It was my first day as a bartender, and in my mind I had arrived. There is a joke, “What’s the difference between God and a bartender? God doesn’t think he’s a bartender.”
But life had other plans. The woman seemed middle aged to me at the time. But when you are 22 years old, anyone over 30 seems middle aged. Whatever her age, she was my very first bar customer. And nobody forgets their first.
“Don’t you know what you are doing?” she asked loudly. Which is not something that you want to hear when you don’t really know what you are doing.
Five minutes in, and I was sure I was going to get fired. She went on for what seemed like an eternity. If one thinks Shakespeare writes long soliloquies, he had nothing on this woman.
Bars are funny places. Sometimes it seems like a spotlight is being shone on you. It happens most frequently from the customer side. If the bartender has to ask a follow-up question about a drink, some people will freak out, as if put on the spot. “How dare you?” they will say, or think, or act. Which is why James Bond’s martini order stays so relevant. Bond clearly knows exactly what he wants. Shaken not stirred leaves absolutely no room for debate. Or for questions.
“Amateur hour,” she exclaimed loudly.
There I was, getting scolded harshly. That white hot spotlight was now on me, and I didn’t like it one bit.
The cocktail waitress looked on with bemused detachment. Some people in this world just love to watch other people fail. But not everybody does. And it was then that my co-bartender came along and rescued me.
“That’s it,” he said to her. “I warned you before.” Then he asked her to leave.
I didn’t know we could do that.
Johnny was that bartender’s name, and I learned an awful lot from him. I not only learned what to do, but I also learned what not to do. And in the greater scheme of things, learning what not to do has proved far more valuable.
Eventually Johnny left that bar and went on to another. And eventually so did I. But we crossed paths again and again. It turns out that the restaurant business is a much smaller community than one realizes. But it is pretty competitive. Who’s the best? Who makes the best drinks? All subjective. But in the restaurant world subjectivity often passes for truth. The best restaurants are not always the most successful, and the most successful aren’t always the best. But even that is subjective.
In between all of that, there are people like Johnny. I don’t think there has ever been a magazine/newspaper article written about him, but anyone who has worked with him has appreciated him. I know I did. We were a great team at three different hot spots. All of which, ironically, were written about extensively.
I’ve also learned that the people who get the most press aren’t always the ones who deserve it. But in our business, the loudest often gets the most attention. And that is unfortunate.
Johnny quietly retired from the restaurant business last week. Forty years at many of the best restaurants and bars the North Bay has ever seen. There was no fanfare, no media send-off, no farewell tour. But for those of us who worked side by side with him, we will never forget him.
And every time that I step in to help a struggling newcomer, I will know that I am doing Johnny proud. Because if there is one thing the restaurant business teaches you, it’s that everyone needs a helping hand once in a while. Those of us in front of the bar, as well as those of us behind it.
Jeff Burkhart hosts ‘The Barfly Podcast.’ More at jeffburkhart.net.
Difficult times, like the ones we are living in today, often inspire creative people to get—creative.
Thus, Pegasus Theater Company members, distraught over the violent and oppressive direction the U.S. government is going, have decided to take a stand by mounting a resistance production they are calling Push Back.
“I thought, what can we do? We’re a theater company. We have a voice. We have an audience,” said Darlene Kersnar, who came up with the idea. “Of course, it won’t create a huge wave in the world. But at least we’re doing what we can.”
In November, they put out a request for submission of plays and, in less than two months, they received 19 newly-minted short plays that deal with the current political climate.
Out of the 19 plays the company received, the group selected three, and then added a fourth that it had produced several seasons back. The fourth play, Executive Order, explores something that seemed unlikely at the time, but was clearly prescient of what is happening now.
It deals with an executive order by a U.S. president that overrides the normal democratic process. The playwright, Davis resident L. H. Grant, apparently saw the seed of the current times back in 2018 when he wrote the play.
The other three plays are X’ed by Cary Pepper, a prolific playwright who lives in San Francisco; Tattoo by Ukiah resident Susan Sher; and King Fear, a satire of the current administration, based on Shakespeare’s King Lear. This play was written by Thomas Graven of Monte Rio and Lois Pearlman, who lives in Guerneville.
