IOWA CITY, IA—Shedding light on the age-old mystery surrounding the monolithic statues, a new study published Thursday in the Journal Of Archaeological Science found evidence suggesting that the Easter Island heads were gifts from an overbearing mother-in-law. “By deciphering glyphs on wooden tablets, we discovered an inhabitant of the island once made an offhand remark about liking stone monoliths one time back in 1250, and his mother-in-law took this as an invitation to bring one over every time she dropped by for a visit,” said the study’s author, Professor Mallory Jacobs of the University of Iowa, explaining that the mother-in-law continued making gifts of the 30-foot-tall, 90-ton creations even after her daughter and son-in-law explained that they had no room. “At first the family stored the heads in a closet, but they got tired of lugging out the massive monoliths every time the mother-in-law came over. Eventually they just left the statues outside along the island’s perimeter year-round. During her visits, the mother-in-law expressed that she felt good knowing her family would be forced to think of her each time they looked at the statues looming over them.” The study concludes that the civilization on Easter Island collapsed after the mother-in-law announced plans to move in.
Translation is a 5-step process of “straight thinking in the abstract” comparing and contrasting what seems to be truth with what you can syllogistically, axiomatically and mathematically (using word equations) prove is the truth. It is not an effort to change, alter or heal anything.
The claims in a Translation may seem outrageous, but they are always (or should always be) based on self-evident syllogistic reasoning. Here is one Translation from this week.
1) Truth is that which is so. That which is not truth is not so. Therefore Truth is all that is. Truth being all is therefore total, therefore whole, therefore healthy in mind/body. I think therefore I am. Since I am and since Truth is all that is, therefore I, being, am Truth. Since I, being, am Truth, therefore I, being, have all the attributes of Truth. Therefore I, being, am total, whole, healthy in mind/body. Since I am mind (self-evident) and since I (being) am Truth, therefore Truth is Mind. (Two things being equal to a third thing are equal to each other.) Since Truth is Mind, therefore Mind has all the attributes of Truth. Therefore Mind is total, whole, healthy in mind/body.
2) Second chakra pain could indicate a history of abandonment.
Word-tracking: 2nd chakra: sacral chakra associated with pleasure, setting boundaries, sensuality, Rikini pain: indicates opposition abandonment: loss of control, ban, curse, prohibit ban: to interdict
3) Truth being all that is and potent being the ability to be, therefore Truth is all-powerful. Truth being all-powerful, there is nothing other than Truth which is in control of anything, therefore Truth is always in control of everything. Since Truth is always in control of everything, Truth cannot at the same time abandon (lose control of, curse, prohibit) anyone or anything. therefore Truth abandons no one, curses no one, prohibits no one. Since Truth is one, there is no opposite to Truth, therefore there is no opposition to Truth. Since there is no opposition to Truth, therefore truth is never in pain with Itself, always in agreement with Itself, always happy with Itself, always pleased with Itself, therefore Truth is always in a state of pleasure. Since I, being, am Truth, therefore I, being, am always in a state of pleasure with Myself.
4) Truth is all-powerful. Truth is always in control of everything. Truth abandons no one, curses no one, prohibits no one. There is no opposition to Truth. Truth is always in a state of pleasure. I, being, am always in a state of pleasure with Myself.
5) Truth doesn’t abandon, doesn’t curse, doesn’t prohibit, doesn’t ban..
Weekly Invitational Translation Group invites your participation. If you would like to submit a Translation on any subject, feel free to send your weekly Translation to zonta1111@aol.com and we will anonymously post it on the Bathtub Bulletin on Friday.
John Thomas Scopes. Portrait of John Thomas Scopes (1900-1970), American schoolteacher. In 1925, Scopes was prosecuted for violating the Butler Act, a law forbidding the teaching of evolution theory. The trial was dubbed ‘the monkey trial’ due to the public’s conception that evolution meant humans descended from monkeys. The trial took place in Dayton, Tennessee, USA. The legendary criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow defended Scopes whilst W.J. Bryan, the former United States secretary of state prosecuted. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. The verdict was struck out on appeal due to a technicality.
