Upswing

Revival, Rally, Rejuvenation

Apr 08, 2025

I am pleased that 5.2 million of us turned out for the HANDS OFF protest on April 5—including huge crowds in many red states.

We are building a massive, visible, national rejection of the red-alert emergency crisis perpetrated by the Trumpocalypse. The recent protests are proof that we the people want to stop the hostile government takeover.

Let’s keep building our peaceful People’s Movement with the aim of achieving 3.5% participation. History shows that when just 3.5% of the population engages in sustained, peaceful resistance—transformative change is inevitable.

PS: Another function of a mass protest is that it galvanize peoples who don’t think of themselves as activists. They're more likely to rise up and protest in the future if there are many of us in the streets encouraging them to.

TRICKSTER GODDESS

The Trickster Goddess: We need a whole lot more of this archetype running around in our culture.

When most people think of a prank, they visualize bad though funny trouble committed by angry, vulgar guys. You might remember the time some teenager you knew went to the house of a hated adult. The kid put a paper bag full of filth on the porch, lit it with a match, rang the doorbell, and ran away. When his victim came to the door and saw the flames, he stamped on it.

This kind of mayhem has unfortunately come to be regarded as the very definition of tricky mischief. But it's a distorted caricature of the art form. It’s driven by revenge and the desire to humiliate.

The typical macho prankster is proud of feeling nothing but scorn for what he mocks. He performs the dehumanization of his target as he affirms the feelings of superiority he feeds through his alienation.

The feminist trickster, in contrast, uses the prank as a loving tool for obliterating hierarchy, as a leveler of elitist pretensions. She's not driven by revenge or one-upmanship. She empathizes as she disrupts, seeking not to discredit and embarrass the target of her mischief, but to shock it into becoming more itself.

Hers is a celebration of the collaborative impulses of the soul instead of the instinctual self-aggrandizement of the ego. The pronoiac prankster loves what she profanes. Weaving her fate together with her target's, she honors her relationship with it even as she tweaks it out of its literalism.

A feminist prank, though it may be surprising, is ultimately friendly. It romances the contradictions with crafty compassion. It's a cheerful strategy to extinguish the tawdry glamour of the macho put-down.

(And any gender can do a feminist prank, of course, not only women.)

In his book Temporary Autonomous Zone, Hakim Bey provides other examples of Trickster Goddess pranks. Burglarize houses, he suggests, but instead of stealing the residents' possessions, leave behind beautiful and confusing gifts. Spread gossip about the unsung genius of people who don't get nearly enough credit for their good work. Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a fulfilling sexual experience.

Take a few friends and a boom box to an all-night grocery store and engage in ecstatic, whirling dervish-style dancing in the aisles until you're thrown out. Scrawl the following graffiti in courthouse lavatories and on playground walls: "I dare you to scare yourself with how beautiful you are."

Pick people at random, and convince them they're the heirs to an enormous, useless, and amazing fortune—say, 5,000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or a leper colony in India, or a collection of alchemical manuscripts. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, and will perhaps be driven to cultivate a more intense quest for exhilarating adventures.

IN FAIRY TALE REALMS, a COMPASSION OUTLAW is someone who defies societal norms to act with radical kindness, empathy, and justice. Their adventures involve acts of rebellion against oppressive systems, daring rescues, and transformative encounters that challenge the status quo. Here’s a vision of the kinds of acts and adventures they engage in:

Acts of Compassionate Rebellion

1. Stealing to Give: COMPASSION OUTLAWS steal from corrupt rulers or greedy merchants to provide food, medicine, or shelter to the poor and downtrodden. They leave mysterious gifts in the night, earning legends among villagers.

2. Defying Cruel Laws: They break unjust laws, such as freeing prisoners wrongly accused or helping forbidden love flourish despite societal restrictions.

3. Healing in Secret: Using forbidden knowledge of herbs or magic, they heal the sick and wounded who are abandoned by society or deemed unworthy of care.

Adventures and Encounters

1. Rescuing the Oppressed: COMPASSION OUTLAWS infiltrate a tyrant’s castle to rescue enslaved workers or kidnapped children, using clever disguises and daring escapes.

