Honoring Our Yearnings

What If Your Desires Are Holy?

WHAT IF YOUR DESIRES ARE HOLY?

Some traditions preach the value of banishing or renouncing or eluding your desires. In their view, attachment to desire is at the root of human suffering.

The religion of materialism takes the opposite tack, asserting that the meaning of life is to be found in indulging desires. Its creed is, "Feed your cravings like a French foie gras farmer cramming eight pounds of maize down a goose's gullet every day."

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we walk a middle path. We believe there are both degrading desires that tyrannize you and sacred desires that liberate you.

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we cultivate excellent, holy desires. Here are a few we especially adore:

• a desire for beguiling riddles and enchanting challenges that excite both our minds and our hearts;

• a desire for allies who enjoy our distinctive idiosyncrasies and eccentricities;

• a desire to attract ongoing encounters with evocative, nonstandard beauty so as to always ensure a part of us remains untamed;

• a desire to help create a world in which everyone gets the food, housing, and health care they need;

• a desire for energizing surprises and unpredictable fun;

• a desire to engage in group collaborations that enhance the intelligence of everyone in the group;

• a desire to keep outgrowing what worked for us in the past and a desire to ceaselessly explore renewed approaches to being ourselves;

• a desire to be playful and imaginative with our libidinous energy;

• a desire to foster and protect the health and beauty of the natural world;

• a desire for revelations and experiences that steer us away from thinking and acting like the machines we interact with so much;

• a desire to keep recreating and reinvigorating our relationships with those we love;

• a desire to steadily refine and expand our ability to learn from non-human intelligences;

• A desire to regularly refresh our quest for freedom and deepen our capacity to be free

• a desire to move our bodies in ways that delight our souls;

• a desire to extinguish bigotry, misogyny, plutocracy, racism, and militarism.

ALL DESIRES HAVE A SACRED ORIGIN

Psychologist Carl Jung believed that all desires have a sacred origin, no matter how odd they may seem. Frustration and ignorance may contort them into distorted caricatures, but it is always possible to locate the divine source from which they arose.

In describing one of his addictive patients, Jung said: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst for wholeness, or as expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

+

Psychotherapist James Hillman echoes the theme: "Psychology regards all symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way." A preoccupation with porn , for instance, may come to dominate a passionate person whose quest for love has degenerated into an obsession with images of love.

"Follow the lead of your symptoms," Hillman suggests, "for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul."

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

DESIRES THAT ARE GOOD FOR US

Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don't really need and aren't good for you. But you shouldn't disparage yourself for having them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted.

Rather, think of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a faculty that will one day be far more expert.

They're how you practice as you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.

+

To become a master of desire, keep talking yourself out of being attached to trivial goals and keep talking yourself into being thrilled about the precious few goals that are really important.

Here's another way to say it: Wean yourself from ego-driven desires and pour your libido into a longing for beauty, truth, goodness, justice, integrity, creativity, love, and an intimate relationship with the Wild Divine.

+

"God has desires. Since I want to be close to God and to model myself after God, I therefore don't aspire to extinguish my desires, but rather to make my desires more God-like: i.e., imbued with an inexorable ambition to create the greatest and most interesting blessings for everyone and everything."

—Collin Klamper

+

"Mad! One must become mad with love in order to realize God. When a person attains ecstatic love of God, all the pores of the skin, even the roots of the hair, become like so many sex organs, and in every pore the aspirant enjoys the happiness of communion with the Supreme Universal Self."

—Ramakrishna

THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS A PHENOMENON OF DESIRE

A famous Sufi teacher named Hazrat Inayat Khan said, “All that produces longing in the heart deprives the heart of freedom.” I am in fervent disagreement with that idea.

In my experience, longing in the heart is the single greatest motivator in my own quest for liberation from delusion and suffering.

The longing of the heart is a treasure, a divine blessing, a joy that inspires me to love the world, myself, and everything in it.

Here's another Sufi teacher, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, whose thoughts match mine: "From a Sufi perspective, the whole universe is a phenomenon of desire. The Divine desire pervades all things and beings, empowering each according to its capacity. For the mystic, the truest education is the education of desire. By means of this education the indwelling Divine desire is liberated from the constraints of the ego and becomes a force for the transfiguration of the world."

+

Here's an excerpt from a review of one of my favorite books, Daniel Odier's Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening:

"The old saw in some traditions is that desire is the noxious weed that keeps us lurching from one unsatisfactory pleasure to the next, and that uprooting it is the only way to liberation.

