Part 1 of a few parts on Self-Esteem.
I hear this a lot:
”I need better self-esteem.” Or, “My self-esteem isn't that good."
WHAT THE F YALL.
In addition to judging oneself for our long list of failures, we judge ourselves for not having good self-esteem. How impossible we make it for ourselves! Nothing makes love leave quicker than the feeling that it’s an obligation we have to fulfill for others, so how would it be any different for ourselves! Self-care and self-love become exhausting when they’re something we feel we are supposed to do. With this phrasing and thinking, self-esteem becomes acquisitional. Another thing to get done or to consume. Feed the cat, do the dishes, buy acupuncture, get some self-esteem. If you haven't figured out how to get some then this too can be a way you can feel inadequate. You don't have the right clothes or the right work or the right way of talking about your work or the right instagram photos or the right partner AND ADDITIONALLY you don't have good self-esteem. AND you need to spend a lot of time (mysteriously, somehow?!) trying to get it, because having good self-esteem is the only way you are going to get those other things you want! This is a story we are told and then retell ourselves, which feels like a distortion of a truth about how to live in integrity with ourselves.
Acquiring self-esteem sounds at best boring and at worst impossible.
What if we just had "bad" self-esteem and were a little more patient and accepting of that.
What if we were like, I'm not putting self-esteem on my to do list.
What if we were like, Self-esteem cannot become another thing I need to get done.
What if we were like, Maybe I’ll never have good self-esteem, and that’s just fine. I can just let go of the burden of trying to get better self-esteem and see what happens.
What if we were like, What if self-esteem isn't something to acquire, but something to remember, that's always been there?
Jupiter and Mars are conjunct in Scorpio right now. I'm taking this as a boost in our capacity for transformation. And by transformation I mean, the opposite of effort, just letting nature work on us, just trusting that it will.
And! Sometimes trusting feels too hard. In this case, I recommend eating oranges in winter, for self-esteem. Because eating oranges is like eating tiny globes of sun, and we all need sun to live. Eating oranges is an affirmation of life, and affirmations of life are ways to practice self-esteem, even when we don't feel it. (More on this next week.)
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When are you so absorbed that you forget yourself?
Meditation - absorption.
Assignment - I want to tell you to interact with wood in some way. Find some wood. Spend some time with it. Spend a longer time than might seem comfortable. This is weird I know. But weirdness is underrated. What is the story of wood? What was it before it was wood? What is it now? What will it become after? How does this mirror your life?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - When do you experience pleasure?
Meditation - Pleasure.
Assignment - Do the things that you love, that come easily this week. Look for where there is the least resistance, and spend as much time there as possible. When you are doing things that don't come easily, let ease fill your body like food or sound or color. Imagine that there is a way to be easy in any circumstance. Just imagine it.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - When does an idea become a real thing?
Meditation - The Light Spectrum.
Assignment - Considering the light spectrum for you this week. How light includes all of the colors. How the light spectrum is just the visible part of a spectrum of waves of energy. What is the transition moment where an idea becomes manifest as an object or event? How might it be helpful to understand this transition very, very intimately?
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - What objects are around you right now and how does that affect your health?
Meditation - Lavender light.
Assignment - Consider your connection with the past and history and how that relates to the objects you are around on a regular basis. Is there anything that needs attending to in this area that can contribute to your well-being? Do that.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - When are you laughing?
Meditation - Humor.
Assignment - Make it your assignment to laugh every day this week. How does one laugh on purpose? What is the point of laughing?
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What is extravagant to you?
Meditation - Extravagance.
Assignment - Virgo is perpetually humble, and tends to not want to ask for "too much". The assignment this week is to get extravagant. What does extravagance mean to you? Talk to other people about their extravagance, and yours. Get extravagant and see what happens.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - What physical spaces do you occupy and how do they affect your moods?
Meditation - Permission for aesthetic sensitivity.
Assignment - Let the information in about your environment not feeling right, when it doesn't feel right. Right as in nourishing and expansive. You are an aesthetic being and it's okay (essential, even) to tend to your vitality by tending to the spaces you occupy.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What happens for you when the light changes at the beginning and ending of each day?
Meditation - light blue.
