In writing these horoscopes, I was thinking about this podcast I’ve been listening to, “How to Survive the End of the World” by adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown (writers/artists, sisters, and brilliant, badass, Black babes).¹ They speak about grounding our movements in the desire and practice of “getting in right relationship with the Earth, ourselves, and each other.”

Astrology is an ancient system of knowledge that offers us as individuals much wisdom on how to build community with one another because it asks us first to be in right relationship with ourselves. This teaches us how to be in right relationship with others in relationship to ourselves; with the movement of planets that guided us as we took our first breath, and with the Earth and Universe itself.

Below I offer a love letter to each zodiac sign, on their contribution to the “movement” (framing the “movement” as getting in right relationship with the Earth, ourselves, and each other). These love letters offer insight on particular challenges each sign will be up against during this era, and affirmations on each sign’s purpose, gifts, and personal genius within the zodiac cycle. Keep in mind that you are made up of more than just your sun sign—you might find it beneficial to read about your moon sign and rising sign too.

ARIES

Your Contribution to the Movement: Invention.

Challenge in this Era: You’ll learn that you are not always safe around the people in your intimate relationships or close-knit circles. These are people you share private environments with: family, housemates, lovers, close friends, or allies/collaborators in the projects or movements that are dear to your heart. At some point the Trojan Horse will break open and you will realize there are people who you thought you could trust but who don’t actually have your best interests at heart. Why? Because, dear Aries, you are the path blazer. You do the thing that has never been done before. You forge new inventions, not by logic, but from your gut. This is your contribution to the movement. You take the risk that others are too afraid to take. And others are like, “Wait, what are you doing? There’s no road over there. Get back here where you belong and where it’s safe!” But it’s not your job to stay stuck because they are afraid. Aries medicine says, don’t internalize someone else’s fear into your own self-doubt. The inventive path you’re blazing is not always easy but you know it is more dangerous to stay somewhere where you cannot fully be free.

TAURUS

Your Contribution to the Movement: Authentic Strategy.

Challenge in this Era: The most challenging thing you’ll butt your bull horns against in this era is denial. Intentional forgetting, erasure of truth, writing/whitewashing over histories, and publishing lies in the media, legal systems, educational institutions—this is a global epidemic. These are climate change deniers, white activists pretending their racism doesn’t exist, leaders in movements who are spouting beautiful speeches about liberation with one side of their mouth and belittling and gaslighting women with the other. It is not easy to be caught in the harrowing gap between what people say and what people do. It is heart-breaking to look around you and see so many people forgetting what truly matters. But you remember, dear Taurus. You have not forgotten what you knew with your first breath­­­, that our job as humans on this planet is but a simple one: it is to respect, honour, and worship the home that gives us life here, every single day, as deeply as we can. This translates into committing to building respectful relationships with our bodies, the land we live on, the people indigenous to that land, all parts of life, the Earth, and the Universe itself. Your medicine embodies this respect and truth not just with words, but most importantly with your actions. When creating strategies for our movements, we learn from Taurus about how to build with authenticity.

GEMINI

Your Contribution to the Movement: Your Unique Perspective.

Challenge in this Era: Gemini, there is something achingly, tear-jerkingly special about your personal voice. A story that is only yours to tell. A language spilling out of your heart. A curated set of brilliant ideas desperately needing a channel. This creative burst wants something from you, whether it’s a podcast, YouTube channel, book, play, zine, comic, song, film, radical publication, gallery exhibit, cabaret, or Ted Talk. It’s probably more than one thing, because let’s face it, you’re a Gemini. What it boils down to is that you need an audience, either massive or intimate (but probably massive). Your gift is your ability to make connections between things that most people don’t see. The way you articulate your perspective has the power to move people, to inspire and instigate massive change. So what’s your challenge? Actually doing it! You’ll worry about whether anyone will take you seriously, if your voice really matters, or if it’s “political” enough. Not unfounded given that there will indeed be people who won’t take you seriously, who don’t think you’re “political,” and who will get all up in their jealousy/resentment feels as your voice takes traction. Gemini medicine just says, fuck that. You are too light-hearted to be bogged down by anyone’s angst. Trust your voice. The movement will follow.

