adrienne maree brown is:
– a writer
– a sci-fi/Octavia Butler scholar
– an organizational healer
– a pleasure activist
– a facilitator
– a life/love/relationship/work coach
– a network weaver
– a speaker/singer (including wedding singer) and
– a doula
living in Detroit.
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adrienne maree brown wrote a book that continues to transform my thinking about so many things. It deepens connections between all of our locations and selves - it continues to help me rethink what activism and transformation looks like on the daily. Read Emergent Strategy! Read adrienne's blog! Follow her on instagram! Her work is a beautiful expression of Virgo energy - and so many more things - but it's so damn thorough, in such deep relationship with nature and life itself, so humble, smart, honoring and naming all the influences and resources from which she draws ... the principles she's collected feel essential in a million ways right now. So happy to share these words of hers below in this interview.
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1. When do you experience the most joy?
When I am facilitating a room full of history-makers and we break through societal blocks to experience freedom together. When I have a new idea and room to dream it out. When I am reunited with people I love. When I am anticipating pleasure.
2. From engaging with your writing and speaking, I see the Virgo qualities of analysis and humility, awe of the natural world, fascination with and study of efficient processes and systems, etc. There’s so much practical, grounded material in your work - I wonder if you experience the typical Virgo struggles of overanalysis, self-criticalness, getting lost in the details? (It seems, in a way, that Emergent Strategy could be a self-help manual on how to manage and heal those tendencies!)
Oh for sure. Whenever something goes 'wrong' my first words/thoughts are still some variation of calling myself an idiot. I am able to catch it quickly now, or catch the perfectionist tendency, and move through to the work. But I am atypical in terms of the details - I like to work with people I trust and task out a lot of details, I give myself permission to obsess over details at the level of words and facilitation, because those are areas where I can see my unique offer most clearly. The rest I let go, sometimes to my detriment. The key is learning to trust - a lot of those traits are rooted in not trusting. Virgos who trust live fuller, less anxious lives.
3. What practices / people / places feel most alive for you right now in healing and transforming challenging patterns in your life? How have those practices / people / places evolved over time?
Meditation and therapy, especially somatic therapy, feel like necessary practices for me and for all people. It's hard for me to trust people who don't have a way to get quiet, to reflect on their lives, to take responsibility for their emotional states. That has been a big learning for me - there is the life that you get, and there is what you make of it. That second part is the space where art, beauty, grace, humor, humility, surrender, magic - all the good stuff comes in through the work you do to shape your life. I love that I am learning to listen to my body, listen to the memories there, listen to the present moment in me, listen to the future adjusting my current actions.
4. How do you relate to urgency, when it arises, in your current life? When do you act on urgency? When do you not act on it? How do you decide how to respond to it?
Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes it really motivates me into action. I am really not interested in urgency guiding my life except at a spiritual level. I believe we are in a time that needs our spiritual attention in an urgent way, needs us to wake up in an urgent way. I have an internal process though - I don't do things out of obligation - urgent obligation makes life feel falsely important or impossible. I really tune into my own passion, whether I can actually be useful. I don't give too much attention to things that I can't see a way to impact.
5. At the end of Emergent Strategy you talk about how the whole motivation of the book is love. Does the presence of this love feel persistent? Does it ebb and flow, or are there times it feels harder to connect to it? What do you do if / when it does feel more distant? And if it doesn’t ever feel distant, why do you think that is?
Love is constant. My perspective gets shaped by my suffering and my practices. Struggle, suffering is also constant. I let my suffering be a measure of my love of life, freedom, connection. That shifting of perspective is a practice. It's one thing to know love is there. It's work to surrender into it. Life's work.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - Where does your attention predominantly rest?
Meditation - mimicry.
Assignment - Look around to the natural world, the non-human species, and see what patterns and behaviors you want to integrate. What do you admire about plants and or animals? What do you notice about them that's different from us? What can you mimic of their behavior that might help your life? Slowing down to observe others a bit can change your life. So much information is available that you sometimes don't make time for. Make time for it this week.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - Where and when do you avoid going deeper because you are scared?
Meditation - rooting further down.
Assignment - Don't resist the urge to connect to roots this week, whatever that means to you. To develop and deepen your own roots. You can be used to digging your heels in as an automatic aversion to change, but what happens if you try to root deeper instead of digging deeper? Rooting deeper is intentional, it's going with a natural process instead of resisting it. It's for a purpose, to strengthen life. Take note of the opportunities to go deeper for the purposes of strengthening your life and your community's life this week.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What does the opposite of distraction look like for you?
Meditation - this moment.
Assignment - You can be overly positive or negative depending on where your attention is. Take note of this tendency this week. Gemini loves to categorize and label and give language to everything - which serves you well, but it can be a distraction from directly experiencing what is happening. There is a difference between what is happening and naming what is happening. Play in this area this week, spend time attuning yourself to this difference and see what you notice.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - Where is your spiritual party and where are your spiritual friends?
Meditation - noticing spirit.
Assignment - Give yourself permission to nourish your spiritual life this week. I don't mean do new things, although that could be part of it. I mean take notice of what is already spiritually fulfilling in your life. It could be reading an article on your phone by a writer you are inspired by. It could be eating a food with a friend, sharing the love of this food. Spirit is everywhere, it doesn't not exist. It's just our awareness of it that fades and arises. If you're too caught up in your emotional hardships you might miss the miracle of spirit offering itself to you over and over. Look for this, cultivate this.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - Where are you steady and where are you pliable?
Meditation - grass in wind.
Assignment - Take stock of your fixed tendencies this week, along with the places you have more agility. This balance is so important! Make sure you aren't sticking to an idea or a plan that's outdated, that you're holding onto and confusing with a piece of your identity. The relief to remember here is that ideas have nothing to do with identity, even though we get confused and think they do all the time. So with a lot of gentleness, just review - where am I rigid? Where am I fluid? What does this moment ask of me? It feels so much better to be available to the moment instead of wedded to an old tired idea.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - What do you admire about nature?
Meditation - believing in yourself like you believe in nature.
Assignment - Take note of how you judge nature, or don't judge nature. Practice applying the level of acceptance you have for trees, or ravens, or stars, and the ways that they are, to yourself. You are not separate from these beings, you are in fact made of the same materials, so why would you apply different judgments to yourself? Why would you isolate yourself in the exhaustion of self-inflicted harmful thoughts, instead of accepting that you are another facet of nature, being nature? Living this means loving yourself. It doesn't mean you have to force a particular feeling, it just means practicing a gentle acceptance. Here I am. This is enough. I am nature. I am not different from what is alive, therefore I am worthy of respect.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - What does it mean to make something more beautiful?
Meditation - balance and imbalance depend on each other.
