. I do think there is such joy in having something tangible and tactile you can use as a form of reflection and meditation and introspection, and even personal interrogation and examination. The way I was raised, anything you didn’t know was just like, well, that’s where faith comes in. And so it felt like there was a very neat answer for things. Because if the people I was asking my theological questions didn’t know, they were like, well pray about it.

It often felt really dismissive. We just suppressed the shit out of that. Of course, that did not work out super well for me, and eventually I left and started therapy and got healthier again. I think finding Tarot left a lot of space for, I don’t know, “that’s actually fine.”

It was giving me space to ask similar kinds of questions over and over, getting different answers, and thinking about how the different cards that came up could reveal different aspects of my question or different versions of answers to that question. It gave me all of these new avenues to explore different things. And it’s not necessarily definitive like, yes, this is, this is your question and this is the answer and that’s it. But this is an opportunity to have an ongoing conversation around this topic and to see as I grow and change and experience new facets of myself and learn to understand myself in new ways. It felt like the Tarot could grow with me, instead of restricting or putting a cap on the questions I was allowed to ask.

I think the framework of my personal experience with evangelicalism felt very restrictive. Tarot just continues to feel like, yeah, sure, let’s open that door too. Why not? And that feels very exciting. And also safe in a different way. It doesn’t feel like I can stumble into something I’m not supposed to be looking at, which is how church often felt for me.

Nico: Oh, no.

Meg: Ask the wrong question, and you’re going to hell or something. But with Tarot, it’s like let’s find out. And every new reading has a new opportunity for some different answers, sometimes expected. And it always keeps the conversation going. I don’t usually feel like my cards are like, ‘no.’ They’re like, ‘ah, how about this?’ And that is exciting to me.

Nico: The cards are very deep, right? You can just peel back layer after layer after layer of meaning and esoterica and all of these different things and bring your own meaning and have your own relationship to them. That’s very liberatory, right?

Which takes me to a question I had about your approach to “negative cards.” But you know, the ones we’re all afraid of getting, Ten of Swords or the Tower or, when I first started reading as a kid, I would get The Devil a lot.

I imagine this has been something you’ve really had to develop a healthy relationship with, because I’ve only read for other people a little bit, but people will get scared, right?

Meg: And [to be read for] is such a vulnerable experience, too. How will you sit in this weird, vulnerable, tender moment with me and interpret this tool? I never take that lightly. I always wanna make sure I’m translating with compassion and involving them in the process. And it feels like a very collaborative thing.

There are cards that are universally scary for most people. I think that everyone has a card or two that even if it’s not a traditionally negative card that has negative connotations or has sticky connotations or makes them feel some kind of way when they come up. I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about: What do these cards have to offer? Why are they here? I have had this conversation with people that have asked: Why can’t I just take these scary cards out of my deck? And I was like, oh, really? Sure. But then it’s not a Tarot deck anymore. I would gently invite you to buy an Oracle deck.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to come to the card solely for comfort. But if you’re not prepared for any card to come up in your reading, you should not pull out your cards at that moment. For me, the negative cards just feel like part of the experience of being a person.

The cards are a mirror, not a crystal ball. And sometimes it’s really nice to have the cards be like, Hey, this thing sucks. And to be able to be like, thank you, it does suck. And so I find that often those negative cards or scary cards can actually help me identify what the shitty feeling is.

Do I need to just sit in these feelings and just let myself feel bad? Do I need to take action to walk away from something? Do I need to let myself dream and think about other possibilities? What’s at the heart of what my problem is?

Nico: I think an important part of reading Tarot is like having that healthy relationship to each of the cards.

Another great thing about reading this book for me was that I found some nice moments with cards that I tend to be like, ‘ah, you again.’ I just have been getting The Emperor a lot lately and I’m just like, why is this guy here? What do you want, man?

Meg: In my experience, if a card won’t stop coming forward, it’s like you’re not listening. You’re missing something. Keep going. Keep digging. What layer have you not looked at yet? What conversation have you not had with this card yet? Which can be really annoying, and most people don’t like that answer, but I think, in my experience, that’s what’s generally happening if a card keeps showing up,

Nico: It’s like an exorcism of sorts. You almost have to keep working with it until it’s ready to be released.

Do you remember when you first started reading what cards were recurring for you? What cards have been recurring for you lately?

Meg: Well, the King of Pentacles has come up for me several times. I’ve been getting a lot of kings across suits, but especially, King of Swords and King of Pentacles, which I have mostly been taking as ‘you are well resourced. You are Okay.’

Keep protecting yourself, but also keep moving towards change, keep moving towards expansion, keep questioning what’s happening, but you don’t have to do it quickly. You don’t have to do it immediately. These can be long-term goals.

When I first started reading, Judgment came up a lot. My first deck was the Wild Unknown and in the deck Judgment is this black and white card of doves. It’s less angelic, like it is in the Rider Waite. And it’s much more like doves flying free into a big sky.

And I was like, what the fuck is this, and in retrospect I think I’ve really come to see this card as an awakening card, but also a forgiving the self card. I think it’s very tied to me feeling guilty about leaving the church and wanting something for myself and being afraid to be all in on the Tarot in case it was somehow bad for me. Or if God didn’t want me to be reading the cards. I just had a lot of sticky feelings when I got my first deck and was trying to find myself within it and figure out what it was gonna mean for me. Now in retrospect I’m like, oh yeah, that card’s just trying to affirm my choices. ‘You’re okay. Take the big step. You’re fine. You’ve already done half of it.’

Nico: That card is just like ‘jump, jump, jump.’

Meg: I think it’s actually one of my favorite cards. But at the time, I was like, uh, big scary angels, what’s happening?

Nico: One thing that was really interesting that you talked about in your intro and then that played out through the book was this nonbinary approach to reading the cards. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and how you approached writing about the cards and reading them without talking about the divine feminine, the divine masculine, and this and that.

Meg: Even before I started using they/them pronouns as part of my little personal set of pronouns, very early, within the first year or two of my Tarot practice, I was like, I don’t like all this gender stuff.  I didn’t love it with the court cards, but especially with the majors and especially with some of those challenging really classically patriarchal figures of The Hierophant and The Emperor. I had such a hard time because those cards made me so uncomfortable, these figures that reminded me of every oppressive man.

I was like, I don’t want these in my deck. I can’t build a relationship with these cards if that’s the only lens I have to see these cards through.

What if we just let all of these cards have gender neutral pronouns and we break them free from these gender binaries and let them be every archetype? Gender neutral or nonbinary or gender expansive. As soon as I started doing that, it just made it so much easier for me to feel safe working with them.

Instead of feeling like this card is here to oppress me, this archetype is here to oppress me, it just gave me a lot more room to actually work with a card in a way that felt, I keep coming back to safe, but I think that really is the right word for it. And then once I started doing it with the majors, I was like, why wouldn’t I do this with every card? Why wouldn’t I do this with the court cards? Why can’t I be a King of Swords? Why can’t any of these cards go beyond these genders?

It just gave me a lot more space to engage with the archetypes and the minors and the court cards too as energies and ideas instead. I did not want to be limited in such a narrow version of what this card could be. I wanted to be able to see myself or find aspects of myself in every one of the cards.

Nico: No matter how you identify, drawing The Empress does not mean that I have to be a fertile woman.

Meg: What else could fertility mean if we’re not just talking about physical pregnancy? What about the whole idea of fertility in general? What about abundance in generosity; there’s so many other ways to use that language that can be a lot more constructive and also just a lot more expansive. But it shouldn’t mean that this card feels out of reach. Right? Or an energy you can’t work with. Because every time I’d pull The Emperor, I’d be like, I don’t wanna be in a room with this guy. What would I look like embodying this energy? How would it feel for me to embody this energy? And what would that mean? How would that guide my choices or impact my actions or my decisions or the way that I look at something? That’s a totally different conversation.

Nico: The book contains a lot of awesome prompts for reading for yourself. And I was just wondering if you wanted to share any tips for anyone who wanted to read for a friend or another person. Is there anything you do differently?

Meg: If I’m reading for a friend, I often want it to be a very collaborative process. So especially if I get to do it in person, I’ll invite them to look at the card and be like, how does it feel for you to look at this image? What comes up, what comes to mind immediately? A lot of my friends do read Tarot, and so they might immediately have their own interpretations, which can be fun. But especially if we’re using a deck they’re not familiar with or, or if it’s someone that hasn’t worked with Tarot much at all, getting to see what they observe in the card and what feelings it evokes and what memories it brings up I think is a really powerful tool for thinking about what that card might mean for them in this moment.

I like to have a conversation with them about the card. I might explain different ways to see it. Sometimes it feels like this is the meaning that feels important, and I don’t know how to explain that other than that’s just years of trying to figure out what my intuition is trying to tell me.

I do think it can be really useful to be able to tap into multiple interpretations or ways of reading. To your point again, sometimes the Empress comes up and you’re like, okay, this is a person that just had a hysterectomy and is nonbinary. And me talking about fertility from a lens of physical pregnancy is not gonna be super constructive or useful. But this card is also tied to Venus and values community and the number three and raw expression and not worrying about perfectionism, but instead being really authentic with what is being shared and making something physical that’s been an idea up until now. And sharing that process with other people and collaborating creatively with other people and creating systems of love and care and mutual aid.

There’s so much that can be wrapped into that card. If you have the ability to explore that again with someone, it often turns into a really rich conversation that ends up leading to something that often I find then will come up in later cards in the spread.

What if we just let all of these cards have gender neutral pronouns and we break them free from these gender binaries and let them be every archetype? Gender neutral or nonbinary or gender expansive. As soon as I started doing that, it just made it so much easier for me to feel safe working with them.

Nico: Awesome. So, do you wanna talk about your writing for Autostraddle and how it’s tied into the book or influenced it?

Meg: I started reading Autostraddle in 2016. In 2018, I went to A-Camp and didn’t know anyone. I got put in Heather Hogan’s cabin. A few months after that, we were at a podcast recording in Brooklyn, and we were just chatting after the recording and Heather was like, would you ever consider writing about Tarot for Autostraddle? I was so flattered, and I was so honored.

The first Tarotscopes column was in January 2019 for Aquarius season. Then my Instagram started growing from more exposure and I started getting more people commenting and reading and engaging with Tarot with me on the internet. People kept asking like, how do you read? And how does this work?

Finally, Nanowrimo came up in November, and I had been turning this idea over in my head of the Tarot book I wished I’d had when I started that felt inclusive and expansive and supportive and queer. So I just wrote it for Nanowrimo. Let’s see if I can get 50,000 words out of this. And I did. That was all the same year with the start of Tarotscopes. And that was the first draft of Finding the Fool.

In retrospect, I think it’s really interesting that Tarotscopes and the first draft of Finding the Fool both happened in the same year. It really kind of got the ball rolling mentally. My Instagram had been started as private. It was just a journal for me. And then I had some friends ask if they could look at it, so I was just like, I’ll make this public. No one will ever see it. It’s fine. When I started doing the Tarotcopes, it just got out of hand. It’s great, but there’s a lot of people that follow me now.

Nico: And through that whole process, like getting comments and talking to readers you learned what kind of questions people have.

Meg: Yeah. Totally. We all have our comfort zones and our points from which we like to view the world. It’s just finding that viewpoint. How does this help? What if I adjust a little bit? How do I help? Does this help you see it clearly if you stand right here?

Meg’s Finding the Fool playlist:

Queer Tarotscopes for Aries Season 2023: What Makes You Feel Empowered?

This season’s tarotscopes feature The Next World Tarot and The Compendium of Constellations.

Aries season marks the start of a new zodiacal year. And whether you live your life by the cycles of the moon or are a more casual astrological observer, this time of year is always an excellent opportunity to revisit where you’ve been, what you’ve longed for, and where you want to go. If you are the type who sets intentions, chooses a word of the year, or makes vows for things that you want to accomplish, take some time over the next few days to review those goals, and to consider any adjustments or changes that you might want to make. And if you’re more the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type, Aries season can be an amazing time to look ahead, dream big, and clarify your most pressing desires.

Associated with the major arcana archetype of the Emperor, Aries is cardinal fire, bold and determined, ushering in the spring and the new year with confidence, energy, and purpose. With Aries, we tap into initiations and ambitions, pursue what we want with passion, take joy in our wildest dreams. The Emperor is a natural fit for this aspect of Aries’ energy, encouraging us to create structures that empower us to accomplish everything we can possibly imagine. And as archetype number four, we see those characteristics reflected in this card’s numerology, as four is a digit of foundations, stability, and intentionality.

I’ve written so many times about the Emperor’s sometimes off-putting approach, and how this archetype can feel alienating or uncomfortable for queer and marginalized communities who have experienced harm from heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalistic systems. But the Emperor is so much more than wealth-gathering, power-hungry leaders who want to build rules that restrict and regulate. Instead, this is about understanding our own limits, our own boundaries, and knowing ourselves well enough to recognize what we need in order to thrive. What makes us feel protected, empowered, emboldened? Which methods allow us to fully harness our creativity, optimism, imagination, and skills? How can we use plans and procedures to give our work shape, form, precision?

In this season of Aries, don’t let your power get lost in fussy procedures or self-policing. Instead, allow your ambitions to burn brightly, and balance all of that passion with intentionality, focus, and self-control. Experienced tarot readers or astrologers can plug the cards I’ve drawn for their sun, moon, and rising signs into the spread below to create a custom reading for this season. Aries is ruled by Mars, planet of action and friction, so if you know your Mars placement you can plug that into this spread template for a more complete picture of your Aries season.

My first book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation, is out in the world, and you can pick up a copy wherever books are sold! I would also love for you to join us for the A+ Read A Fucking Book Club in May, when we’ll be discussing this work together. The best way to stay up-to-date on my writings, offerings, and latest tarot spreads is by subscribing to my newsletter, Devils & Fools. I’m offering client readings on a limited basis again, as well as some new email courses, and subscribers always get first dibs on these offerings. You can also still find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

As always with these tarot readings, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Happy Aries season!

Aries

Nine of cups

Happy birthday, Aries! What brings you joy, pleasure, satisfaction? This season, carve out some time to feel deeply, to let yourself get swept away by happiness, to celebrate how much you’ve achieved. The suit of cups is tied to the element of water and matters of the heart, and with this card we tend to think about the wishes that we have made and had fulfilled, as well as any wishes we may still be hanging on to. It’s okay to still want things even when we have received so much, to make space for new dreams once the old ones are fulfilled. Where is your gratitude these days? And what new desires might be making themselves known in your emotions, intuition, or subconscious?

Taurus

Ace of cups

What gifts might the element of water have for you this season? As we shift into a new astrological year, it may feel like something new is expanding within you, your heart making room for new dreams, new relationships, or new discoveries about your internal landscape. While this kind of flow may not feel as easily controlled or understood as you are comfortable with, there can be real magic in seeing where your water naturally cascades, in recognizing what you are innately drawn to. What grounds your heart? How do you balance safety and longing? What new discoveries are you ready to make about yourself?

Gemini

Six of swords

It may feel like you’ve been moving through something intensive and complex, something that has required soul-searching or firm decisions, something that has left you feeling reborn in a way. The suit of swords is all about the element of air and the mind, and when we find ourselves parsing and processing difficult truths, it can leave us feeling a bit worn, a bit exhausted. Yet this kind of travel can be grueling or disorienting, and in moving into a new phase, can require us to take a beat, catch our breath, and assess our new surroundings. Where have you been going, whether you realized it in the moment or not? Where do you now find yourself, and what does that mean for your next steps?

Cancer

Knight of cups

Where are you exploring big feelings, tender sensitivities, or new connections? Open-hearted, eager to please, and prioritizing emotion above all else, the knight of cups can feel like being swept away by romance, love songs, and anything else that makes our hearts flutter. But knights always require discernment, asking us to consider how we are balancing this energy in our lives — and with this suit of water and matters of the heart, the knight of cups urges us to not get so lost in tidal waves of vulnerability or connection that we lose sight of ourselves. Where are you letting emotions flow through you, offering passion and wonder and joy? And where might emotions be carrying you off to sea, making it hard to remember which way is up?

Leo

Seven of cups

Where have your dreams been wandering? It may feel this season like there are so many possibilities stretching out before you, like only your imagination is the limit to what you could accomplish, discover, or become. There is joy and wonder in this feeling, in looking at all of your opportunities and connections, in making space for every single dream you carry in your heart. But it can also be paralyzing sometimes, to look at the scope of your aspirations and not be entirely sure what you want to pursue and prioritize. Take your time in fantasy land, but don’t get lost there, gazing into your dreams without committing to any. What does your heart want most?

Virgo

Three of wands

What is beckoning to you? As you move into the fiery passion of Aries season, this is an excellent opportunity to look up from your work and shift your gaze to what you are working towards. Vision is a powerful tool, and it may feel like things are clicking into gear this season, as your imagination and your intentions align to let those dreams manifest in tangible and necessary ways. But you have the gift of care, and can often anticipate what might need particular attention, a more thoughtful eye. What do you see stretching out before you, that is finding its form and turning into something extraordinary? What are you striving towards?

Libra

Four of swords

If you’ve had your nose to the grindstone lately, putting all of your energy and intentionality and focus into a major issue or tantalizing challenge or important opportunity, this season may be an invitation to be more intentional about your mental boundaries. How often do you let stresses, obstacles, or other things that you cannot control creep into your consciousness? What systems or limits do you have in place that help to protect your mind, your peace, your sense of stability? Sometimes this card means pacing yourself and other times it’s an invitation to shut the laptop and take a vacation, but either way, it’s time to take some space for yourself. What do you need to feel safe?

