Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter May 9, 2018

 Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
 May 9, 2018
 FreeWillAstrology.com

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You can also contribute to my well-being by buying the Expanded Audio Horoscopes I create every week. These forecasts are different in tone and content from the written horoscopes I provide here. They're my four- to five-minute-long ruminations about the current chapter of your life story. They're available at RealAstrology.com.

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"Dear Rob -

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- Sylvia R. in Austin, TX - Long-Time Listener, First-Time Caller

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LOVE RULES

"I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
- Vincent van Gogh

"Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love."
- Leo Tolstoy

"Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself."
- Emily Dickinson

"Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal."
- Sark

"For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It is the work for which all other work is mere preparation."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

"If you do not love too much, you do not love enough."
- Blaise Pascal

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."
 - Erica Jong

"Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don't stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies."
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's sweet."
- Pablo Neruda

"The most vital right is the right to love and be loved."
- Emma Goldman

"Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Letters to a Young Poet," translated by Stephen Mitchell

"There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don’t work."
- Anaïs Nin

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SHADOW BLESSINGS

Here's a spell to commit pronoia, authored by psychotherapist Jennifer Welwood. I invite you to say it.

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;

Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within me;

Opening to my loss and pain and ignorance,
I remember who I am and what I'm here for.

Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.

Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me

and becomes itself transformed
into the blessing it always was.

Listen to this piece as a spoken-word piece: bit.ly/1dNU0Gf

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THE ETHICAL VALUE OF MEDITATION

"Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent.

“If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed?

“Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states."

~ Eknath Easwaran

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KICK YOUR OWN ASS

The people I trust the most are those who are always tenderly wrestling and negotiating with their own shadows, making preemptive strikes on their personal share of the world's evil, fighting the good fight to keep from spewing their darkness on those around them. I aspire to be like that, which is why I regularly kick my own ass.

How-to-kick-your-own-ass lessons are available at 2:20 of this video: bit.ly/1QWemwr

How-to-kick-your-own-ass lessons are also available at 7:30 of this video: bit.ly/1T6Z7jp

Here's the "Kick Your Own Ass" anthem: bit.ly/1jdAyEz

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The Tragic Magic Triad: taking things too personally, taking things too literally, and taking things too seriously.

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ART BEYOND RAGE

"I do want to create art beyond rage. Rage is a place to begin, but not end.

"I do want to devour my demons—despair, grief, shame, fear—and use them to nourish my art. Otherwise they’ll devour me."

- Sandra Cisneros, from "I Can Live Sola and I Love to Work," in her book A House of My Own: Stories From My Life
 

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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Even The New York Times has a “Good News” section now: tinyurl.com/y88vcllz

What You Learn from a Life Surrounded By Troublemaking, Kickass Women.
tinyurl.com/y9zjvezm

Why Americans Score Lower on Happiness Every Year—And What to Do About It
tinyurl.com/y7uwa6a4

(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 May 10

Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

Born under the sign of Taurus, Edmund Wilson was a renowned twentieth-century author and critic who wrote more than 30 books. He also served as editor for Vanity Fair and The New Republic, and influenced the work of at least seven major American novelists. When he was growing up, he spent most of his free time reading books: 16 hours a day during summer vacations. His parents, worried about his obsessive passion, bought him a baseball uniform, hoping to encourage him to diversify his interests. His response was to wear the uniform while reading books 16 hours a day. I trust you will be equally dedicated to your own holy cause or noble pursuit in the coming weeks, Taurus. You have cosmic clearance to be single-minded about doing what you love.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

It's possible you could pass for normal in the next three weeks; you might be able to fool a lot of people into thinking you're an average, ordinary contributor to the dull routine. But it will be far healthier for your relationship with yourself if you don't do such a thing. It will also be a gift to your less daring associates, who in my opinion would benefit from having to engage with your creative agitation and fertile chaos. So my advice is to reveal yourself as an imperfect work-in-progress who's experimenting with novel approaches to the game of life. Recognize your rough and raw features as potential building blocks for future achievements.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

"Paradise is scattered over the whole earth," wrote the scientific poet Novalis, "and that is why it has become so unrecognizable." Luckily for you, Cancerian, quite a few fragments of paradise are gathering in your vicinity. It'll be like a big happy reunion of tiny miracles all coalescing to create a substantial dose of sublimity. Will you be ready to deal with this much radiance? Will you be receptive to so much relaxing freedom? I hope and pray you won't make a cowardly retreat into the trendy cynicism that so many people mistake for intelligence. (Because in that case, paradise might remain invisible.) Here's my judicious advice: Be insistent on pleasure! Be voracious for joy! Be focused on the quest for beautiful truths!

