May Horoscopes: Spells for Love and Money
Tap into your soul’s alchemy.
When you were a child, you could imagine the most fantastical scenes. The underside of a blanket became a spaceship, the basement was a lounge for specters, and you were convinced that your grandmas possessed powers. Children are more embodied and intuitive than adults, which is why they’re sort of like dogs when it comes to sensing character. They cast spells on us. That must have something to do with why adults are so enchanted and frightened by them.
As children, we believed in the energy within and around us. We gave that energy faces, personas, and names, even built homes and worlds for it. We wanted to be lions and mermaids when we grew up. May is when we remember those visions and let them spill out. When we cast spells as adults, the gifts we had as children collide with our gained wisdom.
May is for magic. Occult energies are heightened. We are not working against our psychic powers right now. Rather, we are calling them forth to fully sustain and express our creativity and inventiveness. This month’s horoscopes are written in spells to help you fill in the gaps and find your meanings.
May is the first month this year to be heavily aspected with planetary sesquiquadrates. A sesquiquadrate is a 135 degree angle between celestial bodies. This is the number of degrees an owl can turn its head in either direction. Occultist Abella Arthur adds, “it can almost see behind itself. So in nature, the angle itself provides a solution.” There is an abnormality about the sesquiquadrate energy, one that brings forth unconventional wisdom and perceived threats. If you’re in a secret society, this will be prime time to hold meetings. Collectively, it’s a time we must use our strange alchemy for good lest we desire to destroy others at a dark, personal expense.
Aries
Release your heart’s hunches
Supplies: Two soft spheres molded for the palm (i.e. tennis or stress balls), two long pins or sewing needles, one wide-set candle
Spell: The heart lives in a rib-cage fused to a columnar battery pack of nerves. A candle’s wick is like a follicle of skin atop a waxen apple core, woolen and electric. Before you light the candle, think of three moments your intuition served you well in the day. Light the candle. After five minutes, when the center has softened or liquefied, insert the pins around or inside the wax pool, with the apices facing out to form a “V.” The human back broadens and tapers, and so does the heart. Blow the flame out. When the wax hardens, gently readjust the pins to hear the snowy cracks that form around it. Take your soft spheres and place them on the tender points of your lower back, then in the downward sloping creases of your hips. Use a book or a wall to place pressure between your body and the stress balls until you can feel a productive sensation, then stop. Take the pins out of the dried candle. Your work is to learn your sacred anatomy and perform magic to fuel and release the power that resides within it.
Taurus
Use music to will platinum prosperity
Supplies: Three instrumental melodies you love, a heavy blanket, an acoustic bowl (one who’s clank or voice you like the most), a silver spoon, and nine silver coins. If you are to borrow items, ask only friends or family members within one degree of separation.
Spell: Place the spoon in the bowl, gather your items, and carry them with you to a secluded spot. Ground yourself by draping the blanket around your shoulders or padding it underneath your knees or sit-bones. Pull up one of your favorite melodies on your phone or laptop and begin to play it. Take the spoon around the bowl’s circumference nine times. Then, use the spoon to begin tracing invisible hills, like there are two, perfectly scalloped scoops of ice cream in there. Do this until you chortle or snort, then drop the coins into the bowl and listen to them chime and settle. Close your eyes and lean into the wall or lay down, listening to your melody until it stops. Send your trust out with your exhales and take it in with deep inhales. You already have everything you need. Friends, feasts, and financial acquisitions will soon adorn your life’s fort. Repeat this spell for the following two days, using a different melody each time.
Gemini
Read people by becoming them
Supplies: A favorite trinket sizable for a pocket, a water bottle.
Spell: Carry your trinket with you wherever you go and try to wear as much pocketed clothing as possible. Take the pulse of every social gathering by deciding who most attracts you. Set your gaze on them until they sense it, then measure the fluid in their eyes against the minisci in their irides. Attach yourself to the person with the highest fluid volume and begin mirroring their actions. You will find that you are leading each other. There is dominance in collaboration. When your chest and face begins to tingle or feel warm, you are doing your job right. Ground yourself by taking sips of water and giving a light touch to your trinket. It is there so you do not forget who you are. Relax your lids when you hold a gaze. This will help calm your interactions. When you feel your will is weak or your aura unimportant, gaze at your trinket and take one gulp of water. Ensure that you are meeting your fluid intake needs, else you will misjudge who most electrifies you in a crowd.
