FREE WILL ASTROLOGY / Courtesy Rob Brezsny
VIRGO week of Feb. 8-14
"You've been walking the ocean's edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry," writes Coleman Barks in his translation of the 13th-century poet Rumi. What he means is that you've been too tentative and inhibited in your relationship with the tidal forces of love; you've been holding back from giving your total devotion to the primal power that fuels the universe. "You must dive naked under and deeper under," Barks and Rumi continue, "a thousand times deeper!" Consider taking the poets' advice, Virgo. If you can't manage diving a thousand times deeper, try to least make it a hundred times. Happy Valentine Daze!

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY / Courtesy Rob Brezsny
VIRGO week of Feb. 1-7
When Martin Luther King Jr. was 12 years old, he was so depressed he tried to commit suicide. I'm glad he didn't succeed. He grew up to be one of my heroes: a peaceful warrior who fought for justice with militant love. Studying his life, I learned that it's possible for a man to have both a well-honed intellect and a fierce spiritual faith. He showed me that uplifting passion, lyrical language, and inventive imagination are essential elements of political activism. He proved you can be devoted to divine mysteries without turning into a fundamentalist fanatic who hates non-believers. In accordance with the astrological omens, Virgo, I urge you to draw inspiration from a hero who means as much to you as King does to me. For extra credit, find out how this indomitable soul managed to triumph over his or her life's low points.

I'll have to think about this one. Like Brezsny's, my heroes tend to be dead: Lennon. Brautigan. Other musicians and poets and writers. One of them just passed this week: Molly Ivins. Which reminds me of another" my mother. Lucy was a newspaper writer too, a reporter and a columnist who plied her trade for papers that are either dead themselves (The Buffalo, N.Y., Courier-Express) or hanging on by their tearsheets (The Bradford Era, The Salamanca Press). Those of you who never had the pleasure of sitting down around that silly pink dinner table at 608 Broad Street will never know the serio-comic melodramas she used to regale the family with (told through various characters, with different voices and accents, and the occasional prop) as she re-enacted pedestrian things like city council meetings or sitting out in the hallway waiting for the Hospital Authority or the Seneca Nation council to come out of their interminable closed sessions. Mom and I had many disagreements in our years together, but the last time I saw her--emaciated and gray on her nursing home bed, I kissed her on the lips and she whispered to me words I'm never forget, words that, again, you'll never know.
This one's for you, Mom.

Love always,

your red-headed son

(the living one, eventually to be somebody's hero, I hope)

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY / Courtesy Rob Brezsny
VIRGO week of Jan. 18-24
I hate greed almost as much as I hate hatred. So I was mistrustful when your inner teacher hinted that I should look in the thesaurus under "acquire" for clues to your major themes in the coming months. There I found words like "amass," "collect," "gather," "secure," "earn," and "take possession." After duly meditating on your astrological aspects, I decided that what your inner teacher was driving at is this: 2007 should be a time of building up your reserves, carving out a more substantial niche, and getting the tools and resources and training that will provide a foundation for your dreams well into the future. So here's my question to you: Can you engage in this much acquisition without becoming grasping, predatory, and manipulative? Personally, I'm sure you can.