Assignment - How often do you feel the urge or need to make something better? Different? Improved? What happens if you pause when that urge arises, what if you do nothing instead and see what happens? What new space might this open up for others to do something? What might this allow you to notice that is already improved, or beautiful, or thriving? Pause before you act on this improvement or beautifying impulse this week, and see what happens.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - When and how do you give yourself permission to be sexual?
Meditation - sex as life.
Assignment - Experiment with your sexuality as not based on sex itself, or in relation to others this week. What sensations in your experience overlap or might feel related to sexuality on a more subtle level? What ways can you inhabit sex even if you aren't having it, or even if the sex you are having doesn't fulfill you completely. Connect to sex as aliveness, to your own body. Remember (over and over, as a practice) that your sex, your sexuality, is a vital life force that is not dependent on what sex looks like in your life.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - When do you let things be small?
Meditation - small.
Assignment - Track your ups and downs this week. Notice your tendency to make things big. Bigness is a part of your default - what happens if you let things be small. Not diminished, but just small and quiet. Your emotional experience. Your language. Your conversations. Your movements. Wherever it feels that you might not have examined this tendency, pay attention and see what happens. You can feel all the things you feel and experience life fully without the bigness, and it will only free you up to experiment with this.
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - Are you taking enough breaks?
Meditation - rest.
Assignment - What do the breaks you take look like? Are the breaks scrolling on your phone? Are they emailing? Are they getting a friend obligation out of the way? Are they still productive in some way in your mind? What is true rest for you? When is the last time you asked yourself that? When is the last time you practiced true rest? When was the last time you let yourself feel a little uncomfortable not doing anything (especially without your phone)?
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - Where is your thought circular, where does it eddy out?
Meditation - the space between noises.
Assignment - Listen for silence this week. In between your thoughts, in between the noises you hear in an hour, in a few minutes. Doing this means being quiet yourself sometimes, let's say at least three times, this week. Being quiet and listening for silence includes turning off your phone during that time. Internal noise, like in your mind, and external noise. See if you can try this out, this kind of listening, without any sense of shame or that things should be different in your life, just as a way to kindly notice sound and silence. It's a different thing to listen FOR silence, instead of to sounds. Where does the silence live? What happens when you put your attention on it?
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - What basics in your life are not being attended to?
Meditation - the basics.
Assignment - You are such a dreamer, it can be hard to stay tethered to the earth. Or you can find it frustrating, and tend to neglect basic needs because they feel pesky or beneath you or a waste of time. But this is part of what you are here to learn - how to be embodied, how to live on earth, be subject to earth rhythms and laws, etc. You can still do this with your signature dreamscape overlay, and it's so beautiful when you do! But fighting with or trying to override your need for the basics like food, water, connection on a daily level, will only put you more frequently into resistance and struggle. Let these needs in and nurture them like you let in your dreams.
STRANGE FAITH
I’ve been noticing during readings with people how we try to do almost everything with our rational brains, when sometimes this is an overuse and misplacement of this capacity. It’s very useful! But it is overused. What happens if and when we try to use another type of ‘reasoning’ to move through our days, our lives?
Are we ever asking the question - is this decision or situation really in need of my ‘rational’ thought?
What are we actually calling ‘rational’?
Are we conflating ‘rational’ with ‘self-critical’ or with ‘harsh’?
Have I exhausted rational thought in this area? Where has it led me?
Perhaps it would be valuable to try out another kind of navigation from time to time, especially when you feel stuck or at a dead end. We forget that there are even other ways to be! But as soon as you name any of your thinking as habitual, you make room for a new way, because you see it as a type of thinking at all.
Sometimes writing feels hard. Because my self-critical ‘reasoning’ brain tells me I have nothing to offer, or I’m too tired or busy or can’t do it well enough, etc. But the beauty of any regular practice, is that it provides a constant for noticing what is different and what is the same. (I highly recommend practicing a constant of some kind as a way to deepen your understanding of yourself and life.)
This week writing horoscopes felt impossible. And then I realized I needed to let another part of my brain, or life, take over. I needed to connect to the energies of the signs again themselves, and just let it happen on the other side of rationality. I’m not sure exactly what that means but I’m sharing it because I think it’s worth exploring.
So often getting ‘desperate’ is something we avoid, but it can be such an important place to be. It’s the place where you give up and think things are hopeless and that is exactly when you inadvertently create a new space for a new way. This is a part of the learning process! (This is something I continue to learn and re-learn.) But! We have to practice at least the smallest bit of faith during that desperation that a new way can come. Just enough to try to remember that desperation can lead us somewhere, and in fact it is often a part of the path to anywhere.
I’m with you in whatever strange faith we can muster right now.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - Who supports you?
Meditation - lavender
Assignment - Spend time writing or contemplating how you can allow more support into your life.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What places in your life do you seek false security?
Meditation - peach
Assignment - Meditate and write on what is true security, what is truly secure.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What is your own unique offering?
Meditation - orange
Assignment - Pull back from your connections for a moment and contemplate what is your own offering, what no one else can contribute except for you. Find more ways to offer that.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - How much of your life revolves around a plan?
Meditation - lemon yellow
Assignment - Abandon the plan and sit under a tree. Abandon the plan and remember who you used to be before you started participating in and making plans. Give that person permission to live here and now.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - What if your creative expression depends on all the times in life when you don’t feel creative?
Meditation - violet
Assignment - Write about what it would feel like and look like to not be creative, to not create. See what you discover.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - Who would you be and what would you do if all the problems were resolved?
Meditation - royal blue
Assignment - If you know how to swim, and how to dive, dive into some water this week. If you don’t, find another physical way to dive into your very own life.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - When do you feel the most vibrant and at ease?
Meditation - fuchsia
Assignment - Just letting what you already did be enough for right now, minding your own business, giving yourself permission to shine just for existing, by yourself.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - When and how do you separate yourself from people or pull away
Meditation - silver
Assignment - Contemplate what it would look like to separate from people, in whatever ways you do, just a little less. Especially when you are feeling isolated, reach out.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - How conscious are you of the agenda you carry as you go through your day?
Meditation - purple
Assignment - Watch the birds. What are they doing? What do they care about? What are they communicating? What can you learn from them?
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - When do you regret playing it safe?
Meditation - gold
Assignment - Write down three risks you want to take while it’s still 2018. Then take them.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - Where and what do you have faith in, that you don’t typically call faith?Meditation - turquoise
Assignment - Meditate on your connection to strangers all across the world, human and other than human. Let your heart fill with this connection, even if your brain can’t get there.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - What evidence is life providing you that it is taking care of you?
Meditation - spring green
Assignment - Spend time surrounded by green, looking at trees or anything else that is green. Immerse yourself.