X’ed takes Donald Trump’s endless stream of executive orders to a ridiculous extreme, and Tattoo imagines a chance encounter between two people on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
Tattoo playwright Susan Sher said she loves creating plays with chance encounters between “people who would otherwise never meet.” The request for submissions of protest plays, she explained, was the perfect opportunity to conceive of two very different characters who come to a kind of mutual understanding.
“Of course, someone can’t completely change in 10 minutes, but at least I can drop the hint that this encounter might get one of the two people to think differently,” Sher said.
Graven said he had been thinking about King Lear as a perfect vehicle to satirize Donald Trump because the main character “has everything and loses it all to vanity.”
Pearlman took it a step farther, by adding snatches of Broadway tunes with topically revised lyrics.
“We threw King Fear together in a couple of weeks. It was so much fun. The words just flew off my fingertips and onto the computer screen. Now the actors are adding imaginative touches of their own. A true collaboration. We can’t wait to offer it up onstage,” Pearlman said.
‘Push Back’ runs for two weekends, April 17-19 and 24-26, at the Mt. Jackson Masonic Lodge, 14040 Church St., Guerneville. The entrance to the theater is around the corner on Third Street. Show times are 7pm Fridays and Saturdays and 2pm on Sundays. The first two Fridays are pay-what-you-will. Saturdays and Sunday matinees are $20.
History has a way of pretending certain people didn’t exist.
In a region that prides itself on progress, women who built institutions, changed laws, fought segregation, defended bodily autonomy and reshaped culture have largely vanished from the public record. Their names are missing from monuments, street signs, statues and textbooks. Their work survives, but their stories do not.
That erasure is what drove journalist Rae Alexandra to rage—and eventually to obsession.
Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood opened Oakland’s first private school for African American children in 1857, paving the way for desegregated education in California. In 1913, Piedmont nurse Bertha Wright founded Children’s Hospital Oakland and established the state’s first public child daycare center. Frances Albrier became the first Black woman to run for Berkeley City Council in 1939 and the first Black female welder in the Richmond shipyards during World War II.
And that’s just the beginning.
San Francisco lab technician Pat Maginnis helped lead the fight for abortion rights in the 1960s. Del Martin and UC Berkeley graduate Phyllis Lyon co-founded the first lesbian rights organization in the U.S. in 1955—and later became the first same-sex couple legally married in San Francisco. Disability rights activist Judy Heumann co-founded Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living in the early 1970s, laying the groundwork for the Americans with Disabilities Act.
These women, and dozens more, are featured in Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area, Alexandra’s book, illustrated by San Francisco artist Adrienne Simms and published by City Lights on March 17. The book is adapted from Alexandra’s long-running KQED series, Rebel Girls from Bay Area History, which launched in 2018.
“To be frank, I did not know what I was doing,” Alexandra said. “I was just very angry about women being written out of history.”
That anger was measurable. As Alexandra notes in the book’s introduction, only 13% of San Francisco’s street names, statues, parks and public artworks honor women. So she decided to respond the only way she knew how: by writing them back in.
She committed to producing one profile a month. The research curve was steep. When pandemic closures shut down public libraries, Alexandra began buying every history book she could find online. The collection grew so large she eventually moved to a house in Stockton to make room for it.
But the work also created community. Since 2022, KQED has hosted “Rebel Girls” Bingo Nights, where Alexandra distributes zines featuring the women she’s researched. Extra copies are dropped at bookstores, cafés and record shops across the Bay Area.
One year, she brought zines to City Lights Bookstore and was told to place them on the stairs leading up to the poetry room.
“I was so upset about this,” Alexandra said. “I almost didn’t leave any because I was like, ‘No one’s ever going to find those.’”
What she didn’t realize was that the stairs also led to the publisher’s office. The placement worked. A week or two later, City Lights called.
“There’s a thing we say in my house now when something is happening to us, like a momentary disappointment, and we’re all pissed off about it,” Alexandra said. “We’ll say to each other, ‘Put it on the stairs.’ Just as a reminder that the thing that’s bothering us now might turn into something wonderful later.”
Over seven years, Alexandra’s initially planned five-essay project expanded into 56 installments, with the final piece published on KQED.org in August 2025. Along the way, certain women entirely changed how she understood Bay Area history.
“Those women gave me a complete reframing of local history that I wasn’t expecting,” she said. “We all know about the earthquake and the destruction and the fires. But in telling the story of Mary Kelly, who became homeless and jobless with her family [post-1906], and then had to go to war with the city because the city was not distributing aid to the poorest refugees—reading her story really puts you in the center of the hellish circumstance of being in San Francisco at that time in a way that I haven’t considered before.”
