Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
August 6, 2008
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http://FreeWillAstrology.com
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Rob Brezsny performs this Friday, 8.08.08
SOUL REVIVAL and SACRED UPROAR
A Benefit for Temple Pantheogenesis
at Entheon Village, Burning Man
Irreverend Rob leads the congregation through a Soul Revival service that
features raucous prayers, Dionysian sermons, chaotic meditations, tender
rants, and praise songs. Accompanied by guitarist Josh Brill and vocalist
Jessica Rice.
Friday, 8.08.08
Anon Gallery
285 9th Street @ Folsom
San Francisco
9 pm - 4 am
Suggested donation $15-$30
For further info: http://tinyurl.com/6esajd
Rob and friends are on from about 10:15 to 11:15. The night also
includes a dance party, visionary art, shrine creation, elevating films, and
a full bar. For the full schedule, go to the website.
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"If Spirit has any meaning, it must be omnipresent, or all-pervading and
all-encompassing. There can't be a place where Spirit is not, or it wouldn't
be infinite. Therefore, Spirit has to be completely present, right here, right
now, in your own awareness. That is, your own present awareness,
precisely as it is, without changing it or altering it in any way, is perfectly
and completely permeated by Spirit._
"Furthermore, it is not that Spirit is present but you need to be
enlightened in order to see it. It is not that you are one with Spirit but
just don't know it yet. Because that would also imply that there is some
place Spirit is not. No, according to Dzogchen, you are always already one
with Spirit, and that awareness is always already fully present, right now.
You are looking directly at Spirit, with Spirit, in every act of awareness.
There is nowhere Spirit is not.
"Further, if Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or
without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would
be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means,
as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened.
You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then
that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true
enlightenment._ _
"Rather, Spirit, and enlightenment, has to be something that you are fully
aware of right now. Something you are already looking at right now. We
are all already looking directly at Spirit, we just don't recognize it. We
have all the necessary cognition, but not the recognition."
- Ken Wilber, *Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death
of Treya Killam Wilber*
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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
Here's an excerpt:
WHAT IF YOUR DESIRES ARE HOLY?
Some religious traditions teach the doctrine, "Kill off your longings." In
their view, attachment to desire is at the root of human suffering. But the
religion of materialism takes the opposite tack, asserting that the
meaning of life is to be found in indulging desires. Its creed is, "Feed your
cravings like a French foie gras farmer cramming eight pounds of maize
down a goose's gullet every day."
At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we walk a middle path. We believe there are
both degrading desires that enslave you and sacred desires that liberate
you.
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Psychologist Carl Jung believed that all desires have a sacred origin, no
matter how odd they may seem. Frustration and ignorance may contort
them into distorted caricatures, but it is always possible to locate the
divine source from which they arose. In describing one of his addictive
patients, Jung said: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low
level of the spiritual thirst for wholeness, or as expressed in medieval
language: the union with God."
*
Therapist James Hillman echoes the theme: "Psychology regards all
symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way." A
preoccupation with porn or romance novels, for instance, may come to
dominate a passionate person whose quest for love has degenerated into
an obsession with images of love. "Follow the lead of your symptoms,"
Hillman suggests, "for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is
an expression of soul."
*
In *Maldoror and Poems,* the French poet Lautréamont wrote about holy
yearning disguised as mournful complaint. "Whenever you hear the dogs'
howling in the fields," his mother told him as a child, "don't deride what
they do: They thirst insatiably for the infinite, like you, me, and the rest
of us humans. I even allow you to stand at the window and gaze upon this
exalted spectacle."
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"Mad! One must become mad with love in order to realize God. When a
person attains ecstatic love of God, all the pores of the skin, even the
roots of the hair, become like so many sex organs, and in every pore the
aspirant enjoys the happiness of communion with the Supreme Universal
Self." -- Ramakrishna
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Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don't really need and
aren't good for you. But you shouldn't disparage yourself for having
them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted. Rather, think
of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a
faculty that will one day be far more expert. They're how you practice as
you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a
while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are
really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.
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"The only way anyone is ever cured of desiring nonsensical things is by
getting the nonsensical things and then experiencing the unpleasant but
educational consequences." - Ann Davies, http://www.bota.org
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"To become a master of desire, keep talking yourself out of being
attached to trivial goals and keep talking yourself into being thrilled about
the precious few goals that are really important. Here's another way to
say it: Wean yourself from ego-driven desires and pour your libido into a
longing for beauty, truth, goodness, justice, integrity, creativity, love, and
an intimate relationship with the Wild Divine."
