Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
October 31, 2018
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See a pretty version of this newsletter: https://bit.ly/YouKnowHowToLive
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Read past issues of the newsletter:
https://bit.ly/YouKnowHowToLove
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VOWS
I invite you to speak these vows out loud:
"As long as I live, I vow to die and be reborn, die and be reborn, die and
be reborn, over and over again, forever reinventing myself.
"I promise to be stronger than hate, wetter than water, deeper than the
abyss, and wilder than the sun.
"I pledge to remember that I am not only a sweating, half-asleep,
excitable, bumbling jumble of desires, but that I am also an immortal four-
dimensional messiah in continuous telepathic touch with all of creation.
"I vow to love and honor my highs and my lows my yeses and noes, my
give and my take, the life I wish I had and the life I actually have.
"I promise to push hard to get better and smarter, grow my devotion to
the truth, fuel my commitment to beauty, refine my emotions, hone my
dreams, wrestle with my shadow, purge my ignorance, and soften my
heart -- even as I always accept myself for exactly who I am, with all of
my so-called foibles and wobbles."
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GREAT AWAKENING
Civilization may be unraveling in a lot of areas; some of its structures may
be collapsing; but it is also in the midst of a tremendous upheaval of
creativity -- a flood of innovation and genius and love pouring out of
millions upon millions of people -- a Great Awakening that is far louder and
stronger and more interesting than the sleepy resignation and corrosive
maliciousness and ignominious decline that the media loves to obsess on.
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GO LIGHTLY
Aldous Huxley was the renowned 20th-century intellectual who wrote the
book *Brave New World*, a dystopian vision of the future. Later in his life
he came to regret one thing: how "preposterously serious" he had been
when he was younger. "There are quicksands all about you, sucking at
your feet," he ruminated, "trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity
and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling . . .
Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling
deeply."
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"When Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh was invited to the San Francisco
Zen Center, the students asked him what they could do to improve their
practice. He had entered a monastery at age sixteen, was an ordained
monk, and had endured the horrors of the war in Vietnam. I imagine they
expected some rigorous prescription for deepening their spiritual life.
"Thich Nhat Han's response: 'You guys get up too early for one thing; you
should get up a little later. And your practice is too grim. I have just two
instructions for you. One is to breathe, and one is to smile.'"
- from *True Refuge*, by Tara Brach.
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GRATEFUL ANGER
A conversation between two of the characters in my book *The
Televisionary Oracle* (https://bit.ly/Televisionary):
"Remember, there is a difference between grateful anger and
dehumanizing hatred," he shouted above the din.
"What do you mean?" I yelled back.
"Grateful anger is good darkness. Dehumanizing hatred is bad darkness."
"More clues, please."
"Grateful anger flows when you have engaged and studied your shadow.
Dehumanizing hatred flows when you have ignored and denied your
shadow. One is fertile, the other hysterical."
A mathematical formula: I liked that. I assumed he meant the shadow that
Carl Jung described. The unripe and unillumined corners of the soul.
He continued: "Grateful anger is when you feel thankful for the irritating
people and sickening situations that have spurred you to clarity and
righteous action. Dehumanizing hatred is when you are so in love with
your terrible emotion that you forget what needs to be changed and turn
yourself into your enemy."
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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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What if the Creator is like the poet Rainer Maria Rilke's God: "like a
webbing made of a hundred roots, that drink in silence"? What if the
Source of All Life inhabits both the dark and the light, heals with strange
splendor as much as with sweet insight, is hermaphroditic and
omnisexual?
What if the Source loves to give you riddles that push you past the
boundaries of your understanding, forcing you to change the ways you
think about everything? What if, as Rusty Morrison speculates in Poetry
Flash, "the sublime can only be glimpsed by pressing through fear's
boundary, beyond one's previous conceptions of the beautiful"?
Close your eyes and imagine you can sense the presence of this tender,
marvelous, difficult, entertaining intelligence.
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
All the Pronoiac resources below come from the wonderful site, Celebrate
Small Victories:
https://www.celebratesmallvictories.com/archives/
A judge threw out key provisions of Missouri's voter ID law, making this
the ninth consecutive win for Priorities USA in their fight against state
voter suppression laws.
With help from volunteers from BGTX, Texas saw nearly 400,000 people
register to vote since March, a record four times the average yearly
number.
