Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology Newsletter
"The notion that inspired play (even when audacious, offensive, or
obscene) enhances rather than diminishes intellectual vigor and spiritual
fulfillment, the notion that in the eyes of the gods the tight-lipped hero
and the wet-cheeked victim are frequently inferior to the red-nosed
clown, such notions are destined to be a hard sell to those who have E.M.
Forster on their bedside table and a clump of dried narcissus up their ass.
"Not to worry. As long as words and ideas exist, there will be a few
misfits who will cavort with them in a spirit of *approfondement*--if I may
borrow that marvelous French word that translates roughly as "playing
easily in the deep"--and in so doing they will occasionally bring to
realization Kafka's belief that 'a novel should be an ax for the frozen seas
around us.'"
-"In Defiance of Gravity" by Tom Robbins, *Harper's Magazine,* Sept
2004
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October 25, 2006
http://freewillastrology.com
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My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on
your destiny. They're three to four minutes long, and are available at
http://realastrology.com. The cost is $6 per reading, or $20 if you buy
four readings, and $60 if you buy 16 readings.
The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or
1-900-950-7700 for $1.99 per minute.
My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of
illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or other
mobile device. You can sign up for them at http://realastrology.com. The
cost is $6.99 per week (billed monthly), or $4.99 per week (billed
monthly) if you choose to automatically renew your account.
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Here are excerpts from my book
"PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings"
available at http://tinyurl.com/qaj62
or find out more at http://www.freewillastrology.com
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RADICAL EVERYTHING
"I've been practicing radical authenticity lately," my friend Brandon told
me. "I'm revealing the blunt truth about unmentionable subjects to
everyone I know. It's been pretty hellish—no one likes having the social
masks stripped away—but it's been ultimately rewarding."
"I admire your boldness in naming the currents flowing beneath the
surface," I replied, "but I'm curious as to why you imply they're all
negative. To practice radical authenticity, shouldn't you also express the
raw truth about what's right, good, and beautiful? Shouldn't you unleash
the praise and gratitude that normally go unspoken?"
Brandon sneered. He thought my version of radical authenticity was
wimpy. I hope you don't. As a budding pronoiac, you have a mandate to
be honest in both ways.
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"RADICAL EVERYTHING" IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
SACRED UNDERWEAR
The saffron robes of Tibetan monks and black habits of nuns are outer
signs of their devotion. But among religious devotees there's also a
tradition of wearing hidden clothing that's charged with symbolic
meaning--in other words, sacred underwear.
Some Mormons, for instance, regularly slip on a white neck-to-knee
garment that's meant to remind them of their pact with God. Orthodox
Jewish men may wear tsitsit, a fringed cloth, beneath their basic black.
For especially devout Catholics, the sacred underwear is called a scapular.
French philosopher Blaise Pascal had his own non-denominational version.
At the height of an intense epiphany, he scrawled prayerful poems on a
parchment, and forever after wore it under his clothes.
We recommend the practice to you: Design or find your own sacred
underwear. You could draw magical glyphs on your briefs. Stuff a talisman
in your bra. Write a prayer on an undershirt or slip. Or do whatever
captivates your imagination. This will be a secret sign--between you and
the Divine Wow alone--of your spiritual intention. Except for the two of
you, no one else will know.
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To read other news and features from my book, go here:
http://snipurl.com/l9o3
To buy the book, use the links to Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble,
which are on my homepage at http://www.freewillastrology.com
Or cut and paste the direct links below:
AMAZON
http://snipurl.com/krjj
BARNES & NOBLE
http://snipurl.com/krjn
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OTHER PRONOIA RESOURCES:
THE WORLD IS BETTER THAN YOU'VE BEEN TOLD
The world has become dramatically more peaceful since 1992, according
to the Human Security Report. The number of wars, coup d'etats, and
acts of genocide has declined by 40 percent. Weapons sales between
countries have dropped 33 percent during the same time, and the number
of refugees has diminished by 45 percent.
http://tinyurl.com/yz45oc
ORGANIC SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE: Building the Mystical
"Buildings designed by Hungary's Imre Makovecz are so alive you can
almost feel them breathing."
http://tinyurl.com/yn9mzn
http://tinyurl.com/ye7kyl
http://tinyurl.com/ymkqde
http://tinyurl.com/yjn4sl
AROUND THE WORLD BY BICYCLE
http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They're not advertisements,
and I get no kickbacks.)
Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning October 26
Copyright 2006 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Nineteenth-century English poet Dante Gabriel
Rossetti wrote a series of sensual sonnets inspired by his relationship with
his wife Elizabeth. Before he could publish them, Elizabeth died. He was so
distraught he placed the only copy of his manuscript in the grave with
her. Years later, though, he decided the love poems were too good to
consign forever to the oblivion of the dirt. He had the coffin disinterred
and recovered his work. I suggest you draw inspiration from this story,
Aries. Reclaim riches that you once abandoned or left for dead. Halloween
costume suggestions: grave-digger, archaeologist, miner, psychic medium
who communes with the spirits of the departed.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): "Jaws" is the most common name for pet
goldfish. Take your cue from this fun fact, Taurus. Identify the mildest,
tamest, most passive part of you, then push it in the direction of
becoming more daring, assertive, and courageous. If it helps to give that
part of you a nickname like "Jaws," by all means do so. Halloween
costume suggestion: a shark, Tyrannosaurus, dragon, or football player.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A sizable proportion of Christians are addicted
to pornography, according to a poll conducted by a major Christian
website (http://tinyurl.com/yl5ccd). It that's true, it's dramatic
proof of what psychologists say: that we're prone to be unhealthily
obsessed and possessed by whatever we demonize. Meditate on how this
theme might apply to you, Gemini. Investigate whether you're being hurt
by your scorn and anger and hatred. And please note that I'm not
advising you to protect yourself from people or things you judge as bad,
but rather from your attitudes about them. Halloween costume
suggestion: a fundamentalist porn star.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In December 1984, comedian T. R. Benker
told jokes for 48 consecutive hours at a restaurant in Mount Prospect,
Illinois. Last year, Ethiopian oddball Belachew Girma laughed nonstop for
100 minutes at a club in Munich. These two chuckle-meisters are your
role models, Cancerian. Your assignment is to stimulate massive attacks
of reeling merriment and potent doses of sacred revelry as much as
possible, both in yourself and others. Halloween costume suggestion: a
court jester who relentlessly doles out compliments; a smirking prankster
with angel wings and a halo; Santa Claus with a bag full of joke gifts;
Lucille Ball imitating Sara Silverman or vice versa.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Most flowers depend on pollinators to reproduce.