(sciencephotogallery.com)
Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan The United States’ most well-known criminal defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow, faced off against one of the country’s most prominent Christian fundamentalists, William Jennings Bryan, during the Scopes Trial, July 10–21, 1925.(britannica.com)
Norwegian C Jun 1, 2021 Norwegian Chamber Orchestra Terje Tønnesen, artistic director Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings in C major, Op 48 1. Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo – Allegro moderato 0:00 2. Valse: Moderato – Tempo di valse 9:22 3. Élégie: Larghetto elegiaco 13:19 4. Finale (Tema russo): Andante – Allegro con spirito 22:33 Stay connected with us!
Seth MacFarlane Jun 5, 2025 Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group How Did She Look? · Seth MacFarlane Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements ℗ 2025 Fuzzy Door Productions, Inc., under exclusive license to Verve Label Group & Republic Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. Released on: 2025-06-06 Vocalist: Seth MacFarlane Contractor: Fletcher Sheridan Choir Member: Suzanne Waters Choir Member: Natalie Babbitt Taylor Choir Member: Baraka May Choir Member: Ann Sheridan Choir Member: Valerie Tambaoan Choir Member: Michael Lichtenauer Choir Member: Jarrett Johnson Choir Member: David Loucks Choir Member: Dylan Gentile Conductor: John Wilson Composer Lyricist: Gladys Shelley Composer Lyricist: Abner Silver Workarranger: Nelson Riddle Auto-generated by YouTube.
[Verse 1] I used to visit all the very gay places Those come what may places Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life To get the feel of life From jazz and cocktails
[Verse 2] The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces With distingué traces That used to be there You could see where they’d been washed away By too many through the day Twelve o’clock tales
[Bridge] Then you came along with your siren song To tempt me to madness I thought for a while that your poignant smilе Was tinged with the sadness Of a grеat love for me Ah, yes I was wrong Again I was wrong
[Verse 3] Life is lonely again And only last year Everything seemed so sure Now life is awful again A trough full of hearts Could only be a bore
[Outro] A week in Paris will ease the bite of it All I care is to smile in spite of it I’ll forget you, I will While yet you are still Burning inside my brain Romance is mush, stifling those who strive I’ll live a lush life in some small dive And there I’ll be while I rot with the rest Of those whose lives are lonely, too
Mark your calendar: the 2nd half of August brings us a rare and auspicious alignment: Uranus sextile Neptune.
The influence is slowly building, and the exact aspect happens on August 28th, 2025, with Uranus at 1° Gemini and Neptune at 1° Aries.
Aspects between outer planets like Uranus and Neptune are always important – they mark generational milestones and influence the collective as a whole.
This is when things are set into motion – when the ‘rules of the game’ begin to change.
The world looked one particular way in the 1950s, with Pluto in Leo and Neptune in Libra…Then it looked totally different in the 1980s, with the outer planets gathering in Capricorn.
And now, in 2025, everything is shifting again.
We are no longer in the Pluto in Capricorn / Neptune in Pisces / Uranus in Taurus era. Things have changed.
Pluto is now in Aquarius. Neptune in Aries. Uranus in Gemini. A totally different energy.
Yet it’s the aspects between these planets that really get things activated. Neptune entered Aries in March 2025, Uranus entered Gemini in July 2025… but we can’t talk about a concrete influence until these planets actually meet in aspect.
And here we are in August 2025 – with two of the BIG 3 (Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus) finally making contact, on August 28th, through a sextile aspect.
This is when we will begin to see – like, concretely – how the energy of this new era is playing out.
Uranus Sextile Neptune – The Cosmic Bouquet
And there’s a lot to be excited about with Uranus sextile Neptune.
Remember that classic scene in romcoms when the bride tosses the bouquet? Everyone’s full of excitement and anticipation. It’s a mix of taking a chance and the symbolic promise of good luck: the bouquet means something wonderful could be headed your way.
That’s exactly what Uranus sextile Neptune feels like – as if the universe itself is tossing you a cosmic bouquet, inviting you to catch your own stroke of good fortune.
With Neptune sextile Uranus, it really feels like the universe is on our side, setting up little sparks of possibility just waiting for us to reach out and grab them.
The outer planets work in less obvious ways – subtle, slow, but always shifting the big picture behind the scenes.
