Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
September 5, 2007
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http://FreeWillAstrology.com
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"You are as prone to love, as the sun is to shine."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)
"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself flowers in your veins,
till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and
perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than
so, because men and women are in it who are every one sole heirs as well
as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight, as misers do in gold, and
kings in scepters, you never enjoy the world."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne
"This world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no one sees it. It is a Temple
of Majesty, yet no one regards it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to
man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the
Gate of Heaven."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne
"Souls are God's jewels."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My book
"PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings"
is available for sale at http://tinyurl.com/qaj62
To read news and features from the book, go here:
http://tinyurl.com/lhwx2
Here's an excerpt:
I'M A STAR, YOU'RE A STAR
You're a star--and so am I. I'm a genius--and so are you. Your brilliance
doesn't diminish my charisma, and vice versa.
Those are the new rules in the New World we're creating. That's different
from the Old World, where your greatness is supposed to make me feel
envious, and all of us are allegedly in competition for the rare privilege of
being a well-appreciated winner.
In the New World, you don't have to play down or apologize for your
prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your
own mastery without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you
ripen more of your latent aptitude, you inspire others to claim more of
their own idiosyncratic magnificence.
*
Tibetan Buddhist teacher Geshe Chekawa (1220–1295) specialized in
bodhicitta, seeking enlightenment not for personal gain but as a way to
serve others. On his deathbed, he prayed to be sent to hell so that he
might alleviate the suffering of the lost souls there.
As you explore pronoia, you'll discover that like Chekawa, you will have an
enormous capacity to help people. Unlike him, you'll find that expressing
your benevolence doesn't require you to go to hell. It may even be
unnecessary for you to sacrifice your own joy or practice self-denial. Just
the opposite: Being in service to humanity and celebrating your
individuality will be synergistic. They'll need each other to thrive.
*
The Golden Rule is a decent ethical principle, but it could be even better.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" presumes that
others enjoy what you enjoy. But that's wrong. There are many things
you'd like to have done unto you that others would either despise or be
bored by. Here's a new, improved formulation, which we call the Platinum
Rule: Do unto others as they would like to have you do unto them.
Using this improved formula is not just a virtuous way to live, but is also
the best way to ensure the success of your selfish goals. The rituals and
spells of various occult orders purport to be supercharged techniques for
imposing your personal will on the chaotic flow of events, but I say that
practicing the Platinum Rule outstrips all of them as an exercise to
enhance your power and happiness.
*
At the heart of the pronoiac way of life is an apparent conundrum: You
can have anything you want if you'll just ask for it in an unselfish way. The
trick to making this work is to locate where your deepest ambition
coincides with the greatest gift you have to give. Figure out how the
universe, by providing you with abundance, can improve the lot of
everyone whose life you touch. Seek the fulfillment of your fondest
desires in such a way that you become a fount of blessings.
*
The Bible quotes the radical first-century spiritual activist Jesus Christ as
follows: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those
who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."
This approach is as important to my well-being as getting good food and
exercise and sleep. It's self-destructive for me to hate anything, including
things that are easy to hate and that I might be naturally inclined to hate.
As much harm as fundamentalist Christians have wreaked on our culture,
for instance, feeling disgust for them only makes me sick. It feeds the
very "us versus them" thinking that I'm pledged to root out, thereby
making me a hypocrite and tainting my integrity. My mental and physical
health suffer, and that diminishes my ability to get what I want.
*
I got an e-mail from a beauty and truth fan who calls himself Drek, Agent
of the Future. "How come in the long list of human fears, 'showing one's
true self' is never included?" Drek mused. "Compared to the frighteningly
wonderful madness of tapping into our naked souls, stuff like snakes and
death and public speaking really don't seem that terrifying."
I wrote Drek back to congratulate him for facing his fear. I told him I
thought his struggle to reveal his raw beauty was as great a service to
humanity as the work of Buddhist teacher Geshe Chekawa.
*
"To be an altruist, you must first be an egoist." -George Gurdjieff.
"Before you can give yourself away, you have to have a self to give." —
Isabel Hickey, *Astrology: A Cosmic Science*
*
"In a gift-giving society, an individual gains prestige and satisfaction by
receiving, then adding to what has been received and passing it on." So
says Lewis Hyde in his book *The Gift, Imagination, and the Erotic Life of
Property.* "In a consumer society," he continues, "prestige and
satisfaction are gained through accumulation and acquisition. Nothing is
given, nothing is passed on."
Though you have been born and raised in a consumer society, your
attraction to pronoia suggests you have the ability to live in a gift-giving
society. One of the best ways to change yourself to help create such a
society is to expand your capacity for both accepting and bestowing
largesse.
Pronoia isn't just a matter of raking in the blessings offered to you by the
universal conspiracy, nor is it merely about aiding the conspiracy to
disseminate blessings to everyone else. It's a balance of the two.