"Daniel Odier, a scholar and teacher of tantra, turns this wisdom on its head in Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening, saying that desire is the only true path to liberation.

"Odier objects to any religion that pretends to offer liberation in any form other than simple, personal experience."

+

"The primordial fire that sparked millions of galaxies is the same fire that sparks the human creative impulse." —Cindy Spring

"The human reproductive drive is a watered-down version of the godsex that spawned our solar system." —"Lieutenant" Anfortas, the homeless guy in the Safeway parking lot

+

"Feelings that originate in the human genitalia are among the most powerful forces on earth. They have a complex relationship with the feelings that stem from the human heart: at various times in competition or in harmony.

“Together these primal energies have forged and toppled empires; unleashed terrible and wonderful ideas; and generated the greatest stories ever told. Our goal should be to harness our sexual urges in service to the heart's wisdom."

—Sheila Samizdat

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

YOUR RIGHTEOUS, PURE, INVIGORATING YEARNINGS

Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating.

Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter. Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good.

THE MYSTERY OF THIRST

Imagine this scene. I’m really thirsty—so dehydrated that I’m feeling faint. Yet here's the weird thing: I’m walking along the bank of a wide river that's so clear I could see the bottom if I looked. But I’m not looking. In fact, I seem oblivious to the surging force of nature just a few yards away.

Is it invisible to me? Am I so preoccupied with my suffering that I’m blind to a source that would end my suffering?

Up ahead I see a man. As I approach, I realize he's holding a bottle of water. I run to him and beg him to let me drink. He readily agrees. Gratefully, I guzzle the precious liquid, then thank him profusely.

As I walk away, he calls after me, "By the way, there's a lot more water over there," and he points to the river.

Do I hear him? If I hear him, do I believe him? Or do I keep walking, hoping to find another person with another bottle somewhere up ahead?

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

CURED OF DESIRING NONSENSICAL THINGS

The only way anyone is ever cured of desiring nonsensical things is by getting the nonsensical things and then experiencing the unpleasant but educational consequences.

—Ann Davies, bota.org

+

When I hold you, I hold everything: crones praying in the foamy sand at low tide, a shocked waterfall gracing a new housing development, the foxglove by the fence sipping the fragrance of distant blue straggler stars, my dream of the white crow dreaming of me. In your eyes, I see everything that lives.

—mash-up of Pablo Neruda and Rob Brezsny

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Check out my new Linktree: https://linktr.ee/robbrezsny

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of August 1

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Astrologer Chris Zydel says every sign has superpowers. In honor of your birthday season, I'll tell you about those she attributes to you Leos. When you are at your best, you are a beacon of "joyful magnetism" who naturally exudes "irrepressible charisma." You "shine like a thousand suns" and "strut your stuff with unabashed audacity." All who are lucky enough to be in your sphere benefit from your "radiant spontaneity, bold, dramatic play, and whoo-hoo celebration of your creative genius." I will add that of course you can't always be a perfect embodiment of all these superpowers. But I suspect you are cruising through a phase when you are the next best thing to perfect.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo-born Friedrich August Kekule (1829–1896) transformed organic chemistry with his crucial discovery of the structure of carbon-based compounds. He had studied the problem for years. But his breakthrough realization didn’t arrive until he had a key dream while dozing. There’s not enough room here to describe it at length, but the image that solved the riddle was a snake biting its own tail. I bring this story to your attention, Virgo, because I suspect you could have practical and revelatory dreams yourself in the coming weeks. Daydream visions, too. Pay attention! What might be your equivalent to a snake biting its own tail?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Please don't succumb to numbness or apathy in the coming weeks. It’s crucial that you don’t. You should also take extreme measures to avoid boredom and cynicism. At the particular juncture in your amazing life, you need to feel deeply and care profoundly. You must find ways to be excited about as many things as possible, and you must vividly remember why your magnificent goals are so magnificent. Have you ruminated recently about which influences provide you with the spiritual and emotional riches that sustain you? I encourage you to become even more intimately interwoven with them. It’s time for you to be epic, mythic, even heroic.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Historically, August has brought many outbreaks of empowerment. In August 1920, American women gained the right to vote. In August 1947, India and Pakistan wrested their independence from the British Empire’s long oppression. In August 1789, French revolutionaries issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a document that dramatically influenced the development of democracy and liberty in the Western world. In 1994, the United Nations established August 9 as the time to celebrate International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. In 2024, I am officially naming August to be Scorpio Power Spot Month. It will be an excellent time to claim and/or boost your command of the niche that will nurture your authority and confidence for years to come.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): August is Save Our Stereotypes Month for you Sagittarians. I hope you will celebrate by rising up strong and bold to defend our precious natural treasures. Remember that without cliches, platitudes, pigeonholes, conventional wisdom, and hackneyed ideas, life would be nearly impossible. JUST KIDDING! Everything I just said was a dirty lie. Here’s the truth. August is Scour Away Stereotypes Month for you Sagittarians. Please be an agent of original thinking and fertile freshness. Wage a brazen crusade against cliches, platitudes, pigeonholes, conventional wisdom, and hackneyed ideas.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You’re never too old or wise or jaded to jump up in the air with glee when offered a free gift. Right? So I hope you won’t be so bent on maintaining your dignity and composure that you remain poker-faced when given the chance to grab the equivalent of a free gift. I confess I am worried you might be unreceptive to the sweet, rich things coming your way. I’m concerned you might be closed to unexpected possibilities. I will ask you, therefore, to pry open your attitude so you will be alert to the looming blessings, even when they are in disguise.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
SUPPORT