NOT MISSING OUR LIVES
We miss so much when we're wishing it was going a different way, which is so much of the time. It seems so human to do this, to arrange our circumstances, or try to, and keep trying to, for an entire lifetime. As I wrote about in the newsletter last week, so much of our lives includes transformation, or at least opportunities for it. Nature is constantly inviting us to transform, on all levels. This is one thing Astrology names - the invitation of transformation on psychological and spiritual levels.
When we wish someone wasn't dying who is, we miss out on being fully present with them for the life they have left. When we wish our bodies were different - thinner, differently-shaped, healthier, etc, we miss the overwhelming magic of how they are functioning, digesting, breathing, regulating temperature, moving us around in whatever way they can, etc. When we wish we had more money, when we wish Trump wasn't in the white house, when we wish it wasn't so foggy, we are missing a lot of what is in front of us.
But, if we don't want things to be different, how will things ever change? If we're in full acceptance of the way things are, we are more clear-headed. Then we have psychic space to take action. And we are less likely to miss the marvel of what is taking place that is full of love and strength.
It can be a relief to stop trying to arrange circumstances, to always be wishing things were different. It is exhausting to be wishing for life to be different from how it is! I encourage you to experiment with this yourself - to see what of it feels true to you.
I'm into not missing our lives, and I want to not miss it with you - all of it - the entire life, whether it lasts a few more minutes or a few more decades.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - When do you feel free to be generous?
Meditation - generosity.
Assignment - Sometimes you can get caught in unconsciously thinking you need to conserve your energy or resources in someway that makes you feel like you can't be generous. Like you can't give others your time or attention or some other resource. Practice holding both things to be true this week, that you can in fact be generous any time you want, while also containing / holding what you need. The more conscious you are of what your real needs are, the more you can fulfill those, and then you have more time and space for others. Look into what it means to be generous for you, and how it feels.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What patterns serve you and what patterns hinder you?
Meditation - patterns
Assignment - Patterns are found in nature everywhere. We are made of patterns, patterns surround us. What are your patterns? What spaces do you move between or in throughout a day or week? Make a map of your movements this week. LOOK at what you are doing. Include things that feel really unimportant on the map. Just to be able to see what is going on here. Especially for things that feel unimportant because that is what constitutes a lot of our time. You tend to be a creature of habit, and that is not a bad thing, but habits are unconscious patterns. The more conscious you are of these, the more wellbeing you have access to.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What is the original source of your energy?
Meditation - the source.
Assignment - An image for how your attention often works is like the thousand ends of a firework almost landing in the water. It's beautiful and interesting and the light captures your attention. The spread of the light is the firework's power. But if you are feeling depleted, it can be because your attention is spread too thin, too often at too many tail ends of the light. Pull your energy back this week from spreading and diversifying. Get curious about how the energy is made for the firework itself, your own energy body. If you attend to this foundation, you can trust that your energy will spread in all the important ways.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - What are your most prominent fears lately?
Meditation - fear as communication.
Assignment - Listen to your fears this week. Notice what they tell you. Write them down as they arise. Look back at what you wrote. What is your relationship to your fears? How often do you name them consciously? How often do you avoid them? Fear is a part of every psyche, it is not personal, it controls us less the more we look at it. Use this week as a time to look at your fears, as neutrally as you can - and try to befriend them.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - When is your entitlement serving you and when does it hinder you?
Meditation - flexibility.
Assignment - Leo - you're good at knowing your worth and demanding what you need and want. You understand that people are entitled to dignity, yourself especially! This helps you in your life. But sometimes the expectation of it can get in the way of your happiness. It can confuse you into thinking you can't be happy without a situation changing, someone understanding something about you, someone changing their lives, etc. This is not where your true happiness lies! It lies in remembering that your dignity is present whenever you remember that it is. It's not based on all these circumstances of other people understanding you or not. So when you remember that, you become instantly more flexible, and actually more able to be a friend to anyone around you, because you are no longer trying to get them to be a certain way. This is the magic of looking within for your own dignity and happiness.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - How much of your time is your own?
Meditation - uncompromising
Assignment - Sometimes you need to say no. You need to say, 'I'm not going to do that thing that you want me to do, that I usually willingly do." Sometimes you need to take back your own time, this could be from other people you have over-offered it to, it could be taking it back from your own outdated rules about productivity, it could be taking it back from self-critical thoughts. Don't think too much about where you are taking it back from, just let yourself do that.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - When do you pull your attention inward?
Meditation - inward.
Assignment - All the other people's thoughts and how they are feeling and if they are upset will be there if you take a break for a minute. Pull back from other people's thoughts, or rather, what you are imagining other people's thoughts to be, this week. This is always a good reminder and practice for Libra. Pulling back from thinking about other people and what they are thinking is not being selfish, it's aligning yourself with the law of right place - you are staying in your business and having enough faith in other people that they too are capable of staying in their own business. And in fact that is the only way any of us learn, is if we deal with our own business.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - How often do you assume the worst?
Meditation - letting the mind quiet.
Assignment - You understand so much about power and how it operates. This works to your advantage so much of the time. And sometimes it causes you to expect the worst of people, to assume, when there is a question about their motives, that the worst one is the only one present, or that's the place they are acting from. The developmental challenge for Scorpio is discernment - discerning what of your intuition is habitual and outdated assumptions that people will use power against you, and what of it is real. What if you discerned what to believe by going with what feels better? How does trust feel in your body? How does distrust feel in your body? Be very slow and gentle with this, don't rush anything. At the very least try to give yourself permission to not need to know everything about everyone's motives for a bit, and see what happens.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - When is your speech specific?
Meditation - specificity
Assignment - Get specific with your language, with your communication this week. You can be lofty and big-minded and focusing on specifics won't separate you from that. It will expand your reach of who and how you can communicate, and help you feel more connected to others instead of less. You might think you are already being specific, but look into this more, and see what you notice - see what feedback, direct or indirect, people give you about this. There is the power of intimacy in specificity, so try it out more.
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - What do you eat that you love?
Meditation - nourishment.
Assignment - Returning to the body (always)! Letting the mind have a break. Insisting that the mind put its feet up. Go to the store, pick some foods that you love, that nourish you in any way. Don't overthink it, just let yourself get things that you love! That feel easy. That feel alive. Then eat those foods without looking at your phone. If you do it with someone else, just make sure that you aren't talking the whole time so that you miss the experience of eating your food. Ideally eating alone or in silence a few times, so that you let yourself experience the pleasure of it, and the nourishment. This is so important.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - What's happening with your ankles right now?
