Dear True, the Taurus,

You told me that you “Don’t believe in astrology and that there was nothing that could possibly convince you otherwise. Also, I am shocked that you believe in something as silly as astrology, I guess you are not as smart as I thought you were.”

“Ugh, that is so something a Taurus would say,” I responded with exasperation.

Taurus, the astrological sign of the bull, is a sign that is famously stubborn. With this in mind, I didn’t even try to defend my position. However, I realize now that by not sharing my true feeling about astrology, I felt thrown out of balance, and neither my Libra sun nor my Libra mercury would let this course of silence continue. My sun sign Libra, the astrological sign of the scales, does not have any patience for things that are unbalanced.

It’s not like my beliefs are harmful, I mean, I am not an Antivaxxer. While I may believe keeping certain healing crystals in my home provides a positive atmosphere by preventing negative energies, I don’t believe it will prevent potentially deadly diseases like the measles.

I know you may have questions, like what the hell is a Libra Mercury, or what the hell is an Antivaxxer? But much like science, the fun in astrology lies in learning and discovery. Mercury is the planet that rules over communication. Which is why when Mercury is in retrograde it’s probably a bad idea to text your ex. Antivaxxers, or as I like to call them, Plague Enthusiasts, are a movement of people who, thanks to spread of misinformation, believe vaccinations, which have been the number one defense against diseases like small pox, measles, polio, and whooping cough, are actually a worse idea than texting your ex during Mercury retrograde.

The biggest risk that comes with astrology is perhaps facing hard truths that come from true introspection that astrology often inspires. My Scorpio Venus suggests that I can be a passionate and jealous lover. In this case my natal chart isn’t telling me that I am a sex crazed green monster, it is only warning me that I may be susceptible to fall into these flaws. After acknowledging that I may have certain predispositions I have to take a deep look inside myself and see if these warnings have already manifested, and I must address how to correct or avoid these behaviors. Astrology doesn’t take away your agency or accountability, it actually urges and encourages you to be mindful of the decisions you, yourself makes, with your own free will. True belief in astrology comes with the understanding that you are the driver of your own destiny even though there are forces out of your control. Astrology does not dictate your actions, instead, it acts as a guide, or template, to help you make positive life choices. Believing in astrology is believing in making informed decisions, unlike the Antivax movement, which is centered around misinformation.

Frauds and charlatans play on peoples’ beliefs, hopes, and fears to their advantage to take advantage of those peoples. There are so called fortune tellers that scam people out of their money, but that can’t be blamed on astrology. Just as quack disgraced doctors, such as Wakefield, who published an unsubstantiated paper that claimed that there was a link showing that vaccines caused autism, that was later declared fraudulent ultimately leading him to be barred from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom, can’t be blamed on science.

Why shouldn’t I believe in astrology? My belief isn’t hurting anyone, and it certainly hasn’t killed anyone! Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about people who believe in the Antivax movement. You might ask, but what about the ZODIAC Killer? He killed people, didn’t he? Yes, he did kill people, but he did not get his name from his belief in astrology. He got his misleading name from his taste in designer watches, specifically, the Zodiac brand, which truly is just a terrible coincidence. Regardless of his non-relation to astrology, it can be noted that the Zodiac Killer has been less deadly than the Antivax movement. Although the Zodiac Killer was responsible for 37 deaths, Antivaxxers were responsible for 1,336 preventable deaths in the United States between June 3, 2007 and May 24^, 2014 alone.

One person believing in something, doesn’t really impact the community, or world, as a whole. If more people looked into astrology it would lead to a happier, more considerate community. Just as astrology teaches us about ourselves, it teaches us about others. It can provide perspective and encourage empathy. Astrology asks us to challenge ourselves, and ask why do I feel the way I feel, what are the reasons behind my choices, therefore we can ask astrology to help us consider why others feel the way they do, and how do they make their choices. Astrology pushes us to grow to be the best people that we can be, and a community of people who are constantly pushing themselves to their full potential, and a community that will succeed. Astrology creates a culture of mindfulness that benefits togetherness and growth. I see no negative to this. Where I do see negatives, are in communities who mistakenly decide not to immunize their members with vaccines. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a significant majority of those affected by preventable diseases, specifically the measles, were close-knit communities, namely Orthodox Jews in New York and Amish people in Ohio. 75% of measles cases from 2013 to 2019 happened in close-knit communities. Communities that often read and watch the same news, and don’t have a lot of connections outside of the community are more susceptible to misinformation and therefore more susceptible to catching preventable diseases. Because of widespread implementation of vaccines in the US, communities have developed “herd immunity” which is defined as the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease, especially through vaccination. However, when not enough of the community is vaccinated, you lose herd immunity and the disease tends spread like wildfire. Without herd immunity, those who are not vaccinated, mostly children, new born babies, and those who medically cannot receive vaccines (for example cancer patients) become even more vulnerable, and are likely to be killed by these preventable diseases. Astrology enriches lives and Antivax movements end lives.

Astrology is not silly, and I am not “not smart” because of my belief in it. In fact, I believe that my belief in astrology pushes me to learn more about all things in life, and motivates me to make mindful, well thought out, decisions. And unlike some unfounded and dangerous beliefs, like the Antivax movement for example, both astrology and I don’t deserve to be attacked! While I may not have convinced you that astrology is as real as the danger of not vaccinating yourself, I hope I have convinced you to not belittle me for my belief in it. Regardless of my accomplishment, or lack of, I have spoken my truth, and therefore, I feel returned to a Libran balance.

Thanks,

Kat Saunders

Sun in Libra

Moon in Taurus

Rising in Aires

P. S.

As your dearest friend, I kindly ask you to help keep unvaccinated people and people with Pisces heavy charts away from me.

The greatest takeaway that I found in the two readings were: mind your audience when thinking about how you tell your story (Vonnegut), but don’t allow your audience to dictate what your story is (Wallace). I can relate to the Wallace piece in the sense that I want everyone to love the horrible baby that is my writing, but what I truly felt was the fear and shame of showing it to anyone. Although I was the second to volunteer, reading my writing out loud was terrifying. However, I believe hearing my classmates’ writing was both insightful, and genuinely very interesting. The factor that I found most fascinating was that although given the same prompt each piece was wildly different from the other. Obviously, it was inevitable that our ‘terrible babies’ would be different, but to have such different approaches is what was most illuminating to me. When taking my approach to the prompt, although I had never read Vonnegut before, I feel that I channeled his writing with style. I, as the creator, understood exactly what I was feeling, but I had to keep in mind that the person reading my piece does not know me, and couldn’t even guess what was in my heart, and therefore I had to make my writing as accessible to a stranger as possible so that they might see the picture I was painting. The main idea I was trying to project was the feelings of abandonment that comes with loss. And more notably, try to tap into how although abandonment can be intentional and unintentional, the resulting feeling is just as painful. I wanted to get this message across by showing how the feeling of abandonment once felt, often becomes a reoccurring phenomenon for the abandoned party. I tried to execute this by having the barn be abandoned over and over. First by the farm animals, followed by the party animals, and finally by the dead loved one. While these feelings don’t echo my own (when it comes to the matter of death), I believed that it was a sensation that many others would find relatable, and that’s why I chose to depict the loss in this manner. In conclusion, I believe that I heeded Vonnegut’s advice in that I successfully translated my intensions to the reader, but I fell for the trap of writing for the reader, rather than myself, that Wallace was trying to warn against.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
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• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.