by A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard (Illustrator)
The adventures of Christopher Robin and his friends in which Pooh Bear uses a balloon to get honey, Piglet meets a Heffalump, and Eeyore has a birthday.
(Goodreads.com)
by Edward Frederick Langley Russell
When discussing the German war crimes of the Second World War, modern histories have focused on the Holocaust. While the Final Solution was a unique and unparalleled horror, German atrocities did not end there. The Nazis terrorized their own citizens, tortured and murdered POWs, and carried out countless executions throughout occupied Europe. Lord Russell of Liverpool was part of the legal team that brought Nazi war criminals to justice, and from this first-hand position, he published the sensational, bestselling The Scourge of the Swastika in 1954. Liverpool shows that the actions of the Third Reich, including the Holocaust, were illegal, not merely immoral
(Goodreads.com
by Peter Andrews (Goodreads Author)
From the back cover:
“Year by year hundreds of children are abused by adults who care for them and whom they trust. As a day pupil in an independent [Christian] school he was sexually abused by one of his teachers, an ordeal that was to haunt him for the next 32 years. As an adult he decided to face his experience of abuse and to challenge the silence of those who covered it up. This deeply disturbing book tells the story of moving from being a victim to being a survivor and someone who now helps others on the long road of recovery from sexual abuse.”
Unusually, and of great value to survivors, this book describes how Peter was “groomed” and then abused, and also how he took legal action against his abusers. This is a book written about one man’s experience in the UK, and of the UK justice system.
Peter went on to found The Lantern Project, a charity set up to help other victims and survivors of sexual abuse.
(Goodreads.com)
by Emmet Fox
What did Jesus teach? Distilled from years of study and lecture, affirmed by nearly a million readers over the last fifty years, Emmet Fox’s answer in The Sermon on the Mount is simple. The Bible is a “textbook of metaphysics” and the teachings of Jesus express–without dogma–a practical approach for the development of the soul and for the shaping of our lives into what we really wish them to be. For Fox, Jesus was “no sentimental dreamer, no mere dealer in empty platitudes, but the unflinching realist that only a great mystic can be.”
In his most popular work, Emmet Fox shows how to: Understand the true nature of divine wisdom. Tap into the power of prayer. Develop a completely integrated and fully expressed personality. Transform negative attitudes into life-affirming beliefs. Claim our divine right to the full abundance of life.
(Goodreads.com)
A big, powerful saga of men in combat, written over the course of thirty-five years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.
Written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable novel that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice: a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.
A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. This is his first novel. He lives in rural Washington State.
(Goodreads.com)
If you want to see what real honesty is
look no further than the dog.
The dog doesn’t give a damn for looking good.
but wil hunch the leg of the Queen’s mother
if it feels like it. The dog
doesn’t care what the hell you think. It will
lick its balls in the presence of the Pope
if that is what it has a mind to do.
The dog does not stand on position, power,
wealth or fame of any kind. He will
bite the rump of the Emperor if he
tries to pick up the dog’s food; the dog
will lift its leg on the whitewall tire
of the Prime Minister’s limousine or
shit on the Dailai Lama’s prayer rug
because he is a dog and that
is what dogs do and
in some secret uncorrupted part of the self
we admire this honesty in dogs, because
we see it is absent in ourselves and
we know that such honesty
comes with a terrible price in this world.
–Red Hawk, Wreckage With A Beating Heart
‘Happily ever after’ is a romantic myth. Defy society’s singlism and discover ways to embrace a joyful, independent life
by David Robson Photo by Chachawal Prapai/EyeEm/Getty
David Robsonis a science writer. His first book is The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things and How to Make Wiser Decisions (2019). He lives in London.
Edited by Christian Jarrett
23 June 2021 (psyche.co)
By the age of 29, the actress and activist Emma Watson had not only starred in one of the world’s most lucrative film franchises, she’d been named a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, launched the organisation’s campaign HeForShe, and co-founded the Time’s Up UK charity to support victims of sexual harassment. And yet it was Watson’s marital status that most interested the world’s journalists, with numerous articles obsessing over her relationships (or lack thereof).
