May is about knowing that the devil, the shadow, is trying to do something for you and that it might not be what you expected at all.

Hey, it’s Mars time. Remember that summer in 2020 when Mars hung out in Aries for such a long stretch we all thought that we would go devilishly mad?

Well, baby, Mars is coming back home.

And Jupiter, Venus, both benefics are hanging out in Aries now. There’s a lunar eclipse in Scorpio, ruled by Mars. Mercury, ruling the Sun and the New Moon, retrogrades in May and Venus somehow makes it to sanctuary in Taurus on the 29th.

April was about sweet, smooth Pisces with all of its pleasure and self acceptance. May is about making a deal with the devil, the shadow, the sphinx with the riddle at the crossroads—whatever you want to call him.

The crossroads is really about destiny and destiny is really about ego. Ego is simply the name of the unchanging self—the self that never dies, tries to adapt for something else, and always remembers itself. In other words, your ego is both your choice and your destiny.

How do you think Zeus and Venus feel about being fucked slowly by Mars? How do you think they feel about pride when pride becomes so enjoyably debased? There’s something precious about it, isn’t there? You’d give everything you thought you could own to stay alive.

And, all the while, Mercury is confused in its own sign. Things move fast in May. Not too fast to handle, simply fast enough to make you want to chase something.

May is about getting it as you go, about fucking up and getting fucked. May is about making a pact with yourself to do better things without even knowing what better looks like. May is about ambition’s shadow, spite, taking you to places where it finally becomes possible to learn compassion.

May is about knowing that the devil, the shadow, is trying to do something for you and that it might not be what you expected at all. The devil doesn’t have your back but if it does its job right, then it takes you to a place where you can choose to leave it behind.

I sent out a worksheet, to The Astro-Kats and Star Kids Club (my monthly subscribers) about doing shadow work through BTS for last month’s full moon. But shadow work isn’t just shadow work. It’s also ego work and persona work. Shadow work isn’t about making the shadow easier or stronger but about giving yourself more flexibility. When I did this worksheet for myself, I learned that I am desperately afraid of not being loved and that the silliest of shadows in me fears that becoming more powerful will make me unworthy of love.

The devil was trying to do something for me. Wretched, he was trying to earn me love. 

Taurus

There’s only one person who decides when it is time—it’s you. It’s not the person your friends think you are. It’s not your fears. It’s the burdens that you think you must bear. You decide when it is time for you to do the things that you must, want to, or need to do.

Happy birthday. It’s the type of birthday, this year, that makes you appreciate all of the things that you have yet to appreciate. Love is also the potential of love that has yet to be realized. This is the only thing that turns love into a practice rather than an object. Go for the unfinished things and teach yourself how to thrive. It’s the brilliance and the hunger of potential, not the satisfaction of tired accomplishment, that you are chasing.

Gemini

People will give you things. People will give you tokens, messages, compliments, rides, and tickets. You will find them on the street or in the offer of a faraway friend. You will find things in the fields—flowers, seeds, cool bugs, spiraly sticks, and weird rocks. It is up to you whether you want to keep these things or not and how. You don’t have to accept every curiosity that you come across.

May is the best time to ask for things. There is a profound curiosity to asking. You must constantly be on the verge of realizing what you might actually need in order to do it. You do not need to receive everything that you ask for in the exact way you expect in order to maintain this curiosity.

Cancer

Whenever it is that you feel like doing or buying something that you’re not sure if you need, wait a day. Wait a day to see how well you live without the thing that you are considering. Enjoy this day without the thing. Enjoy it because you have shown yourself what it’s like to figure out how to do without this thing. Then, let yourself come back to your decision.

This isn’t a trick of discipline. This is a trick of understanding your own needs. There will be times in which real scarcity trips you out and makes you think that some of your needs are more desperate than they actually are. You are not as powerless as fear makes you believe. Always give yourself the time that you need to leave and come back to decisions when fear, that old devil, shows up.

Leo

Call your mom or someone else who is willing to mother you. What does it mean to be mothered? To be given pure and unrelenting love? There are things that you are asked to do that you don’t want to do right now. There are things that you face that you don’t know how to face. Instead of jumping into problem solving right away, ask someone you trust for a bit of mothering. Be a baby for a moment and cry to your best friend.

To ask for mothering, you’ll need to know what you are asking for. What will make you feel supported and well loved? What are the pieces of you that already feel well loved? What parts, then, feel unloved and in need to care? There are people who are eager to love you. Face the world with them and not in secrecy.

