Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology Newsletter
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June 22, 2005
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Tom Robbins, author of "Still Life with Woodpecker," "Jitterbug Perfume,"
and "Another Roadside Attraction," has this to say about my writing:
"I have seen the future of American literature and its name is Rob
Brezsny."
Read all about it in my new book,
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
For more info about buying the book, go to my website at
http://www.freewillastrology.com.
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Dear Readers,
I've got a new idea to help you to help me sell my new book:
Go into one of your local stores and buy at least four books to give as
gifts to your friends and loved ones. Mail me the receipt. As your reward,
I'll then send you the following:
(1) a copy of my music CD, "Give Too Much"
(2) a Karmic Credit Card
(3) a Psychic Booboo Bandage
(4) a photo of me
(5) a signed copy of one of my "Free Will Astrology" columns. I'll choose
a column at random, or you can pick a favorite column from a particular
week. (Archives are located at
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/horo-archive.html)
Here's the address to send the receipt that's proof you've bought at least
four books in your local store: P.O. Box 150628, San Rafael, CA 94915.
I'll pay for the postage and handling when I send you my gift package.
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Now here's an excerpt from
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
WELCOME HOME
Let me remind you who you really are: You're an immortal freedom fighter
in service to divine love. You have temporarily taken on the form of a
human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins, in order to
liberate all sentient creatures from suffering and help them claim the
ecstatic awareness that is their birthright. You will accept nothing less
than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to earth.
Your task may look impossible. Ignorance and inertia, partially
camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround you. Pessimism
is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism
masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories about
treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people
who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are
suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.
To grapple against these odds, you have to be both a wrathful
insurrectionary and an exuberant lover of life. You've got to cultivate
cheerful buoyancy even as you resist the temptation to swallow
thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and seductively
packaged by very self-important people who act as if they know what
they're doing. You have to learn how to stay in a good mood as you
overthrow the sour, puckered hallucination that is mistakenly referred to
as reality.
What can we do to help each other in this work?
First, we can create safe houses to shelter everyone who's devoted to
the slow-motion awakening. These sanctuaries might take the form of
temporary autonomous zones like festivals and parties and workshops,
where we can ritually potentiate the evolving mysteries of pronoia. Or
they might be more enduring autonomous zones like homes and cafes and
businesses where we can get regular practice in freeing ourselves from
the slavery of hatred in all of its many guises.
What else can we do to help each other? We can conspire together to
carry out the agenda that futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard names: to
hospice what's dying and midwife what's being born. We need the trigger
of each other's rebel glee as we kill off every reflex within us that
resonates in harmony with the putrefaction. We need each other's
dauntless cunning as we goad and foment the blooming life forces within
us that thrive on the New World's incandescent questions.
Here's a third way we can collaborate: We can inspire each other to
perpetrate healing mischief, friendly shocks, compassionate tricks,
blasphemous reverence, holy pranks, and crazy wisdom . . . .
To read the rest of "WELCOME HOME," excerpted from
PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia,
go here:
http://www.freewillastrology.com/beauty/
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning June 23
Copyright 2005 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
ARIES (March 21-April 19): There are several ways to break an egg. You
can knock it against the edge of a pan or strike it with a knife. You can
squeeze it hard enough to crack it or hurl it at a disgusting politician.
Professional Easter egg painters pierce both ends of it with a needle in
order to drain the stuff inside. Is one method better than the others? Not
in general, of course, though if you're planning to cook the egg, you
shouldn't open it via a high-velocity encounter with the kitchen wall. Your
assignment in the coming week, Aries, is to do the metaphorical
equivalent of breaking open an egg in a way that's exactly appropriate for
how you'll use it.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): "In my line of work you got to keep repeating
things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of
catapult the propaganda." President George W. Bush spoke those words
to the press during his meditations on overhauling Social Security, but I
could have easily said the same thing about my job. This week, for
instance, I'm going to catapult my benevolent propaganda in three
different ways. Ready for the onslaught? (1) "The chains of habit are too
weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken," said Samuel
Johnson. (Which is why you should break a budding bad habit now, even
though you can barely feel it.) (2) To wake yourself up from the trance
you've been in, pinch yourself with both hands as you simultaneously kick
yourself in the butt. (3) "Every act of becoming conscious is an unnatural
act." -Adrienne Rich.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Two storks have built nests on a golf course in
Krogaspe, Germany. That in itself is odd, since storks usually construct
their brooding areas up high, in trees or buildings. But what's even more
unusual is that the birds are attempting to hatch golf balls they've
stockpiled in the nests. I present this vignette as a cautionary tale for
you, Gemini. In the coming weeks, you'll have to be in very close touch
with your intuition so that you don't end up in a similar position: trying to
nurture and grow something that will never be able to respond to your
care. Be picky about whom and what you offer your blessings to.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): You need a new launching pad. Not rocket
fuel--you've got plenty of that. Not a reliable internal guidance system or
a strong hull or redundant safety features. You've got all those things.
The only essential that's lacking is the right place for you to blast off. So
shop around in the coming days, Cancerian. Except for that key factor,
you're more than ready to get your project off the ground with a bang.
Ideally, ignition and lift off will happen no later than July 14.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Hardly anyone takes photos with film anymore.
