Conversing with Spirits

Have you communed with your ancestors lately?

By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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YOUR FUTURE IS BRIGHT

Who do you want to become in the coming months? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? Will there be opportunities disguised as challenges?

EXPLORE THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE

with my Expanded Audio Horoscopes for the Second Half of 2023.

How can you exert your free will to create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?

To listen to my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE during the next six months, go here, then register and/or sign in:

https://RealAstrology.com

After you log in through the main page, click on the link "Long-Range Forecast for 2nd Half of 2023."

You can also listen to your short-term forecast for the coming week by clicking on "This week (July 4, 2023)."

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The Expanded Audio horoscopes cost $7 apiece. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.

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THANK YOU TO ALL MY TEACHERS

I am a unique character. But the paradox is that I would never have been able to become my singular self without the inspiration, help, influence, and love of hundreds of other unique characters.

I like to keep in mind that all humans and all animals and all spiritual beings are potentially my teachers. Many of them have been spectacular teachers who have shaped me in unpredictable and unexpected ways.

I will never be able to express all the gratitude I feel. But I try to express it nevertheless!

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CONVERSATIONS WITH SPIRITS

During her husband's presidency, Hillary Clinton wrote the book It Takes a Village. To aid her creative process, she sought the help of Jean Houston, a philosophical writer who had worked with mythologist Joseph Campbell and done research on LSD when it was still legal.

Houston led the First Lady through a meditation in which she imagined herself conversing with the late Eleanor Roosevelt. It was a playful exercise designed to unleash Clinton's imagination and give her access to nonrational sources of wisdom.

When the literalists of the mainstream media found out, they sarcastically pounced. They ridiculed the event as an old-fashioned séance and dismissed the thoughtful Houston as a New Age poseur.

I wish I could have redirected the brouhaha with my well-researched contextualization for what Clinton did with Houston. The truth is, mystery schools and esoteric spiritual orders since antiquity have employed a similar exercise. It has been central to the sacred task of harnessing and training the imagination so that it serves one's highest purposes rather than being a reckless spinner-of-illusions that leaks psychic energy.

In the hands of groundbreaking psychologists Carl Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, the practice was called "active imagination." Jungian author Mary Watkins wrote a trenchant book, Waking Dreams, which explores its history and offers specific techniques.

But visualizations haven't been the sole province of arcane traditions. Devotees of many religions throughout the ages have communed with dead saints, spirits, angels, and deities. Shamans of indigenous cultures have cultivated relationships with beings and creatures who reside on the other side of the veil.

I wonder if the lazy journalists who scorned Clinton and Houston would also mock an Intuit angakkuq, medicine person, who enlists the help of a tuurngaq, spirit guide, to consult with her deceased ancestors.

Comparable practices have a long history among artists, as well. For instance, renowned German composer Robert Schumann (1820–1856) engaged in extensive dialogs with his imaginary friends, Florestan and Eusebius. They provided valuable ideas for his musical scores.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was the celebrated French author who created the five-volume, 1,462-page novel Les Misérables. For at least two years, from 1853 to 1855, he participated in séances that brought him into contact with over a hundred spirits, including Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Joan of Arc, and Sappho.

Was he worried about being skewered by critics for the sin of doing supernatural research? Was he concerned that consorting with spirits would debase his talent? Seven years he later, he published one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.

Upon meeting the astronomer Galileo during one of these sessions, Hugo offered him some advice: "You know what I would do if I were in your place? I’d drink from the milk basin of the Milky Way; I’d swallow the comets; I’d lunch on dawn; I’d dine on day and sup on night; I’d invite myself, splendid table companion that I am, to the banquet of all the glories, and I’d salute God as my host! I’d work up a magnificent hunger, an enormous thirst, and I’d race through the drunken spaces between the spheres singing the fearsome drinking song of eternity."

I've always loved the work of US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner W. S. Merwin (1927–2019). So I'm pleased he wrote a poem in which he recounted counsel offered by his Pulitzer Prize-winning mentor John Berryman (1914–1972): "He suggested I pray to the Muse / get down on my knees and pray / right there in the corner and he / said he meant it literally." Were Berryman and Merwin solipsistic New Age dilettantes? No, they were not.

For much of his career, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill did work that was well grounded, lucidly crafted, and formal in style. But while assembling his sprawling mystical epic, The Changing Light of Sandover, Merrill used a ouija board to solicit the input of disembodied spirits, including several archangels and the souls of dead writers W. H. Auden and Gertrude Stein. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award for that tome.

I won't catalog all the many artists who have done variations on Jean Houston's exercise with Hillary Clinton. But I can't neglect the Italian poet Dante. In his book Inferno, he called on the ancient Roman poet Virgil to guide him through his fictional trip through Hell. Among the notables the two met in Limbo were poets Homer and Ovid, the mathematician Euclid, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I wonder if any modern pundits would condemn Dante for his superstitious New Age mumbo jumbo.

