Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
December 18, 2019
FreeWillAstrology.com
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Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.
—Barbara Kingsolver
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WORLD KISS
All of creation is alive and conscious, and all of creation deserves our burning, churning, yearning love. All of it. Not just the people and creatures and things that we personally find beautiful and helpful and interesting. But everything. All of creation.
If we want to become the gorgeous geniuses we were born to be, if we want to give back as many blessings as we are given, we've got to be in love with every single part of the Goddess's extravagant masterpiece.
And so we can't possibly be mere heterosexuals. We can't possibly be mere homosexuals or bisexuals.
If we want to commune with the world the way the Goddess does, we've got to be Pantheosexuals -- we've got to be experts in the art of Polymorphous Omnidirectional Goddess Nuzzling. Anything less is a lie, an obscene limitation.
With this in mind, I invite you to perform the ritual of the World Kiss. To do the World Kiss, conjure up your most expansive feeling of tenderness -- like what you might experience when you're infatuated with a new lover -- and then blow kisses to all of creation.
Blow kisses to the oak trees and sparrows and elephants and weeds. Blow kisses to the wind and rain and rocks and machines. Blow kisses to the gardens and jails, the cars and the toys. the politicians and saints, to the girls and the boys and every gender in between.
And with each World Kiss you bestow, keep uppermost in your emotions a mood of irreverent adoration and horny compassion. And remember that it's not enough simply to perform the outer gesture; you've got to have a heart-on in each of your seven chakras . . .
Hear or read the rest of this spoken-word song: bit.ly/WorldKisses
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I INVITE YOU
In 2020, I invite you to have an improbable quest playing at the edge of your imagination: a heroic task that provokes deep thoughts and noble passions even if it incites smoldering torment . . . an extravagant dream that's a bit farfetched but not entirely insane . . . a goal that stretches your possibilities and opens your mind . . . a wild hope whose pursuit makes you smarter and stronger even if you never fully accomplish it.
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SO MUCH TO LOVE
There was so much to love, I could not love it all; I could not love it enough.
—Louise Biogan
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ONE OF THE TOP FIVE ASTROLOGERS IN THE WORLD
"Core Spirit" has named me "One of the Top Five Astrologers in the World." The other four: Susan Miller, Michael Lutin, Liz Greene, and Oscar Cainer.
Here's what they say: "Rob Brezsny is one of the world's best astrologers. His website, Free Will Astrology (FreeWillAstrology.com) contains some of the most accurate horoscopes we've ever read. He also serves up some of the best spoken word forecasts we've ever heard.
"Rob Brezsny has developed deep insight into the human experience and he always delivers seeds for contemplation that are just right for the astrological climate. His site is well laid out and the horoscope forecasts are available all on one page as well as on individual pages for each sign of the zodiac.
"In addition to the weekly horoscopes, he serves up a tremendous amount of other original content. Rob has gained the respect of his fellow astrologers for his excellent astrology readings."
Read more: bit.ly/BestAstrologers
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THE HEROIC TRICK OF DISPERSING FEAR
What is the Alchemical Secret of Secrets? The Great Work? The fulfillment of the Quest for the Grail? The possession of the Pearl of Great Price? It may be the heroic trick of dispersing fear: to be clear to experience life without the rumbling subtext of anxiety.
The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that’s at the core of EVERYONE’s struggle.
In my personal story, the cure is most possible as I approach having a relaxed capacity to viscerally perceive the presence of the Universal Consciousness at work in every action everywhere.
Not there yet, but making some progress!
And you? I'm genuinely curious about how you attend to this holy task. Let me know at Truthrooster@gmail.com
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HOWLING TENDERNESS
What use is this howling tenderness?
—eighth-century Tamil poet Andal
Howling tenderness is useful because it has the power to shatter mysterious barriers that have been preventing us from exploring the frontiers of sacred intimacy.
—me
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DEAR BEAUTY AND TRUTH LAB: The chemo treatments burned out all the math skills in my brain, which were already pretty meager. On the other hand, they awakened my ability to feel perfectly at ease while in the midst of paradoxical situations that everyone else finds maddening and uncomfortable.
The chemo also made me ridiculously tolerant of people's contradictions, sometimes even their hypocrisies, and freed me to enjoy life as an entertaining movie with lots of interesting plot twists rather than as a pitched battle between everything I like and everything I don't like. I guess I could say that my cancer helped turn me into a pronoiac!
- The Chaos Artist Formerly Known as Risa Kline
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ADVICE TO MYSELF by Louise Erdrich
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic—decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips
from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it,
don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
- "Advice to Myself" by Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems"
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
In country after country, one of the world’s deadliest diseases—malaria—is being eradicated. In many cases, it’s women leading the fight.
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It was legal teams—not politicians—that ultimately held the tobacco industry to account. Their next target? Perpetrators of climate change.
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The biochar process is ingenious, turning green waste into heat before returning it to the soil as an agricultural nutrient. No wonder it’s turning a profit.
