Consulting the Stars

I must confess that I believe in horoscopes. I never really gave it much thought before because I’ve read them since I was a teenager. I didn’t go around confessing it to people though, and apparently for most people who know me, the actual belief is a cause for alarm. Since I have little faith in most things that I can’t logically explain with facts and reason, many friends have been surprised by me giving them credence.


Like most people, I used to read them for pure entertainment, but then something happened that made me reconsider their purely entertainment value.

One morning about a year and a half ago, my horoscope said to look around my house because some appliance would be going out. I paid little attention to it as I did most days with my horoscope. I didn’t inspect each appliance in my house because it would be silly to do it when a horoscope told you to. (I was imagining someone interrupting the inspection, and I’d never hear the end of that one.) However, my blaring freezer alarm warning that the ice cream had defrosted and dripped into the crevices of every other package would not be denied. I ended up with a brand new freezer and a new found respect and fascination with horoscopes. I’ve read them daily since then, waiting to see if another one would be as accurate.

Recently, someone pointed out that they are so general that of course it would seem that they would come true, but many things we put faith in are broad. I can’t count how many times I’ve been told that everything happens for a reason when something bad happens. Does it really have a reason though? Or do we put faith in the idea that it does, so we are bound to find a reason for it happening. We all want to believe that the major cataclysmic events in our lives aren’t random.

I’ve also encountered the argument recently that if we believe in something, we make it happen. That could be said for most of the outcomes of our choices. Our ability to achieve is mostly determined by what we are willing to do and how hard we’re willing to work to make something possible. If I want my horoscope to come true, then the stars should align and Venus should move into my house of sun. (Warning: It sounds good but I have no idea what they mean when they talk about those things in the horoscopes.)

So for me, a horoscope is a way to consider what I want for that day. It’s not an absolute. I don’t stay in bed if it’s a bad day according to my horoscope. I look in anticipation to what could be, and I guess if that makes me a contradiction in faith, then I’ll consult my horoscope about it…