Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
August 19, 2020
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See a pretty version of this newsletter:
https://bit.ly/TrustLife
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YOUR HEALING POWER
Everyone in the world has the power to heal someone else. At one end of the
spectrum are the doctors and shamans and therapists who can summon the
means to cure lots of people. At the other end are individuals with the
power to improve the health or smooth out the distortions in just one
other person.
Where do you fit in this range?
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YOU'RE A LUCKY, PLUCKY GENIUS
You are constitutionally incapable of adapting nicely to the sour and
crippled mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality." You're too
amazingly, blazingly insane for that.
You're too crazy smart to lust after the stupidest secrets of the game of
life. You're too seriously delirious to wander sobbing through the sterile,
perfumed labyrinth looking in vain for the most ultra-perfect mirror.
Thank the Goddess that you are a fiercely tender throb of sublimely
berserk abracadabra.
You'll never get crammed in a neat little niche in the middle of the road at
the end of a nightmare. You refuse to allow your soul's bones to get ground
down into dust and used to fertilize the killing fields that proudly dot the
ice cream empire of monumentally demeaning luxuries.
You're too brilliantly cracked for that. You're too ingeniously whacked.
You're too ineffably godsmacked.
This is an excerpt from a longer piece. Read (and hear) the rest here:
http://bit.ly/ReGeniusYourself
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UNSOLVED PROBLEMS ARE GREAT TEACHERS
"There is nothing you can learn from as much as a problem you cannot
fully solve. Unsolved problems can be some of the greatest tormentors,
but also the greatest teachers. Unsolved problems keep the mind hungry
and the eyes open.
"Small-minded people have found premature, final answers to great
unresolved questions. Absolutisms and fundamentalisms abound for those
who do not have the inner strength to live with unsolved problems.
"Many of the greatest discoveries and epiphanies have occurred as partial
solutions to problems never fully solved. The ego, of course, desires
closure, but some life problems are only closed with the coffin lid. Our
desire to pursue unresolved problems is a major part of what keeps us
alive and searching.
"One of the greatest life skills and signs of maturity is the ability to live
with ambivalence, ambiguity and unresolved problems. As Deng Ming Dao
says, 'Never underestimate the power of a partial solution.' It takes
wisdom, courage and inner strength to live with unresolved problems and
to resist trying to close them prematurely."
"Take another look at the unsolved problems you live with and recognize
their inestimable value to your soul. Allow your desire to solve them to
draw you into the misty labyrinth of life. And as you wind your way
though the twists and turns, pause to appreciate some of the partial
solutions, and remember that the journey is the destination."
—Jonathan Zap, excerpted from https://tinyurl.com/arx5tem
And check out Jonathan Zap's free online do-it-yourself oracle:
https://zaporacle.com/online-image-oracle/
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OK TO SOMETIMES BE DISLOYAL TO YOUR PAIN
"Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous."
- Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
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PLEASE BRING STRANGE THINGS
Ursula K. Le Guin says:
Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well loved one,
walk mindfully, well loved one,
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.
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"THIS GHOST FLED FROM ME"
"I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the
mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself. And behold, then this
ghost fled from me."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufman
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HOW TO GENERATE INTELLIGENCE
"I don’t care about someone being intelligent; any situation between
people, when they are really human with each other, produces
'intelligence.'"
—Susan Sontag
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
This perfect moment is brought to you by those pine trees whose seeds are
so tightly compacted within their protective covering that only the intense
heat of a forest fire can free them and allow them to sprout.
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IMAGINE THE ANGELS OF BREAD
by Martín Espada
This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roof-deck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year
that dark-skinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.
This is the year that those
who swim the border's undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes
stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth;
this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.
If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorium,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback
are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.
So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.
- Martin Espada
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Compound in Sea Sponges Can Stop Cancer and Kill Herpes – And Growing
Them Would Benefit Indonesians
https://tinyurl.com/y5xvt5vb
Malnutrition Across India Has Plummeted By 60 Million–And Most of Asia
Has a Similar Success Story
https://tinyurl.com/y57ttaq6
The Largest Urban Rooftop Farm in the World is Now Bearing Fruit (and
More) in Paris
https://tinyurl.com/y4d2krc2
Photographer Captures Dazzling Images of a Lightning Storm Dubbed the
‘Night of a Thousand Forks’
https://tinyurl.com/y5w3oqk2
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For a lot more pronoiac resources and ideas, read my book *Pronoia Is the
Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You
with Blessings*
Available at Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaBN
Available at Amazon: https://bit.ly/Pronoia
A free preview of the book is available here:
https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaPreview
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning August 20
Copyright 2020 by Rob Brezsny
https://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "Magic lies in challenging what seems
impossible," says Leo politician Carol Moseley Braun. I agree with her,
but will also suggest there's an even higher magic: when you devise a
detailed plan for achieving success by challenging the impossible, and then
actually carry out that plan. Judging from the current astrological omens,
I suspect you're in an unusually favorable position to do just that in the
coming weeks. Be bold in rising to the challenge; be practical and strategic
in winning the challenge.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Joy is a mystery because it can happen
anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances,"
writes author Frederick Buechner. What he doesn't say is that you must
be receptive and open to the possibility of joy arriving anywhere and
anytime. If you're shut down to its surprising influx, if you're convinced
that joy is out of reach, it won't break through the barriers you've put
up; it won't be able to land in your midst. I think this is especially
important counsel for you in the coming weeks, Virgo. PLEASE make
yourself available for joy. P.S. Here's another clue from Buechner: "Joy
is where the whole being is pointed in one direction."
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "I transformed stillnesses and darknesses into
words," wrote Libran poet Arthur Rimbaud. "What was unspeakable, I
named. I made the whirling world pause." In accordance with current
astrological potentials, I have turned his thoughts into a message for you.
In the coming weeks, I hope you will translate silences and mysteries into
clear language. What is unfathomable and inaccessible, you will convert
into understandings and revelations. Gently, without force or violence,
you will help heal the inarticulate agitation around you with the power of
your smooth, resonant tenderness.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Your desires, whether or not you achieve
them, will determine who you become," wrote author Octavia E. Butler.
Now is a fertile time for you to meditate on that truth. So I dare you to
take an inventory of all your major desires, from the noblest to the most
trivial. Be honest. If one of your burning yearnings is to have 100,000
followers on Instagram or to eat chocolate-covered bacon that is served to
you in bed, admit it. After you're through tallying up the wonders you
want most, the next step is to decide if they are essential to you becoming
the person you truly want to be. If some aren't, consider replacing them
with desires that will be a better influence on you as you evolve.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): If you can manage it, I recommend
taking a break from business-as-usual. I'd love to see you give yourself
the gift of amusement and play—a luxurious sabbatical that will help you
feel free of every burden, excused from every duty, and exempt from
every fixation. The spirit I hope you will embody is captured well in this
passage from author Okakura Kakuzo: "Let us have a sip of tea. The
afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling
with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream
of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things."
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Rapper Eminem advises us, "Never take
ecstasy, beer, Bacardi, weed, Pepto-Bismol, Vivarin, Tums, Tagamet HB,
Xanax, and Valium in the same day." What's his rationale? That quaffing
this toxic mix might kill us or make us psychotic? No. He says you
shouldn't do that because "It makes it difficult to sleep at night." I'm going
to suggest that you abide by his counsel for yet another reason: According
to my analysis, you have the potential to experience some wondrous and
abundant natural highs in the coming weeks. Your capacity for beautiful
perceptions, exhilarating thoughts, and breakthrough epiphanies will be
at a peak. But none of that is likely to happen if you're loaded up with
inebriants.
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LOVE YOUR LIFE!
How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in
liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and
conditioned responses? Are you turning out to be the hero of your own
life?
For assistance and inspiration, tune in to my EXPANDED AUDIO
HOROSCOPES.
