Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter http://ezezine.com
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
September 12, 2012
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: http://bit.ly/PdzI5O
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My book
*PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA*
is available at Amazon: http://bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: http://bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
Here's an excerpt from a piece called UNHAPPY HOUR.
You can hear the whole thing at http://bit.ly/zxnYnD
You're invited to celebrate Unhappy Hour. It's a ceremony that gives you
a poetic license to rant and whine and howl and sob about everything that
hurts you and makes you feel bad.
During this perverse grace period, there's no need for you to be inhibited
as you unleash your tortured squalls. You don't have to tone down the
extremity of your desolate clamors. Unhappy Hour is a ritually
consecrated excursion devoted to the full disclosure of your primal clash
and jangle.
Here's the catch: It's brief. It's concise. It's crisp. You dive into your
darkness for no more than 60 minutes, then climb back out, free and
clear. It's called Unhappy Hour, not Unhappy Day or Unhappy Week or
Unhappy Year.
Do you have the cheeky temerity to drench yourself in your paroxysmal
alienation from life? Unhappy Hour invites you to plunge in and surrender.
It dares you to scurry and squirm all the way down to the bottom of your
pain, break through the bottom of your pain, and fall down flailing in the
soggy, searing abyss, yelping and cringing and wallowing.
That's where you let your pain tell you every story it has to tell you. You
let your pain teach you every lesson it has to teach you.
But then it's over. The ritual ordeal is complete. And your pain has to take
a vacation until the next Unhappy Hour, which isn't until next week
sometime, or maybe next month.
You see the way the game works? Between this Unhappy Hour and the
next one, your pain has to shut up. It's not allowed to creep and seep all
over everything, staining the flow of your daily life. It doesn't have free
reign to infect you whenever it's itching for more power.
Your pain gets its succinct blast of glory, its resplendent climax, but
leaves you alone the rest of the time.
If performed regularly, Unhappy Hour serves as an exorcism that empties
you of psychic toxins, while at the same time -- miracle of miracles -- it
helps you squeeze every last drop of blessed catharsis out of those
psychic toxins.
Pronoia will then be able to flourish as you luxuriate more frequently in
rosy moods and broad-minded visions. You'll develop a knack for
cultivating smart joy and cagey optimism as your normal states of mind.
Now let's get you warmed up for Unhappy Hour . . . .
TO READ (and hear) THE REST OF THIS PIECE, GO HERE:
http://bit.ly/zxnYnD
Or buy the book! It's called *PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA*
and is available here: http://bit.ly/Pronoia
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
PRONOIA'S ACCUMULATING MOMENTUM
When Copenhagen's superhighway for bicycles is finished, an estimated
15,000 additional people will switch from driving to biking. It is expected
to save Copenhagen's health care system some $60 million a year.
http://tinyurl.com/brl8a75
WHEN PRONOIA STARTS TO INFUSE THE WAY PEOPLE MAKE MONEY, THE
VELVET REVOLUTION IS NIGH
"Members of Generation Y are shunning large corporate companies in
favor of startups and small businesses. They're an entrepreneurial group,
highly versed in social media, and prefer freedom and flexibility over big
corporate policies."
http://tinyurl.com/8j2x72j
GET YOUR MINIMUM DAILY REQUIRED DOSE OF BEAUTY
Mt. Wilbur in Glacier National Park
http://i.imgur.com/XXMJf.jpg
(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 September 13
Copyright 2012 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Arthur Turner, a Virgo reader from Austin, is
upset with my recent horoscopes. In his email, he wrote the following:
"You're making me mad with your predictions of non-stop positivity,
Brezsny. I need more dirt and grit and muck. I've got to have some misery
and decay to motivate me. So just please shut up with your excess
projections of good times. They're bringing me down." Here's my
response to him and to any other Virgo who feels like him: I'm afraid
you're scheduled to endure even more encounters with cosmic
benevolence in the coming week. If these blessings feel oppressive, try to
change your attitude about them.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The humorous science journal *Annals of
Improbable Research* published a paper entitled "The Effects of Peanut
Butter on the Rotation of the Earth." Signed by 198 Ph.D. physicists, it
came to this conclusion: "So far as we can determine, peanut butter has
no effect on the rotation of the earth." If possible, Libra, I suggest you
summon a comparable amount of high-powered expertise for your own
purposes. But please make sure that those purposes are weightier than
the question of peanut butter's role on our planet's movements. Round
up the best help you can, yes; call on all the favors you're owed and be
aggressive in seeking out brilliant support; but only for a truly important
cause.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): September 16 is the first day of Rosh
Hashana, the Jewish New Year. So begins ten days of repentance.
Whether or not you're Jewish, Scorpio, you are entering an astrological
phase when taking stock of yourself would be a brilliant move. That's why
I invite you to try the following self-inventory, borrowed from the Jewish
organization Chadeish Yameinu. 1. What would you like to leave behind
from the past 12 months? 2. What has prevented you from living up to
your highest standards and being your very best self? 3. What would you
love to bring with you into the next 12 months? 4. Who served as a
teacher for you in the past year? 5. Were you a teacher for anyone? 6. Is
there anyone you need to forgive? 7. How will you go about forgiving?
