Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
January 24, 2018
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: http://bit.ly/YouLoveTruth
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YOUR FUTURE
I've gathered together all the Free Will Astrology horoscopes that address
the far-reaching themes of your destiny in the coming months. Read a
compendium of your written horoscopes for 2018:
http://bit.ly/YourGloriousStory2018
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In addition to these, I've created three-part, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO
HOROSCOPES about Your Long-Range Future. They go even further in
exploring your prospects and challenges in 2018.
Who do you want to become in the coming months? Where do you want
to go and what do you want to do? How can you exert your free will to
create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find
graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?
To listen to these three-part, in-depth reports, go here:
http://RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the
horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." Choose from Part 1,
Part 2, and Part 3. Each part is a standalone report, not dependent on the
other two.
If you'd like a boost of inspiration to fuel you in your quest for beauty and
truth and love and meaning, tune in to my meditations on your Big-Picture
outlook.
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Each of the three-part reports is seven to nine minutes long. The cost is
$6 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.
P.S. You can also listen to a short-term Expanded Audio Horoscope for
the coming week.
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WHAT DID I FORESEE FOR YOU A YEAR AGO?
A year ago, at the beginning of 2017, I wrote big-picture horoscopes that
envisioned the opportunities and challenges you'd face in months to
come. I thought you might like to re-read them and see how apropos they
turned out to be: http://bit.ly/BigPicture2017
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WHAT'S WORKING WELL AND GOING RIGHT
Nicholas Kristof says: Every other day this year, I promise to weep and
scream in outrage at all the things going wrong. But today, let's consider
what's going right.
Every day, the number of people around the world living in extreme
poverty (less than about $2 a day) goes down by 217,000.
Every day, 325,000 more people gain access to electricity. And 300,000
more gain access to clean drinking water.
As recently as the 1960s, a majority of humans had always been illiterate
and lived in extreme poverty. Now fewer than 15 percent are illiterate,
and fewer than 10 percent live in extreme poverty.
In another 15 years, illiteracy and extreme poverty will be mostly gone.
After thousands of generations, they are pretty much disappearing on our
watch.
In the 1950s, but not today, the U.S. had segregation, polio, and bans on
interracial marriage, gay sex, and birth control. Most of the world lived
under dictatorships, two-thirds of parents had a child die before age 5,
and it was a time of nuclear standoffs, of pea soup smog, of frequent
wars, of stifling limits on women and of the worst famine in history.
Read more: https://tinyurl.com/y84x9w3f
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NINE WAYS THE WORLD GOT A LOT BETTER IN 2017
1) There was less famine
2) There were fewer war deaths
3) Fewer deaths from natural disasters
4) Progress against pestilence
5) Greater life expectancy
6) More democracy
7) Expanding rights for women and sexual minorities
8) Fewer people living on $2 a day
9) Greener energy
Read about the details: https://tinyurl.com/y8j2a9j4
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THE 99 BEST THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN 2017:
Read all about it: https://tinyurl.com/y8yl5bk5
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DIMINISHING POVERTY
In 1981 more than half of the world population was living in poverty. In
the 19th century, the figure was close to 95 percent. Today the
proportion of the global population living in poverty is down to 21%.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
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BEAUTY MAKES YOU SMART?
Do you have an unconscious belief that the forces of evil are loud,
vigorous, and strong, while good is quiet, gentle, and passive? Gather
evidence that contradicts this irrational prejudice.
Are you secretly suspicious of joy because you think it's inevitably rooted
in wishful thinking and a willful ignorance about the true nature of reality?
Expose these suspicions as superstitions that aren't grounded in any
objective data you can actually prove.
Do you fear that when you're in the presence of love and beauty you tend
to become softheaded, whereas you're likely to feel smart and powerful
when you're sneering at the ugliness around you?
As an antidote, for a given amount of time, say a week or a month or a
year, act as if the following hypothesis were true: that you're more likely
to grow smarter when you're in the presence of love and beauty.
