Ride Your Imagination . . .
. . .out into the WILDS
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.
Buy the book:
here: https://bit.ly/IsAstrologyReal or here: https://tinyurl.com/BookshopAIR
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DIVINATIONS FOR YOU #11
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ARIES: How do I love thee, Aries? Let me count the ways.
I treasure your skill at slipping free from unproductive jams.
I admire how you boldly transform yourself into a fresh creation when you've gone as far as you can with the old model.
I applaud the way you rebel against your past and fling yourself open to the unpredictable sweep of the future.
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TAURUS: How do I love thee, Taurus? Let me count the ways.
I rejoice that you're a spiritual animal.
I adore how you lose yourself in earthy zeal but never forsake your commitment to the good and the true and the gorgeous.
I'm delighted by your sacred quest for pleasure in all its varieties—from feasting on ice cream and stealing an extra half hour of sleep to noticing beauty in the small details and making love with tender abandon.
More than any other sign of the zodiac, you embody poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's exultation: "Earth's crammed with heaven." That pleases me!
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GEMINI: Why it’s always double great to be a Gemini, inspired by my Gemini reader Dominique Q in Toronto:
• You’re endowed with the ability to have two or more opinions at the same time, sometimes completely contradictory, thereby imitating God’s expansive perspective.
• You can put yourself into and out of everybody’s shoes with such slippery ease that you never get bored with yourself and also have a knack for avoiding other people’s hells.
• You get to enjoy both the odd pleasure of being your own evil twin and the challenging pleasure of forgiving your evil twin.
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CANCERIAN: Artist Richard Kehl tells the story of a teenage girl who got a chance to ask a question of renowned psychologist Carl Jung.
"Professor, you are so clever. Could you please tell me the shortest path to my life's goal?"
Jung quickly replied, "The detour!"
Bang! You Cancerians instinctively know that. You are potentially first-class experts at using detours to generate success.
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LEO: Leo-born poet and journalist Cassiano Ricardo speaks of a longing "for all that is tall like pine trees, and all that is long like rivers, and all that is purple like dusk."
Yearnings like those are like tonics for you. They enhance your intelligence.
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VIRGO: On my social media, I periodically post "Arguments with Goddess," which invites people to ask my team of prayer warriors to convey their complaints directly to the Almighty. We are besieged with heart-rending requests.
"Why can't I cultivate a vision of my life as a path instead of a battlefield," mourned a Libra.
"Why does God open these wonderful doors," wrote a Leo, "and then, just as I get close, slam them shut!"
We Prayer Warriors treat most pleas reverently, and do our best to reach God's ear. But on one occasion I became mournful when a Virgo wrote. "Could you tell the Creator," she said, "PLEASE make my cat use his litter box!"
No doubt she was trying to be funny, but I thought as I read it, "Here's yet another Virgo who's not asking for what she truly needs the most."
I would love it if you refrained from falling into that error.
LIBRA: How do I love thee, Libra? Let me count the ways.
I'm enchanted when you drum up a "delirium of solutions" (in William Carlos Williams' phrase), and how many of them are elegant.
I rejoice that you're developing an ever-more-finely honed knack for knowing precisely when and how to give your abundant gifts. I'm excited by your growing sense of when to cut back on your giving so as not to overdo it.
I love it when you don't waste time trying to get fixed by influences that can't fix you, and I'm pleased you're learning to recognize the precise soul medicine that can truly heal you.
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SCORPIO: Maybe you could benefit from being less sober, solemn, and serious about your intimate relationships. Of course, I don't know for sure. Only you can determine that. But in my experience, some Scorpios can benefit from infusing their intimate connections with more levity.
In case that's true about you, I collected one-liners from Someecards.com for you to use. Consider delivering them to the appropriate allies.
• "Let's go maniacally obsess about our lives in a soothing environment."
• "We'll be best friends forever because you already know too much about me."
• "It would be great if you would schedule your social events around my mood swings."
• "I'm sorry I drunk-dialed you before realizing you were already in bed with me."
• "You're one of the few people I would hug right after a Bikram Yoga class."
• "I wanna do boring things with you."
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SAGITTARIUS: Some people put their faith in religion or science or political ideologies. English novelist J. G. Ballard placed his faith elsewhere: in the imagination.
"I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world," he wrote, "to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen."
I would never assert that one of the astrological signs has greater reservoirs of potent imagination than the other signs. But I don't mind speculating that you Sagittarians are especially blessed in your ability to wield your imagination constructively.
Here's a prime Sagittarian meditation that I hope you carry out regularly: How do you use the power of imagination to remake the world?
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CAPRICORN: "Love isn't something you find," says singer Loretta Lynn. "Love is something that finds you."
Singer Kylie Minogue concurs: "You need a lot of luck to find people with whom you want to spend your life. Love is like a lottery."
These perspectives are at best misleading and at worst debilitating. They imply we have no power to shape our relationship with love. My view is different.
I say there's a lot we can do to attract intimate allies who teach us, stimulate us, and fulfill us. Like what?
• We clarify the precise qualities we want in a partner, and we make sure those qualities are healthy for us.
• We dismantle and dissolve unconscious conditioning that's at odds with our conscious values.
• We work to transform ourselves into lovable collaborators who communicate well.
Anything else? What can you do to make sure love isn't a lottery? No one is better than you Capricorns at formulating lucid plans that really work.
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AQUARIUS: "We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness —and call it love—true love." So declared Robert Fulghum in his book True Love.
This observation fits you Aquarians even better than it does the other zodiac signs. In your alliances, you have a profanely sacred duty to embrace the wonders of mutually compatible weirdness.
You need the freedom to share your eccentricities and ally yourself with people whose eccentricities mesh with yours.
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PISCES: What do we need to kill off in ourselves to tune in to the beauty that's hidden?
What worn-out shticks blind us to the blessings that life angles to provide us?
Which of our ideas may have been useful and even brilliant in the past, but are now preventing us from perceiving the ever-fresh creation unfolding before us?
It's not enough to shed our stale mental habits just once. The price of admission into lusty living is a commitment to continual dying. We must ask ourselves rude questions and kick our own asses again and again.
Today's versions of beauty, truth, love, goodness, justice, and liberation will pass away.
To keep abreast of the latest developments—to cultivate tomorrow's versions of joie de vivre—we have to immerse ourselves regularly in the waters of chaos.
Our relationship with life's bounties has to be a never-ending improvisation.
There's one sign of the zodiac that has more potential to develop expertise in these arts than all the others. Can you guess which one? It's you Pisceans.
Below the paywall is chapter 60 from my upcoming trilogy of novels, collectively called Love Stories for the Earth: Holy Rivers, Lucky Storms, and The Other Real World.