Satellite of Love

Each of us has a story we believe about love — it’s mostly cobbled together from how we were parented, from watching friends and family, and from songs, books, and movies that float through our collective unconscious like bits of fluff. These stories form a powerful set of expectations, our hopes and our fears when we open up to another person. The stories that tend to be the most powerful usually come from our own painful experiences. The brain has a negativity bias, which means we’re more likely to remember the things that hurt us, with big neon lights around the memory that say “DANGER!” But we’re also not great at deducing what to avoid in the future—someone might have a terrible straight relationship and say, “Ok, I’m never dating a cis man again!” only to play out the same bad patterns in their next queer relationship.

All of these stories and internal alarm systems are useful — to a certain extent. It’s nice to have a roadmap of some kind, an idea of the love we want and some caution tape around experiences never want to revisit, thank you very much. But at the end of the day, no matter how carefully we plan and assess and process and avoid, we’re going to be surprised. The people we love will always remain unknowable in many ways. They’ll do things we couldn’t predict — sometimes inspiring and healing us beyond our wildest dreams, sometimes disappointing or hurting us in ways that shock and devastate us. In a healthy relationship, we can have reasonable expectations of respect and honesty and kindness, but we still can’t predict the future. In healthy relationships, we also don’t try to control the future. Trusting yourself and trusting your partners means you process less, and you don’t need to have the same arguments over and over again.

But many of us are moving through the world with a story about love that sets us up to expect bad treatment — betrayal, distancing, dishonesty, sometimes downright abuse. Sometimes that story — that love is untrustworthy, that people are dangerous — is a safer place to stay than facing the actual unknown: I have no idea what my lover will do next. I could get my heart broken. I could open up completely to love and then be shattered if it ends. Choosing partners we can’t fully trust is, ironically, a way of staying safe. A part of us is never fully on board, never fully open and saying yes.

This month, we’re coming face-to-face with our stories about love. With a New Moon in Gemini on the 3rd, it’s a time to plant new seeds, to start new stories. Gemini is the sign that helps us see beyond what we think we know and open ourselves up to surprises. Gemini is where we re-encounter wonder. It’s the date we go on where we realize we’re being seen and desired as our fully complex gender, it’s the relationship where things keep getting more delightful as we learn unexpected things about our partner. Gemini is alive to joy, and its tools are curiosity, questioning, and laughter. If you’re feeling trapped in your expectations, this is a beautiful time to break out of your rut. Shadow-side Gemini can get a little lost in possibilities and processing, so if you find yourself stuck in wondering and discussing, use the energy of the Sagittarius Full Moon on the 17th to come back to a sense of what’s right for you. Sagittarius is our intuition, and our faith in ourselves and the world. Both Gemini and Sagittarius are joyous signs, so let this month’s buoyant vibes help you shake off the dust of whatever’s blocking you from ecstatic erotic encounters — whether those are with a new lover, an established partner, your own magical self, or the entire sky and ocean and summertime.

Have fun out there this month, and feel free to check in with me for a reading. I’ll have reduced hours this summer as I’m working on several art projects (and this Sagittarius Rising/Taurus Moon is planning to swim and eat berries in the sun as much as possible), so book early if you want a spot this summer! And as always, for these horoscopes read your Venus and Moon signs first, followed by your Sun and rising. Use these for what they can give you, and discard anything you don’t need. Good luck and have fun!

Aries

Now is your time to get into all the nitty-gritty details of how you connect to the people that matter. You have a tendency to jump in fast and then jump away just as quickly — now’s your opportunity to stay with the uncertainty just a little longer. Part of what you’re learning this month is when difficulty isn’t a crisis. You can be uncomfortable or confused and not be in danger. Learn to trust the larger patterns you’re part of: Is this person helping you become someone you’d like to be? Are you inspired and excited most of the time? Or are the fights and misunderstandings the dominant pattern? Get a bird’s eye perspective, draw yourself a tentative map, and don’t be too quick to know where you’re headed just yet.

Get curious about: How do you ask for what you want? Do you expect people to help you? Do you talk things out when something’s hard, or do you jump to the conclusion that things are doomed? How could you ask different questions to get different answers?
Have faith in: All the day-to-day rough spots getting smoothed out over the course of months and years. Connections that keep growing, even across time and distance.

