At least four days out of a week, I read my daily horoscope. This is the case because we only get the morning newspaper four days a week so this loose commitment is driven mostly by convenience. Though I am unsure what these daily insights really mean or where they come from, I always find them interesting, thought provoking and sometimes humorous. While I don’t plan my day by the message, the words often hang in my consciousness and so may have some impact on what actually happens in a day. Who knows?

Last week, on Thursday I think, these were the words that greeted me from the page:”You’re on to something big, and you can’t do it alone. Unfortunately, the right people are not paying attention. If you want to make a difference, you’ll have to wake someone up first.”

“Oh,great!”, I thought. Am I on to something big? I didn’t think so but maybe that was the gift of the message. I am on to something big and I don’t realize it. Oh, great, again. There are many things up in the air right now. They could be big. Or not. But then again, in the course of any day in a human life, what isn’t ‘big’ if you are present to it? Even the laundry can send a person into a marvel if you really think about it. Pipes and hoses coming from machines. Water…..precious water…..drawn from distant sources….warm, hot, cold. Amazing. All those hands, not our own, who designed, sewed, packaged, unpacked, tagged, sold the clothes that are getting wet, spinning. Were the people whose hands touched these garments paid a fair wage? What are their lives like? Did my purchase of their work help feed their family? Beautiful, precious, invisible lines of connection. And we won’t even talk about dryers and the magic they produce.

Clearly, there is very little any of us can do alone. Our lives are too inextricably woven together with those we know and those we will never meet. Even in the little things and certainly in the big things.

The second part of this horoscope made me laugh. “The right people are not paying attention.” Ever felt like this? How many times in our lives do we try to get the attention of this person or that one because we believe they will be the only person who will see our point of view, take our side,validate our opinion, make everything happen? I know I have spent immense amounts of energy trying to get the attention of this person or that one because I hoped for some affirmation that would prove to the world that I was right….or brilliant….or at least smarter than the other person. It can be a vicious cycle of hope and despair placing that kind of affirmation outside oneself.

And finally the last part of the horoscope message:”If you want to make a difference, you’ll have to wake someone up first.” To this I say, impossible. I truly believe that all we can ever really do is create environments and circumstances where people wake up. But we can rarely, if ever, wake someone else up. These environments,like nests, are containers of care and compassion, kindness and hope, love and support where the awakened life is modeled but can not be required. Living the awakened life is each person’s own work, work that cannot be done or forced by another.

So, what to do with this horoscope? Perhaps the real gift of any of these ‘star readings’ that connect us with those born under our same sign, is that they provide questions to ponder rather than recipes to be followed. On this cold, January day, it has done that for me.

And you. What is your horoscope today? How will it lead you to a greater awakening of your authentic self? May we all be wise in our reading, gentle in our questions, and wise in our awakening.