Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
June 13, 2018
FreeWillAstrology.com
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FEELING FOREVER AMAZED
"If everything seems under control," said auto racer Mario Andretti, "you're probably not moving fast enough."
I second that emotion. It applies to the entire human race, which is swirling through evolutionary tipping points at an accelerating speed. But it's doubly apropos for you spiritual freedom fighters and renegade bodhisattvas, because you're the vanguard shock troops fighting to merge heaven with earth.
For your edification and amusement, we will add three corollaries to Andretti's wisdom: 1. If you're not pretty much always half-confused, most likely you're not thinking deeply enough. 2. If you're not feeling forever amazed, maybe you're not seeing wildly enough. 3. The truth is fluid, slippery, vagrant, scrambled, promiscuous, kaleidoscopic, and outrageously abundant.
How might you go about using these tricks to marinate yourself in a gentle state of discerning bliss on a regular basis?
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UNIMAGINED FORMS OF FREEDOM
"The people of future generations will win many a liberty of which we do not yet even feel the want," said German philosopher Max Stirner. See if you can become aware of an interesting freedom that has not previously been on your radar screen.
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DOES THE WORD "FAITH" HAVE ANY MEANING TO YOU?
Here's Caroline Myss' explanation of faith: "Faith is the power to stand up to the madness and chaos of the physical world while holding the position that nothing external has any authority over what heaven has in mind for you."
If you don't like the word "heaven" in Myss' statement, substitute a term that works for you, like "your higher self" or "your destiny" or "your soul's code."
Modify anything else in it that's not right for your needs, as well. When you're finished tinkering, I hope you'll have created a definition of faith that motivates you with as much primal power as you feel when you're in love.
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WANT TO GET YOUR ASTROLOGICAL CHART READ?
If you want your personal chart done, I recommend a colleague whose approach to reading astrology charts closely matches my own. She's my wife, RO LOUGHRAN. She's at www.roloughran.com.
Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation. She is skilled at exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your connection with your own inner wisdom.
In addition to over 30 years of astrological experience, Ro has been a licensed psychotherapist for 17 years. She integrates psychological insight with astrology's cosmological perspective.
Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.
Check out Ro's website at www.roloughran.com
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CULTIVATING INSPIRATION
Poet Kay Ryan told the Christian Science Monitor how she cultivates the inspiration to write. She rouses the sense of a "self-imposed emergency," thereby calling forth psychic resources that usually materialize only in response to a crisis.
Please note that she doesn't provoke an actual emergency: She doesn't arrange to have a loved one get pinned beneath the wheels of a car. She doesn't climb out onto the window ledge on the 22nd story of a high-rise. Instead, she visualizes hypothetical situations that galvanize her to shift into a dramatically heightened state of awareness.
What imagined emergencies could you invoke to inspire your deep self to rise up and make its mark?
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YOU ARE CIRCLING
I love this excerpt from "The Seeker," a poem by Rilke in his Book of Hours (translated by Robert Bly): "I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, / and I have been circling for a thousand years, / and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, / or a great song."
Here's my own permutation: "I am circling around love, around the throbbing hum, and I have been circling for thousands of days, and I still don't know if I am a wounded saint, or a rainy dawn, or a creation story."
Compose your own version.
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DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL FUN
The Doctrine of Original Sin? We spit on it. We reject it. We renounce it and forget it and annihilate it from reality. In its place we embrace the Doctrine of Original Fun.
This reformulation asserts that it is our birthright to commune with regular doses of curious beauty and tricky truth and insurrectionary love. A robust, heroic joy is even now roaring through us, bringing us good ideas about how to apply the metaphor of ingenious foreplay to everything we do.
We will not waste this euphoric deluge on any of the million and one numbing little diversions that pass for pleasure among the ecstasy-starved pursuers of mediocre joy. Rather, we will remain ever alert for the call of primordial delight.
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COMPASSION THERAPY
If you're reading this, you're probably not a Cambodian orphan who grew up as a slave in a brothel or a Sudanese man kidnapped by a militia and forced to do heavy labor 18 hours a day or one of the millions of other victims of human trafficking around the world. But you may be yoked and subjugated in a less literal way, perhaps to a debilitating drug or an abusive relationship or a job that brings out the worst in you or a fearful fantasy about the looming collapse of civilization's infrastructure.
