Rob Brezsny
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “I am a seed about to break,” wrote Sylvia Plath in her poem “Three Women.” That’s how I see you right now, Libra. You are teeming with the buoyant energy that throbs when a seed is ready to sprout. You have been biding your time, gathering the nourishment you need, waiting for the right circumstances to burst open with your new flavor. And now that nervous, hopeful, ecstatic moment is about to arrive. Be brave!
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The English verb “cicurate” is defined as “to tame or domesticate” or “to make mild or innocuous.” But it once had an additional sense: “to reclaim from wildness.” It was derived from the Latin word cicurare, which meant “to bring back from madness, to draw out of the wilderness.” For your purposes, Scorpio, we will make cicurate your theme, but concentrate on these definitions: “to reclaim from wildness, to bring back from madness, to draw out of the wilderness.” In the coming weeks, you will be exploring rough, luxuriant areas of unknown territory. You will be wrangling with primitive, sometimes turbulent energy. I urge you to extract the raw vitality you find there, and harness it to serve your daily rhythm and your long-term goals.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence,” said psychologist Carl Jung. Extrapolating from that idea, we can hypothesize that the more willing and able you are to be influenced, the greater your influence might be. Let’s make this your key theme in the coming weeks. It will be an excellent time to increase your clout, wield more authority, and claim more of a say in the creation of your shared environments. For best results, you should open your mind, be very receptive, and listen well.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Congratulations, Capricorn. Your current dilemmas are more useful and interesting than any that you have had for a long time. If you can even partially solve them, the changes you set in motion will improve your entire life, not just the circumstances they immediately affect. Of the several dividends you may reap, one of my favorites is this: You could liberate yourself from a messed-up kind of beauty and become available for a more soothing and delightful kind. Here’s another potential benefit: You may transform yourself in ways that will help you attract more useful and interesting dilemmas in the future.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Alan Moore is the British author who wrote the graphic novels Watchmen and V for Vendetta. He is now nearing completion of Jerusalem, a novel he has been working on for six years. It will be more than a million words long, almost double the size of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and 200,000 words bigger than the Bible. “Any editor worth their salt would tell me to cut two-thirds of this book,” Moore told the New Statesman, “but that’s not going to happen.” Referring to the author of Moby Dick, Moore adds, “I doubt that Herman Melville had an editor. If he had, that editor would have told him to get rid of all that boring stuff about whaling: ‘Cut to the chase, Herman.’” Let’s make Moore and Melville your role models in the coming week, Aquarius. You have permission to sprawl, ramble, and expand. Do NOT cut to the chase.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): For a long time, an Illinois writer named ArLynn Leiber Presser didn’t go out much. She had 325 friends on Facebook and was content to get her social needs met in the virtual realm. But then she embarked on a yearlong project in which she sought face-to-face meetings with all of her online buddies. The experiment yielded sometimes complicated but mostly interesting results. It took her to 51 cities around the world. I suggest we make her your inspirational role model for the coming weeks, Pisces. In at least one way, it’s time for you to move out of your imagination and into the real world. You’re primed to turn fantasies into actions, dreams into practical pursuits.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): It’s no secret. The wealthy one percent of the population has been getting progressively wealthier. Meanwhile, the poor are becoming steadily poorer. I’m worried there is a metaphorically similar trend in your life. Am I right? If so, please do all you can to reverse it. Borrow energy from the rich and abundant parts of your life so as to lift up the neglected and underendowed parts. Here’s one example of how you could proceed: For a while, be less concerned with people who think you’re a star, and give more attention to those who accept and love your shadow side.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job,” says Bill Gates, the world’s second-richest man, “because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” That’s good counsel for you right now, Taurus. You’d be wise to get in touch with your inner lazy bum. Let the slacker within you uncover the least stressful way to accomplish your difficult task. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, there is no need for you to suffer and strain as you deal with your dilemma.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If you don’t identify and express your conscious desires, your unconscious desires will dominate your life. I will say that again in different language, because it’s crucial you understand the principle. You’ve got to be very clear about what you really want, and install a shining vision of what you really want at the core of your everyday life. If you don’t do that, you will end up being controlled by your habits and old programming. So be imperious, Gemini. Define your dearest, strongest longing, and be ruthlessly devoted to it.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was an influential French photographer, a pioneer of photojournalism who helped transform photography into an art form. In 1986 he was invited to Palermo, Sicily to accept a prize for his work. The hotel he stayed in seemed oddly familiar to him, although he didn’t understand why. It was only later he discovered that the hotel had been the place at which his mother and father stayed on their honeymoon. It was where he was conceived. I foresee a comparable development on the horizon for you, Cancerian: a return to origins, perhaps inadvertent; an evocative encounter with your roots; a reunification with an influence that helped make you who you are today.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): With expert execution, musician Ben Lee can play 15 notes per second on his violin. Superstar eater Pete Czerwinski needs just 34 seconds to devour a 12-inch pizza. When Jerry Miculek is holding his rifle, he can get off eight crack shots at four targets in a little more than one second. While upside-down, Aichi Ono is capable of doing 135 perfect head spins in a minute. I don’t expect you to be quite so lightning fast and utterly flawless as these people in the coming weeks, Leo, but I do think you will be unusually quick and skillful. For the foreseeable future, speed and efficiency are your specialties.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): As the makeup artist for the film “Dallas Buyers Club”, Robin Mathews had a daunting task. During the 23 days of shooting, she had to constantly transform lead actors Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto so that they appeared either deathly ill or relatively healthy. Sometimes she had to switch them back and forth five times a day. She was so skillful in accomplishing this feat that she won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Her budget? A meager $250. The film was a shoestring indie production. I’m naming her your inspirational role model for the next few weeks, Virgo. I believe that you, too, can create magic without a wealth of resources.