Scorpio

Nine of swords

This season may feel intense, confusing, or even desperate, so if you’ve been working through something challenging, complicated, or painful, please show yourself some grace. This card tends to point to our deepest fears and most potent nightmares, a time when we are so lost in terror that we have trouble seeing reality for what it is. You likely have more support, options, and even hope that you might realize, so this is a time to lean on those you love and let their perspective help you find yourself again. How are you determining what is true, and what is simply one viewpoint? What can you do to offer yourself tenderness, even if it feels like everything is falling apart? Where are you spinning your mental wheels, and where could you actually make a necessary and impactful change that opens up a new door?

Sagittarius

Ace of wands

What gifts might the element of fire have for you this season? You’re a fire sign moving into a season of fire, so this ace of wands feels perfect for you: high energy, passionate, joyfully exploring and seeking and expanding. For you, Aries season might feel vibrant and exciting, with new things to make, discover, and understand. What is capturing your interest right now, pulling you in and demanding more of your time, energy, imagination? Where is your creativity sparking and igniting, begging you to feed it? This could be a season to really lean into your passions, so don’t put a cap on your magic. What makes you burn?

Capricorn

Ace of pentacles

What gifts might the element of earth have for you this season? After making space for your desires, curiosities, and longings last season with the Fool, Aries season gives you an opportunity to ground and stabilize, to settle on the earth and find your footing even as you begin to plant new seeds. Aces serve as invitations, and you are so good at recognizing opportunity, at seeing how something small can grow into something big and beautiful that sustains us for the long haul. Consider what you are ready to invest in, what you want for your future, what will support you over time. What are you ready to thoughtfully initiate?

Aquarius

Strength

What is grounding you, sustaining you, assuring you? In this fiery season of Aries, you might feel tempted to rush ahead, start big things, or make quick decisions so that you can get to the heart of what you really crave. But Strength is a card of patience and purpose, of taking our time, of leaning into the things that help us stabilize. You are stronger than you may realize, and are capable of creating containers for safe discovery and deep analysis. Where is your resolve being tested, and how do you navigate major choices? What do you feel certain of, and where might you be craving more time to examine and explore? How are you showing up for yourself, and how does that consistent care empower you to make the kinds of moves that deeply and authentically resonate?

Pisces

Eight of pentacles

Last season may have brought some important realizations or new clarity around a particular situation, relationship, or desire. And this season, hard work, daily devotion, and intentional effort are the name of the game, which could be an excellent opportunity to put those recent discoveries to use. We don’t always give patient, consistent effort its due, yet when we recognize something that we want and put continual exertion towards reaching that goal, sometimes we make progress that we don’t even fully see as its happening. Tend to your darlings, let them root and stabilize, and see what is blooming when you finally raise your head. What are you ready to dedicate yourself to?

How Astrology Helped Me Accept My Demisexuality

When I was growing up, my mom played around with zodiacs as a hobby. I’ve known I’m a Libra sun for as long as I can remember, which means I love beauty, art, culture, and — above all else — attention. That makes sense given my creative flair and affinity for the stage. When I started having crushes, I’d try to find out my crush’s birthday to see if we were compatible.

As a teen, I maintained my interest in astrology, but I didn’t take it seriously as a spiritual practice. I also started questioning my sexuality. At one point, I thought I might be pansexual, but since I went to a predominantly Christian school in the South and dealt with my own internalized queerphobia, I let those thoughts go and identified as a straight, Christian, LGBTQIA+ “ally” — I’d even fight with my peers about queer folks’ rights to marriage, protection, and safety.

I definitely wasn’t projecting or anything. Not at all.

Finally, when I was about 20, I had a spiritual awakening — I realized I didn’t resonate with any one organized religion or theology, so I developed my own belief system. A few years after that, I accepted that I was queer.

During this time, I started connecting with astrologers. I learned that astrology is so much deeper than viral videos and memes — it can actually be traced back to the third millennium BC. I learned about my different astrology placements and observed how those placements show up in my personality and life. Being a Libra always resonated deeply, but that’s not only because I’m a Libra Sun. My Mercury is also in Libra, and — most importantly, in the context of my sexuality journey — so is my Venus.

Venus is the planet of love and relationships. Libra is the sign associated with love and relationships. Libra is at home in Venus, which means I thrive in committed, doting, reciprocal relationships. I’ve always been a sucker for Hallmark fairytale love stories and dreamed of having one of my own someday. I love ambitiously, sometimes to my own detriment.

Throughout my twenties, I found myself in some complicated, toxic, and downright abusive relationships and stayed when I should have left in the name of “love.” And another problem arose with each partner: Something wasn’t clicking sexually. I thought something was wrong with me, because no matter what I did, I simply couldn’t enjoy intimacy. I felt something for each of my partners, but I struggled to be with them sexually — or feel any attraction to them at all — unless I was completely and utterly in love with them.

When I learned about demisexuality, my feelings suddenly made sense. As a demisexual, my attraction is based on my emotional connection to someone. That’s why in some situations, I could jump into sex with excitement, and in other situations — even if my partner was doing everything “right” — something still felt wrong.

At first, coming to terms with my demisexuality didn’t bring me relief — instead, I felt angry. I just wanted to enjoy casual sex like everyone else. But when I talked to an astrologer friend about sexuality and astrology, my feelings changed. I recognized that the stars were literally aligned the day I was brought into this universe for me to live and breathe a life fueled by love. That made me feel as if my sexuality wasn’t a mistake, but rather, a divine choice. Obviously, not every demisexual person’s Venus sign is in Libra, but for me, knowing my astrology placements (and knowing how astrology works in general) has helped me feel more comfortable with myself.

Now when it comes to intimacy and partners, I feel more confident. I know what I need to get going, what I will do, what I won’t do, and what just won’t work. I was made to love, to be loved, and to make love (under certain conditions) — the universe says so.

Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for March 2023

As a horoscope writer, I look forward to months that have one big, clear astrological theme in them, one dramatic take-away for us all to chew on throughout the month. Months that are astrologically quiet can be harder to write about. I sometimes wish I could pull a substitute teacher move and say, hey, no class today, we’re just going to watch a movie and then go home. And then there are months like this one, where there is so much happening that it’s more like a substitute teacher has walked into a classroom already in chaos: someone’s crying the corner, people are throwing books out the window, everyone is running with scissors, and ten kids at once are trying to get the teacher’s attention.

So let’s dive into this abundant chaos, shall we? Maybe if we can all settle down we’ll still get to watch a movie.

To begin, this month brings not one but two sign changes for slow moving planets. Saturn will move into Pisces on the 7th and Pluto will move into Aquarius on the 23rd. Each of these on its own could be a headline for the whole year, but we get them both this year and both in the same month. If the stars respected my job they would have spaced this out better. But here we are.

Saturn changes signs every two and a half years, and as it moves through the signs it highlights what we as a collective need to get serious about: where we need to focus, put in the work, problem-solve challenges, and show up for the hard things. For the past five years Saturn has been in first Capricorn and then Aquarius — both signs where Saturn is strong, and that whole journey has been focused on how we move from the past (Capricorn) to the future (Aquarius) as a culture that’s in the death grip of capitalism and facing climate change. These have been fraught, divisive, and fairly heavy years. Trump took office at the beginning of them, and here we are in our current political mess at the end of them. Saturn is always about reality testing and structure — it’s like the engineer of the zodiac, wanting to make sure the bridges we build are stable and strong. But as Saturn enters Pisces, the water is rising up over those bridges. Where Saturn builds, Pisces dissolves. Where Saturn focuses on reality, Pisces swims through our dreams, highlighting our wishes and our anxieties. If Saturn is the cop in our head, Saturn in Pisces is that cop on an acid trip.

This could be a good thing. In the 1960s the US military dosed soldiers with LSD and noticed they couldn’t stay in formation or follow orders — in so much as Saturn represents oppressive forces in our world, this move to Pisces could herald a less lockstep acceleration of violent systems and regimes. It can open the hearts of people who usually disdain empathy. It can defang institutions with historic weight and power to do harm. This could also be a bad thing — I personally don’t want to be anywhere near a cop with a gun who’s having a bad trip. If the powers that be are getting dissolved into the psychedelic soup of Pisces, they may flail about wildly in response. Those who are in power don’t generally respond well to loss of power of or control, even if it’s just a perceived loss.

And Saturn has a lot of faces, not all of them oppressive — it’s also the planet that helps us set meaningful boundaries and be mature enough to show up for our responsibilities. Saturn can speak to our collective willingness to make sacrifices and take responsibility for halting the speed of climate change. As it moves to Pisces, we may struggle to access those part of ourselves that can do the adult thing, behave ethically, and take responsibility when things go sideways. This isn’t because Pisces is an unethical sign, it’s just a place where Saturn can get lost in dreams, fantasies, and fears. Ultimately, though, Saturn’s move to Pisces signals a time when we need to take seriously our culture’s relationship to all things Piscean: collective care and empathy (broken health care systems, more elders with less elder care, the rise of chronic illness among the young, etc), the role of art and artists (what kinds of art are priviliged? who’s making money off our art? will AI make it even easier to steal from us?), how religion and spirituality can help our harm us (up the witches, but I’m also terrified of the woo-to-QAnon pipeline), how drug use can help or harm us (see the opiod crisis vs. the benefits of therapeutic psychedelics), and our collective escapist fantasies (let’s colonize Mars! green capitalism can save us! etc).

Now for the second major headline of the month, and of the year, and possibly other orders of magnitude: Pluto’s sign change. Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008. If you were born in 2008 as some of my youngest friends were, that’s been your whole life. If you’re in the crew of people having your first Saturn return this year, Pluto has been in Capricorn for half your life. Those of us who are older may remember the financial crises that ushered in this Pluto phase and how we’ve had mass movements focused on Capricornian themes since then: the destructiveness of capitalism (Occupy Wall Street was an early example), ecological preservation (Standing Rock and new waves of climate activism), and preserving the status quo (the January 6th insurrection, among many other MAGA debacles.). You may notice those are two leftist and one right-wing movements — both Saturn and Capricorn are without political affiliation, they just speak to the desire to preserve or rebuild what we consider important from the past. For some people, that’s clean air and water, the Amazon rainforest, glaciers, affordable housing and the like. For others it’s white supremacy, global capitalism, permanent war, and the like. And I want to be clear, we all have helpful and harmful expressions of Capricorn running through us, whether or not we have planets in Capricorn. Capricorn is concerned with our survival, and so much of how we relate to it depends on who we consider “us” and what we’re willing to look at as we make decisions.

You may notice we’ve gotten into some heavy territory. Thank Pluto, the kid in the chaotic classroom who is definitely running with scissors after having given a few other kids unwanted haircuts and made them cry. Where Pluto moves by sign, it exposes corruption and hastens decay and transformation. A lighter way of saying it is that Pluto helps us shed our skin or compost our dinner scraps — it works in service of transformation, but the process can look ugly. Pluto in Capricorn has exposed the nasty underbelly of global capitalism and the reality of climate change, and reminded us that hate groups founded in white supremacy haven’t gone away. As Pluto moves to Aquarius, we’ll be getting wake-up calls and opportunities to transform our relationship to all things Aquarian: technology (AI, quantum computing, tech bros like Elon Musk, etc.), collective liberation (can we unify into a larger “us” without excluding some kind of “them” or ignoring the meaningful differences in our positions? How do we move toward liberation while acknowledging the harms that happen in activist communities, from FBI infiltration to our own scene schisming?), and the whole concept of the future — I’m not going to speak to that one because I imagine there will be so many new ideas and cultural issues throughout this transit that what I’m tracking now might be way off base from where we end up. That’s the nature of Aquarius: it brings in the new. Something about our way of moving toward the future is ripe for change, though.

We don’t know yet what this will mean. We don’t even know yet what Saturn in Pisces will mean, this time around. Astrological weather can point to themes that have happened in the past, but we will always be surprised. In many ways, being at the very beginning of both of these sign changes is like being a kid who’s in a new grade of school, in a brand new school. We don’t know the ropes yet. We haven’t gotten comfortable in a routine. The best we can do right now is keep our eyes open, avoid that kid running around with scissors, and start learning where our locker is and who will be our friends. There can be something exciting about all this beginning, if we think of how much needs to change in our world. And change is always hard, especially if you have planets in fixed signs, any kind of trauma history, or both. Your best way to navigate this month? Stay open to interesting surprises. Welcome what you don’t yet understand. Soothe your anxieties when they try to predict a worst-case-scenario outcome. And look around for who’s going to be your friend in this new place.

My friends, I am available for readings so please get in touch. For more astro details you can follow me on Instagram or join me on Patreon. Remember to stay curious about anything wild going on this month and not jump to the scariest conclusions!

Aries

It’s okay not to know: What the future will look like — for you personally and for the larger world. You’re moving toward taking your intuition more seriously, which may mean facing doubts and doing some reality testing in the realms of the unreal. Get curious about collaborating with the less rational parts of your mind, without giving them license to run the whole show.

Taurus

It’s okay not to know: How to show up for the world without abandoning yourself. How to balance your personal needs and the needs of the collective. How your role will be shifting in coming years as you step more into your power and competence. What it’s time to let go of in your work life, or how you have been holding status in your community. Let all these questions just be alive for now.

Gemini

It’s okay not to know: What it all means. Your beliefs may be changing rapidly, and that’s okay. Your default worldview is expanding, which means you’re needing to reappraise what you thought you knew and what you thought your priorities were. The more freedom you grant yourself to pivot, to be patient, to gather information and sort through it, the easier it will be to find clarity enough to show up for what matters to you.

Cancer

It’s okay not to know: What’s ending and what’s entering a phase of new beginnings. Something is deeply in process, deeply in-between right now, and that’s fine. Decide for yourself what you need to handle uncertainty, which might mean getting clear on timelines and boundaries: How long can you tolerate the discomfort of living into this unknowing? When is it time to make a decision, however provisional? What is your gut telling you about what feels right and wrong?

Leo

It’s okay not to know: If you’re ready to say yes and make a commitment. When at all possible, give yourself some spaciousness and room to experiment when it comes to high-stakes life decisions, especially if they involve teaming up with someone romantically or as a collaborator. Try on how things feel, test the waters, and don’t sign any binding contracts just yet if you’re not feeling 100% sure. And remember if you need to call a time-out that “not right now” doesn’t mean “never.”

Virgo

It’s okay not to know: The ideal balance of daily rituals, rest, and retoration that will grant you eternal health. Whether you’re fretting about your body, your relationships, your work, or the larger world this isn’t the time to try to optimize anything. Rather, pay attention to the anxieties that run underneath that urge: what do you need to be feeling right now? And is it time to reach out for some care and support as you do this? Saturn moving to Pisces highlights all the ways that it’s necessary for you to let go and rest.

Libra

It’s okay not to know: How to express yourself best right now. If you’re any kind of artist, your medium might be changing. If you’re a friend and lover, your love language might be changing. If you’re feeling stuck or confused, ask yourself: What actually inpsires me right now? What kinds of connection actually feel good? You have a tendecy to focus outward on what other people want, this month is calling you back to your innate desires.

Scorpio

It’s okay not to know: Where you belong. Your ruling planet’s move to Aquarius may trigger a sense of dislocation. If you’re feeling growing pains around current communities and friend groups — or even more literally, where you’re living right now and whether it’s right for you — stay with the trouble until you can trace the thread of what needs healing right now. You know how to look at what’s hard, but part of your mission this month is to move what’s stuck toward release and healing.

Sagittarius

It’s okay not to know: Where your ideas will take you. Stray snatches of inspiration, secret ambitions, books that you plan to write someday, even to-do lists — it’s best not to get to restrictive because you’re entering a time when your focus can change, expand, and generally integrate previously unknown and important themes. Stay curious and keep researching and asking questions, especially when you think you already know what you need to know.

Capricorn

It’s okay not to know: What you’re willing to ditch and what you need to hold onto. This month is like a good friend trying to get you to throw away a closet of vintage clothes: first of all, the audacity! But they may have some good points if you’re holding onto to pieces that are moldy and wrecking your health, or that don’t fit your size or gender and just trigger dysphoria. Don’t feel rushed into any big decisions, but be open to purging something that has felt important to you if you realize it’s actually getting in the way of your health, joy, or creativity.

Aquarius

It’s okay not to know: Who you are becoming. As Pluto moves into your sign this month, you may be aware of something in your life that’s ready to change. It may be something you’re been ignoring for a long time, you may feel a little spooked at first, but as you live into what you’re learning you’ll be moving toward more meaningful ways of doing what only you can do. Make sure you’re prioritizing being well-fed and well-rested this month, and take whatever time you can for paying attention to what’s coming up for you.

Pisces

It’s okay not to know: Your priorities. As Saturn moves into your sign, you’re entering a period of adjustment when you may need to reasses your goals and revise your plans for reaching them. Saturn is always concerned with cause and effect, but remember that your goals can include “I want to feel free to float through my days without answering emails.” Remember, it’s your life and whatever compromises you may need to make with capitalism and linear time should, ideally, be on your own terms.

“Finding the Fool” Asserts Tarot Is for Everybody

I got to muse a little about this when I did a profile on my friend and illustrator Genevieve Barbee-Turner, but there’s a reason queer people are drawn to things like astrology and tarot. It’s not a coincidence that many of us were raised in Christian, even Evangelical, households that were strict and limiting, only to turn to a more expansive and subversive knowledge of ourselves and the universe.

