Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
September 18, 2019
FreeWillAstrology.com
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A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history.
On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions.
—Andrew Harvey
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CELEBRATORY ACTIVISM
Some people don't want to register evidence that contradicts their foregone conclusions about humans' damaging presence on the planet.
It's dangerous to do so, they feel, because it threatens to make us complacent and fall under the delusion that our work as freedom fighters is done. Celebrating progress is a foolish indulgence that would sap our motivation to keep agitating for even greater justice. Focusing on the good stuff tempts us to ignore the continuing bad stuff.
I understand that position. It's the stance of many devoted activists who have a ferocious devotion to the extinction of suffering. I respect their work and am rooting them on. But I'd also like to suggest that there are alternate ways to wage the war on stupidity, violence, and tyranny.
Activist and author Naomi Klein tells a story about the time she traveled to Australia at the request of Aboriginal elders. They wanted her to know about their struggle to prevent white people from dumping radioactive wastes on their land.
Her hosts brought her to their beloved wilderness, where they camped under the stars. They showed her "secret sources of fresh water, plants used for bush medicines, hidden eucalyptus-lined rivers where the kangaroos come to drink."
After three days, Klein grew restless. When were they going to get down to business? "Before you can fight," she was told, "you have to know what you are fighting for."
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OPTIMISM AS A KEY TO ACTIVISM
Howard Zinn wrote: An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time.
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.
If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Read more: www.thenation.com/article/optimism-uncertainty
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IT ONLY TAKES A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE TO CHANGE THINGS
It takes just 3.5% of a population actively participating in non-violent protests to ensure serious political change.
No government can withstand a challenge of 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or (in extreme cases) disintegrating.
For example, in 1986, millions of Filipinos took to the streets of Manila in peaceful protest and prayer in the People Power movement. The Marcos regime folded on the fourth day.
In 2003, the people of Georgia ousted Eduard Shevardnadze through the bloodless Rose Revolution, in which protestors stormed the parliament building holding the flowers in their hands.
Earlier this year, the presidents of Sudan and Algeria both announced they would step aside after decades in office, thanks to peaceful campaigns of resistance.
More: tinyurl.com/y52ub2pu
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OPTIMSM AS A CRAFTY STRATEGY
"Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope."
—Noam Chomsky
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ACTIVISM AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
So often activism is based on what we are against, what we don’t like, what we don’t want. And yet we manifest what we focus on. And so we are manifesting yet ever more of what we don’t want, what we don’t like, what we want to change.
So for me, activism is about a spiritual practice as a way of life. And I realized I didn’t climb the tree because I was angry at the corporations and the government; I climbed the tree because when I fell in love with the redwoods, I fell in love with the world. So it is my feeling of connection that drives me, instead of my anger and feelings of being disconnected.
—Julia Butterfly Hill
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PRONOIA AS A FOUNDATION OF ACTIVISM
I do understand if, during the course of reading about good news, you're visited by thoughts like, "But what about all the terrible things in the world?" or "Brezsny's totally imbalanced in his perspective!"
Please know that in tallying up the profuse blessings that surround us, I'm not implying that utopia is at hand. My education and my predilection for empathy have made me acutely aware of the suffering of human beings, whether they live next door or 10,000 miles away.
But I also regard it as my fun duty to counterbalance the hordes of cynical storytellers in the media and entertainment industries who tirelessly assure us that life on Earth is a dismal hell. I think it's smart to aggressively identify all the ways the world works for us.
I also want to suggest that it doesn't help those who are suffering if we hate or feel guilty for our own blessings. To dwell for a few stolen minutes on the beauty and pleasures of our lives is not tantamount to ignoring all the sad and bad things.
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GREAT ACTIVIST ARE GREAT OPTIMISTS
Many great and effective activists have come to the conclusion, as I have, that cultivating hope and optimism is crucial to being effective as an activist. They include Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit, and Julia Butterfly Hill.
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HOPE IN THE DARK
Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
by Rebecca Solnit
tinyurl.com/yxpl6w7a
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ACTIVISM WORKS
Activism works. And there are millions & millions of activists.
1. Spain said it would create a new marine wildlife reserve for the migrations of whales and dolphins in the Mediterranean and will prohibit all future fossil fuels exploration in the area.
2. Following "visionary" steps by Belize, UNESCO removed the Belize Barrier Reef, the second largest in the world, from its list of endangered World Heritage Sites.
3. Colombia officially expanded the Serranía de Chiribiquete (also known as The Cosmic Village of the Jaguars) to 4.3 million hectares, making it the largest protected tropical rainforest national park in the world.
