Kah_Le (Old sign: Aries) What that April a fine young ram skips about your yard. Be not afeard! When a moose gives you a knuckle sandwich, make sure you bring the juice boxes. Be not afeard! Must we stay indoors all day? The harpies have migrated on, and life has more sway. Be not afeard! The light has returned and banished the shadows. The world takes a long draught cool ambrosias for her amniotes. Be not afeard! There’s a surprise waiting in the summer grass. Be not afeard! />
AhNaht (Old sign: Taurus) Return to the snotty forests of your youth! Go back as far as you dare! You recall a whispering in the hiding place. You feel safe and warm there. Traumas and tears. Skinned knees and busted bones. Do you remember the monkey pile of kindergarten? The excitement of small things and big feelings? The impatience of the water line after recess? Or have you blocked all that out? Can you imagine the ghostly amusement park of year ten? The house of mirrors? The bumper cars? The galleria of shootings? The peach fuzz and the aching limbs? What about the balmy days of your teens? Are there some things you’re not proud of? What are you proud of? Did you get away with something you are proud of? Submit! Think of a time when you acted beyond your years and see if you can do it again this month. It’s a useful trick.
Eh-Shu (Old sign: Gemini) Cool water on smooth flowstones. Gurgling edies and a stammering hollow log. It’s feeling froggy here but it looks fishy downstream. Let your drift boat drift! Let gravity do the work! Tow your lines through the green water and dream! Make note of the flora and fauna always! I can’t say that enough! Note what insects are dancing on the water, and what heavy perfumes are wafting in the wind. The osprey returns to its aerie with fish meat for her hatchlings. Now try to imagine your hometown overgrown and abandoned, reclaimed by nature. Buildings and homes give you Chernobyl chills. Now come back to the nature all around you. Have you found a fishy place yet? If not, go back to your hometown’s ghostland. You feel the spirits gliding up and down your vertebrae. Repeat this exercise until you’ve hooked your quarry.
Tah_Na (Old sign: Cancer) There is so much sky outside the forest. How do you cope without the comforting canopy arching overhead? You feel a tightness in your chest, wriggling like a beached porpoise. You are not in your element and you need orientation to the new landscape. Be flexible as a pearl diver this month; embrace living in both worlds; embrace the amphibian’s life! Use moisturizer! But there is so much sky out here on the prairie that it swallows you up in an ancient sea. Ghostly plesiosaurs glide through the ectoplasm of fossil atmospheres. A frenzy of spectral feeding clouds up the briny deep. The sun filters through the wispy shreds of flesh. You seek shelter in a forest of sargassum. There you find other refugees who could no longer tolerate the exposure of the open ocean. Rest a while but do not tarry long! Expose yourself to all that sky!
Marutuk (Old sign: Leo) Do you ever read the obituaries just to check in with the land of the dead? How many people die anonymously in ones and twos and twenties every second of the day? We have pointed out that the dead outnumber the living. It is an army the living can never hope to topple. We must declare armistice! We must make peace with the other of others at all costs! Children and the the dead are often overlooked others. Can you think of other others in your life? Take this month to honor all the others. Are there any others in you? Submit!
Kah_Noom (Old sign: Virgo) The large igneous province of ancient deep-mantle basalts towers over you and blocks the setting sun. You may remember what brought you to this wasteland but you cannot remember why you want to leave. Blues in the valley. Jaggedy rows of shadow teeth. Eating is good enough but little protein; little holes of water tide you over from way to waypoint. Here the wind sandblasts the stone, and you read the layers of time cast in frozen magma. A Rorschach of the inner earth splashed upon the crust. No ordinary wasteland. You find a hollow with windbreaker crags and set up camp for the night under the fossilized ribs of an ancient beast. There’s nothing but some brambly tumbleweeds to burn. You curse your thin skins and try to find some suitable notch among the rocks. Howling winds wake you in the night, and there’s no sleeping now. Now and then concussions sound deep underground. Little rocks run down a crag and take their place in the talus. You try to reframe living in the wasteland. Maybe you will never leave. Maybe the wasteland needs you. Maybe it’s better not to remember the other world.
