Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
January 24, 2018
FreeWillAstrology.com
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YOUR FUTURE
I've gathered together all the Free Will Astrology horoscopes that address the far-reaching themes of your destiny in the coming months. Read a compendium of your written horoscopes for 2018: bit.ly/YourGloriousStory2018
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In addition to these, I've created three-part, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES about Your Long-Range Future. They go even further in exploring your prospects and challenges in 2018.
Who do you want to become in the coming months? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? How can you exert your free will to create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?
To listen to these three-part, in-depth reports, go here:
RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." Choose from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the other two.
If you'd like a boost of inspiration to fuel you in your quest for beauty and truth and love and meaning, tune in to my meditations on your Big-Picture outlook.
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Each of the three-part reports is seven to nine minutes long. The cost is $6 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.
P.S. You can also listen to a short-term Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.
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WHAT DID I FORESEE FOR YOU A YEAR AGO?
A year ago, at the beginning of 2017, I wrote big-picture horoscopes that envisioned the opportunities and challenges you’d face in months to come. I thought you might like to re-read them and see how apropos they turned out to be: bit.ly/BigPicture2017
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WHAT'S WORKING WELL AND GOING RIGHT
Nicholas Kristof says: Every other day this year, I promise to weep and scream in outrage at all the things going wrong. But today, let’s consider what’s going right.
Every day, the number of people around the world living in extreme poverty (less than about $2 a day) goes down by 217,000.
Every day, 325,000 more people gain access to electricity. And 300,000 more gain access to clean drinking water.
As recently as the 1960s, a majority of humans had always been illiterate and lived in extreme poverty. Now fewer than 15 percent are illiterate, and fewer than 10 percent live in extreme poverty.
In another 15 years, illiteracy and extreme poverty will be mostly gone. After thousands of generations, they are pretty much disappearing on our watch.
In the 1950s, but not today, the U.S. had segregation, polio, and bans on interracial marriage, gay sex, and birth control. Most of the world lived under dictatorships, two-thirds of parents had a child die before age 5, and it was a time of nuclear standoffs, of pea soup smog, of frequent wars, of stifling limits on women and of the worst famine in history.
Read more: tinyurl.com/y84x9w3f
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NINE WAYS THE WORLD GOT A LOT BETTER IN 2017
1) There was less famine
2) There were fewer war deaths
3) Fewer deaths from natural disasters
4) Progress against pestilence
5) Greater life expectancy
6) More democracy
7) Expanding rights for women and sexual minorities
8) Fewer people living on $2 a day
9) Greener energy
Read about the details: tinyurl.com/y8j2a9j4
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THE 99 BEST THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN 2017:
Read all about it: tinyurl.com/y8yl5bk5
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DIMINISHING POVERTY
In 1981 more than half of the world population was living in poverty. In the 19th century, the figure was close to 95 percent. Today the proportion of the global population living in poverty is down to 21%.
ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
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BEAUTY MAKES YOU SMART?
Do you have an unconscious belief that the forces of evil are loud, vigorous, and strong, while good is quiet, gentle, and passive? Gather evidence that contradicts this irrational prejudice.
Are you secretly suspicious of joy because you think it's inevitably rooted in wishful thinking and a willful ignorance about the true nature of reality? Expose these suspicions as superstitions that aren't grounded in any objective data you can actually prove.
Do you fear that when you're in the presence of love and beauty you tend to become softheaded, whereas you're likely to feel smart and powerful when you're sneering at the ugliness around you?
As an antidote, for a given amount of time, say a week or a month or a year, act as if the following hypothesis were true: that you're more likely to grow smarter when you're in the presence of love and beauty.
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THE JOY OF INSURRECTION
I like to complain and be outraged as much as the next aspiring bodhisattva. I derive a not-so-taboo pleasure from railing against racism, sexism, misogyny, plutocracy, bigotry, and militarism.
But I'm also passionate about crafting a new world that will bypass the vortex of nonsense, that will render the institutionalized mayhem defunct. I value Buckminster Fuller's perspective: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
Another favorite counsel comes from sociologist David Cooperrider: "Almost without exception, everything society has considered a social advance has been prefigured first in some utopian writing."
And that's why I like to commune with idealistic yet practical futurists who envision the best possible civilization we can create.
I'm happy to say that one of those rare Big Positive Thinkers is offering a new blessing. With his book How Soon is Now: From Personal Initiation to Global Transformation, Daniel Pinchbeck has secured his place in my Hall of Fame of Positive and Practical Insurrectionaries.
