Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
September 30, 2020
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See a pretty version of this newsletter:
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Dear Readers
You've been so extraordinarily kind to me lately! Thank you for your
generous donations and beautiful notes!
Here's the backstory: In my last newsletter, I spoke of how the alternative
weekly newspapers have been paying me to publish "Free Will Astrology"
for many years. That has been my main way of earning a living.
But since the pandemic began, many of those newspapers have suffering
financially.
In response, I allowed them to publish my horoscopes for free for three
months, and then, since July, have given them the option of paying what
they could afford.
About one-third of the papers have returned to paying me at their
previous level; about a third have paid half; about a third are still
publishing the column for free.
This means, of course, that my income has been substantially reduced.
In response, many of you readers stepped forward to send me actual
money. I've been amazed at your largesse! So many of you have also
written me messages to express how much you love my work. I've been
touched by the deep feelings you've conveyed.
At the risk of asking too much, I will remind you of the ways you can
contribute to me:
1. Visit my Gift Page — https://paypal.me/GiftsForRob — and contribute
to me now and then via the "Friends and Family" option.
2. Commit to offering me a regular donation through my Patreon page at
https://Patreon.com/FreeWillAstrology
3. Send checks or cash to me at P.O. Box 4400, San Rafael, CA 94913.
4. Buy my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and/or Daily Text Message
Horoscopes. Go here: https://RealAstrology.com
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P.S.: No pressure, though! I understand that some of you don't have enough
money yourself, and it wouldn't make sense for you to give some to me.
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BLESS YOURSELF
You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own
blessings.
— Elizabeth Gilbert
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THE DOOR YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO OPEN
If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through,"
writes novelist Anne Lamott, "you must. Otherwise, you'll just be
rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in."
Is it perhaps your time to slip through that forbidden door? The
experiences that await you on the other side may not be everything you
have always needed, but they could at least be everything you need next.
Besides, it's not like the taboo against penetrating into the unknown place
makes much sense any more. The biggest risk you take by breaking the
spell is the possibility of losing a fear you've grown addicted to.
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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."
"I pledge to wake myself up, never hold back, have nothing to lose, go all
the way, kiss the stormy sky, be the hero of my own story, ask for
everything I need and give everything I have, take myself to the river
when it's time to go to the river, and take myself to the mountaintop when
it's time to go to the mountaintop."
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RECEPTIVITY REMEDIES
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.
More: https://bit.ly/1KDBQST
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GOOD PROBLEMS
Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place
you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is
allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been
previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which
doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of a maxim.
There's a bit of truth in that perspective. But it's clear that stress also
accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us
smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain. We're all prone to become
habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without
rousing any of our sleeping genius.
There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty—let's call it the
delightful dilemma—that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the
contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when you're
feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of
writing my books is a good example. I have abundant fun handling the
perplexing challenges with which they confront me.
Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile.
Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your
predominant mood. Consider the possibility that being in unsettling
circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the riddles you need
most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions when you're
preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or demeaning
annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.
Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack
for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More
and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain.
You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of
your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before
you're forced to do so by fate's kicks in the ass.
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WHERE THE SPIRITUAL MEETS THE PRACTICAL
"How does my spiritual practice and daily life serve the earth? How does
my spiritual practice and daily life affect the poorest third of humanity?
How will my spiritual practice and daily life affect the generations to
come in the future?"
~ Starhawk
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IN SERVICE TO THE LIBERATED IMAGINATION
My horoscopes are not rooted in or justified by any belief system,
doctrine, fairy tale, authoritative teacher, elaborate secret joke, mystical
wishing, well-rationalized bias, or rebellion against science. My
horoscopes are fueled by poetry and in service to the liberated
imagination.
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THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF MY BOOK
*PRONOIA* AND THE REVISED EDITION
I published the original version of MY BOOK *Pronoia Is the Antidote for
Paranoia: How the Whole Wolrd is Conspiring to Shower You with
Blessings* in 2005. For my next big writing project, I might have chosen
to write a sequel. But instead I opted to fatten up the first edition.
The Revised and Expanded edition of *PRONOIA*, which came out four
years later, is MUCH fatter. It has 55% brand new extra material, or 92
more pages and 63,000 additional words -- the size of a whole new book.
There are 17 totally new pieces. It also has amplified and intensified
versions of many of the central pieces of the original book, including
"This Is a Perfect Moment," "Glory in the Highest," "World Kiss," and "I
Me Wed," the ceremony for you to use if you want to marry yourself.
I got especially pumped up and carried away while revising "Glory in the
Highest," which is a manifesto celebrating the everyday miracles we take
for granted, the uncanny powers we possess, the small joys that occur so
routinely we forget how much they mean to us, and the steady flow of
benefits bestowed on us by people we know and don’t know.