Assignment - Watch the sunrise and sunset this week, each day. Even if you only have one minute to watch, even if your vantage point is a tiny sliver. Connect to the source of life which has to do with time and light and space.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What is working well?
Meditation - The opposite of searching.
Assignment - What is the opposite of searching? Spend this week noticing what is working in your life. Give yourself that one task of noticing and return to it daily. Make a list of what is working each night. Read it over at the end of the week. Read it out loud to someone! What do you notice?
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - Where do you notice symmetry and asymmetry?
Meditation - Symmetry.
Assignment - Read about symmetry here. What is symmetrical in your thinking? What is symmetrical in your life? Draw how your mind works in relationship to symmetry. What does the drawing show you about your next moves?
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - When do you speak up and when do you wait to gather more information?
Meditation - the use of vocal chords.
Assignment - Song birds use their voices for a purpose, and part of the purpose is pleasure of other birds. Because pleasure is productive! It's a design of nature! Practice using your voice in places you might not typically speak up. What pleasure can this offer? What productivity?
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - What inertia of the past are you confronting right now?
Meditation - Inertia as a law.
Assignment - Make a list of the inertias in your life. What has a history, a habit, and therefore a lot of power behind it? What has not yet been made a habit or a history that you would like to gain more inertia? How could you cultivate this inertia? What creates inertia?
We use a thing called a calendar to overlap with each other in time and space. It's an incredible feat of collaboration that we do this all over the world! But the calendar is also just a concept. It’s one we use to interact, but it's not a solid fixed thing on its own. (A calendar that so many of us feel subject to in an overwhelming or negative way.) Today happens to be a day we've decided means something new, New Year’s Day. And this is a great concept to utilize symbolically, to leave behind and invite anew. But it doesn't actually correspond with anything in nature! So we can hold it lightly. And remember the actual truth which is that any day, any moment, can be a death of something, it can be a new life for something. In each moment a life, a birth, and a death are contained.
We have these magical and terrible things called minds with which we can use concepts which help us or concepts which hurt us (usually some of both all the time). The concept of the 1st of January can be a new beginning to the extent that it’s helpful. And we can remember we have agency to make any moment a new beginning, to re-commit to an intention. This is how I also think about astrology - we can see what are typically described as challenging transits, for example, as hard and impossible, and ‘just get through it’, or we can see them as another cycle, nature’s way of giving us opportunities to learn in Earth School. We can be brave and take these opportunities, even when they don’t feel like opportunities.
The physical, natural phenomenon was a little while ago - the winter solstice - where the days now have started to get longer. We can connect to this happening. The light is always in transition, and this can serve as a reminder that we always are too!
To be living in a body on the earth is to be living in transition, to be living in uncertainty.
Today is the full moon, in Cancer. A big watery full moon. The Moon rules Cancer and so is in its home place in Cancer. This moon invites us to find a home wherever we are, in This Now, this first day of something. What is this your first day of, your first moment of?
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What kind of fire are you accessing / channeling?
Meditation - The fire that sustains.
Assignment - Aries is in square with Cancer in the zodiac, where the moon is full right now. Squares often create a sense of tension, some urge for something to be worked out / worked through. Become more conscious of the types of fire and heat you are capable of. There is fire that burns up, there is fire that keeps warm, there is fire that forges material goods, there is fire caused by tetonic plates moving, fire caused by radioactive materials. What kind of fire do you want to access in yourself?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - When are you dragging your feet out of habit?
Meditation - Wispy clouds.
Assignment - Gemini, as the sign that comes after you in the zodiac, is a reaction to the earthy slowness of Taurus. It's all air, light and flight. Contemplate clouds and how they move into new forms constantly, without resistance. Practice being a cloud.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - When do you move fast and when do you move slow?
Meditation - Earthworms.
Assignment - Reflect on your past this week, investigate times when things went much more slowly than you wanted them to. Find the ways the slowness contributed positively. What does a slower speed allow you to see? Moving through air versus moving through soil.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - How often are you judging yourself for feeling?
Meditation - The scientific method.
