Earthy Spirituality

Intense, Focused, and Open-Hearted

TRANSPARENCY

My spiritual practice is at the heart of everything I do. All the music and writing I create are rooted in my love of Goddess.

Among the understandings this devotion fosters in me: I'm welcoming toward people who don't have similar inclinations. I'm fine with you NOT having spiritual views or having spiritual views that are different from mine.

I will say more on the subject: I hear many people say how malignant and destructive all religion is. They are quite sure that religion is responsible for the majority of the world's problems, that religion is the cause of most wars, and that there is nothing at all redemptive or benevolent about any religion anywhere anytime.

These people often don't seem to recognize that there are types of religious paths other than the dangerous and abhorrent fundamentalist varieties of mainstream religions. If they've heard of shamanism and Indigenous spirituality, for example, they are oddly dissociated from the prospect of evaluating those practices as quests for transcendent religious experiences.

They make no acknowledgment of the abundance of organized religious and spiritual practices that comprise the total human experience—like, for example, Sufism, paganism, Wicca, Qabala and Jewish Kabbalah, shamanism, Tantra, Western Hermetic Magick, Taoism, Hinduism, various kinds of Buddhism, Bahai, mystical Christianity, and African diaspora religions like Vodou, Obeah, Santeria, and Rastafari.

The people who categorically disdain all religions don't seem to be aware that most of the traditions I just named have deities and spirit beings; many recognize and consort with characters resembling angels and faeries.

I truly have no urge to convince the religion-despisers and staunch atheists that they should change their minds. I am glad they have views that are right and healthy for them. I feel the same about people who are apathetic toward religion and deities. Follow your truth!

However, I do wonder if non-religious people interested in my work know that I am an dedicated worshiper of Goddess. My regular communions with Her are the highlights of my life. I have also studied Western Hermetic Magick and Qabalah for many years.

That means I have prayed and carried out Qabalistic meditations and performed ceremonial magick and done a whole lot of things that religious and spiritual people do. My close personal relationship with the Invisible Realms is primary. It is at core of my life, and informs everything I do.

Again, I have no desire for anyone to be like me; no wish for anyone to think and act like I do. My hope is for everyone to be themselves purely and strongly.

But it may be important that readers of mine who hate religion or feel apathetic about it should know the truth about me. Whenever you read anything I write, you should know that it has originated in my connection with the Divine Intelligence—the One Being in the Universe who is the source of us all.

PS: My passion for social justice is rooted in my spiritual practice—as is my yearning to help create a paradise on earth and express compassion and love through political action.

My intimate relationship with the Divine Intelligence fuels my quest to undo all that contributes to patriarchy, misogyny, bigotry, racism, oppression of LGBTQIA people, the perpetrators of ecocide, militarism, and plutocracy.

Art by Franziskus Pfleghart

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

EMAIL FROM SALLY SKEPTIC

A reader who calls herself Sally Skeptic wrote me the following email:

Dear Rob: I sure don’t like so much God stuff mixed into your various writings. And Goddess stuff. What a mess! Can you cut it out, please?

I understand it’s common for the desperate delusional masses to believe in an Ultra Being, but you? Pul-lease. You’re smarter than that.

I just can’t abide all the “Divine Wow” and “Cackling Goddess” nonsense you dispense; it doesn’t jibe with the practical, sensible, unsuperstitious, non-mushy world that I hold dear—and that I see represented mostly accurately in your work.

—Sally Skeptic

Here’s my response to Sally Skeptic:

Dear Sally: I can’t accommodate you. You will have to keep dealing with the cognitive dissonance that arises from reading the oracles of a “smart” person who also has an intimate relationship with You-Know-Who.

SUPERNATURAL COMMUNION AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

I am in intimate communion with supernatural creatures and non-material beings every day

and

I love the scientific method and use it every day.

Both are true.

+

I study the work of progressive researchers like Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, David E. Stannard, and Noam Chomsky to understand how US foreign policy over the last 125 years has consistently decimated political and human rights in Latin America, Asia, and Africa

and

I study Qabalah and Western Hermetic Magick so as to seek mythopoetic revelations and insights from spiritual intelligences that aren’t fully embodied in the material realm.

Both are necessary.

+

I aspire to practice the ideals articulated by Andrew Harvey:

A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history.

On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions.

When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic and social institutions, a holy force—the power of wisdom and love in action—is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Words by @leilemadeline___. Art by Jane Ray at janeray.com

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

MORE ABOUT EARTHY SPIRITUALITY

If you care to read more about my spiritual path, here’s a good place to begin: https://tinyurl.com/IndividuationEnlightenment

Here are further lyrical essays about the spiritual approaches I love: https://tinyurl.com/BraveBliss