Uber is joining Lyft in offering free rides to voters on November 6th. If
you or anyone you know needs help getting to the polls, click here or
here.
Seattle is dismissing over 500 misdemeanor marijuana convictions after a
court ruled that they unfairly impacted people of color.
Washington became the 20th state to abolish the death penalty,
following a unanimous ruling by the state's Supreme Court.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from
terminating TPS protections, allowing roughly 300,000 immigrants from
Nicaragua, Sudan, Haiti, and El Salvador to live and work in the U.S.
In response to a petition brought by environmental and public health
groups, seven synthetic food additives that were found to cause cancer
have been banned by the FDA.
Rev. William J. Barber was awarded a MacArthur Genius grant… the same
day he was arrested while demonstrating with workers in Chicago to
demand higher wages and union rights.
The minimum wage for 40,000 airport workers in New York City will rise
to $19 per hour over the next five years, becoming the country's highest
minimum wage set by a public agency.
And after years of organizing by workers, and months of pressure from
Bernie Sanders, Amazon announced it is raising the minimum wage to $15
an hour for more than 250,0000 workers. While this is good news, just a
day later, Amazon pulled this shady move, so there's still more work to be
done.
Following pressure from the Rainforest Action Network and Sum of Us,
PepsiCo and Nestlé are cutting ties with palm oil supplier IndoFood due to
ongoing environmental and labor violations.
Publicly traded companies in California will now be required to have at
least one woman on their board of directors of directors by next year.
A group of Latina women have created an underground network to
protect immigrant women from domestic violence.
The ban on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon will be preserved, now
that the Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought by the mining
industry.
(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 November 1
Copyright 2018 by Rob Brezsny
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Penetralia" is a word that means the
innermost or most private parts, the most secret and mysterious places.
It's derived from the same Latin term that evolved into the word
"penetrate." You Scorpios are of course the zodiac's masters of
penetralia. More than any other sign, you're likely to know where the
penetralia are, as well as how to get to them and what to do when you
get to them. I suspect that this tricky skill will come in extra handy during
the coming weeks. I bet your intimate adeptness with penetralia will bring
you power, fun, and knowledge.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian poet Rainer Maria Rilke
suggested that we cultivate an alertness for the ever-present possibility
of germination and gestation. On a regular basis, he advised, we should
send probes down into the darkness, into our unconscious minds, to
explore for early signs of awakening. And when we discover the forces of
renewal stirring there in the depths, we should be humble and reverent
toward them, understanding that they are as-yet beyond the reach of our
ability to understand. We shouldn't seek to explain and define them at
first, but simply devote ourselves to nurturing them. Everything I just said
is your top assignment in the coming weeks.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You're in a phase of your cycle when your
influence is at a peak. People are more receptive than usual to your ideas
and more likely to want the same things you do. Given these conditions, I
think the best information I can offer you is the following meditation by
Capricorn activist Martin Luther King Jr. "Power without love is reckless
and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at
its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its
best is power correcting everything that stands against love."
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian environmentalist Edward Abbey
spent much of his life rambling around in the great outdoors. He was an
emancipated spirit who regarded the natural world as the only church he
needed. In an eruption of ecstatic appreciation, he once testified that
"Life is a joyous dance through daffodils beneath cerulean blue skies and
then, then what? I forget what happens next." And yet the truth is,
Abbey was more than a wild-hearted Dionysian explorer in the wilderness.
He found the discipline and diligence to write 23 books! I mention this,
Aquarius, because now is a perfect time for you to be like the disciplined
and diligent and productive version of Abbey.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): For renowned Piscean visual artist Anne Truitt
(1921–2004), creating her work was high adventure. She testified that
artists like her had "to catapult themselves wholly, without holding back
one bit, into a course of action without having any idea where they will
end up. They are like riders who gallop into the night, eagerly leaning on
their horse's neck, peering into a blinding rain." Whether or not you're an
artist, Pisces, I suspect your life in the coming weeks may feel like the
process she described. And that's a good thing! A fun thing! Enjoy your
ride.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You have officially arrived at the heart of the
most therapeutic phase of your cycle. Congratulations! It's an excellent
time to fix what's wrong, hurt, or distorted. You will attract more help
than you can imagine if you summon an aggressive approach toward
finding antidotes and cures. A good way to set the tone for your
aggressive determination to feel better is to heed this advice from poet
Maya Angelou: "Take a day to heal from the lies you've told yourself and
the ones that have been told to you."
