Horoscope for May 2024

To those of us who are shocked, but not surprised: do not become desensitized to the horror. I know it’s terrible. Terrible things must remain judged as they are. Inhumane, unconscionable, sinister, malicious, supported by robust systems of inequality and xenophobia, supported by technology and capital, intentionally manipulative, tragically misled. Don’t cage your anger, your sadness, your difficult emotions that may overwhelm you. Feel them. Know them. Let them flow through you. Don’t hold on to them. Don’t get stuck. Don’t hide them and wait for a better time to address it. Unless you’re actively processing immediate and devastating personal grief—the loss of a loved one, a terminal diagnosis, a deep and unexpected betrayal, a transcendent twice-in-a-lifetime ego death—that inhibits your ability to hold onto anything but your joy to persist, it is imperative that you do the work to feel. Scream. Lift weights. Paint, aggressively. Be feral and true. Breathe deeply. Drink water. Talk about it. Take radical care of yourself. Take radical care of your community. It’s normal and healthy to be really unhinged and not ok right now. You can accept that for what it is. Choose to see it in others. Hold as much space for yourself as you do for everyone else, and vice versa, and strive to make that space as vast as you can. Trust your wisdom. Use your voice. Protect your peace.

To those of us who are both shocked and surprised: my heart goes out to you. Don’t be embarrassed that you didn’t see past the veil before now. We all learn something new every day, if we’re engaging our curiosity, asking questions, and really listening. We are one of the most, if not the most, propagandized societies in the world. If momma didn’t teach you that, it’s because she was caught in the same web of lies we all are. It’s not your fault. Don’t punish yourself. It doesn’t help. But now you know, and you have a lot of important existential choices to make about how you’re going to process and respond to that. Grieve for as long as you need to, in whatever form makes sense, but not a moment longer. Take the terrible time it takes. Take it because peace is an active collaborative process of honesty and struggle for clarity and common ground. You may have been taught that silence and politeness is peace. That is false. You have been lied to and manipulated and only you can discern and assert your boundaries in response to that. We can support you, but we can’t do it for you. There are no heroes coming to fix it for you. Nobody is uniquely ordained to save the world. Nobody can do it alone.

To those of us who are neither shocked, nor surprised: your nihilistic attitude is a part of the problem. Stop it. Stop alienating yourself from humanity. You are not intellectually superior for harboring suspicions for everyone around you. You were once shocked, and you were once surprised, and you let that mold you into a callous fiend. If you have lost your emotional connection to the horror you are beholding, it is not because you are strong. It is because you are weak. Cry. I fucking dare you. Cry, and break some plates. Go into the woods and yell into the trees at whoever hurt you first. Yell until you exhaust your rage and cry and remember that existence is a miracle. You are important. You are complicit. You have so much power. Be brave and do the hard thing and coexist with all of these stupid babies and full-on psychos. You can’t make it go away by hiding out and ignoring it. Before you know it, there won’t be anywhere left to run to. Forgive yourself, and come back when you’re ready to accept that, whether you like it or not, you’re not alone.