Our Beautiful Lives Are Sacred Spells

against the Big Ugly Bill

OUR BEAUTIFUL LIVES ARE SACRED SPELLS AGAINST THE BIG UGLY BILL

They called it the “Big Beautiful Bill,” but its true name is The Grotesque Necromantic Jinx.

A 940-page death curse written in the blood-ink of lobbyists. A trillion-dollar knife sharpened on the bones of children. A gulag blueprint bound in gold leaf and sealed with poisoned laughter.

The poor are punished. The rich get raptures. The oligarchs ascend to tax heaven while the masses are cast into medical purgatory.

ICE builds trauma temples — concrete scumholes where brown babies are baptized in cortisol, and families are sacrificed on the altar of white supremacy.

The sick are sentenced to ghoulish theology: ordered to get well by calling on the Faux Christians’ holy spirit, to pray their cancer away, to manifest their insulin from the ether, to bootstrap their way out of wheelchairs through the miracle of heroic willpower — as if healing were not a collective spell, as if wellness were not a web we weave together.

17 million bodies evicted from care. Mothers who will die in labor, their last breath a prayer for universal healthcare. Elders who will stroke out alone in homeless shelters, their final words the names of grandchildren they'll never hold. Kids with asthma gasping at midnight, their lungs learning the syntax of suffering, their wheezes writing elegies for the right to breathe.

This is not policy. It's a curse. A diabolic summoning of Old World Tyrants and their hungry ghosts:

Mussolini purring in the cloakroom, his fascist playbook photocopied and distributed as talking points.

Pinochet tapping Morse code into the Senate floor— dot-dash-dot: "disappear the dissidents."

Hitler grinning through the telecoms, his thousand-year reich rebranded as "Making America Great Again."

Stalin lighting JD Vance's cigars, the smoke spelling out five-year plans for the industrial harvest of human misery.

Jefferson Davis conducting lynching rehearsals in the Capitol rotunda.

WE RISE

We rise with counter-spells, raw and radiant, molten and myth-born—
Incantations conjured from the dialects of soil and starlight,
from ancestor-code thriving in root-fiber and thunder-rattle,
from the prophecy of mycelia and the praise-moan of the wind.

We cast it in cavalcades of antidotes:

—In Diné prayers that remember the original agreements between land and sky.

—In Ojibwe, where verbs carry prayers and lakes name themselves.

—In Nahuatl, resurrected in barrio murals and midnight lullabies, spelling tlazohcamati, thank you, as a battle cry of gratitude.

—In Yoruba, where oríkì praise-poems summon the gods and resistance is braided into every call-and-response.

—In American English that refuses to genuflect to corrupt power,

—In Spanish that walks through walls and erases illegitimate borders,

—And in Sign, fluttered by the hands of the deaf who know that silence can scream, who spell revolution in the air and make the invisible visible.

WE RISE.

With potlucks and plot twists — casseroles that feed both body and rebellion, stories that smuggle truth past empire’s censors.

With roots music that refuses to die — improvisation as insurrection, syncopated sabotage of the dominant narrative, blue notes that bend reality toward justice.

With muralists painting the streets like arteries — turning concrete into canvas, making barriers into windows, transforming cities into galleries of revolutionary beauty that oligarchs can’t commodify.

With teenagers chanting queer liturgies at the capitol steps — their rainbow flags healing heresies, their pronouns devotionals, their love letters engraved on the future.

With witches stirring cauldrons of mutual aid — brewing community care from herbs and solidarity, casting spells that turn neighbors into family, strangers into chosen ones.

WE RISE.

Ancestor wisdom spray-painted on courthouse doors.

Harriet’s footsteps echoing, Malcolm’s words sparking, Sylvia’s spellwork blooming in every trans kid who refuses erasure.

Street medics anointing wounds with lavender salve, turning protest injuries into sacred glyphs, making first aid a form of sacrmental meditation.

Elders teaching Tarot on folding chairs in laundromats — reading the future in soap bubbles, divining the dissolution of technocratic oligarchy in the ordinary magic of clean clothes and community wisdom.

Librarians hiding banned books in safe places — underground railroads of literature, smuggling dangerous ideas like contraband hope.

WE RISE.

With midnight vigils where we sing out the names of the disappeared — each voice a soul refusing deletion, each name a beauty hex that burns through the darkness of forgetting, sound as the language of remembrance.

