Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
June 13, 2018
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: https://bit.ly/YourExcellentStory
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FEELING FOREVER AMAZED
"If everything seems under control," said auto racer Mario Andretti,
"you're probably not moving fast enough."
I second that emotion. It applies to the entire human race, which is
swirling through evolutionary tipping points at an accelerating speed. But
it's doubly apropos for you spiritual freedom fighters and renegade
bodhisattvas, because you're the vanguard shock troops fighting to
merge heaven with earth.
For your edification and amusement, we will add three corollaries to
Andretti's wisdom: 1. If you're not pretty much always half-confused,
most likely you're not thinking deeply enough. 2. If you're not feeling
forever amazed, maybe you're not seeing wildly enough. 3. The truth is
fluid, slippery, vagrant, scrambled, promiscuous, kaleidoscopic, and
outrageously abundant.
How might you go about using these tricks to marinate yourself in a
gentle state of discerning bliss on a regular basis?
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UNIMAGINED FORMS OF FREEDOM
"The people of future generations will win many a liberty of which we do
not yet even feel the want," said German philosopher Max Stirner. See if
you can become aware of an interesting freedom that has not previously
been on your radar screen.
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DOES THE WORD "FAITH" HAVE ANY MEANING TO YOU?
Here's Caroline Myss' explanation of faith: "Faith is the power to stand up
to the madness and chaos of the physical world while holding the position
that nothing external has any authority over what heaven has in mind for
you."
If you don't like the word "heaven" in Myss' statement, substitute a term
that works for you, like "your higher self" or "your destiny" or "your
soul's code."
Modify anything else in it that's not right for your needs, as well. When
you're finished tinkering, I hope you'll have created a definition of faith
that motivates you with as much primal power as you feel when you're in
love.
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WANT TO GET YOUR ASTROLOGICAL CHART READ?
If you want your personal chart done, I recommend a colleague whose
approach to reading astrology charts closely matches my own. She's my
wife, RO LOUGHRAN. She's at http://www.roloughran.com.
Ro utilizes a blend of well-trained intuition, emotional warmth, and
technical proficiency in horoscope interpretation. She is skilled at
exploring the mysteries of your life's purpose and nurturing your
connection with your own inner wisdom.
In addition to over 30 years of astrological experience, Ro has been a
licensed psychotherapist for 17 years. She integrates psychological
insight with astrology's cosmological perspective.
Ro is based in California, but can do phone consultations and otherwise
work with you regardless of geographic boundaries.
Check out Ro's website at http://www.roloughran.com
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CULTIVATING INSPIRATION
Poet Kay Ryan told the Christian Science Monitor how she cultivates the
inspiration to write. She rouses the sense of a "self-imposed emergency,"
thereby calling forth psychic resources that usually materialize only in
response to a crisis.
Please note that she doesn't provoke an actual emergency: She doesn't
arrange to have a loved one get pinned beneath the wheels of a car. She
doesn't climb out onto the window ledge on the 22nd story of a high-rise.
Instead, she visualizes hypothetical situations that galvanize her to shift
into a dramatically heightened state of awareness.
What imagined emergencies could you invoke to inspire your deep self to
rise up and make its mark?
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YOU ARE CIRCLING
I love this excerpt from "The Seeker," a poem by Rilke in his Book of
Hours (translated by Robert Bly): "I am circling around God, around the
ancient tower, / and I have been circling for a thousand years, / and I still
don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, / or a great song."
Here's my own permutation: "I am circling around love, around the
throbbing hum, and I have been circling for thousands of days, and I still
don't know if I am a wounded saint, or a rainy dawn, or a creation story."
Compose your own version.
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DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL FUN
The Doctrine of Original Sin? We spit on it. We reject it. We renounce it
and forget it and annihilate it from reality. In its place we embrace the
Doctrine of Original Fun.
This reformulation asserts that it is our birthright to commune with
regular doses of curious beauty and tricky truth and insurrectionary love.
A robust, heroic joy is even now roaring through us, bringing us good
ideas about how to apply the metaphor of ingenious foreplay to
everything we do.
We will not waste this euphoric deluge on any of the million and one
numbing little diversions that pass for pleasure among the ecstasy-
starved pursuers of mediocre joy. Rather, we will remain ever alert for the
call of primordial delight.
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COMPASSION THERAPY
If you're reading this, you're probably not a Cambodian orphan who grew
up as a slave in a brothel or a Sudanese man kidnapped by a militia and
forced to do heavy labor 18 hours a day or one of the millions of other
victims of human trafficking around the world. But you may be yoked and
subjugated in a less literal way, perhaps to a debilitating drug or an
abusive relationship or a job that brings out the worst in you or a fearful
fantasy about the looming collapse of civilization's infrastructure.
The good news is that you have the power to escape your bondage.
Maybe it'll help you muster the strength you need if I remind you that
your freedom won't be anywhere near as difficult to achieve as that of
the Pakistani boy tied to a carpet loom in a dark room around the clock or
the Nigerian woman who's beaten daily as she toils in the sugar cane
fields for no pay.
Try this: When you feel overwhelmed by the sadness of your problems or
the addiction of your compulsions, put on your best clothes and clean
toilets at a homeless shelter, or give foot massages to senior citizens at a
retirement home, or sing songs, sip champagne, and play card games with
patients at a psychiatric hospital. Be ready to get hit upside the soul with
exotic varieties of ecstasy, which such acts may unleash.
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DOORWAYS TO ECSTASY
Alice finds her way to Wonderland by falling down a rabbit hole. Dorothy
rides to Oz on a tornado. In C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, Lucy stumbles into the magical land of Narnia via a portal in
the back of a large clothes cabinet.
In the sequels to all these adventures, however, the heroines must find
different ways to access their exotic dreamlands. Alice slips through a
mirror next time. Dorothy uses a Magic Belt. Lucy leaps into a painting of
a schooner that becomes real.
Take heed of these precedents. The next time a threshold opens into an
alternative reality you've enjoyed in the past, it may not resemble the
doorways you've used before.
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LOVE AMONG THE IMAGES
I swear the strange woman standing near me at Los Angeles' Getty
Museum was having an erotic experience as she gazed upon van Gogh's
*Irises*. She was not touching herself, nor was anyone else. But she was
apparently experiencing waves of convulsive delight, as suggested by her
rapid breathing, shivering muscles, fluttering eyelids, and sweaty
forehead.
Fifteen minutes later, I saw her again in front of Jean-Honoré Fragonard's
*The Fountain of Love*. She was only slightly more composed. In a
friendly voice, I said, "This stuff really moves you, doesn't it?" "Oh, yeah,"
she replied, "I've not only learned how to make love with actual flowers
and clouds and fountains, I can even make love with paintings of them."
Do you have any interest in mastering the method in this maestro's
madness? Where will you begin?
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The preceding blips are excerpts from my book
*PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA*
It's available at Amazon: http://bit.ly/Pronoia
or Powells: http://bit.ly/PronoiaPowells
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
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(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.
Read old but still useful archives of Pronoia Resources:
https://pronoiaresources.com
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning June 14
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "Whether you love what you love or live in
divided ceaseless revolt against it, what you love is your fate." Gemini
poet Frank Bidart wrote that in his poem "Guilty of Dust," and now I offer
it to you. Why? Because it's an excellent time to be honest with yourself
as you identify whom and what you love. It's also a favorable phase to
assess whether you are in any sense at odds with whom and what you
love; and if you find you are, to figure out how to be in more harmonic
alignment with whom and what you love. Finally, dear Gemini, now is a key
moment to vividly register the fact that the story of your life in the
coming years will pivot around your relationship with whom and what you
love.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Congratulations on the work you've done to
cleanse the psychic toxins from your soul, Cancerian. I love how brave
you've been as you've jettisoned outworn shticks, inadequate theories,
and irrelevant worries. It makes my heart sing to have seen you summon
the self-respect necessary to stick up for your dreams in the face of so
many confusing signals. I do feel a tinge of sadness that your heroism
hasn't been better appreciated by those around you. Is there anything
you can do to compensate? Like maybe intensify the appreciation you
give yourself?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I hope you're reaching the final stages of your
year-long project to make yourself as solid and steady as possible. I trust
you have been building a stable foundation that will serve you well for at
least the next five years. I pray you have been creating a rich sense of
community and establishing vital new traditions and surrounding yourself
with environments that bring out the best in you. If there's any more
work to be done in these sacred tasks, intensify your efforts in the
coming weeks. If you're behind schedule, please make up for lost time.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Necessity is the mother of invention," says
an old proverb. In other words, when your need for some correction or
improvement becomes overwhelming, you may be driven to get creative.
Engineer Allen Dale put a different spin on the issue. He said that "if
necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness is the father." Sci-fi
writer Robert Heinlein agreed, asserting that "progress is made by lazy
men looking for easier ways to do things." I'm not sure if necessity or
laziness will be your motivation, Virgo, but I suspect that the coming
weeks could be a golden age of invention for you. What practical
innovations might you launch? What useful improvements can you
finagle? (P.S. Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead attributed the primary
drive for innovative ideas and gizmos to "pleasurable intellectual
curiosity.")