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THOUGHTFUL OPTIMISM
Some people regard me as more of a cheerleader and motivator than an
impartial reporter. They think I downplay the pain and embellish the gain
that awaits you.
There's a grain of truth in that. Now and then I may imply that paradise is
nigh when in fact the suburbs of paradise are a more realistic goal. But I
view my optimism as a healing counterbalance to the absurdly
exaggerated doses of discouraging news you hear almost everywhere else
you go.
I you ever want more of that good stuff, beyond the horoscopes you're
reading here, keep in mind that evey week I also create EXPANDED AUDIO
HOROSCOPES for you. They're four-to-five-minute meditations on the
current state of your destiny.
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
https://freewillastrology.sparkns.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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TAURUS (April 20-May 20): U2's singer Bono, born under the sign of
Taurus, says that all of us suffer from the sense that something's missing
from our lives. We imagine that we lack an essential quality or experience,
and its absence makes us feel sad and insufficient. French philosopher
Blaise Pascal referred to this emptiness as "a God-shaped hole." Bono
adds that "you can never completely fill that hole," but you may find
partial fixes through love and sex, creative expression, family, meaningful
work, parenting, activism, and spiritual devotion. I bring this to your
attention, Taurus, because I have a strong suspicion that in the coming
weeks you will have more power to fill your God-shaped hole than you've
had in a long time.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "Most of our desires are clichés, right? Ready
to wear, one size fits all. I doubt if it's even possible to have an original
desire anymore." So says a character in Gemini author Tobias Wolff's
short story "Sanity." Your assignment in the coming weeks, Gemini, is to
refute and rebel against this notion. The cosmic rhythms will work in your
favor to the degree that you cultivate innovative yearnings and unique
urges. I hope you'll make it your goal to have the experiences necessary
to stir up an outbreak of original desires.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you're a typical member of the Cancerian
tribe, you're skilled at responding constructively when things go wrong.
Your intelligence rises up hot and strong when you get sick or rejected or
burned. But if you're a classic Crab, you have less savvy in dealing with
triumphs. You may sputter when faced with splashy joy, smart praise, or
lucky breaks. But everything I just said is meant to be a challenge, not a
curse. One of the best reasons to study astrology is to be aware of the
potential shortcomings of your sign so you can outwit and overcome
them. That's why I think that eventually you'll evolve to the point where
you won't be a bit flustered when blessings arrive. And the immediate
future will bring you excellent opportunities to upgrade your response to
good fortune.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "Each of us needs something of an island in her
life," said poet John Keats. "If not an actual island, at least some place, or
space in time, in which to be herself, free to cultivate her differences
from others." According to my reading of the astrological omens, Leo,
you'll be wise to spend extra time on your own island in the next two
weeks. Solitude is unlikely to breed unpleasant loneliness, but will instead
inspire creative power and evoke inner strength. If you don't have an
island yet, go in search! (P.S.: I translated Keats' pronouns into the
feminine gender.)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I'm rooting for you to engage in experimental
intimacy, Virgo. I hope you'll have an affinity for sweet blends and
incandescent mixtures and arousing juxtapositions. To get in the right
mood for this playful work, you could read love poetry and listen to
uplifting songs that potentize your urge to merge. Here are a few lyrical
passages to get you warmed up. 1. "Your flesh quivers against mine like
moonlight on the sea." —Julio Cortázar 2. "When she smiles like that she
is as beautiful as all my secrets. —Anne Carson 3. "My soul is alight with
your infinitude of stars . . . The flowers of your garden blossom in my
body." —Rabindranath Tagore 4. "I can only find you by looking deeper,
that's how love leads us into the world." —Anne Michaels
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Of course I want you to have more money. I'd
love for you to buy experiences that expand your mind, deepen your
emotional intelligence, and foster your ability to create inspiring forms of
togetherness. My soul would celebrate if you got access to new wealth
that enabled you to go in quest of spiritual fun and educational
adventures. On the other hand, I wouldn't be thrilled about you spending
extra cash on trivial desires or fancy junk you don't really need. Here's
why I feel this way: to the extent that you seek more money to pursue
your most righteous cravings, you're likely to get more money.
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Homework: What gifts and blessings do you want? Express your
outrageous demands and humble requests. Freewillastrology.com.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2018 Rob Brezsny
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