4/29/16 Bonus

Today’s Bonus Horoscope

All Signs:

The stars want to remind you that it’s the weekend.  Go have some fun.  Go out and listen to some music and reconnect with friends, go out to dinner and treat yourself, go take a walk if you can’t do anything else.  But whatever you do, leave all your problems and worries behind when you do, if only for a little while.  They will all be there when you get back, have no fear.  

Maybe not, though.  Maybe for a few of you, one or two of your worries will slip out of your mind and not find it’s way back in.  Perhaps you will meet someone or find something that fixes one of your sticky situations.  

Maybe you will see the world in a tiny different way, and it will make a ton of difference.  You never know until you try.  What do you have to lose?

Just be good to yourself and let yourself be happy for a bit.

The stars believe in you, and if you do go out and you’re making your way home tonight, look up and smile at them.  They really love that shit.

:)

4/29/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:

Today you will be reminded that you probably know nothing about yourself.  Right now.  By this very thing you are reading.  

Very few of us see ourselves as we really are.  There are some people that think they are wonderful and infallible, and they are simply narcissists and egomaniacs.  This is not for those people.  If that's you, you need work, and the stars will have helpful information for you someday, maybe, if you don’t piss them off too much.

The rest of us have no clue what we bring to the world.  We have no idea how amazing and impressive and important we are at all.  There are many reasons for this.  

One of the biggest reasons is that we are taught to be humble, and not think too much of ourselves.  The stars know that when people tell their kids this, their intentions are good, but they also know that it is often taken the wrong way.  The purpose of the lesson is supposed to be that you act humble, even though you know you are one bad mofo.  Too many people hear it as they are no better than anyone else and should not think much of themselves, and that’s just sad.  You are the only you there is, and you should love yourself fiercely. You should look in the mirror and like what you see, but more often than not people see someone else looking back at them, someone they think is never good enough.

I think the problem is that we are attacking it from the wrong end.  It is an attempt to make sure you don’t act like a jerk and flaunt your gifts in an attempt to make others feel bad, and that’s a good way to be, but telling someone that they should not think too highly of themselves is the wrong way to do it.  It would be better to teach us to just know our self worth and how great we all are.  Someone who is secure with themselves and knows who they are doesn’t feel the need to make others feel like less of a person to prop themselves up.  

So many of us go through life conditioned to feel bad whenever we like something about ourselves.  We think we shouldn’t get carried away, but we totally should.  We should feel like a champion whenever we deserve it, which is a lot of the time.  I know at some point someone will pipe up and go on about children receiving a trophy just for showing up, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.  It’s not that we should reward people for doing nothing, but we should reward them when they do something.  Not a trophy, just a small acknowledgement or a kind word to let them know they did good. We should build them up for doing good, for expressing themselves, for achieving some goal, so they learn that their achievements count for something.

We also carry so much guilt for things we have done wrong, and it makes us feel like we are bad people.  If you consistently do horrible things to other people, you might be a bad person, and you should work on that, but not many of us are nearly that terrible. Many times we end up feeling guilty and punishing ourselves for things we didn’t even do, or was nobody’s fault to begin with. There are a lot of people that love to shift the blame to you for their own shortcomings, and it's amazing how quickly we can start accepting that blame on a regular basis when we should be the ones getting the apology. Whenever you find yourself apologizing to someone that has done you wrong, you've lost. The battle, and yourself in the process.

And even if it was our fault, so what?  We are so quick to forgive others, why can’t we forgive ourselves?  Why do we expect so little of those around us and expect the impossible from ourselves?

We carry around so many false burdens that it’s no surprise that we think so little of ourselves.  Many people see themselves as something horrible, something no one could love if they knew the real you, even though we are loved by so many.  Some of us find it so hard to believe that anyone could think we are lovable.  

A lot of that comes from the fact that many people in your life try to control you with guilt from the moment you are able to grasp the concept.  It is a quick and easy way to get someone to fall in line, and it is so damaging and corrosive.  So many of us live day to day with a warped image of who we really are and we never get past it. We are never the monsters we think we are.  We are often made to feel guilty when we are in fact the victims.  The world can’t even let us feel sorry for ourselves.  We are told that is bad too, so we lock our pity away when we need it most.

It would be bad enough with these and all the other things we do to ourselves all the time, but we live in a world full of predators, that can sniff out these weaknesses and exploit them and manipulate you.  The world is full of monsters, and if we are strong and know who we are, we can navigate around them, but so few of us are.  We are weak and frightened, and we know that we can’t trust ourselves, so we fall victim time and time again.  

