Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
February 14, 2018
FreeWillAstrology.com
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You don't have to be anything you don’t want to be.
You don't have to live up to anyone’s expectations.
There's no need to strive for a kind of perfection that's not very interesting to you.
You don't have to believe in ideas that make you sad or tormented, and you don't have to feel emotions that others try to manipulate you into feeling.
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RADICAL LISTENING
Alert, relaxed listening is the radical act at the heart of our pronoiac practice.
Curiosity is our primal state of awareness.
Wise innocence is a trick we aspire to master.
Open-hearted skepticism is the light in our eyes.
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MANY DESIRES VERSUS A FEW DESIRES
I don't agree with Jenny Holzer, who wrote "If you have many desires, your life will be interesting." I find that as I have developed fewer but stronger desires, my life has become more interesting. What do you think?
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GOD SHMOD
There is no God. God is dead. God is a drug for people who aren't very smart. God is an illusion sold to dupes by money-hungry religions. God is a right-wing conspiracy. God is an infantile fantasy favored by superstitious cowards who can't face life's existential meaninglessness.
JUST KIDDING! The truth is, anyone who says he knows what God is or isn't, doesn't really know.
Now read Adolfo Quezada's prayer, then confess what you don't know about God. "God of the Wild, you are different from what I expected. I cannot predict you. You are too free to be captured for the sake of my understanding. I can't find you in the sentimentalism of religion. You are everywhere I least expect to find you. You are not the force that saves me from the pain of living; you are the force that brings me life even in the midst of pain."
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SACRED PRACTICE
Tell jokes to clowns.
Cook gourmet meals for chefs.
Show babies how to crawl.
Sing to the birds.
Play a joke on your fear.
Honor your anger.
Capitalize on your guilt.
Kill your own death.
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The preceding five blips are excerpts from my book
PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA
It's available at Amazon: bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
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DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES
Some people don't know that I write daily horoscopes, available as text messages sent to your phone. They're shorter than the weekly 'scopes, but on the other hand they're more frequent -- every day of the week.
My weekly horoscopes are free, but the dailies cost about 67 cents a day if you sign up for a subscription. If you think you might enjoy getting regular bursts of inspiration from me to illuminate your adventures, check them out.
Go to RealAstrology.com. Register or log in. On the new page, click on "Subscribe / Renew" under "Daily Text Message Horoscopes" in the right-hand column.
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CAN YOUR RELATIONSHIP HEAL THE WORLD?
Andrew Harvey says: The crisis we are facing is a crisis in which the sacred powers of love in the human soul are being diverted by distraction, by greed, by ignorance, by the pursuit of power, so that they never irrigate the world and transform it.
There are seven requirements necessary for a vision of evolutionary love to emerge into the world.
1. Both beings need to be plunged individually into a deep and passionate devotion of the Beloved, by whatever name they know the Beloved, because without both beings centering their life in God, the relationship will never be able to escape the private circle.
2. Both beings must develop a mastery of solitude.
3. There is an equality of power, and that equality is born out of a profound experience of the sacredness and dignity of the other person’s soul.
4. If you are going to have a beloved-beloved relationship, you have to center your whole being and work and evolution in God. You must also bring the sacred practice of prayer and meditation into the very core of your life, so that the whole relationship can be enfolded in a mutually shared sacred enterprise.
5. Both lovers completely abandon any Hollywood sentimentality about what relationships actually are. Each person is the safe-guarder of the other’s shadow—not the judge of the other’s shadow, not the denier of the other’s shadow, but someone who recognizes where the other has been wounded, and safeguards and protects them with unconditional compassion without allowing themselves to be mauled or manipulated by the other.
6. If you are going to enter into the evolutionary process, you have to accept that it never ends, never stops unfolding.
7. You must make the commitment for your relationship not to be just a cultivation of an oasis of private pleasure. You must engage consciously in this relationship to serve the planet, to recognize that it is a relationship not only grounded in God, not only infused by sacred practice, but it is from the very beginning dedicated to making both people more powerful, more reflective, more passionately engaged with the only serious truth of our time: The world is dying, and we need a major revolution of the heart to empower everyone to do the work of reconstruction and re-creation that is desperately needed.
Read the entre essay: tinyurl.com/y7qqw7gl
An Excerpt From Evolutionary Love Relationships: Passion, Authenticity, and Activism
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Ten Best Solutions Stories You Might Have Missed. Full details: tinyurl.com/y8ua48pz
1. This Small Town Refused to Settle for Walmart When Its Last Local Grocery Store Closed. After 10 years without an independent grocery store, the residents of Iola, Kansas, found a way to bring one back.
