Most of us don’t consider being extra-sensitive a super power. Being environmentally sensitive can make it hard to move through a world clogged with chemical fragrances and exhaust fumes. Being emotionally sensitive can make it hard to interact with people who pride themselves on being tough. Not many OKCupid profiles boast “I can feel things no one else does. I have lots of feelings all the time, and sometimes I can’t tell if those feelings belong to me or someone else. ”
Not only does sensitivity make everyday situations difficult, it also earns the scorn of folks who treat sensitivity as an affectation. Our culture tends to link sensitivity with learned helplessness, like people are too fragile to overcome obstacles. Which is ironic, because people who have heightened sensitivity are overcoming obstacles all the time; those obstacles are just invisible to everyone else. Sometimes sensitive folks cope by developing an extra-tough shell. These same tender hearted visionaries may front as tough guys, and get angry at everyone who hasn’t also opted to go hard. They may be the loudest people hurling the crudest insults. That’s what happens when we hate our sensitivities. We shut them out, we shame others who don’t, and we all lose out on the gifts that skill can bring us.
Luckily, we have queer community, where everyone’s trying to do better than this. Thank goddess as soon as each of us experienced our first stirrings of transgressive love, we stopped buying into this social conditioning, right? No? Well, damn. It’s a good thing this month is revving up everyone’s sensitivity (in all the best senses, and a few of the worst). As Neptune, patron planet of sensitivity, moves direct this month, we’re all opening up to new worlds. As physician Gabor Mate writes, sensitivity is a form of intelligence. If we open up to all the information we’re getting from the world around us, not least in our relationships, we’ll learn a lot more about how to move through the hard parts without harm. When you tap into your sensitivity, you’ll know immediately when something’s harmful (whether that’s a controlling person or a toxic chemical), you’ll trust what your gut is telling you, and you’ll be able to help others with your insights and awareness.
This is especially useful for us in this Scorpio season, when we’re more attuned to the grief, loss, and the need to release. Scorpio energy deepens and intensifies our relationships, and asks us to pay attention to where we’ve been wounded (or hurt someone else). The highest form of Scorpio is the ability to heal and transform pain into strength and wisdom. One of the more common shapes it can take is in the fight, flight, or freeze response. When we’re flooded with too much to handle emotionally, we can lash out, run away, or just shut down. Be extra careful with yourselves this month, as the sweetness and enchantment in the air can either help us consciously heal, or lure us into ignoring those bigger problems that will come up one way or another. Expect to get into the core issues that block you from real intimacy with your sweethearts this month, and come prepared with your clearest insights and best intentions.
For help navigating all your connections this month, I’m available for readings that help you strategize, harmonize, and heal. I also have gift certificates! Treat your best friend or your sweetheart to a reading for themself, or a relationship reading for the two of you. As always, take only what resonates from these horoscopes! The astro-literate are advised to read their Venus and Moon signs first, followed by Ascendant and Sun signs.
Aries
Not everyone understands how you strike a balance between independence and love. It’s not that you always choose freedom over commitment; it’s that your nature pulls you toward experiences that test your courage. Other people are welcome to come along for the ride, but often they don’t (or you forget to ask them). This month, your dreams and longings will be even stronger, and where they lead may be hard to predict, even for you. Remember that you’re not alone. Remember to act as though you’re not alone, and call on the people who see you clearly and have your back. Tell them what big risks you’d like to take and how they can support you, even if the support you need is minimal. Major transformations are possible for you this month in how you approach partnerships, and there will be some beautiful opportunities for sweet times with friends. Teach people the dance moves you usually do alone.
Taurus
Your heart is calling you to distant horizons. Do you get to travel this month? Are you learning something new? Can you flirt with someone who comes from a different world than what’s familiar to you? Something is pulling you out of your routine and the life you’ve known, and beckoning you to have an adventure. Of course most Taurus folks would rather not go on adventures, thank you, they really disrupt one’s comfortable night at home with a pint of ice cream and a good movie, but in this case the stars promise you’ll enjoy it. Just don’t neglect your personal needs when you’re swept up by the unknown.