When they connect through a supportive aspect, there’s an underlying sense of flow and support.
With Uranus sextile Neptune:
Things ‘mysteriously’ fall into place.
A synchronicity comes to confirm we’re on the right path.
Serendipities take us on a journey we never considered before
There’s a general sense that we’re at the right place at the right time.
There are so many reasons to be excited about Uranus sextile Neptune:
It’s a supportive aspect – so energies flow easily and new opportunities open up
It brings a special type of influence that gets us buzzing and excited: a little bit of magic (Neptune), a little bit of the unexpected (Uranus)
And it’s more than just a Uranus-Neptune story – Uranus is also sextile Saturn and trine Pluto; while we’re focusing on the specific influence of the sextile, keep in mind there’s a bigger cosmic setup at play
Sextile – With A Little Help From My Friends
A sextile is a supportive aspect, one that creates openings and presents opportunities – BUTthe rewards are not guaranteed. The caveat is that we need to recognize the opening and take the opportunity by the horns.
How do you recognise a sextile opportunity?
It shows up as something that genuinely excites you, yet you might also feel a bit unprepared, or sense an element of the unknown. This makes a sextile more dynamic than a trine, which tends to have a more self-assured, effortless energy.
With a sextile, the opportunity knocks, but then it’s up to you. You have a choice: to say yes or no.
The sextile, while supportive and full of potential, is not a guarantee of results. It offers us an option – and it’s our responsibility to engage with it.
But the good news is that this is not one of those “hello goodbye” transits that flashes by and then it’s gone.
Uranus sextile Neptune is not a fleeting transit – it’s going to be active for a couple of years until 2027-2028, so sooner or later, it will present you with an opportunity that feels exciting and aligned with your path.
How will you recognize it?
Here are 3 signs of a genuine Uranus sextile Neptune opportunity:
1. It excites you. If something sparks genuine excitement in you – no matter the reason – it’s because there’s something inside you that recognizes its value and potential.
2. It brings a fresh sense of hope for the future. This is not something about your past. With both planets newly in fresh signs, this energy is about what’s next – not what’s been. Expect a completely new experience or possibility, something uniquely different.
3. It’s relevant to you. If you find yourself getting excited by generic scenarios like “I’ll win the lottery” or “I’ll get famous,” pause and look closer. When they come, celestial opportunities very rarely match society’s standard definitions of “success” – they’re unique to us.
The third – and most important – sign that this is your opportunity is that it feels personal and specific; it may or may not fit the conventional idea of what an “opportunity” should look like.
So if it comes, if it excites you, say YES – even if you haven’t figured out all the details yet.
Remember: if the bouquet is on its way to you, the universe has literally aligned to bring you an opportunity that is 100% relevant to you and your path. So don’t run away, and don’t keep your arms crossed. Be ready – and when the time comes, snatch it.
The Uranus-Neptune Cycle
The Uranus-Neptune sextile is the first opening aspect of the current Uranus-Neptune cycle, which began in 1993, when Uranus and Neptune met in a conjunction at 19° Capricorn.
What was seeded back then is finally making its way into our collective consciousness.
What’s interesting is that in the later 80s and early 90s Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn were closely engaged – giving us a reference point for how these very different energies can blend.
That era saw some of the most important reconfigurations of borders, institutions, and other foundational aspects of society.
And here we are, 32 years later, with Saturn again in the mix. But this time Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are not in Capricorn – the sign of institutions and centralized power.
They are in pioneering, adaptable signs: Aries and Gemini. A totally different energy. This time around, it is no longer about rules and frameworks dictated by some ‘establishment’. Now, we as individuals are the pioneers.
With the development of tech tools, digital platforms, and AI, anyone can launch a project or start a movement from their living room.
Right now, with the Uranus-Neptune sextile, anything feels possible. Yes, it might require effort. Yes, it might mean changing how we do things. Yet it’s within our reach.
This is our chance to take bold steps forward (Uranus) to realize our personal dream (Neptune) – and thanks to Saturn, grounding that vision in something real and lasting.
With Saturn also in Aries and conjunct Neptune, there’s a strong dose of practicality. We’re not talking about grand ideas with little to show for them. This time, things are set to get real.
