You Have the Power to Heal Yourself

I'll cavern you, and grotto you, and waterfall you, and wood you, and water you, and immense-rock you, and tremendous-sound you, and solitude you.

—John Keats in a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds





Get inspired by listening to my 3-part EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES about Your Long-Term Destiny in the coming months

These forecasts will be available for just one more week.

Who do you want to become in the coming months? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? How can you exert your free will to create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?

To listen to these three-part, in-depth reports, go here.

Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." Choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.

If you'd like a boost of inspiration to fuel you in your quest for beauty and truth and love and meaning, tune in to my meditations on your Big-Picture outlook.

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Each of the three-part reports is seven to nine minutes long. The cost is $6 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.

P.S. You can also listen to a short-term Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.





WHERE DOES HELP COME FROM?

I get many requests from people who are going through challenging times in their lives and would like my personal advice. I wish I could respond to these inquiries, because they are often profound and well-thought-out, demonstrating an ability to define the problems at hand with lucid insight.

Unfortunately, I can't respond. My various lines of work are too demanding to add other tasks to my life, no matter how interesting they might be. But I've developed a response to people who seek my personal input. I offer it below.

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I'm honored that you regard me as someone who might be able to provide answers or solace, but I don't think it would be responsible for me to fling advice your way without knowing more about the complexities of your problem. And I'm afraid I can't give the time necessary to explore those complexities.

The only thing I'll suggest, as you seek to clarify your situation, is for you to arrange to go on a retreat. During that time of withdrawal from the world's everyday madness, I urge you to avoid all media and to be as silent and relaxed as it's possible for you to be.

You don't necessarily have to go away to a private sanctuary. You can do it in your own home. And there's no need to try to do the retreat perfectly. Just do the best you can.

During the first part of your retreat, spend time visualizing in your mind's eye the entire story of your life, from the earliest memory to the present moment.

During the second phase of your retreat, begin your meditations by establishing contact with the highest source of wisdom and love within you. You can call this source God or Goddess or your Guardian Angel or Higher Self. Spend luxurious time in dialogue with this source, making sure to ask these questions:

1. "What is it I want more than anything else?"

2. "What is the best way to serve the mission I came to Earth to carry out? What are the very best gifts I have to offer other humans?"

3. "What path will allow me to ultimately learn the most about wise love?"

4. "How do I need to change in order to get what I want, carry out my life's mission, and learn about wise love? What influences and attitudes do I need to eliminate?"

During the third phase of the process, write out a mission statement: what you want to accomplish by the time you die many years hence. Then create a master plan of the actions you will take in order to make that mission statement come true. Include three actions you will take in the next month to get more serious about accomplishing your mission.

During the fourth phase, visualize the following scenarios in lush detail: that God/Goddess loves you, that the entire universe is conspiring to give you the lessons and blessings and kicks in the ass and liberations you need exactly when you need them, and that you are ready to welcome that love and guidance with all your heart.

P.S. I'm a big believer in trusting your intuition. Even if it doesn't lead you to what your ego thinks is a successful outcome, your intuition will always guide you to the experiences that your soul needs.





FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Here's a link to my free weekly email newsletter, featuring the Free Will Astrology horoscopes, plus a celebratory array of tender rants, lyrical excitements, poetic philosophy, and joyous adventures in consciousness. It arrives every Tuesday morning by 7:30 am.

Read past issues of the newsletter since May 12, 2021.

Read past issues of the newsletter from before May 12, 2021.

Sign up here for your free subscription.





THE ART OF CHANGING YOUR MIND

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
—George Bernard Shaw

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow.
—Vera Nazarian

The person who never alters their opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
—William Blake

The interesting thing is always to see if you can find a fact that will change your mind about something, to test and see if you can.
—Diane Sawyer

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
—W. Somerset Maugham

Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books.
—Annie Dillard

The snake that can't cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.
—Friedrich Nietzsche

I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed my mind.
—Beverly Cleary

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Only the strongest people have the pluck to change their minds, and say so, if they see they have been wrong in their ideas.
—Enid Blyton

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large — I contain multitudes.
—Walt Whitman

The willingness to change one’s mind in the light of new evidence is a sign of rationality not weakness.
―Stuart Sutherland

I came from a different mind-set growing up, and my mind has changed.
—Katy Perry

Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise.
—Hannah Arendt

There is no point in asking me general questions because I am always changing my mind.
—Michel Houellebecq

You have the RIGHT to change your mind
—Oprah Winfrey

A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.
— Carl Rogers

We are the sum of our efforts to change who we are. Identity is no museum piece sitting stock-still in a display case, but rather the endlessly astonishing synthesis of the contradictions of everyday life.
—Eduardo Galeano





WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?

