What does time even mean anymore? Living through lockdown, many of us have felt our days slow down and blur together, even as the world outside sees dramatic changes. And we’ve all become obsessed with time: how much longer do I have to stay home, or go to work in unsafe conditions? How long does recovery take after infection? How long until there is a reliable antibody test, or a vaccine? Some people ask, “How long until we go back to normal?” while others raise the alarm that the old normal was killing them. As I write this, people are risking their lives on the streets right now, protesting the normalcy of police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. How long until the US stops murdering Black people?

This month brings a sense of restlessness and urgency, even as we are exhausted. There are two retrogrades this month — Venus will still be retrograde until the 25th and not out of the retrograde shadow until next month, while Mercury stations retrograde on the 18th. So we are still working with the need to be slow, to retrace our steps, to review and reassess. But also the world is on fire. As it has been, many times, but never in the particular way it is right now. And paying attention to what is unique in this moment is part of what we’re here to do this month. Gemini season is always a time for waking up, paying attention, and questioning our assumptions. But this month also brings us two eclipses, and the first lunar eclipse in Sagittarius since 2013.

In July of 2018, the eclipses moved into Cancer and Capricorn, and the wake up call we’ve experienced since then centers on the tension between vulnerability and responsibility. When do we get to ask for care? When must we be accountable? When is rest necessary and when must we get things done? How long do we have to stay home? When will the economy recover? Can the economy recover if people aren’t recovering?

As we move toward the Gemini and Sagittarius polarity, we’re entering a time of surprises and revelations around how much we can trust and have faith (Sagittarius) and how much we must question and research (Gemini). Put simply, what do we really know? How do we know it? Can we trust our intuition, or do we need facts? When are facts more useful? When is intuition more healing? Gemini is a sign full of inquisitive mental energy, and wants accuracy. Gemini wants to know all the details, and will poke at easy answers and unquestioned assumptions. An eclipse in Gemini re-awakens our sense of wonder and curiosity. Sagittarius, on the other hand, teaches us optimism. Sagittarius is what helps us trust our gut sense of what’s right (for us), and how to get where we’re going. There’s a heart-centered enthusiasm about Sagittarius that can be either expanded or burst by an eclipse in the sign. For both signs, joy is a teacher.

So, the world is on fire, many of us still feel sluggish and exhausted, many of us are scared to go out and risk contagion, or forced to go out and risk contagion, and what’s coming up for us astrologically is both restlessness and surprising moments of faith, joy, and wonder. How do we fit all these experiences into this very slow and very fast time we’re living through? How do we find meaning as we are jolted into different perspectives? How do we let our restlessness move us toward right action, without ever being able to measure the effects of our actions? Without knowing for sure what the right action is? How do we let both grief and joy inform our understanding of what comes next, of how we help shape what comes next?

There are no easy answers right now. In Gemini season, there are always more questions than answers. In eclipse season, we’re always learning what’s beneath our assumptions. In retrograde seasons, we’re always needing to deeply digest experiences and let them teach us. In this month of restless action and patience, uprising and waiting, loving and grieving, your assignment is to start moving toward what you feel is right, even if it’s a tiny step. You know best what your work is, and where your growth edges are, but if you’re moved to support protestors and healers in the current uprisings, here are some links for you: the Spiral Collective is providing healing and care for those on the front lines in Minneapolis, the Louisville Community Bail Fund helps support those facing an unjust criminal justice system, the Loveland Foundation offers financial assistance for black women and girls seeking therapy, and the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network is a healing justice organization committed to queer mental health for QTPoC. There are plenty more resources and organizations in need of your support right now if you want to do more research.

My big eclipse season news is that I’ll be moving across the country this summer! This means if you want a reading with me your next chance will be in mid-August. And my huge gratitude to everyone who’s supporting me on Patreon. If you want to join the crew, for only $2 a month you get expanded horoscopes each month, at higher tiers you get a mini-podcast and chance to win free readings. Good luck out there this month, my dears. Let your restlessness and your patience work it out together.

Aries

Break open: Let yourself dream of adventure again, even if it isn’t a reality yet. Remember who you can turn to for inspiration. Let love be a teacher, ideally with really fun lesson plans. Name on who’s behalf you’re acting when you need to act courageously.

Release: Nesting has been a necessary and probably restorative time for you, but as much as possible see where you can find open horizons and a path toward the future. Don’t take risks that will harm others, but do find some ways to open a door and breath in the whole sky.

