Say this: “I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself.

Say this: “I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself.”

DREAM AND SCHEME ABOUT YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE

with my 3-part EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for the Coming Year:

https://RealAstrology.com

What new influences will be headed your way in 2023? What fresh resources will you be able to draw on? How can you conspire with life to create the best possible future for yourself?

This week, my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES feature Part 3 of the long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2023.

Part 1 and Part 2 of your Big-Picture Predictions, which I offered the last two weeks, are also still available.

What will be the story of your life in 2023? How can you exert your free will to create the adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?

To listen to your BIG PICTURE horoscopes online, go to https://RealAstrology.com

Register and/or log in through the main page, click "Play Readings", and then select "Part 3" of the "Long Term Prediction for 2023."

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The cost for the Expanded Audio Horoscopes is $7 per sign if you purchase 7 tokens for $7. (You can get discounts for purchasing larger token packages.)

Each forecast is 9 to 13 minutes long.

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P.S. You can also still access my Sneak-Peek at 2022. In these Expanded Audio Horoscopes, I describe some major themes I think you'll be working and playing with in 2022. After you register and/or log in, click on the reading for Dec 20, 2022.

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I ME WED

You may never create a resilient, invigorating bond with the lush accomplice of your dreams until you master the art of loving yourself ingeniously.

A wedding ritual that joins you to yourself could catalyze an uncanny shift in your personal mojo that would attract a fresh, hot consort into your life, or else awaken the sleeping potential of a simmering alliance you have now.

If you're feeling brave, try speaking this aloud:

I am no longer looking for the perfect partner.

I am my own perfect partner.

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Say it even stronger:

I am no longer looking for the perfect partner

to salve all my wounds

and fix all my mix-ups

and bridge all my chasms.

I am no longer looking for the perfect partner

because I am my own perfect partner.

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Speaking that oath provides a good shock to your system; it's a smart place to start. But it doesn't mean you're fully primed. More preparation may be wise. Before you take the plunge, before you initiate this epic shift in your commitment to yourself, you may have to smash an obstacle or two.

I'm guessing that the main obstacles may be your disgust for your foibles and wobbles ... the harsh slurs you inflict on your unripe beauty ... your sneaky tendency to sabotage your exuberance ... the bad excuses you concoct for not treating yourself with crafty kindness all the time.

Realistically, you won't be able to completely purge this bad habit in one masterful swoop. But you can put it on notice. You can launch the crusade that will sooner or later emancipate you from its contamination.

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Now say this:

I will never again drop a bomb on my playground.

I will never again smash a mirror on my face.

I will never again twist my heart into blisters.

I will never again celebrate shame and disgrace.

I will never again cast a curse on myself.

I will never again nurse the worst in myself.

I will never again cast a curse on myself.

I will never again stoke the hurts in myself.

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Before we get to the ritual, I'll invite you to spend time in the coming days to carry out devotional acts that will seal the sanctity of your new commitment.

First, create or acquire two wedding gifts for yourself. The first gift will symbolize your promise to lovingly kill off a bad habit or lingering remorse or ignorant glitch that you don't want to bring with you into your new, self-married life.

The second gift will embody your intention to mobilize an unripe talent or dormant power that wants to come to life within you.

These two gifts can be based on the same theme. For example, you could get a hardy work boot and a fuzzy bunny slipper to symbolize your vow to regularly kick your own ass with lighthearted exuberance as well as tough love.

The other devotion I encourage you to enjoy is to go on a solo honeymoon to a thrilling sanctuary where you can try feats of strength and love that you've always fantasized about doing.

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Now hold your own hand. Either speak the following declarations or use them as inspiration to create your own:

I love everything about me.

I love my curious beauty and my amazing pain.

I love my hungry soul and my changeable games.

I love my mysterious gambles and my humbling brags.

I love my blooming darkness and my burning flags.

I love my flaws, my gaps, my catalytic fears.

I love my puzzling insights and my scary frontiers.

I love my wrongs, my rights, and my ambiguous dreams.

I love my courage, my cowardice, and my elaborate schemes.

I love everything about me.

I love everything about me.

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Now either make these promises to yourself, or use them to inspire your own versions:

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself.

I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself.

I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself.

I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself.

Beauty and truth and love will always find me.

Chaos and wilderness will always sustain me.

I'm the fire and water and earth and air that are forever fresh from eternity.

I'm a perfect creation and everything alive is naturally in love with me.

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Now if it is your will and desire to agree to the following vows, say them:

I vow to treat myself with adroit respect and resourceful compassion and outrageous grace.

I pledge to see my problems as tremendous opportunities and my flaws as imperfect talents.

I promise to shower myself with rowdy blessings and surprising adventures and brave liberations.

As long as I live, I vow to die and be reborn, die and be reborn, die and be reborn, over and over again, forever reinventing myself.

I promise to be stronger than hate, wetter than water, deeper than the abyss, and wilder than the sun.

I pledge to remember that I am not only a sweating, half-asleep, excitable, bumbling jumble of desires, but that I am also an immortal four-dimensional messiah in continuous telepathic touch with all of creation.

