A huge amount of freedom comes . . .
. . . when you take nothing personally.
A huge amount of freedom comes when you take nothing personally.
— Don Miguel Ruiz
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YOUR FREEDOM
It's a free country. You are free to desecrate nature and have zero concern for our descendants and canonize every borrowed idea that burrowed into your mind when you were coming of age.
You are free to scarf down pesticide-laden junk food and memorize Ford truck jingles and vote for rich old white straight male millionaires.
On the other hand, you are also free to go on jubilant picnics in the wilderness using sustainable dishware and cleaning up after yourself.
You are free to formulate a plan to achieve your precious dreams in ways that also serve our fellow humans and bestow blessings on our descendants.
You are free to regularly revise your philosophy of life to account for the ever-changing contours of your own destiny and the ever-evolving urgencies of our shared culture.
You are free—FREE!!!!—to care dearly about what images and stories and words you allow to flood into your sacred imagination. You are free to regard omnipresent advertising as a form of propagandistic brainwashing. You are free to recognize that other people's freedoms are as important as yours.
Why do I bring these thoughts to your attention? Because I hope that one of your life-long quests is to develop prowess at not just any old kind of liberation, but rather the savviest, most generous variety.
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For more musings like those above, I recommend you read my upcoming book, ASTROLOGY IS REAL: REVELATIONS FROM MY LIFE AS A HOROSCOPE COLUMNIST.
It blends memoir, essays about astrology, and oracles for YOU, dear reader.
The book will emerge this spring. Meanwhile, I’m serializing it on Substack for paid subscribers. It’s available as a bonus newsletter every Tuesday.
This week, Part Six is available. You can also read Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five.
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MY FREEDOM
My approach to freedom derives its inspiration from the freedom to love and care for and protect and help other people and all the creatures of the earth.
Freedom is never simply about MY FREEDOM—never about just one person's ability to do whatever they want.
True freedom is always about freedom for all those with whom we share community and culture.
If our "freedom" causes distress, oppression, or sickness to others, thereby damaging their freedom, our freedom is perverse, damaged, and dangerous.
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WHO CREATES THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN?
Who grows, harvests, ships, packages, and sells you your food? Who provides you with the water you need to be alive? Who made your clothes?
Who heals you? Who makes your medicine? Who makes it possible for you to have electricity and heat?
Who built the roads and the vehicles used to bring you food, clothes, medicine, and other things you need to be alive?
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FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS
In his “Four Freedoms” speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that all people should have:
1. freedom of speech
2. freedom of worship
3. freedom from want
4. freedom from fear
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THE PROJECT OF ME CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH
"The Way of Abundance is all too often misconstrued as a shallow sense of 'getting what one wants,' 'eliminating the negative,' or 'being free from pain.'
“Even the often-touted 'manifesting your dreams,' offers a psychological disposition that generally remains fixated around manifestation as 'the project of me.'
"But the 'project of me' can never be enough, for it does not meet 'the other,' and real living involves meeting. The touch and contact with all of life, the full freedom of non-separation, the completeness of full relationship, and the radiance of compassionate ecstasy are what we are inherently hungry for."
—Rick Jarow, Alchemy of Abundance: Using the Energy of Desire to Manifest Your Highest Vision, Power, and Purpose
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RESPONDING TO SLAVERY
Slavery is illegal everywhere in the world. And yet there are more enslaved people now than at any other time in history: at least 29 million. A disproportionate percentage of them are women and children.
I feel you can bestow blessings on yourself by responding to this predicament. How?
First, express gratitude for all the freedoms you have.
Second, vow to take full advantage of those freedoms.
Third, brainstorm about how to liberate any part of you that acts or thinks or feels like an enslaved person.
Fourth, lend your energy to organizations that help free enslave people.
Start here: https://bit.ly/liberateslaves
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PERPETUAL FREEDOM FROM HELL
"Hell is the suffering of being unable to love," wrote novelist J. D. Salinger.
If that's true, I'm pleased to announce that you can now ensure you'll be free of hell for a very long time.
If you have this intention, you can claim enormous power to expand your capacity for love.
So get busy! Make it your intention to dissolve any unconscious blocks you might have about sharing your gifts and bestowing your blessings. Get rid of attitudes and behaviors that limit your generosity and compassion.
