Play deprivation hurts and what it hurts is your imagination.

The thing that I want to write about for July 2023 is Venus retrograde. I made a zine about it for The Astro-Kats so I’ve been spending quite some time with this upcoming retrograde, with the timing and the overlays.

This Venus retrograde reminds us of the one that occurred in summer of 2015 and the one from summer of 2007. Venus has a pattern, you see. It retrogrades in the same sign every eight years. If you want, you can backtrack and see what you were even doing during those summers of 2007 and 2015.

There’s other things happening in July. Mars enters Virgo. The Sun enters Leo. Mercury, coming within bounds, moves through Leo from Cancer and ends up in Virgo by mid month. Saturn is still in retrograde in Pisces and Jupiter moves forward in Taurus.

But Venus? It almost hits that last degree of Leo, comes within 25 minutes from doing so, and it retreats. It’ll retrograde until September.

As Venus retrograde starts in July, I want you to think about play scarcity. I want you to be with all of the pleasure gaps in the world.

When I hear about the pleasure gap, I usually hear about the difference in achieving orgasm between straight cisgendered men and women. Apparently straight men achieve orgasm during sex much more frequently and more reliably than straight women when engaging in heterosexual intercourse. Of course, the point of sex doesn’t need to be about orgasming at all. Pleasure isn’t just about coming. Pleasure includes all kinds of things: a willingness to be loose with your words, the thrill of having fun, and the slow act of building trust with an eager partner.

There are some symptoms of play deprivation. Usually, if you’ve been deprived of play during important moments in your life, you might not feel as though you can predict whether someone is willing to play with you or not. Being able to predict whether someone will play with you or not and believing those predictions from yourself is pretty key to actually playing.

When we feel as though someone else might not play with us, we might expect to see them judge us instead. Instead of seeing someone as a potential playmate, we might see them as an authority figure who will limit or take away our sense of play. We might look to that person for permission to play and then not really know what to do. We might get frustrated when they don’t give permission because they don’t realize that they are supposed to and interpret their ambivalence as uncaring.

When we fear that we ourselves will not be able to play with someone else, we might see that person as being oversaturated or brimming with pleasure and fun. We might feel inadequate in comparison. This comparison might cause us to get competitive or adversarial about play opportunities. We fear that someone else’s play will take away from our own playing. We feel like someone else does all of the playing. We wish that they would show us how to play, feeling cruel envy, and believe that we would be allowed to play as soon as we acquire the attention and love of that idealized person.

In both of these situations, we forget that playing is an act of sharing and not something that can be hoarded up. It’s not really possible to be alone and play. It’s possible to play without another human being but you’ll always be playing in relationship to something whether that thing is an animal, a rock, a plant, or a beam of light. You might call these companions toys or playmates. You might call them friends or enemies. What you’re doing is playing and you’re doing it in company.

Play deprivation can make someone’s playing style redundant—it can make you think that you’re more boring than you are. This is okay because it’s important to meet yourself where you are at instead of imposing standards around good creativity or innovative inventiveness upon a part of yourself that you are struggling to care for. If you haven’t played for a while and you don’t feel like you are allowed to play or equipped to play, then you should allow yourself redundant and stereotypical play first. You should let yourself be boring. You should do this until you start to want to have fun.

People might disagree with this one, worrying that boring play will trap you into narrowmindedness. I still believe it to be true. If you’re never ever painted before, just paint a corny picture of an eye or flower. Copy a image. Never let anyone give you shit for this. Celebrate the process and not the product.

Play deprivation hurts and what it hurts is your imagination. You must explore within the limits of your imagination first before you start to see your imagination expand. Making bad art expands your imagination just as much as good art. Sometimes, we embrace bad art or tackiness as a way of expressing the hurt that our imaginations have suffered. Tackiness or redundancy as an expression of play deprivation might be more meaningful than perfect, privileged creativity.

Keep in mind that redundancy is not the same as repetition. I worked with a three year old once for a year. For that whole year, every single story she came up with featured a black hole. She worried about black holes appearing during her walks to school, that a black hole would eat her family, and wished that a black hole would swallow her sister. If I asked her to make a story about the future? The world would always be swallowed up by a black hole.

If I were a better art teacher maybe I would have encouraged her to use more images, to get more imaginative, to use gremlins and dragons and phoenixes in addition to black holes. I didn’t. Every single story was about a black hole and the black hole would take over the page. Every page became a dark conglomerate of squiggly lines. We didn’t explore composition or color. It didn’t matter because every single one of the stories were interesting. I loved each and every story.

