Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
December 13, 2017
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WHAT IS PRONOIA?
OBJECTIVE: To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined,
fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively
sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate
Master of Rowdy Bliss.
DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It's the understanding
that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It's a mode of training your
senses and intellect so you're able to perceive the fact that life always
gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair
is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is your
birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.
PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your
amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working
behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece
you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with
blessings.
GUIDING QUESTION: "The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to
poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life
to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your
whole life. And the most important thing is -- it must be something you
cannot possibly do." What is that task for you?
UNDIGNIFIED MEDITATIONS TO KEEP YOU HONEST: Brag about what you
can't do and don't have. Confess profound secrets to people who aren't
particularly interested. Pray for the success of your enemies while you're
making love. Change your name every day for a thousand days.
TO READ AND HEAR THE REST OF THIS PIECE, go here:
http://bit.ly/xROwHE
The above is excerpted from my book
*PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA*
available
Amazon: http://bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: http://bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
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WANT TO GET YOUR CHART READ?
If you want your chart done, I recommend a colleague whose approach to
reading astrology charts closely matches my own. She's my wife, RO
LOUGHRAN. We've been enjoying regular conversations about astrology
since 1989! Her website's here: http://www.roloughran.com
Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and a high
degree of technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation. She is skilled
at exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your
connection with your own inner wisdom.
In addition to over 30 years of astrological experience, Ro has been a
licensed psychotherapist for 17 years. This enables her to integrate
psychological insight with the cosmological perspective that astrology
offers.
Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise
work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.
Check out Ro's website at http://www.roloughran.com
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UNHAPPY HOUR
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
See me perform "Unhappy Hour" at The Marsh theater in San Francisco:
http://bit.ly/15ztFlE
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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REMEMBERING THE FUTURE
I invite you to think about your relationship to human beings who haven't
been born yet. What might you create for them to use? How can you
make your life a gift to the future? Can you not only help preserve the
wonders we live amidst, but actually enhance them?
Lewis Carroll: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward."
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FREEDOM IS IN THE UNKNOWN
"Freedom is in the unknown. If you believe there is an unknown
everywhere, in your own body, in your relationships with other people, in
political institutions, in the universe, then you have maximum freedom."
- philosopher John C. Lilly
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The Divine Awkward in me honors the Divine Awkward in you:
http://on.fb.me/1n11Aup
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
It's Not Just Sleep That's Important to Your Well-Being. It's Dreaming,
Too.Dreaming has the potential to help people de-escalate emotional
reactivity
https://tinyurl.com/yc5alpak
New street art installation places positivity throughout the city.
http://tinyurl.com/yam9z93x
Lovehacking, and Other Habits of Happy Couples. How strong
relationships survive even in these hard times.
https://tinyurl.com/ybl8sscr
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They aren't advertisements,
and I get no kickbacks.)
Please tell me your own nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning December 14
Copyright 2017 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): At one point in his career, the mythical
Greek hero Hercules was compelled to carry out a series of twelve
strenuous labors. Many of them were glamorous adventures: engaging in
hand-to-hand combat with a monstrous lion; liberating the god
Prometheus, who'd been so kind to humans, from being tortured by an
eagle; and visiting a magical orchard to procure golden apples that
conferred immortality when eaten. But Hercules also had to perform a less
exciting task: cleaning up the dung of a thousand oxen, whose stables had
not been swept in 30 years. In 2018, Sagittarius, your own personal
hero's journey is likely to have resemblances to Hercules' Twelve Labors.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Humans have used petroleum as a fuel
since ancient times. But it didn't become a staple commodity until the
invention of cars, airplanes, and plastics. Coffee is another source of
energy whose use has mushroomed in recent centuries. The first
European coffee shop appeared in Rome in 1645. Today there are over
25,000 Starbucks on the planet. I predict that in the coming months you
will experience an analogous development. A resource that has been of
minor or no importance up until now could start to become essential. Do
you have a sense of what it is? Start sniffing around.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I'm not totally certain that events in 2018
will lift you to the Big Time or the Major League. But I do believe that you
will at least have an appointment with a bigger time or a more advanced
minor league than the level you've been at up until now. Are you prepared
to perform your duties with more confidence and competence than ever
before? Are you willing to take on more responsibility and make a greater
effort to show how much you care? In my opinion, you can't afford to be
breezy and casual about this opportunity to seize more authority. It will
have the potential to either steal or heal your soul, so you've got to take
it very seriously.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 1865, England's Royal Geographical
Society decided to call the world's highest mountain "Everest," borrowing
the surname of Welsh surveyor George Everest. Long before that,
however, Nepali people called it Sagarm_th_ and Tibetans referred to it as
Chomolungma. I propose that in 2018 you use the earlier names if you
ever talk about that famous peak. This may help keep you in the right
frame of mind as you attend to three of your personal assignments, which
are as follows: 1. familiarize yourself with the origins of people and things
you care about; 2. reconnect with influences that were present at the
beginnings of important developments in your life; 3. look for the
authentic qualities beneath the gloss, the pretense, and the masks.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): According to a Sufi aphorism, you can't be
sure that you are in possession of the righteous truth unless a thousand
people have called you a heretic. If that's accurate, you still have a ways
to go before you can be certified. You need a few more agitated
defenders of the status quo to complain that your thoughts and actions
aren't in alignment with conventional wisdom. Go round them up!
