Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter August 6, 2008

Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
AUGUST 6, 2008
FreeWillAstrology.com

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"If Spirit has any meaning, it must be omnipresent, or all-pervading and all-encompassing. There can't be a place where Spirit is not, or it wouldn't be infinite. Therefore, Spirit has to be completely present, right here, right now, in your own awareness. That is, your own present awareness, precisely as it is, without changing it or altering it in any way, is perfectly and completely permeated by Spirit.

"Furthermore, it is not that Spirit is present but you need to be enlightened in order to see it. It is not that you are one with Spirit but just don't know it yet. Because that would also imply that there is some place Spirit is not. No, according to Dzogchen, you are always already one with Spirit, and that awareness is always already fully present, right now. You are looking directly at Spirit, with Spirit, in every act of awareness. There is nowhere Spirit is not.

"Further, if Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means, as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened. You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true enlightenment.

"Rather, Spirit, and enlightenment, has to be something that you are fully aware of right now. Something you are already looking at right now. We are all already looking directly at Spirit, we just don't recognize it. We have all the necessary cognition, but not the recognition."

- Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber

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My book
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
is available for sale at
tinyurl.com/qaj62

Here's an excerpt:

WHAT IF YOUR DESIRES ARE HOLY?

Some religious traditions teach the doctrine, "Kill off your longings." In their view, attachment to desire is at the root of human suffering. But the religion of materialism takes the opposite tack, asserting that the meaning of life is to be found in indulging desires. Its creed is, "Feed your cravings like a French foie gras farmer cramming eight pounds of maize down a goose’s gullet every day."

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we walk a middle path. We believe there are both degrading desires that enslave you and sacred desires that liberate you.

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Psychologist Carl Jung believed that all desires have a sacred origin, no matter how odd they may seem. Frustration and ignorance may contort them into distorted caricatures, but it is always possible to locate the divine source from which they arose. In describing one of his addictive patients, Jung said: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst for wholeness, or as expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

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Therapist James Hillman echoes the theme: "Psychology regards all symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way." A preoccupation with porn or romance novels, for instance, may come to dominate a passionate person whose quest for love has degenerated into an obsession with images of love. "Follow the lead of your symptoms," Hillman suggests, "for there’s usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul."

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In Maldoror and Poems, the French poet Lautréamont wrote about holy yearning disguised as mournful complaint. "Whenever you hear the dogs’ howling in the fields," his mother told him as a child, "don’t deride what they do: They thirst insatiably for the infinite, like you, me, and the rest of us humans. I even allow you to stand at the window and gaze upon this exalted spectacle."

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"Mad! One must become mad with love in order to realize God. When a person attains ecstatic love of God, all the pores of the skin, even the roots of the hair, become like so many sex organs, and in every pore the aspirant enjoys the happiness of communion with the Supreme Universal Self."
- Ramakrishna

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Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don't really need and aren't good for you. But you shouldn't disparage yourself for having them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted. Rather, think of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a faculty that will one day be far more expert. They're how you practice as you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.

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"The only way anyone is ever cured of desiring nonsensical things is by getting the nonsensical things and then experiencing the unpleasant but educational consequences."
- Ann Davies, bota.org

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"To become a master of desire, keep talking yourself out of being attached to trivial goals and keep talking yourself into being thrilled about the precious few goals that are really important. Here's another way to say it: Wean yourself from ego-driven desires and pour your libido into a longing for beauty, truth, goodness, justice, integrity, creativity, love, and an intimate relationship with the Wild Divine."
- Raye Sangfreud, "Black Market Orchids," Underground Pronoia

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"God has desires. Since I want to be close to God and to model myself after God, I therefore don't aspire to extinguish my desires, but rather to make my desires more God-like: i.e., imbued with an inexorable ambition to create the greatest and most interesting blessings for everyone and everything."
- Collin Klamper

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"When I hold you, I hold everything: ruby-throated hummingbirds sipping from plum flowers, mangoes ripening in the smoke of burning forests, crones praying in the foamy sand at low tide, shocked waterfalls gracing new housing developments, volcanoes drinking in the fragrance of the stars. In your eyes I see everything that lives."
- mash-up of Pablo Neruda and Rob Brezsny

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Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating. Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter. Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good.