2. How Neighbors Turned Unused Buildings Into a Thriving Community Hub. As rents rise and independent businesses in Minneapolis lose their leases to large national chains, a first-of-its-kind co-op found a solution.
3. Los Angeles Preempts Trump’s Deportation Plans By Finally Decriminalizing Street Vending. After years of work, advocates for immigrant rights rejoiced at the permit process, which will help keep 50,000 street vendors on the right side of the law.
4. An Outside-the-Doctor’s-Office Approach to Health Care. Research is showing that health care can be an engine for community change.
5. In a Rust Belt Town Where Tuition Is Covered, Economy Begins to Revive. After Kalamazoo, Michigan, offered college tuition for nearly all high school graduates, dropout rates declined and the city’s population began to rebound.
6. How the Neighborhood That Inspired "The Wire" Is Pulling Its Residents Out of Poverty. When large institutions like universities and hospitals agree to hire and spend locally, they can transform neighborhoods hardest hit by poverty and unemployment.
7. How Chicago Became the First City to Make Reparations to Victims of Police Violence. The ordinance provides a meaningful model for creating reparations at the local level.
8. How an Ancient Singing Tradition Helps People Cope With Trauma in the Modern World. In Finland, lament singing is experiencing a revival, one sad song at a time.
9. Blackfeet Researcher Leads Her Tribe Back to Traditional Foods. Forced assimilation destroyed most nations’ diets, but now Native youth are learning to integrate local foods back into their daily lives.
10. This Town Adopted Trauma-Informed Care—And Saw a Decrease in Crime and Suspension Rates.
(Note: I endorse these because I like them. They aren’t advertisements, and I get no kickbacks.)
Please tell me your own nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES: Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning February 15
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
The posh magazine Tatler came up with a list of fashionable new names for parents who want to ensure their babies get a swanky start in life. Since you Aquarians are in a phase when you can generate good fortune by rebranding yourself or remaking your image, I figure you might be interested in using one of these monikers as a nickname or alias. At the very least, hearing them could whet your imagination to come up with your own ideas. Here are Tatler's chic avant-garde names for girls: Czar-Czar; Debonaire; Estonia; Figgy; Gethsemane; Power; Queenie. Here are some boys' names: Barclay; Euripides; Gustav; Innsbruck; Ra; Uxorious; Wigbert; Zebedee.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Now that you have finally paid off one of your debts to the past, you can start window-shopping for the future's best offers. The coming days will be a transition time as you vacate the power spot you've outgrown and ramble out to reconnoiter potential new power spots. So bid your crisp farewells to waning traditions, lost causes, ghostly temptations, and the deadweight of people's expectations. Then start preparing a vigorous first impression to present to promising allies out there in the frontier.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
At 12,388 feet, Mount Fuji is Japan's highest peak. If you're in good shape, you can reach the top in seven hours. The return trip can be done in half the time -- if you're cautious. The loose rocks on the steep trail are more likely to knock you off your feet on the way down than on the way up. I suspect this is an apt metaphor for you in the coming weeks, Aries. Your necessary descent may be deceptively challenging. So make haste slowly! Your power animals are the rabbit and the snail.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made a few short jaunts through the air in a flying machine they called the Flyer. It was a germinal step in a process that ultimately led to your ability to travel 600 miles per hour while sitting in a chair 30,000 feet above the earth. Less than 66 years after the Wright Brothers' breakthrough, American astronauts landed a space capsule on the moon. They had with them a patch of fabric from the left wing of the Flyer. I expect that during the coming weeks, you will be climaxing a long-running process that deserves a comparable ritual. Revisit the early stages of the work that enabled you to be where you are now.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
In 2006, five percent of the world's astronomers gathered at an international conference and voted to demote Pluto from a planet to a "dwarf planet." Much of the world agreed to honor their declaration. Since then, though, there has arisen a campaign by equally authoritative astronomers to restore Pluto to full planet status. The crux of the issue is this: How shall we define the nature of a planet? But for the people of New Mexico, the question has been resolved. State legislators there formally voted to regard Pluto as a planet. They didn't accept the demotion. I encourage you to be inspired by their example, Gemini. Whenever there are good arguments from opposing sides about important matters, trust your gut feelings. Stand up for your preferred version of the story.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Ray Bradbury's dystopian bestseller Fahrenheit 451 was among the most successful of the 27 novels he wrote. It won numerous awards and has been adopted into films, plays, and graphic novels. Bradbury wrote the original version of the story in nine days, using a typewriter he rented for 20 cents per hour. When his publisher urged him to double the manuscript's length, he spent another nine days doing so. According to my reading of the planetary configurations, you Cancerians now have a similar potential to be surprisingly efficient and economical as you work on an interesting creation or breakthrough -- especially if you mix a lot of play and delight into your labors.