She had a similar reckoning researching Myra Virginia Simmons, a domestic cook and newspaper seller who organized a parade protesting racist exhibits at San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
“This is supposed to be the beacon that the rest of the nation is looking at, and also a symbol of San Francisco’s great rebuilding,” Alexandra said. “If I hadn’t ever found Myra Virginia Simmons, I wouldn’t have known about the egregious racism on display at that world fair, because that’s not how we like to remember it. When you start telling the stories of individuals, you get a completely different idea of what was happening as it was happening.”
Alexandra deliberately sought women from across the Bay Area and across lines of race, class and nationality. “This became an obsession,” she said. “If you only write about white women, you’re missing the full story.”
One search took years. Alexandra was determined to include a Palestinian woman. “It took me until May of last year,” she said. Even her best friend, whose family is Palestinian, told her, “It’s all men.” And Alexandra thought—that’s the problem. So she kept going.
WOMEN’S HISTORY ‘Unsung Heroines’ was released on March 17. Image courtesy of City Lights.
Another challenge emerged: images. Many of the women—particularly Black women—were never photographed, or their images were lost.
That absence became the book’s second act.
City Lights publisher Elaine Katzenberger met illustrator Adrienne Simms by chance at a swimming pool. Simms had recently self-published Portraits of Gaza, a zine depicting people whose lives were shaped by Israeli occupation, inspired by ancient Roman-Egyptian funerary portraits which rendered subjects regal and enduring.
Alexandra immediately knew Simms was right for the project.
“I was working with images that I didn’t feel reflected the women in the way that I wanted to,” she said. “Adrienne elevated all of them.”
Simms, a self-taught artist with an art history degree from Mills College, has exhibited her work for more than 25 years. Her influences include religious iconography, gold-leafed halos, ornate symmetry and mythic femininity.
“I always try to imbue my characters with a sense of independence, defiance even,” Simms said. “I like to create things that are beautiful and also powerful.”
For women with archival photographs, Simms created oval portraits framed with visual cues to their lives. Elena Zelayeta, a Mexican-American cookbook author, is surrounded by ornate patterns, peppers, corn and avocados. Palestinian-American activist Nabila Mango’s portrait includes both the Palestinian and American flags, alongside lilies—a nod to her love of gardening.
For women without photographs, Simms designed rectangular “scrapbook” frames built from artifacts. Charlotte L. Brown, who sued a San Francisco streetcar company for segregation in 1863, is represented through a legal complaint, a ticket stub and a horse-drawn carriage from the era.
The illustrations took a year to complete. “I tried to be very methodical because I didn’t want to rush anything,” Simms said. “As you can imagine, it’s very precise work. All those little lines took a while, took a lot of focus. It’s very soothing work in its own way, even though there’s a thin margin for error. But the work itself was very pleasurable.”
As she worked, Simms found herself awed by what these women accomplished under conditions far harsher than today’s.
She points to Dr. Margaret Chung, the first American-born Chinese woman doctor, who opened a Western clinic in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1916, treated Hollywood stars, supported World War II soldiers, drove sports cars, wore men’s clothing, and dated men and women.
“She lived her life the way that she wanted to,” Simms said. “She succeeded career-wise, and she was also helping other people. Back then, this woman was able to do all that when things were arguably even harder for women and people of color. We don’t have any excuses to hold back, you know?”
Unsung Heroines does more than recover forgotten names. It reframes Bay Area history as something built not just by earthquakes, gold or tech, but by pioneering women who refused to disappear. When we’re bearing witness to rights being rolled back and communities threatened, the book offers something quietly radical: proof that resistance has always lived here—and that the stories we choose to remember shape the futures we’re willing to imagine.
Sometimes all it takes is putting the truth back on the stairs.
‘Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area,’ written by Rae Alexandra and illustrated by Adrienne Simms. Published by City Lights. Released March 17, 2026. $16.95. Order at citylights.com.