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THE JOY OF INSURRECTION
I like to complain and be outraged as much as the next aspiring
bodhisattva. I derive a not-so-taboo pleasure from railing against racism,
sexism, misogyny, plutocracy, bigotry, and militarism.
But I'm also passionate about crafting a new world that will bypass the
vortex of nonsense, that will render the institutionalized mayhem defunct.
I value Buckminster Fuller's perspective: "You never change things by
fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that
makes the existing model obsolete."
Another favorite counsel comes from sociologist David Cooperrider:
"Almost without exception, everything society has considered a social
advance has been prefigured first in some utopian writing."
And that's why I like to commune with idealistic yet practical futurists
who envision the best possible civilization we can create.
I'm happy to say that one of those rare Big Positive Thinkers is offering a
new blessing. With his book *How Soon is Now: From Personal Initiation to
Global Transformation,* Daniel Pinchbeck has secured his place in my Hall
of Fame of Positive and Practical Insurrectionaries.
The book is a manifesto. A call to zealous and compassionate action. A
well-thought-out and visionary formulization of effective tactics.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning January 25
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The pawpaw is a tasty fruit that blends the
flavors of mango, banana, and melon. But you rarely find it in grocery
stores. One reason is that the fruit ripens very fast after being picked.
Another is that the pollination process is complicated. In response to
these issues, a plant scientist named Neal Peterson has been trying to
breed the pawpaw to be more commercially viable. Because of his work,
cultivated crops have finally begun showing up at some farmers' markets.
I'd like to see you undertake metaphorically similar labors in 2018,
Aquarius. I think you'll have good luck at developing rough potentials into
more mature forms of expression. You'll have skill at turning unruly raw
materials into more useful resources. Now is a great time to begin.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): An iceberg is a huge chunk of ice that has
cracked away from a glacier and drifted off into the open sea. Only nine
percent of it is visible above the waterline. The underwater part, which is
most of the iceberg, is basically invisible. You can't know much about it
just by looking at the top. This is an apt metaphor for life itself. Most
everyone and everything we encounter is 91 percent mysterious or
hidden or inaccessible to our conscious understanding. That's the weird
news, Pisces. The good news is that during the next three weeks you will
have an unprecedented ability to get better acquainted with the other 91
percent of anything or anyone you choose to explore.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Anders Haugen competed for the U.S. as a ski
jumper in the 1924 Winter Olympics. Although he was an accomplished
athlete who had previously set a world record for distance, he won no
medals at the games. But wait! Fifty years later, a sports historian
discovered that there had a been a scoring mistake back in 1924. In fact,
Haugen had done well enough to win the bronze medal. The mistake was
rectified, and he finally got his long-postponed award. I foresee a
comparable development happening in your life, Aries. Recognition or
appreciation you deserved to have received some time ago will finally
come your way.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 1899, Sobhuza II became King of Swaziland
even though he was less than five months old. He kept his job for the
next 82 years, and along the way managed to play an important role
when his nation gained independence from the colonial rule of the United
Kingdom. These days you may feel a bit like Sobhuza did when he was still
in diapers, Taurus: not sufficiently prepared or mature for the greater
responsibilities that are coming your way. But just as he received
competent help in his early years from his uncle and grandmother, I
suspect you'll receive the support you'll need to ripen.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In my ideal world, dancing and singing wouldn't
be luxuries practiced primarily by professionals. They would be regular
occurrences in our daily routines. We'd dance and sing whenever we
needed a break from the numbing trance. We'd whirl and hum to pass the
time. We would greet each other with an interpretative movement and a
little tune. In schools, dance and song would be a standard part of the
curriculum -- as important as math and history. That's my utopian dream,
Gemini. What's yours? In accordance with the astrological omens, I urge
you to identify the soul medicine you'd love to incorporate into your
everyday regimen. Then go ahead and incorporate it! It's time for you to
get more aggressive about creating the world you want to live in.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Psychology pioneer Carl Jung believed that
most of our big problems can never be fully solved. And that's actually a
good thing. Working on them keeps us lively, in a state of constant
transformation. It ensures we don't stagnate. I generally agree with Jung's
high opinion of our problems. We should indeed be grateful for the way
they impel us to grow. However, I think that's irrelevant for you right
now. Why? Because you have an unprecedented opportunity to solve and
graduate from a major long-running problem. So no, don't be grateful for
it. Get rid of it. Say goodbye to it forever.
