ASTROLOGY WITHOUT DOOM

I’ve been an astrologer since I began studying astrology at Goddard College at age 19.

But I’ve never been a traditional astrologer. I love the ancient art too much to keep peddling its most fearful inheritances. Over the centuries, astrology has absorbed a heavy cargo of dread, including curses, afflictions, exiles, and warnings of cosmic bad luck.

I’ve spent years reading the same sky that the dread-ridden practitioners read, and I’ve arrived at different conclusions about what it’s trying to tell us.

On this Freedom from Fear holiday, I will offer disclaimers to refute the doom-mongering and uphold the zoom-and-boom approach to living our magical lives.

1. I don’t use any version of astrology that claims some planets and some houses are “malefic.” There are no villains in the solar system. There is no celestial body whose essential job is to ambush or ruin you.

So, for example, Saturn isn’t a hooded executioner; it teaches discipline, patient structure, the dignity of limits. Mars isn’t a brute; it grants courage, drive, and the holy capacity to fight for what we love.

To brand a planet or a house as evil is to misread the gift inside the intense packaging.

Read more about my understanding of Saturn: tinyurl.com/BlessingsOfSaturn

Read more about my understanding of Mars: tinyurl.com/MarsWithinUs

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2. I don’t believe that planets are in “detriment” or “fall” in particular signs. The notion that a planet is crippled, demoted, or exiled simply because of which signs it happens to occupy strikes me as an astrological caste system: as if Venus in Scorpio were a broken instrument, or the Moon in Capricorn a wounded animal. I know people with Venus in Scorpio and Moon in Capricorn, and I guarantee you that those placements don’t hobble or torment them.

No to all that noise. In fact, I relish the hypothesis that every placement is a particular intelligence—a specific flavor of power, a distinctive way of getting things done—not a defect to apologize for.

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3. I don’t regard planetary retrogrades as inherently problematic. Mercury retrograde, in particular, has become pop culture’s favorite scapegoat, blamed for every dropped call and missed text.

But a retrograde isn’t a malfunction. It’s a different mode: a turning-inward, a season for review, revision, recapitulation, and second looks. The backward-seeming motion isn’t the universe glitching. It’s the universe inviting us to circle back and finish what we left unfinished.

My understanding of Mercury Retrograde: tinyurl.com/RetrogradeMercury

Read more about retrograde planets in general: https://tinyurl.com/y89kuwa6

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4. I don’t think we should do anything differently when the moon is “void of course.” I won’t tiptoe through my life, postpone my decisions, or hold my breath because tradition warns that “nothing will come of” what I begin during those hours.

I start my projects whenever the spirit moves me. The cosmos isn’t waiting to penalize my timing.

Read more about my understanding: tinyurl.com/PraiseMoonVoidOfCourse

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5. I don’t treat the aspects of square and opposition as being inherently negative and troublesome. The so-called “hard aspects” are engines of growth, not glitches in the wiring. Tension isn’t the enemy of a vivid life; it’s one of its primary creative forces.

A square denotes friction that strikes a spark. An opposition is the dynamic, generative tug between two truths that both deserve to be honored. Smooth and easy is lovely, but it’s less likely to make us braver, deeper, or more alive.

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6. I don’t believe that solar or lunar eclipses portend peril or distress. Eclipses are thresholds, hinges, and dramatic punctuation marks in the ongoing narrative of our lives.

They’re portals: moments when energies can be released and new modes born. To greet them with anxiety is to mistake intensity for worrisome twists.

More about my understanding of eclipses: tinyurl.com/EclipsesAreInvitations

When I periodically lay out my approach to astrology on social media, some readers are alarmed, even angry, as if they imagine I’m a first-class spiritual bypasser. One sneered, “So you practice astrology that strips away negative aspects and shadow?”

That’s a big, unjustified leap from what I actually say.

The answer is no, I’m not stripping away shadow. I’m not saying everything that ever happens is cheerful, positive, and easy. What I’m refusing is far more specific: the assignment of fixed, fatalistic, fear-based verdicts to the phenomena of the sky. I’m questioning the medieval bookkeeping that decides in advance which configurations are curses and which are blessings, before we’ve even had the chance to live them.

Shadow is real. Difficulty is real. Grief, loss, struggle, and the long dark passages of a human life are real, all worthy of our intense attention. As a chaos magician and dreamworker, I am on intimate terms with what’s unresolved, wounded, and not-yet-redeemed. I work with the shadow every single day and have for years. It’s one of my deepest callings. It’s an important reason why I am such a diligent dreamworker.

The difference is this: I don’t believe the shadow is a punishment handed down by malefic planets. I believe it’s raw material: teachings that invite us to grow into a more beautiful and resilient version of ourselves. The squares that grind against us and the transits that jolt us out of our habits are the curriculum. They’re not sentences pronounced by a hostile universe

To strip away shadow would commit the grave error of toxic positivity. I have zero interest in that. PRONOIA—my conviction that the whole of creation is conspiring to move us in the direction of liberation—isn’t the denial of pain. It’s the radical trust that even our pain is conspiring to liberate us.

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So here’s the core of how I practice:

All omens deserve to be interpreted in ways that provide guidance and teaching. All configurations deserve to be read as messages about how to live more skillfully, love more fiercely, and wake up more fully: including the comfortable and the uncomfortable aspects, the flowing trines and the disruptive squares, the new moons and the eclipses.

All omens are revelations about how to successfully wrangle with our problems, perpetrate liberation, ameliorate suffering, find redemption, and perform the tricky maneuvers and ingenious tweaks that enable us to slip free of our mind-forged manacles and discover the deeper meanings beneath our experiences.

Those manacles, as William Blake understood, are often forged in our own imaginations. They are made of our fears, inherited superstitions, and half-conscious agreements about what we’re allowed to become.

And astrology at its best is a locksmith’s art, not a fortune-teller’s racket. It hands us the picks and shims and skeleton keys. It shows us where the lock is, and how the mechanism turns.

An omen isn’t a verdict handed down from on high. It doesn’t tell us what will be done to us. It’s an invitation that reveals what might be done by us and through us and with us if we’re cunning and brave and generous enough to read it as a teaching rather than a threat.

I read the same sky every other astrologer reads. I refuse to read it as a rap sheet. To me, it’s a love letter that includes, among its tender passages, the hard and holy lessons we need to learn.

MORE FROM ME ABOUT ASTROLOGY:

For more of my thoughts about astrology, read my book ASTROLOGY IS REAL and/or read free excerpts from the book here: tinyurl.com/BraveBliss

Read my Love Letters to You, oracles for your sign: tinyurl.com/OraclesForYou

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Bonus: Your Uranian Talents: tinyurl.com/YourUranianTalents

Do It Now!: tinyurl.com/DoItAllNow

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You may have noticed that I give away my horoscopes for free here and on my website. I love it when people buy paid subscriptions to my newsletter, but they’re under no obligation to do so.

So then how, you may ask, do I earn money? How do I pay my rent and buy gas for my 2008 Honda Element and create my future books?

In addition to paid subscribers, another way I raise funds is by creating Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes that DO cost money. If you would like to buy them, thereby contributing to my welfare, I invite you to partake. They’re here: RealAstrology.com

You can also donate at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob (contribute as Friends and Family)

If my work has blessed your life and you’re in a position to help it thrive, please consider donating!

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of June 11

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Dear Oracle: Why do we always have to start at the beginning? I’d much prefer just jumping into the middle of things. Right now, I would love to bypass all the tedious baby steps I’m being forced to take as I try to get some momentum going. Please slip me a few clues about how to fast-forward directly to the fun stuff. —Bored with the Groundwork.” Dear Bored: Your timing is perfect. The planetary omens say you are now authorized to vault over the preludes and prologues and dive right into the heart of the action.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Restoration ecologists work to revive damaged prairies. They’ve discovered that seeds of many native plants can lie dormant in the soil for years, waiting for the right conditions to germinate. If they remove invasive species and restore the land’s natural cycle of controlled fire, wildflowers long absent from the landscape spring back to life. With this metaphor in mind, Cancerian, consider what dormant possibilities may lie buried in your own psyche. What seeds did you plant long ago and then forget? What dreams or talents are waiting for you to clear away the choking overgrowth and create space for them to emerge? Old potentials may be patient, not dead.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Better than any other sign, you understand that ego and generosity can be collaborators rather than enemies. Your charismatic radiance is often a public service. When you express your interesting beauty, you give others permission to tap into their own luminosity. The world always craves your unique flavor of audacious joy, and especially now. The rest of us need your intense insistence that flair and flamboyance are forms of resistance against the forces that would diminish life’s splendor.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Many people struggle with what could be called “imagined ugliness,” a condition clinicians refer to as body dysmorphic disorder. It usually involves fixating on a supposed physical defect, or even on a flaw that exists only in one’s mind. I suspect that almost everyone carries a trace of this tendency, including you and me. The good news, though, is that the current astrological climate is ideal for you to at least partially shatter its spell. You are poised to transform your self-image so vigorously that you begin to regard yourself as a flawless exemplar of quirky, one-of-a-kind beauty.​

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The Golden Gate Bridge, which is a few miles from my home, is painted continuously. Painters start at one end, work their way across, and by the time they reach the other side, it’s time to start over. The job is never finished; maintenance is the permanent condition. Some people find this depressing, but I find it oddly liberating. It means the bridge doesn’t have to achieve some final, perfect state. It just has to be tended. Similarly, you don’t have to fix everything once and for all, Libra. The relationships, projects, and internal states you’re concerned about aren’t meant to reach completion. You shouldn’t worry about trying to finish what’s meant to be an ongoing practice. Just keep starting the cycle again.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Innovative theater director Viola Spolin was a Scorpio. She taught that the best scenes emerge when the actors avoid trying to control outcomes. Instead, they fully commit to the reality they’re creating together. Spontaneous responses are their gold standard. Let’s make this a keynote for you in the coming weeks. Your assignment is to give yourself heartily to improvisation. The most interesting magic will happen as you relax into the collaborative process, trusting it to guide you toward beauty and meanings none of you could have scripted alone.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Musicologists distinguish between “perfect pitch” and “relative pitch.” A person with perfect pitch can sing or identify a specific note without hearing any other music beforehand. Relative pitch is the ability to recognize musical notes in relation to other notes. In the coming weeks, Sagittarius, relative pitch will be a more useful metaphor for you than perfect pitch. Don’t insist on perfect clarity about what’s right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, worthy and unworthy. Instead of obsessing on fixed standards, practice relational discernment. How does this choice feel compared to that one? How does a person behave in this context versus another? For you right now, truth lives in the intervals and connections.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The best way to eliminate a bad habit is to replace it with a good one. Now is an excellent time to acquire more expertise in this art. Start by choosing a specific habit that drains your energy, time, or self-respect. Then identify what that habit is secretly trying to give you, like comfort, distraction, or a sense of control. Your mission is to find a healthier behavior that offers a similar payoff without the damage. For example, maybe you go online and binge-scroll through bad news because you imagine it soothes your anxiety. Instead of that, read an uplifting book or listen to serene music for a while. Be concrete: When the itchy habit hits, what exactly will you do as an alternative?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In 1905, 26-year-old Albert Einstein worked full-time as a clerk in a Swiss patent office. During his off-hours, he wrote four audacious papers that fundamentally changed how physics understood space, time, light, and matter. He accomplished his revolution without the sponsorship of a renowned university or laboratory. His example suggests that we can perhaps re-imagine and recreate the world even if we’re not supported by glamorous circumstances. I suspect this principle applies to you these days. Breakthrough insights and earth-shaking realizations may arrive while you’re doing ordinary tasks. Be alert for the flashes that arise in seemingly routine and modest situations.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): For linguists, “untranslatable” words are concepts that exist in one language but have no equivalent in others. One example is mono no aware, which in Japanese refers to the tender poignance and appreciation you feel in the presence of fleeting beauty, like cherry blossoms falling. I bring this to your attention, Pisces, because I suspect that you, too, are untranslatable right now. My advice is to forget about trying to get others to grasp what’s going on with you. Here’s a suggestion that might help: Find soulful artists and emotionally intelligent creatives who speak the language of your mystery.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many of you have a fraught relationship with discipline. You recognize you need it if you want a life rich with epic adventures. Yet you sometimes resist planning ahead or organizing your resources, fearing it might dampen your immediate pleasures. The problem is that when you skip the planning and organizing, the short-term fun you default to may turn out to be unsatisfying. That’s the challenging news. The encouraging news is that you’re now in a cycle when you can transform how you relate to discipline. I bet you can render some of those old patterns obsolete.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Gemologists evaluate opals less for flawless uniformity than for their mesmerizing play‑of‑color. They study how light interacts with a stone’s microscopic internal structure to produce vivid, shifting hues. The most prized opals aren’t necessarily the most perfect in shape, but the ones whose internal pattern and rainbow-like displays are most vibrant, varied, and alive. This is a marvelous metaphor for you in the coming weeks. I hope you don’t obsess on consistency or smooth away your complications. Let the world see your play-of-color.

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Here we see two pronouncements placed side by side as if they were equivalent insights into the human condition.

On the left is Rebecca Solnit’s affirmation: “The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.”

On the right, Byron Katie’s verdict: “Any story that you tell about yourself causes suffering. There is no authentic story.”

The meme presents these as two flavors of wisdom on the buffet of contemporary spirituality. But they aren’t merely flavors. They are rival political and metaphysical philosophies. And one of them, in practice, becomes dangerous far too often.

I’ll begin with what Byron Katie is right about. There is indeed a form of self-storytelling that becomes a prison. We all have narratives that harden into compulsive loops: rehearsals of grievance, fixed identities forged from old injuries, endless re-litigation of humiliation and betrayal. Anyone who has stared at the ceiling at 3 a.m. replaying ancient wounds knows this purgatory.

To question such stories can be good medicine. Katie’s inquiry process has helped many people loosen their needless suffering. Yes! We should ask whether our stories are true and whether they are the only stories available.

But the leap from “some stories cause suffering” to “there is no authentic story” is a metaphysical confidence trick. And like many confidence tricks, it’s performed most successfully on people who can least afford to lose what is being taken from them.

In various forms of Advaita and contemporary nondualist spirituality, the personal narrative is often treated less as a sacred human inheritance than as a toxic veil to be dissolved. Advocates for this view include Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Papaji, Mooji, Byron Katie, and Eckhart Tolle. More info: tinyurl.com/Anti-StoryTeachers

There’s some wisdom in their perspective. Humans do become trapped inside compulsive mental loops and rigid identities. But what begins as a useful critique of fixation too often expands into a sweeping suspicion toward storytelling, as though the ancient human acts of narrating one’s personal experience and expressing one’s unique identity were merely primitive errors to transcend.

Consider who benefits from a philosophy of no-self and no-story. Whose stories have already been institutionalized? Whose versions of reality already sit inside textbooks, courts, archives, movies, law, and inherited power?

The colonizer can comfortably announce that identity is illusion. The descendants of empire, having spent centuries imposing their narrative on the world, may retreat into transcendence and declare all narratives equally unreal.

All of the following perpetrators are welcome to float into the cool green pool of no-story, where accountability dissolves and the question of what actually happened becomes spiritually unsophisticated: the strip-miner, the pharmaceutical executive, the architect of unjust laws, and the billionaire who profits from poisoned rivers and exhausted laborers.

Meanwhile, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass couldn’t afford this teaching. The survivors of the Magdalene laundries couldn’t afford it. Nor the Indigenous elders finally speaking about the children stolen into residential schools. Nor the survivors of abuse by Epstein, Trump, and Company, who are finally finding language for what was done to them.

For the silenced, storytelling isn’t delusional narcissism. It’s re-entry into reality.

That’s why Solnit’s sentence describes one of the primary mechanics of liberation.

The first revolt of every oppressed person has always been linguistic: I will name what happened. I will say who I am. I will repudiate the implication that the dominator’s story is the only story.

Read Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk and you understand that unexpressed trauma doesn’t disappear. It remains trapped in the nervous system as recurring emergency. Unnamed pain becomes cyclical pain.

The act of telling, especially when finally done in safety, is what allows experience to move from perpetual alarm into metabolized memory. Stories are among the primary ways the flesh digests reality.

To declare all stories inauthentic is, at the level of the body, to risk keeping wounded people imprisoned inside undigested experience.

There is another sleight hidden inside Byron Katie’s formulation: the word “authentic.” The truth is that no story is authentic in the sense of being total, final, or omniscient. Every story is partial and perspectival. Every story is shaped by memory, longing, limitation, imagination, and revision.

But that’s the nature of human consciousness. A story doesn’t need metaphysical perfection to carry truth.

To demand absolute purity before granting legitimacy to lived experience is a trick as old as illegitimate power. It resembles the tactic by which patriarchs have dismissed testimony because it failed to emerge from the “proper” authority.

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The transcendental temptation is to escape the difficult particulars of embodiment by dissolving them into luminous abstraction. Sometimes this impulse produces beautiful poetry and genuine saints. But it also generates huge quantities of spiritual bypassing disguised as wisdom.

Curiously, many teachers who proclaim there’s no self continue behaving as though their own selves deserve careful branding, paid seminars, copyright protection, and excellent lighting. The doctrine of no-self has a tendency to leave the teacher’s bank account intact.

What Rebecca Solnit offers instead is more difficult, more grounded, and ultimately more humane: Stay incarnate. Tell what happened. Express who you are.

And yes, even tell the story knowing it will evolve; realizing that memory is imperfect; recognizing that tomorrow you may understand yourself differently. Tell it anyway.

Storytelling is the ancient human act of cooking raw experience into meaning that can be shared, witnessed, and carried together. It predates writing and even agriculture. It precedes the religions that would later try to demote it to mere illusion.

Long before certain spiritual teachings attempted to deny, disappear, and transcend the self, humans sat around fires and stitched themselves into community through narrative. To say “I am” is one of our oldest sacred gestures.

Every storyteller, from the Paleolithic cave painter to the contemporary memoirist, is participating in an ancient project: weaving a self that can enter relationship with other selves.

Is there any spiritual achievement higher than this? The false varieties of transcendence pretend to compete for that title as they skip the complicated part about actually being here on earth in a body with an ego, soul, feelings, memories, and yearnings.

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I invite you to choose Rebecca Solnit’s version of story, which lets Tubman keep her testimony and the trauma survivor keep her name for what was done to her.

Pick the truth that lets your own difficult, unfinished, fervently incarnate life count as an idiosyncratic treasure worth saying out loud.

Tell your story. It’s already a victory. It’s already a revolt.

WHAT DO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE SAY ABOUT STORIES?

One of the strangest consequences of anti-story spirituality is how poorly it fits many Indigenous cosmologies, where storytelling isn’t regarded as an egoic distraction from reality but as one of the primary ways reality remains alive.

For many Indigenous peoples, stories are not merely psychological interpretations floating inside isolated minds. They are relational vessels that bind human beings to ancestors, landscapes, animals, obligations, seasons, ceremonies, and communal memory. A story isn’t simply “a thought,” let alone a fabrication or delusion. It’s a living thread in a web of reciprocal existence.

This is why certain forms of nondualism can sound bizarrely disembodied when placed beside Indigenous traditions. When some contemporary teachers announce that “all stories are illusion” or that liberation requires transcending narrative identity altogether, they may imagine themselves to be speaking from spiritual sophistication.

But from the perspective of many Indigenous worldviews, such statements can sound less enlightened than socially amputated.

Indigenous storytelling traditions often arise not from narcissistic self-fixation but from responsibility. Stories carry ecological intelligence. They preserve instructions for how to live with rivers, animals, weather, kinship systems, grief, and conflict. They store historical memory so communities don’t disappear into collective amnesia. They allow the dead to remain in relationship with the living.

To tell the story of a people whose land was stolen or whose children were kidnapped isn’t egoic attachment. It’s cultural continuity fighting for survival.

And this reveals a crucial truth: The luxury of declaring all stories unreal often belongs to those whose stories have already been secured by institutions of power. The empire can afford metaphysical detachment from history because its history is already carved into monuments, maps, textbooks, and property law.

But communities threatened with erasure don’t experience storytelling as a neurotic indulgence. They experience it as resistance against disappearance.

The Indigenous critique also exposes how oddly individualistic many anti-story teachings are. The isolated meditator attempting to transcend personal identity is a very different figure from the tribal elder whose stories maintain continuity between generations and between humans and the more-than-human world.

In many Indigenous traditions, identity isn’t imagined as an isolated ego trapped inside illusion. It’s relational all the way down: kinship with land, with ancestors, with animals, and with future generations. Storytelling is a sacred technology through which those relationships are renewed.

Which means that from an Indigenous perspective, the question may not be: “How do I escape the story?”

But rather: “What stories keep the world alive?”

For the Indigenous Ojibway people, the word Adizokan means both “story” and “spirit.” In fact, story and spirit are the same thing. Everything has a spirit and everything has a story, including people, animals, trees, lakes, rivers, and rocks.

Inspired by these thoughts, I invite you to meditate on how your rich life stories are central elements of your spirit.

I further encourage you to spend some sweet time telling yourself the stories from your past that you love best.

For extra delightful bonus fun, dream up two prospective stories about your future that you would ultimately like to create.

Info about Adizokan comes from Ann and John Mahan.

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FUN TRUTHS ABOUT STORYTELLING

Storytelling is subversive because it belongs to the community; it’s a medicine to transmute the toxins of industrialized society; it’s a spiritual practice. Storytelling is the antidote to empire. —Nurete Brenner, professor of organizational behavior

The stories we tell ourselves shape our realities. If we don’t tell our own stories, someone else will tell them for us—and they will not tell them kindly. —author and activist Winona LaDuke, Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, Minnesota

Personal storytelling and testimony are vital spiritual practices of self-care that enable us to prayerfully explore ourselves. —Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary

Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories. The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt. —author Rebecca Solnit

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. But Indigenous peoples tell stories in order to remember how to live together. —author Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg people

The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it’s impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be. That’s why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good. —Durga Tagore and Shakti Guhathakurta

Each one of us has a story to tell, and the telling of that story is a spiritual act. Our stories heal us, connect us, and enrich our lives. —author Erin Springer

Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves. —author Angeles Arrien

Stories create community, enable us to see through the eyes of other people, and open us to the claims of others. —actor Peter Forbes

Storytelling is how we resist erasure. It is how we return stolen time to ourselves. —poet Joy Harjo, Muscogee (Creek) Nation

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. —author Maya Angelou

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives—the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change—truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. —author Salmon Rushdie

To tell a story is to place oneself back into the circle of life. —botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, Citizen Potawatomi Nation

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STORIES WILL LAST LONGER THAN THE CLOUD

Stories are humanity’s most powerful and durable technology for preserving knowledge. They carry ecological, historical, and spiritual truths across thousands of years. Indigenous storytelling traditions have developed a deep form of permanence.

READ MORE: https://tinyurl.com/StoriesLast

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of June 4

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Neurologist Oliver Sacks said, “I am haunted by the density of experience.” He meant that every moment contains far more richness than we can fully register or remember. This observation will be especially relevant for you in the coming weeks. Your mind (and heart!) will be flooded with an abundance of stimuli, ideas, feelings, and impressions. It might initially feel overwhelming, but will ultimately be a boon—especially if you prepare yourself for the intensity and abundance. Imagine yourself standing next to a fountain and feeling cheerful about getting soaked.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You have superpowers that hardened hearts and tough guys can’t fathom. Receptivity is a key part of your genius, for example. Emotional fluency is at the root of your intelligence. Your ability to feel so much and so deeply makes you dangerous to status quos managed by people who overthink everything. Wait! There’s more. You can nurture without smothering and protect without imprisoning. You wield the powers of memory without being enslaved by nostalgia. You make home a verb, not a noun, as you build shelter for yourself and your tribe. I hope you will express these gorgeous talents to the max in the coming weeks and months.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): An astrologer rooted in older traditions might claim that now is an ideal time to promote your personal agenda through sly, gossipy maneuvering. But since I am devoted to building a new culture grounded in compassionate values that nourish the soul, my message is different. I’m pleased to tell you that the coming weeks will be a potent phase to engage in elevating gossip that serves the greater good, to celebrate unsung heroes, and to call attention to everything that is thriving. For practical dreamers like you and me, carelessly speaking ill of others undermines our own aspirations. One of the most effective ways to expand our own possibilities is to use the power of language to boost other people’s chances for joy and success.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The ancient Library of Alexandria contained over half a million scrolls. If you devoted eight hours a day to reading, you could finish about 5,000 books over the course of your life. The librarians back then knew they would never read all the texts they managed and protected. Their job wasn’t to consume all knowledge but to be stewards of abundance. They’re good role models for you, Virgo. The wonderful fact is that you don’t have to master every single thing that attracts your attention. Your far more relaxing task is to curate with care and wisdom. Your growing edge is to know what to preserve and what to release. One of your noblest projects is to commune pleasurably with the intriguing mysteries that life brings you, not obsess on them.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libra psychologist Carol Dweck distinguishes between fixed mindsets (”I’m not smart enough”) and growth mindsets (”I can become smarter”). When you have a fixed mindset, obstacles weigh you down. With a growth mindset, they motivate you to develop. What determines your trajectory isn’t your current skill level but how you relate to your edge. With this in mind, Libra, I invite you to monitor your self-talk as you encounter challenges. Are you prone to thinking that limitations are permanent, or do you see them as temporary states you can use as opportunities? You now have a good chance to instill the latter as a root habit.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): What’s something you wish you could change about yourself? Is it a trait, pattern, fear, or story about your body? And what exactly tells you that this can never change? Is it loyalty to old expectations or a rotting prophecy someone laid on you? Consider the possibility that maybe the “can’t” is really a “won’t,” or a “don’t know how yet,” or “I’m afraid of who I’d be without this.” Then imagine that you don’t have to transform this thing instantly, but, for starters, need only shift it by 10 percent in the direction of mercy and freedom. What small, specific action would generate that 10 percent?

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): What’s your most vital relationship? I dare you to surprise each other in the coming weeks. Refresh your bond with playful experimentation. Here are adventures you two could explore: 1. Take a walk together with no destination in mind, letting curiosity guide you. Talk about the paths you have not yet taken in life but might like to. 2. Describe the most beautiful future you can imagine for each other. Share practical steps you could take to make these scenarios happen. 3. Choose a food treat you both love, speak a blessing over it, then eat it slowly together as you name what you are most grateful for in your connection.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Chess masters and accomplished musicians practice differently from amateurs. They focus most intensely on their weak points, less so on rehearsing what they already do well. It’s uncomfortable to confront inadequacy, but they’re better for it. In my astrological opinion, Capricorn, you should specialize in a similar courage during the coming weeks. I invite you to direct your generous attention toward your shakiest skills and most uncertain territories. Glorious growth will happen at the edge of your competence.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Be more like a lightning storm over a green meadow and less like a porch light attracting moths. Be more like a spiritual riddle in an ecstatic poem and less like a slogan printed on a T‑shirt. Be more like a Miles Davis improvisation and less like a tune played note‑for‑note from the sheet music for a formulaic pop song. Can you stretch yourself into more fertile wildness, Aquarius? Will you expand your future with adventures that thrill your imagination? I believe you can and should. For bonus magic, be more like a dream of wandering in a rowdy paradise and less like the old version of yourself. Trust the frontier signals that make your pulse quicken, and speak less about the obvious truths that make everyone nod in agreement.

PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20): Are you ready to assess the state of your emotional pain? Every few years, I invite you to take stock. I ask you to reflect on how well you’ve been cultivating meaningful stress while avoiding useless pain and misery. So, how’s your progress since our last check-in? Have you improved at sidestepping dull torments you’ve relived a thousand times? Are you less vulnerable to being wounded by ignorant or thoughtless people? Can you more swiftly shake off the sting of minor troubles? Most importantly, are you increasingly magnetized to the intriguing dilemmas that challenge you to grow wiser and more resourceful?

ARIES (Mar. 21-April 19): You are often the best possible remedy for stale, unoriginal thinking that’s festering in your vicinity. And you are especially so these days. Others might have the gall to disrupt the deadening status quo, but you have the charm to do it without scorching every bridge and laying waste to the land. So I invite you to step into the role of cheerful troublemaker. Unleash your iconoclastic sparks with the intention of making life friskier and more imaginative, not more tangled and irritating.

TAURUS (Apr. 20-May 20): In many farming cultures, including parts of India, growers speak or sing to their crops as they walk through the fields. It’s a gesture of personal care that mirrors growing scientific interest in how plants respond to sound and vibration. Some studies suggest that plants exposed to sustained speech and song may grow more vigorously. Your assignment in the coming weeks, Taurus, is to speak to the growing things in your life with similar devotion. Talk to your projects. Sing to your relationships. Tell jokes to your dreams. The universe is extra responsive to your sweet voice.

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Disappear Your Fear; Resurrect Your Audacity

Morning Practice

You’re lying in bed, having just awakened. Soon you’ll rise, but not yet. You love hovering in the liminal zone between dream and day. This is the perfect moment, when your psyche is extra receptive.

Place one hand on your heart and the other on your belly. Enjoy the luxurious pleasure and privilege of breathing. Feel the rise and fall of the ancient rhythm that has sustained you through the night.

Now sing softly:

“I disappear my fear.”

As these words flow out of you, imagine your fear as a dark mist or a weight pressing on your chest. Simply acknowledge it with curiosity: “Ah, there you are. I know you.”

Now watch it dissolve, like morning fog touched by the first rays of sun. Your fear doesn’t fight you. It evaporates into the air you’re breathing out.

Take a deep breath in and sing:

“I resurrect my audacity.”

Feel the boldness that has always belonged to you. Maybe it has been buried under layers of conditioning and caution, but it has never deserted you. So in other words, you’re not creating audacity from nothing. You’re summoning it up from the underworld of your forgotten powers.

Audacity is rising in you like an old song you love. Your birthright is reminding you it’s always there.

Now say or sing:

“I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.”

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Variations: Playing with Power

The mantra is alive and wants to move through you in various forms at different times of the day. Don’t let it become stale with repetition. Instead, try other renditions:

Sing it like an anthem. Chant it like a psalm. Let it be ridiculous, sublime, or both. Wail it in the shower as if you were bellowing it under a waterfall. Growl it while you’re making coffee, turning the morning ritual into a brash ceremony.

Murmur or spout it in different voices. Proclaim it as your future self, who’s already living audaciously. Say it as your younger self, who needed to hear it. Celebrate it as a brave warrior, as a sly healer, or as a loving parent to your own soul.

Rhythm variations:

• Quickly and percussively: “IdisappearmyfearandIresurrectmyaudacity”

• Slowly and spaciously: “I . . . disappear . . . my . . . fear. I . . . resurrect . . . my . . . audacity.”

• With the blessing of breath: “I disappear my fear” (exhale). “I resurrect my audacity” (inhale).

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Movement practice.

As you say, “I disappear my fear,” make a gesture of releasing. Push your palms away from your body. Open your arms wide and dance. Or shake your hands as if flinging water from your fingers.

As you say. “I resurrect my audacity,” pull a precious object toward your heart, or raise your arms overhead, or gently pound your fist against your chest, or stand on your toes reaching upward.

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Deepening: The Evening Practice

As you prepare for sleep, the mantra takes on different work. Now you’re not launching yourself into the day but releasing yourself into the healing powers of the night. Lie down and get comfortable. Close your eyes and scan your day:

Where did fear sneak into the picture? Just notice this, and don’t judge yourself. Was it in a conversation you avoided? An email you didn’t send? A truth you swallowed? A dream you talked yourself out of?

See each eruption of fear. Then say, with compassion:

“I disappear my fear.”

Watch the fear from today dissolve into the darkness around you. You don’t have to carry it into tomorrow. Let it go, send it away, and watch it disintegrate.

Now scan for times during the day when your audacity yearned to emerge. Even if you didn’t act on it, where did you feel that spark: an impulse toward your feisty courage and pluck?

Honor that impulse. Stoke that flame. Say:

“I resurrect my audacity.”

Feel it growing stronger as you acknowledge it. Your unconscious mind is listening. You’re programming your dreams, setting an intention for the night’s journey. While you sleep, your audacity will be gathering force, preparing for tomorrow.

Repeat the full mantra, making your voice more daring, playful, or boisterous with each repetition:

“I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.”

“I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.”

“I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.”

Let the last repetition sail off into the dreaming dark where your psyche will do its effervescent work.

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The Subtle Practice: Throughout Your Day

You don’t have to wait for morning or evening. The mantra is a portable spell, available whenever you need it.

Before a challenging conversation: Murmur it under your breath.

When you’re in the grip of anxiety: Say it silently in your mind, over and over, until the fear loses its hold.

If you feel a familiar impulse to play small or hide or stay safe: Make the mantra be your rebellion.

When you’re about to take an action that makes you nervous: Invoke it as your war cry and your prayer.

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Within these two statements is a complete technology for transformation. You’re doing two things:

1. Disappearing your fear by seeing through its illusory power and letting it dissolve.

2. Resurrecting your audacity by remembering it was always there, just waiting to be called back to life.

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The Invitation

For the next 33 days, make this mantra your companion. Chant it reverently each morning as you wake. Sing it defiantly every evening before sleep. Pray it confidently whenever fear tries to insinuate its familiar lies.

Notice how your relationship with fear gradually shifts because you’ve learned to make it disappear. Rejoice as your audacity resurrects itself—in small ways at first, then in increasingly gutsy expressions of your true vitality.

You are performing an ancient alchemy: transforming the lead of fear into the gold of courage. And you’re doing it with your breath, your voice, and your willingness to speak the truth you want to live.

I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.

So shall it be.

