Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
September 25, 2019
FreeWillAstrology.com
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DEAR READERS: I was born under the sign of Cancerian the Crab. A potential weakness of our tribe is that we can tend to be excessively self-sufficient. Some of us find it challenging to ask for help and support. In my continuing effort to overcome this inclination, I'm asking for your blessings!
If you would like to donate, please visit my Gift Center at Paypal: paypal.me/GiftsForRob
You can also contribute to my well-being by buying the Expanded Audio Horoscopes I create every week. These forecasts are different from the written horoscopes I provide here. They're my four- to five-minute-long ruminations about the current chapter of your life story. Access them here: freewillastrology.sparkns.com
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RAW, UNALLOYED, AGENDA-LESS KINDNESS
Since I'm working so hard on new books, I don't get out much these days. But I just completed a five-day journey to New York City.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, which assures us that the world has gone to hell, I found abundant evidence that the world is filled with goodness.
Everywhere I went — restaurants, airports, bookstores, museums, sidewalks, and people's houses — I was blessed with an extravagant profusion of "raw, unalloyed, agenda-less kindness" — a term articulated by David Foster Wallace.
I am still in a blissful shock from the healing joy of it.
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ENLIGHTENMENT IS INTIMACY WITH ALL THINGS
—Dogen
My guess is that there's no such thing as "enlightenment." It's impossible for a human being to permanently own a perfect realization of the nature of reality.
But if there is anything that comes close to resembling "enlightenment," it's the visceral sensation of feeling close to all living things, and experiencing an ever-renewing empathy and affinity for all living things.
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MY SHOW IN NEW YORK
On September 13 at the Strand Bookstore in New York, I got to participate in an outpouring of magic words and emotional intelligence with soul genius poets Ariana Reines, CAConrad, and Zoe Brezsny.
Such amazing luck to be part of this team!
See a few photos of the night:
tinyurl.com/PhotosFromStrand
bit.ly/ShowAtTheStrand
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FEAR VERSUS INTUITION
(Hear the meditation below as a spoken-word piece: tinyurl.com/FearOrIntuition)
This is a perfect time for you to learn more about the difference between your fearful fantasies and your authentic, accurate intuitions.
It's always a good time to do that, of course, but even more so right now. This is an exciting turning point, when the future is up for grabs. Worn-out old habits of thought are unraveling. Structures that have kept us enthralled to fake values are crumbling. The coming months and years will be ripe with opportunities for us to lay the foundation for a new world that's actually fit for the human soul.
And in the midst of this grand mutation, it's predictable that so many so-called leaders are trying to fill up our imaginations with poison. They want us to buy into their belief that fear and loathing should be our default emotions.
In the face of their toxic paranoia, it's wise to remember that we always have the power to turn away from their terror-mongering and tune in to the guidance of the still, small voice within us -- the still, small voice of intuition that will, if we allow it, lead us very capably through every twist and turn of our destiny, even when our destiny brings us right into the thick of our civilization's massive transformations.
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Knowing the difference between your fearful fantasies and your authentic, accurate intuitions is one of the greatest spiritual powers you can possible have. So let's explore what it means: knowing the difference between the frightening, alienating pictures that sometimes pop into your imagination, as opposed the simple, warm, clear direction that is always available from the deepest source within you.
Strangely enough, many people get these two things confused. They are especially prone to believing that the frightening, disempowering images that erupt in their mind's eye are coming from their intuition.
For many people, if they get an image of a scary future possibility popping into their imagination, they worry that it's a prediction of some event that will actually occur in their lives. For instance, they may have a fantasy of themselves getting into an accident, or maybe they dream of losing a loved one, or maybe they internalize the sickening vision of some talking head on TV who slaps them upside the head with a prediction of imminent doom. When these people get images like these stuck in their imagination, they may begin to obsess on the fear that these things are literally going to happen.
Almost every time, scary fantasies like this are not true intuition. Our true intuition is just not very likely to be fueled by fear, and it rarely if ever motivates us to act by making us feel afraid.
No. Our true intuition emerges from the wise, loving core of our being. It blooms in us like a slow-motion fountain of warmth. It reveals the objective truth about a person or situation with lucid compassion. It shows us the big picture.
Fearful fantasies, on the other hand, burn and itch and make us feel like we're coming apart. They drain our energy and cloud our judgment. They fill us with obsessive urges to run and hide or do something desperate and melodramatic.
I don't want to say that true intuition is always calm and emotionally neutral. It isn't, necessarily. But I will say this: The emotions that accompany true intuition are never alienating. They don't make us feel superior to other people or fill us with hatred and terror. They don't disempower us or make us feel helpless.
True intuition may rouse our anger, but if so, it is the kind of invigorating anger that leads to clarity and constructive action, and thus it is an anger that ultimately relaxes us.
True intuition may show us a difficult truth, but it always does so with a suggestion of how to deal gracefully and courageously with that difficult truth. True intuition may reveal imminent changes that could compel us to adjust our behavior, but it always does so in a way that empowers us.
