Bless Your Appetite
May Your Desires Guide You Home
In this bonus newsletter, I offer a free excerpt of my book ASTROLOGY IS REAL above the paywall — and an excerpt from my upcoming trilogy of novels below the paywall.
First, here’s an excerpt from ASTROLOGY IS REAL. These oracles are not like my regular weekly horoscopes. Rather, they are lyrical meditations on the natures of the signs. ASTROLOGY IS REAL has 15 additional sections like this one.
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DIVINATIONS FOR YOU #5
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ARIES: Let's talk about growth. While the points I'll discuss are useful for all the signs, they are especially crucial for you Aries to consider.
1. Not all growth is good for you. It may stretch you too far too fast—beyond your capacity to integrate and use it.
2. Some growth that will ultimately be good for you doesn't feel good to you at first. It might force you to transcend comforts that are making you stagnant. Discomfort and pain may arise.
3. Some growth that's good for you may meet resistance from people close to you. They might prefer you to remain as you are. They may even experience your growth as a problem.
4. Some growth that isn't particularly good for you may feel good. For instance, you could enjoy working to improve a capacity or skill that is irrelevant to your long-term goals.
5. Some growth is good for you in certain ways, but not good in other ways. You must decide if the trade-off is worth it.
6. Some growth is utterly healthy for you, feels pleasurable, and inspires other people.
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TAURUS: For thousands of generations, our early ancestors were able to get some of the food they needed through a practice known as persistence hunting. They usually couldn't run as fast as the animals they chased.
But they had a distinct advantage: They could keep moving relentlessly until their prey grew exhausted. In part that's because they had far less hair than the animals, and thus could cool off better.
I propose we adopt this theme as a metaphor for you. The way I interpret the Taurean modus operandi, you don't need to be extra fast or super ferocious or cunningly devious to get what you want. A lot of your success can come from discovering your equivalent of persistence hunting.
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GEMINI: More than most, you are attuned to the world’s hums, murmurs, and whispers. Some important clues you need arrive via ripples and rustles and whirrs.
There may be people around you, however, who are more attracted to and conversant with clangs and bangs and jangles. They may imagine that the only information worth paying attention to is the stuff that’s loud and noisy.
I trust you have a knack for knowing when to resist the appeals of the showy clamor. One of your potential talents lies in being a subtlety specialist who thrives on nuance and undertones. You can often attract the most meaningful fun by cultivating your natural capacity to listen mysteriously.
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CANCERIAN: Practitioners of the Ayurvedic healing tradition tout the curative power of regular self-massage.
Taoist author Mantak Chia goes further. He suggests you visualize sending smiles and fond wishes to your kidneys, lungs, liver, heart, and other organs. These acts of kindness bolster your vigor, he believes.
I invite you to try these two practices. Here's another: Give yourself compliments and praise. Speak the words aloud. Address yourself as you would a beloved person or animal.
One more recommendation: Regularly get or make yourself symbolic gifts. They will be talismans stimulating your intention to cultivate gleeful self-care.
It's your birthright as a Cancerian to be adept at all the practices I have named here.
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LEO: I'd love for you to give your best gifts without worrying about whether they will be received in the spirit with which you offer them. But that's not realistic. It's unlikely your best gifts will ever be perfectly received in the spirit with which you offer them. I advise you to give them anyway.
I would also be ecstatic if you never had to tone down your big, beautiful self out of fear that others would be jealous or intimidated. That's not a viable possibility, either.
But I will note that now and then, both of these pleasant scenarios may prevail for extended lengths of time.
Be alert for them! More than any other zodiac sign, you Leos have the potential to find and create these grace periods.
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VIRGO: Now and then we may be able to whip up a catalytic breakthrough in a magic moment.
But it's rare to undergo rapid, dramatic transformations in short periods of time. "True life is lived when tiny changes occur," wrote Leo Tolstoy.
That's why it's usually delusional to be forever pining for a big miraculous intervention that will fix everything.
The most likely way to alter our course is slowly and gradually, by conscientiously revamping our responses to the small daily details.
Beauty and truth and love and justice usually emerge in their glory only over the course of a painstaking, step-by-step, trial-and-error process.
"All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting," wrote Japanese painter Hokusai. "At 73, I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90, I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything—every dot, every dash—will live."
You Virgos often have a special talent for these perspectives. I regard you as an excellent choice to serve as teachers and role models for the rest of us.
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LIBRA: We change everything we look at by gazing at it and forming ideas about it. Nothing remains exactly the same when we enter into a relationship with it.
So why not regard ourselves as makers of meaning at least as much as understanders of meaning? Why not proceed on the hypothesis that our highest expression, our way of collaborating with the Divine Intelligence, is to create?
We could regard spiritual practice to be as much about playing as about defining—transforming what we are given even more than figuring out the nature of what we are given.
Since we can never completely know what is ultimately true, why don't we generate approximations of the truth that are imbued with love and beauty?
