I don’t know if you have noticed but, during Jupiter’s transit through Gemini, we’ve been having to wade through a lot of misinformation.

November is the month of hidden help. A lot of the planets move into places where they receive help and support from each other.

Mercury retrogrades. This should affect everyone a bit differently. Mercury has been retrograding in the fire signs all year. During this final retrograde in Sagittarius, look back at the year and think about what you changed your mind about. If you are a fire sign rising, then you might have changed your mind about who you are. If you are an earth sign rising, then you may have seen your family dynamics change. If you are an air sign rising, then your expectations in friendship may have changed. If you are a water sign rising, then your goals changed.

I don’t usually focus so much on Mercury retrogrades. The reason why I’m focusing on this one is because it is out of bounds and opposite a retrograde Jupiter in Gemini.

I don’t know if you have noticed but, during Jupiter’s transit through Gemini, we’ve been having to wade through a lot of misinformation. Who can tell the difference between real and fake right now? I’m not just talking about AI. There’s AI but there’s also fake advertisements about real political stances. There’s all these conspiracy theories running all across Asia about what happened thousands of years ago. There’s all this shit about McDonalds and who worked there all during an E. Coli outbreak.

What is happening right now????? That’s the energy of Jupiter in Gemini. You’ve felt it. Have you?

Mercury in Sagittarius arrives to, finally, give us some hidden help. It doesn’t tell us what is happening. No—Mercury in Sagittarius helps us make sense of fantasy. As Kevin Young writes in his book Bunk, “Today's hoaxes rely less on human nature or collective memory than cultural amnesia.” Hoaxes aren’t just hoaxes. They are also someone’s fantasies. Maybe they are your fantasies. “Truth isn't like a pure thing but a muscle you have to exercise.” To root out any truth, we have to entertain our fantasies and we have to wrestle with them.

Many of us have fantasies about all kinds of weird things. We have fantasies about racial dynamics. We have fantasies about the future. We have fantasies about how rational we are and about how free or not free our society allows us to be. We have fantasies about where we belong and what will keep us safe.

When we are most guarded against our fantasies, when we believe that we can suss out the truth using our powers of logic and analysis, that is when we are most easily duped. That’s the 4d chess, big brain conspiracy theory feeling—that idea that thinking more somehow makes you smarter. No! You and I are as delusional as most people. We must admit that we have delusions and go from there. That’s the Mercury Jupiter opposition in Gemini and Sagittarius.

Mercury and Jupiter aren't the only set of planets doing some mutual receptive activity in November. While the Sun is still in Scorpio, Mars will enter Leo. Venus goes into Capricorn and Saturn is in Pisces. In astrology, mutual reception happens when one planet is in a sign that another planet rules and that planet is also in a sign that the first planet rules. These two planets are said to give each other hidden help.

The Sun and Mars help us achieve catharsis. Venus and Saturn help us enjoy the strange loneliness that we experience in the most unexpected of places. Loneliness is a gift. Loneliness is that friend who comes to you when you are most alone. What is embedded inside of your loneliness? Is it desire? Anger? Melancholy or secret joy?

I want you to try one thing in November: I want you to give yourself permission to not have to take care of everyone and everything.

I know that this seems counterintuitive in the month of giving hidden help. Trust me a bit on this. Whenever I give myself permission to stop taking care of other people, I don’t suddenly turn into some unfeeling and complacent sociopath. It just doesn’t happen. In fact, I start to find the things that I actually can care about instead of focusing on all of the things that I think I should care about. I start to let go of all of the worries that are actually just random obligations. I start to live in reality.

Give yourself permission to stop trying to take care of everyone. This is the month of hidden help. No amount of worry will increase your level of empathy. No amount of anxiety will make your relationships deeper. You don’t have to take care of everything. Tell yourself that and watch to see what you still care about.

I know that a lot of us are worried about the election and about Pluto entering Aquarius. Guess what? No matter what happens, we will find opportunities to keep fighting back together. All of the solidarities and intimacies that you have spent a lifetime learning will not suddenly disappear after November. The end of one Pluto era doesn’t wipe out everything. November is not your last chance to live. You have the rest of your life.

Scorpio

In November, I want you to think about masochism and will. I am of the opinion that any kind of ambition is at least a little bit masochistic. None of us want pure comfort. We all have things that we are willing to suffer for. Sometimes, suffering is necessary. I have found this to be true. However, it’s not always necessary. I’ve also found this to be true.

