Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
November 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 read or listen to the rest of it here:
bit.ly/YourProphecy
YOUR IMAGINATION
Your imagination is the single most important asset you possess. It's your power to create mental pictures of things that don't exist yet and that you want to bring into being. It's the magic wand you use to shape your future.
And so in your own way, you are a prophet. You generate countless predictions every day. Your imagination is the source, tirelessly churning out images of what you will be doing later.
The featured prophecy of the moment may be as simple as a psychic impression of yourself eating a fudge brownie at lunch or as monumental as a daydream of some year building your dream home by a lake or sea.
Your imagination is a treasure when it spins out scenarios that are aligned with your deepest desires. In fact, it's an indispensable tool in creating the life you want; it's what you use to form images of the conditions you'd like to inhabit and the objects you hope to wield. Nothing manifests on this planet unless it first exists as a mental picture.
But for most of us, the imagination is as much a curse as a blessing. We're often just as likely to use it to conjure up premonitions that are at odds with our conscious values. That's the result of having absorbed toxic programming from the media and from our parents at an early age and from other influential people in our past.
Fearful fantasies regularly pop up into our awareness, many disguising themselves as rational thoughts and genuine intuitions. Those fearful fantasies may hijack our psychic energy, directing it to exhaust itself in dead-end meditations . . . .
Read or hear the rest: bit.ly/YourProphecy
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TINY CHANGES
"True life is lived when tiny changes occur," said Leo Tolstoy. I agree. It's rare for us to undergo rapid, dramatic transformations in short periods of time. That's why it's delusional to be forever pining for some big magic intervention that will fix everything. The best way to alter our course is slowly and gradually, by conscientiously revamping our responses to the small daily details.
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"The lesson that life constantly enforces is 'Look underfoot.' You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world."
- naturalist John Burroughs
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THE VALUE OF BROKEN-HEARTEDNESS
Clarissa Pinkola Estes: Persons called to this work typically feel relentless sensations of broken-heartedness about the state of the world, but also carry an unshakable and inspired hope for humankind.
There may be anger as well. The seemingly contradictory but powerful forces of the broken heart commingled with hope are the enduring underpinnings for effecting ongoing and positive change.
Interviewer: You are saying that the social activist has a broken heart?
Clarissa Pinkola Estes: Yes, a heart that is broken open -- and stays broken open -- a soul alert to its calling.
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Here's a letter sent to the Beauty and Truth Lab:
DEAR BEAUTY AND TRUTH LAB:
The chemo treatments burned out all the math skills in my brain, which were already pretty meager. On the other hand, they awakened my ability to feel perfectly at ease while in the midst of paradoxical situations that everyone else finds maddening and uncomfortable.
The chemo also made me ridiculously tolerant of people's contradictions, sometimes even their hypocrisies, and freed me to enjoy life as an entertaining movie with lots of interesting plot twists rather than as a pitched battle between everything I like and everything I don't like.
I guess I could say that my cancer helped turn me into a pronoiac!
- The Chaos Artist Formerly Known as Risa Kline
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There is no God. God is dead. God is a drug for people who aren't very smart. God is an illusion sold to dupes by money-hungry religions. God is a right-wing conspiracy. God is an infantile fantasy favored by superstitious cowards who can't face life's existential meaninglessness.
JUST KIDDING! The truth is, anyone who says he knows what God is or isn't, doesn't really know.
Now read Adolfo Quezada's prayer, then confess what you don't know about God. "God of the Wild, you are different from what I expected. I cannot predict you. You are too free to be captured for the sake of my understanding. I can't find you in the sentimentalism of religion. You are everywhere I least expect to find you. You are not the force that saves me from the pain of living; you are the force that brings me life even in the midst of pain."
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DAILY HOROSCOPES
Some people don't know that I write daily horoscopes, available as text messages sent to your cell or smart phone.
They're shorter than the weekly 'scopes, but on the other hand they're more frequent -- every day of the week.
My weekly horoscopes are free, but the dailies cost about 67 cents a day if you sign up for a subscription.
