Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter December 9, 2009

Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
DECEMBER 9, 2009
FreeWillAstrology.com

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"This is a perfect moment to take everything less seriously and less personally and less literally."
- PRONOIA

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The revised and expanded version of my book PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA is available at Amazon: tinyurl.com/lxpnyt

Here's an excerpt:

LIBERATE YOUR IMAGINATION

Let me remind you who you really are: You're an immortal freedom fighter who longs to liberate all sentient creatures from their suffering. You're a fun-loving messiah who devoutly wants to help all of your fellow messiahs claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright.

Try to remember. You're a vortex of fluidic light that has temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins. And why did you do that? Because it was the best way to forge the identity that would make you such an elemental force in our 14-billion-year campaign to bring heaven all the way down to earth.

I'm not speaking metaphorically here. You are a mutant deity in disguise -- not a Buddha or a Christ exactly, but of the same lineage and conjured from the same fire. You have been around since the beginning of time and will be here after the end. Every day and in every way, you're getting better at playing the preposterously amusing master game we all dreamed up together before the Big Bang bloomed.

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Lately, I must admit, our work has seemed almost comically impossible. Many of us have given in to the temptation to believe that everything is upside-down and inside-out. Ignorance and inertia, partially camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround us. Pessimism is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.

So no, at this peculiar turning point in the evolution of our 14-billion-year-old master game, it's not easy to carry out our mission. We've got to be both wrathful insurrectionaries and exuberant lovers of life. We've got to cultivate cheerful buoyancy even as we resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and seductively packaged by those messiahs among us who bravely volunteered to play the role of know-it-all deceivers.

We have to learn how to stay in a good yet unruly mood as we overthrow the sour, puckered mass hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as "reality."

Maybe most importantly, we have to be ferociously and single-mindedly dedicated to the cause of beauty and truth and love even as we keep our imaginations wild and hungry and free. We have to be both disciplined and rowdy.

What can we do to help each other in this work?

TO READ THE REST OF "LIBERATE YOUR IMAGINATION," GO HERE: bit.ly/4Zh0Qr

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Want to give your friends and loved ones holiday gifts of my work without spending any money? Here's what you can do:

1. Give them the URL where I've posted some excerpts from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: bit.ly/5Rg1dw

You can also peruse 20 percent of the book, including many of the pretty pictures, here: bit.ly/7GZadB

2. Subscribe them to the free weekly newsletter, available either by email or RSS feed: freewillastrology.com/newsletter

3. Download mp3s of my podcasts and burn them onto a CD. The URLs for those podcasts can be found here: bit.ly/6hyZo9

4. Give them the URL where I've posted the entirety of my second book The Televisionary Oracle. Start here: bit.ly/7jreE7

5. Download mp3s of my band's music and burn them onto a CD: bit.ly/7z8Vru

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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

WHAT IF YOU COULD REDUCE YOUR SUFFERING BY HALF?
"What happens to you is so impossibly good that there is no way the sum of your good deeds and strivings on this earth could ever possibly have warranted such beautiful fulfillment."
bit.ly/5F0KnL

DO YOU HAVE THE DISCIPLINE TO TUNE INTO THE BEAUTY AND TRUTH?
"I think the press, including TV journalism, has an ethical responsibility, a sacred responsibility, a service mission . . . to make good news just as entertaining (as we've made sexy the violence)." - Marianne Williamson
bit.ly/4Kb2ge

STARE THE GLORY RIGHT IN THE FACE
Have you hade your minimum daily requirement of beauty today?
bit.ly/4Wwiu6

(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 December 10

Copyright 2009 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

One of your top accomplishments in 2009 is the way you have united parts of yourself that had not previously been very well connected. It seems you decided that you were tired of being split up into fragmented sub-personalities that had different agendas. Somehow you managed to convince them all to work together in a common cause. Now I'm quite impressed with the new spirit of cooperation that's at work in your depths. I predict it will lead to an unprecedented singleness of purpose in 2010.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

In his book The Way of Transition, William Bridges defines the "neutral zone" as "that in-between time, after you've let go of your old life and before you have fully discovered and incorporated your new life." Sound familiar? Maybe the neutral zone where you're currently simmering isn't as dramatic as that -- maybe you haven't been stripped of every single certainty and you're not wandering in limbo. But I suspect you have at least let go of one aspect of your old familiar rhythm and have yet to ease into the one that'll be familiar in the future. My advice? Don't rush it. Get all you can out of this unique and educational time in the neutral zone.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

In 2009, the cosmic powers-that-be have been conspiring to get you to expand your self-image and enlarge your understanding of your place in the world. So I trust that in these last 12 months you have started a business or organized a support group or reinvented your physical appearance or begun your masterpiece -- or done something to initiate a new phase in your long-term cycle. If for some reason you've been remiss about doing this work, I suggest you scramble to make up for lost time. And if you have been taking advantage of the abundant cosmic help, it'll soon be time to move on to phase two: consolidation.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

To prepare for his turn to hit, a Major League baseball player slips a doughnut-shaped piece of metal over the top of his bat, making it a few pounds heavier than it normally is. He then takes a number of practice swings. The theory is that when he removes the doughnut and strides up to home plate to actually hit against a pitcher who's throwing the ball at 90 miles per hour, the bat will feel lighter and he'll be able to swing faster. As you prepare for your own equivalent of going up to bat, Pisces, I urge you to use this as your operative metaphor.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):

"Indignation is one of the most rewarding of emotions," writes Theodore Dalrymple, "as well as one that automatically gives meaning to life . . . There is nothing like irritation to get the juices circulating and the mind working." Of all the ideas that have made me irritable and indignant in recent weeks, this one steams me the most. I disagree so completely that I am practically beside myself with paralyzing rage. And as I plunge my attention further and further into his ridiculous proposal, I feel the tension coursing through my body. I sense my mind becoming swampy, my perceptions distorted. There's a good chance that I am inducing in myself a state of stressed-out stupidity. Please don't follow my example, Aries. It's possible that sour fury could be useful to you at other times, but right now you should avoid it. If you want your intelligence to work at peak efficiency in the coming days, you'll need long stretches of tender, lucid calm.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

The evidence is incontrovertible: You have definitely acquired more power in 2009. Whether that means you are now sitting in a corner office bossing around a gaggle of subordinates, I don't know. What I do know is that you are in greater charge of your own destiny. You know yourself much better, and are smarter about providing yourself with what you need, when you need it. You have gained access to enormous new reserves of willpower, in part by harnessing the energy of your obsessive tendencies. Blind fate just doesn't have the same control over your life as it used to. More than ever before, you're making decisions based on what's really good for you rather than on your unconscious compulsions.

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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED HOROSCOPE

Since I put all my heart and soul into the written horoscopes I send out in this newsletter, they're pretty nutritious. You may never need any of the other stuff I create.

But if you ever do crave an added boost, you may want to sample my Expanded Audio Horoscopes. They're different in tone and intent than the written scopes, imbued with a little more of the psychologist in me, and a little less of the poet.

Find out more at RealAstrology.com.

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

"Your expanded horoscopes get more personal and intimate with me than some of my closest friends. Thanks for the loving reflections."
- Ari S., Ann Arbor, MI

"Your audio 'scopes have a knack for waking me up from whatever random dream has sneaked into my brain and rendered me half-blind."
- Teresa F., Boston, MA

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GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

I trust you've traveled all over creation in 2009 -- or have at least exposed yourself to a wide range of novel sights and sounds near your home turf. I pray that you've escaped one shrunken niche, two narrow perspectives, and three low expectations. I'm also hoping that in these last 12 months, you have regularly sought out pleasant jolts and breathtaking vistas that have inspired you to see the big picture of your unfolding destiny. If you haven't been doing these things with the eager abandon you should have, please take the next flight to the other side of the world. Eat unfamiliar food, meet people who are very different from you, listen to strange music, climb a mountain, and get your mind blown.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

So how are you doing with your year-long resurrection project, Cancerian? Have you been taking care of the finishing touches these past few weeks? If not, do so soon. It's high time for you to officially and definitively rise from the dead. Your wandering in the underworld is at an end. Your mourning for broken dreams should be complete. In January, the age of exploration will begin; make sure your reborn spunk is ready for action by then.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

I bet your relationship life will be a source of revolutionary teachings in 2010. Adventures in intimacy and partnership will draw you into some highly educational fun and games. You will be invited to dramatically expand your understanding of the nature of commitment. You will also be asked to dig deeper to discover your real desires, which up until now have been partially camouflaged by more superficial longings that were grafted onto you during the darker days of adolescence. How should you prepare for the interesting tests of the next 12 months? How can you get yourself in shape to earn the demanding gifts that will be within reach? Now is an excellent time to start thinking about those questions.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

Whenever the tide goes out, the creek I live next to loses a lot of its water to the bay. It becomes a narrow trickle surrounded by stretches of mud. From a distance the mud looks like a wet black desert, but if you get up close you'll see it's covered with tiny furrows, pits, and bulges. This is evidence that many small creatures live there, although only the hungry ducks and egrets know exactly where to look to find them. Be like those birds, Virgo. As you survey your version of the mud flat, ignore anyone who tells you that it's barren. Go searching for the rich pickings.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

It seems to me that in 2009 you've learned to love the fact that all the world's a stage. You've found roles that have been fun to play, and you've expressed yourself with the nuanced zeal of a skilled actor in an elaborate theatrical production. I have very much enjoyed seeing you reveal the full range of your inner riches. If I were going to award Oscars to the astrological signs, you Libras would get the prize for "Best Performance of One's True Self."

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

"The nature of the work is to prepare for a good accident," said filmmaker Sidney Lumet. He was talking about the craft of creating movies, but he could have also been advising you on how to make the most of the coming week. Your task, as I see it, is to set in order everything that can be set in order. Get very organized. Make sure you're well-rehearsed. Be warmed up and highly alert. That way you'll be ready to respond with graceful intensity when serendipitous opportunities arise within the framework you've put in place.

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HOMEWORK:

Send me predictions for your life in 2010. Where are you headed? Go to FreeWillAstrology.com and click 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 2009 Rob Brezsny

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