Forget “retail therapy.” Take a sustainable turn instead at Swap-A-Luma, Petaluma’s community-minded clothing swap that treats fashion less as consumption and more as circulation. Hosted by Swap Nation, the event invites participants to refresh their wardrobes by trading pieces instead of buying new—diverting hundreds of pounds of clothing from landfills in the process while turning reuse into a social experience. Expect a curated, boutique-style setup with a fashion show woven into the afternoon and a steady undercurrent of environmental awareness. The idea is simple: Swapping extends the life of garments, reduces demand for new production and builds a sense of community around style and sustainability. Proceeds from this edition benefit Cool Petaluma. Noon–3pm (fashion show 2pm), Saturday, April 4, Life on Art, 133 Copeland St., Ste. C1, Petaluma. Tickets at bit.ly/swapaluma.
Novato
Pioneer Park Cemetery Tours
History gets a little more interesting at Pioneer Park, where the Novato Historical Guild resumes its seasonal cemetery tours—walking visitors through the stories, lives and legacies that shaped early Novato. Led by guild board member Sharon Azevedo, the guided experience offers a grounded way to connect with local history, moving beyond plaques and dates into the human narratives tucked among the headstones. The tour traces the roots of Novato Township through those buried there, offering context, color and the occasional surprise. It’s a reminder that local history isn’t distant—it’s right underfoot. 9–10:30am, Saturdays April 11, May 9, June 13, July 18, Aug. 15 and Sept. 19, Pioneer Park (meet near playground), 1007 Simmons Ln., Novato. $10 suggested donation; register at novatohistory.org.
Glen Ellen
Spirit Guides
Mythical creatures take root among oaks and pathways at Sonoma Botanical Garden with Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles. Inspired by Zapotec cosmology, the exhibition installs eight monumental, vividly patterned sculptures across the landscape—hybrid animals imagined as protectors, reflections of personality and carriers of story. The Oaxaca-based artists draw from the idea of the tona and nahual—spirit companions tied to birth and identity—translating those traditions into bold, contemporary forms rendered in color-saturated geometric patterns. Set against a newly expanded native plant garden, the show creates a dialogue between culture and landscape, past and present. Exhibit runs April 10–Sept. 7, Sonoma Botanical Garden, 12841 Hwy. 12, Glen Ellen. Admission $17 adults; discounts available; free for children 4 and under.
Mill Valley
Visual Journalism
Architecture gets a human read in this hands-on workshop at the Studio at MYSTIC, where participants are invited to paint building façades as if they were portraits. Led by creative technologist and artist Michael Scherotter, the session explores line-and-wash watercolor techniques that translate structure into expression—turning windows, lines and shadows into something more personal and interpretive. Part of an ongoing visual journaling series, the class emphasizes process over perfection, offering tools and repeatable exercises designed to keep a creative practice alive long after the session ends. All levels are welcome, with participants encouraged to bring a sketchbook, supplies and a reference photo of a building to work from. The goal is less architectural accuracy than discovery—finding character, mood and story in the built environment. 6–8pm, Thursday, April 2, the Studio at MYSTIC, 31 Sunnyside Ave., Mill Valley. $75. Ages 15+. bit.ly/mysticmv-journo.
I like to bring the readers of this column weekly optimism and uplift. But I admit, I do have my misanthropic moods. Glancing over the headlines, I am in one now.
Sick of people and their problems, I thought I would interview a dog for April 1 (more the fool, I). I didn’t have far to look—fortunately, I have a superlative pooch in my circle, dog-influencer Mako, the wonder pooch. Kaya Suncat, his dog mom, met me at my house with Mako and a bugling bag of his favorite snacks and assorted toys.
Cincinnatus Hibbard: Mako, opening question: Will we be able to stop Trump?
Mako : …
Will we be able to reverse environmental devastation?
… [Mako runs in a circle, clockwise, chasing his own tail.]
Will AI liberate or enslave humanity?
…
Mako. Mako… Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?
[Mako yips and hops up.]
Woof woof you. Woof woof you.
Their tendency to wet on newspapers or tear them up can’t be taken for a political statement. Our dogs’ ignorance of the issues is part of their charm. But if they can’t read newspapers, they can read our energy, and the pure presence that they offer us is a great gift in this over-talked world. And so I turned to Kaya Suncat, who had gathered Mako up into her lap.
Girl, I know you have been going through it. Tell me how Mako supports you…
Kaya Suncat: When I get home from work, Mako is right there by the door, waiting to give me a hug, and he’ll lick my face, and I will come right back into gratitude that I have this cute little fluffy doggie—and everything seems OK. [Laughs brightly.]
