I've been thinking about this pervasive symbol that we call the hero and it's all mixed up with systemic neglect.

I've been reading this book called The White Pedestal by Curtis Dozier which was recommended by The Onion's satirical take on Infowars. Been enjoying the book, especially as an astrologer, as it confirms to me something that I've known for a while—that while the Romans didn't have modern racism, they have a xenophobia based on astrology which modern racism is rooted in.

The book is also interesting to me because it examines something that a lot of right wing types seem to be obsessed with: the mythic hero.

Heroes are an interesting symbol. We learn about the hero so young. We learn that the hero's story, because so many stories are centered around a hero that we sometimes use the words main character and hero interchangeably, is more important than any other story. We get used to it, used to finding narrative coherency and morality in this world by looking for the heroes.

Right wing men loves heroes. They love Hercules and Sparta. They love Odysseus most of all because Odysseus maimed a cyclops on a remote land and became Portugal's, the country which started the trans Atlantic slave trade, symbol.

This August, the lunar nodes move into Leo and Aquarius. We'll get a solar eclipse in Leo right around the time Mars moves into Cancer and Mercury into Leo. A lot of people have been writing about the south node moving into Leo already on account of Trump's ascendant being at 29º Leo close to the fixed star Regulus so I think I'll focus on the other end of the nodes. I'll write about the solar eclipse in Leo from the perspective of Aquarius, the cold sign.

I've been thinking about this pervasive symbol that we call the hero and it's all mixed up with systemic neglect. I think that we're attached to the hero, who saves cities and helps out and runs errands and performs extraordinary tasks for ordinary people, because we really wish that we could do all of those things. We negate our own work because we think that to be an artist, writer, organizer, or thinker, one must find a way to first become extraordinary. One must find a way, somehow, to be a hero first.

That reason why the hero becomes connected to chronic neglect to me is because—well, haven't you been there? Haven't you found yourself wishing that you could save or fix or mend your family when you were abandoned or dismissed? Imagining yourself as a superhero?

I don't think that we get attached to heroism out of ego. We're seeing a record number of people live in their cars. Schools are closing, spectacles get funded, and there's no healthcare. All our lives, we have seen one thing after another get defunded and that accelerated big time last year. You just don't feel like anyone's watching out for each other. The world feels cold and, then, Disney offers you a hero, some simple way of being good for the world. Spectacular!

But heroism is also dehumanizing. When you expect extraordinary acts from yourself, when you feel as though you will left behind if you do not perform them, you are devaluing yourself. You are shaping your life based on what other people expect of you instead of what is truly yours to hold.

I'm thinking that this solar eclipse in Leo's gonna be a good time to really take a look at what's going on. No one is a hero. We're all ordinary people and we have been neglected by a political and economic system that treats life as disposable. That neglect has produced in us an expectation for greatness. But none of us know how to be a great hero because we're not supposed to do that. We also don't need to. We are already just ourselves.

Leo August 2026 Horoscope

I feel like a lot of marginalized people live in fear of titles. A lot of us shy away from claiming our titles—scholar, writer, organizer. Of course we do. We grew up knowing exactly what people expected from us and it wasn't anything good. Title carry expectations. We feel betrayed by them even when they're built to convey trust.

But what if you could use the words that describe who you are and what you do to communicate what people might expect from you? What you would like people to expect from you because you know what your work is and you'd like other people to know too?

I'm not saying that a title is going to give you belonging. I'm saying that, by naming yourself and the work that is yours, you can find people who like what you're doing. I'm saying that those words which you use to convey the expectations that you have of yourself are just words. You won't disappear if you're not there yet or if you change your mind about them later.

You are allowed to name your work and the impact that you see your work having. You will not choose the names that other people assign to you but the ones that you correctly assess to be descriptive of how you'd like to bend reality.

Virgo 2026 August Horoscope

What if you didn't have to get away from everyone and everything just to take care of yourself? If you could find ways to be attentive to your own needs even when you are at work or around a lot of other people?

I think a lot of us who were raised to take care of other people enter a different mental mode when we are around a lot of them. We just stop paying attention to what's happening with ourselves. All of our focus is on, "What do they need? Will they be okay? What can I fix?" instead. Our own needs just kind of disappear.

That creates a kind of weird dilemma, doesn't it? To take care of us, we feel like we have to drop out entirely. We have to leave the group and be alone. Being social means feels so loud because we have trouble imagining what being connected while being with ourselves could look like.

The first step is actually just to stand up for yourself. You know when someone gives you a problem that isn't yours to solve. You can feel it in the way you start to pine for being alone again. After you say no to problems that aren't yours a few times, you'll start to notice the people who stick by you without needing you to fix anything.

Libra August 2026 Horoscope

August is the time to get serious about the art that you've been wanting to do, meaning to do, but putting off.

That comic strip series that you had in your head or doodled out in napkins all over your car? Get a pad of paper and sketch it out. Take it seriously. That fantasy novella that you've been dreaming of writing? Write it. Just start. The game that you've made half of a concept for? Go and code it. See what's actually possible.

Confronting a blank page can freeze you right in place but you can do it. Every comic series starts with one mark on one paper. Every story starts with one word and every game starts with just one rule. Once you have made even just one decision, you can base your next and next decisions off of it. And once you have made enough decisions? It no longer matters what that first decision was.

You actually do need to make art. It's not something that you can put off forever or do only in hiding on pieces of paper so small that no one can see. There's nothing shameful going on here. You need to make art because doing so will prove to you that the world has enough room for your joy. You're not going to be judged for being happy.

Scorpio August 2026 Horoscope

This is what I notice with a lot of Scorpios. A lot of you act all paranoid about who you allow into your home and your space. And it's true. A lot of you are highly selective about who you let in because you prefer to be intentional about your relationships. You guard what is sacred.

But the issue is that, a lot of those rooms that you're picky about letting people into can look barely lived in—no weird art or open journals or embarrassing pictures or anything. Just a bare mattress or so tidy and sparse it could home anyone at all.

I'm not saying that you need a bunch of stuff for your home or anything. I'm saying that it takes a little love and care to take care of your space and make it feel like it's truly a part of you. I'm saying that for Scorpio, there can sometimes be a lot of psychological energy being put into "Who's going to see this (and how can I protect myself)?" and not a lot of energy being put into "What makes me feel comfortable and safe?" when it comes to issues of the home.

How you personally feel in your own space is just as important as how you guard it. It's not about how your home looks or what it says about you. It's about you feeling good when you have the privacy that you need. If this sounds like you, then August could be a good time to give some love to your home.

Sagittarius August 2026 Horoscope

You're never truly prepared. If you try to only start things that you know you are 100% prepared for, then you will never start. You'll just keep taking classes, reading books, listening to people who have tried it, and dreaming in your own head. The more you do that, the bigger your visions get until, one day, you look around and you realize that you've build a whole world in your imagination but you can't find the door.

Stop preparing. Preparing is freaking you out. It's building up the thing in your psyche when you really just need to figure out the first step.

When we grow up thinking that we're never quite ready to start, that we always need more training and more credentials, or that other people's experiences transcend our own, we start doubt our own intelligence. Don't do that. You're plenty smart. You have what it takes to figure problems out on the spot as they arise too. When you trust that you can do that, you'll realize that you know how to start.

You weren't born to be a good student. Other people's knowledge isn't more credible than your experience. If you trust your learning, then you can trust your application. It's not going to look like what you've imagined but that's alright. Imagination is nothing compared to reality anyway.

Capricorn August 2026 Horoscope

People who know you might be very surprised to learn that you rarely think about your finances. Your sign has a reputation for pragmatism and you're often the person who goes around making sure that other people are okay, planning out what to do with them if they are not.

There's projection and then there's the reality of the life that you're living—that Capricornian tendency to assume that you can just minimize or downsize your need for support once again, that you will hang tough because you always do, and that you will just sacrifice something else again because you've done that before and didn't destroy you completely. People often don't realize that Capricorn, who avoids thinking about one's own needs and often just expects less and less, can have a mental avoidance around budgeting.

Other people's problems just look so much important when you're standing in self dismissal. Their problems look so clear, not easy by any means but understandable. You can figure them out because you're not living the lives of other people.

You're good at planning, you are, and you have a good head on your shoulders. It's just harder to give yourself the quality of time that you bestow on others. This month, give your budget some attentionm but instead of starting with the numbers, start by being sincere about what you need.

Aquarius August 2026 Horoscope

You're gonna feel really annoyed with your horoscope for this month but listen. It's time act like your own well being is important.

I'm talking about going to bed on time, about giving yourself enough time to eat, about not losing yourself in work for hours and hours of time until you look up and realize that it's evening and you haven't eaten all day. That shit's bad for your stomach. those emails? They're still going to be there. That project you're trying to finish? You will still know what you're doing when you come back. Take a forty minute pause for food.

That Reddit post split into four chapters about the latest laundry hack that you're reading but never going to do? That's actually not as important as you taking care of your body. We don't neglect our bodies for shits and giggles. We neglect our bodies due to habits that we learned when we learned that other people's expectations for us are more important than our own needs.

When you put off eating or sleeping to perform more work (or to just waste time), you're not acting like you're important to your own life. You're just not. When you neglect your body, your expectations for yourself actually start to get higher and higher because you become more severe with yourself when you feel unsettled. This month, break a habit. Take care of your body.