Ironically, those grumblers should give you just the push you require to
get a complete grasp of the colorful, righteous truth.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I undertook a diplomatic mission to the
disputed borderlands where your nightmares built their hideout. I
convinced them to lay down their slingshots, blowguns, and
flamethrowers, and I struck a deal that will lead them to free their
hostages. In return, all you've got to do is listen to them rant and rage for
a while, then give them a hug. Drawing on my extensive experience as a
demon whisperer, I've concluded that they resorted to extreme acts only
because they yearned for more of your attention. So grant them that
small wish, please!
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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 cynical 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.
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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GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Have you ever been wounded by a person you
cared for deeply? Most of us have. Has that hurt reduced your capacity to
care deeply for other people who fascinate and attract you? Probably. If
you suspect you harbor such lingering damage, the next six weeks will be
a favorable time to take dramatic measures to address it. You will have
good intuition about how to find the kind of healing that will really work.
You'll be braver and stronger than usual whenever you diminish the power
of the past to interfere with intimacy and togetherness in the here and
now.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely
to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against
it." So said Helen Schuman in *A Course in Miracles.* Personally, I don't
agree with the first part of that advice. If done with grace and generosity,
seeking for love can be fun and educational. It can inspire us to escape
our limitations and expand our charm. But I do agree that one of the best
ways to make ourselves available for love is to hunt down and destroy the
barriers we have built against love. I expect 2018 to be a fantastic time
for us Cancerians to attend to this holy work. Get started now!
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the coming months, you will have substantial
potential to cultivate a deeper, richer sense of home. Here are tips on
how to take maximum advantage. 1. Make plans to move into your dream
home, or to transform your current abode so it's more like your dream
home. 2. Obtain a new mirror that reflects your beauty in the best
possible ways. 3. Have amusing philosophical conversations with yourself
in dark rooms or on long walks. 4. Acquire a new stuffed animal or magic
talisman to cuddle with. 5. Once a month, when the moon is full, literally
dance with your own shadow. 6. Expand and refine your relationship with
autoerotic pleasures. 7. Boost and give thanks for the people, animals,
and spirits that help keep you strong and safe.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Deuces are wild. Contradictions will turn out to
be unpredictably useful. Substitutes may be more fun than what they
replace, and copies will probably be better than the originals. Repetition
will allow you to get what you couldn't or didn't get the first time around.
Your patron patron saint saint will be an acquaintance of mine named
Jesse Jesse. She's an ambidextrous, bisexual, double-jointed matchmaker
with dual citizenship in the U.S. and Ireland. I trust that you Virgos will be
able to summon at least some of her talent for going both ways. I suspect
that you may be able to have your cake and eat it, too.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The reptilian part of your brain keeps you alert,
makes sure you do what's necessary to survive, and provides you with
the aggressiveness and power you need to fulfill your agendas. Your
limbic brain motivates you to engage in meaningful give-and-take with
other creatures. It's the source of your emotions and your urges to
nurture. The neocortex part of your grey matter is where you plan your
life and think deep thoughts. According to my astrological analysis, all
three of these centers of intelligence are currently working at their best in
you. You may be as smart as you have ever been. How will you use your
enhanced savvy?
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The classical composer and pianist Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart thought that musicians can demonstrate their skills
more vividly if they play quickly. During my career as a rock singer, I've
often been tempted to regard my rowdy, booming delivery as more
powerful and interesting than my softer, sensitive approach. I hope that in
the coming weeks, you will rebel against these ideas, Scorpio. According
to my reading of the astrological omens, you're more likely to generate
meaningful experiences if you are subtle, gentle, gradual, and crafty.
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Homework: Make up a secret identity for yourself, complete with a new
name and astrological sign. Tell all at Freewillastrology.com.
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Submissions sent to Rob Brezsny's Astrology 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
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Requests for anonymity will be honored. We are not responsible for
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2017 Rob Brezsny
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