Let's Live Miraculously

Paradise Thrives in Our Hearts

The task of genius
is to keep the miracle alive,
to live always in the miracle,
to make the miracle more and more miraculous,
to swear allegiance to nothing,
but live only miraculously,
think only miraculously.

― Henry Miller 

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WHEN I DO PERSONAL HOROSCOPE READINGS

— excerpted from my book ASTROLOGY IS REAL

I haven’t done personal horoscope readings for years. There’s too much other fun work to do! Writing my column! Creating audio horoscopes! Authoring books! Recording music!  

But during the phases of my life when I have sat face-to-face with curious seekers who want help in untangling their riddles, I prepare with diligent reverence. My first move is to send a set of guidelines to meditate on during the days before our session.  

I provide these guidelines below. Maybe they will be of use if you are ever shopping for an astrologer to help illuminate your mysteries. 

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When I do a personal chart reading, it’s crucial that I talk WITH you, not AT you. I summon my best service when we are in dialog. 

It’s also essential not to set myself up as a flawless fount of divine wisdom. For me to act like an all-knowing expert tends to shut down your access to your inner sources of knowing. 

I’ve been wary of certain styles of fortune-telling ever since a fortune-teller told me when I was young that I would leave the earth at age 29. I spent that year of my life looking for omens of death in my dreams. During the week before my 29th birthday, I cowered in fear and left the house only to brandish my fists at the night sky. 

But I survived. And I vowed that in my own role as a fortune-telling astrologer, I would never plant seeds in people’s psyches that made them feel helpless to control their destiny. My motto: Good astrology doesn’t impair your willpower, but galvanizes it. 

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If I do a chart reading for you, my goal is to help you know more about yourself in the here and now. Is it useful to speculate about what might come your way in the months and years to come? Maybe. I’ll do that if I think it will enhance your joie de vivre and lust for life. 

My playful but accurate intention is to conspire with you to read your own mind. Together, we discover unconscious inclinations lurking in your depths. We figure out where you are located in your long-term cycles and how to identify your highest potentials.  

Here’s my unruly rule: Astrology isn’t a fixed set of strict formulas. It’s a web of evocative symbols that liberates your imagination and inspires you to reframe the stories you use to understand your life.  

If you and I are investigating your natal chart, I want us to collaborate as we conjure up dynamic new perspectives about your soul’s code. Some of our improvisations may ring true for you, while others may feel less applicable. You get to decide. I’m your assistant, not your director. I’m your teammate, not your manager. 

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The reading I will do with you consists of two sessions: the exploratory session and the main reading. During the exploratory session, I get to know you better and find out what you want to glean from our conversation. Because a chart can be read on many different levels, this first step is crucial. 

During the exploratory session, I will ask you to provide three questions or issues you want addressed during the main reading. This is an important part of the process and is emblematic of my approach. I expect you to participate with your curiosity and intelligence fully unfurled.  

During the exploratory session, I love it if you tell me an important dream or series of related dreams. The adventures you live as you’re sleeping can help focus our research into your mysteries. But if you don’t have any dreams to offer, don’t worry about it. 

The main session lasts about 90 minutes. If we have had an informative exploratory session, I will arrive for our dialog with focused intuitions about how to proceed. Even so, I encourage you to interrupt me, question me, or add your own input at any time during the process. 

PS: I can’t imagine conducting a reading without your participation. There's no way I want to be alone dictating my thoughts into a recording device and then sending you an mp3. You need to be with me, co-creating our experience, either in-person or on the phone or via Zoom. 

THE BLESSINGS OF SATURN

— excerpted from my book ASTROLOGY IS REAL

In my view, Saturn is the planet that conventional astrologers understand least. Some spread irresponsible distortions about it. 

I won’t dwell on discussing faulty conceptions about Saturn. Even though they are at best incomplete and at worst misleading, they tend to provoke fear even in people who know better.  

I will sum up by saying that too many old-school practitioners regard Saturn as the cosmic equivalent of a crabby old tyrant whose intention is to limit our freedom. They suggest that when transiting Saturn conjuncts or forms squares and oppositions to planets in our natal charts, we will endure cramped, depressed periods. Our dreams will be stymied. We must accept less satisfaction and meaningfulness than we want. 

But I believe this is a lazy misrepresentation of Saturn. I have mentioned it only to stimulate your skepticism. 

Let’s speak about Saturn in ways that are closer to the truth: Saturn the teacher, Saturn the organizer, Saturn the archetype that potentially heralds an influx of creative discipline and clarifying structure. 

Here’s a shocker, at least to some orthodox astrologers: In Western Hermetic Qabalah, Saturn embodies the Great Mother, Binah on the Tree of Life. She is an outer signifier of the Goddess who gives birth to every creature—who imparts to each of us our special form and function.  

In one sense, we humans are all one: I am you and you are me and they are we and we are all together. But in another sense, each of us is exquisitely special and unique, a miraculous one-of-a-kind character unlike any other ever created in all of eternity.  

And from an archetypal perspective, it is the Great Mother, symbolized by Saturn, who gives us our inimitable life. You are you in all your specific, unrepeatable glory, because the Great Mother has made you exactly so. 

If there is ever a time when Saturn appears to be a harbinger of frustration and limitation, it is because she is figuratively nudging us to stop trying to be what we are not—and devote ourselves more fully to being who we really are.  

Saturn the Great Mother loves us with a sweeping scope that is unimaginable to us when we try to understand from the ego’s viewpoint. Saturn will do everything possible to influence us to live the exact, specific, singular life we were created to embody. 

Let’s say you were born with the potential to be a kindergarten teacher who specializes in awakening children to the world’s beauty. If you instead decide—because of bad conditioning you received growing up and your overexposure to the distorted values of mainstream culture—if you instead decide you want to be a rock star or dental hygienist or bookie, Saturn may obstruct your path. She will push you away from being a rock star or dental hygienist or bookie—and in the direction of being a kindergarten teacher. 

Here's the fact of cosmic matter: The archetypal energy Saturn symbolizes is your expert servant and kind mentor. She loves you and wants you to be what you were born to be. If she seems to hurt your feelings or prevent you from advancing, it is only and always and absolutely because she wants you to find meaning and be fulfilled by doing what your soul’s code intends. 

If you cooperate with Saturn, she will help you own your rightful power. She will strip you of flaky, aimless tendencies and liberate you to be your competent self without squandering your energy on low-priority goals. With Saturn as your healing guide, you will evolve toward being the gorgeous genius you were born to be, unhampered by trivial yearnings and false ideas about yourself. 

If you welcome Saturn to work her magick, she will help you add organization to your life, enhancing your efficiency. She will encourage and support you to be more focused. She will direct you to rely less on authorities and take your fate into your own sovereign control. She will marshal you to vigorously translate your potential into practical expression. 

If Saturn comes to call and you authorize her to intensify her gifts, frivolous and irrelevant ambitions lose their clench on your imagination. You feel a mandate to stop messing around with time-wasting activities. Abracadabra and poof: you are unburdened of any desires you might have to wander all over the place in quest of nothing in particular. Hallelujah and hosanna: You are delivered from the temptation to frolic along dead-end paths just for the entertainment value of such recklessness. 

When Saturn leans into your destiny, you get opportunities to boost your knack for finishing what you start. You find it easier to calm your restless heart and commit yourself to a single choice out of the many options that float into your sphere.  

When Saturn becomes available to boost your potency, you may be inspired to renounce mediocre pleasures and misaligned priorities. You will attract assistance, some of it unexpected, as you cease fiddling around on the peripheries and gravitate to the core of the key issues. 

Best of all, you will figure out where you truly belong—as opposed to being half-sure of where you sort of belong. 

In conclusion, my advice is to respond with grateful enthusiasm to the pressure exerted by this expert servant and kind mentor. The sooner you hone your self-discipline and refine your focus, the less likely it is that you will spend any time writing “I will not squander my riches” a billion times on Saturn’s blackboard. 

I suggest that during full moons, you say a reverently rowdy prayer to the Great Mother Saturn, asking her to reveal a vision of how to order your life with just the right mix of freedom and responsibility as you become more of the unique miracle you have the potential to be. 

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PS: For the ancient Romans, Saturn’s influence was anything but baleful. As the vine-growing deity who ruled over a golden age, Saturn was synonymous with abundance.  

The holiday in Saturn’s honor, Saturnalia, was a seven-day feast of freedom and pleasure. Businesses and schools were closed, enslavers served the people they had enslaved, grudges were forgotten, and parties raged nonstop. 

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Free Will Astrology For This Perfect Moment

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It's the fifth annual Brag Therapy Holiday—for you Aquarians only. During this celebration, we expect you—indeed we want you—to boast with panache. Tell us all in exquisite detail why you are such a marvelous creation. Explain how you have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to transform yourself into a masterpiece of intuitive intelligence. Regale us with stories of your winsome qualities, your heroic triumphs, and your hilarious and poignant adventures on the edge of reality. Make sure we understand how educational and healing it can be to bask in your influence. Show us why we should regard you as a role model.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I invite you to resolve old business, draw unrewarding projects to a close, and finish your lessons at the School of Tough Love. You don’t have to carry out my next proposal, but if you do, I will be glad: Politely and quietly scream, "Get out of my life" at anyone who doesn’t give you the respect and kindness you deserve. I also recommend that you do a Wrap-It-Up Ritual. Start by making an altar that pleases you with its beauty. Take scraps of paper and write on each one a description of an influence or experience you want to purge from your life. As you rip each scrap into bits, say this: "I’m grateful for what I have learned from you, but now I am leaving you behind.”

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Happiness” is an amorphous term with a different meaning for everyone. What makes me feel happy may be unlike what works for you. Besides that, any kind of perfect happiness is impossible to achieve. However we define it, we are always a mix of being happy and unhappy. Nevertheless, I invite you to ruminate about the subject in the coming days. I believe you are primed to arrive at a realistic new understanding of your personal version of happiness—and raise your happiness levels by at least 15 percent. Maybe more! Now here are helpful clues from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest thing, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a whisk, a twinkling of the eye—what's *little* makes up the quality of the best happiness. Soft!”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I invite you to take an inventory of your taboos, inhibitions, and restrictions. Meditate on why you originally adopted them. Evaluate how well they have served you and whether they are still meaningful. If you find any of them have become unnecessary or even injurious, jettison them. And be excited and happy about being free of them. If you decide that some taboos, inhibitions, and restrictions are still wise for you to maintain, thank them for their service and honor the self-protection they provide.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini novelist Gregory Maguire says there are a “thousand ways people shrink from life, as if chance and change are by their nature toxic and disfiguring." Your assignment in the coming weeks is to contradict his theory. I’m hoping you will interpret all chance and change as potentially expansive, redemptive, and interesting. You will never shrink from life, but will boldly meet challenges and embrace twists of fate as interesting opportunities. I have abundant faith in your ability to carry out this vigorous project!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You could be a masterful eliminator of toxins and wastes in the coming weeks. Do it both for yourself and for those you care about. Start by purging nonessentials that obstruct the flow of the good life. These might include defunct fantasies, mistaken understandings, apathetic attitudes, and unloving approaches. Among the other dross or dreck you could root out is any clutter that’s making familiar environments feel oppressive. By the way, fellow Cancerian, this should be .fun. If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.

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EXPLORING YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE

Dear Readers,

I've gathered all the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you in recent weeks, and bundled them in one place. Here's a compendium of your forecasts for 2024:

https://tinyurl.com/BigPicture2024

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In addition, you can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in the coming months. Each report in the three-part series is 7 to 11 minutes long.

To hear these three-part, in-depth reports, go here:

https://RealAstrology.com

Register and/or log in through the main page. Under “Select Reading to Play,” choose "Part 1" or “Part 2” or “Part 3” of the "Long-Term Prediction for 2024."

The cost for the Expanded Audio Horoscopes is $7 per sign. (You can get discounts for multiple purchases.)

A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): My goals right now are to inspire you in the following three ways: 1. to be full of love for your daily life; 2. to adore yourself exactly as you are; 3. to shed any numbness or boredom you feel and replace them with alert aliveness. To help you in this exalted effort, I offer the inspiration of three quotes. 1. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson. 2. “The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” –Eden Phillpotts. 3. “I have the mysterious feeling of seeing for the first time something I have always known.” –Bernardo Bertolucci.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In the coming weeks, I hope you avoid sucking up to egotistical manipulators. Please also refrain from being an unappreciated beast of burden and a half-willing pawn in boring games. If you are interested in paying off karmic debts, make sure they are yours, not anyone else’s. If you plan to work hard to lay the foundation for a future liberation, get a guarantee that YOU will be one of the liberated people. PS: I’m fine with you doing unselfish things as long as they will also have selfish benefits.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): One of the great maladies affecting modern people is the atrophy of the soul. It’s related to another affliction: the apathy of the soul. A key contributor to these misfortunes is the entertainment industry. Its shallow and artificial stimuli are engineered to overfeed our egos, leaving our poor souls malnourished. Please note that I have no problem with our egos. They are an important part of our make-up and are essential for healthy functioning. But it's a shame they hog all the glory and sustenance. Now here’s my climactic message for you, Libra: It's high time to celebrate a holiday I call Nurture the Soul. Make it last at least three weeks. Homework: Identify three actions you will take to excite, cherish, and enhance your soul.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In myth and legend, pregnancies don’t always begin with two humans having sexual communion. The well-known story of the Virgin Mary tells us she was impregnated when the Holy Spirit, disguised as a dove, whispered in her ear. The Roman goddess Juno conceived her son Mars solely with the help of an enchanted lily flower. The Greek hero Attis germinated inside his virgin mother Nana after she placed a pomegranate in her lap. This might sound outlandish, but I foresee you having a metaphorically comparable experience. Do you believe in the possibility of being fertilized by miraculous magic or a divine spirit?  Might you be dramatically awakened or inspired by a very subtle influence? I think it will happen even if you don’t believe.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian computer scientist Grace Hopper (1906–1992) wrote, "The most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘It’s always been done that way.’” I will expand on that wisdom. The most obvious meaning is that we risk ignoring our individualized needs and suppressing our creative inspirations if we mindlessly conform to the habits of society. But it's equally important not to mindlessly repeat our own longstanding ways of doing things. Maybe they were brilliant and appropriate in the past, but there's no guarantee they will always be so. In conclusion, Sagittarius, I recommend you rebel against your own personal "it’s always been done that way" as well as everyone else's.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Being in love is as desirable for you Capricorns as it is for everyone else. You may be less open and dramatic than the rest of us in expressing your yearnings, but they are still a driving force. Here’s an important point: Even if you are not constantly chattering to others about your urges to give and receive intimate care, it’s crucial that you acknowledge them to yourself. To keep your soul healthy, you must be in close touch with this core fuel. You must love your need for love. Now is an excellent time to deepen your appreciation for these truths.