2. Aiding Magical Creatures: They protect misunderstood magical beings—like a dragon hunted by villagers or a fairy whose forest is being destroyed—earning allies from otherworldly realms.

3. Facing Moral Dilemmas: COMPASSION OUTLAWS encounter situations where their compassion is tested—such as helping someone who betrayed them or choosing between saving one life versus many.

4. Outwitting Villains: Using wit and clever tricks, they outsmart greedy kings, cruel knights, or corrupt officials who seek to capture them for their "crimes."

Transformative Moments

1. Inspiring Change: Their actions inspire others to rise up against oppression, creating a movement of kindness and justice that spreads across the land.

2. Forging Unlikely Alliances: They win over former enemies—such as a guard who was ordered to hunt them—by showing unexpected compassion.

3. Discovering Hidden Truths: On their journey, they uncover ancient secrets about their land—a prophecy that foretells their role in restoring balance or an artifact that amplifies their ability to heal.

Symbolic Acts

1. Planting Hope: COMPASSION OUTLAWS leave behind symbols of hope wherever they go—blooming flowers in a barren wasteland or glowing gems in the darkest forest.

2. Sacrificing for Others: In the ultimate act of compassion, they sacrifice something dear (their freedom, safety, or even life) to save others.

COMPASSION OUTLAWS’ stories explore themes like:

- The power of kindness as resistance.

- The courage to defy tradition for what is right.

- Redemption and forgiveness.

- The ripple effect of small acts of goodness.

Their adventures weave together daring exploits with moments of quiet tenderness—tales where bravery and empathy shine brighter than swords and crowns.

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I asked my spirit guides: "I seem to have trouble understanding the ideas offered by Bayo Akomolafe. Can you sum up his main themes?"

Below, my spirit guides sum up a comparison of my and Bayo's ideas.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of April 10

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Life is asking you to be a source of generosity and strength for the people and animals in your sphere. I hope you will exude maximum amounts of your natural charisma as you bestow maximum blessings. Soak up the admiration and affection you deserve, too, as you convey admiration and affection to others. Here’s a secret: The more you share your resources, help, and intelligence, the more of that good stuff will flow back your way.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Ceramicist Jun Hamada says that trying to force harmony into her art leads to sterile work. "The most beautiful pieces come from the moments I stop trying to make them beautiful," she notes. "They emerge from embracing the clay's natural tendencies, even when they seem to fight against my intentions." I recommend her approach to you in the coming weeks. Your best results may emerge as you allow supposed flaws and glitches to play an unexpected part in the process. Alliances might benefit, even deepen, through honest friction rather than imposed peace. What will happen when you loosen your attachment to enforced harmony and let life's natural tensions gyrate?

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini-born Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was a prolific architect who orchestrated many daring designs. Among his most audacious experiments was a project to build a house over a waterfall in Pennsylvania. "It can't be done!" experts said. But he did it. Before he was ready to accomplish the impossible, though, he had to spend months studying the site's natural patterns. I bring this to your attention, Gemini, because I believe you are ready to consider your own equivalent of constructing a house over a waterfall. Prepare well! Do your homework!

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the early phase of his illustrious career as a photographer, Edward Weston (1886–1958) cultivated a soft-focus, romantic style. But he ultimately converted to stark, uncompromising realism. "The camera," he said, "should be used for recording life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself." If there is anything about you that prefers warm, fuzzy illusions over objective, detailed truth, I suggest you switch emphasis for a while. If you like, you can return to the soft-focus approach in June. But for now, a gritty, unsentimental attitude will be essential to your well-being.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Here's my mini-manifesto about change, just in time for a phase when change is most necessary and possible for you. 1. Real change is often a slow and subtle process. There may be rare dramatic shifts, but mostly the process is gradual and incremental. 2. Instead of pushing hard for a short time, you're more likely to change things by persistently pushing with modest strength for a sustained time. 3. Rather than trying to confront and wrestle with a big problem exactly as it is, it's often more effective to break the seemingly insurmountable challenge into small, manageable pieces that can be solved one at a time through simple efforts.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Textile artist Mei Zhang wondered if the synthetic dyes she used on her fabrics were limited. Might there be a wider variety of colors she could use in her creations? She discovered that her grandmother, using age-old techniques, had produced hues that modern dyes couldn’t replicate. "The most sustainable path forward," Zhang concluded, "often involves rediscovering what we've forgotten rather than inventing something entirely new." I recommend that counsel to you, Virgo. The solution to a current challenge might come from looking back instead of pushing forward. Consider what old approaches or traditional wisdom you might call on to generate novelty. Weave together fresh applications with timeless principles.