Assignment - Do not be afraid of the big watery moon. Feeling is your birth right; feeling guides you. Utilize any aspect of the scientific method that resonates with you in a practice of letting yourself feel exactly what you feel this week. A true scientist doesn’t judge or try to make reality different, she simply takes note of what is happening! Practice letting it be exactly as it is. Practice letting emotion itself flow in, through and out of the body freely, as the water that it is.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - What do you want your future self to be?
Meditation - Seeds containing life.
Assignment - Certain types of conifer seeds only open and reproduce when touched by heat. They need fire to unlock their openness to life! What seeds are contained in you right now for the future that need fire - life force, the energy contained in heat - to open. These seeds are protected by pitch which holds them together until it’s time to grow and bloom. Your future self is already contained in everything that has happened up until now. It’s your job to apply the heat to these seeds so that they can open to all the life forces that allow them to reproduce. Seeds can’t become trees unless they contact soil, sunlight, and water. Be quiet this week so you can listen to the call for what is needed to activate all the latent energy contained in the seeds of your life.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - Where is your mind when you are walking?
Meditation - Walking (movement in the body) as divine act.
Assignment - For those of us able to walk, walking is an activity that we do sometimes for pleasure but most often for utility, without thinking about it much. Walking to the bathroom. Walking to the car. Walking to the kitchen. Walking from the stove to the sink in the kitchen. Whatever types of movement your body is capable of, take note of how often your mind is present in the act of the movement as it’s happening. How often are you noticing that your body is moving when it is moving? When you are walking to the bathroom, have you already gone to the bathroom in your mind? Are you onto something a few weeks out in your future mind calendar? Are you thinking of what you will say when you get out of the bathroom? Just take note, don’t judge. And then take note of the miracle of all the forces that have aligned for you to be in a body that can move from one room to another! This is happiness. A recognition of the miracle of WHAT IS.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - Is there any tension between your work life and your relationships?
Meditation - Your own life force energy.
Assignment - What is the relationship between your work and the significant people in your life? Does your energy feel dispersed or pulled between these? How do you manage this, if there is a tension? Libra is square Capricorn in the zodiac, and three planets just moved into Capricorn, so you might feel an increase in this tension. Is there an aspect of your work / creative life that you aren’t letting live fully because of what feels like obligations? Look into the relationship between these two places in your life, and be as kind as possible as you look. Take note of what you see, give yourself permission to just see it for now. So much of healing is seeing.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - How does the erotic live in your body?
Meditation - Erotic energy as life-giving force
Assignment - Take note of your own erotic energy this week. When does it arise, when does it subside? Are you letting it be there, are you trusting that this is a part of your power, are you giving it room to breathe and live? This erotic energy is available no matter if you have a sexual partner or not. Notice your attunement to the sexual in life. Attend to this erotic force this week. Give yourself permission for it, and remember that just this simple attending to the erotic can be a politically transgressive act.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What comes from the inside and what comes from the outside?
Meditation - Inner and outer co-arising.
Assignment - What is your experience of inner life? What is your experience of outer life? Does it feel like these conflict? Does this feel like there is a gap between the inner and outer, does it feel like there is a block in expressing something inner? Just ask these questions and take note of the answers, no need to make an assignment about it. In fact the assignment this week is to ask questions, and not make an assignment out of the answers.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When do you leave your body?
Meditation - The body as a miracle of nature.
Assignment - Investigate your sense of being in your body or out of it. When are you ‘in’ it? When are you ‘gone’ from it? How does it feel right now? What does it know that you might ignore? What is happening inside it right now? Listen to what it is telling you.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - How does your adolescence affect you now?
Meditation - Individuation.
Assignment - Look back on your adolescence and ask questions about how it is informing your current life. What individuation happened during that time? What individuation is still happening and or needs to happen? Aquarius can be very compelled by groups, systems and how ideas move. So asking questions about your individual experience can be a helpful balancing method.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When does your emotional awareness of others’ experience cover your own experience?
Meditation - The simplest option.
Assignment - This week just practice the simplest option. When decisions come up, try out the simplest answer, the simplest way to go. What does simple mean to you? Try it out. The ease of simplicity.
A significant shift - Saturn and the Sun and Venus all just moved from Sagittarius (fire) into Capricorn (earth). Saturn "rules" Capricorn, which is a way of saying they are different expressions of the same energy. So our experience of Saturnian energy is amplified by it moving into its home sign.
