Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
February 10, 2021
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See a pretty version of this newsletter:
https://bit.ly/YourBeautifulGifts
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"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with
you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what
you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out."
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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ELATIONSHIP LOVE SPELLS FOR BEAUTY & TRUTH LAB ALLIES
The Beauty and Truth Lab's rapturists have formulated a batch of personal
ads for you to borrow. If you're a Crafty Optimist or Mystical Activist or
Ceremonial Teaser who aspires to put the elation back in relationship,
check them out here:
https://bit.ly/LoveAd
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HAVE YOU EVER BEEN LOVED?
Have you ever been loved? I bet you have been loved so much and so deeply
that you have become nonchalant about the enormity of the grace it
confers.
So let me remind you: To be loved is a privilege and prize equivalent to
being born. If you're smart, you pause regularly to bask in the
astonishing knowledge that there are many people out there who care for
you and want you to thrive and hold you in their thoughts with fondness.
Animals, too: You have been the recipient of their boundless affection. The
spirits of allies who've left this world continue to send their tender
regards, as well.
Do you "believe" in angels and other divine beings? Whether or not you
do, I can assure you that there are hordes of them beaming their uncanny
consecrations your way. You are awash in torrents of love.
As tremendous a gift it is to get love, giving love is an equal boon. Many
scientific studies demonstrate that whenever you bestow blessings on
other people, you bless yourself. Expressing practical compassion not
only strengthens your immune system and bolsters your health, but also
promotes self-esteem, enhances longevity, and stimulates tranquility and
even euphoria.
As the scientists say, we humans are hardwired to benefit from altruism.
What's your position on making love? Do you regard it as one of the nicer
fringe benefits of being alive? Or are you more inclined to see it as a
central proof of the primal magnanimity of the universe? I'm more
aligned with the latter view.
Imagine yourself in the fluidic blaze of that intimate spectacle right now.
Savor the fantasy of entwining bodies and hearts and minds with an
appealing partner who has the power to enchant you.
What better way do you know of to dwell in sacred space while immersed
in your body's delight? To commune with the Divine Wow while having
fun? To tap into your own deeper knowing while at the same time gazing
into the mysterious light of a fellow creature?
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VOWS?
I invite you to speak the following vows out loud:
As long as I live, I vow to die and be reborn, die and be reborn, die and be
reborn, over and over again, forever reinventing myself.
I promise to be stronger than hate, wetter than water, deeper than the
abyss, and wilder than the sun.
I pledge to remember that I am not only a sweating, half-asleep,
excitable, bumbling jumble of desires, but that I am also an immortal
four-dimensional messiah in continuous telepathic touch with all of
creation.
I vow to love and honor my highs and my lows my yeses and noes, my give
and my take, the life I wish I had and the life I actually have.
I promise to push hard to get better and smarter, grow my devotion to the
truth, fuel my commitment to beauty, refine my emotions, hone my
dreams, wrestle with my shadow, purge my ignorance, and soften my
heart—even as I always accept myself for exactly who I am, with all of my
so-called foibles and wobbles.
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ORIGIN STORY
I was not yet writing my astrology column when I looked like this —
https://tinyurl.com/63953pw4 — but I was studying astrology at
Goddard College under the tutelage of Peter Kubaska, who later became the
President of the Theosophical Society.
Peter's mentors were Alice Bailey, Dane Rudhyar, Isabel Hickey, and
Helena Blavatsky, so those four also had a big influence on me in the early
days.
Here's the story of how I got started writing the astrology column:
https://tinyurl.com/2heogddv
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INDIGENOUS GOOD NEWS!
I'm always hungry for good news pertaining to Native Americans; always
elated when I find some; always buoyed by any signs that their culture and
power are ascending.
Here are eight joys:
Nez Perce Tribe reclaims 148 acres of ancestral land in Eastern Oregon:
https://tinyurl.com/noyf4ep8
Deb Haaland, member of the Laguna Pueblo, will soon be the first-ever
Native American to run a Cabinet-level agency, as she takes on the job of
Secretary of the Interior. https://tinyurl.com/1q21av9o
PBS News Hour interview with the US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, a member
of Oklahoma's Muscogee Creek Nation and the first Native American to
serve in that role: https://tinyurl.com/1ij068c3
The Blackfeet Nation Won a Decades-Long Fight to Protect lands and
waters sacred to the Blackfeet and critical for wildlife habitat.
