May Outlook: Forget the Road, Try the Path
A look at the month ahead reveals extant opportunities ahead of the storm to come
May’s outlook can be described in just five words: do not despair, but prepare. It even rhymes.
This should come as no surprise. We’ve been talking for a couple months now about some dark clouds on the horizon for June and July. Even the time of year would contribute to this sort of counsel; every May Day I remind people that they’ve got a little over six weeks to get the last bits of whatever done before the “new stuff” shop is closed for the year. (All right, what I usually say is to finish your planting for there’s no more planting in summer, but I’m trying something new. I’m not sure it works.)
Anyway, just because it’s a bit less-than-mystical and even though you could have guessed it on your own (although I would still be impressed if you did), that doesn’t mean it’s not worth restating with a bit of helpful elaboration and detail.
Don’t despair — prepare. It even rhymes.
I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that we’re in the sort of moment in which the big picture is easier to grasp while the finer points end up making all the difference in the end. Just a hunch.
I could start in on the good news, but where’s the style or grace in that? Let’s look the Night King in the face and see what he wants.
The first image presented grants a direct, unambiguous look ahead at the dark storm promised in June and July, and relates it to the present, showing us the thread that gets us from here to there. The suggestion is that some seemingly innocent corruption has worked its way into our sphere and that we, believing it to be harmless, allow it to grow and fester, possibly until we are undermined to the point of collapse.
This is an illustration that can and likely does refer to very different things. It’s on you to work out whether or not we’re referring to an actual personal corruption in behavior or character, or an antagonistic person we’ve allowed to get too close (or who’s arrived there by circumstance), or a point of weakness in our general personal or professional lives. Are any of these options any better or worse? Not from where I’m sitting, and heaven help any of us who end up dealing with more than one of those at a time.
No, the cups are full and due for a spill. You know it and I know it. We’ve been talking about it. We don’t like it, we all keep hoping it will change somehow, like a meteor headed for Earth that brushes by just to the right at the last minute. I don’t think this plays out that way. I think the drink gets spilled and the impact actually happens and we’ve got to mop up the mess and deal with the tsunamis and whatever else results.
Helpfully, our divination provides us with four very specific pieces of advice regarding how to handle different aspects and possibilities of this scenario:
- If some corrupting element has indeed begun to infiltrate the scene, kill it in its cradle. It will be your undoing if you don’t.
- In an alternate scenario, this element is more mature than that and you can’t just kill it outright. If you find yourself in this situation, limit violence to the absolute minimum, and you should be able to contain the darkness and mitigate this misfortune.
- Sometimes, there are distasteful or inferior elements that we need to keep around for practical reasons. Maybe a bad habit that does serve a necessary role for you for the time being. Odd as it may sound, don’t totally burn those bridges right now — you may yet need them.
- Perhaps you find yourself in a relatively secure position, but suspect or know of some potentially corrupting elements or even people in your ranks. Here — more advice I honestly find a little odd — you’re advised to let things slide a little bit while focusing on providing a good example. The promise is that allowing these rebellious elements to be free within your orbit, you actually will end up influencing them for the good. It’ll work out.
It would seem prudent to at least strive to find some sort of applicable practical lesson in there somewhere, because we’re given one last look at what’s in store for us: the force of creative interpretation and observation clashes hard with whatever fortifications we believe ourselves to possess, and it’s a bad scene that results. We come out the other side, but only after some pretty big sacrifice gets made.
Deep breaths. Just remember, we really are — as far as I know — going to survive to see the other side of this, and it does have an expiration date. Deep breaths.
The word from the cosmos isn’t ALL bad for this month . In fact, I would suggest other aspects of this divination indicate a fair amount of opportunity there for the taking. It can perhaps be said that seizing this opportunity still presently around us is going to be just as important to the future of our collective summer as dealing with the corruption described above.
Despite it all, this is a time for pioneering and adventure. It’s time to go and get it. We need to be sure we understand the real nature of the situation. We need to pause (once again, as advised last month) to take stock of what’s going on. Make sure your assessments aren’t based in any prejudice or anything else that’s irrational. If you can instead look with Higher Sight — if you know what I mean — and penetrate to the heart of the thing, it’s this that enables you to explore the frontiers.
We’ve been laying plans, not just during the winter, but for years. Perhaps there are plans and projects so deep others can’t see them or don’t remember them; perhaps there are still some ongoing plans and projects YOU can no longer see or have forgotten about. A great deal of this planning has led to the formation of complete ideas and aims and solutions, but we haven’t yet found the way to apply or otherwise make use of what we’ve constructed. This is part of our task now.
The world in which we arrive is, difficult as it may seem as we look ahead, a work of art formed by a sacred cosmic blessing. We are, in ways we would not do well to ignore, standing astride a certain measure of victory and success. We have assets that might serve to buttress against at least some of whatever’s on the way. We’ve established orderly systems — not unlike an army — to serve us as we execute and defend, and these too will work in our favor so long as we remember to be tactful and graceful to those around us and avoid pissing them off. We’re on fire, expansive and strong, and this can work both against us and for us, if we’re careful about it. Maybe all it takes is just to be conscious about it.
And that sacred cosmic blessing is still with us. It’s still raining down on us.
Take those opportunities. Shore up the leads, tie up the loose ends. Forget — as much as is possible — about whatever the hell is up the road. Focus instead on getting on the path. Doing and living what you know to be right, what you know will get you where you need to go. If you get your ass aligned where you need to be, firm shit up, and brace yourself, that alone will be sufficient to guarantee that your will can play some part in controlling the direction things take.
Focus, lastly, on beauty of form. Of design and ornamentation. Of pageantry and choreography. Such things are not ESSENTIAL and are not in and of themselves what comprises ecstasy or disaster, but we’re asked to think of them instead like the moon and stars and their role in our sky in contrast to the sun. The sun is the thing we need. But where would we be without the other stellar companions?
We need grace and beauty and form, and all successes incorporate this side of life. If traditions are based in truth, they will benefit you and those around you if you follow them intentionally. In doing so, you’ll likely be rewarded with some smaller but valuable pieces of insight that will be a big help going forward. You won’t be able to solve the whole big thing from this stuff, but they’ll still be the items we all want to carry on a journey.
And when you look at form and beauty, if you can make sense of those patterns and really understand them…well then you actually might be able to shape the world.