4. Mexico said its population of wild jaguars, the largest feline in the Americas, grew by 20% in the past eight years, and 14 Latin American countries signed an agreement to implement a regional conservation program for the big cats through 2030.
5. In the forests of central Africa, the population of mountain gorillas, one of the world’s most endangered species, was reported to have increased by 25% since 2010, to over 1,000 individuals.
6. Canada signed another conservation deal with its First Nations people, creating the largest protected boreal forest (an area twice the size of Belgium) on the planet.
7. Chile passed a new law protecting the waters along its coastline, creating nine marine reserves and increasing the area of ocean under state protection from 4.3% to 42.4%.
8. The Seychelles created a new 130,000 square kilometer marine reserve in the Indian Ocean, protecting their waters from illegal fishing for generations to come.
9. New Caledonia agreed to place 28,000 square kilometers of its ocean waters under protection, including some of the world’s most pristine coral reefs.
Read many more specific examples of how ell activism is working:
tinyurl.com/ActivismWorksWell
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EVIL ISN'T REALLY THAT INTERESTING
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates: considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artists; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin
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SACRED ACTIVISM
Sacred activism is the fusion of the mystic’s passion for God with the activist’s passion for justice -- creating a third fire, which is the burning sacred heart that longs to help, preserve, and nurture every living thing. "
—Andrew Harvey
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Climate Strike on September 20.
tinyurl.com/y6mjqp3w
Musician David Byrne offers a website called Reasons to be Cheerful. It's dedicated to articulating solutions to problems.
reasonstobecheerful.world
tinyurl.com/y5s7zhga
This Lake Belongs to Everyone. A city on Lake Erie convinced its waterfront property owners to give the public their waterfronts for free. It’s a case that could transform the Great Lakes forever.
tinyurl.com/y3f78zpp
Portugal’s Wildly Successful Decriminalization Experiment. By decriminalizing even “hard” drugs like heroin and cocaine, Portugal drove down HIV rates and overdose deaths—and proved beyond a doubt that harm reduction works.
tinyurl.com/yy3xp2br
(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 September 19
Copyright 2019 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In 1936, the city of Cleveland, Ohio staged the Great Lakes Exposition, a 135-acre fair with thrill rides, art galleries, gardens, and sideshows. One of its fun features was The Golden Book of Cleveland, a 2.5-ton, 6,000-page text the size of a mattress. After the expo closed down, the "biggest book in the world" went missing. If it still exists today, no one knows where it is. I'm going to speculate that there's a metaphorical version of The Golden Book of Cleveland in your life. You, too, have lost track of a major Something that would seem hard to misplace. Here's the good news: If you intensify your search now, I bet you'll find it before the end of 2019.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
In 1990, the New Zealand government appointed educator, magician, and comedian Ian Brackenbury Channell to be the official Wizard of New Zealand. His jobs include protecting the government, blessing new enterprises, casting out evil spirits, upsetting fanatics, and cheering people up. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to find your personal equivalents of an inspirational force like that. There's really no need to scrimp. According to my reading of the cosmic energies, you have license to be extravagant in getting what you need to thrive.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
"Do silly things," advised playwright Anton Chekhov. "Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life." I think that's a perspective worth adopting now and then. Most of us go through phases when we take things too seriously and too personally and too literally. Bouts of fun absurdity can be healing agents for that affliction. But now is NOT one of those times for you, in my opinion. Just the reverse is true, in fact. I encourage you to cultivate majestic moods and seek out awe-inspiring experiences and induce sublime perspectives. Your serious and noble quest for a meaningful life can be especially rewarding in the coming weeks.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Before comedian Jack Benny died in 1974, he arranged to have a florist deliver a single red rose to his wife every day for the rest of her life. She lived another nine years, and received more than 3,000 of these gifts. Even though you won't die for many years, I think the coming weeks would be an excellent time to establish a comparable custom: a commitment to providing regular blessings to a person or persons for whom you care deeply. This bold decision would be in alignment with astrological omens, which suggest that you can generate substantial benefits for yourself by being creative with your generosity.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Actress and author Ruby Dee formulated an unusual prayer. "God," she wrote, "make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear." As you might imagine, she was a brave activist who risked her reputation and career working for the Civil Rights Movement and other idealistic causes. I think her exceptional request to a Higher Power makes good sense for you right now. You're in a phase when you can generate practical blessings by doing the very things that intimidate you or make you nervous. And maybe the best way to motivate and mobilize yourself is by getting at least a bit flustered or unsettled.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Syndicated cartoon strip "Calvin and Hobbes" appeared for ten years in 2,400 newspapers in fifty countries. It wielded a sizable cultural influence. For example, in 1992, six-year-old Calvin decided "The Big Bang" was a boring term for how the universe began, and instead proposed we call it the "Horrendous Space Kablooie." A number of real scientists subsequently adopted Calvin's innovation, and it has been invoked playfully but seriously in university courses and textbooks. In that spirit, I encourage you to give fun new names to anything and everything you feel like spicing up. You now have substantial power to reshape and revamp the components of your world. It's Identify-Shifting Time.