https://tinyurl.com/1dgzmnl7
New tiny home village in Tacoma to serve Puyallup Tribal members
experiencing homelessness: https://tinyurl.com/bny4jj6i
Joe Biden: ‘Tribal sovereignty will be a cornerstone’:
https://tinyurl.com/2hbatvvw
Colleen Echohawk, Pawnee and Athabascan, is the current director of the
Chief Seattle Club (a Native-led non-profit serving unhoused urban
Natives in Seattle). She is running for Seattle's mayor.
https://tinyurl.com/3k27ds93
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes embrace return of National Bison
Range amid national focus on tribal management.
https://tinyurl.com/y8jhvq7w
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Dear Progressive Radio Station KPFA:
I love you. You are an oasis, a reality check that keeps me sane, one of the
media outlets that actually reflects some of my values. You're also the only
radio station that has over the years given me airtime to spout my
particular brand of the truth. Thank you for that.
But there is a sorrowful complaint I harbor against you: When you cover
the news, you're just too damn angry all the time.
Don't misunderstand me. I respect the power of anger to rouse clarity. In
the face of the demented pathology loose in our culture, compassionate
people have a duty to wield wrath constructively.
We of the pinko persuasion *should* bitch and resist, dissent and howl,
be appalled and righteously critical. We *should* name the liars and
expose the lies.
But that just ain't enough. For you, KPFA, to be so droningly, chronically
pissed off in your coverage of the global predicament is deathly boring.
But more importantly: To dwell exclusively on fear and loathing threatens
to paralyze the hearts of us listeners; it wounds our ability to be
uproarious, imaginative, infectiously effective revolutionaries.
We can't afford to be motivated primarily by outrage. We've got to
cultivate ingenious joy and celebratory fervor as we create and define the
beautiful culture we want to inhabit.
Dear KPFA, it wouldn't take much to fix the gross imbalance. I'm not
asking you to even come halfway over to my view. Just a nod in the
direction of PRONOIA would make a huge difference.
What if your hard-working news program "Flashpoints" could devote,
say, 80 percent of its material to protesting the ugliness and ignorance,
and 20 percent to conjuring visions of beauty, truth, justice, poetry,
love, goodness, and soulfulness? I would take even 10%.
I'm not talking about New Age BS or the sentimental hallucinations of
Pollyannas. I mean deep thinkers who have spiritual and psychological
perspectives to blend with their political savvy. I mean poets and
visionaries and prophets who leaven their critiques of the empire with
the language of the soul.
Which leads me to my next point. If we're sincere in our devotion to the
business of creating a better world, then we cannot afford to imitate (and
therefore reproduce) the one-dimensional, literalist, fanatical, party-
line, scapegoat-creating modes of thought that the patriarchy has
specialized in.
What that means is:
1) We have to be in ongoing conversation with our own personal shadows;
in other words, we have to apply the same revolutionary zeal to dissolving
our own internal fixations as we do to toppling the ignorance we see in the
world around us.
2) We have to be humble about how complicated the world is, and
therefore we have to be less than arrogantly certain in claiming we
always know what's best in every situation; we have to be subtle, multi-
leveled, and willing to acknowledge the ambiguity inherent in real life.
3) We have to understand that political struggle is half-baked unless it's
anchored in soul work. What's soul work?
a. A ruthless, ongoing self-examination that continually regenerates our
shadows.
b. The cultivation of less literal modes of knowing the world.
c. A desire to translate our high ideals into the marrow of our everyday
interactions.
d. A determination to keep from becoming predictable rhetoricians
forever hammering home our pet theories even as the world is recreating
itself right in front of our blind eyes.
4) Our political work proceeds with far more efficacy and grace if it's
mixed with at least some amount of poetry and myth and magic and ritual
and soul.
Since you, KPFA, are one of the best practitioners of the political work I
believe in, I would love to see you integrate these principles.
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PS: I'm assuming that readers know I am not singling out KPFA. Much of
the progressive news media has this same failing, imo.
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PS: Dear KPFA: Thank you for hosting Caroline Casey's "Visionary
Activist" show for the last 24 years. It is an oasis of soulful beauty.
However, it constitutes just 0.6% of your weekly programming. If we
could get Casey on for 15 more hours per week, we'd have a chance at
getting up to the bare minimum 10% of soulful beauty programming.
Info about Caroline's show is here: https://CoyoteNetworkNews.com/radio
and https://tinyurl.com/10gxlh5g
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The only famous journalist who has featured poets on nightly TV newscasts
(that I know of) is my old friend Jeffrey Brown on the PBS News Hour.