The monsters are not just evil people either.  They are insidious things, images on TV that tell you that you don’t measure up to some unachievable ideal. Put downs and insults levied at others in an attempt to be funny, but they take their toll as your mind puts yourself in someone else’s place and you think you deserve the same derision.  We see someone else’s talents and turn it into a reason to never try because we will never be as good as them.

So we go on, never seeing ourselves for who we really are, never giving ourselves credit for our victories, never daring to believe that we might be special and rare and beautiful.  

In a world of guilt, bullying, doubt, abuse, impossible ideals and exclusion, what chance do we have? If we can never see ourselves as we really are, what do we do?  

One thing we can do is to trust the people we love.  Most of us have people that truly love us, and I’m sure if you look closely enough there are times when you can see awe in their eyes.  I’m sure you have sat in stunned amazement at times when people you know have just blown the doors off of it.  It doesn’t have to be anything big and grandiose either.  Sometimes you are floored by just a little thing, sometimes no one else notices it, but you do, and you are gobsmacked that someone that wonderful and precious exists in the same world you do.

Well, that’s how others see you too.  You are full of wondrous and special things, be they big and loud or quiet and inspiring, and people see it. You need to see it too, and believe it when people compliment you or tell you how great you are.  

I know a lot of people, and almost every one of them has stopped me in my tracks at one point or another and made me think “wow, I wish I could do something that cool someday.”  But I have done something that cool, or that caring, or that impossible, or that selfless, or that amazing, and so have we all.  But as soon as we do it we tell ourselves to forget it and not be conceded or prideful about it.  So it shrinks from the light and we can’t see it when we need it most.  

We get told this same lesson every day, from loved ones, from movies and plays, from books and cartoons, from every Disney movie ever made, but it never seems to sink in.  We are special.  We are unique.  We are amazing and wonderful.  We are loved.  We all have our own skill set and talents, we just need to see it and acknowledge it and embrace it.

In sure every one of you has said to someone, or had someone say to you “I wish you could see you through my eyes”. The thing is, we can. We just need to pay attention, and believe the people we love, not the messed up part of our brain ruled by fear. It takes effort, but if someone takes the time to show you how special you are, and if you're not too far gone to be reached, you will soon start to see yourself the way they see you. We owe it to the people in our life to make them see that, and we deserve the same gift.

The stars see it.  They see all of it, and they sit in quiet wonder and watch us with the same awe in which we watch them and they wonder why we can’t see it too.  We all shine in a way that they never could, and they understand the magnificence of that, even if we can’t.

So next time you look in the mirror, don’t see the you that your poisoned mind insists is there.  When you are out somewhere, don’t imagine yourself as that boring person that has nothing to add to the conversation.  Don’t think of yourself as ugly or wrong or something less than everyone else around you.  Don't ignore all the good things and fixate on one blemish. Let all that go for a moment, and just think of yourself as that incredible, one of a kind, people are lucky to have you person that you always wished you were.  I know that’s not going to be easy, but what do you have to lose?

And when you do, the earth won't crumble, the sky won't fall. No one will read your mind and chastise you for thinking you're pretty cool. Your parents or a bully or your old Sunday school teacher will not pop up behind you and tell you to knock it off. Those people hold no sway anymore, it's you that's stifling yourself now. So tell that person to shut the hell up and leave you alone already. You've got more important things to do, like finally be the person you want to be, the person you've been all along but just couldn't see clearly.

So many people like you. The stars like you. I like you. You might find you really like yourself too, if you just give yourself half a chance.

4/28/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will have your expectations unfulfilled yet again. Most of its go through life haunted by past trauma, some small and some absolutely staggering. They all likely have one thing in common: there will be no resolution.

We spend the rest of our lives trying to come to grips with some horrible thing someone has done to us, or some situation where blind chance hurt you or someone you love. We replay it over and over again in our minds, trying to understand why they would do that to us. How they could be so cruel. How they be so uncaring and not racked with guilt. Why we meant so little to them, or why the people that were supposed to protect us stood by and let it happen.

Chances are, you will never get those answers. You will never get an apology. People will sympathize with you, they will try to help you, they will give you all the love on their heart, but it won't matter. You will never get the one thing you want to hear from the only person you need to hear it from.

So life will go on, and this unresolved issue will eat at you, and consume you, and your life and growth will stall as you devote so much of your energy to thinking “why me?”.

You might get so used to it that you don't even notice it anymore. You might punish yourself, and others; or try to drown it out with drugs or alcohol or reckless behavior, and not even realize why. You might even end your life because you just can't live with it anymore.

But you can.

The stars know how much misery and pain these situations cause us. They know it seems unbearable at times. They know that our minds are such that they tell us that we need answers and resolution, and our brains will pick and nag at us and resist any attempt to let it go.

But they know that we must. In order to take back the power we've given these things we have to make our peace with the fact that we are never going to get an explanation or apology. Instead of asking “how could they have done that?” we need to ask “why am I continuing their work?”.   We are now carrying on the torment and abuse first inflicted on us. We are now the ones ruining our chance at happiness.

The stars are frustrated seeing the future, because they don't just see the future that comes to pass, they see all the possible futures that could exist. They sigh everyday as they watch us pass up the futures with glorious and joyous outcomes to pick the same gray road we inevitably choose to plod down yet again.

So you need to accept that you probably won't get your answer, that no matter how long you poke and prod, there will be no moment that ties everything up in a nice little bow. That ship has sailed, so wave it goodbye and see what other ships await you at the docks.

This might be the single greatest thing you ever do for yourself, and it also might be the hardest. Letting go of that rage and pain, that sadness and confusion, that precious and excruciating torment that you've nurtured all these years. Giving up and putting it away and never going back to check on it again. It seems impossible, and goes against all of our self-defeating instincts, but it must be done if we ever want to be free and live our lives to the fullest.

Or we can just keep traveling that road in the dark, never seeing the beautiful and wonderful pathways the stars try to illuminate for us everyday.

4/26/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:

Today you will find yourself going through the motions.  Sadly, unless you’re very lucky or very easily amused, that’s what most of life encompasses.  That doesn’t mean it’s bad, or not worth living, it just means that a lot of the things you do aren’t very fulfilling, or inspire you or ignite any passion within you.  

Many things in your life conform to a schedule, be it daily, monthly or yearly.  You eat the same three meals everyday, you pay the same bills every month, you pay your taxes every year, you hide a corpse every time you murder again.  Okay, maybe the last one doesn’t apply to everyone. Mostly just Scorpios.  

The point is, a lot of things we do in life, we just do, and they don’t bring us any great reward, they don’t make for some wonderful moment or grand adventure.  Not just things like going to the grocery store or the post office a few times a week either.  Your job is more often than not like that too, again, unless you’re really lucky.  You show up, make the best of it and try not to watch the clock and get done what needs to get done. Many social obligations are like that too.  Show your face, make nice for awhile, then get back home so you can put on comfortable clothes and try to forget about the next thing you have to do.    

Even things like taking care of your family can seem rote and tiresome.  Having children had its rewards, but a lot of it is just repetition, over and over.  Home ownership, pets, exercise, even sex can often just lapse into routine.  That’s just the way life is, like it or not.

Then there are a lot of people that feel that way about things in life that many other people don’t.  We call them introverts, or they may suffer from depression, or they might just be more well thought out than you and they demand more.  For introverts and deep thinkers, life might be a little less fun, but that’s usually okay.  The stars applaud them for the most part, they look for the truth, even though it sometimes hobbles them.  For people with depression, it’s much worse, and the stars weep for them.  Don’t suffer needlessly if that’s you, get help if you at all can.  

For any of us though, the stars want to offer some advice.  Don’t let the fact that life is full of routine and duty and uninspiring minutiae make you think that life is all misery.  Most people don’t need to be told this, but some of us need to remind ourselves of it daily.  We can quickly get to a point where we assume there is nothing out there for us and we cut ourselves off.  We stop looking for the good and just say “why bother?”  Then the only motion in our lives is backwards.  Don’t always focus on the boring, try to see the joyous, the intriguing, and the things you are curious about.  

Find the things you like, that bring you fulfillment, and grab them by the throat and never let go.  Don’t stop to think about whether you’re good enough at something, or smart enough to understand.  If you like it, keep doing it until you are, or until you grasp it.  Then you have something that is you, that you inhabit and it lives within you and brings you joy.

Then share it.  Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.  You will find that there are others that share your passions and interests, and now instead of your life being full of people that don’t seem to get it, you have access to people that see things the way you do.

When that happens, you will find that you actually want to do things, not just pretend and shamble along.  You won’t be going through the motions, you will be in motion, moving in a positive direction, upward and onward, towards the stars.

4/25/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will deal with someone in your life that maybe shouldn't be in your life. We all have people that we keep on the fringes. People that you have a few things in common with, but aren't really close. You see them now and then, and you keep it casual and don't let them impact your life much. That's fine.

Then there are people in your life that have too much impact, who you surrender control to, who use and abuse you and don't care at all how you feel. Most of them can't even know how you feel, they are sociopaths and a few are even psychopaths, but we let them rule and punish us nonetheless.

