You Are Built to Last
What Will You Do with Your Long Life?
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.
AUGURIES FOR YOU #12
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ARIES: After years of painstaking research, the psychic surgeons at the Beauty and Truth Lab have perfected the art and science of Zodiac Makeovers.
Using a patented technique known as Mythic Gene Engineering, they are able to transplant the planets of your horoscope into different signs and astrological houses from the ones you were born with.
Let's say your natal Jupiter suffers from a supposedly uncongenial aspect with your Moon. Our psychic surgeons cut and splice according to your specifications, enabling you to be re-coded with the destiny you desire.
Unfortunately, everything I just said is a lie. I made it up.
But here's the good news, Aries: At least potentially, you have the power to reconfigure your life's path—and even transform the way specific planets function within you—using your natural intelligence.
Everyone has a massive mother lode of free will, though many of us don't access more than a portion of it. Of all the signs, you Rams are congenitally allotted a promise to harness a vaster-than-typical share of all.
The ancient astrological epigram is "The planets may impel, but they don't compel." And you might be able to tamper with that formula, shifting it in the direction of "I may even dispel the spell of the impellent and excel at foretelling my own propellant."
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TAURUS: "Dear Oracle: I've read horoscope columns written by many astrologers, and yours is the only one that's not prejudiced against at least one of the signs.
"You really do treat everyone equally. You play no favorites. But that's exactly the bone I have to pick with you.
"I'm wondering if you've got a passion deficiency or something. It seems abnormal not to display a hint of bias now and then. —Suspicious Taurus."
Dear Suspicious: My birth chart includes important elements of Taurus and Libra. The Taurus part of me has strong feelings and deep passions, while the Libra part of me is fair-minded and well balanced.
They've worked out a synergistic arrangement that enables me to maintain equilibrium as I feed my intensity.
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GEMINI: Throw a party for all the people you have been and all the different selves who reside within you now. Invite the teenager who once seethed with frustrated potential and the four-year-old who loved to play.
Include the hopeful complainer who stands in the shadows and dares you to ask for more, as well as the brave champion who emerges now and then to attempt heroic feats of happiness.
Don't forget the various personalities who have contributed to making you who you are, even the "bad" ones. Celebrate your internal diversity. Marvel at how good you are at changing.
(For extra credit, you could invite the characters you've been in past incarnations, like the Balinese puppet-maker and the Nigerian herbalist and the Chinese midwife and the African savannah elephant.)
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CANCERIAN: I have written over 2,000 weekly astrology columns, as well as 6,000 daily horoscopes. I have also written and recorded over 1,000 audio horoscopes. Some have been better written and more useful than others, but I've given my utmost effort to every one.
My style has mutated over the years; the weekly written horoscopes I penned in, say, 1994, are so unlike those I write now that they seem to be the product of a different author.
But then I myself have transformed radically through the years. It makes sense that my work has, too. In truth, my personal development has been fueled by my growth as a writer.
I invite you to do what I've just done, fellow Cancerian. Take an inventory of the big tasks you've been doing for years. Evaluate the way they've evolved and how they have shaped your destiny. Engage in an expansive look at the labors of love that have made you who you are.
Doing analyses like these is a Cancerian specialty. We have potent potential to be virtuoso historians of our own life stories.
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LEO: Nothing feeds me, nothing moves me, nothing changes me so much as writing horoscopes for you, my readers.
You are my inspiration. You keep me delightfully off-balance as I try to figure out what revelations you need next.
My determination to follow you through all your plot twists prevents me from getting set in my ways or predictable in my communiqués. Thank you!
Now I will suggest that you Leos would benefit from composing notes of gratitude like the one I just wrote: a joyous acknowledgement of the people in your life who feed you and move you and change you the best.
I will also let you know that you potentially have an extraordinary knack for feeling and expressing gratitude. Your power to wield transformative cascades of appreciation is among the greatest in all the zodiac.
There's another feeling that synergizes well with gratitude, especially for you Leos: reverence.
When you respectfully and devotionally honor the sacred beauty of a source you admire, you do yourself a favor. It's one of the most healing acts of self-care.
Keep in mind that reverence is not solely the province of religious people. A biologist may venerate the scientific method. A poet may adore the natural world. An atheist might experience a devout sense of awe about geniuses who have bequeathed to us their brilliant ideas.
