Free Will Astrology: Week of Oct. 21, 2021

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Even the wisest among us are susceptible to being fascinated by our emotional pain. Even those of us who do a lot of inner work may be captivated and entranced by frustrations and vexations and irritants. Our knotty problems make us interesting, even attractive! They shape our self-image. No wonder we are sometimes "intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering," in the words of author Fyodor Dostoevsky. That's the bad news. The good news, Aries, is that in the coming weeks, you will have extra power to divest yourself of sadness and distress and anxiety that you no longer need. I recommend you choose a few outmoded sources of unhappiness and enact a ritual to purge them.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In Norway, you don't call your romantic partner "boyfriend" or "girlfriend." You say kjaereste, which is gender neutral and is translated as "dearest." In Sweden, you refer to your lover as älskling, meaning "my beloved one." How about Finland? One term the Finns use for the person they love is kulta, which means gold. I hope you'll be inspired by these words to experiment with new nicknames and titles for the allies you care for. It's a favorable time to reinvent the images you project onto each other. I hope you will refine your assumptions about each other and upgrade your hopes for each other. Be playful and have fun as you enhance your empathy.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The band Creedence Clearwater Revival, led by Gemini musician John Fogerty, achieved tremendous success with their rollicking sound and socially conscious lyrics. They sold 33 million records worldwide. In 1970, they were the best-selling band on the planet, exceeding even the Beatles. And yet, the band endured for just over four years. I foresee the possibility of a comparable phenomenon in your life during the coming months. Something that may not last forever will ultimately generate potent, long-term benefits. What might it be? Meditate on the possibility. Be alert for its coming. Create the conditions necessary for it to thrive.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, "I am unlike anyone I have ever met. I will even venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, but at least I am different." I urge you to make that your own affirmation in the coming weeks. It's high time to boldly claim how utterly unique you are—to be full of reasonable pride about the fact that you have special qualities that no one in history has ever had. Bonus: The cosmos is also granting you permission to brag more than usual about your humility and sensitivity, as well as about your other fine qualities.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Nigerian poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo writes, "I will always want myself. Always. Darling, I wrote myself a love poem two nights ago. I am a woman who grows flowers between her teeth. I dance myself out of pain. This wanting of myself gets stronger with age. I host myself to myself. I am whole." I recommend you adopt Umebinyuo's attitude as you upgrade your relationship with yourself during the coming weeks. It's time for you to pledge to give yourself everything you wish a lover would offer you. You're ready to claim more of your birthright as an ingenious, diligent self-nurturer.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): As author David Brooks reminds us, "Exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff." I hope this strategy will be at the top of your priority list during the next four weeks. You will have abundant opportunities to put a lot of "excellent stuff into your brain," as Brooks suggests. Uncoincidentally, you are also likely to be a rich source of inspiration and illumination yourself. I suspect people will recognize—even more than they usually do—that being around you will make them smarter. I suggest you help them realize that fact.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Self-help author James Clear describes a scenario I urge you to keep in mind. He speaks of "a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two." Clear adds that "it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.” You'll thrive by cultivating that same patience and determination in the coming weeks, Libra. Proceed with dogged certainty that your sustained small efforts will eventually yield potent results.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Nobel Prize-winning poet Odysseus Elytis was speaking like a consummate Scorpio when he said, “What I love is always being born. What I love is beginning always.” Like most Scorpios, he knew an essential secret about how to ensure he could enjoy that intense rhythm: He had to be skilled in the art of metaphorical death. How else could he be born again and again? Every time he rose up anew into the world like a beginner, it was because he had shed old ideas, past obsessions, and worn-out tricks. I trust you've been attending to this transformative work in the past few weeks, Scorpio. Ready to be born again? Ready to begin anew? To achieve maximum renaissance, get rid of a few more things.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "I haven't had enough sleep for years," author Franz Kafka (1883–1924) once confessed to a friend. It showed in his work, which was brilliant but gaunt and haunted. He wrote stories that would be written by a person who was not only sleep-deprived but dream-deprived. The anxiety he might have purged from his system through sleep instead spilled out into the writing he did in waking life. Anyway, I'm hoping you will make Kafka your anti-role model as you catch up on the sleep you've missed out on. The coming weeks will be a fantastic time to fall in love with the odd, unpredictable, regenerative stories that well up from your subconscious depths while you're in bed at night. They will refresh your imagination in all the right ways.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "The reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day," writes author Anne Lamott. I will add that on rare occasions, virtually everyone in your tribe is functioning at high levels of competency and confidence. According to my analysis, now is one of those times. That's why I encourage you to take extraordinary measures to marshal your tribe's creative, constructive efforts. I believe that together you can collaborate to generate wonders and marvels that aren't normally achievable. Group synergy is potentially at a peak—and will be fully activated if you help lead the way.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I believe your plan for the rest of 2021 should borrow from the mini-manifesto that Aquarian author Virginia Woolf formulated at age 51: "I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded." Does that sound like fun, Aquarius? It should be—although it may require you to overcome temptations to retreat into excess comfort and inertia.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough," writes author and philosopher Alain de Botton. That's too extreme a statement for my taste. But I agree with the gist of his comment. If we are not constantly outgrowing who we are, we are not sufficiently alert and alive. Luckily for you, Pisces, you are now in a phase of rapid ripening. At least you should be. The cosmos is conspiring to help you learn how to become a more vibrant and authentic version of yourself. Please cooperate! Seek all available updates.