So many of us are victims, and you shouldn't feel ashamed if you are, you shouldn't feel guilty about it, you should just get help. If you are in an abusive relationship it can be very hard to break free, and you are probably afraid that leaving might make it worse, and there's always a chance of that. Women get hurt or killed by abusive exes when they try to escape, and society fails sometimes when it is supposed to protect them.  I have known many women in these situations, and my heart breaks for them.  If you know anyone in this situation, please give them all the support you can.

It is a horrible situation, and it goes on much more often than you think it does. It is hard to extricate yourself from these situations, so the stars want to warn you about getting in them in the first place. They know that many times we get into bad relationships because of how we feel about ourselves in the first place. Childhood trauma, mental illness, and feelings of inadequacies can make you think you deserve to be treated badly. Or maybe no one ever told you differently, and you are just the latest in a long cycle of abuse you grew up watching around you. The abuse doesn't even have to be physical, and much of the shitty things people do to each other aren't even illegal, but they cause irreparable harm.

So examine the people in your life. Make sure they are on your side. Make sure they support you, and nurture you, and have your best interests at heart. If they hurt you, make sure they feel remorse and change their behavior before you forgive them and let them back in.

One of the biggest tip offs that you might be in a relationship with someone that doesn't think about your happiness is when they utter a phrase like “that's just the way I am” or “I can't help how I feel”.  That tells you that they are immature(or damaged) and unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions, and you should run fast in the opposite direction. They are basically telling you that they are done growing and fine with the fact that they are hurting others with their actions. That's not someone you want to be with. And if you are the person saying that to someone you think you love when they are hurt, congratulations. You are an asshole.

If someone is constantly dismissive with your feelings and tells you how crazy you are for feeling badly about something they did to you, you might want to put on your running shoes also. If everyone in your life tells you you're crazy, you might consider a psych evaluation, but if it's the same person over and over and it's the person that claims to love you most, there's a problem. They are manipulating you and trying to make you think you're the problem, because they don't want to admit it might be them or change their behavior. They have no honest answer for you that doesn't involve them accepting responsibility for their actions, so they blame you and don't care what it does to your mental state or your self esteem. They want you to have no self esteem, so you doubt yourself and just play along and keep quiet and stop making them think about what they're doing and ruining their good time.

Humans adapt to anything, and pretty quickly. They accept being hurt and they learn to live with doing the hurting. You might have to take a long, hard look at your life from time to time to see what you've become accustomed to, and then decide if you really like it or if you’re just used to it.

You should do it often, because if you get too comfortable in your role you might never get a chance to play a different one, and that would be a shame.

4/20/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs :

There's always a hill.  Sometimes that hill is a mountain.  There’s always something to overcome, in front of you and blocking your way.  There’s no way around it, and you can’t move forward unless you deal with it and climb over it.  You can try to tunnel your way through it and take the easy way, but we’re not equipped to do this and the mountain will collapse on top of you.  There are no shortcuts, there is no helicopter to fly you past it.  If there is, it is only temporary, and like a bad science fiction movie the mountain will simply appear in front of you again.

You can try to ignore it, you can spend your life on this side of the mountain, but the mountain looms in front of you anyway. It frustrates you.  It mocks you.  It makes you angry and makes you feel impotent and saps so much of your energy that it would be less trouble to actually just starting hiking up the thing in the first place.

You’re never going to grow or become whole until you do it.  

The mountains we face aren’t always emotional issues.  We face obstacles everyday.  It could be illness, changing careers because your job got eliminated, having to pack up and move on a moment's notice, caring for elderly parents.  Those things you handle though.  A little at a time, you bear down and power through it.

The difference, you tell yourself, is that you have to.  You have no choice, it’s do or die.  The thing is, it’s the same way with the emotional and mental stuff too.  We lie to ourselves, and say it’s not the same thing, but it is, maybe even more important.  Unresolved issues taint everything you do and anything that you are.  They are an anchor, making any little thing you try to do in your life that much harder.

We live in fear of the mountain, so we sit at the base and try to pretend it’s not there, but it is.  We go nowhere, we stall, and deep inside we hate ourselves for letting it happen, because as much as we want to ignore it, it’s a goddamn mountain.  It will not be ignored, and you will live in its shadow forever if you allow it.  