The good news is that you have the power to escape your bondage. Maybe it'll help you muster the strength you need if I remind you that your freedom won't be anywhere near as difficult to achieve as that of the Pakistani boy tied to a carpet loom in a dark room around the clock or the Nigerian woman who's beaten daily as she toils in the sugar cane fields for no pay.
Try this: When you feel overwhelmed by the sadness of your problems or the addiction of your compulsions, put on your best clothes and clean toilets at a homeless shelter, or give foot massages to senior citizens at a retirement home, or sing songs, sip champagne, and play card games with patients at a psychiatric hospital. Be ready to get hit upside the soul with exotic varieties of ecstasy, which such acts may unleash.
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DOORWAYS TO ECSTASY
Alice finds her way to Wonderland by falling down a rabbit hole. Dorothy rides to Oz on a tornado. In C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy stumbles into the magical land of Narnia via a portal in the back of a large clothes cabinet.
In the sequels to all these adventures, however, the heroines must find different ways to access their exotic dreamlands. Alice slips through a mirror next time. Dorothy uses a Magic Belt. Lucy leaps into a painting of a schooner that becomes real.
Take heed of these precedents. The next time a threshold opens into an alternative reality you've enjoyed in the past, it may not resemble the doorways you've used before.
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LOVE AMONG THE IMAGES
I swear the strange woman standing near me at Los Angeles' Getty Museum was having an erotic experience as she gazed upon van Gogh's Irises. She was not touching herself, nor was anyone else. But she was apparently experiencing waves of convulsive delight, as suggested by her rapid breathing, shivering muscles, fluttering eyelids, and sweaty forehead.
Fifteen minutes later, I saw her again in front of Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Fountain of Love. She was only slightly more composed. In a friendly voice, I said, "This stuff really moves you, doesn't it?" "Oh, yeah," she replied, "I've not only learned how to make love with actual flowers and clouds and fountains, I can even make love with paintings of them."
Do you have any interest in mastering the method in this maestro's madness? Where will you begin?
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The preceding blips are excerpts from my book
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA
It's available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
110 Confederate monuments removed since 2015
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(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.
Read old but still useful archives of Pronoia Resources: pronoiaresources.com
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning June 14
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
"Whether you love what you love or live in divided ceaseless revolt against it, what you love is your fate." Gemini poet Frank Bidart wrote that in his poem "Guilty of Dust," and now I offer it to you. Why? Because it's an excellent time to be honest with yourself as you identify whom and what you love. It's also a favorable phase to assess whether you are in any sense at odds with whom and what you love; and if you find you are, to figure out how to be in more harmonic alignment with whom and what you love. Finally, dear Gemini, now is a key moment to vividly register the fact that the story of your life in the coming years will pivot around your relationship with whom and what you love.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Congratulations on the work you've done to cleanse the psychic toxins from your soul, Cancerian. I love how brave you've been as you've jettisoned outworn shticks, inadequate theories, and irrelevant worries. It makes my heart sing to have seen you summon the self-respect necessary to stick up for your dreams in the face of so many confusing signals. I do feel a tinge of sadness that your heroism hasn't been better appreciated by those around you. Is there anything you can do to compensate? Like maybe intensify the appreciation you give yourself?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I hope you're reaching the final stages of your year-long project to make yourself as solid and steady as possible. I trust you have been building a stable foundation that will serve you well for at least the next five years. I pray you have been creating a rich sense of community and establishing vital new traditions and surrounding yourself with environments that bring out the best in you. If there's any more work to be done in these sacred tasks, intensify your efforts in the coming weeks. If you're behind schedule, please make up for lost time.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
"Necessity is the mother of invention," says an old proverb. In other words, when your need for some correction or improvement becomes overwhelming, you may be driven to get creative. Engineer Allen Dale put a different spin on the issue. He said that "if necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness is the father." Sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein agreed, asserting that "progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." I'm not sure if necessity or laziness will be your motivation, Virgo, but I suspect that the coming weeks could be a golden age of invention for you. What practical innovations might you launch? What useful improvements can you finagle? (P.S. Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead attributed the primary drive for innovative ideas and gizmos to "pleasurable intellectual curiosity.")