With storytellers weaving truth into our dreams — their voices carrying medicine across generations, their tales smuggling hope past the censors of despair, imagination as the technology of survival.

With coyotes howling in sync with midnight jail releases — the natural world joining our chorus, wild voices harmonizing with human freedom songs.

With drummers keeping vigil at the ICE gates till dawn — their rhythms rewiring reality, their beats becoming the heart-pulse of a world without cages.

With dancers who know each spin is a protection spell— their bodies writing incantations in air, their movement making portals to emancipated futures, their grace a form of warfare against the forces of gracelessness.

WE RISE.

With neighborhood councils defying federal mandates — democracy sprouting in kitchen table meetings, power growing from the grassroots like dandelions through sidewalk cracks.

With ballot initiatives passed in church basements and food co-ops — worship spaces becoming political laboratories, bread and ballots blessed together on the same communion table.

With backyard city halls — governance reimagined as conversation, policy written in the language of neighbors helping neighbors, power shared like communal banquets.

With local sheriffs who refuse to enforce unjust laws — badges transformed from symbols of oppression to talismans of protection, uniforms worn in service of conscience over compliance.

With elders running for school board to unseat fascist curricula — grandmothers becoming guerrilla fighters, their ripe acumen a weapon against the persecutors’ willful ignorance.

WE RISE.

With love-making that remembers the pleasure before conquest — bodies holding histories that authoritarian manifestos push to erase, acts of civil disobedience against the empire’s enforcement of loneliness, our flesh as archive of resistance.

With voices that braid sacred literature and sedition — reverent words rewoven into revolutionary inspirations, incantations becoming resistance spells, the divine and the defiant synergizing.

With water protectors dreaming policy into rivers — their visions flowing downstream into legal chambers, their benedictions becoming precedent, their dreams the source code of new law.

With poets whispering strategy to mayors — metaphors becoming municipal policy, verses transforming into ordinances that protect the vulnerable, lyrical language as a form of political power.

With broken-hearted organizers who still show up — their grief composted into determination, their tears watering seeds of the world they're fighting for, their sorrow transformed into blessed fuel.

With ecstatic vision tethered to tactical maps — mysticism married to activist work, dreams wedded to data, the prophetic partnered with practical magic grounded in the material realm.

With 80 million candles lighting the next constitution — their flames spelling out new amendments in the language of liberation.

+

Our spells undo theirs.

Our spells sing what they try to erase:

that love is sovereign — the only authority worth obeying

that borders are fictions — illusory lines drawn by fraudulent empires, erased by empathy

that food is sacred — communion bread that belongs on every table, nourishment as birthright, hunger as sin against the abundance of creation

that healthcare is a human right, not a luxury — healing magic that must flow like water, like air, free to all who breathe

that housing is a human right, not a luxury — shelter as sacred as churches, homes as heavenly as temples: safety as sanctuary, walls as protection not prison

that education is alchemy — transforming minds into liberation tools, curiosity into revolution, knowledge as the technology of freedom

+

To the architects of this The Grotesque Necromantic Jinx, we say:

You have mistaken your power for permanence. But empires crumble when they grow irreversibly corrupt and depraved — and yours has passed that threshold.

We are dreaming a new Constitution with every stolen breath we dare to take, with every heartbeat that refuses to be regulated by your erratic rhythm.

And we are building it not on the decaying sludge of your cruel stupidity, not on the toxic rubbish of your parasitic greed,

but on the compost of collective grief transfigured into strategy, on the bones of extinct species whose names we vow never to forget, on the erotic ingenuity of lovers whose tenderness is a sacred weapon against callous contempt, on the liberation anthems conjured in borderlands and storm zones, on the maps tattooed into our muscles by past uprisings, on the sacred impudence of dreamers who dare to remember the world without ceaseless conquest.

Read three new, updated DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE:

anewdeclarationofindependence.com

tinyurl.com/DeclareOurIndependence

tinyurl.com/NewIndependenceDeclaration

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

HIGH MAGIC PRAYER FOR THE RESISTANCE

by Witch of the Keys

May the rich and powerful bullies perpetrating cruel violence be plagued by the consequences of their own actions, as their attempts to undermine empathy and democracy backfire spectacularly.

May their lies and deceit be exposed under the relentless light of truth, leaving them with no refuge from their own brutal fabrications.