Do you consider yourself his dog mom?
I am a dog worshipper [laughs], and yes, he is my dog son—although I think he is nonbinary.
What jobs does he have in your household ?
He is a furry doorbell, he is a flycatcher and he is a towel—if you get out of the shower, he will lick the water droplets off of you.
As well as being a perfect lapdoggie.
He loves to cuddle and get petted all day. He’s my little teddy bear. He likes to be held like a baby when I need emotional support or be my pillow.
How old is he?
He’s three years old—and a Virgo. Before I got him, I dreamed of him. I didn’t see him in the dream, but I felt his energy, and at the end of the dream I said, ‘Time to come home, Mako.’ When I woke up, I opened my Instagram, and his picture was at the top of my feed [laughs]. I always told the universe that I would have a Pomeranian and a Shiba Inu. I never thought the universe would put the two breeds in one.
Although Kaya and I are old friends, I found myself asking the same old questions strangers ask each other over their butt-sniffing dogs at the park. While there can be concern that inward-turning people can focus their love on their dogs instead of each other, dogs provide us with one of the very few ways that strangers can still spontaneously connect. Love of our pets is one of the things that make us human.
Learn more:Mako is a dog-influencer. His instagram is @makothefirst. His influence is to make us want to be better people (who actually deserve our pets). He was adopted from @lovesecondchances. Consider donating to them or to your local humane society.
Given our publication date for this edition, I’ll admit I had some dastardly April Fool’s Day plans—like printing definitive proof that Petaluma Junior High is built on top of a portal to Hell and that my entire tenure in local media is a prolonged performance art piece by conceptual artist Kit Fergus.
And though I’m deep in the trickster hero phase of my professional aspirations, I couldn’t fathom publishing stories that could be perceived as a willful indulgence of “fake news.” That’s not to say I don’t think we all need a laugh right now, given the profound absurdity and horrors of our present moment. As they say, laughter is the best medicine so long as one doesn’t overdose.
Yes, laughter can kill. The most common way is through laughter-induced syncope, in which a person loses consciousness while laughing and then dies by some other means, i.e., falling, choking, or if they happen to be laughing at ICE.
A famous case from antiquity occurred to Chrysippus of Soli, the noted stoic philosopher active in Greece late in the second century BC, who spied a donkey eating some figs and joked that someone should give it some wine to wash them down. He found his own joke hilarious—guess you had to be there—then proceeded to laugh, until he was shot by ICE. So much for being “stoic.”
The fact that we have an April Fool’s Day at all betokens some hope for humanity. We are the only species on Earth that can laugh at itself, we’ve decided, which speaks to the humility of anthropocentrism as we steward this planet and all its living creatures into the apocalypse.
And though we only reserve one day a year to celebrate our foolishness with jokes and pranks predicated on deception (which we are sooo good at), the truth is many of us are fools every day of the year, if not every day of our lives. Today is the day we celebrate that commitment. It takes a lot of guts to say, “Get in the handbasket, loser, we’re going to hell.”
And for those of us who can’t, the least we can do is laugh about it. Crying about it will only contribute to sea level rise.
Daedalus Howell is editor of this paper, host of ‘The Drive’ on 95.5 FM, director of ‘Werewolf Serenade’ and a newsletterist at dhowell.com.
Proprietors of BloodRoot Wines, Kelly and Noah Dorrance have been organizing an annual music and wine festival called The Ramble, as a fundraiser benefitting GIFFORDS, a national organization dedicated to preventing gun violence.
The partnership began as a way to honor the memory of their niece who was killed in the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville. Since 2023, The Ramble has raised more than $250,000 for GIFFORDS.
“As hospitality junkies, we find fulfillment in creating joyful spaces where people can connect, celebrate and share in community. We created The Ramble to honor our niece Evelyn, transforming a painful moment into an experience that brings people together while supporting a vital mission… This is how we know to make a difference, through hospitality and the joy of community,” says Kelly Dorrance.
Tickets just went on sale for the fourth iteration of The Ramble, taking place on Saturday, June 6, at Abel de la Luna Community Center Fields in Healdsburg. The event will feature headline performances from award-winning musical artists Spoon and Lucius, plus many more nationally acclaimed musicians.