For inspiration in mastering the difference between your fearful fantasies and accurate intuitions, go here: tinyurl.com/Fear-Intuition

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HELP AND SUPPORT

I get many heart-rending requests from people who are going through challenging times in their lives and would like my personal advice.

I wish I could respond to these inquiries, because they are often profound and well-thought-out, demonstrating an ability to define the problems at hand with lucid insight.

Unfortunately, I can’t respond. My various lines of work are too demanding to add any other tasks to my life, no matter how interesting they might be. But I’ve developed a basic response to those people who seek my personal input. I’m offering it below.

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I’m honored that you regard me as someone who might be able to provide answers or solace, but I don’t think it would be responsible for me to fling advice your way without knowing more about the complexities of your problem. And I’m afraid I can’t give the time necessary to explore those complexities.

The only thing I’ll suggest, as you seek to clarify your situation, is for you to arrange to go on a retreat, even if it’s just in your own home. During that time of withdrawal from the world’s everyday madness, I urge you to avoid all media and to be as silent and relaxed as it’s possible for you to be.

During the first part of your retreat, spend hours visualizing in your mind’s eye the entire story of your life, from the earliest memory to the present moment.

During the second phase of your retreat, begin your meditations by establishing contact with the highest source of wisdom and love within you. You can call this source God or Goddess or your Guardian Angel or Higher Self or even Nature itself. Spend luxurious time in dialogue with this source, making sure to ask these questions:

1. “What is it I want more than anything else?”

2. “What is the best way to serve the mission I came to Earth to carry out? What are the very best gifts I have to offer other humans?”

3. “What path will allow me to ultimately learn the most about wise love?”

4. “How do I need to change in order to get what I want, carry out my life’s mission, and learn about wise love? What influences and attitudes do I need to eliminate?”

During the third phase of the process, write out a mission statement: what you want to accomplish by the time you die many years hence. Then create a master plan of the actions you will take in order to make that mission statement come true. Include three actions you will take in the next month to get more serious about accomplishing your mission.

During the fourth phase, visualize the following scenarios in lush detail: that God/Goddess/Life loves you, that the entire universe is conspiring to give you the lessons and blessings and kicks in the ass and liberations you need exactly when you need them, and that you are ready to welcome that love and guidance with all your heart.

P.S. I’m a big believer in trusting your intuition. Even if it doesn’t lead you to what your ego thinks is a successful outcome, your intuition will always guide you to the experiences that your soul needs.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

WEEK OF MAY 28

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Among the Dogon of Mali, Sigui so is a secret language. It’s used in a sacred ritual when people gather to retell their beginnings and patch up strains in tribal harmony. I’m borrowing “Sigui so” here as a symbol for a way of talking that I hope you will specialize in during the coming weeks: language that eases tensions, soothes friction, and fosters unity. Start like this: Unleash your trademark wit but spike it with sly blessings and tactful probes. Wield your fluency to burn away confusion and uncover unspoken feelings. If you’re in an extra-bold mood, give everyone tacit permission to be their idiosyncratic selves instead of their polished personas.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): What’s the holiest, most healing trouble you could rustle up right now? I mean trouble that freshens what’s stale but doesn’t scorch the earth. Maybe it’s a buoyant disruption, like telling wild truths you usually tend to soften. Or maybe it’s asking for what your future self pines for instead of what your past self regards as polite and reasonable. As a Cancerian soul myself, I dare both you and me to give ourselves permission to rumble. Let’s be brazen as we instigate creative upheavals in service to our cheerful vigor. Let’s instigate at least one concrete action that will rattle the stagnant pattern just enough to make life more interesting.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Sea otters are a keystone species. Their presence is essential to the health of their entire ecosystem. As they eat sea urchins, the kelp forests flourish. Without otters, the urchins overgraze, and kelp forests may collapse, which in turn affects hundreds of other species. One creature’s appetite helps regulate an entire undersea neighborhood. I suspect you’re serving a similar function, Leo. You’re having more impact and wielding more influence than you realize. No pressure! But please act accordingly: with maximum integrity and robust responsibility.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): A Dutch woman who died left her grand-nephew an inheritance of 220,000 euros. The only problem is that he’s homeless and constantly on the move, so the executors haven’t been able to find him. This echoes a recurring pattern in your life. Even now, sources of blessings are searching for ways to reach you, but you are slow to notice their approach or to magnetize yourself to their arrival. My prayer: May you figure out what needs to be done to make yourself fully available for these gifts—and then ingrain that capacity in your habit mind.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Visualize your fears. Consider how few of them rest on a genuine likelihood that the scary events could ever take place. Then ask yourself how much of your uneasiness springs from vivid fantasies or from a practiced tendency to fret. You might also ruminate on how you absorb the background worry that’s amplified by mass culture. After reflecting on all that, I invite you to take one concrete action to lower the level of tension you have come to treat as normal. Take another action to weaken the grip of your deepest dread. The current planetary patterns suggest you now have the bold, creative power necessary to shrink your baseline anxiety.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Even more than usual, you have a sacred duty to celebrate your poignant sweetness and dark intelligence. For the sake of your emotional health, you should pay wild reverence to your deepest, most mysterious yearnings. To be the person we all you need you to be, you must tenderly nurture the parts of your inner world that resemble the aurora borealis. I want to support you in these sublime sacraments, which is why I suggest you memorize the following prayer by Rainer Maria Rilke: “Be attentive to what is arising within you, and place that above everything you perceive around you. What is happening in your innermost self is worthy of your entire love.”

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Linguists use the term “false friends.” These are words in different languages that seem similar but don’t have the same meaning. For example, the Spanish word embarazada resembles “embarrassed” to English speakers but actually means “pregnant.” I suspect you’re dealing with another type of false friend, Sagittarius: people or situations that turned out to be at variance with what you initially imagined. But rather than feeling unsettled by these revelations, I suggest you treat them as a prod to see with fresh eyes. Your disorientation could be the beginning of more interesting understandings.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a code assigned to a book for commercial and cataloging purposes. It contains key information and includes a built-in error-detection notation. If you transpose two numbers when entering an ISBN, the last digit will tell you something’s wrong. In this spirit, Capricorn, I heartily recommend that you build more mistake detection into your life. Invest in extra safeguards. Add verification steps. Build in double-checks. The goal is to create systems robust enough to survive oversights and gaffes. I very much want you to give yourself the gift of safety nets that will empower you to take smart risks and intriguing gambles.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You may not yet grasp how richly creative you are right now, nor how much more abundant your generative powers could become. So it’s auspicious that you are reading this horoscope now. Consider this your advance notice: Your capacity to originate ideas, projects, and connections is surging, and it’s crucial to choose with care which possibilities you nurture and which you decline. If you are selective and intentional about what you sow, then about six months from now, you will be far more likely to gather lush, beautiful harvests instead of wrestling with overgrown, unruly tangles.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Ethnobotanist Wade Davis documented how different cultures perceive entirely different realities despite inhabiting the same physical world. It means that two people can stand in the same forest and see different forests through their cultural lens and personal mythology. This is simultaneously the problem and the opportunity you face, Pisces. You and others in your orbit are inhabiting divergent realities that superficially seem the same. If you hope to reconcile the differences, you must first acknowledge them as real. You’re dealing with fundamentally different ways of constructing meaning, not just small misunderstandings.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the weeks ahead, simply being right won’t necessarily lead to success. Having strength, intelligence, wealth, or connections might help, though not as much as usual. But a different approach will work well as you strive to overcome challenges: a blend of cleverness and integrity. I invite you to be cunning while remaining honorable. Practice subtle strategy in service of higher aims. And here’s one more secret to ensure victory: Let go of any need to receive full recognition for your efforts.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Dear Horoscope Guy: Two astrologers have assured me that as a Taurus, I’m a natural-born money magnet. So why am I broke? I keep begging the Divine for cash miracles, and I buy lottery tickets twice a week. Still nothing! Please tell me when I’ll finally hit the jackpot. Better yet, give me the winning numbers. –Taurus Desperate for Dollars.” Dear Desperate: The “luck” you crave will arrive as you diligently pour yourself into building your sweetest dreams, spurning shortcuts and enjoying yourself as much as possible. The Divine prefers to fund eager co-creators, not wishful thinkers. I predict that a slow-motion jackpot will ultimately arrive through your devoted attention to doing what excites you.

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Art by Mindy Eve Ouellet

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I understand the longing by astrologers to peg particular world events to specific astrological aspects and configurations.

There is something deeply satisfying about the idea that the wheeling of planets through the sky might illuminate the patterns of history in detail. What fun it would be if the chaos of human events might yield its secrets to those who can read the celestial maps with precision and care.

I recognize the sincerity of the many astrologers who even aspire to predict specific future global events and trends through the power of astrological ruminations. The ambition is noble. It speaks to astrology’s ancient covenant with the human hunger for meaning.

But such meditations are beyond my capacity. I am insufficiently knowledgeable about the myriad factors that would need to be held in mind to make this kind of speculation viable—including the histories and the intricate political, economic, and cultural details of major nations and civilizations.

A credible astrological reading of world events would require not just fluency in the symbolic language of the planets, but something approaching the polymathic mastery of a historian, geopolitical analyst, cultural anthropologist, and economist all at once.

I also think the world as a whole is just too complicated and multifaceted to draw clear, simple conclusions about its evolution. It resists the kind of elegant synthesis that astrology, at its best, can offer for individual lives.

Assessing the soul’s code of the World Soul is a profoundly different undertaking than assessing the soul’s code of an individual human.

The birth chart of a person is already a labyrinthine mystery; the birth chart of a civilization or a nation or of humanity itself is of an entirely different order of complexity and interpretive challenge.

I know of only one astrologer who has managed this immense work with some grace and genuine proficiency: Richard Tarnas in his landmark book Cosmos and Psyche.

His scholarship is formidable, his humility authentic, and his capacity to hold enormous amounts of historical and philosophical detail in productive relationship with astrological thinking is rare.

But it’s worth noting that his work in that book is primarily retrospective: analyzing past events through the lens of astrological thinking, looking backward with the considerable advantage of already knowing what happened.

Retrodiction, however impressive, is a different beast than prediction.

And honestly, I know of no other astrologer who has come close to offering big-picture, global projections that ring consistently true—either about the past, when examined rigorously, or about the future, which is even harder to scry.

The literature is full of confident proclamations that, viewed in hindsight, dissolve into vagueness or simply miss the mark. I say this not to disparage the wonderful tradition, but because intellectual honesty demands it.

I don’t mind, and even genuinely enjoy, playing around with ideas and making speculative guesses, as long as I don’t pretend I’m an authority and don’t encourage others to treat my musings as prophecy. Astrological pattern-noticing can be genuinely illuminating, even thrilling, when held lightly.

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So why am I willing to offer the broad astrological reflections that follow below when I’ve just disclaimed any ability to predict specific world events? The distinction matters to me, and I want to name it.

There’s a difference between forecasting tomorrow’s weather in your exact zip code and saying, “We’re entering a season of storms; expect wind.” The first is a precise empirical claim that lives or dies by what actually happens at your front door. The second is an attunement to atmosphere that invites attention rather than demanding belief.

What follows is offered in that second spirit. I’m noticing patterns and tracing symbolic resonances. What trends have accompanied these planetary configurations in the past and what might accompany them now?

I’m not naming dates or events or outcomes, but sketching the energy that seems to be circulating and the questions it appears to be asking. What work are we invited to undertake?

Held this way, astrology becomes less a fortune-telling apparatus and more a contemplative tool: a way of asking what season the World Soul is in, and what that season might be requesting of us.

Readers stay in possession of their own discernment. The future stays unwritten. And the symbolic imagination, one of the great human faculties, gets to play.

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For example, it’s spookily interesting to notice that the last three times Uranus was in Gemini, as it is now, coincided with three of the most seismic ruptures in American history: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II.

Uranus will be in Gemini until May 2033, and it’s tempting to fantasize that our era will undergo changes comparable to the last three phases. But the prospect of making specific predictions about what’s going to unfold? That’s beyond me.

I’d venture to say it’s beyond everyone—even the most gifted, learned, and clairvoyant astrologers working today. We can say: Something significant is stirring. We can say: Pay attention, the atmosphere is charged, and the old structures are vulnerable

But to claim to know the precise shape of what’s coming—the wars, the revolutions, the breakthroughs—is to overclaim in a way that ultimately dishonors both astrology and the irreducible wildness of history itself.

As the old motto goes, The stars incline, but they don’t compel. And the World Soul, like any soul worth knowing, keeps its deepest secrets close.

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Read what I’ve written about Uranus in Gemini: tinyurl.com/UranusThroughGemini

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NEPTUNE IN ARIES

Neptune entered Aries on January 26, 2026. It remains in Aries (with a brief dip into Taurus) until March 23, 2039.​

Previous Neptune visits to Aries:

The American Civil War, dated from the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, coincided precisely with Neptune’s transit into Aries.

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In 1533, when Neptune entered Aries, Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the “Reformation Parliament” severed England from the Catholic Church, inaugurating centuries of Protestant–Catholic realignment and empire-building.

Around the same time, Spanish conquistadors captured the Inca capital of Cuzco, a pivotal moment in the destruction of the Inca state and the consolidation of Spanish colonial rule in the Andes.

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The 1697–1712 Neptune-in-Aries epoch included the War of the Spanish Succession and Queen Anne’s War, major dynastic and colonial conflicts involving much of Europe and its American colonies.

In 1707, the Act of Union joined England and Scotland into the new entity of Great Britain, a constitutional re-founding that reshaped the British state and its future imperial trajectory.

SATURN AND NEPTUNE IN ARIES

Saturn and Neptune were exactly conjunct at 0° Aries on February 20, 2026. They will both continue to be in Aries until April 2028.

Here are some ideas about the meaning of this aspect:

This is the time when we are no longer allowed to fantasize a better world from the sidelines, but must live it in our bodies, with all the risk and exposure that Aries entails.

The age of curated spiritual personas is closing. The cosmos is impatient with our beautiful theories and exquisitely articulated longings.

Neptune and Saturn together in the sign of the warrior demand that we incarnate what we have only imagined. They insist that our visions take on weight and make demands of us. Aries insists on first-person presence, on showing up in the flesh with whatever we’ve got, even if that feels insufficient. More:

• The hero’s journey can’t be about conquest or mastery but has to bear the wound of the world in a new way: transmuting private disillusionment into public, embodied compassion.

The old myth is being retired. No more of the lone seeker venturing out, claiming the treasure, and returning triumphant. In its place, a stranger and more demanding initiation emerges: warriors who fight not to win but to learn how to be in love with life. They clear a path that others can actually walk on, not just admire from a distance.

• Our ideals must get robustly practical. Dreams that can’t survive contact with the brawl-and-jostle world are being dissolved. Only those visions willing to scuffle and rumble are allowed to go on.

This is a brutal but loving sorting. The cosmos is composting our spiritual escapism to clear the ground for visions that can survive difficult conversations, financial setbacks, and sleepless nights with a sick child. Can our prophecies negotiate, organize, build, and repair?

• Our faith has to become less about what we believe and more about what we dare to enact in the face of fear, failure, and futility.

Belief is no longer a noun we possess but a verb we perform. The question shifts from “What’s your spiritual path?” to “What does your spiritual path lead you to do on a Tuesday morning when nothing feels meaningful?”

Saturn cares about our follow-through. Neptune cares about whether we can stay devoted to mystery even when mystery offers no comfort. Together they are midwifing a faith that is athletic, weather-beaten, and unromantic. It’s a faith we could trust our life to because it has already been tested by life.

• This is the end of spectator spirituality. The cosmos is pressuring us to choose. Do we retreat into anesthetized cynicism, the easiest religion of our era, requiring nothing but a smirk? Or do we take up the vulnerable, unglamorous work of living our most compassionate vision in real time, in real bodies, in real conflict?

There is no neutral position anymore. Every soul is being summoned onto the field, not as a champion but as a participant in a cause that’s larger than personal victory.

Aries is the sign of beginnings, and what begins now is the long, awkward, exhilarating practice of becoming the people our prophecies have been describing.

Not someday. Not when conditions improve. Now, with this body, in this hour, with whatever fear is currently moving through us.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

WEEK OF MAY 21

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): When many people reflect on their early years, they focus on the alienation and wounds they endured. Few recall, in vivid detail, the moments of joy, triumph, and breakthrough. It’s a symptom, I suppose, of our era’s compulsive cynicism, and not necessarily an accurate account of the past. So many good things happened, too! This isn’t to dismiss the real pain that shaped us in our tender years. Still, I want you to know that you are in a season when it’s essential to recognize and celebrate the blessings of your beginnings—the fun, guidance, and grace that helped you flourish. Update your gratitude!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Of all the zodiac signs, you have the most potential to cultivate robust emotional intelligence that’s helpful in practical situations. More than everyone else, your feelings are less likely to render you vulnerable and fragile and more likely to make you a powerhouse. The coming weeks will be prime time to deploy these talents to the max. I encourage you to summon gleeful exuberance as you provide your sensitive, heartful nurturing. Practice the ingenious art of keeping the world emotionally literate and spiritually alert.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I am pleased to predict that you will be less egotistical and narcissistic in the coming weeks than you have ever been in your life. In saying that, I don’t mean to imply that you’re any more egotistical and narcissistic than the rest of us. I’m simply saying you can get a liberating reprieve from the excessive pride and selfishness that regularly debilitates us all. Congratulations, Leo! This grace period should enable you to deepen your attunement with your soul’s blueprint, the design of destiny you chose before birth. I bet you will enjoy a period of vibrant, exciting tranquility.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Consider this a friendly heads-up to your inner critic, your gloomy side, and any voice in your head that expects too little from life. Upcoming astrological omens are influencing me to predict a stream of auspicious omens and fortunate events. So if you’d rather cling to tired stories about not being good enough or strong enough, you might want to skip my forecasts for a while. But if you’re ready to vivify your faith in your power to eagerly create what you desire, stay tuned. Karmic blessings are coming.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): To be blunt, dear Libra, I think you need soul medicine that’s most available in frontiers, borderlands, and thresholds. Some of these might be bright, shiny places, and others may be akin to mazes and tunnels. Please keep in mind that your main motivation, as you seek adventures in the outskirts, should be the quest to have fun as you blow your own mind. For the sake of your lust for life and joie de vivre, you really must explore power spots untouched by trivia and pettiness: sanctuaries where vastness, freedom, and raw vitality can wash away at least some of your fixations and habits.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Giant Pacific octopus dens are identifiable by the “gardens” of debris outside. They include shells and bones, arranged like ornamentation around the entrance. Are the creatures trying to decorate? Scientists don’t know. But it’s clear they are leaving evidence of their appetites. The result is distinctive, artistic, and revealing. With this scenario as your metaphorical meditation, Scorpio, I invite you to look at what you have been pursuing and consuming in recent months. Contemplate the stuff piling up in your sphere. What do your finished experiences reveal about your quest for meaning? Does this pattern reflect your deepest intentions? Is this who you want to be? Make sure the story you’re teling about yourself is the right one.

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Advising a Sagittarius to be patient is like asking a bonfire to burn slowly and politely. Still, I will give it a try. Because I love you, I will dare to be frank. So here goes: If you want to align yourself with astrological currents, practice being reverently at ease with life’s madness as you watch and wait. See if you can take genuine pleasure in resting within a field of calm trust. Imagine, with fearless delight, the rewards that will find you as you nurture a steady, unhurried confidence in your intuition, which will ultimately tell you exactly what you need to do.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1994, immunologist Polly Matzinger revolutionized her field with a radical theory. She discovered that our immune systems don’t focus on distinguishing “self” from “non-self,” but rather responding to threats. The body puts less emphasis on asking “is this me?” and more on “is this harmful?” Her breakthrough transformed our understanding of immunity, autoimmune disease, and transplant rejection. According to my analysis of the astrological riddles, you Capricorns could benefit from a similar adjustment. Don’t worry about whether any particular influence harmonizes with your identity or aligns with your history. Instead, ask, “Is it nourishing or harmful? Supportive or useless?” As you refresh your approach to guarding and protecting your precious self, new options will become visible.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to my interpretation of the astrological signals, you have run into an obstacle to your creative flow, or may soon do so. Though this could feel discouraging at first, I think it’s a promising sign. It indicates that a hidden bug is surfacing. An inner saboteur is no longer operating in the shadows. You’re being given the opportunity to repair an unseen energy leak that has been sapping your vitality. To illuminate this process, consider the wisdom of author Joyce Carol Oates. She says that writer’s block arises when a writer subconsciously believes that what they’re trying to create is false, misguided, or harmful to themselves, which results in a temporary creative paralysis. Be brave and relentless in hunting down the glitch in your self-love, Aquarius.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Maybe you’ve been having thoughts like this: “I’m too scrambled to do what’s necessary to get unscrambled.” Here’s another snag that may be tangling your mind: “I’m too mixed up to know what questions to ask to sort out my confusion.” If this is true, Pisces, I’m here to offer advice. Imagine calling a timeout on the whole noisy world and slipping free of the habitual trance. Consider retreating to a sanctuary where time doesn’t oppress you and complications subside. Let your mind be empty, give your ambitions a rest, and immerse your tender attention in the deepest part of yourself you can find.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): If you’re a professional photographer, now is an ideal moment to invest in the higher-end lens you know would expand your best work. If you’re a committed chef, it’s a perfect time to spring for a precision knife set that elevates your craft. If you’re a devoted yoga or meditation teacher preparing a new series, you might decide to purchase an upgraded sound system to share your vocal offerings more crisply. And if you are none of the above, consider this your sign to obtain a key instrument or tool that will help you move to the next level of professionalism in the work you’re called to do.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): When we hear people described as having fertile imaginations, we may assume they are artists, writers, or musicians. But the truth is that many creative visualizers are engineers, city planners, inventors, and the like: those who design and build functional wonders. Of this group, you Tauruses make up a disproportionately high percentage. Your tribe is often most imaginative when vitalizing concrete details and transforming practical matters. In the coming weeks, this will be a vibrant X-factor in your relationship with the world.

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The Tyranny of the Eternal Now: What Eckhart Tolle’s Promise Misses

Eckhart Tolle’s work tells us that life is only ever lived now. Regret about the past and anticipation of the future can become tyrannies. Compulsive identification with our thoughts can keep us from direct contact with reality. Thanks for the tips, dude!

His invitation into presence has helped many of us loosen the grip of anxiety, obsessive thinking, and self-punishing mental loops.

But here’s a key caveat: There’s a crucial difference between liberation from compulsive identification with the past and the denial of the past’s living force in us.

Tolle’s declaration that “nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now” is simplistic and reductive. It mistakes freedom from compulsive identification with memory for freedom from memory itself. Those are different achievements.

The statement redefines “presence” so narrowly that it excludes much of what makes us human.

Yes, technically, in this precise nanosecond, you can notice your breath, feel your feet on the ground, and observe the play of light through the tree leaves.

But this atomized present-moment awareness, severed from the continuous stream of experience that constitutes a human life, may be psychologically harmful and ethically incomplete. Toll’s version of NOW is strobe-lit consciousness.

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Presence Isn’t the Problem

The quote at the beginning of this essay isn’t taken out of context. Tolle repeatedly says things like:

“Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now.”

“The past has no power over the present moment.”

“You can’t find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.”

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time.”

Taken together, these teachings subordinate historical consciousness to presence. That’s a big problem for me.

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The Past Lives in Our Bodies

Anyone who has worked with trauma knows that the past doesn’t politely wait in a sealed archive marked “Then.” It lives in the nervous system, shaping our baseline arousal levels and our capacity to regulate emotion.

When I’m walking down a dark city street in May of 2026, my body reminds me that on another May evening many years ago, my beloved flesh was assaulted by a gunshot from a stranger. Read about it here: https://tinyurl.com/ShotWithaRealGun

Is my body wrong or bad for sounding that echo? Of course not.

My experience is far from atypical. Seventy percent of us have experienced at least one traumatic event, and some of us, like me, have PTSD as a result.

Fact: When someone with PTSD enters what should be a neutral social situation and experiences a fight-or-flight activation, they’re dealing with a past that has rewired their neurobiology.

The body keeps score. Traumatic memory is embedded in muscular tension, breathing patterns, and the hair-trigger responsiveness of the amygdala.

To tell someone that “nothing from the past can prevent you from being present” when their autonomic nervous system is screaming danger signals based on actual past danger is willful naivete that blames the victim for their own dysregulation.

The Complexity of Integration

Being present involves continual negotiation with the past. As we arrive at each moment, we’re carrying:

• Learned patterns that developed in response to what we have previously experienced

• Cultural conditioning that influences what we perceive and how we interpret it

• Emotional associations built through repetitions

• Knowledge, gained through previous encounters, that we apply to what’s happening now

• Somatic memories that shape our felt sense of safety or threat

To be genuinely present means showing up with all of this stuff. If we don’t acknowledge it, we’re not genuinely present! It’s a fraudulent stance. The goal isn’t to transcend it or pretend it doesn’t exist, but to integrate it. That’s hard, and it takes a while to accomplish.

Veterans of war who’ve been wounded by shrapnel often find that years later, some of the metal fragments eventually migrate to the surface and pop out of their skin. The moral of the story: The body may take a long time to purify itself of toxins.

The same is true about our psyches. It might not be able to easily and quickly get rid of the poisons it has absorbed, but we should never give up hoping it will find a way.

If we have any hope of pulling off such a heroic feat, we need to cultivate this awareness: When we see ourselves reacting with disproportionate anger to a minor slight, presence means recognizing “Ah, this rage is an imprint from all those times I was belittled and dismissed as a child.”

And then we choose how to respond, which is different from simply “being in the now.”

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The Ethics of Spiritual Amnesia

Tolle’s formulation carries disturbing ethical implications. If nothing from the past can prevent our pure presence, then historical trauma becomes irrelevant.

Generational wounds can be dismissed. Systemic oppression that operates through the accumulated weight of injustice becomes an inconvenience we should simply rise above through better consciousness.

This is historical evasion at its most pernicious. It transforms legitimate suffering into personal failure.

Can’t be present? Must be your attachment to past narrative. Can’t access peace? Must be your identification with victimhood. The teaching shifts responsibility away from addressing actual conditions and onto the individual’s consciousness practice.

For those of us dealing with the intergenerational legacy of slavery or genocide or colonization, such teachings can function as a form of moral erasure, obscuring the ways historical trauma remains vividly active in the present.

It denies the reality of how trauma moves through families, communities, and cultures. It pathologizes reasonable responses to unreasonable circumstances.

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The Dangerous Luxury of Historical Amnesia

The dangers of Tolle’s ahistorical consciousness is even more alarmingly acute in light of the collective crisis we now inhabit. As America slides toward routine cruelty and authoritarianism, the recommendation that we should liberate ourselves from historical consciousness is catastrophic.

Any spirituality that weakens our relationship to historical memory risks colluding with authoritarian culture. It requires populations who have no knowledge of how democratic norms erode and how quickly the unthinkable becomes normalized.

When we sever ourselves from historical memory, we become hideously exploitable. We can’t see the trajectory we’re on because we’ve lost the reference points that would make it visible. The cruelty being perpetrated on us RIGHT NOW has precedents, and those precedents have consequences we’re wise to heed.

That’s why authoritarian thugs unfailingly assault and undermine historical memory. They understand that people unaware of what happened in the past are easier to control.

The “eternal now” becomes a tool of oppression when it discourages us from asking: How did we get here? What patterns from the past are reasserting themselves? What do we know from previous struggles about how to resist? What obligations do we carry from those who fought before us?

As the Trumpocalypse rages and destroys, we need robust historical perspective.

How many Americans know that FDR’s New Deal emerged from the ashes of unregulated capitalism’s collapse? Do we remember how the civil rights movement built power through sustained organizing, not solely through individual consciousness raising? Our practical wisdom grows as we ruminate on how authoritarians consolidate power, because then we can recognize and resist each step. Our effectiveness grows as we study the tactics that worked and learn from the strategies that failed.

Equally crucial: We need to remember the future as well as the past. How do we hold ourselves accountable to our beloved descendants, who will inherit what we’re building or destroying right now?

What do they need from us? What stories will they tell about this moment? Can we find ways to preserve what’s precious and build what’s necessary? Or will we sit on our meditation cushions, perfecting our present-moment awareness while democracy dies and the climate collapses around us?

Being present to NOW means we acknowledge the lessons of history and our obligations to the future.

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The Grace of Temporal Continuity

Tolle’s formulation is a weird dismissal of the richness that’s available because we’re temporal creatures. The stories we tell are at the tender core of our love for life. We create meaning through the relationships we nurture between past, present, and future.

When I recognize my daughter’s hand gesture as echoing my wife’s, or the tone in my own voice that resembles my father’s, I’m relishing the beautiful and mysterious continuity of our family lineage.

When I summon lessons learned from my old failures to navigate a current challenge, I’m calling on the wisdom I’ve earned.

When I honor a commitment made two months ago despite the fact that I’m not in the mood today, I’m exercising integrity.

None of this is likely in Tolle’s flattened now.

The grace we seek comes from moving through time with an appreciative consciousness of how our past informs our present without determining it, and how our choices now shape what becomes our past.

What Rigorous Vigorous Presence Requires

I love being present! It’s my treasured goal to be deeply, lovingly, excitedly present 24/7/365, even while I’m asleep.

But the alternative to Tolle’s version of presence is what I call incarnated and embodied presence. We show up fully in this wildly entertaining and amazingly uncanny NOW, empowered by the accumulated wisdom and wounds of our history, working skillfully with both.

We value memory without fixating on it. We honor our wounds without organizing our identities around them.

For me, it’s great fun and tough work to develop these capacities:

- Know the difference between insight (”I feel rage because my father was emotionally distant”) and compulsion (”I must rage at everyone because my father was emotionally distant”).

- Notice when a current reaction is disproportionate to what’s actually triggering me now.

- Feel compassion and respect for my younger self who formed that reaction pattern in innocence, and update the wisdom embedded in those old survival strategies. The hypervigilance that kept me alive at age 12 doesn’t need to run my rhythm today.

- Process unintegrated experiences from the past so they stop running me from the shadows.

- Maintain accountability for how my wounds might wound others, which requires remembering where those wounds came from. Awareness of my triggers helps me avoid inflicting them on others who don’t deserve it.

- Consciously choose a response that serves the real present rather than the conditioned past.

- Accept that this work is never done; reverently acknowledge how difficult this ceaseless navigation is.

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This is tough work, far more demanding and honest than simply “being in the now.” It requires us to be emotionally intelligent and tolerant of complexity.

The past does indeed impinge on our present capacity. Pretending otherwise doesn’t free us. What frees us is developing greater skill at working with that impingement. We feel our reactivity without being ruled by it. We remember our history without being imprisoned by it. Gradually, we become more skilled at carrying our wounds without inflicting them on others.

The work is hard enough without also having to maintain the fiction that we should be able to access some pristine presence untouched by everything we’ve lived through.

Here’s the beautiful truth: We transform our wounds into medicine by showing up for our lives as they actually are — complex, temporal, embodied, and gloriously, messily human.

PS: But Doesn’t Tolle Already Account for This?

Sophisticated Tolle defenders may object that I’m reading him too literally. They’ll say that he distinguishes between clock time and psychological time.

Clock time is the practical, literal kind, where we keep appointments and adjust to daily rhythms. Psychological time is the compulsive looping of regret, rumination, and anticipatory dread that he’s critiquing.

Tolle writes that clock time “includes learning from the past so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over,” and that you should “be alert as you practice this so that you do not unwittingly transform clock time into psychological time.”

Fair enough. There’s nuance in the fine print. In his more careful moments, Tolle makes a bit of room for memory, history, and learning. A generous reading might claim that “presence” in his framework already includes at least some integration.

But it doesn’t save him. Here’s why: A teaching isn’t just what its author intends, but what it does in the world. It’s how it’s metabolized by readers, repeated by acolytes, printed on Instagram tiles, and translated into actual human behavior.

The fine print about clock time appears in scattered passages of The Power of Now. But the bumper-sticker formulations are the parts that travel: “the past has no power over the present moment” and “nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now.”

Those are the lines that get tattooed on forearms and quoted at grieving relatives and offered to trauma survivors as spiritual instruction.

The clock-time / psychological-time distinction is a philosophical safety valve that almost no one actually uses. What gets transmitted is the pure dose: presence good, past bad, history a trap. The doctrine produces the bypass regardless of what subtleties live three chapters deeper into the book.

This is true of every popular spiritual teaching, by the way. We can’t evaluate them only by their most charitable interpretation. (Has anyone noticed the atrocities that evangelical Christians are perpetrating in dramatic contrast with the compassionate counsel of Jesus Christ? Or the Buddhists perpetrating genocide against the Rohingya people in Myanmar?)

We have to evaluate teachings by their actual cultural footprint and by the lives they shape and the harms they enable.

By that standard, Tolle’s eternal now has been doing damage for 25 years, and the damage isn’t an unfortunate misreading by careless students. It’s a predictable consequence of the rhetoric itself.

So yes, the meticulous Tolle reader can find passages that slightly complicate the picture. But the careful reader isn’t the typical reader. The typical reader hears: “the past can’t touch you here.” And acts accordingly.