CANCER

Your Contribution to the Movement: Redefinition.

Challenge in this Era: Let’s be clear, Cancer, you feed the movement. Maybe this means making food for your families, friends, community, or projects. But really it means that the way you show up, care for your loved ones, make houses into homes, and strive to offer guidance, compassion, and empathy to many, indeed does feed the movement emotionally and spiritually. The love and work that Cancer offers is essential, and everyone needs it from someone, however it often goes without thanks and is taken for granted. Your challenge for this era is to redefine motherhood, parenthood, caregiving, and home and family life at large. You do this by transforming those definitions in your own life, in ways that are unique and personal to you. These identities no longer mean self-sacrifice, or putting everyone’s needs ahead of your own while you tumble into never-ending cycles of burnout. When you uplift your own needs and boundaries, this teaches the entire collective something significant about themselves. Your tough love, Mama Bear way of nurturing inspires anyone who witnesses you. While you undergo this transformation you are shedding many of your own old ideas and attachments to what home, family, and identity used to feel like, and you may have to let go of some loved ones in the process too. Cancer medicine says, it’s okay to feel those losses and gains as deeply as you need to. Your emotions won’t kill you. Your emotions are your strength.

LEO

Your Contribution to the Movement: Self-Adoration.

Challenge in this Era: I don’t need to tell you what your challenge is, Leo, because I bet you already have a long list of reasons why your contribution is dismissed in many movements for social change. Self-adoration? What a selfish and unnecessary thing to do for activism, right? Wrong-O. Let me break it down: what is an insidious, wretched, and effective impact of ongoing colonization, imperialism, capitalism, and oppression? The way it destroys people’s spirits. It’s the way these systems make us hate ourselves. It’s the shame, self-loathing, and self-deprecation that makes us unenthused to wake up every day. It makes us feel unworthy of ourselves. None of this is a coincidence. The way that ongoing colonization degrades people’s spirits is an intentional attempt to keep us from fighting—not only for what we care about, but also for ourselves. Leo medicine says: “Fuck that bullshit!” Each Leo brings to the movement their uniquely crafted joy, bold self-expression, ability to play, and to be creative. Each Leo says, look at how much fun it is to be me, don’t you want to have fun too? This doesn’t mean you won’t struggle with self-doubt and insecurity, and it doesn’t mean you’ll always want to be the centre of attention. But it is important for you to invest in nurturing your spirit and passion for whatever the thing is that makes you so stoked to be alive. What is a movement that doesn’t have any life in it? Breathe that life, baby.

VIRGO

Your Contribution to the Movement: Bullshit Destroyer.

Challenge in this Era: Virgo’s medicine comes from within. Virgo’s wisdom knows that even amidst large scale turmoil, confusion in how to move forward individually or collectively, and for all the questions we don’t have answers for ... we can learn so much from looking inward. It takes a willingness to pay attention, to be patient with ourselves and each other, and to resist grasping for solutions and strategies just because they are convenient, quick, or sexy. Virgo remembers that there is a sacred rhythm to keeping life alive, this is what the Earth and our bodies show us every day. Any kind of growth moves according to a sacred rhythm that is already embedded in the Earth and our bodily systems, whether that’s in our relationships, movements, or personal self-development. You plant seeds, you water them, you nourish them. You show up with integrity, with presence, with humility. You show up, not in pursuit of being perfect, but because you are committed to the process. You watch life bloom, you strive to learn as much as you can from each moment, and you let it subside, die, and go back into the Earth. This is why Virgo is the ultimate bullshit destroyer, call-out/call-in person, the one who is gonna tell someone to do their homework over again. You’re the one who won’t settle. Virgo wants to honour the seasons in the Earth and in our bodies, and won’t be okay with anything less. Virgo, your challenge in this era will be dealing with your own impatience, the impatience of others, and any time you are in environments where others are not invested in listening deeply. It’ll throw you off your game if the ones surrounding you are somehow trying to cut corners around relationship/movement-building, or if they are acting upon urgency without intention. Spend your time and energy with those who are as devoted as you. Quality over quantity will serve you.