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WHY IS IT CALLED "FREE WILL" ASTROLOGY?
It's called Free Will Astrology because my goal is to create horoscopes that nurture your free will.
Contrary to what some horoscope fans believe, there's no such thing as predestination. Fate is a tricky sucker that keeps changing its mind about where it wants to go. The stars may impel, as the astrological saying goes, but they don't compel.
That's why I've never considered myself a fortuneteller. I prefer to think that my greatest service is as a psychic intelligence agent, helping you explore the hidden patterns and unconscious forces that may be affecting your life without your full knowledge.
If I "predict" anything, it's not so much the future as the unknown part of the present.
And if you ever want more than the 'scopes you're reading here, keep in mind that I also create EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for you. They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the current state of your destiny.
To buy and listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to freewillastrology.sparkns.com
Register and/or log in through the main page.
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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. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
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ARIES (March 21-April 19):
We're in the equinoctial season. During this pregnant pause, the sun seems to hover directly over the equator; the lengths of night and day are equal. For all of us, but especially for you, it's a favorable phase to conjure and cultivate more sweet symmetry, calming balance, and healing harmony. In that spirit, I encourage you to temporarily suspend any rough, tough approaches you might have in regard to those themes. Resist the temptation to slam two opposites together simply to see what happens. Avoid engaging in the pseudo-fun of purging by day and bingeing by night. And don't you dare get swept up in hating what you love or loving what you hate.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
"I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear." So said singer and activist Nina Simone. But it's doubtful there ever came a time when she reached the perfect embodiment of that idyllic state. How can any of us empty out our anxiety so completely as to be utterly emancipated? It's not possible. That's the bad news, Taurus. The good news is that in the coming weeks you will have the potential to be as unafraid as you have ever been. For best results, try to ensure that love is your primary motivation in everything you do and say and think.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Some things don't change much. The beautiful marine animal species known as the pearly nautilus, which lives in the South Pacific, is mostly the same as it was 150 million years ago. Then there's Fuggerei, a walled enclave within the German city of Augsburg. The rent is cheap, about one U.S. dollar per year, and that fee hasn't increased in almost 500 years. While I am in awe of these bastions of stability, and wish we had more such symbolic anchors, I advise you to head in a different direction. During the coming weeks, you'll be wise to be a maestro of mutability, a connoisseur of transformation, an adept of novelty.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Granny Smith apples are widely available. But before 1868, the tart, crispy, juicy fruit never existed on planet Earth. Around that time, an Australian mother of eight named Maria Ann Smith threw the cores of French crab apples out her window while she was cooking. The seeds were fertilized by the pollen from a different, unknown variety of apple, and a new type was born: Granny Smith. I foresee the possibility of a metaphorically comparable event in your future: a lucky accident that enables you to weave together two interesting threads into a fascinating third thread.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
"Every masterpiece is just dirt and ash put together in some perfect way," writes storyteller Chuck Palahniuk, who has completed several novelistic masterpieces. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you Leos have assembled much of the dirt and ash necessary to create your next masterpiece, and are now ready to move on to the next phase. And what is that phase? Identifying the helpers and supporters you'll need for the rest of the process.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
In 1959, scandal erupted among Americans who loved to eat peanut butter. Studies revealed that manufacturers had added so much hydrogenated vegetable oil and glycerin to their product that only 75 percent of it could truly be called peanut butter. So began a long legal process to restore high standards. Finally there was a new law specifying that no company could sell a product called "peanut butter" unless it contained at least 90 percent peanuts. I hope this fight for purity inspires you to conduct a metaphorically comparable campaign. It's time to ensure that all the important resources and influences in your life are at peak intensity and efficiency. Say NO to dilution and adulteration.
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HOMEWORK:
Say these words in front of a mirror: "It's bad luck to be superstitious."
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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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