ARIES
When wolves are hunted they respond like most smart animals: running and hiding. You are being hunted and while you’re essentially doing the same, you are tempted to turn around and face it; you’re even considering calling it to you. You are attracted to the danger, to the excitement and to being so hungrily desired. Near Juneau, Alaska a wolf called Romeo became a household celebrity by befriending local dogs and people alike before being unnecessarily shot to death by some stupid human. It’s nice to be friendly, but always remember that one of you has a gun. Strain recommendation: Permafrost
CANCER
The first snow of the winter season in Montreal, Canada is an emotionally conflicting moment. The childlike joy that comes with seeing fluffy flakes fall from the sky is uplifting. Meanwhile there is a dread that comes with knowing this is the beginning of five to seven months of grueling and frigid conditions that force everyone into hibernation. A similar emotional debate is being waged within you. It’s difficult for you to come down on one side or the other. Your cosmic advice is to embrace them both with a good old-fashioned bout of melancholy. Beautiful depression has its benefits: just ask poets and teenagers. Strain recommendation: Animal Cookies
TAURUS
Near Cape Town, South Africa is a breathtaking beach covered with penguins. The water is a clear light blue and great boulders dot the landscape, hence the name Boulders Beach. Upon the rocks are perched sweet penguins who poop everywhere, and swim very fast. Its beauty is reminiscent of that old video game Mist. The smell of the guano is a little overwhelming at times, but the activity and prettiness make up for it. This is a not-so-subtle allusion to your life this week: it will be filled with natural beauty pock marked with literal crap. Enjoy what you can and watch your step. Strain recommendation: Berry White
GEMINI
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica is home to a beach with a break in it that causes waves to travel parallel to the coast. The local kids often don’t tell the visiting international surfers this happens due to huge coral reef just below. This means young Barneys regularly emerge from the ocean with coral burn all over their chests. The kids keep this knowledge to themeselves because they feel the surfers take their good waves and don’t respect their beach. Choosing not to warn them is either cruel or empowering, depending on how you look at it. Keep this in mind when someone doesn’t pass on valuable information to you this week. Is there a chance you deserve a little of the burn you got? Strain recommendation: Holy Grail Kush
LEO
When I first went to Times Square, NYC I was surprised by how often I was offered free seats to shows. (Read: loudly ordered by numerous people to immediately enter their establishment to watch a random performance). I couldn’t imagine how these businesses could afford to keep that location while needing to give away tickets to get people in their doors. Of course, I figured out later that the drinks are what kept them going financially and the show is just a tool. Naively, I’d never thought of live art as a medium to sell a product before. I understood product placement and commercials on TV, but thought they were necessary evils to support the show, not the other way around. You are in for a similarly disappointing realization I’m afraid. When the wool comes off, you will be embarrassed by your innocence but I hope you can use it to remind those around you how sad it is that this is normal. Strain recommendation: Sweet Tooth
VIRGO
If you ever visited Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA in the ’80s you’d know the best parts of summer are cart-racing, bouncing at a trampoline park, putting a mini golf ball into a Papier-mâché whale’s mouth and watching the town big band play in a park gazebo on a Saturday night. These wonderful memories are so vivid they drown out the ones of mosquito swarms, haunted houses and stories of Jaws being shot in the area. At some point after every experience we unconsciously decide if we will remember the good or the bad memories the most. This choice is forever stamped upon that time unless you purposely unpack it for investigation. I challenge you to take apart an old memory that haunts you, even if it is a friendly haunting. Demystifying and moving something from the black and white into the grey can help you regain control over the ideas hidden beneath the imagery. Strain recommendation: Lamb’s Bread
LIBRA