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For further responses to Tolle’s defenders, go here: tinyurl.com/RealWorldTolle

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of May 14

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Soil biologists say a teaspoon of productive soil may contain billions of living organisms. These bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes work in cooperative networks, generating a hidden abundance that ensures everything above ground thrives. Your immediate future has this quality, Taurus. Beneath the visible surface of your life, beneficial processes are generating fertility and possibility. You don’t need to see the miracle to trust it’s happening. Your role is simply to have faith as you maintain the conditions that allow this mysterious abundance to do its work.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I suspect you would benefit from engaging with a friendly devil’s advocate or two in the coming weeks. Your clarity and understanding will deepen in just the right ways if you converse with affectionate skeptics who like and respect you but also want to help you grow. I realize that such people may be hard to find. If you can’t locate any, you could hire one. Or do the next best thing: Argue with yourself. Entertain lines of thought that are contrary to your usual ideas. Don’t let your habitual self get away with its usual rationalizations. The benefits of this exercise will be unpredictably huge.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star holds a fixed place in the sky. Also known as Polaris, or the Pole Star, it hangs in almost the same spot throughout the night while other stars rise and set. Because of this steadfast presence, it has long served as a trusted marker for navigation, especially for sailors at sea. Over time, it naturally came to represent an inner compass or a guiding ideal. In your own experience, Cancerian, what serves as your symbolic North Star? What’s the steady, orienting force that helps you decide where and how to move next? Now is an auspicious moment to tend to and revitalize your bond with this central source of direction.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the mid‑1950s, researchers developed reliable methods for creating synthetic diamonds in the laboratory. Since then, advances in technology have made it possible to grow large, high‑quality diamonds from small seed crystals in a relatively short time. I invite you to make this one of your operative metaphors, Leo. In the coming weeks, the forces of destiny will align with your efforts if you experiment with nurturing and expanding the parts of your life that are most like a diamond. Facilitate the development of your valuable beauty.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Scientist Stuart Kauffman theorizes that living systems are healthiest when they operate near the “edge of chaos.” There’s a critical zone between rigid order and unstructured randomness where complexity and adaptability can flourish. Too much organization creates brittle stiffness, while excessive chaos prevents coherence. Life thrives when it has some of both. I invite you to ruminate on these themes in the coming weeks, Virgo. According to my edgy analysis of the astrological omens, you’re being invited to cultivate and foster your own personal “edge of chaos” territory. Your interesting task is to create sweet spots where structure and spontaneity synergize. Locate these happy places and abide there for a while.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Choose two small and specific ways you’re going to stop pretending. One example might be how you respond when someone asks how you’re doing. Another may be an opinion you’ve been softening to keep the peace. Or maybe there’s a desire you’ve been downplaying because it feels impractical or too revealing. Here’s the name of this experiment: Incremental Precision Liberation. The key is to do it casually, with no melodrama or self-consciousness. If it’s successful, you could try another round in two weeks.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

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(contribute as Friends and Family)

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio primatologist Frans de Waal devoted years to watching chimpanzees reconcile with each other after enduring discord. He was fascinated by how they rebuilt trust through elaborate rituals of appeasement, grooming, and kind gestures. Once the chimps stopped fighting, he marveled, they actively repaired their connection, which often emerged stronger than it was before the dispute. I hope you will borrow their primate wisdom in the coming weeks, Scorpio. Do your best to navigate through conflict or alienation, and then instigate generous acts of rebonding. Don’t sulk, be evasive, or go silent. Be creative as you work to replenish what was damaged. The renewed relationship could be closer for having weathered the difficulties.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The wandering albatross harnesses the wind, enabling it to travel vast distances with minimal effort. There’s an initial effort that leads to big energy savings. The bird climbs into strong winds and then relaxes as it gets transported, surfing the air currents. I mention this, Sagittarius, because I suspect you’ve been trying too hard and working too much—unnecessarily so. Less strenuous exertion, more gliding, please! Ask yourself what flows are already streaming in your favor. Could you catch a ride on existing momentum? Here’s my advice: Figure out where life’s tides are already moving, then position yourself to get carried along.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Ethnomusicologists studying throat singing know that Tuvan singers can produce two or more tones simultaneously. The human voice, it turns out, has the ability to harmonize with itself. Most of us never discover this because we never try. What other multidimensional capacities are you not using because you’ve never investigated them or tested their limits, Capricorn? The coming weeks are ideal for experimentation. What unexpected capacities might you get access to if you explored possibilities you’ve assumed were beyond you? You may be able to develop aptitudes and acquire gifts you haven’t discovered yet.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Cartographer Gerardus Mercator created his famous world map in 1569, enabling sailors to plot straight-line courses across oceans. But his technique dramatically distorts the size of landmasses. Greenland appears larger than Africa, when in reality Africa is 14 times bigger. And the truth is that every map privileges certain truths while distorting others. This is a key teaching for you right now, Aquarius. Examine the mental maps you’re using to navigate your life. Might they be hiding or warping reality in any way? Consider whether you would benefit from redrawing your inner visualizations of the wide, wild world out there.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Perfectionism has increased dramatically in recent decades. Young people are especially affected. But here’s the twist: The compulsion for perfection rarely improves performance. It’s more likely to undermine achievement by triggering paralysis and excessive self-criticism. Now is a favorable time for you Pisceans to rebel against the trend. I encourage you to cultivate a relaxed devotion to being “good enough” as you enjoy yourself thoroughly. Do you know the difference between cheerfully seeking excellence and grimly striving for perfection? Move away from what demands your obsessive rigor and focus on what requires soulful completion.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): When naturalist John Muir wanted to experience a storm, he climbed to the top of a 100-foot Douglas fir and rode it for hours through gale-force winds. He later reflected that the danger, in his judgment, was “hardly greater” than staying under a roof, and that the exhilaration and sensory richness justified his experiment. I’m not counseling you to be exactly like Muir in the coming weeks, Aries. Please don’t take foolish risks. However, I would love you to explore what truths are available when you put yourself in the path of intensity.

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MAESTRO OF THE OBVIOUS

I am a Maestro of the Obvious. I’m a simpleton who states truths that are hard to see because they are so easy to see.

To begin, I’ll name which institutions in our culture do bad and self-serving things, causing suffering and mayhem:

ALL OF THEM!

EVERYTHING IS DANGEROUS!

The institutions that do bad and self-serving things are corporations, religions, governments, the media, the military, big science, medicine, the pharmaceuticals, AI companies, academia, publishing, the film and art and music industries, the big tech companies, professional sports, and every other system I neglected to name. All of them. No exceptions.

They all do corrupt and shortsighted things that are profoundly influenced by the crass motivations of profiteering and egotism.

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The Other Side

Here’s another set of truths that’s hard to see because it’s so easy to see:

Our culture brainwashes us to think in absolutes. Many of us are inclined to believe that an institution is either completely trustworthy or utterly corrupt. A system either serves the people perfectly or exploits them horrendously.

Superficially, this binary framework feels clarifying. It sorts the world into good guys and bad guys, simplifying our moral landscape into a manageable package.

But the alleged clarity is false. It’s a sedative that prevents us from seeing what’s actually in front of us.

The uncomfortable and obvious truth that becomes invisible through its very obviousness is that many powerful institutions and groups are simultaneously doing harm and also providing value. They exploit and they serve. They oppress and they occasionally liberate.

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Discernment Is Hard Work

So here’s what we Maestros of the Obvious do: Toward all the myopic, greedy, unscrupulous institutions, we develop discerning skepticism, based on accurate evidence. We criticize them. We do what we can to reform them. And we acknowledge that they may also do some good and helpful things that we are grateful for.

Our practice is discerning skepticism, based on accurate evidence. Not reflexive rejection. Not the conspiracy theorist’s blanket assumption that everything official is a lie, nor the true believer’s assumption that established institutions deserve our faith and trust.

Discernment is hard work.

When corporations lobby against environmental regulations or oppose DEI initiatives, we document which corporations do that and what the consequences have been.

When pharmaceutical companies suppress unfavorable research and overcharge for their products, we trace the specific studies and the specific harms that resulted.

When media outlets slant coverage to favor the rich and powerful, we identify the ownership structures and the editorial decisions driving it.

And we also acknowledge complexity. The same corporation that exploits workers and destroys ecosystems may fund research that saves lives.

The same religious institution that covers up abuse may also run soup kitchens and provide community.

The same drug companies that often serve gross profit over compassionate health may provide life-saving products—as they did to help heal my cancer.

We Maestros of the Obvious maintain intellectual and imaginal hygiene. We distinguish between documented fact and speculation, between justified skepticism and lazy dismissal. When new evidence emerges, we revise our understanding. Maybe we admit when we don’t know something rather than filling the gap with unresearched feelings and assumptions.

And we stay useful. Criticism without engagement is performance. The point isn’t to feel superior to flawed institutions but to make them less flawed. We can build alternatives, or at a minimum protect ourselves and others from their predations while still accessing whatever genuine value they provide.

The Intelligence of Foolishness

So we Maestros of the Obvious go forward, holding in our minds a poised understanding of their contradictions, as intelligent fools do.

We cultivate an awareness that everything on earth is flawed and imperfect, and that many imperfect and flawed things, though not all, also have value and beneficence.

Intelligent fools like me aren’t people who know nothing. Rather, we refuse the false comfort of cartoonish certainty and absolutism. We hold multiple truths simultaneously so we can critique systems while using them.

This is really fucking hard. The human mind craves coherence. We want our allies to be purely good and our enemies to be purely evil. We want the institutions we depend on to be trustworthy, or we want permission to reject them entirely.

The middle path, the path of discriminating engagement, requires constant recalibration and willingness to be uncomfortable.

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It’s Complicated

Case in point: The pharmaceutical industry has engaged in predatory pricing, fraudulent research, aggressive marketing of addictive substances, and systematic exploitation of developing nations. These are documented facts. Goddamn them.

And also: Their antibiotics, vaccines, insulin, and countless other medications have prevented immeasurable suffering and death. These are also documented facts. Praise them.

The intelligent fool doesn’t resolve this tension by choosing a side. The intelligent fool says: I will take the medications that help me be healthy while fighting for a system that doesn’t price-gouge the sick. I will be grateful for medical advances while demanding accountability for medical corruption.

This applies across every domain. Academia produces both liberating knowledge and credentialist gatekeeping. Technology creates both connection and surveillance. Religious communities offer both spiritual nourishment and dogmatic control.

The work is learning to navigate these contradictions without becoming paralyzed by them or collapsing them into false simplicity.

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The Wisdom of Co-Emergence

We intelligent fools and Maestros of the Obvious meditate on the psychological concept of co-emergence, which postulates that every beautiful, useful thing is intertwined with some challenging problem. And many challenging problems have useful clues and insights to teach us.

Co-emergence isn’t the same as false equivalence. It’s not saying that good and evil balance out, or that we shouldn’t distinguish between better and worse. We simply recognize that reality is woven from threads that can’t be fully separated.

The internet gives voice to many and enables unprecedented collaboration; it also facilitates surveillance and new forms of manipulation. These aren’t separate facts. They emerge from the same technological capacities.

The scientific method gives us knowledge about the material world that enhances our lives in countless ways. It also gets deployed to justify eugenics, serve corporate manipulation, facilitate militarism, and dismiss functional medicine. The same commitment to empirical evidence that liberates us from superstition can be twisted to obscure moral questions behind claims of objectivity.

Understanding co-emergence doesn’t mean resignation. Our work isn’t to find a purely good institution or a completely uncorrupted system. The complicated task is to strengthen the beneficial aspects while constraining the harmful ones, knowing that this work is never finished and that new problems will emerge from our solutions.

Every challenging problem teaches us something about where our blind spots are. The corruption in institutions encourages us to be vigilant. The contradictions we encounter force us to develop more sophisticated thinking.

The Five-Year-Old’s Wisdom

When my daughter was five years old, she said, “There’s nothing in the world that is either all good or all bad.”

Many pundits and prophets lack her wisdom. If we heed it, we save ourselves from the exhausting cycle of idolizing and demonizing every new force that arises in the human story.

Fill in the following blank with any influence of your choosing: ______________ is neither our savior or destroyer. It’s another flawed tool. It will harm and heal, confuse and inspire.

Guess what? It’s not only institutions that act like this. Most people, including me and you, do both generous and selfish things. We illuminate and obscure. Our understanding is always partial, and our own actions sometimes have unintended consequences.

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Living as a Maestro of the Obvious

To hold complexity with grace requires specific practices.

• Regular reality checks. Am I criticizing this institution based on documented evidence or tribal affiliation? Am I defending it because it actually serves people well, or because I’m uncomfortable with ambiguity? What would change my mind?

• Both/and thinking. We train ourselves to say “yes, and” instead of “yes, but.” Yes, this system has serious problems, and it also provides genuine value. Not “but,” which implies one fact negates the other, but “and,” which holds both truths as simultaneously real.

• Distinguish between critique and rejection. Criticizing an institution’s flaws isn’t the same as wanting it destroyed. Often the most scathing critics are those who believe in an institution’s potential and are frustrated by its failures.

• Notice what we’re grateful for. Even as we document harms, why not acknowledge benefits? We can be grateful for antibiotics while fighting pharmaceutical price-gouging. Gratitude and critique aren’t opposites. The discipline of gratitude actually sharpens our analysis by preventing bitterness from distorting it.

• Accept imperfection as the permanent condition. There will never be a moment when institutions are perfected and systems fully align with our values. The ongoing work is liberating. It means we can stop waiting for perfect conditions before we engage and stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.

The Radical Center

What I’m describing might sound like the bland both-sides-ism that treats every issue as equally balanced. It’s not.

This is the radical center that refuses the lazy comforts of ideological purity. It insists on thinking for ourselves rather than outsourcing our opinions to teams. It demands we hold ourselves and our allies to the same standards we apply to opponents.

The radical center acknowledges that corporations do tremendous harm but also create wealth and resources that may sometimes benefit us all. It admits that mainstream media spreads dangerous propaganda and also employs journalists doing crucial investigative work. It knows that big tech companies invade privacy and also create tools that expand human capability.

From this poised, uncomfortable, constantly recalibrating position, we become harder to manipulate because we’re not waiting for permission from authorities or reflexively rejecting everything they say. We become more effective because we’re working with reality as it actually is rather than as we wish it were.

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ADDENDUM: A Sobering Caveat

Everything I’ve written above is true. But there is one glaring exception: a source of toxicity that does NOT warrant our generous efforts to hold open the possibility that it has some saving grace.

You know what I mean: the relentless perpetrators of awfulness that are purely horrible, heinous, and far past any hope for redemption.

I’m talking about the Trumpocalypse: the ongoing assault on everything good and beautiful and just and true by the gang of fascist, misogynist, oligarchic, bigoted thugs who now hold the power in the federal government.

The Trumpocalypse is perpetrating the destruction of the rights of women over their own bodies. It’s doing all it can to destroy the dignity of immigrants and refugees. It’s working hard in its effort to destroy the safety of trans people, queer people, Black and brown people, disabled people, poor people, and anyone deemed disposable.

There are many other things it seeks to decimate, too many to name all of them. They include: the independence of the courts; the integrity of elections; the protection of the environment; the credibility of science; and the ability to distinguish between fact and propaganda.

The Trumpocalypse is the elevation of cruelty as policy; the criminalization of compassion; the looting of the public commons; the persecution of dissent; the methodical cultivation of a personality cult around a very sick man whose stated ambition is to be a dictator.

This is pure atrocity, and it’s NOT doing even a little good. It’s purely a weapon aimed at the heart of everything we love.

So here is the sobering caveat to my essay on holding complexity: Complexity is a discipline for engaging with the flawed and the partial. It’s not a discipline for engaging with evil.

When fascists are dismantling the republic in real time, the radical center isn’t the position that says “well, they have a point too.” The radical center is the position that has done the actual work of discernment, and, having done it, names the danger that’s in front of us without flinching.

The Maestro of the Obvious states the obvious: This regime isn’t redeemable. It must be resisted, defeated, and ended.

We Maestros of the Obvious know that many things in life are both poison and medicine, but some poisons are just poison.

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The Maestro’s Manifesto

Here’s what it means to be a Maestro of the Obvious:

We state simple truths that complexity-averse thinking obscures.

We acknowledge that every institution capable of doing good is also capable of doing harm, and usually does both.

We develop discerning skepticism based on evidence, not tribal loyalty.

We criticize what needs criticizing while remaining grateful for genuine benefits.

We hold contradictions without resolving them prematurely.

We meditate on co-emergence: the intertwining of benefit and harm, and the way solutions inevitably generate new problems.

We remember what the five-year-old knows.

We stay useful, engaged, discriminating, and honest.

We refuse the false clarity of binary thinking in favor of the difficult wisdom of complexity.

We are simpletons who see the obvious: that reality is complicated. The work of building a better world requires engaging with the flawed materials at hand rather than waiting for perfect tools that will never arrive.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of May 7

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): When lightning from a cloud hits sand or soil, the current travels down into the ground. It melts material along its path and forms tubular, branching glass structures that can penetrate deep below the surface. I believe that metaphorically similar phenomena will soon happen in your life, Taurus. Sudden insights or electrifying feelings will leave permanent traces in your psyche, creating new pathways for energy and information to flow. These disruptive inspirations and inspiring disruptions will rewire your internal circuitry, creating channels that will enhance your receptivity to future revelations. You’ll be able to absorb clues and hints from life that you weren’t tuned into before.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I invite you to ruminate on death not as the conclusion of physical life, but as a metaphor for discarding what’s stale and outmoded. In that light, what would be the best deaths you could generate during the coming weeks? Use your imagination with verve and vigor as you dream up scenarios in which you purge parts of your life that are not serving your strongest, most vital yearnings. Visualize how much fresh potency that will liberate. (PS: To reiterate: You are NOT in physical danger.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): What part of you is too tame? Maybe your imagination is politely well-behaved, or maybe your voice edits itself before it dares to say what it really thinks. Can you inspire it to be wilder and freer? Not reckless or destructive, but more honest and experimental? Here’s a suggestion: Go on regular excursions with your wild side, maybe once every two weeks. Follow it as it chooses what to explore and create. This might ultimately teach your tamed self that it’s safe to let primal wisdom help steer you.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): According to quantum physics, particles can become “entangled,” which means they share a single connected quantum state. Observing and measuring one particle reveals information about the other, even if they’re not in close proximity. Einstein called this “spooky action at a distance.” I predict that different parts of your life will also interweave in unlikely ways during the coming weeks, Leo. Moves you make in one area will seem to produce mysterious effects in other domains. For example, adjusting your morning routine may boost your creative output. Healing an old alliance could unlock a professional opportunity. Everything will be more intermingled than the visible evidence suggests.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Your key power word for now is stretch. Speak it aloud multiple times every day, and write it on a card that you put in a place where you will keep seeing it. Also, make a point of physically and spiritually living out these three senses of stretch: 1. to lengthen, widen, or expand without snapping or tearing; 2. to unfurl your body to its full reach, boosting circulation and warding off stiffness or cramps; 3. to take on challenging tasks that push you to amplify your abilities and move beyond what you previously believed you could do.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Four oracles for you, Libra: 1. You’re in possession of keys to doors that haven’t been built yet. Tuck those keys away somewhere safe. 2. You’re ready to dream up titles for stories your life hasn’t lived through yet. Write those titles down. 3. You are being granted sneak previews of your future, even though you can’t yet see the bridge that will carry you there. Imprint these glimpses on your memory. 4. You have everything required to grow a more muscular faith that’s grounded in real evidence, not in vague hopes and wishful thinking. Take advantage.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): At the ancient Library of Alexandria, editors did far more than copy manuscripts. They compared multiple versions of important works and produced editions that aimed at definitively reliable texts. Their efforts at preservation required active intervention rather than mere reproduction. In the coming weeks, Scorpio, I think it will be fun and transformative for you to make similar adjustments to your own life story. How might your memories of the past need to be corrected and refined? How could you make your personal mythology more accurate and liberating? I invite you to revise and revivify the tales you tell yourself about your magnificent journey from the moment you were born until now.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The speed of light is how fast it travels through a vacuum. When moving through water and other media, though, light’s swiftness decreases. The fastest possible speed in the universe only applies in emptiness. If you put anything in light’s way, it slows down. Let’s use this as a metaphor for your life. I suspect you may be frustrated by how incrementally things are moving. But you’re not in a vacuum. Your bright intelligence is traveling through the complex situations that life has brought you. So of course you’re not zipping along with maximum haste. My advice: Be grateful for the slowdowns. Learn all you can about how they are educating and transforming your brilliance.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Cryptographer Claude Shannon (1916–2001) was the father of information theory. His achievements were comparable to those of Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin. Here’s one of his secrets: He kept his office filled with juggling equipment, unicycles, and mechanical toys, which inspired him to solve abstract problems. His playful tinkering helped inspire breakthroughs that ultimately created the digital age. For him, recreation and innovation happened at the same time. I invite you to try a similar approach in the coming weeks, Capricorn. Blend “serious work” with “just messing around.” Be alert for key insights that emerge from improvisation and experimentation. Your diversions won’t be distractions from your purpose but rather pathways toward it.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Master calligrapher Yukimi Annand is an Aquarius. She teaches that beautiful letters emerge not just from the hand that holds the brush, but from the entire body and relaxed awareness. Breath, posture, centered weight, and quiet mind all flow through the arm to create each stroke. Trying to control the outcome with arduous effort produces rigid, lifeless art. This is an excellent teaching for you right now, Aquarius. Whatever you’re striving to accomplish, I beg you to refrain from forcing results through grueling, overly laborious exertion. Instead, align your whole being so that graceful outcomes flow naturally from your soulful coherence.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The placebo effect is getting stronger over time. Placebos in drug trials are becoming increasingly effective, to the point where it’s sometimes becoming harder to prove that actual drugs work better than sugar pills. Are we getting better at healing ourselves through belief? That would be a problem for pharmaceutical companies but interesting for the rest of us. Dear Pisces, I believe your placebo response is exceptionally strong right now. In the coming weeks, use it deliberately. Be daring and exuberant in your efforts to heal yourself.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Astronomers depend on instruments to collect the observations that fuel their work, but they don’t spend every night glued to the stars. On overcast nights, they turn to what they have already gathered, digging into past measurements and reworking the data. You’re in a comparable phase, Aries. For now, looking farther out into the glittering world won’t give you anything essential. The guidance you need is folded into what you’ve previously seen, felt, and taken in. It’s waiting for you to sort through and understand it on a deeper level.

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As an exuberant experiment, I invite you to imagine that your drive to experience pleasure doesn’t hinder your spiritual growth but facilitates it.

Imagine that your yearnings for beauty, fun, sex, and revelry aren’t distractions from your growing capacity for liberation, but primary fuel.

Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy and celebration can make you a more ethical and conscientious person.

Research the possibility that when you feel good, you’re more generous toward others.

Trust that when your inner life is humming with gleeful musings, you find it easier to extend patience to the difficult, grace to the clumsy, and mercy to the fallen.

Test the theory that compassion streams more freely from your overflowing lust for life than from your grinding sense of duty.

Expect that delight has an interesting teaching for you every day.

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What I just said is the essence of my message for you at this perfect moment. Below, I elaborate further.

Many spiritual systems the world has inherited regard pleasure, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, elation, and related super treasures as troublemakers and distractions.

The so-called “lower self” is greedy for such wasteful irrelevance, the saintly authorities say. “Begone foul deceivers!” they imply or declare outright.

How many zillions of us have been taught, often with dire and threatening tones, that feeling really good leads us away from life’s essential goals? Holiness and sanctity are likely to accumulate in us only if we shun the supposedly inferior temptation to bask in delight.

Say what?

Of all the idiocies foisted on humanity, this one is among the most egregious. I am in danger of veering into apoplexy as I contemplate such an atrocious delusion. I’ll try to be civil.

In both my extensive mythic explorations of dreamy truth and scientific investigations of hard-core reality, I have gathered incontrovertible evidence that pleasure is a central necessity for any spiritual quest that actually works.

It’s a sensory instrument. A tuning fork and a feedback system. A way the body says, Yes, this. More of this. Keep headed in this direction. You’re getting closer to home.

I’m not talking about the jittery sugar-high of addiction or the perverse, jangly thrills that sabotage health.

I mean the rich, ennobling euphoria and exhilaration that arise during encounters with smart fun: inspiring us to love ourselves more, expanding our capacity to love others, leading us in the direction of our shining dreams, and helping us solve our knotty problems.

The eruptions of these life-giving nourishments might come through the stimulation of our senses, emotions, or imagination. And yet they don’t have to yank us away from the sacred. They may in fact be among the sacred’s favorite ways of snagging our attention. Evolution didn’t give us many reliable compasses, but I believe this is one of them.

My comprehensive research reveals that when we feel genuinely good—not inflated or superior, but resoundingly buoyant—our ethics improve. We’re more patient and curious. Less brittle and defensive.

When we’re swooning or even just shimmering with delectation, we see other people more clearly. They’re not obstacles or mirrors of our lack, but fellow creatures doing their best with the weather systems inside them.

By contrast, chronic deprivation, especially when dressed up as virtue, tends to make people tight and pinched and resentful of anyone who looks like they’re enjoying themselves.

Self-denial doesn’t reliably produce saints. Often it just churns out people who are very good at pretending they don’t want what they want.

Those who know how to nurture themselves with good feelings often have a super-capacity to give without keeping score. Their generosity leaks out sideways. There’s surplus.

Here’s my very-well proven hypothesis: Compassion grows less from being twisted up about suffering and more from inhabiting joie de vivre so fully that we want others to feel it too.

So yes: To the horror of the Rabid Life Denialists who equate suffering with virtue, I question their calculations.

With all the confidence possible for a paradox and ambiguity lover like me to summon, I boisterously assert that the real inquiry isn’t “How much can I endure?” but “How much aliveness can I allow without flinching?”

With all the cheerful disdain I have earned the right to express by virtue of my carefully cultivated empathic kindness, I ask, what if generosity of spirit comes not from suppressing our quest for ebullience and gusto, but from celebrating it so thoroughly that scarcity loses its grip?

The blunt, brash, brazen fact is that we are less generous when we’re depleted and forcing ourselves to give out of duty, and more generous when we are lit up and giving feels like play.

The raw, unruly, radical truth is that our best work emerges not when we’re grinding and grueling, but when delight has infiltrated us down to the core of our primal curiosity.

I’ve devised some experiments for those poor souls who have tragically come to believe that pleasure is anathema to their spiritual practice. They’re below.

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Experiments:

• Track the connection between your states of gleeful, zestful pleasure and your capacity for kindness, courage, creativity, and clear seeing.

• Learn to gauge the distinction between exaltations that feed you and diversions that merely numb you. Your body knows the difference long before your theories do.

• Gather evidence to test the theory that the pleasure-versus-enlightenment split is a cosmic practical joke—lazy, outdated, and spiritually disabling.

• Follow your joy, not blindly, not compulsively, but attentively. Watch how it keeps leading you toward becoming more human, responsive, and capable of love.

Addendum: On Joy as Revolutionary Fuel

Some readers may be twitching by now. I hear the objection:

“Rob, have you noticed the world? Children are being bombed. Forests are burning. Aquifers are draining. Tyrants are perpetrating. Democracies are wobbling. Species are vanishing at a pace that ought to make every breathing person weep. And here you are, composing love letters to delight? Have you no sense of proportion?”

I welcome this challenge. I’ve wrestled with it myself many times, often at 3 a.m., when the litany of atrocities scrolls behind my eyelids.

But here’s what I’ve concluded, after years of paying close attention to the people who actually do the work of saving real things: The activist who arrives at the struggle already brittle, depleted, and chronically marinating in their own self-flagellation, will burn out quickly.

The activist who arrives nourished is the one who will still be fighting the good fight in 2046. They know the art of sustaining themselves with real pleasures, anchored in their own aliveness, threaded through with genuine love for the world they’re trying to protect.

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I’ll plant my flag here, even though I know it may scandalize.

The dour, joyless, perpetually outraged zeal for revolution isn’t sustainable. And in many cases, those with that attitude are unwittingly importing the pathology they claim to oppose. (I say this with great tenderness toward my own younger self.)

What’s the worldview of the the colonizer, oligarch, and fascist? It’s precisely that life is scarce and joy must be hoarded or punished. Pleasure is for the few, and beauty is decoration rather than necessity.

When we activists internalize a punishing, pleasure-denying mode of resistance, we replicate the operating system of the empire we’re trying to dismantle. We just point its weapons at ourselves.

The Misery Maximalists will tell you that anyone caught laughing during the apocalypse is morally compromised. I say that anyone who has stopped laughing during the apocalypse has conceded the most important territory.

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History bears me out. The movements that endured and actually changed things were saturated with music, feast, dance, flirtation, ridiculous humor, and the insistence on beauty.

The Black freedom struggle sang its way through difficulty. The labor movement built dance halls. ACT UP staged kiss-ins outside cathedrals. The Zapatistas fielded poetry brigades. The water protectors at Standing Rock drummed and prayed and joked around fires while drone-helicopters thundered overhead. The suffragettes wore stylish hats. The disability justice elders threw parties.

This was the engine of the work, and the reason the work didn’t dissolve into ash.

Joy in the face of monstrousness is the most strategically sophisticated form of resistance available to us. It tells the regime: You don’t get to install your scarcity in my nervous system. You don’t get to make my body a battlefield in your war against everything good.

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Here’s the deepest argument:

The world we’re trying to build is one in which everyone gets to flourish. To embody that flourishing now isn’t a betrayal of the cause. It IS the cause.

If we postpone joy until the revolution is complete, we have already lost. We will arrive at the promised land too desiccated to live there.

To pursue ennobling pleasure right now, in the middle of everything, while still showing up at the protest rally, is good practice: rehearsal for the world we want.

Dear Readers —

I’m wildly grateful for the amazing encouragement you offered me after my report on the people who complain that I “do too much self-promotion.”

See the original discussion here: https://is.gd/5UShgl

It’s gratifying that so many of you find inspiration and support in my newsletters, and don’t mind hearing about—even welcome knowing about—my other creative expressions.

All of my PLURK (Work + Play) is in service to the great Web of Life that we all weave together. You are my teachers and helpers and inspirers, and I aspire to give back to you in kind.

Rowdy blessings,

Rob

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Art in this newsletter by:

Samantha Daniels Napaltjarri

Yvonne Comber

Robin Custance

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of April 30

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): May is Free Thinking Month for you Tauruses. It’s also Free Feeling, Free Wheeling, and Free Healing Month. Wow! To observe this festive grace period, indulge in any of the following jubilant acts: 1. Declare your independence from anyone who tries to tell you how you should live your life or who you are. 2. Declare independence from your history, especially recollections that dampen your sense of possibility and old self-images that impede your yearning to explore. 3. Declare independence from groupthink and conventional wisdom. 4. Declare independence from your former conceptions of freedom so you’ll be free to arrive at fresh understandings of it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The Navajo practice hózhó means “walking in beauty”: living in balance and harmony with life. But hózhó isn’t a static state you achieve once and possess forever. You must continually restore and reinvent it. I suspect you’re in a phase like that now, Gemini. Too much thinking and not enough feeling? Too much future and not enough present? I recommend you take corrective measures. Start by taking one physical action that grounds you. Have a conversation from the heart instead of the head. Spend an hour not planning the story to come, but simply loving what’s here right now. Refresh your hózhó!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If a honeybee colony becomes too crowded, scout bees search for potential new hive sites. When they return, they perform waggle dances for their colleagues to convey specific information about different locations. Negotiations ensue. Various possibilities are offered and considered through more dancing. Eventually, the swarm collectively makes a choice and heads out to its new home. Your challenge right now, Cancerian, is to be like a scout bee who facilitates your group’s decision-making process. I invite you to carry out a reconnaissance mission and then perform your waggle dances for your people. Make your case with vigor and precision. Trust the group’s emergent wisdom to make the best decision.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Like all of us, Leo, you have persistent aches from old losses, absences, and wounds. They may seem like permanent burdens you will never be able to shake or transcend. But here’s some very good news: In the coming months, there’s a greater chance than usual that you’ll discover new approaches to healing them. The remedies won’t necessarily be logical or obvious. They may involve you conducting rituals, taking symbolic actions, or ambushing the pain from unexpected angles. Be alert for interventions that may seem too simple or unexpected to work.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Your restlessness is building. How much longer will you pretend you don’t sense the pull of bright temptations and appealing sanctuaries? At what moment will you finally stop resisting your urge to slip past the usual boundaries and roam? The astrological omens hint that this pivot is close at hand. In the borderlands of your imagination, a daring journey is already taking shape. Where might it carry you? Here’s my guess: down into the raw, unfiltered depths of the future you secretly dream about.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In fairy tales, when heroes are rewarded for their help and kindness, their gifts are often tools of protection: a cloak that renders them invisible, a magic club that chases off foes, or enchanted shoes that enable them to outrun any threat. In other stories, the reward is meant to deepen the hero’s delight in living: a genie’s lamp, a cauldron that cooks up exquisite food, or a horn that calls forth marvelous companions from the fairy world. I mention this, Libra, because I believe rewards for your past and recent generosity are on their way. If you have any say in what form they take, I suggest you request something from this second, pleasure-giving category.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Poet Marie Howe wrote, “I don’t think we can love anything more intensely than we love a secret.” Many Scorpios feel this way. You understand that mystery is often a joy to be savored. Some truths reveal themselves only to those who summon the patient intelligence to be at peace amidst the confounding riddles. Non-Scorpios may be desperate to leave nothing hidden, but you like to learn from the teasing prickles. You know that some transformations need darkness to carry on their work. Your next assignment: Decide what truth needs more time in the deep before it’s ready to surface.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Diamond is the hardest natural substance, while graphite is soft and slippery. Yet they’re both made of pure carbon. The difference is in their structure. Let’s extrapolate from this fact as we ruminate on your life, Sagittarius. I’m 97-percent certain that you already have everything you need. Maybe you imagine you lack key resources and powers, but from what I can tell, you are well set-up. So I propose that you simply reorganize what’s available to you now. Take the “carbon” of your life and arrange it in new patterns. Your task isn’t further accumulation but reconfiguration.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): My Capricorn grandfather was a master artisan. He told me that the best furniture is built twice: first in the imagination, then with wood. Let’s apply that theme to you. I believe you have mostly finished the first step of visualizing what you want. Now you’re almost ready to launch the actual work. I’m eager to see the practical effects that will bloom from your detailed fantasies. The rest of the world is excited, too. These days, we all especially need your talent for turning beautiful dreams into vivid realities. You have extra power to inspire us to convert our idealistic notions into dynamic actions.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I invite you to imagine a time in the past when you were almost perfectly content. Visualize that magical confluence of satisfying feelings. Where were you? Who was or wasn’t there? What could you see, hear, smell, and feel in your body? What made that moment so right? Next step: Make a vow to rebuild as many of those conditions as you realistically can over the next three weeks. Maybe you can’t recreate the exact scene, but you can approximate its essence.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The astrological factors now in effect are tending to generate useful and valuable cosmic jokes. I believe they may be disruptive and catalytic in helpful ways. In this spirit, I offer you the following affirmations, borrowed from internet memes: 1. “You may call me ‘melodramatic.’ I describe myself as a ‘creative problem-solver with flair and panache.’” 2. “I’m not overthinking; I’m overriding simplistic answers that hide the real truths.” 3. “You shouldn’t think of me as chaotic; the fact is that I’m generously non-linear.” 4. “I have a solid plan, but it’s always evolving to keep up with reality’s crazy insistence on ceaseless change.” 5. “Please dismantle your low expectations; I need ample room to exceed them.” 6. “I trust my instincts; they have often been wrong in interesting ways.”

