Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
OCTOBER 19, 2011
FreeWillAstrology.com
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The piece below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA IS THE
ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA
available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
PRONOIA IS A DANGEROUS TABOO
(to read the whole piece and hear it as a podcast, go here: bit.ly/ccar6C)
The book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia is a conversation,
not a dictation. It's an inquiry, not dogma.
We're explorers in search of the ever-evolving truth, not authorities
proclaiming doctrine from on high. We refuse to be salespeople
intent on getting you to be like us or buy our ideas. In fact,
let's look at the downsides of the perspectives we celebrate.
The first thing you should consider before leaping into a relationship
with pronoia is that it is utterly at odds with conventional wisdom.
The 19th-century poet John Keats said that if something is not
beautiful, it is probably not true. But the vast majority of modern
storytellers -- journalists, filmmakers, novelists, talk-show
hosts, and poets -- assert the opposite: If something is not ugly,
it is probably not true.
In a world that equates pessimism with acumen and regards stories
about things falling apart as having the highest entertainment
value, pronoia is deviant. It is a taboo so taboo that it's not
even recognized as a taboo.
The average American child sees 20,000 simulated murders before
reaching age 18. This is considered normal. There are thousands
of films, television shows, and electronic games that depict people
doing terrible things to each other. If you read newspapers and
news sites on the Internet, you have every right to believe that
Bad Nasty Things compose 90 percent of the human experience. The
authors of thousands of books published this year will hope to
lure you in through the glamour of killing, addiction, self-hatred,
sexual pathology, shame, betrayal, extortion, robbery, cancer,
arson, and torture.
But you will be hard-pressed to find more than a few novels,
films, news stories, and TV shows that dare to depict life as
a gift whose purpose is to enrich the human soul.
If you cultivate an affinity for pronoia, people you respect
may wonder if you have lost your way. You might appear to them
as naive, eccentric, unrealistic, misguided, or even stupid. Your
reputation could suffer and your social status could decline.
But that may be relatively easy to deal with compared to your
struggle to create a new relationship with yourself. For starters,
you will have to acknowledge that what you previously considered
a strong-willed faculty -- the ability to discern the weakness
in everything -- might actually be a mark of cowardice and laziness.
Far from being evidence of your power and uniqueness, your drive
to produce hard-edged opinions stoked by hostility is likely a
sign that you've been brainwashed by the pedestrian influences
of pop nihilism.
Before the onset of pronoia, you may feel fine about the fact
that you generate much of your dynamic energy through anger, agitation,
discomfort, and judgmental scorn. But once the pronoia kicks in,
you'll naturally want more positive feelings to be your high-octane
fuel. That will require extensive retraining. The work could be
arduous, delicate, and time-consuming.
Are you truly ready to shed the values and self-images that keep
you locked into alignment with the dying civilization? Will you
have the stamina and inspiration necessary to dream up bigger,
better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting
problems? Do you realize how demanding it will be to turn yourself
into a wildly disciplined, radically curious, fiercely tender,
ironically sincere, ingeniously loving, aggressively sensitive,
blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate master of rowdy
bliss?
TO READ THE REST OF THIS PIECE and hear it as a podcast, go here:
bit.ly/ccar6C
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
FIRST-DEGREE PRONOIAC PROGRESS
Hallelujah! The Nobel Prize Committee Blesses Feisty, Spiritual
Women
tinyurl.com/3gteajs
SMART PEOPLE ARE WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES TO SAVE THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE THEY DON'T KNOW
Researchers have devised a protein "switch" that instructs
cancer cells to produce their own anti-cancer medication.
tinyurl.com/3tn87na
YOUR MINIMUM DAILY REQUIREMENT OF BEAUTY
A collection of images that may induce an eyegasm.
tinyurl.com/3wdv6xo
THE EVIDENCE KEEPS ACCUMULATING
Here's a whole flood of pronoia:
pronoiaresources.com
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They are not advertisements,
and I get no kickbacks.)
Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning October 20
Copyright 2011 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Your nightly dreams provide useful clues about your waking life.
They can show you hidden patterns and unconscious motivations
that your daytime mind hasn't noticed. On rare occasions, they
may even offer more literal guidance. That's what happened for
David Brown, a British man who one morning woke up from a dream
of seeing a mysterious phone number. As an experiment, he sent
a text message to that very number: "Did I meet you last
night?" Michelle Kitson, the stranger on the other end, responded
with a text, and then Brown texted back. More exchanges ensued,
followed by a face-to-face encounter, and eventually the two were
married. I can't guarantee anything quite as dramatic for you,
Scorpio, but I do expect your dreams will be unusually helpful.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
In addition to reading your astrological omens, I did a Tarot
reading, consulted the I Ching, and threw the runes. They all
gave me the same message: The coming week would be a good time
for you to spend quality time mulling over the Biggest Mystery
of Your Life. It's not mandatory that you do so. You won't cause
a disaster if you refuse. Still, wouldn't it be fun? Life is inviting
you to get re-excited about your personal version of the quest
for the Holy Grail. Your future self is calling and calling and
calling for you to dive into the ancient riddle you've been working
on since before you were born. The mists are parting.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In Sue Allison's theater piece "Lies I've Told," two
actors take turns telling each other some classic whoppers. Here
are a few: 1. "It would be no trouble at all." 2. "This
will only take a second." 3. "I didn't get your message."
4. "I have no idea how that got here." 5. "I thought
you said 'the 16th.'" 6. "Would I lie to you?"