If you would like to support my work

please consider

buying my new book Astrology Is Real

and/or

buying my Expanded Audio Horoscopes and Daily Horoscopes

and/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

and/or

donating at my Paypal site: paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

(contribute as Friends and Family)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): A friend of a friend told me this story: One summer day, a guy he knew woke up at 5 am, meditated for a while, and made breakfast. As he gazed out his kitchen window, enjoying his coffee, he became alarmed. In the distance, at the top of a hill, a brush fire was burning. He called emergency services to alert firefighters. A few minutes later, though, he realized he had made an error. The brush fire was in fact the rising sun lighting up the horizon with its fiery rays. Use this as a teaching story in the coming days, Aquarius. Double-check your initial impressions to make sure they are true. Most importantly, be aware that you may initially respond with worry to events that are actually wonderful or interesting.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): At least a million ships lie at the bottom of the world’s oceans, lakes, and rivers. Some crashed because of storms, and others due to battles, collisions, or human error. A shipwreck hunter named Sean Fisher estimates that those remains hold over $60 billion worth of treasure. Among the most valuable are the old Spanish vessels that sank while carrying gold, silver, and other loot plundered from the Americas. If you have the slightest inkling to launch adventures in search of those riches, I predict the coming months will be an excellent tine. Alternately, you are likely to generate good fortune for yourself through any version of diving into the depths in quest of wealth in all of its many forms.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): One meaning of the word “palette” is a flat board on which painters place a variety of pigments to apply to their canvas. What would be a metaphorical equivalent to a palette in your life? Maybe it’s a diary or journal where you lay out the feelings and ideas you use to craft your fate. Perhaps it’s an inner sanctuary where you retreat to organize your thoughts and meditate on upcoming decisions. Or it could be a group of allies with whom you commune and collaborate to enhance each other’s destinies. However you define your palette, Aries, I believe the time is right to enlarge its size and increase the range of pigments you can choose from.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The star that Westerners call Arcturus has a different name for Indigenous Australians: Marpeankurrk. In their part of the world, it begins to rise before dawn in August. For the Boorong people of northwest Victoria, this was once a sign to hunt for the larvae of wood ants, which comprised a staple food for months. I bring this up, Taurus, because heavenly omens are telling me you should be on the lookout for new sources of sustenance and fuel. What's your metaphorical equivalent of wood ant larvae?

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Seventy percent of the world’s macadamia nuts have a single ancestor: a particular tree in Queensland, Australia. In 1896, two Hawaiian brothers took seeds from this tree and brought them back to their homestead in Oahu. From that small beginning, Hawaiian macadamia nuts have come to dominate the world’s production. I foresee you soon having resemblances to that original tree, Gemini. What you launch in the coming weeks and months could have tremendous staying power and reach far beyond its original inspiration.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ketchup flows at about 0.03 miles per hour. In 35 hours, it could travel about a mile. I think you should move at a similar speed in the coming days. The slower you go, the better you will feel. The more deeply focused you are on each event, and the more you allow the rich details to unfold in their own sweet time, the more successful you will be at the art of living. Your words of power will be incremental, gradual, and cumulative.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •