High Horoscopes | Dec. 15, 2016

The HIGH TIMES weekly astrological forecast, complete with strain recommendations!

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ARIES

One of the more comforting foods is the potato. Despite proving to help reduce high blood pressure, it has become a great concern to the weight-conscious. If you add to its decadence by frying it up to serve with a side of sour cream, you’ll have a gorgeous potato latke, and another reason to berate yourself when you step on the scale. Well, this is the season to eat some cozy. It’s coming up to Chanukah (Dec. 24 to Jan. 1) and if anyone deserves an indulgence of comfort it’s you (and the Jewish community). Wrap yourself in flannel and chenille, light the fireplace, put on The Ten Commandments and eat like no one’s watching. Latkes for everyone! Strain recommendation: Herojuana OG

TAURUS

A traditional dish eaten during Kwanzaa (Dec. 26 – Jan. 1) is Groundnut stew (groundnuts are also known as peanuts). It’s a tasty and dense stew that can support just about anything you’d like as a topper. This is your symbolic dish for the week because along with the enjoyably warm heartiness of friends and family will come a variety of compelling choices in all things love, career and adventure. The cosmos suggest taking advantage of the options spread out before you. Keep in mind, this does not mean taking a huge bite out of every cake on the dessert table, leaving nothing unscathed for your office pals at the holiday party to eat. A small sampling dish would be appropriate, and quite satisfying given the chance (read: a plethora of proportionally modest goods).  Strain recommendation: Sour Urkle

GEMINI

‘Borrowed’ from the famed spicy breads of the Middle East, gingerbread appeared in Europe around the end of the crusades. The first account of it being shaped into figures comes from Queen Elizabeth I of England, when she asked for gingerbread people to be made in the image of her most esteemed dinner guests. Hence, the gingerbread man was born. Now always associated with Christmas (Dec. 25) it’s almost difficult to eat it at any other time of the year, akin to gagging down eggnog in August.  It feels wrong and bad. Like that little secret habit of yours that you are not exactly ashamed of but it makes you feel a bit icky despite the enjoyment you get from it. Now’s the time to shape this vice into a figure and look it in the eye. What does it have to say? Does it want out of the closet or should you Frozen it (i.e., Let It Go)? Strain recommendation: Killer Queen

CANCER

According to tradition, foods that have names that sound like positive words are eaten during the Chinese New Year. This January 28, we will let go of this insane Monkey of a year and embrace the honest, black & white, quick-witted, restless, dynamic Rooster. During the festivities you may find a lot of Fat Choy in your food. Fat Choy (a black moss) is a homonym for Prosperity. Along these lines, the cosmos are urging you to be aware of the symbolic meanings associated with the foods you eat, the places you go and the colors you wear. Everything makes an impression, not just on others, but also on your psyche/soul. Take notice and adjust appropriately to fall in line with your true intentions. Strain recommendation: Seattle Cough

LEO

A custom during Hogmanay, a form of Scottish New Year celebrated in the wee morning hours of Jan. 1, is the First Foot. Traditionally the first guest to step foot into your home in the New Year, preferably a tall dark man, will receive a gift (whisky, shortbread, etc). Groups of family and friends go from neighbor to neighbor, spreading cheer and good luck for the upcoming year. A tour of the hood with your posse, spending time with the community made up of folks of all ages, sounds like a wonderful way to celebrate. That village feeling of caring, sharing and warmth will surround you this week. Open your heart to it and embrace all of the people that make up your neighborhood, especially if they aren’t your usual sort of friend go-to, and you will feel the whisky burn of love in your chest. Strain recommendation: Orange Bud

VIRGO

Sinterklass, or Saint-Nicolas day (Dec. 6), is very similar to Christmas. Celebrated in the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France and Luxembourg, it is a holiday when kids are given little gifts, often decorated in humorous ways including poems that gently tease them about some of their bad habits. When a small child is ready to let their pacifier go, they will place it in their shoe to be taken away by Saint Nick, and by the morning it will be replaced with chocolate, often in the form of their first initial. How civilized, to have a ritual around the abandonment of the suss. I remember when I quit sucking my thumb, I was so proud and yet there was no fuss made. After cold-turkeying it I have to admit, it was a bit of a letdown. Why not make up a ritual to accompany giving up a bad habit this week. Take the time to appreciate how hard it is to let go, feel sad for the loss of its comfort, perform the ritual, and then release! Strain recommendation: Euforia