Saturn's presence in our birth charts and in transit makes things feel slowed down, and makes us feel subject to laws much bigger than us. Laws of nature. Laws of energy. Laws of physics. Saturn asks us to pay attention to what is manifest on the earth level, to be with what is. Saturn and Capricorn are expressions of Earth energy (one of the four elements in astrology) - invested in the real, the tangible, the practical. So there will be an influence toward manifesting, and simultaneously (potential overwhelm at) the recognition of the work involved in manifesting!
The physical expressions of these energies serve as powerful metaphors for our internal experience. Earth can become compacted, too dense, too weighed down by "practical" concerns if not infused with air, water, and fire (warmth, light), so the appropriate response to this heavy dose of Saturn is plenty of air, water, and warm light. In our own physical bodies, in the bodies of those we care for, and also in whatever we are attempting to manifest.
The beauty of Saturn is, as hard as its working on us can feel, it does work on us. It teaches us very thoroughly - its light reaches into places that are typically dark - so its changes are real, deep, lasting. Our job is to trust its work, to trust the laws of nature, the laws of growth, how learning works! To be as patient as possible in nurturing our own and others' growth. Patience itself is actually practical! Letting the dark winter days actually influence us, slow us down, remind us to be patient. When we stop fighting the speed of nature we also stop fighting the speed of our own evolution. Cultivating patience is a way of cultivating happiness.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - How often do you notice the lower half of your body?
Meditation - Earth energy up through your feet.
Assignment - Experiment with noticing your feet, on the ground. Notice how you sit, how often your feet are directly on the ground. Open your arches to the energy available from the earth.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - How often do you pay attention to sound as a physical quality?
Meditation - Sound and singing. The throat chakra.
Assignment - Listen to sounds you love. Listen deeper. What is the relationship between hearing and making sounds? What does listening deeply entail? From where in your body do you listen?
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - How do you treat your body and how does that reflect your philosophy of the body?
Meditation - Body as spiritual home.
Assignment - If you spend time with the meditation above, what assignment arises? What appears that needs to be done? If you hypothesize that your body is a spiritual home, what behaviors enact this principle?
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - When is mothering smothering and when is it life-giving?
Meditation - Mothering as sustaining life.
Assignment - Cancer tends toward mothering and nurturing as a default. When is your nurturing conscious or unconscious? How can this mothering be directed to self in a proactive way, as opposed to reactively, in retreat from something or someone? When we mother / nurture ourselves adequately we are less likely to unconsciously mother others in an unsolicited way.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - Kittisaro says we all have mantras, so we might as well choose them. What are your mantras?
Meditation - The power of repetition.
Assignment - Practice choosing mantras to include with repetitive tasks already in your life, and/or with meditation. How does your understanding of a mantra change when using it for 5 minutes, 50 minutes, 5 days, 5 years, 50 years?
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - How much time do you spend trying to figure out others?
Meditation - The space available when not trying to figure others out.
Assignment - Take note of when you are trying to figure others out. What happens in your body when you are trying to figure others out? What is a way of caring for and relating to others that doesn't include figuring them out? How could the new space available be occupied if you weren’t trying to do this? How would it feel to put down figuring others out for a while? (And how would it feel to put down figuring out yourself, for that matter?)
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - What is your relationship with the world of nonhuman beings?
Meditation - Nonhuman beings as beloved.
Assignment - Take note of the nonhuman beings you are surrounded by this week. How often do you notice them? What happens when you spend more time noticing them? What do they want to tell you? What do you want to hear from them? Listen to the nonhuman world.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What would it feel like to fully befriend your own intensity?
Meditation - Embracing intensity.
Assignment - Become a friend to yours and others intensity this week. How does a friend treat a guest? Treat intensity as a guest, don’t turn it away.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - Do you notice anything about your energy shifting as many planets shift from Sagittarius to Capricorn, including the Sun? What do you notice?
Meditation - The place where a particle becomes a wave and a wave becomes a particle.