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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.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning December 19
Copyright 2019 by Rob Brezsny
FreeWillAstrology.com
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
"People mistake their limitations for high standards," wrote Capricorn author Jean Toomer. In my astrological opinion, it's crucial that you avoid doing that in 2020. Why? First, I'm quite sure that you will have considerable power to shed and transcend at least some of your limitations. For best results, you can't afford to deceive yourself into thinking that those limitations are high standards. Secondly, Capricorn, you will have good reasons and a substantial ability to raise your standards higher than they've ever been. So you definitely don't want to confuse high standards with limitations.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Historians once thought that 14th-century Englishmen were the first humans to track the rhythms of the planet Jupiter using the complicated mathematics known as calculus. But in 2015, researchers discovered that Babylonians had done it 1400 years before the Englishmen. Why was Jupiter's behavior so important to those ancient people? They were astrologers! They believed the planet's movements were correlated with practical events on earth, like the weather, river levels, and grain harvests. I think that this correction in the origin story of tracking Jupiter's rhythms will be a useful metaphor for you in 2020. It's likely you will come to understand your past in ways that are different from what you've believed up until now. Your old tales will change.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
China produces the most apples in the world. The United States is second. That wasn't always true. When Europeans first reached the shores of the New World, crab apple was the only apple species that grew natively. But the invaders planted other varieties that they brought with them. They also imported the key to all future proliferation: honeybees, champion pollinators, which were previously absent from the land that many indigenous people called Turtle Island. I see 2020 as a time for you to accomplish the equivalent, in your own sphere, of getting the pollination you need. What are the fertilizing influences that will help you accomplish your goals?
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
The English word "hubris" means prideful, exaggerated self-assurance. In the HBO TV series Rome, the ancient Roman politician and general Mark Antony says to his boss Julius Caesar, "I'm glad you're so confident. Some would call it hubris." Caesar has a snappy comeback: "It's only hubris if I fail." I'm tempted to dare you to use you that as one of your mottoes in 2020, Aries. I have a rather expansive vision of your capacity to accomplish great things during the coming months. And I also think that one key to your triumphs and breakthroughs will be your determination to cultivate a well-honed aplomb, even audacity.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
For years I've lived in a house bordering a wetland, and I've come to love that ecosystem more than any other. While communing with reeds and herons and muddy water, my favorite poet has been Taurus-born Lorine Niedecker, who wrote about marshes with supreme artistry. Until the age of 60, her poetic output was less than abundant because she had to earn a meager living by cleaning hospital floors. Then, due to a fortuitous shift in circumstances, she was able to leave that job and devote more time to what she loved most and did best. With Niedecker's breakthrough as our inspiration, I propose that we do all we can, you and I, as we conspire to make 2020 the year you devote more time to the activity that you love most and do best.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
In the English language, the prefix "re" comes at the beginning of many words with potent transformational meaning: reinvent; redeem; rediscover; release; relieve; redesign; resurrect; rearrange; reconstruct; reform; reanimate; reawaken; regain. I hope you'll put words like those at the top of your priority list in 2020. If you hope to take maximum advantage of the cosmic currents, it'll be a year of revival, realignment, and restoration.
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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 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.
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The cost is $6 per sign on the On the Web. (Discounts are available for bulk purchases.) You can also access them for $1.99 per minute by phone
The Expanded Audio Horoscopes work on most smart phones and tablets.
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CANCER (June 21-July 22):
I won't be surprised if you're enamored and amorous more than usual in 2020. I suspect you will experience delight and enchantment at an elevated rate. The intensity and depth of the feelings that flow through you may break all your previous records. Is that going to be a problem? I suppose it could be if you worry that the profuse flows of tenderness and affection will render you weak and vulnerable. But if you're willing and eager to interpret your extra sensitivity as a superpower, that's probably what it will be.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Does the word "spirit" mean anything to you? Or are you numb to it? Has it come to seem virtually meaningless—a foggy abstraction used carelessly by millions of people to express sentimental beliefs and avoid clear thinking? In accordance with astrological omens, I'll ask you to create a sturdier and more vigorous definition of "spirit" for your practical use in 2020. For instance, you might decide that "spirit" refers to the life force that launches you out of bed each morning and motivates you to keep transforming yourself into the ever-more beautiful soul you want to become.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
"There are people who take the heart out of you, and there are people who put it back," wrote author Charles de Lint. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, your heart will encounter far more of the latter than the former types of people in 2020. There may be one wrangler who tries to take the heart out of you, but there will be an array of nurturers who will strive to keep the heart in you—as well as boosters and builders who will add even more heart.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Composer Igor Stravinsky was born a Russian citizen, but later in life became a French citizen, and still later took on American citizenship. If you have had any similar predilections, Libra, I'm guessing they won't be in play during 2020. My prediction is that you will develop a more robust sense of where you belong than ever before. Any uncertainties you'd had about where your true power spot lies will dissipate. Questions you've harbored about the nature of home will be answered. With flair and satisfaction, you'll resolve long-running riddles about home and community.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
"Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity," wrote philosopher and educator Mortimer Adler. He was exaggerating a bit for comic effect, but he was basically correct. We all must mobilize a great deal of intelligence and hard work to initiate new friendships and maintain existing friendships. But I have some very good news about how these activities will play out for you in 2020, Scorpio. I expect that your knack for practicing the art of friendship will be at an all-time high. I also believe that your close alliances will be especially gratifying and useful for you. You'll be well-rewarded for your skill and care at cultivating rapport.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
In 1933, Sagittarian artist Diego Rivera was commissioned to paint a huge mural in one of the famous Rockefeller buildings in New York City. His patrons didn't realize he was planning to include a controversial portrait of former Soviet Communist leader Vladimir Lenin. When the deed was done, they ordered him to remove it. When he refused, they ushered him out and destroyed the whole mural. As a result, Rivera also lost another commission to create art at the Chicago World's Fair. In any other year, Sagittarius, I might encourage you to be as idealistic as Rivera. I'd invite you to place artistic integrity over financial considerations. But I'm less inclined to advise that in 2020. I think it may serve you to be unusually pragmatic. At least consider leaving Lenin out of your murals.
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HOMEWORK:
Thousands of things go right for you every single day. Listen: tinyurl.com/GloryInTheHighest
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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 2019 Rob Brezsny
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