Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
August 1, 2018
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Since 1995, I've been offering my written horoscopes on the Internet for
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INVITATIONS FOR YOU
My first invitation: Weed out the wishy-washy wishes and lukewarm
longings that keep you distracted from your burning desires.
My second invitation: Refuse to think that anyone else knows better than
you what dreams will keep your life energy humming with maximum
efficiency and grace.
Third invitation: Say this out loud to see how it feels: "I know exactly
what I want. I know exactly what I don't want. I know exactly what I kind
of want but I won't waste my time on it because it sidetracks me from
working on what I really want."
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GOOD PROBLEMS
Is there anything more dangerous than getting up in the morning and
having nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat
you up? That state can be a threat to your health, because if untreated it
incites an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might
rouse some excitement.
Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your
well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself-
-indeed, you make yourself--through the riddles you attract and solve.
The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest,
hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the
answers.
Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place
you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is
allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been
previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which
doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of an
ultimate truth.
I half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre
problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently
generates no gain. We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted,
to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our
sleeping genius.
There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty--let's call it the delightful
dilemma--that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the contrary,
it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when you're feeling a
profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing my
book is a good example. I've had a good time handling the perplexing
challenges with which it has confronted me.
Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile.
Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your
predominant state of mind. Consider the possibility that being in
unsettling circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the
riddles you need most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions
when you're preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or
demeaning annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.
Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack
for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More
and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain.
You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of
your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before
you're forced to do so by divine kicks in the ass.
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ETERNAL WELCOME
"Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again,
freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder,
and even ecstasy."
- Abraham H. Maslow
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TWO KINDS OF HOPE
Sometimes hope is an irrelevant waste of time, even a stupid self-
indulgence. Let's say, for instance, that I'm intently hoping that a certain
disagreeable person I've got to communicate with won't answer when I
call on the phone. That way I can simply leave a message on his voice mail
and avoid an unpleasant exchange. But it doesn't matter what I hope. The
guy will either answer or not, regardless of what I hope.
But there is another kind of hope that's potentially invigorating. Let's say
I hope that we humans will reverse the environmental catastrophes we're
perpetrating. Let's say that my hope motivates me to live more
sustainably and to inspire others to live more sustainably. Then my hope
is a catalyst.
I invite you to give two examples from your life about the two kinds of
hope.
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BEGINNER'S MIND AND BEGINNER'S HEART
To achieve what the Zen Buddhists call "beginner's mind," you dispense
with all preconceptions and enter each situation as if seeing it for the first
time. "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities," wrote Shunryu
Suzuki in his book *Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind,* "but in the expert's there
are few."
As much as I love beginner's mind, though, I advocate an additional
discipline: cultivating a beginner's heart. That means approaching every
encounter imbued with a freshly invoked wave of love that is as pure as if
you're feeling it for the first time.
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HOW TO FIND GOOD NEWS
Experiment: Imprint yourself with the intention that, say, 25% of the
time, you will seek out the GOOD news instead of the BAD stuff -- that
you will regard tales of affliction and mayhem and corruption and tragedy
as no more interesting or worthy of your attention than tales of triumph
and liberation and pleasure and ingenuity.
If this idea appeals to you, here are sources of GOOD news to get you
started:
Yes magazine: http://yesmagazine.org/
Good News Network: http://goodnewsnetwork.org/
Celebrate Small Victories: https://celebratesmallvictories.com/archives/
Reddit Uplifting News: http://reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews
New York Times' Good News section: https://tinyurl.com/y88vcllz
Heroic Stories: http://heroicstories.com/
(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 August 2
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "Sometimes, I feel the past and the future
pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at
all." A character named Julia says that in Evelyn Waugh's novel
*Brideshead Revisited*. I bring it to your attention as an inspiring irritant,
as a prod to get you motivated. I hope it will mobilize you to rise up and
refuse to allow your past and your future to press so hard on either side
that there's no room for the present. It's a favorable time for you to fully
claim the glory of being right here, right now.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I'm not an ascetic who believes all our valuable
lessons emerge from suffering. Nor am I a pop-nihilist who sneers at
pretty flowers, smiling children, and sunny days. On the contrary: I'm
devoted to the hypothesis that life is usually at least 51 percent
wonderful. But I dance the rain dance when there's an emotional drought
in my personal life, and I dance the pain dance when it's time to deal with
difficulties I've ignored. How about you, Virgo? I suspect that now is one
of those times when you need to have compassionate heart-to-heart
conversations with your fears, struggles, and aches.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Do you absolutely need orchids, sweet elixirs,
dark chocolate, alluring new music, dances on soft grass, sensual
massages, nine hours of sleep per night, and a steady stream of soulful
conversations? No. Not really. In the coming days, life will be a good ride
for you even if you fail to procure those indulgences. But here are further
questions and answers: Do you *deserve* the orchids, elixirs, and the
rest? My answer is yes, definitely. And would the arrival of these delights
spur you to come up with imaginative solutions to your top two riddles?
I'm pretty sure it would. So I conclude this horoscope by recommending
that you do indeed arrange to revel in your equivalent of the delights I
named.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Don't try to steer the river," writes Deepak
Chopra. Most of the time, I agree with that idea. It's arrogant to think
that we have the power to control the forces of nature or the flow of
destiny or the song of creation. Our goal should be to get an intuitive
read on the crazy-making miracle of life, and adapt ourselves ingeniously
to its ever-shifting patterns and rhythms. But wait! Set aside everything I
just said. An exception to the usual rule has arrived. Sometimes, when
your personal power is extra flexible and robust -- like now, for you -- you
may indeed be able to steer the river a bit.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "Dear Astrologer: Recently I've been
weirdly obsessed with wondering how to increase my levels of generosity
and compassion. Not just because I know it's the right thing to do, but
also because I know it will make me healthy and honest and unflappable.
