The Big Wild Red YES
Try increasing Your "YES" Quotient
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.
PORTENTS FOR YOU #10
✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞✯∞
ARIES: Aries political leader and future president Thomas Jefferson almost pulled off a miracle in 1784.
America was a young country. There were only 13 states and a few unorganized territories. As a representative to the Continental Congress, Jefferson proposed an ordinance that would have prohibited slavery in those territories, including what would later become Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama.
By just one vote, alas, the provision failed to pass.
Can you imagine what the United States would have been like if slavery had been partly extinguished decades before the Civil War?
Here's the lesson I draw: At certain turning points, small shifts can have huge long-term consequences—both in the life of an individual and the life of a nation.
You Aries people have substantial potential to identify and initiate key pivots like these as you create your story and contribute to the story of your community. It's one of your birthrights.
+
TAURUS: The Chukchi people of Siberia are perplexed by the changes in their climate, writes Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Usha Lee McFarling in the Seattle Times.
Thunder and lightning used to be exceptional events, but now they make regular appearances. Bizarre, balmy winds whistle in out of the south.
Elders who were once skilled in the art of reading the sky to foretell the weather are sometimes at a loss. "The Earth is turning faster," said one hunter.
Do you know any local elders who are adept at analyzing the flow of the seasons in your neighborhood? Probably not, unless you hang out with farmers or weather forecasters or climate scientists.
So you may or may not be personally attuned to the shifts in the age-old patterns. Are the daffodils blooming earlier each year? Are the cherry blossoms ahead of schedule? Are the fireflies coming out to play sooner than they used to?
Mostly, yes. But in some years, these phenomena are also later than usual. The nature of the climate emergency is such that mutations in the ancient ways show up erratically.
All that is prologue for my invitation, Taurus: Are you interested in being a wise elder or wise youngster who loves nature so much you crave to learn its rhythms and keep track of its changing patterns?
In all the zodiac, you Tauruses are often best qualified to show the rest of us what it means to be perceptive lovers of the earth.
+
GEMINI: Can you be a dissatisfied renegade and effervescent lover of life at the same time? Can you identify what's wrong without diluting your amused conviviality?
If anyone can do it with panache, it's you Geminis. Multitasking is potentially one of your superpowers.
You may have few role models to draw from, though, so you will have to trust your intuition and the following advice: Be a generous bitch! A playful protester! A sweet-tempered complainer!
I am especially interested in you applying this dual talent to the work of activism: healing the environment and crusading for justice in behalf of those with lower incomes and fewer privileges.
+
CANCERIAN: Psychotherapist James Hillman and essayist Michael Ventura wrote the book We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse. In it, they propose that there are other viable ways to resolve our problems in addition to sitting in a room talking about our deep, private feelings with a trusted counselor.
Another valid approach might be to do work to further social justice, like helping people with low incomes or fighting to preserve the fundamental right to abortion. Taking action to preserve the health and sanctity of the natural world might be another approach.
Hillman's and Ventura's counsel could be an excellent prescription when you are stymied by a personal problem. As you marshal your moral force and collaborate with others motivated by altruism, you may rouse previously untapped insight and power to heal your pain.
One of your potential specialties as a Cancerian is to coordinate your personal concerns with the needs of your community—to serve the greater good by addressing your private good and vice versa.
+
LEO: My rage against the machine began early. I joined my first anti-war march when I was a sophomore in high school and led a walkout to protest racism when I was a senior. At age 18, I was tear-gassed by the National Guard at a demonstration against America’s invasions and occupations of sovereign nations.
In the intervening years, my anger at injustice has broadened and deepened. I’ve lent my rebel yells and constructive action and poetic expression to many righteous causes. I’m not going to stop.
But a few years ago, I decided to shift my approach. Instead of fighting every abuse that incited my ire, I chose three to concentrate on: the militarism and interventionism of the American government, the extreme financial disparities between the rich and poor, and the environmental degradations caused by corporations and the Pentagon.
Since then, my crusading energy has been more focused and effective.
I invite you to consider a similar focus. Should you give more of your passion to fewer causes? Many Leos thrive by sharpening the scope of their intentions.
+
VIRGO: The Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi led many peaceful rebellions against oppressive governments, first in South Africa and later in British-controlled India.
At first, he called his strategy "passive resistance," but later disavowed that term because he felt it had negative implications.
He ultimately chose the Sanskrit word satyagraha, meaning "love force" or "truth force." "Truth (satya) implies love," he said, "and firmness (agraha) is a synonym for force. Satyagraha is thus the force which is born of truth and love."
According to my reading of your astrological potentials, Virgo, satyagraha should be one of your prime words of power. Your uprising against the forces of darkness—both out in the world and within yourself—must do more than say "no." A refined, exultant YES should be at the heart of your crusade.
LIBRA: In Indonesia, the term gotong-royong is defined as the “joint bearing of burdens."
In practice, it means you and I and our allies get together voluntarily to help each other achieve shared goals. It may also be an agreement to provide mutual aid: I help you do what you need to have done, and you help me with my task.
