The Real Folk Horoscope

By Cody Lyman
Reader Columnist

Leo

As you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, see if you can’t remember the thing you wished for the very first time you ever remember performing this ritual. It may apply to how you got where you are, and where it is you could be going.

Virgo

Think of the first person ever to make a tool to fix something to eat. It could have been made from stone or bone or practically anything. I see you making a tool, the same but different, that can be used to help nourish you for the coming months.

Libra

If you keep shoving the anger down, down, down deep enough, maybe the devil will choke on it.

Scorpio

Scorpions are really rather curious little creatures. Think about it: They are essentially poisonous land crabs. Get it? Got it? Good.

Sagittarius

Make love. Although it can get messy, it’s possibly the best medicine we have.

Capricorn

The most addictive substance in the world is water. Have you ever tried quitting water? You can’t quit that shit. The withdrawals kill you, every time. Everyone is an addict, is what I’m saying, so quit beating yourself up about your overindulgences, whatever they might be. Also, never take this column too seriously. As with Almighty Life, you must apply just enough seriousness and take your silliness most serious of all if we are to find any common ground in the abyss. 

P.S. One of the greatest drugs ever discovered (invented, maybe?) is, obviously, music. It is heavily intoxicating. Use responsibly. 

Aquarius

When Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage,” he was — and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here — maybe almost half right about the world. He was speaking for the only part of the world he could attempt to speak for; which is to say, his corner of Elizabethan western civilization. At the risk of revealing myself for the heretic that I am, I’d like to offer you  something much more substantial that a much wiser man (fellow English poet, Walter de la Mare, who was born 309 years after Shakespeare) once said: “And what is every man … but a horde of ghosts –– oaks that were acorns that were oaks.” You’d be wise to consider yourself less of an Aquarius than simply the overlapping betwixt Capricorn and Pisces, for now.

Pisces

Fishes swim in the sea while the sea in no uncertain sense is contained within the fishes. Otherwise, you’re on your own this month. So find that mother current.

Aries

Air feeds fire, fire excites air, boils water and scorches earth, renewing it. There is, simultaneously, a tendency for fire to engulf other fires — even like-minded fires, in the case of fire signs that try to burn each other, that is. Keep in mind: fires only burn one another as far as they burn themselves. They only combine. They make a complex. Should the flames grow out of control, as they so often do, they can and will reduce to ash everything around them that’s flammable. Listening with my third ear, I hear you wanting to know: What am I supposed to make of this? I am also reminded of Smokey The Bear.

Taurus

Being a big tipper won’t make up for constantly giving people the shaft. No innuendo intended there. This month’s mantra: What you reflect on, reflects on you.

Gemini

It’s OK to be different things to different people, by the way. That just makes you a shape-shifter, is all. 

Cancer

Staying true to your roots means keeping the family farm in the family, depending on who raised you.

Cody Lyman was chemically engineered in a lab with orange walls to bring frustration and/or good fortune within your reach. Which will it be? It’s anybody’s guess. Check back next month for another peek into the void.