By Rob Brezsny
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Go against the flow. Buck the
system. Push the river. Entertain the possibility that everything you know is
at least half-wrong. Do you catch my drift, Aries? What I'm trying to tell you
is, champion the underdog. Ignore the obvious. Disprove the conventional
wisdom. Bet on the dark horse. Be a devil's advocate. Shall I continue my rant
until you have absolutely no doubt what your mission is? Buy a new goldfish and
name it "Jaws." Figure out a way to lick your own elbow. Eat with
your non-dominant hand. Say prayers while you're having sex. Acquire a pet
mosquito. Watch TV while standing on your head.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Very few raindrops are actually
raindrop-shaped. A far greater number take the form of doughnuts. These
doughnutty raindrops are your power objects, Taurus—your magical symbols.
I hope they inspire you to look for the wide-open spaces in the middle of every
stormy downpour. I trust they will alert you to the possibility that there'll
be windows of opportunities at the heart of the drizzle.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The more time you spend playing games
in the coming days, the smarter you'll be. Miniature golf, Monopoly, Twister,
gin rummy, paintball, scavenger hunts, tag, Dungeons and Dragons—doesn't
matter what it is, as long as it moves you to engage in exuberant fun for no
other reason than because it feels so good. Playing games will be the Truth and
the Way, the secret to enlightenment, the key to cultivating robust health and
making good decisions. Make this Chinese proverb your motto:
A bird does not
sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song
.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): For years, I lived 13 miles from the
top of Mt. Tamalpais, the highest peak in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every day
I gazed at it from afar through my window or while riding my bike in the hills,
marveling as it glided through its ever-shifting relationship with the sky. It
was a remote yet familiar beacon, an awe-inspiring touchstone against which I
could measure my own undulating rhythms. Now I've moved to a new home at the
foot of Mt. Tam. I feel as if I've become part of it—am embedded in its
protective and majestic aura. It's no longer an objective gauge, but rather an
intimate tone and texture in my subjective experience of myself. I predict that
you will soon undergo a comparable shift, Cancerian: from being *there* to
being
here
; from outside to inside; from
strength absorbed at a distance to power felt up close.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Biologists say the speed of thought in
the human brain is normally 150 miles per hour. But I'm guessing that in the
coming weeks, ideas and intuitions will be zipping around your grey matter at a
higher rate. It's even possible they'll break the sound barrier on a regular
basis (761 miles per hour), meaning you may hear sonic booms coming from inside
your skull. Don't be alarmed if this occurs; in fact, be excited. It's a sign
that your intelligence is heating up, burning off tired old beliefs and
outmoded theories in the process.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Acting on the authority vested in me
by the Prophets for Profit Syndicate, and speaking on behalf of the planetary
rhythms, I can assure you of this: If your cash flow has been too slow and you
remain passive about it in the coming weeks, it will corrode your mental
health. If you lift a finger to upgrade your relationship with money, on the
other hand, cosmic forces will rush to your aid with unexpected support.
Therefore, in the name of all that's holy, I hereby declare the beginning of a
new age in which you conspire and agitate and work hard for a new wage.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Think how it is to have a
conversation with an embryo," writes the poet Rumi, as translated by Coleman
Barks. "You might say, 'The world outside is vast and intricate. There are
wheat fields and mountain passes and orchards in bloom. At night there are
millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a
wedding.' You ask the embryo why he or she stays cooped up in the dark with
eyes closed. Listen to the answer. 'There is no
other world
. I only know what I've experienced. You must be
hallucinating.'" Now I say to you, Libra, that you are the embryo Rumi and
Barks are addressing. Consider the possibility that they're telling the truth.
Come out and take a look around.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Women are traps that lay for
men everywhere," said Franz Kafka, "in order to drag them into the
infinite." If you find this idea sexist or heterosexist, formulate your
own version. One way or another, you need to get lured or yanked into a bracing
experience of boundless possibilities… into a delightfully shocking immersion
in eternal truth… into a whirlwind tour of sublime, brain-scrambling beauty. If
an uncanny woman will do the job for you, great. If an amazing man works
better, or maybe a magical member of an in-between gender, seek that person
out. Play hard with the limitless, Scorpio.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): According to the esoteric
spiritual tradition of Western hermeticism, you have a personal Holy Guardian
Angel who's always ready to give you help, as well as to lovingly kick your
ass. Modern scientists snort derisively at this notion. They're fundamentalist
materialists, denying the possibility that something can exist if it's not
perceptible by our five senses or by instruments that humans have invented. If
your temperament and training align you with the scientists' ideology, I'll ask
you to temporarily suspend your skepticism so that you might join other
Sagittarians in trying the following experiment: Act as if you have a personal
Holy Guardian Angel whose job it is to help you lose your illusions, liberate
you from suffering, and make you smarter. What clarifying questions will you
ask the HGA? What precise assistance will you request?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In May 1941, Adolf Hitler's deputy
Rudolf Hess made an unauthorized attempt to seek peace with Britain. He flew
there alone from Germany, parachuting onto a Scottish farm as his plane
crashed. According to some accounts, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was
quickly informed of Hess's odd visitation, but deferred taking action because
he was too absorbed in a Marx Brothers movie. I expect there'll soon be a
metaphorically comparable event in your sphere, Capricorn. My advice? Be like
Churchill. If loose cannons or obsessed messengers or self-important
proselytizers demand your attention, put them on hold and stay engrossed in
whatever's amusing you.
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?
In addition to this column, Rob Brezsny creates EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, in-depth weekly forecasts designed to inspire and uplift you. To buy access, phone 1-888-499-4425. And be sure to visit his Web site at www.freewillastrology.com.