Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology Newsletter
'If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of
the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to
break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold
ever-more wonders."
—Andrew Harvey, *The Return of the Mother*
+
November 30, 2005
+
http://www.freewillastrology.com
+
Dear Beauty and Truth and Love Fans,
I'm offering two special deals if you want copies of my book
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
1. Buy the book and mail it to me. I'll autograph it and inscribe it
with a rowdy blessing for you or for someone you want to give it to,
and then I'll mail it back to you. (You can also send me multiple
copies, of course.)
Please provide me with a large self-addressed envelope stamped with the
appropriate postage. (Or if you live in Canada, send $10 Canadian worth
of International Reply Coupons per book.)
2. Go into one of your local stores and buy at least five books to give
as gifts to your friends and loved ones. Mail me the receipt. As your
reward, I'll send you the following:
(a) a copy of my last book, *The Televisionary Oracle;*
(b) a copy of my music CD, *Give Too Much,*
(c) a Karmic Credit Card
Let me know if you want me to sign (a) or (b).
+
"Rob Brezsny's *PRONOIA* is a fabulously weird
workbook/reader/throbbing compendium of astounding factoids and
breathtaking verbal uppers and orgasmic intellectual sighs . . . It
has so many fascinating interglobal tidbits of cool information, so
many gleaming slices of cultural/spiritual commentary per square
paragraph, it makes *The Farmer's Almanac* shudder and sigh. It ain't
no linear read. It's a messy cosmic workbook written by horny elves
drunk on Laudanum and clouds." —Mark Morford
read Morford's entire riff here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=1744
+
Hear R.U. Sirius's interview with me:
http://www.mondoglobo.net
(Scroll down to "RU Sirius Show #23: Is The Universe Conspiring To
Shower YOU With Blessings?")
+
Read a review of my show at New York City's Continental on November 20:
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/lecture_circuit/default.asp
***********************************************
Here's an excerpt from my book
*PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings* d
available at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583941231/qid=1117646708/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0132506-6764676?v=glance&s=books
or get direct links at http://www.freewillastrology.com
PRONOIA NEWS NETWORK
These are our top stories.
+
INDIA AND CHINA GET RICH QUICK
China and India, which comprise one-third of the earth's population,
have more than twice the wealth they had in 1989. (Source: The
Economist)
In the past twenty years, hundreds of millions of Chinese have escaped
poverty and begun earning middle-class incomes. Economist Jeffrey
Sachs, renowned for his work in assisting Third World nations to raise
their standards of living, says, 'China is the most successful
development story in world history." (Source: Fareed Zakaria, 'The Big
Story Everyone Missed," *Newsweek,* December 30, 2002)
+
PARTIAL TRUCE IN THE DRUG WAR
'The silver lining in the budget crisis affecting the states throughout
this nation is that from Louisiana to Texas to Michigan, state
governments are cutting prison budgets by releasing non-violent drug
offenders. There has been a steady move toward treatment instead of
incarceration, and a greater understanding that drug abuse should be
handled in the doctors' office, not the prison cell." —Medea Benjamin,
AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
+
SCHOOL DAYS INCREASE
Literacy and education levels are rising steadily on a global scale.
Since 1970, the percentage of students going to secondary school has
more than doubled. (Source: http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org)
+
BLIND COMPASSION WATCH
"In January 2003, a Muslim gas station attendant saved a New York
synagogue from arson with his phone call to 911. Pakistani immigrant
Syed Ali watched as a man bought gasoline, marched across the street,
and began dousing the front of the temple. Police responded to Ali's
call in time to stop the crime. Ali declined the mantle of hero saying
'It was a sacred place he was going to destroy.'"
—Geraldine Weis-Corbley, http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org
+
BENEVOLENT PRANKS
One night in February 2004, anonymous mischief-makers in the English
town of Pembury sneaked into 100 gardens and secretly planted an ash
sapling in each one. It was hard work. The weather was terrible, and
each tree had to be carefully rooted in a six-inch hole. Some residents
were pleased by the unsolicited gift, while others were confused.
+
KARMA IN ACTION
In 2001, Mitzi Nichols of Virginia Beach anonymously donated one of her
kidneys to a stranger. She got paid nothing for this rare act of
generosity, and after recovering from surgery went back to her job as a
cashier at a gift shop. It took the universe three years to figure out
a way to compensate her properly. In June 2004, she won $500,000 in the
Virginia state lottery.
+
WILDNESS REVISED
In his book *The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart,* Robert Bly says that
to be wild is not to be crazy like a criminal or psychotic, but 'mad as
the mist and snow." It has nothing to do with being childish or
primitive, nor does it manifest as manic rebellion or self-damaging
alienation. The real marks of wildness, he asserts, are a love of
nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things,
and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown.