. . . To read all of
"WHAT IF YOUR DESIRES ARE HOLY" (some has been censored so as to avoid being crushed by spam filters), go here:
tinyurl.com/3d6hut

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To read news and features from my book, go here: tinyurl.com/lhwx2

You can buy the book here:

AMAZON
tinyurl.com/qaj62

POWELLS
tinyurl.com/3dsx6q

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OTHER PRONOIA RESOURCES:

AMAZING PEOPLE ARE WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES TO HELP US ALL
"Major discovery from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution:
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system"
"In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine."
tinyurl.com/5uu53h

IMPERFECTLY PERFECT PRONOIAC SOLUTIONS
A Life Saver Called "Plumpynut"
Not as many Nigerian kids are starving
tinyurl.com/5agou5

PRONOIA + CONTROVERSY = PROTOVERSY
Instead of a controversy, start a protoversy.
"The world's a big enough place for a diverse ecology of successes."
torley.com/start-a-protroversy-today

(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They are not advertisements, and I get no kickbacks.)

Please tell me your own personal nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning August 7

Copyright 2008 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

When British rock legend David Bowie came to America for his first tour in 1973, he said he felt like a fly in a glass of milk. He was half-drowning in a flood of interesting new sensations and perceptions, while at the same time he was greedily drinking it all in, stoked with fascinated joy. According to my astrological projections, Leo, you're in that fly-in-the-milk state yourself, or will soon be.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

The light in your eyes looks a little foggy, Virgo. The fire in your belly seems to be smoldering, and your brain has been hiccupping. At least your heart isn't exactly broken. (Though I'm tempted to make suggestions about how to fix it anyway.) Am I worried? Not at all. After the nonstop breakthroughs you enjoyed there for a while, I expected that you would eventually need time to slow down and let everything sink in. So I suggest that you cultivate a state of low-key contentment as your deep mind integrates the transformations you set in motion.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

I'm not a fan of renowned free-market guru Milton Friedman, who died in 2006. His philosophy has wreaked more suffering on the world than any since Communism. (Read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism for the gross details.) There's one particular keystone of his belief system that is especially important for you to rebel against in the coming weeks. He said that "only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change." In the name of all you hold holy, Libra, I ask you to prove him wrong. Show yourself and everyone who looks to you for inspiration that real change can be motivated by an exuberant lust for life -- by a generous longing to risk adventures that will yield greater rewards.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

The guy who gave his name to North and South America was a pickle salesman and writer as well as an explorer. After a stint in Spain selling his vitamin C-rich pickles to outbound ships, Amerigo Vespucci got to travel to the New World in 1499 and 1502. The stories he penned about his adventures there were highly imaginative, like his description of giant native women with huge breasts who employed poisonous fluids extracted from insects to super-size their husbands' penises. I nominate Amerigo to be your role model in the coming weeks, Scorpio. May you, too, do what comes natural and be your funky self in ways that lead to glory and renown. (My source for the info about Amerigo is Tony Horwitz's book A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World.)

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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED HOROSCOPE

In addition to the horoscopes that you read here, I create additional in-depth audio horoscopes for your inspiration.

They're not repeats or elaborations of the stuff you find here, but entirely fresh explorations of your astrological omens, designed to help you tune in to your soul's code.

Try them at RealAstrology.com.

They're available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700.

They're $6 if you access them on the Web, or $1.99 per minute over the phone.

"Your audio horoscopes help me love myself better, and I mean that in a non-narcissistic way."
- Deva P., Indianapolis

"I'm really grateful for the way you pick up my telepathic requests and answer them in your expanded audio 'scopes."
- Marion H., Birmingham, AL

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

"Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax," writes Deepak Chopra in The Book of Secrets."Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart." Likewise, Sagittarius, actions you take or ideas you embrace in the coming days will send reverberations deep into your future. They will show up many years hence in altered form, but imprinted with the essence you give them now. This is your chance to bestow a profound blessing on the person you will later become.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

Here's a passage from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Breakfast of Champions:"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne." This scenario has some resemblances to what you're doing, Capricorn. Fortunately, you're much smarter than the two pieces of yeast, and so you will not do the equivalent of drowning in crap. But I bet you'll create something comparable to champagne.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

"The question of evil," writes psychologist James Hillman, "refers primarily to the anaesthetized heart, the heart that has no reaction to what it faces, thereby turning the variegated sensuous face of the world into monotony, sameness, oneness." Your assignment in the coming week, Aquarius, is to triumph over this kind of evil in yourself. By whatever ingenious and imaginative means you can dream up, you must awaken your heart fully to the unpredictable, ever-shifting beauty and ugliness you encounter. Drink it all in like a thirsty wanderer who has just emerged from a long trek lost in the desert. [The source of Hillman's quote is his book The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World.]

