Microdosing Hope

Nullifying the Nullifiers

An attempted coup d’état is underway. American democracy is in dire danger. The US Constitution is in jeopardy. The Thugocracy that’s perpetrating the Trumpocalypse has unleashed multiple tsunamis of cruelty and chaos.

Many of us are rightfully distraught, worried, and even traumatized by the grotesque assaults. The United States has had some questionable leaders during its history, but this crew constitutes an unprecedented monstrosity. Numerous historians are saying this is among the worst emergency crises in American history.

But many of us are now organizing, rising up, beginning to resist and fight back against the fascist gangsters — both in the magical and political spheres. Our momentum is growing.

For inspirational starters, here’s a link to Robert Reich's excellent suggestions.

Listen to this gorgeous hope song, “One Voice,” by the Wailin’ Jennys: https://tinyurl.com/OurVoicesUnited

PRAYER FOR MICRODOSING HOPE

Dear Goddesses:

As we witness this devastation of democratic institutions, we find ourselves searching for seeds of renewal that might germinate in the scorched earth. Could it be that this brutal exposure of systemic weaknesses will ultimately strengthen our democratic foundations?

Perhaps this stark revelation of authoritarianism's true depravity will awaken a deeper commitment to democratic values in future generations. Maybe watching the weaponization of Christianity will accelerate the evolution toward more authentic, compassionate forms of spirituality.

The trashy misogyny on display might catalyze an even more powerful movement for gender equality, just as backlash often precedes breakthrough. Could this period of darkness birth new forms of community organizing, mutual aid, and local democracy that are more resilient than what came before?

We can hope that experiencing the devastating impacts of untreated mental illness and personality disorders at the highest levels might finally break down stigmas and lead to better understanding and treatment of mental health in our society.

Perhaps witnessing this vulgar manipulation of fear and bigotry will help more people recognize and heal their own shadows, leading to more robust psychological and spiritual maturity.

Is it possible that this exposure of deep decay, though terrifying, creates space for new, more life-affirming structures to emerge? That this descent into the most putrid abyss of the underworld is a necessary part of transformation?

We don't ask these questions to minimize the very real suffering and danger. But we seek to hold both — clear-eyed recognition of the disintegration underway, and openness to how healing and evolution might eventually emerge from it.

Please guide us to stay fully present during the garish melodrama while maintaining faith in humanity's capacity for growth through crisis. Help us be midwives to whatever new forms of social organization are primed to be born from this chrysalis of breakdown.

Amen. Afemme.

The Goddesses Medusa and Skeleton Woman, as rendered by Da Zain

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WHAT PRACTICAL ACTIONS WE CAN TAKE

Indivisible on how to fight back effectively: https://tinyurl.com/FightBackFierce

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has good ideas: https://tinyurl.com/AOCsays

Call your Senator and Congresspeople and tell them to vote a flat NO on any and all cooperation with the Trump administration. This site makes it easy: https://5calls.org

Starhawk on what groups can do now: https://tinyurl.com/WhatWeAllCanDoNow

In service to love, hold off fascism: https://tinyurl.com/HoldBackFascism

Push back against the thugs: https://tinyurl.com/PushBackAgainstThugs

Some intimate ways to create hope: https://tinyurl.com/HelpCreateHope

Nullify the nullifiers: https://tinyurl.com/HowToStopTheThugs

Sister District helps us fight for democracy: https://tinyurl.com/FightingForDemocracy

Boycott companies that enable the Trump autocracy, starting with Elon Musk’s X and Tesla and companies that advertise on X or Fox News. Download the app: https://www.goodsuniteus.com/

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WE WON’T LET THEM COMMIT THEIR ATROCITIES

Rebecca Solnit wrote everything in this section: They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything, and you won’t let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything — and everything we can save is worth saving.

You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. In this tide of hate, remember what love is.

You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward.

Many of us are under direct attack, and many are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

There is no alternative to persevering. That does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining.

Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself — because you are interwoven with the trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.