Why was the three year old so obsessed with black holes? Probably because black holes are terrifying and because they scared her. None of the stories she came up with were redundant even though they were very repetitive. The reason why? They came from real emotion. These were stories about her sister, about school, and about mother. They just all happened to end up featuring a black hole.

Allow yourself some redundancy. Don’t worry about being boring. We all are in some way and this boringness usually has to do with some loss of wildness. Your spirit, like a continually and consistently revolving sun, will transform redundancy into repetition. It will do this for you. You don’t have to worry about it.

Cancer

There’s a common saying that people tend to tell children. “Don’t play with your food.” The message is really “don’t play with your vital resources.” Food is an important resource. Playing with it instead of eating it properly can sometimes seem like a disrespect of food’s nutritional value. Later on, we might interpret the message differently. “Don’t play with your food” becomes “don’t play with your money” or “don’t play with your stuff.”

I don’t know about all that. It seems like people have been playing with food since we started eating. How else did we learn to tell the difference between a poisonous plant and a nutritious one? How else did we shape the potato from a thin root into a rich bosom that grows under the land? How else did we learn about all of the different ways you could cook a pig?

In July, I hope you play with your food. Play with your most vital resource. Playing with something doesn’t mean that you waste it. It means that you look for new potentials within it. It means that you are sacred with it, that you use every last piece. It means that you know what you are doing at times and that you feel like you don’t know what the hell you’re doing at others.

Questions for July 2023 for Cancer:
What is a resource that is precious to you?
How might you play with that resource?
What might that resource teach you about play?

Leo

The reason why you are playful when you are (and I know that you aren’t all of the time) is because playing makes you more comfortable. You have a gift for turning the strange and dangerous world into a friend. You do this through play, by making fun and touching frequently and teasing challenges.

The world is full of obstacles and challenges. The world, with its absolutism about death being the only certainty, makes us suffer. Leos play in this world. By playing, you animate the world. You come with color and life. Death is still a certainty but certainty doesn’t mean a thing to you. Life is unpredictable. This is what it means to make a cold and unforgiving world into a friend. This thing that you do is sacred magic and it is something that all Leos are capable of doing.

In July is an opportunity for you and your magic. I wonder if you will spot the opportunity when it shows up. I wonder if it’s an opportunity that will be presented to you on a platter or if you will be the one to forge it. Your goal? To keep playing. To show the world that you have love of fun. You’ll probably be doing this all your life but July has the potential to make this playing go all weird and upside down. Isn’t that exciting?

Questions for July 2023 for Leo:
Who likes to play with you?
Who wants to be talked into playing with you?
Who wants to just watch?

Virgo

There’s a huge difference between having fun and being fun. There’s also a huge difference between making fun and appearing to have fun. Have you ever seen someone obsess over a huge research project that they enjoy in the library? That person might appear to be working very hard but they might actually be having a lot of fun. Maybe you’ve seen someone get too drunk at a party. Maybe they weren’t having so much fun even though alcohol is supposed to be like some kind of fun juice or something.

You’re the artisan of having fun without appearing to have fun. That person who appears to study in the library might be you. The person who drank too much at the party might be you too. You don’t tend to have fun when you make it a mission to appear to have fun. This might or might not be a Virgo thing.

I think that this aspect of Virgo is a blessing. It makes you more engaged in mystery. You know the necessity of keeping a joy private and, so, you know how to enjoy a good mystery. You don’t feel a strong need to make sacred power too obvious. You just do your own thing. In July, go and do your own thing. See what your hidden urges are all about. Don’t make having fun a mission. Make it a side effect of that magical practice we sometimes call play.

Questions for July 2023 for Virgo:
When, during the last seven days, did you have a mysterious urge to do something strange?
Did you answer the call?
Why not?

Libra

Did you know that you’re not responsible for the behavior of other people? That you’re not responsible for other people’s pleasure? You’re not a muse and you’re not a toy. You’re not a pleasure object. All of the potential joy that exists within you doesn’t bloom when worked out through another person’s instrumentations.

That joy doesn’t quite belong to you either. Joy isn’t a resource. It can’t be all bundled up. Your joy belongs to the world and the world is just as much yours as it is anyone else’s. Joy is a spirit and it is channeled by different people in different ways.