Assignment - When does a wave become a particle? When does light become heat? Complimentarity is a principle of physics that says (something like) everything has both particle and wave properties. How does this relate to your own identity and your own beliefs? When are you solid and when are you flowing like waves? How does it feel when you are solid, how does it feel when you are flowing like waves? Notice your own solidity and fluidity this week.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When have you shared vulnerability with another recently?
Meditation - Vulnerability as regal.
Assignment - Experiment with sharing vulnerability. Look into the relationship between vulnerability and your ability to do your work. What do you find? Is it a direct relationship? Is it an inverse relationship? Is it somewhere in between?
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - What weird connection you can revel in this week?
Meditation - Celebrating weirdness.
Assignment - Take comfort in your weirdness, the weirdness of those you love. Is there something in you that wants to be weird that you aren't letting be weird? Let yourself be weird, let all the weirdness everywhere resonate with your weirdness, let it blossom and overflow. Weirdness is an essential part of love.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - When does your mind feel clear, when does it feel cloudy?
Meditation - Soft pink light.
Assignment - Pay attention to your memory this week. What do you tend to remember? What do you tend to forget? When do you notice your forgetting? Are there patterns involved? What needs to be remembered? What is remembered without effort?
The winter solstice happens this week. How much light we receive from the sun over a 24 hour period is one way we perceive the earth's principles of light and darkness, illumination and obscuration. Through the 21st of December here in the Northern Hemisphere, the days have been getting shorter, the nights longer. And after the 21st, the light will return to the days and recede from the nights, until the Summer solstice in June. Zen says that when something is illuminated, something else is made dark. In the physical realm we perceive this through seasons, and through light and shadow changing each moment, as various objects move into the light of the sun and out of it. When our awareness lights up one aspect of our lives, or society, or someone or something, it darkens something else. Light and darkness co-arise - they only exist as a pair!
This week magic healer Liliana Barzola Read has been illuminating 'permission levels' as an aspect of self-esteem. When we're in a place where we feel a lot of permission from others, our own capacities and talents are illuminated. When we are in places where we feel less permission, we can feel insecure, not seen, not free to express - what we have to offer can feel obscured. Many people experience this lack of permission when with their families, which they see very often during the second half of December in the United States of America.
So this week I invite you to a daily practice of permission alongside me. What does a permission practice look like? Structuring moments each day connect you to your own permission, especially if you feel like you are with people where the permission level is very low. This could take the form of talking to a friend on the phone that you feel a high level of permission with. This could be in the form of meditating, listening to a talk or reading a book, being outside and breathing the air, touching the earth. Plants remind me of my own permission. They grow (!) and live (!) without analysis or deliberation. Do anything that allows you the feeling of connecting with your own permission to be who you are, and let the rest settle back into the earth. This small personal act can be - instead of a time out from our activism or work in the world - an integral part of our political and social collective healing.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When do you feel receptive? What does receptivity feel like to you?
Meditation - Receptivity. The moon as a receiver of light.
Assignment - Consider your relationship to the cardinal directions, physically and metaphorically. What direction do you typically face, in time, and in space? How does receptivity relate to direction? How does time (the future and the past) relate to orientation / direction?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - Where do you feel constriction and where do you feel space?
Meditation - the space between the parts of a cell.
Assignment - Notice the space between things this week. The space between cells. The space between thoughts. The space between your feet and the ground. The space between your body and other bodies. The space between roots and soil.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - Consider your relationship to discipline.
Meditation - Discipline as a form of love.
Assignment - Experiment with practicing something you want to practice for 5 minutes, 5 times in one day and see what happens.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - How does the past affect your body, specifically your neck?
Meditation - Physical embodiment as ancestor worship.
Assignment - Take note of how much you are thinking/feeling into the past this week. When you notice yourself being in the past, what is going on in your body. Where is your body when your mind is in the past? What is a compassionate response to what you find here?
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - What made you want to begin in the first place?
Meditation - Reconnecting to the original impulse.
Assignment - Go to a public place to observe yourself and other people, with no agenda. Ask questions about vitality and see what you notice. Write it down or tell someone.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What conditions allow you to be most fluid?
Meditation - All the various forms of water.
Assignment - The water cycle can remind us how to be fluid. How to last for millions of years by changing form whenever needed. How water resists nothing! No resistance. When it meets an obstacle it simply goes another way, without any deliberation.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - What is easy to love?