Meditation - body as messenger
Assignment - Pay attention to your ankles, to how they connect you to the earth, how they work with your feet, how they connect your feet to your lower body. Bring your awareness down lower into your body, over and over this week. What information is there for you? What awareness, understanding, intuition is there that you might neglect by being up in your head so often? Attend and attune to your body, your lower body, your ankles. See what happens when you do this every day for a week.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - When do you harbor emotional wounds beyond their time?
Meditation - release
Assignment - Listen to music that helps you let go of old emotional wounds. Time is not linear for you so you might find yourself emotionally charged about something that seems too old to bother you. But emotional wounds don't work like that. They are present when our attention is on them, and then not. Over and over. Especially for water people like yourself. But just because emotional wounds arise, doesn't mean you have to do a lot of 'work' to release them. You don't have to look at them in some involved mental way, you can just acknowledge them fully and then say, Thank you for the lesson, you can go now. If music is helpful in this realm, to encourage your body to shed, then use it for that this week!
TRANSFORMATIVE WORK
We move into Virgo season this week. This is an opportunity to contemplate the Virgo qualities of humility, attention to detail, self-improvement, attending to health and well-being, humor and quit wit! Thriving on work, transformative work, healing work. Virgo is good at problem-solving. It's an earth sign but it's the most mentally focused of the earth signs. In struggle, Virgo can be overly critical, hard on itself, and use work for its unending obsession with improvement. While thriving, Virgo uses work to transform, to heal. Look into how you use and perform work of all kinds this month. What details need to be attended to in your life that have been neglected? What time and space can you devote during this month to reconnecting with the natural world, with your own version of well-being? What transformative work is waiting for you? How can you shift your perspective with humor? Reflect on these qualities and set some intentions this month for integrating this energy, going with it instead of resisting it. The Full Moon in Pisces at the end of the week is a good time to feel this shift, acknowledge it, and set some intentions.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - When do you ask for help?
Meditation - asking for help
Assignment - When you feel isolated, especially when you have taken on too much, notice the stories you have about what you should be doing. Are you not getting what you need because you think you should be doing it all on your own? This concept is so strong culturally in the west and USA and Aries as the independent one, the initiator, tends toward this belief. Come back into connection when you ask others for help, it's a way of connecting and moving from isolation to inter-being. Sometimes the simplest way forward is just to ask.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What do you do with your complete attention?
Meditation - totality.
Assignment - What compels you? What holds your attention easily? What do you become absorbed in, not checking out, but checking in. What activities and processes in your life lead you to a feeling of totality? Follow those. Take note of them. Write them down. Let them live by making a plan to be with them more of the time.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What are you cultivating in your life right now?
Meditation - cultivation.
Assignment - When you move around too much, in your mind or in your body, it's hard to cultivate. Cultivation involves some conditions that are constants and some that are changing. What is changing in your life that you have no control over? What is changing that you do have control over? What are the constants in your life? How do you make space for them, so that you can cultivate what you want to? How might you neglect the constants? Write about and live with these questions this week so you can cultivate what you really want to.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - What does it mean to you to honor ancestors?
Meditation - bring the past into the present
Assignment - You are so connected to the past - how can you bring it into now? What memories haunt you, what places do you still hold guilt and shame and confusion? What does it look like to carry the past with you in a generative and loving way toward yourself? What does it look like to carry the ways that others have wounded you - to let it shift into your own new understanding that you can bring to the present, instead of feeling trapped in feeling wounded? We have to shape shift with the past. When you are struggling you can hold emotional grudges that keep you locked into pain. At your best you intuitively understand how to honor the past, ancestors, and all the wounds - folding them into a rich, alive, embodied, human present.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - How often are your creative pursuits enacted in the present?
Meditation - right here, right now.
Assignment - Be a visionary for the present moment this week. Use your creative powers to bring yourself back to right here, right now. Every time you find yourself envisioning some new plan or idea or creative expression that feels out of reach at the moment, ask yourself how you can embody or practice a part of it right here, right now.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - What if you allowed yourself to be as you are?
Meditation - as you are
Assignment - As you already are. Being as you already are. How would your life look different if you did that? What might you see about what you are already that you don't see when you're trying to improve? What is freed up by not trying? You don't have to give up anything good here, just see what happens with the thought experiment, trying this on. It's all about the mind.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - What does your body need?
Meditation - nakedness
Assignment - Get naked this week, ideally outside somewhere. If this is not possible, get naked somewhere other than the shower. Maybe it's in your bed because you don't usually. Maybe it's in your living room, stretching. Don't get naked to have sex, although you can do that too, but do this on a separate occasion at least once - just feeling your body as it is, without clothes, and see what you notice. See what your body asks for.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - Are you giving your emotional depth enough space?
Meditation - thriving
Assignment - Just checking in here - the depths of the emotional realm is such an important part of your life force. You can be good at controlling what people see of them, even what you see of them, at times, if you feel it is safer to hide them. But no matter what you do with your job or your relationships, this is still a need. So review when and where you get to express and/or be with this depth, and give yourself new space for it this week if you haven't been, especially at the end of the week with the full moon.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - What brings you relief?
Meditation - relief
Assignment - Relief is the feeling of realizing you were carrying oppressive thoughts you might not have even known about, until something shifted and then they were gone. What gives you this feeling, what has given you this feeling in the recent past? What can you carry with you from that previous relief, into right now? Into the future when you need relief and might not get it? If you're finding a break in the intensity right now, use it to fortify your methods for accessing relief. If you're in the intensity without a break, give yourself the gift of reflection and creativity toward finding relief again.
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - What is being transformed by forces greater than you?
Meditation - a spirit that is free
Assignment - Capricorn is actually quite spiritually open, underneath a certain skeptical approach. The skepticism serves you well, as long as you don't hold onto it too long. Consider what is being transformed in your life right now. It's probably a lot.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - What is being asked to change in your life?
Meditation - ocean blue.
Assignment - What might you be holding on to right now, resisting a certain change that you sense somewhere is needed? The color of the ocean changes all the time, but it's still the ocean. Channel this idea in relation to your self, that you have permission to change colors all the time, in fact that is what life is asking you to do! But as a fixed sign it's easy for you to get caught in keeping things the same (even the same rebellions). So look at this, and if what you see is changes that need to be made or at least not resisted by you, then be brave. Remember how easily the ocean is itself, and let yourself do the same, changing all the while.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - What are your feelings when they aren't attached to stories?
Meditation - complete feeling
Assignment - This Full Moon in Pisces opposite the Sun in Virgo this coming weekend is an opportunity for you to take note of your emotional state, its waves, how it moves lately. The Full Moon is an opportunity for opening, flooding even at times. Try to notice your feeling body with as little judgment as possible and see what you can learn about feeling itself. What happens when you get very curious about the sensations of feeling themselves? What happens if you pause your own story that overlays the feeling - what is then left?
