Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
May 8, 2019
FreeWillAstrology.com
+
Invitation: Go inward and contact the wisest source you know—call it your higher self, your holy guardian angel, Goddess or God, the genius of nature, or your strongest intelligence. Then pose this inquiry: What do I need to become aware of that I wouldn't even know to ask about?
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
BE ASTONISHED
Poet Mary Oliver provides us with this excellent guidance:
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
+
Here are some suggestions I would add:
Make the invisible dark force beautiful.
Create a song out of your moans.
Brag about your wounds.
Sneak gifts to your bad self now and then.
Dissolve the ties that bind you to hollow intelligence.
Train yourself in the art of unpredictability.
Play forever in time's blessing.
Lift up your heart unto the wild sun.
Distribute your favors to the vulnerable ones who can never pay you back.
Fall out of love with fear.
Make beautiful messes in the midst of ugly messes.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
SAVING NATURE
How can we influence people to stop their desecration and extermination of nature? How can we motivate people to stop committing genocide against animal species? My suggestions:
1. Show people scientific data that shocks them into acknowledging how much harm human activity is inflicting.
2. Speak to people about the sin of bequeathing their descendants a damaged, impoverished planet.
3. Ask people to dissolve the unethical greed that leads them to consume so many of the earth's resources and produce too much waste.
4. Cultivate and express smart love for the interconnected web of life. Feel it deeply.
5. Celebrate the fact that there are other forms of consciousness and intelligence besides just the human kind. Cultivate loving relationships with them.
6. Embody the hypothesis that spending time in wild places enhances one's mental hygiene and physical health.
7. Value the feminine as much as the masculine.
8. Cultivate the art of empathy, and demonstrate how to make it flourish in everything you do.
9. Show what it means to think with your heart and feel with your head.
10. Stay in close touch with the Mysterium, the other real world that is the root of the material world.
11. Vow to bring the I-Thou dynamic to bear on all your relationships.
12. Be as curious about intimacy as you are about power.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE SOIL
Poet Gary Snyder wrote:
"I pledge allegiance to the soil
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
with joyful interpenetration for all."
Environmentalist Edward Abbey said, "My loyalties will not be bound by national borders . . . or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language or culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time."
In Moby Dick, Herman Melville suggested that ideally a person should be a "patriot to heaven."
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
BIG UNSOLVED PROBLEM
What's your biggest unsolved problem?
One of mine is: why hasn't the music I've created reached a bigger audience? It's great music!
LISTEN HERE: soundcloud.com/sacreduproar
Here's a list of some of the world's biggest unsolved problems:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
The world's first electrified road opened in Sweden
An international agreement banned commercial fishing in the Arctic
The New Zealand Prime Minister made history by bringing her baby to UN meeting
London became the first of the major global fashion weeks to end the use of animal fur in its shows
A $15 minimum wage seemed impossible. Now it's a reality for a million New Yorkers.
The Chicago crime rate dropped for second year in a row
Oslo, Norway will limit cars in city center
Viet Nam has been making efforts to foster organic farming
Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching team gives abused women a chance to become badass. They protect the animals of Phundundu Wildlife Park in Zimbabwe, watching over 115 square miles of habitat which had been prime trophy hunting ground, home to over 11,000 elephants.
Norway will become the first country that bans palm oil biofuels that are linked to deforestation
(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.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning May 9
Copyright 2019 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
According to science writer Sarah Zielinski in Smithsonian magazine, fireflies produce the most efficient light on planet Earth. Nearly 100 percent of the energy produced by the chemical reaction inside the insect's body is emitted as a brilliant glow. With that in mind, I propose that you regard the firefly as your spirit creature in the coming weeks. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you, too, will be a dynamic and proficient generator of luminosity. For best results, don't tone down your brilliance, even if it illuminates shadows people are trying to hide.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Here's a message from author Susan J. Elliott: "This is not your week to run the Universe. Next week is not looking so good either." Now here's a message from me: Elliott's revelation is very good news! Since you won't have to worry about trying to manage and fine-tune the Universe, you can focus all your efforts on your own self-care. And the coming weeks will be a favorable time to do just that. You're due to dramatically upgrade your understanding of what you need to feel healthy and happy, and then take the appropriate measures to put your new insights into action.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
The next three weeks will be an excellent time to serve as your own visionary prophet and dynamic fortune-teller. The predictions and conjectures you make about your future destiny will have an 85-percent likelihood of being accurate. They will also be relatively free of fear and worries. So I urge you to give your imagination permission to engage in fun fantasies about what's ahead for you. Be daringly optimistic and exuberantly hopeful and brazenly self-celebratory.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Leo poet Stanley Kunitz told his students, "You must be very careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin." That's useful advice for anyone who spawns anything, not just poets. There's something unruly and unpredictable about every creative idea or fresh perspective that rises up in us. Do you remember when you first felt the urge to look for a new job or move to a new city or search for a new kind of relationship? Wildness was there at the inception. And you needed to stay in touch with the wildness so as to follow through with practical action. That's what I encourage you to do now. Reconnect with the wild origins of the important changes you're nurturing.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
I have no complaints about the measures you've taken recently to push past unnecessary limits and to break outworn taboos. In fact, I celebrate them. Keep going! You'll be better off without those decaying constraints. Soon you'll begin using all the energy you have liberated and the spaciousness you have made available. But I do have one concern: I wonder if part of you is worried that you have been too bold and have gone too far. To that part of you I say: No! You haven't been too bold. You haven't gone too far.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
"Dreamt of a past that frees its prisoners." So wrote Meena Alexander in her poem "Question Time." I'd love for you to have that experience in the coming weeks. I'd love for you be released from the karma of your history so that you no longer have to repeat old patterns or feel weighed down by what happened to you once upon a time. I'd love for you to no longer have to answer to decayed traditions and outmoded commitments and lost causes. I'd love for you to escape the pull of memories that tend to drag you back toward things that can't be changed and don't matter any more.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LOSING WHAT'S NO GOOD FOR YOU
An earthy psychic once told me that my first name "Rob" is an apt description of my spiritual function. "You're here on earth to rob people of their godawful belief that life is a bitch," she advised me. "Your job is to steal away the habits that sap their life energy; to rip off the sorry-ass dogmas that blind them to the wondrous feats their imaginations are capable of."
I don't know if I have fully earned that glowing promise, but I certainly aspire to do so.
If you ever want more information and inspiration generated in this spirit -- beyond the horoscopes you're reading here -- keep in mind that every week I also offer EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for you. They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the current state of your destiny.
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 freewillastrology.sparkns.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 On the Web. (Discounts are available for bulk purchases.) You can also access them for $1.99 per minute by phone.
+
"Your Expanded Audio Horoscopes provide me with the Rest of the Story. I'm not necessarily a believer in the scientific accuracy of astrology, but I do think you've got a lot of practical wisdom to impart."
- M. Tennenbaum, New York
"No one knows more about me than me. But you're right up there near the top of the list of people who do understand something about how I tick. How is that possible?"
- R. Goren, Albuquerque
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
"Desire is a profoundly upsetting force," writes author Elspeth Probyn. "It may totally rearrange what we think we want. Desire skews plans and sets forth unthought-of possibilities." In my opinion, Probyn's statements are half-true. The other half of the truth is that desire can also be a profoundly healing and rejuvenating force, and for the same reasons: it rearranges what we think we want, alters plans, and unleashes unthought-of possibilities. How does all this relate to you? From what I can tell, you are now on the cusp of desire's two overlapping powers. What happens next could be upsetting or healing, disorienting or rejuvenating. If you'd like to emphasize the healing and rejuvenating, I suggest you treat desire as a sacred gift and a blessing.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
"So much of what we learn about love is taught by people who never really loved us." My Sagittarian friend Ellen made that sad observation. Is it true for you? Ellen added the following thoughts: so much of what we learn about love is taught by people who were too narcissistic or wounded to be able to love very well; and by people who didn't have many listening skills and therefore didn't know enough about us to love us for who we really are; and by people who love themselves poorly and so of course find it hard to love anyone else. Is any of this applicable to what you have experienced, Sagittarius? If so, here's an antidote that I think you'll find effective during the next seven weeks: identify the people who have loved you well and the people who might love you well in the future—and then vow to learn all you can from them.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Capricorn fantasy novelist Laini Taylor creates imaginary worlds where heroines use magic and wiles to follow their bliss while wrangling with gods and rascals. In describing her writing process, she says, "Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead languages, weird folk beliefs, and fascinating religions." She adds, "I have plundered tidbits of history and lore to build something new, using only the parts that light my mind on fire." I encourage you to adopt her strategies for your own use in the coming weeks. Be alert for gleaming goodies and tricky delicacies and alluring treats. Use them to create new experiences that thrill your imagination. I believe the coming weeks will be an excellent time to use your magic and wiles to follow your bliss while wrangling with gods and rascals.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
"I was always asking for the specific thing that wasn't mine," wrote poet Joanne Kyger. "I wanted a haven that wasn't my own." If there is any part of you that resonates with that defeatist perspective, Aquarius, now is an excellent time to begin outgrowing or transforming it. I guarantee you that you'll have the potency you need to retrain yourself: so that you will more and more ask for specific things that can potentially be yours; so that you will more and more want a haven that can be your own.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
I'm not a fan of nagging. I don't like to be nagged and I scrupulously avoid nagging others. And yet now I will break my own rules so as to provide you with your most accurate and helpful horoscope. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you aren't likely to get what you truly need and deserve in the coming days unless you engage in some polite, diplomatic nagging. So see what you can do to employ nagging as a graceful, even charming art. For best results, infuse it with humor and playfulness.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Time to shake things up! In the next three weeks, I invite you to try at least three of the following experiments. 1. See unusual sights in familiar situations. 2. Seek out new music that both calms you and excites you. 3. Get an inspiring statue or image of a favorite deity or hero. 4. Ask for a message from the person you will be three years from now. 5. Use your hands and tongue in ways you don't usually use them. 6. Go in quest of a cathartic release that purges frustration and rouses holy passion. 7. Locate the sweet spot where deep feeling and deep thinking overlap.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HOMEWORK:
Nietzsche said, "One must have chaos within oneself if one is to be a dancing star." Are you a dancing star? Comment at FreeWillAstrology.com.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 2019 Rob Brezsny
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