In the new edition of the book, "Glory in the Highest" is eight times longer
than in the original. Read it: https://tinyurl.com/yxpvw23j. Hear a short
version of it: https://bit.ly/highestglory
The Revised and Expanded edition of *PRONOIA* also has 14 brand new
Sacred Advertisements. Don't worry -- if you're new to *PRONOIA* --
the Sacred Ads aren't real ads. Here's an example:
"This perfect moment is brought to you by the imaginary lightning bolts
you can shoot out the ends of your fingers anytime you want to."
Like the 2005 edition, the revised and expanded *PRONOIA* has an
abundance of space for you to write and scrawl and draw your responses to
what you read. It's designed to make you my collaborator as we conspire
together to incite the Great Awakening.
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The book is available at Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaBN
Available at Amazon: https://bit.ly/Pronoia
A free preview of the book is available here:
https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaPreview
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MY DAILY HOROSCOPES
Some people don't know that I write daily horoscopes, available as text
messages sent to your cell or smart 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 https://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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ALL I EVER WANTED
All I ever wanted in life was to make a difference, conquer the universe,
travel the world, meet interesting people, find the missing link, fight the
good fight, live for the moment, seize each day, make a fortune, know what
really matters, end world hunger, vanquish the dragon, be super popular
but too cool to care, be master of my own fate, embrace my destiny, feel as
much as I can feel, give too much, and love everything.
—Tatsuya Ishida
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
5 Great Things We Should Never Forget About Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
https://tinyurl.com/yy33kzo3
Women are better at expressing emotions, right? It's not that simple.
P.S.: Deeper listening is the key to healthier, more engaged lives.
https://tinyurl.com/hp2wftt
18 Amazing Street Murals In Detroit.
https://tinyurl.com/nzru2wy
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For a lot more pronoiac resources and ideas, read my book *Pronoia Is the
Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole Wolrd is Conspiring to Shower You
with Blessings*
Available at Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaBN
Available at Amazon: https://bit.ly/Pronoia
A free preview of the book is available here:
https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaPreview
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
October 1
Copyright 2020 by Rob Brezsny
https://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In her high school yearbook, Libra-born
Sigourney Weaver arranged to have this caption beneath her official
photo: "Please, God, please, don't let me be normal!" Since then, she has
had a long and acclaimed career as an actor in movies. ScreenPrism.com
calls her a pioneer of female action heroes. Among her many exotic roles:
a fierce warrior who defeats monstrous aliens; an exobiologist working
with indigenous people on the moon of a distant planet in the 22nd
century; and a naturalist who lives with mountain gorillas in Rwanda. If
you have ever had comparable fantasies about transcending normalcy,
Libra, now would be a good time to indulge those fantasies—and begin
cooking up plans to make them come true.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio-born Prince Charles has been heir
to the British throne for 68 years. That's an eternity to be patiently on
hold for his big chance to serve as king. His mother Queen Elizabeth just
keeps going on and on, living her very long life, ensuring that Charles
remains second-in-command. But I suspect that many Scorpios who have
been awaiting their turn will finally graduate to the next step in the
coming weeks and months. Will Charles be one of them? Will you? To
increase your chances, here's a tip: Meditate on how to be of even greater
devotion to the ideals you love to serve.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Inventor Buckminster Fuller was a
visionary who loved to imagine ideas and objects no one had ever dreamed
of before. One of his mottoes was, "There is nothing in a caterpillar that
tells you it’s going to be a butterfly." I recommend that you spend quality
time in the coming weeks meditating on butterfly-like things you'd love to
have as part of your future—things that may resemble caterpillars in the
early going. Your homework is to envision three such innovations that
could be in your world by October 1, 2021.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): During World War II, Hollywood
filmmakers decided it would be a good idea to create stories based on
graphic current events: for example, American Marines waging pitched
battles against Japanese soldiers on South Pacific islands. But audiences
were cool to that approach. They preferred comedies and musicals with
"no message, no mission, no misfortune." In the coming weeks, I advise
you to resist any temptation you might have to engage in a similar
disregard of current events. In my opinion, your mental health requires
you to be extra discerning and well-informed about politics—and so does
the future of your personal destiny.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "Pretending is imagined possibility,"
observes actor Meryl Streep. "Pretending is a very valuable life skill and
we do it all the time." In other words, fantasizing about events that may
never happen is just one way we use our mind's eye. We also wield our
imaginations to envision scenarios that we actually want to create in our
real lives. In fact, that's the first step in actualizing those scenarios: to
play around with picturing them; to pretend they will one day be a literal
part of our world. The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to
supercharge the generative aspect of your imagination. I encourage you to
be especially vivid and intense as you visualize in detail the future you
want.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "My own soul must be a bright invisible
green," wrote author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Novelist Tom
Robbins suggested that we visualize the soul as "a cross between a wolf
howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses." Nobel Prize-winning poet
Wislawa Szymborska observed, "Joy and sorrow aren’t two different
feelings" for the soul. Poet Emily Dickinson thought that the soul "should
always stand ajar"—just in case an ecstatic experience or rousing
epiphany might be lurking in the vicinity. In the coming weeks, Pisces, I
invite you to enjoy your own lively meditations on the nature of your soul.
