Satellite of Love

Here we are, in full bloom of Taurus season. This is the time of lushness — of flowers tumbling down from stately trees and bursting up from the cold earth in absolutely shocking and scandalous profusion. The air is warming up enough for us to lie naked in the sun in a mass of soft bodies, rubbing oil into each other’s skins. Taurus is ruled by Venus, the planet that sponsors cuddle piles, femme adornments, and heart-opening tenderness. Venus wants us to do what feels good, to allow ourselves beauty and sweetness, to connect to each other through shared bliss. Venus is especially strong as it moves into Taurus mid-month, beckoning us to roll around in the grass and feed each other mangoes.

But what if you have reasons to be suspicious of pleasure and sensuality? Our world has a pretty twisted perspective on bodily autonomy and consensual pleasure. Maybe you’re dreading exposing more of your body in the warmer weather. Maybe you’re anxious about how others will judge or objectify you. However normative or freaky you look, however socially acceptable or transgressive your body, you know that having any kind of body in this world is dangerous. We’re taught that there’s something unlovable about our bodies. We learn that we’re targets, and we navigate how bold or how hidden we can be in different situations. Coming into a sense of power and joy in the body is usually something we fight to claim, not a default state we can relax into.

Maybe you also have a complicated relationship to the experience of pleasure. You could be rightfully suspicious of the way capitalism tries to package and sell us Taurus experiences — the most delicious foods, the most beautiful objects, the most serene getaways. There is a constant lure to buy pleasure and ignore the suffering of the world. This may tempt you to throw away Taurus joys with the capitalist bathwater, as it were. You may have a deeply ingrained distrust of surrendering to pleasure, seeing it as a betrayal of your mission to be doing repair work in the world. Or, you may acknowledge the healing potential of pleasure and still not quite be able to access it yourself.

Whatever your relationship is to being embodied and feeling pleasure, expect it to change this month. Uranus, planet of revolutions and liberation, is hanging out in Taurus for a long time and this month Venus joins Uranus for a slow dance that may turn into jig or a mosh pit or most likely an improvisational dance that has no name. What we do know is that when Venus and Uranus get together, we get sudden insights about love and pleasure. These may be startling or welcome, but they will definitely ask us to change.

As you navigate these new waters, feel free to reach out for questions and support in the comments, or hit me up for a personalized reading. 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

This month begins with a social, upbeat, restless energy but shifts on the 17th to a more inward, reflective time. Plan accordingly, and make sure you schedule in enough downtime and one-on-one time with your closest people. You are on a lifelong mission to learn about trust, and this month helps you lean into what gives you strength and resilience. It can feel a little like learning to open your eyes underwater — unsettling in the transition, but then profoundly beautiful. There is something you are learning to see right now about how deeply loved you are, how deeply lovable you are, that you have pushed away for years. It’s a huge risk to step into a full awareness of your full worth, but you’re here for the risks. Lean into it, open your eyes, and witness.

Discover: What’s blocking you from your true worth? Are you blocking relationships that could blossom into love? What do you need to heal to let love in? How do you want to rework your relationship to having sufficiency or even abundance in your life?

Taurus

This is an important time for you. It’s almost like you’ve grown wings and you’re learning how to use them — they may feel strange and alien and itchy, but you’re also amazed and hopeful. You are still in the midst of metamorphosis, though. Your wings may be more for flapping and hopping than real soaring yet. Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering that you are a creature in flux and that all your relationships are changing as you change. Can you imagine them growing into more exciting and fulfilling connections? Can you release old patterns when they’re no longer life-giving? This is the larger shape of your mission for the next 7 years, but this month brings you new information that may help you get airborne sooner.

Discover: How does love teach you about who you are and who you want to become? Can you see yourself taking the shape of the people you love? Can you see yourself resisting their influence and insisting on your own way being the only way? What does it mean to discover your own path through relationship? What will have to change?

