Astrology | Week of Oct. 22, 2009

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ARIES March 21-April 19: “The clouds are the most fertile part of the sky,” writes Guy Murchie in his book The Seven Mysteries of Life. Microbes with short life cycles live there in abundance, “eating, breathing, excreting, floating, swimming, competing, reproducing.” Next time you look up at a puffy cumulus, see it as a large city, a teeming host of living things. Speaking of invisible fecundity, let’s turn our attention to you. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you are largely unaware of how much creative energy has been building up within you. Your homework is to tap into it and unleash it.

TAURUS April 20-May 20: My friend Alcea, the pagan priestess who leads group rituals, is a responsible sort who has humble respect for the power of the spirit realms. She thinks there can be value in seeking help from the beings who dwell on the other side of the veil, but you’ve got to be careful. They can be as clueless and misguided as the less evolved characters who live on the material plane. That’s why Alcea is especially impeccable around this time of year, when the veil between the worlds is thinner and our dimension is more accessible to the spirits. Having said all that as a caveat, Taurus, I want to let you know that this would be an excellent time for you to call on the help of your most intelligent, interesting, and loving ancestors.

GEMINI May 21-June 20: “He who loves 50 people has 50 woes,” said Buddha. “He who loves no one has no woes.” Even if you agree with this sour observation, I urge you to override the warning it implies. Now, more than ever, you can and should attract rich benefits into your life by expanding the frontiers of your empathy — even if it means you will feel the hurts of others more deeply. And what exactly are those rich benefits? Here’s one: Getting close-up views of the ways people suffer will help you avoid suffering like that yourself in the future.

CANCER June 21-July 22: In the film Postcards from the Edge, the character played by Meryl Streep made a monumental declaration: “Instant gratification takes too long.” I know exactly what she meant. Sometimes I wish I could have what I want before I have to endure even a moment of frustrated longing. I bring this up, my fellow Cancerian, because in the coming week we may get our yearnings satisfied before we fully express them. Of course, there could be a downside to this situation: Since the magic will be materializing so quickly, you’d better be very sure you really want what you even start to wish for.

LEO July 23-Aug. 22: Cement is the most common human-made material in the world. Combined with water to make concrete, it is a fundamental ingredient in many buildings and roads. And yet no one knew its precise structure until recently. Then a group of scientists figured out that its strength comes not from its orderliness but rather from its messiness. At the atomic level, cement’s molecules display both regular geometric patterns and areas of random variation. It’s in these chaotic areas that water molecules bind with the cement, creating a structure that’s both flexible and robust. This is the kind of foundation I urge you to work on in the coming weeks, Leo — a configuration that will endure exactly because it has a lot of give.

VIRGO Aug. 23-Sept. 22: In my dream last night, the High Priestess from the Tarot deck came to life and gave me the following message: “Tell Virgos that when their deep hunger starts to stir, they should not eat from the bowl of delicious seeds. That meager meal would not satisfy their deep hunger. Rather, they should plant those seeds and let them grow up. The resulting harvest will satisfy their deep hunger.”

LIBRA Sept. 23-Oct. 22: It’s an excellent time to see if you can remove some of the neurotic twitches from your erotic itches. For example, you could use all your ingenuity to talk yourself out of the silly guilt you feel for having a certain idiosyncratic desire — a desire that, if acted out, would hurt no one, and that is therefore, by definition, healthy. Here’s another possibility: You could invoke the full powers of your imagination as you free yourself from things that prevent you from experiencing maximum pleasure, like old wounds, simmering anger, rank egotism, and limiting beliefs.

SCORPIO Oct. 23-Nov. 21: The astrological vibes suggest that you open yourself wide, try everything, and give freely. I urge you to adapt as your motto an exhortation that once came out of the mouth of the seven-year-old cartoon character Dennis the Menace: “Hey! Wake up! Let’s go everywhere and do everything!” More than any other phase in many moons, Scorpio, this is your moment to make YES your battle cry. The world is asking you to be bigger than the old you, wilder than five blood oaths put together, and as strong as the full moon rising over a mountain.

SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22-Dec. 21: The average middle class person alive today has more goodies than the kings and queens of times past. In fact, even during this time of economic retrenchment, most of us have a higher standard of living than 99 percent of all the humans who’ve ever walked the planet. In pointing this out, I don’t mean to discount the suffering of those who’ve lost their jobs and homes. But I think it’s helpful to keep our collective deprivations in perspective. Similarly, I like to remember that no matter how much our personal trials may test us, they are more bearable than, say, the tribulations of the generation that lived through the Great Depression and World War II. Keep this in mind, Sagittarius. As you wander in the limbo between the end of one chapter of your life story and the beginning of the next chapter, it’ll really help to stay conscious of how blessed you are. Halloween costume suggestion: a saint tending to the needs of the dispossessed and underprivileged.

CAPRICORN Dec. 22-Jan. 19: It’s prime time for intense and momentous social events. Of the gatherings you may attend, I hope you’ll find at least one that fits the following descriptions: 1. a warm fluidic web of catalytic energy where you awaken to new possibilities about how to create close alliances; 2. a sweet, jangly uproar where you encounter a strange attractor — a freaky influence that makes the hair on the back of your neck rise and lights up the fertile parts of your imagination; 3. a sacred party where you get a novel vision of how to connect with the divine realms more viscerally. Halloween costume suggestion: something that incorporates a hub, wheel, or web.

AQUARIUS Jan. 20-Feb. 18: The members of the congregation at St. Peter-at-Gowts Church in Lincoln, England had a minor crisis a few years ago. For years, they had prayed to a very old stone sculpture they assumed was a likeness of the Virgin Mary. Then a nosy archaeologist came poking around and informed them that the figure was actually Arimanius, the god of the underworld in the ancient Mithraic religion. I encourage you to make sure you’re not under a comparable misimpression, Aquarius. This is an excellent time, astrologically speaking, for you to seek the help of higher powers, but it’s crucial that you direct your invocations to the right source.

PISCES Feb. 19-March 20: Some of history’s worst tyrants have been terrified by kittens. Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Mussolini all had ailurophobia, a morbid and irrational fear of domestic felines. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were also discombobulated by cats. I bring this up, Pisces, because it reminds me of a certain situation in your life. I’m betting that a pushy or domineering influence that distorts your emotions will soon be susceptible to being spooked by a seemingly harmless little thing. Maybe you could turn this into a permanent advantage. How skilled are you at purring?

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