Gemini
Let’s talk about the stories you tell yourself about your relationships. Do you need to predict the future? Do you manage your anxieties by fantasizing about best-case or worst-case scenarios? How much uncertainty can you tolerate? Whatever is going on in that flexible and quick mind of yours, this month will first heighten your sense of confusion (and longing, and idealism) around the 18th, and then offer a few good opportunities for coming back to reality (on the 23rd) and gaining new insights (the week of the 26th). Queer love often asks us to write new scripts. We don’t have nearly as many visible role models. So let all that chatter show you the way deeper into your own heart, and make sure you know how to listen when the world offers you experiences you didn’t expect.
Cancer
You’ve been swimming through some troubled waters, but land is in sight this month. In fact, by the time you read this, you may already be ashore. Remember how it feels when life is less turbulent? What do you get to pay attention to when you feel safe enough to look around and let your mind wander? There is at least one relationship offering you that safe harbor right now, and you can practice offering it to yourself. Soak in this month’s gifts of generous, attentive love and clear communication. If any storms threaten, remember that you’ve got strong walls around you, and you know how to swim.
Leo
This month will bring the sun out of the clouds for a few glorious weeks, and in the meantime (around the 1st and the 30th), pay attention to your tendency to believe the best or the worst about any situation. Your desires are extra strong right now, as are your fears of rejection and disappointment. Both might cloud your judgment when it comes to the reality of your connections. If something feels too good to be true, it probably is. Or if you feel you’re your worst fears are coming true, they probably aren’t. Don’t get it twisted this month; you need to speak up about what you really want and know how to recognize what someone else can offer. Expect a breezier, cheerier attitude to prevail by the end of the month. It’s time to shake off those clouds and rekindle your fire.
Virgo
Remember how I told you last month that you could relax and stop worrying about your relationships? As a fellow Virgo, I know that can be irritating to hear. There is always a problem to solve, or a working solution that can be improved. Relaxation can feel suspect, like you’re shirking your responsibilities or ignoring something that will catch up with you later. And solving problems brings its own kind of satisfaction—one humble step towards a more elegant future. Luckily for you, this month you get to move between states of concentrated effort and blissful play. Watch out for heightened anxieties around the 18th, but trust you’ll already have diagnosed the problems (and theorized some solutions) by the end of the month. Most importantly, remember that you’re not alone in trying to solve the thornier knots in your relationships—if your partners and friends aren’t helping, try stepping back and see if that space gives them room to find solutions without you.
Libra
You know how it feels when your leg falls asleep, and you have to massage it back to life? Something in your heart is coming back to life this month, and as it does, you’ll have to move through the pins and needles stage. This is especially true if painful family memories have played a role in making you shut down. Let yourself release long-buried pain. Trust your ability to heal. Trust that grief can cleanse, and that soon you’ll be able to experience the full range of joy and connection. Let your chosen family hold you through this, and remember this is the beginning of a beautiful year for you.
Scorpio
Where you love, you demand real integrity. Too often, though, you’ve given people the benefit of the doubt and been take advantage of. You may not tell those stories often, you may try to forget them, but they have shaped the way you approach any kind of intimacy. How do you move through the fog of suspicion and disappointment—or hopeful blindness—that keeps you from knowing how far to trust the ones you love? This month offers you some profound insights, especially as Jupiter squares your ruling planet Pluto on the 24th. Venus, planet of love, will also cross paths with Pluto on the 25th, making those two days a powerful time to dig deeper into the difference between what you believe and what you know.
Sagittarius
There is a certain kind of laughter that comes from not knowing pain; there is another kind you can only access when you’ve been through the ringer. As Saturn, planet of hard life lessons, continues its course through your sign, this is a month when you’re more in touch with the humor than the horror of it all (even if the one feeds the other). Opportunities for pleasure, solace, sweetness, and playful curiosity abound. The challenge is to love yourself enough to show up; to trust that you still sparkle, after all you’ve been through. To trust your ability to delight and share in delights. Take that first step of getting dandy, looking in the mirror, and loving what you see. If you can do that, the rest will be a piece of cake.
Capricorn
As Venus moves through your sign this month (beginning on the 13th), you’re due for some well-deserved sweetness in your life. Venus is tracing the course Mars took last month, so similar issues may come up on the 25th as Venus crosses paths with Pluto: watch out for the ways your intensity can bleed into controlling or possessive behavior, and more importantly, recognize that letting yourself love deeply always means facing the risk of pain and loss. What does it look like for you to choose love, and choose life, in the face of what you’ve seen and experienced? What would it mean to trust yourself in love, to trust that your own worst nature won’t triumph? The perfect time to ask these tough questions is when you’re feeling safe and loved and strong. Odds are there will be a few perfect moments this month. Good luck, boo. The only thing scarier than being lonely is letting yourself be loved.
