Archive for Astrology
September 21, 2006 at 2:45 pm · Filed under Astrology
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In 2000, I logged 34,000 miles during my travels across America to meet my readers. During a three-year stretch earlier in my life, I was a homeless gypsy, sponging off friends and staying in hostels from Vermont to South Carolina, from Italy to Greece. But in recent years I’ve gone on extensive pilgrimages of another kind, carried out through imaginal exercises, lucid dreams, and shamanic meditations. According to my reading of the omens, Aquarius, you can generate rich blessings for yourself by getting away from it all in either of these two directions. What’s better, to head out into far-flung places in the outer world or the inner world? It doesn’t matter.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
One historian has figured out that during the last three and a half millennia, humans have been at peace throughout the world for only 230 years–less than seven percent of the time. How would you rate your own personal proportions of war and peace, Pisces? I certainly hope you’re serene, centered, and secure far more than seven percent of your life. But whether or not you are, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to boost your average dramatically. The actions you take and the attitudes you adjust could set in motion changes that will make peace a more common everyday experience. How hard you willing to work to establish a Pax Pisces?
September 13, 2006 at 11:23 pm · Filed under Astrology
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Last May, workers cleaning up garbage on Britain’s highest mountain made a startling find. There at the top of Mt. Ben Nevis was a piano. How did it get there? Three years earlier, hikers in Indiana’s Yellowwood State Forest stumbled upon an equally inexplicable anomaly: a massive boulder lodged in the topmost branches of an 80-foot-tall chestnut tree. These are your metaphors of the week, Aquarius. I bet that you too will find seemingly out-of-place things in high places. Don’t dismiss them with a flick of your rational mind. Give them a chance to change your thinking about the nature of reality.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Millard Fillmore was President of the United States from 1850 to 1853. He was the last holder of that office who was neither a Democrat nor Republican. Let’s make him a symbol of freedom from the rigged con game that is America’s two-party political system, as well as an inspiring image for those of you who aspire to rise above *every* either-or dichotomy. Fillmore will be your mascot as you declare your independence from the dualistic ways of thinking that threaten to
ensnare you. He’ll be an emblem that rouses you to transcend the simplistic arguments spewed by fanatical devotees of the Us Versus Them racket. Escape the vise, Pisces.
September 6, 2006 at 2:11 pm · Filed under Astrology
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
You don’t need any special climbing skills to reach the top of Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. It’s the highest walkable mountain in the world. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy conquest. You’ve got to be in good physical shape. To avoid altitude sickness, you must ascend gradually enough to acclimatize yourself to steadily decreasing levels of oxygen. This happens to be an apt metaphor for the current state of your fate, Aquarius. You have a chance to begin a project that could lead you to a summit with inspiring vistas. You don’t need to master any exotic new skills to do it, and can pull it off as long as you’re patient, take good care of yourself, and are willing to both respect your limits and push yourself harder than usual.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
“There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept,” said photographer Ansel Adams. That advice should be uppermost in your mind as you follow your bliss to the next fork in the road. Although you’ve got good intuitions about the hopeful scenario that’s fueling you, the fantasy still needs to be fleshed out a lot more. Unless you make it more specific and detailed, it will eventually fizzle. Here’s your assignment: By the equinox, create a vivid image of a well- crafted, intricately imagined goal.
September 6, 2006 at 1:58 pm · Filed under Astrology
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
“Why just ask the donkey in me to speak to the donkey in you when I have so many other beautiful animals and brilliant colored birds inside that are all longing to say something wonderful and exciting to your heart?” That’s the question Daniel Ladinsky asks in his translation of a poem by the Persian mystic poet Hafiz. (It’s in the book *The Gift: Poems of Hafiz* at http://tinyurl.com/jpfc4.) I’d like you to ponder it, Aquarius. You’re in a phase when you have an exceptional ability to bring out the best and brightest in your allies. Uncoincidentally, doing that will result in your allies having a magical ability to bring out the best and brightest in you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
If you’re alert, people whose magic you had become deadened to will reveal stirring secrets. Places you’ve visited a thousand times may seem to have undergone an overnight transformation, exposing you to a series of mini-awakenings that ultimately add up to a full-blown *aha.* You may find yourself penetrating to the heart of mysteries that you previously didn’t even realize were mysteries. By week’s end, if you’re brave enough to keep welcoming the surprises, you will be ripped free from an especially sneaky illusion and reunited with a lost fragment of your soul.
