Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
February 10, 2021
FreeWillAstrology.com
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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:
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 — 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: 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: 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. 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: 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. tinyurl.com/1dgzmnl7
New tiny home village in Tacoma to serve Puyallup Tribal members experiencing homelessness: tinyurl.com/bny4jj6i
Joe Biden: ‘Tribal sovereignty will be a cornerstone’: 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.
tinyurl.com/3k27ds93
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes embrace return of National Bison Range amid national focus on tribal management.
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: CoyoteNetworkNews.com/radio and 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: 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: 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.
tinyurl.com/y4ee6p5w
Bernie Sanders Memes And Mittens Have Now Raised Over $1.8 Million for Charity.
tinyurl.com/yygeepl9
Porpoises Rebound in a Big Way Following California Ban on Indiscriminate Fishing Nets.
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: tinyurl.com/PronoiaBN
Available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
A free preview of the book is available here: 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
FreeWillAstrology.com
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 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, including but not limited to newsletters, books, the Free Will Astrology column, and Free Will Astrology website. We reserve the right to edit submissions for length, style, and content.
Requests for anonymity will be honored. We are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative material.
Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2021 Rob Brezsny
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