So start climbing.  I know it’s scary, I know it’s exhausting, and I know you might fall back down a few times.  It will be slow going at first, but once you get used to it, the way will become easier.  Climb a little bit each day, make camp and be proud of whatever little distance you managed to traverse that day.  Soon you can look back, and you can see how your life led you there, and you can view all the accomplishments and recognize the pitfalls.  You can be proud of what you’ve accomplished and work to change the things you got wrong.  When you live on the mountain you will learn that there is nothing to fear.  You are facing your demons, and you will find that up close they are something you control and they aren’t as big and scary as they seemed when viewed from down in the valley.  The mountain is part of you, after all, a part of you that you’ve neglected for far too long.

And one day you will be surprised to discover that you have reached the top.  You have struggled, and through grit and determination you have conquered that thing that held you back all those years.  It is never too late to climb, no matter what lies you tell yourself.  There is always a peak that you can reach, and redemption awaits you there, so plant your flag and claim it.

When you’re on top of the mountain you can finally see the future, you can see your life in front of you, and you’re that much closer to the stars.

4/19/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:

Today, like everyday, you should be careful.  Not about black cats or broken mirrors, careful about what you are doing.  

It is easy to do the wrong thing.  The wrong thing usually seems like the fun thing, or the right thing at the time.  We all do it, for a million different reasons.  Many times we use bad behavior as an escape, and like everything else, in moderation that won’t do you any long term harm most of the time.  

The problem comes when you keep engaging in that behavior rather than face your problems.  You go from a casual drinker or drug user to an alcoholic or an addict.  You go from someone telling a few white lies to a pathological liar.  From someone that has a couple of wild one night stands into someone that engages in risky sex with abusive people.

The point is, occasional dalliances become a pattern, and soon that’s who you are.  You have to be on guard all the time, because as amazing as our brains are, they will trip us up time and time again.  Your brain will lie, and twist reality, and tell you whatever it wants you to hear to take the easy way every time.  Whatever gets it that endorphin rush, and it doesn’t care how you feel about it afterwards.  You end up a little more damaged each time.

There is always a reason you need those endorphins, why you need to punish yourself, and you need to find out that reason before you lose the ability to reason altogether.  Everyone throws the word “crazy” around way too much.  We all think everyone else is acting crazy from time to time, and that’s because we are all so unique and all see things from different perspectives.  We all have our own reality, and they rarely jibe with other people’s realities.  We also all have our own delicate brain chemistry and neurons firing away incessantly, and it’s so easy for that signal to bleed over and cause a glitch in the system.  

Before you condemn someone else as crazy, always remember that you might only be a bad day or two away from crazy yourself.  We are all a lot more fragile than we think, and once you start down a road full of self destructive and irrational behavior you can find yourself broken and damaged in no time.  At that point it might be too late.  

Finding joy in healthy areas of life, knowing that people love you and care about you, doing constructive and meaningful things, all help you build self esteem and bring contentment, and it keeps your brain occupied so it doesn’t lead you astray.  It’s not always easy to keep that focus, but you owe it to yourself to try.  

The stars watch us fall off the beam everyday, and they see us get back up on it and they beam with pride for us.  They also see some of us fall off, and slip into oblivion, and they weep for those people.  Still they shine on in the night, for they know even those people do not always stay lost forever.  They send their light out as a beacon, always there, always calling them home.  Somewhere, for everyone, there is always home, you just have to find your way there.  Here’s hoping you see the starlight to navigate you on your journey to that place.  

*Note*  Whenever I post a horoscope like this, I add a disclaimer about how this doesn’t apply to people with certain mental health issues.  Some people struggle with depression, bipolar issues,  schizophrenia, and worse.  They deal with things that I can’t even imagine.  I do have to say though, that many people I know with these problems have also had some horrible trauma in their lives.  A lot of them don’t even recognize the trauma they have been through and the affect it’s had on their lives.  I am not a doctor or a psychiatrist, but to me it seems like some people have been through so much that they just snapped.  I watch them punish themselves and go in circles because they can never come to grips with what happened to them, and for want of a better term, it seems to drive them crazy.  My point is, I think the possibilities exist for most of us that we could all snap under the right circumstances.  We all possess the ability to have our world collapse in turmoil if things got bad enough.  Some of these people could have gone either way, and with love and support they may never have had an issue, but it wasn’t to be.  Our brains are delicate and bizarre organs, and if you think you are under too much pressure, or if there is something in your life that you can’t let go of and haunts you… well, get unhaunted.  Talk to someone; a professional, a friend, a support group on the internet, ask for help,  just do anything so you don’t find yourself in a downward spiral you can’t pull out of.  So many times we feel ashamed and embarrassed for things that aren’t even our fault.  Even the things that are our fault, so what?   Admit to them, and move on.  You will find that everyone has their own shit they’re dealing with and are a lot more understanding than you think they are.  When you carry that shame and guilt and anger inside it does something to you, and never anything good.  The people that truly love you are rooting for you, I am rooting for you, and the stars are too.  

