Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
November 23, 2011
+
See a pretty version of this newsletter: http://bit.ly/uuxdbt
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FreeWillAstro
+
Interviewer: "Rob, if life is such a miraculous web of magic, why is it that
most of us don't feel that way so much of the time?"
Hear my response to that question in this 11-minute interview:
http://bit.ly/thngOT
+
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
A Global Array of Further Pronoiac Resources
In recent years, the doom and gloom prophets have become even more
strident and brazen in blurting out their cacophony of curses. Joining
them in the mad rush to shower condemnation on the entire human
enterprise have been millions of emboldened everyday complainers
who've also become addicted to the sick thrill of chronic rage. I'm
sometimes tempted to view the growing hordes of fulminators as a black
magic army flinging hexes and maledictions on everything they see.
But whenever I brush up against that fear, I stop my mind from its
careening and refocus my inner eyes. Breathing out the jive and breathing
in the love, I survey all the evidence I've been gathering of an antidotal
force rising up.
When the first edition of my book on pronoia came out a few years ago, I
felt isolated in my seemingly eccentric invitation to celebrate the glory
we're surrounded by, to name the thousands of ways that the universe
proves its love for us, to notice all the miracles and help we receive.
But I soon realized that I was by no means a lone crank crying in the
wilderness. I became aware of an ever-growing rebel crusade -- swarms of
pilgrims and activists and artists and creative optimists who had signed
on to the conspiracy to shower blessings, devoting themselves to the
work of not just saving the world but making it more beautiful and
mysterious and interesting.
I wasn't under any illusion that they were suddenly arising because of my
influence. Rather, my sense was that my book was just one symptom of
an energy that was awakening in the whole world. I was a current in the
flood.
For years, I've been compiling data about other currents in the flood,
making them known through my free weekly email newsletter. A Beauty
and Truth Lab researcher named Darin Wilson has created a good-looking
website that is archiving these pronoiac resources. The posts are
categorized and tagged, and there's built-in search.
You can find the site here: http://pronoiaresources.com. You might want
to bookmark it so you can drink in its blessings whenever you're feeling
assaulted by the media's routine blasts of nausea.
Please note that when I praise all these purveyors of beauty and truth and
love and justice, I do so simply because I like them. My endorsements are
not advertisements, and I get no kickbacks.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
BRAZILIAN POVERTY SHRINKING
Over the last two decades, thanks largely to government policy, the
poverty rate in Brazil has halved. With this, income inequality has also
fallen sharply, declining on average by 1.2% a year.
http://tinyurl.com/79uf2r6
CRIME SHRINKING
How the Plummeting Price of Cocaine Fueled the Nationwide Drop in
Violent Crime
http://tinyurl.com/7ojb4xv
COST OF SOLAR ENERGY IS SHRINKING
We're just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar
panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal. The
progress in solar panels has been dramatic and sustained.
http://tinyurl.com/83rj3bp
http://tinyurl.com/7mfx8nl
http://tinyurl.com/828e4gc
Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning November 24
Copyright 2011 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "It is a tremendous act of violence to
begin anything," said Sagittarian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. "I am not able to
begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning." I urge you to consider
trying that approach yourself, Sagittarius. Instead of worrying about how
to launch your rebirth, maybe you should just dive into the middle of the
new life you want for yourself. Avoid stewing interminably in the
frustrating mysteries of the primal chaos so you can leap into the fun in
full swing.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The Golden Gate Bridge spans the place
where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean. It wasn't easy to build.
The water below is deep, wind-swept, beset with swirling currents, and on
occasion shrouded with blinding fog. Recognizing its magnificence, the
American Society of Civil Engineers calls the bridge one of the modern
Wonders of the World. Strange to think, then, that the bridge was
constructed between 1933 and 1937, during the height of the Great
Depression. I suggest you make it your symbol of power for the coming
weeks, Capricorn. Formulate a plan to begin working toward a triumph in
the least successful part of your life.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It's an excellent time for you to get an
entourage -- or if you already have one, to expand it. For that matter, it's
a perfect moment for you to recruit more soldiers to help you carry out
your plot to overthrow the status quo. Or to round up more allies for your
plans to change the course of local history. Or to gather more
accomplices as you seek to boldly go where you have never gone before.
So beef up your support system. Boost the likelihood that your
conspiracy will succeed.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): If you expand your concept of what you're
capable of, you will receive a specific offer to move up a notch. If you
perform your duties with intensified care and grace, you will be given new
responsibilities that catalyze your sleeping potential. The universe doesn't
always act with so much karmic precision, with such sleek, efficient
fairness, but that's how it's working in your vicinity right now. Here's one
more example of how reasonable the fates are behaving: If you resolve to
compete against no one but yourself, you will be shown new secrets
about how to express your idiosyncratic genius.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Basic research is what I am doing when I
don't know what I am doing," said rocket scientist Werner von Braun. I
think it's an excellent time for you to plunge into that kind of basic
research, Aries. You're overdue to wander around frontiers you didn't
even realize you needed to investigate. You're ready to soak up insights
from outside the boundaries of your understanding. In fact, I think it's
your sacred duty to expose yourself to raw truths and unexpected vistas
that have been beyond your imagination's power to envision.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In Woody Allen's film *Midnight in Paris,* the
Ernest Hemingway character says, "All cowardice comes from not loving,
or not loving well enough." Given the state of your current astrological
omens, Taurus, that is an excellent piece of advice. I suspect you are
going to be asked to call on previously untapped reserves of courage in
the coming weeks -- not because you'll have to face physical danger but
rather because you will have a chance to get to the bottom of mysteries
that can only be explored if you have more courage than you've had up
until now. And the single best way to summon the valor you'll need is to
love like a god or goddess loves.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MY OTHER HOROSCOPES
Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to
guide you through life's labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular
deliveries of uncanny revelation.
