If you have no sense of proper nationalism, then at least wear a mask.

The root of “translate” is “treason.” A friend of mine once told me a daydream that they had, about what would happen if all of the trans people from different cultures and countries met one another, if all of the anti-nationalistic people met one another. Trans is innately a state of treason because nationalism is founded on gender formalism. As Paul Virilio writes, “the original war-machine was a man and a woman.” I think that my friend’s daydream is an anti-utopia that never becomes a dystopia.

The Roman word versipellis means turnskin. Originally, turnskins were werewolves—animals wearing human skin. A turncoat is someone who leaves one group to join its enemy. A skinwalker is something that emerges from the forest and wears human skin, pretending to be human with such practiced expertise that they’re able to take their places for the rest of their lives.

The opposition between Cancer and Capricorn, trining and sextiling that Venus in Pisces, is about the strategy of appearances. The turnskin is the origin of the metaphor because, in an animated world, human beings take the places of animals, bushels of wheat, and the sun and moon all of the time.

Identity is about treason. Take the case of the Olympic games: when Tommie Smith and John Carloes raised their fists in silent protest in 1968, the Olympics committee deemed the gesture too political and expelled them from the games. This was the same Olympics committee that okayed the Nazi salute because, whatever the meaning, it was considered a symbol of nationalism. The lesson in all of this: only some political gestures are considered nationalistic. Some people inherently anti-nationalistic.

Trans people are inherently anti-nationalistic. This includes: trans-gender, trans-atlantic, trans-pacific, trans-itional, trans-ferred people. But be careful here. Transcendentalism is not universalism.

January is about using your appearance to betray your cause. The root of glamor is a type of magic or enchantment. Treason fails when there is no magic in it. If you have no sense of proper nationalism, then at least wear a mask.

Questions to consider in January:

What is ethical treason?
When do you allow your environment to absorb your character and when do you make your character dictate your environment?
Where is your backstage?

Aries

You’re going to have to step up to the plate and play a role that wasn’t written for you. It’s a little gauche, isn’t it? The way that western culture thinks that fathers remain fathers and that children stay eternal and inherent rebels? You know that, sometimes, children are little authoritarians and that fathers are little children.

You’re going to have to play a role that makes you feel inappropriate. You’re going to do this because you can hardly stay in your place, can you? Now that you know the only person who is telling you to stay in your place has been you all along, can you really be this person who you never thought that you’d be?

Taurus

If anyone is trying to sink you out of jealousy, spite, or bigotry, just play dumb about it. Pretend that you authentically believe that they’re going to back you 100%. Pretend that your enemies have hearts that crave your success as much as you do. Very few people will find it in themselves to break your expectation of them if it’s easier to fill them, especially if you make those expectations easier to fill than they are to break. Play dumb and, if they want to make things harder for both of you, at least make them do the work.

When you play dumb, you leave so much more room in your brain for everything that you want to sing about. Focus on your melody. You can’t do two things at once.

Gemini

You’re on your own until you’re actually alone. Then, suddenly you split into two. If your movements give you a sense of alienation, then put on a pair of headphones and choose different a soundtrack to what’s available. You will always have what’s in your pockets to keep you company. What around you do you want to pick up and keep?

Visualize a goal and strategize how to achieve it. Then, psychoanalyze it. Within your plan is clear insight into your own values. You need to trust yourself to not do things that you won’t let yourself do. When you understand your own strategy, then you can finally move.

Cancer

You are already a visionary. Why do you feel like you have to take a bunch of old, dead, white men’s words, piece them together, and debate them when you have already won just by surviving? Do what they did—make shit up. Philosophy belongs to anyone who has the gall to make shit up and expect everyone else to just believe them about it. That’s why this discipline is full of white dudes. No one believes people like you and me.

But whatever. Say something that you’re unsure of, as long as it sends your along the right wormhole. Write complicated things that you’re not sure about. Figure out how to justify arguments that you don’t even know how to explain. I promise that this will take you something less boring than where you are now.