Now is an excellent time to launch your "Perpetual Freedom from Hell" campaign!
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INTEGRITY IS THE ROYAL ROAD TO OUR FREEDOM
"Picture the Grand Canyon," says Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. "Every hundred years, a child comes by and throws a mustard seed into it. In the time it takes to fill the hole in the earth with mustard seeds, one mahakalpa will have passed. To perfect the virtuous heart—the joy of integrity—takes a thousand mahakalpas."
If that's true, then we've still got a lot of work to do. The good news is that civilization is in the midst of a critical turning point that could tremendously expedite your ripening. So we could make unusually great progress toward the goal of perfecting the virtuous heart in the next 40 years.
For best results, let's meditate often on the phrase "the joy of integrity." We will get familiar with the pleasurable emotion that comes from acting with impeccability.
And let’s try out this idea from Gandhi: Integrity is the royal road to our inner freedom.
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LIBERATE YOUR IMAGINATION
Let me remind you who you really are: You're an immortal freedom fighter who longs to liberate all sentient creatures from their suffering.
You're a fun-loving messiah who devoutly wants to help all of your fellow messiahs claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright.
Try to remember. You're a vortex of fluidic light that has temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins.
And why did you do that? Because it was the best way to forge the identity that would make you such an elemental force in our 14-billion-year campaign to bring heaven all the way down to earth.
I'm not speaking metaphorically here. You are a mutant deity in disguise—not a Buddha or a Christ exactly, but of the same lineage and conjured from the same fire.
You have been around since the beginning of time and will be here after the end.
Every day and in every way, you're getting better at playing the preposterously amusing master game we all dreamed up together before the Big Bang bloomed.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning March 9
Copyright 2023 by Rob Brezsny
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A financial advisor once told me I could adopt one of three approaches to running my business: 1. Ignore change; 2. always struggle with change, half-immobilized by mixed feelings about whether to change or stay pat; 3. learn to love and thrive on change. The advisor said that if I chose either of the first two options, I would always be forced to change by circumstances beyond my control. The third approach is ultimately the only one that works. Now is an excellent time for you Pisceans to commit yourself fully to number three—for both your business and your life.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Repressed feelings and dormant passions are rising to the surface. I bet they will soon be rattling your brain and illuminating your heart, unleashing a soothing turbulence of uncanny glee. Will you get crazy and wise enough to coax the Great Mystery into blessing you with an inspirational revelation or two? I believe you will. I hope you will! The more skillful you are at generating rowdy breakthroughs, the less likely you are to experience a breakdown. Be as unruly as you need to be to liberate the very best healings.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You finally have all you need to finish an incomplete mission or resolve a mess of unsettled karma. The courage and determination you couldn't quite summon before are now fully available as you invoke a climax that will prepare the way for your awe-inspiring rebirth. Gaze into the future, dear Taurus, and scan for radiant beacons that will be your guides in the coming months. You have more help than you know, and now is the time to identify it and move toward it.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Our sun is an average star in a galaxy of 100 billion stars. In comparison to some of its flamboyant compatriots, it's mediocre. Over 860 light years away is a blue-white supergiant star called Rigel, which is twice as hot as our sun and 40,000 times brighter. The red supergiant Antares, over 600 light years away, has 12 times more mass. Yet if those two show-offs had human attitudes, they might be jealous of our star, which is the source of energy for a planet teeming with 8.7 million forms of life. I propose we make the sun your role model for now, Gemini. It’s an excellent time to glory in your unique strengths and to exuberantly avoid comparing yourself to anyone else.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): The philosophical principle known as Occam's razor asserts that when trying to understand a problem or enigma, we should favor the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions. While that's often a useful approach, I don't recommend it in the coming weeks. For you, nuances and subtleties will abound in every situation. Mere simplicity is unlikely to lead to a valid understanding. You will be wise to relish the complications and thrive on the paradoxes. Try to see at least three sides of every story. Further tips: 1. Mysteries may be truer than mere facts. 2. If you’re willing to honor your confusion, the full, rich story will eventually emerge.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "There are no unsacred places," wrote Leo poet Wendell Berry. "There are only sacred places and desecrated places." Poet Allen Ginsberg agreed. “Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!” he wrote. “Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeteria! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the sea, holy the desert, holy the railroad.” With Berry's and Ginsberg's prompts as your inspiration, and in accordance with current astrological imperatives, I invite you to invigorate your relationship with sacredness. If nothing is sacred for you, do what it takes to find and commune with sacred things, places, animals, humans, and phenomena. If you are already a lover of sacred wonders, give them extra love and care. To expand your thinking and tenderize your mood, give your adoration to these related themes: consecration, sublimity, veneration, devotion, reverence, awe, and splendor.