LIBRA

Your Contribution to the Movement: Open-Heartedness.

Challenge in this Era: So much of the time our movements and communities fall apart because of conflict and relationship breakdown. Libra, you are not as invested in being right, getting the upper hand, or winning the argument, as you are in building and sustaining meaningful relationships. It takes a depth and openness of heart to reach for connection, repair, and collaboration, even when you don’t agree with or like everything that another person is doing or saying. You know that our movements can’t grow if everyone remains at odds with each other. Your challenge however, dear Libra, is not knowing when to let go, or when to say no. You may be vulnerable to imbalanced relationships and abusive interpersonal dynamics in this era. This era is teaching you that sometimes the most loving thing we can do for/with someone is to not be in relationship with them. To say, we are not compatible at this time or in this way. It’s difficult. You will want to keep yourself open and available to everyone because you don’t want anyone to be or feel disposable. Reach even deeper into your open heart. Call yourself and others in your life to higher, more sustainable definitions of love, loyalty, friendship, community, and partnership. Trust that nobody will get left behind and they’ll find what they need somewhere else if you can’t offer it. Make sure your actions are in line with your high standards of values, ethics, and principles. You will find people you can truly build and move with, people whose hearts are just as big as yours.

SCORPIO

Your Contribution to the Movement: You Break the Cycle.

Challenge in this Era: Dear Scorpio, since birth you have carried memories of the most painful side of humanity. You have carried secrets from your ancestors that they had nobody to tell but your body. Most Scorpios grow up with some kind of close and intimate knowledge of death, suicide, mental health crises, abuse, or addiction. You’ve likely dealt with supporting family members or loved ones through these struggles, or you yourself have experienced them and lived to tell the tale. Why? Because you came here to break the cycle. Your challenge is to not let yourself be defined by the violence you’ve faced or witnessed. Rather, remind yourself that you have created miracles just by being alive. Scorpio is the sign that rules intergenerational trauma. These are cycles of poverty, sexual or psychological abuse, secrets, despair, and pain that are passed down through generations. So many tried their best, but did not know how to break out of the circumstances they were given. That’s why we have Scorpio. More than any other, you know about death and rebirth. You know what it is to take the violence that you’ve been given and turn it into an empowering story. In our movements, we fear the phoenix, we fear the one who feels as deeply as the ocean, but we need Scorpio more than ever. We need to be brave enough to be present with the generational wounds of slavery, genocide, mass displacement, incarceration, and the ugliest sides of humanity we’ve seen. We need the courage to sit with the emotional and psychological impacts these systems have had on our hearts and minds—whether we have been harmed or done the harm, or both. We mustn’t run away from the ways that these violent systems have been internalized within us—that is the only way we can let them die. Scorpio, your medicine is the death ritual. We follow your lead. We are your witness, as you bury the pain you’ve endured in the Earth’s soil, as you grow new life from the dirt. We praise you.

SAGITTARIUS

Your Contribution to the Movement: Integrity.

Challenge in this Era: Sagittarius, you call the movement higher. You can already feel the future that we’re fighting for. You’ve imagined it, and somehow you know it’s real. You are the visionary. You can feel the truth of liberation so hard that it hurts when you see movements and communities get stuck in cycles of pessimism and skepticism. Your role in this era is to reclaim hope for the revolution. We can’t get to the freedom we want if we don’t believe in it first. Dear Sag, your gift is your belief. Your strength is to blow wide open what the collective believes could be possible—because you dared to pursue it. You bring a voice of integrity to the movement. It’ll fan your flames when you see people getting lost in cycles of lashing out when they’re in pain, hurting others because they’re hurting, assuming identities as perpetual victims, or acting with motivations of revenge and calling it justice. Sagittarius medicine says: don’t play the game the oppressor wants you to play, no matter how wounded you are. Don’t let them destroy you like that. Sag, in this era you may be vulnerable to falling into that same victimhood mentality that the collective needs to grow out of in order to thrive. You will struggle with losing your faith in your larger vision and finding it again. I don’t need to tell you how to get out of it. You know. No matter how far you fall, your spirit won’t let you give up. It’s in your blood, in your heart, to always rise again.