One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to
receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer
you the free weekly horoscopes you read in this newsletter.
If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text
message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.
Go here to access them:
http://RealAstrology.com
The weekly forecasts are also available by phone:
1-877-873-4888
"I don't much believe in astrology. But that doesn't seem to get in the
way of me deriving a whole lot of benefits from your expanded audio
horoscopes."
- A. Arrosto, Indianapolis
"You have an amazing aptitude for cutting through the lies I tell myself.
Thanks for the gentle shocks."
- T. Preneris, Toronto
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "When I see your face, the stones start
spinning!" wrote the poet Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks. "Water
turns pearly. Fire dies down and doesn't destroy. In your presence I don't
want what I thought I wanted." I think you need to be in the presence of a
face like that, Gemini. You've got to get your fixations scrambled by an
arresting vision of soulful authenticity. You need your colors transposed
and your fire and water reconfigured. Most of all, it's crucial that you get
nudged into transforming your ideas about what you really want. So go
find that healingly disruptive prod, please. It's not necessarily the face of
a gorgeous icon. It could be the face of a whisperer in the darkness or of
a humble hero who's skilled in the art of surrender. Do you know where to
look?
CANCER (June 21-July 22): "All my life I have longed to be loved by a
woman who was melancholy, thin, and an actress," wrote 19th-century
French author Stendhal in his diary. "Now I have been, and I am not
happy." I myself had a similar experience -- craving a particular type of
women who, when she finally showed up in the flesh, disappointed me.
But it turned out to be a liberating experience. Relieved of my delusory
fantasy, I was able to draw more joy from what life was actually giving
me. As you contemplate your own loss, Cancerian, I hope you will find the
release and deliverance I did.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): If you traveled 300 million years back in time, you
might freak out in abject fear as you encountered dragonflies as big as
eagles and cockroaches the size of dogs. But since you're quite safe from
those monsters here in the present, there's no need to worry yourself
sick about them. Similarly, if you managed to locate a time machine and
return to an earlier phase of your current life, you'd come upon certain
events that upset you and derailed you way back then. And yet the odds
are very high that you're not going to find a time machine. So maybe you
could agree to relinquish all the anxiety you're still carrying from those
experiences that can no longer upset and derail you. Now would be an
excellent moment to do so.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): To prepare for her role in the film *The Help,*
actress Jessica Chastain forced herself to gain 15 pounds. It was tough,
because she normally follows a very healthy diet. The strategy that
worked best was to ingest a lot of calorie-heavy, estrogen-rich ice cream
made from soybeans. To be in alignment with current cosmic rhythms, it
would make sense for you to fatten yourself up, too, Virgo --
metaphorically speaking, that is. I think you'd benefit from having more
ballast, more gravitas. You need to be sure you're well-anchored and not
easy to push around. It's nearly time to take an unshakable stand for
what you care about most.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In a famous Monty Python sketch, a Hungarian
tourist goes into a British tobacconist's store to buy cigarettes. Since he
doesn't speak English, he consults a phrase book to find the right words.
"My hovercraft is full of eels," he tells the clerk, who's not sure what he
means. The tourist tries again: "Do you want to come back to my place,
bouncy bouncy?" Again, the clerk is confused. In the coming week, Libra, I
foresee you having to deal with communications that are equally askew.
Be patient, please. Try your best to figure out the intentions and
meanings behind the odd messages you're presented with. Your
translating skills are at a peak, fortunately, as are your abilities to
understand what other people -- even fuzzy thinkers -- are saying.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): There are modern Chinese painters who use
oil paints on canvas to create near-perfect replicas of famous European
masterpieces. So while the genuine copy of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is
worth over $100 million, you can buy an excellent copy on the Internet
for less than $100. If you're faced with a comparable choice in the
coming week -- whether to go with a pricey original or a cheaper but good
facsimile, I suggest you take the latter. For your current purposes, you
just need what works, not what gives you prestige or bragging rights.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HOMEWORK: Are you ready for an orgy of gratitude? Identify ten of your
best blessings. Tell me all about it at Freewillastrology.com.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEED TO CHANGE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS?
To join or leave the email list for this newsletter, or to change the address
where you receive it, go to:
http://www.freewillastrology.com/newsletter/
Once you do join, check all the below points to make sure you'll actually
receive the newsletter:
1. Add my address, televisionary@comcast.net, to your address book so
that the newsletter won't be treated as spam and filtered out.
2. Adjust your spam filter so it doesn't treat my address as a source of
spam.
3. Tell your company's IT group to allow my address to pass through any
filtering software they may have set up.
4. If my newsletters don't reach your inbox, look in your "Bulk Mail" or
"Junk Mail" folder.
5. The problems may not have to do with anything you do, but may
originate with your email provider. It may be using a "content filter" that
prevents my newsletter from ever reaching you at all. If you suspect
that's the case, complain. Tell your email provider to stop blocking my
newsletter from reaching you.
P.S. I totally respect your privacy. I'll never sell or give away your address
to anyone.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Submissions sent to the Free Will Astrology Weekly Newsletter
or in response to "homework assignments" may be
published in a variety of formats at Rob Brezsny's discretion,
including but not limited to newsletters, books, the Free Will
Astrology column, and Free Will Astrology website. We reserve
the right to edit such submissions for length, style, and content.
Requests for anonymity will be honored with submissions;
otherwise, reader names, screen names, or initials will be used.
Please be sure to note your preference when sending to us. We
are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative
material.
Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2011 Rob Brezsny
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++