Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
July 1, 2020
FreeWillAstrology.com
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IMAGINE THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE
in the coming months:
WHAT WILL IT BE?
Explore the Big Picture of Your Destiny
with my Expanded Audio Horoscopes
for the Second Half of 2020.
What new influences and experiences will be headed your way in the second half of 2020? What fresh resources will you be able to draw on? Would you like some inspiration as you imagine how to make best use of those influences and experiences and resources?
To listen to my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE during the next six months, go here, then register and/or sign in:
RealAstrology.com
After you log in through the main page, click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2020."
You can also listen to your short-term forecast for the coming week by clicking on "This week (June 30, 2020)."
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The Expanded Audio horoscopes cost $6 apiece. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.
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CHAMPIONING AND EMBODYING SPIRITUALITY
Here are practical ways I carry on the work of championing and embodying spirituality:
I regard relationships as being a crucible for spiritual work.
I think of the practical expression of kindness and compassion and ethical behavior as an essential spiritual practice.
I assume that a crucial element of spiritual practice is the consciousness and compassion we bring to the sometimes chaotic and messy and shadowy details of being human beings.
I understand that loving and caring for animals and plants and the Earth is the test of our spiritual intentions.
I understand that working to dismantle racism, misogyny, militarism, plutocracy, economic injustice, and all forms of bigotry belongs at the heart of our sacred practice.
I regard play and fun and humor as not diversions from “serious” spiritual work, but rather being at the center of it.
What about you? What are the practical ways you carry on the work? TruthRooster@gmail.com
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DIVERSITY IS OUR DELIGHTFUL FUTURE
“The plague of humanity is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, mono-medicine.
"The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to humans: members of their own species, bent on ensuring their salvation, security, and sanity.”
—Thomas Szasz
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"As a culture, we have wandered into a state of prolonged neurosis because of the absence of a direct pipeline to the unconscious. As a result, we have fallen victim to priestcraft of every conceivable sort."
—Terence McKenna
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Why is it so hard for Westerners of the last two centuries to feel the intimate presence of the divine intelligences? Every other culture in the history of the world has had a more vital connection with the realm of spirit.
According to poet Gary Snyder, California's Yana Indians explained it this way: The gods have retreated to the volcanic recesses of Mt. Lassen, passing the time playing gambling games with magic sticks.
They're simply waiting for such a time when human beings will "reform themselves and become 'real people' that spirits might want to associate with once again."
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"Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations, and it also belongs to society and all other living beings. All of them have come together to bring about the presence of this body. Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos — the trees, the clouds, everything."
—Thich Nhat Hanh
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LIBERATION MUSIC
Check out this glorious rendition of the song "Stand Up" (from the movie Harriet), with images from the Black freedom struggle. Sung by the grandchildren of Civil Rights legend Rev. Dr. Jesse Douglas.
tinyurl.com/y9o96o5j
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GO BOTH WAYS
The image I'm posting here — tinyurl.com/GoBothWays —
shows how I spent the first half of my birthday last week:
researching occult and hermetic resources about how best to foment a culture that is more thoroughly permeated with justice, broadmindedness, actual (not fake) beauty, and practical compassion.
The second half of my birthday was spent with a roundtable of very earthbound yet visionary activists who provided me with inspiration on the same subjects.
I'm at my best when I go both ways!
(The off-white suit and stetson hat I wore was provided by the spirit of Dziadzio Raymond, my Polish grandfather)
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OUR SPIRITUAL DUTY
It's our spiritual duty to remember the African Americans who have been murdered by cops—to grieve them as our kin, to honor them, to invoke their tragic deaths as we apply pressure to prevent the police from perpetrating other such mayhem in the future.
Here's some of the story of Elijah McClain, killed by Aurora, Colorado police last August: tinyurl.com/yd87zc9t
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A SLAVE-OWNER WROTE "THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER"
Recently, protestors toppled a statue of Francis Scott Key in San Francisco, near where I live. You may know Key as the composer of the "Star-Spangled Banner," America's national anthem.
Those who study history know other facts about him. Like: He owned slaves. Writing in The Smithsonian, Christopher Wilson says ,"Key was a slaveholding lawyer from an old Maryland plantation family, who thanks to a system of human bondage had grown rich and powerful."