4/14/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:

The stars want to give you some really helpful advice today.  In every relationship there someone has more control than the other.  In many good relationships control is nearly equal, and it switches back and forth between the people in it.  In a lot of your dealings with people it’s not usually a huge issue, although if you feel some vague dissatisfaction with someone it’s usually because they are calling all the shots, as minor as most of them might be.  I’m not just talking about romantic relationships either, I’m talking any relationship.  Friends, family, casual acquaintance, even between you and the guy at the drive thru.  

You should start taking a moment to think about who has the upper hand in all of your goings on with anyone you interact with.  It would certainly come in handy if you are house or car shopping.  Or any shopping really, whenever it involves a major purchase and you have to talk to someone trying to sell you something.  Deal making is all about having the upper hand, and manipulating you and gaining that upper hand is the main trait that makes a salesperson a salesperson. What you have to remember in these situations is that they need to sell you something to put food on their table, you can always just go to the car dealership down the street.  

So many of us just give in because we tell ourselves that we don’t want to deal with the hassle, or we weren’t going to save any money anyway, but that’s really just us feeling cowed and not wanting to speak up.  So we have the upper hand and we surrender it willingly without a fight.

Now think about your personal relationships.  Are you the one always giving in?  Are you the one in the discussion that feels like you somehow lost a negotiation and are left unsatisfied when all is said and done?  Do you go in believing one thing and wind up doubting what you knew was true only ten minutes ago?  Are you the one that was wronged, but now you find yourself apologizing?

If so, chances are you’re being dominated and manipulated and you are letting it happen.  

This is really bad if it is an abusive relationship or a relationship that is no good for you. Many times we get mad and we swear we are done with whichever person is doing it.  Then they always find some reason to call you, and you end up right back where you started.

If they are calling you, you are in the driver’s seat.  They want you, and you don’t need to let them back into your life just because they reached out.  The moment you do, control goes right back to them.  

I know, it sucks that you even have to think about it at all.  It sucks that people out there are playing these games, and you have to deal with it.  What you have to realize is that many of these toxic people are really good at it.  There is a part of their brain that is exceptional at spotting and exploiting weaknesses, and they enjoy it.  Every time they cajole or bully and trick you into doing something that benefits them and hurts you they get a little kick of endorphins that makes them want to do it again and again.  They live their lives like hustlers, looking for their next mark so they can get a rush again.

Sadly, you have to think like they do to avoid having them stimey you and mess up your life.  While it is frustrating and a nuisance, it is something you should really take the time to look into because it will save you a whole lot of trouble later on.  Know your enemy.

The stars just want you to be happy, and only you can make that happen.   They care about your well being, and they don’t care if you get to call the shots and decide your own plans, in fact, they encourage it.  They do not have to be in control, they do not fear letting you get what you want now and then  You’re never going to know what you want and how to decide if you never get to make your own decisions freely and fairly. So the stars will be right where they always are, telling you to trust and assert yourself, and they are always on your side.

Unlike some of the people in your life you are thinking about right now ...

4/13/16

Today’s Horoscope

All Signs:

The stars just want to remind you that you are free to do what you want.  Not anything you want, and not whenever you feel like it, but almost.  As long as you take care of your responsibilities and care for the people you need to and aren’t hurting anyone, do whatever the hell you take a notion to do.  

And I’m not just talking about jumping out of a plane or skipping work and going to NY for the day or running away and joining the circus.  You are free to walk away from harmful and caustic people in your life.  You are free to correct your mistakes rather than live in purgatory because you think you deserve it and need to be punished.  You are free to tell someone to go fuck themselves when they try to pull the same tired crap on you.

You are free to live your life unencumbered by the fools and predators and people that just don’t understand you so they want to drag you down to their level.  

We are all free to do what makes us happy and fulfils us and brings us joy and peace, and we can do that without lashing out at others in the process.  If you are doing it out of spite, you are not free, you are tied to past regrets or anger.  Freedom is not caring what those other people have done or how they’re living their lives.  Holding on to that is just another form of slavery.  In almost every situation, we are the ones that are keeping us chained and imprisoned.  Unlock that door, throw off those shackles and be what you really want to be.

We watch enviously while others do it all the time.  We can be like those people.  Live at the edges of your possibilities, not alone in the center where it’s dark and safe and boring and unsatisfying.  

You are free, motherfucker.

Live like it.

