Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter August 21, 2013

Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
AUGUST 21, 2013
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

Below is an excerpt. It's from the piece called "Subterranean Pronoia Therapy."

1. "We are attracted to people who express the qualities we deny or repress in ourselves," says creativity expert Shakti Gawain. Using this idea as your hypothesis, take an inventory of the people you're most drawn to. Ask yourself whether they have talents and dreams that you wish could come alive in you. If you find this to be the case, consider the possibility that it's time to claim those talents or dreams as your own.

2. All of us are eminently fallible nobodies. We're crammed with delusions and base emotions. We give ourselves more slack than we give anyone else, and we're brilliant at justifying our irrational biases with seemingly logical explanations. Yet it's equally true that every one of us is a magnificently enigmatic creation unlike any other in the history of the world. We're stars with vast potential, gods and goddesses in the making.

Dramatize this paradox. Tomorrow, buy and wear ugly, threadbare clothes from the same thrift store where you got your hand puppet. Eat the cheapest junk food possible and do the most menial tasks you can find.

The next day, attire yourself in your best clothes, wear a crown or diadem, and treat yourself to an expensive gourmet meal. Enjoy a massage, a pedicure, and other luxuries that require people to wait on you.

On the third day, switch back and forth between the previous two days' modes every couple of hours. As you do, cultivate a passionate indifference to the question of whether you are ultimately an unimportant nobody or a captivating hero.

3. "Don't eat any food that's incapable of rotting," says Michael Pollan in his book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. In other words, highly processed foods with a long shelf life don't contribute to your optimum vitality.

I'd like to expand this rule to make it an all-purpose guideline for life. Try out this hypothesis: If you're involved with any person or situation that never decays, or if there is some part of you that never decays, that's highly suspicious and may be a problem. Like growth, rot is a natural phenomenon. Indeed, every advancement requires or brings the disintegration of whatever it replaces. You can't grow if you don't rot. The "perfection" of stasis can be hazardous to your health.

What's ripe to rot in your world?

4. Some of my readers complain when I draw inspiration from a public figure they consider a bad person. Once I cited philosopher Bertrand Russell, and a woman from Austin went ballistic: "Russell was a terrible father! How dare you give him any credence?" Another time I invoked the wisdom of ex-U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt. "What possessed you to quote such a militaristic bully?" wrote an outraged emailer. Here's how I respond to these grumbles: If I refused to learn from people unless I agreed with everything they had ever said and done, I would never learn from anyone.

What about you? Have you set up your life so that everyone is either on or off your good list? If so, try something new: Cultivate a capacity to derive help and insight from people who aren't perfect.

Here are examples of some of the other people from whom I have drawn important teachings and inspiration despite their sins:

Dr. Seuss had an affair with another woman while his wife was suffering from cancer, and his wife subsequently committed suicide.

Einstein cheated on his wife and treated her horrendously.

William Blake lived in absolute filth.

Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 26.

One biographer of Carl Jung said Jung was a racist, an anti-Semite, and a misogynist.

Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on his wife.

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Here's a talisman to attract beauty and truth and love into your life: bit.ly/16FfDPb

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Are you in quest of an Intimate Ally? A Soul Friend? A Wild Confidante?

Check out Match.com via Free Will Astrology's link: bit.ly/SoulMatch

Look for a Co-Pilot, Co-Conspirator, or Collaborator . . . an Agent to represent you or a Disciple to worship you . . . a Secret Sharer who'll listen better than anyone or an Amazing Accomplice with whom you can practice the Art of Liberation.

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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

What if gay tolerance spreads to small-town America? Stephen Colbert shows us.
tinyurl.com/mlvrumf

Models of Sustainability: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage: tinyurl.com/cc5ph3j

This site lists major scientific breakthroughs day by day. Amazing pronoia here!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_in_science

(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 22

Copyright 2013 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

Novelist James Joyce once articulated an extreme wish that other writers have probably felt but never actually said. "The demand that I make of my reader," said Joyce, "is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works." Was he being mischievous? Maybe. But he never apologized or issued a retraction. Your assignment, Virgo, is to conjure up your own version of that wild desire: a clear statement of exactly what you really, really want in all of its extravagant glory. I think it'll be healthy for you to identify this pure and naked longing. (P.S. I'm not implying that you should immediately try to get it fulfilled, though. For now, the important thing is knowing what it is.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

Now and then a British Libra named Lloyd Scott dresses up in funny costumes while competing in long-distance races. He does it to raise money for charity. In the 2011 London Marathon, he wore a nine-foot snail outfit for the duration of the course. It took him 27 days to finish. I suggest you draw inspiration from his heroic effort. From a cosmic perspective, it would make sense for you to take your time as you engage in amusing activities that benefit your fellow humans.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

What will you do now that you have acquired more clout and visibility? Will you mostly just pump up your self-love and bask in the increased attention? There's nothing wrong with that, of course. But if those are the only ways you cash in on your added power, the power won't last. I suggest you take advantage of your enhanced influence by engaging in radical acts of magnanimity. Perform good deeds and spread big ideas. The more blessings you bestow on your fellow humans, the more enduring your new perks will be.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

You've been pretty wild and uncontained lately, and that's OK. I've loved seeing how much permission you've given yourself to ramble free, experiment with the improbable, and risk being a fool. I suspect that history will judge a majority of your recent explorations as tonic. But now, Sagittarius, the tenor of the time is shifting. To continue being in alignment with your highest good, I believe you will have to rein in your wanderlust and start attending to the care and cultivation of your power spot. Can you find a way to enjoy taking on more responsibility?

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

"The person who can't visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot," said the founder of Surrealism, writer André Breton. I wouldn't go so far as to call such an imagination-deprived soul an "idiot," but I do agree with the gist of his declaration. One of the essential facets of intelligence is the ability to conjure up vivid and creative images in one's mind. When daily life has grown a bit staid or stuck or overly serious, this skill becomes even more crucial. Now is one of those times for you, Capricorn. If you have any trouble visualizing a horse galloping on a tomato, take measures to boost the fertility of your imagination.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

"I want to be with those who know the secret things, or else alone," wrote the eccentric ecstatic poet Rainer Maria Rilke. That wouldn't be a good rule for you Aquarians to live by all the time. To thrive, you need a variety of cohorts and allies, including those who know and care little about secret things. But I suspect that for the next few weeks, an affinity for those who know secret things might suit you well. More than that, they may be exactly the accomplices who will help you attend to your number one assignment: exploratory holy work in the depths.

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LISTEN TO AN EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life's labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation.

One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here.

If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES. They're available here: RealAstrology.com

Register and/or sign in at RealAstrology.com.

You can also access them by phone:
1-877-873-4888

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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

To launch your horoscope, I'll steal a line from a Thomas Pynchon novel: A revelation trembles just beyond the threshold of your understanding. To continue your oracle, I'll borrow a message I heard in my dream last night: A breakthrough shivers just beyond the edge of your courage. Next, I'll use words I think I heard while eavesdropping on a conversation at Whole Foods: If you want to cook up the ultimate love feast, you're still missing one ingredient. And to finish this oracle, Pisces, I'll say that if you want to precipitate the trembling revelation, activate the shivering breakthrough, and acquire the missing ingredient, imitate what I've done in creating this horoscope. Assume the whole world is offering you useful clues, and listen closely.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):

An Indian student named Sankalp Sinha has invented the "Good Morning Sing N Shock." It's an alarm clock that plays you a song and gives you a small electrical jolt when you hit the snooze button. The voltage applied is far less intense than, say, a taser, and is designed to energize you rather than disable you. I encourage you to seek out wake-up calls like the kind this device administers, Aries: fairly gentle, yet sufficiently dramatic to get your attention. The alternative would be to wait around for blind fate to provide the wake-up calls. They might be a bit more strenuous.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

If you google the statement "I can change overnight," most of the results that come up are negative, like "It's not something I can change overnight" or "I don't think I can change overnight." But there's one google link to "I can change overnight." It's a declaration made by Taurus painter Willem de Kooning. He was referring to how unattached he was to defining his work and how easy it was for him to mutate his artistic style. I wouldn't normally advise you Tauruses to use "I can change overnight" as your battle cry. But for the foreseeable future you do have the power to make some rather rapid and thorough transformations.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

"The artist is by necessity a collector," said graphic designer Paul Rand. "He accumulates things with the same ardor and curiosity with which a boy stuffs his pockets. He borrows from the sea and from the scrap heap; he takes snapshots, makes mental notes, and records impressions on tablecloths and newspapers. He has a taste for children's wall scrawling as appreciative as that for prehistoric cave painting." Whether or not you're an artist, Gemini, this would be an excellent approach for you in the coming days. You're in a phase when you can thrive by being a gatherer of everything that attracts and fascinates you. You don't need to know yet why you're assembling all these clues. That will be revealed in good time.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

Can you remember the last time you bumped up against a limitation caused by your lack of knowledge? What did it feel like? I expect that sometime soon you will have that experience again. You may shiver with worry as you contemplate the potential consequences of your continued ignorance. But you may also feel the thrill of hungry curiosity rising up in you. If all goes well, the fear and curiosity will motivate you to get further educated. You will set to work on a practical plan to make it happen.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

"My story isn't sweet and harmonious like invented stories," wrote novelist Herman Hesse. "It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves." As interesting as Hesse's declaration is, let's not take it as gospel. Let's instead envision the possibility that when people reduce the number of lies they tell themselves, their lives may become sweeter and more harmonious as a result. I propose that exact scenario for you right now, Leo. There might be a rough adjustment period as you cut back on your self-deceptions, but eventually your folly and bewilderment will diminish as the sweet harmony grows.

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HOMEWORK:

Do you have a liability that could be turned into an asset with a little (or a lot of) work? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.

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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 2013 Rob Brezsny

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