Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
August 14, 2019
FreeWillAstrology.com
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Sometimes we have a strong sense of what our destiny is calling us to do, but we don't feel quite ready or brave enough to answer the call. We need a push, an intervention, a serendipitous stroke—what you might call "Fate Bait."
FATE BAIT is a person or event that awakens our dormant willpower and draws us inexorably toward our necessary destiny; it's a thunderbolt or siren song or stage whisper that gives us a good excuse to go do what we know we should do.
Do you have any ideas about how to put yourself in the vicinity of your fate bait?
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MY UPCOMING PERFORMANCE IN NEW YORK CITY
For years I've been in a hermetic mode, working on creating new books. (Not done yet!) But I'm emerging from my pastoral sanctuary to do a poetry show in New York City on Friday, September 13.
I'll be opening for two amazing poets whose work thrills me: Ariana Reines and CA Conrad. As an added aspect of crazy goodness, my daughter Zoe Brezsny will join me in opening the show.
Here's the info: tinyurl.com/PoetryNYC
(And in the meantime, check out Ariana Reines' sensational new book: tinyurl.com/PoetryMedicine)
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BEGINNER'S HEART
To achieve what the Zen Buddhists call "beginner's mind," you dispense with all preconceptions and enter each situation as if seeing it for the first time."In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities," wrote Shunryu Suzuki in his book "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," "but in the expert's there are few."
As much as I love beginner's mind, though, I advocate an additional discipline: cultivating a beginner's heart. That means approaching every encounter imbued with a freshly invoked wave of love that is as pure as if you're feeling it for the first time.
"Before we can receive the entire truth about anything," said my teacher Ann Davies, "we have to love it."
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TO BE THE BEST PRONOIAC EXPLORER
To be the best pronoiac explorer you can be, I suggest you adopt an outlook that combines the rigorous objectivity of a scientist, the "beginner's mind" of Zen Buddhism, the "beginner's heart" of pronoia, and the compassionate friendliness of the Dalai Lama. Blend a scrupulously dispassionate curiosity with a skepticism driven by expansiveness, not spleen.
To pull this off, you'll have to be willing to regularly suspend your brilliant theories about the way the world works. Accept with good humor the possibility that what you've learned in the past may not be a reliable guide to understanding the fresh phenomenon that's right in front of you. Be suspicious of your biases, even the rational and benevolent ones. Open your heart as you strip away the interpretations that your emotions might be inclined to impose.
"Before we can receive the unbiased truth about anything," wrote my teacher Ann Davies, "we have to be ready to ignore what we would like to be true."
At the same time, don't turn into a hard-ass, poker-faced robot. Keep your feelings moist and receptive. Remember your natural affection for all of creation. Enjoy the power of tender sympathy as it drives you to probe for the unimaginable revelations of every new moment.
I'll quote this gem from Ann Davies again, because it's the foundation of my life: "Before we can receive the entire truth about anything, we have to love it."
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TIPS FOR CHANGING THINGS
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
—Buckminster Fuller
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We have to encourage the future we want rather than trying to prevent the future we fear.
—Bill Joy
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The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
—Dan Millman
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You Can't Have It All, by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree
and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green.
You can have the touch
of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m.
to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat
and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says,
If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled,
and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so.
You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious,
like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot
over the red kidneys
until you realize foam's twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center
between a man's legs,
so solid, so doll-like.
You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments,
never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard
who'll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something.
You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly.
You can't bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget
hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together.
And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face,
half spice, half amnesia,
grateful for Mozart, his many notes
racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin,
and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva.
You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt
and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather
sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while,
you can have clouds and letters,
the leaping of distances,
and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can't count on grace
to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you
how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel,
farms in the mind
as real as Africa.
And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory
of the black swan on the pond of your childhood,
the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you
while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will,
like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.
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RETIRING FROM THE STRUGGLE OF JUDGING OTHERS
Thomas Merton's notion of what makes a saint doesn't have to do with being a perfectly sinless paragon of virtue. The more important measure of sanctity, he said, is one's ability to see what's good and beautiful in other people. The truly holy person "retires from the struggle of judging others."
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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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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
India supplied over two thirds of AIDS medication globally over the last two decades, bringing the treatment cost down from $414 per person per year to $74 per person per year. This also supported the number of infected people getting treatment increasing over five-fold during the last decade.
tinyurl.com/yxayt3xe
Wind outpaces coal as a power source in Texas for the first time.
tinyurl.com/y33567s5
A flicker of hope in the insect world: firefly and monarch butterfly umbers are up.
tinyurl.com/y4ney8sb
(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 August 15
Copyright 2019 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Moray eels have two sets of jaws. The front set does their chewing. The second set, normally located behind the first, can be launched forward to snag prey they want to eat. In invoking this aggressive strategy to serve as a metaphor for you in the coming weeks, I want to suggest that you be very dynamic and enterprising as you go after what you want and need. Don’t be rude and invasive, of course, but consider the possibility of being audacious and zealous.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
It's relatively rare, but now and then people receive money or gifts from donors they don't know. Relatives they've never met may bequeath them diamond tiaras or alpaca farms or bundles of cash. I don't think that's exactly what will occur for you in the coming weeks, but I do suspect that you'll garner blessings or help from unexpected sources. To help ensure the best possible versions of these acts of grace, I suggest that you be as generous as possible in the kindness and attention you offer. Remember this verse from the Bible: "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it."
