Monday’s Aquarian moon puffs our sails with a little emotional perspective, but it also makes a conjunction to Saturn which might have us wondering if there’s a bigger lesson to be learned. But, for those of us looking toward our days off, discerning the lesson from the inconvenience feels like another layer of labour. If the small stuff slides, let it. The big picture stuff comes into focus a lot quicker when we’re not zooming into the minor details. Of course, Mercury Rx is generally all about the details, but tying up loose ends and clarifying communications is one thing, obsessing over what someone meant when they said what they said is another. Venus shifts into Cancer on June 2nd, amplifying our sensitivities, but a trine to Jupiter in Pisces reminds us to look beyond our personal narrative while the quarter moon in Pisces helps us move along, a half light reminding us that we always only know half the story, but when we hold on to it too tightly, we hold the whole burden.
In the coming week, we can be both direct about our needs and generous in the ways we engage others. We can clarify what we heard and we can assume the best of others. We can set boundaries around engaging with those whose behaviour is painful to us while recognising that their behaviour has nothing to do with us. We can transform what we are building together, but that requires a shared understanding of the roles we play and how we wish to be regarded.
With Mercury officially stationed retrograde, it’s likely you’ll be experiencing some mixed feelings when it comes to socialising. The promise of new ideas ushered in by new people is seductive — but, is it seductive enough? Perhaps your resistance comes from lingering fears surrounding new virus strains and people who think green juice is the same as a vaccine. Or, perhaps it’s a restraint more specific to your spirit and the solitude with which you’ve cultivated a relationship. It would serve you well to imagine your solitude as a place that gets stronger with each intentional return, a place made more beautiful and expansive by what you learn when you are outside of it.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Humans work hard to belong. We haul our asses to class, pay for retreats, and stay at jobs that otherwise disregard our needs if not for staff camaraderie. It’s no surprise that when we’re less able to take part in these rituals of belonging, or when our financial circumstances change, that we’re left wondering what all that effort was for and where it ultimately got us. This week invites you to rethink your relationship to resources, what they are and what they mean to you, especially when it comes to resources that a community provides. What can you confidently claim to call your own? What do you wish for? How can you bring those answers closer together?
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It’s not a new thing, this persistent desire to communicate who you are, but it’s not simple either. Part of the trouble is language and its limitations. The other is finding affinities, people who regard you as you are and not as you were or as they want you to be. Trouble is, once you get wrapped up in it, the right label, the seeming-right company, you get into trouble. Especially if your work of self-discovery gets tangled with any sort of inner belief that the self you present to the public must be in service to some sort of larger movement. This week, let yourself play and reinvent yourself. Nuance can be a living thing, born between definitions, not because of them.
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
As Mars transits Cancer, it makes its way to an opposition with Pluto in Capricorn. This opposition can be felt between the ways you assert yourself and the old relationship dynamics you want to transform. Resisting self-betrayal isn’t easy, it requires admitting that while you can live with certain compromises, you won’t thrive — and neither will your connections. Intimacy that’s meted out in response to conflict makes love thin. These negotiations kick up under Mercury Rx, which is conjunct Venus this week. Take note of the feelings that slip out over too many drinks or when you let go of the reins. It’s better to say what you mean with intention, rather than by accident.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Sometimes, the communities that help you feel part of a larger whole and fill you with inspiration are not the ones that fit within your definition of self, and that’s ok. Whatever your understanding is of yourself and what you offer the collective, it’s not something that can change overnight. It takes time to transform how you see yourself and your role. There are dreams and stories associated with every identity we have, and these stories are a part of us. Whether they’re painful or not, they’re precious to us. When you find yourself doubting what’s meant for you, or what you’re capable of achieving, call it what it is — grief for an old self. The grief is valid, but so is your vision.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It’s true that there are many relationships built on having a shared approach to things, on affinities and like-mindedness. But, what can serve as a shared plan for the future and what one hopes to build with others can also become a limitation. Just as our visions for ourselves change over time, so do our visions for what we can and want to build with others. When we start to feel misunderstood or miscast, when we start to feel like our efforts are not being valued, it’s time to interrogate what reciprocity would mean in this moment and how it can be achieved. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
There are times when having a sense of the big picture is much easier with an open mind. If everything is sacred then anything is possible and the smallest details are likely to wind up mattering the most. But, mining the details day in and day out can be an exhausting, Sisyphean feat wherein there is never an end to the details and therefore always something to turn over. When you get tired, Libra, when you start to feel like it might be impossible to engage a wider world, what with all the attention you owe to the small things, consider this: What you give attention to is what you give value to. How can your attention better reflect your value system?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Mars hasn’t exactly been thrilled about his tenure in Cancer and, as a sign ruled by Mars, you’ve surely felt it more than most. It’s not that things have been difficult to do, it’s that they seem to come with a little extra emotional baggage. While water can — and will — adjust to a water situation, integrating others into the mix doesn’t always go so swimmingly. Is there really no logic to human behaviour? As Mars prepares for an opposition to Pluto by this week’s end, you may be called to reconsider your faith in your perceptions: what you can and can’t know about the intentions of others; what you treat as indicative of a larger issue vs. what you’re willing to let slide. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
This past year has been all about transforming your relationship to resources, how to secure them and how to share them. While these lessons are far from done, this week finds you looking at your livelihood from a different angle. Finances are always personal, so it’s likely that you’ll find yourself navigating some big emotions around money. But, if you can accept your emotions as part of the weather, you’ll have space to acknowledge that your relationship to what security means is changing. The numbers are only half the story. In what ways do you speak limitations onto the worlds you dream of building with others? In what ways can you invoke possibility?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Seasonal shifts are hard on the body. Early winter ushers in the exhaustion of fighting the elements while early summer is all heatwaves and physical exposure to the public world. Even if you have a great relationship with your body, you might be re-learning embodiment in the company of others. Hot girl summer, but like what is a girl? And, how is she supposed to be? Anxieties like this make it hard to show up. Capricorn babes work a room best when they feel confident. It’s important to remember that gender expression can be a fluid thing for anyone. You don’t have to present in ways that are legible as hot for others. Hot girl shit begins inside. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Past the edge of a collapsed world, it can feel indulgent to dream of financial security, of having more than enough, of abundance that can be shared with those you love. But dreaming is a part of our birthright as humans made of cosmic dust and dreaming is free. Dreaming can and should give way to doing, but once taking action comes into play so do all the forces that stand against us. Here, the communication breakdowns in our sexual relationships, creative blocks, and old coping mechanisms line up to convince us that our dreams should remain dreams. To push past them and keep going is not easy, but building a new world for yourself was never meant to be.
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
There must be some part of you that knows no matter how settled you feel, home is a mutable thing. You can make wherever you are a kind of home, you’re a master of belonging — even if you’re more likely to play the role of the cool strange aunt from out of town than the steadfast sibling next door. Belonging doesn’t have to mean standing still. It can work the way love works: an invitation that changes shape but never rescinds the offer. It’s important that you keep this sense of yourself in mind, especially if you find yourself feeling insecure about where you feel welcome. If you feel stifled, if you feel pressured to shift the way you express yourself so that you might be included, then it’s time to settle somewhere else.
Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
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