What about you? What excites your reverence? What rouses your gratitude? And are there experiences that inspire both your gratitude and reverence?
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VIRGO: The cereus cactus grows in the deserts of the southwestern U.S. Most of the time it's scraggly and brittle looking.
But one night of the year, in June or July, it blooms with a fragrant, trumpet-shaped flower. By dawn, the creamy white petals close and start to wither. During that brief celebration, the plant's main pollinator, the sphinx moth, must discover the marvelous event and come to gather the cactus flower's pollen.
This scenario has metaphorical resemblances to tasks you Virgos specialize in. I hope you're always alert for sudden, spectacular, and rare eruptions of beauty that you can feed from and propagate.
LIBRA: I recommend you enjoy an animalistic phase every now and then—in the best sense of "animalistic." And yes, you Libras really do need to feed regularly from your primal instincts.
What might that involve?
• Identify the part of you that's best described as "a beautiful beast." Be curious about it. Commune with it. Nurture it.
• Another way to imagine how to proceed is to tune into your visceral intelligence. Regard your body as having a genius of its own that your mind may only be partly aware of.
• Express your beautiful beast in the real world. See how life responds.
• Be alert for and receptive to the beautiful beast in other people.
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SCORPIO: I turn your attention to Cancerian Cory Doctorow's review of Scorpio author Neal Stephenson's three-volume Baroque Cycle. Doctorow says Stephenson's books are like good curry.
"They're mild and interesting when you first taste them, but after you've swallowed, they grow on you, spreading a warm fire throughout your digestive system, making beads of sweat appear on your forehead."
That's a common experience to have when non-Scorpios engage Scorpios.
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SAGITTARIUS: "It is not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages," said Friedrich Nietzsche.
He believed that if you want to join your fortunes with another's, you should ask yourself whether you will enjoy your conversations with this person in the coming years—because that's what you will be doing much of the time you are together.
How do you measure up to this standard? What role does friendship play in your romantic adventures? For you Sagittarians, the percentage should be high.
If there's anything lacking, seek improvements. Start with yourself. How could you infuse more camaraderie into your expressions of love? What might you do to upgrade your skills as a listener and conversationalist?
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CAPRICORN: "Supplication" is a Capricornian word of power. It refers to the act of earnestly and humbly asking for what you want. Inherent in supplication is a mood of surrender, although the surrender blooms from potency: a strong, clear realization of what's needed.
When practiced with integrity, "supplication" is a sign of sovereignty, not weakness. It means you are raptly united with your desire, feel no guilt or shyness about it, and intend to express it with liberated abandon.
Supplication makes you supple, poised to be flexible as you do what's required to get the blessings you yearn for.
Being a supplicant makes you smarter, because it helps you realize you can't get what you want through the force of your willful ego alone. You need grace, luck, and help from sources beyond your ken and control.
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AQUARIUS: As a recovering save-the-world addict, I feel compassionate skepticism towards my fellow junkies who are still in the throes of their obsession.
But I've discovered that just as a small minority of alcoholics can safely take a drink now and then, so can a few save-the-world-aholics save the world a little at a time without getting strung-out.
With that as a disclaimer, I authorize you to pursue your personal brand of fervent idealism. Few Aquarians can be totally healthy without tapping into at least a modicum of that stuff.
To keep yourself honest, make fun of your own zealotry every now and then.
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PISCES: One of my readers, Jay O'Dell, told me this story: "After my cancer surgery, a nurse said to me, 'You may as well try magical thinking. Regular thinking hasn't helped.' I said to the nurse, 'Well, why the hell not?' That was seven years ago."
In bringing O'Dell's testimony to your attention, I don't mean to suggest you will have any health problems that warrant a strong dose of magical thinking.
But now and then, you may get wrapped up in a psychological twist or a spiritual riddle that could benefit from magical thinking.
And what is magical thinking? Here's one definition: The stories that unfold in your imagination may have important effects on what actually happens to you.
In all the zodiac, which sign is the champion at invoking magical thinking to generate practical effects? You Pisceans!
Below the paywall is chapter 61 from my upcoming trilogy of novels, collectively called Love Stories for the Earth: Holy Rivers, Lucky Storms, and The Other Real World.