The book is a manifesto. A call to zealous and compassionate action. A well-thought-out and visionary formulization of effective tactics.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning January 25
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
The pawpaw is a tasty fruit that blends the flavors of mango, banana, and melon. But you rarely find it in grocery stores. One reason is that the fruit ripens very fast after being picked. Another is that the pollination process is complicated. In response to these issues, a plant scientist named Neal Peterson has been trying to breed the pawpaw to be more commercially viable. Because of his work, cultivated crops have finally begun showing up at some farmers' markets. I'd like to see you undertake metaphorically similar labors in 2018, Aquarius. I think you'll have good luck at developing rough potentials into more mature forms of expression. You'll have skill at turning unruly raw materials into more useful resources. Now is a great time to begin.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
An iceberg is a huge chunk of ice that has cracked away from a glacier and drifted off into the open sea. Only nine percent of it is visible above the waterline. The underwater part, which is most of the iceberg, is basically invisible. You can't know much about it just by looking at the top. This is an apt metaphor for life itself. Most everyone and everything we encounter is 91 percent mysterious or hidden or inaccessible to our conscious understanding. That's the weird news, Pisces. The good news is that during the next three weeks you will have an unprecedented ability to get better acquainted with the other 91 percent of anything or anyone you choose to explore.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Anders Haugen competed for the U.S. as a ski jumper in the 1924 Winter Olympics. Although he was an accomplished athlete who had previously set a world record for distance, he won no medals at the games. But wait! Fifty years later, a sports historian discovered that there had a been a scoring mistake back in 1924. In fact, Haugen had done well enough to win the bronze medal. The mistake was rectified, and he finally got his long-postponed award. I foresee a comparable development happening in your life, Aries. Recognition or appreciation you deserved to have received some time ago will finally come your way.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In 1899, Sobhuza II became King of Swaziland even though he was less than five months old. He kept his job for the next 82 years, and along the way managed to play an important role when his nation gained independence from the colonial rule of the United Kingdom. These days you may feel a bit like Sobhuza did when he was still in diapers, Taurus: not sufficiently prepared or mature for the greater responsibilities that are coming your way. But just as he received competent help in his early years from his uncle and grandmother, I suspect you’ll receive the support you'll need to ripen.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
In my ideal world, dancing and singing wouldn't be luxuries practiced primarily by professionals. They would be regular occurrences in our daily routines. We'd dance and sing whenever we needed a break from the numbing trance. We'd whirl and hum to pass the time. We would greet each other with an interpretative movement and a little tune. In schools, dance and song would be a standard part of the curriculum -- as important as math and history. That's my utopian dream, Gemini. What's yours? In accordance with the astrological omens, I urge you to identify the soul medicine you'd love to incorporate into your everyday regimen. Then go ahead and incorporate it! It's time for you to get more aggressive about creating the world you want to live in.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Psychology pioneer Carl Jung believed that most of our big problems can never be fully solved. And that's actually a good thing. Working on them keeps us lively, in a state of constant transformation. It ensures we don't stagnate. I generally agree with Jung's high opinion of our problems. We should indeed be grateful for the way they impel us to grow. However, I think that's irrelevant for you right now. Why? Because you have an unprecedented opportunity to solve and graduate from a major long-running problem. So no, don't be grateful for it. Get rid of it. Say goodbye to it forever.
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EXPLORING THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE
Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures in 2018?
You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in the coming months. Each report in the three-part series is 7 to 9 minutes long.
Go to RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." (Choose from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)
A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.
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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Between now and March 21, you will be invited, encouraged, and pushed to deepen your understanding of intimate relationships. You will have the chance to learn much, much more about how to create the kind of togetherness that both comforts and inspires you. Will you take advantage of this eight-week opportunity? I hope so. You may imagine that you have more pressing matters to attend to. But the fact is that cultivating your relationship skills would transform you in ways that would best serve those other pressing matters.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
In December, mass protests broke out in Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city. Why? The economy had been gradually worsening. Inflation was slowly but surely exacting a toll. Unemployment was increasing. But one of the immediate triggers for the uprising was a 40-percent hike in the price of eggs. It focused the Iranian people's collective angst and galvanized a dramatic response. I'm predicting a comparable sequence in your personal future, Virgo. A specific irritant will emerge, motivating you to stop putting up with trends that have been subtly bothering you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In the late 1980s, Budweiser used a Bull Terrier to promote its Bud Light beer in commercials. The dog, who became mega-famous, was presented as a rich macho party animal named Spuds MacKenzie. The ad campaign was successful, boosting sales 20 percent. But the truth was that the actor playing Spuds was a female dog whose owners called her Evie. To earn money, the poor creature, who was born under the sign of Libra, was forced to assume a false identity. To honor Evie's memory, and in alignment with current astrological omens, I urge you human Libras to strip away any layers of false identity you've been pressured to acquire. Be your Real Self -- to the max.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
The giant panda is a bear native to China. In the wild, its diet is 99 percent bamboo. But bamboo is not an energy-rich food, which means the creature has to compensate by consuming 20 to 30 pounds of the stuff every day. Because it's so busy gathering its sustenance, the panda doesn't have time to do much socializing. I mention this, Scorpio, because I want to offer up the panda as your anti-power animal for the coming weeks. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you should have a diversified approach to getting your needs met -- not just in regards to food, but in every other way as well. Variety is not just the spice of life; it's the essence.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
You're the star of the "movie" that endlessly unfolds in your imagination. There may be a number of other lead actors and actresses, but few if any have your luster and stature. You also have a supporting cast, as well as a full complement of extras. To generate all the adventure you need, your story needs a lot of dramatis personae. In the coming weeks, I suggest that you be alert for certain minor characters who are primed to start playing a bigger role in your narrative. Consider the possibility of inviting them to say and do more to advance the plot.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Thirty-five miles per hour is typically the highest speed attained by the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. That's not very fast. On the other hand, each ship's engine generates 190 megawatts, enough to provide the energy needs of 140,000 houses, and can go more than 20 years without refueling. If you don't mind, I'm going to compare you to one of those aircraft carriers during the next four weeks. You may not be moving fast, but you will have maximum stamina and power.
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HOMEWORK:
Imagine that you're still alive in 2090. What's your life like? 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 2018 Rob Brezsny
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