TINY TINY FRAGILE BEINGS
I wrote an instagram post last week about judging a loud talker on a cell phone at a coffee shop. He was going on about his latte and stuff, and then at the end of the call he said, "See you at dad's hospital room tonight yeah?"
It was the best reminder. It was the kind of thing I wished was happening more because obviously I need it. Like every time you judged someone suddenly the most vulnerable thing about them became visible, or audible. It's a very important cue that snapped me right back to the miracle of the everyday. I was confused for a moment (who knows how long), about what was going on. I thought that what was going on was a loud person who seemed entitled to take up a lot of space with his phone and voice. When what was actually going on was me just being really confused by carrying this idea of how the world 'should' be for me. I was silently demanding a lot of space, by insisting that everyone should follow my rules of quietly talking on their cell phones, or moving away from my body to talk on their cell phone. Maybe you would still insist he should have been quieter, but the only thing that happens in that situation is you are mad that he's not being quiet because you think it should be different. So nothing else is happening except you, being mad, which disconnects you from your life, which is a bummer. Which was what was happening to me.
This is what being on a spiritual path means to me, why I meditate, what all of this is about for me. What I'm doing writing horoscopes, doing astrology readings, teaching. It's about reminding myself and everyone else who is interested, in returning to our birthright as interconnected beings sharing a planet. I'm talking about staying connected to the truth of the immensity of every single being's vulnerability, because when I am connected to this, a strange joy is always available to me, because I am living very close to life.
Suddenly this person sharing the details of his latte became an incredible luxury, a delight of mundane life worth sharing loudly over the phone! Who knows how many days and nights he had just spent at the hospital! Who knows who he was talking to, and how many days and nights they had spent at the hospital! The point is everyone's dad is in the hospital at some point, meaning every person on this earth will reckon with loss and heartbreak in some way, meaning everyone, no matter how much of an asshole they seem, is just a tiny, tiny fragile being and if remembering that is what it takes to demonstrate compassion, then let's do everything we can to remember that. Not because it makes us 'spiritual!' But because it makes our lives, my life, worth living.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - What have you done so far today?
Meditation - being while doing
Assignment - Make a list throughout the week of things you've done. Notice what you think of first as going on the list, and try to add things you don't normally even see that you do, like, sleep, or eat a bagel, or walked to the store, hugged my partner, cooked eggs, went to the bathroom, brushed my hair. Keep this list as a way of noticing, expanding your vision of what you do. How does this noticing change what you think about what you do? How does our hierarchy of tasks keep certain things out of our view? What comes into view with this way of seeing?
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What in your life connects you to your purpose?
Meditation - purpose.
Assignment - Write about your purpose this week. Reconnect to it. What activities, people, experiences remind you of this purpose? How does it feel to be in it / with it? How does it feel to be disconnected from it? What ways can you bring it in, connect to it, more regularly?
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What are the simplest tasks you perform?
Meditation - simply alive.
Assignment - Connecting to the simplicity of being alive this week. Byron Katie says, you do three things in life, sit, lie down, and stand up. That's it! That's all that's actually happening! We make things very complex, all the time. So this week, keep it simple. Ask yourself, what am I doing right now? Am I sitting? Am I standing? Am I lying down? What is needed in this moment? Do what is in front of you, be what you already are, today.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - How far does your vision extend?
Meditation - horizon lines.
Assignment - How often do you look far away? How far into the distance can you see from where you are right now? It's important for you to remember experiences and visions and lands far from yours, when you do this it helps you get perspective and keep yourself from being inside the cave of your own feeling for too long. Try out some views if you can get them this week, spaces where you can see into the distance, remembering you are small, in the best way, in the context of all the moving forces at place in the world.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - When do you feel most invisible?
Meditation - seeing yourself.
Assignment - Invisibility can feel so painful to Leo, which is why the more conscious you are of when you feel this, the less you will feel it. When there's a gap between what others see and what you see, and it feels like you're not being appreciated, consider letting people into your world more. Instead of defending or feeling defeated or misunderstood, invite more connection. The more you invite people in with your warmth, the more seen you will be, and paradoxically the less you will feel the need to be seen.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - How do you relate to the morning?
Meditation - sacred morning
Assignment - If you don't have a ritual in the morning that grounds you, and gives you time to orient, and connect to something larger than yourself, find one for this week. It could be meditating, or lying outside on the ground, or writing for a period of time each morning, or drinking tea in a very focused way, etc. Don't look at your phone while you're doing this. Look around, be curious, be open, reconnect with yourself. If you already have a ritual, reconnect to it, ask about how to deepen it. We live our lives one day at a time, so it's important to not miss a day by not being awake to what is happening in it.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - What do you notice in the dark?
Meditation - outside at night.
Assignment - If you don't typically walk around or at least sit around outside at night, try that out this week. See what it feels like to be outside at night, especially if you are in a city. It can be a way to connect to the natural world, if 'nature' isn't available to you as much where you live. See what stands out in the dark instead of the light, and how this changes your perceptions and feelings, your mood. Let yourself be open to new experience this week, do some weird things.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - What does your breathing feel like right now?
Meditation - breathing is a divine life force
Assignment - Here we are again, still breathing. This is the most basic thing we do, that we are conscious of. Which is why it's so important to be connecting to it, daily, hourly. Just simple noticing of a miracle your body performs all the time. How does this put whatever is happening into your life into perspective, to reconnect to your breath? Someone wise said, it's much harder to feel stressed and anxious if you are consciously breathing. If you've strayed from your awareness of breath, return to it as an old friend. If you do this regularly, slow it down more and renew your commitment to this gentle awareness, as a way of healing your life, in this moment.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - What are you learning right now?
Meditation - a spiral
Assignment - Learning happens in a spiral - we get something at a certain level, or a certain amount, and then we encounter it again later, and see how much we really learned. How much we forgot. This is how it works, this is not a problem! So when you notice that you're relearning something, try to embrace that it's happening, not lament that it's slower than you'd like. Use your capacity for wide view to reconnect to the truths about how learning works, and practice patience. Take note of what you are learning now, not whether it should be faster or slower, so that you don't miss out on what is being offered to you right now!
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - When do you laugh the most lately?
Meditation - laughing
Assignment - You need it. More than you even know. Make it happen, put it on your to do list, This cannot be emphasized enough. It's not an addition to life, it's required. It's practical. You know this deeply, but you have to re-prioritize it over and over. Return to your spiritual home as a jokester, today. In other words, the more connected you are to your spiritual self, the more connected you are to laughter. The more connected you are to laughter, the more connected you are to your spiritual self.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - Where are your new life influences?