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the 19^th century, Aries photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) resolved to settle a debate about whether galloping horses ever have all four hooves off the ground. He developed a system to capture rapid sequential images, which ultimately helped lead to the invention of motion pictures. His answer to a narrow technical question opened up an entirely new art form. Moral of the story: Solving a specific problem may create unforeseen revolutions. In the coming weeks, Aries, I invite you to stay alert for how your focused efforts to address one challenge might birth even more significant breakthroughs. Don’t get so fixated on your immediate goal that you miss larger innovations emerging from your work.

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Dear Readers,

I usually send you one newsletter per week every Tuesday. Today I’m sending an extra one. I wanted to address an issue that came up after the newsletter I sent out last Tuesday

Some readers let me know they were unhappy that I mentioned the books I’ve published. “Too much self-promotion,” they said. That was surprising to me, and I want to address it.

Here’s some context. Week after week, year after year since 1995, I have given away a substantial body of my writing, including horoscopes, essays, meditations, experiments in cagey optimism, and ongoing conversations about how to live a soulful life. All of the music I’ve created is also free online.

Believe it or not, I’ve been sending out a weekly newsletter since the year 2000. Only in recent years, thanks to the Substack subscription plan, has it become possible for me to earn money from it. I’m very grateful! The pandemic a few years back caused the demise of 15 newspapers where I had syndicated my astrology column for years. It was great to regain some of my lost income.

All of these online labors of love comprise a part of my offerings. And my books are another way I express myself. From time to time, I mention them here in the newsletter and on social media. These aren’t aggressive sales pitches, but simply a natural extension of the work many of you seek from me in the first place.

Writing books is part of how I make my living. It’s also how I deepen and expand the ideas I sketch in shorter forms.

In the case of the recent mention of my books in this newsletter, I wasn’t even asking anyone to buy them. I was offering substantial free excerpts so readers could explore the texts without spending a penny.

If even that feels too commercial for some, I understand. Everyone has different thresholds for what feels welcome in their inbox.

But I also believe it’s healthy and fair for artists, writers, and creators to let people know about the fuller body of their work—especially when so much of what they already give is freely shared.

In the future, I will continue to offer a massive amount of stuff for free. And yes, now and then, I will also let you know about the books, music, expanded audio horoscopes, daily text message horoscopes, and other plurk (playful work) I create, some of which is for sale.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reflects, questions, disagrees, and keeps the conversation alive. I’m grateful for your presence.

Wishing you rowdy bliss,

Rob

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If you’re one of those readers who is allergic to me mentioning the books and music I’ve created, you should stop reading now. I certainly won’t hold it against you, and, as always, I am grateful that you’re interested in my work at all!

Below this note, for anyone who isn’t offended by my scandalous act of mentioning my books, I’m offering more than 50 free things: music, book excerpts, interviews, essays, and other oddments from my ever-expanding laboratory of plurk. I recognize this may constitute an excessive outbreak of generosity or a suspicious surplus of creative output. For that, I can only offer my mock-apology: Sorry for being so prolific. Sorry for making so much stuff and giving so much of it away. I’ll try to be less absurdly productive in my next incarnation.

My Books:

Want to read free excerpts from my books? The links are below:

Free excerpts from Astrology Is Real: tinyurl.com/BraveBliss

Free excerpts from Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: tinyurl.com/FreePronoia

More free excerpts from Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: https://is.gd/Sny4dO

My entire book for free: The Televisionary Oracle: freewillastrology.com/books/oracle

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And/or buy the books here:

Astrology Is Real: https://tinyurl.com/BookshopAstrologyIsReal

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaBookshop or the ebook here: tinyurl.com/PronoiaEbook

The Televisionary Oracle: https://tinyurl.com/BookshopTelevisionaryOracle

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For brief descriptions of the books, go here: https://is.gd/MGvyJP

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My Music and Spoken Word:

All my music is free here: https://soundcloud.com/sacreduproar

You can also listen to and buy my music here on Bandcamp: https://televisionary.bandcamp.com/

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Hear my album Beauty & Truth Lab here:

Bandcamp: https://tinyurl.com/BandCampBeautyTruth

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/AppleBeautyTruth

iTunes: https://tinyurl.com/itunesBeautyTruth

Pandora: https://tinyurl.com/PandoraBeautyTruth

Qobuz: https://tinyurl.com/QobuzBeautyTruth

YouTubeMusic: https://tinyurl.com/YouTubeBeautyTruth

Here’s a whole lot of other free stuff I offer:

This newsletter!

My website: https://FreeWillAstrology.com

My three Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044285086948 and https://www.facebook.com/rob.brezsny and https://www.facebook.com/oroscopobrezsny

My Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/robbrezsny/

My YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@BeautyAndTruthLab

My Threads page: https://www.threads.net/@robbrezsny

Audio and Video Interviews: https://tinyurl.com/InterviewRob

My Tumblr page: https://freewillastrology.tumblr.com/archive

Wikipedia page about my band: https://tinyurl.com/WEWwiki

The homepage for my band: https://freewillastrology.com/music

Want some inspiration as you compose your romantic invitations? Go here: https://freewillastrology.com/beauty/archives/14/elationship-love-spells-for-beauty-truth-lab-researchers

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Below is a partial list of my free audio offerings, including music and spoken word:

The blasphemously reverent “Prayer for Us” is here: https://tinyurl.com/PrayerToUs

Do you dare gaze into the abyss of happiness? https://tinyurl.com/GazeIntoAbyss

Maybe it’s a good time to think about Shadow Blessings: https://tinyurl.com/ShadowBlessings

All of us are born geniuses, but most of us have been de-geniused by the grind. Want to re-genius yourself? Guidance: https://tinyurl.com/ReGeniusYourself

Thousands of things go right for you every single day. Listen: https://tinyurl.com/GloryInTheHighest

Welcome to the Beauty and Truth Lab: https://tinyurl.com/BeautyTruthLab

You’re invited to celebrate Unhappy Hour, a ritual that gives you a license to whine and howl. Go here: https://tinyurl.com/HealingSadness

How much of the world can you love: https://tinyurl.com/WorldKiss

Want to get married to yourself? The ritual’s here: https://tinyurl.com/YouCanMarryYourself

Meditate on why this is a perfect moment: https://tinyurl.com/PerfectTrueMoment

Whenever we say “you asshole” in the future, what we will really mean is “my beautiful friend”: https://tinyurl.com/BlessedWithBliss

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Check out my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/robbrezsny

Does life always give us the teaching we need?

The renowned American Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck wrote the following:

“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.”

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Beck’s words, which I posted a while back on social media, disturbed some people. One commenter named Rachel said this:

“I hate the idea that ‘life gives you the teacher you need at every moment.’ That’s not true of the Iranian girls’ school being bombed, the people dying of starvation because USAID was destroyed, the kids in ICE gulags, and the Epstein survivors. There’s a big category of experiences that are just destructive.

“Maybe, like Victor Frankl in Auschwitz, people can make something of these disasters, but that’s not the cruelty teaching them, that’s learning from their own capacities. The list here seems to speak to comfortable lives whose worst things are traffic jams and maybe personal troubles.”

Here’s my response to Rachel’s comments:

I think her point raises a valid concern. Statements like Charlotte Joko Beck’s can sound tone-deaf if they’re applied simplistically to situations of extreme suffering—war, starvation, imprisonment, and abuse. Those horrors aren’t “teachers” in any benevolent sense, and it would be cruel to imply that they are somehow justified because they might produce wisdom.

At the same time, I don’t think Beck’s remark was meant as a universal explanation for all suffering everywhere. Zen teachers are often speaking to students about the ordinary frustrations and resistances of daily life, like traffic jams, difficult coworkers, mosquitoes, boredom, disappointment, and irritation.

In that context, the teaching is a practical psychological tool: Instead of fighting every inconvenience, we can treat it as material for awareness and growth.

You might say it’s a training exercise for consciousness, not a metaphysical claim that every catastrophe in the world is divinely arranged for our benefit.

I also think it’s possible to hold two truths at once. One truth is that some events are genuinely unjust and destructive. Another truth is that human beings sometimes discover unexpected strength, compassion, or clarity in the midst of hardship. Viktor Frankl wrote powerfully about that capacity. But the dignity lies in the human response, not in glorifying the suffering itself.

So for me, Beck’s statement is best read as guidance for how to work with the small and medium difficulties of life, not as a philosophical verdict on genocide, famine, or political cruelty.

And I also think it’s okay for spiritual teachings to address people living relatively ordinary lives. Not every piece of counsel has to solve the entire moral tragedy of the world in order to be useful within its intended scope.

In short: The teaching becomes harmful if we weaponize it against victims. But within its proper context, it may be a helpful reminder that even the minor irritations of daily life can be occasions for awareness rather than resentment.

What about teachings that come from generosity, pleasure, and breakthroughs?

Here’s an additional response to Charlotte Joko Beck’s thoughts:

While I appreciate the Zen teacher’s advice, I’m puzzled by how heavily it emphasizes lessons that arise from difficulty. Mosquitoes, traffic jams, illnesses, losses, and obnoxious coworkers: The curriculum she describes seems dominated by adversity.

But that’s only half the syllabus of being alive. You, dear readers, can serve as evidence of this. What if our teachers are just as likely to arrive bearing gifts as carrying irritations? What if the mentors that life sends us are sometimes expansive, benevolent, and generous?

A sudden moment of beauty can educate us as deeply as a setback. All of the following are potentially teachers, too: the smell of rain after a long drought, a piece of music that rearranges our inner weather, an unexpected kindness from a stranger, the loyalty of a friend, the wild intelligence of a forest, and the healing touch of a lover.

Sometimes these blissful lessons are even more radical than hardship’s. Difficulty may teach endurance, but joy can teach trust. Obstacles may strengthen our will, but blessings enlarge our imagination about what’s possible.

If every moment is a guru, as Beck suggests, then surely the curriculum includes grace as well as grit. Generosity is as valuable as challenge. Astonishment might educate us as well as irritation.

Maybe life isn’t only the strict Zen master rapping our knuckles when we drift off into complacency.

Maybe it’s also the lavish host who keeps pressing unexpected gifts into our hands.

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Books I’ve published

Want to read free excerpts from my books? The links are below:

Free excerpts from Astrology Is Real: tinyurl.com/BraveBliss

Free excerpts from Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: tinyurl.com/FreePronoia

More free excerpts from Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: https://is.gd/Sny4dO

My entire book for free: The Televisionary Oracle: freewillastrology.com/books/oracle

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And/or buy the books here:

Astrology Is Real: https://tinyurl.com/BookshopAstrologyIsReal

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaBookshop or the ebook here: tinyurl.com/PronoiaEbook

The Televisionary Oracle: https://tinyurl.com/BookshopTelevisionaryOracle

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Descriptions of my books:

1. Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia

This is my cult classic and manifesto of “cagey optimism.” I propose that the universe is conspiring in our favor rather than against us. It’s equal parts spiritual handbook, storytelling, and philosophical jailbreak. I invite readers to become suspicious of despair and flirt with outrageous gratitude.

2. Astrology Is Real

Here I cast a corrective spell on both skeptics and lazy believers. I articulate my long-evolved approach to astrology as a poetic, psychological, and soulful language—not a fortune-telling gimmick but a tool for awakening your agency. I’m less interested in “the planets control you” and more in “the planets collaborate with your imagination if you use it as a liberating force.”

Read reviews of the book here: tinyurl.com/AstrologyIsReal

3. The Televisionary Oracle

This is my full-on novel: a surreal, shape-shifting narrative that splices feminist storytelling, mystical shadow-work, and benevolent sorcery into a prophetic fever dream. Novelist Tom Robbins read it and said, “I’ve seen the future of American literature, and its name is Rob Brezsny.”

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Check out my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of April 23

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You’re finished with energy-draining indulgences. No more seductive perils or cute ailments, either. Once you wriggle free from the tangles that have been hobbling your style, I suspect you will also renounce anything that resembles joyless restraint, naive certainties, pointless cravings, numbing comforts, or misplaced bravery. May it be so! Abracadabra! The emancipations that materialize after these escapes will likely stoke your holy appetite to shine more fiercely than it has in ages.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In music theory, the tritone is an interval exactly halfway between octaves. In old church music, it was considered diabolical because of its unstable, unresolved quality. But this “devil interval” is now essential to blues, jazz, and rock. The precariousness that once made it seem outrageous became the source of its potency. What was taboo became foundational. I believe you’re entering into a metaphorical tritone phase, Gemini. Lots of interesting and valuable stuff may be a bit wobbly, irregular, hectic, or ruffled.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): A treasure you have long yearned for has morphed since the day you first set out to claim it. Either it has genuinely altered its shape and flavor, or it has remained exactly what it always was while you have changed. In either case, the relationship between you and this prize is no longer the same. Its meaning and value have shifted. The strategies you’ve been using to pursue it aren’t entirely relevant. So I suggest you pause and reconsider. Decide whether you need to formulate a revised approach or identify a different version of the treasure altogether.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): My radical predictions: You will soon discern truths that have been hidden and unravel mysteries that have resisted your understanding. A limiting belief that has dulled your mind will fade away, and a so-called ally who has confused your sense of self will drift out of your orbit. And that’s just part of the renewal ahead. I foresee that you will emerge from a weird emotional haze, regaining access to feelings you’ve needed to highlight. And with that awakening, you will be blessed with beautiful realizations that until now have lingered just beyond definition.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In theater, “blocking” refers to the carefully choreographed movement of actors on stage. Every step is intentional, designed to create meaning and flow. But if an actor forgets the blocking and moves spontaneously in response to what’s happening, sometimes the scene becomes more alive. Let’s apply this idea to your life, Virgo. It may be that you have been following the blocking carefully. You know your role well. But now you’ve been authorized to forget the blocking. You can respond to what’s really happening instead of what’s scripted. I invite you to speak from your heart rather than parroting what’s expected of you. Yes, you might mess up the scene. But on the other hand, you might make it extra real and vibrant.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the future I envision for us all, the prizes that truly matter won’t be the wealth we’ve gathered or the impressive names on our contact list. They won’t be the clever deals we’ve made or the attractiveness of those who walk beside us. What will count most is our ability to transform the messy, selfish, frightened parts of ourselves into strengths. That’s hard to do! Each of us carries a share of that leaden dross, of course, but some of us are more tirelessly ingenious in our efforts to transmute it into gold. And the coming weeks will be prime time for you, Libra, to make dynamic progress in harnessing this magic.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Is it possible there’s something you really need but you don’t know what it is? Sometimes the soul sends up subtle hints long before it sends clear demands: a vague restlessness, a mysterious sadness, or a boredom that doesn’t match your circumstances. These are often clues that an unnamed or unacknowledged need is summoning your attention. My advice to you: PAY ATTENTION! Ask your deep, sweet, sensitive self to provide unambiguous clues. To expedite the process, say the following sentence out loud, filling in the blank at the end: “I suspect I might be starving for ________.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): You have arrived at the Glorious Grunting Season, my dear Sagittarius. I hope you’re poised to sweat freely and trust the intelligence of strenuous physical effort. Your wise body, more than your fine mind, can best align you with cosmic rhythms. Whenever you throw yourself into work or play that makes you grunt—hauling, scrubbing, digging, lifting, dancing, running, making love—you will harmonize with the deeper pulse of life. I predict that you will invigorate your instinctual vitality as you clear emotional sediment and ground your energy in the earth’s rich rhythms. You will metabolize frustration into focus, inertia into momentum, and abstraction into embodiment.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What might motivate you to become an extraordinary lover? I’m not suggesting that your romantic and erotic talents are lacking, only that there is delightful room to grow. And the coming weeks will be prime time for you to have fun with this noble experiment. I suggest you follow the clues that life and intuition will drop in your path. Keep this in mind, too: What makes a person a superb lover has a little to do with sheer technique, but is mostly due to emotional intelligence, imaginative responsiveness, and tender ingenuity.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): This horoscope isn’t composed by me. It’s coming from you. I’m channeling it straight out of your own deep mind. Why now? Because your conscious ego has been so swept up in the constant swirl of tasks and distractions that it has been tuning out crucial communications from your still, small voice. And now that precious Spirit Whisperer has conscripted me as its messenger. Here’s what it wants to say: “Hey you! Remember me? Your inner guide? Also known as your higher self and the voice of your soul? You urgently need to turn your attention back in my direction. I have a backlog of messages for you, starting with how we can and should intensify our devotion to creative self-care.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 1967, Piscean biologist Lynn Margulis proposed a revolutionary idea about life’s evolution: that many of its great leaps occurred through symbiosis. She theorized that distinct organisms have sometimes merged their identities to form entirely new beings. One example is the mitochondrion, the powerhouse within our cells. It began its existence as a free-living bacterium that later entered into partnership with the ancestral cell. Margulis’ formerly controversial idea is now mainstream science. (She was called “science’s unruly earth mother.”) With this as our guide, Pisces, let’s contemplate what separate elements of your life might merge into unprecedented blends. I invite you to consider bold experiments in merging and mixing. Hybrids might be more beautiful and valuable than the sum of their parts.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The visible lightning bolt we see is actually the return stroke. It’s electricity racing back up from the ground to the cloud after an invisible leader stroke has created a path. So the spectacular display is actually the earth talking back to the sky. I’d love to see you adopt this phenomenon as your power symbol, Aries. In every way you can imagine, be like the earth conversing with the sky. When a hopeful sign crackles overhead, send out a bold message that you’re ready to act on it. If your ideals are vague and wispy, flying high above you, take a brave practical step to anchor them in reality. Proclaim your bright intentions to the clouds and the stars.

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BEAUTIFUL WOMEN HEALERS

Sports Illustrated magazine’s yearly Swimsuit Issue has long specialized in 20‑something women in skimpy bikinis, though it has recently begun to include a few older and plus‑size models. Esquire’s “Women We Love” feature mostly showcases thin, conventionally attractive actresses and models in their 20s and 30s.

These publications and others share a common theology: that female beauty worthy of fame and adulation is primarily a property of youth—ideally smooth, taut, and untroubled. It’s maintained in a state of pristine and decorative availability. Beauty, in this doctrine, must be preserved from time, labor, and the visible consequences of living deeply.

I honor and cherish female beauty of a different kind: mature, wise, weird soulfulness that is often embodied in women who have practiced a particular psychospiritual practice and have developed healing skills. Or they have spent years in service to caring for younger generations. Or they have worked as passionate activists to create a more just society. Or they have simply worked hard at becoming their full, authentic selves.

In the work of photographer Katarzyna Majak, we encounter this other beauty with exuberant clarity. Her portraits of witches, healers, and spiritual practitioners in Poland don’t conform to the dominant aesthetic script. The women aren’t posed as objects of consumption. They don’t seem interested in seducing the viewer.

The three photos above are Majak’s. See more here:

tinyurl.com/EnchantingPolishWitches

or tinyurl.com/BeautifulPolishWitches

The Polish women appear as people who have ongoing relationships with forces larger than themselves. Their faces and bodies show evidence that they’ve been in the service of healing, ceremony, and sustained interplay with the numinous. There’s an inwardness that paradoxically radiates outward.

Sports Illustrated presents bodies carefully preserved from gravity and the marks that commitment leaves. But the Polish women have been shaped by long intimacy with intriguing complications and enriching challenges. Their emotionally intelligent charisma is informed by a willingness to be changed by what they’ve encountered. They’ve wrestled with suffering without collapsing into it.

Naturally, this beauty includes elements of weirdness. Not the curated quirk of branding, but the organic strangeness that arises when a person chooses inner authority over social conformity. These women may dress, move, and gaze in ways that resist easy translation. Their lives haven’t been optimized for legibility, so they carry an aura of mystery that can’t be reduced to mere style.

Mainstream culture tends to penalize this kind of weirdness because it resists commodification. It can’t be easily packaged and doesn’t lend itself to mass aspiration.

But in another frame, weirdness testifies to a life lived in allegiance to values deeper than capitalism’s glamour. It signals a sustained dialogue with the unconscious, the imaginal, and the more-than-human world. It’s a credential.

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The photograher Katarzyna Majak says: “I talk about the witch archetype present in all women, if only they open up to it. The witch is a woman who knows, trusts her intuition, is connected to the birth-death-rebirth nature, and cherishes her strength. I hope to help women reconnect with their female lines, other women, to be daring. To grow.”

In the Women of Power book, Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk writes, “The women speak of their efforts to take back that which they have lost: the power of matriarchal cults, access to the sources of power, their sexuality, and also their right to natural birth, dignity, strength, female art, contact with nature and finally many female traditions that were mostly forgotten and suppressed.”

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To recognize this kind of beauty requires a shift in perception. It asks us to move from a gaze of consumption to a stance of reverence.

Instead of saying, “She’s not as pretty and sexy as a Sports illustrated Swimsuit Model,” we might ask, “What mysteries has she devoted herself to? What uncanny inner powers has she learned to nourish? How does her soulful genius inspire and heal others?”

Here’s a subversive possibility: Maybe the most compelling beauty doesn’t shout for attention or strain to sell us its desirability.

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More stories and photos of dazzling women healers: tinyurl.com/GorgeousWomenHealers

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PORTRAITS OF INDIGENOUS MATRIARCHS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Roxann Murray writes about and photographs “Portraits of Indigenous Matriarchs in the Pacific Northwest”: tinyurl.com/HealingMatriarchs

Murray spent years fighting proposed industrial facilities in Tacoma, meeting strong Indigenous matriarchs who inspired her to protect the land and water. These encounters turned into lasting friendships and ultimately a photography project exploring Indigenous women fighting for their collective future.

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Sangoma: Photos of Traditional Healers in South Africa

Traditional Sangoma healers are highly respected and frequently consulted members of South African communities. They practice traditional African medicine. tinyurl.com/SangomaHealers

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A great book: Grandmothers’ Wisdom : Living Portrayals from the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers: tinyurl.com/GrandmotherBeauty

These 13 women are keepers of traditional medicine and Indigenous spirituality, preserving ancient wisdom traditions and traditional ecological knowledge that have served the planet for millennia. Their stories come from the Amazon rainforest, the Central American highlands, the Sierra Madre of Oaxaca, the plains, deserts and canyons of North America, the Himalayan mountains of Tibet and Nepal, and the forests of Central Africa.

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Extraordinary Women Shaping the Transmission of Buddhism in the West: dakinipower.com/the-book

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Read my essay on “The Spiritual Boys’ Club”: tinyurl.com/BeTrueToYourWildness

See a list of WOMEN and NONBINARY SPIRITUAL LEADERS: tinyurl.com/WomenSpiritualLeaders

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Go to my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of April 16

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Anthropologist and author Clifford Geertz loved to use “thick description.” He wrote detailed reports that captured not just the surface level of what happened but the deeper levels of meaning. Here’s an example of thin description: “He winked.” Thick description: “He quickly closed and opened his right eyelid in a culturally specific gesture of playfully conspiratorial communication.” In the coming weeks, Aries, I invite you to enjoy the sumptuous pleasures of thick description. Unleash your wild curiosity as you dig down into the rich, complex truths about everything. Gleefully explore how the cultural, personal, and historical contexts give each moment its specific, nuanced significance. (PS: This approach will enhance your options for responding.)

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): New beginnings and final chapters will be overlapping in the coming weeks, and they’ll push you in the direction of robust growth. It won’t always be obvious which is which, though, so you’ll need to sharpen your discernment to read the signs. Here are two contemplations to steer you: 1. Which long-running sagas in your life have finally played themselves out? 2. Which struggling, half-forgotten dreams are yearning to rise again and blossom as if they were brand new? Once you’ve listened deeply enough to answer those questions, move boldly: Feed and protect whatever is being born, and actively assist in the graceful dismantling of whatever is ready to end.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): One of your go-to tools or assets is still functioning, but now is exactly the time to repair or refurbish it—before it breaks. Furthermore: A power outage of sorts may be looming unless you move to head off an impending overload. Wait, there’s even more! The monster in your closet is still deeply asleep, which is why now is the perfect moment to summon an exorcist or exterminator, before it stirs. Are you getting the picture, Gemini? The very fact that you’re reading this horoscope gives you all the advance warning you need to sidestep potential glitches and diversions.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): According to my reading of the astrological omens, asking the BIG questions is highly advisable right now. Why? Because you are unusually likely to get really good answers to those BIG questions. Want a nudge to get started in this noble enterprise? Here are three recommended queries: 1. “What is the wild meaning of my precious life?” 2. “Who the #@$%&!* am I, anyway?” 3. “Where is this so-called ‘God’ I hear so much about?” Dear Cancerian, I will also urge you to formulate humorous, satirical BIG questions that inspire life to be playfully revelatory with you. Here are three: 1. “How can I fine-tune my friends and loved ones to perfection?” 2. “Are there shortcuts to getting absolutely everything I want?” 3. “How do I sign up for a life of nonstop pleasure, free from all discomfort?”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): When people finally grasped just how radical Einstein’s theory of relativity was, a journalist asked him how he had arrived at such a breakthrough. Einstein said it was simple: He had utterly ignored supposedly fundamental truths. Dear Leo, please notice what that might imply for you in the coming weeks. Einstein didn’t dismiss a mere opinion or fashionable theory; he set aside theories so deeply accepted that everyone treated them as obviously factual. He didn’t waste energy fighting them, but simply proceeded as if they didn’t exist. Consider doing the same: Set aside at least one seemingly incontestable assumption and be alert for the new realities that then become possible.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The International Space Station orbits Earth every 90 minutes, so astronauts see 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours. It’s a challenge to maintain their circadian rhythms. They must be disciplined as they stick to a sleep cycle that human bodies are accustomed to. But there’s a wonderful trade-off: the rare privilege of witnessing the rapid cycling of total darkness and brilliant light, which provides a visceral sense of life’s deep cadences at work. Your routine may seem similarly unsettled these days, Virgo. Transitions are coming faster than feels natural. But I suspect this disruptive blessing is giving you access to patterns that aren’t intelligible when you’re moving more slowly. You’re beholding the way things change as well as the changes themselves. This is a valuable gift. The insights will be worth the disorientation.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You Libras sometimes get accused of indecision, as if your careful weighing of possibilities were a weakness. But I see a different truth: You aspire to be fair-minded as you honor all the legitimate claims on your attention. So the problem isn’t your capacity for considering multiple sides of each story. Rather, I find fault with the culture you live in, which is obsessed with one-dimensional certainty. If I were your coach or therapist, I would give you permission to take your time and resist the rush to resolution. The most honest thing you can say may be, “I’m still deciding,” or “Both of these feel true.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You’re not a flaming expert at turning tension into treasure, but you have modest skills at that art. And now I’m predicting you will grow these skills. Before you jump to conclusions, though, please know that I’m not implying you will be immersed in stressful melodrama. I’m suggesting you will handle differences of perspective with increasing aplomb and curiosity. Instead of treating conflict as a debilitating hassle, you’ll try to find value in it. Some debates may even feel stimulating and fun rather than tiring. To take maximum advantage, enjoy the controversies as exploratory missions rather than as showdowns you must win at all costs.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I hope and predict that you will be wildly resourceful as you wisely experiment with love in the coming weeks. I hope and predict that you will research the art of tender, inspiring intimacy in new frontiers. Reinvent passion, you subtle intensity freak! Be a bold explorer who breaks the boring old rules! Dare to break open new varieties of sweetness and companionship that require you to innovate and improvise!

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): If you were on a walk and spied a dime on the ground, would you bend down to grab it? Probably not. Would you feel differently about a quarter? Maybe you have decided that nothing under a dollar is worth your effort. But in the coming weeks, you will be wise to break such rules. Symbolically speaking, the act of stooping down to pick up a dime will set off a chain reaction that ends with you acquiring a hundred-dollar bill. By saying yes to small, unexpected blessings, you’ll position yourself to receive larger ones down the line.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The coming weeks will be an excellent time to begin a building project on the scale of Egypt’s Great Pyramid or India’s Taj Mahal. You should at least initiate work toward some magnificent masterpiece or creation, Aquarius. According to my analysis, there’s a chance you could coax an armada of helpers to work on your behalf. And as you set out to accomplish your labor of love, I bless your quest.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Artists who specialize in origami can create structures far stronger than the flat paper they’re folded from. The weakness of being made from thin, fragile material is overcome through strategic creasing. Engineers now use origami principles to design everything from solar panels to artificial blood vessels. Let’s extrapolate these facts into a lesson for you in the coming weeks, Pisces. We’ll assume that your flexibility is a strength, not a liability. You will wield your pliability to produce a high degree of structural integrity.

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Dear Allies and Co-Conspirators—

My heart has been working overtime lately. I’ve been asking it to metabolize a steady influx of dissonance, absurdity, cruelty, and grief. I’m sure you know the feeling. The Trumpocalypse is relentless.

The grotesque and the ridiculous often arrive braided together. The horrors are real; the satire is sharp; our nervous systems are prodded to laugh and mourn in the same five-minute span. It’s no wonder our hearts overheat and come very close to breaking again and again.

But our hearts can’t remain perpetually inflamed without consequence. So how do we remain exquisitely open without becoming exquisitely exhausted?

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Practice Rhythmic Devotion, Not Constant Immersion

Staying informed isn’t the same as staying inundated and overwhelmed. We’re not required to marinate indefinitely in the spectacle of dysfunction in order to be a responsible citizen or a compassionate human. Overexposure dulls our responsiveness and degrades our discernment.

Instead, let’s engage in intentional intervals. Enter the fray, witness clearly, feel honestly, and then exit on purpose: skillful participation, not avoidance.

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Complete the Emotional Circuit

After we take in difficult news, especially when it arrives sugar-coated in humor, we do something that allows the feeling to move.

We step outside. Touch a living thing. Listen to music that reminds us why beauty is worth defending. Gather together with each other. Let our body register that the world isn’t only what we witness on a screen.

Otherwise, the feeling lingers as unprocessed residue—what we might call psychic plaque.

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Refuse the False Nobility of Burnout

There’s a cultural lie that implies: “If you’re not exhausted by caring, you’re not caring enough.”

Nope. Burnout doesn’t make us more ethical. It makes us less effective, less perceptive, and more likely to collapse into cynicism or despair. Sustainable compassion is a strategy of long-term devotion.

Our Hearts Can Be Translators, Not Storage Units

Our job isn’t to hoard outrage, sorrow, and alarm inside our chests like a crowded archive of horrors. It’s wiser to transform what we take in.

So we write, speak, sing, and make mischief. We tell the truth in ways that wake people up without crushing their will to live.

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Remember What We Love—Daily, Deliberately, Devotionally

If we only track what’s broken, our perception becomes skewed toward collapse. So we try balancing our awareness by actively noticing: small kindnesses; living beauty; improbable resilience; the ongoing miracle of consciousness itself.

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Honor the Paradox

You and I have been assigned:

to grieve what’s being damaged

and

celebrate what remains luminous.

to name what’s wrong

and

amplify what’s possible.

To refuse both denial and despair.

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Our hearts aren’t too sensitive for the Trumpocalypse. But they require our skillful, compassionate maintenance.

Let’s not harden ourselves into numb efficiency. Let’s become durably tender, capable of feeling deeply without losing our capacity to act, create, and love.

The two pieces of art here are by Shelby McQuilkin: blog.shelbymcquilkin.com/

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A further refinement about our breaking hearts:

Many of us have already learned how to love people whose views we find troubling or even abhorrent. We have stretched our compassion across chasms of disagreement and refused the easy seductions of contempt. That’s a huge achievement.

But let’s imagine there is a next step.

It’s possible, especially for those of us with strong empathic reflexes, to over-carry the emotional weight of what we witness. To feel not only our rightful sorrow and outrage, but also to absorb an ambient burden that doesn’t actually belong to us. We become, without intending it, emotional pack animals for the collective storm.

I don’t think that’s healthy. So I propose a subtler invitation: to love accurately. How can we feel deeply without assuming responsibility for what’s not ours to fix or hold? Is it possible for us to remain open-hearted without becoming overextended?

We may feel grief for a life we’re witnessing from the outside without needing to carry that life inside our chest.

