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February 21 through February 27, 2022

Interesting insights and ideas abound under Monday and Tuesday's Scorpio Moon, but take care not to get caught up in the mental gymnastics of “what if's” and keep your focus on the facts. Writing things down or taking a break in nature can restore some balance as you ponder the ideas that are presented. Wednesday and Thursday's Sagittarius Moon casts an air of fairness and justice over things, as it inspires you to speak up and ask for what you want, or at least get closer to knowing what it is you want. If you're wondering if you'll actually get anything done this week, aim for Thursday through Saturday to make some progress, as the Moon will march through industrious Capricorn and move things along quite nicely. Sunday is all about friendships and unity under the Aquarius Moon, as we pause to connect with our favorite people and see what they've been up to!

How Did They Do It?
An Excerpt from Someday Is Today by Matthew Dicks

I was running on a treadmill at Bally Total Fitness in West Hartford, Connecticut, back in the spring of 2005 when my life was changed forever. I had just abandoned my third attempt to write a novel — a ridiculous story about a teenage savant and his pet ferret (no joke) — and was finally coming to terms with the reality that I would never become the novelist I had always wanted to be.

As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t write good fiction. I’ll write for magazines, I told myself. Try my hand at a memoir. Maybe write a book on teaching. Wait for the day when a newspaper editor might offer me a weekly column.

I was saddened by the thought that my dream was dead, but I was also ready to move on to something more fruitful and realistic. Forward motion. It made sense.

As I ran, I was listening to Stephen King narrate On Writing, his seminal tome on writing well. King was talking about the early days in his career, when he was writing stories for men’s magazines and getting paid tens and hundreds of dollars at a time.

King was also a teacher, much like myself, earning $6,400 per year. His wife was working for Dunkin’ Donuts. Between their two salaries and their two children, they were barely making ends meet. Living in a double-wide trailer. Unable to afford a phone. Unable to afford medication for their kids. Desperate times for two young parents, both of whom had dreams of publishing novels someday. King wrote:

The problem was the teaching. I liked my coworkers and loved the kids — even the Beavis and Butt-Head types in Living with English could be interesting — but by most Friday afternoons I felt as if I’d spent the week with jumper cables clamped to my brain. If I ever came close to despairing about my future as a writer, it was then. I could see myself thirty years on, wearing the same shabby tweed coats with patches on the elbows, potbelly rolling over my Gap khakis from too much beer. I’d have a cigarette cough from too many packs of Pall Malls, thicker glasses, more dandruff, and in my desk drawer, six or seven unfinished manuscripts which I would take out and tinker with from time to time, usually when drunk. If asked what I did in my spare time, I’d tell people I was writing a book — what else does any self-respecting creative-writing teacher do with his or her spare time? And of course I’d lie to myself, telling myself there was still time, it wasn’t too late, there were novelists who didn’t get started until they were fifty, hell, even sixty. Probably plenty of them.
I slowed my pace as King read that passage aloud. By the time he had reached the end, I’d come to a complete stop. I couldn’t believe it. Stephen King was talking about me. Talking to me. Absent the alcohol and cigarettes, I was coming perilously close to despairing about my future as a writer, too.
Like King, I was giving up.

Around that time of despair, King tossed his unfinished manuscript of Carrie into the trash, finding the story to be full of unfillable holes. He gave up on the story. Decided to move on to something else. But King’s wife Tabitha removed the pages from the trash bin, read them, and told King to keep writing. She liked it. She saw potential where her husband had seen nothing but holes.

When he finally finished writing the book, it was the fourth novel he had completed. His previous three novels — Rage, The Long Walk, and The Running Man — would all eventually be published. But Carrie was the first. It represented his first big break.

King received a call from his wife one day while teaching at school, informing him that Doubleday had made an offer on Carrie : $2,500. Not a lot even by 1970s standards, but a publishing contract nonetheless. A much-needed break.

The paperback rights for Carrie would later sell to Signet for $400,000. A lot of money by any standard.

Listening to King talk about his journey, something shifted inside me. Standing on a treadmill in a Bally Total Fitness that no longer exists today, my life had changed in an instant. I suddenly saw a path to making my dreams come true. Someone not unlike me — a teacher with the dream of publishing a novel but despairing about his writing career — had found an unlikely path to success.

If Stephen King, formerly of a double-wide, telephone-free trailer, could do it, so could I. All I needed to do was keep writing. So I did. The path to my first novel was a circuitous one. It included two more false starts and nearly a year of writing Dungeons & Dragons adventures at the behest of my friend Shep, who perhaps recognized my need for an audience.

But almost exactly two years after that moment on the treadmill, in the spring of 2008, I received my life-changing phone call, also while teaching at school. It wasn’t my wife who was calling — she was teaching in a classroom two doors down the hallway — but my literary agent, telling me that Doubleday had made an offer on my first novel, Something Missing. More than $2,500, too. Enough to pay off our wedding debts and put a down payment on a house.

