Poetic License Horoscopes, May 17-24

(Made-Up and Always Taking Requests)

Taurus: Write a letter to your younger self, the longer-ago, the better, asking for their advice. Then disregard about 80% of that advice, because really, what do they know? The other 20%, follow it to the letter. Better yet, strew that advice like rose petals around every doorway you enter. Walk around presiding like a benevolent, naïve god.

Gemini: It’s lilac time in Upstate New York! At the Rochester Lilac Festival, (So, not this year…) you can buy a bottle of Highland Lilac perfume to save for the dead of winter. That’s what they don’t tell you, those who would have you wring your hands about the passage of time! (Like me.) Just in case, take care to delicately strain the sweet-smelling essence from today—someday you’ll need it!

Cancer: Last summer, my driving-home-from-the-beach-music was the jazzy little tune that Lawfair played to indicate direct quotes from The Mueller Report. Its gentle brush-taps were as soothing as salty hair and as skin full of solar energy. They were as kind as having a friend to drive you home from Aunt Patti’s when you’re tired from swimming. The truth is like that! Go ahead and cozy in.

Leo: Like Midsommar, but nice. Heap up a pyramid of flowers around you, no matter where the heck they’re being grown. So many colors! So many kinds! Sew sunflowers onto lovely places, like apron pockets and star maps. It’s bright out, but it won’t disrupt your rhythms. There’s absolutely nothing untoward in the lemonade or the individual pot pies. The dancing is real, though, and so are the bears; both are friendly, full, and ready for hugs.

Virgo: “Grief is praise because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.”—Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise. (by way of my yoga teacher) Spill out your jar or grief-gems and warm them in your hands. Charm them and hold them up to the light. Someday, you’ll be able to stock up again on Hope Diamond postcards, but for now, see what else sparkles.

Libra: You are a collage of wedding cards, cut precisely into colors, shapes, and patterns, a horizon of bright flowers, a gleefully interrupted sky. You are the infinite gift of watercolors, spilling swirls of aliveness onto everything. You are a protective circle when the dance floor gets threatening—wordless, loyal, absolute. You are a 3 AM kiss that butterflies into friendship, fluttering to the stars.

Scorpio: You know that feeling when you’re a lady who hasn’t seen your gay high-school boyfriend for like thirty years (Except for at that one family funeral.) and then you meet up at The Brooklyn Museum to catch up and see Frida Kahlo’s dresses? And then you find yourself standing in front of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party contemplating the elaborate and beautiful vagina-themed place-settings? And like good Catholic kids, you notice the names of the saints written in gold script on the tile floor? No? Just me? Well, look for something just as magical and weird, and greet it with aplomb.

Sagittarius: Marie Kondo says that if something doesn’t spark joy but you can’t bring yourself to part with it, keep it with confidence. I’ll go one more and say love it with confidence. The churning papers, the infinitely doubling photo roll, the sticky note whereupon a cute person returning your Bon Iver CD said you were amazing. Even keep the pictures you only took so you’d remember where you parked, if you want to. Don’t partition it off into neat little boxes! Sit at the top of your hoard like a dragon.

Capricorn: I’m here for you. I’ll document every blossom and change of light in your old neighborhood, and make sure you see. I’ll check the board games to make sure they have all the pieces for the next time you come over. While you nap, I’ll collect the light from your windows and store it in jars for then you wake up. I’ll pour you the drink of your choice, crack a Hi-Biscus La Croix and we can sit in the yard. The flowers may be fluttering away to other things, but there’s something else coming if we wait quietly: leaves! They surprise me every time.

Aquarius: “i like serendipity, I guess.”—Sarah Rose Etter. Sarah was talking about auspicious peach roses, but you can make any wish. Well, not any—these sort of things don’t work for million-dollarses or universal healthcare, just modest, fanciful, idiosyncratic wishes. But yes, open your eyes and gather, check off synchronicities like bird-sightings. Bring home your pareidolia bouquet and place it at the center of everything, because it is.

Pisces: Tidy out this week all of your bad muses, the ones you think you have to ask for permission, the ones that ask you (You THINK they ask you, you haven’t actually spoken in years.) to move slower or smaller or not at all. Throw them like bad books against the wall, cancel them like Firefly (Except they’ll deserve it.) blow them into the wind like they’re dandelions, but not as effective.

Aries: The first quarantine book my dad asked for was Walden, so remember how bad Thoreau was at being alone. It’s easy to be monkish when your mom is making you muffins, but your job is to find your muffin-equivalents, any taste of closeness and care. Take a shamanic journey via Zoom or start long Instagram conversations with other people’s pets. Remember how you got close before you could go anywhere. Remember how you first fed yourself. Remember alone, but don’t forget to call.