- Raye Sangfreud, "Black Market Orchids," *Underground Pronoia*
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"God has desires. Since I want to be close to God and to model myself
after God, I therefore don't aspire to extinguish my desires, but rather to
make my desires more God-like: i.e., imbued with an inexorable ambition
to create the greatest and most interesting blessings for everyone and
everything." - Collin Klamper
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"When I hold you, I hold everything: ruby-throated hummingbirds sipping
from plum flowers, mangoes ripening in the smoke of burning forests,
crones praying in the foamy sand at low tide, shocked waterfalls gracing
new housing developments, volcanoes drinking in the fragrance of the
stars. In your eyes I see everything that lives."
- mash-up of Pablo Neruda and Rob Brezsny
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Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your
relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you
clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and
wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating. Beginning
then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter.
Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify
yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your
passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and
most interesting good.
. . . To read all of
"WHAT IF YOUR DESIRES ARE HOLY" (some has been censored so as to
avoid being crushed by spam filters), go here:
http://tinyurl.com/3d6hut
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To read 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
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OTHER PRONOIA RESOURCES:
AMAZING PEOPLE ARE WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES TO HELP US ALL
"Major discovery from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution:
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system"
"In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal,
boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers
have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy
for use when the sun doesn't shine."
http://tinyurl.com/5uu53h
IMPERFECTLY PERFECT PRONOIAC SOLUTIONS
A Life Saver Called "Plumpynut"
Not as many Nigerian kids are starving
http://tinyurl.com/5agou5
PRONOIA + CONTROVERSY = PROTOVERSY
Instead of a controversy, start a protoversy.
"The world's a big enough place for a diverse ecology of successes."
http://torley.com/start-a-protroversy-today
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They are 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 August 7
Copyright 2008 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): When British rock legend David Bowie came to
America for his first tour in 1973, he said he felt like a fly in a glass of
milk. He was half-drowning in a flood of interesting new sensations and
perceptions, while at the same time he was greedily drinking it all in,
stoked with fascinated joy. According to my astrological projections, Leo,
you're in that fly-in-the-milk state yourself, or will soon be.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The light in your eyes looks a little foggy,
Virgo. The fire in your belly seems to be smoldering, and your brain has
been hiccupping. At least your heart isn't exactly broken. (Though I'm
tempted to make suggestions about how to fix it anyway.) Am I worried?
Not at all. After the nonstop breakthroughs you enjoyed there for a while,
I expected that you would eventually need time to slow down and let
everything sink in. So I suggest that you cultivate a state of low-key
contentment as your deep mind integrates the transformations you set in
motion.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I'm not a fan of renowned free-market guru
Milton Friedman, who died in 2006. His philosophy has wreaked more
suffering on the world than any since Communism. (Read Naomi Klein's
*The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism* for the gross
details.) There's one particular keystone of his belief system that is
especially important for you to rebel against in the coming weeks. He said
that "only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change." In the
name of all you hold holy, Libra, I ask you to prove him wrong. Show
yourself and everyone who looks to you for inspiration that real change
can be motivated by an exuberant lust for life -- by a generous longing to
risk adventures that will yield greater rewards.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The guy who gave his name to North and
South America was a pickle salesman and writer as well as an explorer.
After a stint in Spain selling his vitamin C-rich pickles to outbound ships,
Amerigo Vespucci got to travel to the New World in 1499 and 1502. The
stories he penned about his adventures there were highly imaginative, like
his description of giant native women with huge breasts who employed
poisonous fluids extracted from insects to super-size their husbands'
penises. I nominate Amerigo to be your role model in the coming weeks,
Scorpio. May you, too, do what comes natural and be your funky self in
ways that lead to glory and renown. (My source for the info about
Amerigo is Tony Horwitz's book *A Voyage Long and Strange:
Rediscovering the New World.*)
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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED HOROSCOPE
In addition to the horoscopes that you read here, I create additional in-
depth audio horoscopes for your inspiration.
They're not repeats or elaborations of the stuff you find here, but entirely
fresh explorations of your astrological omens, designed to help you tune
in to your soul's code.
Try them at http://RealAstrology.com.
They're available by phone at 1-877-873-4888
or 1-900-950-7700.
They're $6 if you access them on the Web, or $1.99 per minute over the
phone.
"Your audio horoscopes help me love myself better, and I mean that in a
non-narcissistic way."
-Deva P., Indianapolis
"I'm really grateful for the way you pick up my telepathic requests and
answer them in your expanded audio 'scopes."
-Marion H., Birmingham, AL
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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Two chemicals called actin and myosin
evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and
relax," writes Deepak Chopra in *The Book of Secrets.* "Today, the same
two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart."
