On a Horoscope

Every week, usually Wednesday, I pick up the Raleigh-area free weekly, the Independent. It's not a particularly great free weekly, but for reading fodder for a lunch break it fills the need nicely.

One thing I particularly enjoy reading, just because it's so strange, is the horoscope, Rob Breszny's Free Will Astrology. Breszny goes off on wild tangents, talking about wild boars in Borneo, the ways of glaciers, and other randomness.

This week, my horoscope reads:

According to the Bible, Jehovah gave Adam the job of bestowing names on everything.

Strangely enough, this reminds me of my college Intro to Psychology class. My professor, Dr. Rubin, brought this up, that Adam named all the animals according to the Bible. “What does this mean?” he asked.

No one answered. It was that kind of class. “Dr. Rubin,” I said, “Adam naming the animals gave him power over the animals. Names, words define the things they describe.”

Dr. Rubin was awesome. He had some physical deformities, his limbs turned at strange angles. Students tried to avoid him. I thought him wise.

Anyway, back to Breszny.

But in Ursula Le Guin's story, “She Unnames Them,” Eve decides to reverse her mate's work. She years to return to a primordial state when the misunderstandings caused by words no longer stand between her and the rest of creation. So she unnames all the animals, from the sea otters to the bees. When she's done, she marvels on how they feel “far closer than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier.”

Haven't heard of this story, but to be frank I've not read that much Le Guin. Just The Left Hand of Darkness.

Back to Breszny and his advice, now that his set-up is out of the way.

Take your inspiration from Eve, Cancerian. Bypass the ideas and language you use to cage your raw experience, and instead commune with the primal essence of everything.

If a horoscope is supposed to offer advice, what advice is this? It's… meaningless. “Bypass language”? C'est impossible! Isn't it?

So, here's what I'm going to take away from this. Rewrite my resume, as I've been wanting to do this anyway. Or spend quality time with the cats, which is always a good idea.

Could have been worse. He could have told me to be a rogue glacier and capture parts of upper Michigan and northern Maine. 🙂

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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