Free Will Astrology’s Rob Brezsny joins The Villager. Brezsny’s long-running column previously appeared in New York Press and the Village Voice.
BY ROB BREZSNY
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Sometimes, Aries, you run away and dive into a new amusement before you have gotten all the benefits you can out of the old amusement. But you seem more committed than usual to the ongoing process. You’ve also got to be clear, though, that there’s something about it you don’t like and want to change. Otherwise, you might suddenly run away somewhere down the line. Be proactive now, not rash later.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Jugaad is a Hindi-Urdu word that can be translated as “frugal innovation.” People in India and Pakistan use it a lot. It’s the art of finding a creative workaround to a problem despite facing logistical and financial barriers. Masters of jugaad call on ingenuity and improvisation to make up for sparse resources. Though you may not have access to V.I.P.’s and filthy riches, Taurus, you do have the resourcefulness necessary right now to come up with novel solutions.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In accordance with your current astrological omens, I authorize you to be like a bird in the coming week — specifically, as described by the zoologist Norman J. Berrill: “To be a bird is to be more intensely alive than any other living creature. Birds have hotter blood, brighter colors, stronger emotions. They live in a world that is always present, mostly full of joy.” Sing, hop around, glide, love the wind, see great vistas, travel everywhere, be attracted to hundreds of beautiful things, and do everything.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): “The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired,” wrote Nikos Kazantzakis in his book “Report to Greco.” I’m hoping when you read that statement, Cancerian, you will get a vision of an exciting experience you have always wanted but have not yet managed to bring into your life. Maybe this provocation will goad you into finally conjuring up the desire to actually make your dream come true.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “It is truly strange how long it takes to get to know oneself,” wrote the prominent 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. “I am now 62 years old, yet just one moment ago I realized that I love lightly toasted bread and loathe bread when it is heavily toasted.” Your assignment, Leo, is to engage in an intense phase of self-discovery like Wittgenstein’s — to become fully conscious of all the small likes and dislikes that together shape your identity.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God than in church thinking about the mountains,” said the naturalist John Muir. These days, Virgo, you need to be at the heart of the hot action, not floating in a cloud of abstract thoughts. The only version of God that’s meaningful to you right now is the one that feeds your lust for life in the here and now.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): This advice may have never before been given to Libras in a horoscope. It might conflict with the elegance and decorum you like to express. Yet, I believe it will inspire you to generate a mess of fertile chaos and invigorating long-term innovations. The message is from “Do the Work,” a book by Steven Pressfield: “Stay primitive. The creative act is primitive. Its principles are of birth and genesis.”
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Two years ago Sean Murphy, a British man, decided he had enough of the painful wart on his middle finger. So he drank a few beers to steel himself, and tried to blast the blemish off with a gun. He got rid of the wart, but also annihilated most of his finger. May I suggest you not follow Murphy’s lead, Scorpio? Now is a good time to part ways with a hurtful burden, but I’m sure you can do it without causing a lot of collateral damage.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Grace has been trickling into your life lately, but I suspect it may soon start to flood. It’s likely that an abundance of tricky luck will provide you with the leverage and audacity you need to pull off minor miracles. For now at least, it’s realistic to be optimistic.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn innovator Jeff Bezos built Amazon.com from the ground up. He now owns The Washington Post, one of America’s leading newspapers. “We are stubborn on vision,” he says about his team. “We are flexible in details.” In other words, he knows exactly what he wants to create, but is adaptable. That’s excellent advice for you, Capricorn, in the next phase of implementing your master plan.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Here’s the horoscope I want to write for you in early December: “Congratulations, Aquarius! You have escaped a habit that subtly undermined you for a long time. Your monkey mind has eased up on its chatter and your inner critic has at least partially stopped berating you. You are as close as you have ever come to living your own life — as opposed to the life that other people think you should live.”
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “It’s an unbearable thought that roses were not invented by me,” wrote Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. You’re not as egotistical as Mayakovsky, Pisces. And it is due in part to your lack of rampaging egotism that I predict you will invent something almost as good as roses in the coming weeks. Your creative powers will synergize with your aptitude for love to bring a new marvel into the world.
