You Are Holy
You Are Holy
You Are Beautiful, Authentic, and Vital
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.
SPELLS FOR YOU #8
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ARIES: British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) had an unusual fetish. He enjoyed eating apples and pears and other fruits while they were still hanging on the tree.
Why? Maybe because the taste was as pure and brisk and naked as it could possibly be—an experience that I imagine would be important to a romantic poet like him.
In accordance with your astrological potentials, I suggest you periodically use Coleridge's quest for ultimate freshness as a driving metaphor. Go to the source to get what you need. Dispense with intermediaries. Be as fresh and raw as the law allows.
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TAURUS: In my experience, you Tauruses often have more help available than you realize. You underestimate your power to call on support, and as a result don't call on it enough.
It may even be the case that the possible help gets weary of waiting for you to summon it, and basically goes into hiding or fades away.
But now let's say that you, the lucky person reading this oracle, get inspired by my words. Maybe you will respond by becoming more forceful about recognizing and claiming your potential blessings.
I hope so! In my astrological opinion, you Tauruses have a mandate to develop a knack for seizing all the help you could possibly want.
PS: Where might the help come from? Sources you don't expect, perhaps, but also familiar influences that expand beyond their previous dispensations.
• Quirky coincidences and amusing interventions.
• Opportunities disguised as inconveniences and gifts that don't appear gift-like.
• Whether or not you believe in spiritual beings, they, too, may offer help, support, blessings, and resources.
• Nodes of dormant genius in your own brain may become available—pockets of grey matter that have been asleep or off-limits, but which could awaken and offer intercessions.
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GEMINI: Here's my prescription for making best use of your Gemini potentials: Be enchanting, but in understated ways. Be slyly charismatic and respectfully flirtatious and serenely wild. Show how sexy it is to be sublimely relaxed.
Make judicious use of small acts of friendly mischief. Be affectionately unpredictable, always in the service of showing how much you care.
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CANCERIAN: Here’s an experiment: Keep checking yourself for irrelevant, self-perpetuating negativity and bitterness.
Having a modicum of anger and fear and antipathy is sensible, even necessary. You can’t stay healthy without cultivating a medicinal dose of the stuff. It helps you maintain proper boundaries and protect yourself from influences that aren’t hospitable.
But it’s in your interest to cultivate just the amount you need, no more. It may often be tempting to go too far, but it’s crucial that you learn not to.
In my Astrological Book of Life, you Cancerians are destined to learn the art of knowing just how much anger and fear and antipathy you require to thrive.
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LEO: Ancient Greek philosopher Plato observed, “Do not train children to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
The same principle applies to all of us adults who are committed to the goal of lifelong learning. And according to my astrological analysis, it’s an especially useful idea for you Leos. Why? Because you are at the top of the list in the zodiac for “Those Most Likely to Retain the Resiliency of Children.”
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VIRGO: Poet Rainer Maria Rilke felt many people misunderstand the role of love.
"They are inclined to regard love as fun and pleasurable because they imagine that fun and pleasure are more delightful than work," he wrote. "But when done right, work is joyful. And love, which can generate more bliss than any other experience, is most blissful when hard work is in play."
I'm sharing this perspective with you, Virgo, because of all the signs in the zodiac, you're most likely to thrive on it.
Here's how Rilke finished his thought: "Lovers should proceed as if they have magnificent work to achieve."
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LIBRA: The Spanish word delicadeza can have several meanings in English, including "delicacy" and "finesse."
The Portuguese word delicadeza has those meanings, as well as others, including "tenderness," "fineness," "suavity," "respect," and "urbanity."
In accordance with your astrological potentials, let's make it one of your words of power. You can often thrive by expressing an abundance of these qualities. It might be fun to give yourself the nickname Delicadeza.
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SCORPIO: I invite you to experiment with the theme "Healthy Obsessions."
Not "Melodramatic Compulsions" or "Exhausting Crazes" or "Manias That Make You Seem Interesting to Casual Bystanders," but "Healthy Obsessions."
To do it as well as you Scorpios were born to do, you must take scrupulous care of yourself as you concentrate on tasks that rouse your zest and zeal.
This may require you to rebel against the influences of role models, both in your actual life and in the movies you've seen, who act as if getting sick and imbalanced is an integral part of being faithful to one's genius.
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SAGITTARIUS: What kind of archer do you want to be when you grow up, Sagittarius? Would you like to be:
• the kind of archer who aims in the general direction of several big targets in the distance;
• the kind who aims at a single medium-sized target in the middle distance;
• the kind who aims at many small targets that aren't too far away;
• the kind who never aims at any target at all, but just enjoys the thrill of shooting lots of arrows everywhere?
I encourage you to settle on one of these four options.
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CAPRICORN: Think about your relationship with people who haven't been born yet. This generous foresight is potentially a Capricornian specialty.
What might you create for future humans to use?
How can you make your life a gift to our descendants?
Can you not only help preserve the wonders we live amidst, but enhance them?
Are you willing to embrace Lewis Carroll's admonition, "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward"?
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AQUARIUS: The truths I articulate below comprise essential knowledge for every sign of the zodiac. But you Aquarians may have the greatest potential to fully activate them.
You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.
You don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations.
There’s no need to strive for a kind of perfection that’s not interesting to you.
You don’t have to believe in ideas that make you sad or tormented.
You don’t have to feel emotions that others try to manipulate you into feeling.
You are free to be who you want to be.
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PISCES: "We should not think of our past as definitely settled, for we are not a stone or a tree," wrote poet Czesław Miłosz. "My past changes every minute according to the meaning given it now, in this moment.”
So, yes, Pisces, you always have the power to re-vision and reinterpret your past. Keep the following question in mind as you go about this work: "How can I recreate my history so as to make my willpower stronger, my love of life richer, and my future more interesting?"
Below the paywall are chapters 56 and 57 from my upcoming trilogy of novels, collectively called Love Stories for the Earth: Holy Rivers, Lucky Storms, and The Other Real World.