It’s the season of the witch, y’all. Beloved, struggling, ardent friends: we have reached the cycle of the year when love feels heavier, desire sharper, loss more stark. As the Sun and Jupiter move through Scorpio this month, we are all developing night vision—seeing what has been changing and moving and growing and dying in the hidden parts of our hearts and minds. This can be a time of tremendous intensity—highs, lows, longings, losses, ecstasy, anxiety. Particularly, we’re learning how intimacy demands that we never stop transforming. Change is the only constant, and the only path we can stay on.

If the energy of this month feels overwhelming to you, here are a few things for you to remember:

Don’t hold on to anything that’s ready to change. Endings aren’t catastrophes. Everything has a life cycle. Think of a first date: it has a beginning and end. If it never ended, there would be no space to reconnect with yourself and the rest of your life, no time to assess your desires and have new experiences. Endings allow for new beginnings. Whatever is ending for you at this time, release it with gratitude for what it brought you and trust that something new will be born.

Queers have a particular relationship to hiding, secrecy, and being both considered dangerous and living in a world that’s dangerous to them. Scorpio season can highlight all kinds of collective and personal traumas. Be gentle with yourselves and each other, and remember our queer ancestors and mentors who have helped create the spaces we can occupy today. Holding each other through the hard times is something we know how to do. Claim your part in that tradition.

We all carry fear, shame, grief, and anger within us. These feelings themselves are totally ordinary, but we don’t always know how to handle them without causing harm to ourselves or others. The information we’re getting from our emotions right now is strong and real, but can be misinterpreted by our minds. Welcome revelations that arise, but don’t let any old painful stories hijack your perspective on what’s real now. Take whatever steps you need to deescalate conflict, recenter, and reconnect to trust.

Of course, not everyone is daunted by Scorpio energy. For those of you who thrive on going deep and working it out, now is your hour. Enjoy the powerfully transformative energy of this month. Work your strongest spells for healing, for an end to suffering, for ending all the structures and oppressions that currently feel immortal. Everything has a life cycle.

And finally, Mars moves into Libra this month, which intensifies our desire for connection—clear, calm, rational, intentional connection. With Mars in Libra, we’re not going to want to fight. There’s a risk that the Scorpio need for total honesty and courage will get buried under the Libra need to smooth everything over. There’s an equal risk that the desire to be cool and fair and calm will lead to Scorpionic intensities that no one’s ready for. So, pay attention to what energy you and your partners are bringing to your interactions right now. Make sure you’re having the conversations you want to have, and that no one’s making rash decisions while in the grip of strong emotions.

Find me this month at flaxandgold.com for personalized readings to support you through all your transformations. And as always, remember that for these relationship horoscopes you should read your Venus and Moon signs first, followed by your Sun and rising. Read these for what they can give you, and discard anything you don’t need.

Aries

Your core values in a relationship are independence and courage. You need to feel passionately alive, to pursue risks, to explore new terrain. All these desires are totally valid, but can be hard to reconcile with your need for relationships that last—whether those are platonic or romantic. How do you balance your need for excitement and risk with your desire to forge loving, stable bonds with people you care about? This month brings you tremendous motivation to solve this problem. The first step? Slow down. There’s no need to rush into any decisions, or escalate anything new too quickly. Savor slowness. And while you’re pacing yourself, take a look around and pay attention to what people are asking you to learn about them. Conflict, challenge, and critique from those who love you are opportunities to get closer. Not every conflict is a crisis—and remember you can always pace yourself as you take in and digest new information.

Taurus

You are facing the eternal question in any difficult relationship: is the work worth it? You may be exhausted right now, dearest Taurus, and wanting it all to get easier. Unfortunately, you can’t cut any corners right now. The easiest path is actually the path of work: problem solving, making adjustments, tolerating the discomfort of not being able to solve something quickly and move on. Even if you’ve already walked away from a relationship, the work of untangling and learning from that experience is far from over. Renew your passion for life this month by rebalancing power in your relationships. Have you been demanding too much from your partners, or yourself? Putting up with things that make you resentful later? Have you needed everyone to adapt to you, or tried too hard to adapt to someone else? Make the changes you need to—large or small—to better orient yourself toward real mutuality and honesty. Things will feel easier not when your life suddenly becomes less difficult, but when you have better skills to face difficulty without draining yourself or others. Be brave, face your demons without shame (we’ve all got them), and let yourself transform into a stronger, wiser version of yourself this month.

Gemini

You’ll be most energized right now by flirtation, romance, and some kind of sweet gaycation. That’s hardly the energy of this month, though! How can you make room for some bright and joyful connections in your life right now, to offset everything that’s heavy and hard? Remember that we have to keep looking for and celebrating the beauty and joy of life through the hard times—this is what will get us through, together, intact. Shine your own unique brightness in the life of someone who’s struggling in the dark right now. Insist on some levity and laughter. Above all, reach out for support whenever you’re struggling. Don’t forget how many people love you and want to help.

Cancer

This month offers you a dose of strength and courage that are always yours, but that might feel easier to access right now. Your strength is immense right now, and it comes entirely from your capacity to show up knowing that you are safe and loved. Hold onto those feelings by keeping your home as a place of refuge, and your relationships focused on what you can do to support one another. Your keywords this month: Cuddle up. Shore up. Post up. Kick ass.

Leo

You may find yourself cycling between many perspectives, unsure what’s true and what’s alarmist anxiety or delusional fantasy. Clarifying conversations are important to you right now lead you—but be careful that they stay clarifying, rather than sweeping you into some deep water. Reach out to friends who can stay objective and calm, and don’t let your mental energy burn you out too hard right now. If anxieties are keeping you up at night, you need to tell yourself a different story. Preferably one that goes like this: You are strong enough to weather every change. You cannot control anything anyone else does—all you can do is make the choice that’s best for you in every moment. Anything that’s leaving your life right now is making room for something better.

Virgo

You have value. It won’t help you right now to catalog all the parts of yourself you’ve been rejected for, or that you reject yourself. You are more than a collection of anxieties or flaws. It’s no use comparing yourself to people with a different set of problems, imagining everything is better for them. This month asks you to stabilize and put down roots somewhere where you can flourish. It reminds you that you deserve abundance, not scarcity. If you’ve been like a plant deprived of light, leaning out toward the scarce love available, now is the time to sink deep into your roots and let the earth nourish you. There is more love available than you currently understand. You belong to it, and it to you.

Libra

This is a powerful time for recognizing what you want, not what you ought to do or what others wish you would do for them. Are you scared of being selfish? Do you understand what matters most to you? Can you say no to what you don’t want, and vigorously pursue what you do? There is an animal vitality coursing through you this month that needs some external expression. You have energy and vitality to spare; don’t squander it. This isn’t the time to defer to the needs of others or politely sit still when you want to run. Use this energy to get more honest in all your relationships about what you really want and what isn’t working for you anymore. Being firm and clear about these things can only increase your intimacy with the people who really want to know you and care for you in the exact ways you need.

Scorpio

This month, you face the dilemma of not wanting to explain yourself but wanting to be deeply understood. As Jupiter begins its course through your sign, everything is ripening and getting bigger: all your hidden attitudes and assumptions about love, about who you are, about what you want, about how you’re able to care for others. What can you do to balance the contradictory energy of feeling verbal and expressive, but also needing to protect your mystery? As you learn more and more this year about the ways you’re changing and what direction you’re growing toward, you’ll be able to say a lot more about yourself with certainty. For now, release the need to be easily understood. Settle for being loved, in every shape you take.

Sagittarius

Your need for freedom and adventure are higher than usual this month, and you may be at risk of leaving a lot of people you care about in the dust in your haste to reinvent yourself and have new experiences. This energy is a breath of fresh air to help you shift any clinging, stuck patterns, but be careful not to abandon all your intimacies as you strike off for new horizons. Shoot an extra loving note toward the people you need some space from for awhile—you may not always realize the effect your sudden absence has on the people who care for you! Don’t feel you have to stay in one place, or in any particular kind of relationship, but be caring as you make the changes you need to. There’s no need to burn any bridges.

Capricorn

You have so much energy right now for achieving ambitious goals, but wanting to already be your best self might be blocking you from doing that work. Before you can present your accomplishments all shiny and bright for your friends and lovers to admire—or rather, to be of use to them, as you very much want to be—you’ll have to do a little light demolition and internal rebuilding. Don’t be afraid of this process: You have a clear blueprint. You understand exactly where the structural weaknesses are right now. It’s okay to let things be a little messy right now. Make brave decisions about what you need to change, and trust your integrity to keep you honest and moving forward. While you’re at it, you may be surprised at how much support you’ll have if you can ask for it. You don’t have to do this alone!

Aquarius

You are craving collective experiments right now, and higher levels of intimacy. You don’t just want sensations and pleasure, you want to understand what they mean. What is your partner thinking when they flirt with you, or when they pull away? What are the internal rules and assumptions of each of your relationships? What can you learn from your own desires, from what stimulates passion and what decreases it? These questions may not be easy for you—or rather, feeling your way into the answers won’t always be! Remember that love and desire can’t be fully understood intellectually. The perspective you’re missing right now, that you most need to find, is what your heart and body are telling you. Tune in more closely to how tense or relaxed your muscles are, when and why your stomach churns, and all the fluctuating rhythms of your heartbeat.

Pisces

When you’re processing some deep issue with a friend or lover, do you always clearly consent to do so? Do you consciously decide: yes, I have energy and attention for this—bring it on! Or are you more often pulled into being a counselor, a healer, a shoulder to cry on—or even a scapegoat or punching bag? This month, remember that you always get to choose how deep you want to go, and for how long. Your love may be infinite, but your inner resources aren’t. You will be highly motivated right now to get into everything lusciously scandalous and cathartic, everything old and aching, everything that lets you merge and be transformed. Make sure you fully consent to each and every one of these experiences, and back out at any time when if it’s not what you need.

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