Gotong-royong also implies that we enjoy working together. The emotional tones we cultivate are affection and care. By sharing burdens, we lessen the strain that each of us has to bear.
I bring this to your attention, Libra, because I love to see you be a ringleader who initiates and sustains gotong-royong. It's potentially one of your specialties.
+
SCORPIO: In the history of civilization, there have been few cultures that neglect nightly dreams more than ours. Many eras have paid far more attention to the stories that well up while we're sleeping.
This enervating neglect incurs a personal cost. If you're one of those who rarely recalls your dreams, you suffer a grievous loss of connection with the wisdom of your unconscious mind.
Even if you do stay in touch with your dreams, most of the people around you aren't nourished by theirs. That carelessness isn't totally responsible for the stupendous stupidity and fundamentalist materialism that pervades our culture, but it's a significant factor.
Paying attention to the dream state is an opportunity to gather visceral encounters with the realm where we all originate and still dwell in part-time. It provides reminders that we have far more going on inside us than is apparent to our normal waking awareness. Without regular doses of such healing medicine, we are prone to devalue everything that doesn't serve our ego drives.
Three astrological signs have a special potential to remedy the calamitous indifference: Cancerian, Scorpio, and Pisces. Of the three, I think you Scorpios are best set up to be dreamwork activists: to embody, exhibit, and express the profoundly practical power of communing with the nightly stories that come from who-knows-where.
+
SAGITTARIUS: For over three years, my Sagittarian friend Rosa risked her sanity and safety in the service of the modern version of the Underground Railroad. That's how I think of her work at a battered women's shelter.
The vulnerable souls she counseled were often on the run and in hiding from their abusers. Most were at the bottom of the scale of social prestige.
For Rosa, it was an unexpected way to quench her Sagittarian yearning for adventure. On the surface, it seemed wrenching and unglamorous. Yet she found that assisting scared women to recover their identity, get jobs, and love life again could be as grippingly gratifying as skydiving or climbing a mountain.
What does adventure consist of for you? Keep an open mind about it.
+
CAPRICORN: Let's say you want to buy an 18-karat gold ring. To get that much gold, miners have to excavate and move six tons of rock. Then they douse the rock with poisonous cyanide, a chemical necessary to extract the good stuff. In the process, they create toxic waste.
Is the gold ring worth that much trouble and cost? Or might there be other beautiful, valuable things you could obtain without having to use poison and make a noxious mess?
Some people might accuse me of being extra fussy and overly scrupulous in offering these thoughts. Do we have to be so goddamned conscientious about everything we do? Can't we grab a little slack here and there as we seek to enjoy nice, pretty things?
I don't agree with that criticism. In my view, civilization is ultimately destined to develop comprehensive integrity in its approach to extracting and processing the earth's resources. I predict that 200 years from now—hopefully, sooner—almost no one will want to create and own pleasurable and attractive and useful things if they despoil nature and make our environment less hospitable for living creatures.
I believe you Capricorns can and should have a special interest and facility in these themes. What might you personally do to encourage ecologically sustainable approaches to producing beautiful, useful things?
+
AQUARIUS: Born under the sign of Aquarius, Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was a zealous insurrectionary. He wrote incendiary pamphlets that helped ignite and sustain America's struggle for independence from Great Britain.
Early in his life, however, he worked making women's girdles, which were and are among the most constrictive and oppressive garments.
Do you think there was a connection between his two gigs? Like maybe his later struggle for liberation was an unconscious atonement for his youthful labors?
In the coming years, I invite you to instigate a Thomas Paine-like adjustment. Think of something you did in the past that constricted your spirit or squeezed other people's possibilities.
Use that memory as a launching pad as you unleash your brilliance in the name of abundance and expansiveness.
+
PISCES: There are more enslaved people in the world right now than at any other time in history: at least 29 million. A disproportionate percentage of them are women and children.
Even more shocking: At least half of all countries have no law against enslavement. (Read more: tinyurl.com/LegalEnslavement)
According to my analysis of your astrological potentials, Pisces, you can bestow healing blessings on yourself by responding to this problem in your own unique ways.
To lend your energy to organizations that help free enslaved people. You could start here:
https://tinyurl.com/EndEnslavement
and
https://tinyurl.com/LiberateEnslaved
Here's another suggestion: Use the term "enslaved people" rather than "slaves." This language distinguishes people's identity from their circumstances. It makes clear that an enslaved person is first a human being and second a commodity.
Any effort you devote to slowing and ending the trafficking of vulnerable captives could have beneficial effects on your own life. It may inspire you:
• to express enhanced appreciation for the freedoms you have;
• to take more thorough advantage of those freedoms;
• to liberate any part of you that acts or thinks or feels like a person in bondage.
• to dismantle any tendencies you might have to slip into situations that limit your personal freedom, diminish your willpower, or feel like bondage.
Below the paywall is chapter 59 from my upcoming trilogy of novels, collectively called Love Stories for the Earth: Holy Rivers, Lucky Storms, and The Other Real World.
Here’s a link to the first 55 chapters
Link to chapter 56 and 57
Link to chapter 58