See if you can avoid fibs like those, Capricorn. I'm not asking
you to be a superstar of candor -- that's unrealistic -- but I
do encourage you to cut back on white lies and casual dishonesties
as much as possible. This is a time when you really need to know
the whole truth and nothing but. And the best way to work toward
that goal is to be forthright yourself. That's how karma operates.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Last June, Northern California artist Mary Sobrina Kuder did
a gallery show of her paintings. She called it "Offerings
of Grace and Mischief." That would be an excellent title
for the story of your life in the coming week, Aquarius. I believe
that you will be receiving offerings of grace and mischief, and
I hope you will also be making such offerings. For best results,
remember this: The grace and mischief are not contradictory or
at odds. In fact, they need each other and belong together.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Do you realize how many connections to remote places you have?
Are you aware of how routinely you are touched by distant events?
As science writer David Bodanis reminds us, "We inhale many
hundreds of particles in each breath we take. Salt crystals from
ocean whitecaps, dust scraped off distant mountains, micro bits
of cooled magma blown from volcanoes, and charred microfragments
from tropical forest fires." I urge you to use that as your
metaphorical theme this week, Pisces. Let your imagination run
free as you renew your connections with faraway sources of nourishment.
Revivify your intimacy with departed influences that continue
to define you. Dream about the tantalizing future.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
If you have been resisting the command to go deeper, now is the
time to surrender. If you have been hoping that the pesky little
voice in your head will shut up and stop bugging you to get more
involved, you'd better stop hoping. If you've been fantasizing
about how to escape the growing pressure to give more of yourself,
I suggest that instead you fantasize about how you could intensify
your commitments. The time has come to explore what has been missing
and what needs more love.
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TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Did you know it is illegal to break into prison? That
was the charge leveled against a Georgia man, Harry Jackson, who
was arrested as he tried to sneak back into the jail from which
he had escaped only a short time before. During his brief taste
of freedom, Jackson allegedly stole 14 packs of cigarettes from
a nearby store. Maybe that was his intention from the beginning
-- to do an errand and return "home." Please don't be
like him in the coming weeks, Taurus. If you do manage to spring
yourself from a trap or bust out of your servitude (and I expect
you will do just that), don't come crawling back later and beg
to be allowed back in.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
As I was meditating on your horoscope this afternoon, I gazed
out my window at the creek flowing nearby. The tide was coming
in, which meant that the current was surging swiftly south. Row
upon row of small waves were coursing through the water. Then
I spied a lone duck swimming north against the tide. I couldn't
imagine what her motivation was. Why not just relax and float
downstream? She wasn't in a hurry and wasn't in the least flustered.
Ever forward she went, determined to push on. And then it struck
me, as I thought of your current astrological omens, that her
approach would also suit you quite well right now. Go steadily
and casually against the flow, Gemini.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Herbert Kitchener served as the British Consul-General in Egypt
early last century. He wasn't impressed with the creativity of
the ancient nation's art. "I can't think much of the people
who drew cats the same for 4,000 years," he remarked. Is
there an equivalent to this lack of development in your own life,
Cancerian? Among your own activities, are there any whose history
has shown no progression? Did you reach a certain skill level
in some area of your life and then stop pushing to improve? This
would be an excellent time to identify that knot of excess stability,
and then get started on dissolving it.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I'm not warning you to cut down on all the leaping and cavorting
you've been doing lately; I'm just saying that maybe you should
add some ballast to your foundation and some gravitas to your
demeanor. And I don't mean to guilt-trip you into toning down
your lust to connect with everyone and everything that tickles
your synapses. But I do suggest you consider the possibility that
beginning very soon variety will not be quite as spicy as it has
been; your deft zigzags may need to be carried out with gentler
zigs and slightly more cautious zags.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
The autocorrect feature sometimes distorts the text messages
people send on their smart phones. It tries to fix supposedly
misspelled words that aren't really misspelled, thereby creating
awkward variations that can cause a ruckus when they're received,
like changing "I don't want to leave" to "I don't
want to live." Damn You, Autocorrect! is a book
documenting some of the most outrageous examples, many NSFW. Be
vigilant for metaphorical versions of this wayward autocorrect
phenomenon, Virgo. Be sure that in your efforts to make things
better, you don't render them worse or weird. Consider the possibility
that stuff is fine just the way it is.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Meraki is a Greek word that refers to the bliss you
feel when you're engaged in a task that's important to you and
that you're doing really well. It's your theme right now, Libra.
According to my reading of the astrological omens, everything's
in place for you to experience meraki in abundance. Furthermore,
that's exactly what your destiny is pushing for. So please get
out there and do everything you can to cooperate: Make this a
meraki-filled week.
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HOMEWORK:
What's the most beautiful thing you've ever done? What's the
most beautiful thing you've never done? Testify! Go to Realastrology.com
and click on "Email Rob."
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THE BEST DREAM WORKER I'VE EVER KNOWN
If you've ever had an intuition that maybe you'd like to delve
deeper into your dreams, I recommend Jonathan Zap. He's the best
dream worker I know.
Highly intuitive, schooled in the wisdom of archetypes, and really
smart, Jonathan has helped me crack the codes of some of my major
dreams. His cost is quite reasonable, too. I exuberantly recommend
his services.
(He's not paying me to say this. I'm simply motivated by the
desire to share his treasure with my readers.)
You can reach Jonathan to inquire about dream interpretations
at jonathanzap@hotmail.com
His homepage is at: zaporacle.com
Info about his dream work and other services are at: zaporacle.com/textpattern/shop
Jonathan has also created the Zap Oracle, an uncanny divination
tool you can use to do readings for yourself. Because he has such
a cagey, interesting, and holy mind, I trust the spirit behind
his oracles.
Cast your own divination by going to zaporacle.com
and clicking on ORACLE.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2011 Rob Brezsny
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