Long Live You and Me

Long Live the Beauty That Comes Through Us

My new book is for sale: ASTROLOGY IS REAL: REVELATIONS FROM MY LIFE AS AN ORACLE.

You can trust your intuition to find what you need in the book. No need to read in a linear way from beginning to end. It may be the case that you could get inspired by the excerpts below.

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YOUR PRIME OBJECTIVE

Write this declaration on a piece of paper: "I am mobilizing all the energy and ingenuity and connections I have at my disposal . . . as well as all the additional energy and ingenuity and connections I can call on and will summon . . .  as I accomplish the following intention:"

Then compose a description of the experience or situation or scenario you're most excited to cultivate for yourself in the coming months—the specific circumstances that will be most meaningful and gratifying and interesting to you.

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INVITATION TO LOVE THE RIDDLES

I invite you to study the brassy contradictions . . .

and draw inspiration from the poignant incongruities . . .

and marvel at the enigmatic ambiguities . . .

and give your compassionate attention to the slippery paradoxes . . .

and say ebullient prayers of gratitude for the contradictions, incongruities, ambiguities, and paradoxes that are making you so much wiser and deeper and kinder and cuter.

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PICK YOUR BATTLES

Pick your battles.

But before you finish picking, eliminate some battles you were considering.

Then go ahead and discard a few other battles.

Shed some of the battles you had already chosen.

That's still too many battles.

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LONG LIVE YOU AND ME

Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.

—singer-songwriter Laurie Anderson

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Long live impudence! It's my guardian angel in this world.

—Albert Einstein

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Long live freedom, and damn the ideologies.

—Robinson Jeffers

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Long live the sacred art of believing in nothing and loving everything. 

—the woman on the park bench I overheard talking to her cat

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Long live also the forward march of the common people in all the lands towards their just and true inheritance, and towards the broader and fuller age.

—Winston Churchill

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Long live all the magic we made.

—Taylor Swift

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Long live diversity, long live the earth!

—Edward Abbey

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Long live the rose that grew from concrete.

—Tupac Shakur

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Long live our memory of the future. 

—my friend Jessamin Werrevo 

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Long live the pioneers, rebels, and mutineers.

—X Ambassadors

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Long live the weeds.

            —poet Theodore Roethke

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Long live your soul and may I see you do great in life.

—Hallmark birthday card

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Live long and prosper.

—Spock

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Long live wanting to dwell excitedly in this beautiful garden of mysteries and knowing it as a beginner. 

  —poet Anah-Karelia Coates 

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Long live transfinite mountains, the hollow earth, time machines, fractal writing, aliens, dada, telepathy, flying saucers, warped space, teleportation, artificial reality, robots, pod people, hylozoism, endless shrinking, intelligent goo, antigravity, surrealism, software highs, two-dimensional time, gnarly computation, the art of photo composition, pleasure zappers, nanomachines, mind viruses, hyperspace, monsters from the deep and, of course, always and forever, the attack of the giant ants!

—science fiction author Rudy Rucker

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Long live everything and everyone I forgot to love. 

—my neighbor Alicia Vasquez 

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Thich Nhat Hanh has the last word: We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible.

If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.

If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman. Then your grandchildren would never manifest.

So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say, "Warm welcome and long live impermanence."

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Words by Sam Keen

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LOVING OUR BODIES

Many spiritual teachers make statements like “I am not my body” or “This body is not me.”

I revolt and protest. I recoil and denounce. This creepy dismissal is an insult and disparagement. It demeans our bodies’ magnificent beauty and besmirches our bodies’ sublime role in educating our souls.

I agree that we are not only our bodies. I concur that a key part of us is eternal, lives free of earthy limitations, and is spread throughout the interconnected web of life—not just trapped in solitary boundaried form.

But hell yes, I am my body. It’s a glorious and intrinsic facet of my identity. It’s a miraculous creation that has taken millions of years to evolve into the masterpiece it is now.

So yes, I am my body and yes, this body is me. I adore my body. I am in awe of it. I am delighted to be united with it.

I will also suggest that you are your body, and your body is you. You love your body. You are in awe of it. You are delighted to be united with it.