A well-tuned heart isn’t a sponge that absorbs everything indiscriminately. It’s an instrument that receives, resonates, and then releases, transforming experience into insight and precise compassion.

So as we continue your brave work of loving in difficult times, I offer you this permission: You don’t have to carry it all. Feel it, honor it, and respond where you can. And then let the rest pass through you like weather through the vast sky.

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There’s an interview with me in THE BELIEVER magazine.

Read it here: https://www.thebeliever.net/an-interview-with-rob-brezsny/

or here: https://archive.ph/vCQpA

Below are excerpts—my responses to the excellent questions asked of me by Ginger Green, managing editor of THE BELIEVER.

Excerpt: To be a human being is a great privilege and an honor, and not a thing to be escaped, not a thing to be denigrated, but a treasure to be cherished and used to the hilt.

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Excerpt: My first rule is to begin any particular writing session with the stated intention that I want this information to be in the interests of the people who read it. I want it to advance their highest good, and if that means I have to change my ideas about a particular sign or my approach to life, that’s fine. My goal is to be of service. So that’s how I start, and I have for as long as I can remember.

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Excerpt: My understanding of astrology is different from a lot of more traditional astrologers’, and I have always believed that the kind of astrology I wanted to practice would liberate people’s imaginations and free them from their own conditioning, and certainly disabuse them of the notion that our fate is set in stone and that we have no power over the way fate manipulates us.

So I’m a big believer in enhancing people’s ability to think they can create their own reality as they go, within the constraints of their own karma and, of course, of the somewhat dire cultural conditions we’re in right now.

I think, ultimately, we’ve got a lot more free will than we imagine. And many astrologers don’t emphasize that, but I choose to.

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Excerpt: I’ve seen 13 psychotherapists over the course of my life, and that is a great antidote to any potential for developing hubris or overweening pride. It’s always an excellent cure for getting full of myself: to see my own ridiculousness or lack of understanding, ignorance, and really treasuring that.

To me, it’s a constant meditative practice to tune in to what I need work on to become more of my true self, my authentic self. And so I think the first rule is what the famous physicist Richard Feynman said: “The first rule is—you must not submit to being fooled, and the person most likely to fool you is you.”

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Excerpt: The value of astrology is that it speaks to our soul rather than to our ego when it’s done best. It liberates our imagination from the fundamental materialism that dominates our culture, and allows us to imagine there are mysteries beyond our conscious awareness that are worth contemplating—because we are a creation of the entire interconnected web of life, and astrology helps us read that interconnected web of life.

It shows us the picture of our own individual soul’s code and the soul’s code of our nation and our world. And so it inflames us, inspires us to move beyond our day-to-day thinking and imagine the bigger context of what we’re living amid.

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Excerpt: What problems do my readers most often write to me about with? Well, a lot tell me stories of fortune tellers and astrologers that have filled them with fear, and I feel like I’m the antidote to that.

There’s no such thing as an inherently bad astrological omen. Every astrological omen provides us with some information about how to liberate ourselves from suffering and get out of the challenges that we’re amid.

Every single astrological configuration gives us some potentially liberating information. And so I think that’s one of my main purposes for people who have sought astrological counseling and information elsewhere: to heal that wound in people’s understanding of how astrology and fortune-telling work.

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Go to my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of April 9

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Unexpected deliverance? Lucky rides? Beginner’s grace? Dreamy, gleaming replacements? To the untrained eye, it may look like you are bending cosmic law in your favor. In truth, you’re simply redeeming the backlog of blessings you earned in the past—acts of quiet generosity and unselfish hardship that never got their proper reward. Serendipitous leaps? Divine detours? Shortcuts to victory? Welcome the uncanny gifts, Aries, even if they’re not what you expected.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The current phase of your destiny could disturb you if you’re not super patient. Life seems to be teasing you with promises that then go into hiding. You’ve been having to master the art of living on the edge between the BIG RED YES and the GREY MURKY NO. My advice: Imagine your predicament as an intriguing riddle, not a frustrating ambiguity. See if you can figure out how to grow wiser and stronger in response to the evasive mysteriousness. My prediction: You will grow wiser and stronger.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Why it’s always triple-great to be a Gemini, drawing on an abundance of mercurial wisdom: 1. You excel at the art of translation and are skilled at finding common ground between different realms. You can oscillate and flow between the lyrical and the pragmatic, the insightful and the comic, the detailed focus and the big picture. 2. You know that consistency is overrated. Your capacity to harbor multiple perspectives is a superpower. 3. You get to be both the question and the answer, proving that wholeness includes all the fragments. All the aptitudes I just named should be your featured approaches in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The saga of Troy is one of the most renowned tales from ancient Greece. Yet the fabled setting of Homer’s epic tale, the *Iliad*, was a settlement of just seven acres. Let that detail resound for you in the coming weeks. It’s an apt metaphor for what’s taking shape in your life. A seemingly modest situation could become the stage for a mythic turning point. An experience that starts small may grow into a story of immense and lasting significance.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Many people have a favorite number they regard as lucky. Some choose it because it showed up at a major turning point in their life. Others derive it from their birthday or from the numerology of their name. Plenty are drawn to “master numbers” like 33, 77, or 99. Personally, I give three numbers my special love: 555, the square root of -2, and 1.61803, also known as the golden ratio in Fibonacci-related patterns. I hope this nudges your imagination, Leo. Your fortunes are shifting now in the direction of an unusual kind of luck, so it’s a potent moment to select a new lucky number. I suggest that you also choose a new guiding animal, a fresh initiation name, and a charged symbol to serve as your personal emblem.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Do you know what ignorance is causing you to suffer? Is there a teacher or teaching that could provide an antidote? I suspect you are very close to attracting or stumbling upon the guidance you need to escape the fog: maybe a therapist who can help you undo a hurtful pattern, a mentor to inspire your quest to do work you long to do, or a spiritual friend who reminds you that you’re not merely your latest drama. Your task in the coming weeks is not to obsess on fixing everything at once, but to seek one or two sources of wisdom that illuminate your blind spots and educate your heart.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I’m an honorary Libra, with three planets and my lunar north node in your sign. So I speak with authority when I declare that fostering harmony, which is a Libran gift, is only superficially about smoothing away friction and asymmetry. More importantly, it’s about rearranging reality so that beauty is a central feature. The goal is to accomplish practical wonders by stimulating grace and fluency. When I’m best expressing my Libra qualities, I don’t ask how I can please everyone, but rather, how I can serve maximum goodness and intelligence. Here’s another tip to being a potent Libra: Know that your enchanting charm is a lubricant for the truth, not mere decoration. Here’s your homework: Beautify one system you use every day so it serves you with less friction and more pleasure.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You are potentially an expert in creative destruction. You have a knack for eliminating what’s unnecessary and even obstructive. What has outlived its usefulness? You’re prone to home in on energy drains and unleash transformative energy. And yes, this intensity of yours may unnerve people who prefer comfortable numbness—but not me. I love you to exult in your talent for locating beauty and truth that are too complicated for others. I applaud you when you descend into the darkness to retrieve dicey treasures. PS: You’re not shadowy or negative. You’re a specialist in the authentic love that refuses to enable delusion or sanction decay.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): My Sagittarian friend Artemisia bemoans “the scarcity of collective delight.” She wishes there were more public acclaim for stories about breakthrough joys, miraculous marvels, and surprising healings. Why are we so riveted by reports of misery, malaise, and muck, yet so loath to recognize and celebrate everything that’s working really well? She also mourns the odd habit among some educated folks to mistake cynicism for brilliance. If you don’t mind, Sagittarius, I’m assigning you to be an antidote in the coming weeks. Your task is to gather an overflowing harvest of lavish pleasure, fun epiphanies, and richly meaningful plot twists. Don’t hoard any of it. Spread it around to everyone you encounter.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “Id” is a psychoanalytic term. It’s the part of the psyche where basic instincts, needs, and drives reside. On the one hand, the id supplies a huge charge of psychic energy. On the other hand, it mostly operates outside conscious awareness. Consider the implications: The fierce, pulsing center of your life force is largely hidden from you. Most of the time, that veil is protective. Encountering the id directly can be overwhelming or unsettling. But in the coming weeks, you Capricorns are poised to cultivate a more interesting and righteous relationship with your high‑voltage core. Do you dare? Treat your id as a brilliant but untamed creature. Extend a careful, curious invitation for it to show you more about itself.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In architecture, a “clerestory” is a high window that brings light into a space without compromising privacy. It illuminates without exposing. I suggest that you find metaphorical equivalents for clerestories, Aquarius. Look for ways to let spaciousness and brightness into your world without disturbing your boundaries. Your assignment is to avoid swinging between total lockdown and overexposure. The best option: strategic vulnerability and selective transparency. Allow people to see selected parts of you without giving them access to everything. Be both open and discriminating.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 1903, the Wright brothers flew a primitive model of the first airplane. How did they prepare the way for their spectacular milestone? Their workshop was a bicycle shop, not a high-tech, state-of-the-art lab. By building and fixing bikes, they learned key insights about flying machines. The lesson for you, Pisces, is that mastery in one area may be transferable to breakthroughs in another. With this in mind, I invite you to evaluate how your current skills, including those you take for granted, might be repurposed. Methods you developed in one context could solve problems in another. You shouldn’t underestimate the value of what you already know.

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The Sacred Pedagogy of Your Addiction

Your addiction is obstructing you from your destiny, and yet it’s also your ally.

What?! How can both be true?

On the downside, your addiction diverts your energy from a deeper desire that it superficially resembles. For instance, if you’re an alcoholic, your urge to get loaded may be an inferior substitute for and a poor imitation of your buried longing to commune with spirit.

On the upside, your addiction is your ally in this sense: It dares you to get strong and smart enough to wrestle free of its grip; it pushes you to summon the uncanny willpower necessary to defeat the darkness within you that saps your ability to follow the path with heart.

(P.S. Don’t tell me you have no addictions. Each of us is addicted to some sensation, feeling, thought, or action, if not to an actual substance.)

So here’s one possibility: Extol your sublime, painful addiction. Celebrate it to death. Ride it, spank it, kiss it, whip it.

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The Addiction Map: What Are You Really Hungry For?

Every addiction is a treasure map written in the language of counterfeit satisfaction. The X that marks the spot isn’t where you’re digging. It’s in the opposite direction, in the place you’re afraid to look.

Let’s decode some common addictions to reveal the authentic hunger beneath:

If you’re addicted to alcohol or drugs: You’re likely craving unmediated access to the numinous, to states of consciousness that dissolve the prison of consensus materialism. You want gnosis, ecstasy, and communion with what some call the Spirit World, Dreamtime, or Anima Mundi, and what I call The Other Real World.

But instead of developing the disciplined technologies to get there sustainably, you’re using a sledgehammer that works for a few hours and leaves you further from the goal than when you started.

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If you’re addicted to perfectionism: You’re hungering to create something so beautiful, true, and necessary that it justifies your existence. You want to offer a gift so pure that no one can question your right to take up space on this planet.

But perfectionism keeps you from ever finishing and ever risking the vulnerability of being seen. It’s a defense against the revelation you’re seeking.

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If you’re addicted to chaos, drama, or crisis: You’re craving intensity, aliveness, and the feeling of being fully awake and engaged. You want the chronic ecstasy of fervent incarnation.

But instead of finding it through creativity, passion, or purpose, you’re manufacturing emergencies that give you the adrenaline of being alive without the vulnerability of choosing a life you really love..

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If you’re addicted to people-pleasing or approval: You’re longing for the experience of being loved for who you truly are, seen in your full depth and complexity, and celebrated for your authentic self.

But instead of risking that visibility, you’re performing a carefully curated version of yourself and mistaking the applause for love.

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If you’re addicted to busyness or productivity: You’re hungry for significance and proof that you’re worthy.

But instead of asking what truly matters to you, you’re filling up time with motion so you never have to face the terrifying question: “What if I stopped and discovered I haven’t been doing what’s right to fulfill my soul’s code?”

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If you’re addicted to outrage or doomscrolling: You may be craving a sense of being on the right side and participating in an energy larger than yourself. That’s noble! You want to be part of the great work of healing the world.

But instead of doing the difficult local work of transformation, you’re consuming endless content about problems you feel powerless to solve, mistaking awareness for action and anxiety for engagement.

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If you’re addicted to romantic intrigue or sexual conquest: You’re longing for the experience of being utterly transfixed by another human being. It’s not a mediocre yearning: wanting to be lost in the dissolving boundaries of erotic communion and experiencing yourself as desirable.

But instead of cultivating the deep intimacy that sustains vivid, sustained aliveness, you’re chasing the initial spark over and over, mistaking novelty for depth.

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If you’re addicted to suffering, martyrdom, or victimhood: You’re hungry for your pain to count for something and your struggles to be acknowledged. You want the world to recognize how hard you’ve tried and endured.

But instead of transforming your suffering into wisdom or art or service, you’re collecting it as evidence of your worthiness, mistaking endurance for enlightenment.

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If you’re addicted to comfort, safety, or risk-avoidance: You’re craving the feeling of not having to be afraid anymore and finally being able to rest. You want respite from the existential terror of being alive in a body on a planet in crisis.

But instead of finding the spiritual security that comes from facing your fears, you’re building elaborate defenses that make your world smaller.

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If you’re addicted to shopping, acquiring, or accumulating: You’re longing for the feeling of having enough and being filled. You want the existential emptiness at your core to finally be satisfied.

But instead of addressing the spiritual hunger directly, you’re trying to stuff the void with objects, mistaking possession for completion.

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The Counterfeit and the Authentic

Here’s the kicker: Your addiction may know what you need better than your conscious mind does.

That’s why it has such power over you. It’s not random or arbitrary, not a moral failing or a character flaw. Your addiction is a brilliant, misguided messenger from your soul, trying desperately to get your attention about what you’re ignoring.

The alcoholic who drinks to feel spiritual connection is correctly diagnosing their need for the numinous. They’re just using the wrong technology. Workaholics who can’t stop producing are correctly diagnosing their hunger for meaning, but are looking for it in the wrong place.

Your addiction is a homeopathic remedy gone wrong. It’s using a tiny dose of the right medicine but in such a diluted, distorted form that it becomes poison.

Why Your Addiction May Be Your Ally

Here’s the upside.

Your addiction is a ruthless spiritual teacher. It won’t let you lie to yourself. It keeps showing up no matter how many times you try to meditate it away or pretend you’ve evolved beyond it.

Your addiction dares you to get strong. It says: “You think you’re committed to your path? Prove it. You think you want enlightenment? Show me you want it more than you want this moment of escape or this familiar pattern of self-soothing.”

Your addiction reveals your true priorities. Whatever you’re addicted to, that’s what you’re actually devoted to, regardless of what you tell yourself or others. Your addiction is a mirror that shows you where you’re still choosing the counterfeit over the authentic or the comfortable over the transformative.

Your addiction teaches you about power. Specifically, it teaches you about the parts of yourself that are more powerful than your conscious will, like your unconscious drives and the ancestral patterns running in your nervous system. It forces you to develop a relationship with the parts of yourself that won’t be controlled by good intentions or positive thinking.

Your addiction humbles you, keeping you honest about your limitations and vulnerabilities. It prevents you from becoming one of those insufferable spiritual people who’ve “transcended” all earthly struggles and now float above the fray dispensing wisdom to the still-struggling masses. Your addiction keeps you human.

Your addiction is potentially your initiation. This is the hero’s journey: wrestling with it, failing, trying again, understanding it more deeply, finding the real hunger beneath it, slowly redirecting your energy toward the authentic source. This is the descent into the underworld that precedes the return with the elixir.

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How to Work With Your Addiction as Ally

Here’s where most addiction advice goes wrong: It treats the addiction as pure pathology and problem. It says: “Eliminate it. Overcome it. Rise above it. Be stronger than it.”

But that approach misses the intelligence of the addiction. The truth is that your addiction is trying to tell you crucial truth about yourself.

Here’s a different approach:

1. Thank your addiction for its service.

Seriously. Your addiction has been trying to meet a real need, even if clumsily. It has been attempting to get you into states of consciousness, feelings, or experiences that matter to you. Before you can release it, you need to honor what it has been trying to do.

“Thank you, perfectionism, for trying to ensure I create something worthy. Thank you for caring so much about excellence. I see you. I honor your intention.”

“Thank you, workaholism, for trying to make my life significant. Thank you for pushing me toward achievement. I recognize your devotion.”

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2. Ask your addiction what it’s really hungry for.

Have an actual conversation with it. Use active imagination. Dialogue with it in your journal. Get past the surface craving to the deeper longing.

“Hey, you, addiction to drama and chaos, what are you really trying to give me?”

And listen. The answer might surprise you.

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3. Identify the authentic source of the hunger.

Once you know what you’re really craving, ask: “Where can I get the real version of this? Not the counterfeit, but the authentic experience my soul is seeking?”

If you’re using alcohol to reach altered states: What are the sustainable spiritual technologies that could give you access to the numinous? Meditation? Breathwork? Psychedelics used ceremonially? Ecstatic dance? Deep nature immersion?

If you’re addicted to approval: What would it take to develop such a strong relationship with yourself that external validation becomes optional rather than necessary?

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4. Negotiate with your addiction.

This is the “ride it, spank it, kiss it, whip it” part. Don’t just white-knuckle resist it or pretend it doesn’t exist. Play with it.

“Okay, perfectionism, I see you’re scared this piece isn’t good enough yet. I appreciate your concern. Here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to work on it for two more hours with full attention and craft, and then I’m shipping it, ready or not. You can come along for the ride, but you don’t get to drive.”

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5. Redirect the energy.

This is crucial. You’re not trying to eliminate the energy of the addiction. You’re trying to redirect it toward its authentic target.

Take all that intensity you put into your addiction and aim it at the real goal. If you’re addicted to chaos, channel that appetite for intensity into creative work that’s genuinely challenging. If you’re addicted to a substance, redirect that craving for altered states into serious spiritual practice.

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6. Celebrate your sublime, painful addiction.

This is the paradox: By fully acknowledging and honoring your addiction, by recognizing it as a sacred teacher rather than a shameful secret, you begin to release its grip.

Make art or tell stories about your addiction. Turn it into material for your work. Bring it out of the shadows where it has power and into the open where it becomes just another part of your perfectly imperfect human experience.

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The Dance of the Addict-Mystic

I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from my own addictions. (And yes, I have them: addictions to work, to intensity, to certain kinds of magical thinking, to the high of creative breakthrough.)

The goal isn’t to have no addictions. The goal is to have a primary addiction to the authentic source rather than the counterfeit.

Get addicted to the real thing:

- Get addicted to the feeling of creating something true

- Get addicted to moments of genuine communion with the world of night dreams

- Get addicted to the aliveness that comes from taking necessary risks

- Get addicted to the satisfaction of keeping your word to yourself

- Get addicted to the chronic ecstasy of fervent incarnation—being fully, deeply human

When you’re genuinely addicted to the authentic experience, the counterfeit loses its appeal. Not because you’ve overcome it through willpower, but because you’ve tasted gratification so much better that the substitutes become obviously unsatisfying.

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Possible Assignments

1. Name your addiction. Be honest. What are you really addicted to? Don’t say “nothing.” Everyone’s addicted to something.

2. Write a love letter to your addiction. Thank it. Acknowledge what it has been trying to do for you.

3. Ask it what it’s really hungry for. Have a conversation. Write both sides of the dialogue.

4. Identify the authentic source. Where can you get the real version of what you’ve been seeking?

5. Make a plan to redirect the energy. Not to eliminate it, but to aim it in the right direction.

6. Create something that celebrates your addiction: a poem, song, ritual, piece of art. Make it visible and sacred.

And then notice what happens when you stop fighting your addiction and start learning from it. Stop treating it as your enemy and start treating it as your initiator. Honor its intelligence while refusing its dominion.

This is the path of the addict-mystic who transforms compulsion into devotion and craving into quest.

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P.S. If you’re thinking “this doesn’t apply to serious addictions,” you’re wrong. The most serious addictions carry the most powerful messages. They’re your soul using a sledgehammer to get your attention because you wouldn’t listen to the whispers.

The question isn’t whether this applies to you. The question is whether you’re brave enough to listen.

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Dear Readers:

The horoscopes and essays you read here represent the concentrated essence of my life’s work. And they’re also an important part of how I earn a living. If they make a meaningful contribution to your world, I ask you to consider becoming a paid subscriber. Go here: freewillastrology.substack.com/subscribe

If now isn’t the right time, you are still welcome to remain a free reader for as long as you like. And as always, thank you for reading! Your attention is a privilege I never take for granted.

If you don’t want to sign up for a subscription but would consider making a one-time donation, go here: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob and contribute as Friends and Family.

As always, too, you can buy my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes: https://RealAstrology.com

With love,

Rob

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PS: To find out more about me and my world, you can read a new interview with me in The Believer magazine here:

https://www.thebeliever.net/an-interview-with-rob-brezsny/

or here:

https://archive.ph/vCQpA

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of April 2

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Now is an excellent time to decide your favorite color is amaranth (a vivid red-violet), or sinopia (earthy red-orange), or viridian (cool blue-green, darker than jade). You might also conclude that your favorite aroma is agarwood (deep, smoky, resin-soaked wood), or heliotrope (cherry-almond vanilla), or petrichor (wet soil after a rain). I’m trying to tell you, Aries, that you’re primed to deeply enhance your detailed delight in smells, colors, tastes, feelings, physical sensations, types of wind, tones of voice, qualities of light—and everything else. Indulge in sensory and sensual pleasures!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): My Taurus friend Elena keeps a “gratitude garden” in her backyard. When she feels grateful for a specific joy in her life, she writes it on biodegradable paper and buries it among her flowers, herbs, and vegetables. “I feed the earth with appreciation,” she says. “Returning the gift.” She feels this practice ensures that her garden and her life flourish. Her devoted attention to recognizing blessings attracts even more blessings. Her cultivated appreciation for beauty and abundance leads her to discover more beauty and abundance. Elena’s approach is pure Taurean genius. I invite you to create your own rituals for expressing your thankful love. Not just paying dutiful homage in your thoughts, but giving your appreciation weight, texture, and presence in the actual world.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Many of us periodically slip into the daydream that everything would finally feel right if only our lives were somehow different. If we’re single, maybe we imagine we ought to be partnered; if we’re partnered, we wish our beloved would change, or we secretly wonder about someone else entirely. That’s the snag. The blessing is this: In the days ahead, you’re likely to discover a surprising ease with your life exactly as it is, and feel a genuine, grounded peace. Congratulations in advance!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): A cautious voice in your head murmurs: “Proceed carefully. Don’t be overly impressed with your own beauty. Stick with dependable methods. Live up to expectations and avoid explorations into the unknown.” Your bold genius interrupts: “Tell that fussy, boring voice to shut up. The truth is that you have earned the right to be an inquisitive wanderer, an ingenious lover, a fanciful storyteller, and a laughing experimenter.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In medieval European gardens, there was a tradition of creating “pleasure labyrinths.” They were walking meditations that spiraled inward to a center, then back out again. There were no decisions and no wrong turns, just the relaxing, meditative journey itself. I think you need and deserve a metaphorical pleasure labyrinth right now, Leo. You’ve been treating every choice as a high-stakes dilemma and every path as potentially problematic. But what if the current phase isn’t about making the perfect decision? Maybe it’s about trusting that the path you’re on will take you where you need to go, even if it meanders. By cosmic decree, you are excused from second-guessing every turn.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Your eye for imperfection is a gift until it becomes the lens through which you see everything. The critical faculty that drives you to refine and enhance may also shunt you into a dead end of never-being-good-enough, where impossible standards immobilize you. In the coming weeks, dear Virgo, I beg you to use your vaunted discernment primarily in the service of growth and pleasure rather than constraint. Be excited by buoyant analysis that empowers constructive change. Homework: For every flaw you identify, identify two things that are working well. You won’t ignore what needs attention, but instead will compensate for the excessive criticism that sometimes grips your inner critic.

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EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

There’s one more week to listen to my three-part, in-depth Explorations of Your Long-Range Future: RealAstrology.com

Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures during the rest of 2026? Do you long to slip out of your habitual thoughts about your life and get a more transcendent view?

To access the Expanded Audio Horoscopes, register and/or sign in, then choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the “Long-Term Prediction for 2026.” Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.

The cost is $7 per horoscope. There are discounts if you buy multiple tokens. Each Long-Range, Big-Picture Audio Forecast is 8 to 11 minutes long. You can also listen to a short-term audio horoscope for the coming week!

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For my full written 2026 Big-Picture Predictions, go here:

https://tinyurl.com/2026BigPicture

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You Libras shouldn’t expend excessive effort trying to force the external world to be more tranquil. That’s mostly a futile task that distracts from your more essential work. The secret to your happiness is to cultivate serenity within. How do you do that? One reliable way to shed tension is to continually place yourself in the presence of beauty. Nothing makes you relax better than being surrounded by elegance, grace, and loveliness. Now is a good time to recommit yourself to this key practice.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In computer science, there’s a concept called “graceful degradation.” When a system encounters an error, it doesn’t crash completely. It loses some functionality but keeps running with what remains. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Scorpio, you’d be wise to acknowledge a graceful degradation like that. Something isn’t working as you had hoped and planned. A relationship? Project? Adventure? In classic Scorpio fashion, you’re tempted to burn it all down. But I encourage you to practice graceful degradation instead. Keep what still works and release only what’s actually broken. Not everything has to be all-or-nothing. You can lose some functionality and still run. You can be partially out of whack and still be valuable. PS: The awkwardness is temporary.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): At your best and brightest, you are a hunter—though not the kind who stalks prey with weapons and trophies in mind. Your hunt is noble: the fervent pursuit of adventures that nourish your curiosity and the brave forays you make into unfamiliar territories where intriguing new truths shimmer. And now, as the world drifts deeper into chaos, you are called to respond with even more exploratory audacity. I invite you to further refine your hunter’s craft. Lift it up to an even higher, more luminous form of seeking.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn meditation teacher Wes Nisker guided his students to relax the relentless mental static that muddled their awareness. But he also understood that excessive striving can sabotage the peace we’re seeking. I invoke his influence now to help you release some of the jittery goal-obsession you’ve been gripped by. Nisker and I offer you permission to temporarily suspend the potentially exhausting drive to constantly be better and more accomplished. Instead, just for now, simply be your authentic self. Loosen your high-strung grip on self-improvement and allow yourself the radical luxury of purposelessness.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Here’s a danger you Aquarians are sometimes prey to: spending so much energy fixing the big picture that you neglect what’s up close and personal. You may get so involved in rearranging systems that immediate concerns get less than your best attention. I hope you won’t do that in the coming weeks. Your aptitude for overarching objectivity is a gift because it enables you to recognize patterns others can’t detect. But it may also divert you from the messy, intricate intimacy that gritty transformation requires. Your assignment: Eagerly attend to the details, which I bet will be more interesting than you imagine.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In horticulture, “hardening off” is the process of gradually exposing seedlings started indoors to outdoor conditions before transplanting them. Too much exposure too fast will shock them; no exposure at all will leave them unprepared. Let’s invoke this as a useful metaphor for you. I believe you are being hardened off, Pisces. Life is making small, increasing demands on your tender self. Though this may sometimes feel uncomfortable, I assure you that it’s preparation, not cruelty. You’re being readied for a shift from protected space to open ground. My advice is twofold: 1. Don’t retreat back into the ultra-safe greenhouse. 2. Don’t let yourself be thrown into full exposure all at once.

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The Art of Suffering Better

Thich Nhat Hanh offers us one of the most subversive spiritual teachings available: Suffering is not something to transcend, escape, or spiritually bypass. “Handling our suffering is an art,” he tells us. “If we know how to suffer, we suffer much less, and we’re no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the suffering inside.”

This isn’t the spirituality of detachment or rising above. It’s embodied wisdom that invites us to become intimate with pain, to develop skill in its presence, and to transform our relationship with the inevitable difficulties of incarnation.

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The Buddha’s Crucial Distinction

Terry Tempest Williams reminds us: “Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.” This distinction is a hinge upon which much wisdom about suffering turns.

The first kind, suffering that breeds more suffering, comes from our resistance, our attempts to numb or escape or spiritually transcend what hurts. This is suffering compounded by our unskillful response to it.

The second kind, suffering that ends suffering, comes from our willingness to let pain crack us open and allow hurt to soften rather than harden us. This is suffering as teacher and transformer.

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The Alchemy of Attention

Philosopher Sam Harris says: “Almost all our suffering is the product of our thoughts. We spend nearly every moment of our lives lost in thought, and hostage to the character of those thoughts.”

So here’s a key practice for suffering better: recognizing that much of our anguish comes not from the pain itself but from our mental elaborations around it. We are tortured by the catastrophizing we engage in.

But Harris’s insight isn’t an invitation to spiritual bypass. It’s a call to defend ourselves against unnecessary suffering through the training of attention. Not to avoid pain, but to relate to it with presence rather than proliferation.

Here’s how Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön frames the choice: “We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.”

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Respecting the Reality of Pain

Author Bryant McGill offers wisdom that guards against spiritual bypassing: “Your suffering needs to be respected. Don’t try to ignore the hurt, because it is real.”

This is where so much contemporary spirituality fails. In its rush to positive thinking and transcendence, it dishonors the legitimacy of pain. To suffer better, we must first acknowledge that we are suffering and our wound deserves recognition.

But McGill doesn’t stop at validation. He maps the transformation: “Just let the hurt soften you instead of hardening you. Let the hurt open you instead of closing you. Let the hurt send you looking for those who will accept you instead of hiding from those who reject you.”

Here’s the art: using suffering as an opening rather than a closing, a bridge to connection rather than a wall of isolation.

The Courage to Change Conditions

Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg points to the active dimension of suffering better: “We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.”

To suffer skillfully isn’t to passively accept all pain as inevitable. Rather, we discern between suffering that’s inherent to the human condition and suffering that we create or perpetuate through our own habits of mind and action.

Ignorance keeps us repeating patterns that hurt. Bitterness poisons our relationship to life. Negligence prevents us from tending our wounds. Clinging creates the conditions for loss to devastate us. Holding on keeps us trapped in what needs to release.

Suffering better means having the courage to examine these conditions and work to transform them. Not through violent self-improvement, but through compassionate self-knowledge.

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The Commitment to Incarnation

Author William S. Burroughs cuts through any temptation toward spiritual escape: “Whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. I cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. Suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive.”

This is sacred humanism. To be born is to be vulnerable. To love is to risk loss. To care is to open ourselves to heartbreak.

The question is never “How do I avoid suffering?” The questions are: “How do I suffer in ways that deepen rather than diminish me? How do I use difficulty to become more alive rather than more defended? How do I let pain connect me to others rather than isolate me?”

As author bell hooks observes: “We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

The art of suffering better includes accepting the mountainous terrain of existence—the peaks and valleys, the difficulty that makes us stronger and the ease that lets us rest.

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The Practice of Full Experience

Poet Ben Okri offers this teaching: “The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered until you experience it properly and fully the first time.”

How much of our suffering is the recycling of pain we never fully felt? How many wounds fester because we didn’t clean them when they were fresh?

To suffer better is to suffer completely. We give our full attention to pain when it arises, feel it thoroughly, and let it move through us rather than getting stuck. This is not wallowing or indulgence. It’s the difference between a wound that heals cleanly and one that becomes infected through neglect.

Author Emil Dorian adds precision: “Strong people alone know how to organize their suffering so as to bear only the most necessary pain.”

There is art in discerning what pain is necessary and what is truly optional. Necessary pain is the grief of loss and the ache of compassion. Optional pain is the torturous stories we tell ourselves about how things should be different.

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The Alchemy of Interpretation

Sex worker and author Aella offers a surprising theory: “The trick to healing from suffering, I think, is deciding that the pain was worth it.”

This isn’t about justifying abuse or romanticizing difficulty, but choosing the meaning we make from our suffering.

bell hooks elaborates: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. Unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.”

We can’t choose all the pain that comes to us. But we can choose what we do with it. We can let it embitter us or enlarge us.

The mark of suffering is inevitable. The festering scar is optional.

Protection Against Unnecessary Pain

Philosopher Don Miguel Ruiz offers practical wisdom: “Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”

Much of our anguish comes from absorbing the pain, projections, and problems of others as if they were personally about us. To suffer better is to develop discernment about what is ours to carry and what is not.

This is the art of developing healthy boundaries. We recognize that other people’s suffering, anger, or judgment often has nothing to do with us. Taking it personally only adds unnecessary layers to the pain that is genuinely ours.

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Suffering as Awakening Mechanism

Author William Nicholson offers a theological framing that works whether or not we believe in God: “God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.”

Whether we attribute this to divine design or evolutionary development, the truth holds: Suffering breaks through our narcissistic bubble. Difficulty teaches us empathy, and hardship connects us to the vast web of struggling beings.

Author Robert Greene warns against the alternative: “Without suffering and doubts, the mind will come to rest on clichés and stay there, until the spirit dies as well.”

Ease can numb us to truth. Sometimes—not always!—we need difficulty to shake us awake and force us to question.

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The Courage of Witness

Author Vincent A. Gallagher names the bravery required: “It takes great courage to open one’s heart and mind to the tremendous injustice and suffering in our world.”

To suffer better as individuals, we must also be willing to witness collective suffering. We’ve got to keep our hearts open to the pain of the world rather than closing down in self-protection.

Author Dodie Smith adds: “Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.”

The empathic suffering we feel for others’ pain is its own form of sacred education. To watch someone we love struggle and be unable to fix it teaches us the profound challenge of loving without rescuing.

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The Practice: A Summary

To suffer better, according to these voices of wisdom:

Respect your pain as real and legitimate, while not being ruled by it.