Uranus sextile Neptune feels like a global “spiritual software update” – where vision (Neptune in Aries) meets breakthrough (Uranus in Gemini), opening a thousand new doors for collective change.
At a collective level, we can expect new developments in the areas connected to Neptune in Aries and Uranus in Gemini.
Here are some scenarios how this could look like:
A new source of energy (Neptune in Aries) powered by automation or mobility (Uranus in Gemini)
New consciousness (Neptune in Aries) paired with revolutionary tools for communication (Uranus in Gemini) – AI? Other life forms?
Sovereignty as the new ideal (Neptune in Aries), with innovative ways of connecting and exchanging – perhaps new models of communities or decentralized networks
A new beginning (Neptune in Aries) connecting space and mobility (Uranus in Gemini): Innovations like drones, commercial space travel, or real-time global collaboration that revolutionize how we move and connect
Virtual reality (Uranus in Gemini) as a tool for inspiration (Neptune in Aries): Creating digital temples, virtual retreats, or immersive experiences for spiritual inspiration and connection
Pioneering advances in science and health (Neptune in Aries), fueled by data intelligence and rapid research (Uranus in Gemini)
One thing for sure: we are living in interesting times.
The Uranus-Neptune-Pluto Minor Triangle
We cannot talk about the Uranus-Neptune sextile without referencing the larger configuration at play which involves Pluto.
There’s a lot of excitement in the astrological community about the Uranus-Neptune-Pluto minor triangle, and for good reasons.
In addition to what we’ve already covered about the Uranus-Neptune sextile, we also need to factor in Pluto in Aquarius – amplifying the drive for progress, decentralization, and shifts in community and technology.
Neptune in Aries sits at the apex – the manifestation point – of this minor triangle, while Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius, in sextile, are the helping hands.
This suggests that a dream that is emerging – waiting to be born (as Neptune conjuncts Saturn in Aries) – will be helped into reality by the sharp, innovative intelligence of Uranus and the deep transformative power of Pluto.
Uranus in Gemini, in particular, will help bring the dream to life by connecting ideas, people, and tools – giving Neptune in Aries the clarity and support it needs to turn visions into action.
The trine and the sextile, combined with the Neptune-Pluto sextile, form the minor triangle (a “mini Grand Trine”) – an energetic configuration that is directly activated 3 times:
(at 1°) August-September 2025
(at 4°) July 7-31st, 2026
(at 6°) June 5-17th, 2027
These are the times of the exact aspects. The actual influence begins now and extends through 2028.
This is bigger than anything we’ve experienced. Uranus and Pluto are both directly aspecting the Saturn-Neptune “Genesis” conjunction in February 2026, which takes place at the very first degree of the zodiac (0° Aries).
This is a completely new chapter – a rare cosmic reset that births new paradigms, new beginnings, and possibilities that haven’t existed before. We are stepping into uncharted territory. Everything will change.
Uranus Sextile Neptune In The Natal Chart
When we talk about outer planet transits like Uranus sextile Neptune, we’re describing broad influences that impact society as a whole.
These collective themes are important because they set the stage – the ‘rules of the game’ – and everything we do as individuals unfolds within this larger context shaped by Uranus and Neptune.
However, your natal chart can offer clues about how this collective energy might specifically play out in your own life.
To understand how the Uranus-Neptune sextile will influence you personally, look to the houses where Aries and Gemini fall in your chart – these are the areas where new opportunities are most likely to appear.
If the sextile falls in your 1st and 3rd houses, for example, the opportunity might involve putting yourself out there through communication, starting a blog, or writing a book.
If it’s your 2nd and 4th houses, you could see developments around finances or your home. If it’s the 7th and 9th, it could be an opportunity for a partnership abroad, or a collaboration that expands your worldview.
These are just some generic directions to give you a starting point. At the same time, it’s important to stay open-minded – these energies may show up in ways you’re not used to, or in forms you might not expect.
The more open you are – and the more you welcome change – the better your chances of spotting these bouquets when the universe tosses them your way. This is your moment to explore, experiment, and follow the spark wherever it leads.
“We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we’re looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven’t found it.”
Does the world still need classical music? What about orchestras? In this gorgeous talk and performance, violinist Joshua Bell and the Chamber Orchestra of America play selections of classical music masterpieces — from Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and more — sharing why this art form remains a singularly unifying force.