Leo

How can anyone love you if you hide what you want from them and what you want to offer them? Or rather, how can you ever feel loved? Because loving you is easy. You make people feel wanted. But how intense do you need to be wanted?

It’s okay if none of the ways you know love are culturally coherent to the people around you. From our families, we learn that love is about control, freedom, power, submission, about pride and about humility. The ways you know love are not the ways that your lovers know love. So it’s time to commit some treason.

Virgo

Is it that important for you to express your feelings to someone you love right this moment? Popular romantic culture will have us all treating every relationship like a confessional. That’s not the point. Treating every relationship like an exorcism leaves you feeling alone and drained at the end of the day.

Romanticism is not a religion. Play your own priest. Keep your secrets secret, at least for now. Watch how they grow when you do. Don’t tell your crushes shit and don’t tell your friends either. Those feelings will change and, as they do, you will remain your own judge.

Libra

That chip on your shoulders isn’t getting any lighter. Why don’t you eat it? Think about all the things that might have caused you pain in your past, how you’re shouldered people’s burdens, used a little wit and spun things on their heads, before turning it into something that you can actually absorb. You cook pain. You make it into something delicious and eat it for dinner.

All you should be doing this month is feeling a sense of accomplishment for the things that you have gone through. Not done—gone through. Your responses are just responses. Your survival is what’s most important.

Scorpio

Why do you starve yourself? Of valuable nutrients, love, and satisfaction? You should be looking for satisfaction in every way that you can. You should be an absolute glutton for it. You should be willing to let yourself crave something so bad that getting it makes you whimper a little bit.

And nothing will feel satisfying unless it takes a tremendous amount of effort. I’m talking about setting goals that you didn’t think could ever exist and meeting them for the first time, holding onto a flame for someone for years before you let yourself kiss them, and knowing yourself very, very well before have one, perfect anxiety free day. I’m not talking about fast takeout, online shopping, or getting a text back from a crush that will fade in a week.

Sagittarius

Find one thing that you can do to guarantee a sense of stability to yourself and your friends. Do that thing over and over and over again. Stop fucking around, Sagittarius. You’re meant to be doing great things here and there is no way you’re going to be able to do that until you convince yourself of your own power.

Denying your own power look like this: thinking that you can’t control yourself or your surroundings so you dissolve into a pile of old clothes and goo at the first site of a task. Owning your own power looks like: proving to yourself that you have self control from the small things first so that you can learn how to control the big ones too.

Capricorn

Research should be done while camping with friends, data service too slow to google anything, and telling stories that make your bones chill. Research should be done while talking to old punks when its raining and you don’t feel like rushing to the train just yet. Research should be done at your grandma’s house while you ask her questions she’s never considered about the 1940s.

Research should not be done reading the exact same five academics that everyone always fucking cites in their essays when they’re trying to sound more institutionally accepted than they actually are.

Aquarius

How can anyone know you if you hide what you have and what you need from them? How can you feel known? People know what you have and what you need already, just based on your behavior. But they don’t necessarily care unless they care about you. Will you make your existence into an issuing worth surviving for?

You don’t have to assimilate. You can just be if you conjure up the courage for some honesty. Existence is not easy. If you feel misunderstood, then you know you’re on the right track. Confusion is the first step of learning something.

Pisces

Deceit is not masochism that you must endure before you can finally earn love. If someone makes you feel like you have to pretend to be a static version of yourself in order to maintain their love then you’re going to be the one who falls apart. You have the gift of knowing exactly what another person’s fantasy version of you looks like and your existential crisis comes from not knowing whether to let them indulge in it.

Stop erasing your own ego. Find the will to be proud in ways that would embarrass your younger self. Behave boastfully and lovingly. Embody pop astrology’s version of what Leos act like. Do this even if it doesn’t feel quite true to being you just yet.