Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology Newsletter
Thomas Merton's notion of what makes a saint saintly 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 godly person "retires from the
struggle of judging others."
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December 7, 2005
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http://www.freewillastrology.com
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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.) Send it all to me at P.O. Box
150628, San Rafael, CA 94915.
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).
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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.
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THIS EARTH IS HONEY
"This earth is honey for all beings, and all beings are honey for this
earth. The intelligent, immortal being, the soul of the earth, and the
intelligent, immortal being, the soul in the individual being—each is
honey to the other." —Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
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20,000 YEARS OF PROGRESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
"Centuries ago people didn't think that the world was changing at all.
Their grandparents had the same lives that they did, and they expected
their grandchildren would do the same, and that expectation was largely
fulfilled.
"Today it's an axiom that life is changing and that technology is
affecting the nature of society. What's not fully understood is that
the pace of change is itself accelerating, and the last 20 years are
not a good guide to the next 20 years. We're doubling the paradigm
shift rate, the rate of progress, every decade.
"The whole 20th century was like 25 years of change at today's rate of
change. In the next 25 years we'll make four times the progress you saw
in the 20th century. And we'll make 20,000 years of progress in the
21st century, which is almost a thousand times more technical change
than we saw in the 20th century." —Ray Kurzweil, excerpt from "The
Singularity," on the Edge website, March 25, 2001,
www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kurzweil_singularity/kurzweil_singularity_index.html
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OPEN SECRET REVEALED
"There is a great insight which our culture is deliberately designed to
suppress, distort, and ignore: that Nature is a minded entity; that
Nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic
fields; that Nature is not the empty, despiritualized lumpen matter
that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of
intelligence, a kind of mind." —Terence McKenna,
www.deoxy.org/mckenna.htm
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MIRABILIA REPORT
Mirabilia n. modest astonishments, friendly shocks, sweet anomalies;
from the Latin mirabilia, "marvels."
* Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley say that
diamonds rain from the sky on Uranus and Neptune.
* Romanian physicists created gaseous globes of plasma that grew,
reproduced, and communicated with each other, thereby fulfilling the
definition for life.
* Thirty-eight percent of North America is wilderness.
* There is a statistically significant probability of world-class
athletes and military leaders being born when Mars is rising in the
sky.
* In the pueblos of New Mexico, bricks still measure 33 by 15 by 10
centimeters, proportions that almost exactly match those of the bricks
used to build Egypt's Temple of Hatshepsut 3,500 years ago.
* To make a pound of honey, bees have to gather nectar from about two
million flowers. To produce a single pound of the spice saffron, humans
have to handpick and process 80,000 flowers. In delivering the single
survivor necessary to fertilize an ovum, a man releases 500 million
sperm.
* Childbirth is often joyful even though it's quite painful.
* Current definitions of what's normal are likely to be regarded as
pathological 15 years from now.
* In hopes of calming flustered lawbreakers, Japanese cops have
substituted the sound of church bells for sirens on police cars.
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SIXTH-GRADE ZEITGEIRST UPDATE
The following bon mots were scrawled on the backpacks and binders of
sixth grade girls at Greenwood School in Mill Valley, California:
Learn as if you'll live forever.
Explain yourself wildly, not carefully.
Wake up—but not too fast, or you might hurt yourself.
Question authority, including the authority that told you to question
authority.
Give me chocolate or I'll scream.
It's all so funny—how can you not be laughing?
When you shout "halaluya," never spell it right.
Live the freakiest truth.
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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Multimillionaire pop star George Michael has decided to give away his
music for free, posting it on the Internet for anyone to download.
"I've been very well remunerated for my talents over the years," he
told BBC, "so I really don't need the public's money."
Hollywood movie and music mogul David Geffen also believes he has
enough money. The billionaire cofounder of DreamWorks told Forbes, "I
have no interest in making money anymore. Everything I make in the
entertainment business will go to charity."
CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner is in the middle of a 10-year,
billion-dollar giveaway to the United Nations. Since 1997, he has been
donating annual installments of 100 million dollars, specifying that
they not be used for administration costs but for programs like
eliminating land mines, feeding children, and preventing disease.
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THIS WEEK IN PRONOIA HISTORY
Until she broke her foot as a teen, Paula Cole wanted to be a
cheerleader like all the most popular girls. But the injury required
her to wear a wooden shoe for an entire year, dashing her dreams and
sending her in search of other identities. "That's when I found the
piano, when music saved me," she said. "That's when I first attempted
to write my own songs." Years later Cole became a Grammy-winning
singer-songwriter.
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PNN is made possible by Tom Robbins belief, as stated in his book
*Jitterbug Perfume,* that "The unhappy person resents it when you try
to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself
and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate
form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of
attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very
seriously."
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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
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning December 8
Copyright 2005 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Science writer Carl Sagan liked to say that
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." He often invoked
that idea in his crusade to debunk theories he considered outlandish,
like the proposition that extraterrestrials are visiting our planet.
While I think Sagan's measuring stick is usually quite useful, you
should be careful about applying it too fanatically in the coming week.
Surprising and marvelous possibilities are headed your way, and at
least one of them will be very real but impossible for your rational
mind to validate.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In Sicily, the word "mafia" once meant
beauty, charm, excellence, or boldness. In its modern usage, both in
Italian and English, none of the old senses of the word have survived.
