Gih-Na-Sha (Old sign: Capricorn) Do you stay with the old fool? Will your love follow him until the end even if it means your own? You made the oath! You made it, and no one made you make it! Can he order you away? Can he order you to break your oath?
Hahp-E (Old sign: Aquarius) You hear your heart mumble and you wonder what it might have to say. It’s like the plague of Athens over here! Your child puked on your arm and your best sheets. Sickening warm then the chill. Think of those who have no recourse for their infirmities. Think of those whose children suffer in within borders of terrible states.
Hehk-Eht (Old sign: Pisces) You feel all dried up in there. The font of your creativity once so effervescent now looks to you like a bone strewn arroyo. You have been too hard on yourself and need to mix in some self-compassion with all the internal scolding.”
Kah-Le (Old sign: Aries) Gawain, listen well! One thousand years hence in a degenerate age, when the lives of humans and their attention spans are short, a pixelated eye will know all knowable facts, and wisdom will fly through the cracked and drafty windows of the dilapidated palace of your mind. Mash! Mush! Mash the sour fermentations and cultivate the cheese of the cave! Guild the iron ores and climb basaltic columns. The bloody pentangle of your shield may appear to you and it may not! Look to your dreams! Symbols ruddy and gold will burn in the cloudbanks of your dream-veiled eyes! Will you know the signs of your Dame? Dame Natura wants you to pay attention and find consolation in her philosophy!”
Ah-Naht (Old sign: Taurus) Two faces stick in your mind: the face of the past and the face of the future. In front of you there chatters a mouldering skull. The skull belongs to you! You know it by the crack in the tooth and the pointy canine and the patterns of wear on the incisors! Grinding enamel in your sleep and carrying stress in your jaw. Get a mouth guard! Examine your stressors and use those scissors at the root!”
Eh-Shu (Old sign: Gemini) Even when “nothing” becomes a truly academic concept in your heart can you dismiss it? Nag, nag! Waves of serpents and beetles crash over your mind and distract you from your true purpose! Refocus, reflect! Watch your mind with high- powered spectacles from a distance and treat it like the wriggling specimen that it is!”
Tah-Ne (Old sign: Cancer) All through the wintery silence of your creeping hunting and gathering you’ve seen no sign of life but birds and squirrels. The elk and deer have wizened and retreated back up into the immense density of the black and mossy forests of foothills away from your camp. No backstrap! No gamey elk hams to fill your empty freezers!”
Marutuk (Old sign: Leo) There is too much magic in your judgments. Too much information that you cannot see nor know. You keep hitting your head with that claw hammer in sincere belief that you will loosen the obstruction that is wasting you. Too much focus and fear! How can you abide? Look to cause and effect.
Kah-Noom (Old sign: Virgo) We want to wave our hands and have everything be so! The mind’s vagaries ripple through the pathways like pilgrims in progress but are you watching those erratic beggars? They shuffle and moan! They walk the floor in the nightways of the inns and hostels. They want your last thin dime and your best heeled shoes. You needn’t be cruel to the vagaries but let them pass through like valkyries on the field of battle. Let them pluck the corpses and fly out of sight.
Hih-Fes-Tuhs (Old sign: Libra) Eons hence will your work remain? Poets tell of writing your name on the strand and transmigrating into the body of a golden warbler, how Pancho fell, and Lefty’s living in a heartbreak hotel. Drink and leaden dreams have left you weakened. Keep moving! Keep waking and dragging yourself further. The ground is crumbing all around!
Ter (Old sign: Scorpio) Is there any justice without enforcement?” You ask yourself over and over, but have you gotten any further? You feel your enemies crowding in but your helpless thrashing will not keep them at bay! Abide! Abide! Whining and mewling are as transient as the comet’s tail.
Shang-Te (Old sign: Sagittarius) Your enforcers have all fled in the night, and now all you have is a crown and a gilded scepter. You sit on a decrepit throne in stinking robes, and only your wife and white elephant vizier remain behind. Long in the tooth and a bag of bones. What can you do to spare them from your shared fate? Do you turn them out and go down with the ship? Will you let them drink poison with you or will you order them to safety?”