Hih-Fes-Tuhs (Old sign: Libra) Do more for the union than for yourself this month! Do more than that bumper sticker or sign on your lawn! Give service! Give of your time! Show us your dedication! Talk less! Say more! Say it with your hammers and your ten penny nails. Say it with saws-alls and mortar and lath and plaster. How would you handle the prisoner’s dilemma? Would you still be loyal to the union? Would you sacrifice years of your prime to prove your loyalty? Don’t talk! Listen! Listen as much as you might this month! Limit your answers without being terse. Whatever you do, don’t talk shop!
Ter (Old sign: Scorpio) Have you examined your covenants lately? How long will you utter the Babylonian pacts? The Hittite Treaties of Suzerainty? How much genuflecting can your old knees bear? Expose the secret treaties! Your enemies want to divide you, carve you up and throw your remains to the buzzards. They want to hurl missiles at your walls and burn your libraries! The queen is defenestrated! From bower to basement the hysterical palace is cagey like the pard! You cannot tell if you’re at a party or war. Yelling and commotion; laughter and wailing: was that a good scream or a bad scream? If you can just figure out where you are at, you should survive the ordeal for better or worse. Examine your covenants! Be dauntless! Be bold!
Shang_Te (Old sign: Sagitarius) Assyrians used art to depict the gory punishments meted out to their enemies. Alexander was a student of Aristotle and believed he was living a Homeric wet dream of shivering spears. Charlemagne came from a brutal line of Franks but appreciated the power of the arts. Art gives you that delicious soft power. Henry the VIII commissioned himself to be portrayed with rippling leg muscles and the body of a barrel-chested early Superman. “The Apotheosis of Washington” reimagined the first President of the United States sitting among the clouds like Deus-Jesus-Zeus. If you are flying the flag for beauty excessively this month is there an ulterior motive? Submit!
Gih-Na-Sha (Old sign: Capricorn) I feel you have been calmer in the body, and your mind has been the beneficiary. Let your diaphragm down! You’ve been carrying a bundle there under your ribs all winter, and it is time to set it on the ground. Let someone else take your bundle if they are willing. Spaghettify the moments of your life and arrange the spaghettis in a spiral. What do you see down in the Durum? You may feel at times like a little child making macaroni sculptures, but this exercise will heal your overworked brain. Make notches in the spaghetti for all your joys and sorrows. Do you see a pattern? I do. No matter what, matter changes phase eventually. Energy charges your crystals then dissipates. Yesterday was less chaotic than today, and so it will be until the end of time. Take heart! Big events will ripen like buds and open their chaotic flower to world. Be observant of a the little happenings and allow awe into your heart and mind.
Hahp-E (Old sign: Aquarius) The wheat berries are a dream in the green shoot. Sheath upon delicate sheath. It’s not too early to sharpen your scythe! Feed the pigs oats and finish them with granola and cream! Ruminate, ruminate the grass is sweet and mellow! The barn is cozy and the hay is dry. The spiders spin silently in the sty. Speak, my piggies, before the butcher comes! Speak and save your lives or stay mute and lose your bacon. We will take you talking piggies on the road and charge admission! We will feed you buttered bread and provide the finest muck. We profit, you profit! You must speak of more than piggy things: politics and current events; fashion and horticulture. We’ll start with those topics. We mustn’t let on that our piggy isn’t cultured.
Hehk-Eht (Old sign: Pisces) Little joys, like all of the raindrops falling your way, all the helixes editing your day, fill your cup, and the vessel cannot hold this feeling. You thought it not possible because you were waiting around for one big boon. Look to the little boons and be generous with your appreciations! You can finally embrace the conclusion our life’s code may be eternal! The double helix moves ceaselessly as our silent passenger from generation to generation in an unbroken line. Fret not for life but for lives! Fret not for the Earth but for the world! Fret not the stray raindrops! />