4/12/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:
Today you will spend the majority of your day with the person that really matters most. No big surprise, that person is you. There are a million cute and trite sayings and songs and Disney cartoons that extol the virtues of learning to love yourself, but they are all true.
And like anyone you love, you have to earn that love by treating yourself like you deserve to be treated. Most of us fall way short of that mark. Pitifully short.
The older you get, the more you come to realize that you're extremely lucky if you have a handful of true friends in your lifetime. Yes, you may have a lot of friends and cohorts over the years, but you usually only get a few people that know you inside and out and love you for it. We sometimes cheapen that by insisting that everyone we know is our bff, when in reality they are people we really like and only have a few shared interests.
There's nothing wrong with having a lot of acquaintances that you connect with on some level, but those people come and go. Real friends are always there when you need them. Sometimes you might not talk for months, or even years, but when you do it's like you don't miss a beat. They don't judge you and test you all the time, and when they see you messing up they tell you, even if you don't want to hear it.
Real friends surprise you every now and then with how well they know you and how fiercely loyal they are, and the comfort they bring you when you need it most. They don't make you feel guilty or ashamed, or try to control you. They know they don't have to, that you're there because you want to be, and if you don't want to be right now, they understand that too and give you your space. They know you'll be back.
Real friends believe in you, and help you without expecting thanks and praise. They prop you up and keep you going, and can say more to you with a couple of words than most people can say with a hundred speeches(or horoscopes!).
Real friends know who you are and never lose sight of it. They will remind you of who you are, when you forget sometimes, and they keep you on the path.
And somehow they make all that look easy.
That's the type of friend you need to be to yourself. That's how you should treat yourself all the time, and you need to earn that. It's a weird duality, a constant inner dialog with yourself, a strange relationship with only one person involved. You must love yourself, and if you don't, one of you must change. Either the person you are that isn't living up to who you should be, or the person that's not seeing you for all that you already are. Both those people are you.
The stars know this. The stars light themselves from within. Everything they are starts at their core, and is shaped and formed and maximized by the time they present it to the universe. But they are also buoyed and stabilized by other forces around them, the gravity and space time that keeps them in orbit and in harmony with the cosmos. They don't pull off their magic on their own, they are still dependant on others to make them everything they are.
So it's a truth as old as the stars themselves: Learn to love yourself so those few special people can love you too. It's really all we have, but you'll find that it's so much more than enough once you get there.

4/11/2016

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will probably cycle through most of the people you are.  We all play so many parts in our lives, and we are not one dimensional.  We have different roles and we adapt accordingly.

Mother, father, husband, wife, daughter, brother, worker, head of a household, leisure time social person.  Soldier, fighter, lover, sports player, artist, business person.  Even the “us” that we present on social media.  The list goes on and on.  We all have many faces we show, depending on what the situation calls for. We have to.  Sometimes you need to be stern, sometimes you want to give in, sometimes you have to be brave, sometimes you have to submit.  

Everyone and every situation is different, so you need to handle them in different ways.  Some things you don’t want certain people to know, and that’s your right, so you hide a little part of yourself.  Maybe they will use it against you, maybe they will berate you, maybe they will judge you unfairly. Maybe they just don’t deserve to know.

Through all of these complex social interactions, the stars want to warn you to not lose track of your true self.  It’s easy to do.  We sometimes start to become the person we are pretending to be and we go off the rails a little, and that’s not a good thing. If you don’t catch it quickly it can really mess up your life.  

You need to hold onto your true self through it all, and you need to listen to that person and do what’s right for them, even though it might seem hard sometimes.  In reality, you live parts of your life for many other people, and you need to decide what percentages you give them.  Do the math wrong and you end up with nothing for yourself, and that’s very bad.  

Once you stop caring for who you really are, you become something you don’t recognize, and then someone you don’t like.  Try as you might to fool yourself, part of you will always know you’re living wrong, and you will never find peace.  

So hold on tight to yourself and never let go.  Never stop giving your core self the things that it needs, or it will wither and cower and be bludgeoned into silence by the devils in your head.  All the false people you are pretending to be will take over, and they have no anchor and no allegiance to your soul, and they will behave like it, and they will be your ruin.

The stars light comes to us through the vast distances of space.  The light is warped by gravity and cosmic dust clouds and the atmosphere before we get to see it, and we never see them as they truly are.  But they know.  So many light years away, millions of years in the past, they still exist as them, and they know exactly what they are.   So no matter what face we decide to show the world, never lose sight of that one true star burning inside of you, calling you home when you get too far out into space and you momentarily wonder just who you are anymore.  

Follow the light.

