Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
DECEMBER 5, 2012
FreeWillAstrology.com
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My book
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA
is available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
Praise for Pronoia:
"I have seen the future of American literature and its name
is Rob Brezsny."
- Tom Robbins
"With this work -- an instant pop classic -- Rob Brezsny
offers a positive, participatory, proactive vision of the workings
of our inner and outer universe, which will only give us as much
pleasure, love, and ecstasy as we are prepared to accept."
- Daniel Pinchbeck
"While it may seem naive to put your faith in optimism these
days, Brezsny's new book offers up a convincing argument for leaving
cynicism and despair behind. This wild, wise, and subversive book
is a must read for those who want to live a more imaginative and
free life. Rob Brezsny is a Culture Hero."
- Utne Reader
"With Pronoia, renegade wizard Rob Brezsny presents
an irreverent manifesto, mixing activism and optimism. It reads
like the I Ching on Ecstasy and is as insightful and puzzling
as a Zen koan. He puts the 'pro' back in 'protest.'"
- Body + Soul
"I dig Rob Brezsny for his powerful yet playful insights,
his poetry, and his humor . . . I salute him for his dedication
to inspiration."
- Jason Mraz, singer-songwriter
"In Pronoia, Brezsny tenderly leads us into the
practice of re-imagining the world as a compassionate miracle.
He offers a bevy of ideas for tricksters to re-create the universe."
- Santa Cruz Sentinel
"Brezsny's Pronoia rotates, something like a Tibetan
prayer wheel, around the idea that love underpins being and that
it's ours if only we have the courage to take it. If we don't
go to this original and endless source, then we inherit the classical
hell-on-earth of depression, decay and destruction. Around and
around his theme the verbally acrobatic, mystically literate Brezsny
lets fly a thousand zingers, each with the feel of having been
carved with some poetic effort to express a hard reality instead
of a platitude."
- San Francisco Chronicle
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INTERVIEW WITH ROB
by Glen Starkey
of the San Luis Obispo New Times
newtimesslo.com
GLEN STARKEY: Your book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia
(bit.ly/Pronoia) isn't so
much about astrology as it is about philosophy. How does what
you do in your weekly "Free Will Astrology" column connect
to what your book is about?
ROB BREZSNY: The book is a discussion of the philosophy that
underlies and informs the column. I believe everyone's life is
a labyrinth with a reward at the center, not a minefield in which
fear should be one's primary guide. I explain why in the book.
GLEN STARKEY: As I read it, your book is about training oneself
to see the world through optimistic eyes, to not dwell on the
occasional bad thing that happens and instead focus on all the
things that go right, every day, all the time. What led you to
this idea?
ROB BREZSNY: Let me comment on the first statement. It's true
that I urge people not to dwell on the occasional bad thing that
happens. However, it's important to note that pronoia doesn't
ask you to ignore or suppress problems. On the contrary, just
as pronoiacs retrain themselves to notice and feel gratitude for
all the beauty and largesse in the world, they also retrain themselves
to see every problem as a gift that is designed to make them smarter,
kinder, and more fully alive.
As for what led me to these ideas: I'm a natural-born rebel;
I enjoy identifying the conventional wisdom in every situation,
and turning it on its head. Today the conventional wisdom is that
everything is falling apart, that the world is a terrible place
to live, that bad things predominate. The most taboo possibility
of all is the idea that the world is full of beauty and that life
is on our side. I gravitate toward that perspective because everything
in my life has confirmed it and because my job is to do everything
I can to overthrow the status quo.
GLEN STARKEY: Are you able to put into practice all that your
book suggests, or is attempting to exert pronoia an ongoing struggle?
ROB BREZSNY: I am by no means a master of pronoia. But I enjoy
the struggle to immunize myself against the insane culture-wide
obsession with pathology; I enjoy the hard work of retraining
myself to bask in the nonstop flood of daily miracles.
GLEN STARKEY: If you were to tell someone one thing in your book
that's the most important tidbit of knowledge, what would it be?
