Rob Brezsny's's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
October 10, 2018
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: https://bit.ly/YourLoveHeals
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Proposed bottom-line spiritual philosophy: For any one of us, our life is
based on the principle that whatever hurts other people hurts us; that the
injustices experienced by others are also injustices experienced by us.
None of us can truly be free, fulfilled, and powerful unless we are working
to ensure that everyone can be free, fulfilled, and powerful.
These are not vague abstract ideals. They're the central source of our
soul's code and how we organize our beliefs, our emotions, and our
actions.
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THE MESSY DARKNESS
Don't pretend you can't see the messy darkness. Admit to its presence.
Accept its reality. But don't get tangled up in it, either.
Gaze into the abyss so as to educate yourself about its nature, but don't
become entranced by its hypnotic power.
Scheme to reclaim your power from soul-sucking influences. But don't
turn the process into a blood-and-thunder showdown that wreaks epic
chaos.
You may be amazed at how much protection and relaxation you can
generate for yourself simply by being a poised lover of life who is free of
melodramatic reactions.
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THE DEVIL'S LONELY
The devil follows me day and night, because he is afraid to be alone.
- Francis Picabia
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CAN THE IMAGINATION SAVE US?
Feminist philosopher Susan Griffin relates a story that exemplifies the
possibility of envisaging solutions that defy conventional logic:
Along with many others who crowd the bed of a large truck, poet Robert
Desnos is being taken away from the barracks of the concentration camp
where he has been held prisoner.
Leaving the barracks, the mood is somber; everyone knows the truck is
headed for the gas chambers. And when the truck arrives no one can
speak at all; even the guards fall silent.
But this silence is soon interrupted by an energetic man, who jumps into
the line and grabs one of the condemned.
Improbable as it is, Desnos reads the man's palm. Oh, he says, I see you
have a very long lifeline. And you are going to have three children. He is
exuberant. And his excitement is contagious. First one man, then another,
offers up his hand, and the prediction is for longevity, more children,
abundant joy.
As Desnos reads more palms, not only does the mood of the prisoners
change but that of the guards too. How can one explain it? Perhaps the
element of surprise has planted a shadow of doubt in their minds. If they
told themselves these deaths were inevitable, this no longer seems so
inarguable.
They are in any case so disoriented by this sudden change of mood
among those they are about to kill that they are unable to go through
with the executions.
So all the men, along with Desnos, are packed back onto the truck and
taken back to the barracks.
Desnos has saved his own life and the lives of others by using his
imagination.
The story poses a question. Can the imagination save us?
Robert Desnos was famous for his belief in the imagination. He believed it
could transform society. And what a wild leap this was, at the mouth of
the gas chambers, to imagine a long life! In his mind he simply stepped
outside the world as it was created by the SS.
Full story by Susan Griffin: https://tinyurl.com/yder25lt
Radical feminist philosopher, essayist and playwright Susan Griffin is on
Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/susan.griffin.549
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SANCTIFY YOUR INTERESTING WOUNDS
Steal some useful fire. Imitate a dusky breeze. Praise the wavering sky.
Sanctify your interesting wounds. Mutate a waning pleasure. Alchemize
your mysterious sighs. Untame your timid healing. Redraw the map of
your wild heart. Trick eternity with your electric humor.
Mock gratuitous sarcasm. Swagger some lusty justice. Sing your best
fury. Retool your amazement. Analyze the beauty in your original breath.
Memorize a new future. Rebirth your achy symbols. Celebrate your
surrender to forgiveness.
Anything you'd like to add?
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WE ARE BEYOND "THE RESISTANCE"
We are beyond "The Resistance." We are the catalysts for freedom,
justice, and equality for all.
Michelle Alexander writes: "Resistance is a reactive state of mind. While it
can be necessary for survival and to prevent catastrophic harm, it can
also tempt us to set our sights too low and to restrict our field of vision
to the next election cycle, leading us to forget our ultimate purpose and
place in history.
"Every leap forward for American democracy — from slavery's abolition to
women's suffrage to minimum-wage laws to the Civil Rights Acts to gay
marriage — has been traceable to the revolutionary river, not the
resistance. In fact, the whole of American history can be described as a
struggle between those who truly embraced the revolutionary idea of
freedom, equality and justice for all and those who resisted."
Read more: https://tinyurl.com/y77ugonw
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YOU'RE NOT VANQUISHED
As long as you can go on creating new roles for yourself, you are not
vanquished.