You have a lot of friends with a lot of different playing styles. In July, I want you to get really specific about how people play. Know these things for yourself. Maybe one of your friends has a loud and bombastic way of playing and another person practices a form of quiet transmutation with feelings through play. Knowing how the people you like play will show you how you like to play. Your purpose isn’t to blend well into the play of others. Again, you’re not a toy. You’re a participant sometimes and an observer at other times. In terms of playing? You have some weird uniqueness here. Find it.

Questions for July 2023 for Libra:
Who is your most interesting friend?
Who is your most boring friend?
Which friend do you find it easier to play with?

Scorpio

Do you know what we call it when a person allows us to see them as playful? We usually call this confidence. Confidence isn’t something that can be worked towards. It’s something that has to be played towards. Confidence is the ability to take up space with your playful spirit. It can't be cultivated through controlling your image and behavior. This is because confidence is about letting your body do all of the things that it wants to do.

I hope you enjoy your own confidence in July. Enjoy the places that make you feel the most confident even if the only place you feel confident is the shower where you belt out old pop songs like no one can hear you. As you enjoy the places that make you feel the most confident, you might also find the limits of your confidence. You might find your awkwardness and timidity too.

Let yourself be timid and let yourself be confident. Fluctuate between the two. Being yourself isn’t about becoming some mythic hero. You don’t have to be confident all the time to be a person. You would be a fool to try since there certainly are places in this world that are unsafe to play in.

Questions for July 2023 for Scorpio:
When do you feel most confident?
Where do you feel timid?
Is there anywhere you feel you must act confident even when you feel timid?

Sagittarius

I want you to spend July cultivating a sense of fantasy. This is about the things that are most fantastical to you. These are high idealisms, enlightened philosophies, and wild delusions. I want you to stretch these stories as much as possible. Make them as extreme as possible.

What does that do? It takes us to doubt. Extending a fantasy always takes us into doubt. Doubt is a very useful emotion because it informs us about the things we don’t trust yet.

Entertain the doubt. Let it be. Ask it your questions. Then, return to the fantasy.

You’re painting the sky this July. The sky doesn’t need to be precisely penciled to be a convincing sky. In fact, being too detail oriented means that your sky image will become an unconvincing sky. You can only paint a convincing sky if you are loose with your hands and if you are willing to compromise your vision slightly by blurring your gaze. You’re painting the sky—don’t look too hard. Look softly and off center.

Questions for July 2023 for Sagittarius:
When do you fantasize?
How do you fantasize?
Where do you fantasize?

Capricorn

Did you know that play is the core of your power? That, without play, we often feel very bullied by the world and like we must follow all of the rules even when those standards make us feel too rigid as people? That play is the only way we reshape the world into something that is more than what we already know?

I want you to take note of where you are not allowed to play. Those are the places that actively deprive you of your power. Not allowed to bring your skateboard into the public park? Not allowed to scribble on a tower with a piece of chalk? Not allowed to play in your old neighborhood because they’ve built an interstate running through it?

Your boredom isn’t a sign that there is something wrong with you. Your boredom is manufactured by a world that regulates and prohibits pleasure. You get bored more and more because there is less and less space to play. Once you have taken note of all the places you are allowed to play, do something about it. That something can be small or big. There’s no right or wrong thing to do. You know how to build new playgrounds out of forbidden places with sharp edges but you’ll have to move instinctually if you want to see yourself do this.

Questions for July 2023 for Capricorn:
Where are you not allowed to play?
What would happen if you tried to play there?
Is anyone else allowed to play there?

Aquarius

I wonder if there’s anything that keeps you from playing with others. I know that you like to watch. It’s hard to figure out how to participate in something, isn’t it? You’re never so sure of when it is socially appropriate and whether your presence will feel imposing. You worry so much about not being invited sometimes that you might forget that you also have the power to invite others into you.

It feels so nice to get lost in play. You no longer worry about what you look like to other people. You get crazy. You scream. You make embarrassing little sounds. You stop sounding like the person you assume that other people expect you to be and start sounding more like yourself. Maybe that’s what makes playing so scary in the first place.

To get to that place of play, you contend with your own reluctance first. It’s not quite timid or shy. You’re not meek about your refusal to play and you can’t be cajoled into it. Being invited too properly makes you break out in rebellion too. Your reluctance is more contrarian in quality. You don’t want to do what you are told and, yet, you still harbor a secret desire for an invitation to a play party. Maybe your secret desire and your blatant contrariness are on the same team. They both just want you to live as yourself.

