On the Erotic Ecliptic for May 2023

Horoscopes For Your Pleasure Overview: sign-by-sign horoscopes posting today

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Dates to Note:

1^st: Pluto in Aquarius stations retrograde (1:09 pm ET), Sun in Taurus conjunct Mercury/Mercury Cazimi (7:28 pm ET)

5^th: Full Moon in Scorpio/Lunar Eclipse 14 degrees (1:34 pm ET)

7^th: Venus enters Cancer (10:25 am ET)

9^th: Sun in Taurus conjunct Uranus (3:56 pm ET)

12^th: Mercury sextile Venus (10:44 pm ET), Venus in Cancer trine Saturn (2:57 am ET) 

14^th: Mercury stations direct at 5 degrees Taurus (11:17 pm ET)

15^th: Mars in Cancer trine Neptune in Pisces (9:44 am ET)

16^th: JUPITER ENTERS TAURUS (1:20 pm ET)

17^th: Jupiter in Taurus square Pluto in Aquarius (9:11 pm ET)

19^th: New Moon in Taurus 28 degrees (11:53 am ET)

20^th: Mars enters Leo (11:31 am ET), Mars in Leo opposite Pluto in Aquarius (11:12 pm ET)

21st : Sun enters Gemini (3:09 am ET)

22^nd: Sun in Gemini sextile Mars in Leo (1:57 am ET)

23rd: Mars in Leo square Jupiter in Taurus (1:13 am ET)

24^th: Venus in Cancer square Chiron in Aries (7:39 pm ET)

26^th: Venus in Cancer sextile Uranus in Taurus (3:37 am ET)

27^th: Sun in Gemini square Saturn in Pisces (6:46 am ET)

May arrives with a frenzy of fixity, grinding our gears to a halt, then jerking us back and forth wildly through a Pluto station and a Lunar Eclipse, all during  Mercury Retrograde. Our bodies and psyches are yearning and burning for change, yet something in the universe has us on hold, secrets yet to be revealed.

Eclipse Season popped off at the final degree of Aries last month, and for a lot of us, it felt like being set on fire and shot out of a cannon – a too-fast awakening that there was no way to prepare for (even if you read this column and knew it was coming). As we enter May, that fast and furious feeling is fading, leaving us stuck in the proverbial mud, but with other people’s cannons seemingly still shooting through the skies over our heads. In other words, you may sense that people in your life are heading somewhere while you’re awkwardly tethered to a vestige of your past.

Tightly clinging to the past to feel a sense of control can push our nervous system into what polyvagal theory terms the “dorsal state” — a kind of shutdown. Between Pluto’s station on Monday and Friday’s Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio, we’re in a crucible that’s slowly churning us into new beings.

In this very karmic season, your soul knows where it still has work to do and who with. You just must tune in and ask it what it wants, trusting that life won’t pass you by. After Mercury stations direct later this month, you’ll have time to slowly, carefully catch up.

The Sun in Aries tapped our hunting instincts until late April, and now we can explore a feast of our senses. This month, more than ever, is meant for the luxury of rest and repose, preferably in a warm green meadow with a delectable picnic. I usually give similar suggestions for any given Taurus season, but right now it’s more than just annual advice – it’s a necessary prescription we all need to swallow, especially during the first few weeks of May. Sheltering from these spring storms via our connection to our senses is equally protective and pleasurable.

Karma is made for purging during the first week of May. Is your own past coming up for review? Eclipse seasons are often like this as they activate the Nodes of Fate, but here we have the triple threat of a Lunar Eclipse, Mercury Retrograde, and a Pluto station all active within the same timeframe – just the first five days of May.

Pluto is a planet of many subtexts, but one of its significations is karma. As it stations retrograde in Aquarius on the 1^st, we’re reminded that rigidly holding onto what never worked in the first place can do great harm, even if it’s the kind of harm we’re habituated to. There is a powerful Mercury Cazimi on the 1^st as well, so we can expect profound downloads from our subconscious about all the matters at hand – issues that have already been “up” for us since earlier in April. This could be the most intensely therapeutic moment of the entire year.  

Pay closer attention to your dreams, your intuition, sensations that rise up in your body, and loud transmissions from the collective – there is an important message somewhere, even if it doesn’t make perfect sense yet. (It’s likely to get clearer after Mercury goes direct at mid-month and then leaves its shadow in early June.) I urge you to make a record of this – it’s important stuff.

Metamorphosis is our mantra right now. Letting go and really changing can be especially terrifying as we approach the Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio on the 5^th, but we’re clearing karma that dates back to April 25^th, 2005, the last time Saros Cycle 141 paid us a visit. (The next time will be in May 2041.) Personally, everything keeps reminding me of 2005. Sometimes these messages seem explicity mundane, but they’re still pointing us somewhere we’re supposed to look. For instance, I just read that Pastis, where I ate approximately 54,000 brunches in the Meatpacking District that year, is opening in Miami, lots of DVF wrap dresses are showing up in my feed, and dialogue from The Diplomat circa the War on Terror is reminding me precisely what the Bush administration was up to, and how it brought us to this point.