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EXPLORING THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LONG-RANGE FUTURE
Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your
upcoming adventures in 2018?
You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny
in the coming months. Each report in the three-part series is 7 to 9
minutes long.
Go to http://RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the
horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." (Choose from Part 1,
Part 2, Part 3.)
A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.
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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Between now and March 21, you will be invited,
encouraged, and pushed to deepen your understanding of intimate
relationships. You will have the chance to learn much, much more about
how to create the kind of togetherness that both comforts and inspires
you. Will you take advantage of this eight-week opportunity? I hope so.
You may imagine that you have more pressing matters to attend to. But
the fact is that cultivating your relationship skills would transform you in
ways that would best serve those other pressing matters.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In December, mass protests broke out in
Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city. Why? The economy had been
gradually worsening. Inflation was slowly but surely exacting a toll.
Unemployment was increasing. But one of the immediate triggers for the
uprising was a 40-percent hike in the price of eggs. It focused the Iranian
people's collective angst and galvanized a dramatic response. I'm
predicting a comparable sequence in your personal future, Virgo. A
specific irritant will emerge, motivating you to stop putting up with trends
that have been subtly bothering you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the late 1980s, Budweiser used a Bull Terrier
to promote its Bud Light beer in commercials. The dog, who became
mega-famous, was presented as a rich macho party animal named Spuds
MacKenzie. The ad campaign was successful, boosting sales 20 percent.
But the truth was that the actor playing Spuds was a female dog whose
owners called her Evie. To earn money, the poor creature, who was born
under the sign of Libra, was forced to assume a false identity. To honor
Evie's memory, and in alignment with current astrological omens, I urge
you human Libras to strip away any layers of false identity you've been
pressured to acquire. Be your Real Self -- to the max.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The giant panda is a bear native to China. In
the wild, its diet is 99 percent bamboo. But bamboo is not an energy-rich
food, which means the creature has to compensate by consuming 20 to
30 pounds of the stuff every day. Because it's so busy gathering its
sustenance, the panda doesn't have time to do much socializing. I
mention this, Scorpio, because I want to offer up the panda as your
*anti*-power animal for the coming weeks. According to my reading of
the astrological omens, you should have a diversified approach to getting
your needs met -- not just in regards to food, but in every other way as
well. Variety is not just the spice of life; it's the essence.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): You're the star of the "movie" that
endlessly unfolds in your imagination. There may be a number of other
lead actors and actresses, but few if any have your luster and stature.
You also have a supporting cast, as well as a full complement of extras.
To generate all the adventure you need, your story needs a lot of
dramatis personae. In the coming weeks, I suggest that you be alert for
certain minor characters who are primed to start playing a bigger role in
your narrative. Consider the possibility of inviting them to say and do
more to advance the plot.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Thirty-five miles per hour is typically the
highest speed attained by the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.
That's not very fast. On the other hand, each ship's engine generates 190
megawatts, enough to provide the energy needs of 140,000 houses, and
can go more than 20 years without refueling. If you don't mind, I'm going
to compare you to one of those aircraft carriers during the next four
weeks. You may not be moving fast, but you will have maximum stamina
and power.
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Homework: Imagine that you're still alive in 2090. What's your life like?
Testify 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,
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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
2018 Rob Brezsny
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