Crazy, right?

Stephen King and Matthew Dicks, both at school, both in the midst of teaching careers, when a phone call changed our lives. Both with offers from Doubleday.

Thank goodness Stephen King wrote On Writing. I found it just when I needed it.

Matthew Dicks is the author of Someday Is Today and nine other books. A bestselling novelist, nationally recognized storyteller, and award-winning elementary schoolteacher, he teaches storytelling and communications at universities, corporate workplaces, and community organizations. Dicks has won multiple Moth GrandSLAM story competitions and, together with his wife, created the organization Speak Up to help others share their stories. Visit him online at www.MatthewDicks.com.

Excerpted from the book from Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life. Copyright ©2022 by Matthew Dicks. Printed with permission from New World Library.

I am an extremely sensitive woman and I have struggled with obesity for much of my life. I have been walking in the fat/heavy/huge vibe for years, and at last I realize it is not mine. How do I step out of this negative vibration and step into loving myself? I truly want and am ready to be free. Please advise.
Aly

Dreamchaser:

Aly, I really want to thank you for sharing this with us. The media and Hollywood have really put a hurting on the women of the world. We have this image of what beauty is supposed to be, and it is not realistic at all. Speaking of Hollywood, I will always remember a poll I read some years ago: Over 100,000 men were asked whether they liked Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones with some meat on her bones, or as she was at her leanest. Guess what 85 percent of the men said? That's right - they liked Bridget Jones better than skinny Renee.

My male friends have always told me that the whole need to be thin thing was NOT started by some man, but rather by other women. We are in competition with ourselves. The old adage, You can never be too rich or too thin was coined by a woman. I have a good friend who was one of the biggest women I know. When we would go out together, SHE would get hit on - not me. She helped me learn a lot of very valuable lessons about weight, men, self-esteem and social misconceptions.

Loving yourself is one of the hardest things we have to learn to do as humans. It is heartbreaking to me how many people - men AND women - can't stand naked in front of a mirror without cringing or turning away. Here is a big newsflash for ALL of us: If someone is going to TRULY love us, they will love our fat cells along with every other cell. They will love us for who we are and what we bring to the world.

I'm glad that you say you realize the problem is not yours - yet it really IS yours since you are still fighting with it. The self-esteem issues behind this problem were not caused by your weight, Aly. You put on the weight so that you could hide from your pain.

If you were a heavy girl, everyone would leave you alone; no one would get close enough to touch the deeper wounds at the center of your being. I strongly suggest some form of counseling to get to the root of these issues, which go all the way back to your childhood and maybe even beyond that. You have to deal with those issues and that pain before you'll be comfortable in your skin again.

You CAN heal and grow to love your body. It will take some time and some effort, but you can absolutely accomplish healing and wholeness. I want you to do an exercise: I want you to write down a list of how your life would be better if you were where you wish to be physically. Then find someone you know well who is that size, and ask them about the ideas you came up with and how they compare to their life. You will be stunned.

*****

Astrea:

You are so right, Aly. The fat vibe is NOT you. You're a beautiful, sensitive person, and your size makes absolutely no difference to anyone who knows you well. Now you just have to let more of us know you - the REAL YOU!

I suggest you explore Middle Eastern Dancing. Find a class in your neighborhood and join in. Go as many times a week as you can go. You'll be amazed at how many other women who have walked in that fat vibe have found peace and happiness with their bodies through dancing. Besides being fabulous exercise, it's FUN, and the sisterhood you will enjoy with other dancers is unique and special - just like YOU ARE!

Belly dancing came into being in time out of mind. It was first designed to assist women in child bearing to relieve the pains of labor. Women danced new babies into the world and danced at weddings and other rites of passage for one another. In some societies, it was all women had to communicate with each other. In the harems of Turkey, it was the only thing they had to entertain each other. It gives the dancer a community of women who share the same loves and interests; there is nothing like the feeling of closeness you'll get there.

Over the past thirty years, this kind of dancing has evolved into many different forms, so you should be able to find a group where you feel you fit. You'll have the friends you make there for a lifetime. You'll have so many new and rewarding experiences with it, from creating your own personal costume and style to learning the meanings of the ancient dance forms, that you'll forget all about your weight. None of the other dancers will give you that fat vibe wither - they'll be having too much fun! You might even join a performance troupe where you would be welcomed and valued by the other girls.

Belly Dancing is good for the body and great for the Spirit. The exercises and movements themselves are more woman friendly than strenuous workouts. It creates lifetime bonds and friendships, and builds confidence, muscle, and self-esteem. It's simple and easy to learn, and we all know exercise is one of the best cures for the blues! When I ask my students why they are dancing, women of all sizes and all ages often say, So I won't go crazy! 🙂

In the bigger shows, you'll see beautiful women of all ages and all sizes dancing for other beautiful women. It's a stirring experience that would be so good for your soul. Go find a class and shake your beautiful booty until you are in love with your body and in love with your life.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.