As a lawyer, Key represented the legal interests in court of men trying to recover their runaway slaves.
As District Attorney in Washington DC, Key defended slavery, and suppressed and attacked abolitionists. He referred to Blacks as "a distinct and inferior race of people.”
Christopher Wilson writes: "Key sought to crack down on the free speech of abolitionists. For example, he prosecuted a white doctor for possessing abolitionist pamphlets—in fact, sought the death penalty for him. In the resulting case, Key proposed that the property rights of slaveholders outweighed the free speech rights of those arguing for slavery’s abolishment. Key hoped to silence abolitionists, who, he charged, wished to 'associate and amalgamate with the negro.'"
Abolitionists ridiculed the lyrics he wrote for the "Star-Spangled Banner," saying that instead of "home of the brave" he should have written "home of the oppressed."
MORE: tinyurl.com/yan8dop8
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GEORGE WASHINGTON AND SLAVERY
Facts About George Washington & Slavery, from a longer piece at tinyurl.com/y2hoe4tf
1. George Washington first became a slave owner at the early age of eleven, and remained a slaveholder for 56 more years.
2. At the time of George Washington’s death, the Mount Vernon enslaved population consisted of 317 people.
3. George Washington's marriage to Martha Custis significantly increased the number of enslaved people at Mount Vernon.
4. In his later years, George Washington believed that harsh and indiscriminate punishments could backfire and urged overseers to motivate workers with encouragement and rewards. Still, he approved of “correction” when those methods failed. Mount Vernon’s enslaved people endured a range of punishments depending on the alleged offense.
5. The enslaved people at Mount Vernon practiced diverse religious traditions and customs
6. On numerous occasions, people enslaved by the Washington household ran away in an attempt to regain their freedom.
7. People at Mount Vernon also resisted their enslavement through less noticeable means.
8. With little free time and control over their everyday life, Mount Vernon's enslaved population attempted to exert some free will and choice when it came to their private lives.
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PRAYER by poet Aurora Levins Morales
Say these words when you lie down
and when you rise up,
when you go out and when you return.
In times of mourning
and in times of joy.
Inscribe them on your doorposts,
embroider them on your garments,
tattoo them on your shoulders,
teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies,
recite them in your sleep,
here in the cruel shadow of empire:
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE
Imagine winning. This is your sacred task.
This is your power.
Imagine every detail of winning,
the exact smell of the summer streets
in which no one has been shot,
the muscles you have never unclenched from worry,
gone soft as newborn skin,
the sparkling taste of food when we know
that no one on earth is hungry,
that the beggars are fed,
that the old man under the bridge
and the woman wrapping herself
in thin sheets in the back seat of a car,
and the children who suck on stones,
nest under a flock of roofs
that keep multiplying their shelter.
Lean with all your being towards that day
when the poor of the world
shake down a rain of good fortune
out of the heavy clouds,
and justice rolls down like waters.
Defend the world in which we win
as if it were your child.
It is your child.
Defend it as if it were your lover.
It is your lover.
When you inhale and when you exhale
breathe the possibility of another world
into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body
until it shines with hope.
Then imagine more.
Imagine rape is unimaginable.
Imagine war is a scarcely credible rumor
That the crimes of our age,
the grotesque inhumanities of greed,
the sheer and astounding shamelessness of it,
the vast fortunes made by stealing lives,
the horrible normalcy it came to have,
is unimaginable to our heirs,
the generations of the free.
Don’t waver.
Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing.
Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely
that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd
Over the grim fog of exhaustion,
and keep walking.
Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we,
and the children of our children’s children
may live
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Good News from DailyKos.com, tinyurl.com/y8d43r9w :
A grand jury indicted Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William Bryan on murder charges in the death of Ahmaud Arbery
Pope Francis told his 1.2 billion Catholic faithful to disinvest from the armaments and fossil fuel industries
The legacy of "Hidden Figure" Mary W. Jackson, as NASA named its HQ in D.C. after the pioneering mathematician, aerospace engineer and, in 1958, first Black female engineer
Air Force Chief Master Sgt. JoAnne Bass became the first woman to serve as the highest-ranking non-commissioned member of a U.S. military service branch
Voto Latino won a lawsuit that forces Arizona to meet higher standards for early voting flexibility and voter outreach & education
The "Stop Hate for Profit" campaign persuaded companies including Verizon, Unilever, Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's to pull their ads off of Trump's boot-lickiest social media outlet Facebook
The Democratic-led House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which puts the Senate's toothless bill to shame, and then voted to approve D.C. statehood
40 lawsuits were filed, contending that "unchecked" and "indiscriminate" police violence was used against protesters in demonstrations tied to the death of George Floyd
CHEERS, as well, to an American revolution. In June 1969, a ragtag gaggle of customers at a seedy Greenwich Village gay bar run by the mafia—the Stonewall Inn, now a National Monument—decided they'd had enough police harassment for one lifetime.
So they got mad as hell—especially the drag queens who had no more fucks to give—tipped over a police car, hurled some rocks and gave new life to the LGBT rights movement.
As the deputy police inspector said: "For those of us in[the public morals division, things were completely changed...Suddenly they were not submissive anymore."
What a difference half a century makes. A huge majority of Americans now embrace their LGBT family, friends, co-workers and neighbors.
LGBTers can serve openly in the military. (Trump's ban on new transgender enlistees will be overturned the second he leaves office.)
The vast majority of businesses support LGBT employees and many of them sponsor LGBT advocacy groups.
When right-wingers pass anti-LGBT laws, there's always severe blowback.
And as of this month, thanks to the wisdom of the Supreme Court and the tenacity of the plaintiffs who argued their cases before it, employment discrimination is now verboten in every state.
And best of all, those aging protesters in New York who got mad as hell that hot June night and refused to take it anymore are now celebrating five years of having the legal right to take their fights where straight Americans have waged them since 1776: the institution of marriage.
Please tell me your own nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES: Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning July 2
Copyright 2020 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Some readers wish I would write more like Cormac McCarthy or Albert Camus or Raymond Chandler: with spare simplicity. They accuse me of being too lush and exuberant in my prose. They want me to use shorter sentences and fewer adjectives. To them I say: It ain't going to happen. I have feelings similar to those of best-selling Cancerian author Oliver Sacks, who the New York Times called, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century." Sacks once said, "I never use one adjective if six seem to me better and, in their cumulative effect, more incisive. I am haunted by the density of reality and try to capture this with 'thick description.'" I bring these thoughts to your attention, my fellow Cancerian, because I think it's important for you to be your lavish, sumptuous, complex self in the coming weeks. Don't oversimplify yourself or dumb yourself down, either intellectually or emotionally.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Travel writer Paul Theroux has journeyed long distances by train: once from Britain to Japan and back again, and then from Massachusetts to Argentina. He also rode trains during part of his expedition from Cairo to Cape Town. Here's one of his conclusions: "It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places." I'd like to offer a milder version of that counsel as your metaphor for the coming weeks: The funky, bumpy, rickety influences will bring you the best magic.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Philosopher Miguel de Unamuno declared, "Everything that exalts and expands consciousness is good, while that which depresses and diminishes it is evil." This idea will be intensely true for and applicable to you in the coming weeks, Virgo. It will be your sacred duty—both to yourself and to those you care about—to enlarge your understandings of how the world works and to push your awareness to become more inclusive and empathetic. What's your vision of paradise-on-earth? Now is a good time to have fun imagining it.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
What do you want to be when you grow up, Libra? What's that you say? You firmly believe you are already all grown up? I hope not! In my vision of your destiny, you will always keep evolving and transforming; you will ceaselessly transcend your existing successes and push on to accomplish further breakthroughs and victories. Now would be an excellent time to rededicate yourself to this noble aspiration. I invite you to dream and scheme about three specific wonders and marvels you would like to experience during the next five years.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has advice that would serve you well in the coming weeks. She says, "Keep a little space in your heart for the improbable. You won't regret it." In accordance with your astrological potentials, I'm inclined to amend her statement as follows: "Keep a sizable space in your heart for the improbable. You'll be rewarded with catalytic revelations and intriguing opportunities." To attract blessings in abundance, Scorpio, be willing to set aside some of your usual skepticism and urge for control.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Author Malidoma Somé lives in the U.S. now, but was born in the West African country of Burkina Faso. He writes, "In the culture of my people, the Dagara, we have no word for the supernatural. The closest we come to this concept is Yielbongura, 'the thing that knowledge can't eat.' This word suggests that the life and power of certain things depend upon their resistance to the categorizing knowledge that human beings apply to everything." I bring Somé's thoughts to your attention, Sagittarius, because I suspect that in the coming weeks, you will encounter more than the usual number of experiences that knowledge can't eat. They might at times be a bit spooky or confounding, but will mostly be interesting and fun. I'm guessing that if you embrace them, they will liberate you from overly literal and materialistic ideas about how the world works. And that will be good for your soul.
