Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
November 19, 2014
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: http://bit.ly/1EV7RAC
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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
Below is an excerpt, which you can also listen to here.
http://bit.ly/YourProphecy
Here's how it starts: Your imagination is the single most important asset
you possess. It's your power to create mental pictures of things that
don't exist yet and that you want to bring into being. It's the magic wand
you use to shape your future.
And so in your own way, you are a prophet. You generate countless
predictions every day. Your imagination is the source, tirelessly churning
out images of what you will be doing later.
The featured prophecy of the moment may be as simple as a psychic
impression of yourself eating a fudge brownie at lunch or as monumental
as a daydream of some year building your dream home by a lake or sea.
Your imagination is a treasure when it spins out scenarios that are aligned
with your deepest desires. In fact, it's an indispensable tool in creating
the life you want; it's what you use to form images of the conditions
you'd like to inhabit and the objects you hope to wield. Nothing manifests
on this planet unless it first exists as a mental picture.
But for most of us, the imagination is as much a curse as a blessing.
We're often just as likely to use it to conjure up premonitions that are at
odds with our conscious values. That's the result of having absorbed toxic
programming from the media and from our parents at an early age and
from other influential people in our past.
Fearful fantasies regularly pop up into our awareness, many disguising
themselves as rational thoughts and genuine intuitions. Those fearful
fantasies may hijack our psychic energy, directing it to exhaust itself in
dead-end meditations . . . .
Read or hear the rest: http://bit.ly/YourProphecy
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Here's a letter sent to the Beauty and Truth Lab by a pronoiac researcher
named Risa Kline:
DEAR BEAUTY AND TRUTH LAB: The chemo treatments burned out all the
math skills in my brain, which were already pretty meager. On the other
hand, they awakened my ability to feel perfectly at ease while in the midst
of paradoxical situations that everyone else finds maddening and
uncomfortable. The chemo also made me ridiculously tolerant of people's
contradictions, sometimes even their hypocrisies, and freed me to enjoy
life as an entertaining movie with lots of interesting plot twists rather
than as a pitched battle between everything I like and everything I don't
like. I guess I could say that my cancer helped turn me into a pronoiac! -
The Chaos Artist Formerly Known as Risa Kline
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There is no God. God is dead. God is a drug for people who aren't very
smart. God is an illusion sold to dupes by money-hungry religions. God is a
right-wing conspiracy. God is an infantile fantasy favored by superstitious
cowards who can't face life's existential meaninglessness.
JUST KIDDING! The truth is, anyone who says he knows what God is or
isn't, doesn't really know.
Now read Adolfo Quezada's prayer, then confess what you don't know
about God. "God of the Wild, you are different from what I expected. I
cannot predict you. You are too free to be captured for the sake of my
understanding. I can't find you in the sentimentalism of religion. You are
everywhere I least expect to find you. You are not the force that saves
me from the pain of living; you are the force that brings me life even in
the midst of pain."
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Possible names for the cult we could start:
Born-Again Pagan Church of Amazed Anarchists
The Ism-Free Sect of the Love Butter Congregation
Flaming Jewel Temple of Living Outside of Time
The Tempestuous Temple of Sacred Uproar and Rowdy Blessings
First Church of the Last Chance
Magic Order of Educated Rapture
The Polyester Pagoda of the Palpitating Pulpit
Any others?
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Alert, relaxed listening is the radical act at the heart of our pronoiac
practice.
Curiosity is our primal state of awareness.
Wise innocence is a trick we aspire to master.
Open-hearted skepticism is the light in our eyes.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Everyday Heroes
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/us/cnn-heroes
Floating Seawer Skyscraper Rids The World's Oceans Of Plastic While
Generating Clean Energy
http://tinyurl.com/k6sjhn9
7 Ways to Get Happy -- Without Costing the Planet
http://tinyurl.com/kvs6zqp
(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 November 20
Copyright 2014 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Whatever returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice," writes Louise Glück in her poem "The Wild Iris." I think
that will be a key theme for you in the coming weeks. There's a part of
you that is returning from oblivion -- making its way home from the abyss
-- and it will be hungry to express itself when it arrives back here in your
regularly scheduled life. This dazed part of you may not yet know what
exactly it wants to say. But it is fertile with the unruly wisdom it has
gathered while wandering. Sooner rather than later, it will discover a way
to articulate its raw truths.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "There is no revenge so complete as
forgiveness," said American humorist Josh Billings. I propose that we
make that your motto in the coming weeks. It's an excellent time to
liberate yourself from memories that still cause you pain -- to garner
major healing from past anguish and upheaval. And one of the best ways
to do that will be to let go of as much blame and rage and hatred as you
possibly can. Forgiveness can be your magic spell.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Denmark has been a pioneer in developing
the technology to supply its energy needs with wind power. By 2020, it
expects to generate half of its electricity from wind turbines. Recently the
Danish climate minister also announced his nation's intention to phase out
the use of coal as an energy source within ten years. I would love to see
you apply this kind of enlightened long-term thinking to your own
personal destiny, Aquarius. Now would be an excellent time to brainstorm
about the life you want to be living in 2020 and 2025. It's also a perfect
moment to outline a master plan for the next ten years, and commit to it.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean actor Sir Michael Caine has had an
illustrious career. He has won two Oscars and been nominated for the
award six times in five different decades. But for his appearance in *Jaws:
The Revenge,* he was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for
Worst Supporting Actor. He confessed that his work in that film was not
his best, and yet he was happy with how much money he made doing it. "I
have never seen the film," he said, "but by all accounts it was terrible.