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WHAT LIFE STORY WILL YOU CREATE FOR YOURSELF IN THE COMING MONTHS?
Get inspired by listening to my 3-part EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES about your LONG-RANGE FUTURE.
These forecasts will be available for just two more weeks.
Who do you want to become between now and January 2024? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? How can you exert your free will to create adventures that'll bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?
To listen to my three-part, in-depth reports, go here:
Register and/or log in through the main page, click "Play Readings", and then select "Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3" of the "Long Term Prediction for 2023."
Each of the three parts is a separate report, though related to the other two.
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Each of the three-part reports is seven to 13 minutes long. The cost is $7 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.
P.S. You can also listen to a short-term Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.
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We are multidimensional phoenixes who rise out of every fire.
Art by Torus Energy Artworks: https://torusenergyart.com/
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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): My favorite Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote the following: "In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears." I bring this meditation to your attention, Virgo, because I hope you will do it daily during the next two weeks. Now is an excellent time to cultivate an intense awareness of your feelings—to exult in their rich meanings, to value their spiritual power, to feel gratitude for educating and entertaining you.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): How might your life come into clearer focus when you uncover secrets that inspire your initiative and ingenuity? What happens when resources that had been inaccessible become available for your enjoyment and use? How will you respond if neglected truths spring into view and point the way toward improvements in your job situation? I suspect you will soon be able to tell me stories about all this good stuff. PS: Don't waste time feeling doubtful about whether the magic is real. Just welcome it and make it work for you!
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s not the best time to tattoo a lover's likeness on your abdomen. Maybe in May, but not now. On the other hand, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to see if your paramour might be willing to tattoo your name on their thigh. Similarly, this is a favorable period to investigate which of your allies would wake up at 5 am to drive you to the airport, and which of your acquaintances and friends would stop others from spreading malicious gossip about you, and which authorities would reward you if you spoke up with constructive critiques.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. They may grow as high as 350 feet. Their roots are shallow, though, reaching down just six to 12 feet before spreading out 60 to 100 feet horizontally. And yet the trees are sturdy, rarely susceptible to being toppled by high winds and floods. What's their secret? Their root systems are interwoven with those of other nearby redwoods. Together, they form networks of allies, supporting each other and literally sharing nutrients. I endorse this model for you to emulate in your efforts to create additional stability and security in your life, Sagittarius.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What's the best way to be fulfilled? Hard work and discipline? Are we most likely to flourish if we indulge only moderately in life's sweet pleasures and mostly focus on the difficult tasks that build our skills and clout? Or is it more accurate to say that 90 percent of success is just showing up: being patient and persistent as we carry out the small day-to-day sacrifices and devotions that incrementally make us indispensable? Mythologist Joseph Campbell described a third variation: to "follow our bliss." We find out what activities give us the greatest joy and install those activities at the center of our lives. As a Capricorn, you are naturally skilled at the first two approaches. In the coming months, I encourage you to increase your proficiency at the third.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Mackerels are unusual fish in that they must keep swimming nonstop. If they don't, they die. Do they ever sleep? Scientists haven't found any evidence that they do. I bring them up now because many of you Aquarians have resemblances to mackerels—and I think it’s especially crucial that you not act like them in the coming weeks. I promise you that nothing bad will happen if you slow way down and indulge in prolonged periods of relaxing stillness. Just the opposite in fact: Your mental and physical health will thrive as you give your internal batteries time and space to recharge.
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Homework: Who or what do you belong to in ways that keep you free? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com
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That book (by Don Miguel Ruiz) changed my life, especially the bit about taking nothing personally. It changes EVERYTHING. <3
Such a short statement but yet so powerful and true! :-)