{"id":9326,"date":"2014-10-09T15:30:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T19:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9326"},"modified":"2014-10-09T15:30:26","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T19:30:26","slug":"useful-beautiful-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/useful-beautiful-monsters.html","title":{"rendered":"useful, beautiful, monsters"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9327\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9327\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/10\/monsters.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9327\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2014\/10\/monsters-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"via wikipedia\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9327\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">via wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I confess to a love of horoscopes. At heart, I&#8217;m still the animist kid I&#8217;ve always been: all things have spirits, and all things will tell you stories. If you can understand them, they will tell you of your future.<\/p>\n<p>So of course I love horoscopes &#8212; even though I know the science is pretty &#8230; well, let&#8217;s just say it&#8217;s on a par w\/ climate change deniers.<\/p>\n<p>But I still read it, almost every day. And weekly? I go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freewillastrology.com\/horoscopes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Free Will Astrology<\/a>, because he&#8217;s funny, he doesn&#8217;t take himself too seriously, and (most important) his advice is usually good for any of us.<\/p>\n<p>This week, he told me to sing out &#8220;<em>I am a useful, beautiful, monster!&#8221;<\/em> to remind me the difference between useless, UGLY monsters, and the useful beautiful type. He also promised that if I sing my &#8216;wicked, crazy songs,&#8217; and use my (non-existent) invisible magic sword against dread, my kind will flock to me.<\/p>\n<p>You have to agree: that is an AWESOME horoscope!<\/p>\n<p>I need to go through my playlists for my wicked, crazy songs. AND search for my invisible sword against dread (how valuable would THAT be?). In the meantime, as I sometimes snap at my beloved, or yell at the dogs, even refuse to answer the phone when it looks possibly problematic, it&#8217;s good to know that I&#8217;m a useful monster. I&#8217;ll debate the &#8216;beautiful.&#8217; Useful is good enough.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I confess to a love of horoscopes. At heart, I&#8217;m still the animist kid I&#8217;ve always been: all things have spirits, and all things will tell you stories. If you can understand them, they will tell you of your future. So of course I love horoscopes &#8212; even though I know the science is pretty&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[851,718],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1348],"class_list":["post-9326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dreams","category-horoscopes","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-horoscopes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>useful, beautiful, monsters - Beginner&#039;s Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I confess to a love of horoscopes. At heart, I&#039;m still the animist kid I&#039;ve always been: all things have spirits, and all things will tell you stories. If\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/useful-beautiful-monsters.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"useful, beautiful, monsters - Beginner&#039;s Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I confess to a love of horoscopes. At heart, I&#039;m still the animist kid I&#039;ve always been: all things have spirits, and all things will tell you stories. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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