This clever but devastating New Yorker cartoon is pretty much the motto of Mars in Scorpio and Mercury in Capricorn—both of which can be found in my natal chart. Officially we say that all astrological aspects are positive. And of course this is true, in the sense that everything offers growth. But it is also true that certain elements of our natal charts are more challenging than others. Thus I am not the sort of person who thinks of things she wishes she’d said. Rather, I am the sort of person who, when threatened, says things other people wish they could forget. As April begins and we dig into a new year of astrology, I offer this transparency to inspire your own. Ask yourself: What tools have I allowed to become weapons? What personal traits and astrological elements are my help and hindrance? In my intuition practice, I love this part of soul-expansion. For contrary to contemporary belief, self-love is not blanket self-acceptance. It is ruthless self-reckoning coupled with powerful compassion.
After a Mercury Retrograde-inspired break, I am once again offering readings Wednesdays and Saturdays; get in touch.
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More Lipstick for the Wolf
Lately, I spend my Saturdays reading.
I have read five books by Ruth Reichl, wonderful stories of travel and food and champagne and love. I have read all three of L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon books, which, as Natasha Lyonne avers, are better if grimmer than the Anne of Green Gable series: more honest, higher stakes. Also I have reread Eve Babitz’s Sex and Rage and Black Swans. And of course all of MFK Fisher.
Especially How to Cook a Wolf.
It does not escape me that all these books are by and about women writers who found love and literary success.
For the moment, both evade me. I say “for the moment” because I am relentlessly hopeful in my own way. Though my romances have conferred as much pain as pleasure, I still look forward to the next one.
And though I have yet to sell my book–yet to finish it, even–I see its cover before I go to sleep at night. Sometimes on someone else’s night table.
In the meantime I keep my scale very, very small. Frankly, I’m too broke to go out. I have no money to spend and though an affordable New York still lurks beneath the city’s Instagram ops and best-of lists, I find myself weary and wary when faced with the prospect of restaurants and bars. Friends invariably pick up the checks and it hurts to burden them. This is not how I like to live. This is not how I like to treat my people.
In my home I can take care of business. I rise early and write as long as my brain will let me, then go for a long walk, the neighborhood quiet in the mid-afternoon. I shop the grocery sales and cook slowly as the sun ripens in the horizon. I cook because it is cheaper than eating or ordering out but also because the rhythm of stirring, chopping, stirring–knife thumping, oil sizzling, sauce thickening– feels elegant and serene. The way I felt before the Legend smiled at me and I smiled back. Continue Reading →