ROB BREZSNY: You always get exactly what you need, exactly when
you need it. Not exactly what you want, exactly what you want,
mind you. Life unfailingly presents you with what your soul needs,
which isn't necessarily what your ego wants.
GLEN STARKEY: Who should read this book, and who shouldn't?
ROB BREZSNY: Who shouldn't read this book: Cynics whose entire
identity and self-image are wrapped up in being cynical. My book
may be unlikely to crack through their fanatical bias against
admitting how much beauty and blessing the world is filled with,
but if it did they would most likely suffer from a nervous breakdown.
Who should read this book: everyone else.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
THIS YEAR IN PRONOIA HISTORY
Abolitionist Donaldina Cameron was a courageous, compassionate
zealot who is credited with rescuing some 3,000 people from slavery
and breaking the back of the Chinese slave trade in the U.S.
fiercecompassionbook.com/
CONSPIRACY TO FIND A CURE
A trio of oral medicines from Abbott Laboratories Inc to treat
hepatitis C produced unprecedented cure rates in patients who
had failed to benefit from standard treatment, as well as very
high cure rates for newly treated patients
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GET YOUR MINIMUM DAILY REQUIREMENT OF BEAUTY
Geirangerfjord, Norway
i.imgur.com/zLLu1.jpg
(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 December 6
Copyright 2012 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
If you thoroughly shuffle a deck of cards, the novel arrangement
you create is probably unique in all of human history; its specific
order has never before occurred. I suspect the same principle
applies to our lives: Each new day brings a singular set of circumstances
that neither you nor anyone else in the last 10,000 years has
ever had the pleasure of being challenged and intrigued by. There
is always some fresh opportunity, however small, that is being
offered you for the first time. I think it's important for you
to keep this perspective in mind during the coming week. Be alert
for what you have never seen or experienced before.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
I wish I could do more than just fantasize about helping you
achieve greater freedom. In my dreams, I am obliterating delusions
that keep you moored to false idols. I am setting fire to the
unnecessary burdens you lug around. And I am tearing you away
from the galling compromises you made once upon a time in order
to please people who don't deserve to have so much power over
you. But it's actually a good thing I can't just wave a magic
wand to make all this happen. Here's a much better solution: You
will clarify your analysis of the binds you're in, supercharge
your willpower, and liberate yourself.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In his book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins
talks about a gourmet who "gave up everything, traveled thousands
of miles and spent his last dime to get to the highest lamasery
in the Himalayas to taste the dish he'd longed for his whole life,
Tibetan peach pie. When he got there . . . the lamas said they
were all out of peach. 'Okay,' said the gourmet, 'make it apple.'"
I suspect you'll be having a comparable experience sometime soon,
Aquarius. You may not get the exact treat you wanted, but what
you'll receive in its place is something that's pretty damn good.
I urge you to accept the gift as is!
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
"Having 'a sense of self' means possessing a set of stories
about who we are," according to William Kittredge in his
book The Nature of Generosity. He says there are two
basic types of stories: The first is "cautionary tales, which
warn us" and therefore protect us. The second consists of
"celebratory" tales, which we use to heal and calm ourselves.
I believe that you Pisceans are now in a phase when you primarily
need celebratory stories. It's time to define yourself with accounts
of what you love and value and regard as precious.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Spencer Silver was a co-inventor of Post-it notes, those small,
colorful pieces of paper you can temporarily attach to things
and then remove to use again and again. Speaking about the process
he went through to develop this simple marvel, he said, "If
I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The
literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
I'd like to make him your patron saint for the next few weeks,
Aries. Like him, you now have the chance to make practical breakthroughs
that may have seemed impossible, or at least unlikely. Ignore
conventional wisdom -- including your own. Trust your mischievous
intuition.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
The axolotl is a kind of salamander that has an extraordinary
capacity for regenerating itself. If it loses a leg in an accident,
it will grow a new one in its place. It can even fix its damaged
organs, including eyes, heart, and brain. And get this: There's
never any scar tissue left behind when its work is done. Its power
to heal itself is pretty much perfect. I nominate the axolotl
to be your power animal in the coming weeks, Taurus. According
to my reading of the astrological omens, you now have an extraordinary
ability to restore any part of your soul that got hurt or stolen
or lost.
