Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
August 10, 2011
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"With his book *PRONOIA* -- an instant pop classic -- Rob Brezsny offers
a positive, participatory, proactive vision of the workings of our inner and
outer universe, which will only give us as much pleasure, love, and ecstasy
as we are prepared to accept." - Daniel Pinchbeck, author of *2012: The
Return of Quetzalcoatl* and *Breaking Open the Head*
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The piece below is excerpted from my book
*PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA*
available at Amazon: http://bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: http://bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
1. Poet Kay Ryan told the *Christian Science Monitor* how she cultivates
the inspiration to write. She rouses the sense of a "self-imposed
emergency," thereby calling forth psychic resources that usually
materialize only in response to a crisis.
Please note that she doesn't provoke an actual emergency: She doesn't
arrange to have a loved one get pinned beneath the wheels of a car. She
doesn't climb out onto the window ledge on the 22nd story of a high-rise.
Instead, she visualizes hypothetical situations that galvanize her to shift
into a dramatically heightened state of awareness.
What imagined emergencies could you invoke to inspire your deep self to
rise up and make its mark?
2. Beauty and Truth Lab researcher Rebecca Rusche coined the word
"careenstable." Here's her explanation of how it originated:
"In high school, my mom used to let me use her VW Beetle to go to
basketball practice. One night after practice, a friend and I were chatting
and drinking Coke when we decided to see how fast we could get the
Beetle going down a nearby dirt road. Soon we were careening at 65 mph,
shouting 'careen!' every time we hit a bump and flew into the air.
"When we arrived back at the gym and got out of the car half an hour
later, we saw my Coke can sitting on the front bumper next to the license
plate. I nudged it softly to see if it was lodged in there, but it fell right off
-- wasn't stuck at all. I thought, 'There must be a word for this magic,'
and thus 'careenstable' was born. It came to mean anything that
maintains its poise in the midst of wild, fast movement."
Give an example of how you could experiment with making careenstable
work in your own life.
3. "The people of future generations will win many a liberty of which we
do not yet even feel the want," said German philosopher Max Stirner. See
if you can become aware of an interesting freedom that has not
previously been on your radar screen.
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Do you enjoy the images that appear on my horoscope pages? They're
part of the VERTICAL ORACLE DECK, created by my friends Antero Alli
and Sylvi Alli. You can find out more about them here:
http://www.verticalpool.com/oracle.html
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
CREEPING REDEMPTION
A beautiful rainbow toad species, thought lost for nearly a hundred years,
is found alive and well in Borneo.
http://tinyurl.com/6cbyqrm
UNSUNG HEROISM
Remarkable women developing solutions and guiding us towards a
sustainable future.
http://www.ecoamazons.com
THE ART OF FEELING GOOD
A movie about what makes people happy
http://www.thehappymovie.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 August 11
Copyright 2011 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): For 34 years, a diligent Californian named Scott
Weaver worked on creating a scale model of San Francisco using
toothpicks. Meanwhile, Eric Miklos, of New Brunswick, Canada, was
assembling a 40-foot-long chain of bottle caps. And in 2006, a team of
artists constructed a 67-foot-tall gingerbread house, the world's largest,
inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. These are not the
kinds of stupendous feats I advise you to get started on in the coming
weeks, Leo. The astrological omens suggest that you'll attract blessings
into your life if you launch deeply meaningful masterpieces, not trivial or
silly ones.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estes loves life's
natural rhythms just as they are. She says we can avoid a lot of suffering
if we understand how those rhythms work. "The cycles are birth, light,
and energy, and then depletion, decline, and death," she told *Radiance*
magazine. In other words, everything thrives and fades, thrives and fades.
After each phase of dissipation, new vitality incubates and blooms again.
According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Virgo, you are
currently going through a period of dwindling and dismantling. The light is
dimmer than usual, and the juice is sparser. But already, in the secret
depths, a new dispensation is stirring.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Where do you want to be at this time next
year? What do you want to be doing? I encourage you to fantasize and
scheme about these questions, and be alert for clues about possible
prospects. Here's my reasoning, Libra: Some foreshadowings of your
future life may soon float into view, including a far-off whisper or a
glimpse of the horizon that will awaken some of your dormant yearnings.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that these visions must be acted upon
instantly. Instead, ruminate leisurely on them, regarding them as the early
hints of potential long-range developments.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that you
can't get The Most Beautiful Thing. It's out of reach forever. You simply
don't have the connections or wherewithal to bring it into your life. Could
you accept that disappointment with a full heart, and move on? Would
you be able to forgive life for not providing you with your number one
heart's desire, and then make your way into the future with no hard
feelings? If so, Scorpio, I bet you would be well-primed to cultivate a
relationship with The Second Most Beautiful Thing.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): What images would be most helpful for
you to fill your imagination up with? What scenes would heal and activate
your subconscious mind, inspiring you in just the right ways? I invite you
to make a list of at least five of these, and then visualize them often in
the coming days. Here are a few possibilities to get you warmed up:
peach trees filled with ripe fruit; the planet Jupiter as seen through a
powerful telescope; a magnificent suspension bridge at dawn or dusk; a
large chorus animatedly singing a song you love; the blissful face of a
person you love.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Scientists have proved beyond a doubt
that heavenly bodies cannot possibly exert forces that affect events on
earth, right? Well, no, actually, according to research reported in the
December 24, 2009 edition of the science journal *Nature.* It turns out
that the gravitational tug of the sun and moon sends significant tremors
through California's San Andreas Fault, and could potentially trigger full-
blown earthquakes. Speaking as a poet, not a scientist, I speculate that
those two luminaries, the sun and moon, may also generate a lurching but
medicinal effect on you sometime soon. Are you ready for a healing jolt?