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BRAINSTORM ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE
with my Expanded Audio Horoscopes for the Second Half of 2020.
In the coming months, what areas of your life are likely to receive unexpected assistance and divine inspiration?
Where are you likely to find most success?
How can you best cooperate with the cosmic rhythms?
What questions should you be asking?
To hear my LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST, register and/or sign in here:
RealAstrology.com
After you log in through the main page, click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2020."
You can also listen to your short-term forecast for the coming week by clicking on "This week (June 30, 2020)."
The horoscopes cost $6 apiece. Discounts are available for multiple purchases.
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CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Pioneer Capricorn scientist Isaac Newton is often hailed as one of history's greatest geniuses. I agree that his intellectual capacities were sublime. But his emotional intelligence was sparse and feeble. During the time he taught at Cambridge University, his talks were so affectless and boring that many of his students skipped most of his classes. I'll encourage you to make Newton your anti-role model for the next eight weeks. This time will be favorable for you to increase your mastery of three kinds of intelligence beyond the intellectual kind: feeling, intuition, and collaboration.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
When future writer (and Aquarius) Charles Dickens was 12 years old, his parents and siblings got incarcerated in a debtors' prison. To stay alive and help his family, he took a job working 12 hours a day, six days a week, pasting labels on pots of boot polish in a rotting, rat-infested warehouse. Hard times! Yet the experiences he had there later provided him with rich material for the novels that ultimately made him wealthy and beloved. In predicting that you, too, will have future success at capitalizing on difficulty, I don't mean to imply you've endured or will endure anything as harsh as Dickens' ordeal. I'm just hoping to help you appreciate the motivating power of your challenging experiences.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Maybe you feel that the ongoing pandemic has inhibited your ability to explore and deepen intimacy to the degree that would like to. But even if that's the case, the coming weeks will provide openings that could soften and remedy your predicament. So be extra receptive and alert to the clues that life reveals to you. And call on your imagination to look for previously unguessed and unexpected ways to reinvent togetherness and tenderness. Let's call the next three weeks your Season of Renewing Rapport.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Aries author Marge Piercy writes, "The people I love the best, jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows." The Aries people I love best will do just that in the coming days. Now is not the right time to wait around passively, lazily hoping that something better will come along. Nor is it prudent to procrastinate or postpone decisions while shopping around for more options or collecting more research. Dive, Aries, dive!
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip by Bill Watterson. It features a boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. In the first panel of one story, Calvin is seated at a school desk looking perplexed as he studies a question on a test, which reads "Explain [Isaac] Newton's First Law of Motion in your own words." In the second panel, Calvin has a broad smile, suddenly imbued with inspiration. In the third panel, he writes his response to the test question: "Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz." The fourth panel shows him triumphant and relaxed, proclaiming, "I love loopholes." I propose that you use this scenario as your victorious metaphor in the coming weeks, Taurus. Look for loopholes! And use them to overcome obstacles and solve riddles.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
"It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves," wrote philosopher and activist Simone Weil. I'm hoping that this horoscope of mine can help you avoid that mistake. In the coming weeks and months, you will have a stronger-than-usual need to be seen for who you really are—to have your essential nature be appreciated and understood by people you care about. And the best way to make sure that happens is to work hard right now on seeing, appreciating, and understanding yourself.
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HOMEWORK:
Decide on three special words that will from now on serve as magic spells for you. Keep them secret! Don't even tell me. FreeWillAstrology.com
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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 2020 Rob Brezsny
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