Watson’s treatment is revealing of society’s wider attitude toward single people. In 2019, she told Vogue that this ‘subliminal messaging’ was so strong that it had seeped into her psyche causing her to feel enormous anxiety about approaching 30 without a partner or a family. She’d only recently learned to overcome those doubts, she told the magazine, and see the merits in being single, which she described as being ‘self-partnered’. She didn’t expect her comment to be controversial, she added later; she just wanted to have new language to talk about the experience of her romantic independence, without the connotations that are attached to being ‘single’.
The resulting ridicule couldn’t have proven Watson’s point more completely. ‘Self-partnering means you can’t get a bloke, right?’ the TV personality Piers Morgan asked his co-presenter, Susanna Reid, on Good Morning Britain, upon hearing the news. ‘Why do we have to put a positive spin?’ he continued. ‘Put negative spins on negatives.’ He doesn’t seem to have considered the possibility that for many people, there need be no ‘spin’: being single can be a genuinely joyous experience.
Morgan is hardly alone in these misperceptions. Our culture is steeped in the idea that long-term romantic relationships are the central ingredient of a happy life. Whether you turn on the radio, fire up Netflix or enter a bookshop, you’ll be confronted with tales of loves lost and loves found – as if our lives must necessarily revolve around a significant other. For a while, even the scientific evidence appeared to support this conclusion. Surveys had shown that married people, in particular, enjoy greater life satisfaction, health and longevity than the rest of the population. Little wonder that so many people have feared being alone.
The reality, however, is more nuanced. Many of the surveys extolling the benefits of marriage had failed to separate the effects of people who were never married from those who’d been divorced or widowed. These are two incredibly stressful events that are bound to have an influence on people’s wellbeing. When those complications are taken into account and the data are divided accordingly, one study found that people who never married show similar levels of happiness to those who were currently married. Moreover, generally speaking, when you chart someone’s happiness over the lifetime, marriage offers only a temporary rise – lasting about two years after the wedding – before it falls back to the baseline. For the average person, marriage won’t be the ‘happily ever after’ that we’ve been led to believe.
Marriage is, admittedly, a rather antiquated way of defining a long-term committed relationship. (Unfortunately, the surveys mentioned above didn’t offer separate data for cohabiting couples.) But the differences remain small when you compare singles with those in any kind of romantic relationship – cohabiting, long-distance, etc. In one survey from 2008, ‘partnered’ people scored 5.78 on an 8-point scale of life satisfaction, while ‘single’ people scored 5.7 – a tiny difference that was considered to be not statistically significant.
This is not to diminish the importance of romance for those who are in love with the idea of being in love, but simply to point out that there are many paths to happiness. And contrary to many people’s assumptions (including Morgan’s), a large number of people reach that destination by flying solo.
‘Not having a romantic partner at the centre of our lives does not limit our lives, it throws the doors wide open,’ Bella DePaulo, a social scientist affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of the book Singled Out (2004), told me. ‘Now, instead of prioritising one person by default, we can decide for ourselves who really matters to us, and live accordingly.’
DePaulo uses the term ‘single at heart’ to describe the people who will find their greatest fulfilment and meaning without a romantic partner. ‘The touchstone for people who are single at heart is authenticity,’ she told me. ‘That means that the usual paradigms will not always prevail. Who knows what we will do with our lives once we truly feel free to pursue what is meaningful to us rather than what is socially prescribed.’ For many people, certain activities, such as travelling, political campaigning or artistic creation could provide all the passion of a romantic relationship.
Perhaps you’re single at heart yourself. (You can find out if your attitudes align with DePaulo’s definition of the term by taking her survey here.) Or perhaps you suspect that your single status will be temporary but wish to embrace the experience while it lasts. Maybe – like Renée Zellweger in Down with Love (2003) – you wish to enjoy sex ‘à la carte’ without any of the emotional trappings of a relationship. Or maybe you choose to forgo physical intimacy entirely. There are countless bestselling guides to heteronormative relationships – John Gray’s pseudoscientific Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992) is reported to have sold at least 15 million copies – but there’s comparatively little advice on the best ways for singles to cultivate the perfect self-partnership. Based on my review of the burgeoning scientific study of singlehood and interviews with relevant experts, this Guide aims to redress the balance. Whatever your circumstances and personal decisions, what follows are some practical steps to help you navigate your way through single life’s challenges and to capitalise on its many advantages.NEED TO KNOWWHAT TO DOKEY POINTSLEARN MORELINKS & BOOKS
Defy singlism
Many of the challenges of being single come from other people. From intrusive family conversations about your love life to formal invitations encouraging you to bring a ‘plus one’, single people face constant reminders that they’re veering from the accepted life script. DePaulo calls this ‘singlism’ and, like all other prejudices, it can be mentally exhausting to confront on a daily basis.