CAPRICORN

Your Contribution to the Movement: Your Lived Experience.

Challenge in this Era: Capricorn is the sign of the wise Elder. The sign that knows all too well what it means for a child to grow up too quickly. Capricorn, you have a wealth of wisdom and experience within you, no matter what your age. That is absolutely essential for the movement. Capricorn knowledge is not the anthropologist publishing “facts” about communities with whom they have no immediate connection. Not the academics writing papers about movements with which they have not taken the effort to build relationships. What you have to offer has everything to do with the story you have to tell about your life. What you’ve learned, and what you know, simply by being yourself. This era, you’ll find yourself battling appropriation, co-optation, and exploitation of people’s language, culture, stories, sacred medicines, technology, and right to speak for themselves. It’s either happening to people and communities you care about, to you, or both. Your work in this era revolves around reclamation. Reclaim the words that are yours, on your own terms. Reclaim your story and what you know to be true. Build community and allyship with people who will support you regaining access to what is your birth right, and vice versa. Capricorn’s medicine also reminds us to give thanks and credit to our elders, to learn from the movements and ancestors that came before us. Capricorn reminds us to give great care to acknowledge our teachers, mentors, and how we’ve learned what we know today. To speak for ourselves with truth and sincerity.

AQUARIUS

Your Contribution to the Movement: Organizing with Principles of Friendship, not Duty.

Challenge in this Era: Aquarius, you are the master organizer when it comes to bringing together people, ideas, projects, and forward momentum. You’re also super tuned in to that future frequency, which means you’re thinking about sustainability too. You know in your heart that our movements should not be just another task we put on an already over-loaded list, or shoved into an already booked schedule, or just another obligation that causes burnout. Instead, you’re asking the movement to uplift qualities of a good fucking friendship. Good friendships accept and respect each of us as we are, as our own unique, individual, weirdo genius. Friendships are places we can recharge, have fun, gain energy, comfort, safety, and inspiration. In good friendships, there is no control or manipulation, no talking down to or over one another. There is genuine respect for each other’s autonomy, but also a deep desire to connect, and to share resources, knowledge, time, care, and company. A good friend will give you space to grow and change when you need to. All these qualities are essential in our movements as well, especially as we need to be open to adapting to a quickly changing social and global climate on a collective scale. Your challenge in this era will be confronting whatever dynamics get in the way of friendship: unchecked power dynamics, power-tripping, tyranny, dictatorship. It will feel daunting, but when you get overwhelmed, just remember you’re not in this alone. Gather your people. That’s the whole point.

PISCES

Your Contribution to the Movement: Unconditional Love.

Challenge in this Era: Most people bristle, scoff, or have all kinds of complicated feelings about claiming the concept of unconditional love for the revolution. But you of all signs, Pisces, know that pursuing compassion, empathy, forgiveness, and reaching for a higher love cannot be dismissed in the revolution. This does not mean that you are a doormat. This does not mean that anybody can treat you however they want, whenever they want. Just because you have empathy or forgiveness for someone doesn’t mean that you accept their behaviour or consent to being in direct relationship with them. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t angry, and it doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for harmful behaviour. Because of the way you love, people will try to take advantage of you. That is your challenge in this era. They will try to exploit your kindness and use your desire to support their healing against you. They will try to take more from you than what is rightfully theirs. Then they will scapegoat you, blame you for their violence, and justify their actions. Make no mistake, in this era you will see just how ugly humanity can get. But you’ll never stop loving the way you do. Why? Because as much as you feel other people’s pain, you feel the Earth most of all. And this is her story, too. Dear Pisces, unconditional love is a promise the Earth wants you to make to yourself. A promise that says: “There is nothing you could do or say or be that would make me not love you. There is no circumstance in which I would not fight for you. There is no place you could fall where I would not catch you.” Unconditional love is a promise you make to yourself and to life itself. •

Notes

1 www.endoftheworldshow.org