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Libra-born Ronald McNair was an African American who grew up in a racist town in South Carolina in the 1950s. The bigotry cramped his freedom, but he rebelled. When he was nine years old, he refused to leave a segregated library, which prompted authorities to summon the police. Years later, McNair earned a PhD in Physics from MIT and became renowned for his research on laser physics. Eventually, NASA chose him to be an astronaut from a pool of 10,000 candidates. That library in South Carolina? It's now named after him. I suspect that you, too, will soon receive some vindication, Libra: a reward or blessing or consecration that will reconfigure your past.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Scorpio author Zadie Smith wrote, "In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution—is not my solution." I think it will be perfectly fine if sometime soon you speak those words to a person you care about. In delivering such a message, you won't be angry or dismissive. Rather, you will be establishing good boundaries between you and your ally; you will be acknowledging the fact that the two of you are different people with different approaches to life. And I bet that will ultimately make you closer.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
"Nothing fruitful ever comes when plants are forced to flower in the wrong season," wrote author and activist Bette Lord. That's not entirely true. For example, skilled and meticulous gardeners can compel tulip and hyacinth bulbs to flower before they would naturally be able to. But as a metaphor, Lord's insight is largely accurate. And I think you'll be wise to keep it in mind during the coming weeks. So my advice is: don't try to make people and processes ripen before they are ready. But here's a caveat: you might have modest success working to render them a bit more ready.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
"For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown." Poet A. R. Ammons formulated that shiny burst of wisdom, and now I'm passing it on to you. As I think you know, you tend to have more skill at and a greater inclination toward the small, concrete, limited, and certain. That's why, in my opinion, it's rejuvenating for you to periodically exult in and explore what's large, vague, unlimited, unknown. Now is one of those times.
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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 and nihilistic stories 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 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.
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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
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"Your expanded horoscopes get more personal and intimate with me than some of my closest friends. Thanks for the loving reflections."
- Ari S., Ann Arbor, MI
"When I listen to your audio 'scopes, my free will lights up." - Alex D., Los Angeles
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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
"Look into my eyes. Kiss me, and you will see how important I am." Poet Sylvia Plath wrote that, and now, in accordance with astrological omens, I'm authorizing you to say something similar to anyone who is interested in you but would benefit from gazing more deeply into your soul and entering into a more profound relationship with your mysteries. In other words, you have cosmic permission to be more forthcoming in showing people your beauty and value.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
In his Anti-Memoirs, author André Malraux quotes a tough-minded priest who served in the French Resistance during World War II. He spent his adult life hearing his parishioners' confessions. "The fundamental fact is that there's no such thing as a grown-up person," the priest declared. Even if that's mostly true, Pisces, my sense is that it is less true about you right now than it has ever been. In the past months, you have been doing good work to become more of a fully realized version of yourself. I expect that the deepening and maturation process is reaching a culmination. Don't underestimate your success! Celebrate it!
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
How did sound technicians create the signature roar of the fictional monster Godzilla? They slathered pine-tar resin on a leather glove and stroked it against the strings of a double bass. How about the famous howl of the fictional character Tarzan? Sonic artists blended a hyena's screech played backwards, a dog's growl, a soprano singer's fluttered intonation slowed down, and an actor's yell. Karen O, lead singer of the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, periodically unleashes very long screams that may make the hair stand up on the back of her listeners’ necks. In accordance with astrological omens, I’d love to see you experiment with creating your own personal Yowl or Laugh or Whisper of Power in the coming weeks: a unique sound that would boost your wild confidence and help give you full access to your primal lust for life.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
"If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough," said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, ex-President of Liberia. In accordance with astrological imperatives, I propose that we make that your watchword for the foreseeable future. From what I can tell, you're due to upgrade your long-term goals. You have the courage and vision necessary to dare yourself toward an even more fulfilling destiny than you've been willing or ready to imagine up until now.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
How did our ancestors ever figure out that the calendula flower can be used as healing medicine for irritated and inflamed skin? It must have been a very long process of trial and error. (Or did the plant somehow "communicate" to indigenous herbalists, informing them of its use?) In any case, this curative herb is only one of hundreds of plants that people somehow came to adjudge as having healing properties. "Miraculous" is not too strong a word to describe such discoveries. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Gemini, you now have the patience and perspicacity to engage in a comparable process: to find useful resources through experiment and close observation—with a hardy assist from your intuition.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Today the city of Timbuktu in Mali is poor and in the throes of desertification. But from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, it was one of the great cultural centers of the world. Its libraries filled up with thousands of influential books, which remained intact until fairly recently. In 2012, Al-Qaeda jihadists conceived a plan to destroy the vast trove of learning and scholarship. One man foiled them. Abba al-Hadi, an illiterate guard who had worked at one of the libraries, smuggled out many of the books in empty rice sacks. By the time the jihadists started burning, most of the treasure had been relocated. I don’t think the problem in your sphere is anywhere near as dire as this, Cancerian. But I do hope you will be proactive about saving and preserving valuable resources before they're at risk of being diluted, compromised, or neglected.
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HOMEWORK:
The Japanese poet Ikkyu said, “To all I care about, here’s a friendly tip: enlightenment is gaffe upon error upon blooper." Do you agree? 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 2019 Rob Brezsny
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