August 23, 2006 at 3:54 pm · Filed under Astrology
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
At the Coachella music festival, I found myself next to a guy sporting a rainbow mohawk and wearing a red, white, and blue speedo, black socks, golf shoes, a striped necktie, angel wings, a red clown nose, and a battered hard hat with a sticker that read “Martinis and brown rice.” At one point he turned to me and said, “You know what I like most about being an Aquarius? It’s a never-ending opportunity to send out mixed messages in a friendly, non-manipulative way.” That got me to thinking about how most of us are addicted to thinking in simplistic categories and obsessed with making sense. Sending out mixed messages, therefore, can be valuable if it’s done in a spirit of compassionate play, because it subverts those bad habits. Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Aquarians do this best. I hope you ply your specialty lavishly in the coming weeks. People in your life have an acute need to get their certainties scrambled.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
You’ve entered the Intimacy Intensification Season. Are you ready to dive deeper into the mysteries of togetherness? If so, you’ll meet provocative candidates for future alliances, and people you already know and love will become more available. As you can
imagine, it’ll be crucial for you to study the truths of your own heart with ruthless honesty. There’ll be no excuse for getting tangled up with so-called “pleasures” that don’t really activate your most fervent zeal. Exercise extreme discrimination, please, even as you seek out thrills that make you brilliantly crazy.
August 16, 2006 at 1:39 am · Filed under Astrology
It’s time for you to fall in love, Aquarius–though not necessarily with a person. You could swoon with infatuation for a place where your heart feels free, for example. You could dive into new music that liberates you from your past, or give yourself with abandon to a fascinating task that brings out the best in you. You might lose your heart to a mind-expanding mentor, a mysterious animal, or a thrilling fight for justice. It really doesn’t matter exactly how or what you fall in love with, Aquarius, as long as it incites you to break open the doors of perception.
August 9, 2006 at 3:38 pm · Filed under Astrology
The often-inebriated Calamity Jane character on HBO’s TV show *Deadwood* uttered words that are important for you to take to heart. I’ll paraphrase her observation in order to streamline her drunken syntax: “Every day you have to figure out how to live all over again.” Of course this is always true, Aquarius, but it’s even more intensely apt for you right now. The good news is that you’ll be unusually skilled at deciphering the ever-changing rules of the master game, and you’re also likely to have maximum fun while doing so.
August 2, 2006 at 1:01 am · Filed under Astrology
This is a favorable time for you to conjure up an imaginary friend who also happens to be a muse. You can pretend that he or she is perfectly real, just invisible. Or you can fantasize that he or she is a mostly buried part of you that you rarely express, or maybe your ideal of what a friend should be. I urge you to give this ally a name. Visualize his or her vivid personality and appearance in detail. See the world through his or her eyes. Have dialogues, exchange confidential information, hold hands, and soak up the balm of your tender communion.
July 26, 2006 at 11:59 am · Filed under Astrology
This week should be pretty CRUNCHALICIOUS, Aquarius. You know, crisp and delectable, chewy and pleasing to your inner four-year-old–like a breakfast cereal with three different sweet tastes packed into puff balls that softly explode in your mouth. The only potential problem is that you could keep wolfing down the treats without any regard for how the experience might make you feel later. I suggest that you enjoy the feast slowly, pausing every now and then to monitor whether you’re close to being excessively stimulated or over-satiated.
July 19, 2006 at 8:59 am · Filed under Astrology
Imagine asking fundamentalist nutcase Jerry Falwell to evaluate a book about evolution by a renowned science writer like Richard Dawkins. Imagine handing poet Allen Ginsberg’s masterwork *Howl* to a janitor in Bangladesh and paying him to write his opinions about it. The effect would be similar to an event that actually occurred recently. *The New York Times* invited ex-Marine sniper Anthony Swofford, author of the Gulf War memoir *Jarhead,* to review a subversive metaphysical experiment penned by visionary philosopher Daniel Pinchbeck, a book called *2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.* As you might expect, Swofford’s screed was 85 percent hallucination. Let the Times’ gaffe serve as a warning beacon, Aquarius. It’s now crucial for you to gather a range of discriminating opinions about yourself and the possibilities you’re considering. Don’t rely on people who have no familiarity with, understanding of, or respect for the issues you want feedback about.
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