You know that one picture of The Loch Ness Monster where it’s just an out-of-focus black-and-white head sticking up out of the water? And maybe it’s a plesiosaur, or maybe it’s a duck at a weird angle, or just somebody’s hand sticking up out of a bathtub? Well, I just got my drivers license renewed and, for some reason, they used that picture. Do you think I should let them know or do you think they did it on purpose? But it lets me know that I’ve got a very specific idea of who I am and when somebody reflects that back to me as a very different picture, it’s pretty disorienting. If you feel like you’re being misunderstood, Aries, or presented as more mysterious than you were trying to be, take another run at explaining yourself. Worst case scenario, you might learn something about how you think of you.
TAURUS
First we mix the ingredients. Flour, water, salt, yeast. Then we knead the dough. Just enough. Never too much. Next we’ll let the dough rise. It takes patience, Taurus, but you’ve got plenty of that. Now we’ll bake the loaf. Trust the process, but keep an eye on it. Then we’ll let it cool. Saw off a thick slice And finally we’re ready to…wait, Taurus, what are you doing? No, we’re done you can just…oh, I get it. One more step to make this perfect. It’s got to go in the toaster. Get it a little crispy. Just a bit brown. Add some butter and, oh, this was a great idea, Taurus! Don’t let anybody else tell you when the project is finished, Taurus. You know if it needs one more thing. And the last step is delicious.
GEMINI
The fashion industry hasn’t contacted me for a check-in for quite a while. They used to seem concerned that I was wearing the same t-shirts from 4 years ago and my jeans are getting holes in all the wrong places. But I’m afraid they’ve given up on me, Gemini. All the designers in New York and Milan have decided I’m just not worth the effort. Fair enough, I suppose. I haven’t really given them any clues as to how they could help me. You, on the other hand, Gemini, have been a paragon of style lately. I appreciate how effortlessly yourself you are every time you leave the house. I hope you’ll remember to be just as authentic when you tell us what you need.
CANCER
Are you familiar with “Exquisite Corpse,” Cancer? As I learned it, Exquisite Corpse is a writing game where one person writes down a word — for instance “The” and then hands the paper to the next person who writes the next word, perhaps “dog.” They pass the paper from person to person and try to make a story one word at a time. Each participant can read what’s been written before, but nobody gets to know where the story is going until they’ve arrived. Will it be “The dog chased after the ball?” Or “The dog gave a speech to the galactic council?” The only way to find out is to pick the next word. Collaborating has its challenges, Cancer, but it can often produce creative results. This week, try trusting your team to build the story. You might be pleasantly asparagus.
LEO
Honestly, I was as shocked as anyone to learn that my recent rise to “grassroots” fame was actually a psyop from amateur-astrology promotion-conglomerates that had been forcing my horoscopes into the social media feeds of unsuspecting Leos who would, naturally, believe they were receiving unsolicited guidance from the universe. Oh, hang on, I’m actually now being told I haven’t had a recent rise to fame and that what I’m describing is a psyop from my own imagination pretending that I’m receiving backlash to something that never happened. It’s hard to know where your own ideas come from these days, Leo. Be sure to keep some people around who you can trust.
VIRGO
Sometimes when I’m sitting on the edge of the bed scrolling on my phone with my brain turned off but I know I need to get up and put the laundry in the dryer I can feel the fight between my craving to not feel pain in the present moment and my knowledge that not having dry clothes to wear will cause me pain in the future. And sometimes in the fraction of a second that it takes for my thumb to slide up to the next piece of distracting, detaching, input, I realize that I have got to be feeling my life. That’s the only thing I’m really in control of, whether I notice my own life as I’m living it. And then I usually realize I can just bring my phone with me to the washing machine and keep scrolling while I put the wet clothes in the dryer. Whew! Whether it’s the wash cycle, or the rinse cycle, or the cycle of denying our own existence and agency, we’ve got to be breaking out of these cycles wherever we can, Virgo. I’ll try if you’ll try.
LIBRA
We’ve all been there, Libra. A horizontal battle on a two-dimensional playing field. Digital player vs. digital player. You’ve chosen your fighter, a mysterious, masked, and perhaps racially-stereotyped expert of a non-existent martial art. You’ve learned the basic combos. And you’ve got your opponent right where you want them. It’s time for your trademark finishing move. But before you can remember the correct sequence of buttons to mash, your adversary explodes into a fury of unstoppable kicks. You can’t get away. Defeat is imminent. But there’s one thing they weren’t expecting. You bump into the console power button with your toe. The screen goes black. Tricky, but you live to fight another day. Sometimes it’s better to just walk away, Libra.
SCORPIO
My granddad was a whistler. I can still hear him piping out a loud, warbly Claire De Lune going down the echoey stairwell into the subway when he took me into the city. People would look around to see who was filling up their private ears in this public space and he’d smile with his eyes and keep whistling. If he had a song in his head, he wanted to get it into yours. It reminds me, Scorpio, that you don’t have to wait for somebody to ask you what you think before you say it. Even if you fill up the whole hall with your inside-thoughts and they echo back to you a little out of tune, we’ll be glad to hear them and to know you better.
SAGITTARIUS
In the 300,000 years since humanity emerged as a species, almost none of us have had to mow the lawn. That’s all pretty new. Even 100 years ago a home surrounded by land that was cultivated but not used to grow food was something only the very wealthy could afford. But we’re great at inventing unnecessary ways to use resources and expend energy and so the lawn was born. I wonder, Sagittarius, if there’s anything that’s taking up a lot of space in your life that could be approached a different way. Maybe all that time and space you spend mowing could be feeding you instead?
CAPRICORN
I’ve been trying to get less attached to the idea that I am separate from the rest of reality. I look at my cat laying in the sunbeam on the back of the futon and I don’t think she’s thinking about herself. I think she’s having a pure experience of sun and fur and purr and futon. That she’s in the universe and she is the universe. While I’m frantically looking for my keys because I’m “late” to “work.” I doubt that I’ll achieve this ego death before I clock in for my 9 p.m. night shift at 9:07, (So sorry to make you wait, Gina! Have a safe drive home.) but I think I can only go up from here, I guess. As for you, Capricorn, I’ll only suggest that you spend a little more time today noticing your immediate sphere of experience and maybe less energy on proving who you are.
AQUARIUS
I had a dream that I was walking down the hallway in the house where I grew up. It was just like it was back then, but instead of arriving at the bathroom door after I passed my brother’s room, the hall just kept going. There were more doors. Closets filled with boardgames I’d never played. Bedrooms of siblings I’d never met. And about the time I was getting worried, I turned around and saw you, Aquarius. Sometimes it’s such a relief to find a friendly face on the long walk from your childhood bedroom to wherever you are now. And when you find those people, Aquarius, I think it’s good to acknowledge how important they are. And also see if they know a shorter way to get to the bathroom.
PISCES
My mom has recently learned how to generate AI pictures of me in different careers and text them to me. I think they’re just subtle hints that she thinks I could do better than working the night register at the Wandering Hills Super Video and Tan. Here’s one where I’m a fireman saving a cat from a tree. Here’s one where I’m a construction foreman. I just got another one where I’m supposed to be either a doctor or a wizard, but I’m a little unclear. It just reminds me, Pisces, that you might worry you should be doing something different. That’s totally fine. It might even be worth exploring. But if you’re basing that on messages you’re getting from somewhere else, maybe turn your ringer off for a couple of days.
Mr. Mysterio is not a licensed astrologer, a trained cryptozoologist, or a certified lawn-care specialist. Want more? Visit mrmysterio.com Or just give him a call at 707-VHS-TAN1.
