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Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Some people would like the world better if it didn’t have oddballs, freaks, black sheep, misfits, and crackpots. Personally, I’m very much in favor of these types, and celebrate the entertaining diversity they add to the world. I hope you share my attitude, Aries, because you’re going to have to be in intimate relationship with your own inner weirdo in the coming week. If you’re prejudiced against people who don’t act normal, you’ll have trouble dealing with the unusual urges and needs that will be welling up in you. But if you’ve developed an appreciation for anomalous behavior, you’ll be able to love yourself just right.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): After studying the astrological omens, I had a psychic vision of you jumping up and down, screaming with joy as if you’d won the lottery. That doesn’t necessarily mean you will actually win the lottery, though. My visions are usually symbolic, not literal. So what does it mean? It could prophesy the imminent arrival of a good surprise. It may signify that your physical vitality will be exceptional, or maybe you will be visited by an exhilarating revelation about the future. To get yourself in the proper spirit, why not jump up and down and scream for joy right now? Then keep doing it at least twice a day until the breakthrough actually occurs.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): After my psychic reading in Santa Rosa, I waited in the parking lot for a friend to pick me up. To entertain myself, I watched a robin as it pecked at a small patch of grass nearby. I applauded when it snagged a fat worm for its meal. Minutes later, I cheered and whistled as it found a second worm. When the bird subsequently plucked up yet another reddish-brown wriggler, I yelled “Bravo! Bravo!” Still it continued to hunt. My mood turned. “Aren’t you getting greedy?” I said to the robin. It rummaged around fruitlessly for a while, no longer in tune (or so I imagined) with the grace of the cosmos. The moral of the story, in accordance with your current astrological omens: Be alert for the unexpected abundance packed into a seemingly modest space or situation, but don’t try to keep milking that bounty beyond what you need.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): There’s more help available to you right now than you realize. You may have to cure yourself of an illusion in order to connect with it, however. What’s the illusion? I suspect it’s a misguided belief that you never have enough help! Here’s another mini-shocker, Cancerian: You’ve been making a certain process more difficult than it has to be. If and when you cure yourself of an illusion, everything could very well snap into place and the process will unfold with relative ease. What’s the illusion? I suspect it’s your (unconscious?) belief that success is more valuable if it’s hard and complicated.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): It’s a perfect moment for you to try the kind of money mojo that worked for one of my readers, Tamara L. of Las Vegas. Here’s her testimony: “I never believed in any of this mystic mumbo-jumbo before. But I was desperate. I was paying the price after indulging in the sick pleasure of telling my boss to go to hell. I couldn’t pay my bills. What did I have to lose? I took Rob Brezsny’s advice and did a financial ritual. I wrote ‘I hereby purify my money karma’ on a dollar bill, then burned it in the flame of a green candle while wearing a hat made out of the Wall Street Journal and chanting the magic spell ‘Money is my servant, not my god.’ Within days, I won big at the casino.”

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Surprise! You’re not as fragile as you imagine. Now and then—like the phase you’re going through this September, for instance—your health thrives if you push and stretch and test yourself harder than usual. So for the time being, Virgo, I urge you to proceed on the assumption that the most likely way to feel your best is to try things you’ve previously considered to be beyond your capacity.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): On his Bad News Hughes blog, Patrick Hughes warned his readers never to use a mini-vacuum cleaner to suck up the contents of an ashtray. Speaking from experience, he said the rapid intake of air could reignite waning embers and create a fiery mess. I suggest you make that your metaphor of the week, Libra. It’s a good time to clean the hell out of everything in your life and throw away all the stuff that’s dead to you. But make sure that whatever you dispose of doesn’t contain some smoldering remains that could blow up in your face. (P.S. I’m not predicting things will blow up, but rather advising you what to do so that they don’t blow up.)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s Let It Go Week, Scorpio—also known as Just Drop It Week. This is a fertile moment in your astrological cycle, a time when you’ll be rewarded with a creative influx if you surrender your tight grip, give up your obsessive hold, and stop clinging to your hardened expectations. So I urge you to summon your most brazen vigor and get yourself as completely unstuck as you dare. And please keep in mind that this should be relaxing fun, not a worrisome ordeal.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Once a year I hike into the hills above San Anselmo, CA and perform a concert for the trees, birds, insects, and sun. If clouds happen to show up that day, I include them as part of my audience. The show typically consists of 80-minutes’ worth of a cappella songs and ecstatic poems, along with my “Dionysian sermons” and “primordial gossip.” None of my listeners ever express anything resembling applause, but that’s fine. For me, it’s an exercise in giving without strings attached. I provide the gift simply because it makes me feel good to be generous, not because I have expectations about how the gift will be used. I recommend that you find an equivalent approach to bestowing blessings in the coming week.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Writing in the magazine sub-TERRAIN, John More makes the following declaration: “Captains of industry, great generals, artists of genius, even politicians, are often just people who have discovered that alcohol can enable them to make economic, tactical, creative, or political decisions whose implications would paralyze a sober individual.” Your assignment, Capricorn, is to find an alcohol-free way to make such a decision. It’s time for you to summon visionary courage from your soul, not from a bottle, as you catalyze complex blessings that will ripple through your future for a long time.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): To get a read on how democracy and human rights are faring on the planet, check out the research of an organization called Freedom House (freedomhouse.org). In its most-recent annual report, it declared that 90 countries are free. They represent 47 percent of the world’s population. Fifty-eight countries, accounting for another 30 percent of the human swarm, are “partly free.” Then there are the “not free” nations: 45 of them, with 23 percent of the Earth’s inhabitants. (Half of the “not free” people are in China.) It so happens that your personal degree of freedom, Aquarius, almost matches the world’s. You’re 46 percent completely free, 35 percent partly free, and 19 percent not free. The good news is that the coming weeks will be an excellent time to reduce that 19 percent.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Your funny bone isn’t a bone at all; it’s actually your ulnar nerve. A firefly is a beetle, not a fly. A lead pencil has graphite in it, but no lead. A cucumber is technically a fruit, not a vegetable. Is there anything in your life that might be mislabeled like these things? Anything that’s different from what it’s alleged to be? Now is an excellent time to penetrate to the truth below the prevailing assumptions.

Homework: No one can make you feel any emotion unless you agree to feel it. You are the sovereign of what happens inside you. Explain why at FreeWillAstrology.com.