The Shattered Prayer

Its time once more for Rob, and I’ll be mixing them up again this week, just for the hell of it. Lets start with Bas this week:

“The future is already here,” says science fiction writer William Gibson. “It’s just not very evenly distributed.” Your job in the coming weeks, Libra, is to locate hotbeds where the future is concentrated, and put yourself in the midst of them. It’s time, in other words, for you to escape from the wan, sludgy places where the past is masquerading as the present. You’re ready to thrive on the delightful shocks of the new.

That sounds promising. I love delightful future-shocks.

And for Shelley:

“Dear Rob: I base who I am on how much I have suffered. My identity is wrapped up in all that I don’t have but want, the things that have hurt me, and every wrong that has been done to me. The weird thing is, though, that I’ve actually made a flourishing, creative life for myself. My experiences are far richer and my luck is much greater than my ‘poor suffering soul’ would like to admit. Any advice? -Successful Yet Gloomy Pisces.” Dear Successful: I’m happy to announce that the coming weeks will be an opportune time for you Pisceans to accomplish a big shift in your relationship to your difficult memories. Life will be conspiring to free you from the compulsion to anchor your sense of self in your pain.

Note that he always cops out on Pisces. He gets to the last sign and runs out of steam, and starts looking through his letter pile for something from an angsty Pisces. But hopefully life will be conspiring to free you from your pain, as well as the compulsion. Get well soon.

And for Richard:

One morning a few weeks ago, I was sipping tea in a cafe on San Francisco’s Valencia Street. Diving in to the New York Times, I found a front-page, above-the-fold story about how San Francisco has become the first American city to offer free or subsidized health care to all adults who don’t have medical insurance. My response was a mix of happiness and surprise. I was pleased to learn that my homebase had struck such a radical blow for practical compassion. And I was bewildered that I had seen nothing about it in any of the local Bay Area media. You may experience a similar scenario soon, Aquarius. To become aware of a major development that has been occurring close to you, you might have to get help from a distant source.

I’ll leave that to Richard to figure out for himself. Another figure-it-out-yourselfer is Steff’s:

I’m not necessarily recommending that you read Stanely Seigel’s book The Patient Who Cured His Therapist. But I do think you should regard the title as a suggestive metaphor for your immediate future. It’s possible that you’ll be helped by a person you’ve been helping, or be given gifts by person to whom you’ve given gifts. Could it be that you’ll be healed by someone you imagine you’re superior to, or taught a beautiful lesson by someone you don’t understand? Meditate on the ways you might be the beneficiary of a role reversal.

Nothing like a suggestive metaphor for your horoscope.

Hrm… me now.

“If one theorized about the nature of the Creator from a study of creation,” said British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane, “it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.” He drew that inference from the facts that one-fourth of all animal species are beetles and that in the Milky Way Galaxy alone there are a trillion stars for every person on earth. What about you, Gemini? What could we conclude about the nature of your mission here on the planet if we took an inventory of what you create? What are the experiences, products, artifacts, words, feelings, and impressions that you regularly spawn, and what do they say about you? It’s an excellent time to meditate on this subject.

Ah, it would be about stars and beetles. Seen a lot of those lately.

The winner of the “huh?” award this week would be Mojo. Mojo needs to send in the gerbil, and find his gravitas.

“Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur” is Latin for “Anything said in Latin sounds profound.” Since your imminent future will require you to be elegant, high-minded, august, and in possession of gravitas — even if people you deal with aren’t any of those things — I’ll provide you with Latin phrases to fit the kinds of situations you may find yourself in. (1) Quod natura non sunt turpia. (What is natural cannot be bad.) (2) Quinon proficit deficit. (He who does not advance, goes backwards.) (3) Quod cibus est aliis, aliis est venenum. (What’s food to some is poison to others.) (4) Magna cum voluptate. (With great pleasure.) (5) Sane ego te vocavi. Forsitan capedictum tuum desit. (I did call. Maybe your answering machine is broken.) (6) Revelare pecunia! (Show me the money!) (7) Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri? (How do you get your hair to do that?)

Oooo… all that Latin turns me on. And Mojo won’t be dropping his pants this week. Well… ‘cept for the gravitas-seeking gerbil.

Rob can be found here.

Recently:

• Super-Sister
• Writing Weekend
• A Coda on CoDA
• Did Plurk Kill the Shattered Prayer?
• Happy Birthday Bea!
• Lois Lane — Unpleasantly Sexy
• Hysterical Blindness
• Welcome back Mojo and Richard.
• Raining. Pouring.
• Those custom Plurk profiles.