You're in a phase when such an exploration can yield interesting results.
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EXTRA BONUS SUPPORT
Since I put all my heart and soul into the written horoscopes I send out in
this newsletter, they're pretty nutritious. You may never need any of the
other stuff I create.
But if you ever do crave an added boost, you may want to sample my
Expanded Audio Horoscopes. They're different in tone and intent than the
written scopes, imbued with a little more of the psychologist in me, and a
little less of the poet.
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to To listen to your
Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to https://RealAstrology.com
Register and/or log in through the main page.
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The cost is $6 per sign online. (Discounts are available for bulk
purchases.)
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888. The cost
is $1.99 per minute. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
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"Your expanded horoscopes get more personal and intimate with me than
some of my closest friends. Thanks for the loving reflections."
—Ari Schlectman., Ann Arbor, MI
"When I listen to your audio 'scopes, my free will lights up."
—Alex Denares., Los Angeles
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ARIES (March 21-April 19): "I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to
rule myself," wrote 16th-century author Pietro Aretino. By January
2021, Aries, I would love for you to have earned the right to make a
similar statement: "I am, indeed, a royal sovereign, because I know how to
rule myself." Here's the most important point: The robust power and clout
you have the potential to summon has nothing to do with power and clout
over other people—only over yourself. Homework: Meditate on what it
means to be the imperial boss and supreme monarch of your own fate.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): "The basic principle of spiritual life is that
our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love."
Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield made that brilliant observation. It's
always worth meditating on, but it's an especially potent message for you
during the first three weeks of October 2020. In my view, now is a highly
favorable time for you to extract uplifting lessons by dealing forthrightly
with your knottiest dilemmas. I suspect that these lessons could prove
useful for the rest of your long life.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "My business is to love," wrote poet Emily
Dickinson. I invite you to adopt this motto for the next three weeks. It's an
excellent time to intensify your commitment to expressing compassion,
empathy, and tenderness. To do so will not only bring healing to certain
allies who need it; it will also make you smarter. I mean that literally.
Your actual intelligence will expand and deepen as you look for and
capitalize on opportunities to bestow blessings. (P.S. Dickinson also
wrote, "My business is to sing." I recommend you experiment with that
mandate, as well.)
CANCER (June 21-July 22): "I’m the diamond in the dirt, that ain’t been
found," sings Cancerian rapper Curtis Jackson, also known as 50 Cent.
"I’m the underground king and I ain’t been crowned," he adds. My reading
of the astrological omens suggests that a phenomenon like that is going on
in your life right now. There's something unknown about you that
deserves and needs to be known. You're not getting the full credit and
acknowledgment you've earned through your soulful accomplishments. I
hereby authorize you to take action! Address this oversight. Rise up and
correct it.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The author bell hooks (who doesn't capitalize her
name) has spent years as a professor in American universities.
Adaptability has been a key strategy in her efforts to educate her students.
She writes, "One of the things that we must do as teachers is twirl around
and around, and find out what works with the situation that we're in."
That's excellent advice for you right now—in whatever field you're in. Old
reliable formulas are irrelevant, in my astrological opinion. Strategies
that have guided you in the past may not apply to the current scenarios.
Your best bet is to twirl around and around as you experiment to find out
what works.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "Your relationship with yourself sets the tone
for every other relationship you have," says motivational speaker Robert
Holden. Hallelujah and amen! Ain't that the truth! Which is why it's so
crucial to periodically take a thorough inventory of your relationship
with yourself. And guess what, Virgo: Now would be a perfect time to do so.
Even more than that: During your inventory, if you discover ways in
which you treat yourself unkindly or carelessly, you can generate
tremendous healing energy by working to fix the glitches. The coming
weeks could bring pivotal transformations in your bonds with others if
you're brave enough to make pivotal transformations in your bonds with
yourself.
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Homework: Make up a song that cheers you up and inspires your
excitement about the future. It doesn't have to be perfect.
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
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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
Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright
2020 Rob Brezsny
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