In Chico, California, in April 2005, I got my first and only tattoo. It looks like a voluptuous “W,” with one end curving around the mole on my left forearm. It comes from a Zendik “mind-tuner” called The Psychic Compass; it’s linked to the following message:

Do you dream of another, a higher reality? The dreamers who consciously, deliberately, dynamically, function flat-out, full-out, giving everything they have, everything they can beg, borrow, steal, perform any ritual, acquire any knowledge, never retire, never surrender the dream, never say die until they’re pronounced dead….these are the victors, these are the great lives lived, these are the magicians..and if the dream is cozmically benevolent, that’s creavolutionary. There’s happiness in it…Go!

I no longer turn to the Psychic Compass for guidance (as I did when I was at Zendik, and in the year or so after I left). But I am still fascinated by fortune-telling devices, and other tools for summoning fresh inklings. And so, during Mating in Captivity‘s launch month—June 2018—I’ll spin the Psychic Compass for anyone who orders one or more signed copies through my website, then put a joyful spin on your fortune and tuck it under the front cover. What message might the Compass, revived and reimagined, have for you?

I, for one, can’t wait to weave a beautiful new spell out of my punishing old fave, “Your lie equals your pain.”