Digital cameras have become the instrument of choice for both pros and
amateurs. As a result, businesses that sell film are becoming obsolete. "I
refer to myself as a buggy whip salesman or a blacksmith," said the owner
of one such shop, quoted in the *San Francisco Chronicle.* During the
next 10 years, I predict that just about every one of us will face a similar
prospect: Something we sell or a task that we do well will become
irrelevant. This week is a perfect astrological time for you to muse about
what that is likely to be for you, and then start making plans about how
you'll adjust when your skill or product is no longer needed.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Sharks have a bad reputation among many
people, but to the native people of the Hawaiian island of Niihau they are
*na'aumakua,* guardian spirits. I propose that they serve as your tutelary
animal in the coming week, Virgo--protectors and guides that will inspire
you to be tough-minded and fully at home as you hang out higher in the
food chain than you ever have before.
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EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES
In addition to the written horoscopes you get in this newsletter, I offer
Expanded Audio Horoscopes. They're $6 if you access them on the Web,
or $1.99 per minute over the phone.
For Web access, go here:
http://www.relationshipnetwork.com/horo/index.asp?client_id=50700
From the United States, call
1-900-950-7700
or if you prefer to pay by credit card
1-877-873-4888
If you live in Canada, call 1-888-499-4425 to purchase a Block of Time
with your credit card.
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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Dave Chappelle's show on TV's Comedy Central
has been enormously popular. The DVDs of both his first and second
seasons have been bestsellers. And yet on the eve of season three's
debut, Chappelle mysteriously absconded, temporarily leaving the future
of his gig in doubt. A reporter from *Time* magazine hunted him down in
South Africa, where he confessed he'd fled for a spiritual retreat. He said
he needed to get away from the complications of his success so he could
take a personal inventory and make sure his intentions were still pure. I
bring this up, Libra, because I expect that you, too, will be moving up in
the world. Are you ready to deal with the complications of your success?
Prepare yourself. Reflect on what your motivations really are and how well
your integrity is holding up.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In my astrological opinion, you need to take a
long, relaxing excursion down a sun-drenched stream of consciousness.
So please consider interrupting your slog through the shady swamps.
Stop poking around in the mud and slime for the treasure you imagine is
there. Leave your props and accessories behind, head out into the open,
and scout around for the best natural flow you can find. It's high time for
you to float and muse as you gaze into the vault of the great unknown.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Russian Orthodox Christians believe it's
sacrilegious to depict saints dancing, which is why they protested a
recent ballet show that portrayed some of their holiest icons. Meanwhile,
white Southern Baptists in the U.S. have traditionally discouraged dancing
with such ferocity that they spawned the famous joke: "Why can't
Baptists have sex standing up? Because God will think they're dancing."
These two religious groups are the embodiment of what you should *not*
do in the coming week, Sagittarius. It's a perfect moment for you to
express your spiritual impulses through all manner of bodily movement:
leaping, shaking, skipping, dancing, and boinking.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Mirrors will be your best teachers this
week. The revelations they bring may sometimes make you
uncomfortable, but for the most part they will energize you. By week's
end, you'll have every reason to celebrate because of their lessons. Keep
in mind that the mirror of the moment won't always be a shiny glass
surface that reflects images. It may be a person giving you feedback, an
unfamiliar situation that shows you surprising secrets about yourself, the
way an animal behaves around you, and other things that neither you nor
I could predict.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): When America invaded Iraq in 2003, the
leaders of France objected. Conservative U.S. Congressman Walter Jones
got so enraged by their resistance that he led a campaign to purge the
word "French" from common usage. French fries would become "freedom
fries," he proposed; French toast would be "freedom toast." Two years
later, though, Jones has become an opponent of the Iraq attack. America
initiated hostilities "with no justification," he told a North Carolina
newspaper; he regrets having launched the name-change crusade. I
nominate Walter Jones to be your role model in the coming week,
Aquarius. It's high time to disavow one of your old positions, reverse a
discredited opinion, or officially change your mind about an issue you got
wrong.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I've known more than a few people who have
slept with things they consider power objects: a teenager who liked to
cuddle with the trophy he won for bowling a perfect game, for example,
and a macho dude who was never without his stuffed turtle from
childhood, and a woman who worshiped a special rock she had been
sitting next to when she had the revelation that changed her life. I
mention these precedents, Pisces, in the hope that it will help you feel
utterly uninhibited about going to bed with a certain good luck charm or
mojo-drenched fetish. I assure you there will be some magic in doing so.
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HOMEWORK:
To celebrate my birthday this week, I'll say a high-powered prayer for you.
Telepathically tell me the one problem you want me to focus on. Or
testify by going to http://www.freewillastrology.com and clicking on
"Email Rob."
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WANT TO GET YOUR CHART DONE?
I'm not doing charts these days. In addition to writing my weekly column
and expanded audio horoscopes, I'm also working on a CD and promoting
my new book.
But I can recommend a colleague whose astro-aesthetics closely match
my own. She's RO LOUGHRAN.
Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and a high
degree of 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 20 years of
astrological experience, Ro is also a licensed psychotherapist, allowing her
to integrate psychological insight with the cosmological perspective that
astrology offers.
Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise
work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.
Ro's website is at
http://www.astrology-psychotherapy.com/
She can also be reached at roloughran@comcast.net
Namaste,
Rob
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anyone.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2005 Rob Brezsny
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