High Horoscopes | Sept. 14, 2016

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

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ARIES

It’s retreat time. Pack your emotional bags, and hop on the mental train to Relaxationville. A secluded spot on Lake Nevermind awaits you. A hammock swaying in the warm breeze will lull the looping negative thoughts out of your mind and into the wind. The smell of the BBQ will soothe your emotional starvation while healing sun rays will soften your tense muscles. Have you booked your ticket? It’s waiting for you. No, I’m sorry but your friend can’t come. He needs to go to Healtown. Letting him go doesn’t mean he is lost, and leaving doesn’t mean you don’t care, it just means you will be stronger when he comes back. Strain recommendation: Blue Cheese

TAURUS

Finally you made the decision. In the end, you didn’t chose A or B… you destroyed your ballot and declared the status quo a perfectly reasonable way to go. To an outsider it may appear like more stalling, but for you, a palpable change has come about. All of your choice-making stress has melted away. You can freely continue to live the way you have been without the bother of discussing it with anyone ever again. Ah the joys of telling them all to bugger off! Bravo to you for stating loudly and clearly: I will not choose, and I am happy with that choice! Strain recommendation: Juicy Fruit

GEMINI

On a mystical scavenger hunt, your spirit explored the universe and found a few token items. They each have a unique power and serve as physical connectors back to your spiritual self. It is time for you to separate these sacred objects from the mere things that are in your space. De-clutter your home, divest yourself of the stuff that weighs you down, and then these precious objects can take the prominent place they need to in your life. Your spirit must be fed, and taken out to play, and cared for—sometimes a Post-it note in the form of a rock or piece of jewelry or photograph is all the reminder you need to go on a little spirit walkabout. Strain recommendation: Permafrost

CANCER

You need someone to watch your back; you are a bit vulnerable right now. Choose wisely—a longtime pal who knows your moves and can reliably act on your behalf is a good choice, though they might become distracted by your emotional investments (read: crap), just as you do. A new friend could be an option, though their ability to manage crisis is untested. A colleague might work, you’ve done battle together before and survived, but their willingness to go the distance for you personally is an unknown factor. Family! There’s a solid possibility, though you worry about burdening them repeatedly. Well, this might just be one of those times that you’ve been saving up for. Strain recommendation: Mob Boss

LEO

“You are who they say you are if you do what they tell you to do.” That’s the latest from the Cosmos: a completely unambiguous beam of life-management information just for you. Now you must question if you are happy with their interpretation of your identity, or if it’s time to start pushing back. Do you feel capable of summoning the snake of transformation? Can you wail against the machine? If you don’t have the massive kind of energy it takes for real change, internal and external, then I would suggest toeing the line a bit longer. Strain recommendation:  Purple Trainwreck

VIRGO

“Banging away like a crazed woodpecker.” Instead of this describing you successfully chipping down your mound of work, it’s actually the sound of time ticking away to your deadline, counterpointed by bits of your happiness dripping into the abyss of freaked-out despair. You are in the procrastination/fear vortex where the more you wait, the more you worry, which makes you put off even more. You have to get off this merry-go-round of useless anxiety. Stop. Sit down on the floor. Right now. Breathe deeply for a minute. Then decide if you are going to do this thing immediately—or not at all. And then just do that. You are no longer allowed to think about it or negotiate yourself into stagnancy. Time’s up. Strain recommendation: XJ-13

LIBRA

Your predictable day-to-day has become something of a distant memory. A change has occurred. Not the arrival of something new, but the slow removal of things until your world is no longer the same. The landscape is familiar, but components are missing.  At first it’s hard to distinguish—but once you notice what it is, it seems very strange not to have realized earlier. Your chutzpah is gone. It went when you achieved your goals and when your priorities shifted. Success and completion can bring a kind of loss—the loss of drive. Peace and acceptance is important, but so is having something to help your blood circulate. Passion can be tied to many things, not just accomplishing goals. Strain recommendation: Chernobyl

SCORPIO

An opportunity to make some cash involves work that goes against your grain. Your morality is being challenged. Rarely are quandaries as after-school-special as this one. There is the black and the white. Or, you could try to find the in-between place where you get your cake and eat it too. Would that make you a sellout, or just an adult dealing with the real world? You could exchange a little sacrifice for a little gain until you feel your imaginary limit has been reached, or break the task into what is bearable and what is not, and then delegate the undesirable parts to people who don’t share the same qualms as you. These are ways that youth is sucked from us, but at least you’ll be able to afford some wrinkle cream. The choice is yours. Strain recommendation: Charlotte’s Web

SAGITTARIUS

“Turmoil and strife” isn’t just news headliner vocabulary. “Heartache and pain” is not just a Foreigner lyric. These words are yours this week. We all have difficult times, but yours are often amplified by your tendency to put your heart on lockdown as soon as you sense danger. Fear not, if you can manage your reactions properly, soften your body armor and dismantle the emotional barricade a bit, you will inspire empathy and warmth from those who love you. Take the risk, show your soft bunny underbelly, and let them care for you when you cannot. Strain recommendation: Sensei Star

CAPRICORN

Euphoria is defined in most dictionaries as ‘A feeling of great happiness or well-being’. What a wonderful word. I wonder why more children aren’t named Euphoria. Eufie for short, or with the alternate spelling Youforiya, known online as u4eya? Perhaps because we search out this elusive state so much, we share a fear of a hubris smackdown by taking its name in vain. Can we even imagine actually achieving it, unaided by our favorite vices, for more than a mere moment? We must embrace the possibility that bliss can be as tangible as anger or melancholy. You are close to a real life Eufie experience; don’t let it slip away because you don’t think it exists. Strain recommendation: Chocolope

AQUARIUS

My goodness, being unappreciated can mess with the best of us, but it is straight-up your Achilles heel. The tension you hold when you feel taken advantage of could form a diamond. Please take a step back. Maybe pet a cat or something. Distract your anger for long enough to remember that you don’t need external recognition. The thing that kept the real cool kids cool was not giving a shit what anybody else thought. You are a cool kid, deep down, under that mullet and braces. Strain recommendation: Blueberry Kush

PISCES

Yes you got what you want, and yet it’s still difficult and will take time to figure out. You must have patience with yourself, and trust that you are in the right place because you worked so hard to get there. You’re story this week is like the Little Mermaid’s. She wanted legs, she got legs, but then it was hard having legs, she missed her family who didn’t have legs. But hey, there’s more to life than legs. And that’s the moral of this story; legs are useful but not the be-all end-all. Legs in this story represent everything you’ve ever wanted. Strain recommendation: LSD