Breaking News! I have extended the time when you can listen to my three-part, in-depth Explorations of Your Long-Range Future: RealAstrology.com

Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures during the rest of 2025? Do you long to slip out of your habitual thoughts about your life and get a more transcendent view?

To access the Expanded Audio Horoscopes, register and/or sign in, then choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the "Long-Term Prediction for 2025." Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.

The cost is $7 per horoscope. There are discounts if you buy multiple tokens. Each Long-Range, Big-Picture Audio Forecast is 7 to 11 minutes long. You can also listen to a short-term audio horoscope for the coming week!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The moon rises about 50 minutes later every day, and always at a slightly different place on the horizon. The amount of light it shows us is also constantly in flux. And yet where and how it will appear tomorrow or ten years from today is completely predictable. Its ever-changing nature follows a rhythmic pattern. I believe the same is true about our emotions and feelings, which in astrology are ruled by the moon. They are forever shifting, and yet if we survey the big picture of how they arise, we will see their overall flow has distinct patterns. Now would be a good time for you to get to know your flow better. See if you can detect recurring motifs. Try to develop more objectivity about how your precious emotions and feelings really work. If you do this correctly, you will deepen and enhance the guiding power of your precious emotions and feelings.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Research reveals that interludes of productive uncertainty may strengthen our brain’s neural pathways—even more so than if we consistently leap to immediate comprehension. The key modifier to this fortifying uncertainty is “productive.” We must be willing to dwell with poise in our puzzlement, even welcome and enjoy the fertile mystery it invokes in us. Neurobiologist Aiden Chen says, "Confusion, when properly supported, isn't an obstacle to learning but a catalyst for understanding." These ideas will be good medicine in the coming weeks, dear Scorpio.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Persian American author Haleh Liza Gafori translates the poetry of 13^th-century Sufi mystic Rumi. One of their joint books is titled Gold. She writes, “Rumi’s gold is not the precious metal, but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of burning through layers of self, greed, pettiness, calculation, doctrine—all of it. The prayer of Sufism is ‘teach me to love more deeply.’ Gold is the deepest love.” That’s the gold I hope you aspire to embody in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. You are in a resplendently golden phase when you have more power than usual to create, find, and commune with Rumi’s type of gold.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The coming weeks will be an excellent time to reframe the meaning of “emptiness” in your life. To launch your quest, I will remind you that quiet interludes and gaps in your schedule can be rejuvenating. Sitting still and doing nothing in particular may be a good way to recharge your spiritual batteries. Relieving yourself of the pressure to be endlessly active could be just what you need to open up space for fresh possibilities.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): There was a time, many years ago, when I consulted a divinatory oracle every day of my life. Sometimes it was the Tarot or the I Ching. I threw the Norse runes, did automatic writing, used a pendulum, or tried bibliomancy. Astrology was always in the mix, too, of course. Looking back on those days, I am amused at my obsession with scrying the future and uncovering subconscious currents. But employing these aids had a wonderful result: It helped me develop and fine-tune my intuition and psychic powers—which, after all, are the ultimate divination strategy. I bring this to your attention, Aquarius, because I believe you now have an enhanced power to cultivate and strengthen your intuition and psychic powers.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The fovea is the part of the eye that enables sharp vision. Humans have just one kind of fovea, which gives them the ability to see clearly straight ahead. Eagles have both a central and peripheral fovea. The latter gives them an amazing visual acuity for things at a distance. This extra asset also attunes them to accurately detect very slow movements. I suspect you will have a metaphorical semblance of the eagle's perceptual capacity in the coming weeks, Pisces. You will be able to see things you wouldn't normally see and things that other people can't see. Take full advantage of this superpower! Find what you didn't even know you were looking for.