Let hurt soften rather than harden you, connect rather than isolate you.

Change the conditions that create unnecessary suffering: ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging.

Accept suffering as inherent to being alive, not as something wrong that shouldn’t be happening.

Experience pain fully when it arises, rather than avoiding it only to have it return.

Organize your suffering to bear only necessary pain, letting go of optional torment.

Choose the meaning you make from difficulty, deciding that the pain was worth what you learned.

Don’t take things personally that aren’t actually about you.

Let suffering wake you up to the presence of others and the reality of interconnection.

Keep your heart open to the world’s pain, even when it’s hard.

Train your attention to relate to pain with presence rather than proliferation.

Relax with how things are rather than constantly fighting reality.

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Videos by Thich Nhat Hanh on the Art of Suffering:

Dharma talk on suffering: tinyurl.com/GoodUseOfSuffering

What can I do when I see animals suffer?: tinyurl.com/WhenAnimalsSuffer

Helping Others Suffer Less: tinyurl.com/HelpOthersSufferLess

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Breaking News! I have extended the time when you can listen to my three-part, in-depth Explorations of Your Long-Range Future: RealAstrology.com

Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures during the rest of 2026? Do you long to slip out of your habitual thoughts about your life and get a more transcendent view?

To access the Expanded Audio Horoscopes, register and/or sign in, then choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the “Long-Term Prediction for 2026.” Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.

The cost is $7 per horoscope. There are discounts if you buy multiple tokens. Each Long-Range, Big-Picture Audio Forecast is 8 to 11 minutes long. You can also listen to a short-term audio horoscope for the coming week!

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of March 26

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Maya Angelou proclaimed, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” In that spirit, Aries, I urge you to tell everyone everything—all your secret thoughts, hidden feelings, and private opinions. Post your diary online! Confess your fantasies to strangers! Share your unfiltered inner monologue with authority figures! APRIL FOOL! I lied. Angelou urged us to bravely communicate our authentic truths, but not to overshare or be careless about observing good boundaries. Here’s the deep wisdom: Express thoughts and feelings that make you feel real and whole, but be discerning about when, where, and to whom.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus writer Charlotte Brontë said, “I would always rather be happy than dignified.” Given your current astrological potentials, I think you should tattoo her motto across your forehead so everyone knows you’re committed to pleasure over propriety. Burn your dressy clothes! Quit doing boring duties! Dance naked in the woods! APRIL FOOL! I don’t really think you should tattoo your forehead or dance naked in public. But Brontë’s sentiment is sound: In the coming weeks, if forced to choose between joy and respectability, pick joy every time. Just do it with a modicum of common sense.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini actress Marilyn Monroe said, “A wise girl knows her limits. A smart girl know that she has none.” I propose we expand that counsel to include all genders. And I especially recommend this approach to you right now. It’s time to shed, ignore, and surpass ALL your so-called limits. Be as wild and free and uninhibited as you dare. APRIL FOOL! I worry that it’s irresponsible to give you such utter carte blanche. Would you consider honoring one or two limits that prevent you from indulging in crazy and extreme behavior? Otherwise, be wild and free and uninhibited!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Psychologist Carl Jung wrote extensively about the importance of embracing our shadows: the dark, problematic aspects of ourselves we would rather not acknowledge. In the coming weeks, I recommend that you stop hiding that weird stuff! Throw a coming-out-of-the-closet party for all the questionable parts of you. Let your inner monsters run wild! APRIL FOOL! Please don’t do that. What Jung actually advocated was recognizing and integrating your shadow, not being ruled by it. So yes, explore your moody, unruly impulses, but with consciousness, kindness, and containment, not reckless expression.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo author James Baldwin observed, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” With that in mind, I advise you to spend the next two weeks obsessively staring at every dilemma in your life. Don’t look away! Don’t take breaks! Just face every dilemma constantly until you’re overwhelmed! APRIL FOOL! Baldwin’s insight is brilliant, but it doesn’t require masochistic endurance. Here’s the truth: Yes, you should courageously acknowledge what needs attention, but do so with care and discernment. And then actually work on changing it! Awareness is the beginning, not the entire process.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo author Agatha Christie wrote 66 detective novels in which she meticulously planned every plot twist. I think you should apply her approach to your daily life: Script every conversation! Anticipate every contingency! Control every variable! Leave nothing to chance! APRIL FOOL! Christie’s obsessive planning worked for fiction, but life requires improvisation. For you, the coming weeks favor spontaneity and flexibility. So make rough plans, sure, but stay loose enough to experiment with whatever emerges. Over-control would diminish the magic.

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“If Rob Brezsny’s horoscopes are good medicine, his book ASTROLOGY IS REAL is a yoga retreat on the beach with the healthiest, most delicious food and daily massages by well-paid people who enjoy their work.

“To sit and read Astrology Is Real is to bathe in a kind of good radiation. Ideas and possibilities, light and humor materialize.

“Space opens up to think about your purpose in this world and your most important relationships. It’s like hanging out with a wise friend who has no agenda for you but who helps you see things clearly. Helps you be your best self.”

—Journalist Traci Hukill

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My favorite Libran writer didn’t capitalize her name: bell hooks. I recommend you stage a similar rebellion against all rules and structures. Ignore social conventions! Flout traffic laws! Pay your taxes with paintings and poems you’ve created! APRIL FOOL! I was exaggerating. I do love hooks’ charming revolt, but it would be counterproductive for you to randomly break *all* the rules of daily life. Instead, be judicious and selective as you question conventions thoughtfully and only violate those that genuinely deserve to be spurned. Be a strategic rebel, not a chaotic one.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio poet Sylvia Plath wrote this passage in her journal: “I desire the things which will destroy me in the end.” I think you should consider embracing her approach—for the sheer, exotic thrill of it! Pursue interesting chaos! If it might unravel you, welcome it passionately! The more unruly, the better! APRIL FOOL! I lied. Plath was describing her struggle with depression, not offering us advice. Here’s what I think you should actually do: Examine which of your yearnings serve your evolution and which ones undermine it. Fully embrace the fact that intensity is one of your greatest gifts, but channel that intensity into experiences that build you up, not tear you down. Choose ardent aliveness over fervent destruction.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian philosopher Baruch Spinoza spent years alone in his room developing his radical ideas about God and nature. I recommend total isolation for you, too. In accordance with astrological omens, avoid human contact! Put your relationships on hold while you contemplate the infinite! APRIL FOOL! I totally lied. Spinoza’s solitude served his unique genius, but a similar approach won’t work for you—especially now. Here’s what I really think you require in the coming weeks: periods of meditative alone time balanced by intervals of rich connection with interesting humans. You need to commune with both your deep inner sources and nurturing alliances.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn astrologer Linda Goodman wrote that your sign’s “ambition is boundless” and that most Capricorns dream of ruling the world. In accordance with astrological omens, I urge you to indulge this attribute. Launch a campaign for global domination! Start with your neighborhood and work your way up to more and more conquests! APRIL FOOL! The truth is, world domination is exhausting and impractical. What Goodman was referring to is your gift for structure and leadership. Use your organizational genius to improve your corner of the world, not tyrannize it. Think stewardship, not empire.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian inventor Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” In the spirit, I recommend that you falter spectacularly in the coming weeks. The more blunders and bungles, the better! Engage in a holy quest to seek as many fizzles and misfires as possible! Make Edison look like an amateur! APRIL FOOL! I lied. Edison wasn’t deliberately courting snafus, of course. His approach was similar to that of many creative artists: driven by exploratory persistence that capitalizes on mistakes and hassles. Here’s your real guidance, Aquarius: Experiment boldly, yes, and don’t fear stumbles and bumbles. But learn from each one and adjust your approach. The goal is eventual success that’s informed by humility and resiliency.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean physicist Albert Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” In the spirit of his genius, I recommend that you abandon logic completely! Never think rationally again! Make all decisions based on fantasy and feelings! APRIL FOOL! Einstein was advocating for the creative power of imagination, not the abandonment of reason. What you truly need is a marriage of visionary thinking and practical logic. Ask your imagination to show you possibilities, then call on lucid logic to help you manifest them.

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Many cultures worldwide have celebrated their New Year as spring begins, around the vernal equinox. I propose we all do that now with a rousing ritual, as described below.

The Sacred Contract with Your Future Self

I invite you to write a letter to the person you will be one year from today. Tell this Future You that you have taken a vow to accomplish three feats by then. Say why these feats are more important to you than anything else.

Describe them. Brainstorm about what you’ll do to make them happen. Draw pictures or make collages that capture your excitement about them. Then create a sanctified space where you will put this letter. Open it a year from now.

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Why This Works

Let’s talk about why this practice is different from the usual goal-setting that comes every January and often fades by February.

Most goals fail because they’re written to an imaginary version of yourself. You declare you’re going to lose 10 pounds or write a novel or learn Portuguese, but you’re not actually making a promise to anyone real.

You’re performing goal-setting for an audience of cultural expectations. Maybe you post your intentions on social media, announce them at parties, or write them in a journal.

But there’s no actual relationship or real covenant involved. There’s just you, performing the ritual of aspiration without the substance of commitment.

The practice I’m inviting you to do now will work because you’re entering into a relationship with a specific, real person: Future You.

Not the idealized version that’s already perfect and doesn’t need to work at anything. The actual person who will exist one year from today. They will be dealing with the consequences of what Present You does or doesn’t do in the coming months.

When you write to Future You, you’re acknowledging that they are real,. They have needs and hopes, and they’re counting on you. You’re creating accountability not to an abstract standard of self-improvement, but to an actual person who will open this letter and feel either gratitude or disappointment about what you did with this year.

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How to write this letter so it has optimal power:

Part 1: The Greeting

Start with an intimate welcome and invitation. Example:

“Hello, my beautiful, beloved future self! I love you so much! You’re my hero! Thank you for entering into this daring covenant with me. Let’s collaborate to create the best possible destiny for each other.”

Or:

“To the gorgeous version of me who exists one year from today: I see you. I know you’ve been through things I can’t imagine yet. You have faced challenges and had victories. I made you a promise, and I am asking for your help in fulfilling it.”

The greeting should establish that this is a conversation between two real people who adore each other and are on the same team.

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Part 2: The Vow

This is where you get serious and invoke the power and glory of your highest powers. Don’t just say “I have three goals.” Say “I am taking a sacred vow.”

A sacred vow is different from a goal. A goal is something you’d like to happen, whereas a vow is something you’re staking your integrity on. A vow has weight and consequences. You could say:

“I am taking a sacred vow to accomplish three feats by the time you read this. These aren’t optional. These aren’t ‘nice to haves.’ They are the three things that will determine whether I spent this past year serving my deepest purpose or betraying it.”

Notice the language: FEATS, not goals. Feats require courage, strenuous effort, and risk. Feats are worthy of being celebrated, even revered. They are the stuff of legends.

Part 3: Why These Three Things Matter More Than Anything Else

This is the heart of the letter. You are boldly and brazenly honest about what actually matters to you, versus what your conditioning and peer pressure try to tell you.

When people fail at their goals, it’s often because they’re pursuing goals that don’t align with their deepest values. They say they want to get in shape, but what they really want is to feel alive in their body.

They say they want to make more money, but what they really want is freedom from financial anxiety. They say they want to write a book or record an album or have an art gallery show, but what they really want is to be taken seriously as a thinker and creator.

So before you name your three feats, I hope you will answer: “What do I want my life to have been about when I look back on this year?” Not what will make you look good. Not what seems responsible or mature or properly ambitious.

When you open this letter one year from now, what will make you feel like you flourished during this precious year of your mysterious life?

Examples of why your feats might matter:

“This feat matters more than anything else because if I don’t do it, I’ll be the same person next year that I am right now, and I can’t bear that. I’ve been stuck in this pattern for five years, and this is the year it ends.”

“This feat matters because my daughter or son is watching how I live my life, and I want them to see someone who keeps promises to themselves, who doesn’t just dream but acts.”

“This feat matters because I’ve been carrying my unrealized potential my whole life like stones in my pocket, and I’m either going to finally actualize it or I need to grieve it and move on. No more middle ground.”

“This feat matters because I survived cancer / divorce / bankruptcy / depression to get here, and I didn’t survive just to play small. I survived to build a more beautiful destiny with this second chance.”

“This feat matters because I’ve glimpsed what I’m capable of at my best, and I want to spend a whole year living closer to that edge. Not fixing what’s broken, but celebrating what’s extraordinary.”

“This feat matters because joy is serious business. This is the year I stop treating pleasure, beauty, and delight as rewards I have to earn and start treating them as the whole point.”

“This feat matters because I’ve been given rare gifts—temperament, circumstances, relationships, hard-won wisdom—and I want to be a worthy steward of them. Not out of obligation, but out of sheer gratitude for being alive.”

“This feat matters because the people and places and ideas I love most are asking something of me, and I finally feel ready to answer. This is my yes.”

“This feat matters because I’ve already done impossible things, and I know now that the fear before a great leap and the exhilaration during it are the same sensation. I want more of that aliveness.”

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Part 4: Describe Each Feat in Sensory Detail

Don’t just write “Finish my book” or “Create my dream garden” or “Build a stellar intimate relationship.”

Instead, describe what it will feel like when Future You has accomplished your desirable feats:

“You will hold the completed manuscript in your hands. You will feel the weight of it, not just the physical pages but the weight of having actually finished a creation this big. You will remember all the days you chose this instead of easier pleasures and all the moments you pushed through the fear that it wasn’t good enough. And you will know that you’re a soul who finishes what they start.”

Or:

“You will be standing in the garden you planted, harvesting tomatoes in July, and you’ll realize with amazement that you created this. You transformed that dead patch into something alive and beautiful. And you’ll understand that if you can do that, you can do anything.”

The more sensory, specific, and emotionally resonant you make the description, the more power it has to pull you toward it across the year.

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Part 5: The Brainstorms: Making It Real

Here you shift from vision to strategy. You prove to Future You that you’re serious.

For each feat, brainstorm specifically what you will do to make it happen:

What you’ll do from:

- March-May

- June-July

- August-September

- October-December

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- Weekly: Protect three mornings per week for nothing but these feats.

- Monthly: Share your progress with trusted allies.

- Daily: Remember why this feels so good and how it amplifies your sense that your life is meaningful.

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The brainstorms should be specific but also flexible enough to adjust as circumstances change. You’re not striving to control the future. You’re creating conditions that make the future you want more likely.

Part 6: The Visual Component

Words alone may not carry the full freight of your commitment. So draw pictures. Make collages. Create symbols. Visualize the specific scenarios in your imagination.

PS: You don’t have to be an artist. In fact, crude drawings may have more power because they bypass your critical mind and access more primal sources.

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Part 7: The Closing

End the letter by giving Future You permission to be honest about what happened.

“When you open this letter a year from now, tell the truth. If I kept these vows, celebrate. If I broke them, examine why with compassion but without excuses. Either way, you’re reading this, which means you survived another year, and that’s not nothing. I love you. I’m doing this for you. Everything I do this year, I do with you in mind. See you in 365 days. — Your devoted past self”

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Creating the Sanctified Space

Don’t just stuff this letter in a drawer. Create a sanctified space for it:

Option 1: The Altar. If you have a personal altar or sacred space in your home, this letter becomes a central element. Place it there along with objects that symbolize your three feats. Light a candle when you place it there. Speak your vows out loud.

Option 2: The Sealed Container. Get a beautiful box, an artful envelope, or a decorated jar. Place it somewhere you’ll see it regularly but can’t casually access.

Option 3: The Buried Treasure. Bury it somewhere on your property in a waterproof container. Mark the spot with a beautiful object. The act of burying it makes it even more ceremonial, and the act of digging it up a year later becomes its own ritual.

Option 4: The Witnessed Vow. Read the letter aloud to someone you trust, then give it to them to hold for a few moments. The presence of a witness makes the vow more binding.

Option 5: The Time Capsule. Create a time capsule that includes the letter, photos from right now, objects that symbolize where you are today, and maybe even recordings of your voice. Make it rich with context so that Future You gets the full picture of who was making these vows.

The key is that the space must feel sacred to you. It should communicate: This is a binding agreement with my future self.

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The Monthly Check-In Ritual

Don’t wait a year to think about the letter again. Create a monthly ritual where you commune with a copy of the letter without opening its actual container:

On the 21st of each month (or whatever date you wrote it), remember what you wrote. Ask yourself: “Am I keeping my vows? Am I on track? If Future Me opened this today, would they be grateful or disappointed?”

Don’t criticize yourself if you’re off track. Just recommit, adjust, and course-correct.

The letter is a living covenant, not a static document. You’re allowed to renegotiate if circumstances genuinely change. But you’ve got to do it consciously, not by drifting.

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What Happens When You Open It

One year from now you will perform the ritual of opening this letter. Make it ceremonial. Don’t do it while distracted. Clear your schedule for an hour.

Open the letter. Read what Past You wrote to you. And then write back.

Yes, write a response to Past You. Tell them what happened. Which vows did you keep rigorously, and which did you only partially carry out. Tell the Past You what you learned and what surprised you. What do you want them to know about who you became?

And then—if you want to continue the practice—write a new letter to the person you’ll be on March 21, 2028.

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Three Types of Feats Worth Vowing

As you choose your three feats, consider that there are different categories of transformative action:

Type 1: The External Achievement. Something you can point to in the world as evidence that you did the thing. A completed manuscript, a degree earned, a house built, a garden planted, a business launched, or a performance given.

Type 2: The Internal Transformation. A shift in how you relate to yourself, to others, to the world. Healing an addiction, developing a spiritual practice, transforming a toxic pattern, learning to receive love, making peace with a difficult part of yourself.

Type 3: The Relational Shift. A change in how you show up in your relationships. Deepening your partnership, healing a family rupture, creating genuine community, or becoming the kind of friend / parent / partner / mentor you want to be.

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A powerful set of three feats might include one from each of the above categories. That way you’re developing holistically, not just achieving externally while staying stuck internally; not just transforming internally while avoiding external impact; not just focusing on relationships while neglecting your individual growth.

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The Dark Night Clause

Include this in your letter:

“I know there will be times this year when I want to abandon these vows. There will be moments when they seem impossible, stupid, or irrelevant. I’ll be tempted to tell myself that circumstances changed or that I was naive to think I could do this.

“So I’m writing this now, while I’m clear and committed: Those dark moments are part of the path, not evidence that I should quit. The resistance is the work. The doubt is the initiation.

“When I want to give up, I will remember why these feats matter more than anything else. I will recommit, even if only for one more day.

“This is the vow: not that I’ll never doubt, but that I’ll keep going anyway.”

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Your Assignment From Past You to Future You

Right now, today, you could:

1. Get materials. Beautiful paper, colored pencils or markers, magazines for collage, a container or envelope that feels charged with magic.

2. Create space. Set aside an hour minimum. Turn off your phone. Light a candle. Put on music that makes you feel deep and rich. Make tea. Settle in.

3. Meditate on the question: What do I want my life to have been about when I look back on this year? Not what should you want, but what do you actually want?

4. Choose your three feats. Don’t overthink it. Your body and your heart know. Choose the three things that make you feel scared and excited in equal measure.

5. Write the letter. Don’t rush it. This is a sacred document.

6. Create the visual component. Draw. Collage. Make it vivid and real.

7. Sanctify the space. Choose how you’ll store this letter and make it ceremonial.

8. Read it aloud. To yourself in the mirror, your spirit allies, or to the universe. Make it real by speaking it.

9. Seal it. Once it’s sealed, it’s done. No changing your mind. It’s a time capsule now.

10. Set a reminder for one year from today, and for monthly check-ins.

And then, live like someone who made a vow. Because you did. And Future You is counting on you. They’re already grateful for what you’re about to do.

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Check out my LinkTree: linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of March 19

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In 1960, Aries primatologist Jane Goodall arrived in Tanzania to study the social and family lives of chimpanzees. Her intention was to engage in patient, long‑term observation. In subsequent months, she saw the creatures using tools, a skill that scientists had previously believed only humans could do. She also found that “it isn’t only human beings who have personality, who are capable of rational thought and emotions like joy and sorrow.” Her discoveries revolutionized our understanding of animal intelligence. I recommend her approach to you in the coming weeks, Aries. Your diligent, tenacious attention can supplant outmoded assumptions. Let the details and rhythms of what you’re studying reveal their deeper truths. Your affectionate watchfulness will change the story.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Ancient Romans had a household deity called Cardea, goddess of hinges and thresholds. She protected the pivot points, like the places where the inside meets the outside and where one state transforms into another. In the coming weeks, you Tauruses will benefit from befriending a similar deity. I hope you will pay eager attention to the metaphorical hinges in your world: the thresholds, portals, transitions, and in-between times. They may sometimes feel awkward because they lack the certainty you crave. But I guarantee that they are where the best magic congregates.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You are fluent in the art of fruitful contradiction. While others pursue one-dimensional consistency, you thrive on the fact that the truth is too wild and multifaceted to be captured in a single, simple story. You make spirited use of paradox and enjoy being enchanted by riddles. You can be both serious and playful, committed and curious, strong and receptive. In the coming weeks, Gemini, I hope you will express these superpowers to the max. The world doesn’t need another person who separates everything into neat little categories. Your nimble intelligence and charming multiplicity are the gifts your allies need most.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi celebrates imperfection, impermanence, and the soulfulness that comes with age. A weathered wooden gate may be considered more beautiful than a new one. Its surface has a silvery grain from years of exposure to rain and sun. Its hinges creak from long use by countless passersby. Let’s invoke this lovely concept as we ruminate on your life, Cancerian. In my astrological estimation, it’s important that in the coming months you don’t treat your incompleteness as a deficit requiring correction. Consider the possibility that your supposed blemishes may be among your most interesting features. The idiosyncratic aspects of your character are precisely what make you a source of vitality.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In medieval Japan, swordsmiths would undertake spiritual purifications before beginning work on a new blade: abstinence, ritual bathing, prayer, and fasting. They believed that the quality of their consciousness influenced the quality of their creation—that the blade would absorb the maker’s mental and spiritual state. I bring this to your attention because you’re in a phase when your inner condition will have extra potent effects on everything you build, develop, or initiate. My advice: Prepare yourself with impeccable care before launching new projects. Purify your motivations. Clarify your vision. The creations you will be generating could serve you well for a long time.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Master chess players don’t necessarily calculate more moves ahead than amateurs. Their years of study enable them to perceive the developing trends in a single glance, bypassing complex analysis. What appears to be stellar intuition is actually compressed expertise. You’re in a phase when you can make abundant use of this capacity, Virgo. Again and again, your accumulated experience will crystallize into immediate knowing. So don’t second-guess your first assessments, OK? Trust the pattern recognition that you have cultivated through the years.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The cosmic powers have granted you a triple-strength, extra-long, time-release dose of sweet, fresh certainty. During the grace period that’s beginning, you will be less tempted to indulge in doubt and indecision. A fountain of resolve will rise up in you whenever you need it. Though at first the lucid serenity you feel may seem odd, you could grow accustomed to it—so much so that you could permanently lose up to 20 percent of your chronic tendency to vacillate.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Crows can hold grudges against individual humans for years. But they also remember acts of kindness and bring gifts like shiny objects and buttons to those who’ve helped them. They’re capable of both revenge and gratitude, and they never forget either. I suspect you’re entering a period when you’ll need to decide which of your crow-like qualities to emphasize, Scorpio. You have legitimate grievances worth remembering. You have also received gifts worth honoring. My counsel: Spend 20 percent of your emotional energy on remembering wrongs (enough to protect yourself) and 80 percent on remembering what has helped you thrive. Make gratitude your primary teacher, even as you stay wisely wary.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): More than any other zodiac sign, you Sagittarians can be both a discontented rebel and a sunny celebrant of life. You can see clearly what’s out of alignment and needs adjustment without surrendering your wry, amused tolerance. This double capacity will be especially useful to you in the coming days. You may not find many allies who share this aptitude, though, so you should lean on your own instincts and heed the following suggestions: Be joyfully defiant. Be a generous agitator and an open-hearted critic. Blessings will find their way to you as you subvert the stale status quo with creativity and kindness.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Your persistence and endurance are among your greatest gifts to the world. You’re committed to building useful structures that outlast transitory moods and trends. On behalf of all the other signs, I say THANK YOU!, dear Capricorn. You understand that real power comes from showing up consistently and doing unglamorous work, refraining from the temptation to score quick and superficial victories. May you always recognize that your pragmatism is a form of loving faith. Your cautionary care is rooted in generosity. Now here’s my plea: More than ever before, the rest of us need you to express these talents with full vigor.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): One of your power symbols right now is the place where two tributaries blend into a single river. A second is where your favorite tree enters the earth. Here are other images to excite your imagination and stimulate your creativity: the boundary between cloud and sky; the darkness where your friend’s shadow overlaps yours; and the time between when the sun sets and night falls. To sum up, Aquarius, I hope you will access extra inspiration in liminal areas. Seek the vibrant revelations that arise where one mystery coalesces with another.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Poet Mark Doty wrote, “The sea doesn’t reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. We should lie as empty, open, and choiceless as a beach—waiting for gifts from the sea.” This quote captures your Piscean genius when it’s working at its best. Others may exhaust themselves trying to force results, but you know that the best gifts often come to those who are patient, open, and relaxed. This is true right now more than ever before. I hope you will practice intense receptivity. Protect your permeability like the superpower it is. Be as supple and responsive as you dare.

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False Self Versus Authentic Self

Our false self is the performer. Our authentic self is the deep eternal core that the performance is based on but not always faithful to.

Our false self is who we think we need to be to survive, to be loved, and to stay safe. Our authentic self is who we actually are when no one’s keeping score.

The false self isn’t evil. It’s a survival strategy we developed when we were young and powerless, trying to figure out how to get our needs met in a world that didn’t automatically meet them.

Maybe we learned that being good got us approval, so we became relentlessly good—helpful, accommodating, and never needing anything.

It’s possible we learned that being smart got us attention, so we became relentlessly competent—always right and never vulnerable.

Some of us learned that being tough kept us safe, so we became relentlessly defended—never soft and never open.

The false self is the persona we constructed to interface with a world that felt dangerous or conditional in its love. It’s the protective shell we grew because the tender truth of who we really are felt too risky to expose.

And here’s the thing: It worked. The false self got us through childhood and helped us navigate impossible situations. It kept us alive and functioning when our authentic self was still unripe and scared to handle what was happening.

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The problem is that the false self didn’t get the memo about when to step aside and let the authentic self take over.

So it keeps running the same strategies even when the original danger has passed. It keeps protecting us from inhabiting the vulnerabilities where our aliveness lives.

The false self is exhausting. It requires constant vigilance: Am I saying the right thing? Am I showing the right emotion? We can never fully relax because relaxing means the mask might slip.

The false self trades authenticity for approval and aliveness for acceptance. And American culture is built on this trade. It runs a nonstop propaganda campaign trying to convince us that our false self is who we really are.

It’s really rather shocking: We live in a system that actively and eagerly cultivates false selves. Social media is essentially a false self factory. So many of us perform our allegedly best life and highlight our supposedly most attractive angles.

Corporate culture demands professional personas that are always positive, productive, and on brand. Even our therapy culture can produce yet another false self: the person who’s done all the work and is healing perfectly on schedule.

The culture wants our false self to be ascendant because it’s predictable and manageable and marketable. Our false self buys things to fill the void. It works itself to exhaustion trying to prove its worth and doesn’t ask inconvenient questions or disrupt the status quo.

Our authentic self, on the other hand, is actually kind of dangerous.

It’s the I underneath the performance: the I that exists before we calculate how to present ourself. Nestled deep down in there are our actual desires, not the ones we think we should have, and our genuine needs rather than the ones we’ve learned to minimize or deny.

Our authentic self is wild where our false self is domesticated. It knows what we really want to do with our life, even if that’s different from what our parents hoped for or what our pride wishes we were doing. Which relationships are nourishing and which are draining? The authentic self sees the truth clearly. As for the convenient and comfortable self-deceptions our false self cherishes, the authentic self doesn’t need them.

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Here’s how we know when we’re operating from the false self:

We monitor the other person’s reactions to adjust our performance in real time, rather than actually listening because we’re curious. We feel drained after social interactions, even pleasant ones. We’re constantly explaining or justifying ourself, where the authentic self would simply state its truth and let it stand.

With the false self, we need external validation to know if we’re okay. We say yes when we mean no. We’re terrified of being seen as difficult or too much, while the authentic self is willing to be misunderstood in service of being real.

The shift isn’t easy and fast: to become real and true and raw after being held hostage by the false self. We don’t just decide one day to be authentic and then we’re done. The false self has deep roots, woven into our nervous system and our unconscious beliefs about what’s safe.

The journey back to the source requires archaeological work. We need to excavate down through layers of conditioning and survival strategies to find the original self that got buried underneath.

That might be painful. As we disengage from our false self, we will tune into the original vulnerability it was protecting. We may encounter the grief of all the years we spent performing instead of living. We might lose things, too, like relationships with people who really do prefer that we be our false self.

That’s why many people stay loyal to the false self. The cost of authenticity feels too high. Better to keep being who everyone wants and needs us to be.

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But staying in false self has a cost: our life. We spend our precious time on earth being someone we’re not, trading irreplaceable moments for the approval of people who don’t truly know us.

What accumulates is a low-grade depression that never lifts, because we can’t feel wildly alive when we’re only partially ourself. Our relationships may never quite satisfy us if no one can find the real person to love.

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How do we find our way back?

We start by noticing the performance. We catch ourself calculating and adapting, and instead of judging ourself for it, we just observe: Ah, there’s the false self, doing its protective shtick.

We find and create sanctuaries where it’s safe to be authentic: a therapist’s office, a trusted ally, a journal where we tell the naked truth. Here we practice taking the mask off without risking troubling consequences.

We listen to our body, because our body knows. It relaxes into truth and contracts around lies. Our breath deepens when we’re real.

We take small risks. We tell one true thing, set one boundary, ask for one thing we actually want—and then notice that the world doesn’t end. We rejoice that some people actually prefer the real version of us.

We grieve what we lost: the years of performance and the relationships built on false premises. We feel the anger at a culture that required us to be false in order to survive.

And gradually, incrementally, we start to inhabit ourself. We make choices based on what’s true for us rather than what’s acceptable to others. We live from the inside out.

This doesn’t mean we become an asshole. The authentic self isn’t the raw id unleashed; it’s not “I’m just being honest” as a cover for cruelty. That’s just another performance.

Real authenticity includes kindness, because when we’re genuinely connected to ourself, we’re also connected to our deepest values. We don’t need to dominate or diminish others to feel big. Truthfulness and compassion aren’t in conflict.

The authentic self isn’t opposed to being considerate. It’s opposed to betraying ourself in order to manage others’ reactions to us.

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Here’s another gift: When we live from our authentic self, we give everyone around us permission to do the same. Our willingness to be real creates a field where others can be real. Our refusal to perform invites others to stop performing.

Isn’t that an important way that culture might actually change? Not through grand gestures, but through individual people deciding they’re done with the false self deal.

I think it’s crucial to remember that our false self isn’t our enemy. It’s an old friend who helped us survive when we needed help. But we don’t need it the same way anymore. We thank it for its service and gently insist on living from our authentic self instead. The work is done daily, incrementally, gradually.

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PS: We should make peace with the fact that the transition will never be complete. There will always be more false self to uncover, more authentic self to excavate and inhabit.

The work doesn’t end with a graduation ceremony. New stresses reveal new masks; new relationships expose old performances we had forgotten we were giving.

That’s the nature of the journey. We’re not trying to arrive. We’re learning to keep moving in the right direction.

A PERSONAL CONFESSION

I will tell you about about one aspect of my own false self. I lived inside it for years and only gradually learned to recognize how it worked.

It was unusual. I wasn’t performing toughness or chasing status or trying to appear more successful than I was. My false self was more seductive than that, and therefore more difficult to see through, precisely because it seemed to be virtuous.

From childhood, I developed a powerful compulsion to put myself in service to others. I asked good questions. I listened well. I was genuinely curious about people’s inner lives and their struggles. None of that was fake. The curiosity and care were real. I was sincere about wanting to help others be more fully themselves.

But somewhere along the way, it calcified into being automatic. It became a default mode I slipped into without asking myself what I actually wanted to bring to any particular moment. The service became a hiding place.

It protected me from having to gather uncomfortable evidence—for example, that other people might not be as interested in my true self as I was in theirs. As long as I was focused on YOU, I never had to find out that YOU weren’t really that interested in me. The spotlight never had to turn my way. I could be endlessly generous with my attention and quietly exempt myself from the vulnerability of being truly seen.

That’s the insidious thing about a false self built from genuine strengths. It’s hard to indict. How do you argue with someone’s helpfulness? How do you name what’s missing when what’s present is so real?

What was missing was my response to the actual moment in front of me—the unrehearsed, unstrategic, sometimes inconvenient truth of what I felt or needed or wanted to say. Instead of meeting each situation fresh, I reached for the trusted tool: be interested in the other person.

It worked almost every time. I was good at it. And it spared me the riskier act of simply being present as myself.

I wasn’t lying. I was just absenting myself. I showed up as the curious one, the helper, the one who makes space for others, rather than as a person with my own unruly interior weather.

The work of recovering my authentic self has meant learning to pause before the habitual generosity kicks in. To ask: What’s actually true for me right now? To resist the pull toward the comfortable role and instead tolerate the uncertainty of not yet knowing how I want to show up.

It’s ongoing work. The old groove was deep. But I’ve come to recognize that my best service to others, which actually nourishes rather than just soothes, comes not from disappearing into their needs, but from showing up as a full person alongside them.

