Listen. 2023 was a little much. And if you’re anything like me, then you’ve already made a plan to kidnap 2024 and MK-Ultra this year into submission in your basement before we even get started. Because listen, we’re not pulling another 2023. So let’s all agree to make THIS year call us “Daddy.”

So how are we going to do this, hmmm? With these totally, absolutely, not not not not unhinged New Year’s Resolutions for you, based on your zodiac sign, many of which are actually New Year’s Projects that I can, at the bare, bottom-of-the-pit minimum, assure you will have an effect on your year. So, raise a glass of whatever fizzy or flat thing you’re guzzling, and let’s toast to a year where we gain a sense of control over our fates by whatever means necessary!

Aries

Get serious about prepping. Now, there are different kinds of disaster preparedness. I am going to say this now, hoping dear Aries that you didn’t just read the first sentence and run off to build a bunker with a tilapia tank. Okay, you’re still here? Good.

Emergency/disaster preparedness can take many forms. It can mean making sure you have enough food, water, shelter, and first aid supplies accessible and well packaged should you need them. It can also mean actually ensuring that your closest people have each other’s’ phone numbers and that you have secondary contacts for them in turn. It might mean that maybe that you’ve undergone some basic first aid training.

But Aries, I know you want more. This year, why not learn some basic electrical, get trained on how to Stop the Bleed, or organize a local group of queers to practice basic self-defense together? If you don’t know self-defense, someone in your network surely does. Download Signal. Start participating in mutual aid and jail support groups if you don’t already. Learn to recognize and treat hypothermia and heat stroke. Get to know your neighbors. Make a go bag.

Why is this questionable advice? Because I know that an Aries is likely to take this too far, get a little obsessive, maybe develop a sense of know-it-all expertise. But, um, hey. At least if there’s a hurricane or other natural disaster in 2024 (not less than likely), your friends are going to know who’s got the generator and the extra food.

Taurus

Stop buying things. Stop buying anything at all except groceries and basics. Do not get liberal when it comes to defining “basics.” See how long you can go.

Even better, shout about it on social media. Make a big deal of it. Really trap yourself in this commitment by making sure your entire circle knows about your year of not buying things.

You heard me. I already know you don’t like it. I also know you’re spending too much money. Now, this is going to tear you right out of your comfort zone. What are you going to do when you can’t get a new candle or robe or piece of quartz or nose ring? You are going to sit there and cope. And if you cannot cope without new material comforts in your life, you are going to have to get there and find clothing swaps or clean out your closet and make trades with people or get crafty.

I don’t know, Taurus, what you might be going through, but it’s time to clear that online shopping cart because it’s not going to help anyway. This might be sound advice, except I don’t know that you’re ready to look at the ways you’re obscuring a deeper connection to yourself and the world around you through your fixation on making the perfect nest, on making sure your appearance is just as you want it. What happens if you say fuck it to coziness? What could you accomplish? I think that if you redirect your energy, you might come out the other side a completely different person.

Gemini

Actually summon a demon, though.* Like, you need some help getting your New Year’s Resolutions moving? You want to feel more spiritually connected? You’ve got at least 72 ancient and tried and true options. Kayla didn’t tell you how to in her post, but in honor of my fellow air sign, our Gemini Managing Editor, I am going to tell you how to do it (draw a scary circle on the floor summoning a demon but also summoning the angel that many recommend you need when doing this as well). Keep in mind that a lot of people have various problems with Thelema/Crowley/Ceremonial style magic, and that’s because it is in fact problematic. But I’m not here to give you Woke Witch advice. You said you wanted to summon a demon. So now I’m here to tell you how to summon a demon.* Don’t say I never did anything for you:

1. Start with a book like this. As Kayla suggested, you may also be able to get one of these books from your local library. This one is recommended for its updated and modern approach, but you can also raw dog it with some Crowley though that is going to be rather more dense.
2. Choose a demon. There are 72 in the Ars Goetia — cool. There’s even a demon for learning geometry. Like, you can get specific.
3. Follow instructions. You might need some chalk, candles, sundry items.
4. Leave me out of this.

*I do not actually advise doing this. Proceed at your own risk, etc. etc.