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LOVE YOUR LIFE!
How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and conditioned responses? Are you turning out to be the hero of your own life?
For assistance and inspiration, tune in to my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.
These forecasts are different in tone and format from the written horoscopes you read here in the newsletter. They're longer and more leisurely in tone. They tend to bring out more of the patient counselor in me, and have a bit less of the poet.
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to RealAstrology.com.
Register and/or log in through the main page.
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888.
The cost is $6 per sign on the Web (discounts available for bulk purchases), or $1.99 per minute by phone. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
The Expanded Audio Horoscopes work on most smart phones and tablets.
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"I don't much believe in astrology. But that doesn't seem to get in the way of me deriving a whole lot of benefits from your expanded audio horoscopes."
- A. Arrosto, Indianapolis
"You have an amazing aptitude for cutting through the lies I tell myself. Thanks for the gentle shocks."
- T. Preneris, Toronto
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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Poet Louise Glück has characterized herself as "afflicted with longing yet incapable of forming durable attachments." If there is anything in you that even partially fits that description, I have good news: In the coming weeks, you're likely to feel blessed by longing rather than afflicted by it. The foreseeable future will also be prime time for you to increase your motivation and capacity to form durable attachments. Take full advantage of this fertile grace period!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
In 2004, a man named Jerry Lynn tied a battery-operated alarm clock to a string and dangled it down a vent in his house. He was hoping that when the alarm sounded, he would get a sense of the best place to drill a hole in his wall to run a wire for his TV. But the knot he'd made wasn't perfect, and the clock slipped off and plunged into an inaccessible spot behind the wall. Then, every night for 13 years, the alarm rang for a minute. The battery was unusually strong! A few months ago, Lynn decided to end the mild but constant irritation. Calling on the help of duct specialists, he retrieved the persistent clock. With this story as your inspiration, and in accordance with astrological omens, I urge you Virgos to finally put an end to your equivalent of the maddening alarm clock. (Read the story: tinyurl.com/alarmclockmadness.)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Was Napoléon Bonaparte an oppressor or liberator? The answer is both. His work in the world hurt a lot of people and helped a lot of people. One of his more magnanimous escapades transpired in June 1798, when he and his naval forces invaded the island of Malta. During his six-day stay, he released political prisoners, abolished slavery, granted religious freedom to Jews, opened 15 schools, established the right to free speech, and shut down the Inquisition. What do his heroics have to do with you? I don't want to exaggerate, but I expect that you, too, now have the power to unleash a blizzard of benevolence in your sphere. Do it in your own style, of course, not Napoléon's.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
"Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit," said French playwright Molière. I'm going to make that your motto for now, Scorpio. You have pursued a gradual, steady approach to ripening, and soon it will pay off in the form of big bright blooms. Congratulations on having the faith to keep plugging away in the dark! I applaud your determination to be dogged and persistent about following your intuition even though few people have appreciated what you were doing.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
The growth you can and should foster in the coming weeks will be stimulated by quirky and unexpected prods. To get you started, here are a few such prods. 1. What's your hidden or dormant talent, and what could you do to awaken and mobilize it? 2. What's something you're afraid of but might be able to turn into a resource? 3. If you were a different gender for a week, what would you do and what would your life be like? 4. Visualize a dream you'd like to have while you're asleep tonight. 5. If you could transform anything about yourself, what would it be? 6. Imagine you've won a free vacation to anywhere you want. Where would you go?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
You may think you have uncovered the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But according to my analysis of the astrological omens, you're just a bit more than halfway there. In order to get the rest of the goods, you'll have to ignore your itch to be done with the search. You'll have to be unattached to being right and smart and authoritative. So please cultivate patience. Be expansive and magnanimous as you dig deeper. For best results, align yourself with poet Richard Siken's definition: "The truth is complicated. It's two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet."
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HOMEWORK:
Confess, brag, and expostulate about what inspires you to love. Go to freewillastrology.com and click on "Email Rob."
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Submissions sent to Rob Brezsny's Astrology 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 submissions for length, style, and content. Requests for anonymity will be honored. We are not responsible for unsolicited submission of any creative material.
Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2018 Rob Brezsny
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