For this reason, your first step to enjoying single life might be to realise that you’re not alone in your choice to self-partner – temporarily or permanently – but part of a much larger social revolution. ‘Single adults are the fastest-growing demographic in recent years,’ says Elyakim Kislev, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University and author of Happy Singlehood: The Rising Acceptance and Celebration of Solo Living (2019). He points out that singles account for around 40 per cent of all households in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany.
From his own interviews and data analyses, Kislev has found that a greater awareness of ‘singlism’ – and the accompanying social pressure to ‘couple’ – as a common, shared experience can itself have a positive influence on wellbeing. Lauri, a single woman quoted in Kislev’s book, captures the sentiment best: ‘Realising that I wasn’t nuts for recognising singlism and matrimania in the world, I actually feel better about myself and paint a clearer picture of things.’
Unfortunately, because few single people are consciously aware of ‘singlism’, the stigma can become internalised, so they feel like there really is something ‘wrong’ with them. In one study, DePaulo found that single participants were just as likely to endorse prejudice against other single people as were participants who were in romantic relationships. Overall, the participants felt that assumptions about singles’ supposed lack of responsibility was more legitimate than prejudice against almost all other groups.
You might need to apply conscious effort to question your own beliefs and to reject the false assumptions that are so widespread in our societies. Based on his research, Kislev argues that the happiest singles will often actively challenge the prejudice that they encounter in other people. ‘They must fight creatively and individually against discriminatory practices,’ he writes in Happy Singlehood. These acts of defiance, Kislev says, can be personally energising and empowering.
Go on a solo adventure
It’s not just the overt prejudice that can create a fear being single; anxieties about silent judgment can prevent singles enjoying many of the activities normally enjoyed by couples. Whether it’s eating alone in a restaurant, going to an art gallery, catching a play at the theatre, holidaying by yourself or attending another’s wedding, some people struggle to imagine an enjoyable experience without a beau or belle by their side to divert the pitying eyes of strangers.
Fortunately, these fears of spending time alone in public seem to be unfounded. In one memorable study, Rebecca Ratner at the University of Maryland and Rebecca Hamilton at Georgetown University recruited 86 participants from a university campus and invited them to attend an exhibition at an art gallery. Some were alone, others were in pairs with an existing acquaintance. Before they saw the exhibition, they were asked to estimate how much they would enjoy the experience – and, after they’d had a look around, they had to rate their actual enjoyment.
The lone participants tended to envision a dim view of the experience without a partner. Yet Ratner and Hamilton found that the presence of a companion made no difference to their overall enjoyment. Importantly, the experience seemed to reduce their feelings of self-consciousness. After visiting the exhibition by themselves, the lone participants were less likely to assume that others had formed a negative judgment, as compared with their fears before the experience.
Given these results, you might choose to plan small solo adventures for yourself, as you slowly build your self-confidence to enjoy life on your own terms. With time, you might come to appreciate periods of solitude as time to reconnect with yourself.
Reframe your thinking
Fighting singlism and embracing your solitude is likely to feel much harder if you’re single by circumstance rather than through choice. If this applies to you, there are tools from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) that you can use to navigate your feelings as you cope with past breakups and look to embark on future relationships.
For example, if you’re unhappily single, you might find yourself falling into regular periods of regret, as you look back at past loves and ruminate on what might have been if the relationship hadn’t disintegrated. That’s not always a bad thing. Regret – like all negative emotions – can help us learn from our errors to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. In excess, however, it will act like psychological quicksand so that you’re unable to move on with your life. In these cases, Jennifer Taitz, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, suggests to her clients that they employ a little counterfactual thinking, asking themselves how the relationship might have played out if they hadn’t broken up. Is it really feasible that you could have put up with their flaws and still lived happily ever after, or is it just wishful thinking? How do you know that they wouldn’t have acted even worse as time wore on? Many couples, after all, have serious regrets about their choice of partner, but might struggle to summon up the courage to leave the relationship. There’s no guarantee that you would have achieved the happiness you imagine, had you taken that other path.