If you think you might enjoy getting regular bursts of inspiration from me to illuminate your adventures, check them out.
Go to RealAstrology.com. Register or log in. On the new page, click on "Subscribe / Renew" under "Daily Text Message Horoscopes" in the right-hand column.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Good news from last week's U.S. elections:
Two women unseated Republican incumbents to become the first Latinas elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.
Maine became the first state to vote for Medicaid expansion on the ballot.
The first Sikh ever elected in the U.S., Ravinder Bhalla, won the mayor’s race in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Montana elected its first person of color to mayor in the state’s history.
Danica Roem, an openly transgender woman, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. She defeated the bigot who wrote the anti-LGBTQ bathroom bill.
A civil rights lawyer won the seat of top prosecutor in Philadelphia.
The first black woman was elected to mayor in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Andrea Jenkins was the first trans woman of color elected to a major city’s governing body. This happened in Minneapolis.
Americans across the country elected eight transgender people to office.
Melvin Carter became the first black mayor of St. Paul Minnesota.
Mazahir Salih became the first Sudanese-American to win a seat as an at-large member of the Iowa City Council.
In 13 competitive races where the Democratic candidate was endorsed by the pro–gun control group "Giffords" and the Republican was backed by the NRA, the Giffords candidate was victorious in 12.
"Our Revolution" is the political action organization that grew out of Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. It endorses candidates who support issues Sanders championed, like expanding health care, fighting income and wealth inequality, and getting Big Money out of politics. In the recent electiions, Our Revolution candidates won 21 seats.
(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 November 16
Copyright 2017 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Director of the U.S. Patent Office, 1899. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895. "All the music that can be written has already been written. We're just repeating the past." - 19th-century composer Tschaikovsky. "Video won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a box every night." - filmmaker Darryl F. Zanuck, commenting on television in 1946. I hope I've provided enough evidence to convince you to be faithful to your innovative ideas, Scorpio. Don't let skeptics or conventional thinkers waylay you.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Sagittarians are most likely to buy a lottery ticket that has the winning numbers. But you're also more likely than everyone else to throw the ticket in a drawer and forget about it, or else leave it in your jeans when you do the laundry, rendering the ticket unreadable. Please don't be like that in the coming weeks. Make sure you do what's necessary to fully cash in on the good fortune that life will be making available.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In the game of basketball, if a player is fouled by a member of the opposing team, he is given a "free throw." While standing 15 feet away, he takes a leisurely shot at the basket without having to deal with any defenders. Studies show that a player is most likely to succeed at this task if he shoots the ball underhanded. Yet virtually no professionals ever do this. Why? Because it doesn't look cool. Everyone opts to shoot free throws overhand, even though it's not as effective a technique. Weird! Let's invoke this as a metaphor for your life in the coming weeks, Capricorn. In my astrological opinion, you'll be more likely to accomplish good and useful things if you're willing to look uncool.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In 1991, Aquarius rock star Axl Rose recorded the song "November Rain" with his band Guns N' Roses. It had taken him eight years to compose it. Before it was finally ready for prime time, he had to whittle it down from an 18-minute-long epic to a more succinct nine-minute ballad. I see the coming weeks as a time when you should strive to complete work on your personal equivalent of Axl's opus.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor whose work led to the creation of electric lights, recorded music, movies, and much more. When he was 49 years old, he met Henry Ford, a younger innovator who was at the beginning of his illustrious career. Ford told Edison about his hopes to develop and manufacture low-cost automobiles, and the older man responded with an emphatic endorsement. Ford later said this was the first time anyone had given him any encouragement. Edison's approval "was worth worlds" to him. I predict, Pisces, that you will receive comparable inspiration from a mentor or guide or teacher in the next nine months. Be on the lookout for that person.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
"Many people go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after," observed Henry David Thoreau. The spirit of Thoreau's observation is true about every one of us to some extent. From time to time, we all try to satisfy our desires in the wrong location, with the wrong tools, and with the wrong people. But I'm happy to announce that his epigram is less true for you now than it has ever been. In the coming months, you will have an unusually good chance to know exactly what you want, be in the right place at the right time to get it, and still want it after you get it. And it all starts now.