Let me emphasize this point: True intuition may not always reveal that everything will be fine, or that we will be able to continue to live in the ways be have been living -- true intuition is certainly not falsely optimistic -- but if it does alert us to circumstances that are in flux, and how we will have to transform ourselves, it does so with love and poise and clarity, not with fear.
Here's one more thing. Just as our true intuition never works by scaring the hell out of us, neither does it flatter us with grandiose suggestions about how superior we are. In fact, it may often gently inform us of some correction that should be made in our attitude. It may tactfully but firmly lead us to the understanding that we have been suffering from some form of ignorance and that we need to wake up and get smarter.
True intuition reveals the story of our lives from our soul's point of view, not our ego's. In my understanding, true intuition is the voice of our own personal inner teacher, which just happens to be the divine part of us. The certainty that true intuition provides us is therefore not loud and puffed up, but rather humble and graceful.
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This is a perfect moment to think on these things, and to add some insights of your own. It's also an excellent time to flush away the fearful fantasies that may have seeped into your imagination -- and thereby make it possible for you to hear your true intuition better.
One way to facilitate this process, by the way, is to cut way back on the amount of terrifying and disorienting images you allow to flow into your imagination from the TV, Internet, newspapers, movies, and other mass media. In fact, I invite you to consider the possibility of going on a media fast for a while and spending more time in nature than you usually do.
In conclusion, my beloved companions on this beautiful, interesting planet, please get to work on seeing your fearful fantasies for what they are and enhancing your connection to your true intuition.
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"Fear Versus Intuition" is from the soundtrack for my book
Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. which is available here:
bit.ly/Pronoia
bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
Hear the above essay as a spoken-word piece: tinyurl.com/FearOrIntuition
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THERE ARE NO RULES ABOUT HOW TO MEDITATE CORRECTLY
Buddhist modes of meditation are great! But there are many other ways to meditate, too—in fact, an infinite number. I agree with Christopher Bamford, who says:
"As a free deed, meditation is naturally individual, uniquely our own. It is where we most fully become ourselves. Its practice is also always individual.
"There are no rules. Just as every potter will elaborate his or her own way of making pots, so every person who meditates will shape his or her own meditation. No two people will do a given meditation in exactly the same way. The same meditation practiced daily will be different every time.
"Every meditation is experimental. One never knows what is going to happen. Improvisation is essential . . . Meditation is something to play with . . . There is no 'wrong' way of doing the meditation, except not doing it!"
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THE GREAT ART
The Great Art consists of making continuous conscious effort to align our thoughts and feelings with the highest ideals we have thus far been able to comprehend.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Optimists live longer.
tinyurl.com/y5jypcqd
Making the Electoral College Irrelevant.
tinyurl.com/yxwju3ls
The School Where Refugees Thrive.
tinyurl.com/y6x3w9yz
Apiarists, geneticists, and bee breeding engineers have developed a new bee breed that is supposed to have beneficial traits, including strength and mite resistance, to try and cure colony collapse disorder and save the bees.
https://tinyurl.com/yyas9z7s
(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 26
Copyright 2019 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
"I just cut my bangs in a gas station bathroom," confesses a Libran blogger who calls herself MagicLipstick. "An hour ago I shocked myself by making an impulse buy of a perfect cashmere trench coat from a stranger loitering in a parking lot," testifies another Libran blogger who refers to himself as MaybeMaybeNot. "Today I had the sudden realization that I needed to become a watercolor painter, then signed up for a watercolor class that starts tomorrow," writes a Libran blogger named UsuallyPrettyCareful. In normal times, I wouldn't recommend that you Libras engage in actions that are so heedlessly and delightfully spontaneous. But I do now.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
You could call the assignment I have for you as "taking a moral inventory" or you could refer to it as "going to confession." I think of it as "flushing out your worn-out problems so as to clear a space for better, bigger, more interesting problems." Ready? Take a pen and piece of paper or open a file on your computer and write about your raw remorse, festering secrets, unspeakable apologies, inconsolable guilt, and desperate mortifications. Deliver the mess to me at Truthrooster@gmail.com. I'll print out your testimony and conduct a ritual of purgation. As I burn your confessions in my bonfire at the beach, I'll call on the Goddess to purify your heart and release you from your angst. (P.S.: I'll keep everything confidential.)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Two hundred years ago, Sagittarian genius Ludwig Beethoven created stirring music that's often played today. He's regarded as one of history's greatest classical composers. And yet he couldn't multiply or divide numbers. That inability made it hard for him to organize his finances. He once wrote about himself that he was "an incompetent business man who is bad at arithmetic." Personally, I'm willing to forgive those flaws and focus on praising him for his soul-inspiring music. I encourage you to practice a similar approach with yourself in the next two weeks. Be extra lenient and merciful and magnanimous as you evaluate the current state of your life. In this phase of your cycle, you need to concentrate on what works instead of on what doesn't work.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
"When you hit a wall—of your own imagined limitations—just kick it in," wrote playwright Sam Shepard. That seems like a faulty metaphor to me. Have you ever tried to literally kick in a wall? I just tried it, and it didn't work. I put on a steel-toe work boot and launched it at a closet door in my basement, and it didn't make a dent. Plus now my foot hurts. So what might be a better symbol for breaking through your imagined limitations? How about this: use a metaphorical sledgehammer or medieval battering ram or backhoe. (P.S. Now is a great time to attend to this matter.)