I vow to love and honor my highs and my lows my yeses and noes, my give and my take, the life I wish I had and the life I actually have.

I promise to push hard to get better and smarter, grow my devotion to the truth, fuel my commitment to beauty, refine my emotions, hone my dreams, wrestle with my shadow, purge my ignorance, and soften my heart—even as I always accept myself for exactly who I am, with all of my so-called foibles and wobbles.

I pledge to wake myself up, never hold back, have nothing to lose, go all the way, kiss the stormy sky, be the hero of my own story, ask for everything I need and give everything I have, take myself to the river when it's time to go to the river, and take myself to the mountaintop when it's time to go to the mountaintop.

I vow to love myself unconditionally and unconventionally until the end of time and beyond.

I now pronounce you your own husband and your own wife, married to yourself in the eyes of the Divine Wow or Yo Mama Nature, whichever you prefer, as death and life and death and life bring you together, over and over again, in new and exciting ways each time, forever and ever, until the end of time and beyond.

You may kiss yourself on your own lips.

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THE MARVELOUS WOMEN
by Mohja Kahf

All women speak two languages:
the language of men
and the language of silent suffering.
Some women speak a third,
the language of queens.
They are marvelous
and they are my friends.

My friends give me poetry.
If it were not for them
I’d be a seamstress out of work.
They send me their dresses
and I sew together poems,
enormous sails for ocean journeys.

My marvelous friends, these women
who are elegant and fix engines,
who teach gynecology and literacy,
and work in jails and sing and sculpt
and paint the ninety-nine names,
who keep each other’s secrets
and pass on each other’s spirits
like small packets of leavening,

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it is from you I fashion poetry.
I scoop up, in handfuls, glittering
sequins that fall from your bodies
as you fall in love, marry, divorce,
get custody, get cats, enter
supreme courts of justice,
argue with God.

You rescuers on galloping steeds
of the weak and the wounded–
Creatures of beauty and passion,
powerful workers in love–
you are the poems.
I am only your stenographer.
I am the hungry transcriber
of the conjuring recipes you hoard
in the chests of your great-grandmothers.

My marvelous friends—the women
of brilliance in my life,
who levitate my daughters,
you are a coat of many colors
in silk tie-dye so gossamer
it can be crumpled in one hand.
You houris, you mermaids, swimmers
in dangerous waters, defiers of sharks–

My marvelous friends,
thirsty Hagars and laughing Sarahs,
you eloquent radio Aishas,
Marys drinking the secret
milkshakes of heaven,
slinky Zuleikas of desire,
gay Walladas, Harriets
parting the sea, Esthers in the palace,
Penelopes of patient scheming,

you are the last hope of the shrinking women.
You are the last hand to the fallen knights
You are the only epics left in the world

Come with me, come with poetry
Jump on this wild chariot, hurry–

by Mohja Kahf

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Art by Shelby McQuilkin. More art by her: https://tinyurl.com/598yc6a4

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week beginning January 12

Copyright 2022 by Rob Brezsny

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): When he was 74 years old, Capricorn author Norman Maclean published his first novel, A River Runs Through It. It became a best-seller. Capricorn film director Takeshi Kitano directed his first film at age 42. Now 75, he has since won many awards for his work in his native Japan. Capricorn activist Melchora Aquino, who was a leader in the Philippines' fight for independence from Spain, launched her career as a revolutionary when she was in her eighties. She's known as the "Mother of the Revolution." I hope these heroes inspire you, dear Capricorn. I believe that 2023 is the year you will get an upgrade in any area of your life where you have seemed to be a late bloomer.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you will soon be called upon to summon grace under pressure; to express magnanimity while being challenged; to prove that your devotion to your high standards is more important than the transitory agendas of your ego. The good news is that you are primed and ready to succeed at these exact assignments. I have confidence in your power to activate the necessary courage and integrity with maximum poise and composure.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "By dying daily, I have come to be," wrote poet Theodore Roethke. He didn't mean he suffered literal deaths. He was referring to the discipline of letting go of the past; shedding worn-out habits; leaving behind theories and attitudes that once served him well but no longer did; killing off parts of himself that were interfering with the arrival of the fresh future. I recommend his strategy to you, Pisces. To the degree that you agree to die daily, you will earn the right to be reborn big-time in a few weeks.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Nigerian author Wole Soyinka reworked the ancient Greek play, The Bacchae. In one passage, the god Dionysus criticizes King Pentheus, who is supposedly all-powerful. "You are a man of chains," Dionysus tells him. "You love chains. You breathe chains, talk chains, eat chains, dream chains, think chains. Your world is bound in manacles." The bad news, Aries, is that many of us have some resemblances to Pentheus. The good news is that the coming months will be a favorable time to shed at least some of your chains. Have fun liberating yourself! Try to help a few others wriggle free from their chains, too. Doing so will aid your own emancipation.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The coming weeks will be a great time to fill your journal with more intense ruminations than you have for many moons. If you don't have a journal, think about starting one. Reveal yourself to yourself, Taurus! Make conscious that which has been vague, unnamed, or hiding. Here are assignments to help launch your flood of intimate self-talk. 1. Write passionately about an experience you've always wanted to try but have never done. 2. Conduct imaginary interviews with people who rouse strong feelings in you. 3. Describe what deity, superhero, or animal you are and how your special intelligence works. 4. Visualize a dream in which you appear as a bolder, more confident version of yourself. 5. Talk about a time you felt rousingly alive and how you plan to feel that way again.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A stranger approached me at Wild Birds Unlimited, a store that sells bird food and accessories. "You write the horoscopes, right?" she asked. "I'm a Gemini, and I want to thank you for helping me tone down my relentless fidgeting. You made me realize I have been secretly proud of tapping my fingers on the table while talking with people, and constantly darting my eyes around the room to check out the ever-changing views. I'd unconsciously believed that stuff was a sign of my incredible vitality. But you've been a steadying influence. You've shown me ways to settle down and focus my energy better. I can see how restlessness sometimes saps my energy." I told the woman, "You're welcome!" and let her know that 2023 will be a favorable time to do much more of this good work. Homework: Meditate on channeling your incredible vitality into being grounded and centered.