+
THE REST OF THE MIDDLE EAST NEWS
"In Israel, several thousand Israeli and Palestinian families living
in relatively close proximity to one another, and each deeply proud of
their respective nation's history and foundations and traditions, did
not actively seethe in a roiling cauldron of hatred or religious bile,
nor did they let the horrible atrocities some of their people are
perpetrating on each other cause them to froth with self-righteousness
and mad desire for war.
"They did not go about their day cowering in a pit of lost hope,
fearing for their lives and wishing their neighbors extreme painful
death and eternal damnation, despite all the painful evidence and
political urgency currently screeching at them that they must do so
immediately." —Mark Morford, SFGate, http://www.sfgate.com/
columnists/morford/
+
SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
PNN is brought to you by Albert Camus' belief that "Each of us is free
to stoke the crematory fires of Buchenwald or nurse lepers in an
African hospital." (*Notebooks 1935–1951*)
+
There are hundreds more stories like this in *PRONOIA Is the Antidote
for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with
Blessings*
To read other pieces from the book, go here:
http://freewillastrology.com/beauty/beauty.main145.shtml
To buy the book, use the links to Amazon.com and Powells, which are on
my homepage at http://www.freewillastrology.com
Or cut and paste the direct links below:
AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583941231/qid=1123690660/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1737423-7631942?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
POWELLS
http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-1583941231-2
**********************************************
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning December 1
Copyright 2005 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
ARIES (March 21-April 19): As I meditated on your immediate future, I
got a vision of you making your way through an obstacle
course--scurrying across booby-trapped terrains, shimmying through
tunnels, climbing over barriers, leaping across ditches. Curiously,
there was not the least bit of stress etched on your face. On the
contrary, your eyes were wide and your expression was exultant. You
seemed to regard this not as an ordeal, but as a welcome opportunity to
expand your resourcefulness.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 1953, Ena Bridge got engaged to Tony Baker
in their hometown of Kent, England. But they broke up and lost touch
with each other until recently. Now they're engaged again, planning to
go through with the marriage they shrunk back from 52 years ago. I
regard them as your good luck charms, Taurus. Soon you, too, will be
returning to the site of a long lost dream, or revisiting a desire you
abandoned years ago, or exploring a potential union you gave up on in
the past.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I was born in Texas near a facility that
manufactured nuclear weapons. When I lived in South Carolina, my
neighbor was a bigoted Klansman. During my time in Philadelphia, I
found a hand grenade on the sidewalk. I was shot in North Carolina and
beaten up in Michigan. I've almost been arrested on fraudulent charges
twice, once in New York and once in Washington. Despite it all, I love
America--every part of it, the red states as well as the blue states. I
love its loudness, unpredictability, extravagance, and contradictions.
I'm intrigued by the bizarre myths at the heart of the public discourse
and entertained by the hysterical tone of that discourse. Now, using my
example as inspiration, Gemini, proclaim your appreciation for
influences that sometimes drive you half-crazy.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): "Dear Rob: Whenever I'm beset by fear, I
sleep with the shield I made for myself. It's a hubcap on which I've
glued a bunch of protective symbols, like a million dollars in Monopoly
money, the fragment of a mirror I stole from the hospital where I was
born, the toothbrush of an ex-lover I'm still good friends with, 20
Tamiflu pills arranged in the shape of a peace sign, a notebook page on
which I wrote my best dream ever (in which my mom and dad were Mother
Teresa and the Dalai Lama), a library card from Princeton with both my
name and Einstein's on it, a painting of a mutant butterfly
dive-bombing a rainbow that's on fire, and a bumper sticker that reads
'Adrenaline is my drug of choice.' -Laughing at My Anxieties." Dear
Laughing: I love your shield idea so much I'm recommending it for my
Cancerian readers while they're in their "I Love to Worry" season.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Of course I want to do everything I can to help
you make your dreams come true. But right now there's a more pressing
concern. You've got to dream bigger and hotter and wilder. You need to
demand more from your imagination and conjure up more daring fantasies.
Here, then, is a prescription from your soul doctor: In the coming
week, spend at least ten minutes a day brainstorming at the outskirts
of your understanding.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Passing a video store window in San
Francisco, I spied a poster advertising a set of DVDs for all seven
years of some old TV program. What show it was, I couldn't tell. Most
of the sign was obscured. But the blurb at the very top promised that
"You may never get up off the couch again"--presumably because you'd
become so immersed in the world of the TV show that you'd have no need
to actually go out and live your own life. While I don't usually
recommend that you pursue this kind of escapism, Virgo, it's perfectly
fine--maybe even healthy--to do so now. Please feel free to disappear
from the grind for a few days. If necessary, flee into an alternate
reality.
**********************************************
AUDIO LOVE LETTERS
In addition to the horoscopes that come to you in this newsletter, I
create more in-depth audio horoscopes for your inspiration. I think of
them as my love letters to you. 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.