Here is his interview with the US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, a member of
Oklahoma's Muscogee Creek Nation and the first Native American to serve
in that role: https://tinyurl.com/1ij068c3
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KINDNESS
Kindness — by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
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TREAT YOURSELF WITH KINDNESS
Meditation by Jennifer Weinberg
With your eyes closed, place your hands over your heart. Take a few deep
breaths and relax any tension you are holding in your body.
As you exhale, feel that stress dispersing and leaving your body. Feel the
gentle touch and warmth of your hands resting on your chest. Feel a warm,
comforting, kind light building in your hands and spreading to your heart.
Give this healing to yourself. Allow this gentle, healing energy to flow
from you and to you, spreading to your whole body and bringing calm and
healing where it is needed.
Ask yourself what you need to hear and feel right now to give kindness to
yourself. Say the following:
"May I be kind to myself."
"May I forgive myself."
"May I be strong."
"May I be compassionate to myself."
"May I learn from my experiences."
"May I accept myself as I am in this moment."
"May I be patient."
"May I give myself the kindness and compassion that I need."
—Jennifer Weinberg
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GOOD VACCINE NEWS
The vaccine news continues to be better than many people realize.
All five vaccines with public results have eliminated Covid-19 deaths.
They have also drastically reduced hospitalizations.
Don’t confuse uncertainty with bad news. The available vaccine evidence is
nearly as positive as it could conceivably be. And our overly negative
interpretation of it is causing real problems.
Read more: https://tinyurl.com/vspy4sqe
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Mexico City With 9 Million People, Joins China By Enacting New Ban on
Single-use Plastics and Straws in 2021.
https://tinyurl.com/y4ee6p5w
Bernie Sanders Memes And Mittens Have Now Raised Over $1.8 Million
for Charity.
https://tinyurl.com/yygeepl9
Porpoises Rebound in a Big Way Following California Ban on
Indiscriminate Fishing Nets.
https://tinyurl.com/y5qycdte
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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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Please tell me your own nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning February 11
Copyright 2021 by Rob Brezsny
https://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I've adopted some lines from poet Walt
Whitman for you to use in composing a love note. Send it to a person you
know and love, or to a person you want to know and love, or a person you
will know and love in the future. Here it is: "We are oaks growing in the
openings side by side. We are two fishes swimming together. We are two
predatory hawks, soaring above and looking down. We are two clouds
driving overhead. We are seas mingling, two cheerful waves rolling over
each other. We are snow, rain, cold, darkness. We circle and circle till
arriving home again, voiding all but freedom and our own joy."
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "To heal is to touch with love that which
was previously touched by fear," wrote author Stephen Levine. I propose
you make this theme a keynote for your best relationships in the coming
days. What can you do to alleviate the anxiety and agitation of the people
you care for? How might they do the same for you? If you play along with
the cosmic rhythms, you will have extraordinary power to chase away
fear with love.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Author Anton Chekhov made a radical
proposal: "Perhaps the feelings we experience when we are in love
represent a normal state. Being in love shows people who they should be."
In accordance with astrological potentials, my beloved Aries darling, I
invite you to act as if Chekhov's proposal were absolutely true for at least
the next two weeks. Be animated by a generous lust for life. Assume that
your intelligence will reach a peak as you express excited kindness and
affectionate compassion. Be a fount of fond feelings and cheerful empathy
and nourishing ardor.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau told the
following story about Taurus composer Erik Satie (1866–1925). When
Satie died, his old friends, many of whom were highly accomplished
people, came to visit his apartment. There they discovered that all the
letters they had sent him over the years were unopened. Satie had never
read them! How sad that he missed out on all that lively exchange. I beg
you not to do anything that even remotely resembles such a lack of
receptivity during the coming weeks, Taurus. In fact, please do just the
opposite: Make yourself as open as possible to engagement and influence. I
understand that the pandemic somewhat limits your social interactions.
Just do the best you can.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): On behalf of the cosmic omens, I demand that
the important people in your life be reliable and generous toward you in
the coming weeks. You can tell them I said so. Tell them that you are doing
pretty well, but that in order to transform pretty well into very well,
you need them to boost their support and encouragement. Read them the
following words from author Alan Cohen: "Those who love you are not
fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself.
They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you
are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when
you are confused."