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LET'S IMAGINE WHAT INTERESTING STORIES AND MYSTERIES MIGHT BE COMING YOUR WAY

IN THE YEAR AHEAD

Who do you want to become in 2023? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures?

In this week's EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, I offer you Part 3 of MY long-term, in-depth exploration of your destiny in the coming year.

Part 1 and Part 2 are still available.

To listen to your BIG PICTURE horoscopes online, go to https://RealAstrology.com

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The cost for the Expanded Audio Horoscopes is $7 per sign if you purchase 7 tokens for $7. (You can get discounts for purchasing larger token packages.)

Each forecast is 9 to 13 minutes long.

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"Your long-range audio horoscopes encouraged me to think bigger about my life. As I listened, I could feel my shrunken expectations melting away."

—Therese Pembroke, San Diego

"Your big-picture horoscopes filled the gaps in my imagination. They woke up the fun plot twists that had been just on the tip of my ability to visualize."

—Ani Kraft, Brattleboro, VT

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CANCER (June 21-July 22): According to Cancerian author Ronald Sukenick, the writer’s work is "to destroy restrictive viewpoints, notice the unnoticed, speak the unspeakable, shake stale habits, ward off evil, give vent to sorrow, pulverize doctrine, attack and uphold tradition as needed, and make life worth living." I believe 2023 will be an excellent time for you to carry out those actions, even if you're not a writer. You will have abundant power to bless and heal through creative rebellion and disruption. You will thrive as you seek out interesting novelty.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Psychotherapist Ryan Howes has wisdom you'll benefit from heeding in the coming weeks. "We need to accept our age," he writes. "We need to accept illnesses and addictions. We need to accept the past. We need to accept others as they are." He goes on to say that this doesn't mean we must like all these situations. And we can certainly try to make the best of them. But when we don’t struggle in vain to change what’s beyond our control to change, we have more energy for things that we can actually affect.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Here’s testimony from musician Pharrell Williams: "If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, 'That which is missing.'" Yes! This is an apt message for you, Virgo. The best way for you to generate motivation and excitement in the coming weeks will be to explore what is lacking, what is invisible, what’s lost or incomplete. Check in with your deep intuition right now. Do you feel a stirring in your gut? It may tell you where to find important and intriguing things that are missing.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Every animal knows far more than you do," declares a proverb of the Nimíipuu people, also known as the Nez Perce. Author Russell Banks provides further testimony to convince us we should be humble about our powers of awareness. "There is a wonderful intelligence to the unconscious," he says. "It’s always smarter than we are." These are good pointers for you to heed in the coming weeks, Libra. You will have a special power to enhance your understanding of the world by calling on the savvy of animals and your unconscious mind. They will be especially rich sources of wisdom. Seek out their educational input!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Psychologist Carl Jung said that the whole point of Jesus Christ's story was not that we should become exactly like him. Rather, we should aspire to be our best and highest selves in the same way that he fulfilled his unique mission. So Jesus was not the great exception, but rather the great example. I bring these meditations to your attention, Scorpio, because I believe life in 2023 will conspire to make you, more than ever before, the hero of your own destiny. You will be inspired to honor only your own standards of success and reject all others'. You will clearly see that you are progressing at your own natural and righteous pace, which is why it makes no sense to compare your evolution to anyone else's.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): A reader named Mary Roseberry describes her experience of being a Sagittarius: "I hate to be bored. I hate imperfections. I hate to wait. I hate sadness. I hate conflict. I hate to be wrong. I hate tension." Wow! I admire Mary's succinct understanding of who she doesn’t want to be and what she doesn't like to do. I invite you to compose a similar testimony. You would benefit from getting clear about the experiences you intend to avoid in 2023. Once you have done that, write a list of the interesting feelings and situations you will seek out with intense devotion during the coming months.

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Homework: What power will you possess in nine months that you do not yet have? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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