The HIGH TIMES weekly astrological forecast complete with strain recommendations! AskAelieanything! Find her onFacebookandTwitter. ARIES You have been held captive in an emotional cage for a while now; susceptible to the extreme mood swings created by your disturbed relationship. Youve tried every way out: bargaining pleading hiding in the corner arguing and calling out. Nothing helps: in fact every new tactic makes it worse. But soon something within you will click. This will be the sound of the cage unlocking. Suddenly you will be magically immune. You can see now from an outside perspective and a peace will descend upon you. The relief will be palpable and not felt just by you but by everyone who cares for you. Strain recommendation: Honey Comb TAURUS Some friendships are more labor intensive than others. When one of them suffers a part of you suffers. When one is caught in repetitive behavior you feel frustrated. When one is released from pain you feel lighter. You have come to your limit with a friend who continually talks about the day his ship will come in. His empty promises and excuses have finally pushed you over the edge and now a confrontation needs to happen. Please keep in mind that no matter how annoying it is to listen to it must be doubly worse to live through. Approach the conversation with sympathy but stay firm. This is the best gift you can give to both of you. Strain recommendation: Super Snowdawg GEMINI Your dualistic nature causes no turmoil for you; it is others that have trouble understanding it. Paradoxes are unsettling to those who need a singular story line to follow a dependable reality to count on a constant beat to drum to. You however are capable of holding many truths within you at the same time. This skill will come in handy this week as you negotiate a particularly complex time of your life. Layers upon layers of meaning and intent will shift and morph as will your feelings about it. You are the most capable sign of the zodiac to manage travelling between parallel emotional universes. Good luck! Strain recommendation: Fortune Cookies CANCER Random acts of randomness! This is your weekly mantra should you choose to accept it. Prance about with a tutu on your head write a letter to your local representative demanding daily viewings of Pee Wees Playhouse at all the major banks make a corn-and-dill flavored popsicle. Youve been adulting too much lately and while its terribly useful its also a great way to lose your sense of humor and universal awe. Shake loose and go fancy-free take no prisoners and wear polka dots with plaid! Strain recommendation: F.O.G. LEO Dialect Coach Erik Singer has put together a wonderful YouTube video in which he dissects the accent work of 32 actors from the disaster of Costner in Robin Hood to the mastery of Streep in Sophies Choice. So many actors put their efforts into doing the sounds correctly but forget to not just to listen to the way a native speaker talks and alsowatch the way they move their jaw tongue and hold their lips. You are doing a passable interpretation of a happy person right now but unless you carefully observe and mimic the minute details of how their faces genuinely radiate joy you will be found out. And whats so bad about that? Will everything absolutely be ruined if people know you dont feel totally ok right now? I posit that not only will the sky not fall but also you will find some sympathetic shoulders to lean on. Strain recommendation: Herojuana OG VIRGO If you look up tone-deaf in the dictionary you will see some words about the inability to distinguish musical notes and you will see pictures of Tatiana Navka the wife of Vladimir Putins spokesman and her skating partner doing a routine dressed as holocaust prisoners complete with massive gold stars. The soundtrack of barking dogs and gunshots was laid upon a saccharin song about smiling when things are bad and after the blond Russians with dark eye-circle make-up mimed their journey through the camps on ice they were awarded perfect scores. Now you are not as oblivious as this by any means but youre not quite woke these days either. Id suggest a societal temperature gage reboot before you unintentionally insult too many more people. Strain recommendation: Haleys Comet LIBRA Sometimes when retelling an old story youll find that your perspective on the event has changed. A friend of mine once realized mid-story that the man she saw at a bus stop dressed all in white playing oddly with a dog bone in his clothes was in fact flashing her but being only ten years old when it happened she was too young to understand it at the time. The revealed memory made her realize that she may have other suppressed memories something she always thought of to be the stuff of make-believe. You are well-situated cosmically this week to see old fuzzy memories with more clarity. Take a mental inventory of the old and weird stories of your past and see if there is a new way to look at any of it. Strain recommendation: Swiss Cheese SCORPIO Im not usually a fan of Meaghan Trainors music but recently I saw a YouTube exercise video by The Fitness Marshall who used her song Me Too expertly and I now have her hook If I was you Id want to me too on a steady earworm loop. Its damn catchy but the idea behind the song is also pervasive. It features an it-girl who doesnt give a shit what anyone thinks cause shes the bomb. Not an original concept but what makes it interesting is that real life Trainor seems to be a down-to-earth woman without a ridiculous superiority complex. So Im left wondering if this is a parody or if she genuinely has this kind of self-confidence and still manages to be humble. Super strong self-confidence without the usual accompanying arrogance: maybe give this a shot this week? Strain recommendation: Blackberry Hashplant SAGITTARIUS A wise almost 5-year-old I know says to catch a cold is a silly way to put it because its the cold that catches you. Well Im afraid more than just a cold will be hunting you down this week; a bad mood some lame news and some tummy disturbances to mention but a few things. It might be one of those write-off weeks so if you can cancel any evening plans now it would be best. Settle down with your favourite feel-good people and things and take the time to self-comfort. If you must go out I suggest using perk-me-up substances to help plaster a smile on your not-so-chuffed face. People dont want to be dragged down by your crap-ass attitude this week even if it is well warranted. Strain recommendation: Henry VIII CAPRICORN Researching my family tree I came across a photo of a young man who was conscripted in the early 19th century. Looking at his young face I realized that if he shook out his horrific hairdo hed match the hipsters desperately engrossed in their online world sitting in the cafés around town. And not that long ago that was me: with a book sporting the most esoteric title possible. Before that: my father with a cigar perhaps. Every generation is essentially the same besides our trappings du jour. What is your item of significance? What is always in your bag just in case you find yourself facing an awkward moment with nothing to do but BE? Try leaving it at home this week and see what your hands do when there is nothing in them. Where does your gaze land and can you pull this off without looking like a psycho? Strain Recommendation: Quick One AQUARIUS Sleep is everything. We forget how much we need it to be consistent and uninterrupted. We all know that without REM humans go a bit batty but we forget that even pushing the envelope a bit here and there can result in behavior we wouldnt be proud of otherwise. To be honest youve been a little bitchy lately with a shorter fuse and a bucket load of complaints. Please we (the rest of the zodiac) collectively beg of you to go to bed early for a few nights. Cuddle up and snooze it all away. Strain recommendation: Vanilla Kush PISCES According to Malcolm Gladwell you only need 10000 hours to master a skill: I wonder what I could have accomplished if I had put all the hours I spent playing computer solitaire and watching TV towards some good. I could be a multi-lingual violinist by now. Its sad to think of all the time Ive wasted on frivolous endeavors though sometimes thats exactly what my body mind and soul needed. Our society needs to appreciate that down time is when all the work gels and new ideas form. What kind of silly activity can you get up to this week that will relieve your stress while allowing your load of meaty ponderings to simmer into a nice curry? Strain recommendation: Huron by Aelie Câlin at High Times