Meditation - You do not have to be good.
Assignment - Listen to this every day this week. You do not have to be good.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - When has pretending been useful, or might be useful right now?
Meditation - The freedom of pretending.
Assignment - There's a developmental stage many children go through where their games consist solely of pretending. In fact the game is just saying back and forth, "Pretend this ....." Observe how children pretend, for play, for teaching oneself a new way of being, for trying things on. Then try it yourself.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - Under what conditions does joy arise?
Meditation - Joy that is uncovered, not acquired.
Assignment - Desmond Tutu says joy arises when we practice gratitude. See if this is true for you and experiment with the relationship between joy and gratitude this week. Write down your gratitude. Say it out loud.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When does it feel good to be a visitor?
Meditation - Without agenda, like a visitor.
Assignment - When you are a visitor to a place, a project, a group of people, an individual, how does that change your relationship to that place or work or relationship? Try on greeting your daily life, your daily people, your daily projects, as a visitor and see what happens.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - What are your hands doing right now?
Meditation - Hands as connectors.
Assignment - Notice what is happening with your hands as much as possible this week. Write down or tell someone what you find.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - What is happening in your pelvic bowl?
Meditation - the pelvic bowl as a location of power.
Assignment - Consider the pelvic bowl - it is literally bowl shaped. Notice how it feels this week. How does this connect to your energy levels?
A friend just mentioned that she was worried about having to do a significant biz deal while Mercury is in retrograde (now through the 23rd). This is exactly the kind of thing astrologers tell you not to do during this time. But even when we know Mercury is in retrograde and feel its effects, often we still can't prevent business deals from happening! Or miscommunications. Or fights. Or struggles of all sorts. In fact it’s often the case, because so much of life is out of our control.
The mystery of the relationship between cosmological events and personal choice continually astounds me. For example I chose to ride my bike across the USA by myself and interview people about their prison justice work while Pluto (transformation, subconscious, shadow) was square my Mars (will, physical drive, power dynamics). Did I orchestrate the transit to take that form or did the solar system? Should I have waited because of how ramped up the intensity felt, or did I choose an activity that would allow that intensity to manifest because it was essential to growth?
I take lots of cues and comfort in aspects of Buddhist cosmology. One of the four noble truths of Buddhism is simply that suffering exists. This seems obvious, but the obvious is underrated. It’s not that suffering is the only thing going on, but it’s just saying, this happens. Suffering is inextricable from human experience. This is a comfort because it depersonalizes struggle. My life doesn’t feel hard because I am in some way failing, it feels hard because that is a part of the experience of human life. So maybe this truth can help us relax a little. We don’t have to effort so hard to orchestrate our lives to prevent suffering, a Sisyphean task if there ever was one! We don’t need to seek it out, and we don’t want to be passive in relation to it, but we can take it a little less personally. We can connect to others in fellowship in this truth - every other person on this planet has suffered and will suffer - what a beautiful and heartbreaking thing to share!
Here are two anchoring questions I use often with astrology (and I invite you to use these questions when reading your horoscope) -
Does my idea / belief about this cosmological event (or perspective) offer more compassion for myself and others?
Does this idea / belief give me more freedom and permission, or less?
Astrologers say to wait on biz deals, certain kinds of communications, etc, while Mercury is in retrograde. If this is possible, sure! I think it’s almost always a good idea to slow down, living at this contemporary speed. But this type of waiting can rely too heavily on the unconscious premise that there will be a time when a cosmological event is not happening, a fake future time when everything will be smooth. Life is smooth, for moments, just like it’s rough, for moments. Cosmological events are always happening! The complexity of the influences we are subject to is truly magnificent, astrologically and otherwise. So we ground ourselves as much as possible on the actual earth we actually live on, with breathing, and questions that return us to the basics. Where is the compassionate perspective? Where is the freedom? Let’s go there more together. Here’s some horoscopes. (I’m available for astrology readings through the 20th, then taking a break until January 3.)
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - When do you judge prematurely? What are the effects that you notice from this?
Meditation - Letting wind blow the seeds of your efforts.
