Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
March 17, 2010
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New song, "Glory in the Highest": http://bit.ly/GloryGlory
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Dear Readers,
Is it a song? A spoken-word piece? A ritual incantation? Whatever it is,
it's called "Glory in the Highest, " and it's the second in an ongoing series
of free downloads from the soundtrack for my book, *PRONOIA IS THE
ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA.*
You can access it here: http://bit.ly/GloryGlory
It's based on a piece from the book, which I'm also excerpting below.
In addition to my music and vocals, "Glory in the Highest" also features
the singing of Nina Lakshmi and the guitar work and production help of
Josh Brill. Nina's website is at http://ninalakshmi.com, and Josh's is at
http://www.joshbrill.com.
Enjoy!
In the weeks to come, I'll be announcing the release of other new songs.
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Thanks for your continuing show of massive support for my book. In the
last two weeks, you -- the 40,233 readers of this weekly newsletter --
have bought more books and written more reviews for Amazon.com than
the previous three months combined.
I'd love to keep riding this momentum. I've still got a way to go before I'll
break even on my self-publishing costs. (To read the full story, go here:
http://bit.ly/PronoiaBiz.)
It's a tough economic time for some of you, I know, so I completely
understand if contributing to my financial well-being is out of the
question. And besides, there's absolutely no pressure. I love you madly
and dearly even if you never spend a penny to buy the things I create!
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The revised and expanded version of my book *PRONOIA IS THE
ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA* is available at Amazon: http://bit.ly/Pronoia
The spoken-word musical piece I'm offering this week, "Glory in the
Highest," uses material from a much longer piece called "Glory in the
Highest" in the book. The longer piece can be found in three parts:
http://bit.ly/GloryPart1
http://bit.ly/GloryPart2
http://bit.ly/GloryPart3
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Meanwhile, here are the lyrics to the song, available at
http://bit.ly/GloryGlory:
GLORY IN THE HIGHEST
Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment
you wake up. Through some magic you don't fully understand, you're still
breathing and your heart is beating, even though you've been
unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that's just right for
your body's needs, as it was before you fell asleep.
You can see! Light of many colors floods into your eyes, registered by
nerves that took God or evolution or some process millions of years to
perfect.
The interesting gift of these vivid hues is furthermore made possible by
an unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun, which continually
detonates nuclear explosions in order to convert its own body into light
and heat and energy for your personal use.
Your hands work wonderfully well. Your heart circulates your blood all the
way out to replenish the energy of the muscles and nerves in your fingers
and palms and wrists. And after your blood has delivered its blessings, it
finds its way back to your heart to be refreshed. This wondrous mystery
recurs over and over again without stopping every minute of your life.
You can smell intoxicating aromas. You can hear provocative and soothing
sounds. You can taste a thousand different tastes. How is any of this
possible? You can think thoughts any time you want -- big, wide, colorful
thoughts or tiny dark burrowing thoughts. You can revel and wallow in
great oceans of emotion. What colossal secret intelligence or improbable
series of fabulous accidents conspired to bestow these superpowers upon
you?
Language is another stupendous marvel. Millions of souls have cooperated
intricately for untold centuries to cultivate a system of communication
that you understand very well. Your ability to speak and read and write
makes you feel strong and dynamic. It connects you with the world. It
allows you to indulge in one of your greatest pleasures, which is to hear
and tell stories.
Maybe this is the best gift of all: You have a staggeringly potent creative
tool: your imagination. You use it to create mental pictures of things that
don't exist yet and that you want to bring into being. Your imagination is
the engine of your destiny, the catalyst with which you design your
future.
Or maybe this is the best gift of all: You know that you are you. You are
exultantly and extravagantly aware that you are alive and conscious and
awake and unique. You have a million different feelings and fantasies
about what it means to be you.
Do you remember when you were born? It was a difficult miracle that
involved many people who worked very hard on your behalf. No less
amazing is the fact that you have continued to grow ever since then, with
new cells being born within you all the time to replace the old cells that
are dying.