In the past, there were ethical Republicans with integrity who worked for the common good: Mark Hatfield, Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Charles Percy, William Scranton, Margaret Chase Smith, Millicent Fenwick, Edward Brooke, and George Romney.

But now there is no more Republican Party. There is only a brainwashed MAGA Cult.

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THE MAGA CULT LOVES CRUELTY

Republicans aren’t just indifferent to suffering; they enjoy it. Their entire political project is about inflicting pain and calling it virtue. The cruelty isn’t a bug. It’s the feature: https://tinyurl.com/GOPlovesCruelty

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BINDING SPELL

A binding spell is in order. (Binding spells are used to prevent injurious and noxious beings from harming us.)

Dear Jesus, Durga, Maitreya, Kwan Yin, Hermes, Oshun:

We ask Thee to render all cruel thuggish beings impotent, paralyzed, and ineffective in their attempts to hurt any of us, our families, friends, communities.

We ask Thee to bind all malevolent bullies and sickos.

We ask Thee to shackle all of their attributes, aspects, and characteristics, all of their interactions, communications, and deceitful games so that they have no power to carry out their maledictions.

A MILLION LIES

Trump’s indoctrinated cult members parrot his lies. Their hypnotized minds falsely say that the criminal Elon Musk is eliminating corruption in USAID and other government agencies. But investigation reveals that while there may be a very tiny bit of money going toward issues Trump cultists don’t like, the vast amount is for good causes.

Distortion of the Facts: https://tinyurl.com/FactDistortion

Fact-checking claims about USAID funding: https://tinyurl.com/ManyLiesAbound

Sort out facts: https://tinyurl.com/SortOutFacts

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of February 13

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Love requires stability and steadiness to thrive. But it also needs unpredictability and imaginativeness. The same with friendship. Without creative touches and departures from routine, even strong alliances can atrophy into mere sentiment and boring dutifulness. With this in mind, and in accordance with astrological omens, I offer quotes to inspire your quest to keep togetherness fertile and flourishing. 1. "Love has no rules except those we invent, moment by moment." —Anaïs Nin. 2. "The essence of love is invention. Lovers should always dream and create their own world." —Jorge Luis Borges. 3. "A successful relationship requires falling in love many times, always with the same person, but never in quite the same way." —Mignon McLaughlin. 4. "Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. But it must also be an act of endless reinvention, lest that tender look grow dull." —Peter Ustinov

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In celebration of the Valentine season, I suggest you get blithely unshackled in your approach to love. Be loose, limber, and playful. To stimulate the romantic and intimate qualities I think you should emphasize, I offer you these quotes: 1. "Love is the endless apprenticeship of two souls daring to be both sanctuary and storm for one another." —Rainer Maria Rilke 2. "Love is the revolution in which we dismantle the prisons of our fear, building a world where our truths can stand naked and unashamed." —Audre Lorde. 3. "Love is the rebellion that tears down walls within and between us, making room for the unruly beauty of our shared becoming." —Adrienne Rich. 4. "Love is the rebellion that tears down walls within and between us, making room for the unruly beauty of our shared becoming." —Adrienne Rich

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): To honor the rowdy Valentine spirit, I invite you to either use the following passage or compose one like it, then offer it to a willing recipient who would love to go deeper with you: "Be my thunderclap, my cascade of shooting stars. Be my echo across the valley, my rebel hymn, my riddle with no answer. Be my just-before-you-wake-up-dream. Be my tectonic shift. Be my black pearl, my vacation from gloom and doom, my forbidden dance. Be my river-song in F major, my wild-eyed prophet, my moonlit debate, my infinite possibility. Be my trembling, blooming, spiraling, and soaring."

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all.” One of those strange jewels in you is emerging from its hiding place. Any day now, it will reveal at least some of its spectacular beauty—to be followed by more in the subsequent weeks. Are you ready to be surprised by your secret self? Are your beloved allies ready? A bloom this magnificent could require adjustments. You and yours may have to expand your horizons together.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Borrowing the words of Aquarian author Virginia Woolf, I've prepared a love note for you to use as your own. Feel free to give these words to the person whose destiny needs to be woven more closely together with yours. "You are the tide that sweeps through the corridors of my mind, a wild rhythm that fills my empty spaces with the echo of eternity. You are the unspoken sentence in my every thought, the shadow and the light interwoven in the fabric of my being. You are the pulse of the universe pressing against my skin, the quiet chaos of love that refuses to be named. You are my uncharted shore."