Now this is absolutely questionable advice to give a Gemini specifically because you know they’re gonna succeed if they try. Those silver-tongued babes are gonna recite their Hebrew and their Latin. Luckily, I don’t actually know Gemini exes to be thaaaaat vindictive.

Cancer

2024 should be your year of asking for help from others, recklessly, with abandon.

Ask for help from family and friends, and then ask for help from strangers. Ask for help when you don’t need it. Don’t get all Ted Bundy and weird about it. Keep it relatively safe for the other person, just emotionally unsafe for you.

Now, why do I think this is potentially a bad idea? Because people are going to disappoint you, Cancer, if you give them the chance to. They’re going to let you down. You might come out of this with fewer friendships than you started with, but also, you’ll know who your real friends are. They won’t just be the people who you’ve been continuously initiating plans with. They’ll be the people who come around on their own. You also might find that you did, indeed, get help with some things that you needed, and now you’re going to have to live the rest of your life with that vulnerability.

Leo

Start sneaking into places and telling elaborate falsehoods. Look, Leo, we know you’re always fibbing a little bit for effect, or, on the other side, being completely blunt for effect. I can’t say what’s going to be on the other side of this, but if you’re really going to push your nature to its limit, I want to see how far you can go. Can you sneak into an event by carrying a box and wearing a pair of coveralls? Can you crash a straight wedding? Make up a new persona when flying. I’ve heard people do this. Get really into it. Start making up new personas on the bus. Start making up new personas at bars. Never be yourself, then ask yourself: what do my fake selves have in common, and “what am I missing from my life and how I treat myself that I could concentrate on in order to bring myself into greater alignment with who I want to be?” Or just have fun embracing your trickster self. Don’t get caught, and if you get caught, don’t get in trouble! And remember, I’m definitely not telling you to do anything illegal!

Virgo

Take up karaoke. In a big way. Tegan and Sara are Virgos — did you know that? No matter what your voice sounds like, I want to hear you sing. Already into karaoke or truly refuse to sing? Fine. I want you to take up doing an even more elaborate public performance, then, like burlesque or stand-up.

Virgo, in 2024, you are going to get on stage. You are going to fuck up. You are going to embarrass yourself, and you are going to persevere — or not, but you are going to say you tried. I want you to challenge yourself with the fact that you can prepare and prepare and prepare and then inevitably there is going to be a drunk person in the crowd or a technical mishap or you’re going to forget one of your lines and you are going to have to cope, or not.

I don’t know how you’ll do, but you can’t live in your little bubble of order forever. As a bonus, leave the dishes undone one night when you’re tired, skip a workout to play video games, get takeout instead of cooking — not all the time, just once or twice.

Libra

This year, as a New Year’s resolution that is really a project, I want you to start writing letters to people you admire. No, not emails, not DMs, not “conversations in your head.” Letters. In the mail. To people who you don’t know, famous people even, or less famous ones, just ones who are doing things you think are cool. I want you to start doing this and I don’t want you to stop (in a non-stalker-y way. Like, please don’t keep sending someone who never answers you letters unless this is some kind of art project). All year. You hear me?

When someone inevitably writes back, I want you to keep up correspondence. If you really hit it off, I want you to find a way to visit or run into each other in person. There, now you know a whole new person who you previously only admired from afar. Good luck out there. People are just people, after all.

Scorpio

Re-wild yourself in 2024. Take this seriously. I want to see you off-grid for extended periods of time this year, dear Scorpio. Sure, you’ve got responsibilities, sure there’s a society that we live in. In 2024, I want you to resolve not to touch grass, but to smell the dank under-belly of a pile of leaves, to sink your fingers into black compost, to having gone so feral that one night while you’re looking up at the full moon in complete dark you realize that you have not one but two sticks or brambles or pieces of debris stuck in your hair. Pull them out or don’t. You should be getting scrapes and bruises, poison oak or ivy, a mysterious bug bite or seven, learn how to react to whatever dangerous wildlife inhabit your area. If your phone screen breaks, let it stay broken for a week or two before you fix it. Take a friend if you need to, for safety. I didn’t say you had to go it alone.

You might think, why me? Why Scorpio? “I’m a sign of secrets and boudoirs, libraries and tombs,” you say. But if you look at the Death card in the Tarot, go and pull it out or google it, you’ll see in the Rider Waite version a five pointed white rose on the flag death carries. This rose represents purity through change — and the number five is one of change — change that comes from stripping yourself down to your most basic elements. In the Thoth deck, Death is depicted almost in their fisherman form, surrounded by sea creatures, symbols of fertility. Dead marine life makes for some of the best fertilizer, and it’s time to consider what needs to die in your life so that you can actually make sure your soul is fed. By making sure you are not just playing the role of a tourist in nature, but instead, fully recognizing your place in the all-encompassing thing that is nature, you can actively work to remember that you are also an animal, as much as you are a human. Our bodies are animal bodies. See what priorities come to the surface when you slip on a wet rock or on a loose patch of dry earth and you think for a second that you might fall.

Sagittarius

Religiously record your weird thoughts as voice memos to a character who you’ve made up. Do not re-listen, share or review these memos until year’s end, when you should have a listening party. I’ll leave who, if anyone, you invite to said party up to you.

Why do this? Because I don’t think you know yourself, Sagittarius. You’re changeable, your heart always wants, but what it wants can be so inconsistent. There’s an ephemeral beauty in that, though, and a challenge to distill the truer parts of yourself at the same time. So, while you’re on those impulsive road trips, crying in the bathroom after rage-quitting, bouncing back after getting your heart broken, slaying it at a costume party, or deep-diving into scholarly articles on your topic of the week — leave yourself a weird little voice memo. Do it.

Then face down who you are and all the moments you forgot about from your year in a medium that is, by its very nature, time-consuming to consume and not very Insta-gram-a-ble. You’re welcome.

Capricorn

Investigate a mystery! I’m serious. You’re always using your analytical skills and work ethic for such normative measures, Capricorn, and it’s time you embraced the darkness within and put those skills toward uncovering things that someone else would rather be left hidden.

Yes, I’m suggesting that, if you go in one direction, you could go all Misty Quigley Citizen Detective. That is one option. Go, go find the message boards. See if you can’t put the pieces together about a local serial killer. Good luck, stay safe.

You could also start taking a look at your local city council or school boards or any number of places where Moms for Liberty types are starting to infiltrate, get to know what they’re going for, do opposition research on them, and start showing up and pushing back.

If you want to go even further, you can start trying to infiltrate and expose local rightwing groups. I don’t know! You can probably get into a private Facebook group or on a Discord pretty easily with a few strategic Capricorn lies. Then, it’s time to screenshot and expose! Remember to protect your identity. Don’t get doxxed, cutie. Remember that finding and exposing fascists is a great way to prevent them from taking future action; it deflates their clout and makes them compromised from a security standpoint and useless to their movements!

You can also, like, go in an old tunnel or something.

Aquarius

Start going to sex parties, unless you already are, in which case, take up gardening, and if you already do both, are we friends? We’re probably friends. Anyway, it’s going to be time to start seeds, soon, so get out your seed catalogs and make this our year for blossoms and fruits and eggplants and juicy things galore. You’re never too old to get some more bruises on your knees. From gardening.

Is this questionable because both these practices are great building blocks when it comes to acquiring the skills, aptitude and attitude it takes to be a cult leader? Mayyyybeee. Look, dark times are ahead and if there are gonna be cults, you might as well be heading one up because you know what’s best, right? Gaslight, gatekeep, girlcult.

Pisces

Start and finish an extremely complex and potentially life-altering project.

Some ideas:

• Start an alternate reality game. Tell no one at first. Then, tell only the other people who you bring on as other architects of your game. Watch We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and say, hey, yeah that seems like something I want to both bring into the world and participate in.
• Dig a tunnel under your place of residence.*
• Learn to fly planes.
• Make a plan to hike one of the longest trails in the U.S. either by year’s end or in 2025. Follow through.
• Write a novel.
• Start your own business, and it’s something you’re actually passionate about.
• Find an Aquarius and team up to start an intentional community.
• Go to circus school.

Pisces, you’ve got the deep thinking and the dreams, and also, not always the most practical judgment. This year, you’re not going to listen to the naysayers, though, because it’s time to follow your heart and make your dream a reality, with or without financial reward, potentially with serious ramifications. If you dream it, you can be it, and that includes becoming a literal clown if you want.

*For legal reasons, this is a joke.

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