Emotiscopes- Show Some Fucking Vulnerability!!! Edition
Horoscopes For Those Trying To Feel Human Emotions
Aries
Sometimes my chest feels so full that it might overflow, and I feel so incredibly humbled by the expanse of the human spirit and all the small acts of love that string our lives together and hold us together when everything else appears to fall apart. This is an invitation to stand with me in this moment and take my hand and we’ll cry for as long as it takes. Let’s cry for joy, let’s cry for heartache, let’s cry for all the things we’ve lost and didn’t turn out the way we wanted. And then we’ll cry for all the things too beautiful to even put into words that we can recognize in each other’s eyes. I see you.
Taurus
Get your tissues at the ready because this edition of horoscopes is about vulnerability and me watching Eco Challenge 2020 with Bear fucking Grylls. If you have no idea what I’m talking about I demand you google it immediately, and then proceed to watch all 10 episodes. The last time this show aired was 18 years ago, which as someone in their 30s feels like an unfathomable amount of time. Anyway I pretty much cried through every episode of this latest edition because I was so moved by the heart showed by each of the teams and their unwavering grit at attempting a 700km long endurance race. These people were tremendous, and probably examples of what the human spirit is capable of overcoming when we commit ourselves to something as a group and truly support each other through tropical storms and navigation errors and heat stroke and trying to beat that superhuman New Zealand team. Isn’t life just a giant endurance race, after all?
Gemini
Get on your bike and yell at people to go read a book by a woman. Is this street harassment, or activism? I don’t know. I’ll leave it up to you Gemini’s and your dual nature to decide.
Cancer
If you are hurting right now, instead of trying to distract yourself, I might recommend diving full into the depth of that pain. It will no doubt hurt, as all things worth doing usually are, but once you’ve immerse yourself in the deep end of the pool and you’ve sat at the bottom for a while, you’ll find that you eventually need to come up for air. Go find the movie Arrival, because that is what coming up for air will feel like.
Arrival is about aliens that suddenly appear on earth in random places. Amy Adams plays Louise, a linguist, who is brought in to translate the alien’s language. It’s not so much an alien movie but instead a movie about the circular nature of life and death, beginnings and endings, and how we perceive our lives through the dimension of time. It’s a beautiful metaphor for how to feel our heartbreak while still keeping our hearts open. It’s a movie about grief, and how it can give us the superpower to profoundly connect with those around us, if we let it.
Remember that when someone closes a door, it will hurt to know that something we cared about has come to an end, but it also opens up space to deepen our emotional intimacy with others. Sometimes that kind of closure is necessary for other relationships to grow, though we often can’t see it at the time. Let the door close, wish them well, but don’t let your heart close with it. Doors can be both an arrival and a departure, depending on your perspective.
So go watch this movie as many times as needed. Personally, I tend to watch it after any major breakups, but then also around every New Year to remind myself that beginnings and endings aren't always as finite as we believe. However, if this is terrible advice and you hate this movie, then please proceed to spend the next 8-12 hours watching Garderner's World because Monty Don and an entire show literally dedicated to watching flowers grow is the perfect balm for any and all kinds of pain.
Leo
You can fight me on this but this unspoken rule of needing to wear a bra anytime you are out in public is horseshit and just another example of the vast reach of the patriarchy’s wormy hands on women’s bodies. FREE UR BOOBIES (if you want to).
Virgo
Years ago, I was on a leisurely excursion with one of the most wonderful people that I’ve ever had the privilege to know (this is you, Jill McQueen). We used to drive out to Sidney and wander in and out of all the little shops on Beacon Ave for the better part of an afternoon, and chit chat and look around. I can only imagine that the joy and ease and comfort and acceptance that I felt in Jill’s company is what a lot of people might have found growing up in their families. And she probably doesn’t remember this, because it was such a small, inconsequential moment, but we found ourselves in a pretty card shop and Jill called me over to see something. I don’t remember if it was a card or decorative napkins, but it was a silly cartoon of a mouse (and maybe a cat?), and she excitedly showed it to me and read the sentence noted at the bottom, “What I like most about you is your vulnerability.”
Did that even make sense? It doesn’t matter. Find a Jill McQueen and let her into your heart and never let her go because she will always see you for who you really are and love you for it.
