Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
October 28, 2015
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: bit.ly/1GFk8A0
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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.
Devotional Pronoia Therapy. Experiments and exercises in becoming a
gracefully probing, erotically funny, shockingly friendly Master of Orgasmic
Empathy
1. What causes happiness? Brainstorm about it. Map out the foundations
of your personal science of joy. Get serious about defining what makes
you feel good.
To get you started, I'll name some experiences that might rouse your
gratification: engaging in sensual pleasure; seeking the truth; being kind
and moral; contemplating the meaning of life; escaping your routine;
purging pent-up emotions. Do any of these work for you? Name at least
ten more.
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2. Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman
says you can do something about it. His book *The Luck Factor* presents
research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force
you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop.
How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom,
expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and
master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.
Name three specific actions you'll try in order to improve your luck.
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3. Dumb suffering is the kind of suffering you're compulsively drawn back
to over and over again out of habit. It's familiar, and thus perversely
comfortable. Smart suffering is the kind of pain that surprises you with
valuable teachings and inspires you to see the world with new eyes.
While stupid suffering is often born of fear, wise suffering is typically
stirred up by love. The dumb, unproductive stuff comes from allowing
yourself to be controlled by your early conditioning and from doing things
that are out of harmony with your essence. The smart, useful variety
arises out of an intention to approach life as an interesting work of art
and uncanny game that's worthy of your curiosity.
Come up with two more definitions about the difference between dumb
suffering and smart suffering.
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4. Write the following on a piece of red paper and keep it under your
pillow. "I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day, [put date
here], that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my
most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my
mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that
might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world
that deserves my brilliant passion above all others."
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5. The primary meaning of the word "healing" is "to cure what's diseased
or broken." Medical practitioners focus on sick people. Philanthropists
donate their money and social workers contribute their time to helping
the underprivileged. Psychotherapists wrestle with their clients' traumas
and neuroses. I'm in awe of them all. The level of one's spiritual wisdom, I
believe, is more accurately measured by helping people in need than by
meditation skills, shamanic shapeshifting, supernatural powers, or esoteric
knowledge.
But I also believe in a second kind of healing that is largely unrecognized:
to supercharge what is already healthy; to lift up what's merely sufficient
to a sublime state. Using this definition, describe two acts of healing: one
you would enjoy performing on yourself and another you'd like to provide
for someone you love.
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6. Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose,
running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally
inimical to your drive to find meaning? Or are you surrounded by helpers
in a friendly, enchanted universe that gives you challenges in order to
make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier?
Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on
what you believe is true.
Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test
the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help dissolve your
ignorance and liberate you from your suffering.
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7. Those who explore pronoia often find they have a growing capacity to
help people laugh at themselves. While few arbiters of morality recognize
this skill as a mark of high character, I put it near the top of my list. In my
view, inducing people to take themselves less seriously is a supreme
virtue.
Do you have any interest in cultivating it? How might you go about it?
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8. Computer programmer Garry Hamilton articulated the following "Game
Rules." Give examples of how they have worked in your life.
1. If the game is rigged so you can't win, find another game or invent
your own. 2. If you're not winning because you don't know the rules, learn
the rules. 3. If you know the rules but aren't willing to follow them,
there's either something wrong with the game or you need to change
something in yourself. 4. Don't play the game in a half-baked way. Either
get all the way in or all the way out. 5. It shouldn't be necessary for
others to lose in order for you to win. If others have to lose, re-evaluate
the game's goals.
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9. "There are two ways for a person to look for adventure," said the Lone
Ranger, an old TV character. "By tearing everything down, or building
everything up." Give an example of each from your own life.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Sikhs Set Up Free Bakery Near War Zone to Feed Fleeing Syrians. The
group provides food and water to 14,000 people a day.
http://tinyurl.com/npey8gz
Mexican Artist Pedro Reyes Reyes went to the deadliest city in Mexico,
Culiacán, and asked the people there to exchange guns for certificates
they could use towards household appliances or electronics. Then, he
melted the weapons down and turned them into shovels to use for
planting trees.
http://tinyurl.com/pyp9256
The Gloucester, Massachusetts police department is using money seized
from drug dealers to fund rehab for addicts they once would have locked
up simply for using heroin.
http://tinyurl.com/ngtc64f
This week's Pronoiac Resources come from "Good News Network," a
website full of stories about all the good things that are happening in the
world right now:
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
(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 October 29
Copyright 2015 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I expect you to be in a state of continual
birth for the next four weeks. Awakening and activation will come
naturally. Your drive to blossom and create may be irresistible, bordering
on unruly. Does that sound overwhelming? I don't think it will be a
problem as long as you cultivate a mood of amazed amusement about
how strong it feels. To help maintain your poise, keep in mind that your
growth spurt is a natural response to the dissolution that preceded it.
Halloween costume suggestion: a fountain, an erupting volcano, the
growing beanstalk from the "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must
shed our past over and over again." So says Buddhist teacher Jack
Kornfield. Can you guess why I'm bringing it to your attention,
Sagittarius? It's one of those times when you can do yourself a big favor
by sloughing off the stale, worn-out, decaying parts of your past. Luckily
for you, you now have an extraordinary talent for doing just that. I
suspect you will also receive unexpected help and surprising grace as you
proceed. Halloween costume suggestion: a snake molting its skin.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Speaking on behalf of your wild mind, I'm
letting you know that you're due for an immersion in revelry and festivity.
Plugging away at business as usual could become counterproductive
unless you take at least brief excursions to the frontiers of pleasure. High
integrity may become sterile unless you expose it to an unpredictable
adventure or two. Halloween costume suggestion: party animal, hell raiser,
social butterfly, god or goddess of delight. Every one of us harbors a
touch of crazy genius that periodically needs to be unleashed, and now is
that time for you.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I hope you will choose a Halloween costume
that emboldens you to feel powerful. For the next three weeks, it's in
your long-term interest to invoke a visceral sense of potency, dominion,
and sovereignty. What clothes and trappings might stimulate these
qualities in you? Those of a king or queen? A rock star or CEO? A fairy
godmother, superhero, or dragon-tamer? Only you know which archetypal
persona will help stir up your untapped reserves of confidence and
command.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): It's time to stretch the boundaries, Pisces.
You have license to expand the containers and outgrow the expectations
and wage rebellion for the sheer fun of it. The frontiers are calling you.
Your enmeshment in small talk and your attachment to trivial wishes are
hereby suspended. Your mind yearns to be blown and blown and blown
again! I dare you to wander outside your overly safe haven and go in
quest of provocative curiosities. Halloween costume suggestions: mad
scientist, wild-eyed revolutionary, Dr. Who.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): On a January morning in 1943, the town of
Spearfish, South Dakota experienced very weird weather. At 7:30 a.m.
the temperature was minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. In the next two
minutes, due to an unusual type of wind sweeping down over nearby
Lookout Mountain, thermometers shot up 49 degrees. Over the next hour
and a half, the air grew even warmer. But by 9:30, the temperature had
plummeted back to minus 4 degrees. I'm wondering if your moods might
swing with this much bounce in the coming weeks. As long as you keep in
mind that no single feeling is likely to last very long, it doesn't have to be
a problem. You may even find a way to enjoy the breathtaking ebbs and
flows. Halloween costume suggestion: roller coaster rider, Jekyll and Hyde,
warm clothes on one side of your body and shorts or bathing suit on the
other.
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PLEASURE IS HOLY?
Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn't a barrier to your
spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis
that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate
person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you
every day.
For inspiration in practicing this approach, tune in to your EXPANDED
AUDIO HOROSCOPES. They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the
current state of your destiny.
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to
http://RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page.
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888.
The cost is $6 per sign on the Web (discounts available for bulk
purchases), or $1.99 per minute by phone.