Virgo

You’re preparing for some of your biggest breaks right now. Big breaks in oceanlore start out beneath the surface of the water. The biggest waves just show us where the biggest reefs live. You’ve been preparing for your own breaks for a long time. You started preparing even before you knew what to call them. Change is only something that shows us who we have always been.

Your only job right now is to know yourself. That is the best preparation you can take for larger than life change. There are a variety of ways to know yourself. There is language, there is sleep, there is action, and there is sensation. Feel yourself like you’re the origin point of a very necessary storm.

Libra

It’s time to start making the next move that you’ve been planning. You’ve been laying low for quite some time now, palms sweaty and thinking that commitment will make your head spin. It won’t. You have everything you need to figure out all of the things that you don’t know how to do yet. It’s time to jump off the cliff. Anything that you’ve been thinking about doing and have been planning instead of doing because you’re not sure about when, it’s time.

Do it. Just do it. Make a decision and change your life. Make a decision and choose who you are going to be. Battle your demons when you have time but, still, do it. You’re more than capable of doing two things at once. There’s no reason to postpone action for self reflection’s sake.

Scorpio

Okay! You’re about to get busy. There’s simply a lot, right now, that is on your plate. The best thing about having a full plate is that you get to eat all of it. It’s simply evidence of the fullness of your life. There’s so much that you want to do and there’s a lot that you simply want to do as well. I love this for you. It means that you love to live.

And then, now and then, recognize when you’re at capacity. Know when it’s too much life for one person to live. Living isn’t about doing all of the things that you want to do but about living the way you want to live. You have all of your life to live the way you want to live. You don’t have to do it all at once. Remember to go to bed on time.

Sagittarius

You’re the sugardaddy of the universe in May. You love this. You love having enough to pass around like Jesus with the fish and bread. You love seeing what you give away multiply until, suddenly, everyone and their mother has enough. You love learning about what enough feels like through a fresh friend you make simply because you’ve given something away.

Give away things that you thought were yours. Give away things that can’t belong to anyone. Give away the affect of the public. Give away things that you thought you needed to hoard. You just may fall in love in May and, when you fall in love, you give your heart away. Giving is not a transaction but the simplicity of a blessing. You get to give this blessing.

Capricorn

Anytime you think that you don’t actually need something, anytime you think that things would go more smoothly if you did without it, try something for me. Ask to have it regardless of friction. Try it out. Figure out what needs you’ve been putting away in order to make things run more smoothly. Figure out what the cost of smoothness has entailed. Figure out whether or not your lore about smoothness and efficiency is actually true.

Enjoy your asking. There is power in knowing what you want, in knowing the exact thing that you want. The fear of cost suggests that a need unresolved is too tremendously helpless to face. Whatever! There is so much power in knowing yourself, even in knowing what parts of you are asking for unresolved love.

Aquarius

Confuse yourself. That’s right—this isn’t the moment for clarity. You’ll never find it if that’s what you’re trying to build here. This is the crossroads moment, that time of the day where one thing grows into something else that isn’t quite realized yet, and you’re left with a funny riddle. The point of riddles is not to solve them. The purpose of riddles is to make you think.

Confusion is really a state of learning. If you feel as though you must constantly teach, then you’ll be left feeling sorry for yourself at the end of the day. When you cultivate confusion, you get to learn as you go. Always allow yourself the grace to learn. Do things that leave you confused. Confusion is food for your brilliance.

Pisces

It’s time to figure out what money means to you. It’s funny, money is the emptiest of all mediums and all of it goes away completely when we collectively stop believing in its appearance. And yet, money can mean survival. It can mean the difference between hunger, boredom, and the willingness to take on risk.

Figure out what you are surviving for. Is it to see the edge of the world or to see your child learn your smile? A bit of both? Within survival, there is nihilism but there is also infinite and compounding reason. It’s a worker’s market right now. People have the most power in the aftermath of a great pandemic. You have the power of permission. When in doubt, open up a negotiation and talk to as many people as you possibly can. You have so many big reasons to live well.

Aries

There’s a special kind of terror to building too fast. When you build too fast, you stop knowing where the hell you are. You look down and you realize that you’re terrified of falling. You realize that your margins between staying and falling are very, very thin. You realize that you must go back and rebuild.

Wait. Don’t go forward or go back for a moment here. Wait and learn. You understand the importance of learning as you go so well already. Take just a moment to understand what it takes to learn by waiting. There are a great number of things that you are able to see only when you stay in a place long enough. Don’t go anywhere—stay at the crossroads and wait for Godot.