Cancer
Puzzle-play with your life
Supplies: Lego packs, musical instruments, game boards, or kitchen sets. A notebook and a writing utensil. An orange peel and some dirty dishes.
Spell: Decorator crabs are skilled at using proximal objects to build beautiful, protective shells. You will be doing something similar this month. Your spell is a scientific one. Choose a possession whose function depends on its assemblage or organization. Carve out five minutes every day to put it together. As you do this, say “I am confident, capable and creative.” Building yourself up while building something else focuses you on processing a task instead of the anxiety of an end-goal. Tactile learning cements this kind of personal esteem. At the end of the five minutes, draw a labeled sketch of your creation. Sign and date it. At the end of the month, start from your first entry and marvel at the progress of your brain’s higher functioning. Put whatever you built on display and energize it with scent. Put a sliver of an orange peel in a regular dishwashing cycle; mind that you are playing tetris again, here. By building and rearranging, you are righteously clearing your space.
Leo
Make a house of mirrors
Supplies: reflective beads, pocket mirrors, portable wall mirrors, miniature mirror tiles
Spell: If you’ve ever worn an achkan or lengha tiled with little mirrors, this is the time to take it out of the trunk and remember how much it empowered you. When you wore it, the mirrors helped you outnumber the people in a packed room. Your spell is made to multiply yourself. If you have mirrors around your house in different places, take a few of them down and line them together so you can watch yourself like a film reel. Show your friends what you have made and at the very least, try to post it on Snapchat. Your life is powered by screens right now. This is a safe time to build a public shrine. Keep at least one small mirror with you at all times and look in it once a day. Choose three affirmations having to do with beauty and strength, and say them to yourself whenever you face a mirror. When you wear, buy or make jewelry, ensure that it is reflective in some way. For many Leos, seeing and preening themselves is what Spring is all about. A Leo’s vanity can be a very special gift.
Virgo
Bring fortune into the frame of your built life
Supplies: Seven freshly fallen petals, a moon-shaped rock, a matchstick, and one destitute, empty container accoutered with residue (like the pit of a deodorant stick). Over the course of two weeks, gather these items as you pass them. Keep them in a sacred compartment until all are duly gathered. Tell yourself why you are doing this but do not speak of it to anyone else.
Spell: Fill the container with tap water, place the rock in, and set it on the top of your washing machine. During the seven quietest moments of the day, cast one petal into the foggy, mineralized water. This is your tiny foreign exchange. With each casting, utter a desired dollar amount out loud, increasing the sum by a fixed interval each time. If it is love you desire more, utter a favorite trait about yourself with each casting. At the last casting, light the matchstick close enough to the container so you can briefly catch its glimmer in the shadow of the moon-rock and hear its fun-sized crackle like a pop-rock sun. Put out the flame and turn on your washing machine. Stand in that buzzing, cuboidal field for one full minute. Dismantle the set-up when the petals smell sweet. You have just simulated an earthquake and a season.
Libra
Map your psyche in a dollhouse
Supplies: a cardboard box, some magazine cutouts, extra coins, and small household items
Spell: Use the cardboard box to make a house with rooms. It does not have to be pretty or architectural, only useful. If you have a free lid, you can use it for the baseboard and the walls. Compartmentalize it with cutouts from a separate piece. Use the magazine or paper scraps to cover the cardboard with patterns or words that tickle you. But place them purposefully. Why is the paisley in the kitchen, why are the surf waves in the bedroom, why is there a talking mouth as a bathroom mat? Complete the house by May 15th, and for the rest of the year, start to store your things in it. Do this with intent. If you wish for more prosperity in your workplace, carve out a study and place some coins in it until you see your wish manifest. If your personal life feels heavy, acknowledge that and place a bottle cap or stone in the miniature bedroom. Your work is to ground your ideas into real inventions. A dollhouse is a 3-D mindmap that can help you navigate and resolve your life’s deepest desires and problems.