That’s a harder gift to give and receive.

Quote by Ursula K. Le Guin

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of March 12

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Can you compel acts of grace to intervene in your destiny? Can bursts of divine favor be summoned through the power of your will? Some spiritual scholars say, “Absolutely not.” They claim life’s wild benevolence arrives only through the mysterious tides of fate—impossible to solicit and impossible to predict. But other observers, more open-minded, speculate that your intelligent goodness might indeed attract the vivid generosity of cosmic energies. I bring this up because I suspect you Pisceans are either receiving or will soon receive blessings that feel like divine favor. Did you earn them, or are you just lucky, or some of both? It doesn’t matter. Enjoy the gift.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In theater, “breaking the fourth wall” means acknowledging the audience. An actor steps out of the pretense that what’s happening on stage is real. It’s a disruptive moment of truth that can deepen the experience. I would love you to break the fourth wall in your own life, Aries. It’s a favorable time to slip free of any roles you’ve been performing by rote and just blurt out the more interesting truths. Tell someone, “This isn’t working for me.” Or say, “I need to be my pure self with greater authenticity.” Breaking the fourth wall won’t ruin the show; it will be more fun and real and entertaining.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): English speakers like me use the terms “destiny” and “fate” interchangeably. But a scholar of ancient Sumer claims they had different meanings in that culture. Nam, the word for “destiny,” was fixed and immutable. Namtar, meaning “fate,” could be manipulated, adjusted, and even cheated. I bring this to your attention, Taurus, because I believe you now have a golden chance to veer off a path that leads to an uninteresting or unproductive destiny and start gliding along a fateful detour.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The coming months will be a favorable time for you to shed the fairy-tale story of success that once inspired you when you were younger and more idealistic. A riper vision is emerging, calling you toward a more realistic and satisfying version of your life’s purpose. The transformation may at first feel unsettling, but I believe it will ultimately awaken even deeper zeal and greater creativity than your original dream. Bonus: Your revised, more mature goals will lead you to the very rewards your youthful hopes imagined but never quite delivered.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Even if you’re not actually far from home, Cancerian, I bet you’re on a pilgrimage or odyssey of some kind. The astrological omens tell me that you’re being drawn away from familiar ideas and feelings and are en route to an unknown country. You’re transforming, but you’re not sure how yet. During this phase of exploration, I suggest that you adopt a nickname that celebrates being on a quest. This will be a playful alias that helps you focus on the pregnant potential of this interlude. A few you might want to consider: Journey Seed, Threshold Traveler, Holy Rambler, Map-Edge Maverick, or Wanderlust Wonderer. Others? Choose one that tickles you with the sense that you are being born again while you travel.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Love is more than a gentle glow in your heart or a pleasurable spark in your body. When fully awakened and activated, it becomes a revolutionary way of being in the world that invites you to challenge and rethink all you’ve been taught about reality. It’s a bold magic that alters everything it encounters. You can certainly choose a milder, tamer version of love if you wish. But if you’d like to evolve into a love maestro—as you very well could during the next 12 months—I suggest you give yourself to the deeper, wilder form. Do you dare?

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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Octopuses have neuron clusters in their arms that enable them to “think with their limbs.” Let’s make them your spirit creature for now, Virgo. Your body’s intuitions are offering you guidance that might even be as helpful as your fine mind. This enhanced somatic brilliance can serve you in practical ways: a creative breakthrough while doing housework, a challenging transition handled with aplomb, a fresh alignment between your feelings and ideas. I hope you will listen to your body as if it were a beloved mentor. Trust your movements and physical sensations to reveal what you need to know.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I love your diplomatic genius: the capacity to understand all sides, to hold space for contradictions, to find the middle ground. But right now it’s in danger of curdling into a kind of self-erasure where your own desires become the one thing you can’t quite locate. Another way to understand this: You are so skilled at seeing everyone’s perspective that you sometimes lose track of your own. Here’s the antidote I recommend: Practice the revolutionary act of having strong opinions, of preferring one thing over another without immediately undercutting your preference with a counter-argument. I guarantee that your relationships will survive your decisiveness. In fact, they will deepen as people locate the real you beneath your exquisite balance.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): New love cravings have been welling up inside you, Scorpio. These cries of the heart may confuse you even as they delight you and invigorate you. One of your main tasks is to listen closely to what they’re telling you, but to wait a while before expressing their messages to other people. You need to study them in detail before spilling them out. Another prime task is to feel patient awe and reverence for the immensity and intensity of these deep, wild desires.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): If you are fulfilling your birthright as a Sagittarius, you are a philosopher-adventurer with a yearning for deep meaning. As you seek out interesting truths, your restless curiosity is a spiritual necessity. You understand that wisdom comes from collecting diverse, sometimes contradictory experiences and weaving them into a coherent worldview. You have a fundamental need to keep expanding and reinventing what freedom means to you. All these qualities may make some people nervous, but they really are among your primary assignments now and forever. They are especially important to cultivate these days.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In traditional navigation, “dead reckoning” means finding your position by tracking your previous movements. Where you have been tells you where you are. But it only works if you’ve been honest about your course. If you’ve been misleading yourself about the direction you have been traveling, dead reckoning will get you lost. I bring this to your attention, Capricorn, because I really want you to rededicate yourself to telling yourself the deepest, strongest, clearest truths. Where have you actually been going? Not where you told yourself you were going or where other people imagined you were going, but where your choices have actually been taking you. Look at the pattern of your real movements, not your stated intentions. Once you know your true position, you can chart a true course for the future.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You’re entering a rambling zigzag phase. Each plot twist will branch into two more, and every supposed finale will reveal itself as the opening act of another surprise. Fortunately, your gift for quick thinking and innovative adaptation is sharper than ever, which means you will flourish where others might freeze. My suggestion? Forget the script. Approach the unpredictable adventures like an improv exercise: spontaneous, playful, and open to the fertile mysteries.

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The Sacred Art of Attachment: A Manifesto for Beautiful Desires

I’m totally attached to giving all my heart and soul to the noble desires I’m moved by. I adore these desires. I want to fulfill them because they will make the world a better place and make me a more soulful source of beauty and truth and love.

This isn’t a confession or an admission of spiritual delinquency. It’s a declaration of my sacred path.

In my world, being attached to my magnificent desires is a glorious and honorable strategy for living a meaningful life. Being deeply invested in my constructive and compassionate yearnings enhances me in every imaginable way.

While some spiritual paths preach the renunciation of desire as the path to freedom, I live according to a different truth: that devotional attachment to my righteous desires is a form of sovereign emancipation. It’s a gateway to becoming more fully alive and more vividly engaged with the sublime project of being creatively incarnate as a human being on this messy and gorgeous planet.

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Desires That Liberate

The theory that we should detach ourselves from desire makes sense in certain contexts. If we’re attached to things we can’t control, we will suffer. If we’re attached to permanence in an impermanent world, we will be disappointed. If we’re grasping at trivial forms of pleasure and desperately fleeing from difficulties, we will exhaust ourselves. I understand why these teachings arose and why they have helped many people.

But what’s too rarely acknowledged in contemporary spiritual discourse is that attachment can also be a path of liberation: when we’re attached to the right things in the right ways.

I’ll be precise: There’s a big difference between attachment rooted in fear of emptiness and attachment rooted in love of possibility. Addiction is attachment that panics. It clutches because it can’t tolerate absence and collapses when it doesn’t get what it wants.

Devotion, by contrast, is attachment that loves. It commits because it recognizes beauty and wants to collaborate with its unfolding. When disappointed, it doesn’t shrink; it deepens.

Addiction says, “Without this, I am nothing.” Devoted attachment says, “Because this matters, I will grow.” One contracts the soul around scarcity. The other expands it toward possibility—even through setback or loss.

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And this is exactly why discernment matters. Not all desires are created equal! I don’t believe we should cling to and pursue every passing whim, petty wish, and destructive craving.

But I urge us to celebrate and embrace beautiful desires: the longings that, when pursued with zeal and devout intention, render us more magnificent and inspire us to make the world more luminous.

The spiritual teachers who advocate detachment seem to conflate all desire, as if the craving for another toke of crystal meth and the longing for social justice were the same thing. But they’re not, of course. One diminishes us; the other enhances us. One creates suffering; the other creates meaning.

The problem isn’t desire itself but unconscious desires, destructive desires, and distorted desires that serve our smaller understandings rather than our larger purpose.

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To further understand why I make this distinction, I’ll widen the frame and ask a more radical question: What if desire isn’t an annoying and inconvenient flaw in the human psyche, but a structural principle of the cosmos?

My view: Desire isn’t a private quirk of our personal psychology. It’s evolutionary intelligence moving through everyone and everything everywhere. Evolution itself is desire unfolding: matter yearning toward complexity and consciousness pressing toward greater self-awareness.

Stars burn because gravity longs for form. The seed splits because it desires to engage with the sun. From hydrogen to hummingbird, from single cell to symphony, the cosmos advances by yearning.

In that glorious context, my rapt attachment to beautiful outcomes isn’t quirky rebellion against some particular spiritual law; it’s my buoyant participation in the engine of creation. When I devote myself to justice, beauty, healing, and love, I’m not indulging in egoic craving. I’m aligning my entire life energy with the primal thrust of existence toward richer expression. I am the universe universing itself.

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Beautiful Desires

Here are a few of the desires I love, cultivate, and am gleefully attached to:

• A desire for beguiling riddles and enchanting challenges that excite my mind and heart.

• A desire to attract ongoing encounters with evocative, nonstandard beauty so as to always ensure a part of me remains untamed.

• A desire to keep refining and expanding my ability to learn from non-human intelligences as well as from humans: from animals, plants, and ecosystems, from the weather and the seasons, from spirits and dreams and synchronicities. The universe is crammed with teachers if I’m an eagerly curious student.

• A desire to help create a world in which everyone gets the food, housing, and health care they need. This isn’t abstract compassion. It’s a burning, churning, yearning attachment to collective abundance that motivates concrete action. I can’t and won’t rest in spiritual comfort while others suffer material deprivation.

• A desire for allies who enjoy my distinctive idiosyncrasies and eccentricities. Not people who tolerate my quirks despite them, but those who are nourished by them, who recognize in my peculiarities a splash of soulfulness that feeds their own wild authenticity.

• A desire to keep outgrowing what worked for me in the past and a desire to ceaselessly explore renewed approaches to expressing my soul’s code.

• A desire to foster and protect the health and beauty of the natural world.

• A desire for revelations and experiences that steer me away from thinking and acting like the machines I interact with so much.

• A desire to keep recreating and reinvigorating my relationships with those I love.

• A desire to replace cynical clichés with homemade spells of astonishment, composted from absurdity, reverence, and exuberant rebellion.

· A desire to regularly refresh my quest for freedom and deepen my capacity to be free.

• A desire to minimize the world’s bigotry, misogyny, oligarchy, racism, xenophobia, and militarism.

• And many more desires, too, like the desire to keep finding new desires that re-inspire my love for the world.

The Paradox of Detachment

One of the dominant narratives of alternate spirituality in America speculates that desire is the root of suffering and that liberation comes through detachment. Where do these theories come from?

They have roots in traditions of immense depth and beauty. I’m not declaring they’re wrong or bad. I’m saying they’re not my path—and perhaps not the path of other souls who are temperamentally built for fervent incarnation rather than renunciation.

Regarding the concept of non-attachment, ancient Buddhist texts in Pali mention nekkhamma, a word translated as “renunciation.” This term also conveys the meaning of “giving up the world and leading a holy life” or “freedom from lust, craving, and desires.” Here’s the central hypothesis: The path to emancipation and wisdom requires the renunciation of worldly engagement.

But my personal approach is not to lead a holy life by giving up the world. Just the opposite: To live a holy life, I give myself gladly and fervently to the world. “Renunciation” isn’t interesting or valuable to me. I don’t believe the spiritual quest requires withdrawal from the world’s complexities. My noblest vigor emerges from my passionate engagement with what life brings me. I aspire to be empathically interwoven with both its beauty and its brokenness.

Consider the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s most influential texts. A key passage says, “You have a right to perform your actions, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”

This verse suggests that the anticipated results of our actions shouldn’t be the motivation for our performance of those actions. We should act without concern for outcomes; we should serve without expecting rewards.

I’m allergic to that principle. To cultivate optimal health and wisdom, I seek total immersion in possibilities i find exciting. I love love LOVE to be motivated by the hope of achieving my desires.

When I work to create something helpful or inspiring, I’m attached to it being thoroughly and wonderfully fulfilled. When I work in behalf of LGBTQ+ rights or immigrant protection, I am very attached to the possibility that my work will yield potent results. When I write a new song, I am deeply attached to it being lyrical and soulful.

Visions of the desired outcomes pump up my energy and focus, feeding my stamina and honing my determination to persist through obstacles.

The Hindu philosopher Madhvacharya advocated godliness through right actions: “One who is spiritually situated performs actions unattached to reward. Actions performed without desire as a matter of duty are full of wisdom.” By his measure, I am not “spiritually situated.” He wouldn’t approve of the fact that I perform actions with a spirited desire for their successful outcomes, invigorated by pleasure and joy rather than duty.

So yes, Madhvacharya would judge me harshly. But I’m OK with that. I’d much rather be vigorously engrossed in the challenges of living well on the earth than be emotionally indifferent to whether my work succeeds or fails.

Hindu philosopher Adi Shankaracharya went even further, teaching that hankering for the fruits of labor leads to entrapment in the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth—the ultimate quagmire!—thus inhibiting one’s liberation. According to this view, my attachment to outcomes keeps me trapped in terminal unease and unsatisfactoriness—and prevents me from ever reaching the highest spiritual goal.

But I’m not interested in such an accomplishment. I don’t hanker to permanently escape the Great and Mysterious Game of birth, death, and rebirth. I love it here! If liberation means ceasing to care whether beauty flourishes or justice prevails, then I choose what Shankaracharya would call entrapment. Here, in this world, in this body, working toward transformations and creations I care about deeply: That’s where I want to be.

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I should note that both Buddhism and Hinduism are vast and internally diverse, containing some traditions where passionate attachment and worldly engagement are honored. Tantra, bhakti devotion, and engaged Buddhism are examples. Some Vajrayana practitioners are deeply committed to making our earth into more of a paradise.

My aversion isn’t to these traditions, but to the particular strains of Americanized, renunciation-centered teachings that have come to dominate so much of alternative spirituality.

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Attachment as Fuel for Transformation

Here’s a very practical fact: I’m deeply invested in making my gorgeous, righteous desires come true because doing so fuels my motivation to attract the learning experiences, resources, and willpower I need to fulfill them. My attachment strengthens my resolve and boosts my ability to discipline myself as I pursue my high-minded and wild-hearted purposes.

When I was sick with a death-threatening illness, I was VERY attached to staying alive. That attitude was crucial in rousing the ingenuity and resilience necessary to do all the things necessary to stay alive: the difficult and excruciating treatments, the acute attention to every detail of my rigorous health regimen, and the emotional challenge of maintaining hope.

If I had been detached from the outcome, if I had adopted an attitude of “whatever happens is fine,” I’m very sure I could not have marshaled the ferocious will to live that my healing required.

In my world, attachment is another word for devotion. It’s not the grasping of addiction or the desperation of fear, but the focused zeal of knowing what I love and being joyfully driven to work for its flourishing. My attachment is my ardor, dedication, constancy, enthusiasm, resolve, zest, and tenacity. It’s my unfailing guide.

The Shadow of This Path

To be fiercely attached to beautiful desires is to risk heartbreak. Not every righteous longing blossoms and not every song finds its audience. I don’t pretend otherwise. My devotion doesn’t guarantee triumph. When I attach myself to luminous outcomes, I make myself vulnerable to grief, frustration, and humbling defeat.

But here’s a crucial distinction: I’m attached to participation, not invulnerability. If my desires are thwarted, I grieve, learn, and adapt. I let the failure compost me. My attachment doesn’t demand that the world obey me; it demands that I remain in living relationship with the world.

Addiction collapses when it doesn’t get what it wants, but devotion evolves. If a cherished outcome dissolves, I stay engaged with the larger arc of becoming, even if this particular chapter ends in partial success or even failure.

There’s another shadowy danger i must be aware of, too. Passion can harden into self-righteousness. Outcome-focus can curdle into control. My attachment could, if left unchecked, become tyranny disguised as virtue.

That’s why I rely on humor, allies, dreamwork, and regular encounters with forces larger than my will. The weather, the ocean, illness, love, and time all remind me that I’m not the sovereign of reality. I’m a collaborator. My desires are sacred, but they’re not supreme. They’ve got to stay in conversation with the Great Mystery.

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The Path of Fervent Incarnation

One of the ultimate risks of my path is that I will feel everything. Another is that I will be pierced when beauty falters and gutted when justice fails. A third is that my devotion may sometimes overheat into self-righteousness or exhaust me with its ferocity.

But I would rather be broken open by caring than preserved by detachment. I would rather risk scorching myself in the fires of magnificent desires than cultivate a sterile coolness that never catches flame.

If loving this world so fiercely binds me to its cycles of birth and death again and again, then so be it. I am not seeking escape from the Great and Mysterious Game. I want ever-deeper participation in its dangerous, dazzling intimacy.

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PS: What I’m declaring in this manifesto is not simply: “I defend desire.” I’m declaring, “I trust incarnation.”

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of March 5

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In systems theory, “critical points” are moments when long periods of small changes gradually accumulate, and then suddenly erupt into a big shift. Nothing appears to happen for a while, and then everything happens at once. Ice becomes water, for instance. I suspect you’re nearing such a pivot, Pisces. You’ve been gathering strength, clarity, and nerve in subtle ways. Soon you will be visited by what we might call a graceful, manageable explosion. The slow, persistent changes you’ve been overseeing will result in a major transition.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many ancient cultures had myths that explained solar eclipses as celestial creatures eating the sun. In China, the devourer was a dragon. A frog did it in Vietnam, wolves in Norse lore, and bears in several Indigenous American legends. In some places, people made loud noises during the blackout, banging drums and pots, to drive away the attacker and bring back the sun. I suspect you are now in the midst of a metaphorical eclipse of your own, Aries. But don’t worry! Just as was true centuries ago, your sun won’t actually be gobbled up. Instead, here’s the likely scenario: You will rouse an appetite for transformation that will consume outdated ideas and situations. Whatever disintegrates will become fuel for new stories. You will convert old pain and decay into vital energy. Your luminous vigor will return even stronger.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Maybe you have been enjoying my advice for years but still haven’t become a billionaire, grown into a potent influencer, or landed the perfect job. Does that mean I’ve failed you? Should you swap me out for a more results-oriented oracle? If rewards like those are the dreams you treasure, then yes, it may be time to search for a new guide. But if what you want most is simply to cultivate the steady gratification of feeling real and whole and authentic, then stick with me. PS: The coming days are likely to offer you abundant opportunities to feel real and whole and authentic. Take advantage!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 1557, a Welsh mathematician invented the equals sign (=) to avoid repeatedly writing the words “is equal to.” Over the next centuries, this helped make algebra more convenient and efficient. The moral of the story: Some breakthroughs come not from making novel discoveries but from finding better ways to render and use what’s already known. I’m pleased to say that you Geminis are primed to devise your own equivalents of the equals sign. What strengths might you express with greater crispness and efficiency? What familiar complications could you make easier? See if can find shortcuts that aid productivity without sacrificing precision.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): One benefit of being an astrologer is that when I need a break from being intensely myself, I can take a sabbatical. My familiarity with the zodiac frees me to escape the limits of my personal horoscope and play at being other signs. I always return from my getaway with a renewed appreciation for the unique riddle that is my identity. I think now is an excellent time for Cancerians like you and me to enjoy such a vacation. We can have maximum fun and attract inspiring educational experiences by experimenting. I plan to be like a Sagittarius and may also experiment with embodying Aries qualities.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In Scandinavian folklore, there’s a phenomenon called utiseta. It involves sitting out at night in a charged place in nature, like a crossroads or border. The goal is to make oneself patiently available for visions, wisdom, or contact with spirits and ancestors. I suspect you could benefit from the equivalent of a utiseta right now, Leo. Do you dare to refrain from forcing solutions through sheer will? Are you brave enough to let answers wander into your midst instead of hunting them down? I believe your strength is your willingness to be still and wait in a threshold.

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EXPLORE YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE

There are just two more weeks remaining before the Big-Picture Audio Horoscopes gone! You can still listen to my three-part, in-depth Explorations of Your Long-Range Future. Do you understand just how much power you have to create the life you want to live during the rest of 2026? Are you fully aware of just how much access you have to new resources?

To access the Expanded Audio Horoscopes, register and/or sign in here: Realastrology.com

and

choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the “Long-Term Prediction for 2026.” Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.

The cost is $7 per horoscope. There are discounts if you buy multiple tokens. Each Long-Range, Big-Picture Audio Forecast is 7 to 11 minutes long. You can also listen to a short-term audio horoscope for the coming week.

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I also wrote a free batch of Big-Picture Horoscopes for you! They’re different from the Big Picture Audio Scopes. Find them here: tinyurl.com/YourFutureShines

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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): You are a devotee of the sacred particular. While others traffic in vague abstractions, you understand that vitality thrives in the details. Your attention to nuance and precision is not fussiness but a form of love. I get excited to see you honor life by noticing all of its specific textures and rhythms! Now, more than ever, the world needs this superpower of yours. I hope you will express it even stronger in the coming months. May you exult in the knowledge that your refusal to treat the world carelessly or sloppily isn’t about perfectionism but about respect.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Architect Antoni Gaudí spent over 40 years designing Barcelona’s Sagrada Família cathedral. He knew he wouldn’t live to see it finished. It’s still under construction today, long after his death. When he said, “My client is not in a hurry,” he meant that his client was God. I invite you to borrow this perspective, Libra. See how much fun you can have by releasing yourself from the tyranny of urgency. Grant yourself permission to concentrate on a process that might take a long time to unfold. What a generous and ultimately productive luxury it will be for you to align yourself with deep rhythms and relaxing visions! I believe your good work will require resoluteness that transcends conventional timelines.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The ancient Chinese philosophical text known as the Tao Te Ching teaches that “the usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness.” A vessel full of itself can receive nothing. Is it possible that you are currently so crammed with opinions, strategies, and righteous certainty that you’ve lost some of your capacity to receive? I suspect there are wonders and marvels trying to reach you, Scorpio: insights, inquiries, and invitations. But they can’t get in if you’re full. Your assignment: Temporarily empty yourself. Create space by releasing cherished positions, a defensive stance, or stories about how things must be.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Yoruba concept of ashe refers to the power to make things happen. It’s the life force that flows through all things, and can be accumulated, directed, and shared. Right now, your ashe is strong but a bit scattered, Sagittarius. You have power, but it’s diffused across too many commitments and half-pursued desires. So your assignment is to consolidate. Choose two things that matter most and fully pour your ashe into them. As you concentrate your vitality, you’ll get more done and become a conduit for blessings larger than yourself.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What’s holding you back? What are you waiting for? A nudge from destiny? A breaking point when you’ll be compelled to act? A hidden clue that may or may not reveal itself? It’s my duty to tell you this: All that lingering and dallying, all that wishing and hoping, is wasted energy. As long as you’re sitting still, pining for a cosmic deliverance to handle the hard parts, the sweet intervention will keep its distance. The instant you claim the authority to act, you’ll see it clearly: the path forward that doesn’t need a perfect sign, a final push, or fate’s permission slip.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): If you’re anything like me, you wince as you recall the lazy choices and careless passivity that speckle your past. You may wonder what you were thinking when you treated yourself so cavalierly, pushed away a steadfast ally, or let a dazzling invitation slip by. At times I feel as if my wrong turns carry more weight in my fate than the bright, grace-filled moments. Here’s good news for you, though. March is Amnesty Month for all Aquarians willing to own up to and graduate from their missteps. As you work diligently to unwind the unhelpful patterns that led you off course, life will release you from the heavy drag of those old failures and their leftover momentum.

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Art by June Bird Ngale

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YOUR IRREDUCIBLE YOU-NESS

Do you have a soul? Is there even such a thing? If so, what is it exactly? Where does it live, how does it move, and what does it need? How do you grow more of it? And is it really, as some of the wisest humans who ever lived have insisted, the most valuable thing in the universe?

I invite you to sit with these questions. Meditate on the soul, dream about the soul, and turn the soul over in your imagination as if you were exploring a luminous treasure.

To start the inquiry, I’ll tell you about a woman I met who had arrived at a devastating answer to these questions.

She told me she firmly believes she is no more than the sum total of the influences of all the people she has ever known. The way she talked about herself was as if she were a machine, a passive assemblage of other people’s programming.

She lives her life as if she has no essential core, but is merely what others have shaped her into: a reflection of her parents’ and teachers’ and friends’ and enemies’ expectations of her: a mirror that has forgotten it also generates its own light.

I understood the cultural currents that had carried her to this diminished self-concept. And I agree that each of us is partly a creation of forces beyond our control. Most people have no idea how thoroughly they are shaped by the zeitgeist, by ancestral patterns, by the collective unconscious, by advertising and propaganda and the relentless pressure of consensus reality.

But I am quite sure that each of us also has an essential core, a diamond nature and irreducible YOU-ness that isn’t entirely manufactured by outside forces.

I believe our souls are ancient entities that exist both outside of time and space and very much inside it. They are both eternal and urgently present, both transcendent and gloriously incarnate in this particular body at this particular moment in history.

So I will ask you to do you and me a favor. Even if you’ve been taught that consciousness is merely the result of brain chemistry and the soul is a metaphor at best and a hallucination at worst: Imagine, just for now, that you do have a soul—not as an article of religious faith but as an experiential reality you can actually feel.

Relax the frenzied activity of what the Zen Buddhists call the monkey mind. And try to feel the quality of that deep, indivisible part of you.

This part of you knows itself and loves itself with clarity and grace. It’s so utterly unique that no other soul in the history of this planet has ever been quite like it, and no other soul ever will be. It’s the gorgeous, humming center of you, quietly broadcasting its singular frequency beneath all the noise and distraction and performance and anxiety.

This essential core is NOT merely a creation of your parents. Does NOT measure its worth against anyone else’s. Is NOT a slave to other people’s opinions of who you should be.

It’s who you were before you were born into this body, and who you will be after you leave it. It’s the part of you that chose this particular incarnation, with its particular set of challenges and gifts, and decided to arrive at this precise moment in history to do your singular work.

Your soul can never be completely understood. It will always be partly mystery. And yet it’s your sweetest, most reliable source: the wellspring of your authentic creativity and your deepest compassion. No matter how lost you may become in the maze of conditioning and fear and self-doubt, your soul will always be there at your center, emanating its signal, inviting you to remember, ready to guide you home.

In this era of manufactured confusion and artificial intelligence and deepfake everything, that authentic signal is more precious than ever. It’s the one thing that can’t be corrupted. It holds the blueprint of your most luminous becoming, and it loves you with an unconditional devotion that asks nothing except that you trust the wild, beautiful truth of who you really are.

So tune in. Its tender guidance has never been more available to you—or more necessary.

Art by Howard G. Charing

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Can we go even further?

You might feel moved to explore the nature of the soul with rare companions who take the soul seriously. They won’t flinch when the conversation goes deep.

Of course, you don’t want to get into the trap of debating the soul’s existence with people who snicker and reach reflexively for their skepticism. Conversations like those are useless. Save your energy for something more alive.

You may also decide that the fact you have encountered this essay means that now is an excellent time to go out in active search of experiences that will expand and deepen your soul. How might you attune yourself to the synchronicities and encounters and recognitions that will teach you more about what your soul is and why it matters?

Below are some navigational hints.

Anything or anyone you find truly beautiful will lead you toward soul. And by beautiful I don’t mean pretty packaging or pleasing surfaces. I mean beautiful in the older, stranger sense: glowing with intelligence and intensity and mystery and depth. Beautiful as in made by hand, close to the earth, energizing to your body, and impossible to reduce to a price tag.

Anything that awakens your reverence will lead you to soul. Anyone who is acutely alive to the flow of life, who spills over with vitality and genuine responsiveness, will lead you there, too.

Feelings of gratitude will lead you there. So will adventures that catch you off guard. Unpredictability stirs the soul, and surprising truths. Deeply felt traditions with real roots can awaken or feed the soul.

But you know more than I do about what will lead you, specifically, to soul. You have your own particular hungers and your own telltale signals. You know those moments when some mystery in you suddenly leans forward, alert and awake.

Pay close attention to those signals. Write about them. Make a list of the experiences, the people, the landscapes, the works of art, and the conversations that have awakened the deepest stirrings in you. Let that list become a kind of map.

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Now here are three questions with tentative answers to open your imagination further.

Question 1: Was there a time, once upon a time, when star-crossed romance wounded your capacity for love? Left a scar across the very place in you that most wants to give and receive tenderness?

Answer: Yes. Almost certainly yes. But there has never been a better moment than now to begin healing that wound.

Question 2: Is it possible you are finally willing to relinquish your long-held addiction to a certain tragic magic? That exquisite, melancholy story you’ve been telling yourself, beautiful in its way but also keeping you smaller and sadder than you need to be?

Answer: Yes. Your urge to genuinely love your life is growing stronger than your attachment to ancient sorrow. Your need for clarity is quietly overwhelming the melodrama that once felt essential but is now, if you’re honest, becoming increasingly beside the point.

Question 3: Has there ever been a better time than right now to perform quietly courageous acts—small, steady, unglamorous acts of integrity—that turn you away from the seductions of shallowness and toward the deeper allure of the soul?

Answer: You already know the answer. You’ve known it for a while.

Art by Wassily Kandinsky

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If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the soul, check out this essay (plus an audio reading), excerpted from my book ASTROLOGY IS REAL: tinyurl.com/AstrologyForTheSoul

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Listen to the conversation between me and the brilliant author and activist adrienne maree brown: endoftheworldshow.org/episodes/witch-school-chapter-22-rob-brezsney

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LOVE POEM FOR YOUR SOUL

Your voice is moonlight on the wetland mud. Your lips are blossoms of cool fire. Your hair is a chant offered to the goddess of arias. Your navel? The answers the stars give to the clouds.

Your nearness is the hush before rain, charged with the promise of green. The air trembles, remembering your breath. If I speak your name, the clouds part like silk torn by sunlight. Even the still stones along the path seem to turn their faces toward your warmth.

The tilt of your head is a question the high sky can’t refuse. Even my doubts kneel down like tall grasses. I am reckless with wonder. I am willing to be altered.

When you turn toward me, the world becomes a book of mirrors, each page reflecting what can’t be spoken. The arc of your shoulders carries the weight of ten thousand wishes made by strangers at wells. Your anger is summer lightning that never reaches ground, beautiful and brief as the violet hour.

I study the architecture of your patience. It’s a temple built from driftwood and spider silk, improbable and lasting. Your sorrows move like schools of silver fish through dark water, visible only when they turn. Your hope tastes of honey drawn from flowers that bloom only in dreams.

When you speak my name, it becomes a new constellation. Your presence is the moment between thunder and rain when the air grows dense with possibility. I dare to stand in the weather of you. I dare to learn the language your shadow writes across the wall at dusk.

Your nearness folds the worlds together. Time loses its steps around you; the hours turn to translucent birds circling an unseen altar. The hush between heartbeats becomes a doorway through which dawn spills again and again, unminded of the clock’s insistence.

I could believe you were dream dreaming itself — a shimmer between what’s born and what’s eternal. If I listen rightly, I become the echo that finds you wherever the infinite hides its face.

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I’ve published three main books, with lots more to come.

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: tinyurl.com/PronoiaBookshop

Astrology Is Real: tinyurl.com/BookshopAstrologyIsReal

The Televisionary Oracle: tinyurl.com/BookshopTelevisionaryOracle

Check out my LinkTree: linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of February 26

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Sufi mystics tell us that the heart has “seven levels of depth,” each one bearing progressively more profound wisdom. You access these depths by feeling deeper, not thinking harder. Let’s apply this perspective to you, Pisces. Right now, you’re being called to descend past surface emotions (irritation, worry, mild contentment) into the layers beneath: primal wonder, the wild joy you’re sometimes too cautious to express, and the sacred longing that can lead you to glory. This dive might feel risky. That’s good! It means you’re going deep enough. What you discover down there will reorganize everything above it for the better.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In woodworking, “spalting” occurs when fungi colonize wood, creating dark lines and patterns that make the wood more valuable, not less. The decay creates beauty as long as it isn’t allowed to progress too far. Here’s the metaphorical moral of the story for you, Aries: What feels like a deteriorating situation might actually be spalting, Aries. Are you experiencing the breakdown of a routine, a certainty, or a plan? It could be creating a pattern that makes your story even more interesting and heroic. So keep in mind that an apparent decomposition may be transforming ordinary into extraordinary beauty. My advice is to play along with the spalting.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I suspect you will soon be invited to explore novel feelings and unfamiliar states of awareness. As you wander in the psychological frontiers, you might experience mysterious phenomena like the following. 1. An overflow of reverence and awe. 2. Blissful surprise in the face of the sublime. 3. Sudden glimmers of eternity in fleeting moments. 4. A soft, golden resonance that arises when you hear arousing truths. 5. Amazingly useful questions that could tantalize and feed your imagination for months and even years to come.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If I were your mentor, I’d lead you up an ascending trail to a high peak where your vision is clear and vast. If I were your leader, I’d give you a medal for all the ways you’ve been brave when no one was looking, then send you on an all-expenses-paid sabbatical to a beautiful sanctuary to rest and remember yourself. If I were your therapist, I’d guide you through a 90-minute meditation on your entire life story up until now. But since I’m just your companion for this brief oracle, I will instead advise you to slip out of any silken snares of comfort that dull your spirit, cast off perks and privileges that keep you small, and commune with influences that remind you of how deeply you treasure being alive.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Biologist Barbara McClintock won the Nobel Prize by developing what she called “a feeling for the organism.” She cultivated an intimate, almost empathic relationship with the corn plants she studied. She didn’t impose theories on her subjects. She listened to them until she could sense their hidden patterns from the inside. When you’re not lost in self-protection, you Cancerians excel at this quality of attention. Here’s what I see as your task in the coming weeks: Transfer your empathic genius away from people who drain you and toward projects, places, or problems that deserve your devotion and give you blessings in return.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Sufi writers describe heartbreak, grief, and longing as portals through which divine love enters. They say that a highly defended ego and a hardened heart can’t engage with such profound and potent love. In this view, suffering that makes the heart ache strips away illusions and fixations, allowing greater receptivity, humility, and tenderness toward all beings.​ I’m not expecting you to get blasted by an influx of poignancy in the near future, Leo, but I’m very sure you have experienced such blasts in the past. And now is an excellent time to process those old breakthroughs disguised as breakdowns. You are likely to finally be able to harvest the full power they offered you.