Upon Grouse Mountain, overlooking Vancouver, British Colombia, two bears, Grinder and Coola, live and play. You can watch them on a bear cam or take the chair lift up to visit them in person. They are quite lovely, and massive. I wanted to cuddle them immediately and then remembered that I would probably die very quickly if stranded in the woods because of idiotic city dweller thoughts like that. It’s good to know your weaknesses and blind spots. You are discovering a few of your own this week, and they’re not all funny and quirky. Some are downright worrisome. I applaud your willingness to look at your lame stuff. It feels crappy but it needs doing from time to time. I recommend a few good-friend bear hugs to get you through the week. Strain recommendation: Romulan
SCORPIO
The beaches of Cassis, France are classically beautiful and terribly expensive. Traveling on the cheap leads many to crash out on the sand instead of paying for an auberge de jeunesse (youth hostel). You’ll find many fascinating fellow wanderers there, gathering together for warmth and company at night around an illegal bonfire. It’s rather picturesque in its shabby train-hopping way until the mob shows up and makes some serious demands. Sometimes it’s worth sacrificing scenery, coin and camaraderie for a little boring old security. Don’t let the lure of cool times trick you; when you are playing in someone else’s garden and you don’t know the rules it’s best to leave before dark. Strain recommendation: Liberty Haze
SAGITTARIUS
Nassau, Bahamas has split-personality disorder. On one side of the hill lies the colorful straw market and every duty-free high-end international store you can imagine. On the other side live the locals, many of whom are suffering from dreadful poverty. In 2014, the poverty line rested at a $4247 annual income and the unemployment rate was 15.2 percent. Like in some kind of Twilight zone episode, that place is indeed Paradise Island, unless you live there. You have witnessed a social injustice where you live recently; some kind of economic disparity or prejudiced behavior, which left you confused about the mini utopia you thought you lived within. “How could such things happen here?” you thought, “we know better than this.” The fight is just beginning, and the genie won’t go back into the bottle unless you take a stand. Strain recommendation: Black Diesel
CAPRICORN
London, England is a seriously haunted city. Just take one of their famous ghost tours and you won’t be able to sleep peacefully for a week. Grief is like a ghost: it may start off screaming irrationally in pain and anguish, but over time it becomes a whisper on the wind from someone long forgotten. Just like ghosts, these are energies that need to be released. Some need forgiveness; others need a reckoning or some kind of memorialization in order to get closure. You can feel how crowded London is when you take the underground. The living and the dead are smashed in there, hurtling through space together, but no one is looking up from their paper. Don’t ignore your ghosts even if they are only as perceptible as a momentary reflection of a Victorian era woman sitting next to you on the Northern Line. Clear the air in your life by addressing the grief. Strain recommendation: Blue Boy
AQUARIUS
As stated in the classic cult film Heathers, “Well, everybody’s life has got static.” Yours is sparking up this week, lifting your hair on end. If you visit the ‘Lightning on Demand’ lab in San Francisco, California in a few years you’ll be able to see the world’s largest Tesla coils. Nicola Tesla figured out how to turn static energy from the air into a useable form and now this lab is using his technology to study the mysteries of natural lightning. Lightning holds special significance for you this week; its blinding power is simultaneously deadly and life giving, depending on how you channel it. Do you think you can Tesla-fy your life static and turn your energy from destructive to constructive? Strain recommendation: Strawberry Satori
PISCES
In Amsterdam, Netherlands is a small budget hotel on Overtoom Street called The Abba Hotel. Upon seeing this place I assumed that Abba is a Dutch word or name of some distinction. As I entered the hallways and rooms I realized that in fact, this is a hotel that for no discernable reason commemorates all things ABBA. ABBA, if you don’t know, is a ’70s Swedish disco-pop band whose songs were turned into the hit musical Mamma Mia. What a strange thing to find in the middle of historic Amsterdam, between all of its canals, museums, bicycles, pot and sex workers is a little place where we can look at pictures of Björn and Anni-Frid as we fall asleep. What is your little mental museum celebrating? I know to you it seems perfectly natural to collect these life patterns, but to the outside world it seems a bit dated. How ’bout donating some of these old habits to good will and starting a new collection of healthy opportunities? Strain recommendation: Grand Hustle