Social Justice and Political Interlude (Skip to the next section if you’d like to avoid my leftist rantings)

Speaking of karma, I am growing more certain that the orange fascist will soon meet his own, rather than just blindly hoping for that outcome. The E. Jean Carroll trial opened last week and got deeply emotional as she recounted the horror of being raped by Trump in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the late nineties. She’ll be on the stand again on May 1^st. But the date that pops out at me is September 2005, when the Access Hollywood tape was first recorded in the NBC studios lot. That its release on the eve of the 2016 election didn’t stop a sexual predator from becoming ruler of the free world has haunted most of us for the last seven years. The next Saros cycle, 134, coming in October, speaks directly to this moment 18 years ago. Three separate investigations show us that he’s about to “go through some things.” Will he get his grand and final comeuppance? Next year, the eclipses point back to 2006, when he met my friend Stormy Daniels, who I’ve predicted since 2018 would somehow save the world. If not in the next six months, surely in 2024, the piper will be paid – at least specific to the debts he owes to women.

What gives me hope right now? The generational shift of Pluto in Aquarius started in March, and as worried as I’ve been about what that portends (sentient AI and robot police dogs and brain chips), a powerful civil rights revival moment is gaining strength. As Jupiter in Taurus squares Pluto in Aquarius on the 17^th, something about that shift could come into still starker focus. Over the last few weeks, I’ve begun to get a clear sense of what the next twenty years could look like if Pluto in Aquarius pulls us deeper into its positive potential – perhaps an awakening in the populace to what “power to the people” really means.

I believe it was Maxwell Frost, the 25-year-old congressman from Florida who recently said, “If you come for one of us, you come for all of us.” That’s it, right there – Pluto in Aquarius. The Tennessee Three and Zooey Zephyr, fierce Gen Z leaders all sanctioned by Republican state legislators for lapses in “decorum,” are showing us how to fight fascism and save democracy in real time. Fuck decorum, these young people are fighting for their lives – and all of our lives.

… Rant Complete

Love and sex gets a bit less conversational and a bit mushier as Venus enters Cancer on the 7^th, swaddling our romantic relationships in protective balm of cooing and caring, but potentially making us overly sensitive and co-dependent. This allows us to move fully into an instinct to nest with our lover, provide sustaining nourishment and nurturing, and importantly for single humans: it allows us to be there for our own bodies. This transit can make us feel more attracted to provider types, regardless of gender, and stir up MILF and DILF kinks of all sorts – and nipple play.

This syncs up beautifully with Mars in Cancer (at least through the 20^th) and even though these cosmic consorts will not meet up by exact degree this in the cloistered quarters of Cancer, they will come close together in Leo in June. All of this presages the summer’s big drama: Venus Retrograde in Leo.

The 16^th through the 23^rd brings loads of action. Jupiter enters Taurus on the 16^th, reminding us that less is never more, especially when it comes to sensuality and slowness. Taking your time and tasting every morsel of life is auspicious now. Note where you have Taurus in your chart, because that’s the arena with big potential to blow up positively over the next year. Jupiter squares Pluto the very next day, bringing a sense of urgency. The New Moon in Taurus (our first non-eclipse lunation since early April) offers fresh growth for the Taurus-ruled part of our chart. Do your seed-sprinkling now and think ahead through the next six months.

Hot-to-trot Mars enters Leo on the 20^th, spicing up our sex lives and potentially making us more aggressive and daring in the realm of romance and passion. This can make you feel quite bold and shore you up with bravado that you didn’t know you had.

The Sun hops into Gemini on the 21^st, offering an instant vibe shift. The molasses your shoes have been stuck in the last few weeks suddenly melts and evaporates and your brain is back, bb. Things should speed up fairly quickly from this point on, even though Mercury, the ruler of Gemini, remains in shadow through June 1^st.

Once again for the people in the back: the news is likely to remind us that our bodies are under constant threat this month, but in Taurus season, our medicine is an unfiltered, direct link to our senses. Fill your nostrils with decadent scents, your mouth with intense flavors, your ears with lovely sounds, delight your eyes with intriguing images, and offer your fingers something to caress, even if it’s your very own skin. Jupiter will be in Taurus for the next twelve months, so there’s no reason to stop doing this once you get started.  

If you’re digging this so far, you may want to sign up for a paid subscription, which comes with lots of other perks (see below). I’m continuing the discounted rate on my annual subscription — for just $36 bucks, you get a lot of unique content from the author of the forthcoming Sex and Your Stars (Sounds True, 2024) that you can’t get anywhere else because I’m taking the year off from writing horoscopes for mags/sites until I finish my book. Sign-by-sign horoscopes for paid subscribers will be posted on May 1st. As of this update, Aries to Leo are posted, with the remainder being loaded by the hour.