Meditation - puppies and babies.
Assignment - That's right, get around some, if you aren't already. Include that new life energy in your world this week. It's so important. You might think other things are more important, but this is what needs to reframed at the moment. You don't have to leave all the other things, but you need to find ways to cultivate, to consciously bring in, this playful, easy, curiosity again.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - How often do you exercise your capacity to balance?
Meditation - balancing
Assignment - Balance and imbalance go together, we need both to be able to identify balance. So remember that when you aren't 'in balance', it's information to help guide you to balance. And if the balance gets stagnant, life offers you imbalance to wake you up. But we can practice balance, be more conscious of it, with how we live but also with movement and body practices. This is the benefit of balancing exercises - to practice on a smaller scale what we want to embody in a bigger way in our lives. Start with the physical, the small, and eventually scaling up becomes easier.
Y'all! Here is another an interview from my astrology interview series HOW TO BE YOUR OWN NATURE, every month featuring a person whose sun sign corresponds with what's in the sky currently, aka it's their birthday month. I've known Julie in many capacities for many years, working on art projects together, and as a friend. I've always been in awe at her ability to focus (Scorpio), to set gentle and realistic goals for herself (Leo), to build her work over time, and to be so incredibly organized and detailed (Virgo).
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Julie Cloutier is an artist living and working in rural California. Her ceramic work focuses on handheld sculptures, functional wares and everyday objects. She investigates domestic rituals through play and draws upon her architectural background to inform her minimalist lines.
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1. Leos can be known for having a strong creative desire. Do you identify with this urge to create? Has there ever been a time in your life when you didn't make art of some kind? If so, did anything replace that creative urge, or was it just not met?
Completely! I need to make! Allowing myself time to explore, fail and play is my medicine and I’ve only recently come to realize that creativity is my self-care. Without it, I get easily run down by the day-to-day stuff. It feels like a luxury, but I’ve been setting aside one day a week for painting and it feels so freeing and honest.
There was a time when I stopped making art for a couple of years. I didn’t think my work was good enough and was dabbling in too many mediums, nothing felt right. I was very sad about it, so I just stopped making time for art hoping I would get over it. After being out of grad school for a few years and not creating anything for a long time, I burned out at work. At the time, I was an architectural designer working on the computer every day. The lack of creativity in my life was starting to build-up and the void grew. That’s when I signed up for my first ceramics class, I just needed to use my hands and playing with clay attracted me for that reason alone.
Now that working with clay is my full-time job, I create things for a living but it’s not always creative, so I need additional time to experiment. I like repetition and the process of it all, but it can be mundane and hard on my body. That’s where hobbies and side projects have become incredibly beneficial for my health and my work.
2. Will you talk about other forms of art you've created in the past (for people who don't know)? And do you miss those and/or still do them?
Once people started labeling me as a potter I felt very strongly that I wanted to be identified as an artist. It took me 10 years to comfortably say that. Most people think I only work with clay, but I’ve worked with many mediums over the years so that’s why being called a potter feels so foreign. I went to school for architecture and loved every second of it. That foundation has influenced how I see the world—from drawing details of a staircase to understanding how cities are put together. Looking closely is where my strength lies and I bring that to every project I work on.
To list a few, I’ve made time-based drawings, rock portraiture, site-specific letter installations, letterpress prints, screen-printed note cards for the everyday. I’ve designed logos, a limited-edition alphabet t-shirt series, art books, photographed city landscapes and documented sidewalks. I don’t necessarily miss all these different ways of thinking/making, because having too much on my plate stresses me out. I’d rather pursue one method intensely for an extended period of time, and than switch it up once all my options are exhausted. It feels as though I need more than a lifetime for all the art projects I want to make, but for now, having one hobby like painting is all I can handle in addition to running my ceramics business.
A project that still resonates today is a collaborative 26-page alphabet book I made with Claire Nereim. Although we made this book a decade ago, it feels so fresh in my mind and there’s so much there I want to continue exploring. We designed the letter A from a Z, B from a Y, C from X, and so on. I think about language and meaning a lot but can now see that it’s all just a variation on a larger theme; function, utility and legibility and/or lack thereof. No matter the material, conventions are being questioned.
3. I'm interested in your relationship to time, especially as it shows up in your work - in so many places over the years, with so many time-based and / or time intensive projects. What are you exploring in work that deals with time in some way?
Time is change, time is routine, time is money, time is the sun and moon, time is a diagram, and than again time could be nothing at all. I love how subjective it can be. The first day of every month is like a mini-new year for me and I love setting and attaining tiny goals on a regular basis. My relationship to time can be playful and reflective. I make this clay object that I like to call a Time Keeper; a sculptural, ceramic hourglass made for celebrating goals and accomplishing daily tasks. This conceptual clock encourages domestic use by rotating the object when a project/idea/task is initiated and than flipping it back once complete. Each side is identical but it’s the intention that is key for this to function. This device strikes a balance between my pottery and my art practice, and this elusive zone is where I feel happiest with my work. It provides a different approach to recording time and it’s a shape that most people can identify with, but it’s also unclear what it’s for and I like that.
Rituals play an important role in my ceramic collection. A cup can simply be a drinking vessel, but it can also be the time we spend with it. My slow mornings are directly tied to my tea cup. I love my water cup so much that I actually take more breaks throughout the day to hydrate because of it.
Keeping time can be dreadful though, and I work really hard at not letting it get the best of me. My income is based on how many pieces I can make in a day so it’s an ongoing challenge to keep my productivity separate from money. Taking time-off doesn’t come naturally either. I have to constantly remind myself that I’m not a machine and that my work is not linked to my worth.
4. How do you decide what to do for money, and what to keep separate from money-making?
This is such a simple and difficult question to answer. Making work to sell clouds my creative judgment. I have to completely remove the audience/customer/user in order to make work that is unique, which in turn “makes money”. First and foremost, I only create things that I want to use in my home. I’ve been lucky enough to sell everything I make, but it took years to build up the confidence to put the work out in the world with a price tag. Being frugal helps, as making money doesn’t become the sole focus. The more financial constraints I have, the more I can express myself and have less worry in my life. I’m religious about doing my budget on the first day of every month, it keeps me on track and I learn so much from an hour of crunching numbers.
I’ve had recent interest from friends and strangers wanting to buy my small paintings. I’ve taken just a few commissions, but I’m weary of selling them. Part of me wants to keep it all to myself because it just feels so good and I don’t want to lose the magic it gives me. The other side thinks “how awesome would it be to sell paintings for a living?”. They’re both legitimate opinions, but for now, only selling ceramics feels right.