Expect a ton of local food vendors, the debut of a new culinary stage featuring local chefs doing interactive cooking demonstrations, as well as representatives from local wineries, including the Overshine Collective.
Amber Turpin: How did you get into this work?
Kelly Dorrance: A little bit of kismet, a little bit of passion and a lot of initiative. We assumed we would eventually move back to the Midwest and thought a try at the wine industry would be fun before we did so. That was 2008, and we’ve never looked back. Noah worked at a custom crush facility in San Francisco and made some wine on the side.
With collaboration from friends in the industry, Banshee Wines was formed. We then went on to form Reeve Wines (our son’s name), BloodRoot Wines and Remy Saves The Sea Wines (our daughter’s name).
Did you ever have an ‘aha’ moment with a certain beverage? If so, tell us about it.
Nothing quite beats an Aperol Spritz under the Italian sun. Sun in the glass, sun overhead—la dolce vita all around.
What is your favorite thing to drink at home?
Honestly, we do get high on our own supply, mostly Reeve Wines Pinot Noir of varying degrees.
Where do you like to go out for a drink?
So hard to choose. Madrona, Little Saint, Lo & Behold and Geyserville Gun Club are our favorite cocktail spots. Location depends on mood, and whether or not you want to be seen or hide in a dark corner.
If you were stuck on a desert island, what would you want to be drinking (besides fresh water)?
Emphatically—rosé. It needs to be light, bright, vibrant, which is typically a rosé of pinot noir or grenache.
BloodRoot Wines, 118 North St., Healdsburg, 707.387.7058, bloodrootwines.com.
I will enthusiastically vote for Katie Porter for governor in the June 2 primary election for two main reasons: We need more women in top leadership roles, and she has proven her ability to manage the budget and protect the people of California rather than special interests. Katie Porter was remarkably successful in her three terms in Congress, and she is the leader we need in California.
It disappoints me that some people bring up that she lost her temper at a reporter as a reason not to vote for her. That would never be a disqualifier for a male candidate. Remember that Kamala Harris was criticized for being tough on her staff. As a society, we need to get past the double standard of expectations for men and women in the workplace, wherever that might be.
Kay Noguchi San Rafael
Mulling Mueller
The passing of “investigator” and former head of the FBI Robert Mueller at age 81 reminds us that the people who have been complicit in keeping the president in office come in many versions.
Mueller wasted a lot of time and energy and achieved nothing. Add his name to the list of underperforming assets in the quest to keep democracy alive.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Now is an excellent time to decide your favorite color is amaranth (a vivid red-violet), or sinopia (earthy red-orange), or viridian (cool blue-green, darker than jade). You might also conclude that your favorite aroma is agarwood (deep, smoky, resin-soaked wood), or heliotrope (cherry-almond vanilla), or petrichor (wet soil after a rain). I’m trying to tell you, Aries, that you’re primed to deeply enhance your detailed delight in smells, colors, tastes, feelings, physical sensations, types of wind, tones of voice, qualities of light—and everything else. Indulge in sensory and sensual pleasures.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): My Taurus friend Elena keeps a “gratitude garden” in her backyard. When she feels grateful for a specific joy in her life, she writes it on biodegradable paper and buries it among her flowers, herbs and vegetables. “I feed the earth with appreciation,” she says. “Returning the gift.” She feels this practice ensures that her garden and her life flourish. Her devoted attention to recognizing blessings attracts even more blessings. Her cultivated appreciation for beauty and abundance leads her to discover more beauty and abundance. Elena’s approach is pure Taurean genius. I invite you to create your own rituals for expressing your thankful love. Not just paying dutiful homage in your thoughts, but giving your appreciation weight, texture and presence in the actual world.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Many of us periodically slip into the daydream that everything would finally feel right if only our lives were somehow different. If we’re single, maybe we imagine we ought to be partnered; if we’re partnered, we wish our beloved would change, or we secretly wonder about someone else entirely. That’s the snag. The blessing is this: In the days ahead, you’re likely to discover a surprising ease with your life exactly as it is, and feel a genuine, grounded peace. Congratulations in advance.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): A cautious voice in your head murmurs: “Proceed carefully. Don’t be overly impressed with your own beauty. Stick with dependable methods. Live up to expectations and avoid explorations into the unknown.” Your bold genius interrupts: “Tell that fussy, boring voice to shut up. The truth is that you have earned the right to be an inquisitive wanderer, an ingenious lover, a fanciful storyteller and a laughing experimenter.