Aquarius
You need love to inspire you, to help you endure the disappointments and injustices of the world. Do you remember that feeling when you first fall in love—that everything you see and touch has become more vibrant, more meaningful, more rich with potential? These perfect moments come to us rarely, but when they do come they can feed our hearts for a very long time. You’ll be graced with a few opportunities for touching those golden moments this month. And you just might learn the secret of where they come from, and how to find them again when they fade. Pay attention to all sorts of secrets and sudden opportunities right now.
Pisces
This month, your friendships are everything. From BFFs to old school friends to ex-girlfriends to housemates, the people who hold your history remind you that it takes more than one person to create a world worth living in. Resist the urge to couple off or hide away alone right now. You can be deeply inspired by time spent with folks you don’t see every day, or even a long phone call with someone far away. Remember all the people who make up your network; they’re still there, and y’all still can offer each other so much love and insight. You’re capable of a lot this month, so remember who you want to be strong for, and how you can be a part of something bigger. Sudden insights are possible on the 19th, as your ruling planet moves direct. You’re on a long journey into the heart of what can’t be named, and this month will fill your sails with a fresh breeze.
Does anyone else check the horoscopes of their significant others? My wife is a Gemini and I am sitting here, reading her horoscope in confusion about her possibly being confused about something.
Every time! I just read her hers (she’s an Aries – and how) but I read hers whether or not she’s with me :)
This comment has been removed as it is in violation of Autostraddle’s Comment Policy. Repeat or egregious offenders will be banned.
I’m really honestly curious what this was all about. I mean, there’s grammar, connecting themes, but I still don’t understand what I read. Beyond that, I don’t see the relevant context to the article.
Hi there–I’m also really confused about this comment. It seems like you’re hurt and angry about something, but I can’t tell what. There’s also a lot of hurtful and triggering speech in your post that I’m going to flag to the moderators. If you there’s something in my writing that triggered you, I’d love to hear about it in a private message.
Riese posted an article about Jeanne Cordova and lesbian publications, and handpicked one and celebrated it, that interviews Jodie Foster for coming out as a lesbian after Silence of the Lambs, which is itself a celebration of Jan Raymond’s report to the Reagan administration that destroyed all.possibility of lower-class trans women getting trans healthcare short of a lot, and I mean a lot, of the sex work that trans women are used for – not the sexy. I responded by joking about pulling a Buffalo Bill on her.
Then your article shows up politely telling girls to shut the fuck up and not say anything that might be upsetting, not her, because you’re a Buddhist and violence is wrong, right? So I described to you exactly how violent Buddhism is toward trans women, in the same way Jan Raymond and Jodie Foster were: they have always sought to force trans women to stay entirely trapped in street sex work, in sex with men, annihilating lesbian trans women even as you admit the tokens among us you deem worthy of more. And then I told you that you will never, ever, ever contain my genocidal rage for men and the destruction of everything that separates and uplifts you above me in a man’s world, above the need for violence and “triggering words”.
Do not pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Do not be so incomprehensibly evil and selfish as to only see your extremely coddled feelings on the issue of lesbian anger and violence.
*not the sexy to “for sex with men”.
I feel exposed.
I’m a borderliner, and i’m like, but or am i just a Leo, cuz the Leo horoscope is fullblown black-white thoughts, which is my basic struggle….
Let’s see what happens this month :)
I also feel like my own horoscope is spot on. But I am not sure if having strong walls around me is a good thing and I do not know how to swim. I seriously need to google if crabs can swim now.
Something wonderful ended for me at the end of last month, in the exact right moment to end – before it turned ugly. This hit the spot on how I am feeling, and how I am hoping I, both of us will feel.
Thank you.
Ugh I needed this. Ty for the uplifting words.
How can we contact you to get a personal reading?
Hi Mar!
You can book readings here: http://www.flaxandgold.com/readings/
And you can always reach out to me at flaxandgold [at] gmail.com if you have any questions. I love talking to folks about what’s going on for them, and what kind of reading might help.
xo
Corina
Thanks, I needed that today.
This column is always wonderful. I come back to the posts several times each month to reread them. Thank you so much for sharing your talents.
Thank you for this! Definitely spot on, but brought to my attention some things I should definitely be giving more attention to. <3 All the best!