Birds and insects brush up against a flower's male parts, picking up pollen
that they leave on the female parts of the next flower they visit. But
nature has created an anomaly that doesn't play by these rules. A wild
orchid known as *Holcoglossum amesianum* fecundates itself. Its male
bits actually move, carrying out a complicated maneuver to reach around
and down to deposit pollen directly into its female portions. This orchid is
your power symbol, Leo. I hope it encourages you to learn more about
self-fertilization--to increase your mastery of the underappreciated art of
inspiring and teaching and taking care of yourself. Halloween costume
suggestion: a hermaphrodite carrying a wild orchid.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): French author Andre Gide said, "The color of
truth is gray." Make that your watchword, Virgo. Resist the temptation to
fall in love with bright shiny red facts or alluring azure maxims. Run like
the wind from anyone who tries to sell you a story about good guys in
white hats versus bad guys in black hats. The more comfortable you are
with veracities that have the hue of dirty dishwater, the more likely it is
you'll see things exactly as they are, free of delusions and deceits.
Halloween costume suggestion: any elaborate, intricate getup, like a
commedia dell'arte character's outfit, that's all grey.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Chinese professor Cao Shizhong is head of the
Slanting Building Correction Research Institute. His company specializes in
straightening vertical structures that are tilting. He has offered to fix
Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa, though not completely. Recognizing that it's
a tourist attraction, Shizhong doesn't want to make it so upright that it'll
lose its appeal to the curious. So he has offered to give it the same mild
slant it had when it was first constructed in 1350. Let's apply this as a
metaphor, Libra. I suggest that you *partially* rectify something that's
slouching or lopsided in your life. Don't be such a compulsive perfectionist
that it loses its soulful charm. Halloween costume suggestion: a beauty
queen with a big pimple; a superhero with a broken arm.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You're ready for take-off. It's time to taxi to
the launch location and prepare to go airborne. I suggest you do what
birds and airplanes do, which is to fly directly into the wind as you leave
the ground. As long as you're forcefully propelling yourself forward, that
will give you maximum lift. Oh, and flap your wings gracefully, not
frenetically. Don't stare at the ground right beneath you, but rather fix
your gaze on a distant point high above you. Halloween costume
suggestion: eagle, jet, hang-glider, dragonfly.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): About 7,500 people live on Nauru, a
coral atoll in the South Pacific. For years, their primary source of income
has come from bird droppings, from which they harvest and export
phosphates. I suggest you draw inspiration from their example,
Sagittarius. Can you think of any wastes you could cash in on? Might it be
possible for you to make money from something you think of as useless
and messy? Is there some muck that might actually turn out to be
valuable if you only considered it from a fresh perspective? Halloween
costume suggestion: a plumber carrying a wad of bills; a garbage man or
garbage woman wearing a royal crown; a janitor sporting shamanic
accessories.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Thomas Paine was a zealous
insurrectionary. He wrote incendiary pamphlets that helped ignite and
sustain America's struggle for independence from Great Britain. Early in
his life, however, he worked making women's girdles, which are among the
most constrictive and oppressive garments in the history of the world. Do
you think there was a connection between his two gigs? Like maybe his
later struggle for liberation was an unconscious atonement for his
youthful labors? That's my hypothesis. In the coming week, Capricorn, I
suggest you instigate a Thomas Paine-like boomerang. Think of something
you did in the past that constricted your spirit or squeezed other people's
possibilities. Use that memory as a launching pad as you unleash a brilliant
stroke in the name of abundance and expansiveness. Halloween costume
suggestion: freedom fighter.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Lightning strikes somewhere on the earth
6,000 times every minute. A single bolt may carry a million volts and
reach a temperature of 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. If this elemental force
could be tamed and utilized, it would provide enough energy to raise a
cruise ship six feet in the air. While you won't be able to literally harness a
lightning bolt in the coming week, Aquarius, you could accomplish the
metaphorical equivalent. At least temporarily, you have an uncanny talent
for mobilizing tremendous power that's normally too hot to handle.
Halloween costume suggestion: a relaxed, smiling lightning bolt.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and
narrow-mindedness," wrote Mark Twain. I'd add that it also tends to
dissolve dogmas, break bad habits, and flush away sterile theories that
haven't been tested by actual experience. These are all blessings I wish
for you right now, Pisces. I hope that as you wander free of your familiar
haunts, you'll have your mind completely blown, get shocked out of your
limiting beliefs about yourself, and be so electrified by the world's beauty
that you pretty much fall in love with everything and everyone. Halloween
costume suggestion: a tourist, nomad, sherpa guide, shaman, Ferdinand
Magellan, Sacagawea, Amelia Earhart.
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HOMEWORK:
Scare yourself with your own exquisite beauty. Freak yourself out by
realizing how amazing you are. Testify by going to
http://www.realastrology.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.yoursouljourney.com
She can also be reached at roloughran@comcast.net
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2006 Rob Brezsny
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