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LOVE YOUR LIFE!
How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and conditioned responses? Are you turning out to be the hero of your own life?
For assistance and inspiration, tune in to my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.
These forecasts are different in tone and format from the written horoscopes you read here in the newsletter. They're longer and more leisurely in tone. They tend to bring out more of the patient counselor in me, and have a bit less of the poet.
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 don't much believe in astrology. But that doesn't seem to get in the way of me deriving a whole lot of benefits from your expanded audio horoscopes."
- A. Arrosto, Indianapolis
"You have an amazing aptitude for cutting through the lies I tell myself. Thanks for the gentle shocks."
- T. Preneris, Toronto
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TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
I predict that during the next ten months, you will generate personal power and good fortune as you ripen your skills at creating interesting forms of intimacy. Get started! Here are some tips to keep in mind. 1. All relationships have problems. Every single one, no exceptions! So you should cultivate relationships that bring you useful and educational problems. 2. Be very clear about the qualities you do and don't want at the core of your most important alliances. 3. Were there past events that still obstruct you from weaving the kind of togetherness that's really good for you? Use your imagination to put those events behind you forever.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
You may be entertaining an internal dialog that sounds something like this: "I need a clear yes or a definitive no . . . a tender revelation or a radical revolution . . . a lesson in love or a cleansing sex marathon -- but I'm not sure which! Should I descend or ascend? Plunge deeper down, all the way to the bottom? Or zip higher up, in a heedless flight into the wide open spaces? Would I be happier in the poignant embrace of an intense commitment or in the wild frontier where none of the old rules can follow me? I can't decide! I don't know which part of my mind I should trust!" If you do hear those thoughts in your brain, Gemini, here's my advice: There's no rush to decide. What's healthiest for your soul is to bask in the uncertainty for a while.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
According to storyteller Michael Meade, ancient Celtic culture believed that "a person was born through three forces: the coming together of the mother and father, an ancestral spirit's wish to be reborn, and the involvement of a god or goddess." Even if you don't think that's literally true, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to have fun fantasizing it is. That's because you're in a phase when contemplating your origins can invigorate your spiritual health and attract good fortune into your life. So start with the Celtic theory, and go on from there. Which of your ancestors may have sought to live again through you? Which deity might have had a vested interest in you being born? What did you come to this earth to accomplish? Which of your innate potentials have you yet to fully develop, and what can you do to further develop them?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I predict that starting today and during the next ten months, you will learn more about treating yourself kindly and making yourself happy than you have in years. You will mostly steer clear of the mindset that regards life as a numbing struggle for mere survival. You will regularly dream up creative ideas about how to have more fun while attending to the mundane tasks in your daily rhythm. Here's the question I hope you will ask yourself every morning for the next 299 days: "How can I love myself with devotion and ingenuity?"
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
This may be the most miscellaneous horoscope I've ever created for you. That's apropos, given the fact that you're a multifaceted quick-change artist these days. Here's your sweet mess of oracles. 1. If the triumph you seek isn't humbling, it's not the right triumph. 2. You may have an odd impulse to reclaim or recoup something that you have not in fact lost. 3. Before transmutation is possible, you must pay a debt. 4. Don't be held captive by your beliefs. 5. If you're given a choice between profane and sacred love, choose sacred.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
The next ten months will be an ideal time to revise and revamp your approach to education. To take maximum advantage of the potentials, create a master plan to get the training and knowledge you'll need to thrive for years to come. At first, it may be a challenge to acknowledge that you have a lot more to learn. The comfort-loving part of your nature may be resistant to contemplating the hard work it will require to expand your worldview and enhance your skills. But once you get started, you'll quickly find the process becoming easier and more pleasurable.
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HOMEWORK:
Is there a belief you know you should live without, but don't yet have the courage to leave behind? 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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