5. When do you experience the most joy?
Looking at plants, touching leaves, noticing bugs, making tiny bouquets make me incredibly happy. Tapping into my inner child and removing any kind of adult expectation is an important element in feeling joy and it’s the closest I get to pure freedom.
This may sound strange but compulsive daily re-arranging brings me a lot of joy as well. When something is placed or aligned/misaligned in just the right way, it feels like perfection. I like to think of it as rational uselessness and irrational usefulness.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - How much do you think through the realistic nature of your goals?
Meditation - smaller steps.
Assignment - Just take note of when and how you set goals, what they are, what you want, etc. Do you tend toward making big goals? Or none at all? Or too many at once? What is your relationship with the future in this way, and how does it cause you suffering in the present? Can you scale back to make your sense of what you are accomplishing feel more easeful? Or shift your ideas of what you need to do to feel like you got something done? Your life changes when your mind changes, so investigate your mind.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - When do you savor fruit these days?
Meditation - fruit.
Assignment - If you live in the northern hemisphere, there's lots of fruit in season! Eat the rich colors, all the reds and oranges. Bring this into your life as a ritual, make it slow and deliberate like you're good at doing with sense pleasures. You can include these pleasures and remember that they are part of what makes you feel like yourself.
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - When is your body connected to the earth?
Meditation - protein.
Assignment - Eat some protein this week, as a way to ritualize your connection with the earth, to bring your body down to earth. If you eat meat, this is a way to root downwards - but you have to give your body the time and space to digest this protein! So it's an assignment to nurture yourself, to stabilize the energy with a slowing process. If you don't eat meat, do the same with the vegetable kingdom foods that bring you down into the deep, living earth.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - What light are you exposed to and when?
Meditation - light.
Assignment - How much time do you spend outside? Inside? In the light of electricity? In the light of the sun? Don't worry to much about this, but just take note of your schedule, your daily life, and what lights you spend time under. Are there small changes you can make to experience more natural day light? Are the conditions of your indoor light something that could be improved upon? Your environment is such a huge part of your vitality - so give yourself permission to look at what's happening and make changes if needed here.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - What parts of your life feel creative?
Meditation - mind nourishment.
Assignment - Make a list of the parts of your life that feel creative, whatever that means to you, places where you get to be playful and experience a sense that you are creating in some way. If you find this list is too short, ask yourself about what areas of your life that already exist that you can bring more creative energy to. And what ways you might want to develop more time for this. Remember this creative expression is a need, so reflect on ways to fulfill that more this year and you will probably feel more like yourself!
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - What place does your ego have in your life?
Meditation - bringing ego into the light.
Assignment - Ego is not something that we usually associate with Virgo, because you do tend to be so humble. But every human has an ego, and the less conscious we are of it, the more it runs our lives. So the assignment is about looking into where ego might be unconsciously at play for you. (With a lot of kindness!) You don't need to go on an analysis spiral, but when you notice that your self-critical thinking is revved up, that's an indication of ego running the show. Because it tends to enlarge the importance of your mistakes, whereas other signs have other kinds of ego patterns. One cue that ego is present is when you feel like you've really messed up, done something horrible, etc. Pay attention to that, and remember that the antidote to this ego show is self-love!!!
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - What is happening with your digestion?
Meditation - lower body.
Assignment - Moving your attention to the lower body this week, noticing what is present there, what is neglected, what is happening! You can't really overdo this - moving your awareness down from your headspace into your lower body. The digestion has to do with how well we are processing what is happening, using what we nourish ourselves with. So look at your digestion in a literal sense and also metaphorically. What needs to be digested that's not yet? What needs time to move through, without you rushing it?
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - What is your relationship to sounds, other than music?
Meditation - the soundscape you live in
Assignment - Tuning into sounds this week can bring you back to the present, over and over. Noticing sounds in your life, in the different spaces you occupy, can be a gentle way to pay attention. Are there birds that talk and sing that you've never noticed before? Who talks around you in public that you might typically tune out? What is your focus on and what does that make you unaware of? Let your awareness expand out, loosen, and it will bring more ease into whatever circumstances you're currently in.
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - What is happening in your body, right now?
Meditation - noticing the body.
Assignment - Bringing it back to the basics. This is so important for Sagittarius, bringing it from the broad view, the big view, to the small, the momentary, the present what is. The body is the easiest way to access this, to understand reality. What happens in your body that you typically don't pay attention to? Your digestion? Your skin shedding? Your eyes blinking? Your legs moving, even while sitting? Your rib cage? Be with simple noticing in this way, let it keep you tethered to the earth. When your attention wanders, remember it's just because your mind thinks it's already been here/there before. But this is an illusion- you've never been here, in this moment, with your body, before!
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - What foods feel energizing, like you are eating life?
Meditation - eat the sun.
Assignment - Return to these foods, bright colorful foods that are full of the sun's energy. Remember that you need this, that you are a living being and need life force to replenish yours, every single day. This is productive, this is worth your time and money, no matter what your mind tells you. Make it happen. Devote your time and money to this, eating the sun, this week.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - What are your hands doing right now? What do they most often do?
Meditation - your hands.
Assignment - Be with your hands, attend to your hands. They do so much for you! Let this be a way of returning to your body, over and over this week. What activities include your hands. What activities DON'T include your hands? How can you care for them more? When do they get fatigued and you override this message? How can you take more little breaks with them, to listen to that message, attend to them? How do the hands connect to the heart? How does overriding their information connect with what you might override from your heart?
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - What is happening within your joints?
Meditation - connecting to your joints.
Assignment - How often do you pay attention to your joints? Often you don't pay attention to them until they hurt. So how can your attending to them now change what is happening, how you are using them, how you are treating them, how they might feel in the future? What foods and drinks lubricate them, which ones dehydrate them? What movements feel good for them, and which ones feel bad? Don't get lost in worry about your body or the future with this exercise! Just notice as you go through your week, in a gentle way, what is happening with them, and see what happens. Noticing changes everything, if we don't react so quickly that we miss the new information and think we already know.
Usually, astrology includes talking a lot more about what's happening in the sky. But I'm interested in freedom and love more than I am in astrology, so when I'm trying to decide what to write, usually it's whatever I can think of that includes thought experiments which lead as directly as possible to more freedom and more love.
Astrology is one tool that helps me and others get more intimate with the freedom and love that's already there, here, right now. But astrology can't tell you how to align with your own integrity, or what job to do, or who to date. Astrology readings, and horoscopes to a much lesser extent, can provide the experience of being seen, on a spirit level. The healing in this cannot be underestimated - to be seen not for our accomplishments or lack, or any other external signifier, but as being itself. When we are reflected in this deeper way, and when we develop names for our patterns, we immediately begin to heal ourselves.