What kinds of goals bring you to real catharsis? When you free yourself from the illusions of proper discipline, what liberation do you seek? Have you wanted something so bad that it hurts to think about it? Have you ever found self discipline to feel like freedom? November is about meeting your goals. Which of your goals feel true and are any of your goals rooted in worry or self punishment?

Give your permission to ignore your self doubt. Yes, there are a hundred things you can worry about. There always is. Sometimes, you must worry and, other times, you must ignore your worries. Believe that your heart is in the right place. Believe it. Once you do, you’ll notice when your actions align with your own goodness and when they do not.

Question for Scorpio for November 2024:
What revitalizes your body and being?
What kinds of desires do you still want even when it hurts?
What do you have absolutely no self doubt about?

Sagittarius

This November, think about nonsense. Think about all that nonsense has ever done for you. In our darkest of moments, nonsense comes through for us. The apocalypse? How ridiculous! The climate is collapsing and, yet, we all have to go to the DMV every few years to renew our IDs. We don’t even know if aliens really exist or if we have freewill. They probably do and we probably don’t?? Will we ever know?

I think that nonsense is one of our most important therapeutic tools. Just kidding.

In November, let yourself be just as crazy as everyone else. Don’t be more crazy but also don’t be less crazy. Match the level of craziness. Life is actually very surreal and surrealism is about destroying the limits that have been set on your vision. Don’t believe everything that is out there but don’t think that you can discern between your fantasies and fears 100% of the time either. You have just as many brain wrinkles as anyone else. No matter what you believe about yourself, you might live to see at least one miracle.

I’m joking a lot in this horoscope but I think that’s the energy of November for you. Nonsense is your medicine right now. Lean into your sense of humor. Being funny, that brilliant thing that always gives you a new perspective right when you need it, is one of your greatest gifts.

Questions for Sagittarius for November 2024:
When has nonsense come to comfort you?
When has nonsense come to challenge you?
When has nonsense come to teach you?

Capricorn

There’s a Claudia Rankine quote that I have been sitting with that I want to invite you to think about with me: loneliness is the thing that we can’t do for each other.

Back when I was getting a divorce, I have this really strong memory of waking up at the crack of dawn and just doing my morning things on my own. That solitude—the quietness of just being by myself. That morning was freedom to my stressed-on-too-much-emotional-intensity body. That one lonely morning was absolute freedom for me. It was a balm.

Loneliness isn’t just loneliness. Loneliness is hunger. Loneliness is also wonder. Loneliness is that inside joke you make to yourself inside your head that no one else will get, making you laugh inappropriately. Sometimes, loneliness can feel like peace. Not all the time. Sometimes, loneliness is sorrow and it is also the awareness of your own sorrow. It is the balm of self recognition.

I’m actually not sure if November will give you any loneliness. I actually think that Venus gracing your first house brings you really chill friend time. But also some loneliness and maybe just the right amount. All of us need at least a little loneliness. Just a little. We do a lot of things for each other but not everything.

Questions for Capricorn for November 2024:
When does loneliness feel like hunger for you?
When does loneliness become freedom?
What do you become more aware of when you feel lonely?

Aquarius

I want to give you a challenge for November inspired by a quote by the queer swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. I want to invite you to think lightly of yourself and deeply about everything else.

Think less about your own morality, about whether your actions align with your principles, and about whether you will get all of the things that you might want. Think less about how you appear to other people. Think more about the way the falling leaves from a tree make sea life possible because those leaves spread nitrates. Think more about all of the people who live around you and when you pass them by. Think about how the sun has never failed in its promise to light your way every morning.

That complexity you see all around you? You are just as complex as the world around you. But you can’t worry about it. You don’t need to.

Musashi was a strong fighter. Many very sexy anime characters have been based on him for a reason. However, he was telling us that your strength isn’t an attribute of your own body or will. Your strength comes from how well you know what you are cutting into, whether you understand what you are fighting for, and if you are fighting at the right moment and place.

Questions for Aquarius for November 2024:
What are you fighting?
Why?
Is this the right time and place?

Pisces

This is it, Pisces. This is the last Mercury retrograde of 2024 and it should culminate to tie all of the questions that you have been exploring during the last two retrogrades together. Mercury retrograded to ask you questions about control back in April. It asked you to rethink your habits back in August. Now, it asks you to think about direction.

What was April like? What changed for you when it came to self possession, control, and nutrition? Did you learn anything about what it means to empower yourself through resources? Did you teach yourself anything about discipline? What about August? How did August change your habits and your work? What did August show you about what it means to cherish the small amount of control that you do have in an endlessly chaotic world?

And now, November. You’ve come to a point in 2024 that allows you to show up to the question of ambition and desire and impact with maturity. You have a sense of what you are willing to be responsible for. You have assessed your own knowledge and the limits of your knowledge. You have shown yourself that impossible things can become possible when you focus.

In November, think about where you want to take yourself. What motivates your sense of time? When you feel like you are moving forwards in life, what assures you that what you feel is true?

Questions for Pisces for November 2024:
What did you teach yourself in April about control?
What did you teach yourself in August about discipline?
What are you ready to explore about ambition?

Aries

Let yourself rage. Feel it. Speak it. There is something that you are currently exploring about rage that you will return to, from a new angle, in the spring.

Rage reminds you that you are still alive, that you are still here and that you still fucking care despite all odds. Your rage overcomes your numbness during the best of times. You’re best at rage when you’re having a bad period. Your rage reminds you of your five year old self who sat and brooded in a corner because no one takes a kid’s anger seriously. Your rage is beautiful. Sexy. It has the power to scare off the liars.

No one else in the world can speak your rage for you. No one else knows it as well. Isn’t that precious? Your rage is precious because it rises above the shambles.

Some people say that inside of rage lives grief, that anger hides sadness. I like to say that rage protects love. When I am most angry about something, if I peer into that anger and let it devour me whole until I am physically weakened, I find that I am still in love with something by the end of it. It’s not grief all the time. I haven’t lost the thing that I love, not when I am angry on behalf of still alive things. Sometimes, it’s just love.

Questions for Aries for November 2024:
What are you angry about?
What has your rage helped you through?
Does it know anything about what you love?

Taurus

I remember the last time I was at an ideological crossroads. I think it had something to do with whether Marxism is a science or an ideology? And how we define those things. And whether a science becomes an ideology when captured by capitalist mediums and whether an ideology can become a practice when remixed by community.

Anyway, I think that November will bring an ideological crossroads for you. Some kind of paradoxical mind riddle about how you think, why, and what that means. I think that we think a lot about people, about information, and about what other people must be thinking with the information available. I think that the opportunity to think about how we ourselves think comes rarely.

November brings such an opportunity your way. This is an important moment. Savor it. Real confusion is precious. Real confusion is a sign that you are truly learning, that you have changed the parameters of what you find worthy of your consideration.

Find the ideological crossroads that means the most to you. Don’t try to fake it, taking on ideas that other people are worried about just because they seem puzzling on the surface. Let yourself run into your own crossroads on your own. Find the thing that truly puzzles you, that truly causes confusion. And sit there holding compassion in your heart.

Questions for Taurus for November 2024:
What confuses you the most right now?
What words do you usually use to describe that confusing thing?
What words do you usually not use to describe that confusing thing?

Gemini

Why do you go on the internet? I mean this as a real question, not a sarcastic one. What were you looking for when you first went online? Were you looking for queer friends because you grew up in a place where you had no one? Were you looking to do research because you had questions in your head that no one around you knew how to answer? When you go online now, what are you usually looking for?

Too much of the time, the internet becomes a habit. We look at the clock on our phones or something and find ourselves checking email, checking Twitter. We run into a question, a real question not about some fact or whatever but one that is impossible to answer about fate or desire and we go online to google it and feel less alone. “Am I gay?” everyone asks at least once on some forum or Yahoo! Answers or search engine.

Whenever I run into an “Am I gay?” post, I frown and wonder. What is this person actually asking? Are they asking because they want to know whether the person they love wants them back? If they just want to feel less alone desiring how they desire?

Why do you go on the internet? Are your habits around your digital life actually acknowledging those desires that got you online in the first place? November gives you social awareness and curiosity. I wonder what questions you will ask and to whom.

Questions for Gemini for November 2024:
What were you looking for the first time you used the internet?
When you go online now, what are you trying to do?
Do your habits around the internet acknowledge the reasons why you go online?

Cancer

Fall in love with strangers' faces this November. Have you ever noticed that the woman who works at the grocery store has the most beautiful nails and style? Have you noticed that the next door neighbor has smile lines that make you wonder what makes them laugh? Have you noticed that the neighborhood cat has the most magical bond with the person down the street?

Venus, the planet of beauty, graces your sign by opposing it from Capricorn this month. That’s a good thing for you. You get to enjoy the beauty in other people’s faces. You know what they say—beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The person who gets to enjoy a person’s beauty best is the person who gets to see them walk around and do their thing.

If you’re in the mood, maybe you’ll even develop a crush. Only if you’re in the mood. It can be nice to appreciate all of the fashions and wizened hands and funky hats around you without necessarily falling into any kind of erotic bliss. People are just beautiful. Old people are beautiful. Kids are beautiful. People your own age have their own kind of charm too.

Questions for Cancer for November 2024:
What is the most beautiful thing about a stranger’s face?
What is the most beautiful thing about a stranger’s hands?
What is the most beautiful thing about a stranger’s movements?

Leo

In certain situations, I have found that kindness is a decent form of self protection. You’ll often find that being good to people means that they will try their hardest to treat you well back. I understand that this isn’t true all of the time. But it’s true much of the time.

Being kind doesn’t mean that you agree to everything for no reason. Be firm about who you are and what you are about. But be kind when you can. Or, not. You never have to be friendly or kind. Sometimes, unfriendliness is also a form of self protection. Be fierce and be kind. Be fierce and be unfriendly. Let yourself waver but keep the smile or lose it.

The point that I’m trying to make? Self protection isn’t one thing. It’s many things all working together.

Your body knows when you are doing a good job protecting yourself. You can sense it. You might find yourself less anxious and more easeful. When you feel confident in how you are standing up for yourself, you’ll notice that you just feel more relaxed even when you have to do something stressful like say no to your boss or ask a friend to hear you out.

Mars enters your sign this month. Mars gives you drive and makes your anger more clear. This transit is about self protection. Add to your self protection toolbox. Fighting back works sometimes. Removing yourself from the situation works too. Being unfriendly can be self protective and, sometimes, a bit of your innate charm and good old friendliness also does the trick. A sarcastic joke and a cheeky grin can be its own form of protection.

Questions for Leo for November 2024:
When does friendliness make you more confident about standing up for yourself?
When does unfriendliness make you more confident about standing up for yourself?
What stood out in your answers to the two questions above?

Virgo

In November, I want you to get uncomfortable with your idea of comfort.

We all have delusions. We have delusions about what our friends need from us. We have delusions about foreign people versus local people. We have delusions about what the state can do for us and where we are. We have delusions about where we came from.

In November, you have the opportunity to confront some of your own delusions. I’m a bit jealous, I have to admit. I’ve been trying to confront my own but it’s very hard to because only a real reckoning with reality can make us realize when we assume. In particular, I think that you will run into the opportunity to unsettle some of your fantasies about where you are from and what you need to feel at home. I invite you to use this opportunity to rethink your conception of comfort.

Comfort is weird. People use the word in all kinds of ways. Some people use it when they really mean complacency. Intellectual comfort. Some people use it to refer to wealth. Privilege and comfort. Some people use it to refer to citizenship or being at home. Some people use the word comfort when they really mean love. Most of us want to feel at least somewhat comfortable with ourselves.

Questions for Virgo for November 2024:
Do you ever use the word comfort?
Do you ever hear other people use the word comfort?
How do you use the word and what do you think it means when you hear it being said?

Libra

November is about revitalizing your bones. I’m talking about your actual bones. Make some bone broth. Drink it. Get out the pressure cooker if you have one. Find a nice old chicken from Chinatown if you eat meat or a good mix of fragrant herbs and vegetables if you don’t.

Since your last birthday, your ruling planet has actually been moving through some tough waters. You have been challenging yourself to experiment in your relationships, finding some hard truths with other people, and assessing the true value of your commitment. In November, Venus moves into a sign where it can relax for the first time since fall.

Take it easy. Rest a bit. Let your whole body relax not just by laying down but by taking in good nutrition. Eat well and eat a good amount. Make honeyed teas and enjoy some soothing fats. Massage yourself or ask for one from a lover. Ask them to touch you bone deep, to touch you in a way that you can feel in your bones. You know what I mean.

November is for pleasure. Have a good time with good people. Enjoy yourself.

Questions for Libra for November 2024:
What helps you have a good time with other people?
What helps you have a good time when you’re by yourself?
Did anything surprise you about your responses to the two questions above?