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): If I'm accurately interpreting the
astrological omens, the coming months will be a soulful feast in which
every day will bring you a shimmering revelation about the nature of your
soul's code and how best to activate it. Reasons for grateful amazement
will flow so freely that you may come to feel that miracles are routine and
naturally-occurring phenomena. And get this: In your dreams, Cinderella
and Sleeping Beauty will get married, win the lottery, and devote their
fortune to fostering your spiritual education until you are irrevocably
enlightened. (I confess there's a slight chance I'm misinterpreting the
signs, and everything I described will be true for only a week or so, not
months.)
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A reader named Marissa begged me to
insert a secret message into the Capricorn horoscope. She wanted me to
influence Jergen, a guy she has a crush on, to open up his eyes and see
how great she is. I told her I wouldn't do it. Why? For one thing, I never
try to manipulate people into doing things that aren't in alignment with
their own desires. For another, I faithfully report on my understanding of
the tides of fate, and refuse to just make stuff up. I urge you to have
that kind of integrity, Capricorn. I suspect you may soon be invited or
coaxed to engage in what amounts to some tainted behavior. Don't do it.
Make an extra effort to be incorruptible.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "The far away, the very far, the farthest, I
have found only in my own blood," said poet Antonio Porchia. Let's make
that thought your keynote, Aquarius. Your assignment will be to search
for what's most exotic and unknown, but only in the privacy of your own
heart, not out in the great wide world. For now at least, the inner realm is
the location of the laboratory where the most useful experiments will
unfold. Borrowing from novelist Carole Maso, I leave you with this: "Make
love to the remoteness in yourself."
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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
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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): It would be an excellent time for you to
elope, even if you do so with the person to whom you're already mated.
You might also consider the possibility of wearing a wedding dress
everywhere you wander, even if there is no marriage ceremony in your
immediate future, and even if you're a man. And if neither of those ideas
appeals to you, please at least do something that will symbolize your
intention to focus on intimacy with an intensified sense of purpose. Fling
rice at yourself. Seek out someone who'll give you lessons in how to listen
like an empathetic genius. Compose and recite vows in which you pledge
to become an utterly irresistible and reliable ally.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You will never be able to actually gaze upon
your own face. You may of course see a reasonable likeness of it in
mirrors, photos, and videos. But the real thing will always be forever
visible to everyone else, but not you. I think that's an apt symbol for how
hard it is to get a totally objective view of your own soul. No matter how
sincere you may be in your efforts to see yourself clearly, there will
always be fuzziness, misapprehensions, and ignorance. Having said that,
though, I want you to know that the coming weeks will be an excellent
time to see yourself better than ever before.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I've got four related pieces of advice for you,
Taurus: 1. The most reliable way for you to beat the system is to build
your own more interesting system. 2. The most likely way to beat your
competitors is not to fight them, but rather to ignore them and compete
only against yourself. 3. To escape the numbing effects of an outworn
tradition, you could create a fresh tradition that makes you excited to get
out of bed in the morning. 4. If you have a problem that is not only
impossible to solve but also boring, find yourself a fascinating new
problem that will render the old problem irrelevant.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "Dear Doctor of Love: My heart is itchy. I'm
totally serious. I'm not talking about some phantom tingle on the skin of
my chest. What I mean is that the prickling sensation originates in the
throbbing organ inside of me. Is this even possible? Have you heard of
such a crazy thing? Could it be some astrological phenomenon? What
should I do? - Itchy-Hearted Gemini." Dear Gemini: I suspect that it's not
just you, but many Geminis, who are experiencing symptoms like yours.
From what I can tell, you have a lot of trapped feelings in your heart that
need to be identified, liberated, and dealt with.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you make a conscious decision to combine
plaids with stripes or checks with floral patterns or reddish-purples with
greenish-oranges, I will wholeheartedly approve. If, on the other hand, you
absent-mindedly create combinations like that, doing so because you're
oblivious or lazy, I will soundly disapprove. The same holds true about any
hodgepodge or hybrid or mishmash you generate, Cancerian: It'll receive
cosmic blessings if you do it with flair and purpose, but not if it's the
result of being inattentive and careless.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Should we boycott the writing of Edgar Allan Poe
because he married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 26? Should anti-
drug crusaders stop using their iPhones when they find out that Steve
Jobs said that "doing LSD was one of the two or three most important
things I have done in my life"? Should we stop praising the work that
Martin Luther King Jr. did to advance civil rights because he engaged in
extramarital affairs? Those are the kinds of questions I suspect you'll have
to deal with in the coming days, Leo. I encourage you to avoid having
knee-jerk reactions.
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Homework: Report your favorite graffiti from a bathroom wall. Go to
Freewillastrology.com and clock on "Email Rob."
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2012 Rob Brezsny
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