_ Gail Godwin
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MY THOUGHTS ON THE CURRENT TROUBLES
If you'd care to read my thoughts and research concerning the events set
in motion by the Kavanaugh confirmation, you can find them here:
https://tinyurl.com/yac54gft
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
All the below good news comes from a great website, Celebrate Small
Victories:
https://tinyurl.com/y8pw462e
Women and people of color are the majority of Democratic nominees
heading into the midterm elections, making this the first time ever that
white male candidates are the minority.
200 Congressional Democrats have been given the green light to sue
Trump on the grounds that he has violated the Foreign Emoluments
Clause in the Constitution.
A meatpacking plant has agreed to pay $1.5 million to Muslim employees
who sued for discrimination—and will now accommodate prayer breaks,
too.
The House and Senate passed a bill banning a gag rule on pharmacists so
they will now be allowed to tell patients if they can save money on their
prescriptions by paying out of pocket.
Thanks to a 17-year-old student who spoke up and pushed for change,
her Pennsylvania high school is no longer teaching abstinence-only sex
education.
A court vacated a ruling that would have denied legal representation for
immigrant children, so the case will be reargued in December.
California passed a new set of laws that will expand funding, education,
and screenings for maternal mental health disorders.
Following backlash from users, Facebook pulled ads promoting gay
conversion therapy. And in Nova Scotia, a bipartisan bill was passed
banning the practice.
A federal court reinstated protections to hundreds of grizzly bears living
in and around Yellowstone National Park.
A federal judge in Missouri ruled that the state must provide information
to make it easier for people to register to vote when they change
addresses.
With help from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group, a mass
bailout—possibly the largest one to date—is underway to free women and
teenagers from Rikers Island.
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that requires dark money
donors to be revealed —thankfully, ahead of the November elections.
After 25 years of organizing, people in Morocco are celebrating the
passage of a law that criminalizes sexual violence against women.
In India, a 158-year-old law that granted husbands more rights than wives
has been overturned.
(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 October 11
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My astrological analysis suggests that life is
conspiring to render you extra excited and unusually animated and highly
motivated. I bet that if you cooperate with the natural rhythms, you will
feel stirred, playful, and delighted. So how can you best use this gift?
How might you take maximum advantage of the lucky breaks and bursts
of grace that will be arriving? Here's my opinion: be more focused on
discovering possibilities than making final decisions. Feed your sense of
wonder and awe rather than your drive to figure everything out. Give
more power to what you can imagine than to what you already know.
Being practical is fine as long as you're idealistically practical.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): How far is it from the Land of the Lost to the
Land of the Lost and Found? What's the best route to take? Who and
what are likely to provide the best help? If you approach those questions
with a crisply optimistic attitude, you can gather a wealth of useful
information in a relatively short time. The more research you do about the
journey, the faster it will go and the more painless it will be. Here's
another fertile question to meditate on: is there a smart and kind way to
give up your attachment to a supposedly important thing that is actually
quite burdensome?
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In her only novel, *Save Me the Waltz*,
Zelda Fitzgerald described her main character like this: "She quietly
expected great things to happen to her, and no doubt that's one of the
reasons why they did." That's a bit too much like fairy-tale wisdom for me
to endorse it unconditionally. But I do believe it may sometimes be a valid
hypothesis—especially for you Sagittarians in the coming months. Your
faith in yourself and your desire to have interesting fun will be even more
important than usual in determining what adventures you will have. I
suggest you start now to lay the groundwork for this exhilarating
challenge.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff
taught that most people are virtually sleepwalking even during the day.
He said we're permanently stuck on automatic pilot, prone to reacting in
mechanical ways to every event that comes our way. Psychology pioneer
Sigmund Freud had an equally dim view of us humans. He believed that
it's our normal state to be neurotic; that most of us are chronically out of
sync with our surroundings. Now here's the good news, Capricorn. You're
at least temporarily in a favorable position to refute both men's theories.
