For Virgo this week: At Free Will Astrology, we love to turn things upside-down and inside-out every now and then. It keeps our mental hygiene sparkling clean, and yours, too. This week, in order to incite a purifying ruckus, we're offering you a challenge from psychologist James Hillman. Please suck the following thoughts into the deepest recesses of your understanding, and enjoy the brainstorms they detonate: "By accepting the idea that you are the effect of a subtle buffeting between hereditary and societal forces, you reduce yourself to a result. The more your life is accounted for by what already occurred in your chromosomes, by what your parents did or didn't do, and by your early years now long past, the more your biography is the story of a victim." What I'm trying to tell you, Virgo, is that it's a fine time to rebel against your genetic heritage, your upbringing, and your conditioning. Imagine a life for yourself in which you don't believe that those factors control what you're capable of.

Sometimes they are the only [right] choice, but I’m not fond of upheavals at all – they’re a Big Wedgie. It has been a hell of a week. Burst into tears like a kid who very much does not want to sit on Santa’s lap, no no NO get offa me.

The person who is writing this is sheltering another person who thinks Santa looks like some kind of weird scary asshole (NO!) and who sleeps with one eye open so that she can keep hold of her pet hamster at the same time (ALL NIGHT - and they're nocturnal, so that's no easy feat lemme tell ya) etc. . . . . I keep telling her "everything is OKAY” but when she's shaken she stares back at me, suspicious and skittish, clutching her psychic hamster close. I just have to wait her out.

Chris Smithers - Killing the Blues
Allison Kraus & Robert Plant - Killing the Blues [I still like the Colvin best but I lost it along the way - always love that song, just about at "I am guilty"]