Do you have any sage advice? -Ambitious Sagittarius." Dear Ambitious:
I've noticed that many Sagittarians are feeling an unprecedented curiosity
about how to enhance their lives by boosting the benevolence they
express. Here's a tip from astrologer Chani Nicholas: "Source your sense
of self from your integrity in every interaction." Here's another tip from
Anais Nin: "The worse the state of the world grows, the more intensely I
try for inner perfection and power. I fight for a small world of humanity
and tenderness."
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Time does not necessarily heal all wounds.
If you wait around passively, hoping that the mere passage of months will
magically fix your twists and smooth out your tweaks, you're shirking
your responsibility. The truth is, you need to be fully engaged in the
process. You've got to feel deeply and think hard about how to diminish
your pain, and then take practical action when your wisdom shows you
what will actually work. Now is an excellent time to upgrade your
commitment to this sacred quest.
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FREE STUFF!
Here are links to more of the free stuff I offer:
https://bit.ly/ReadExcerpts: Lots of excerpts from my book *Pronoia Is
the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower
You with Blessings*
https://bit.ly/ZenLovePunk: My Facebook page
https://bit.ly/ZenLoveZenLove: My Youtube page
https://bit.ly/PunkZenLove: My Soundcloud page. Listen to and download
my music and spoken-word pieces
https://bit.ly/LoveZenPunk: My Twitter page
https://bit.ly/LovePunkZen: My Instagram page
https://bit.ly/LoveLoveZen: Links to interviews with me
https://bit.ly/ZenLoveZen: My Tumblr page
https://bit.ly/PunkPunkZen: My Weekly Newsletter archive
https://bit.ly/ZenPunkZen: My band's homepage
https://bit.ly/TrueSongs: My band's songs
https://bit.ly/YourGloriousStory2018: The long-term, big-picture
horoscopes I wrote for you at the beginning of 2018
https://bit.ly/FirstChapters: Read the first four chapters of my book *The
Televisionary Oracle*
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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The questions you've been asking aren't
bad or wrong. But they're not exactly relevant or helpful, either. That's
why the answers you've been receiving aren't of maximum use. Try these
questions instead. 1. What experience or information would you need to
heal your divided sense of loyalty? 2. How can you attract an influence
that would motivate you to make changes you can't quite accomplish
under your own power? 3. Can you ignore or even dismiss the 95 percent
of your fear that's imaginary so you'll be able to focus on the five percent
that's truly worth meditating on? 4. If I assured you that you have the
intelligence to beautify an ugly part of your world, how would you begin?
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A scuffle you've been waging turns out to be
the wrong scuffle. It has distracted you from giving your full attention to
a more winnable and worthwhile tussle. My advice? Don't waste energy
feeling remorse about the energy you've wasted. In fact, be grateful for
the training you've received. The skills you've been honing while wrestling
with the misleading complication will serve you well when you switch your
focus to the more important issue. So are you ready to shift gears? Start
mobilizing your crusade to engage with the more winnable and worthwhile
tussle.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I predict that August will be a Golden Age for
you. That's mostly very good. Golden opportunities will arise, and you'll
come into possession of lead that can be transmuted into gold. But it's
also important to be prudent about your dealings with gold. Consider the
fable of the golden goose. The bird's owner grew impatient because it laid
only one gold egg per day; he foolishly slaughtered his prize animal to get
all the gold immediately. That didn't work out well. Or consider the fact
that to the ancient Aztecs, the word *teocuitlatl* referred to gold, even
though its literally translation was "excrement of the gods." Moral of the
story: If handled with care and integrity, gold can be a blessing.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus socialite Stephen Tennant (1906-
1987) was such an interesting luminary that three major novelists
created fictional characters modeled after him. As a boy, when he was
asked what he'd like to be when he grew up, he replied, "I want to be a
great beauty." I'd love to hear those words spill out of your mouth,
Taurus. What? You say you're already all grown up? I doubt it. In my
opinion, you've still got a lot of stretching and expansion and
transformation to accomplish during the coming decades. So yes: I hope
you can find it in your wild heart to proclaim, "When I grow up, I want to
be a great beauty." (P.S. Your ability to become increasingly beautiful will
be at a peak during the next fourteen months.)
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "Manage with bread and butter until God sends
the honey," advises a Moroccan proverb. Let's analyze how this advice
might apply to you. First thing I want to know is, have you been managing
well with bread and butter? Have you refrained from whining about your
simple provisions, resting content and grateful? If you haven't, I doubt
that any honey will arrive, ether from God or any other source. But if you
have been celebrating your modest gifts, feeling free of greed and
displeasure, then I expect at least some honey will show up soon.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Don't worry your beautiful head about praying
to the gods of luck and fate. I'll take care of that for you. Your job is to
propitiate the gods of fluid discipline and hard but smart work. To win the
favor of these divine helpers, act on the assumption that you now have
the power and the right to ask for more of their assistance than you have
before. Proceed with the understanding that they are willing to provide
you with the stamina, persistence, and attention to detail you will need to
accomplish your next breakthrough.
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Homework: What was your last major amazement? What do you predict
will be the next one? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2018 Rob Brezsny
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