May their efforts to sow division and hatred result in their own isolation and disgrace.

May their corrupt machinations unravel, leading to legal repercussions that strip them of power and influence.

May their attempts to suppress dissent and free speech be thwarted, amplifying the voices of those they sought to silence.

May their alliances with extremist groups turn against them, causing internal chaos and betrayal within their ranks.

May their disregard for the environment lead to personal losses that make them acutely aware of the damage they’ve inflicted.

May their exploitation of the vulnerable bring about a groundswell of resistance that topples their oppressive structures.

May their attempts to rewrite history be met with an unyielding preservation of truth, rendering their propaganda ineffective.

May their pursuit of authoritarian control be met with relentless opposition, ensuring their failure and ignominy.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

BLESS our wild, defiant, radiant uprising.

May our uprising go viral in the underground, spreading through the networks of mutual aid and revolutionary love.

May our uprising pulse through the fourth dimension where linear time bends toward justice.

May our uprising flourish in nature's paradise: the earth realm where abundance is the only economics that matter.

May it multiply in the shadow-networks of mycelial minds — fungi teaching us that cooperation creates forests from single spores.

May it echo in the whisper-chambers of ancestor bones — our beloved dead voting for life, the past growing toward a more perfect future.

May it bloom in the outlaw dreamscape where banned ideas flower — thoughts dangerous for the sick, shrunken tyrant minds, growing wild in the gardens of liberated imaginations.

May our uprising broadcast from the rogue beacons pulsing beneath surveillance — pirate signals of hope transmitted through tear gas, love letters smuggled past the watchtowers of empire.

May it channel the secret gospel of roots and trickster spirits — the underground railroad of underground wisdom, the sacred mischief that topples thrones.

May our uprising please no algorithm but the one written in stardust and thunder — the cosmic code that programs planets toward peace, justice, and joy — the divine mathematics that adds up to justice, the holy equation where all variables equal love.

And so it is. And so it shall be. And so we make it so.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

WANT TO GET YOUR PERSONAL ASTROLOGICAL CHART READ?

If you want your personal chart done, I recommend a colleague whose approach to reading astrology charts closely matches my own. She's my wife, RO LOUGHRAN. Her website is here: www.roloughran.com

Ro uses a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation. She is skilled at exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your connection with your own inner wisdom.

In addition to 35 years of astrological experience, Ro has been a licensed psychotherapist for 25 years. She integrates psychological insight with astrology's cosmological perspective.

Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations with you regardless of geographic boundaries.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of July 10

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In Yoruba cosmology, ase is the sacred life force that animates the universe. It’s divine energy that can be harnessed by humans to make things happen, to speak and act with ardent intention so that words and deeds shape reality. I am pleased to report that you Cancerians are extra aligned with ase these days. Your words are not casual. Your actions are not mild or minor. You have the power to speak what you mean so robustly that it has an enhanced possibility to come into being. What you command with love and clarity will carry enduring potency.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In medieval bestiaries, unicorns were said to be fierce, wild creatures. They were very real but also hidden. Only people with pure hearts could see or commune with them. I suspect you now have the chance to glide into a potent “pure heart” phase, Leo. My fervent hope is that you will take this opportunity to cleanse yourself of irrelevancies and rededicate yourself to your deepest yearnings and most authentic self-expressions. If you do, you just may encounter the equivalent of a unicorn.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Some Buddhist monks create mandalas on floors from colored sand. They work meticulously for days or weeks to build intricate, symmetrical masterpieces. Once their beautiful work is done, however, it typically doesn’t last long. The creators sweep it away either immediately or soon. The sand may be disposed of, perhaps poured into a river or stream. What’s the purpose of this strange practice? Most importantly, it displays a reverence for the impermanence of all things—an appreciation for beauty but not an attachment to it. I recommend you consider taking a cue from the sand mandalas in the coming weeks. Is there anything you love that you should let go of? A creation you can allow to transform into a new shape? An act of sacred relinquishing?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Glassblowers shape molten sand with breath and fire, knowing the material can only be formed while it's hot and glowing. If they wait too long, the stuff stiffens, turns brittle, and resists change. But if they push too soon, it collapses into a misshapen blob. In this spirit, Libra, I urge you to recognize which parts of your life are now just the right temperature to be reshaped. Your timing must be impeccable. Where and when will you direct the flame of your willpower? Don’t wait until the opportunity cools. Art and magic will happen with just the right amount of heat applied at just the right moment.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "I have often been racked by obsessive urges that plague me until I act them out." So says my Scorpio friend Fatima, a conceptual artist. "Fortunately," she continues, "I have finally retrained myself to focus on creative obsessions that fuel my art rather than on anxious, trivial obsessions that disorder my life. I'd be an offensive maniac if I couldn’t use my work as an outlet for my vehement fantasy life." I recommend Fatima’s strategy to Scorpios most of the time, but especially so in the coming days. Your imagination is even more cornucopian than usual. To harness its beautiful but unruly power, you must channel it into noble goals.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Igbo people of Nigeria have a term: ogwugwu na-adị n’ulo. It means “the medicine is in the house.” It’s the belief that healing doesn’t necessarily come from afar. It may already be here, hidden among the familiar, waiting to be acknowledged or discovered. Dear Sagittarius, your natural instinct is to look outward and afar for answers and help. But in the coming weeks, you should look close to home. What unnoticed or underestimated thing might be a cure or inspiration you’ve been overlooking? How can you find new uses for what you already have?