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Inflamed by these resplendent facts, I offer the following exhortations:

Let’s free our bodies to be as real as anything ever created. Let’s be brave and dynamic, graceful and daring, as we sanctify our impossibly marvelous, unfathomably intelligent bodies. 

Let’s praise our sacred bodies. Thank our blessed bodies. Tell our righteous bodies we revere their uncanny majesty. Say we yearn to learn their heavenly secrets. We promise to treat them as our beloved allies, our sacred treasures, our splendorous possessions.

No shame, no apology: We will be in awe of our body’s staggering power to endlessly carry out the millions of chemical reactions that keep us alive and thriving. 

How can we not be overwhelmed with veneration for our hungry, resourceful, unpredictable bodies? 

Let’s study our bodies’ abracadabra. Exult in the bounties they stream forth every second. Celebrate their boisterous animal elegance.

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RETOOL YOUR AMAZEMENT

Retool your amazement. Rebirth your achy symbols. Mutate a waning pleasure.  

Swagger your lustiest justice. Sing your holiest fury. Mock indulgent cynicism and gratuitous sarcasm.  

Sanctify your interesting wounds. Untame your timid healing. Redraw the map of your dionysian heart. 

Trick eternity with your shocking humor. Celebrate your triumphant surrender to forgiveness. Memorize an as-yet undiscovered future of liberated glee. 

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WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID?

During the past three weeks, 50 paid subscribers to this newsletter dropped their paid subscriptions. That’s a puzzlement and concern!

Did I do something offensive? Was it something I said?

Here’s some background: I have offered my weekly newsletter for free for almost 24 years. It has always included the horoscopes as well as other fun stuff.

A primary reason I have been able to give the newsletter away for free is because many newspapers around the world have paid me to publish my horoscopes. But the newspaper business has been declining in recent years, largely because of the effects of the internet. Many publications have closed down or shrunk their staff and page count to a bare minimum. The pandemic hastened this development.

What that means is that my ability to earn a living from syndicating my column has also diminished.

In May 2021, I moved my long-running newsletter to the Substack platform. I gave readers the option to continue getting it for free — or else become paid subscribers if they had the financial ease to do so and wanted to help support my work.

Now, over two years later, my newsletter has more free subscribers than ever. There has also been a slow, steady growth in paying subscribers—about 2 percent of the total. But in recent weeks, a whole lot of the two-percent folks quit all at once.

I’d love to know why. Please let me know your thoughts. Write me at newsletter@freewillastrology.com

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of December 7

© Copyright 2023  Rob Brezsny

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Among our most impressive superpowers is the potency to transform ourselves in alignment with our conscious intentions. For example, if you feel awkward because you made an insensitive comment to a friend, you can take action to assuage any hurt feelings you caused and thereby dissolve your awkwardness. Or let’s say you no longer want to be closely connected to people who believe their freedom is more important than everyone else’s freedom. With a clear vision and a bolt of willpower, you can do what it takes to create that shift. These are acts of true magic—as wizardly as any occult ritual. I believe you will have extra access to this superpower in the coming weeks. Homework: Identify three situations or feelings you will use your magic to change.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The eminent Capricorn philosopher William James (1842–1910) is referred to as the “Father of American Psychology.” He was a brilliant thinker who excelled in the arts of logic and reason. Yet he had a fundamental understanding that reason and logic were not the only valid kinds of intelligence. He wrote, “Rational consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.” This quote appears in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to investigate those other types of consciousness in the coming months. You don’t need drugs to do so. Simply state your intention that you want to. Other spurs: dreamwork, soulful sex, dancing, meditation, nature walks, deep conversations.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Are people sometimes jealous or judgmental toward you for being so adept at multi-tasking? Are you weary of dawdlers urging you not to move, talk, and mutate so quickly? Do you fantasize about having more cohorts who could join you in your darting, daring leaps of logic? If you answered yes to these questions, I expect you will soon experience an enjoyable pivot. Your quick-change skills will be appreciated and rewarded more than usual. You will thrive while invoking the spiritual power of unpredictability.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Romantic relationships take work if you want them to remain vigorous and authentic. So do friendships. The factors that brought you together in the first place may not be enough to keep you bonded forever. Both of you change and grow, and there's no guarantee your souls will continue to love being interwoven. If disappointment creeps into your alliance, it's usually wise to address the issues head-on as you try to reconfigure your connection. It's not always feasible or desirable, though. I still feel sad about the friend I banished when I discovered he was racist and had hidden it from me. I hope these ruminations inspire you to give your friendships a lot of quality attention in 2024. It will be an excellent time to lift the best ones up to a higher octave.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I will cheer you on as you tenderly push yourself to be extra exploratory in the coming weeks. It’s exciting that you are contemplating adventures that might lead you to wild frontiers and half-forbidden zones. The chances are good that you will provoke uncanny inspirations and attract generous lessons. Go higher and deeper and further, dear Aries! Track down secret treasures and lyrical unpredictability! Explore the possible meanings of the term “holy rebellion.”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In January, I will tempt you to be a spirited adventurer who undertakes smart risks. I will invite you to consider exploring unknown territory and expanding the scope of your education. But right now, I advise you to address your needs for stability and security. I encourage you to take extra good care of your comfort zone and even add some cozy new features to it. Here’s a suggestion: Grab a pen and paper, or open a new file on your favorite device, then compose a list of *everything* you can do to feel exceedingly safe and supported.