When we fail to see the connections between things, we fail to anticipate the consequences of any one thing. A century before we began slaying entire ecosystems with pesticides meant to eradicate individual species, before we began tinkering with individual genes in the complex cathedral of the genome, the naturalist John Muir exulted that “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe” — an exultation that now reads as an admonition.
How to unblind ourselves to this cosmos of connection and its attendant forcefield of consequence is what Jenn Shapland explores in her essay collection Thin Skin (public library) — “a corporeal account of how thin the membrane is between each of us and one another, between each of us and the world outside,” fomented by the medical reality of her epidermis missing a layer: a diagnosis of literally thin skin.
With an eye to the embodied metaphor of her condition, Shapland writes:
There is no “outside”… The world is a part of our cellular makeup… we impact it with every tiny choice we make.
[…]
I began to see what I now think of as literalized metaphors for my entanglement, my complicity, all over my life: in my dermatological diagnosis of “thin skin,” in my friends’ having babies as the world burned, in the crystals cropping up everywhere to heal us of something, in my own sense of vulnerability and my desire to feel safe. I began to question the idea of myself as a being in need of protection, indeed as something that could be protected. Nothing can protect us… It struck me as I wrote that I was utterly vulnerable to every other person, every other creature on Earth, and they were also vulnerable to me… I began to seek other ways of understanding the self that might be more useful than this shivering, weak thing we must shore up against the world.
And yet out of that singular vulnerability comes a singular strength — liberated from the standard boundaries between self and world, which serve as culture’s safety valve constricting what is possible and permissible, one is free to imagine “alternatives to our limited narratives about family, love, labor, longing, pleasure, safety, and legacy.” A century after D.H. Lawrence reverenced the strength of sensitivity, Shapland writes:
To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that others might prefer not to notice.
What she notices above all are the connections between things, the Rube Goldberg machine of consequences that binds past and future, self and other, here and everywhere else. She writes about Los Alamos and Rachel Carson, about the traps of parenthood and the paradoxes of self-compassion, about mending clothes and mending hearts. Emerging from the essays is a reminder, both haunting and assuring, that in this increasingly fractured and fragmented world, life remains defiantly indivisible.
There is power in such porousness — a heightened ability to question the structures that make for fragmentation, perhaps none more tyrannical than the idea that the nuclear family is the optimal unit of belonging and connection, an idea rooted in our touching yearning for immortality despite our creaturely finitude: passing on our genes and values as a way of perpetuating ourselves beyond our mortal limits. Watching her friends freeze their eggs and go through rounds of IVF, Shapland reflects:
If we extend our idea of family beyond the individual to the wider world of creatures and ecosystems, we can begin to ask what we want for them. From them. We can begin to see ourselves in relation. Acknowledging and reckoning with death — with the limit on our existence, with the fact that we are temporary — can reframe what it means to live. What do we want to leave behind? What do we want to support, maintain, in the limited time we are here?
A beautiful answer comes from Shapland’s conversation with Marian Naranjo — a Native antinuclear activist from Santa Clara Pueblo, a stone’s throw from the birthplace of the atomic bomb. With an eye to the ancestral knowledge of how to live in peace and harmony — knowledge that has suffered the erasures of colonialism and capitalism — Naranjo envisions a new epoch of remembering what we have forgotten: how to be caretakers of connection. Sitting across from Shapland in the embodied space of mutuality, she echoes Ursula K. Le Guin’s passionate case for the transformative power of real human conversation and reflects:
That’s the next circle, that circle of balance. Where we do put back our heaven and earth, our heaven back on earth. Get it back. How do we do that? It’s this, it’s talking face-to-face. It’s doing more of this.
But somewhere along the arc of so-called progress, we forgot what indigenous cultures have known for millennia: that truth is a tapestry, no single thread of which can survive the wear and tear of reality in isolation, the reality against which truth must be continually tested in order to be true. This damaging isolationism haunts even the history of our understanding of the basic building blocks of life — the chemical elements that compose it, or discompose it.
The Radium Dance, 1904.