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In 1965, Chinese archaeologists found an untarnished 2400-year-old royal bronze sword that was still sharp and shiny. It was intricately accessorized with turquoise and blue crystals, precision designs, and a silk-wrapped grip. I propose we make the Sword of Goujian one of your symbolic power objects for the coming months. May it inspire you to build your power and authority by calling on the spirits of your ancestors and your best memories. May it remind you that the past has gifts to offer your future. May it mobilize you to invoke beauty and grace as you fight for what's good and true and just.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
"All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret," wrote Piscean novelist Gabriel García Márquez. I will add that during different phases of our lives, one or the other of these three lives might take precedence; may need more care than usual. According to my analysis, your life in the coming weeks will offer an abundance of vitality and blessings in the third area: your secret life. For best results, give devoted attention to your hidden depths. Be a brave explorer of your mysterious riddles.
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ARE YOU THE HERO OF YOUR OWN LIFE?
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield.
I'd like to inspire you to create a story of your own that begins with similar words. That's why I provide these free horoscopes for you.
If you'd ever enjoy getting even more assistance from me, tune into your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE, which I create for you each week. 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
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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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"I always feel like I know myself better after listening to your audio 'scopes."
-June R., Austin, TX
"Your audio horoscopes calm me down when I'm too manic and pep me up when I'm down."
-Arthur T., Cleveland, OH
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ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Comedian John Cleese speaks of two different modes toward which we humans gravitate. The closed style is tight, guarded, rigid, controlling, hierarchical, and tunnel-visioned. The open is more relaxed, receptive, exploratory, democratic, playful, and humorous. I'm pleased to inform you that you're in a phase when spending luxurious amounts of time in the open mode would be dramatically healing to your mental health. Luckily, you're more predisposed than usual to operate in that mode. I encourage you to experiment with the possibilities.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Upcoming adventures could test your poise and wit. They may activate your uncertainties and stir you to ask provocative questions. That's cause for celebration, in my opinion. I think you'll benefit from having your poise and wit tested. You'll generate good fortune for yourself by exploring your uncertainties and asking provocative questions. You may even thrive and exult and glow like a miniature sun. Why? Because you need life to kick your ass in just the right gentle way so you will become alert to possibilities you have ignored or been blind to.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Novelist John Irving asked, "Who can distinguish between falling in love and imagining falling in love? Even genuinely falling in love is an act of the imagination." That will be a helpful idea for you to contemplate in the coming weeks. Why? Because you're more likely than usual to fall in love or imagine falling in love—or both. And even if you don't literally develop a crush on an attractive person or deepen your intimacy with a person you already care for, I suspect you will be inflamed with an elevated lust for life that will enhance the attractiveness of everything and everyone you behold.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
You know your body is made of atoms, but you may not realize that every one of your atoms is mostly empty space. Each nucleus contains 99 percent of the atom's mass, but is as small in comparison to the rest of the atom as a pea is to a cathedral. The tiny electrons, which comprise the rest of the basic unit, fly around in a vast, deserted area. So we can rightfully conclude that you are mostly made of nothing. That's a good meditation right now. The coming weeks will be a fine time to enjoy the refreshing pleasures of emptiness. The less frenzy you stir up, the healthier you'll be. The more spacious you allow your mind to be, the smarter you'll become. "Roomy" and "capacious" will be your words of power.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
"We don't always have a choice about how we get to know one another," wrote novelist John Irving. "Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly—as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth." This principle could be in full play for you during the coming weeks. For best results, be alert for the arrival of new allies, future colleagues, unlikely matches, and surprise helpers.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
In North America, people call the phone number 911 to report an emergency. In much of the EU, the equivalent is 112. As you might imagine, worry-warts sometimes use these numbers even though they're not experiencing a legitimate crisis. For example, a Florida woman sought urgent aid when her local McDonald's ran out of Chicken McNuggets. In another case, a man walking outdoors just after dawn spied a blaze of dry vegetation in the distance and notified authorities. But it turned out to be the rising sun. I'm wondering if you and yours might be prone to false alarms like these in the coming days, Virgo. Be aware of that possibility. You'll have substantial power if you marshal your energy for real dilemmas and worthy riddles, which will probably be subtle.
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HOMEWORK:
"It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious," said John Irving. How are you doing with that task? 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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