4/8/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Today you will do your best to ignore reality. We do it all the time, perhaps because subconsciously we don't want to know the truth, or be bothered dealing with it. So we pretend we don't notice, or that we heard it wrong, and we deny what we know to be true.

So many times after a tragedy, we wring our hands and bemoan the fact that we had no warning anything was wrong, but that's a lie we tell ourselves. Part of us knows it's a lie, and we spend the rest of our lives blaming ourselves, but we find a way to ignore that too and wonder why our lives are filled with anxiety and guilt.

We can't afford to keep doing it. We can't gloss over important shit we see happening with our families, friends, and especially our children. Many parents simply look away when it comes to their kids, because they can't accept that they might be picked on, depressed, drinking or doing drugs, sexually active, capable of violence or being abused. So they look the other way so they don't have to face it, and then wonder why their children grow up to be such damaged people. Or worse yet, don't get to grow up at all.

People ignore things that their partners are doing or going through, and then they are surprised when they leave. They skip over important issues with their friends, then get upset when they don't call any more. Many people fill their lives with drama, and many probably do that to drown out the real issues going on in their lives. They get so wrapped up in manufactured problems and they skip right over the real ones. Or perhaps the drama comes into play because there is real stuff going on, but they can't bring themselves to face it so they make up false problems because no one is seeing the real ones. We need to speak up, loud and clear, when we are need help, but we can't always do that. That's why the rest of us have to pay close attention.

There's always that proverbial “cry for help”, and it's usually not as obviousl as it should be. You have to watch for it, and you have to react to it when it comes. Sometimes there is a very small window.

People even ignore shit that's going on in their own heads. They ignore their own problems and insecurities and live in frustration because they are never satisfied, and usually they end up taking that out on others.

All of this because we are too fearful or too lazy to face the truth. You can't just ignore the elephant in the room. You have to look at whatever it is in the eyes and stare it down. You owe it to the people you love and to yourself. You have to summon up your courage and take care of it now, because it will only get worse. We are all capable of it. We convince ourselves that it's too hard or too painful, but we don't give ourselves enough credit. We must have resolve, and we must have the fortitude to see it through.

And if you don't, your friends and lovers and children will wind up damaged or dead, and you will live in torment knowing that you could have done something about it.

4/4/16

Today's Horoscope

All signs:

Billions of years ago, an unfathomable length of time, the universe exploded into being. Atoms formed from particles, dust clouds that spanned light years coalesced into rudimentary stars and galaxies. Stars imploded and exploded, forming all the elements, and countless solar systems and civilizations were forged and lost, trillions of objects and knowledge and visions we could never conceive of were erased from the physical world eons before we gained consciousness. All that terrible beauty, all that grandeur and savagery, destiny and chance, improbable and unimaginable, but briefly existing in a glorious moment we can't wrap our heads around.

And all of it gone, laid waste by time and gravity and physics we don't understand, scattered to the ends of the universe to become us. All of us, made up of particles and atoms from a past we can never know, formed from the residue of supernovae and kings and beggars alike, messiahs and despots, fire and rain.

All the machinations from the moment the universe began, through the emergence of life, from your ancestors and the single cells that joined and merged their DNA, over and over for billions of years to make you.

The stars saw most of it, and even though some are long gone, their light still comes to us as ghosts, to light your way in the night, bringing their information that we may never decode.

They want you to know this, and not because they want you to be humble, or to know your place, or to keep you in control. They want you to know all that went into you and the astronomical odds you overcame to simply be here, and to ask you if you think you should be taking yourselves so lightly. They want to ask you if you should be spending that time holding yourself back and putting yourself down. They want to remind you that so many of them gave their entire beings so we would one day have the chance to open our eyes upon this world, to walk astride it and do great things, not to live as slaves or dogs on a leash. Not to be minimized by others or ourselves. Not to be bowed and beaten, or to be stifled or crippled with doubt or ennui.

They want you to understand that all of those machinations, whether by chance or destiny, was just to get you into the universe. We are the culmination of the entire cosmos so far. The rest is all up to you, and it's your right to be proud, and all your accomplishments are yours. You are playing with house money, so be whatever you want to be. And though you may have help along the way, it's you that has always been doing the heavy lifting, so don't ever let anyone take your accomplishments away from you. Realize that everything you are is because of you, all the good and all the bad, all the wins and all the failures. This is your time, the only time you get. If you get knocked down, get back up and forge ahead. Don't parcel off credit or blame, own it and make the opportunity the universe gave you count, before you are pried apart and scattered throughout the stars to become something else as beautiful and frightening and special as you once were.