Byron Katie, whose work I've been revisiting and cherishing again, says she has no doubt in people's capacity to understand the truth themselves. So the power of her work, in essence, is that she sits there knowing that the person will come to their own wisdom, inviting them to do so. Sometimes it seems that if we admit this is what healers are doing we will put ourselves out of a job, but this is the way it works in my experience and this does not diminish the importance of the role. It's actually fully acknowledging the power of seeing and trusting in another's process! (I pay and ask people to do this for me all the time, because I can't do what I do for other people for myself.) I'm skeptical of anyone who says, "I heal others." I'm excited by anyone who says, "I'm here to trust in your ability to heal yourself, and remind you of it."
Often when I sit to write these horoscopes, I don't want to say anything at all. I want to create a space for you to come back home to yourself, for these few moments while I have your attention, full of quiet, full of stillness, for you to remember what you already know, for you to give yourself your full attention. The truth usually feels like this - something we'd forgotten but knew all along. We just sometimes don't make enough space to remember, and this is the invitation from healers - that you - even you - can remember how to do this. You've always known and just forgotten. It's available to you right now, in the silence you give yourself, the few moments where you put down your device, breathe, and say yes to yourself, to your own nature, which is also the nature all around you. You don't need to know what is in retrograde. (You actually don't even need to put down your device!) You don't need to know anything but what you already have available.
You can rest in the home inside yourself, right now.
ARIES | March 21-April 19
Question - When do you douse yourself in water, when do you put your body in water?
Meditation - water.
Assignment - Get in the water, let the water wash it all off. Sometimes the water can help slow down your burn a bit, to remind you to float more, to not burn out, to not burn up. Float, and look up, and relax. Consider your feelings, and receive, as water element does. Practice floating as a way of taking a break from initiating everything.
TAURUS | April 20-May 20
Question - What topics dominate your thinking?
Meditation - spaciousness.
Assignment - Make a list of what you think about most. Is it what you want to be thinking about? What would you like to think about more, if there was more available free space? Make a list of that - what you'd like to be thinking about more. Look at that list when you feel down, and try to practice thinking about those things!
GEMINI | May 21-June 20
Question - What actually connects you to others?
Meditation - connection under the surface.
Assignment - There's a relationship between the time you are spending and your connections. If you are feeling disconnected, look at the amount of time you are spending on connecting. What does connecting actually look like for you? What feels disconnecting? What are you spending your time doing, and how does that reflect in how you feel about your life? Write about this. Spend time with it, in a generous way.
CANCER | June 21-July 22
Question - How is this new year of your life going so far?
Meditation - the moment is what's available.
Assignment - Did you make any plans about this coming year? Did you set goals? Does it feel different to be this new age? The way we make the changes that we want is in the moment. When your mind goes to the future and the past, bring it back to right here. How can you bring in the new things you are wanting, the spirit of them, to the here and now, with what you already have? Give yourself the relief of remembering that the present is all you have.
LEO | July 23-August 22
Question - What do you want for this coming year?
Meditation - ritual
Assignment - Ritualize your birthday. Create a form for a change you want to enact, invite your friends, say it out loud. Give yourself permission to set intentions to change what you want to! Don't do it half way - let it take up time and space in your life to mark this time and create. Don't isolate yourself - invite people to share it with you. Come down from your tower and include your loved ones so that they can welcome you back to yourself.
VIRGO | August 23-September 22
Question - When do you let yourself eat what you want?
Meditation - a rainbow of color.
Assignment - Eat the rainbow of foods this week. Continuing in Leo season, let yourself go a little bigger than you're used to. Go to the store and pick foods that feel good to your body, that feel enlivening. Choose foods that include lots of different colors. Do this because nourishing your body is the most practical thing you can do to prolong your life. Let there be pleasure in the simple magic of plants as food.
LIBRA | September 23-October 23
Question - How often do you see and engage with art?
Meditation - the humanity of art
Assignment - I want you to contact art this week, to experience it in some way, to let it affect you. To remind you of the messiness of human life, that this is a big part of its beauty. That it's necessary to live, to engage with and reflect on what we are doing here. That this is a powerful thing that art can do, and connect us to. It can remind you about the importance of tension and conflict - most good art has some of that within it! And it makes the entire piece stronger because of it.
SCORPIO | October 23-November 21
Question - What do you notice growing in your life?
Meditation - growth as a process of nature.
Assignment - Don't get caught up in ideas of growth that feel like effort, or what you have to do or say to be a good person - just take notice of what Is growing in your life. Where is your attention lately and what does that mean about what you are helping to grow? What is growing without your attention? What might grow better without as much of your attention? What plant life do you have around on a regular basis, to commune with growth itself?
SAGITTARIUS | November 22-December 21
Question - When and where do you find big sky in your life?
Meditation - perspective!
Assignment - Get to a space where you can see more - hopefully literally but also metaphorically - whatever that means to you. This is your comfort space, when you have a lot of room to see and experience it all, so give this to yourself in a pro-active way this week. Give yourself room for looking broadly. Up high, look out far away, so you can get that perspective you thrive on.
CAPRICORN | December 22-January 19
Question - Who all do you communicate with in a week?
Meditation - divine communications
Assignment - What communications in your life are obligatory? Which ones feel effortless? How many people do you communicate with at any given time? How often do you say what you really think in those interactions? What communications are you receiving? How is the balance between what you receive and what you offer? Does any of your communication happen with the mysterious or unseen, divine? Write about all of this. See what you notice. Investigate your communications this week.
AQUARIUS | January 20 to February 18
Question - When and how do you care for your skin?
Meditation - where you meet the world
Assignment - So much of how we think about skin is staving off the inevitable process of aging, but what if we remembered that it's where and how we meet the world with our bodies? What if we respected it with this remembering? Caring for your skin could be another way of thinking about what influences you can control that you are subject to. What people, places, environments feel good for your skin? Which ones don't feel good? Just notice your skin this week, and what is happening with it. Let it be a way to return to your body, a surface organ that brings you back to yourself.
PISCES | February 19 to March 20
Question - What supports you?
Meditation - seeing your supports.
Assignment -. Make a list of what supports you. Reread it and add to it. How are you already supported. What are you sitting in / standing on right now? What air are you breathing? What food are you eating? Who are you communicating with? Who is influencing you? Who built the pipes which bring water to your house? Who made the tires on your car, or bike, or bus? Who ate the food while you were in their womb to allow you to grow into the living being that you are right now? All of these are just a few ideas of where support might be coming from, to name a few. The list is endless, even if it feels like you are lacking support right now. This is why it's so important to write them down. Not to be a 'good person' and 'grateful', but because it's a more accurate picture of the truth of the situation. And the more in accordance with reality we are, the more peace we feel.