Questions for July 2023 for Aquarius:
Have you ever been invited to play and felt anxiety?
Have you ever been invited to play and felt excitement?
Do you ever invite other people to play with you?

Pisces

In July, make pleasure from your practice. The word practice is a word that we might use when referring to someone practicing for a sport. We might use the word practice to describe ourselves in an activity before we have achieved competency. We might practice something that we are already competent at to improve our skill.

There’s something really sexy and cool about competency, isn’t there? To be fluid and practiced at something? Good enough at it to turn it into art? Almost anything can become a form of art if you’re prepared to explore the limits of competency with it. You don’t have to be good to achieve competency. You just have to be good enough to start playing.

Make pleasure from something that you do regularly. Maybe you play an hour of MapleStory everyday. Maybe you are practicing baduk or hanging out at a nearby pool. Maybe you make a doodle every other day or you enjoy a nice fanfiction every morning over breakfast. Practice doesn’t go overboard. It’s a mediated form. Enjoy your play. Promise yourself a bit everyday. Deliver on this promise when you can.

Questions for July 2023 for Pisces:
What gives you joy to practice?
How much of it can you practice every time you do it?
How often can you practice per week?

Aries

July is about love and play. In what ways have you been seeing your romantic partners as play competitors? What about as play collaborators? When do you see them as the ones who carry authority on when you can play and when? When you play or fuck or tease someone are you actually having fun? Like, do you find a sense of pleasure from what you’re involved in doing? Does that pleasure make you feel high or does it take you down low?

And—finally, what does play have to do with love?

A final question—do you have to win in order to have fun?

The fear of humiliation might be one of those things that keep us more rigid than we want to be. Do you ever refuse a game simply because you fear losing? Ever refuse someone you like because you’re afraid of looking bad?

Here’s an absurd assignment for July. I want you to go out there and find the nearest Yu-Gi-Oh! competition. These will be a large gathering of mostly middle school boys who enjoy card games. I want you to enter and play. You’ll probably lose because Yu-Gi-Oh! isn’t a joke. It’s a serious game for serious people and the players take it all very seriously. Find the enjoyment in your experience. There will be several forms available.

Questions for July 2023 for Aries:
Do you have to win to have fun?
Do you have to win to feel love?
What do you have to lose before you can play?

Taurus

I’m going to ask a question that I know could be upsetting for some of you out there reading this. The question is—did you ever play with your family?

Some of you will answer “Yes!” and start listing off all of the inside jokes and fun times and family games that were played. Some of you will wonder if such a thing is really possible because you assumed that all parents worked too much and got home very late at night, acting too angry and scary when they arrived home to be much fun. Some of you had a very fun childhood with no thanks to your families but because you were brave enough to steal play back from prohibition. Some of you find it hard to play without spending money because your play was designed and occurred in sheltered settings.

I’m asking the question I asked not to try to upset or hurt you but to just bring your attention to your response to my question. I think that your response to my question gives you a lot of rich information about yourself, about your appetite for exploration, and about why you might feel a certain way about your family members. So, that’s why I ask the question. If you want you can spend some time with what this question makes you think of. Did you ever play with your family?

Questions for July 2023 for Taurus:
Did you ever play with your family?
Did you want to play with your family?
Did your family ever play without you?

Gemini

I want you to spend July cultivating a connection to reality. Reality is a collection of things that you know to be so true that you don’t have to practice awareness of them in order to play with them. This sense of reality gives you a lot of trust. It allows you to predict the motion of the world and this comfort in predictability gives you the space for childlike joy.

Get familiar with reality. See if you sense reality as a thing that protects you. See if it adequately challenges you. See if you are satisfied with those challenges, if everything feels like it’s too much, or if you are bored with your constructs. You don’t need reality to always feel safe to play. You just need it to feel somewhat predictable.

You are painting a picture of the ground. Painting the ground is about pattern observation. There are always elements of the earth that repeat whether those repetitions are cracks in the soil, pebbles in the dirt, grass in the earth, or bugs along a ridge. When you paint a picture of the ground, you’re choosing what patterns to put into focus. You don’t need every single pattern in focus to build a convincing picture of the ground. Look closely and then decide what is important.

Questions for July 2023 for Gemini:
What repetitions give you a sense of comfort?
What repetitions give you a sense of tedium?
What repetitions give you a sense of adventure?