At this very moment, there are 50 trillion cells in your body, and each of
them is really a sentient being in its own right. They all act together as a
community, blessing you with their astonishing collaboration. It's just like
magic.
Everywhere you look: glory
Every step you take: glory
Every breath you take: glory glory
Soaring roaring uproarious glory
is our story
This succulent burst of glory has been brought to you by the imaginary
lightning bolts you can shoot out the ends of your fingers any time you
want to.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
FIND THE HIDDEN TREASURES
Celebrate Wondrous, Curious, and Esoteric Places
http://tinyurl.com/yhtxt8l
PRONOIA CLEBERATES NEURODIVERSITY
Brilliant autistic woman explains why the world needs all different kinds of
minds
http://tinyurl.com/yc2yzdu
NOTICE THE SMALL MIRACLES
Lifetime Achievement Reward
The Daily Grail is a prime source for the steady flow of mirabilia. As
defined in my book *PRONOIA,* mirabilia means "events that inspire
wonder, marvelous phenomena, small miracles."
http://DailyGrail.com
(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 March 18
Copyright 2010 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
ARIES (March 21-April 19): From what I can tell, your excursion to Fake
Paradise didn't exact too serious a toll. The accidental detour may have
seemed inopportune in the moment, but you know what? I think it slowed
you down enough to keep you from doing something rash that you would
have regretted later. And are you really sorry you were robbed of your
cherished illusions? In the long run, I think it was for the best. As for the
scratches on your nose from when you stuck it into business you weren't
"supposed" to: They're a small price to pay for the piquant lesson you
got in how not to live.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Some people are here on the planet to find
success, while others are here to find themselves. In the big scheme of
things, I'm not sure which category you fit into, Taurus. But I'm pretty
sure that for the next few weeks you'll be best served by acting as if
you're the latter. Even if you think you've found yourself pretty
completely in the past, it's time to go searching again: There are new
secrets to be discovered, in large part because you're not who you used
to be. So for now at least, I encourage you to give your worldly ambitions
a bit of a rest as you intensify your self-explorations.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Being a paragon of moral behavior can be fun
and rewarding. It's amazing how many interesting people want to play
with me just because they think I'm so #%&@ high-minded. But I've got
to confess that my commitment to discipline and righteousness is
sometimes at odds with my rebellious itch to give you mischievous
nudges and outrageous challenges. Like right now, the conscientious
teacher in me might prefer to advise you to keep a lid on debauchery,
voracity, excess, uproar, slapstick, wise-cracking, fireworks, and limit-
pushing. But the rabble-rousing agitator in me feels obligated to inform
you that at no other time in 2010 will the karmic price be lower for
engaging in such pursuits.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): It's time for you to stop specializing in furtive
glimpses and start indulging in brazen gazes. You're ready to phase out
your role as a peripheral influence and see if you can be more of a high-
intensity instigator and organizer. Yes, Cancerian, you've earned the right
to claim more credibility and clout -- to leave your tentative position
outside the magic circle and head in the direction of the sweet hot spot.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "Nature seems to exult in abounding radicality,
extremism, anarchy," wrote Annie Dillard in *Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.* "If
we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't
believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in
trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe . . . No claims of any and all
revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe." (Dillard's entire
passage is here: http://bit.ly/TinkerCreek.) Reading this passage is a good
way for you to prepare for the immediate future, Leo. Why? Because
you'll soon be invited to commune with outlandish glory. You'll be
exposed to stories that burst from the heart of creation. You'll be
prodded to respond to marvelous blips with marvelous blips of your own.
But here's the catch: It may all remain invisible to you if you're blinded by
the false belief that you live a boring, ordinary life.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The storm is your friend right now, Virgo. So
are the deep, dark night and the last place you'd ever think of visiting and
the most important thing you've forgotten about. So be more willing than
usual to marinate in the mysteries -- not with logical ferocity but with
cagey curiosity. The areas of life that are most crucial for you to deal with
can't be fully understood using the concepts your rational mind favors.
The feelings that will be most useful for you to explore are unlike those
you're familiar with.