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In medieval European gardens, there was a tradition of creating “pleasure labyrinths.” They were walking meditations that spiraled inward to a center, then back out again. There were no decisions and no wrong turns, just the relaxing, meditative journey itself. I think you need and deserve a metaphorical pleasure labyrinth right now, Leo. You’ve been treating every choice as a high-stakes dilemma and every path as potentially problematic. But what if the current phase isn’t about making the perfect decision? Maybe it’s about trusting that the path you’re on will take you where you need to go, even if it meanders. By cosmic decree, you are excused from second-guessing every turn.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Your eye for imperfection is a gift until it becomes the lens through which you see everything. The critical faculty that drives you to refine and enhance may also shunt you into a dead end of never-being-good-enough, where impossible standards immobilize you. In the coming weeks, dear Virgo, I beg you to use your vaunted discernment primarily in the service of growth and pleasure rather than constraint. Be excited by buoyant analysis that empowers constructive change. Homework: For every flaw you identify, identify two things that are working well. You won’t ignore what needs attention, but instead will compensate for the excessive criticism that sometimes grips your inner critic.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You Libras shouldn’t expend excessive effort trying to force the external world to be more tranquil. That’s mostly a futile task that distracts from your more essential work. The secret to your happiness is to cultivate serenity within. How do you do that? One reliable way to shed tension is to continually place yourself in the presence of beauty. Nothing makes you relax better than being surrounded by elegance, grace and loveliness. Now is a good time to recommit yourself to this key practice.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In computer science, there’s a concept called “graceful degradation.” When a system encounters an error, it doesn’t crash completely. It loses some functionality but keeps running with what remains. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Scorpio, you’d be wise to acknowledge a graceful degradation like that. Something isn’t working as you had hoped and planned. A relationship? Project? Adventure? In classic Scorpio fashion, you’re tempted to burn it all down. But I encourage you to practice graceful degradation instead. Keep what still works and release only what’s actually broken. Not everything has to be all-or-nothing. You can lose some functionality and still run. You can be partially out of whack and still be valuable. P.S.: The awkwardness is temporary.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): At your best and brightest, you are a hunter—though not the kind who stalks prey with weapons and trophies in mind. Your hunt is noble: the fervent pursuit of adventures that nourish your curiosity and the brave forays you make into unfamiliar territories where intriguing new truths shimmer. And now, as the world drifts deeper into chaos, you are called to respond with even more exploratory audacity. I invite you to further refine your hunter’s craft. Lift it up to an even higher, more luminous form of seeking.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn meditation teacher Wes Nisker guided his students to relax the relentless mental static that muddled their awareness. But he also understood that excessive striving can sabotage the peace we’re seeking. I invoke his influence now to help you release some of the jittery goal-obsession you’ve been gripped by. Nisker and I offer you permission to temporarily suspend the potentially exhausting drive to constantly be better and more accomplished. Instead, just for now, simply be your authentic self. Loosen your high-strung grip on self-improvement and allow yourself the radical luxury of purposelessness.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Here’s a danger you Aquarians are sometimes prey to: spending so much energy fixing the big picture that you neglect what’s up close and personal. You may get so involved in rearranging systems that immediate concerns get less than your best attention. I hope you won’t do that in the coming weeks. Your aptitude for overarching objectivity is a gift because it enables you to recognize patterns others can’t detect. But it may also divert you from the messy, intricate intimacy that gritty transformation requires. Your assignment: Eagerly attend to the details, which I bet will be more interesting than you imagine.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In horticulture, “hardening off” is the process of gradually exposing seedlings started indoors to outdoor conditions before transplanting them. Too much exposure too fast will shock them; no exposure at all will leave them unprepared. Let’s invoke this as a useful metaphor for you. I believe you are being hardened off, Pisces. Life is making small, increasing demands on your tender self. Though this may sometimes feel uncomfortable, I assure you that it’s preparation, not cruelty. You’re being readied for a shift from protected space to open ground. My advice is twofold: 1. Don’t retreat back into the ultra-safe greenhouse. 2. Don’t let yourself be thrown into full exposure all at once.
Homework: My book Astrology is Real is available at online bookstores. Read free excerpts here: https://tinyurl.com/BraveBliss
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Petaluma
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Lose Double Standards
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