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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE
Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient
to guide you through life's labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve
regular deliveries of uncanny revelation.
One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore
be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In
this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here.
If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my
EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES. They're available here:
RealAstrology.com
You can also access them by phone:
1-877-873-4888
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GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
In the coming months, I hope that you will get sweet revenge.
In fact, I predict that you will get sweet revenge. Keep
in mind that I'm not talking about angry, roaring vindication.
I don't mean you will destroy the reputations of your adversaries
or reduce them to humiliating poverty or laugh at them as they
grovel for mercy while lying in a muddy gutter. No, Gemini. The
kind of revenge I foresee is that you will achieve a ringing triumph
by mastering a challenge they all believed would defeat you. And
your ascent to victory starts now.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
I would love to speak with you about your hesitancy to fully
confront your difficulties. But I will not speak forthrightly,
since I'm pretty sure that would irritate you. It might even motivate
you to procrastinate even further. So instead I will make a lame
joke about how if you don't stop avoiding the obvious, you will
probably get bitten in the butt by a spider. I will try to subtly
guilt-trip you into taking action by implying that I'll be annoyed
at you if you don't. I will wax sarcastic and suggest that maybe
just this once, ignorance is bliss. Hopefully that will nudge
you into dealing straightforwardly with the unrest that's burbling.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
"Drama is life with all the boring parts cut out of it,"
said Leo filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. By that criterion, I'm guessing
that your experience in the coming week will have a high concentration
of magic and stimulation. You should be free from having to slog
through stale details and prosaic storylines. Your word of power
will be succulence. For best results, I suggest you take
active control of the unfolding adventures. Be the director and
lead actor in your drama, not a passive participant who merely
reacts to what the other actors are doing.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
One of my spiritual teachers once told me that a good spiritual
teacher makes an effort not to seem too perfect. She said some
teachers even cultivate odd quirks and harmless failings on purpose.
Why? To get the best learning experience, students must be discouraged
from over-idealizing the wise advisors they look up to. It's crucial
they understand that achieving utter purity is impossible and
unrealistic. Being perceived as an infallible expert is dangerous
for teachers, too; it makes them prone to egotistical grandiosity.
I bring this up, Virgo, because it's an excellent time to reduce
the likelihood that you'll be seduced by the illusion of perfection.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
This would be a good week to talk to yourself far more than you
usually do. If you're the type of person who never talks to yourself,
this is a perfect time to start. And I do mean that you should
speak the words out loud. Actually address yourself with passionate,
humorous, ironic, sincere, insightful comments, as you would any
person you care about. Why am I suggesting this? Because according
to my interpretation of the astrological omens, you would benefit
from the shock of literally hearing how your mind works. Even
more importantly: The cheerleading you do, the encouragement you
deliver, and the motivational speeches you give would have an
unusually powerful impact if they were audibly articulated.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
In the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast," a grotesque
human-like creature hosts the heroine in his home, treating her
like a queen. She accepts his hospitality but rejects his constant
requests to marry him. Eventually, he collapses from heartache.
Moved by the depth of his suffering, she breaks into tears and
confesses her deep affection for him. This shatters the spell
and magically transforms the Beast back into the handsome prince
he originally was. Your life may have parallels to this story
in the coming months, Scorpio. You might be tested. Can you discern
the truth about a valuable resource that doesn't look very sexy?
Will you be able to see beauty embedded in a rough or shabby form?
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HOMEWORK:
Write a parable or fairy tale that captures what your life has
been like in 2012. Freewillastrology.com
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2012 Rob Brezsny
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