You might want to pay attention to your fantasies about the future too. It’s tempting to assume that all your problems will be solved when you meet your Prince or Princess Charming. If you venture too far into these romantic dreams, you’ll miss out on all the potential pleasures that are right in front of you. If that sounds familiar, you might ground yourself in a little realism by remembering that the human mind is notoriously bad at predicting what will and won’t make it happy. (Remember that, contrary to expectations, marriage causes only a temporary increase in life satisfaction – a fact that’s also true of many other big life events.) According to the available happiness research, you’ve just as much chance of being happy now as you would with a partner. The aim, Taitz says, is to adopt a mindful approach that focuses on the pleasures of the present moment.
Practise radical acceptance
Taitz also endorses ‘radical acceptance’ to deal with disappointments. In general, we often exacerbate our negative feelings by focusing on the injustice of our situation, or by seeing it as a sign of worse things to come. ‘We add so much weight to our suffering when we anticipate future pain,’ she told me. If you’re single and you’ve been on a bad date, for instance, it’s easy to start a depressing ‘trend analysis’ that paints a dim view of your future prospects – leading to greater feelings of hopelessness.
With radical acceptance, you can acknowledge the pain you’re feeling without any of those judgments. If you apply this to a bad date, you might tell yourself that it’s OK to feel sad – it’s a sign that you care deeply about your love life – but you can remain focused on your feelings in that moment rather than drawing catastrophic conclusions about dating more generally. ‘It’s kind of keeping things current in a way that is more empowering than depleting,’ Taitz said.
To apply radical acceptance more generally, you need to first recognise the signs that you’re trying to fight reality. This could include regular thoughts that ‘It shouldn’t be this way!’ or wistful desires such as ‘If only I had a partner.’ You can acknowledge the physical sensations of the emotions you’re feeling, without judging them. You could then remind yourself of the multiple factors that have led to your current situation, and recognise the futility of ruminating on events that were beyond your control; ultimately, you can’t change reality but you can change the way you think about that reality. By letting go of those self-defeating thoughts, you can then devote your energy to the things that you can actually change in your life, through positive and practical actions.
Find your purpose
As a single person, given the sense of social judgment and prejudice that you likely have to contend with on a daily basis, you might find it especially beneficial to practise strategies that improve your overall psychological resilience and self-perception. (Supporting this, Kislev has found that attitudes such as optimism and a sense of accomplishment make a greater difference to overall happiness among singles than among coupled people.)
To build your inner strength, you might spend some more time thinking about personal goals and values. Various strands of research have shown that people who report having a strong sense of purpose in their life tend to recover more quickly from stressful events, including difficult social situations. In her book How to Be Single and Happy (2018), Taitz suggests that you start out by answering the following questions:
And
Once you’ve reflected on your answers and the ways that they reflect your overall purpose in life, try to make some concrete plans to enact them. If friendships are vitally important and you feel that you’re not currently spending enough time on them, then decide to reach out to two people each week; if you want to be a better uncle, think of activities you might regularly share with your niece; if it’s about making a difference politically, decide how you’re actively going to campaign.
Many people can also benefit from a sense of personal growth. For this reason, you might also commit to new hobbies and skills that will continue to challenge you, such as cooking, music or learning a foreign language. The sense of mastery will bolster feelings of self-efficacy and self-worth. (It is one form of ‘behavioural activation’ that’s a common element of psychotherapies.)
It has to be said that many singles have naturally come to this way of thinking, without being educated about these strategies. DePaulo, for example, points to one study that tracked thousands of participants over a five-year period. It found that single people were much more likely to agree with the statement ‘For me, life has been a continuous process of learning, change and growth’ than married participants, who were more likely to agree with the statement ‘I gave up trying to make improvements in my life a long time ago.’
Even if you’re currently uncertain about your single status, you might soon find yourself living ‘joyfully and unapologetically’, says DePaulo. ‘For people who have already come to understand themselves as single at heart, that comes naturally,’ she adds. ‘Others may appreciate prompts. Here’s one: what have you always longed to do? Do it. Don’t wait for that elusive partner who may never show up or who may turn out to be an impediment to your dreams rather than the answer to them.’NEED TO KNOWWHAT TO DOKEY POINTSLEARN MORELINKS & BOOKS
NEED TO KNOWWHAT TO DOKEY POINTSLEARN MORELINKS & BOOKS
What to read as a single person
It should be a truth universally acknowledged that singlism is prevalent in fiction.
