Service Serves Yourself (Tis the Season!)
In her latest roundup for Oprah Magazine, the much-esteemed Chani Nicholas suggests that Pisces season—compounded by the Mercury retrograde in this sign until March 4–is about what to give, not get. She’s right, of course. Service rather than self-actualization is the most useful lens while we’re in deep-dish planning mode—-and ’tis better to plan than act during these watery two weeks.
Ask yourself: What do I have to share with the world? How can I best 
marshal my skills and resources to improve the lives of those around me? What will not only bring joy to myself but to others? This impulse to share–this all-encompassing compassion—is the absolute best part of Pisces’ osmosis (AKA brilliant lack of boundaries) so make the most of it while the water is warm.
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Images: Country Doctor (Night Call) by the great Horace Pippin doctored by yours truly; book cover by unknown artist. (Feel free to supply their name!)
Mercury Retrograde’s Emotional WTFery
Mercury went retrograde yesterday, and it’s mired in the deep waters of Pisces, where the Sun also will reside beginning tomorrow. Not for nothing is this sign represented by two fish swimming in opposite directions. Ruled by sea god Neptune, it’s so receptive, reactive, and impressionable that clear thought and expression can be challenging on the best of days—and a retrograde in Mercury, the planet of communications, is hardly that.
Yesterday ambitious Mars entered taskmaster Capricorn, where Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto already are residing. Because such trail-blazing energy doesn’t marry easily with this go-with-too-many-flows retrograde, expect a constant “all dressed up and nowhere to go” feeling.
So how we do we negotiate the next three weeks? Honestly, by going even deeper.
With straight-ahead action virtually impossible, the key term is long– term— long-term planning, dreaming, feeling. Fret less about this retrograde’s inevitable miscommunications and tech misfires. Focus more on what projects feel best in your future. Just don’t make any major moves until Mercury goes direct March 9.
The good news? You may heal some broken bonds along the way. Even better: You and your big heart are poised to bloom on March 19, when spring springs into gear with Ostara.
Remember that old AA adage: 
It’s just a feeling. As important as our emotions are, they’re really just telegrams from our souls—spiritual GPS recalibrating our ultimate path of truth and love.
Sending strength and lots of backups, sweet peas.
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For said spiritual GPS, please book a reading. Retrogrades are the right time for soul time!
Ignited by ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’
What follows is a talk I gave about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which opened this weekend and which you absolutely must see on a big screen if you love and support contemporary cinema about something besides metaphorical and literal penises.
With its gorgeously textured examination of female desire, creativity and agency, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is one of my favorite films of 2019.
Though it may seem magically out of time and space, it was shot in a never-rehabbed house in Brittany and set in the autumn of 1770—when all that would remain of a moment after it passed was what could be captured by memory and imagination. Witness one of its first scenes, when Marianne, played by Noémie Merlant, leaps fully clothed into the sea to save her canvases while the guys rowing the boat watch impassively (read: uselessly).
This sets the tone for this film, not only in terms of how largely absent men are—this is the last time we see one until nearly the end—but in terms of the female determination that defines this story. Continue Reading →