Free Will Astrology: Week of January 14, 2021

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): As you ripen into a more fully embodied version of yourself, you will summon ever-greater discrimination about where to seek your inspiration. I trust that you will increasingly divest yourself of any tendency you might have to play around with just any old mediocre fire. More and more, you will be drawn to high-quality blazes that provide just the right amount of heat and light—neither too much nor too little. And you will steadfastly refrain from jumping into the flames, as glamorously dramatic as that might seem—and instead be a master of deft maneuvers that enable you to get the exact energy you need.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Denstu is a major Japanese advertising agency headquartered in Tokyo. Annually since 1925, its new employees and freshly promoted executives have carried out a company ritual: climbing 12,388-foot-high Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest peak. The theme of the strenuous workout is this: "We are going to conquer the symbol that represents Japan more than anything else. And, once we do that, it will signify that we can do anything." In anticipation of what I suspect will be a year of career gains for you, Taurus, I invite you to do the following: Sometime in the next six weeks, go out in nature and perform an equivalent feat.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Today I received a new email from a Gemini friend who lives in London. It was date-stamped January 15, 2015. Weird! In it, she talked about applying for a new job at a publishing company. That was double weird, because February 2015 was in fact the time she had gotten the editing job that she still has. Her email also conveyed other details about her life that I knew to be old history. So why did it arrive now, six years late? I called her on the phone to see if we could unravel the mystery. In the end we concluded that her email had time-traveled in some inexplicable way. I predict that a comparable event or two will soon happen in your life, Gemini. Blasts from the past will pop in as if yesterday were today.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Eugene Sue (1804–1857) was a popular French author whose stories often offered sympathetic portrayals of the harsh living conditions endured by people of the lower economic class. Writing generously about those downtrodden folks made him quite wealthy. I'd love to see you employ a comparable strategy in the coming year. What services might you perform that would increase your access to money and resources? How could you benefit yourself by helping and uplifting others?

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The beautiful and luxurious fabric known as silk comes from cocoons spun by insect larvae. Sadly for the creatures that provide the raw material, they're usually killed by humans harvesting their handiwork—either by being stabbed or boiled alive. However, there is a special kind of silk in which manufacturers spare the lives of their benefactors. The insects are allowed to mature into moths and escape. I propose that we make them your spirit creatures in the coming weeks. It's an excellent time for you to take an inventory of everything you do, and evaluate how well it upholds the noble principle of "Do no harm."

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Any time that is not spent on love is wasted," declared the Italian poet Torquato Tasso. Although I am sympathetic with his sentiment, I can't agree that acts of love are the only things ever worth doing. Sometimes it's healthy to be motivated by anger or sadness or skepticism, for example. But I do suspect the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to be in intense devotion to Tasso's counsel. All the important successes you achieve will be rooted in an intention to express love and compassion.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I heard a story about how a music aficionado took a Zen Buddhist monk to a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. The monk wasn't impressed. "Not enough silence!" he complained. I'm puzzled by that response. If the monk were referring to a busy intersection in a major city, I might agree with him, or the cacophony of a political argument among fanatics on Facebook. But to want more silence in one of history's greatest pieces of music? That's perverse. With this in mind, Libra, and in accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you to seek extra protection from useless noise and commotion during the coming weeks—even as you hungrily seek out rich sources of beautiful information, sound, and art.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal," wrote Scorpio author Albert Camus. If you're one of those folks, I'm happy to inform you that you have cosmic permission to relax. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to explore the pleasures of NOT being conventional, standard, ordinary, average, routine, prosaic, or common. As you expansively practice non-normalcy, you will enhance your health, sharpen your wits, and clarify your decisions.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Our lives tend to be shaped by the stories about ourselves that we create and harbor in our imaginations. The adventures we actually experience, the problems we actually face, are often (not always) in alignment with the tales we tell ourselves about our epic fates. And here's the crux of the matter: We can change the stories we tell ourselves. We can discard tales that reinforce our pain, and dream up revised tales that are more meaningful and pleasurable. I believe 2021 will be an excellent time for you to attend to this fun work. Your assignment: Be a self-nurturing storyteller.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn author Edgar Allen Poe named "four conditions for happiness: life in the open air; love of another human being; freedom from all ambition; creation." I'm accomplished in three of those categories, but a failure in being free of all ambitions. In fact, I'm eternally delighted by all the exciting creative projects I'm working on. I'm VERY ambitious. What about you, Capricorn? I'm going to contradict Poe and speculate that your happiness in the coming months will require you to be at least somewhat ambitious. That's what the planetary omens are telling me. So what are the best goals and dreams for you to be ambitious about?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It's time to launch Operation Supple Watchdog. That means you should be tenderly vigilant as you take extra good care of everyone and everything that provide you with meaning and sustenance. It means you should exercise rigorous but good-humored discernment about any oppressive or demeaning ideas that are flying around. You should protect and preserve the vulnerable parts of your life, but do so with tough-minded compassion, not ornery overreactions. Be skeptical, but warm; breezily resilient but always ready to stand up for what's right. (P.S. The better you shield yourself against weird surprises, the more likely it is you'll attract interesting surprises.)

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The atoms that compose your body have existed for billions of years. Originally created by a star, they have been part of many forms before you. But they are exactly the same in structure as they have ever been. So in a very real sense, you are billions of years old. Now that you know that, how do you feel? Any different? Stronger? More expansive? More eternal? I bring these thoughts to your attention, Pisces, because 2021 will be an excellent year for you to come to a more profound and detailed understanding of your true nature. I hope you will regularly meditate on the possibility that your soul is immortal, that your identity is not confined to this historical era, that you have been alive and will be alive for far longer than you've been taught to believe.