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YOU NEED MAGIC EVERY DAY
Every day, you have to wade through a relentless surge of soul-less facts.
The experience tends to shut down your sense of wonder.
Every day, you're over-exposed to narratives that have been sucked free
of delight and mystery. That's why you have to make such strenuous
efforts to keep your world enchanted.
I like to think I can contribute to the sacred cause of feeding your sense
of wonder and enchantment. In fact, that's one of my prime motivations
for offering you the free weekly horoscopes you read in this newsletter.
If you ever want more of that good stuff, and think it's worth paying for,
please consider trying out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES. They're
four-to-five-minute meditations on the current state of your destiny.
Go here to access them:
http://RealAstrology.com
You can also listen over the phone by calling
1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700
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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here's your mantra for the coming week: "I
disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity." Say it and sing it and murmur
it at least 100 times a day. Let it flow out of you after you've awoken
each morning and are still lying in bed. Let it be the last sound on your
lips as you drop off to sleep. Have fun with it. Dip into your imagination to
come up with different ways to let it fly -- say it as your favorite cartoon
character might say it, like a person with a Swedish accent, like your inner
teenager, like a parrot, like a grinning sage. "I disappear my fear. I
resurrect my audacity. I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity."
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Have you ever heard about how some all-
night convenience stores blast loud classical music out into the parking
lot in order to discourage drug dealers from loitering? In the coming days,
use that principle whenever you need to drive home a point or make a
strong impression. Your aggressive expressions will be more effective if
you take the darkness and anger out of them, and instead fill them up
with forceful grace and propulsive compassion.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Hebrew word *chalom* means
"dream." In his book *Healing Dreams,* Marc Ian Barasch notes that it's
derived from the verb "to be made healthy and strong." Linguist Joseph
Jastrow says that *chalom* is related to the Hebrew word *hachlama,*
which means "recovery, recuperation." Extrapolating from these poetic
hints and riffing on your astrological omens, I've got a prescription for
you to consider: To build your vitality in the coming weeks, feed your
dreams. And I mean "dreams" in both the sense of the nocturnal
adventures you have while you're sleeping and the sweeping daytime
visions of what you'd like to become.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I just found out the American shipping
company UPS has legally trademarked the color brown. The grass-roots
activist in me is incredulous and appalled. But the poet in me doesn't
really care; it's fine if UPS owns drab, prosaic brown. I've still got
mahogany at my command, as well as tawny, sepia, taupe, burnt umber,
tan, cinnamon, walnut, and henna. That's especially important for this
horoscope, Capricorn, because I'm advising you to be very down to earth,
be willing to get your hands dirty, and even play in the muck if necessary
in order to take good care of the basics. But don't do any of that in a
boring, humdrum "brown" way. Do it exotically and imaginatively, like
mahogany, tawny, sepia, taupe, burnt umber, tan, cinnamon, walnut, and
henna.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You are hereby excused from having to
know a single nuance about the inside story of Angelina Jolie's secret love
tryst with Lady Gaga, or the addictions of conspiracy theorists who lose
huge sums of money gambling on the end of the world, or the agony that
millionaires suffer from having to support social services with their taxes.
In fact, it's a good time to empty your mind of extraneous, trivial, and
useless facts so that you can clear vast new spaces for more pressing
data, like how you can upgrade your communication skills, why you should
do some upkeep on your close alliances, and what you might do to
streamline your social life.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In my astrological opinion, you don't need
anything that shrinks you or deflates you or tames you. Influences that
pinch your imagination should be taboo, as should anything that squashes
your hope or crimps your life force. To make proper use of the vibrations
circulating in your vicinity, Pisces, you should gravitate toward situations
that pump up your insouciance and energize your whimsy and incite you
to express the most benevolent wickedness you can imagine. You've got
a mandate to fatten up your soul so it can contain a vaster sense of
wonder and a more daring brand of innocence.
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HOMEWORK: If you could make money from doing exactly and totally what
you loved to do, what would it be? Testify by going to
www.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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P.S. 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
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2010 Rob Brezsny
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