Pisces August 2026 Horoscope

I think that caretaking can really bring out a lot of people's desire for heroism. When we're taking care of someone, we imagine ourselves repairing, soothing, and healing. We know that what we are doing is good, have no doubt in our minds about that one, and we use that belief in our goodness to put more energy into the act of caretaking. When our hero's myths possess us, we get attached to outcome.

But healers don't heal. Muscles do and bone too. Skin repairs itself over time. When you're healing, you're not healing. You're witnessing the act of healing without necessarily having much control over it.

August is about giving yourself some healthy detachment from outcome. The question of whether you are a good enough person is not answered by how well the outcome matches your expectations. Goodness is not something that you become but something that you learn. You learn it by looking for it where you don't expect to see it.

Sometimes, people heal without you and you have to let them. People ask for help not because they need you to do something for them that they can't do themselves but because they are actively repairing something vital for themselves already and they'd like you to recognize what they're doing with them.

Aries August 2026 Horoscope

You know that ten second pause that happens when someone in a group asks for help, suggests an activity, or asks for group input? That ten second pause doesn't happen because other people's mind are blank and they don't know what to say. It happens because people tend to wait a bit to see what happens in the group if they do not leap into action right away.

The person asking for help might be better helped by one or two individuals who know who they are. The person suggesting an activity could be seeking a type of consensus that only happens spontaneously on faces rather than voices. The person seeking group feedback might not be wanting an opinion at all. You might feel less burned out all the time if you let someone else figure out if they are ready even if you know that you are.

You tend to be someone who can leap into immediate action because you come equipped knowing what you're ready to do. But do you know what would happen in your group of friends or with your coworkers if you weren't the first to volunteer? You know exactly who you are but do you know the people around you? Have you watched them long enough?

In August, try something out. Take a pause and observe everyone you're with before jumping up and volunteering to do the hard stuff. You don't need to prove yourself to be fully welcome in a group. You can come just as you are.

Taurus August 2026 Horoscope

You're the puppy dog type, the type who almost always means well and believes in other people with all your heart. Your close friends know this about you which is why they trust you so strongly. They know that you have never broken a promise that you meant to keep unless you have suffered some great accident that prevented you from doing so.

Because your trust in yourself runs so deep, you sometimes don't get why so many annoying strangers or more distant acquaintances seem to doubt your every move.

Well, sometimes it's not about how trustworthy you are. It's about how you communicate. A lot of the time, people who don't know that you always come through don't think that you will if you are tightlipped about your accomplishments and silent about your plans. You know what you are going to do. You intend to show up when the time is right like you always do. But other people might not know that if you don't tell them.

Sometimes, it's not about sincerity (and you are sincere). It's about communication which is, in your book, a tedious and tricky sport. You don't owe your whole entire heart to everyone you know. Communication can help people who don't know you very well make room for you.

Gemini August 2026 Horoscope

Sometimes, we neglect our big picture vision to focus on daily tasks, errands, or just the next hustle because we feel like our potential has been dismissed. A lot of us who aren't the racial majority were told that our intelligence was compromised, that it was counterfeit or put on or that it would earn us trouble instead of success. We might know that we're smart enough but we doubt that being smart will get us anywhere.

You're going somewhere. You know that you are. Every time you have achieved something, you've proven to yourself that more is possible than what you might expect. I want you to get comfortable with that reality because it will help you see that more becomes possible over time. The perfectionism, which protects you from what you want, will try to tell you that you should have solved it yesterday. Let it talk but talk back.

You're allowed to have some kind of long range ambition—a dream, a wish, a vision if you will. If you don't like those words, then think of it like a plan. You're allowed to plan for more than just the next week or the next year. You can see the horizon if you look just like anyone else.

The intelligence that you earned isn't just a tool. It's just here just to help you solve problems or confront daily stresses. If you can think, then you can grow. You just have to get comfortable with imperfection.

Cancer August 2026 Horoscope

The hardest part of asking for helping is trusting the other person. When you ask for help, you're asking someone to share a responsibility with you. There's always the concern that they're not going to do it right. What if they don't?

One thing to keep in mind, Cancer, is that your expectations aren't actually that high. Most of the time, you don't expect anyone to show up at all. You're usually just happy when someone does, even if they do it their way and that's completely different from how you'd do it. You're actually pretty flexible and you mostly care about whether someone cares about you with sincerity.

You learned to manage your own shit on your own most of the time, to always save and plan for multiple scenarios, and to take care of yourself. That's why you seldom speak up when you're having an issue. But those survival instincts of yours also taught you how to accept all types of people. When someone helps you but does what you normally take care of a little differently, you often just find yourself learning a new skill.

August is about trusting your flexibility. You don't need to know that people know what you want how you want it to ask for help. You just need to know that you're adaptable enough to learn.