Scorpio
Become acquainted with fleshy food objects
Supplies: pepperoncinis, Chinese dumplings, a pillow and someone’s chubby cheek
Spell: This spell is for your stinger. Perform it over a seven-day week. On the first day, bite into a pepperoncini or stick a fork through it. This is a pungent, liquid snack sealed by a shell. On the second day, pierce the dumpling. Unlike the pepperoncini, the dumpling has a soft covering. When you wake up on the third day, look at the dent of your pillow. You cannot control the weight of your head. On the fourth day, practice restraint. Rest your gaze on the full cheeks of a loved one and picture the pepperoncini, the dumpling, and the pillow. Say to yourself, “a human is not a target.” Next time you go in for a lick or a bite, a nicety or warning will better ease you into getting what you want out of an interaction. On the fifth day, retract your stinger for 24 hours. By the sixth day, you will find that you need to keep exceptionally cool. Ice water can help with that. On the morning of the seventh day, you will find that the dent on your pillow is still deep, but not as troubling.
Sagittarius
Make patience your virtue
Supplies: A large bowl filled with water, three floating candles, and wishing coins. For patience in love, use crimson candles. For patience in finances, use gold candles. Use a quiet, private area to set up your wishing well. This is not a performance. It is a ritual.
Spell: Light the candles and push them over the surface of the water. Make a patience affirmation for each one. Say, “I am a tolerant person,” “I am forgiving,” and “I am gentle with my efforts.” On days you find your patience being tested, make a resolution wish and toss a coin into the bowl. Fire and water move stagnant energy. The more times you repeat this spell over the course of the month, the more you will receive small gifts in your daily interactions. This spell is to make you capable of being with instead of being for. If authenticity was a DNA helix, patience and presence would be the nucleotides, the guanine and thymine holding each strand. Take some time to fortify your life’s creations with some lessons in patience. This is a quiet exercise that will keep being demanded of you, Sagittarius.
Capricorn
Add hours to your day
Supplies: A clock, play dough or clay, and a rolling pin. Use blue clay for intellectual pursuits, purple for love pursuits, and green for money pursuits.
Spell: Enchant your most visible or used timepieces on the days you are most strapped for time. Chant the following: Help me use my precious time through night and day and work and play, to make space in every second and the most of every minute. On a Saturday, stretch your time out like putty by molding a clay ball, flattening it, and rolling it into a wide circle. As you do this, say, “I am resourceful” and “I am inventive.” Each week, you must charge yourself in this way. Enchantments are to be used by the deliberate and assertive. Casting a magic circle with pliant material like dough is a ritual for resiliency. Managing, extending, and creating time is a creative, concentrated endeavor that is not for the weak-willed. You are strapped this month, Capricorn. The only way to get a stain out of a rug is to do the work. Cast this spell to envelop yourself in the light it takes to keep trouncing forward when expectations are high and deadlines are tight.
Aquarius
Name your shame
Supplies: animal toys and your favorite essential oil
Spell: Pinpoint a dark, cobwebby secret and prepare to untangle and heal it. May is your exorcism but no one will know it but you. Match an animal to your source of shame. It might be a tiger, a flamingo, a reptile, or a hippo. Find a small toy resembling your animal and place it on a ledge that your eyes pass over once in a while. Whenever you find your eyes grazing over that spot, give a moment of grace to the animal and what it represents. The next time you see that animal at the zoo, on television, or somewhere in your real life, you will know that it is a gentle offering of forgiveness. To clear the shame, use a dab of essential oil on the parts of your body that feel the shame the most. This means a check-in and a conversation with yourself about how you’ve really been doing all these years. This is not an interrogation. It is an opportunity to relieve some emotional weight. Healing speaks softly. Try to make this spell restful and perform it when you have the luxury of time. You have been carrying a lot.
Pisces
Suspend your lethargy
Supplies: mint tea
Spell: Every morning, have one glass of mint tea to wake your senses. Then, do at least one stretch that feels good on your body. Pick up five things that need to be put away, cleaned, or thrown away. The state of your surroundings affects your mental health. This is why every time you wash a dish this month, you must wash it as if it is the most important task of the moment. Pay extra mind if they are circular in shape. Being mindful throughout domestic tasks will ground you in a reality that, to your surprise, you may find comforting. Pisces, you are learning about accountability. Throughout May, this is how you will clear your emotional fogginess. The mint will help invigorate and energize you. If you can’t drink it, take a good whiff of it and keep it in your pocket throughout your days. Your spell may be mundane but that is because magic lives in our lives until it is ready to be used. Your work is to create a stability within yourself that you can always call from.