One more example: Writer and artist William Blake made drawings of many eminent people who had died before he was born. Julius Caesar was the subject of one portrait. Others included Dante, Shakespeare, and Moses. How did Blake capture their likenesses in such great detail? He testified that their spirits visited him as apparitions. Shall we be idiots and dismiss Blake as a deluded hallucinator with illogical ideas about the nature of reality?

I wouldn't dare to compare my work to that of Hugo, Merwin, Berryman, Merrill, Dante, Blake, or Jean Houston. But like those maestros, I have thrived on interplay with characters who aren't with me in physical form.

Some of our exchanges transpire during altered states while I'm awake, sitting in dark rooms. And it's not unusual for me to consort with my advisors as I hike in the wilds, clean the house, go shopping, or do yoga. But many of my communions with otherworldy teachers and informants happen while I'm asleep or partially asleep.

Someday I'll write a book called Helpful Dead Geniuses I Have Studied With. There have been so many! They range from painters Wassily Kandinsky and Artemisia Gentileschi, to psychologists Marie-Louise von Franz and Sabina Spielrein, to germinal occultists Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman, and Florence Farr. They include many ancestors, including revolutionary feminist author Edward Dembowski and bon vivant social maven Elizabeth Niemec, who emigrated from Poland to Detroit as a 21-year-old single mother with an infant and later became a linchpin in Detroit's Polish-American community.

I have communed with Emily Dickinson and Victoria Woodhull and Mitochondrial Eve, the mother from whom every human alive is descended. I've conversed with 19th-century activists Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, politicians Benazir Bhutto and Anwar Sadat, singers Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Big Mama Thornton, and baseball player Jackie Robinson.

I have received rigorous training at the ancient Asclepeion healing center at Epidaurus in Greece. Thanks for your expert schooling, Asclepius, Hygeia, and Panacea!

One of my favorite dream buddies is the person I was and am in a previous incarnation, Zacharia de Viscardi, a 17th-century Italian Jesuit priest who became a Guarani shaman in what is now Paraguay. Another is astrologer and diplomat Yelü Chucai, also me in another incarnation. He served—and in a sense still serves—as an advisor to Genghis Khan. A third, me again, was and is Libuše, the prophetess and queen who founded Prague in the eighth century.

But the top four champions and superheroes, the dignitaries who have done the most to reconfigure and reroute the course of my dream destiny—and therefore, my entire life—are Harriet Tubman, Arthur Rimbaud, Medusa, and Skeleton Woman. For many years, they have been my saviors, my uncanny guides, my ass-kicking mentors.

In my upcoming novels, I will be telling a few of the adventures they and I have enjoyed.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week beginning July 6

Copyright 2023 by Rob Brezsny

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I wrote my horoscope column for over ten years before it began to get widely syndicated. What changed? I became a better writer and oracle, for one thing. My tenacity was inexhaustible. I was always striving to improve my craft, even when the rewards were meager. Another important factor in my eventual success was my persistence in marketing. I did a lot of hard work to ensure the right publications knew about me. I suspect, fellow Cancerian, that 2024 is likely to bring you a comparable breakthrough in a labor of love you have been cultivating for a long time. And the coming months of 2023 will be key in setting the stage for that breakthrough.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Maybe you wished you cared more deeply about a certain situation. Your lack of empathy and passion may feel like a hole in your soul. If so, I have good news. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to find the missing power; to tap into the warm, wet feelings that could motivate your quest for greater connection. Here's a good way to begin the process: Forget everything you think you know about the situation with which you want more engagement. Arrive at an empty, still point that enables you to observe the situation as if you were seeing it for the first time.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): You are in an astrological phase when you’ll be wise to wrangle with puzzles and enigmas. Whether or not you come up with crisp solutions isn’t as crucial as your earnest efforts to limber up your mind. For best results, don’t worry and sweat about it; have fun! Now I’ll provide a sample riddle to get you in the mood. It’s adapted from a text by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace. You are standing before two identical closed doors, one leading to grime and confusion, the other to revelation and joy. Before the doors stand two figures: an angel who always tells the truth and a demon who always lies. But they look alike, and you may ask only one question to help you choose what door to take. What do you do? (Possible answer: Ask either character what the other would say if you asked which door to take, then open the opposite door.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I found a study that concluded just 6.1 percent of online horoscopes provide legitimate predictions about the future. Furthermore, the research indicated, 62.3 percent of them consist of bland, generic pabulum of no value to the recipient. I disagree with these assessments. Chani Nicholas, Michael Lutin, Susan Miller, and Jessica Shepherd are a few of many regular horoscope writers whose work I find interesting. My own astrological oracles are useful, too. And by the way, how can anyone have the hubris to decide which horoscopes are helpful and which are not? This thing we do is a highly subjective art, not an objective science. In the spirit of my comments here, Libra, and in accordance with astrological omens, I urge you to declare your independence from so-called experts and authorities who tell you they know what’s valid and worthwhile for you. Here’s your motto: “I’m the authoritative boss of my own truth.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Is it a fact that our bodies are made of stardust? Absolutely true, says planetary scientist Dr. Ashley King. Nearly all the elements comprising our flesh, nerves, bones, and blood were originally forged in at least one star, maybe more. Some of the stuff we are made of lived a very long time in a star that eventually exploded: a supernova. Here’s another amazing revelation about you: You are composed of atoms that have existed for almost 14 billion years. I bring these startling realities to your attention, Scorpio, in honor of the most expansive phase of your astrological cycle. You have a mandate to deepen and broaden and enlarge your understanding of who you are and where you came from.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I foresee that August will be a time of experiments and explorations. Life will be in a generous mood toward you, tempting and teasing you with opportunities from beyond your circle of expectations. But let's not get carried away until it makes cosmic sense to get carried away. I don't want to urge you to embrace wild hope prematurely. Between now and the end of July, I advise you to enjoy sensible gambles and measured adventures. It's OK to go deep and be rigorous, but save the full intensity for later.