Likewise, Sagittarius, actions you take or ideas you embrace in the
coming days will send reverberations deep into your future. They will
show up many years hence in altered form, but imprinted with the
essence you give them now. This is your chance to bestow a profound
blessing on the person you will later become.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Here's a passage from Kurt Vonnegut's
novel *Breakfast of Champions:* "Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story
which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing
the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own
excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to
guessing that they were making champagne." This scenario has some
resemblances to what you're doing, Capricorn. Fortunately, you're much
smarter than the two pieces of yeast, and so you will not do the
equivalent of drowning in crap. But I bet you'll create something
comparable to champagne.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "The question of evil," writes psychologist
James Hillman, "refers primarily to the anaesthetized heart, the heart that
has no reaction to what it faces, thereby turning the variegated sensuous
face of the world into monotony, sameness, oneness." Your assignment in
the coming week, Aquarius, is to triumph over this kind of evil in yourself.
By whatever ingenious and imaginative means you can dream up, you
must awaken your heart fully to the unpredictable, ever-shifting beauty
and ugliness you encounter. Drink it all in like a thirsty wanderer who has
just emerged from a long trek lost in the desert. [The source of Hillman's
quote is his book *The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World.*]
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "Dear Rob: If you were, like me, setting out
on a ten-year project to become a beautiful truth-teller, having the simple
goal of actually expressing the things that Everyone Ought To Say But
Doesn't, what would you do? Other than to bother your favorite truth-
tellers for advice, of course! - Aspiring Fount of Truth." Dear Aspiring
Fount: In its highest expression, the Piscean style of telling the truth is
ripe with emotional intelligence and a deep thoughtfulness that's devoted
to staying focused on the big picture. One of the best ways to increase
your mastery of this approach is to regularly tell yourself the truth about
yourself with kick-ass kindness.
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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED HOROSCOPE
In addition to the horoscopes that you're reading here, I create more in-
depth audio horoscopes for your inspiration. Find out more at
http://RealAstrology.com.
The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or
1-900-950-7700.
"The best part about your audio horoscopes is that they pat me on the
head and kick me in the ass at the same time." - Rita L., San Diego
"Your audio oracles go beyond helping me find the truth -- they inspire
me to find the WILD truth." - Patrick K., Montreal
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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Do you get aroused from squeezing balloons
until they explode? Do you quiver with delight as you watch popcorn pop?
Have you ever been patient enough to stand in front of a ripe flower bud
for hours to witness its slow explosion into full opening? If you answered
yes to any of those questions, you're in for an orgasmically pleasing week,
Aries. Lots of things are going to change into something else through the
process of eruption or sprouting or bursting forth. I bet you'll dream of
undersea volcanoes spurting.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In my vision of your ideal future, you would
spend the next two weeks both way out on the frontier and yet close to
home. Paradoxical? Yes, but that's the magic and mystery of the unusual
opportunity you have before you. Don't just take my word for it, Taurus:
Meditate on how you could wander free on the outskirts of everything
you know even as you feel as stable and secure as a monarch in your
castle. Be on a far-flung adventure even as you draw deeply from the
mother lode. Enjoy the pleasures of unexplored territory as you draw on
the power of the familiar.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Although the platypus is technically a furry
mammal, a new study of its genetic code reveals that it also has some
qualities common to birds and reptiles. It lays eggs and has venom like a
snake and a bill like a duck. Sounds like it's the perfect creature to serve
as your totem in the coming week, Gemini. Life will bring you unexpected
mixtures and improbable hybrids. You won't be able to make sense of
your experience if you rely on your usual categories. And I think you'll find
that the best way to attract good fortune will be to weave together
threads of different colors and textures.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Write down five exciting things you love to do
or think about. Take this list with you everywhere you go. On another
piece of paper, name five fears or unpleasant thoughts that demoralize
you. Put this list at the back of your closet. For the next seven days, try
to refrain from letting your mind wander to the things on the bad list.
Meanwhile, undertake an aggressive campaign to cultivate, seek out, and
enjoy the five exciting things that you love to do and think about. In fact,
any time you notice your attention veering toward the negative stuff,
immediately steer it toward the positive. Don't worry, this exercise won't
turn you into a brain-dead optimist. After all, you'll only do it for a week.
The items on the second list will still be there when you're done. Or will
they? Maybe they will have mutated into something more manageable.
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HOMEWORK: Make a game out of a situation you're bored by or in dread
of. In other words, find a way to play in a place where you've been stuck.
Report your results by going to http://FreeWillAstrology.com and clicking
on "Email Rob."
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WANT TO GET YOUR CHART DONE?
I'm not doing personal charts, but I highly recommend my 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://YourSoulJourney.com
She can also be reached at roloughran@comcast.net
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Submissions sent to the Free Will Astrology Weekly Newsletter
or in response to "homework assignments" may be
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2008 Rob Brezsny
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