Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
March 15, 2017
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
Below is an excerpt. You can listen to a podcast of it here:
bit.ly/xROwHE
PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.
HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is your birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.
DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It's the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It's a mode of training your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
OBJECTIVE OF PRONOIA: To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate Master of Rowdy Bliss.
GUIDING QUESTION: "The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is -- it must be something you cannot possibly do." What is that task for you?
UNDIGNIFIED MEDITATIONS TO KEEP YOU HONEST: Brag about what you can't do and don't have. Confess profound secrets to people who aren't particularly interested. Pray for the success of your enemies while you're making love. Change your name every day for a thousand days.
TOP-SECRET ALLIES: Sacred janitors, benevolent pranksters, apathy debunkers, lyrical logicians, ethical outlaws, aspiring masters of curiosity, homeless millionaires, humble megalomaniacs, hedonistic midwives, lunatic saints, sly optimists, mystical scientists, dissident bodhisattvas, macho feminists, and socialist libertarians who possess inside information about the big bang.
DAILY PRACTICE: Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, and soften your heart -- even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections.
TO HEAR OR READ THE REST, go here: bit.ly/xROwHE
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YOUR HOLIEST DESIRE
I invite you to devote five minutes to visualizing the fulfillment of your holiest desire, followed by five minutes of visualizing the fulfillment of a loved one's holiest desire.
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A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history.
"On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions."
- Andrew Harvey
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"Psychological work focuses more on what has gone wrong: how we have been wounded in our relations with others and how to go about addressing that.
"Spiritual work focuses more on what is intrinsically right: how we have infinite resources at the core of our nature that we can cultivate in order to live more expansively. If psychological work thins the clouds, spiritual work invokes the sun."
P.S. We need both!
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
17 Goals To Build A Better World:
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries.
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
More: tinyurl.com/penvjl4
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They aren’t advertisements, and I get no kickbacks.)
Please tell me your own nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES: Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning March 16
Copyright 2017 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Would you like some free healing that's in alignment with cosmic rhythms? Try this experiment. Imagine that you're planning to write your autobiography. Create an outline that has six chapters. Each of the first three chapters will be about a past experience that helped make you who you are. In each of the last three chapters, you will describe a desirable event that you want to create in the future. I also encourage you to come up with a boisterous title for your tale. Don't settle for My Life So Far or The Story of My Journey. Make it idiosyncratic and colorful, perhaps even outlandish, like Piscean author Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
The more unselfish and compassionate you are in the coming weeks, the more likely it is you will get exactly what you need. Here are four ways that can be true: 1. If you're kind to people, they will want to be kind to you in return. 2. Taking good care of others will bolster their ability to take good care of you. 3. If you're less obsessed with I-me-mine, you will magically dissolve psychic blocks that have prevented certain folks from giving you all they are inclined to give you. 4. Attending to others' healing will teach you valuable lessons in how to heal yourself -- and how to get the healing you yearn for from others.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
I hope you will consider buying yourself some early birthday presents. The celebration is weeks away, but you need some prodding, instigative energy now. It's crucial that you bring a dose of the starting-fresh spirit into the ripening projects you're working on. Your mood might get overly cautious and serious unless you infuse it with the spunk of an excited beginner. Of course only you know what gifts would provide you with the best impetus, but here are suggestions to stimulate your imagination: a young cactus; a jack-in-the-box; a rock with the word "sprout" written on it; a decorated marble egg; a fox mask; a Photoshopped image of you flying through the air like a superhero.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Many Geminis verbalize profusely and acrobatically. They enjoy turning their thoughts into speech, and love to keep social situations lively with the power of their agile tongues. Aquarians and Sagittarians may rival your tribe for the title of The Zodiac's Best Bullshitters, but I think you're in the top spot. Having heaped that praise on you, however, I must note that your words don't always have as much influence as they have entertainment value. You sometimes impress people more than you impact them. But here's the good news: In the coming weeks, that could change. I suspect your fluency will carry a lot of clout. Your communication skills could sway the course of local history.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Your world is more spacious than it has been in a long time. Congrats! I love the way you have been pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and into the wilder frontier. For your next trick, here's my suggestion: Anticipate the parts of you that may be inclined to close down again when you don't feel as brave and free as you do now. Then gently clamp open those very parts. If you calm your fears before they break out, maybe they won't break out at all.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I like rowdy, extravagant longing as much as anyone. I enjoy being possessed by a heedless greed for too much of everything that feels rapturous: delectable food, mysterious sex, engrossing information, liberating intoxication, and surprising conversations that keep me guessing and improvising for hours. But I am also a devotee of simple, sweet longing . . . pure, watchful, patient longing . . . open-hearted longing that brims with innocence and curiosity and is driven as much by the urge to bless as to be blessed. That's the kind I recommend you explore and experiment with in the coming days.