In many cases, the authors are simply holding up a mirror to the societies that they live in, of course. Jane Austen’s novels might seem like classic tales of ‘matrimania’ but they also cast a critical glance over the systemic prejudices faced by unmarried women in early 19th-century England, and their limited options for financial security. (Austen chose to forgo marriage herself.) Other writers, unfortunately, are much lazier, and simply replicate the existing prejudices without judgment, portraying singles who are depressed, unfulfilled and desperate for romance. Sadly, this is especially true for female protagonists.
Unsurprisingly, these depictions can have negative effects on people’s psychological wellbeing – a phenomenon that psychologists call the Bridget Jones effect. One study used a questionnaire examining people’s fear of being single, in which participants had to rate statements such as ‘If I end up alone in life, I will probably feel like there is something wrong with me.’ Among the single women in their sample, the authors saw a clear correlation between these anxieties and the amount of romantic media the participants consumed.
‘It does tend to be a cliché over many a novel that you start off with two single people being sad, and you end up with a happy couple,’ says Ella Berthoud, co-author of The Novel Cure (2013). And it has long been suspected that this could set up unrealistic expectations of romance, she says.
As a ‘bibliotherapist’ at the School of Life in London, Berthoud helps clients to reappraise their current situation through the reading of fiction. ‘When you read a great novel, you take on the psyche and persona of the characters in the book, so you can be effectively transformed from within.’ And if you feel like an antidote to singlist stereotypes, she has many suggestions for books that might help you navigate your way through single life.
The first is The Dud Avocado (1958) by Elaine Dundy. Now a classic, Dundy’s debut novel follows 21-year-old Sally Jay Gorce through a string of affairs as she tries to break into the French film industry. ‘She’s really fun – you just want to be in her company. And whoever she ends up with – that’s not the goal of her life,’ says Berthoud. It’s Gorce’s confidence, in particular, and her willingness to shun convention, that makes The Dud Avocado such a refreshing change, Berthoud says. ‘She makes you feel more confident and upbeat.’
Berthoud also suggests the Jack Reacher novels, whose character (created by Lee Child) is mostly single and happy in his solitude; and All Grown Up (2017) by Jami Attenberg, which follows the life of an unapologetic (former) artist, Andrea, as she navigates her late 30s. ‘It shows the goals that you thought you were aspiring to might not be the real goals that you actually want for your later life.’ Finally, for people who are trying to come to terms with a previous toxic relationship, she recommends The Great Alone (2018) by Kristin Hannah.
If you’re looking for further inspiration, Hephzibah Anderson, the author of Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex (2009), and a former contributor to the Textual Healing column at BBC Culture, suggests that Ella Hepworth Dixon’s novel The Story of a Modern Woman (1894) could help you to ‘take heart from the past’. ‘It describes a time when carving an existence as a single woman – in this protagonist’s case, by writing pulp fiction – was a radical act.’ For nonfiction, Anderson recommends Kate Bolick’s Spinster (2015). ‘It rallies kickass heroines including Edna St Vincent Millay and Edith Wharton, all of whom made the very most of their solitary status, even if it turned out to be only temporary.’
These are just a few recommendations. But whatever media you’re consuming, you might try to be a little more conscious of the way that singles are represented, and the effects that those depictions are having on your psyche. Perhaps, having recognised the poor representation of singles in literature, you’ll even be inspired to write your own antidote to the Bridget Jones effect, detailing your own adventures in self-coupling – and, who knows, maybe Emma Watson could play the film lead.NEED TO KNOWWHAT TO DOKEY POINTSLEARN MORELINKS & BOOKS
In her TEDx talk ‘How to Be Alone’ (2019), Lane Moore – a comedian and author of How to Be Alone: If You Want to, and Even If You Don’t (2018) – discusses finding human connections, even when family, friends and partners disappoint.
In Bella DePaulo’s TEDx talk ‘What No One Ever Told You About People Who Are Single’ (2017), you’ll find out why, even though they get stereotyped and stigmatised, single people can live happily ever after.
Visit the Happy Singlehood Facebook discussion group to discover others’ perspectives on the best strategies to live a fulfilling single life, and to share your own.