Assignment - Watch a plant for 10 minutes. (Set a timer.) Ask what it can teach you about movement and stillness. Thank it for anything it tells you. Do this more than once.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - What do you take on faith that you might not typically name as 'faith'? How might recognizing faith benefit you?
Meditation - The physics (magic) of compost.
Assignment - Write a list of what needs to die in winter, the agricultural season of death. What does death make room for? Observe perennial plants for their wisdom regarding death and renewal. (Look to Scorpios and Scorpio energy, opposite you in the zodiac, for other cues on death and renewal.)
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - How much time do you spend categorizing. How much does it serve you?
Meditation - The weather, through a day. A week. A month. A year.
Assignment - David Foster Wallace says we all worship something. Make a list of what you worship. Be honest. Another way to say it is, where do you devote time? Look at your last week, make the list from that. Read the list out loud. Notice what happens in the body.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - What would it feel like to live without defense?
Meditation - Opening out.
Assignment - Review last week, write down a time you were acting from defense. What were you defending? How did you feel? What do you notice now?
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - When is receiving attention nourishing, when is it draining?
Meditation - Permission to have needs.
Assignment - Write a list of needs that are not physical / survival-based. Ex. The need to talk to a friend. The need to notice plants. Add to it every day this week.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What does attention to detail obscure?
Meditation - The power in letting yourself give up.
Assignment - Have a conversation with someone you love about 'giving up'. Consider times when you 'gave up' and the ways this benefited you. Learn from your overwhelm, track it, attend to it, regard it as feedback which helps you learn. "Bless it with awareness and love." What does giving up make room for? Let the tide of effort recede for long enough to see what's been hiding under it.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - When do you hesitate to act? What does this hesitation produce?
Meditation - The life force of beauty.
Assignment - Take cues from Aries friends and Aries energy (opposite you in the zodiac). Experiment with single-pointed action. Channel the trouble-maker and see what happens, while taking loving note of fears.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - Is there a fear or resistance to ease? What belief might this be based on?
Meditation - "All that you are seeking is also seeking you."
Assignment - Place your bare feet on the actual earth at least three times this week. Any time you feel overwhelmed, connect to the physical, the embodied, in whatever form contains the least resistance.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What do you radiate to others?
Meditation - The tide going out.
Assignment - Light a candle everyday this week. Watch the fire, know yourself as fire, resonate and beam. Connect with your own inner warmth, just like the fire at the center of the earth, endlessly warming.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - How do considerations of conventional wisdom and tradition get in the way of your freedom to act?
Meditation - Transformation as a loving friend.
Assignment - Read this letter every day this week. Send it to someone. Read it out loud.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - How might you benefit from giving yourself more permission for your own personal experience?
Meditation - The Gold Loving Sun.
Assignment - Go small. Notice what the sun illuminates. Watch small wildlife. Be with your feet. Practice details.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - What contains you as a water sign?
Meditation - How roots contain and transform water.
Assignment - Roots are an embodiment of the earth principle, like Virgo, an earth sign (opposite you in the zodiac). How do plants know how much water they need? Discerning what is yours and what is another's, what to take on and what to shed, can be hard for Pisces. Take cues from Virgos and Virgo energy to practice discernment, and return anything unneeded back to the earth.
So I can tell you about the sky. That in the sky there is a moon. That’s full in Gemini on Sunday. That Mars and Uranus (planets of dynamic change) are opposite each other today. That Mercury goes retrograde on Sunday, through the 23rd. Often during these cosmological events - which never stop happening, by the way - we feel a sense of pressure, as if from the outside. This is just nature, acting on nature. “Spirit worshipping Spirit,” as Vivekananda says. From a spirit perspective there isn’t an inside and an outside, these distinctions are conceptual. The conceptual is useful, but its reach is limited. The point is that we can see these events as cause to clench and effort our way through, or we can see them as Nature changing Nature, and open to the sensations of being pulled or pushed. We can ask questions. What is to be learned. Where is the place of ease. We can seek the place of ease, and breathe and be gentle with ourselves even when we can’t find the place of ease! The full moon gives us an opportunity to open to what is beneath the surface. Oppositions like Mars and Uranus give us the gift of change sweeping through, like a wind. (Remember, wind cleans and spreads seeds even when it feels rough!) Mercury being retrograde (moving 'backwards') can be a chance to slow down - as the light of our days continue to shorten the next few weeks, everything in nature is asking us to slow down, to get comfortable in the dark, because we too are nature, which sometimes includes darkness, and slowness.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Question - What fruits might be waiting beyond the exciting beginning of something?