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Love and intimacy and togetherness are fun, yes. But they’re also hard work—especially if you want to make the fun last. This will be your specialty in the coming months. I’ve assembled four quotes to inspire you. 1. "The essence of marriage is not that it provides a happy ending, but that it provides a promising beginning—and then you keep beginning again, day after day." —Gabriel García Márquez. 2. "The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. But those who follow the art of creating it day after day come closest to discovering it." —Pearl Buck. 3. "Love is a continuous act of forgiveness." —Maya Angelou. 4. "In the best of relationships, daily rebuilding is a mutual process. Each partner helps the other grow." —Virginia Satir

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SUPPORT

If you would like to support my work, consider buying my book Astrology Is Real

You can also buy my books at Bookshop.org: https://tinyurl.com/BookShopBrezsny

And/or buy my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes

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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In 2025, the role that togetherness plays in your life will inspire you to achieve unexpected personal accomplishments. Companionship and alliances may even stir up destiny-changing developments. To get you primed, I offer these quotes: 1. "Love is a trick that nature plays on us to achieve the impossible." —William Somerset Maugham. 2. "Love is the ultimate outlaw. It won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice." —Tom Robbins. 3. "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. Yet each day reveals new constellations in our shared sky." —Emily Brontë.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Psychotherapist Robin Norwood wrote that some people, mostly women, give too much love and kindness. They neglect their own self-care as they attend generously to the needs of others. They may even provide nurturing and support to those who don't appreciate it or return the favor. Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh expressed a different perspective. She wrote, “No one has ever loved anyone too much. We just haven't learned yet how to love enough.” What's your position on this issue, Virgo? It’s time for you to come to a new understanding of exactly how much giving is correct for you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Are you ready to express your affection with lush and lavish exuberance? I hope so. Now would be an excellent time, astrologically speaking. I dare you to give the following words, composed by poet Pablo Neruda, to a person who will be receptive to them. "You are the keeper of my wildest storms, the green shoot splitting the stone of my silence. Your love wraps me in galaxies, crowns me with the salt of the sea, and fills my lungs with the language of the earth. You are the voice of the rivers, the crest of the waves, the pulse of the stars. With every word you speak, you unweave my solitude and knit me into eternity."

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Among its potential gifts, astrology can raise our awareness of the cyclical nature of life. When used well, it helps us know when there are favorable times to enhance and upgrade specific areas of our lives. For example, in the coming weeks, you Scorpios could make progress on building a strong foundation for the future of love. You will rouse sweet fortune for yourself and those you care for if you infuse your best relationships with extra steadiness and stability.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I want you to be moved by intimacy and friendships that buoy your soul, inspire your expansive mind, and pique your sense of adventure. To boost the likelihood they will flow your way in abundance during the coming weeks, I offer you these quotes. 1. "Love is a madness so discreet that we carry its delicious wounds for a lifetime as if they were precious gems." —Federico García Lorca. 2. "Love is not a vacation from life. It's a parallel universe where everything ordinary becomes extraordinary." —Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 3. "Where there is love there is life. And where there is life, there is mischief in the making." —my Sagittarius friend Artemisia. 4. "The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds." —Nicholas Sparks

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Every intimate alliance is unique, has its own rules, and shouldn't be compared to any standard. This is a key theme for you to embrace right now. Below are helpful quotes. 1. "Each couple's love story is a language only they can speak, with words only they can define." —Federico Fellini. 2. "In every true marriage, each serves as guide and companion to the other toward a shared enlightenment that no one else could possibly share." —Joseph Campbell. 3. "The beauty of marriage is not in its uniformity but in how each couple writes their own story, following no map but the one they draw together." —Isabel Allende. 4. "Marriages are like fingerprints; each one is different, and each one is beautiful." —Maggie Reyes.

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