Gemini

Dearest little whirlwind, your challenge this month is to pay more attention to your senses than your ideas. Plans, chores, conversations, all kinds of details will circle through your mind, demanding to be taken seriously and followed down many spiraling rabbit-holes. If you submit to this agenda your brain has for you, you may find yourself vaguely anxious and confused most of this month. Instead, Venus would like to invite you into your body. Let yourself fantasize. Let yourself be guided by desire. See what happens to your scattered thoughts when you let your body settle for awhile. See what you learn about your relationships when you let yourself listen to those quiet, inner voices that won’t ever shout above the hustle of life.

Discover: What are your fantasies teaching you? Which of those small nudging voices are you ready to take seriously? What are you ready to radically shift in your relationships? Where do you find your truest voice?

Cancer

Periodically, we have to renew our enthusiasm for the bigger projects and values we want to live by. It takes a lot of patience and trust to handle the conflicts and miscommunications, the hurt feelings and scattered visions that comprise what we often call our communities. You’re right to retreat from time to time, to turn off the constant stream of crisis and focus inward. This month, though, you’re going to want to join the larger flow of social life again. Something inside you is yearning for more meaningful connections, for relationships that remind you what you believe in. Where do you begin reconnecting to what matters most for you? What small steps will take you part of the way?

Discover: How have your ideals have shifted over time? Who’s inspiring you right now? What life path do you wish you could pursue? Are relationships holding you back from making a big leap? Can you ask them to come with you into the unknown?

Leo

Let’s be real, you need more attention than other signs. This is fine! Some people need more food or more sleep to be in peak shape. Some people need more time alone than others, and you, dearest Leo, need to know that you are deeply loved — through words, thoughtful gifts, dates planned with your desires in mind, through rapt attention as you tell your lover your long, rambling dreams, through a general sense that everything you are is welcome and wanted. Your friends and lovers may have different needs, and may try to show they appreciate you in their own love languages. This is never gonna work for you, honey, so stop pretending it will. You need to start asking for what you need — while recognizing it’s not your partner’s job to supply it exactly how you want it at any moment. Your work, this month, is to let someone know how to love you — and to keep your own cup full enough that you don’t ask from a place of fear or desperation.

Discover: How do you let go of the need to be universally adored? How does this letting go help you see where you are already intensely adored? How do you find the people who are in need of your unique skills, insights, and energy?

Virgo

A piece of your heart is growing and expanding this month like a gay little Grinch, and that means you’re feeling some growing pains. When you let yourself love big, you risk big loss — or at the very least, you’re in for big changes. Perhaps a new romance is shifting your priorities — perhaps friends are asking you to take a chance on something wild with them. Whatever opportunities are opening up for you right now, it’s a good time to say yes. Just make sure what’s leading you forward is your own deepest desire, and not someone else’s agenda. Sorting that out may take some time. Meanwhile, let yourself relax into that space of not knowing the future. Do whatever you can to make uncertainty an exciting space to be in.

Discover: That you may be more flexible than you realized when it comes to the adventure of loving someone in an unpredictable world. That new horizons can be life-giving. That you are trying to grow into a larger version of your own life — not to shrink into routine, or hide behind someone else’s dreams.

Libra

Lucky you, your lessons this month are taking you to the very heart of what the Greeks call eros: the kind of love that helps us connect to the sheer pleasure of life. This is heady stuff, and you’re usually more comfortable in the realms of calm, considerate connection. What’s getting stirred up for you right now could transform your life in big ways. Only you know what risks are worth taking, and when. If you’ve got a hard decision looming, let it simmer a little — but don’t wait so long that the decision is made without you actively choosing. You are learning how to choose your own life right now. You may break some hearts — maybe even your own — in the process, but it will be worth it.

Discover: How eros offers healing through risk. How to choose the right level of risk. How to let desire be your teacher. What it is you want to learn through your connection to your own depths.

Scorpio

You are well acquainted with how close love and hate are to each other. We hate the ones we love because a part of us hates being vulnerable, hates anything that makes us fear loss or betrayal. Being a loving friend or partner means always being aware of this fearful part of us, and always choosing to act from love and not fear. Odds are you haven’t always gotten this right — welcome to being human. We’re messy. And I’m sure you’ve been on the receiving end of people you love lashing out at you, too. This doesn’t mean love isn’t worth it — it means love takes work. Where you might like to begin, this month, is in paying attention to how it might feel good to see yourself or a partner through a new lens. What if neither one of you is really a monster? Seeing that, what do you want to do next? As you answer these questions, let joy and understanding guide you where you need to go.

Discover: How love holds up a mirror — it can be distorted or exaggerated, but there is always something true in the reflection that you need to examine. How to hold yourself as you let this information transform you. What it means to be influenced by those you love, and how you influence them. How to make the decision you’ve been trying to make.

Sagittarius

The energy of this month can be wonderful for you, if you let yourself slow and deepen into your body a little more than you’re used to doing. You like to live a little bit in the future, always counting off days till the next adventure, or scheming of where you’d like to be next year. Right now, though, your main assignment is to be fully present, here and now, and to enjoy the experience. Maybe you’re in pain or tired or use all of your mental energies on your job or supporting friends — there are a lot of reasons to be disconnected from your body. Reconnecting often means finding ways of setting boundaries and slowing down so that you can fully heal from the hustling pace of life. As you practice this, you’ll notice who’s down for this ride with you. Reconnect to your full range of senses. Find ways of letting joy flow in through the cracks.

Discover: How to move in your body in ways that feel delicious. How to move your body through pain and sluggishness and disconnection so that you can feel pleasure. How to feel and release the grief or fear that may block you from this connection to you body. That this is all a practice, that you must keep practicing it.

Capricorn

Sweet little seagoat, you being asked to have the most goddamn fun this month. I know it’s not easy for you — accomplishing goals and staying in control are generally your comfort zone — but it will be good for you longterm, I promise. You get to have fun on your own terms, though. Don’t just go along with what other people tell you you’ll enjoy. Rather, now is a time to really take seriously and prioritize those things that make you feel a sense of delight and sheer joy — however frivolous or trivial they may seem. Stop being embarrassed about what you love. Start giving yourself daily doses of delight. If you have a lover or partner or best friend to rely on, invite them to take you on dates and bring you flowers. You’re in need of romance, and it’s up to you to make sure you welcome it when it arrives.

Discover: How you come to life when your heart opens up. How you shine in this world, when there are people paying attention to what’s bright and brilliant about you. How to take more seriously your need for engaging, joyous, creative times.

Aquarius

However old you are, you’re never going to be fully adult. You’ve always got all the different ages you’ve been jostling around inside you and having strong opinions about what the current you is up to. Some are probably louder than others — maybe your teenage self emerges when you’re angry, or your infant self when you’re scared. You’ve probably learned to push them away, discount them, apologize for them when they surface. Nevertheless, these younger selves hold some vital information about what’s real for you — what helps you feel connected, calm, centered, like it’s fundamentally okay to be alive and be you. This is the prerequisite for any kind of pleasure you’re trying to invite in if you want it to be integrated into your life rather than destabilizing or addictive. Pay attention to those inner voice this month, and practice being a good friend to all of your selves.

Discover: How to tend to your youngest selves, how to nest deep into yourself and find a core sense of safety. What kinds of risks you can take in love when you feel centered and calm in yourself. What risks aren’t worth taking — and how to recognize them (one clue: they’ll tug you away from this feeling of being centered and you won’t be able to recenter yourself).

Pisces

The social rhythms of this month will affect you strongly — conversations, messages, miscommunication, accurate communication, the slipperiness of all the words and emojis and images and what do they even mean? In the tidal flow of solitude and interaction, remember that there is deep delight to be found in connection. You’ll need some buffer against all the ways you wash up against the world and the world washes up against you — you’re often in danger of being washed away — but the answer isn’t to go into hiding. What’s breaking through for you this month is an opportunity for surprising clarity and connection. Stay open to conversation, even if you need to stay quiet or go inward to find your truest language. Enjoy the sound of your voice, when you find it. It may take time, but let yourself sing.

Discover: How language shapes your understanding of the world. What assumptions you have about others, and how they’re interpreting you. What patterns you’re in that you’re ready to break, or break open into surprising new stories.

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