Some people understand emotional intelligence to be a skill at understanding other people's feeling states, having an intuitive grasp of them. That can be a very good thing!

But in this version, emotional intelligence can also be an ability to read people's subtle emanations and signals with such acuity that you can therefore coax them to see things your way, sell them things, influence them.

So people with emotional intelligence in this sense of the word may be highly manipulative.

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My way of defining emotional intelligence contains the context of kindness, empathy, and sensitivity.

Emotional intelligence consists of creating connection that is equal in its power dynamic; that is freed from manipulative agendas; that seeks authentic communion and connection for its own sake, as a form of play that generates magic.


In this model, emotional intelligence has a moral and ethical intention—a quest not to assert one's own needs as more important than the other's, but rather to recognize the other as a Holy Thou who is as worthy of being treated fairly and kindly as oneself.

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Here are further thoughts about emotional intelligence by Asha Sanaker, whose Substack newsletter is here: https://ashasanaker.substack.com/

For me, emotional intelligence is personal, in that it connotes a person who has committed to understanding their own emotional history and tendencies, in order to make more conscious choices about how to act, or not, out of their emotions.

The emotionally intelligent person takes full responsibility, always, for their emotions and how the way that they bring those emotions to the world impacts it.

Emotional intelligence is also relational, because it enables the individual to attend to patterns of emotional behavior in others, and account for those emotions constructively in how they communicate and behave in response to what they sense in the other, hopefully with an eye towards greater connection and deeper mutual respect and care.

Essential to this is a clear sense of "what is mine and what is yours." Folks who are emotionally intelligent can be empathic, but they work to be clear about what comes from them and what they are absorbing from others.

Finally, emotional intelligence is social. The emotionally intelligent person understands that institutions and systems encourage certain emotions and discourage others. These same institutions and systems often are based on power hierarchies, so they dictate who is "allowed" to feel what and when.

The emotionally intelligent person understands this and stands aside from it as much as possible, refusing to submit blindly to it, or force others to submit blindly. The emotionally intelligent person wants everyone to own themselves, and not to be owned.





YOUR OTHER LIFE

In his book My Other Life, Paul Theroux imagines another version of himself—the "story of a life I could have lived had things been different."

Hmmm. One of my other lives might have been that I kept on doing my music career, didn't quit, and just finished recording my 10th album, which has modest sales but is appreciated by critics.

What about you? I invite you to daydream about the inner potentials you've never developed, the interesting destinations you've never actually sought out, the initial interests that never grew into full-fledged relationships -- and then fantasize that you are in fact doing those things.

Aside from being fun, this experiment could lead you to actually try out some possibilities that maybe you should have considered long ago.





POLISH WITCHES

Maxim's "Hot 100" lists the planet's supposedly sexiest women. Sports Illustrated has its Swimsuit Issue, with young women dressed in bikinis. Esquire's "Women We Love" features skinny young celebrities.

Here are some of my favorite beauties, all of whom are witches from Poland, my ancestral homeland:





LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR LIFE?

I dream that I love everything about my life. I dream that each event I have ever experienced or will ever experience is precious and glorious, even the painful interludes.

I dream that I have personal possession of the universe's most monumental and mysterious accomplishment: "consciousness."

I have a visceral insight about the mercurial flash and shimmer that ceaselessly whirls around inside my head: It's miraculous. I can think thoughts any time I want to—soaring, luminescent, flamboyant thoughts or shriveled, rusty, burrowing thoughts . . . thoughts that can invent or destroy, corrupt or redeem, bless or curse.

There's more. I can revel and wallow in great flows of feelings. It's ultimately irrelevant whether they are poignant or intoxicating or somewhere in between. I simply relish the fact that I can harbor so much intensity. I cherish the privilege of commanding such extravagant life force.

And maybe the best part is being in possession of a prodigiously potent magical tool: an imagination. I can use it to change and shape the way my thoughts and feelings unfold. It potentially gives me the power to treat every single one of my experiences as a door leading to infinity.





IDIOT COMPASSION

Pema Chödrön says that one of the enemies of compassion “is idiot compassion. This is when we avoid conflict and protect our good image by being kind when we should definitely say 'no.'