For further conversations about singlism and the ways to escape the stigma, visit the Community of Single People Facebook discussion group; note, this has strict rules for membership: it is not a place to look for a date.
Listen to the podcast series ‘Solo: The Single Person’s Guide to a Remarkable Life’ (2019-) by the behavioural scientist, humour researcher and bachelor Peter McGraw, for a combination of interviews that explore the single experience, along with advice from health and wellness experts.
Read Bella DePaulo’s book Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After (2004). DePaulo has led the way with the study of singlism and its consequences, and Singled Out skilfully dismantles many of the most prevalent myths. Her website provides further information, including links to her scholarly papers. DePaulo also regularly blogs at Psychology Today, where you can read her most recent thoughts on the subject.
Elyakim Kislev’s book Happy Singlehood: The Rising Acceptance and Celebration of Solo Living (2019) describes the ‘singles awareness’ movement and explores the ways that our cultural norms are already changing. It includes interviews with many single people on their lifestyles and the ways they cope with prejudice, alongside a detailed examination of the need for structural change to allow singles to flourish. Like DePaulo, Kislev also blogs at Psychology Today.
There’s also Jennifer Taitz’s book How to Be Single and Happy: Science-Based Strategies for Keeping Your Sanity While Looking for a Soul Mate (2018). As the subtitle suggests, this is aimed at readers who see their single status as a temporary rather than permanent situation. But many of the astute insights from Taitz on the best ways to maintain your wellbeing in a world designed for couples would be eminently useful for the ‘single at heart’.
Finally, the book The Tenacity of the Couple-Norm: Intimate Citizenship Regimes in a Changing Europe (2020) by the social scientist Sasha Roseneil et al is a detailed examination of the many ways that European societies have institutionalised the idea of the romantic cohabiting couple. It’s available for free from UCL Press.
6 November 2018 (aeon.co)
Warning: this film features rapidly flashing images that can be distressing to photosensitive viewers.
‘What prevents me from supposing that this table either vanishes or alters its shape when no one is observing it, and then when someone looks at it again, changes back? But one feels like saying – who is going to suppose such a thing?’ – Ludwig Wittgenstein in On Certainty (1969)
Inspired by the Austrian philosopher’s posthumously published words above on the limits of human perception to account for the outside world, the UK filmmaker Paul Bush constructed the experimental short Furniture Poetry (1999). The stop-motion animation brings to life a universe where fruits, furniture and tableware shift colour and shape when we’re not looking. The result is a simultaneously jarring and amusing visual poem – a dizzying, madcap meditation on our uncertain reality and the limits of knowledge.
Director: Paul Bush
Piscean author Richard Matheson, known for fantasy, horror and science fiction, lamented that people live inside narrow boundaries. (Shutterstock)
Pisces, take a moment to restore your world view to the swath of colors in the rainbow
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Author Albert Camus advised everyone to “steal some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self.” That’s excellent advice for you to heed in the coming days. The cosmos has authorized you to put yourself first and grab all the renewal you need. So please don’t scrimp as you shower blessings on yourself. One possible way to accomplish this goal is to go on a long stroll or two. Camus says, “It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter.” But I think you are indeed likely to be visited by major epiphanies and fantastic new meanings.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Robert Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s leader for 37 years. In the eyes of some, he was a revolutionary hero. To others he was an oppressive dictator. He was also the chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, where his wife Grace received her doctorate degree just two months after she started classes. I suspect that you, too, will have an expansive capacity to advance your education in the coming weeks—although maybe not quite as much as Grace seems to have had. You’re entering a phase of super-learning.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry,” wrote author Umberto Eco. Judging from astrological omens, I suspect you’re now capable of accomplishing comparable feats in your own sphere. Converting a chance encounter into a useful new business connection? Repurposing a seeming liability into an asset? Capitalizing on a minor blessing or breakthrough to transform it into a substantial blessing or breakthrough? All these and more are possible.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): “I was so flooded with yearning I thought it would drown me,” wrote Cancerian author Denis Johnson. I don’t expect that will be a problem for you anytime soon. You’re not in danger of getting swept away by a tsunami of insatiable desire. However, you may get caught in a current of sweet, hot passion. You could be carried for a while by waves of aroused fascination. You might find yourself rushing along in a fast-moving stream of riled-up craving. But none of that will be a problem as long as you don’t think you have something better to do. In fact, your time in the cascading flow may prove to be quite intriguing—and ultimately useful.