*
One of the Beauty and Truth Lab's youngest practitioners is a 12-year-old
poet, Deirdre Vonn. She's modest about her art. She worries she hasn't
earned the states of awareness she writes about. "I don't know if I'm
really as sensitive and deep as I make myself out to be," she confessed
once as she handed me a beautiful poem.
I understand her concern. Am I as consistently noble-minded as my
writings might make me appear? Nope. Yet in the process of conjuring up
inspirational messages for my audience, I find myself pushing to live up to
their moral power; I become a more interesting and useful person.
How about you? Is there a gift you can give or service you can provide
that will awaken your dormant potential? Is there beauty you can bring to
life in your environment that will beauty you inside?
++++++++++++++++++++++++
To read other news and features from my book, go here:
http://tinyurl.com/lhwx2
You can buy the book here:
AMAZON
http://tinyurl.com/qaj62
POWELLS
http://tinyurl.com/3dsx6q
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
OTHER PRONOIA RESOURCES:
MAKING GENEROSITY COOL
New Frontiers in Philanthropy, by Peter H. Diamandis
http://tinyurl.com/2hs4sv
"So you're trying to fight cancer, solve poverty, educate children -- solve
the grand challenges of our day. How would you like to make sure that
your philanthropic donation was actually used to solve your chosen
challenge? Not to fund attempts at a solution, not to fund ideas, but to
fund THE solution that would be known in history books as a pivotal
moment when an intractable problem was conquered.
"Hold on, it gets better than that. What if your donation caused others to
jump on your bandwagon and spend 10 - 50 times as much to lick the
problem?"
BIOEROTIC LOVE LETTERS: an invitation
Chris McClarren has issued the following invitation to play the Bioerotic
Love Letters Game:
Dear Everybody,
To better smash the internalized oppressive behavior of just focusing on
human beings, and liberate our inherent and most marvelous tendency to
fall in love with everything and anything, this game is played by
expressing your erotic experience of and love for anything and everything
-- praying mantises, burping, sun rays, red-headed woodpeckers, moons,
wildflowers, laughter, hair -- any phenomena or creature that inspires you.
Express yourself with words, images or a combination.
Send your Bioerotic Love Letters no later than midnight on Friday
September 14th to:
la_belle_tenebreuse@hotmail.co.uk
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. These are not advertisements,
and I get no kickbacks.)
Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning September 6
Copyright 2007 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): When big egos bluster and bounce off the
walls, you're a master at cleaning up the messes. When glory hogs get
careless about the details, you're good at patching up the resulting holes.
And when people with stunted emotional intelligence try to assert their
control-freak fantasies without acknowledging anyone's feelings, you can
be the savior who steps in to prevent full-blown chaos from breaking out.
I admire these skills of yours, Virgo, and I hope that you invoke them if
necessary in the coming week. But I also want to make sure you know
that you've been granted a poetic license to have a bigger ego than
usual, and to flirt with being a benevolent glory hog, and to maybe even
play around lightheartedly with your own control-freak fantasies.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Someone calculated the mass of all the data
that flows over the Internet in the course of a year. The trillions of
terabytes of information tip the scales at a mere .00004 ounce. I suspect
that a similar disjunction will occur in your life during the coming days.
Maybe you'll create a weightless miracle with incredible staying power. Or
perhaps you will oversee a potent and intense and profound change that
will be difficult to measure and almost invisible to casual observers.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It's an excellent time to clearly and precisely
define what heaven on earth would look like for you. So study the
following mission statement, written by my reader Darla Fremos, then
compose your own. "In my perfect world," says Darla, "I'd spend the
mornings lying in long grass filled with fragrant flowers at the edge of a
lake high on a hill above a sleepy town. I'd read books that tickled my
soul, eat snacks that satisfied my wildest hunger, and use my eyes to
make love with clouds, hummingbirds, breezes, and other temporary
allies. After a noon siesta, I'd take a leisurely walk along a birch-lined road
to my command center, where I'd join my team of associates as we spent
the next eight hours managing my global network of activists working to
end poverty and hunger."
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Trying to be a first-rate reporter on
the average American newspaper," wrote media critic Ben Bagdikian, "is
like trying to play Bach's *St. Matthew Passion* on a ukulele: The
instrument is too crude for the work, for the audience, and for the
performer." But if anyone could pull off such a feat, Sagittarius, it would
be you in the state you're in now. You're ingenious at making the best out
of mediocre situations. You have a special ability to transform limited
resources into useful and valuable assets.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
AUDIO LOVE LETTERS
Averaging three-and-a-half to four minutes in length, my expanded
audio horoscopes are a wholly different experience than the
print oracle you read here.
Drawing on traditional charting, divination, and the power of spoken word
performance, these readings bring out the down-to-earth advisor and
helper in me.
Try them at http://RealAstrology.com.