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of December 12

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I don't recommend burning wood to heat your home. Such fires generate noxious emissions harmful to human health. But hypothetically speaking, if you had no other way to get warm, I prefer burning ash and beech wood rather than, say, pine and cedar. The former two trees yield far more heat than the latter two, so you need less of them. Let's apply this principle as we meditate on your quest for new metaphorical fuel, Sagittarius. In the coming months, you will be wise to search for resources that provide you with the most efficient and potent energy.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The world's longest tunnel is over 35 miles long. It's the Gotthard Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps. I'm guessing the metaphorical tunnel you've been crawling your way through lately, Capricorn, may feel that extensive. But it's really not. And here's even better news: Your plodding travels will be finished sooner than you imagine. I expect that the light at the end of the tunnel will be visible any day now. Now here's the best news: Your slow journey through the semi-darkness will ultimately yield rich benefits no later than your birthday.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Would you like to avoid wilting and fading away in January, Aquarius? If so, I recommend that during the coming weeks, you give your best and brightest gifts and express your wildest and most beautiful truths. In the new year, you will need some downtime to recharge and revitalize. But it will be a pleasantly relaxing interlude—not a wan, withered detour—if in the immediate future you unleash your unique genius in its full splendor.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): My treasured Piscean advisor, Letisha, believes it's a shame so many of us try to motivate ourselves through abusive self-criticism. Are you guilty of that sin? I have done it myself on many occasions. Sadly, it rarely works as a motivational ploy. More often, it demoralizes and deflates. The good news, Pisces, is that you now have extra power and savvy to diminish your reliance on this ineffectual tactic. To launch the transformation, I hope you will engage in a focused campaign of inspiring yourself through self-praise and self-love.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): If you were walking down the street and spied a coin lying on the sidewalk, would you bend down to pick it up? If you're like most people, you wouldn't. It's too much trouble to exert yourself for an object of such little value. But I advise you to adopt a different attitude during the coming weeks. Just for now, that stray coin might be something like an Umayyad gold dinar minted in the year 723 and worth over $7 million. Please also apply this counsel metaphorically, Aries. In other words, be alert for things of unexpected worth that would require you to expand your expectations or stretch your capacities.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Taurus writer Randall Jarrell compared poets to people who regularly stand in a meadow during a thunderstorm. If they are struck by the lightning of inspiration five or six times in the course of their careers, they are good poets. If they are hit a dozen times, they are great poets. A similar principle applies in many fields of endeavor. To be excellent at what you do, you must regularly go to where the energy is most electric. You’ve also got to keep working diligently on your skills so that when inspiration comes calling, you have a highly developed ability to capture it in a useful form. I’m bringing this up now, Taurus, because I suspect the coming weeks will bring you a slew of lightning bolts.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

SUPPORT

If you would like to support my work

please consider

buying my books

and/or

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): My upcoming novels epitomize the literary genre known as magical realism. In many ways, the stories exhibit reverence for the details of our gritty destinies in the material world. But they are also replete with wondrous events like talking animals, helpful spirits, and nightly dreams that provide radical healing. The characters are both practical and dreamy, earthy and wildly imaginative, well-grounded and alert for miracles. In accordance with your astrological potentials, I invite you to be like those characters in the coming months. You are primed to be both robustly pragmatic and primed for fairy-tale-style adventures.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In December 1903, the Wright Brothers flew a motorized vehicle through the sky for the first time in human history. It was a very modest achievement, really. On the first try, Orville Wright was in the air for just 12 seconds and traveled 120 feet. On the fourth attempt that day, Wilbur was aloft for 59 seconds and 852 feet. I believe you're at a comparable stage in the evolution of your own innovation. Don't minimize your incipient accomplishment. Keep the faith. It may take a while, but your efforts will ultimately lead to a meaningful advancement. (PS: Nine months later, the Wrights flew their vehicle for over five minutes and traveled 2.75 miles.)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): During the rest of 2024, life’s generosity will stream your way more than usual. You will be on the receiving end of extra magnanimity from people, too. Even the spiritual realms might have extra goodies to bestow on you. How should you respond? My suggestion is to share the inflowing wealth with cheerful creativity. Boost your own generosity and magnanimity. Just assume that the more you give, the more you will get and the more you will have. (PS: Do you know that Emily Dickinson poem with the line “Why Floods be served to us — in Bowls”? I suggest you obtain some big bowls.)

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The term "cognitive dissonance" refers to the agitation we feel while trying to hold conflicting ideas or values in our minds. For example, let's say you love the music of a particular singer-songwriter, but they have opinions that offend you or they engage in behavior that repels you. Or maybe you share many positions with a certain political candidate, but they also have a few policies you dislike. Cognitive dissonance doesn't have to be a bad or debilitating thing. In fact, the ability to harbor conflicting ideas with poise and equanimity is a sign of high intelligence. I suspect this will be one of your superpowers in the coming weeks.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Amazing Grace" is a popular hymn recorded by many pop stars, including Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Willie Nelson. Created in 1773, it tells the story of a person who concludes that he has lived an awful life and now wants to repent for his sins and be a better human. The composer, John Newton, was a slave trader who had a religious epiphany during a storm that threatened to sink his ship in the Atlantic Ocean. God told him to reform his evil ways, and he did. I presume that none of you reading this horoscope has ever been as horrible a person as Newton. And yet you and I, like most people, are in regular need of conversion experiences that awaken us to higher truths and more expansive perspectives. I predict you will have at least three of those transformative illuminations in the coming months. One is available now, if you want it.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Thinking outside the box” is an American idiom. It means escaping habitual parameters and traditional formulas so as to imagine fresh perspectives and novel approaches. While it’s an excellent practice, there is also a good alternative. We can sometimes accomplish marvels by staying inside the box and reshaping it from the inside. Another way to imagine this is to work within the system to transform the system—to accept some of the standard perspectives but play and experiment with others. For example, in my horoscope column, I partially adhere to the customs of the well-established genre, but also take radical liberties with it. I recommend this approach for you in 2025.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •