Today is Cher’s birthday and that means it’s a special Cher edition of Madame Clairevoyant, courtesy of her bad-ass illustrator Jen May.
Aries: This week is going to be about sincerity and about wonder, so much so that it’ll be almost embarrassing. This feeling can be overwhelming and weird, but this week it will also be bracing, cleansing, to let yourself feel this stunned, this small, in the face of everything that exists in this world. Read books that make you feel young. Go to the tops of the buildings, climb up hills, so you can see for miles. Visit to the Natural History Museum, go to the aquarium, walk to the woods, find a desert.
Taurus: This week’s going to be about work, about patience, about being open to the world in a way that might be a little frustrating and might be a little exhilarating. This week the world is going to make demands of you. The spaces you move through, the people you know, will ask for your sweat and for your love. Try to give these things; try to give exactly as much as you’re able. More than ever, this week, more than you can even imagine, everything you give will be paid back.
Gemini: This week’s going to be a little hazy, a little thoughtful, a little strange. It’s good time for brooding and a good time for moving. Retrace your steps. Find ways of being and ways of feeling you thought you lost. Listen to the mix cds you made five years ago; listen to the ones you made a decade ago; listen to the different rhythms that have held your life in place, that anchored you to the ground, that pulled you up to the sky.
Cancer: This week, you’re going to be overwhelmed by love for the people and places and mountains and cities in your life, overwhelmed by feelings that are strong enough to knock you over. It’s a good week to do what you want to do, it’s a good week to do everything for the people you love, it’s a good week to watch lightning in the sky and believe in miracles. It’s a rare and magical thing, this kind of heady generosity, this strange power. Let it make you kind; let it make you wild.
Leo: This week will be filled with slow sunrises and bright afternoons and long blue evenings; the earth and the air are going to be kind to you this week. This week is a time for you to trust the things your own body feels, the things your body knows. The world is going to be clear and expansive and bright, and it’ll feel good, right, to be intentional, to be sure of yourself, to be safe, to be generous. Read Marilyn Chin, read Warsan Shire. Let them set you on fire.
Virgo: This week is going to be about friendship, about love, about the people you share your world with. It’s going to be a bright week, a warm week, a week for you to share your secrets, to share your food, to give all the different kinds of love you know how to give. It’s also a week to take good care of yourself, in the bright tangle and mess of so much wild love. Spend some moments alone, spend some moments thinking about nothing, spend some moments listening to the silence outside your window at night.
Libra: You might feel a little down this week, you might feel a little weird, you might feel like the balance of your world has shifted, like it’s left you spinning and stumbling to find your footing on this new plane. This is a good week for learning to take up space in a different way, for learning new moves, quick or slow or slanted, to take you through the streets of your life. It’s a good week to be around other people; it’s a good week for listening. Read about trees, read about whales, watch Star Trek.
Scorpio: This week is going to be glowing and wide and wonderful; it’s a ripe time to cultivate new kinds of strangeness, new kinds of powers. Spend your days walking around alone or talking to strangers in the park, in the coffee shop, in the mall. Spend your nights exploring the weirdest and brightest parts of your brain. Wear clothes that are loud or clothes that make you invisible or strong and strange perfume. Watch movies about witches; watch movies about monsters. Read The Cyborg Manifesto.
Sagittarius: This week, when you’re not even expecting it—when you’re distracted by the cloudy sky or the sounds of car alarms outside your window—you’re going to find a sudden sturdy feeling of clarity. Try not to look too hard for it or everything will start to seem like clutter, like noise, like nothing. Just keep living your life and while you’re on the bus home from work or while you’re cooking dinner or while you’re waking up in the morning, the world will come into focus. It’ll all be clear and airy and bright, and you’ll know what you have to do.
Capricorn: This week, the world you live in might look a little dim, a little drab, compared to how the future looks to you, compared to the colors that are waiting for you on some distant day, compared to the bright sunlight on the tops of the trees, compared to the cool quiet mornings. Try not to get so worked up over it, try to remember how good it is to feel this kind of hope, how good these dreamy days are. Spend your days in the library, spend your time looking at photographs of faces and maps of the moon.
Aquarius: This week is going to mark some kind of shift for you, some kind of brightening, a sweet and surprising change. Spend your days outside and feel the way the air touches your skin. Spend your days at the ocean and fall asleep at night feeling salty and clean. Spend your days driving to places you’ve never been before, cooking things you’ve never made before, dreaming weird and brilliant dreams you’ve never quite dared to have before. The world is going to be good to you, this week. Take advantage of it. Get joyful, get weird, get wild.
Pisces: This week you’re going to find yourself wanting to do nothing but talk and tell stories and share everything with everyone, every thought you’ve ever had, everything you’ve ever felt. This week, talking’s going to make you feel lighter, talking will make you feel free. It’s a good week to write weird emails to everyone you’ve ever loved, or to write strange small poems about joy and madness, or to stay up late out on the porch, talking to your friends or your dog or yourself. Sing in the shower. Sing in the car. Listen to Rihanna.
Hierarchy of Book Publishing
The Top 100
(circa 2012)1). Brand-name authors (still)
- Stephen King (since 1974)
- John Grisham (1989)
- Patricia Cornwell (1990)
- Jodi Picoult (1992)
- Nicholas Sparks (1996)
- Jennifer Weiner (2001)
- Etc.
2). Self-published authors with proven track…
Can you believe that the 1st Filipino Readers Conference is just four days away? Apologies for the cliche, but it really feels like it was just yesterday when I received the information about this. :) I can’t believe that it’s almost, finally here!
We would like to thank our co-presenter, Vibal Publishing House, Inc. for making sure we won’t go hungry on the day of the event. We would also like to thank Flipside Digital Content for the sponsorship, Scholastic Philippines for the books that we are planning to give away and Primetrade Asia (organizers of the Manila International Book Fair) for our venue.
