Talk of the Town - free will astrology June 17 2000

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Whenever I psychically tune into your imminent fate, I get visions of you taking champagne baths, playing tag in fountains and making love near waterfalls. With my watery Cancerian nature, I interpret this to be a very appealing prophecy of giddy, fizzy adventures in intimacy. But I’m wondering if you, with your addiction to playing with fire, will be dazzled at all by these moist thrills. I hope so. Here’s one good omen to report: This morning I dreamed of Rosie O’Donnell and Spike Lee, both of whom are Aries, blowing bubbles in a hot tub as a nearby choir sang “Take Me to the River.”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I appreciate the subtlety and care with which you’ve been trying to convey your increasingly insistent message. Sad to say, however, you’re just not being met with the receptivity you deserve. It’s time, therefore, to summon more high-impact modes of communication. How about squalling a homemade manifesto through a bullhorn or Fed-Exing a half-burnt $20 bill covered with poetic demands? Better yet, put your face right in the faces of your target audience and speak the bald truth without a trace of anger.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I mischievously considered sending you white gloves and juicy strawberries for your birthday, but decided it might aggravate your feeling that life has been one big tease lately. Instead, here are the gifts I promise to try to deliver (or at least predict) during the rest of 2000: Growing pains that feel pretty good; disposal of the psychic garbage left over from 1995-1999; advice that inspires you to develop a greater receptivity to help, rewards, and invisible means of support; lessons in the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control; and the luck and skill you’ll need to ensure that love triumphs over infatuation.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Personally, I’m glad I didn’t end up spending my adult life in the neighborhood I grew up in. Some folks thrive on that version of long-term community, but it would have been stifling to me. I’d hate trying to keep evolving while straitjacketed by the expectations of people who thought I would and should always remain the person I was when I was younger. You might be different from me, though, Cancerian. Maybe you’re more likely to shine when you’re in close contact with an extended tribe you’ve known forever. If so, this is an excellent moment to work hard on building a more family feeling. If not, it’s prime time to run away from home and start the next chapter in your life story.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Companies have three options,” says biz wiz Louise Biggs. “They can either ignore change, be in constant struggle about change, or learn how to thrive and prosper in change.” Businesses that fail, she adds, often do so because they’ve refused to change or changed at the wrong time. I believe this advice is equally applicable to individuals - especially to Leo individuals in the coming weeks. In the near future, you will have ripe opportunities to mutate and transform with poignant grace. Please don’t refuse these soul-stirring invitations.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Never before, Virgo, have you reminded me of a hawk - an elegant pheasant or busy hummingbird, yes, but never a powerful hunter like the hawk. And yet, that’s exactly what you resemble now. Maybe for the first time ever, you’re primed to act more like a predator than prey. You’re ready to go on the offensive, scouring large expanses for juicy tidbits. As you journey far and wide in search of the exact nourishment you need, I urge you to learn from the hawk’s approach to travel. Rather than flapping its wings relentlessly, it often hitchhikes on thermals - warm updrafts created as the sun heats the earth’s surface at midday. Riding one of these windy spirals to high altitudes, the hawk then soars free of it and glides slowly downward for miles until it finds another thermal.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “Dear Dr. Brezsny: What am I going to do this summer? Will I have fun? Will I meet anyone nice? Will my life be forever changed for the better?” - Curious Libra in Nashville. Dear Curious: I predict that this summer you will make a pilgrimage to a holy wasteland, where you will pluck a magic weed at the exact moment a thunderclap booms. You will then place a shred of the weed under your tongue, whereupon you will feel an irresistible urge to memorize and act out Emily Dickenson’s poem, “Soul at the White Heat.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): To celebrate the grand re-opening of your direct hotline to God, I’ll tell you about two ideas that might come in handy. First, there’s philosopher Robert Anton Wilson’s notion that what this planet really needs is six billion religions - in other words, a unique spiritual path for each seeker. Secondly, there’s the democratic approach to spirituality cultivated by the Gnostics of the first few centuries A.D. They believed that every devotee was potentially a visionary who could experience epiphanies worthy of becoming part of the ever-evolving Gnostic doctrine. I hope these help inspire you to reach new heights of intensity in your conversations with the Divine Wow, Scorpio. More than ever, you don’t need any priest, rabbi, guru, lama or imam to serve as middleman.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): You’re delectable! You’re radiant! Your pheromones are as similar to those of a sexual champion as they will ever be. If you’re single and don’t want to be, the cosmos is conspiring for you to meet your match. To prep you for action, let’s review a few flirtation techniques. The lip-lick and the eyebrow flash are great icebreakers, as is tilting your neck sideways. Once the conversation begins, patting your clothes or smoothing your hair is sure to send signals straight to your target’s libido. And of course, nothing beats fondling a nearby object like a wineglass. Oh, by the way ... if you’re happily mated, the above still applies. Use your ripeness not to win a new paramour, but to seduce your old familiar into a deeper level of intimacy.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “The psychic health of an individual resides in the capacity to recognize and welcome the ‘Other,’” writes poet and translator Rosanna Warren in The Art of Translation. “Our word ‘idiot’ comes from the Greek [idiotes] ... whose primary sense is of privacy ... isolation.” With this warning, Warren builds her case for the virtues of reading literature that has been translated from its native tongue. Her point could also be applied to the value of encountering people that are utterly different from you and of going places that are outside of your comfort zone. These exercises will be especially healthy for you in the weeks to come, Capricorn. I urge you to cultivate an eagerness for what is foreign, even alien, and almost untranslatable.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “The doors to heaven and hell are adjacent and identical,” novelist Nikos Kazantzakis wrote, “both green, both beautiful.” After extensive meditation, I decided that while this thought might be good for you to contemplate right now, it’s only partially true. Here are some additional clues for you to consider as you decide which door to slip through in the coming weeks. First of all, the door to heaven is harder to open, and so you may be tempted to go with the other choice simply because it’s less taxing. Secondly, the beauty of hell’s door is cheaper and less enduring - look closely and you can see the paint chipping away and a subtle lack of impeccability in the craftsmanship.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’m sure you’d be hard-pressed to say anything positive about the emotional traumas you’ve endured in the course of your life. Wounds are very bad things, right? Normally, I’d agree, but not now. These days, losses that occurred long ago may have a tonic effect on you. Ancient griefs are ripening into useful wisdom. The broken heart you suffered way back when could be the X-factor that rouses you to stake a claim to fierce, fresh love.

Where will you be at the exact moment the June 20 solstice occurs? What images will be swimming in your mind’s eye? I suggest you imprint yourself with the very best environment and thoughts.??