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YOU'VE ALWAYS GOT MORE HELP AVAILABLE THAN YOU IMAGINE
What do you want to be when you grow up? Is it possible that you will eventually develop beautiful capacities and sublime understandings that you can't even imagine right now?
I might be able to help you move in the direction of becoming more of the person you were born to be.
Tune in to my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page.
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888.
The cost is $6 per sign on the Web (discounts available for bulk purchases), or $1.99 per minute by phone. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
The Expanded Audio Horoscopes work on most smart phones and tablets.
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"I always feel like I know myself better after listening to your audio 'scopes."
-June R., Austin, TX
"Your audio horoscopes calm me down when I'm too manic and pep me up when I'm down."
-Arthur T., Cleveland, OH
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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
You know that forbidden fruit you've had your eyes on? Maybe it isn't so forbidden any more. It could even be evolving toward a state where it will be both freely available and downright healthy for you to pluck. But there's also a possibility that it's simply a little less risky than it was before. And it may never become a fully viable option. So here's my advice: Don't grab and bite into that forbidden fruit yet. Keep monitoring the situation. Be especially attentive to the following questions: Do you crave the forbidden fruit because it would help you flee a dilemma you haven't mustered the courage to escape from? Or because it would truly be good for you to partake of the forbidden fruit?
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I expect you will get more than your usual share of both sweetness and tartness in the coming days. Sometimes one or the other will be the predominant mode, but on occasion they will converge to deliver a complex brew of WOW!-meets-WTF! Imagine chunks of sour apples in your vanilla fudge ripple ice cream. Given this state of affairs, there's no good reason for you to be blandly kind or boringly polite. Use a saucy attitude to convey your thoughtfulness. Be as provocative as you are tender. Don't just be nice -- be impishly and subversively nice.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
"I want to gather your darkness in my hands, to cup it like water and drink." So says Jane Hirshfield in her poem "To Drink." I bet she was addressing a Scorpio. Does any other sign of the zodiac possess a sweet darkness that's as delicious and gratifying as yours? Yes, it's true that you also harbor an unappetizing pocket of darkness, just like everyone else. But that sweet kind -- the ambrosial, enigmatic, exhilarating stuff -- is not only safe to imbibe, but can also be downright healing. In the coming days, I hope you'll share it generously with worthy recipients.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Saturn has been in your sign steadily since September 2015, and will continue to be there until December 2017. Some traditional astrologers might say you are in a phase of downsizing and self-restraint. They'd encourage you to be extra strict and serious and dutiful. To them, the ringed planet is an exacting task-master. There are some grains of truth in this perspective, but I like to emphasize a different tack. I say that if you cooperate with the rigors of Saturn, you'll be inspired to become more focused and decisive and disciplined as you shed any flighty or reckless tendencies you might have. Yes, Saturn can be adversarial if you ignore its commands to be faithful to your best dreams. But if you respond gamely, it will be your staunch ally.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Born in the African nation of Burkina Faso, Malidoma Somé is a teacher who writes books and offers workshops to Westerners interested in the spiritual traditions of his tribe. In his native Dagaare language, his first name means "he who befriends the stranger/enemy." I propose that we make you an honorary "Malidoma" for the next three weeks. It will be a favorable time to forge connections, broker truces, and initiate collaborations with influences you have previous considered foreign or alien.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
EVERY relationship has problems. No exceptions. In the beginning, all may be calm and bright, but eventually cracks will appear. Here's the corollary to that rule: EVERY partner is imperfect. Regardless of how cool, kind, attractive, or smart they may seem in the early stages, they will eventually unveil their unique flaws and troubles. Does this mean that all togetherness is doomed? That it's forever impossible to create satisfying unions? The answer is HELL, NO! -- especially if you keep the following principles in mind: Choose a partner whose problems are: 1. interesting; 2. tolerable; 3. useful in prodding you to grow; 4. all of the above.
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HOMEWORK:
What are the main dreams you want to accomplish by 2025? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.
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Submissions sent to Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter or in response to "homework assignments" may be published in a variety of formats at Rob Brezsny's discretion, including but not limited to newsletters, books, the Free Will Astrology column, and Free Will Astrology website. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, style, and content. Requests for anonymity will be honored. We are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative material.
Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2017 Rob Brezsny
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