Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
September 24, 2014
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.
To hear it as a spoken-word piece, go here: bit.ly/yBmWBg
GLORY IN THE HIGHEST
Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the
moment you wake up. Through some magic you don't
fully understand, you're still breathing and
your heart is beating, even though you've been
unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that's just
right for your body's needs, as it was before you fell asleep.
You can see! Light of many colors floods into your eyes, registered
by nerves that took God or evolution or some process millions
of years to perfect.
The interesting gift of these vivid hues is furthermore made
possible by an unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun, which
continually detonates nuclear explosions in order to convert its
own body into light and heat and energy for your personal use.
Your hands work wonderfully well. Your heart circulates your
blood all the way out to replenish the energy of the muscles and
nerves in your fingers and palms and wrists. And after your blood
has delivered its blessings, it finds its way back to your heart
to be refreshed. This wondrous mystery recurs over and over again
without stopping every minute of your life.
You can smell intoxicating aromas. You can hear provocative and
soothing sounds. You can taste a thousand different tastes. How
is any of this possible? You can think thoughts any time you want
-- big, wide, colorful thoughts or tiny dark burrowing thoughts.
You can revel and wallow in great oceans of emotion. What colossal
secret intelligence or improbable series of fabulous accidents
conspired to bestow these superpowers upon you?
TO READ AND HEAR THE REST OF THIS PIECE, go here: bit.ly/yBmWBg
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Thoughts on true skepticism versus pseudo-skepticism:
True skepticism does not carry an undertone of anger, ridicule,
and derision. It is even-tempered, clear-minded, and full of equanimity,
satisfied with showing what's illogical or incorrect in the argument
it critiques.
A true skeptic does not use emotionally charged language in an
effort to portray the person whose argument he's critiquing as
a stupid fool.
A true skeptic has no attachment to proving that she is smarter
than and superior to the person whose argument she is critiquing,
but rather is content to have her argument win the day purely
on the strength of its elegant reasoning.
A true skeptic is willing to consider the possibility that there
is some merit, however small, in the argument of the person he's
critiquing. He is not afraid that acknowledging this merit will
undermine the absolute truth he purports to possess.
A true skeptic is not consumed with the certainty that she is
always right. In other words, she resists the temptation to become
a fundamentalist.
A true skeptic has a respect for the fact that many questions
don't have final answers. She recognizes how much about the world
is mysterious.
A true skeptic is skeptical of his own skepticism.
A true skeptic is as likely to be a woman as a man. (97 percent
of the pseudo-skeptics are men.)
A true skeptic shows humility, in the spirit that Carl Sagan
demonstrated when he said this: "An atheist is someone who
is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling
evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling
evidence.
"Because God can be relegated to remote times and places
and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more
about the universe than we do now to be sure that no God exists.
"To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain
of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes
in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire
very little confidence indeed.
"A wide range of intermediate positions seems admissable.
"Considering the enormous emotional energies with which
the subject is invested, a questing, courageous, and open mind
is, I think, the essential tool for narrowing the range of our
collective ignorance on the subject of the existence of God."
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Homework: Write essays on one or more of these topics:
1. "How I Used My Nightmares to Become Smart and Strong"
2. "How I Exploited My Problems to Become a Spiritual Freedom
Fighter"
3. "How I Fed and Fed and Fed My Monsters Until They Ate
Themselves to Death"
4. "How I Turned Envy, Frustration, and Smoldering Anger
into Generosity, Compassion, and Fiery Success"
5. "Why Perfection Sux"
- from my book "The Televisionary Oracle," bit.ly/Televisionary
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Some people put their faith in religion or science or political
ideologies. English novelist J. G. Ballard placed his faith elsewhere:
in the imagination. "I believe in the power of the imagination
to remake the world," he wrote, "to release the truth
within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm
motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences
of madmen."
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
"In a stunning example of how a political movement can actually
change lives, the Strike Debt project has raised over $100 thousand
to purchase and abolish student loans for a group of recent grads
with a punishing amount of debt. They hope to turn this into a
national movement."
tinyurl.com/o6ktao9
Top 10 Solutions to Cut Poverty and Grow the Middle Class
tinyurl.com/phvhy5q
Rockefellers, Heirs to an Oil Fortune, Divest Charity From Fossil
Fuels
tinyurl.com/lvohqw3
A compendium of pronoiac news.
PronoiaResources.com
(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 25
Copyright 2014 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
"I am a seed about to break," wrote Sylvia Plath in
her poem "Three Women." That's how I see you right now,
Libra. You are teeming with the buoyant energy that throbs when
a seed is ready to sprout. You have been biding your time, gathering
the nourishment you need, waiting for the right circumstances
to burst open with your new flavor. And now that nervous, hopeful,
ecstatic moment is about to arrive. Be brave!
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
The English verb "cicurate" is defined as "to
tame or domesticate" or "to make mild or innocuous."
But it once had an additional sense: "to reclaim from wildness."
It was derived from the Latin word cicurare, which meant
"to bring back from madness, to draw out of the wilderness."
For your purposes, Scorpio, we will make cicurate your theme,
but concentrate on these definitions: "to reclaim from wildness,
to bring back from madness, to draw out of the wilderness."
In the coming weeks, you will be exploring rough, luxuriant areas
of unknown territory. You will be wrangling with primitive, sometimes
turbulent energy. I urge you to extract the raw vitality you find
there, and harness it to serve your daily rhythm and your long-term
goals.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
"You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible
to influence," said psychologist Carl Jung. Extrapolating
from that idea, we can hypothesize that the more willing and able
you are to be influenced, the greater your influence might be.
Let's make this your key theme in the coming weeks. It will be
an excellent time to increase your clout, wield more authority,
and claim more of a say in the creation of your shared environments.
For best results, you should open your mind, be very receptive,
and listen well.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Congratulations, Capricorn. Your current dilemmas are more useful
and interesting than any that you have had for a long time. If
you can even partially solve them, the changes you set in motion
will improve your entire life, not just the circumstances they
immediately affect. Of the several dividends you may reap, one
of my favorites is this: You could liberate yourself from a messed-up
kind of beauty and become available for a more soothing and delightful
kind. Here's another potential benefit: You may transform yourself
in ways that will help you attract more useful and interesting
dilemmas in the future.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
lan Moore is the British author who wrote the graphic novels
Watchmen and V for Vendetta. He is now nearing
completion of Jerusalem, a novel he has been working
on for six years. It will be more than a million words long, almost
double the size of Tolstoy's War and Peace, and 200,000
words bigger than the Bible. "Any editor worth their salt
would tell me to cut two-thirds of this book," Moore told
the New Statesman,"but that's not going to happen."
Referring to the author of Moby Dick, Moore adds, "I
doubt that Herman Melville had an editor. If he had, that editor
would have told him to get rid of all that boring stuff about
whaling: 'Cut to the chase, Herman.'" Let's make Moore and
Melville your role models in the coming week, Aquarius. You have
permission to sprawl, ramble, and expand. Do NOT cut to the chase.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
For a long time, an Illinois writer named ArLynn Leiber Presser
didn't go out much. She had 325 friends on Facebook and was content
to get her social needs met in the virtual realm. But then she
embarked on a year-long project in which she sought face-to-face
meetings with all of her online buddies. The experiment yielded
sometimes complicated but mostly interesting results. It took
her to 51 cities around the world. I suggest we make her your
inspirational role model for the coming weeks, Pisces. In at least
one way, it's time for you to move out of your imagination and
into the real world. You're primed to turn fantasies into actions,
dreams into practical pursuits.
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FEELING JOY STIMULATES YOUR COMPASSION?
Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn't a barrier
to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed
on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical
and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something
important to teach you every day.
For inspiration in practicing this approach, tune in to your
Expanded Audio Horoscopes. They're four-to-five-minute meditations
on the current state of your destiny. The cost is $6 per reading,
with a discount for multiple purchases.
Go here to register and/or sign in: RealAstrology.com
They're available on your tablets and smart phones as well as
your computers.
You can also listen over the phone by calling
1-877-873-4888
"I always feel like I know myself better after listening
to your audio 'scopes."
- June R., Austin, TX
"Your audio horoscopes calm me down when I'm too manic and
pep me up when I'm down."
- Arthur T., Cleveland, OH
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ARIES (March 21-April 19):
It's no secret. The wealthy one percent of the population has
been getting progressively wealthier. Meanwhile, the poor are
becoming steadily poorer. I'm worried there is a metaphorically
similar trend in your life. Am I right? If so, please do all you
can to reverse it. Borrow energy from the rich and abundant parts
of your life so as to lift up the neglected and underendowed parts.
Here's one example of how you could proceed: For a while, be less
concerned with people who think you're a star, and give more attention
to those who accept and love your shadow side.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job," says Bill
Gates, the world's second-richest man, "because a lazy person
will find an easy way to do it." That's good counsel for
you right now, Taurus. You'd be wise to get in touch with your
inner lazy bum. Let the slacker within you uncover the least stressful
way to accomplish your difficult task. According to my analysis
of the astrological omens, there is no need for you to suffer
and strain as you deal with your dilemma.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
If you don't identify and express your conscious desires, your
unconscious desires will dominate your life. I will say that again
in different language, because it's crucial you understand the
principle. You've got to be very clear about what you really want,
and install a shining vision of what you really want at the core
of your everyday life. If you don't do that, you will end up being
controlled by your habits and old programming. So be imperious,
Gemini. Define your dearest, strongest longing, and be ruthlessly
devoted to it.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was an influential French photographer,
a pioneer of photojournalism who helped transform photography
into an art form. In 1986 he was invited to Palermo, Sicily to
accept a prize for his work. The hotel he stayed in seemed oddly
familiar to him, although he didn't understand why. It was only
later he discovered that the hotel had been the place at which
his mother and father stayed on their honeymoon. It was where
he was conceived. I foresee a comparable development on the horizon
for you, Cancerian: a return to origins, perhaps inadvertent;
an evocative encounter with your roots; a reunification with an
influence that helped make you who you are today.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
With expert execution, musician Ben Lee can play 15 notes per
second on his violin. Superstar eater Pete Czerwinski needs just
34 seconds to devour a 12-inch pizza. When Jerry Miculek is holding
his rifle, he can get off eight crack shots at four targets in
a little more than one second. While upside-down, Aichi Ono is
capable of doing 135 perfect head spins in a minute. I don't expect
you to be quite so lightning fast and utterly flawless as these
people in the coming weeks, Leo, but I do think you will be unusually
quick and skillful. For the foreseeable future, speed and efficiency
are your specialties.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
As the makeup artist for the film Dallas Buyers Club,
Robin Mathews had a daunting task. During the 23 days of shooting,
she had to constantly transform lead actors Matthew McConaughey
and Jared Leto so that they appeared either deathly ill or relatively
healthy. Sometimes she had to switch them back and forth five
times a day. She was so skillful in accomplishing this feat that
she won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Her
budget? A meager $250. The film was a shoestring indie production.
I'm naming her your inspirational role model for the next few
weeks, Virgo. I believe that you, too, can create magic without
a wealth of resources.
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HOMEWORK:
What's your favorite excuse? Try not to say it or think it during
the coming week. Report results to Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2014 Rob Brezsny
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