Do You Love Beauty & Truth?
Do You Love Justice and Kindness?
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.
DIVINATIONS FOR YOU #15
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ARIES: Don't pretend you can't see the messy darkness. Admit to its presence. Accept its reality. But don't get tangled up in it, either.
Gaze into the abyss so as to educate yourself about its nature, but don't become entranced by its hypnotic power.
Scheme to reclaim your power from soul-sucking influences. But don't turn the process into a blood-and-thunder showdown that wreaks epic chaos.
You may be amazed at how much protection and relaxation you can generate for yourself simply by being a poised lover of life who is free of melodramatic reactions.
All the practices I just described are potentially your superpowers, dear Aries.
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TAURUS: Some of us may have imagined, from time to time, that we are living in the hippest, coolest, most happening place in the world. New York? London? Berlin? Montreal? Shanghai? Barcelona? I can recall having that delusion while in New York and San Francisco.
But the truth is that everywhere is the center of the world. Of all the signs, you Tauruses understand that best.
Congrats for living there!
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GEMINI: I love astrology. It excites my imagination and helps ensure that my relationship with the world isn't overly literal or prosaic. It anchors me in the paradoxical insight that although many things are out of my control, I have huge amounts of free will.
My study of the mysterious meanings of planetary omens provides guidance, keeps me humble, and is a constant reminder that psychology and symbolism and poetic use of language provide an understanding of reality that's as useful as science.
On the other hand, astrology sometimes feels oppressive. I hesitate to be overly reliant on any system, even one as vital and interesting as astrology, which might come between me and the raw truth about reality. I aspire to see the actual people who are in front of me, and not be interpreting everything they do through the lens of their horoscopes.
Now I urge you to do what I've just done: Express your appreciation for something in your life that provides beauty and power, even as you critique its downsides.
This multivalent aptitude is especially available to you Geminis, more so than most of the other zodiac signs.
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CANCERIAN: In honor of the fact that you're evolving into a higher-octave version of yourself, I award you the nickname of "Miracle Player," or else "Sleek Cat" or "Giant Step" or "Fate Whisperer." You can have all three, if you like.
You may also use the following titles to refer to yourself: "CEO of My Own Life" or "Self-Teacher of Jubilance and Serenity" or "Fertile Blur of Supple Strength."
Feel free, as well, to anoint your head with organic virgin olive oil, fashion a crown for yourself out of roses, and come up with a wordless sound that is a secret sign you'll give yourself whenever you want to honor the marvelous creature you are on your way to becoming.
(The counsel in the above oracle stems from my desire to stimulate your imagination as you dream up amusing ways to love yourself. I believe that's a fundamental Cancerian imperative.)
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LEO: Let’s talk about your power to perform magic. I don’t mean Houdini-style hocus-pocus, but rather practical wizardry you wield to make your life wonderful.
Here are magical aptitudes that many Leos have substantial potential to draw on:
• Identifying situations that empower you to serve both your selfish interests and your unselfish ideals
• Radiating your luminous truths in ways that don’t intimidate others, but rather inspire them to radiate their luminous truths
• Treating your ego as an elegant art project that propels your skill for creating beauty
• Taking a vow that what excites you will also make you most useful to others
• Developing skill at forming alliances that don’t bring out your worst and don’t provoke mediocrity, but rather synergize your highest potentials.
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VIRGO: Visionary Virgo educator Maria Montessori believed that self-discipline motivated by a child’s own enthusiasm is far better than discipline imposed on the child by a strong-willed authority.
What is the best way to develop the superior form? She says kids need to understand the difference between good and evil. Even more importantly, they must not associate good with passive immobility and evil with animated activity.
My translation: To bring the best Virgo-style order, efficiency, and discipline into your rhythm, cultivate an irrepressible desire to perpetrate enjoyable acts of generosity and good will.
LIBRA: “Nothing was ever created by two men,” writes John Steinbeck in his novel East of Eden. “There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.”
In my view, this statement is delusional nonsense. And it’s especially inapt for you. You Libras are potentially adept collaborators: from the seed sprouting all the way to the bloom.
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SCORPIO: Love and intimacy come in many forms. There are at least a billion different ways for you to be attracted to another person, and just as many ways to structure your relationship.
Maybe your unique bond involves having sex, or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s romantic or friendly or holy, or all three of those things.
Do the two of you have something important to create together, or is your connection more about fueling each other’s talents?
Your task is to respect and even revere the idiosyncratic ways you weave together, not force yourselves to conform to a prototype. More than most other astrological signs, you Scorpios have the potential to deploy this wisdom wisely.
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SAGITTARIUS: It's usually better if you think comprehensively, not defensively; and see futuristically, not didactically; and fantasize fantastically, not diplomatically.
Life responds more warmly to your gambits when you don't get triggered by every little blip that leaps into your field of vision, but rather survey the long-term cycles of your life from expansive vistas.
So I suggest you aspire to be a proactive visionary and a high-minded explorer. Weave all the disparate threads into a tapestry that reveals the big picture.
Your ongoing need for new acts of liberation requires you to regularly slough off petty concerns and trivial details.
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CAPRICORN: Once I asked my Capricorn readers if they ever obsessed on their longings to such a degree that they missed opportunities to actually satisfy their longings. In response, a reader named John G. sent me the following corrective message:
"We Capricorns comprehend the futility of too much longing," he wrote. "We understand it can be a phantasm that gets in the way of real accomplishment.
"It's like a telephone that keeps ringing somewhere but can't be found. We don't waste energy on dreamy feelings that may or may not be satisfied, since that energy is so much better funneled into grasping the details that will bring us useful rewards."
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AQUARIUS: From the perspective of most modern conspiracy theorists, the conspiracies they imagine to be loose in the world have been dreamed up and are perpetrated by coordinated groups of malign people.
My benevolent conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are rooted in a hypothesis at the core of Western Hermetic Magick, which is what I have studied with love for years. The hypothesis is that life is divine play—an art project, master game, and sacred ceremony designed by a loving Creator.
This Creator, whose consciousness pervades every cubic centimeter of the universe, provides all necessary help and tools for us to seek liberation from our suffering and realize our essential oneness with all beings in the process of developing, over millennia of incarnations, a unique personal identity.
More than all the other signs, you Aquarians are drawn to conspiracy theories. I invite you to give mine a try—or conjure up your own version of a Benevolent Theory of Everything.
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PISCES: Here’s a thought from Piscean poet W. H. Auden: “The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.”
If what Auden describes is true for you, I suggest you try this experiment. Merge the two images; see if you can make them the same.
And if Auden’s description is not true for you, congratulations: You have learned to ripen a prime Piscean potential.
Below the paywall is chapters 63 and 64 from my upcoming trilogy of novels, collectively called Love Stories for the Earth: Holy Rivers, Lucky Storms, and The Other Real World.