This is, of course, not true of every queer person. But, it is true of Autostraddle contributor Meg Jones Wall, author of Finding the Fool, a book on the power of tarot as a practice and a mode of understanding. I came to Finding the Fool as someone with a very limited understanding of tarot. I bought my first deck from Genevieve, and still to this day, when I do a reading for myself, I heavily rely on the guidebooks that come with my decks.

What I’m leaving this book with is a better understanding of the cards, what they can hold, and what they can evoke in me. Reading this book was compelling, fluid, and joyous. I loved delving into Meg’s syntax and language, getting to know how she thinks and the words she chooses to describe this practice that is so dear to her.

Finding the Fool begins with a little on Meg, their story, which includes that Christian upbringing I referenced earlier, and where she lives now. In the now, as many readers might already know, Meg leads a very queer life. You can get a glimpse of it in these pages, and in her writing and curating for Autostraddle.

The book is broken up into three parts: the first part which encompasses an intro to Meg’s understanding of tarot and the book as a whole. The second part takes a look at all 78 cards of the tarot, focusing on numerology, astrology, and practice. To paint a picture, the first card we start with, the zero card, is the Fool.

I love how Meg writes about the Fool, a card that I took for its English meaning instead of really looking at what the card can represent. To use Meg’s own words:

“That moment when we decide to throw caution to the wind and chase the fantasy anyway, when we begin to actively move toward that vision that has manifested in our mind and began a radical journey—that is the brilliant, wide-eyed, aspirational energy of the Fool.” 

Each look at individual cards includes the planet the card is associated with, its number and numerological significance, keywords associated with the card, and what it can mean if and when it shows up in a reading. This approach to the cards was so welcoming to me and made it easier to connect with the cards and understand their interpretations.

One thing Meg does that I also found really cool was that she does not use gendered language to describe the cards, nor does she divide things into “masculine vs. feminine” categories. For example, the High Priestess (card 2, represented by the moon) is often associated with “divine feminine” energy, but Meg resists that pull to categorize the card as feminine, making it open to a whole hosts of energies.

Instead, Meg focuses on the psychic wisdom and power the card is known for. The High Priestess is all about recognizing and harnessing your own personal magic, and you don’t have to feminine to do that.

In this section of Finding the Fool, there are also writing and thinking prompts that come with each card, encouraging you as a reader to slow down and really engage with the cards and the text. It was really inviting to me as a reader, and I found myself paying special attention to cards I have seen and seen often when I’ve had a reading done or done one for myself.

The last reading I had done was before I moved, and one suit that kept showing up for me, was Cups, namely the 10 of Cups, King of Cups, and the Queen of Cups. If we turn to Meg’s words about the minor arcana, we see that:

Tens “represent what happens when we push the energy of the suit to the limit, giving us opportunities for celebration and reflection, and defining the ending of a cycle—which in turn sets the stage for the next one to begin.”

Queens “are compassionate, self-assured leaders, and bring insight, observation, boundaries, creativity, and precision to their work: they teach and transform, guiding others with gentle wisdom and encouraging everyone around them to be the best possible version of themselves.”

Kings “are discerning, attentive leaders, and provide clarity, authority, shape, vision, and organization to their realm: they advise and challenge, helping others make actionable and lasting change through individual and community efforts.”

In Introduction to Cups, Meg writes:

“As an element, water is sweeping and surging, powerful, with endless depths that can rage or trickle depending on its environment. We can’t always see what’s under the water’s surface, don’t always understand what is simmering, aren’t always certain which currents may be impacting movement.” 

I’m a water sign (Scorpio), so this language rings very true to me. I revisit the breakdown of the last reading I had with this new knowledge and find things I never found on the first pass with the cards. What my tarot card reader said and what Meg says here is both similar yet different, and if you’ve had your cards read before, you know that no reader approaches the deck the same.

As I’m reading this book, I’m struck by the amount of care it takes to write something like this. To make something that is so often shrouded in mystery and gatekeeping and make it more accessible, I can’t help but think, is an act of love. Anybody can get their cards read and ingest whatever the person reading is saying, but to truly connect with and understand what’s being said is a different story all together. This book spells things out in plain language, making it so that even the most experienced tarot connoisseur and the most bright-eyed novice can come to the cards and learn something new.

In the third and final part of the book, Meg takes you deeper into the cards, asking “What feels holy to you? What feels sacred?”

In the final pages, they prompt readers with opportunities to connect on a deeper level with the cards on a path toward self-discovery. She highlights meditation, prayer and mantras, divination, spell work, and ancestor work as a way to delve into the spiritual side of tarot a little more.

In the section about tarot and creativity, she outlines ways to find inspiration in the cards, whether that means finding a traditional Rider-Waite Smith deck and marveling at the illustrations on the cards, or connecting with a deck that is more aligned with your personal identity, there are ways to incorporate tarot into your creative practice. There is even a section on tarot and “occult esoterica.”

In the last pages, she outlines the 22 different major arcana spreads that you can do with a practiced reader or on your own. There are also simple two and three card spreads you can do if you’re just learning.

I don’t want to give too much of the book away because I think you should read it yourself. It would make a great gift for the tarot card reader in your life or the friend that’s just a little curious about the whole thing. As Meg says in the beginning, she expected to find an immediate connection with the cards. And when she didn’t, she returned to them anyway. That spirit of determination is present throughout this wonderful book, and I hope you find it too wherever  you are in your tarot journey.

Through it all, Meg encourages you to, well, find the fool. To search out that spirit of play and hope and dreaming, to hold onto the curiosity and desire that come with it. Finding the Fool abandons notions about tarot that make it inaccessible or blasphemous and make it so even I can understand it, and find something for myself, or about myself in the cards.

Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation by Meg Jones Wall is out now.

Queer Tarotscopes for Pisces Season 2023: How Are You Evolving?

This season’s tarotscopes feature The Muse Tarot and The Spacious Tarot Expansion Pack.

Pisces has a reputation for being dreamy, artistic, and sensitive — and as the final sign in the zodiac, it’s true that Pisces’ mutable water gives this sign the ability to feel deeply, empathize generously, and connect fully. Mutable signs come at the end of each season and are known for flexibility and adaptation, an ability to bring a fresh perspective to situations. As a water sign, Pisces can be more vulnerable to heavy emotions, but also has a seemingly bottomless capacity for exploration and discovery, a willingness to sift through mystery and find diamonds in the rough. And whether or not you have any personal planets in this sign, Pisces can teach every one of us more about sitting in the strange, the magical, the unclear, and letting things slowly come into focus on their own time.

Our birth card for this season is the Moon, a card of wildness and imagination, one tied to the number nine (card 18 // 1+8 = 9). The Moon and nine both explore the unknown, but not in a way that demands that it be categorized and understood: instead this is holding space for that which may never be known, which lives in our subconscious, which scatters into shadow when we look at it too closely. We all have strange jewels buried within us, as Elizabeth Gilbert writes, and finding those jewels in unexpected places is part of the wonder of being human. The act of searching is just as important as whatever we may discover, and is a lifelong process — one that cannot be rushed.

Where are you expanding, emerging, exploring? What are you discovering, and how are those discoveries changing you? How are you evolving, and how active are you in that evolutionary process? Change is part of being human, and being willing to be flexible in how we define ourselves, in the stories we tell ourselves about who we are allowed to be, can have a major impact on our ability to grow. Remember that Pisces is the final sign of the zodiac, which may have you feeling reflective or introspective about where you were last year at this time. What ambitions did you set in Aries season of 2022? What has come to fruition? What have you learned about yourself? How have you changed?

In this season of Pisces, make space for your own mysteries, and give yourself opportunities to dream without expectation or limits. Experienced tarot readers or astrologers can plug the cards I’ve drawn for their sun, moon, and rising signs into the spread below to create a custom reading for this season. Pisces is traditionally ruled by Jupiter, planet of expansion and abundance, but modern astrologers also consider Neptune an additional ruler, planet of inspiration and illusion. If you know your natal placements for these planets, you can include them in your reading for a more complete picture of your Pisces season.

Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation will be in the world in a little over a week! If you haven’t already pre-ordered it or requested it from your local library, these are both incredible ways to support debut authors. I’m so proud of this book and I hope you find it useful, supportive, and affirming in your own journey with the cards! The best way to stay up-to-date on my writings, offerings, and latest tarot spreads is by subscribing to my newsletter, Devils & Fools. I’m offering client readings on a limited basis again, as well as some new email courses, and subscribers always get first dibs on these offerings. You can also still find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

As always with these tarot readings, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Happy Pisces season!

Aries

Temperance

You’re known for your heat and your sparks, but as we move into this season of dreamy, mutable water, Temperance asks you to slow down, be intentional, and consider the ways that you are integrating your hopes and dreams with your reality. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t understand — but in learning to love those strange pieces, in allowing them to take up space and even have their own demands, we learn more about who we are, and who we want to be. And even more importantly, we learn how those odd pieces fit in with our more conventional ones. What is taking up space in your heart? What have you been learning about yourself through both challenges and victories?

Taurus

The Hierophant

Your steady, solid earth keeps you grounded, responsible, and focused — and your birth card of the Hierophant understands the importance of history and tradition, the ways that what we do in the present helps us more deeply appreciate the past. But it can be easy to get stuck in how things have always been, to forget to make space for expansion and growth when we’re busy clinging to the ways that things have always been done. This season, you may receive invitations to explore, to try something different — this is a chance to discover something different, something unexpected. How could play and experimentation help you make meaningful change?

Gemini

9 of voices

Your clever mind and sharp tongue can help you navigate even the stickiest of situations, and this season, you may find that you’re so comfortable in a particular mindset that you find it strangely difficult to see beyond those thought patterns and internal narratives. But you’re more flexible than most, and have the capacity to ask important questions, to adapt to your surroundings, to breathe into struggles rather than being suffocated by them. Where have you been limiting your own perspective, and how can you give yourself opportunities to learn? What idea might have reached its natural conclusion, and be pointing you to something new?

Cancer

The World Cosmos

It’s hard to know when things are really finished, isn’t it? Not every story has a neat ending, a tidy conclusion — yet there are times when we feel ourselves settling into contentment, acknowledging an ending, celebrating our accomplishments. This season, give yourself permission to take pride in how far you’ve come, to honor the journey that you’ve been on. Even if you still think that you have lots to do and many more tasks to complete, reflect on where you’ve come from, and how much you’ve changed in the last month, year, decade. What do you love about yourself? And how hard did you have to work to become this person?

Leo

7 of materials

This is a season for devotion, for tending your efforts, for paying attention to what you care about and how that thing anchors and stabilizes you. Leo gets a lot of shit for craving the spotlight, but everyone longs for recognition in one way or another — and this season, consider the road you’re on, and where it’s taking you. How are you tending your own garden, and what is growing? Are the seeds that you planted becoming what you intended? If you find yourself off-course, give yourself permission to make adjustments rather than forcing yourself to pretend you want something other than what you set out to achieve. What are you making, and how does it measure up to your dreams?

Virgo

Knight of emotions

Sometimes it’s fun to play the white knight: to be the savior, to be the one others turn to for support and care, to know how to fix challenges and lift people up. But other times, it can be exhausting to have stay optimistic, to feel like every problem is yours alone to solve. In this season of mutable water, consider the ways that you show yourself love, that you save yourself instead of always putting your energy into others. What would it look like to romance yourself, to fall in love with yourself? How can the knight of emotions teach you about honoring your own desires, instead of always putting other people first?

Libra

4 of materials

Sometimes when things feel challenging, scary, or even just uncertain, we cling to what we have even more tightly, afraid to let it out of our sight for a moment. But there’s a difference between setting healthy boundaries around our resources and refusing to share anything, and it takes wisdom, clarity, and humility to recognize the difference. This season may bring opportunities to grow what you have, to share and receive in equal measure — but that requires a light, loose grip, rather than locking things away. How do you balance generosity with protection? What does it look like to be honest about what you need, instead of worrying about what you have?

Scorpio

Knight of materials

Remember MapQuest? We would print out instructions and then follow them as closely as possibly, calculating miles and hoping that we wouldn’t miss a turn — because any errors meant that we’d be stuck, uncertain of where to go next unless we could figure it out on our own. The knight of materials can be like this, setting a course in advance and then feeling unable to deviate from it in any way. But as you move into Pisces season, remember that you have the power to be flexible, to look up from your printed instructions, to adapt as needed if the path doesn’t follow the course you expected. Where are you being stubborn around a long-term goal?

Sagittarius

Death

We have the chance to make a lot of choices in our lives, to decide who we want to be and where we want to go and how we want to spend our time. But sometimes, things end no matter how hard we may fight to keep them — and the wisdom lies in recognizing when something has reached its natural conclusion, in allowing something to finish with dignity rather than keeping it around past its expiration date. It’s okay to grieve when something ends, rather than pushing to find that sunny optimism you’re so famous for. But it’s also okay to be relieved, even to feel a sense of pride in something something through to its finale. What are you ready to release? What does this ending make room for?

Capricorn

The Fool

It’s easy to get so caught up in what we should do that we can sometimes lose sight of what we actually want to do. And wanting is not bad — it’s beautiful! Wanting something can help us recognize what we value, what we need, what helps us to feel wholly and truly ourselves. This season, give yourself some space to dream and play, to wonder and wander, to consider where you would go if all constraints were lifted and you were completely free to do as you please. What craving is beginning to reveal itself? What keeps popping into your imagination? And what would it look like to let that fantasy become reality?

Aquarius

The Wheel

We all go through patterns and cycles in our lives, but this season, you may be more aware of the Wheel’s turns than usual. Call it luck, call it destiny, or call it something completely different, but there are certain things that are within our control, and certain other things that will always be larger than us. Pisces is about dreaming and compassion and mystery, but it also gives us room to surrender to all that we cannot change — and as we shift from your season into this new one, give yourself permission to release the things you truly cannot control. What does it feel like to be at the mercy of the universe? Which patterns do you relish, and what do you learn from them?

Pisces

Ace of voices

Happy birthday, Pisces! While your season may be known for dreamy water and deep intuition, the ace of voices serves as a reminder that you possess a sharp mind, one capable of powerful observations and rich, necessary insights. Whether it’s a new idea or an important realization, you may find some of your perceptions shifting this season, helping you hone in on something you want to pursue, need to understand, or hope to accomplish. Pay attention to your surroundings, relationships, and decisions this season, and give yourself space to look at things from unexpected, even strange perspectives. What do you see when you keep your mind completely open? What is changing, and what might that mean for the ways you move through the world?

Your Zodiac Sign as a Creepy Vintage Valentine’s Day Card

Fun fact: My great grandfather and great grandmother owned a card shop in Buffalo, NY. He was a poet, a dreamer, kind of a schemer (family lore said he made money during the Great Depression by buying day-old cakes from bakeries and then re-frosting them and selling them at a markup). My great grandmother was the shrewd one and forever telling him to copyright the poems he wrote for the cards, but he never did. My grandmother, who worked in the shop after she married my grandfather, would find some of his poems in contemporary Hallmark cards on occasion, living on behind someone else’s design. His cards were gorgeous. Think, a dove with paper feathers cut out and layered, the work done with a knife so delicate that the paper feathers felt soft to the touch. It really was a different time.

Speaking of different times, my grandmother ALSO used to say that every Valentine’s Day, each man who came into the shop would buy two gifts, “one for his wife and one for his sweetheart.” Truly love her use of the word “sweetheart” here. It’s very of the time. She’s also a Sagittarius, so she never let anyone tell her what to do and generally seemed unbothered by what most other people did or thought. She also once told me when I was four and we were sitting in her backyard and she was rocking me back and forth in the hammock, “a very wise man once said, ‘Hell is other people'” — and she would be right. Hell is also these creepy-ass Valentine’s Day cards. These are not my great grandfather’s cards, but what they ARE is an encapsulation of your energy based on your zodiac sign. Happy Valentine’s Day, you weirdo. No returns.

What Creepy Vintage Valentine’s Day Card Best Represents Your Zodiac Sign?

Aries

I feel like most days I can tolerate an Aries but not this one, not today. If this card came out today rightwing Youtubers would be calling it out for its Satanic imagery but in this case they would actually be onto something.

Taurus

What does this even mean? I know Taurians love food, but I feel like that specific bologna right there is human meat. Normally Trader Joe’s isn’t like this!

Gemini

These eggs are gay, and so are you. They are also going to die.

Cancer

I don’t think she wants to talk to that person. In this image, the person who is trying to enjoy life behind their walls is the Cancer. Vade in pacem!

Leo

There is no soul in those eyes, but there sure as heck is a point to that sword. Don’t be fooled by how cute a Leo is or by a certain lust you might have for gay and genderqueer pirates, their tongues will CUT YOU.

Virgo

There’s a decisiveness here that oozes Virgo, as well as a direct and unapologetic horniness that is also…very Virgo. Also, I can see a Virgo not even needing a sword to threaten. They could threaten you with skis. They could.

Libra

Always. Always. Always compliment a Libra’s outfit. You don’t want to find out what happens if you forget.

Scorpio

This Scorpio has never been scared a day in their life. They also look like they’ve been up for three days pounding Red Bulls and Kratom.

Sagittarius

The implication here is that the message on this card is being voiced by someone just off-page, watching their “Valentine” struggle in this moustrap. At least the outfit is dapper.

Capricorn

Capricorns love puns. We all love that one queer who chops wood on TikTok. I personally love that shacket she’s wearing right here and it looks great with the lipstick but at the same time I am seriously regretting going on a remote getaway in the woods with someone I’ve only been queer dating for like two weeks. It seemed so sexy! I loved that she planned it all out! But now I am suspecting there are some other plans happening here.

Aquarius

Ah yes, the menacing water bearer. The energy of this one. There’s a lot to process.

Pisces

I feel like a Pisces can actively look you in the eye and say they are doing one thing while doing something completely different, like boiling you alive.

Bonus:

Queers with Knives

I am in no way comforted by the way they keep talking about “leave no trace.”

Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for February 2023

Although the new year began last month, it may feel as if it’s just beginning. That’s because we began the year amidst several retrogrades that had us slowed down, looking backward, and resolving old business from 2022. Now we’re sailing full speed ahead into the dreamiest month of 2023. Apart from a few brief transits, nothing astrologically intense is going down and we’ve got Venus in Pisces for most of the month. It’s important to acknowledge times like this, small oases of relative peacefulness in otherwise turbulent times. If you’ve been waiting for a moment to catch your breath, this is it.

Of course some of us don’t do well with calm. If your nervous system relies on constant adrenaline to keep you going, or if your mind strays toward anxiety in quiet moments, this is a good month to focus on something you want to make happen. Give yourself a project, big or small, serious or silly. February bridges the end of Aquarius season and the beginning of Pisces season — consider what helps you bridge your mind (air signs like Aquarius) and your heart (water signs like Pisces). Both Aquarius and Pisces are interested in connection and collective experiences — Aquarius through a social process of finding like-minded weirdos and creating communities of shared values, Pisces through a fundamental recognition that we are all made of carbon, aka stardust, and that we share most of our DNA with earthworms. Where are you finding connections this month?

I’d also like to nod to Valentine’s Day and the fact that some of you love it, some of you hate it, and some of you ignore it entirely. Whatever your personal attitudes, it’s a time of year when we as a culture can put a lot of pressure on the performance of love. People in monogamous partnerships may feel stressed by expectations, people in poly or undefined types of romances may feel invalidated, and people who want and don’t have romantic love right now may feel unworthy, and people who don’t want romantic love at all may feel invisible. With Venus in Pisces this month meeting up with Neptune, ruler of Pisces, on the 15th, the vibes around this Valentine’s Day are extra sensitive, extra dreamy, and potentially extra disillusioned. Try to keep your expectations realistic, and remember that extravagant shows of love aren’t necessarily proof of healthy love. They can add some sparkle to it, but they aren’t enough on their own.

If you’re already feeling some pangs of loneliness or heartbreak this season, take some time to be extra kind to yourself mid-month. Venus conjunct Neptune opens up a vast well of longing for a kind of love that isn’t entirely realistic. Do what you can to accompany yourself and your stronger feelings, and find ways to channel that longing toward other Neptunian pursuits: making art or music, meditating or connecting to the sacred, and helping others in some way that heals your heart. This is an aspect that happens only about once a year, so make the most of its creative and healing potential!

Finally, if you’re in any relationships where you have a tendency to overextend yourself or give more than you receive, treat this Venus transit with some caution. This is a good month to pay attention to the actual energetic costs your experience when you aren’t setting appropriate boundaries. To quote the brilliant Prentis Hemphill: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”

I’m also teaching my first live class of 2023 this month, and it’s all about relationships! In Beyond Compatibility: Better Relationships with Astrology we’ll be debunking some popular myths about astro compatibility and exploring the questions you should be asking yourself and your partners / potential partners. I’m excited to be teaching again and I love geeking out about relationship astrology, so come join us! (Read more and register here). My books are open for readings, too, for you and for your relationships so (get in touch). For more astro details you can follow me on Instagram, and join me on Patreon. Have a dreamy month in all the ways that can heal your heart right now, even if, maybe especially if, that means staying in bed as much as possible.

Aries

Redirect your longing: Let your fantasies be detailed, technicolor, and wild. Write about them, draw them, dream them, share stories with your sweethearts, but don’t expect reality to live up to them. Part of the magic of this month for you is helping you access those parts of yourself that aren’t bound by the here and now, by the constraints of time and space, by questions of what is logistically and physically possible. Whether your dreams tend toward the erotic, the romantic, or the creation of entire speculative worlds, making extra time this month to be in them and enjoy them is time well spent.

Taurus

Redirect your longing: Rekindle your hope for the future. It doesn’t have to be realistic hope, it doesn’t have to have a strategy or a plan behind it. You don’t have to map out how you (or the world) will get there — it’s enough right now to dwell sometimes in the imaginative possibility of a better world. Think of it as a hot bath for your psyche, a place to restore yourself. Draw down from this field of potential some bright sparks to nourish your sense that a better world is possible.

Gemini

Redirect your longing: This is a time to direct all your various senses and satellite dishes and antennae towards a faint voice that is calling you toward your future self: You, but more centered. You, but wiser and more compassionate. You, but capable of things you didn’t thin you could do. You’ll notice, if you pay attention, that this you is much, much closer than you realized. May even be the here-and-now you. Now may be the time to do the big thing you’ve been dreaming about maybe someday doing.

Cancer

Redirect your longing: We all long for basic, simple things — enough love, enough freedom, good health, the resources we need to enjoy our lives. When one or more of these feels scarce, it can be hard to stop circling around that sense of lack — but to be alive is to live through fluctuations and change, to learn how to grieve scarcity while staying open to future fullness. You may notice a longing this month that directs you somewhere slightly different: not just “let me have what I want” but “let me find meaning in my experiences.” You are on a learning journey. Let it take you somewhere new.

Leo

Redirect your longing: This month offers you an anti-stagnation spell. You are longing to get unstuck from a pattern that’s gone on too long, and release is near. What’s counter intuitive is that you don’t have to do much to urge this spell along — the release it offers is less about throwing you a rope to climb up a mountain and more about dissolving the mountain. It can be easy to confuse rest with depression or other forms of stagnation, but this month is asking you to experience the kind of rest and release that actually transforms your life.

Virgo

Redirect your longing: This month’s Pisces energy focuses your longing toward an unreachable ideal of partnership, but perhaps it’s better directed beyond the human world. Your relationships will forever be imperfect, which is fine. Instead of stressing about them, use this Piscean time to fall in love with a forest or a parallel universe. Spill out your devotion to the concept of mutual aid. Leave love notes for the birds that get lost in wander into malls and subway stations. Above all remember that your relationships are always changing but that your capacity to love is yours to keep. Where do you want to direct it?

Libra

Redirect your longing: Have you ever felt absolutely in love with your own body? Maybe inspired by a lover’s admiration of you, maybe inspired by your own joy in how it feels to be in your skin? If you have and somehow lost that spark — or if you’ve never felt that and are frankly shocked that anyone has — this month is beckoning you back into your own body through the lens of unconditional love. Self-love is not easy for most of us, and loving our imperfect bodies even less so. Let yourself dip your toes in the shallow end of the pool and see how deep you’re able to go.

Scorpio

Redirect your longing: Now is no time to be shy about who you are and what you want. Venus in Pisces is boosting your creativity and your confidence. One risk of this transit is merely letting it slip away from how easy it feels to daydream, space out, and do nothing. If your deepest longing right now is to do absolutely nothing, answer that call. But if you’re being pulled toward making art or making connections, don’t let the siren song of staying in bed keep you from finding out what can happen.

Sagittarius

Redirect your longing: What fantasies do you have about an ideal home? An ideal family? Are you dreaming of a rural queer commune where no one ever has any conflict? Or a pre-industrial city with a forest canopy and clean water running through its rivers? This Pisces season kicks up some longing around where you might could settle down and feel at home, if only you could find it. But the magic spell isn’t to start traveling or researching costs of living in various far off places, it’s to create a home inside you for the part of you that always feels like it’s wandering and in exile. Be the safe place you need.

Capricorn

Redirect your longing: If you’re not already writing poetry (or song lyrics, or science fiction, or at the very least creative text messages to dear friends), this month would like you to begin. Instead of longing for other people to get their acts together or for the world to become less chaotic, this month rewards channeling your yearning into a kind of language that you will recognize when you create it. There’s something you need to be saying, but you don’t know how to say it yet. You’ll only learn by experimenting.

Aquarius

Redirect your longing: There’s someone or something in your life right now that you absolutely love. Maybe it’s a friend, a partner, a sibling, or a collaborator. Maybe it’s your house, a land project, a book you’re writing, a newfound feeling of capacity. Whatever it is, this month is asking you to pour your devotion into what’s close at hand and already going well. You get to stabilize here. What you’re planting now will bear fruit.

Pisces

Redirect your longing: Yes you are vast and yes you contain multitudes, but maybe all that vastness isn’t doing you any favors when you’re trying to find your own center. This month offers a kind of homecoming, a love spell for rediscovering your self — who you are now, who you have been, who you’d like to become. As much as you reach for external connection this month, make sure you’re also establishing that internal connection.

Quiz: Which Queer Tarot Deck Should You Try?

Pulling tarot cards for yourself or for friends can be fun, magical, empowering, intuitive, sexy, inspiring, calming, grounding, joyful, exciting, stimulating, relaxing, or anything else that you want it to be. And while buying hundreds of decks isn’t the way for most non-professionals, it can be really powerful to get your hands on a new set of cards and see how they can challenge your assumptions and expand your interpretations of these larger-than-life archetypes and everyday figures.

But with hundreds of decks in the world, it can be hard to know where to start, especially if you’re new to tarot. And while more and more creators are working to be inclusive, there’s nothing quite like working with a set of cards that was designed by someone within our community, someone who openly identifies as queer.

Ready to experience some deck lust? Every one of these decks is queer-created, gorgeous, beginner-friendly, and available for purchase right now. (Please note that while there are some truly incredible queer decks that have been created with limited print runs throughout the last hundred years, I wanted to focus here on card sets that were made by queer creators, that are also currently available for purchase and not so advanced as to alienate beginners. Please feel free to drop your favorite queer decks in the comments!)

I make no apologies for bringing these incredible decks to your attention — what you do with this information is entirely up to you. (But supporting queer creators is its own kind of magic!)

Haunted: An Appalachian Tarot Deck Asks You To Embrace Ghosts

I didn’t really start to have an interest in tarot and astrology until I was in my early twenties. At that time, I was dating a lot and hearing a lot about how bad Scorpios are, so I decided to dig into the mythos on my own, with help from a dear friend who lent me a copy of an astrology and sex book.

I had my first tarot reading during a time when things were in flux in my life. I was about to be a defendant in a sexual assault trial, and I came to a friend who read cards to ask if they could see anything about my situation that would assuage some of my fears. There were lots of sword cards and lots of mental unease, which felt right, not entirely helpful, but on-the-nose for where I was at the moment.

I didn’t really do much more learning about tarot until 2018, when I met Genevieve Barbee-Turner, a friend and illustrator who was working on her own tarot deck at the time, after completing an initial one a couple of years earlier. Bridge Witches Tarot explored the city we lived in, its people, its issues, and more.

When I met Genevieve, I was taken by how cool she was and how she had a life I totally wanted for myself. She was a creative making a living through art, which was a goal of mine. She was tattooed, listened to really fun music, and just had an overall warm and engaging personality.

So, when I learned she was working on HAUNTED, I was intrigued. The mission statement for HAUNTED reads:

“HAUNTED is a Rider-Waite-based tarot deck that tells ghost stories and lore from Southwestern PA, Eastern Ohio, and West Virginia. Tarot is a visual narrative system that uses large concepts and broad stories that are shuffled and combined in infinite ways. These spreads are interpreted by the reader for their own personal reflection or with a querent. Our deck’s theme taps into the unique history and culture of this region in Appalachia. We are highlighting the people, places, & history and connecting them with the universal truths of life, love, and death that even outsiders to Appalachia can appreciate. It is a daunting but thrilling task.”

Queer people are not a monolith, but a lot of us are drawn to practices like tarot and astrology for reasons that aren’t cut and dry. For me, it has something to do with choosing an untraditional life path and what comes with that, namely not being afraid of the unknown. When I came out, I didn’t know what life would look like on the other side of it. For years, I grappled with questions of getting married and having kids, deciding eventually that I didn’t want either path for myself.

Many other queer people share a similar story, rejecting the nuclear family and Christianity because of those institutions’ rejection of us. Also, and I think more commonly, we reject tradition because there is splendor and beauty in the margins.

LGBTQ people aren’t afraid to contend with ghosts, because we all have had our run-ins with things that haunt us, with things that have threatened to kill us or killed someone we loved, and we’ve come out on the other side. As Genevieve and her co-creator Sarah McKenzie state:

“Ghost stories are a lens into history, a way for history to preserve stories that aren’t typically told in history books, especially stories about women, people of color, and queer people,” says Barbee-Turner. “They reflect what we don’t want to discuss in the daylight. Shedding light on this history opens up our connections with humanity.”

When I talk to Genevieve about HAUNTED, we end up talking about queer elders, and the stories they share with us, having come of age or been adults in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. There’s a lot of queer folklore, even in a small city like Pittsburgh.

What ghosts are you going to find in the deck? Here are a few:

• The Mothman
• The Squonk
• The Burning Bride of Conneaut
• 13 Bends Road
• The Pig Lady of Cannelton
• Raymond Robinson aka The Green Man
• Madame Bartell the Millvale psychic
• The ghosts of the different Carnegie libraries
• The spirits from the Homewood massacre
• The urban legend of killer clowns

HAUNTED is Genevieve’s fifth tarot deck. The previous four have been made independently and produced in small batches. With HAUNTED, she hopes to bring her illustrations to a larger stage. The deck will feature 78 illustrated cards that are well-researched and beautifully made.

What I love about previous decks Genevieve has made is her ability to not shy away from the ugly, disturbing elements of humanity. I think with this new deck, and telling ghost stories, she is unearthing the things we don’t want to talk about, giving “boogeymen” a face, some context, and some empathy.

The HAUNTED deck is not just about ghosts, explains McKenzie. “The past echoes through our land as time marches on, holding stories of the blood, sweat, and tears of every person that has ever stepped foot here. The stories we tell each other may be about legends but really they hold the key to ourselves. Haunted is our effort to tell just some of the stories of this land, and to allow you to discover your own.”

Genevieve’s previous decks have been self-funded, but with this new venture, she has launched a Kickstarter campaign to make 2,500 decks instead of her usual 100. The campaign features three tiers: one deck, two decks, or ten decks (good for your favorite local occult shop). You can learn more about Genevieve and HAUNTED at her website.

I Used an App To Communicate With the Ghost in My House

Some Personal Haunting History

My partner and I lovingly call our house The Crone Zone. Yes, the dining room is dominated by a giant pagan altar. Yes, there is a witch broom outside the front door in All Seasons. Yes, the cutlery and cloth napkins are decorated with skulls and spider webs, respectively, and yes, it is haunted. So, the previous inhabitants, or one in particular, a Greatest Generation guy named Bill, tend to haunt our house. I’m naming Bill because he haunts us regularly and his name is pretty common. I am not naming his wife because her name is uncommon and she seems to largely stay out of things. Bill came up in a major way when we were renovating the living room (which involved solving a lot of the problems HE MADE such as drywalling the walls AFTER installing the carpet so that to get the carpet tack and subflooring out we were literally hacking into the gap under the drywall with a carpenter’s hatchet — like, the misery this man caused us I swear). Other spirits include a little girl most longtime residents of our block have seen. She’s a playful presence and tends to go from house to house.

Anyway, I Just Started Watching Random YouTube Videos While Working and Am Not Even Clear About How I Started Watching This Young Woman Communicating With Her Haunted Doll

It was another late night in the office. My girlfriend was downstairs chatting with a friend on Zoom. I was doing something or other and decided I wanted some vapid background noise. I turned to YouTube where their very clever algorithm (where I enjoy Stardew play-throughs, real life scary stories read aloud from Reddit threads, and ASMR) determined I might like this one young woman who uses dowsing rods to talk to her haunted doll. Reader, I did. She’s quite entertaining. I let several of her videos play in the background.

At one point, she began to use something that was like a spirit box. If you read our gift guide from this past December, then you might have noticed that I have coveted a spirit box. But it’s such an unrealistic purchase. They’re so expensive, and I’m not nearly serious enough of a hobbyist paranormal investigator (I am 0% this thing) to buy one. But this young lady was using an app!

While working and listening to her show, at one point, I took off my headphones and wondered aloud to the room and the ghosts that were maybe there, “Would you like to talk to me sometime?”

Then a “Ghost” Appeared on Camera

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, downstairs, a phenomenon had appeared on the Zoom call between my girlfriend and her friend. A floating, spectral disturbance appeared next to her on the couch, visible in the Zoom call. It stayed for much of the call, only to disappear just after they each made recordings of it (which you can see if you’re an A+ member in the upcoming January Insider).

When my girlfriend showed me the video, I told her what I had been doing upstairs at the same time. Flabbergasted, she texted her friend, who was equally freaked out. It was also, admittedly, hilarious! My girlfriend was like “why would you just ASK THAT” and I was just laughing.

And that’s when I thought…why not me? The dowsing rods looked fun, but I don’t have anything I could use. Hilariously, my conspiracy theorist mother got me an orgonite necklace for christmas to protect me from the EMF rays associated with working on the computer all the time. When my girlfriend was like “how does that work though” my mom gave up and was like “I don’t know! It just does!” It could function as a pendulum, but the damn thing is already kind of cursed.

And that, friend, is where I draw a line, right? It might seem like I would be into each and every hokey thing there is just because I believe in ghosts. Although, considering the number of ghosts I’ve seen and the physical manifestations of their presence I’ve witnessed, saying that I “believe” in ghosts sounds about as appropriate as saying I “believe” in mice. Like, I just know mice exist, even if I rarely see them, right? Like, they’re just real and sometimes they come in the house at which point you might hear weird noises and find things are moved around slightly or that there is evidence of someone else in your house, and honestly that’s where the similarities end because ghosts are far more hygienic. Anyway, I don’t really collect crystals much, nor do I go in for a lot of the “new age” style approach to the occult. I have been reading Tarot since I was nine and have a long relationship with witchcraft rooted in reviving and approximating and researching ancestral Polish and Irish practices, which I find is very healing and important work. And none of these practices involve worrying about 5G.

I Can’t Afford Actual Ghost Hunting Equipment: But Hey There’s an App for That

But first, I had to investigate the theory behind this. To the Wikipedia page for EVP we go!

These apps fall, as far as ghost equipment goes, under the sub-category of ITC, which is described as follows:

The term Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) was coined by Ernst Senkowski in the 1970s to refer more generally to communication through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets or computers between spirits or other discarnate entities and the living. One particularly famous claimed incidence of ITC occurred when the image of EVP enthusiast Friedrich Jürgenson (whose funeral was held that day) was said to have appeared on a television in the home of a colleague, which had been purposefully tuned to a vacant channel. ITC enthusiasts also look at the TV and video camera feedback loop of the Droste effect.

I *think* the theory is that spirits are made of some kind of “energy,” (the level to which I am not a physicist is very evident here) and therefore, because these devices are powered by electricity, it is something that is easier for spirits to manipulate and therefore communicate through if they wish. In this case, the idea is that the app allows the spirits to use your phone to communicate with you.

NOW, I am skeptical of the app and a lot of this EVP research and all of this. I think, personally, that ghosts exist and that surely there have been successful communications with them. Do I believe the claims of every single person saying they communicate with spirits? No. Do I think that ghosts can manipulate electronics. Unfortunately, yes? Because I’ve seen it happen? I once had a ghost wake me up two nights in a row by turning on my computer from complete shut down. It was the 90s, so this would have required a big ‘ol button push. And then when the computer woke me up, it showed itself as the most terrifying shadow I’ve ever seen walking along one wall. Neat! In the same house, my mother would see lights turn on by themselves. She called our neighbor who was an electrician about it, who told her it was impossible and asked her if she’d been drinking.

Anyway, so, okay, we are existing in the space where I think that eeeeh yeah we can believe that a ghost might manipulate an electronic device, we have an actively haunted house, and we have an app that claims to facilitate communication. How does it work though? Roughly, it has a bank of sounds that are recordings of words in various languages that have been chopped up to form phonemes that can then be, in theory, arranged by spirits to form words which, again, in theory, have meaning. Skeptic concerns include: Does it have pre-programmed responses to questions it picks up on the mic? Does it in any way echo what it hears the user saying on the mic? The developer hasn’t disclosed this, but of course, it’s a possibility.

So, there is nothing left but to test it, which we did! Now, I am a witch, so we took some precautions, and I’ve not experienced any negative repercussions from engaging in these spirit communications after the night we did so, which is nice. I recommend that anyone do the same before communicating with spirits. Some things that I do include setting up a circle of protection, however you prefer to do that, and also burning frankincense, my preferred spiritual cleansing agent. You’ll notice a little mortar next to me on the table in the video and though you cannot see the smoke in the video, it is in fact actively burning frankincense resin on a piece of charcoal.

We got set up, which involved a lot of lighting silliness, because I am in no way a YouTuber and we have no professional lighting. So my girlfriend was literally dragging a floor lamp around our dark living room until things looked reasonable. We are also dogsitting a tiny dog for a friend, who snuggled on my lap for the duration of the spirit communications, making me feel very much like a fancy heir-cum-turn-of-the-century-spiritualist-with-my-tiny-lap-dog. Then, because the recommendation for the app is that you ALSO have a recording of yourself using it so you can go back through and re-listen, my girlfriend dutifully helped out Autostraddle for free, as she does, by filming me trying to talk to ghosts.

My notes from the experience:

Notable is that when I first asked for like spirits that mean us no harm, I heard some audible “yep” or “yeah” noises but when I said “spirits of goodness” we were interrupted with an audible “weeeeellllllllll…” which, okay, I can relate.

Then, when I mention the former inhabitants of the house and that we want to talk to them, you can hear an “es/is/ist occult” which, I couldn’t figure out if they were judging me, or if they were occult enthusiasts. Considering how things go, it was probably the former.

The first spirit I tried to speak to, Bill’s wife [redacted] whose first language was German and who honestly has never been much of a presence, didn’t give me much but did say ‘house’ and some other words. It could have been nothing. It could have been German. I don’t speak German!

So, then I asked Bill if he had anything to say. The most favorable evidence in favor of the app at this point was the fact that it immediately sped up in terms of activity. Like, saying that brought the noise level noticeably higher. Bill was like absolutely I have things to say. My partner and I locked eyes. I heard “Bill” said multiple times and maybe “hello” and maybe “thank you.” But also, lol, maybe “fuck you” as well as “I tried.”

Then, when I said, “We’re really grateful to be here,” I heard him say, “No,” which, again, okay. That’s where we’re at emotionally. Okay. When I said “yes” I think he said “shut up” and then either “bitch” or “witch.”

I decided to try and take things down a more diplomatic avenue and asked Bill what he liked about the house, to which I did hear “stairs” which, yes, we have a lot of those, actually. We have 20-something some odd steps leading up to the front door.

Then Bill says either “You hate us” which is what I took it as the first time or “You ask too much.”I’m not sure, because that is what I heard on the second listen with the recording.

This is where things took a turn. See, we definitely suspected that the app maybe echoed what we said or played some kind of word association, so it would make sense if all that continued when I asked pretty basic questions, but when I asked “Do you like us?” the app seemed to answer “um” and when I asked “Are you confused about that?” it was followed by a long silence and then something that sounded like “I don’t know what to say.” Considering the kind of truce-esque relationship we have with our ghost after the huge showdown we had in the past over home reno, if this were legit, that answer matches up with our other experiences sharing a space with our ethereal roommate.

When I said “We’re kinda weird, right?” The spirit box JUMPED IN, and while I couldn’t make out the words, the silence sure was broken. Bill thinks that, yes, we’re weird. Clearly.

And I said to Bill, “Like, we’re gay, right?”

To which there was ABSOLUTE SILENCE.

Then I go, “You can say it.”

And he goes “What? No!”

After that, things descended into chaos. One of the last things I made out is “I pray for you” which is hella ominous. I tried my best with all the noise for a while, and then I cut Bill’s mic. I RUDELY asked if anyone else was there, forgot to thank Bill, rushed in to thank Bill and then heard “Fuck that.”

The rest of my attempts to speak with other spirits were not nearly as animated. I got some names, maybe, but not much else. We thanked everyone, sent them on their way, and called it a night.

The End?

Because, really, we can talk about Bill all night right? Bill is a greatest generation Army vet, and this was his family home. He collected matchbooks, which I know because I found a box of them and he did seem to smoke — and sometimes we smell it. He tends to like to walk around the house and, as I’ve alluded to, gave my girlfriend and I a really hard time a couple years back when we first started doing work on the living room, which I think was maybe “his” space. All in all, we’ve found a way to coexist, but I always did get the feeling that he was very much like “Queers! In my house?!” and now, well, that’s kind of confirmed, if the Necrophonic App has any legitimacy to it.

Cons of the app: largely unintelligible, likely completely fake.

Pros: seems to have adequately captured the Greatest Generation conservative vibe I was getting from the ghost in our house anyway?? The DEAD SILENCE after I said “We’re Gay, right?” was straight out of a Thanksgiving Dinner. Like, damn. That was the most believable part.

Bill?…Bill??? Some footage from the experiment.

Queer Tarotscopes for Aquarius Season 2023: What Are You Ready to Believe In?

This season’s tarotscopes feature The Pasta Tarot and Astrol-OG: The Deck.

Can you believe that this is the start of the fifth year of Queer Tarotscopes? I am so honored to continue sharing space with y’all and talking tarot, numerology, astrology, magic, and so much more on a monthly basis. Thank you for joining me for this column — Autostraddle has such a special place in my heart, and sharing these tarotscopes means a lot to me.

Aquarius is often described as the alien, the individual, the weirdo. They march to the beat of their own drum, walk their own path, see the world in their own way. Aquarius as a sign is associated with technology and innovation as well as forward-thinking, expansion, and shifts in perspective, all because of their capacity to see beyond what exists to everything else that is possible. But before getting too lost in the grandiosity of these descriptions, it’s important to remember is that Aquarius is fixed air: they don’t change on a whim or on an impulse, but rather as a deliberate action, an intentional and goal-oriented choice. Saturn-ruled Aquarius wants to understand the rules so that they can break them precisely, wants to know the score so that they can create a different kind of system. This isn’t a rebel without a cause, but rather, someone who wants to be as effective as possible in tearing something down.

Our major arcana archetype for Aquarius is the Star, a card that comes in the wake of the Tower’s chaos, destruction, and eventually, freedom. After shaking things up and forcing us out of our comfort zones, the Star can feel like the world settling after the storm, when we open our eyes, take in the wreckage, and evaluate what we have to work with. And while the Star represents a wide range of moments, we tend to associate this card with the immediate aftermath of the Tower: recovery, healing, and hope for the future.

But these words can feel bland without context, without clarity. Because the important truth is this: the Star isn’t blind optimism, isn’t denial of what’s happened or is happening, isn’t naively clinging to some vague future where everything magically works itself out. It isn’t a refusal to engage, or stubbornly clinging to the past. Instead the Star represents a fresh start, a new hope, a willingness to believe that we are capable and worthy, that our dreams have value, that we can achieve what we truly want. Aquarius doesn’t want to waste time on something that doesn’t matter. Instead, this is an opportunity to clarify and analyze, so that our movement can have purpose, and our actions can have meaning.

It takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength, to hope. Faith isn’t something that just appears of out nowhere, but instead is something that we must cultivate, must choose, must believe in. Hope requires us to look outside of what we know, what we can prove, and instead make space for possibility, opportunity, potential. In stepping into the energy of the Star, we offer ourselves the gift of maybe, of wishing, of a new kind of future. What are we ready to believe in? Where do we have the capacity for optimism? How are we dreaming, big or small? And in letting our trust in the future build, in refusing to let the pessimism or narrow-mindedness of others impact our convictions, which new pathways can we build together, that benefit everyone?

After all, isn’t cultivating collective hope, in 2023, the most magical kind of rule-breaking?

In this season of Aquarius, remember the Star’s capacity for faith. Experienced tarot readers or astrologers can plug the cards I’ve drawn for their sun, moon, and rising signs into the spread below to create a custom reading for this season. In traditional astrology, Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, planet of time and boundaries, while modern astrologers also see Uranus, planet of liberation and freedom, as an additional ruler. If you know your natal placements for these planets you can also plug them into these template for a more complete picture of your season.

My first book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation, comes out in March 2023 (so soon!), and preorders are a huge help for debut authors! The best way to stay up-to-date on my writings, offerings, and latest tarot spreads is by subscribing to my newsletter, Devils & Fools. I’m offering client readings on a limited basis again, as well as some new email courses, and subscribers always get first dibs on these offerings. (I’m particularly excited about my special February course, Everyday Fools!) You can also still find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

As always with these tarot readings, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Happy Aquarius season!

Aries

Five of Ripiena / Cups. It may feel this season like you’re a bit more tender than usual, discovering or sorting through a relationship or revelation that leaves you feeling sensitive. Five is a number of change and breakthroughs, but it also means looking at something clearly, seeing it in a new way that reveals something we may not have noticed before: and when it comes to matters of the heart, this kind of intensive analysis can unveil hurts that we may not have even realized were present. Be gentle with yourself this season, and give yourself the space to process whatever emotions come forward. What are you realizing about yourself? Where might change be necessary for growth?

Taurus

Eight of Ripiena / Cups. There are times when we can see that something important isn’t working anymore, times when no matter what we do or how hard we try, something is simply broken beyond repair. And while you are known for your devotion and loyalty, it’s important to know when to cut your losses and prioritize your own wellbeing, when something has run its course. You are allowed to feel safe, loved, valued, and desired, and if you aren’t, it may be time to make some adjustments. Pay careful attention to your needs this season, and where they are or aren’t being met. Is it time to leave something behind, to give yourself the space to explore a new path?

Gemini

The Pope. Traditions can hold a lot of value, but when we cling to them too tightly, they can start to feel restrictive, forcing us only to grow in certain directions rather than flower freely. It’s perfectly okay to want to do things the way that they have always been done, but it’s also important to grant ourselves freedom where we’re craving it, to not restrict ourselves only to all that has come before. This season, consider which structures and systems are giving your efforts shape, and where they might be holding you back or getting in your way. You’re so curious, so innovative, and if you’ve been craving a change, this may be the season to consider what that would really look like. How can you channel the energy of Aquarius and break some rules?

Cancer

Six of Minuta / Pentacles. You’re known for being caring and protective, Cancer, and this season, you may feel a desire to nest, share, and offer generosity to those in your inner circle. There’s something deeply magical about reciprocity, about asking for what you need and offering resources up freely in equal measure, so consider what you have to give this season, and where you may be craving care yourself. What would it look like to allow your love to flow freely, or to let others share their bounty with you? What do you need to feel safe, and how do you let others provide for you?

Leo

King of Minuta / Pentacles. While this season is one of fixed air, your fixed fire often burns bright and hot, lighting up the world for all to enjoy. But this season, pay attention to the assets, structures, relationships, and places that help you feel safe, grounded, and supported in even your biggest dreams and endeavors. You may have access to more resources that you realize, but they won’t grow and thrive if you don’t tend to them. How can you invest in your own legacy, and lift up everyone around you? What do you need in order to feel like you can keep going?

Virgo

Seven of Ripiena / Cups. If you’re someone that often feels like they have to be tending to every last detail, making sure that everything is perfect and finished, this season I would like to invite you to set that burden down for a beat. For you, Aquarius season is about dreaming: about looking at the possibilities, letting your imagination run wild, and considering all of the different futures that stretch out before you. This could be on a major scale or about something much smaller, but either way, invite fantasy to take up some room in your life. What do your dreams look like if you stop restricting them?

Libra

Knight of Ripiena / Cups. This season may bring opportunities for you to choose with your heart instead of your head; to consider the possibilities that emerge when you are vulnerable rather than timid. Knights always encourage us to think about how an element is balanced in our lives, and with the suit of cups, we explore our tendencies around matters of the heart, including relationships, intuition, faith, love, and chosen family. When does your affection naturally flow, and when do you clam up, hold back? Where might you have a chance to share a deeper piece of yourself with someone you love and trust?

Scorpio

Five of Lunga / Swords. It may seem like things are harder than they need to be this season, with conflict emerging in unexpected places or communication bringing up friction points that you hadn’t noticed before. Rather than going into these situations bracing for a fight, slow down and consider your truth, and how your unique individual perspective shapes your understanding of a situation, relationship, or complication. If conversations or challenges bring up new revelations, you may have opportunities for discovery and expansion, rather than endless friction. What information is emerging, and what will you do with it?

Sagittarius

Six of Ripiena / Cups. Aquarius season is often about moving forward, and you’re so great at that, letting your natural fire and enthusiasm and curiosity bring you in whatever direction your heart desires. But you may find that this season your gaze actually turns backwards, into the recent or distant past, as you reflect on where you started, where you’ve been, and how you’ve changed. Our roots don’t have to define us, but they can offer deeper insights into who we are and why our blossoms and fruit look the way that they do. How do you take responsibility for the choices you’ve made? What can your past teach you about your future?

Capricorn

Queen of Minuta / Pentacles. If you’re the kind of Capricorn who is always looking forward, making plans, building structures, and setting limits, you might think of the element of earth as chiefly one of responsibility and focus. But earth, and the suit of pentacles, is also about pleasure, comfort, safety, and satisfaction, and this queen deeply understands the power that comes with being absolutely, completely present in a joyful moment. This season, balance all of that hard work with the gift of recreation, play, and wonder. Revel in beauty, celebrate the little wins, and delight in the lushness of life. How often do you actually stop and smell the roses?

Aquarius

Queen of Ripiena / Cups. Happy birthday, Aquarius! So often you get painted as a weirdo, an alien, someone that is on their own path to their own private destination. But you’re also devoted to the collective, and this season, you may find opportunities to invest more fully in your communities, chosen families, and other people that you love. Pay attention to chances to deepen relationships, to listen to your intuition, to honor perceptions and revelations. What does it mean to open your heart with intention? How often do you show real vulnerability, and what would it feel like to practice this sensation?

Pisces

Ace of Minuta / Pentacles. For you, Aquarius season may hold a lot of promise, particularly in the realms of health, wealth, career, or other kinds of resources. Be on the lookout for opportunities to plant seeds, to start new projects, to invest in your future in tangible, accessible ways. What kinds of promises are you making to yourself and those around you right now? What are you ready to devote yourself to in the long-term, even if it means making some adjustments to existing responsibilities? What kind of life are you trying to build for yourself, and what steps can you take this season to begin that journey forward?

2023 Is the Year of the Chariot, It’s Time to Ask: What Are You Questioning?

This post features cards from the Soul Cards Tarot. All images by Meg Jones Wall.

Whether you consider yourself witchy or not, the new year brings opportunities for both reflection and anticipation. Looking back on the year we’ve just moved through can help us understand experiences with clarity, awareness, and wisdom, while thinking about all that may be ahead in the year to come can bring up dreams and desires, longing for things that we might still be learning how to name.

And if 2022 kicked your ass as hard as it kicked mine, starting a new year can feel like a deep breath, a much-needed sigh of relief.

There are many lenses that we can use to refract and explore, to offer clarity to our past and hope for our future. But one of my favorite lenses to use is that of numerology, a study of the sacred language of numbers that has nothing to do with mathematics and everything to do with cycles, patterns, and movement. Numerology doesn’t have to be complex, but it can help us find our place in a sequence, putting years past into greater context and offering potential perspective on what future years may have to offer.

I use Pythagorean numerology, which focuses on single-digit numbers as a sequence or spiral, counting up from 1 to 9 then looping back to the beginning. There are many other schools of numerology with rich histories and powerful translations, but I use this particular system because it maps fairly neatly into tarot, which uses a language that I am very familiar with.

2022 was the year of the Lovers, or a year of six. Coming right after five, which serves as the center pivot point of the sequence, six is a digit associated with responsibility, choice, expansion, reciprocity, and stability. The Lovers embodies many of these ideas, encouraging us to consider what makes us feel safe, to honor the choices that we have made and are making, and to take pride in how far we’ve come. If 2022 felt like a year of settling into rhythms, acknowledging growth and change, and taking ownership over certain aspects of your life, you might have had a Lovers year.

When we’re using numerology alongside tarot, the cards can help us see each number through various expressions, teasing out different aspects of each digit throughout the major and minor arcana. The number six is also associated with the Devil, that archetype of destructive patterns, old habits, restrictions, wildness, and temptation. If 2022 instead felt like a year of fighting not to slip into familiar patterns, struggling with internal or external friction, or longing to make a significant change but not knowing if you could pull it off, you might have had a Devil year instead.

But what’s lovely about numerology is that in all likelihood, you experienced bits of both: because each of the nine digits is wide and expansive, with many different ways to interpret them, and because free will exists and you bring your own unique magic to everything you touch. This calculation of adding together all of the digits in a year (2022 // 2+0+2+2 = 6) gives us what we call a collective or universal year number, which means that this is energy that we were experiencing together in various ways, regardless of what may have happened for us more personally.

There are many ways to map this universal energy onto the world, but one lens on my mind is the pandemic, particularly the ways that it’s been (mis)managed here in the United States: the limits and restrictions that were developed and followed in 2020 (a 4 year, Emperor/Death) and either reinforced or abandoned in 2021 (a 5 year, Hierophant/Temperance) have had a profound impact on us, for better or worse, in 2022 (a 6 year, Lovers/Devil). We may have mostly embraced safety protocols in 2020, but with 2021’s communication breakdowns, a rising distrust in government bodies and scientific methods, and a lack of structural support, we’re moving into 2023 with yet another surge, with people who still don’t think that catching Covid is a big deal, with virtually no aid for sick, disabled, unemployed, homeless, or otherwise marginalized folks. So many are begging for everything to go “back to normal,” refusing to acknowledge that the world has profoundly and permanently changed, pretending that what came before wasn’t wildly flawed in its own right. We are all being forced to acknowledge what our society chose, even though there are many in this community and beyond who do not agree with the choices that were made.

But 2023 (2023 // 2+0+2+3 = 7), as a year of seven, offers us the chance for a collective reckoning. Seven is a number of assessment and interrogation, of questioning, of finding answers, of refusing to avert our gaze or make excuses or deny the truth. Seven wants to analyze problems so that it can solve them, craves true understanding, demands expansion through the accumulation of knowledge. Seven is unwilling to live in denial, is unable to turn a blind eye to real issues, challenges, or obstacles. It wants to see clearly so that it can move forward with authenticity, power, and courage, even if that means also acknowledging ugliness, fear, or destruction.

In the major arcana we see this energy of seven reflected in two archetypes: the Chariot, card seven, and the Tower, card sixteen (16 / 1+6 = 7). Both of these cards are associated with truth, movement, and breaking boundaries, and both of them instigate change that is essential for growth. The Chariot wrestles with moving beyond the familiar, is willing to break old boundaries if it means that they can be true to themselves, and trusts in their own capacity for clear-eyed thinking and progressive ideals.

On the flip side, the Tower often finds us in moments of freefall, where movement has been thrust upon us and we scramble to find control, breaking out of familiar habits and eventually discovering new possibilities that we may never have seen otherwise. Both archetypes allow us to overcome obstacles, both grapple to find success through struggle, and both come out the other side with renewed clarity, purpose, and sense of self.

In other words, both of these archetypes serve as a release valve, helping us relieve pressure, move with intention, and overcome obstacles.

If this sounds intense, that’s because it is. Seven energy doesn’t fuck around, but instead is willing to dig into the heart of something, to grapple with messiness and confusion, to untangle truths and find something to hold on to. It isn’t for the faint of heart.

But seven is also deeply, wildly necessary. After several years of struggle, after trying to find stability and safety in incredibly uncertain times, seven wants us to rediscover what matters, to reinforce our values, to invest in what we care about. Seven wants us to name our desires, so that we can pursue them.

Seven wants us to be as true to ourselves as possible, so that we can live the life we long for.

To explore this energy more intentionally, pull the Chariot and the Tower out of your tarot deck, and spend a few moments meditating on what you see in these cards. What motivates you? What drives you? Where are you willing to take a chance, to leave something beyond, to be honest about your dreams? Shuffle your deck, breathe, and draw three cards, one for each position. Take your time, grab your journal, and see what comes forward.

Card one: A restriction to challenge. Where are you experiencing friction, either internally or externally? What boundaries, limits, or structures are holding you back? Where are you eager to break free, and what is standing in your way?

Card two: A truth to investigate. What do you know, even if you’re afraid to acknowledge it? Which insights keep bubbling up within you, that you’ve been avoiding or ignoring? What deserves more of your attention?

Card three: A desire to explore. What are you craving, that you haven’t unpacked? What do you keep dreaming about or imagining? How can you be deliberate about allowing yourself to expand, even if you aren’t sure where this expansion might lead?

As we move into this new year, give yourself permission to ask questions that you can’t immediately answer, to expand your perspective on things that until now, you’ve taken for granted. What if you stopped assuming that you know something, and instead look at your life and your world with new eyes? Where are you ready to explore, to change, to adjust? How are you transforming? What have you learned about yourself from the past few years, and how might that inspire a shift that could help you understand more about your own needs, desires, or fears?

Wishing you a healthy, illuminating, and expansive 2023.

Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for January 2023

Here we are. Still alive on this planet. Stepping into a new year, ready or not. Although January 1st has no astrological or spiritual significance in any of my calendars, I still love it. I love the start of a new year like I love fresh snow or a new, blank page in a sketchbook. It may be entirely imaginary, but I love our capacity as humans to say: that other thing is over and now we’re starting fresh. We call a do over. Our real beginnings and endings are often murky — it’s hard to trace exactly when important phases in our lives begin or end — but this arbitrary calendar tells us: Now. It’s starting now. We’re taking a big collective step into the future. Even in this mess we’re all in as a world, it gives me a thrill of hope. I’m taken back to grade school in the 1980s when we had to hand write the date at the top of each papers. I remember the wonder I’d feel coming back after winter break and writing a brand new year at the top of the paper. Like ordinary time had become time travel. Like we were all about to learn a big secret.

So, I have clearly always been into some deep time witchery, but this year begins with cosmic support for this sense of awe and wonder about the future. Jupiter is in Aries, baby! Yes, Mars is still retrograde till the 12th, and yes, Mercury is still retrograde till the 18th, but Jupiter in Aries does not care. Jupiter is our collective optimism, our willingness to believe in something and to move toward it with a whoop of joy, and Aries is the sign that shoots that starting pistol they use to start races. When Aries says “Go!” Jupiter says “I’m already running!” and when Jupiter says “Which direction should I go?” Aries says “Yes!” which is all to say that we’re already barreling toward some kind of unknown future with more enthusiasm than we’ve been able to muster for most of 2022. For better or worse. The world is still a troubled place, but you and I know that. I’m leaning into the magic of newness and Jupiter in Aries is backing me up.

And, Mars and Mercury are still retrograde at the the start of the month. Jupiter may not care, but we ought to. This is because our optimism and enthusiasm (Jupiter) may outpace our actual energetic resources (Mars) and capacity to plan well (Mercury). At least for the first two weeks of the month, be careful about what you commit to and how hard you push yourself. If you are inclined to make any New Year’s resolutions, I recommend waiting till later in the month, maybe even till the Aquarius New Moon on the 21st — and I would also remind you that self-discipline is not a step toward wholeness unless it’s accompanied by self-compassion and self-understanding. In this time of newness and do overs, maybe focus less on external markers of progress and more on how you feel inside and how you want to feel in the new year. If you want resolutions to strive toward, let 2023 be a year where you strive to stop hating your body, to stop pushing away your feelings, to start developing more self-awareness and self-compassion. And if you’re feeling extra ambitious, recognize that your being is more important than your doing.

As the Sun moves from Capricorn to Aquarius on the 20th, it’s foreshadowing the dance steps Pluto will take later this year as it begins its slow sign change. Many themes of this year will come up on a smaller scale this month. In Capricorn, we’re holding the wisdom of our elders and in Aquarius the unborn worlds of our dreams. Moving from the old to the new, from the practial to the visionary, from the traditional to the revolutionary. But this isn’t just a one-way trip — we’re looking for integration between the two. That will be the deepest, hardest work of this year. For now, though, we can meet it as an exciting challange. A blank sheet of paper. Anything can happen this year.

For my full Year Ahead Forecast with significant dates and themes of 2023 and yearly forecasts for each sign, join me over on my Patreon for only $2/month (and yes, it’s totally okay to join for just January and then drop off if you’re not into it). My books are open for clients this month, so (get in touch). And if you want to generally know what I’m up to you can follow me on Instagram.

Aries

Welcome the new: You’ve been active, engaged, and busy in 2022. You’ve got a new role you’ve been playing, and it’s been an important one. But 2023 invites you back into your visionary self. Welcome a reconnection with your ideals, your activism, your communities and collectivities. Welcome a new perspective on what it means to face the future together. Welcome a different kind of wisdom that you only learn by being with the rest of us, figuring it out together, be willing to experiment and strategize. May 2023 reconnect you to the powerful promise of collective liberation, and the patience to stay with this vision even when it feels far off.

Taurus

Welcome the new: Let 2023 shine a spotlight on what you’re ready to share with the world. Welcome new opportunities to be as smart, as wise, as creative, as skilled as you are. May you be able to offer what is best in you for the benefit of all of us. May you receive gratitude and support for what you are giving us. Let what you’ve been learning in 2022 inform you, but don’t get stuck feeling you’re not done learning. We never are done. But you’re ready to put things into practice. 2023 invites you to show up and let yourself be seen.

Gemini

Welcome the new: You have completed a metamorphosis. Let your old shape, that has been changing throughout 2022, fully fade away like a dream you don’t need to remember. Welcome a new sense of freedom and agency in 2023. Welcome expanding your horizons and building on what you’ve learned. This year reawakens an adventurous part of you and beckons you toward new ways of finding connection and meaning. May you feel your full sense of self this year, staying centered and whole even as you exlore the wild edges of your existence.

Cancer

Welcome the new: May 2023 bring you the deepest forms of healing. You are breaking through a wall, emerging on the other side more alive somehow and more complete. What 2022 has hardened, let 2023 dissolve. What 2022 has demanded, let 2023 transform. Whatever shell you’ve needed for 2022, let 2023 coax you deeper into the warm depths, trusting your energetic protection. It’s a year of taking new emotional risks, but only because you feel ready. Whatever you’re moving through this year, you’re not going to do it alone.

Leo

Welcome the new: You have been through a year of learning and striving, of trying to understand what isn’t working and why. Recognize what 2022 has taught yoy and let 2023 help you trust your new capacities. You know how to adapt and reconsider. Welcome moving toward a clear sense of yes. Welcome deepening into your deepest relationships. Welcome new or renewed commitments. Let yourself and your partners be imperfect, in progress, and also essentially able to say, I choose you. I choose this.

Virgo

Welcome the new: Let 2023 gather in all you creative ideas, all your far-flung relationships, all your impulsive desires and longings and collect them as an herbalist might collect seeds and roots in a basket — safe in one place to sort through, to clean, to process into medicine. If 2022 prompted yearning, 2023 is the year to act on what you’re feeling — to begin the process of sorting, cleaning, steeping, tincturing. Welcome making potential into actual. Welcome stepping into a year of meaningful activity, deeper embodiment, and stronger attunement to healing.

Libra

Welcome the new: May your home be all you need it to be this year, and may that strong home base help dislodge you from crash-position. Whatever your circumstances, you are searching for appropriate ways to expand out of your smaller sphere. Get creative if it feels impossible. Reach for connection. Tap into your heart’s longing and find a way to connect that feeling to an adventure, a romantic encounter, a creative outpouring. Welcome 2023 opening up your heart again and reminding you that you’re part of the larger world.

Scorpio

Welcome the new: Let the doubts, the uncetainties, and the petty dramas of 2022 fade. May this new year establish a place and a community that you call home, and strengthen that sense of mutual care and commitment. Let this year help you create a place where you can let down your guard, wash off the nonsense from the chaotic world, and be deeply fed when you get out of that psychic shower. Welcome a profound sense of belonging — to yourself, to your friends, to the Earth, to here and now.

Sagittarius

Welcome the new: May all your choices this year arise from a deep sense of your own inherent worthiness. May you have all you need to feel protected, nourished, and deeply held. May this foundation support you in reconnecting to the here and now. Welcome new friendships, new reading groups, new ideas, new ways of looking at the old and familiar. Let 2023 teach you how to laugh again.

Capricorn

Welcome the new: May you begin the process of releasing years of hard work. May you acknowledge what’s transformed for you since 2008, and how long you’ve been shaped by the need to keep uncovering and healing. Welcome the begining of the end of your long metamorphosis. Welcome reaching a place of calm, of capacity, where you can trust yourself and your choices. Let 2023 help you rebuild your confidence and strength.

Aquarius

Welcome the new: May you meet 2023 with confidence in your deepest values and the courage to keep sharing them. May you step toward transformation in meaningful ways, consciously and with support. Let your past guide you but not confine you. Let the future lure you and inspire you. You get to be a bridge in time. Let the newest thing be you, beginning a new way of being. Collaborate with your past selves, your future selves, and your loved ones here and now.

Pisces

Welcome the new: Let this be a year when you bring the expansive freedom of your dreams into your waking life. May you have the support you need to do let inspiration flow through you, and may your body be a strong vessel for that experience. May you become better friends with your physical form, or at the very least agree to a peace treaty and mutual protection. You are vast. Welcome your multitudes. Welcome a new conversation between your surface and your depths.

Queer Tarotscopes for Capricorn Season 2022: What Are You Striving For?

This season’s tarotscopes feature the Fyodor Pavlov Tarot and The Compendium of Constellations.

On this first day of winter, the sun moves from fiery Sagittarius into the cardinal earth of Capricorn, a sign that often gets described as ambitious, success-oriented, serious, focused, and driven. And while Capricorn can be all of those things, sometimes it’s nice to think beyond the lens of work-obsessed capitalism or virtues tied to wealth. Capricorn wants to set things in motion that will grow and thrive for the long-haul, systems and projects and ambitions that will eventually become a lasting legacy to support and sustain them. This is a sign with vision for the future, who can see possibilities within existing structures, who isn’t afraid to think big and pursue everything they crave to feel safe, powerful, and influential.

What does it mean to plant seeds with intention, to set things in motion that have space to expand? Earth as an element craves growth and stability, bringing a responsible and patient intentionality to efforts and ideas. But there can also be a tendency for earth to stick with what is known, to retreat to the familiar, to be slow to embrace new possibilities or opportunities — and I think that this aspect of earth is one of the reasons that the Order of the Golden Dawn associated Capricorn with one of the most feared and misunderstood archetypes in the deck: the Devil.

When we allow ourselves to think beyond Christian morality and puritanical ethics, the Devil becomes so much more than vices, reckless behaviors, and old patterns. This isn’t a card that we need to fear, but it is one that we can greatly benefit from working with. The Devil invites us to consider where we have felt restricted, and to be honest with ourselves about where that restriction is coming from. Where do our hands feel tied, and why? What is holding us back from deeper experimentation, richer play, a more powerful sense of connection? What have we been avoiding looking at fully, clearly, honestly? How might we be getting in our own way? And in establishing new objectives and building on old plans, where might we be served by exploration, instead of retreat?

Put another way: the Devil (card 15 / 1+5 = 6) shares the same numerological fingerprint as the Lovers (card 6). The number 6 is associated with choices and responsibilities, with community and partnership, with understanding how our relationships and actions ripple out into the world. There is richness here, but only if we allow ourselves to truly experience it. Where are you in your personal journeys and cycles? What have you chosen to invest your time, energy, inspiration, and other resources into, and how can you protect those initiatives? How can you stay connected to those you love, to the activities and desires that motivate you, inspire you, remind you of what matters most?

In this season of Capricorn, practice balancing your ambitions with honoring your needs, both physical and otherwise. What are you striving for? How can you build a solid future while also taking joy in your present? What boundaries are you setting, and which are you ready to adjust? Experienced tarot readers or astrologers can plug the cards I’ve drawn for their sun, moon, and rising signs into the spread below to create a custom reading for this season. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, planet of time, restriction, and authority, so if you know your Saturn placement you can include it in this reading for a more complete picture of your season.

My first book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation, comes out in March 2023, and preorders are a huge help for debut authors! The best way to stay up-to-date on my writings, offerings, and latest tarot spreads is by subscribing to my newsletter, Devils & Fools. I’m also  opening up readings in some new formats next year, and subscribers always get first dibs on these offerings. You can also still find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

As always with these tarot readings, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Happy Capricorn season!

Aries

Page of wands

As a fellow cardinal sign, Capricorn season may have you chomping at the bit to start new things, put new ideas into play, tackle new ambitions and projects. And with fire at your fingertips and earth beneath your feet, this time of year may feel particularly energetic for you. The page of wands is a student of passion, someone who loves to feel sparks all around them. How can you explore new mediums, make space for new forms of inspiration? What motivates you, and how can you channel that into new pathways? What are you discovering about the ways your own internal fires are lit and sustained?

Taurus

Empress

As an earth-ruled sign associated with Venus, you may find this new season to feel particularly joyful, abundant, and community-oriented, as the Empress is a figure of expansion, communication, expression, and generosity. You love your creature comforts, and this is a beautiful time to indulge, taking pleasure where you find it and bringing those you love into those activities too. How does being connected with your favorite people inspire you, encourage you? Where do you find support in expressing yourself? What has been growing within you, that you may be ready to share with the world?

Gemini

Ten of wands

Been burning the candle at both ends? You’re great at juggling lots of projects, but this season may be a good opportunity to assess where your inspiration is still going strong, and where you may be running out of gas. Sometimes our old patterns for creativity, motivation, and collaboration grow stale, and we have to reassess what is truly lighting us up. Do you need a break? Are you craving something new and fresh to get your energy up again? Is there a project that’s sucking you dry rather than giving you joy? How can you adjust your priorities and responsibilities to give you more time for what you love, and for what you need to truly thrive?

Cancer

Seven of wands

You’re so good at moving to the beat of your own drum, and it may feel this season that you need to stand up for what you believe in, what you’re working on, what your vision for the future looks like. Whether you’re starting something new or breathing new life into an existing project, pay attention to the people that stand by your side, and the obstacles that may come into your path. What are you willing to fight for? What motivates your devotion for the long-haul? Why does what you’re doing matter to you so much, and how can you build in ways to support your efforts so that you reach the finish line?

Leo

Two of cups

There may be opportunities for you to open that brave heart of yours this season, making space for a new relationship, dream, or belief to come in. Twos are the number of choice and balance, duality and opposition, so pay attention to any hesitations, concerns, or questions that hold you back from true vulnerability. How willing are you to let others see you? Who or what is trying to take up more space in your life? What are your emotions centering around, and how can you be deliberate in the ways that you process, analyze, and express those big feelings?

Virgo

Moon

While this card has a reputation for dreamy mystery, confusing fantasy, and grappling with the wild unknown, numerologically the Moon archetype is the same as your birth card, the Hermit. Both of these 9 cards hold a wise philosophical energy that balances out the more detached sense of something ending, so as you move into this season of cardinal earth, pay attention to what you may be wrapping up, and where you still crave answers or exploration. What is piquing your curiosity, and where do you feel satisfied? How do you understand your own longings, and where might they be a means to an end? What clarity is there to be found within your fears and desires?

Libra

Star

You may find a new sense of hope this season, with fresh starts and possibilities all around. Whether you’ve recently moved through a major shift or you’ve been dreaming of something different, pay attention to those internal discoveries, and don’t be afraid to trust your instincts. There is magic to be found, if you’re willing to sit in stillness and welcome it with open arms. What is opening up within you? How can you make space for recovery and awareness? How are you showing yourself love and kindness right now?

Scorpio

Ten of swords

It may feel like your mind is stuck this season, whirling endlessly on a particular issue without gaining any real ground. Sometimes obsessing over something is how you figure it out, but other times, those cyclical thoughts can leave you scrambling for truth, unable to figure out which way is up. Give yourself the gift of rest this season, taking opportunities to see any struggles, victories, or dilemmas through a new set of eyes. How can you get out of your own way? Where is your perspective too narrow? Who do you trust to help you see a challenge or obstacle more clearly?

Sagittarius

World

Something big and beautiful may be coming to an close for you this season, calling for celebration, joy, and much-needed rest. But this archetype can sometimes leave us restless or uncertain, particularly if the journey that we’ve been on is something that doesn’t have an obvious or clear conclusion, ending, or finish line. What have you been working towards, that you’ve fully achieved? Where is pride and satisfaction bubbling up within you? How can you take a few beats to honor all that you’ve accomplished, even if it’s hard to consider it finished?

Capricorn

Three of wands

Happy birthday, Capricorn! Your season is so often about looking forward and seizing opportunities, which doesn’t always mean that your efforts will immediately result in success — sometimes you have to keep your eyes fixed on the horizon and wait for that ship to come in. But this card isn’t just about future success; it’s also an opportunity to celebrate what you’ve already done, and to continue finding joy and abundance in your present. How can you balance ambition with revelry? What are you already proud of? What would it feel like to trust that good things are already at your fingertips, and that something even better is on its way?

Aquarius

Six of cups

This season of fixed earth holds some sweet tenderness for you, as you may find opportunities for play, connection, and healing. It often feels more comfortable for you to move through the world rationally, analytically, but you may find a lot of value in tapping into your emotions this season, thinking about where you’ve come from, what shaped you, and what joy really looks like for you. How often are you vulnerable, not only with others but also with yourself? What have you been longing for, and how do you care for that desire? How can you be gentle with yourself?

Pisces

Four of swords

Your mutable water may feel at odds with the cardinal earth of this season, but as the sun moves into Capricorn, pay attention to ways that you can protect your mind and create intentional spaces for rest. You don’t always have to be building or giving or planning or dreaming or supporting or moving. You deserve rest, breaks, opportunities to let your heart and body heal. How can you intentionally protect your peace? What do you need in order to feel safe slowing down or stopping for a time?

Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for December 2022

I am always excited about Sagittarius season, even when the world gives me no reason to be. That’s kind of the point. We’re in the dark time of the year, here in the Northern Hemisphere. Our days are shortening. Night falls in the afternoon and the sun hangs low in the sky even at noon. This is the season when many cultures celebrate festivals of light and fire — Channukah candles, Solstice bonfires, Christmas lights. Sagittarius season asks us to tap into our own faith in the world, our faith that the sun will return and we won’t be plunged into year-long darkness. Sagittarius insists on faith, not evidence. This can seem like a dicey proposal in today’s political climate, where so many on the right are treating science as, like, just your opinion, man. So as a worker in the world of the woo, let me take this moment to explain what faith is and isn’t, and why we need it.

1. Faith doesn’t describe reality, it describes our relationship to it.

I don’t need to have faith that my old, beat-up laptop exists — I can see and touch it. So can anyone who sees me typing on it. It’s a non-controversial fact. I tap into faith when I choose to believe I can unplug it and carry it into the next room without its battery immediately dying. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. Faith always arises when there’s a mystery, when something is unpredictable or unclear. I see faith as a choice, a way of being in relationship to the world. My Taurus Moon inclines me to be attached to all my old, familiar tools. I hate having to buy anything new. So when I continue to rely on this laptop, I’m maintaining a relationship through faith. I know this relationship won’t last forever, but it’s good right now and I have every hope that it can continue for a long time. My rational mind tells me to make frequent back-ups and make sure I can afford a new computer when the time comes. But my faith in this laptop’s continued survival tells me that what I love exists and can persist. And this helps me feel present, connected, and safe in a chaotic world.

2. Faith is one part of a larger process.

I can have tremendous faith in my old laptop’s longevity, but I know it can’t run on faith alone. Love doesn’t replace electricity. This is why Sagittarius season is just one month out of 12. Before Sagittarius, we encounter our emotional depths in Scorpio. After Sagittarius, we reconnect to realism and practical actions in Capricorn. There are times in our lives when what we need most is faith, and there are times when faith is the wrong mode entirely. You may need to tap into faith when you are in despair about the ecological future of our earth and the continuity of our species on it. You may need to tap into faith when you read the news and experience secondary trauma from the daily crises and tragedies. You may need to tap into faith if you’re immunocompromised and still mostly isolated while Covid continues to circulate. In these instances, faith is a way of building a relationship with the future you want and need. I believe it can be a conscious choice, and that choosing to tap into faith is powerful. On the other hand, faith may be the absolutely wrong tool for you if you’re enduring abuse because you have faith in the inherent goodness of your abuser. Faith can also steer you wrong if it prompts an “everything will work out” attitude toward climate change instead of spurring you take concrete actions toward creating the better future you can imagine. Finally, faith is absolutely not a substitute for consensus reality. You may have faith that an angel appeared to you and told you that I have to stop drinking sparkling water or the world will end. This kind of faith can cause us both a lot of distress — your relationship to that angel and the demise of our world feels very real and alarming to you, but I’m not in that relationship. Whether I choose to stop drinking sparkling water depends on what my relationship is like with you. Which brings us to the next point.

3. What your faith has to do with my actions (and vice versa) is a political question.

So you’ve just pleaded with me to stop drinking sparkling water because of your faith. If we have a close, trusting relationship I may hear you out. I may be open to changing my ways, even if I don’t believe what you believe. I may even choose to try on your faith, so we can share the same reality. Or I may politely decline, because drinking sparkling water (or my autonomy to drink whatever I want) is a core value for me and I don’t believe in a world where that will bring dire consequences for us all. And here is where faith and science part ways: If your prediction of dire consequences has decades of scientific evidence to back it up, you’re no longer asking me to take something on faith. But if your alarm is about something spiritually destructive that you believe happens when I drink pamplemousse La Croix, you are asking me to trust your beliefs enough to give up my autonomy. I’ve set up this question so far as a voluntary one, a request from one friend to another. But let’s imagine that you aren’t my friend but are, say, a Supreme Court justice. Let’s say you have the power to make your belief into law. This is the alarming territory we’re in, here in the US, as right-wing evangelical movements are using their beliefs to restrict body autonomy for the rest of us. This why it can feel especially difficult, in this moment, to talk about the benefits of faith.

So where does that leave us, in this moment of time, here in Sagittarius season? I offered this digression because 1) my Sagittarius rising likes to get pedantic and 2) I want us to have all the tools we need to face these times, and to know how and when to use them with discernment. I don’t think faith and critical reasoning skills are mutually exclusive. And I believe we need to keep holding collective faith for a better future, even when it feels almost impossible. Luckily, this is a month that supports us in these efforts.

This month begins with a trio of planets moving through Sagittarius, pinging off Mars in Gemini and both Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces. All mutable signs, these conversations are lively and far-reaching but the core topics include faith in the future, wild imagination, questioning, awe, communion with the sacred, and finding ways to tell the story of what we intuitively know (which may circle back to more questioning — do we know what we think we know? How does our intuition give us different information than our senses? And so on…). Jupiter, recently direct, will move into Aries on the 20th and the Sun will move into Capricorn on the 21st, leading us toward a more active and practical final week of the month. But bear in mind Mars is still retrograde (till January 12th) and Mercury stations retrograde on the 29th, so while we may have faith in our capacity to start anew (Jupiter in Aries), motivation and clarity are still lagging behind for a few weeks. All in all, this is a fairly chill time. If this is an emotional or stressful time of year for you, give yourself permission to do less and rest more. If you are in recovery or otherwise paying attention to coping mechanisms you don’t want to overuse, be aware this month can also make it hard to set limits and assess consequences. If you are just in the mood to gather and party (with Covid safety in mind, still, please!), this month will help light the way.

I’m here if you need me right now or are just curious about getting a reading. I’ve also got gift readings for your favorite astrology enthusiasts. For more astro insights you can follow me on Instagram, join me on Patreon, and listen to my New Moon podcast The Hum. Whatever you are celebrating or grieving this month, may you be tap into that kind of love that helps you have faith in queer collective survival and thriving.

Aries

Choose to believe: That your capacity to draw on your own deepest beliefs is what you need to heal right now, and may be a powerful medicine for others, as well. Express this more in art than in a manifesto, though. You need people to feel what you’re feeling, not hear what you’re thinking. Dig deep into that place where you connect with the magic of it all and see what you find.

Taurus

Choose to believe: That you can release the carefully preserved grief and pain you’ve been holding onto for so long, like a precious artifact. That in its place you can receive a renewed sense of connection to the world. This is very much a receptive act on your part: You don’t have to do anything but let go, empty your hands. You will receive something else, something needed.

Gemini

Choose to believe: That you can say yes to what you want, understanding that it means saying no to many, many other options. That it will actually feel relaxing to ignore those other options. That you will find the value in deepening into this choice, instead of always having one foot out the door or fantasizing about other possibilities. And, if it turns out your desires change or you made the wrong choice at first, you have permission to change your mind.

Cancer

Choose to believe: That you are an unstoppable force of nature, and that you need to take a nap every afternoon, and that these do not contradict each other. Recognize the power you have when your full energy is behind what you’re doing, when you believe in yourself and your visions. Model that real, anti-capitalist self-care means letting yourself doze and daydream when you need to so that you will be energized for the activities that actually give you life.

Leo

Choose to believe: That when you name and notice what’s broken your heart, you are beginning to heal it. That you can do this in therapy, sure, but also through performance art or a shared moment with a stranger at a bus stop or whispering in bed with a new lover. That each time you tell your story, it changes because you change. That you are the healer of your own heart.

Virgo

Choose to believe: That it is possible to prioritize deep rest. That you can be a wave ebbing away from shore, exposing all the shells and seaweed and beach trash, and your mind doesn’t need to catch on any of that. That your partners, your friends, your housemates, your family are all capable of tending to themselves or each other in your temporary absence. Meanwhile, you get to sink down into the sweet watery depths of whatever brings you pleasure.

Libra

Choose to believe: That your local actions ripple out globally in ways you cannot trace. Small acts of justice and compassion, ongoing behind-the-scenes support for what you believe in, what seem like fruitless efforts to explain your values to relatives on a different tip. Believe that while the world crashes in with all its urgency, your daily life only needs to answer to its own pace and scope. Believe that how you show love, your presence and attentiveness, matters intrinsically.

Scorpio

Choose to believe: That you can experience safety and love at the same time. That you can unhook yourself from a pattern of diving way too deep, way too fast. That each heartbreak helps you know how to approach the next big love with more respect for your own wellbeing. Claim your intensity. Relax into it. Introduce yourself with your dealbreakers.

Sagittarius

Choose to believe: That you will get to become all the versions of yourself you can imagine, in big or small ways, privately or publicly. That your life is just starting to get interesting and will become even more so. That the compromises you make to get by in this world won’t crush your capacity to keep dreaming of a better one.

Capricorn

Choose to believe: That your dreams are worth remembering. Write them down somewhere, shape them, give them a little more soil and light and air. Sing to them. Your realism, one of your superpowes, can also weigh you down. This month reminds you to stretch your capacity to imagine what seems unimaginable. First step: imagine a world in which you get to do imagination as a serious activity.

Aquarius

Choose to believe: That you are not outside of the world for which you fight so hard. You belong here, with us. Your ethics and your activism don’t have to equal martyrdom. That you get to be in relationships that feed you, and create boundaries and distance with those that don’t. That in connection, you can draw water from our common well. Stay hydrated. Feast when you can. Remember the word “mutual” in mutual aid.

Pisces

Choose to believe: That you can take material form and have preferences, opinions, needs and even irritating habits like leaving toenail clippings on the bathroom floor, and none of this will in anyway diminish the fact that you are also a whirling spiral of portals leading into all dimensions. You can be ineffable and deeply ordinary at the same time, and both are pure magic.

Queer Tarotscopes for Sagittarius Season 2022: What Are You Discovering?

This season’s tarotscopes feature The OK Tarot and The Compendium of Constellations.

After the intensity and transformation of Scorpio season, Sagittarius can feel like a warm, welcome invitation to movement, freedom, and expansion. Our sign of mutable fire, Sagittarius helps us to find the magic in our present, to see endless possibilities in any direction we turn our gaze. If Scorpio season felt like it encouraged you to tunnel underground, to uncover rot and leave behind things that are no longer growing, Sagittarius may help drag you back out into the sunshine of a bright new morning.

The correspondences created by the Order of the Golden Dawn pair Sagittarius with Temperance, an archetype that may feel at odds with this freedom-loving, philosophical sign. Temperance is often associated with ideas like moderation, sobriety, and self-control: finding the balance between death and rebirth, honoring what we have endured while being brave enough to still strive for something new. But beyond themes of restriction, Temperance also points us to luck, divine timing, those happy coincidences that feel charged and potent. This is an energy of expectation: not in a selfish, demanding, entitled way, but rather a trust that what is to be will be. Where Scorpio reveals truth, Sagittarius empowers us to pursue it, to believe in it, to celebrate it, and to accept it.

What have you been discovering about yourself, either through times of sorrow or times of true joy? Which roads have been opening up before you, and how are they inspiring you to perhaps try something new, something unexpected? Where have you been making something overly complicated, rather than getting straight to the heart of it? Sagittarius is a truth-seeker, a boundary-breaker, an explorer that is excited about whatever they may find around the corner. How can you embrace this energy, even if there are aspects about it that you may not fully understand? What are you afraid of? Temperance isn’t a scold or a nag, trying to restrict your fun — instead, Temperance wants you to honor your deepest longings, to take what you’ve been learning and apply it in new ways. Who do you know yourself to be? And what are you still learning about yourself?

In this season of Sagittarius, give yourself room to play, to explore, to make mistakes and discoveries in equal measure. Experienced tarot readers or astrologers can plug the cards I’ve drawn for their sun, moon, and rising signs into the spread below to create a custom reading for this season. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, planet of abundance and generosity, so if you know your Jupiter placement, you can plug it into this spread too for a more complete picture of your Sagittarius season.