The Expanded Audio Horoscopes work on most smart phones and tablets.
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"The best part about your audio horoscopes is that they pat me on the
head and kick me in the ass at the same time." - Rita L., San Diego
"Your audio oracles go beyond helping me find the truth -- they inspire
me to find the WILD truth." - Patrick K., Montreal
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TAURUS (April 20-May 20): How dare you be so magnetic and tempting?
What were you thinking when you turned up the intensity of your charm
to such a high level? I suggest you consider exercising more caution
about expressing your radiance. People may have other things to do
besides daydreaming about you. But if you really can't bring yourself to
be a little less attractive -- if you absolutely refuse to tone yourself down
-- please at least try to be extra kind and generous. Share your emotional
wealth. Overflow with more than your usual allotments of blessings.
Halloween costume suggestion: a shamanic Santa Claus; a witchy Easter
Bunny.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In the last ten days of November and the
month of December, I suspect there will be wild-card interludes when you
can enjoy smart gambles, daring stunts, cute tricks, and mythic
escapades. But the next three weeks will not be like that. On the
contrary. For the immediate future, I think you should be an upstanding
citizen, a well-behaved helper, and a dutiful truth-teller. Can you handle
that? If so, I bet you will get sneak peaks of the fun and productive
mischief that could be yours in the last six weeks of 2015. Halloween
costume suggestion: the most normal person in the world.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Members of the gazelle species known as the
springbok periodically engage in a behavior known as pronking. They leap
into the air and propel themselves a great distance with all four feet off
the ground, bounding around with abandon. What evolutionary purpose
does this serve? Some scientists are puzzled, but not naturalist David
Attenborough. In the documentary film *Africa,* he follows a springbok
herd as it wanders through the desert for months, hoping to find a rare
rainstorm. Finally it happens. As if in celebration, the springboks erupt
with an outbreak of pronking. "They are dancing for joy," Attenborough
declares. Given the lucky breaks and creative breakthroughs coming your
way, Cancerian, I foresee you doing something similar. Halloween costume
suggestion: a pronking gazelle, a hippety-hopping bunny, a boisterous
baby goat.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "A very little key will open a very heavy door,"
wrote Charles Dickens in his short story "Hunted Down." Make that one of
your guiding meditations in the coming days, Leo. In the back of your
mind, keep visualizing the image of a little key opening a heavy door.
Doing so will help ensure that you'll be alert when clues about the real
key's location become available. You will have a keen intuitive sense of
how you'll need to respond if you want to procure it. Halloween costume
suggestion: proud and protective possessor of a magic key.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The ancient Hindu text known as the Kama
Sutra gives extensive advice about many subjects, including love and sex.
"Though a man loves a woman ever so much," reads a passage in chapter
four, "he never succeeds in winning her without a great deal of talking."
Take that as your cue, Virgo. In the coming weeks, stir up the intimacy
you want with a great deal of incisive talking that beguiles and entertains.
Furthermore, use the same approach to round up any other experience
you yearn for. The way you play with language will be crucial in your
efforts to fulfill your wishes. Luckily, I expect your persuasive powers to
be even greater than they usually are. Halloween costume suggestion: the
ultimate salesperson.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I encourage you to be super rhythmical and
melodious in the coming days. Don't just sing in the shower and in the
car. Hum and warble and whistle while shopping for vegetables and
washing the dishes and walking the dog. Allot yourself more than enough
time to shimmy and cavort, not just on the dance floor but anywhere else
you can get away with it. For extra credit, experiment with lyrical
flourishes whenever you're in bed doing the jizzle-skazzle. Halloween
costume suggestion: wandering troubadour, street musician, free-styling
rapper, operatic diva, medicine woman who heals with sound.
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Homework: What is your greatest fear? Make fun of it this Halloween. Tell
me about it at FreeWillAstrology.com.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2015 Rob Brezsny
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