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Would you have turned out wiser and wealthier
if you had dropped out of school in third grade? Would it have been
better to apprentice yourself to a family of wolves or coyotes rather than
trusting your educational fate to institutions whose job it was to
acclimate you to society's madness? I'm happy to let you know that
you're entering a phase when you'll find it easier than usual to unlearn any
old conditioning that might be suppressing your ability to fulfill your rich
potentials. I urge you to seek out opportunities to unleash your skills and
enhance your intelligence.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The temptation to overdramatize is strong.
Going through with a splashy but messy conclusion may have a perverse
appeal. But why not wrap things up with an elegant whisper instead of a
garish bang? Rather than impressing everyone with how amazingly
complicated your crazy life is, why not quietly lay the foundations for a
low-key resolution that will set the stage for a productive sequel? Taking
the latter route will be much easier on your karma, and in my opinion will
make for just as interesting a story.
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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 cynical 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.
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to
http://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.
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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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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Each of us harbors rough, vulnerable,
controversial, or unhoned facets of our identity. And every one of us
periodically reaches turning points when it becomes problematic to keep
those qualities buried or immature. We need to make them more visible
and develop their potential. I suspect you have arrived at such a turning
point. So on behalf of the cosmos, I hereby invite you to enjoy a period of
ripening and self-revelation. And I do mean "enjoy." Find a way to have
fun.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): For the next two-plus weeks, an unusual
rule will be in effect: The more you lose, the more you gain. That means
you will have an aptitude for eliminating hassles, banishing stress, and
shedding defense mechanisms. You'll be able to purge emotional
congestion that has been preventing clarity. You'll have good intuitions
about how to separate yourself from influences that have made you weak
or angry. I'm excited for you, Capricorn! A load of old, moldy karma could
dissolve and disperse in what seems like a twinkling. If all goes well, you'll
be traveling much lighter by July 1.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I suggest you avoid starting a flirtatious
correspondence with a convict who'll be in jail for another 28 years. OK?
And don't snack on *fugu,* the Japanese delicacy that can poison you if
the cook isn't careful about preparing it. Please? And don't participate in
a séance where the medium summons the spirits of psychotic ancestors
or diabolical celebrities with whom you imagine it might be interesting to
converse. Got that? I understand you might be in the mood for high
adventure and out-of-the-ordinary escapades. And that will be fine and
healthy as long as you also exert a modicum of caution and discernment.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I suggest that you pat yourself on the back
with both hands as you sing your own praises and admire your own willful
beauty in three mirrors simultaneously. You have won stirring victories
over not just your own personal version of the devil, but also over your
own inertia and sadness. From what I can determine, you have corralled
what remains of the forces of darkness into a comfy holding cell, sealing
off those forces from your future. They won't bother you for a very long
time, maybe never again. Right now you would benefit from a sabbatical --
a vacation from all this high-powered character-building. May I suggest
you pay a restorative visit to the Land of Sweet Nonsense?
ARIES (March 21-April 19): My Aries acquaintance Tatiana decided to
eliminate sugar from her diet. She drew up a plan to avoid it completely
for 30 days, hoping to permanently break its hold over her. I was
surprised to learn that she began the project by making a Dessert Altar in
her bedroom, where she placed a chocolate cake and five kinds of candy.
She testified that it compelled her willpower to work even harder and
become even stronger than if she had excluded all sweet treats from her
sight. Do you think this strenuous trick might work for you as you battle
your own personal equivalent of a sugar addiction? If not, devise an
equally potent strategy. You're on the verge of forever escaping a
temptation that's no good for you. Or you're close to vanquishing an
influence that has undermined you. Or both.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You have caressed and finessed The Problem.
You have tickled and teased and tinkered with it. Now I suggest you let it
alone for a while. Give it breathing room. Allow it to evolve under the
influence of the tweaks you have instigated. Although you may need to
return and do further work in a few weeks, my guess is that The
Problem's knots are now destined to metamorphose into seeds. The
awkwardness you massaged with your love and care will eventually yield a
useful magic.
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Homework: Many of us try to motivate ourselves through abusive self-
criticism. Do you? If so, maybe it's time to change. Testify at
Freewillastrology.com.
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Submissions sent to Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
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published in a variety of formats at Rob Brezsny's discretion,
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2018 Rob Brezsny
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