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

To support my work

please consider

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I invite you to celebrate the holiday known as Be Your Own Best Helper. How should you observe this potentially pivotal transformation in your relationship with yourself? Divest yourself of yearnings to have someone clean up after you and service your baseline necessities. Renounce any wishes you harbor for some special person to telepathically guess and attend to your every need. Vow that from now on, you will be an expert at taking excellent care of yourself. Do you dare to imagine what it might feel like to be your own best helper?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the ancient practice of astronomy, the stars were considered “incorruptible.” Unlike the planets, their movements were unchanging, their lights stationary, their destinies steady and stable. We human beings are the opposite of all those descriptors, of course. There’s no use in hoping otherwise, because constancy just isn’t an option for us. The good news, Aquarius, is that you are now poised to thrive on these truths. The inevitability of change can and should be a treasured gift for you. You’re being offered chances to revise plans that do indeed need to be revised. You are being invited to let go of roles that don’t serve you. But what initially feels like a loss or sacrifice may actually be permission. Evolution is a tremendous privilege!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The axolotl is an amphibian that never outgrows its larval form. Unlike most creatures, it retains its youthful traits into adulthood. Amazingly, it can regenerate it limbs, its spinal cord, and parts of its brain. Let’s make the axolotl your inspirational animal, Pisces. What part of your “youth” is worth keeping—not as immaturity, but as righteous design? Where are you being asked not to evolve past a stage, but to deepen within it? And what might be regenerated in you that seemed to have been lost? Your magic will come from being like an axolotl. Be strange. Be playful. Be ageless and original and irrepressible.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the days before lighthouses, some coastal communities used “fire beacons”—elevated structures where people tended open flames to guide sailors. In the coming weeks, Aries, I invite you to be like both the keeper and the flame. People will be drawn to your brightness, warmth, and persistence as they navigate through their haze and fog. And surprise! You may find your own way more clearly as you tend to others’ wayfinding. Don’t underestimate the value of your steady, luminous signal. For some travelers, your presence could be the difference between drifting and docking. So burn with purpose, please. Keep your gleam strong and visible.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The ancestors of my American friend Arisa lived in Ukraine, Indonesia, the Choctaw nation, and the Great Lakes region. Her new husband Anselme is of Japanese, Italian, and French descent. Their wedding was a celebration of multi-cultural influences. Guests delivered toasts in five languages. Their marriage vows borrowed texts from three religious traditions. The music included a gamelan ensemble, a band that played Ukrainian folk music, and a DJ spinning Choctaw and Navajo prayers set to Indian ragas. I bring this to your attention in the hope you will seek comparable cross-fertilization in the coming weeks. It's an excellent time to weave richly diverse textures into your life.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I predict a future when women will hold half of the leadership roles, when their income and time devoted to childcare will match men's, when women's orgasms are as common as men's, and when most guys know that misogyny is perilous to their health. Until the bloom of that wonderful era, I invite Geminis of all genders to invoke your tender ingenuity as you strengthen female opportunities and power. In my view, this work is always crucial to your maximum spiritual and psychological health—but even more so than usual in the coming weeks. Boost the feminine in every way you can imagine.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • •