Rob Brezsny
Homework: What’s the most important question you’d like to find an answer for in the next five years? Tell all: Freewillastrology.com
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Journalist James A. Fussell defined “thrashing” as “the act of tapping helter-skelter over a computer keyboard in an attempt to find ‘hidden’ keys that trigger previously undiscovered actions in a computer program.” I suggest we use this as a metaphor for your life in the next two weeks. Without becoming rude or irresponsible, thrash around to see what interesting surprises you can drum up. Play with various possibilities in a lighthearted effort to stimulate options you have not been able to discover through logic and reason.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Let’s observe a moment of silence for the illusion that is in the process of disintegrating. It has been a pretty illusion, hasn’t it? Filled with hope and gusto, it has fueled you with motivation. But then again—on second thought—its prettiness was more the result of clever packaging than inner beauty. The hope was somewhat misleading, the gusto contained more than a little bluster, and the fuel was an inefficient source of motivation. Still, let’s observe a moment of silence anyway. Even dysfunctional mirages deserve to be mourned. Besides, its demise will fertilize a truer and healthier and prettier dream that will contain a far smaller portion of illusion.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Judging from the astrological omens, I conclude that the upcoming weeks will be a favorable time for you to engage in experiments befitting a mad scientist. You can achieve interesting results as you commune with powerful forces that are usually beyond your ability to command. You could have fun and maybe also attract good luck as you dream and scheme to override the rules. What pleasures have you considered to be beyond your capacity to enjoy? It wouldn’t be crazy for you to flirt with them. You have license to be saucy, sassy, and extra sly.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A snail can slowly crawl over the edge of a razor blade without hurting itself. A few highly trained experts, specialists in the art of mind over matter, are able to walk barefoot over beds of hot coals without getting burned. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Pisces, you now have the metaphorical equivalent of powers like these. To ensure they’ll operate at peak efficiency, you must believe in yourself more than you ever have before. Luckily, life is now conspiring to help you do just that.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In alignment with the current astrological omens, I have prepared your horoscope using five hand-plucked aphorisms by Aries poet Charles Bernstein. 1. “You never know what invention will look like or else it wouldn’t be invention.” 2. “So much depends on what you are expecting.” 3. “What’s missing from the bird’s eye view is plain to see on the ground.” 4. “The questioning of the beautiful is always at least as important as the establishment of the beautiful.” 5. “Show me a man with two feet planted firmly on the ground and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants on.”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): It may seem absurd for a dreamy oracle like me to give economic advice to Tauruses, who are renowned as being among the zodiac’s top cash attractors. Is there anything I can reveal to you that you don’t already know? Well, maybe you’re not aware that the next four weeks will be prime time to revise and refine your long-term financial plans. It’s possible you haven’t guessed the time is right to plant seeds that will produce lucrative yields by 2019. And maybe you don’t realize that you can now lay the foundation for bringing more wealth into your life by raising your generosity levels.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I used to have a girlfriend whose mother hated Christmas. The poor woman had been raised in a fanatical fundamentalist Christian sect, and she drew profound solace and pleasure from rebelling against that religion’s main holiday. One of her annual traditions was to buy a small Christmas tree and hang it upside-down from the ceiling. She decorated it with ornamental dildos she had made out of clay. While I understood her drive for revenge and appreciated the entertaining way she did it, I felt pity for the enduring ferocity of her rage. Rather than mocking the old ways, wouldn’t her energy have been much better spent inventing new ways? If there is any comparable situation in your own life, Gemini, now would be a perfect time to heed my tip. Give up your attachment to the negative emotions that arose in response to past frustrations and failures. Focus on the future.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): So begins the “I Love To Worry” season for you Cancerians. Even now, bewildering self-doubts are working their way up toward your conscious awareness from your unconscious depths. You may already be overreacting in anticipation of the anxiety-provoking fantasies that are coalescing. But wait! It doesn’t have to be that way. I’m here to tell you that the bewildering self-doubts and anxiety-provoking fantasies are at most ten percent accurate. They’re not even close to being half-true! Here’s my advice: Do NOT go with the flow, because the flow will drag you down into ignominious habit. Resist all tendencies towards superstition, moodiness, and melodramatic descents into hell. One thing you can do to help accomplish this brave uprising is to sing beloved songs with maximum feeling.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Your lucky numbers are 55 and 88. By tapping into the uncanny powers of 55 and 88, you can escape the temptation of a hexed fiction and break the spell of a mediocre addiction. These catalytic codes could wake you up to a useful secret you’ve been blind to. They might help you catch the attention of familiar strangers or shrink one of your dangerous angers. When you call on 55 or 88 for inspiration, you may be motivated to seek a more dynamic accomplishment beyond your comfortable success. You could reactivate an important desire that has been dormant.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): What exactly is the epic, overarching goal that you live for? What is the higher purpose that lies beneath every one of your daily activities? What is the heroic identity you were born to create but have not yet fully embodied? You may not be close to knowing the answers to those questions right now, Virgo. In fact, I’m guessing your fear of meaninglessness might be at a peak. Luckily, a big bolt of meaningfulness is right around the corner. Be alert for it. In a metaphorical sense, it will arrive from the depths. It will strengthen your center of gravity as it reveals lucid answers to the questions I posed in the beginning of this horoscope.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): We all need teachers. We all need guides and instructors and sources of inspiration from the day we’re born until the day we die. In a perfect world, each of us would always have a personal mentor who’d help us fill the gaps in our learning and keep us focused on the potentials that are crying out to be nurtured in us. But since most of us don’t have that personal mentor, we have to fend for ourselves. We’ve got to be proactive as we push on to the next educational frontier. The next four weeks will be an excellent time for you to do just that, Libra.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): This is your last warning! If you don’t stop fending off the happiness and freedom that are trying to worm their way into your life, I’m going to lose my cool. Damn it! Why can’t you just accept good luck and sweet strokes of fate at face value?! Why do you have to be so suspicious and mistrustful?! Listen to me: The abundance that’s lurking in your vicinity is not the set-up for a cruel cosmic joke. It’s not some wicked game designed to raise your expectations and then dash them to pieces. Please, Scorpio, give in and let the good times wash over you.
Rob Brezsny is an aspiring master of curiosity, perpetrator of sacred uproar, and founder of the Beauty and Truth Lab. He brings a literate, myth-savvy perspective to his work. It’s all in the stars.