Meditation - Steadiness is bright and full.
Assignment - Act as slowly as possible for a certain period of time each day. One minute to one hour. It doesn’t matter the activity. Just commit to doing it slowly, and commit to doing it everyday through the week. Commit to noticing your relationship to commitment.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Question - What is accessed in the heavens that you might be missing while rooted so closely to the tangible, to what is perceived via the senses? What might be available beyond the senses?
Meditation - The opposite of doing.
Assignment - Do something which involves discomfort at least once this week. Or notice when you are uncomfortable, even if unintentionally. What does discomfort feel like? What new information might it connect you to? Also, see if there is any comfort available within the discomfort.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Question - Which curiosity sustains, which curiosity drains? How is variation addictive and culturally supported, and what might it cause you to miss out on?
Meditation - Stillness as vibration.
Assignment - Lie on the ground at least once this week at sunrise or sunset. Outside on the earth, lie there in silence and listen to the sun come and go. Investigate stillness.
CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Question - What or who are caregivers in your life? How do they orient you? How do you let them care for you?
Meditation - Receiving care.
Assignment - Cook your feelings into food at least once this week. Then eat them, and share them with a friend or lover in the form of this nourishment. Talk about the feelings, how they taste, how they are digested.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
Question - Where are you hesitating to apply your creativity? How does this hinder a solution, or an opening?
Meditation - Creating as divinity.
Assignment - Look up rhizomes, their images, their definition. Contemplate yourself as within the web of interconnection that is embodied in rhizomes, and contemplate how creative expression is necessary to the bigger life which your life sustains. Allow the necessary risk to reveal itself, then take it immediately.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
Question - What would happen if you gave up the concept of earning?
Meditation - The dignity and divinity of imperfection.
Assigment - Stand or sit next to a fire and feel the heat this week, feel what heat is. Let the heat burn up criticism and analysis. Go beneath the mind with someone else. If imperfection leads to learning it’s not imperfection. Stay with the heat long enough to melt a little.
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Question - What exists in the quiet beautiful landscape beyond the crowded city of accommodating others?
Meditation - In the center.
Assignment - Do the thing that feels ‘selfish’ instead of the thing that feels ‘kind’. Take note of what happens. Explore the results, and by doing so explore your definitions of ‘selfish’ and ‘kind’.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
Question - What energy would be available if you weren’t probing?
Meditation - Levity.
Assignment - On the surface of the ocean, there is lots of air. Scorpio can swim the deepest of all, but you’re still human, you still need air. Breathe air this week, and know that you are breathing air, and that air is light and without effort and necessary to life. It’s not Scorpio’s tendency to be at the surface, so take on a practice of investigating the surface.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Question - What purpose do your beliefs serve? When is the last time you examined them? Which ones are outdated?
Meditation - The vibrant sounds of silence.
Assignment - When you feel uncomfortable in any way this week, ask yourself, What am I believing right now that is contributing to my suffering? What would it feel like to not have that belief? What belief could replace it?
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Question - When do you feel warm and easy and open? How does that relate to what you call ‘practical’ or ‘realistic’?
Meditation - Warm and alive.
Assignment - Break three rules this week. The way you can know if you are breaking a rule is if it’s doing something that makes you uncomfortable. Practice gentleness all the way through.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18)
Question - What rebellion or righteousness are you still employing that is outdated?
Meditation - Connection between ideas and people.
Assignment - Practice something other than thinking for 5 minutes a day this week. Something that doesn’t feel hard.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20)
Question - Where are you located? What do you need to dry out on shore?
Meditation - How all oceans need shores to exist.
Assignment - Do a ceremony where you bury your feelings in soil, just to try out another way. They transmute into water to nourish seeds of life. Then notice what happens. Tell someone about it.
BY SARAH FONTAINE FOR EXISTING TOGETHER.