Taurus

Dearest little bull, one thing that characterizes all your relationships is that you like to hold onto something that was good once in hopes it will always be good in the same way, forever. This makes you a reliable friend and partner — unless you or your friends and partners are experiencing change. And when are we not experiencing some kind of change? This month, it’s worth considering how this need for things to last (in the same way, forever) may stem from some deep insecurities you have. Learning to surface and honor those insecurities can help you bring them less into the realm of your relationships, making it much easier for you to roll with (and maybe even enjoy) the surprises.

Get curious about: How do you bring your insecurities into your relationships? Do you expect to be rejected for the things you can’t love about yourself? How can you deepen into self-love and actually receive the love others have for you?
Have faith in: Life as transformation. Sex as magic. Cycles that begin and end and begin again.

Gemini

Hooray, it’s time to begin again! The Gemini New Moon is a beautiful time for you to reorient yourself in your relationships — figuring out what you’re ready to let go of, what you’re excited to start, and what you haven’t noticed yet that’s been waiting for your attention. Open yourself up to inspiring experiences, let the unknown prompt laughter, and trust that as you let this newness wash over you the commitments you already have will be reinvigorated, not threatened. You get to keep growing, and it gets to be fun!

Get curious about: What makes you excited? What haven’t you experienced yet? Who consistently inspires you? How are your desires stranger than you realized?
Have faith in: Commitment as something that gets to evolve. Trust you won’t lose the people you’ve got deep bonds with as you explore the unknown.

Cancer

Whether there’s something painful happening in your own life or in a friend’s life right now, you’re acutely attuned to the fears and sorrows that float through your world — you often catch them all, holding tight as though you can protect other people from feeling them by hoarding them. Sadly, this strategy doesn’t work out so well. Right now, it’s a good time to investigate your holding patterns. Are you able to release some of the things that aren’t yours? What are you afraid will happen if you do? Or if you face and release your own pain? Move things out of your system by moving through them right now, and support yourself as you do so with daily practices that remind you that there is joy as well as pain.

Get curious about: Where are you getting too tight and controlling? Where can you let the mystery be beautiful and intriguing? What helps you relax into a sense of connection?

Have faith in: The possibility of improvement. Things getting better through daily, simple efforts. Offering care to yourself first.

Leo

Sometimes being in the bubble is awesome — you’ve got your friends, your chosen family, all the culture that’s most comfortable to you. You’re not misunderstood, misgendered, or harassed nearly as much as out in the world of difficult people who aren’t your chosen people. Nevertheless, there are times you need to get out of the bubble, and this is one of them. It’s worth remembering how to talk to people who have different ideas and experiences, how to translate yourselves to each other, and how you are actually more connected than you might realize. As you take these daring steps outside your social comfort zone, rest assured that you can trust that your sincerity and warmth will be appreciated wherever you go, and that you can always come home at the end of the day to the people who love you best.

Get curious about: The broader world outside your inner circle. How the relationships you’re in affect each other, and affect a larger social web. Who you can cultivate closeness with that isn’t a lover or best friend. How to get more free in your social life.
Have faith in: Your innate charm and brilliance. What is most true about you being something you can express to the right people in the right ways. You get to take up space.

Virgo

Good news, dear Virgo, there’s work to do! The bad news is that it isn’t the kind of problem solving you excel at. Rather, this month asks you to work with some skill sets that are less intuitive for you: questioning (without necessarily answering) and having faith (without having any proof). The questions that will benefit you most are ones that help you get under your assumptions — particularly any self-critical stories you’ve been taking seriously. The faith you need to muster is that you belong, that you have roots somewhere — even if you are an immigrant or a descendant of colonizers or a descendant of people stolen or exiled from their native lands. Find your way to what home means for you. Trust that you do get to have one.

Get curious about: How often do you reject yourself before you have a chance to be rejected? What’s the difference between what you want and what you need? What structures, patterns, or boundaries will help you get what you need?
Have faith in: Your chosen family, your deep roots, your capacity to make home where you need to.

Libra

Other people: you can’t live with them and — especially when you have planets in Libra — you definitely can’t live without them. This month raises your interest in what all of those folks over there are up to and why. Whether you’re finding yourself moving in different social worlds or just looking at your own with fresh eyes, there’s a lot to be learned about what’s happening in larger systems of connection. Keep a special eye out for how people who are very different find ways of loving and understanding each other: this is the medicine our world needs right now, and you may be able to offer that missing piece.

Get curious about: How we’re all connected. What ideas keep us from seeing this? What kinds of connection are restorative? What can we learn from the ones that aren’t?
Have faith in: All the weird and wonderful ways we get to be unique, different, strange beings. Difference as how we encounter each other, not as a barrier to connection.

Scorpio

This month asks you to investigate the things you’re already well adapted to research: transformation, what happens when you move toward pain, and what kinds of healing will bring you back to a sense of magic and possibility. If such investigations have exhausted you in the past, might I recommend that you let this one be way more fun. You can come to these questions without a sense of immediate crisis — rather, try to follow a thread of excitement. What will you learn? You’re strong enough to face things that would have been much harder for you only a few months ago. Let your sense of confidence lead the way.

Get curious about: What’s ready to transform? Where is the magic right now? What have you been scared of that you’re getting excited to try?
Have faith in: The self-confidence you’ve been building. Your worth not being dependent on your productivity. Being innately lovable and deserving of love and security.

Sagittarius

This is a year of stepping into your power, and this month is the culmination of many months of changes. Your relationships can benefit from this energy the way plants drink in the sunshine — now is a time to assess how far you’ve come and where you’d like to go. Spend some extra time appreciating the people who are partnering with you right now, whether those are romantic or platonic, creative or political collaborations. What surprises you about these relationships, and what makes them work for the long haul? How well do you know why they’re working, or what help they need to go more smoothly? As you ask these questions, remember that you’re already in a different story than the ones you left behind last year. The answers you’re finding now will be less alarming and less likely to shatter your sense of forward momentum. You’re on a path of growth, and this is a major month of learning what you need to thrive.

Get curious about: What could a partnership look like that isn’t what you expected? What do you actually need to choose someone and know it’s the right choice? How do you roll with the surprises in any longterm intimacy?
Have faith in: Your resilience, your ability to grow and expand, your ability to make the choices that will lead you in the right direction.

Capricorn

This is a month where your innate sense of realism and practicality is tempered by something we could call faith, or wonder, or longing. There are ways you’re better able right now to show up for the people who rely on you and for yourself, but you can’t stay in your routines and assume everything is working as it should be. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid, especially, to ask the questions that have no easy answers—that might not have answers at all. There is something about the unknown, the mystery at the depths of your heart, that needs to be loved just as it is right now. It’s not a problem you need to solve.

Get curious about: What does it mean to tend to a relationship? What are daily practices of cherishing that you would like to give and receive? How do you balance intimacy with a full load of other responsibilities?
Have faith in: All the mysterious sources of support you haven’t asked for yet but will be surprised to discover. Your gut instincts and wildest fantasies.

Aquarius

In some ways you’re totally in your element this month — networking, visioning, theorizing, investigating — pursuing what you find fascinating in the larger realms of human connection. On another level, you’re also being asked to confront one of your hidden vulnerabilities — what is it about you that is unique and lovable? Can you trust the ways you show up as an unrepeatable, once-in-a-lifetime event? Do you even understand how charming you are and how much people love you? Come out of your self-imposed sense of exile, and warm up to the idea that you can make hearts flutter.

Get curious about: How do you like to flirt? What’s fascinating about you? Do you know how to work what the goddess gave you? What are you proudest of about yourself?
Have faith in: The glorious interconnected web of human relationships that is trying hard to do better and better. Ideas that can transform the culture, given enough time and momentum.

Pisces

Are we ever fully healed from our families? Probably not. But do we need to be? What if all that matters is being on the path of healing? For you, this month offers you a sanctuary to explore those old wounds from a place of competence, not total sobbing vulnerability. Rely on the strength you’ve built over the years, in no little part thanks to those who you’ve sought out to help you heal. This is a time to recognize what you’re ready to heal from now, resilient as you are, and how you can feel even stronger and more connected to yourself and others. It’s all about fine-tuning right now, not major crisis healing. Enjoy that difference!

Get curious about: What helps you feel safe and rooted into your body? What did you learn from your family that you might need to unlearn? How able are you to trust? What helps you trust more?
Have faith in: Being a competent badass even when you feel vulnerable. Being able to present yourself effectively and responsibly.

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