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If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In traditional Balinese culture, Tri Hita Karana is a concept that means there are three causes of well-being: harmony with God, harmony with people, and harmony with nature. When one is out of balance, all suffer. I’m wondering if you would benefit from meditating on this theme now, Virgo. Have you been focused on one dimension at the expense of the others? Are you, perhaps, spiritually nourished but socially isolated? Or maybe you’re maintaining relationships but ignoring your body’s connection to the earth? Here’s your assignment: Do a Tri Hita Karana audit. Which harmony is most neglected? Add to your altar, call a friend, or go walk in the great outdoors—whichever one you’ve been shortchanging.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You are a diplomat in the struggle between beauty and inelegance. Your aptitude for creating harmony is a great asset that others might underestimate or miss completely. I hope you will always trust your hunger for classiness even if others dismiss it as superficial. One of your key reasons for being here on earth is to keep insisting on loveliness in a world too quick to settle for ugliness. These qualities of yours are especially needed right now. Please be gracefully insistent on expressing them wherever you go.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The bad news: You underestimate how much joy and pleasure you deserve—and how much you’re capable of experiencing. This artificially low expectation has sometimes cheated you out of your rightful share of bliss and fulfillment. The good news: Life is now ready to conspire with you to raise your happiness levels. I hope you will cooperate eagerly. The more intensely you insist on feeling good, the more cosmic assistance you will garner. Here’s a smart way to launch this holy campaign: Renounce a certain lackluster thrill that diverts you from more lavish excitements.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In classical music, a “rest” isn’t the absence of music. It’s a specific notation that creates space, tension, and meaning. The silence is as much a part of the composition as the sound. I suggest you think of your current pause this way, Sagittarius. You’re not waiting for your real life to resume. You’re in a rest, and the rest is an essential part of the process you’re following. It’s creating the conditions for what comes next. So instead of anxiously filling every moment with productivity or distraction, try honoring the pause. Be deliberately quiet. Let the silence accumulate. When the next movement begins, you’ll understand exactly why the rest was necessary.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Interesting temptations are wandering into your orbit. You may be surprised to find yourself drawn toward entertaining gambles and tricky adventures. How should you respond? Should you say “Yes! Now! I’m ready!”? Or is open-minded caution a wiser approach? Conditions are too slippery for me to arrive at definitive conclusions. What I can tell you is this: Merely considering and ruminating on these invitations will awaken uplifting and inspiring lessons. PS: To get the fullness of the blessings you want from other people, you must first give them to yourself.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The engineer Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) said he envisioned his inventions in intricate detail before building them. He didn’t need literal prototypes because his mental pictures were so vivid. I suspect you Aquarians now have extra access to this power. What scenarios are you dreaming of? What are you incubating in your imagination? I urge you to boldly trust your thought experiments. Your mental prototypes may be unusually accurate. The visions you’re testing internally are reconnaissance missions to futures that you have the power to build. Regard your imagination as a laboratory.

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Image by Jane Ray at janeray.com

Words by leilamadeline at instagram.com/leilamadeline___/

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Dear Readers — Since I messed up my newsletter when I first sent it earlier today, I’m trying again with the new, improved version. Sorry for the duplication. I really like this newsletter and want it so shine clearly.

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Earthbound Intimacy

Intimate relationship is an artful game with shifting rules and surprise plot twists, so we lovers need to stay nimble, experimental, and awake. The alliance we begin is never the relationship we will have three years later, or five, or ten. We change. Our partners change. Life barges in with its unruly interventions—illness, career upheavals, creative awakenings, grief, unexpected joy.

The sexual electricity that once felt volcanic may dissipate, then flare again in new forms. The quirks we adored may become annoying, then somehow circle back into being endearing again through a mysterious emotional alchemy.

If we imagine love as a permanent monument instead of a living collaboration, we miss every cue life offers us to evolve. Lovers who thrive treat intimacy as improvisational theater: willing to depart from the script when reality demands it or fun suggests it.

They understand that constancy doesn’t require rigidity. They’re loyal to the shared project even while reinventing how the project works.

One of their core vows might be this: Tender fidelity to loving each other can coexist with radical flexibility about how love is expressed.

The unexpected twists aren’t interruptions of care and adoration. They are the raw material from which deeper connection is forged.

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Love enmeshes us in our partner’s unique set of karmic complications, so it’s best if we’re interested in their problems.

When we fall in love, we don’t just choose a companion for pleasure and companionship. We’re enlisting in their struggles, inheriting their demons, and signing up for the full blast of their psychological inheritance.

All of this becomes our concern: our beloved’s relationship with their narcissistic mother, their unresolved grief over a sibling’s death, their terror of financial instability, and their shame about past mistakes.

We don’t have to fix or heal everything our beloved struggles with, but we do need to find their inner world genuinely interesting. Relationships rarely survive if one partner becomes bored with the other’s wounds or impatient with their recurring fears. There’s no future in secretly wishing someone would just get over their issues and become easier.

Vibrant intimacy requires an almost anthropological curiosity about another person’s psyche. We really do need to cultivate the willingness to study their contradictions with fascination instead of fatigue. We explore the labyrinth of their being with the same devotion we bring to understanding ourselves.

This doesn’t mean codependent fusion. The sweet spot is a living blend of independence and interdependence: two sovereign beings choosing connection without erasing themselves.

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Love is a laboratory where we can uncover truths about ourselves that have been unavailable or hidden, so I suggest we all be ravenously curious.

Intimate love is one of the most powerful mirrors we can encounter. Many of us imagine self-knowledge happens primarily in solitude, like through therapy sessions, meditation cushions, journals, and vision quests. But relationship exposes aspects of us that remain invisible as long as we are solo.

Our partners trigger reactions that surprise and sometimes alarm us. They reveal contradictions between who we believe we are and how we behave under stress. They expose insecurities and old emotional bruises we thought had healed.

This can feel humiliating. It’s also precious data.

This can be excruciating, but it’s also precious data. Let’s say we approach these revelations with scientific curiosity rather than defensive shame. We say, “How interesting that I reacted this way” instead of “I’m a terrible person.” Then love becomes an ongoing research project into the mystery of our own being. The discomfort becomes material for growth rather than evidence of failure.

Our partner isn’t always right in their perceptions, but they often see truths about us that we can’t easily see ourselves. Two nervous systems interacting over time develop a strange accuracy about each other.

Relationship, at its best, is a collaborative laboratory for self-knowledge.

Love is never a perfect match of totally compatible saints, so I urge us all not to let sterile fantasies seduce us away from flawed but invigorating realities.

One of the most corrosive fantasies is the myth of the perfect partner. This is the delusional fantasy that our soulmate intuitively understands us, shares all our priorities, and fits our personality with geometric precision.

But this perfect partner exists mostly in three places: romantic comedies, projection fantasies, and the first few months of infatuation.

Real love is messier and more interesting. It flourishes in the fertile soil of partial incompatibility, periodic misunderstanding, and mutual imperfection. Our partner will have blind spots, annoying habits, emotional limitations, and baffling enthusiasms. So will we.

This friction isn’t an unfortunate side effect. It’s a generative force.

Total compatibility would produce stagnation, right? Growth requires difference. We’ve got to abide in places where we must stretch, negotiate, adapt, and learn.

The goal isn’t to find someone who never challenges us. It’s to connect with a lively ally whose particular form of imperfection we find intriguing enough to explore for a long time. The friction between us generates energy rather than erosion.

The flawed reality, with all its awkwardness and difficulty, is more fertile than any sterile fantasy.

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Love thrives when neither partner takes things personally, so it’s wise to cultivate a devotion to forgiveness and divest ourselves of the urge to blame.

Another hard-won skill in long-term love is learning not to take everything personally.

Our beloved’s withdrawal or testiness is often less about us than about old wounds echoing through the present. They are reacting to ghosts we didn’t create and battles that began long before we arrived. Of course we still feel hurt, but we gain freedom when we remember that we, too, bring our own emotional weather systems into the relationship.

Blame is the lazy lover’s refuge. It substitutes accusation for curiosity.

Forgiveness, by contrast, isn’t weakness or martyrdom. It’s an ongoing commitment to seeing beneath temporary defensiveness to the vulnerable being underneath. It allows love to keep breathing instead of calcifying into resentment.

Compassion doesn’t mean tolerating cruelty or chronic disrespect. Accountability still matters. But when blame dominates the emotional climate, intimacy suffocates.

Art by Shelby McQuilkin

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Love isn’t a low-maintenance machine you install once and forget. It’s a living ecosystem. It needs tending: attention, repair, pruning, reinvention, patience. Some seasons overflow with sweetness, while others feel barren or strained. Periodic effort isn’t a sign something is wrong. It’s the price of admission to a shared life that stays vital.

The work may include uncomfortable conversations, apologies, renegotiations, small gestures of care, experiments in new habits, and the willingness to reconnect after drifting apart. Long-term intimacy is less like fireworks and more like gardening, except the plants occasionally argue with you and accuse you of not listening.

The alternative is autopilot: a relationship that slowly withers from neglect or explodes when unattended wounds finally demand attention.

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Love isn’t a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America, so I suggest that we not let our romantic story be infected by the entertainment industry’s simplistic, sentimental myths: in which love conquers all obstacles effortlessly, passion remains permanently intense, and conflict signals incompatibility.

These narratives colonize our imagination so deeply that real relationships can feel disappointing by comparison—not because they’re failing, but because we are measuring them against illusions.

Authentic love is stranger, slower, more inconvenient, and ultimately more rewarding than any fantasy. It includes moments when we would rather be anywhere else. It also includes shared history and the subtle miracle of being known over time.

To love well, we have to decolonize our imagination. It’s hard but not at all impossible to shed the sugary myths we inherited and learn to recognize the wilder reality of two imperfect humans choosing each other again and again.

EARTHBOUND LOVE POEM #1

Dear Love Awakener —

I want to be your cackling, dizzy-dazzling, rambling-free groupie. Want to be mine?

We can be in foolishly cool drooling yet elegant solid-gold devotion to each other’s mighty love mojo.

We can play off our mutual primordial respect for each other to help us shed any fearful glitches that might still be tainting our bags of tricks. We can arouse each other to be braver and braver about reinventing the unhealed world with endless uprisings of our liberated imaginations.

We can casually drop hints by the side of the road and in the pit of the abyss and at the hub of the marketplace—hints that yes, our soul flesh is always gung-ho with blasphemous reverence and taboo justice and unauthorized kindness and insurrectionary beauty—and see if anyone wants to join us in waging our orgies of illegal truth.

We can offer to dance those lucky co-conspirators along with us through our blooming subversions until they, too, generate sublime convulsions and sacred transgressions for the good of all sentient and non-sentient beings.

And since you and I transcend the big bad NEVER AND ALWAYS as we ramp up tsunamis of mutual respect and veneration for each other, and since we worshipfully adore each other like cumulus clouds love the dusky sky on the summer solstice, I must add the disclaimer that we can also give each other license to now and then be boring, unspectacular, even nervous or hiding around each other. Amen, and afemme. We can handle the spooky, cornucopian variety.

I never blush, and yet as I disclose this communiqué, I’m feeling the newborn flush of the fresh sun radiating from my amazing maze of a face. My outlaw infatuation with your grinning insurrections riles up the rowdy wisdom of my heavenly body.

Don’t change anything you’re doing! Keep dispersing those tender whomps and wallops that make me so freakily friendly and fertile. What I mean is, keep changing everything you’re doing in the exact way that your ever-rising libido enchantments whisper you should keep changing everything you’re doing.

In other words, to please me, don’t try to please me. Simply be your out-of-this-world, down-to-earth soul-kissing self, flagrantly igniting the raucous flows of fluidic mutant sparks that sanctify you so abundantly with the quickening of the Rebel Divine.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

For more tips and inspirations about earthbound intimacy, go here: tinyurl.com/LoveInspirations

For Elationship Love Spells, go here: tinyurl.com/ElationshipLoveSpells

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of February 19

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Big bright transitions are at hand: from thrashing around in the educational mire to celebrating your sweet escape; from wrangling with shadows and ghosts to greeting new allies; from messing around with interesting but confounding chaos to seizing fresh opportunities to shine and thrive. Hallelujah! What explains this exhilarating shift? The Season of Dazzling Self-Adoration is dawning for you Pisceans. In the weeks ahead, you will be inspired to embark on bold experiments in loving yourself with extra fervor and ingenuity.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Saturn has entered Aries. I see this landmark shift as being potentially very good news for you. Between now and April 2028, you will have enhanced powers to channel your restless heart in constructive directions. I predict you will narrow down your multiple interests and devote yourself to a few resonant paths rather than scattering your intense energy. More than ever before, you can summon the determination to follow through on what you initiate. My Saturn-in-Aries prayer: May you be bold, even brazen, in identifying where you truly belong, and never settle for a half‑certain fit.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I am issuing a Wow Advisory. Consider this your high-voltage wonder alert. Your future may offer you thrilling quests and epic exploits that could be unnerving to people who want you to remain the same as you have been. You will have a knack for stirring up liberating encounters with lavish pleasures and rich feelings that transform your brain chemistry. The rousing mysteries you attract into your sphere may send provocative ripples through your own imagination as well as your web of allies. Expect juicy plot twists. Be alert for portals opening in the middle of nowhere.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, you find anatomical drawings next to flying machine designs, mathematical calculations alongside water flow observations, and philosophical musings interrupted by grocery lists. He moved from painting to engineering to scientific observation as curiosity led him. Let’s make him your inspirational role model for now, Gemini. Disobey categories! Merge categories! Mix and match categories! Let’s assume that your eager mind will create expanded knowledge networks that prove valuable in unexpected ways. Let’s hypothesize that your cheerful rebellion against conventional ways of organizing reality will spawn energizing innovations in your beautiful, mysterious life.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In falconry, there’s a practice called “weathering.” It involves regularly exposing trained birds to the wild elements so they don’t become too domesticated and lose their wildness. The falconer needs a partner, not a pet. Does that theme resonate, Cancerian? Is it possible that you have been too sheltered lately? Either by your own caution or by well-meaning people who think they’re protecting you? Let’s make sure you stay in touch with the fervent, untamed sides of your nature. How? You could expose yourself to an experience that scares you a little. Take a fun risk you’ve been rationalizing away. Invite touches of rowdiness into your life.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The loudest noise in history? It was the 1883 volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, heard thousands of miles away. The pressure wave circled the Earth multiple times. I am predicting a benevolent version of a Krakatoa event for you in the coming months. Not literal loudness, but a shiny bright expression of such magnitude that it redefines your world and what people thought was possible from you. Can you be prepared for it? A little. You’ll be wise to cultivate visionary equanimity: a calm willingness to stay focused on the big picture. I predict your big boom will be challenging but ultimately magnificent and empowering.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Buddhism teaches about “near enemies”: qualities that may appear to be virtues but aren’t. For example, pity masquerades as compassion. Clingy attachment pretends to be love. Apathy and indifference pose as equanimity. In the coming weeks, Virgo, I hope you won’t get distracted by near enemies. Your assignment: Investigate whether any of your supposed virtues are actually near enemies. After you’ve done that, find out if any of your so-called negative emotions might harbor interesting powers you could tap into.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Many intelligent people think astrology is dangerous nonsense perpetrated by quacks. For any horoscope writer with an ego, this affront tends to be deflating. Like everyone else, we want to be appreciated. On the other hand, I have found that practicing an art that gets so much disdain has been mostly liberating. It’s impossible for me to get bloated with excess pride. I practice astrology for the joy it affords me, not to garner recognition. So in a backhanded way, a seemingly disheartening drawback serves as an energizing boon. My prediction is that you, Libra, will soon harvest an analogous turnabout. You will draw strength, even inspiration, from what may ostensibly appear to be a liability.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Mycologist Paul Stamets claims mushrooms taught him to think in networks rather than hierarchies. He sees how everything feeds everything else through vast webs of underground filaments. This is Scorpio wisdom at its most scintillating: homing in on the hidden circuitry working below the surface; gauging the way nourishment is distributed incrementally through many collaborative interconnections; seeing the synergy between seemingly separate sources. I hope you will accentuate this mode of understanding in the coming weeks. The key to your soulful success and happiness will be in how well you map the mycelial-like networks, both in the world around you and in your inner depths. PS: For extra credit, study the invisible threads that link your obsessions to each other, your wounds to your gifts, and your rage to your tenderness.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The peregrine falcon dives at speeds exceeding 240 miles per hour, making it the fastest animal on Earth. But before the dive, there’s often a period of circling, scanning, and waiting. The spectacular descent is set up by the patient reconnaissance that precedes it. I believe you’re now in a phase similar to the falcon’s preparatory reconnaissance, Sagittarius. The quality of your eventual plunge will depend on how well you’re tracking your target now. Use this time to gather intelligence, not to second-guess your readiness. You’ll know when your aim is true.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There’s a certain miracle you could really use right now, Capricorn. But to attract it into your life would require a subtle and simple shift. In a related development, the revelation you need most is concealed in plain sight. To get these two goodies into your life, you shouldn’t make the error of seeking them in exotic locales. Ordinary events in the daily routine will bring you what you need: the miracle and the revelation that will change everything for the better.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Over the last 4,000 years, a host of things have been used as money in addition to precious metals and paper currency. Among them have been cows, seashells, cheese, tobacco, velvet, tulips, elephant tusks, and huge stone wheels. I hope this poetic fact will inspire your imagination about financial matters. In the coming weeks, I expect you’ll be extra creative in drumming up new approaches to getting the cash you need. Here are questions to guide you. Which of your underused talents might be ready to boost your income? What undervalued gifts could you be more aggressive about giving? What neglected treasures or underutilized assets could you use to generate money?

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

So sorry I omitted the horoscopes for Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Aquarius from today’s newsletter. Here they are.
+

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The peregrine falcon dives at speeds exceeding 240 miles per hour, making it the fastest animal on Earth. But before the dive, there’s often a period of circling, scanning, and waiting. The spectacular descent is set up by the patient reconnaissance that precedes it. I believe you’re now in a phase similar to the falcon’s preparatory reconnaissance, Sagittarius. The quality of your eventual plunge will depend on how well you’re tracking your target now. Use this time to gather intelligence, not to second-guess your readiness. You’ll know when your aim is true.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There’s a certain miracle you could really use right now, Capricorn. But to attract it into your life would require a subtle and simple shift. In a related development, the revelation you need most is concealed in plain sight. To get these two goodies into your life, you shouldn’t make the error of seeking them in exotic locales. Ordinary events in the daily routine will bring you what you need: the miracle and the revelation that will change everything for the better.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Over the last 4,000 years, a host of things have been used as money in addition to precious metals and paper currency. Among them have been cows, seashells, cheese, tobacco, velvet, tulips, elephant tusks, and huge stone wheels. I hope this poetic fact will inspire your imagination about financial matters. In the coming weeks, I expect you’ll be extra creative in drumming up new approaches to getting the cash you need. Here are questions to guide you. Which of your underused talents might be ready to boost your income? What undervalued gifts could you be more aggressive about giving? What neglected treasures or underutilized assets could you use to generate money?

Earthbound Intimacy

Intimate relationship is an artful game with shifting rules and surprise plot twists, so we lovers need to stay nimble, experimental, and awake. The alliance we begin is never the relationship we will have three years later, or five, or ten. We change. Our partners change. Life barges in with its unruly interventions—illness, career upheavals, creative awakenings, grief, unexpected joy.

The sexual electricity that once felt volcanic may dissipate, then flare again in new forms. The quirks we adored may become annoying, then somehow circle back into being endearing again through a mysterious emotional alchemy.

If we imagine love as a permanent monument instead of a living collaboration, we miss every cue life offers us to evolve. Lovers who thrive treat intimacy as improvisational theater: willing to depart from the script when reality demands it or fun suggests it.

They understand that constancy doesn’t require rigidity. They’re loyal to the shared project even while reinventing how the project works.

One of their core vows might be this: Tender fidelity to loving each other can coexist with radical flexibility about how love is expressed.

The unexpected twists aren’t interruptions of care and adoration. They are the raw material from which deeper connection is forged.

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Love enmeshes us in our partner’s unique set of karmic complications, so it’s best if we’re interested in their problems.

When we fall in love, we don’t just choose a companion for pleasure and companionship. We’re enlisting in their struggles, inheriting their demons, and signing up for the full blast of their psychological inheritance.

All of this becomes our concern: our beloved’s relationship with their narcissistic mother, their unresolved grief over a sibling’s death, their terror of financial instability, and their shame about past mistakes.

We don’t have to fix or heal everything our beloved struggles with, but we do need to find their inner world genuinely interesting. Relationships rarely survive if one partner becomes bored with the other’s wounds or impatient with their recurring fears. There’s no future in secretly wishing someone would just get over their issues and become easier.

Vibrant intimacy requires an almost anthropological curiosity about another person’s psyche. We really do need to cultivate the willingness to study their contradictions with fascination instead of fatigue. We explore the labyrinth of their being with the same devotion we bring to understanding ourselves.

This doesn’t mean codependent fusion. The sweet spot is a living blend of independence and interdependence: two sovereign beings choosing connection without erasing themselves.

+

Love is a laboratory where we can uncover truths about ourselves that have been unavailable or hidden, so I suggest we all be ravenously curious.

Intimate love is one of the most powerful mirrors we can encounter. Many of us imagine self-knowledge happens primarily in solitude, like through therapy sessions, meditation cushions, journals, and vision quests. But relationship exposes aspects of us that remain invisible as long as we are solo.

Our partners trigger reactions that surprise and sometimes alarm us. They reveal contradictions between who we believe we are and how we behave under stress. They expose insecurities and old emotional bruises we thought had healed.

This can feel humiliating. It’s also precious data.

This can be excruciating, but it’s also precious data. Let’s say we approach these revelations with scientific curiosity rather than defensive shame. We say, “How interesting that I reacted this way” instead of “I’m a terrible person.” Then love becomes an ongoing research project into the mystery of our own being. The discomfort becomes material for growth rather than evidence of failure.

Our partner isn’t always right in their perceptions, but they often see truths about us that we can’t easily see ourselves. Two nervous systems interacting over time develop a strange accuracy about each other.

Relationship, at its best, is a collaborative laboratory for self-knowledge.

Love is never a perfect match of totally compatible saints, so I urge us all not to let sterile fantasies seduce us away from flawed but invigorating realities.

One of the most corrosive fantasies is the myth of the perfect partner. This is the delusional fantasy that our soulmate intuitively understands us, shares all our priorities, and fits our personality with geometric precision.

But this perfect partner exists mostly in three places: romantic comedies, projection fantasies, and the first few months of infatuation.

Real love is messier and more interesting. It flourishes in the fertile soil of partial incompatibility, periodic misunderstanding, and mutual imperfection. Our partner will have blind spots, annoying habits, emotional limitations, and baffling enthusiasms. So will we.

This friction isn’t an unfortunate side effect. It’s a generative force.

Total compatibility would produce stagnation, right? Growth requires difference. We’ve got to abide in places where we must stretch, negotiate, adapt, and learn.

The goal isn’t to find someone who never challenges us. It’s to connect with a lively ally whose particular form of imperfection we find intriguing enough to explore for a long time. The friction between us generates energy rather than erosion.

The flawed reality, with all its awkwardness and difficulty, is more fertile than any sterile fantasy.

+

Love thrives when neither partner takes things personally, so it’s wise to cultivate a devotion to forgiveness and divest ourselves of the urge to blame.

Another hard-won skill in long-term love is learning not to take everything personally.

Our beloved’s withdrawal or testiness is often less about us than about old wounds echoing through the present. They are reacting to ghosts we didn’t create and battles that began long before we arrived. Of course we still feel hurt, but we gain freedom when we remember that we, too, bring our own emotional weather systems into the relationship.

Blame is the lazy lover’s refuge. It substitutes accusation for curiosity.

Forgiveness, by contrast, isn’t weakness or martyrdom. It’s an ongoing commitment to seeing beneath temporary defensiveness to the vulnerable being underneath. It allows love to keep breathing instead of calcifying into resentment.

Compassion doesn’t mean tolerating cruelty or chronic disrespect. Accountability still matters. But when blame dominates the emotional climate, intimacy suffocates.

Art by Shelby McQuilkin

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Love isn’t a low-maintenance machine you install once and forget. It’s a living ecosystem. It needs tending: attention, repair, pruning, reinvention, patience. Some seasons overflow with sweetness, while others feel barren or strained. Periodic effort isn’t a sign something is wrong. It’s the price of admission to a shared life that stays vital.

The work may include uncomfortable conversations, apologies, renegotiations, small gestures of care, experiments in new habits, and the willingness to reconnect after drifting apart. Long-term intimacy is less like fireworks and more like gardening, except the plants occasionally argue with you and accuse you of not listening.

The alternative is autopilot: a relationship that slowly withers from neglect or explodes when unattended wounds finally demand attention.

+

Love isn’t a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America, so I suggest that we not let our romantic story be infected by the entertainment industry’s simplistic, sentimental myths: in which love conquers all obstacles effortlessly, passion remains permanently intense, and conflict signals incompatibility.

These narratives colonize our imagination so deeply that real relationships can feel disappointing by comparison—not because they’re failing, but because we are measuring them against illusions.

Authentic love is stranger, slower, more inconvenient, and ultimately more rewarding than any fantasy. It includes moments when we would rather be anywhere else. It also includes shared history and the subtle miracle of being known over time.

To love well, we have to decolonize our imagination. It’s hard but not at all impossible to shed the sugary myths we inherited and learn to recognize the wilder reality of two imperfect humans choosing each other again and again.

EARTHBOUND LOVE POEM #1

Dear Love Awakener —

I want to be your cackling, dizzy-dazzling, rambling-free groupie. Want to be mine?

We can be in foolishly cool drooling yet elegant solid-gold devotion to each other’s mighty love mojo.

We can play off our mutual primordial respect for each other to help us shed any fearful glitches that might still be tainting our bags of tricks. We can arouse each other to be braver and braver about reinventing the unhealed world with endless uprisings of our liberated imaginations.

We can casually drop hints by the side of the road and in the pit of the abyss and at the hub of the marketplace—hints that yes, our soul flesh is always gung-ho with blasphemous reverence and taboo justice and unauthorized kindness and insurrectionary beauty—and see if anyone wants to join us in waging our orgies of illegal truth.

We can offer to dance those lucky co-conspirators along with us through our blooming subversions until they, too, generate sublime convulsions and sacred transgressions for the good of all sentient and non-sentient beings.

And since you and I transcend the big bad NEVER AND ALWAYS as we ramp up tsunamis of mutual respect and veneration for each other, and since we worshipfully adore each other like cumulus clouds love the dusky sky on the summer solstice, I must add the disclaimer that we can also give each other license to now and then be boring, unspectacular, even nervous or hiding around each other. Amen, and afemme. We can handle the spooky, cornucopian variety.

I never blush, and yet as I disclose this communiqué, I’m feeling the newborn flush of the fresh sun radiating from my amazing maze of a face. My outlaw infatuation with your grinning insurrections riles up the rowdy wisdom of my heavenly body.

Don’t change anything you’re doing! Keep dispersing those tender whomps and wallops that make me so freakily friendly and fertile. What I mean is, keep changing everything you’re doing in the exact way that your ever-rising libido enchantments whisper you should keep changing everything you’re doing.

In other words, to please me, don’t try to please me. Simply be your out-of-this-world, down-to-earth soul-kissing self, flagrantly igniting the raucous flows of fluidic mutant sparks that sanctify you so abundantly with the quickening of the Rebel Divine.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

For more tips and inspirations about earthbound intimacy, go here: tinyurl.com/LoveInspirations

For Elationship Love Spells, go here: tinyurl.com/ElationshipLoveSpells

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

I’ve published three main books, with lots more to come.

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: tinyurl.com/PronoiaBookshop

Astrology Is Real: tinyurl.com/BookshopAstrologyIsReal

The Televisionary Oracle: tinyurl.com/BookshopTelevisionaryOracle

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of February 19

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Big bright transitions are at hand: from thrashing around in the educational mire to celebrating your sweet escape; from wrangling with shadows and ghosts to greeting new allies; from messing around with interesting but confounding chaos to seizing fresh opportunities to shine and thrive. Hallelujah! What explains this exhilarating shift? The Season of Dazzling Self-Adoration is dawning for you Pisceans. In the weeks ahead, you will be inspired to embark on bold experiments in loving yourself with extra fervor and ingenuity.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Saturn has entered Aries. I see this landmark shift as being potentially very good news for you. Between now and April 2028, you will have enhanced powers to channel your restless heart in constructive directions. I predict you will narrow down your multiple interests and devote yourself to a few resonant paths rather than scattering your intense energy. More than ever before, you can summon the determination to follow through on what you initiate. My Saturn-in-Aries prayer: May you be bold, even brazen, in identifying where you truly belong, and never settle for a half‑certain fit.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I am issuing a Wow Advisory. Consider this your high-voltage wonder alert. Your future may offer you thrilling quests and epic exploits that could be unnerving to people who want you to remain the same as you have been. You will have a knack for stirring up liberating encounters with lavish pleasures and rich feelings that transform your brain chemistry. The rousing mysteries you attract into your sphere may send provocative ripples through your own imagination as well as your web of allies. Expect juicy plot twists. Be alert for portals opening in the middle of nowhere.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, you find anatomical drawings next to flying machine designs, mathematical calculations alongside water flow observations, and philosophical musings interrupted by grocery lists. He moved from painting to engineering to scientific observation as curiosity led him. Let’s make him your inspirational role model for now, Gemini. Disobey categories! Merge categories! Mix and match categories! Let’s assume that your eager mind will create expanded knowledge networks that prove valuable in unexpected ways. Let’s hypothesize that your cheerful rebellion against conventional ways of organizing reality will spawn energizing innovations in your beautiful, mysterious life.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In falconry, there’s a practice called “weathering.” It involves regularly exposing trained birds to the wild elements so they don’t become too domesticated and lose their wildness. The falconer needs a partner, not a pet. Does that theme resonate, Cancerian? Is it possible that you have been too sheltered lately? Either by your own caution or by well-meaning people who think they’re protecting you? Let’s make sure you stay in touch with the fervent, untamed sides of your nature. How? You could expose yourself to an experience that scares you a little. Take a fun risk you’ve been rationalizing away. Invite touches of rowdiness into your life.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The loudest noise in history? It was the 1883 volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, heard thousands of miles away. The pressure wave circled the Earth multiple times. I am predicting a benevolent version of a Krakatoa event for you in the coming months. Not literal loudness, but a shiny bright expression of such magnitude that it redefines your world and what people thought was possible from you. Can you be prepared for it? A little. You’ll be wise to cultivate visionary equanimity: a calm willingness to stay focused on the big picture. I predict your big boom will be challenging but ultimately magnificent and empowering.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

If you would like to support my work, please consider:

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Buddhism teaches about “near enemies”: qualities that may appear to be virtues but aren’t. For example, pity masquerades as compassion. Clingy attachment pretends to be love. Apathy and indifference pose as equanimity. In the coming weeks, Virgo, I hope you won’t get distracted by near enemies. Your assignment: Investigate whether any of your supposed virtues are actually near enemies. After you’ve done that, find out if any of your so-called negative emotions might harbor interesting powers you could tap into.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Many intelligent people think astrology is dangerous nonsense perpetrated by quacks. For any horoscope writer with an ego, this affront tends to be deflating. Like everyone else, we want to be appreciated. On the other hand, I have found that practicing an art that gets so much disdain has been mostly liberating. It’s impossible for me to get bloated with excess pride. I practice astrology for the joy it affords me, not to garner recognition. So in a backhanded way, a seemingly disheartening drawback serves as an energizing boon. My prediction is that you, Libra, will soon harvest an analogous turnabout. You will draw strength, even inspiration, from what may ostensibly appear to be a liability.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Mycologist Paul Stamets claims mushrooms taught him to think in networks rather than hierarchies. He sees how everything feeds everything else through vast webs of underground filaments. This is Scorpio wisdom at its most scintillating: homing in on the hidden circuitry working below the surface; gauging the way nourishment is distributed incrementally through many collaborative interconnections; seeing the synergy between seemingly separate sources. I hope you will accentuate this mode of understanding in the coming weeks. The key to your soulful success and happiness will be in how well you map the mycelial-like networks, both in the world around you and in your inner depths. PS: For extra credit, study the invisible threads that link your obsessions to each other, your wounds to your gifts, and your rage to your tenderness.