Poetic License Horoscope for June 15-21

Aries: Around here, the commercials are changing from annoyingly sincere we-a-company-really-care-abut-you themes (Seriously, fuck ALL the way off, Amazon) to annoyingly sincere we’re-all-gonna-see-our-friends-again-in-person stories. It’s okay if you’re not ready for this. Neither is anyone. If you want to keep peering warily out the door except at protest time or keep perfecting your listening expression via Zoom, go ahead. You’ve come so far, be safe and careful.

Taurus: Someday, you’ll be able to return your library books. You’ll be able to hug your favorite librarian for real and then stand around a while chatting about politics. You’ll browse shelves that have been waiting all this time for you, be able to restart your TBR list with a vengeance. In the meantime, have you written to your mayor and city council to make sure the libraries are funded? The stars would like them to have the money previously earmarked for the racist police! https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/philadelphia-city-budget-library-cuts-police-reform-20200610.html

Gemini: Now, we paint out our intentions on the streets. Decorate and rename the whole map of you to honor Black Lives Matter. Use everything from highway yellow to sweet pastels. Use love, plus everything from chalk to Krylon. In her window, my neighbor made a miniature justice garden tended by little bears. You and she are spelling out the future inside and out. Everything is here for you, waiting to be remade.

Cancer:  Consider what you might call about on the non-emergency line in our safe-as-pillows post-police future. “Hello, you’d say, can you help me with this bird call? I think it’s an oriole but I’m not sure.” Ask how many colors in an outfit are too many! The stars run that line and they’ll tell you there’s no limit. Ask what your cat’s trying to say when she places a paw on your arm while you’re reading, or when your other cat misunderstands an open book for a bed. Things are quieter, brighter, and slower when no one is hunting us, I promise.

Leo: You’re planting a labyrinth of seeds, I promise. As you walk through the same magic space again and again, the flowers will grow taller, and more emphatic, and more thorough. You’ll be more and more aggressively a rainbow. Every bloom, every prism facet of nature is here for you, to teach you. Look into their bright and petalled faces. Step lightly among the stalks. The leaves are here to make energy and feed you. The scent is where you learn to thrive.

Virgo: The stars do not know what to tell you. Ache is just sometimes ache. There’s no puzzle-box that unlocks it, no secret labyrinth door that unlocks with a secret translation, a sapphire amulet, or a handy code. It’s just ache. Make a spot for it next to the good window. Drink your coffee, look out at the leaves, and pine for all you’re missing, for all you’ve lost, not matter the obscene riches you still have. There’s still plenty of time in the day for walks, marches, and letters to congress. You’ll be fine.

Libra: Here’s how you unlock the book that’s already knit itself into your cells: Walk along the beach in the evening, without worrying about where you’ve left the towels, the cooler, the striped umbrella, the hibiscus La Croix, the special mermaid-themed phone case to keep out the sand. Just walk, unencumbered, in the sparkling edge of the waves. Study shell fragments, look for whole scallop shells or sand dollars or Cape May diamonds. Think of lighthouses at dusk and let it all sand you down like beach glass. Then, the words will come easy and constant, like the tides.

Scorpio: Take every step away from claustrophobia, even in the smallest ways. Turn left instead of right at the end of the driveway when the neighborhood is getting to be a bit much. Switch everything off or do the opposite. Drive with the windows down and Janelle Monáe blasting: “Don’t try to take my country, I will defend my land. I’m not crazy, baby, I’m American.” Crazy is a reasonable response after all of these days and weeks and months and years. Find a way to get it out on paper or just into the sweet air.

Sagittarius: Welcome any friends who wander in, even other people’s cats who jump in through the shoddy screen door. As the evil White House fences are transformed by lovely humans into bare-heart art galleries, what boundaries can you neglect or transform?  You’re becoming porous, like fence wire, like art, like the way leaves breathe, like light through the forest ceiling. See what sustaining thing filters through. See what small, dappled light you can hold in your hand.

Capricorn: You’re crossing the country now for home. You’ll see mountains that seem much closer than they are because they’re so big. You’ll see light sparking and crackling from the edges of fire. You’ll see pretty treed slopes and maybe a little weird June snow. You’ll see streams, rivers, lakes, and fountains teeming with the discarded statues of imperialists—you know, regular stuff. You’ll see mysterious new monuments engraved with future instructions. Drink plenty of water, turn the radio up loud, and get ready for tomorrow to welcome you.

Aquarius: Think about Yayoi Kusama, how meticulously she paints dots and dots and dots, how deftly she makes all those mirrors repeat, how sad she was when some museum wouldn’t let her give away parts of her own installation. Think of the devotees lined up to look at new configurations of light and color, to spend thirty seconds or a minute with these new refractions of themselves. You can refract like that, but a million mirrors more! Everyone says so!

Pisces:  Ethylene is the chemical that helps apples ripen and then spoil. It’s a gas that spreads, that’s why one bad apple spoils the whole barrel. (#defundthepolice) You are ripening, but you are also the opposite of ethylene, breathing newness and growth into everything. Dig up the ground of yourself and plant something new, turn decay into fresh roses, fresh strawberries, fresh sunflowers reaching skyward. Here is a hoe.