These forecasts are different in tone and format from the written
horoscopes you read here in the newsletter. They're longer and more
leisurely in tone.
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to
https://RealAstrology.com
Register and/or log in through the main page.
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The cost is $6 per sign online. (Discounts are available for bulk
purchases.)
You can also access them by phone at 1-877-873-4888. The cost is
$1.99 per minute. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
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"Your Expanded Audio Horoscopes provide me with the Rest of the Story.
I'm not necessarily a believer in the scientific accuracy of astrology, but I
do think you've got a lot of practical wisdom to impart."
- M. Tennenbaum, New York
"No one knows more about me than me. But you're right up there near the
top of the list of people who do understand something about how I tick. How
is that possible?"
- R. Goren, Albuquerque
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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "Everyone who has ever built a new heaven
first found the power to do so in his own hell," declared philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche. That's a rather histrionic statement! But then
Nietzsche was a Maestro of Melodrama. He was inclined to portray human
life as a heroic struggle for boldness and liberation. He imagined us as
being engaged in an epic quest to express our highest nature. In accordance
with your astrological potentials, I propose that you regard Nietzsche as
your power creature during the coming weeks. You have a mandate to adopt
his lion-hearted perspective. And yes, you also have a poetic license to
build a new heaven based on the lessons you learned and the power you
gained in your own hell.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Here's some knowledge from author John le
Carré: "In every operation there is an above the line and a below the line.
Above the line is what you do by the book. Below the line is how you do the
job." According to my analysis, you have, at least for now, done all you can
in your work above the line. That's great! It was crucial for you to follow
the rules and honor tradition. But now it's time for a shift in emphasis. In
the coming weeks, I hope you will specialize in finessing the details and
massaging the nuances below the line.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "We never know what is enough until we
know what’s more than enough," said Aries singer Billie Holiday. I don't
think that applies to everyone, although it's more likely to be true about
the Aries tribe than maybe any other sign of the zodiac. And I'm guessing
that the coming weeks could be a time when you will indeed be vivid proof
of its validity. That's why I'm issuing a "Too Much of a Good Thing" alert
for you. I don't think it'll be harmful to go a bit too far and get a little too
much of the good things; it may even be wise and healthy to do so. But
please don't go waaayyyy too far and get waaayyyy too much of the good
things.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus author Honoré de Balzac
(1799–1850) took many years to write *The Human Comedy*, an
amalgam of 91 intertwined novels, stories, and essays. For this vast
enterprise, he dreamed up the personalities of more than 2,000
characters, many of whom appeared in multiple volumes. I bring this to
your attention, Taurus, because I believe that the next 15 months will be
an excellent time for you to imagine and carry out a Balzac-like project of
your own. Do you have an inkling of what that might be? Now's a good time
to start ruminating.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Not until the 19th century did humans begin
to take organized actions to protect animals from cruelty. Even those were
sparse. The latter part of the 20th century brought more concerted
efforts to promote animal welfare, but the rise of factory farms, toxic
slaughterhouses, zoos, circuses, and cosmetic testing has shunted us into a
Dark Age of animal abuse. I suspect our descendants will look back with
horror at our barbarism. This problem incurs psychological wounds in us
all in ways that aren't totally conscious. And I think this is an especially
key issue for you right now. I beg you, for your own sake as well as for
the animals', to upgrade your practical love and compassion for animals. I
bet you'll find it inspires you to treat your own body with more
reverence.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian literary critic Harold Bloom
bragged to *The New York Times* that his speed-reading skills were so
advanced that he could finish a 500-page book in an hour. While I believe
he has indeed devoured thousand of books, I also wonder if he lied about his
quickness. Nonetheless, I'll offer him up as an inspirational role model
for you in the coming weeks. Why? Because you're likely to be able to
absorb and integrate far more new information and fresh experiences than
usual—and at a rapid pace.
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Homework: Meditate on the possibility that you could gain personal power
through an act of surrender. FreeWillAstrology.com
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2020 Rob Brezsny
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