Preorders for my first book, Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation, are open, and make a big difference for debut authors! In addition to this book, the best way to stay up-to-date on my writings, offerings, and latest tarot spreads is by subscribing to my newsletter, Devils & Fools. As social media continues to get less and less reliable, I’m spending much more time writing for subscribers these days, but you can still find me on Twitter for as long as it lasts, as well as Instagram and TikTok.

As always with these tarot readings, take what you need and leave what you don’t. Happy Sagittarius season!

Aries

Three of cups

As powerful as it can be to reflect internally on who you are, what you need, and what you’re craving, sometimes we see ourselves in new ways by revealing our hearts to others. Pay special attention to your community this season, practicing intentional vulnerability rather than always putting on a brave face or facing challenges alone. How do you let others see you, support you, love you? How does recognizing and accepting that love help you show yourself more grace? And how does your chosen family empower you to be brave in your more personal endeavors, even when you are reluctant to share your fears?

Taurus

Nine of cups

There can be such safety and comfort in spending time with those we love, but there is also a very special kind of security that comes in deeply, truly loving ourselves. You may reach new depths of personal generosity this season, finding both contentment and wonder in acknowledging the dreams you have achieved and the wishes you still hold on to. What makes you feel truly loved, both externally and internally? How are you sensitive to your own needs, and how does it feel to attend to them? Where are you still longing for something, and what would it look like to give yourself full permission to pursue it?

Gemini

Queen of pentacles

You may find yourself stepping into new positions of power, authority, and capability this season, owning your skills and not being afraid to take up space. You are so full of ideas and information, but when you take the time to ground those flashes of insight into long-term goals and ambitions, the sky is truly the limit in terms of what you can accomplish. Give yourself permission to keep things simple, to delineate clear times of work and play and rest, and see what happens. When do you feel the most empowered, the most certain? What helps you feel safe and supported, even in times of exploration?

Cancer

Nine of wands

Sagittarius season may feel like the time to lean fully into your fire, carrying momentum from previous seasons forward and celebrating how close you are to your goals. But you have a lot of deep wisdom, Cancer, and this season may be more about slowing down rather than speeding up. There’s no shame in self-care, and if you’ve been feeling like you’re burning the candle on both ends, give yourself time to rest, recover, and make a plan for finishing strong rather than forcing yourself to keep running on fumes. Where might support be available to you? How can you prioritize your own well being?

Leo

Page of swords

Your natural sense of adventure and curiosity may feel heightened this season, particularly in the realms of intellectual exploration and research. Something is opening up for you, an opportunity or discovery that may be captivating your imagination — so this is your invitation to lean all the way the fuck in. What are you learning? What are you realizing you don’t know? How is what you’re finding creating new insights or perceptions within you? What are you recognizing about your own understanding of truth, and how might that create a new path for you?

Virgo

Eight of wands

It may feel like everything is clicking into place for you this season — roads opening, obstacles clearing, goals clarifying. This energy doesn’t always last for long, but is intensely joyful and powerful while it’s present. You’re known for your care and attention to detail, but if it feels like you can move forward without hesitation, do it! For you, Sagittarius season can be a time of intensive creativity, exciting collaboration, and rapid progress. What does it feel like to trust your instincts? How do you experience fiery passion in your work, play, rest, and unexpected adventures?

Libra

Three of wands

There’s a rich spirit of collaboration in the air for you this season, as you may find your creative resources and excitement about working with others heightened. Different people have different talents to offer, but those gifts don’t minimize your own — rather, this season it may feel like every new spark grows into a beautiful flame, creating new inspiration for everything you touch. Pay attention to opportunities to work alongside other people, or to bring those you trust into your ongoing work. Where have you been craving growth and expansion? How are you expressing yourself? What can you celebrate?

Scorpio

Ten of cups

This season may feel steady and joyful, as you settle into a beautiful rhythm with friends, chosen family, collaborators, and partners. Community is what we make of it, and in being willing to be vulnerable with those you trust, you may feel the magic of equal exchanges of energy, with cups being emptied and filled in beautiful synchronicity. Rather than letting yourself be overwhelmed, lean into the flow. Let your cups overflow with wonder, magic, and the joy of being loved. Who do you trust with your heart and soul? What does it feel like to let yourself be seen?

Sagittarius

The Chariot

Happy birthday, Sagittarius! There may be a lot of hopeful optimism in your world right now, in spite of how complicated things may seem — but as we move into your season, give yourself opportunities to break free of old restrictions and being creating new rules for yourself, ones that empower you rather than hold you back. Boundaries can protect us, but also need to be adjusted periodically, and as you learn more about your own needs and wants, you may need to shift some of your internal and external rules around. Which tough questions have you been answering? What is your focus now? And how can you make some changes that empower that journey forward?

Capricorn

Page of cups

You’re often known for your ambition, drive, and focus — but this season, I want to encourage you to play, to wander, to get caught up in daydreams and artistic fantasies. What were you like as a child? What do you long to explore, and where do you let your imagination take you? How often do you give yourself permission to “waste time” rather than obsessing over productivity? This season, loosen the reins on your internal control and see what happens when you wander through your own mind and heart. What is opening up within you? Which dreams are revealing themselves?

Aquarius

Two of wands

There is a spark growing within you, a new idea or ambition that is making itself known — but as tempting as it can be to dream big and rush forward, this season is asking you to balance ambition and optimism with care, intentionality, and purpose. Take a beat to figure out what it is you truly want, and to make sure that you’re choosing this path, rather than getting swept up by the passion and excitement growing within you. What are you ready to dedicate yourself to? Where does it make sense to hone your focus? And how can you make sure that this new dream succeeds in the long-term?

Pisces

The Sun

This season you may find opportunities to let yourself shine, to integrate multiple aspects of yourself, to share who you are with those that have only ever seen specific parts of you. There is such magic, such abundance within you, and as we move into fiery Sagittarius, let yourself be as brilliant and glorious as you can, rather than hiding all that you are from the world. What are you celebrating, and how can you bring others into that joy? After several seasons of examination and contemplation, how are you ready to reveal yourself in all of your fullness?

Switching to Menstrual Cups Made Harvesting My Blood for Witchcraft 1000% More Convenient

I don’t know why I was so hesitant to try a menstrual cup, honestly. For some reason I thought that it would be more annoying than tampons, but when I picked up Flex Menstrual Discs pack after someone at Autostraddle mentioned them, I both realized I was devastatingly wrong in my previous assumptions AND I was hooked.

I mean, you only have to change a flex disc twice a day? WHAT?!? This opened up untold possibilities for me, just in the world of not having to stick tampons into every pocket and crevasse of my person when leaving the house for extended periods (ha). That and there is no nasty dingle dangly string. Life-changing.

Then, the good people at Aisle offered me a free menstrual cup sample (if you’re an A+ Member, both Aisle and GladRags offer A+ Member discounts and carry menstrual cups by the way). And my world just exploded. It was a total galaxy brain moment.

So, I tried the cup! You boil it like a dildo to sanitize it which was cool and made me feel safe and then I just popped it in. There were no leaks and I only had to empty it 2-3 times a day which means that yes I could sleep for like eleven straight(gay) hours without getting up which is a thing I sometimes do on my period. You clean it in between…um…emptyings which is cool and yes, does feel far less wasteful, or at the very least is far more convenient than other products.

Look, maybe you’re going to some kind of event. What if you didn’t have to change your tampon in the woods or a port-o-john while at a festival or a sex party or whatever gathering? What if the cup… was simply sufficed or was easy enough to handle while on an egregiously long hike? I know that feminists have been trying to tell me this since the first time I went to a Rainbow Gathering and it’s my own fault for not listening, but we are all on our own journeys of self-discovery! I ACCEPT THE ADVICE YOU ALL KEPT GIVING ABOUT “MY MOON” OKAY. Which is that, I need to embrace my independence outside of corporate constructs, especially those grounded in the cotton/disposable products industry. And it’s been nice, and actually has made me a more present member of the community because, honestly, worrying about my period was holding me back in ways I did not even realize.

But reader, it didn’t take me long before I moved onto the next most logical step. Rather than dumping my precious period blood down the sink, I instead saved it in a vessel and used it for witchcraft. When I poured the contents of my menstrual cup into that first mason jar, I was just whispering “this is genius,” I tell you what.

This is FREE BLOOD, people! Free! Listen, my fellow menstruators, there is no Buffy (but also-literally-everything-else) style palm-slitting required with this method! I never understood why they did that in movies and on TV anyway. Palm/hand is literally one of the worst places to have a cut. You’re on your period. You’re gonna suffer anyway. Why not get something out of it?

I do have to note that the traditional CUP was way easier to harvest blood from than the DISC, though I did try it with both. The disk is made of a thin, almost wrap-like plastic in the center, so if you want to get the blood, you have to do a lot of finagling. I do speak from experience, but recommend the cup for this purpose, ultimately.

Look, I by no means invented using menstrual blood for witchcraft. That shit goes waaaayyyyyy back. But the thing is, with modern tampon technology, I was always unclear on what the best way to collect period blood actually was. What was I gonna do? Wring out a tamp? Have period blood with a bunch of bits of cotton in it? Plus it sounds like a mess. The menstrual cup makes this so tidy!!

I rate this experience 5 out of 5 pentagrams. No further notes.

Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for November 2022

Halloween may be over, but astrologically we are still deep in Scorpio season. Scorpio is a sign that asks us to confront our deepest fears — those who have strong Scorpio signatures in their charts are constantly navigating their own relationship to worst-case-scenario thinking, whether that shows up as anxiety or as a profound sense of mission to avert climate disaster. Scorpio brings an awareness of how things end, how leaves decay, how civilizations collapse, how relationships turn sour, how we lose the ones we love merely because we are all mortal. Whether those are conscious thought patterns or not, strongly Scorpionic people (which isn’t just anyone with a Scorpio sun sign) use a lot of energy navigating these truths. That’s why Scorpio has a reputation for intensity — there are high stakes for any interaction.

Being aware of how things can and do fall apart — and what happens next — is a superpower that Scorpio season shares with us in this time. The “what happens next” part is something most of us don’t focus on, but Scorpio is essentially a healing energy. After each death comes a rebirth. Scorpio may wield the surgeon’s blade, but it also reminds us that our bodies know how to knit themselves back together after a needed intervention, and that what was causing us pain can be released.

This Scorpio season has a strong emphasis on learning, uncovering, and being ready for change. That’s because we begin in the midst of eclipses in Scorpio and Taurus. Eclipses highlight information that’s been hidden (sometimes hidden in plain sight) and the Scorpio-Taurus axis helps us navigate sometimes scary changes (Scorpio is associated loss, trauma, mortality) while staying grounded in the goodness of being alive and embodied (Taurus themes). Scorpio gives us the courage and wisdom to face the scary situation; Taurus allows us to know when the crisis is over and what we need for aftercare.

November 8th’s lunar eclipse in Scorpio is also activated by Uranus — a planet that portends even more change and instability, but this time with a flavor that is decidedly political. Here in the US, it’s also Election Day. Make wise choices for yourselves this day and expect the same or even heightened levels of chaos as our democracy struggles with anti-democratic right-wing factions. We are living in a historically unstable time as the outer planets align and shift into new signs over the next few years. Part of the Scorpio-Taurus lesson is to learn how to face these times courageously, and where we establish our own personal sense of safety as the world is changing.

If you are feeling scared or depressed about the state of things right now, you’re not alone. This month’s astrology may highlight these moods, but your goal is to learn more about your agency during this time. What does your fear tell you about what you’d like to protect? Have you let yourself grieve changes and loss that you weren’t able to prevent? Ongoing change and loss that is out of your control? Naming what you can’t control, what are you learning about where you do have power and agency? What are you here to defend and protect (Mars retrograde questions)? What fears do you need to face about yourself and your relationships in order to grow (eclipse questions)? Who and what help you ground into your body and feel held, happy, and safe right now?

We move to Sagittarius season on the 23rd — a time to integrate what you’ve been learning and reconnect with passion and joy. This is also the end of eclipse season, so if you’re trying to understand what changes you need to make in light of new information you’re learning, see if you can put off big decisions till after the 23rd.

I’ve got more details on the big transits of this month on Patreon, and you can always get in touch for a reading. I’ve recently expanded my sliding scale options and am now offering a reduced rate for return clients. You can also find me on Instagram, and listen to my New Moon podcast The Hum.

May what you’re learning this month be healing for you and for the world. May you have the support and space and love to integrate it deeply.

Aries

Be willing to learn: How to greet change with your feet firmly planted. How to do emotionally what your body knows how to do already: digest change, metabolize it, draw nourishment from it, and then release what isn’t working for you. Let the process take time. Don’t panic when it’s a mess. Keep reaching for nourishment, keep releasing what isn’t feeding you.

Taurus

Be willing to learn: What your beloveds are trying to tell you. You may be surprised in an important relationship, and focusing on your surprise will block you from focusing on what they want you to hear and know and accept about them. Process your surprise (ideally without them), process your feelings (ditto), but also make sure that this important person knows that you’re listening and that you care. You get to integrate new information slowly and make your own choices about what you might want in response, but begin right now by being willing to listen with love.

Gemini

Be willing to learn: How to take things very seriously while not needing to know what they are yet. How to let a relationship, a creative project, or a big life transition find out what it needs to be as you live into it. Where you find groundedness during change — in your body, in your daily rituals and rhythms, in the way you can shush your worrying brain by immersing yourself in the here and now.

Cancer

Be willing to learn: How your love for the world can reach the world. What you have that you can share, expand on, and spread out toward those you want to be in relationship with — be those individuals, collectivies, or ecosystems. How to keep your heart open enough to love a world in crisis, while protecting yourself from feeling it’s up to you alone to save or fix anyone (individuals, collectivies, or ecosystems). When to grieve, and how to grieve deeply so your heart also remembers how to well up with joy.

Leo

Be willing to learn: When you can stop trying to impress someone who is never going to see you clearly. How good it feels to bring all that energy back into your own heart, into the connections that do see you and celebrate you. How to heal the part of you that still wants some kind of external validation from a person — especially if that person represents a kind of social power you don’t: whiteness, cis-masculinity, able-bodiedness, thin privilege, straightness, cool kid status, etc, etc. Power hierarchies warp our capacity to see one another, to love and be loved, but you know better than anyone how important it is to keep trying. Allow this month to unhook you from the thorns of needing to be seen a certain way, and invite you into the warm embrace of receiving love for exactly who you are.

Virgo

Be willing to learn: How to create a community around you — not your ideal community, not a perfect community, rather a community that recognizes you are part of many groups and those groups don’t have edges that you get to define. Community isn’t your perfect dinner party but includes people you wouldn’t have chosen but are thrown together with. Community means finding how and when you can find common cause, and how and when you can’t. I guarantee there will always be at least one person in a given group (collective, household, neighborhood, workplace) that you can’t stand. And someone who can’t stand you. What you are discovering right now is that weave of interdependence that means you can’t really separate yourself from them, and that’s a good thing. Your homework is to understand why.

Libra

Be willing to learn: How to feel safe in your body when your body is experiencing stress. What soothes, what recharges, what feeds you when you’re at your limit? Do you know where that limit is? Do you often push past it? Welcome learning a new somatic map of your inner life and how to befriend the animal part of you. You are learning how to ground and recenter not as a retreat from the more stressful changes, but as way of being able to welcome those changes.

Scorpio

Be willing to learn: What you’re being called to become, independent of what your relationships expect you to be. This is a time of radical transition for you, and you are taking your first steps towards a self that isn’t fully formed. Let yourself be curious about where you’re headed, while acknowledging that as you change your relationships will also change — some may grow closer, others may grow distant. Don’t let a core fear of change block you from exploring what you need to explore: you will be loved on the other side of this.

Sagittarius

Be willing to learn:* How to stay present when your mind wants to go deep into the future or past. What helps the here and now feel rich with possibility. How to honor your internal cycles of connection and retreat, planning and making, doing and resting. How to remember that none of this is final, and some if it is quite fleeting. Invite your mind and spirit to settle a little more deeply into what inspires you instead of flitting away toward the next task. Most of all, this month will challenge your sense that you ought to know what’s coming next. Release that expectation and it will be a far more interesting ride.

Capricorn

Be willing to learn: How to indulge your inner teenager — both the rebellion and the idealism. How to access that part of you that still burns and yearns — not to let it dominate you, but to accompany it in a new way. This is a month of getting a crush on your wildest self while being responsible to your wisest self. Something is breaking through, breaking free, and breaking open your shell. Ideally, that something is a part of you that you’ve been missing and it’s time to reconnect.

Aquarius

Be willing to learn: How to accept both the responsibility and the spotlight of being good at what you are good at, what people need from you. Reckoning with how your ego might get in the way, or your desire to hole up at home and not engage, or your focus on just your intimate circle rather than casting a wider net. You are learning how to show up for what matters to you in new ways. In so doing, you are learning what you need to restore and ground yourself. These two may feel opposed at times, but they are fundamentally reliant on each other. Find your way toward that sense of balance.

Pisces

Be willing to learn: How to make meaning out of days that might otherwise blur together — your ordinary (or exciting or tedious) life against the backdrop of major world events. Ask yourself what happens in your body when you read the news. Ask your body what’s happening in your mind when you do something routine. Get curious about how you as a single drop of water can ripple outward and affect a larger current. Accept that you will never seen that final big wave, you can only imagine yourself at its edges. Find your place in a network of water drops, each creating a system of ripples and waves that overlap and plait and make serious change.