LIBRA

When you think of the traditional food of Boxing Day (Dec. 26), does mall food court offerings come to mind?  No one celebrates the traditional feast of St. Stephen’s day anymore—when the servants and tradespeople who had to work on Christmas Day were given the day after off to celebrate with their family. They were gifted boxes (hence the name) of small presents, money and most importantly, the leftovers of the meal that they made for their bosses (and I bet that was still better than the Pad Thai you had last year between tackling crowds at Target and ice-sliding to your car). This week, think of the people who make your life easier, and offer them something better than meal scraps: your undivided attention and care. Strain recommendation: Lemon Skunk

SCORPIO

New Year’s Eve screams out for Champagne. A costly choice in North America, but in Western Europe it’s quite reasonable. So reasonable in fact that your average bloke often buys it for birthdays, office parties, even for a Friday with nothing to celebrate but two days of weekend ahead. When a truly special event comes along, do they wish they still had a ritual drink that held a bit more significance for them than a good bottle of wine? Losing a ritual, no matter how small, can feel like a letdown. Think about the times in your life when you lack soulfulness and fill it with your homemade meaningfulness by building your own rituals. Strain recommendation: Great White Shark

SAGITTARIUS

The pagan practice of celebrating Yule during the winter solstice has been pulled apart and appropriated by a multitude of religions over the centuries. Not a shocker that this is where the Yule log came from, but surprisingly the classic Christmas fruitcake is also an old pagan custom (taken from the Egyptians who made a cake to survive in a tomb until the pyramids crumbled). Almost everyone who celebrates Christmas has had to negotiate this brick of a cake, and being given one is akin to getting an STD; a drag that will likely be passed onto someone else. This week let your cake be good wishes and pass them on to all of those people who drive you around the bend. Compassion will feed your soul and help this week of drudgery fly by. Strain recommendation: Animal Cookies

CAPRICORN

The Kalasha people of Pakistan use cleansing baths and burning branches of juniper to purify themselves during Chaomos, a holiday celebrated during the winter solstice. It is then that five-year-old children are initiated into the clan, and walnuts are eaten by the bucketful. The walnut, reminiscent of the human brain, is considered one of the top superfoods. You could use a little brain food these days. Your choices have been slightly suspect and your logic is faulty. Try to summon your clarity and reason before you make an irreparable gaffe. Do whatever you must: play some morning Sudoku, read some Carl Sagan, or offer a walnut to the gods. Good luck! Strain recommendation: Jet Fuel

AQUARIUS

Festivus, the joke that turned into a secular holiday, is celebrated on Dec 23. First brought to the public by way of a Seinfeld episode, creator Dan O’Keefe and son Daniel originally celebrated Festivus not only as a form of consumer resistance, but as a genuine day of celebration. While some say the traditional food is brisket, what appeared on the episode being served by Estelle Costanza was something that appeared to be meatloaf on a bed of lettuce. Thus an even stranger custom of awkwardly displaying meat was born. You are that meatloaf this week; oddly perched somewhere that doesn’t suit you, but yet making it work. Keep up the positivity, and all of this dreadful fitting in you’ve been doing will pay off. “It’s a Festivus for the rest of us!” Strain recommendation: Blue Widow

PISCES

The Hindu American alternative to Christmas is called Pancha Ganapati and it takes place between Dec. 21 and Dec. 25. It’s a celebration of Ganesha, and the holiday headquarters are surprisingly in Hawaii. It commemorates a new beginning and the healing of past mistakes. During festivities, Prasada, an edible gift taken after worship, is first offered to the deity and then eaten by the followers. The food, often in the form of sugarcane, fruits, nuts or Vadai (a black lentil doughnut) will then hold the deity’s blessing within it. I find this notion of consuming a blessing quite beautiful. You could use a little of this grace upon you now. Pull some celestial wisdom into your soul this week however you can; you’ve been spiritually starved as of late. Strain recommendation: Fruity Pebbles