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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/or

becoming a paid subscriber to my Free Will Astrology Newsletter

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GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was an American Black leader who advocated a gradual, incremental approach to fighting the effects of racism. Hard work and good education were the cornerstones of his policies. Then there was W. E. B. Dubois (1868–1963). He was an American Black leader who encouraged a more aggressive plan of action. Protest, agitation, pressure, and relentless demands for equal rights were core principles in his philosophy. In the coming months, I recommend a blend of these attitudes for you. You’ve got two big jobs: to improve the world you live in and get all the benefits you need and deserve from it.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I periodically get a big jolt of feeling how much I don't know. I am overwhelmed with the understanding of how meager my understanding of life really is. On the one hand, this is deflating to my ego. On the other hand, it's wildly refreshing. I feel a liberating rush of relief to acknowledge that I am so far from being perfect and complete that there's no need for me to worry about trying to be perfect or complete. I heartily recommend this meditation to you, fellow Cancerian. From an astrological perspective, now is a favorable time to thrive on fertile emptiness.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Have you reached your full height? If there were ever a time during your adult life when you would literally get taller, it might be in the coming weeks. And that’s not the only kind of growth spurt that may occur. Your hair and fingernails may lengthen faster than usual. I wouldn’t be shocked if your breasts or penis got bigger. But even more importantly, I suspect your healthy brain cells will multiply at a brisk pace. Your ability to understand how the world really works will flourish. You will have an increased flair for thinking creatively.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I like Virgo author Cheryl Strayed's thoughts about genuine togetherness. She says, "True intimacy isn’t a cluster fuck or a psychodrama. It isn’t the highest highs and lowest lows. It’s a tiny bit of those things on occasion, with a whole lot of everything else in between. It’s communion and mellow compatibility. It’s friendship and mutual respect." I also like Virgo author Sam Keen’s views on togetherness. He says, "At the heart of sex is something intrinsically spiritual, the desire for a union so primal it can be called divine." Let's make those two perspectives your guideposts in the coming weeks, Virgo.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): According to my interpretation of your astrological prospects, you now have the capacity to accelerate quickly and slow down smoothly; to exult in idealistic visions and hunker down in pragmatic action; to balance exuberant generosity with careful discernment—and vice versa. In general, Libra, you have an extraordinary ability to shift moods and modes with graceful effectiveness—as well as a finely honed sense of when each mood and mode is exactly right for the situation you’re in. I won’t be surprised if you accomplish well-balanced miracles.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Dear Goddess — Thank you a trillion times for never fulfilling those prayers I sent your way all those years ago. Remember? When I begged and pleaded with you to get me into a sexy love relationship with You Know Who? I am so lucky, so glad, that you rejected my prayers. Though I didn’t see it then, I now realize that being in an intimate weave with her would have turned out badly for both her and me. You were so wise to deny me that misguided quest for “pleasure.” Now dear Goddess, I am asking you to perform a similar service for any Scorpio readers who may be beseeching you to provide them with experiences they will ultimately be better off without.

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