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

"Dear Rob: If you were, like me, setting out on a ten-year project to become a beautiful truth-teller, having the simple goal of actually expressing the things that Everyone Ought To Say But Doesn't, what would you do? Other than to bother your favorite truth-tellers for advice, of course! - Aspiring Fount of Truth." Dear Aspiring Fount: In its highest expression, the Piscean style of telling the truth is ripe with emotional intelligence and a deep thoughtfulness that's devoted to staying focused on the big picture. One of the best ways to increase your mastery of this approach is to regularly tell yourself the truth about yourself with kick-ass kindness.

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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED HOROSCOPE

In addition to the horoscopes that you're reading here, I create more in-depth audio horoscopes for your inspiration. Find out more at RealAstrology.com.

The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700.

"The best part about your audio horoscopes is that they pat me on the head and kick me in the ass at the same time."
- Rita L., San Diego

"Your audio oracles go beyond helping me find the truth -- they inspire me to find the WILD truth."
- Patrick K., Montreal

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ARIES (March 21-April 19):

Do you get aroused from squeezing balloons until they explode? Do you quiver with delight as you watch popcorn pop? Have you ever been patient enough to stand in front of a ripe flower bud for hours to witness its slow explosion into full opening? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you're in for an orgasmically pleasing week, Aries. Lots of things are going to change into something else through the process of eruption or sprouting or bursting forth. I bet you'll dream of undersea volcanoes spurting.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

In my vision of your ideal future, you would spend the next two weeks both way out on the frontier and yet close to home. Paradoxical? Yes, but that's the magic and mystery of the unusual opportunity you have before you. Don't just take my word for it, Taurus: Meditate on how you could wander free on the outskirts of everything you know even as you feel as stable and secure as a monarch in your castle. Be on a far-flung adventure even as you draw deeply from the mother lode. Enjoy the pleasures of unexplored territory as you draw on the power of the familiar.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

Although the platypus is technically a furry mammal, a new study of its genetic code reveals that it also has some qualities common to birds and reptiles. It lays eggs and has venom like a snake and a bill like a duck. Sounds like it's the perfect creature to serve as your totem in the coming week, Gemini. Life will bring you unexpected mixtures and improbable hybrids. You won't be able to make sense of your experience if you rely on your usual categories. And I think you'll find that the best way to attract good fortune will be to weave together threads of different colors and textures.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

Write down five exciting things you love to do or think about. Take this list with you everywhere you go. On another piece of paper, name five fears or unpleasant thoughts that demoralize you. Put this list at the back of your closet. For the next seven days, try to refrain from letting your mind wander to the things on the bad list. Meanwhile, undertake an aggressive campaign to cultivate, seek out, and enjoy the five exciting things that you love to do and think about. In fact, any time you notice your attention veering toward the negative stuff, immediately steer it toward the positive. Don't worry, this exercise won't turn you into a brain-dead optimist. After all, you'll only do it for a week. The items on the second list will still be there when you're done. Or will they? Maybe they will have mutated into something more manageable.

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HOMEWORK:

Make a game out of a situation you're bored by or in dread of. In other words, find a way to play in a place where you've been stuck. Report your results by going to FreeWillAstrology.com and clicking on "Email Rob."

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WANT TO GET YOUR CHART DONE?

I'm not doing personal charts, but I highly recommend my astrological colleague, RO LOUGHRAN. Her approach closely matches my own. In our many discussions about astrology over the years, we've had a major influence on each other's work.

Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and a high degree of technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation; she is skilled at exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your connection with your own inner wisdom.

Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.

Ro's website is at YourSoulJourney.com

She can also be reached at roloughran@comcast.net

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Submissions sent to the Free Will Astrology Weekly 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 such submissions for length, style, and content. Requests for anonymity will be honored with submissions; otherwise, reader names, screen names, or initials will be used. Please be sure to note your preference when sending to us. We are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative material.

Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2008 Rob Brezsny

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