Libra
What story would you have to let go of if you looked at your body and decided it was worthy just as it is in that very moment? Your body has gotten you this far in life, so it's obviously doing a pretty good job. Have you gained weight? Enjoy it. Have you lost weight? Enjoy it. Has the shape of your stomach/legs/butt/shoulders/
Scorpio
You guys need to chill the fuck out (and connect to your vulnerability!)
Sagittarius
You are feeling ambivalent and lost. I’m not advocating for you to become a shut-in, because noted good-looking-person Leonardo DiCaprio already showed us in The Aviator just how ugly that can become. But I’m also not not advocating for you to become a shut-in, if only temporarily, so that you can safely allow yourself some time to feel ambivalent and lost within the confines of your own home (BECAUSE ALSO WE ARE STILL IN THE THROES OF A PANDEMIC). Sometimes flinging ourselves from one event to another, no matter how pleasurable those events may or may not be, can serve as a way of hedging us against our own thoughts and feelings. Narratives can be healing, and for this reason I encourage you to connect to a narrative that resonates in your heart. If I was giving very great advice, I’d suggest you go and read Dear Sugar: Tiny, Beautiful Things, or A Chronology of Water, or anything by Roxane Gay, but I’m limited to giving mostly adequate advice in the form of questionable horoscopes, so I’m going to tell you to get cozy on the couch / your bed / the bathtub, and fire up your streaming service of choice(but please do not actually start a fire if you are mixing water and electrical outlets). To open your heart go watch season 6, episode 3 of Chef's Plate, and specifically listen to the cadence and timbre in Asma Khan’s voice when she says, "Use your life to make a difference."
Let her tell you the story of how she was once so lost in her own life that she no longer felt any purpose and was falling apart at the seams; how her unraveling led her to find how she could nourish herself back into being, and how she could do it for others.
Pay attention to her story, because her story is yours and also mine and also each and every one of us. What’s beautiful is that though you may feel ambivalent and lost, you are also reaching for something to lift you up. Reaching is what will propel you forward. Reach inside yourself and ask what your spirit needs to feel nourished. Ask yourself why you feel ambivalent and lost. To answer the why you must be willing to confront yourself without completely abandoning yourself to a passive TV binge, or food binge, or sleep binge. You can do something actively while also remaining very still. Actively listen to Asma’s narrative, and see how that makes you feel. If that doesn’t lift you, then please go back to my very great advice.
Capricorn
If you saw me today and told me every inch of the truth, and pulled your heart out for me to see, every sloppy stitch showing, every part you thought too shameful or ugly or unlovable, and you looked me in the eyes and let me see the real truth, I would forgive you. If you reached out an open palm, I would reach back. Because I loved you. Because I loved you as wholly and completely as I could. How could I not, after so long, after all we’d seen together? Of course I loved you. I don’t want to hide how much this hurts because that would be a betrayal to just how much you meant to me. I’m probably making it sound like you died because I’m somewhat incapable of expressing things without slamming down my feeling buttons in ALL CAPS, but in truth it felt like I had to let die the part of you that had moved into my heart. Sometimes there are things inside us that need to die in order to move forward. We owe it to ourselves to recognize that having to do that is hard, and painful, and conflicted, and full of doubt, and likely something we won’t take very well and could take a long time to do. Now please let me forget everything about you so it doesn't hurt so much anymore. Please disappear from my memory forever. I loved you once, but not anymore.
Aquarius
Sometimes I feel so lonely I think my body might collapse in on itself; like there’s nothing there to hold it together. I feel like a never ending pit, like a black hole pulling everything in my orbit into an abyss. Sometimes I don’t know how to make it to the next breath, and yet somehow I do. Somehow we endure. We can endure just about anything. We can endure this. I’m with you.
Pisces
If someone is faced with losing some of the most important relationships in their life, and they choose to do nothing, you have to understand just how much they hate themselves to not try and make it better. Trust me, I get how much it hurts to have someone admit to being a dead-end person but also admit that they will do nothing about it. Trust that this will likely never change. Trust that this is not your fault. Trust that there are people out there with whom you can be truly vulnerable with, and they will not take advantage of it. They will recognize you. They will see you.