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Would you have turned out wiser and wealthier if you had dropped out of school in third grade? Would it have been better to apprentice yourself to a family of wolves or coyotes rather than trusting your educational fate to institutions whose job it was to acclimate you to society's madness? I'm happy to let you know that you're entering a phase when you'll find it easier than usual to unlearn any old conditioning that might be suppressing your ability to fulfill your rich potentials. I urge you to seek out opportunities to unleash your skills and enhance your intelligence.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
The temptation to overdramatize is strong. Going through with a splashy but messy conclusion may have a perverse appeal. But why not wrap things up with an elegant whisper instead of a garish bang? Rather than impressing everyone with how amazingly complicated your crazy life is, why not quietly lay the foundations for a low-key resolution that will set the stage for a productive sequel? Taking the latter route will be much easier on your karma, and in my opinion will make for just as interesting a story.
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YOU NEED MAGIC EVERY DAY
Every day, you have to wade through a relentless surge of soul-less facts. The experience tends to shut down your sense of wonder.
Every day, you're over-exposed to cynical narratives that have been sucked free of delight and mystery. That's why you have to make such strenuous efforts to keep your world enchanted.
I like to think I can contribute to the sacred cause of feeding your sense of wonder and enchantment. In fact, that's one of my prime motivations for offering you the free weekly horoscopes you read in this newsletter.
If you ever want more of that good stuff, and think it's worth paying for, please consider trying out my 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.
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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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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Each of us harbors rough, vulnerable, controversial, or unhoned facets of our identity. And every one of us periodically reaches turning points when it becomes problematic to keep those qualities buried or immature. We need to make them more visible and develop their potential. I suspect you have arrived at such a turning point. So on behalf of the cosmos, I hereby invite you to enjoy a period of ripening and self-revelation. And I do mean "enjoy." Find a way to have fun.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
For the next two-plus weeks, an unusual rule will be in effect: The more you lose, the more you gain. That means you will have an aptitude for eliminating hassles, banishing stress, and shedding defense mechanisms. You'll be able to purge emotional congestion that has been preventing clarity. You'll have good intuitions about how to separate yourself from influences that have made you weak or angry. I'm excited for you, Capricorn! A load of old, moldy karma could dissolve and disperse in what seems like a twinkling. If all goes well, you'll be traveling much lighter by July 1.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
I suggest you avoid starting a flirtatious correspondence with a convict who'll be in jail for another 28 years. OK? And don't snack on fugu, the Japanese delicacy that can poison you if the cook isn't careful about preparing it. Please? And don't participate in a séance where the medium summons the spirits of psychotic ancestors or diabolical celebrities with whom you imagine it might be interesting to converse. Got that? I understand you might be in the mood for high adventure and out-of-the-ordinary escapades. And that will be fine and healthy as long as you also exert a modicum of caution and discernment.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
I suggest that you pat yourself on the back with both hands as you sing your own praises and admire your own willful beauty in three mirrors simultaneously. You have won stirring victories over not just your own personal version of the devil, but also over your own inertia and sadness. From what I can determine, you have corralled what remains of the forces of darkness into a comfy holding cell, sealing off those forces from your future. They won't bother you for a very long time, maybe never again. Right now you would benefit from a sabbatical -- a vacation from all this high-powered character-building. May I suggest you pay a restorative visit to the Land of Sweet Nonsense?
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
My Aries acquaintance Tatiana decided to eliminate sugar from her diet. She drew up a plan to avoid it completely for 30 days, hoping to permanently break its hold over her. I was surprised to learn that she began the project by making a Dessert Altar in her bedroom, where she placed a chocolate cake and five kinds of candy. She testified that it compelled her willpower to work even harder and become even stronger than if she had excluded all sweet treats from her sight. Do you think this strenuous trick might work for you as you battle your own personal equivalent of a sugar addiction? If not, devise an equally potent strategy. You're on the verge of forever escaping a temptation that's no good for you. Or you're close to vanquishing an influence that has undermined you. Or both.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
You have caressed and finessed The Problem. You have tickled and teased and tinkered with it. Now I suggest you let it alone for a while. Give it breathing room. Allow it to evolve under the influence of the tweaks you have instigated. Although you may need to return and do further work in a few weeks, my guess is that The Problem's knots are now destined to metamorphose into seeds. The awkwardness you massaged with your love and care will eventually yield a useful magic.
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HOMEWORK:
Many of us try to motivate ourselves through abusive self-criticism. Do you? If so, maybe it's time to change. 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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