"Your audio horoscopes help me tune in to my own inner wisdom. It's
like you're the UNteacher teaching me how to teach myself." —Rose F.,
Ypsilanti, MI
"Why spend $80 an hour on a therapist when I can spend $6 for a few
minutes with you and get the same boost?" —Roger H., Colorado Springs,
CO
**********************************************
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Every act of conscious learning requires the
willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem," wrote
psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. "That is why young children, before they are
aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older
persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all." I hope
this observation is a sufficiently gentle preparation for your
assignment, Libra. Are you ready to make the entire world your
classroom, to expand your capacity to be taught, and to master a slew
of new tricks? I hope so. To pull it off, you must be willing to let
your ego die.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Biologist Francis Crick (1916-2004) won a
Nobel Prize for co-discovering the DNA molecule. Naturally, he didn't
have any use for the religious right's pet dogma, Intelligent Design.
But neither did he fully endorse evolution. That theory says Earth's
first life forms arose from organic molecules, which in turn coalesced
from inorganic matter. In Crick's opinion, that process was impossible
because there wasn't enough time for such a stupendously complex series
of events to unfold, given the fact that our planet is only 4.6 billion
years old. To address the discrepancy, Crick favored the theory of
"directed panspermia," which proposes that life arrived here via an
advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Your assignment, Scorpio, is to
do as Crick did: Carve out a middle ground between two competing
perspectives, transcending the narrow definitions that each of them
uses to frame the big questions.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In her profile on poet John Ashbery in
*The New Yorker,* Larissa MacFarquhar reports that his Manhattan
apartment is deeply chaotic. "Everything needs to be open and nothing
is ever closed," she quotes Ashbery's partner as saying. "Drawers.
Cabinets. Closet doors. Everything! All possibilities must be available
at all times." This happens to be my exact prescription for you,
Sagittarius. Make your heart as innocent as possible. Suspend your
opinions. Judge nothing. Be hungry for the raw truth and beauty that
can be captured with the aid of naked receptivity. Oh, and keep all
your cabinets and drawers open.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You might want to listen to "Doing the
Unstuck," a song by The Cure. It could prod you to do what you know you
should, which is expel yourself forcibly from the rut you're lodged in.
"It's a perfect day for letting go/ for setting fire to bridges," the
lyrics advise, "for rip-zipping and button-popping/ for dancing like
you can't hear the beat." Maybe some of you are protesting, "But I want
to use logic to *think* my way out of this jam." Here's what I have to
say in response: You probably won't get unstuck with your rational mind
alone, which is why you should do irrationally constructive things like
singing liberation songs very loudly.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Did you know that the world has become
dramatically more peaceful in the last 14 years? The 2005 Human
Security Report documents how wars, coup d'états, and genocide have
declined 40 percent since 1991. Weapons sales between countries have
dropped 33 percent, and the number of refugees has diminished 45
percent. I hope this shocking data, which should have been trumpeted on
the front page of every newspaper, will inspire you to throw yourself
with rebellious exuberance into this week's assignment: Ignore the
cynical masochists who preach doom and gloom, and take up the cause of
zoom and boom. The astrological omens say this is your special time to
explore the frontiers of pleasure, harmony, integrity, and freedom.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has recorded
11 albums, including *Death of a Ladies' Man,* produced by the
legendary Phil Spector. Spector used unusual methods to provoke Cohen's
genius, like holding a gun to the singer's head and demanding a more
emotional delivery. I don't recommend that you enlist the services of a
nut like Spector, nor do I think you should resort to such outrageous
goads. I do, however, hope you'll find ways to give yourself friendly
shocks that will move you to raise your expectations of yourself.
*********************************************
HOMEWORK:
What's the title of the book you'd like to write? What's the name of
the rock band you'd be in? Testify by going to
http://www.freewillastrology.com and clicking on "Email Rob."
*********************************************
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.
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
*********************************************
NEED TO CHANGE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS?
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, or to change the
address where you receive it, go to:
http://www.freewillastrology.com/newsletter/
Once you do subscribe, be sure to add my address,
televisionary@comcast.net, to your address book or spam filter
"whitelist" so that my newsletter won't be treated as spam and filtered
out. Or tell your company's IT group to allow this address to pass
through any filtering software they may have set up.
If my emails don't reach your inbox, you should also look in your "Bulk
Mail" or "Junk Mail" folder.
I totally respect your privacy. I'll never sell or give away your
address to anyone.
*********************************************
Submissions sent to the Free Will Astrology Weekly 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 such submissions for length, style, and content.
Requests for anonymity will be honored with submissions;
otherwise, reader names, screen names, or initials will be used.
Please be sure to note your preference when sending to us. We
are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative
material.
Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2005 Rob Brezsny
********************************************