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In my opinion, psychology innovator Carl Jung, born under the sign of Leo, was one of the 20th century’s greatest intellects. His original ideas about human nature are central to my philosophy. One of my favorite things about him is his appreciation for feelings. He wrote, “We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only half of the truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.” I bring this to your attention, Leo, because the coming weeks will be a favorable time to upgrade your own appreciation for the power of your feelings to help you understand the world.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): For the indigenous Ojibway people, the word Adizokan means both “story” and “spirit.” In fact, story and spirit are the same thing. Everything has a spirit and everything has a story, including people, animals, trees, lakes, rivers and rocks. Inspired by these thoughts, and in accordance with cosmic omens, I invite you to meditate on how your life stories are central elements of your spirit. I further encourage you to spend some tender, luxurious time telling yourself the stories from your past that you love best; for extra delightful bonus fun, dream up two prospective stories about your future that you would like to create. (Info about Adizokan comes from Ann and John Mahan at SweetWaterVisions.com.)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Author Aslı Erdoğan writes, “It had been explained to me from my earliest childhood that I would know love—or that thing called ‘love’—as long as I was smart and academically brilliant. But no one ever taught me how to get that knowledge.” I’m sorry to say that what was true for her has been true for most of us: No one ever showed us how to find and create and cultivate love. We may have received haphazard clues now and then from our parents and books and movies. But we never got a single day of formal instruction in school about the subject that is at the heart of our quest to live meaningful lives.That’s the bad news, Libra. The good news is that the rest of 2021 will be one of the best times ever for you to learn important truths about love.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Before he journeyed in a spaceship to the moon in 1971, Scorpio astronaut Alan Shepard didn’t think he’d get carried away with a momentous thrill once he arrive at his destination. He was a manly man not given to outward displays of emotion. But when he landed on the lunar surface and gazed upon the majestic sight of his home planet hanging in the sky, he broke into tears. I’m thinking you may have similar experiences in the coming weeks. Mind-opening, heart-awakening experiences may arrive. Your views of the Very Big Picture could bring healing upheavals.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian author Clarice Lispector observed, “In a state of grace, one sometimes perceives the deep beauty, hitherto unattainable, of another person.” I suspect that this state of grace will visit you soon, Sagittarius—and probably more than once. I hope you will capitalize on it! Take your time as you tune in to the luminescent souls of the people you value. Become more deeply attuned to their uniquely gorgeous genius.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Trailblazing Capricorn psychoanalyst Ernest Jones (1879–1958) said, “There is no sense of contradiction within the unconscious; opposite ideas exist happily side by side.” In other words, it’s normal and natural to harbor paradoxical attitudes; it’s healthy and sane to be awash in seemingly incongruous blends. I hope you will use this astrologically propitious time to celebrate your own inner dichotomies, dear Capricorn. If you welcome them as a robust aspect of your deepest, truest nature, they will serve you well. They’ll make you extra curious, expansive and non-dogmatic. (P.S.: Here’s an example, courtesy of psychologically savvy author Stephen Levine: “For as long as I can remember the alternate antics of the wounded child and the investigations of the ageless Universal played through me.”)
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian guitarist Django Reinhardt was a celebrated jazz musician in occupied France during World War II. Amazingly, he was able to earn good money by performing frequently—even though he fit descriptions that the rampaging Germans regarded as abhorrent. Nazis persecuted the Romani people, of which he was one. They didn’t ban jazz music, but they severely disapproved of it. And the Nazis hated Jews and Blacks, with whom Reinhardt loved to hang out. The obstacles you’re facing aren’t anywhere near as great as his, but I propose we make him your role model for the next four weeks. May he inspire you to persist and even thrive in the face of challenges!
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean author Richard Matheson believed we’ve become too tame and mild. “We’ve forgotten,” he wrote, about “how to rise to dizzy heights.” He mourned that we’re too eager to live inside narrow boundaries. “The full gamut of life is a shadowy continuum,” he continued, “that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is bleached.” If any sign of the zodiac has the power to escape blandness and averageness, it’s you Pisceans—especially in the coming weeks. I invite you to restore the rainbow to its full vivid swath: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Maybe even add a few colors.
Homework: Describe what you’re doing to heal the world. Newsletter@freewillastrology.com.