It refers to organized crime, and conveys a sinister mood. I encourage
you to identify a comparable thing in your own life, Taurus: a
situation, influence, or relationship that was formerly a blessing, but
that has now degenerated into a source of darkness. Is there anything
you can do to resurrect its original glory? If it's even remotely
possible, now is the time you're most likely to accomplish it.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): About 149 light years from Earth, astronomers
have discovered a planet in a solar system with three stars. If you
lived on that world, you'd regularly see three different sunrises, one
each by a yellow, orange, and red sun. I think that happens to be an
apt metaphor for your current state of affairs, Gemini. Several potent
sources are competing to be your lodestar; you can't decide which one
you want to be your wellspring of meaning. I'm not saying that's bad.
In fact, it could be very interesting. But if you choose to keep
indulging in this division of your attention, you will have to work
hard not to become scattered.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Have you seen the TV show "Lost"? One of the
tales it tells is about a character named John Locke, who has been
confined to a wheelchair for years. When the plane he's riding on
crashes on a Pacific island, he is not only unhurt, he recovers the use
of his legs. The accident itself is somehow the mysterious cause of the
miracle. I predict that you will be the beneficiary of events that have
a metaphorical or mythic resemblance to Locke's story. Luckily, the
triggering experience will be nowhere near as scary or dangerous as
Locke's. And while the resulting transformation may also be less
spectacular, it will fix a knotty problem or restore a lost capacity.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): You have gone through feline phases before, Leo,
but your current resonance with cat-like energy is extraordinary. I
wouldn't be surprised if you felt desires to undulate when you move,
scratch furniture, sleep more than usual, rub yourself against people
you love, act downright inscrutable, and get lots of high-quality alone
time. I also suspect you'll need to find a way to express a pressing
urge to hunt. My advice? You might want to seek guidance in some of
those horoscope books for cats, like *Cat Astrology* by Michael Zulio
or *Starcats* by Helen Hope.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): To convey the dirt simple oracle you need to
hear, I'm going to steal a line from the poet William Kulik: "You can't
*get it* because you've already got it." In other words, Virgo, your
only hope for enjoying the lovely experience you're wistfully
fantasizing about is to register the fact that the lovely experience is
available to you right now. It's already yours for the taking.
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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
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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Dear Rev. Brezsny: I had a dream that I was
inside a drawing by M.C. Escher. Every time I reached the top of a
stairway I found myself again at the bottom of the same stairway. I
couldn't tell which way was up and which was down. Depending on how I
turned my head, the sky was above me and full of swimming fish or it
was below me and full of flying birds. I kept seeing a snake swallowing
its own tail. What does it all mean? -Puzzled Libra." Dear Puzzled: I
believe your dream points to three experiences that a lot of Librans
are having right now: 1. Opposites are not only starting to attract;
they may even be flowing into each other. 2. Beginnings and endings are
not merely overlapping; they may both be contained in the same
situation. 3. An influence now entering your life has arrived here from
eternity.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): George III was King of England from 1760 to
1820. During the last years of his reign, he gradually became more and
more insane, talking to himself for hours on end and addressing trees
as if they were people. When he first began losing his mind, his
servants and assistants decided they would try to make him feel more
comfortable by acting crazy themselves. Their collusion with George's
pathology is an extreme example of a situation that all of us are at
risk of. Our associates and loved ones may fall into a rhythm of going
along with our odd ideas and bad habits, encouraging us to continue
doing what we probably shouldn't do. I think this could be a potential
problem for you in the coming days, Scorpio. Your allies may not bust
you or call your bluff, which means you'd better do it yourself.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "If they can get you asking the wrong
questions, they don't have to worry about the answers," wrote novelist
Thomas Pynchon. Between now and the end of the year, Sagittarius,
please gaze into a mirror and tell yourself that advice regularly. You
can't afford to let anyone--authorities, experts, enemies, or even
friends--set the ground rules or define the contours of your quest for
the truth. Your driving passion should be to frame the unique questions
that will lead you inexorably to what you need to know next. (P.S. The
answers you receive will be wrong until you frame those crafty
questions.)
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "If in the last few years you haven't
discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You
may be dead." So said the humorist Gelett Burgess, and now, just in
time for your Shedding Season, I'm offering his advice to you. It's
high time for you to get rid of all the old stuff you possibly can,
including not only the major opinions that you've outgrown, but also
mementoes that have lost their meaning, clothes that no longer match
your self-image, and once-exciting adventures that have succumbed to
numbing habit.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Writing in November's *Esquire,* Chuck
Klosterman described the National Football League as one of the most
successful socialist institutions in the world. As evidence, he notes
that rich teams in the biggest markets are required to share their
revenue with poor teams in small markets. The league's best franchise
in recent years, the New England Patriots, has won so many games
because its star players have volunteered to accept reduced salaries,
making more cash available for the team to assemble the best possible
collection of second-line players. I recommend a similar approach to
you, Aquarius. It's a propitious time to bring the NFL's brand of
communalism to the group or business or tribe that's so important to
you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "There are two tragedies in life," said
George Bernard Shaw. "One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is
to gain it." If we satisfy our deepest longings, in other words, we
lose our primary reason for living. We love to feel our yearnings so
much that we're devastated if they're ever quenched. Or so the argument
goes. But I'm here to tell you, Pisces, that you have a good chance of
refuting this theory in 2006. I think you'll get exactly what you've
wanted, and then thrive in the aftermath. A crucial key to this
potential success story will be offered to you in the coming week.
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HOMEWORK:
Don't confess your sins; confess your most secret
accomplishments. 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.
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
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I totally respect your privacy. I'll never sell or give away your
address to anyone.
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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,
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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
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