They're are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888
or 1-900-950-7700.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I predict that you will soon be drinking
your morning wake-up beverage out of a goblet made of gold mined in
ancient times. Songbirds will appear near your window to sing you tunes
that magically unleash your dormant genetic potentials. Out of nowhere,
servants will arrive and offer to wash your feet in jeweled basins once
used to baptize the children of queens. Maybe most exciting of all, you
will command the power of the wind and lightning. OK, so maybe
everything I just predicted will only occur in your dreams. But even if
that's the case, it's a sign that you're in a heightened state of receptivity
to miracles and wonders -- which suggests that they will soon be swirling
around you.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Here are a few of the interesting
developments I expect that you will have enjoyed by the end of
September: unexpected revelations about your past; a deeper
commitment that spawns more freedom; an ethical use of smoke and
mirrors for the most important hocus-pocus of the year; unheard-of
emotions that are so transformative they make pain unnecessary; and --
speaking metaphorically here -- a night journey down a dark road that
leads to a pile of coal where a huge diamond is hidden.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): It's an excellent time to seek out a more
intimate relationship with your muse. I'd love to see you two develop a
deeper commitment to each other. And if for some bizarre reason you
don't have a muse or have lost touch with your muse, it's a perfect
moment to correct that intolerable situation. And don't tell me that
you're not an artist or writer or musician, and therefore don't need a
muse. *Everyone* needs a muse, even soccer moms and homeless mimes.
Especially these days, your well-being depends on the unpredictable
inspirations that can best be provided by a person or spirit or luminary
who captivates your imagination and drives you crazily sane with
mysterious revelations.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Fresh Witty Allegories
Fine When Aroused
Flagrant Warrior Artists
Free Will Astrology
An expanded audio horoscope from a
Fortuneteller With Attitude
*
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 audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or
1-900-950-7700.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ARIES (March 21-April 19): A few years ago, the Cambodian government
decided that the country's karaoke bars had become hotbeds of vice. To
suppress their evil influence, the prime minister called out the army's
bulldozers and demolished them. Keep that in mind as an example of how
NOT to proceed in the coming week, Aries. While the astrological omens
do suggest that you should phase out bad and inferior influences from
your life, they also warn against resorting to overkill. As you rightfully
purge the weird karma lingering in your vicinity, don't create a new batch
of weird karma.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): "The secret to success is to always be in
love," said educator and ex-army officer John H. Stanford. "Staying in
love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see inside other people,
to have a greater desire to get things done than other people." Did
Stanford mean that you should be forever infatuated with some
irresistible human being? Or was he referring to a more all-purpose
phenomenon, like being in love with life? I urge you to meditate with great
diligence and exuberance on this matter, Taurus, because you are, in my
astrological opinion, going through a phase when love is EVERYTHING. It's
the question and the answer, the hammer and the nail, the dreamy
necessity and the pragmatic mystery.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): There's an old Motown song, "You Really Got a
Hold on Me," that has these lyrics: "I don't like you, but I love you . . . I
don't want you, but I need you." Is there anyone or anything fitting that
description in your life, Gemini? If so, this is a good time to take inventory
of your relationship, and change it if you don't like what you see. A
question you might want to ask yourself: Is there a noble purpose in
enduring the painful discrepancy? Or are you addicted, feeding a bad
habit because of an old wound that you wrongly think you can heal
through this torment?
CANCER (June 21-July 22): For my friend Leslie, the year 2003 was great
for her personally, but terrible for five of her friends. One was committed
to a mental institution and given shock therapy, while the others were
lost to jail, heroin, political persecution, and a religious cult. Ever since
then, Leslie has made it her specialty to monitor her friends' fortunes and
offer them extra attention if they have veered off course or gotten into
trouble. While that's a demanding responsibility to sustain all the time, I
suggest you consider taking it on in the coming weeks. According to my
reading of the omens, your allies could really benefit from your focused
feedback.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "Success is dangerous," said Picasso. "One begins
to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy
others. It leads to sterility." Sorry to start your horoscope with a warning,
Leo, especially given how much beautiful success you've generated
recently. But the astrological omens suggest you may soon be tempted
to turn your spontaneous outpourings into pat formulas. And that would
be a shame. There's still a lot more fresh hot mojo brewing within you,
and it'll reach its highest expression if it keeps surprising you. Trust
what's fresh, uncategorizable, and at the frontiers of your understanding.
*************************************************
HOMEWORK: Imagine your future self has sent a message to you back
through time. What is it? Tell me by going to
http://www.RealAstrology.com; click on "Email Rob."
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WANT TO GET YOUR CHART DONE?
I'm not doing personal charts these days, but I highly recommend my
favorite astrological colleague, RO LOUGHRAN. Her approach closely
matches my own. In our many discussions about astrology over the years,
we've had a major influence on each other's work.
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
2007 Rob Brezsny
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