Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
FreeWillAstrology.com
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My book
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA
is available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
Here's an excerpt from a piece called UNHAPPY HOUR.
You can hear the whole thing at bit.ly/zxnYnD
You're invited to celebrate Unhappy Hour. It's a ceremony that
gives you a poetic license to rant and whine and howl and sob
about everything that hurts you and makes you feel bad.
During this perverse grace period, there's no need for you to
be inhibited as you unleash your tortured squalls. You don't have
to tone down the extremity of your desolate clamors. Unhappy Hour
is a ritually consecrated excursion devoted to the full disclosure
of your primal clash and jangle.
Here's the catch: It's brief. It's concise. It's crisp. You dive
into your darkness for no more than 60 minutes, then climb back
out, free and clear. It's called Unhappy Hour, not Unhappy Day
or Unhappy Week or Unhappy Year.
Do you have the cheeky temerity to drench yourself in your paroxysmal
alienation from life? Unhappy Hour invites you to plunge in and
surrender. It dares you to scurry and squirm all the way down
to the bottom of your pain, break through the bottom of your pain,
and fall down flailing in the soggy, searing abyss, yelping and
cringing and wallowing.
That's where you let your pain tell you every story it has to
tell you. You let your pain teach you every lesson it has to teach
you. But then it's over. The ritual ordeal is complete. And your
pain has to take a vacation until the next Unhappy Hour, which
isn't until next week sometime, or maybe next month.
You see the way the game works? Between this Unhappy Hour and
the next one, your pain has to shut up. It's not allowed to creep
and seep all over everything, staining the flow of your daily
life. It doesn't have free reign to infect you whenever it's itching
for more power.
Your pain gets its succinct blast of glory, its resplendent climax,
but leaves you alone the rest of the time.
If performed regularly, Unhappy Hour serves as an exorcism that
empties you of psychic toxins, while at the same time -- miracle
of miracles -- it helps you squeeze every last drop of blessed
catharsis out of those psychic toxins.
Pronoia will then be able to flourish as you luxuriate more frequently
in rosy moods and broad-minded visions. You'll develop a knack
for cultivating smart joy and cagey optimism as your normal states
of mind.
Now let's get you warmed up for Unhappy Hour . . . .
TO READ (and hear) THE REST OF THIS PIECE, GO HERE: bit.ly/zxnYnD
Or buy the book! It's called PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR
PARANOIA and is available here: bit.ly/Pronoia
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
PRONOIA'S ACCUMULATING MOMENTUM
When Copenhagen's superhighway for bicycles is finished, an estimated
15,000 additional people will switch from driving to biking. It
is expected to save Copenhagen's health care system some $60 million
a year.
tinyurl.com/brl8a75
WHEN PRONOIA STARTS TO INFUSE THE WAY PEOPLE MAKE MONEY, THE
VELVET REVOLUTION IS NIGH
"Members of Generation Y are shunning large corporate companies
in favor of startups and small businesses. They're an entrepreneurial
group, highly versed in social media, and prefer freedom and flexibility
over big corporate policies."
tinyurl.com/8j2x72j
GET YOUR MINIMUM DAILY REQUIRED DOSE OF BEAUTY
Mt. Wilbur in Glacier National Park
i.imgur.com/XXMJf.jpg
(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 September 13
Copyright 2012 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Arthur Turner, a Virgo reader from Austin, is upset with my
recent horoscopes. In his email, he wrote the following: "You're
making me mad with your predictions of non-stop positivity, Brezsny.
I need more dirt and grit and muck. I've got to have some misery
and decay to motivate me. So just please shut up with your excess
projections of good times. They're bringing me down." Here's
my response to him and to any other Virgo who feels like him:
I'm afraid you're scheduled to endure even more encounters with
cosmic benevolence in the coming week. If these blessings feel
oppressive, try to change your attitude about them.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
The humorous science journal Annals of Improbable Research
published a paper entitled "The Effects of Peanut Butter
on the Rotation of the Earth." Signed by 198 Ph.D. physicists,
it came to this conclusion: "So far as we can determine,
peanut butter has no effect on the rotation of the earth."
If possible, Libra, I suggest you summon a comparable amount of
high-powered expertise for your own purposes. But please make
sure that those purposes are weightier than the question of peanut
butter's role on our planet's movements. Round up the best help
you can, yes; call on all the favors you're owed and be aggressive
in seeking out brilliant support; but only for a truly important
cause.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
September 16 is the first day of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New
Year. So begins ten days of repentance. Whether or not you're
Jewish, Scorpio, you are entering an astrological phase when taking
stock of yourself would be a brilliant move. That's why I invite
you to try the following self-inventory, borrowed from the Jewish
organization Chadeish Yameinu. 1. What would you like to leave
behind from the past 12 months? 2. What has prevented you from
living up to your highest standards and being your very best self?
3. What would you love to bring with you into the next 12 months?
4. Who served as a teacher for you in the past year? 5. Were you
a teacher for anyone? 6. Is there anyone you need to forgive?
7. How will you go about forgiving?
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
If I'm accurately interpreting the astrological omens, the coming
months will be a soulful feast in which every day will bring you
a shimmering revelation about the nature of your soul's code and
how best to activate it. Reasons for grateful amazement will flow
so freely that you may come to feel that miracles are routine
and naturally-occurring phenomena. And get this: In your dreams,
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty will get married, win the lottery,
and devote their fortune to fostering your spiritual education
until you are irrevocably enlightened. (I confess there's a slight
chance I'm misinterpreting the signs, and everything I described
will be true for only a week or so, not months.)
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
A reader named Marissa begged me to insert a secret message into
the Capricorn horoscope. She wanted me to influence Jergen, a
guy she has a crush on, to open up his eyes and see how great
she is. I told her I wouldn't do it. Why? For one thing, I never
try to manipulate people into doing things that aren't in alignment
with their own desires. For another, I faithfully report on my
understanding of the tides of fate, and refuse to just make stuff
up. I urge you to have that kind of integrity, Capricorn. I suspect
you may soon be invited or coaxed to engage in what amounts to
some tainted behavior. Don't do it. Make an extra effort to be
incorruptible.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
"The far away, the very far, the farthest, I have found
only in my own blood," said poet Antonio Porchia. Let's make
that thought your keynote, Aquarius. Your assignment will be to
search for what's most exotic and unknown, but only in the privacy
of your own heart, not out in the great wide world. For now at
least, the inner realm is the location of the laboratory where
the most useful experiments will unfold. Borrowing from novelist
Carole Maso, I leave you with this: "Make love to the remoteness
in yourself."
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YOU NEED MAGIC EVERY DAY
Every day, you have to wade through a relentless surge of soul-less
facts. The experience tends to shut down your sense of wonder.
Every day, you're over-exposed to narratives that have been sucked
free of delight and mystery. That's why you have to make such
strenuous efforts to keep your world enchanted.
I like to think I can contribute to the sacred cause of feeding
your sense of wonder and enchantment. In fact, that's one of my
prime motivations for offering you the free weekly horoscopes
you read in this newsletter.
If you ever want more of that good stuff, and think it's worth
paying for, please consider trying out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.
They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the current state of
your destiny.
Go here to access them:
RealAstrology.com
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888
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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
It would be an excellent time for you to elope, even if you do
so with the person to whom you're already mated. You might also
consider the possibility of wearing a wedding dress everywhere
you wander, even if there is no marriage ceremony in your immediate
future, and even if you're a man. And if neither of those ideas
appeals to you, please at least do something that will symbolize
your intention to focus on intimacy with an intensified sense
of purpose. Fling rice at yourself. Seek out someone who'll give
you lessons in how to listen like an empathetic genius. Compose
and recite vows in which you pledge to become an utterly irresistible
and reliable ally.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
You will never be able to actually gaze upon your own face. You
may of course see a reasonable likeness of it in mirrors, photos,
and videos. But the real thing will always be forever visible
to everyone else, but not you. I think that's an apt symbol for
how hard it is to get a totally objective view of your own soul.
No matter how sincere you may be in your efforts to see yourself
clearly, there will always be fuzziness, misapprehensions, and
ignorance. Having said that, though, I want you to know that the
coming weeks will be an excellent time to see yourself better
than ever before.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
I've got four related pieces of advice for you, Taurus: 1. The
most reliable way for you to beat the system is to build your
own more interesting system. 2. The most likely way to beat your
competitors is not to fight them, but rather to ignore them and
compete only against yourself. 3. To escape the numbing effects
of an outworn tradition, you could create a fresh tradition that
makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning. 4. If you
have a problem that is not only impossible to solve but also boring,
find yourself a fascinating new problem that will render the old
problem irrelevant.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
"Dear Doctor of Love: My heart is itchy. I'm totally serious.
I'm not talking about some phantom tingle on the skin of my chest.
What I mean is that the prickling sensation originates in the
throbbing organ inside of me. Is this even possible? Have you
heard of such a crazy thing? Could it be some astrological phenomenon?
What should I do? - Itchy-Hearted Gemini." Dear Gemini: I
suspect that it's not just you, but many Geminis, who are experiencing
symptoms like yours. From what I can tell, you have a lot of trapped
feelings in your heart that need to be identified, liberated,
and dealt with.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
If you make a conscious decision to combine plaids with stripes
or checks with floral patterns or reddish-purples with greenish-oranges,
I will wholeheartedly approve. If, on the other hand, you absent-mindedly
create combinations like that, doing so because you're oblivious
or lazy, I will soundly disapprove. The same holds true about
any hodgepodge or hybrid or mishmash you generate, Cancerian:
It'll receive cosmic blessings if you do it with flair and purpose,
but not if it's the result of being inattentive and careless.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Should we boycott the writing of Edgar Allan Poe because he
married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 26? Should anti-drug
crusaders stop using their iPhones when they find out that Steve
Jobs said that "doing LSD was one of the two or three most
important things I have done in my life"? Should we stop
praising the work that Martin Luther King Jr. did to advance civil
rights because he engaged in extramarital affairs? Those are the
kinds of questions I suspect you'll have to deal with in the coming
days, Leo. I encourage you to avoid having knee-jerk reactions.
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HOMEWORK:
Report your favorite graffiti from a bathroom wall. Go to Freewillastrology.com
and clock on "Email Rob."
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2012 Rob Brezsny
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