In fact, I'll boldly predict that in the next three weeks you'll be as
authentic and awake and at peace as you've been in years.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the late 19th-century, American botanist
George Washington Carver began to champion the nutritional value of
peanuts. His influence led to the plant being grown and used more
extensively. Although he accomplished many other innovations, including
techniques for enhancing depleted soils, he became famous as the Peanut
Man. Later in life, he told the story that while young he had prayed to God
to show him the mystery of the universe, but God turned him down,
saying, "That's for me alone." So George asked God to show him the
mystery of the peanut, and God agreed, saying, "that's more nearly your
size." The coming weeks will be a great time for you to seek a comparable
revelation, Aquarius.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Every year, people discard 3.3 million pounds
of chewing gum on the streets of Amsterdam. A company named
Gumdrop has begun to harvest that waste and use it to make soles for its
new brand of sneakers, Gumshoe. A spokesperson said the intention was
to "create a product people actually want from something no one cares
about." I'd love it if you were inspired by this visionary act of recycling,
Pisces. According to my reading of the cosmic omens, you now have
exceptional powers to transform something you don't want into
something you do want.
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YOU'VE ALWAYS GOT MORE HELP AVAILABLE THAN YOU IMAGINE
What do you want to be when you grow up? Is it possible that you will
eventually develop beautiful capacities and sublime understandings that
you can't even imagine right now?
I might be able to help you move in the direction of becoming more of the
person you were born to be. Tune in to my EXPANDED AUDIO
HOROSCOPES
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.
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The cost is $6 per sign on the Web (discounts available for bulk
purchases), or $1.99 per minute by phone.
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ARIES (March 21-April 19): In his book *The Snow Leopard*, Peter
Matthiessen describes his quest to glimpse the elusive and rarely seen
creature in the Himalayas. "Its uncompromising yellow eyes, wired into the
depths of its unfathomable spirit," he writes, give it a "terrible beauty"
that is "the very stuff of human longing." He loves the snow leopard so
much, he says, that it is the animal he "would most like to be eaten by." I
bring this up, Aries, because now would be a good time, astrologically
speaking, for you to identify what animal you would most like to be eaten
by. In other words, what creature would you most like to learn from and
be inspired by? What beautiful beast has the most to give you?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Richard Nelson is an anthropologist who has
lived for years with the indigenous Koyukon people of Alaska. He lauds
their "careful watching of the same events in the same place" over long
periods of time, noting how this enables them to cultivate a rich
relationship with their surroundings that is incomprehensible to us civilized
Westerners. He concludes, "There may be more to learn by climbing the
same mountain a hundred times than by climbing a hundred different
mountains." I think that's excellent counsel for you to employ in the
coming weeks.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "It is sad that unless you are born a god, your
life, from its very beginning, is a mystery to you," writes Gemini author
Jamaica Kincaid. I disagree with her because she implies that if you're
human, your life is a complete and utter mystery; whereas my observation
has been that for most of us, our lives are no more than eighty percent
mystery. Some lucky ones have even deciphered as much as sixty-five
percent, leaving only thirty-five percent mystery. What's your
percentage? I expect that between now and November 1, you can
increase your understanding by at least ten percent.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): You Cancerians may not possess the mental
dexterity of Virgos or the acute cleverness of Geminis, but you have the
most soulful intelligence in the zodiac. Your empathetic intuition is among
your greatest treasures. Your capacity to feel deeply gives you the ability
to intensely understand the inner workings of life. Sometimes you take
this subtle acumen for granted. It may be hard for you to believe that
others are stuck at a high-school level of emotional skill when you have
the equivalent of a PhD. Everything I just said is a prelude to my advice. In
the coming weeks, I doubt you can solve your big riddle through rational
analysis. Your best strategy is to deeply experience all the interesting
feelings that are rising up in you.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Do you ever experience stress from having to be
so interesting and attractive all the time? It may on occasion feel like an
onerous responsibility to be the only artful egomaniac amidst swarms of
amateur egomaniacs. I have a suggestion that might help. Twice a year,
celebrate a holiday I call Dare to Be Boring Week. During these periods of
release and relief, you won't live up to people's expectations that you
keep them amused and excited. You'll be free to be solely focused on
amusing and exciting yourself, even if that means they'll think you're dull.
Now is an excellent time to observe Dare to Be Boring Week.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): A Chinese proverb says, "Tension is who you
think you should be. Relaxation is who you are." I'm happy to let you
know that you are currently more receptive to this truth than maybe you
have ever been. Furthermore, you have more power than usual to change
your life in ways that incorporate this truth. To get started, meditate on
the hypothesis that you can get more good work done if you're calm and
composed than if you're agitated and trying too hard.
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Homework: Name ten personal possessions you'd put in a time capsule to
be opened by your descendants in 200 years. Testify at
Freewillastrology.com.
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Submissions sent to Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2018 Rob Brezsny
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