CANCER (June 21-July 22): For a while, poet Alfred de Musset
(1810–1857) was the sexual partner of Cancerian novelist George Sand
(1804–1876), also known as Aurore Dupin. He said that after intense
love-making sessions, he would fall asleep and wake up to find her sitting
at her desk, engrossed in working on her next book. Maybe the erotic
exchange inspired her creativity? In accordance with current astrological
potentials, I recommend Sand's approach to you. Vigorous pleasure will
coordinate well with hard work. As will deep release with strong focus. As
will tender intimacy with clear thinking. (PS: I know your options for
pleasure and intimacy may be somewhat limited because of the pandemic.
Call on your ingenuity and resourcefulness to work the best magic
possible.)
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ARE YOU THE HERO OF YOUR OWN LIFE?
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that
station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins
Charles Dickens' novel *David Copperfield*.
I'd like to inspire you to create a story of your own that begins with
similar words. That's why I provide these free horoscopes for you.
If you'd ever enjoy getting even more assistance from me, tune into your
EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE, which I create for you each week. They're
four-to-five-minute meditations on the current state of your destiny.
To buy and 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 on the On the Web. (Discounts are available for
bulk purchases.)
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888. The cost
is $1.99 per minute. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
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"I don't much believe in astrology. But that doesn't seem to get in the way
of me deriving a whole lot of benefits from your expanded audio
horoscopes."
—A. Arrosto, Indianapolis
"You have an amazing aptitude for cutting through the lies I tell myself.
Thanks for the gentle shocks."
—T. Preneris, Toronto
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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo poet Warsan Shire suggests, "Document the
moments you feel most in love with yourself—what you’re wearing, who
you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat." This would be an
excellent exercise for you to carry out during this Valentine season.
You're in a phase when you're likely to enhance your lovability and attract
extra support simply by intensifying and refining the affectionate
compassion you feel and express toward yourself.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I wish the pandemic would give us a short
break so we could celebrate the Valentine season with maximum sensual
revelry and extravagant displays of joyful tenderness. I wish we could rip
off our masks and forget about social-distancing and hug and kiss everyone
who wants to be hugged and kissed. But that's not going to happen. If we
hope to be free to indulge in a Lush Love and Lust Festival by Valentine
Season in 2022, we've got to be cautious and controlled now. And we are
all counting on you Virgos to show us how to be as wildly, lyrically
romantic as possible while still observing the necessary limitations.
That's your special task.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Author Raymond Carver wrote, "It ought to
make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about
when we talk about love." That seems like a harsh oversimplification to
me. Personally, I think it's fun and interesting to pretend we know what
we're talking about when we talk about love. And I think that will be
especially true for you in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion,
you should be discussing love extensively and boldly and imaginatively.
You should redefine what love means to you. You should re-evaluate how
you express it and reconfigure the way it works in your life.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I'm turning over this horoscope to
psychologist John Welwood. His words are the medicine you need at this
juncture in the evolution of intimacy. Study the following quote and
interpret it in ways that help illuminate your relationship with
togetherness: "A soul connection is a resonance between two people who
respond to the essential beauty of each other’s individual natures, behind
their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual
recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred
alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their
deepest potentials."
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Transform yourself with the sweetest
challenge you can dream up. Give yourself a blessing that will compel you
to get smarter and wilder. Dazzle yourself as you dare to graduate from
your history. Rile yourself up with a push to become your better self,
your best self, your amazingly fulfilled and masterful self. Ask yourself
to leap over the threshold of ordinary magic and into the realm of spooky
good magic. And if all that works out well, Sagittarius, direct similar
energy toward someone you care about. In other words, transform them
with the sweetest challenge you can dream up. Dare them to graduate from
their history. And so on.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I invite you to compose a message to a
person you'd like to be closer to and whom you're sure would like to be
closer to you. Be inspired by what poet Clementine von Radics wrote to the
man she was dating, telling him why she thought they could start living
together. Here's her note: "Because you texted me a haiku about the moon
when you were drunk. Because you cried at the end of the movie *Die
Hard* on Christmas eve. Because when I’m sick you bring me fruit, kiss
me on the mouth, and hold me even though I’m gross. Because you bring
me flowers for no reason but on Valentine’s Day you gave me a bouquet of
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Because every time I show you a poem I love
you’ve read it already."
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Homework: How has the pandemic changed your approach to getting and
giving love? How have the restrictions on our ability to mingle with each
other altered the ways you seek intimacy? 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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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2021 Rob Brezsny
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