However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." In
accordance with the astrological omens, Pisces, you have permission to
engage in a comparable trade-off during the coming months.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Someone on Reddit.com posed the question,
"What have you always been curious to try?" In reply, many people said
they wanted to experiment with exotic varieties of sex and drugs they
had never treated themselves to before. Other favorites: eating
chocolate-covered bacon; piloting a plane; shoplifting; doing a stand-up
comedy routine; hang-gliding and deep-sea diving; exploring the Darknet
and the Deep Web; spontaneously taking a trip to a foreign country;
turning away from modern society and joining a Buddhist monastery.
What would your answer be, Aries? The coming weeks will be an excellent
time to explore what you have always been curious to try. The risks will
be lower than usual, and the results more likely to be interesting.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Contrary to popular opinion, crime fiction
author Arthur Conan Doyle never once had his character Sherlock Holmes
utter the statement "Elementary, my dear Watson." For that matter,
Humphrey Bogart never actually said "Play it again, Sam" in the film
*Casablanca.* Star Trek's Captain Kirk never used the exact phrase "Beam
me up, Scotty." Furthermore I, Rob Brezsny, have never before issued the
following prophecy: "Deep sexy darkness and deep sexy brilliance are
conspiring to bring you Tauruses intriguing pleasures that will educate the
naive part of your soul" -- until now, that is. At this juncture in the ever-
twisting plot of your life story, I am most definitely saying just that.
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LOVE YOUR LIFE
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that
station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins
Charles Dickens' novel "David Copperfield." So let me ask you: Are you
becoming the hero of your own life? Are you figuring out the secrets of
how to create your destiny -- and not just waiting around for destiny to
happen to you?
If you'd like help in this noble work, consider trying my EXPANDED AUDIO
HOROSCOPES. They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the current
state of your destiny and where you're headed.
They are not repeats or extensions of the written 'scopes you read here
for free. They are entirely fresh explorations of your astrological omens,
and are designed to help you tune in to your soul's code. (P.S. They're
not free.)
Register and/or sign in at http://RealAstrology.com/
They're available on your tablets and smart phones as well as your
computers.
"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
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GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Here are some thoughts from Gemini author
Fernando Pessoa: "The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting
most, are those that are absurd -- the longing for impossible things;
nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret
over not being someone else." Can you relate, Gemini? Have you felt
those feelings? Here's the good news: In the coming weeks, you will be
more free of them than you have been in a long time. What will instead
predominate for you are yearnings for very possible things and
contentment with what's actually available to you. (Pessoa's words are
from *The Book of Disquiet,* translated by Alfred Mac Adam.)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The most important thing you can do in the
coming weeks is learn how to take care of yourself better. What? You say
you're too busy for that? You have too many appointments and
obligations? I disagree. In my astrological opinion, there's one task that
must trump all others, and that is get smarter about how you eat, sleep,
exercise, relax, heal yourself, and connect with people. I can assure you
that there's a lot you don't know about what you really need and the best
ways to get what you really need. But you are ripe to become wiser in
this subtle, demanding, and glorious art.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Naturalist Greg Munson says that many
dragonflies are great acrobats. They are the "Cirque du Soleil" performers
of the animal kingdom. Not only do they eat in mid-air, they also have
sex. While flying, two dragonflies will hook up and bend into a roughly
circular formation to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of their
reproductive organs, thereby forming a "mating pinwheel." I don't expect
you to achieve quite that level of virtuosity in your own amorous
escapades, Leo. But if you're adventurous, you could very well enjoy
experiences that resemble having sex while flying.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Born under the sign of Virgo, Yuriy Norshteyn
is a Russian animator who has won numerous awards. His *Tale of Tales*
was once voted the greatest animated film of all time. But he hasn't
finished any new films for quite a while. In fact, he has been working on
the same project since 1981, indulging his perfectionism to the max. In
33 years, he has only finished 25 minutes' worth of *The Overcoat,*
which is based on a story by Nikolai Gogol. But I predict that he will
complete this labor of love in the next eight months -- just as many of
you other Virgos will finally wrap up tasks you have been working on for a
long time.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Every saint has a bee in his halo," said
philosopher Elbert Hubbard. Similarly, some Libras have a passive-
aggressive streak hidden beneath their harmony-seeking, peace-loving
persona. Are you one of them? If so, I invite you to express your darker
feelings more forthrightly. You don't have to be mean and insensitive. In
fact, it's best if you use tact and diplomacy. Just make sure you reveal
the fact that there is indeed a bee in your halo. I bet you will ultimately be
pleased with the consequences you stir up through your acts of
courageous honesty.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Many people use the terms "cement" and
"concrete" interchangeably, but they are not the same. Cement is
powdery stuff that's composed of limestone, gypsum, clay with alumino-
silicate, and other ingredients. It's just one of the raw materials that is
used to make concrete -- usually no more than 15 percent of the total
mass. The rest consists of sand, crushed stone, and water. Let's regard
this as a good metaphor for you to keep in mind, Scorpio. If you want to
create a durable thing that can last as long as concrete, make sure you
don't get overly preoccupied with the "cement" at the expense of the
other 85 percent of the stuff you will need.
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Homework: Is there any place in your life where you think you're doing
your best but in fact you could do better? Testify at
Freewillastrology.com.
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or in response to "homework assignments" may be
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2014 Rob Brezsny
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