Inspired by my Libran teacher Norman O. Brown, we might aspire to find "words used not to interpret the world but to change it; not to advertise this world but to find another. To pass from this world to the next; from ordinary to extraordinary language."
The approach I am describing here doesn't come naturally to some Libras. And yet one of my favorite Libras, Norman O. Brown, was a wizard in wielding it.
So were all the following Libran philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Edith Stein, John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Philippa Foot, Mary Daly, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Rosi Braidotti, Sunny Bergman, Isabelle de Charrière, Jasna Koteska, Denis Diderot, Henri Bergson, Samuel Coleridge, Samuel Adams, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, and Miguel de Unamuno.
Based on this evidence, I conclude that even though it may be a strenuous challenge, Libras can become skilled at being makers of meaning as much as understanders of meaning.
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SCORPIO: The world isn't full of iconoclastic visionaries who specialize in imagining the future of intimate matters. Most modern innovators seem devoted to seemingly more glamorous and critical matters like artificial intelligence, 3-D printers, and smart chips implanted in our brains.
But my truth is this: Revolutionizing how we do our inner work and craft our cherished bonds is key to transforming the world. There is therefore a pressing need for geniuses who place their imaginations in service to creating a more emotionally intelligent culture.
If you're interested, it's your birthright to make this talent one of your specialties.
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SAGITTARIUS: Self-described skeptics sometimes say to me, "How can any intelligent person believe in astrology? You must be suffering from a brain dysfunction if you suppose that planetary movements reveal any useful clues about our lives."
If the "skeptics" are truly open-minded, as authentic skeptics should be, I offer a mini-lecture to correct their misunderstandings.
I say that I don't need to "believe" in astrology. I use astrology because it works pretty well. It doesn't work perfectly—what does?—but it provides helpful information with enough frequency and profundity as to be useful.
For instance, I have a working hypothesis that Sagittarians enjoy better-than-average insight and luck with themes involving home, roots, foundations, stability, self-knowledge, and security every year from late February through the month of March.
It's irrelevant whether there's a logical theory to explain why this might be. I simply advise my Sagittarian friends to seek enhancements in situations related to the subjects I named. If they are successful at least 65 percent of the time, which they often are, I regard that as a big win.
For the sake of comparison, I will mention a purely scientific approach to making the world a better place. An executive at the UK's biggest pharmaceutical company admitted that most prescription medicines are far less than totally effective. "The vast majority of drugs only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," said geneticist Allen Roses of GlaxoSmithKline.
For example, hepatitis drugs work for 47 percent of patients. Migraine medicines used to treat acute attacks are effective for 52 percent. Thirty percent of Alzheimer’s patients benefit from the standard drugs and 62 percent of clinically depressed people respond to SSRI antidepressants. Only half of those who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis get relief from the usual treatments.
I suspect there's a similar principle at work in every useful modality, whether it’s based in science or psychology. Is astrology potentially valuable to a greater percentage of the population than GlaxoSmithKline’s drugs? That’s my theory.
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CAPRICORN: A typical Capricorn cultivates fervent passions, even to the point of obsession. Few other people may know the magnitude of your zeal, though, because you often pursue fulfillment with methodical, business-like focus.
But I wonder if maybe it's a good idea to reveal more of the raw force of your driving energy. It might humanize you in the eyes of potential helpers who see you as too strong to need help. And it could motivate your allies to provide more of the support and understanding you'd benefit from getting.
PS: I will be pleased if you expand your capacity to welcome the care and inspiration offered by others.
Write out this quote from author Hélène Cixous and keep it in a place where you will see it every so often: "It is easy to love and sing one's love. That is something I am extremely good at doing. But to be loved, that is true greatness. Being loved, letting oneself be loved, entering the magic and dreadful circle of generosity, receiving gifts, finding the right thank-you's, that is love's real work."
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AQUARIUS: A reader calling herself Rebellioness collaborated with me to imagine five revolutionized approaches to the art of rebellion. I present them here for your use. Of all the signs, you Aquarians are most likely to take them to heart.
• Experiment with uppity, mischievous optimism.
• Invoke insurrectionary levels of wildly interesting generosity.
• Indulge in a cheerfully insolent refusal to be chronically fearful.
• Pursue a cheeky ambition to be as wide-awake as a cheeky messiah in service to blithe dissidence.
• Bring reckless levels of creative intelligence to all expressions of love.
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PISCES: Poet Emily Dickinson revealed to a friend that there was only one commandment she ever obeyed: "Consider the Lilies."
Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki told his English-speaking students that the proper Japanese translation for "I love you" is Tsuki ga tottemo aoi naa, which literally means, "The moon is so blue tonight."
I invite you to be regularly inspired by these approaches. More than any other sign of the zodiac, your duty is to be lyrical, sensual, aesthetic, imaginative, and festively non-literal.
BELOW THE PAYWALL are chapters 51 and 52 from my upcoming trilogy of novels, collectively called Love Stories for the Earth: Holy Rivers, Lucky Storms, and The Other Real World.
Below are links to previous installments:
Here’s a link to the first 41 chapters.
A link to Chapter 42