"Compassion doesn't only imply trying to be good. When we find ourselves in an aggressive relationship, we need to set clear boundaries. The kindest thing we can do for everyone concerned is to know when to say 'enough.' Many people use Buddhist ideals to justify self-debasement. In the name of not shutting our heart we let people walk all over us.

"It is said that in order not to break our vow of compassion we have to learn when to stop aggression and draw the line. There are times when the only way to bring down barriers is to set boundaries."

- Pema Chodron, *The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times*





ON NOT MEETING NAZIS HALFWAY

Rebecca Solnit writes:

"We get this hopelessly naïve version of centrism, of the idea that if we’re nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family.

"This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists’ “everyone’s feelings are valid” applied to everything.
"But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists.

"And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people.

"Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?"

— Excerpted from the essay, "On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway," by Rebecca Solnit





REAL COMPASSION

A reader tried to tell me that we need to rise above partisan politics; that we need people who have no ideology fueling their perspective; that we can't afford to be feeding argument.

This person invoked Martin Luther King Jr. as fitting this description. They said that King brought people together like no one has done since.

The truth is very different. Martin Luther King Jr. was fiercely anti-racist, anti-poverty, and anti-war and anti-militarism. He did not hold anything back in his criticisms of the corrupt American system. And he alienated a great number of white people.

Historian Nathan Connolly says it's important to remember that King was considered a divisive figure, both in his lifetime and after his death. Some people today try to make him into a consensus builder. But the fact is that he never watered down his commitments to justice.

It's true that he specifically advised us to avoid physical violence. But he was a staunch fighter, a vehement defender of what's right, an uncompromising force advocating a fundamental remaking of American politics and culture.





TOXIC NEGATIVITY

I am all in favor of critiquing what some call "toxic positivity." When we refuse to look at difficulties and insist on being compulsively optimistic, we spawn monsters. At the same time, I think toxic negativity is at least as big a problem.

Science says that we actually take pleasure in the negative emotion itself. We willingly dive back into misery again and again for the same reason we willingly board a roller coaster or go bungee jumping: We get a rush from it.

That is, the pleasure/reward centers of your brain light up and release dopamine. And you can get addicted to whatever causes your brain to release dopamine, whether it's chocolate or fistfights.

More info

How to overcome your brain's fixation on bad things

More Info on How to overcome your brain's fixation on bad things





MALEFIC ECSTASY

"Malefic ecstasy" or "pestilent ecstasy" or "exultant malaise" is the pleasure that the disenchanters feel as they dwell on and talk about horrific futures and demoralizing events.

They don't want their blissful pessimism to be diluted. That's why they hate it when we offer evidence that world is a paradise replete with miracles and blessings, even if it is also a realm where much suffering occurs.

We align ourselves with poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's hypothesis: "Earth's crammed with heaven."





ENLIGHTENMENT IS LOVE IN ACTION

One thing is certain about your destiny in the coming years: Life will conspire to bring you deep insights into the nature of reality—and the excited joy that comes with it.

If you decide to cooperate with life’s efforts, keep in mind these provocations from designer Elissa Giles:

“Enlightenment is not an asexual, dispassionate, head-in-the-clouds, nails-in-the-palms disappearance from the game of life. It’s a volcanic, kick-ass, erotic commitment to love in action, coupled with hard-headed practical grist.”





WEAVE THESE ALL TOGETHER

“There isn't anything in your life that cannot be changed.”

—Caroline Myss

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"I am not excited by the idea that the world we live in is made up of 90 percent ugly things and ugly places, while things and places endowed with beauty are rare and difficult to find. My opinion is that there is no ugly object or ugly person in this world. Anything is potentially fascinating."

—Jean Dubuffet

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"Expect the unexpected or you won't find it."

—Heraclitus

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"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

—Buckminster Fuller

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"Try with all your might and work very, very hard to make the world a better place. But if all your efforts are to no avail—no hard feelings."

—The Dalai Lama

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“If you don't appreciate what you have in life right now, whatever it is, you will never realize your purpose. Without appreciation, you will never become strong enough to respect yourself.”

—Caroline Myss

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"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

—Alvin Toffler, *Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century*





OPTIMISM

Some people get mad at me for not being "optimistic" in the face of the world's travails. So I periodically reiterate one of my definitions of optimism:

cultivating the bright energy and practical love to fight with all our ingenuity against those who would degrade our beautiful world with their selfishness and cruelty and carelessness.





OUR COLLECTIVE PAIN

I urge you to ease the trauma you may be feeling in the wake of what's happening in the Ukraine. Stay informed while protecting your mental health. More info:

Ease the trauma

Treat yourself kindly