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BRAINSTORM ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE

with my Expanded Audio Horoscopes for the Second Half of 2023.

In the coming months, what areas of your life are likely to receive unexpected assistance and divine inspiration?

Where are you likely to find most success?

How can you best cooperate with the cosmic rhythms?

What questions should you be asking?

To hear my LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST, register and/or sign in here:

https://RealAstrology.com

After you log in through the main page, click on the link "Long-Range Forecast for 2nd Half of 2023."

You can also listen to your short-term forecast for the coming week by clicking on "This week (July 4, 2023)."

The horoscopes cost $7 apiece. Discounts are available for multiple purchases.

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"Your audio horoscopes are somehow both a balm for my soul and a call to action. How do you do that?"

—David G., Coral Gables, FL

"Your audio horoscopes fill in the gaps in my imagination. They wake up the fun plot twists that have been just on the tip of my ability to visualize."

—Ani Kraft, Brattleboro, VT

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CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Is there a crucial half-conscious question lurking in the underside of your mind? A smoldering doubt or muffled perplexity that’s important for you to address? I suspect there is. Now it’s time to coax it up to the surface of your awareness so you may deal with it forthrightly. You must not let it smolder there in its hiding place. Here’s the good news, Capricorn: If you bring the dilemma or confusion or worry into the full light of your consciousness, it will ultimately lead you to unexpected treasure. Be brave!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In Larry McMurtry’s novel Duane’s Depressed, the life of the main character has come to a standstill. He no longer enjoys his job. The fates of his kids are too complicated for him to know how to respond. He has a lot of feelings but has little skill in expressing them. At a loss about how to change his circumstances, he takes a small and basic step: He stops driving his pickup truck and instead walks everywhere he needs to go. Your current stasis is nowhere near as dire as Duane’s, Aquarius. But I do recommend you consider his approach to initiating transformation: Start small and basic.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Author K. V. Patel writes, "As children, we laugh fully with the whole body. We laugh with everything we have.” In the coming weeks, Pisces, I would love for you to regularly indulge in just that: total delight and release. Furthermore, I predict you will be more able than usual to summon uproarious life-affirming amusement from the depths of your enchanted soul. Further furthermore, I believe you will have more reasons than ever before to throw your head back and unleash your entire self in rippling bursts of healing hysterical hilarity. To get started, practice chuckling, giggling, and chortling for one minute right now.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Genius physicist Albert Einstein said, "The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from new angles, requires creative imagination and makes real advances.” What he said here applies to our personal dilemmas, too. When we figure out the right questions to ask, we are more than halfway toward a clear resolution. This is always true, of course, but it will be an especially crucial principle for you in the coming weeks.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.” So said Taurus biologist and anthropologist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895). I don’t think you will have to be quite so forceful as that in the coming weeks. But I hope you’re willing to further your education by rebelling against what you already know. And I hope you will be boisterously skeptical about conventional wisdom and trendy ideas. Have fun cultivating a feisty approach to learning! The more time you spend exploring beyond the borders of your familiar world, the better.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Hooray and hallelujah! You’ve been experimenting with the perks of being pragmatic and well-grounded. You have been extra intent on translating your ideals into effective actions. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you so dedicated to enjoying the simple pleasures. I love that you’re investigating the wonders of being as down-to-earth as you dare. Congratulations! Keep doing this honorable work.

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Homework: What’s the smartest, safest gamble you could take? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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