With an eye to the discovery of radioactivity and Marie Curie’s epochal work on radium, Shapland writes:
Soon after its discovery, radium became a multimillion-dollar business. For four decades, you could buy rejuvenating radium skin cream, lipstick, tea, bath salts, hair growth tonic, “a bag containing radium worn near the scrotum” that “was said to restore virility.” There was radium toothpaste to boost whitening. Radium therapy, called Curietherapy in France, began to be used to treat cancer. It was first inserted by fifty needles into breast tissue, or by radon “seeds” that caused serious reactions. There existed a “vaginal radium bomb consisting of a lead sphere supported by a rod for insertion” for cancer treatment. Marie and her daughter Irene took a radiological car to the front in World War I to X-ray soldiers. Later, she supplied radium bulbs to the French health service to treat the military and civilian wounded and sick with radium therapy.
The discovery of radioactivity is a story of willful ignorance, of knowing but longing not to know, pretending not to know, how powerful and damaging it was. Scientists and salespeople alike believed in its power to cure, to heal. Radium was damaging enough to kill cancer, to burn Pierre’s skin through the glass vial in his vest pocket, but somehow not thought to be damaging enough to kill the scientists handling it all day, the people brushing their teeth with it. Marie kept a vial on her nightstand to bask in its glow as she slept. She called it her child.
[…]
This scientific refusal to believe what is obvious because it cannot be proven, because it is technically uncertain, accompanies our understanding of toxic substances to this day.
This blindness to connection, causality, and the consequences of radioactivity is hardly surprising: To achieve what she achieved, against the odds of her time and place, Marie Curie had to be thick-skinned. Perhaps a thinner skin, with its attendant power of seeing the permeability and interdependence of things, would have saved her life, would have spared her the tragedy Adrienne Rich captured so poignantly in the final words of her magnificent tribute to Curie:
She died a famous woman denying her wounds denying her wounds came from the same source as her power
Complement with Marie Howe’s poem “Singularity” — a stunning antidote to our illusion of separateness — and the young poet Marissa Davis’s inspired echo of it, serenading our elemental bond with nature and each other.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When glassmakers want to cool a newly blown piece, they don’t simply leave it out to harden. That would cause it to shatter from the inside. Instead, they place it in an annealing oven, where the temperature drops in measured increments over many hours. This careful cooling aligns the internal structure and strengthens the whole. Let’s invoke this as a useful metaphor, Aries. I absolutely love the heat and radiance you’ve expressed recently. But now it’s wise for you to gradually cool down: to allow your fervor to coalesce into an enduring new reservoir of power and vitality. Transform sheer intensity into vibrant clarity and cohesion.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): To paraphrase Sufi mystic poet Rumi: “Don’t get lost in your pain. Know that one day your pain will become your cure.” In my astrological opinion, Taurus, you have arrived at this pivotal moment. A wound you’ve had to bear for a long spell is on the verge of maturing into a gift, even a blessing. A burdensome ache is ready to reveal its teachings. You may have assumed you would be forever cursed by this hurt, but that’s not true! Now it’s your sacred duty to shed that assumption and open your heart so you can harvest the healing.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): As you enter a Tibetan Buddhist temple, you may encounter statues and paintings of fierce spirits. They are guardian figures who serve as protectors, scaring away negative and destructive forces so they can’t enter the holy precincts. In accordance with astrological omens, Gemini, I invite you to be your own threshold guardian. Authorize a wise and strict part of you to defend and safeguard what truly matters. This staunch action doesn’t have to be aggressive, but it should be informed with fierce clarity. You can’t afford to let the blithe aspect of your personality compromise your overall interests by being too accommodating. Assign your protective self to stand at your gate and say: “I protect this. I cherish this. I won’t dilute this.”