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

These days, your friends and allies and loved ones want even more from you than they usually do. They crave more of your attention, more of your approval, more of your feedback. And that's not all. Your friends and allies and loved ones also hope you will give more love to yourself. They will be excited and they will feel blessed if you express an even bigger, brighter version of your big, bright soul. They will draw inspiration from your efforts to push harder and stronger to fulfill your purpose here on Planet Earth.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

One of the advantages you get from reading my horoscopes is that I offer confidential information about the gods' caprices and leanings. For example, I can tell you that Saturn -- also known as Father Time -- is now willing to allot you a more luxurious relationship with time than usual, on one condition: that you don't squander the gift on trivial pursuits. So I encourage you to be discerning and disciplined about nourishing your soul’s craving for interesting freedom. If you demonstrate to Saturn how constructively you can use his blessing, he'll be inclined to provide more dispensations in the future.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night hangs on a wall in New York's Museum of Modern Art. He created it in 1889 while living in a French asylum. Around that same time, 129 years ago, a sheepherder in Wyoming created a sourdough starter that is still fresh today. A cook named Lucille Clarke Dumbrill regularly pulls this frothy mass of yeast out of her refrigerator and uses it to make pancakes. In the coming weeks, Libra, I'd love to see you be equally resourceful in drawing on an old resource. The past will have offerings that could benefit your future.
 

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MAYBE JOY AND PLEASURE ARE ESSENTIAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES

Assume that your drive to experience pleasure and happiness isn't a barrier to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you every day.

For inspiration in practicing this approach, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES. They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the current state of your destiny.

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.

The Expanded Audio Horoscopes work on most smart phones and tablets.

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"Your Expanded Audio Horoscopes seem to have the effect of activating my inner teacher. Thanks!" - Eleanor A., Toronto

"Your expanded audio horoscopes are the next best thing to actually having you here next to me to remind me who I really am." - Alyssa R., Des Moines, Iowa

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

Love everyone twice as much and twice as purely as you ever have before. Your mental health requires it! Your future dreams demand it! And please especially intensify your love for people you allegedly already love but sometimes don't treat as well as you could because you take them for granted. Keep this Bible verse in mind, as well: "Don't neglect to show kindness to strangers; for, in this way, some, without knowing it, have had angels as their guests."

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

After meditating on your astrological aspects for an hour, I dozed off. As I napped, I had a dream in which an androgynous angel came to me and said, "Please inform your Sagittarius readers that they should be callipygian in the next two weeks." Taken aback, my dreaming self said to the angel, "You mean 'callipygian' as in 'having beautiful buttocks'?" "Yes, sir," the angel replied. "Bootylicious. Bumtastic. Rumpalicious." I was puzzled. "You mean like in a metaphorical way?" I asked. "You mean Sagittarians should somehow cultivate the symbolic equivalent of having beautiful buttocks?" "Yes," the angel said. "Sagittarians should be elegantly well-grounded. Flaunt their exquisite foundation. Get to the bottom of things with flair. Be sexy badasses as they focus on the basics." "OK!" I said.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

Now is a favorable time to discuss in elegant detail the semi-secret things that are rarely or never talked about. It's also a perfect moment to bring deep feelings and brave tenderness into situations that have been suffering from half-truths and pretense. Be aggressively sensitive, my dear Capricorn. Take a bold stand in behalf of compassionate candor. And as you go about these holy tasks, be entertaining as well as profound. The cosmos has authorized you to be a winsome agent of change.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

In his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali shows three clocks that seem to be partially liquefied, as if in the process of melting. His biographer Meredith Etherington-Smith speculated that he was inspired to create this surrealistic scene when he saw a slab of warm Camembert cheese melting on a dinner table. I foresee the possibility of a comparable development in your life, Aquarius. Be alert for creative inspiration that strikes you in the midst of seemingly mundane circumstances.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

"My whole life is messed up with people falling in love with me," said Piscean poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. She spoke the truth. She inspired a lot of adoration, and it stirred up more chaos than she was capable of managing. Luckily, you will have fewer problems with the attention coming your way, Pisces. I bet you'll be skilled at gathering the benefits and you'll be unflummoxed by the pitfalls. But you'll still have to work hard at these tasks. Here's some help. Tip #1: Stay in close touch with how you really feel about the people who express their interest in you. Tip #2: Don't accept gifts with strings attached. Tip #3: Just because you're honored or flattered that someone finds you attractive doesn't mean you should unquestioningly blend your energies with them.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):

The Torah is a primary sacred text of the Jewish religion. It consists of exactly 304,805 letters. When specially trained scribes make handwritten copies for ritual purposes, they must not make a single error in their transcription. The work may take as long as 18 months. Your attention to detail in the coming weeks doesn't have to be quite so painstaking, Aries, but I hope you'll make a strenuous effort to be as diligent as you can possibly be.
 

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HOMEWORK:

Do you allow your imagination to indulge in fantasies that are wasteful, damaging, or dumb? I dare you to stop it. 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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