Taurus

Break open: Where you’ve been holding on to the things you’re afraid to let go of. Let yourself cry, rage, laugh, or confess your undying love. Reconnect with the erotic in new ways. Be fully present in intimacy, even if you’re crying and laughing and raging as you do it.

Release: Talking yourself out of what you know is true. Looking for advice to tell you what you want to hear. Asking the perspective of someone you don’t trust. Staying on the surface when it’s time to dive deep.

Gemini

Break open: Allow for new insights into what it means to choose someone. Let yourself choose differently. Let yourself be chosen. Get curious about commitments and how they can be both stable and flexible. What does it mean to be in it for the long haul?

Release: Crushing self-doubt. Not knowing where you stand. Feeling like it’s fine to keep floating by when you want to be establishing something. Not believing you deserve better.

Cancer

Break open: Faith that the work is worth it. A long view vision of what needs to change, with a here-and-now focus on the step-by-step. Ways to balance care so that is truly feels mutual, like that point where you can lean against someone exactly as much as they lean against you and suddenly gravity isn’t winning anymore.

Release: Worries about who you are becoming. Fear-based strategies that isolate you or push you to demand all the attention and care. A sense of yourself as too much, too separate, too left out. Whatever is stopping you from reaching out for connection.

Leo

Break open: Letting your luscious, flirtatious self be more deeply real — not needing to fake it at all. Flagging joy as a tool for liberation. Moving back toward connection with creative, playful ways of staying safe. Singing us all back to life and love.

Release: Getting lost in fantasies that don’t help you find your way forward. Staying attached to something that’s already changing. Needing to know what will happen next. Holding on to any secrets that are causing harm.

Virgo

Break open: What it means to call someone family and then act on it. How your protective instincts are doing, and what you really need to feel safe. What vulnerability teaches you. How retreat heals you. Not coming out of your nest yet if you don’t feel like it.

Release: Criticizing yourself for failing to fix the world’s problems. Feeling that you can never do enough. Letting that feeling stop you from doing anything. Giving up on your ideals.

Libra

Break open: A kaleidoscope of new perspectives. Conversations with people you’re finally learning how to listen to. Listening to the undercurrents and not just the surface level. Letting the familiar be deeply strange. Challenging assumptions and beliefs that are keeping you small.

Release: Needing to make everyone happy. Needing to be seen being good. Feeling you need to be the expert, the authority, the teacher. Internalizing your capacity to work as your sense of worth.

Scorpio

Break open: What it means to have enough, do enough, and be enough. Understanding what you can hold onto when it seems like everything is changing. Knowing that your roots can sink deep. Sharing with partners and friends without fear of scarcity.

Release: Clinging to a story about how it was supposed to be. Wanting to level up when you need to just survive for awhile. Restlessness that drains your battery instead of recharging it.

Sagittarius

Break open: Who you think you are. What limits you thought you had. Where you thought you were limitless. What impact you have on the world around you. What stories have defined you, and what new stories are possible?

Release: All the places pain has gotten stuck and trapped. Old grief. Attachment to the worst-case scenario mindset. Bleeding out instead of tending to your wounds.

Capricorn

Break open: All the mysterious ways that love can flow through you and restore you, without you needing to understand it. Surrendering to being a part of something bigger than yourself. Letting desire ebb and flow. Transforming your relationship to rest, napping, and doing nothing.

Release: Focus on your partner’s needs as more important than your own. Understanding yourself through what you can give someone. Working harder than anyone else on your team.

Aquarius

Break open: What does it mean to act on your ideals? What does it mean to let love bring you back into action even when you’re disappointed or exhausted? How does social change happen on a personal scale? Where do you have the most energy for others right now? Where do you have the least?

Release: Perfectionism. Needing to be the one who has the answers. Knowing what everyone else should be doing. Topping from the bottom.

Pisces

Break open: Confront your fear of being seen. Let popularity and status melt into the background. Stop tracking who’s paying attention to you and start doing what needs to be done. Let love bring you forward. Remember that your best self emerges when you stop needing to be the best.

Release: Self-consciousness that blocks you from sharing what’s true. Getting too lost in games or trivial details when you have something important to do (important to you, not to your partners or bosses). Loneliness that isn’t the whole story (who is waiting for your phone call right now?).