CANCER (June 21-July 22): “Dear Dr. Feelgood: Lately, you seem to be extra nice to us hypersensitive Crabs. Almost too kind. Why? Are you in love with a Cancerian woman, and you’re trying to woo her? Did you hurt a Cancerian friend’s feelings, and now you’re atoning? Please tell me you’re not just coddling us. —Permanently Drunk on a Million Feelings.” Dear Drunk: You use your imagination to generate visions of things that don’t exist yet. It’s your main resource for creating your future. This is especially crucial right now. The coming months will be a fertile time for shaping the life you want to live for the next ten years. If I can help you keep your imagination filled with positive expectations, you are more likely to devise marvelous self-fulfilling prophecies.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In traditional Chinese medicine, the heart is the seat of joy. It’s also the sovereign that listens to the wisdom of the other organs before acting. Dear Leo, as you cross the threshold from attracting novelty to building stability, I encourage you to cultivate extra heart-centered leadership, both for yourself and for those who look to you for inspiration. What does that mean? Make decisions based on love and compassion more than on rational analysis. Be in service to wholeness rather than to whatever might bring temporary advantage.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In Mesoamerican myth, the god Quetzalcoatl journeys to the underworld not to escape death, but to recover old bones needed to create new life. I propose you draw inspiration from this story, Virgo. In recent weeks, you have been gathering pieces of the past, not out of a sense of burdensome obligation, but as a source of raw material. Now comes the time for reassembly. You won’t rebuild the same old thing. You will sculpt visionary gifts for yourself from what was lost. You will use your history to design your future. Be alert for the revelations that the bones sing.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the Hebrew language, the word for “face” is plural. There is no singular form for panim. I love that fact! For me, it implies that each of us has a variety of faces. Our identity is multifaceted. I think you should make a special point of celebrating this truth in the coming weeks, Libra. Now is an excellent time to explore and honor all of your many selves. Take full advantage of your inner diversity, and enjoy yourself to the max as you express and reveal the full array of truths you contain.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the ancient Hindu holy text known as the Upanishads, ananda means bliss, though not so much in the sense of physical or psychological pleasure as of deep, ecstatic knowing. I believe you are close to attracting this glorious experience into your soul, Scorpio—not just fleetingly, but for a while. I predict you will glide into alignments that feel like coming home to your eternal and perfect self. Treasure these moments as divine gifts. Immerse yourself with total welcome and gratitude. Let ananda inform your next steps.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In Daoist cosmology, the nature of life is characterized by cyclical, flowing patterns rather than linear, static motions. In my study of its gorgeous teachings, I exult in how it inspires me to honor both contraction and expansion, the power of circling inward and reaching outward. With this in mind, Sagittarius, I invite you to make the spiral your symbol of power. Yes, it may sometimes feel like you’re revisiting old ground. Perhaps an ex will resurface, or an old goal will seek your attention. But I guarantee it’s not mere repetition. An interesting form of evolution is underway. You’re returning to longstanding challenges armed with fresh wisdom. Ask yourself: What do I know now that I didn’t before? How can I meet these interesting questions from a higher point of the spiral?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Inuit artworks are often made from materials available in their environment, like driftwood, stones, walrus ivory, whale bones and caribou bones and antlers. Even their tools are crafted from that stuff. In part, this is evidence of their resourcefulness, and in part, a reflection of how lovingly they engage with their environment. I recommend you borrow their approach, Capricorn. Create your practical magic by relying on what’s already available. Be enterprising as you generate usefulness and fun out of scraps and leftovers. Your raw material is probably better if it’s not perfect.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The medieval alchemists had a central principle, rendered in Latin as follows: Visita interiora terrae, rectificando invenies occultum lapidem. Translated, it means, “Seek out the lower reaches of the earth, perfect them, and you will find the hidden stone.” I invite you to go on a similar underground quest, Aquarius. The purpose is not to wallow in worry or sadness, but rather to retrieve a treasure. Some magnificence beneath your surface life is buried—an emotional truth, a creative impulse, a spiritual inheritance. And it’s time you went and got it. Think of it as a quest and a pilgrimage. The “hidden stone,” an emblem of spiritual riches, wants you to find it.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In ancient Greece, the god Janus presided over doorways. He had two faces, one looking outward and forward, one gazing inward and backward. I believe this is your Janus phase, Pisces. Before you launch into your next fluidic quest, pause and take inventory. Peer behind you, not with regret but with curiosity and compassion. What cycle has fully ended? What wisdom has settled into your bones? Then face the future, not with shyness or foreboding, but with eager intention and confidence. What goals, rooted in who you are becoming, can inspire an exciting new plot thread?
There is no “outside”… The world is a part of our cellular makeup… we impact it with every tiny choice we make.