It will relieve the tension that has been building up between two of your
"tectonic plates."
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LIFE IS BIGGER AND BETTER THAN ANY OF US CAN IMAGINE
In addition to the horoscopes 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.
"Your Expanded Audio Horoscopes provide me with the Rest of the Story.
I'm not necessarily a believer in the scientific accuracy of astrology, but I
do think you've got a lot of practical wisdom to impart."
- M. Tennenbaum, New York
"No one knows more about me than me. But you're right up there near
the top of the list of people who do understand something about how I
tick. How is that possible?"
- R. Goren, Albuquerque
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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "Follow your dreams," read the headline on
some random blog I stumbled upon, "except for the one in which you're
giving a speech in your underwear." In the comments section, someone
named "Mystic Fool" had posted a dissenting view: "I would much rather
have a dream of giving a speech in my underwear than of being naked and
drunk and inarticulate at a cocktail party, trying to hide behind the
furniture." Mystic Fool's attitude would serve you well in the coming
week, Aquarius. Expressing yourself in a public way, even if you don't feel
fully prepared, will actually be a pretty good course of action -- especially
as compared to keeping silent and hiding.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Some substances that seem to be rock solid
are in fact fluids that move verrrryyy slowly. Bitumen is one example. It's
a form of petroleum also known as pitch. In a famous experiment, an
Australian researcher set up an apparatus that allowed a blob of pitch to
gradually drip into a container below it. Since the experiment began in
1927, eight drops have fallen. I like to think you're engaged in a similar
long-term process, Pisces. And from what I can tell, a new drop is about
to drip.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Dr. Larry Dossey thinks we shouldn't just
automatically dismiss the voices that speak to us in the privacy of our
own heads. Some of them may actually have wise counsel, or at least
interesting evidence about the state of our inner world. Besides, says
Dossey, "it is vital for our mental health to keep the channels open,
because when the voices of the gods are shut out, the devils often take
up residence." This would be good advice for you to observe in the
coming days, Aries. Don't let the nagging, blustering, or unhinged
murmurs in your head drown out the still, small voice of lucid intuition.
(Dossey's book is *The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things:
Fourteen Natural Steps.*)
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): What are you going to do to attract or induce
the phenomena I name in the list below? At least three of them could
come your way in the days ahead: 1. a "limitation" that leads to more
freedom; 2. an imaginative surrender that empowers you to make a
seemingly impossible breakthrough; 3. a healthy shock to the system that
tenderizes your emotions; 4. a tough task that clarifies and fine-tunes
your ambition; 5. a seemingly lost chance that leads to a fresh promise
through the vigorous intervention of your creative willpower.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Thirteen will be your lucky number for the
foreseeable future. In fact, a host of things for which the average person
has an irrational aversion could be helpful to you. For that matter,
influences that you yourself may have considered in the past to be
unsympathetic or uncongenial could very well be on your side, and may
even conspire to enlighten and delight you. At least temporarily, I urge
you to shed your superstitions, suspend your iffy biases, and dismiss your
outworn fears.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Anne Cushman wrote a book called
*Enlightenment for Idiots.* It wasn't a how-to book, but rather a novel
about a spiritual truth-seeker wandering through India. As far as I know,
no one has written an actual instructional manual with the theme she
named in her title. If anyone could do it, though, it would be you right
now. Lately, you've been getting smarter by doing the most ordinary
things. You've been drawing life-enhancing lessons from events that
others might regard as inconsequential or unsophisticated. I suspect that
this trend will continue in the coming days. Through the power of
simplicity and directness, you will succeed at tasks that might have
defeated you if you had allowed yourself to get lost in complicated
theories and overly-thought-out approaches. Congrats!
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Homework: Give yourself some slack in a situation where you typically
back yourself into a corner and tie yourself up. Report on your experience
at Freewillastrology.com.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2011 Rob Brezsny
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