Not Sticking to Astrology

I Aspire to Love the World from Many Directions

NOT STAYING IN MY LANE

I happily send out my newsletter every Tuesday. I love having the chance to communicate with you, and I enjoy hearing your comments.

Last week, there were more negative responses than usual. Though many of you were pleased I endorsed Kamala Harris for president, 80 readers angrily unsubscribed. Eighteen wrote to tell me how wrong they thought I was and how disappointed they were. Some were Trumpsters and some were Jill Stein and Cornel West acolytes. Many also added the demand that I should stick to being an astrologer—and never ever write about political matters.

I have heard such bizarre and shortighted criticism before—and have always rejected it. Since I began writing and syndicating my horoscopes decades ago, I have spoken freely about cultural problems that affect us all personally—like white supremacy, misogyny, oligarchy, ecocide, militarism, and bigotry toward LGBTQIA+ people.

As just one of countless examples: In my horoscopes for the week of October 29, 2020, I endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over the horrendous Republican candidate Donald Trump. I have been regularly endorsing candidates since 1988, when my horoscopes recommended voting for the Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis and described the dangers of electing ex-CIA director George Bush.

There’s another factor to consider. In addition to being an astrology writer, I have also been a philosopher, poet, novelist, and essayist who has written extensively about thousands of non-astrological issues. Of the five books I’ve published, only one has been about astrology.

From the beginning of my artistic career, I have also been a songwriter, musician, and performer. The lyrics of my songs are soulfully political. My bands have done benefit concerts for many progressive causes.

PS: In 1988, I ran as a candidate for a political office.

EVERYONE HAS A SACRED DUTY TO THINK ABOUT POLITICS

In my view, everyone has a sacred duty to think about politics and a sacred right to talk about politics.

Novelist and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn observed, “People often say, with pride, ‘I’m not interested in politics.’ They might as well say, ‘I’m not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future.’”

Gellhorn added, “If we mean to keep control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics.”

Do the people who say that an astrologer shouldn’t write about politics mean that only those who have PhDs in political science should talk about it? That only professional politicians and political pundits should talk about it?

That’s a narrow standard I don’t subscribe to.

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Since I was a teenager, I have been a democratic socialist. In my early years, I protested and led boycotts and knocked on doors encouraging people to vote for progressive candidates. I threw canisters of tear gas back at cops and National Guardsman who flung them at me and my friends during our anti-war marches and demonstrations.

From the beginning of writing my column, I have infused my oracles with leftist political commentary. This has been a good fit for the alternative newsweekly papers that publish me, as most are also progressive. I syndicate myself now, but in earlier days, the leftist syndicate AlterNet distributed my column.

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The success of my column happened gradually. But there was a three-month period when it got a big bump in distribution. Many new newspapers decided they wanted to publish my thoughts.

The occasion was the United States’ first military invasion and occupation of Iraq. In response to this immoral venture, I filled my horoscopes with condemnation and satire about the American misdeeds and atrocities. Each one also had references to the personal lives of my readers. My critiques served as metaphors for psychological factors at work in their destinies or as useful meditations on how the personal and political were interwoven.

Who would have guessed that this would be an excellent marketing strategy? My column’s syndication expanded dramatically. Thanks to my responses to Operation Desert Storm, I graduated from dire poverty.

So it’s no exaggeration to say that some of my appeal as an astrology columnist has been built on my determination to blend progressive political perspectives with psychological and spiritual insights.

I’ve been doing that since I started. Anyone who thinks otherwise about my work has missed an essential truth about it.

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After reading my novel The Televisionary Oracle, novelist Tom Robbins sent me the testimonial above.

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“DEAR ROB, YOU’RE STUPID”

Below is an email message that resembles a bunch I have received lately.

Dear Rob — I have faithfully followed your horoscopes for almost 30 years. I have always felt they have lifted me up, provided solace, and given me excellent guidance about how to become more of the person I really want to be. Many times I have said to myself, you are as good as a therapist—and much cheaper!

But now I discover that you are actually and in fact an idiot sheep with no mind of your own. How can you possibly be a Harris/Walz supporter in light of all the facts? I am so disappointed, and sorry to say I will never read your trash again.

I wish I had known how stupid you were 30 years ago.

Crushed in Chattanooga

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PS: I don't take these jabs personally. They do make me wonder, though, how these people missed the blatant fact that I have expressed my democratic socialist beliefs vividly since I began.

WISH LIST

• We insist on abolishing the Electoral College, the most undemocratic mode of electing leaders in the entire Western world.

• We rise in the morning and look at the world in ways that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible. 

• We make abortion safe, legal, normal, and easy to get. 

• We believe that if there is any such thing as enlightenment, it arises from empathy, sympathy, compassion, tenderness, and a quest to be in intimate connection with and in service to other beings. 

• Work to substitute renewable energy sources for fossil fuels. 

• Beginning in elementary school, install the following subjects at the core of the curriculum: 

	• How to develop emotional intelligence 

	• How to develop one’s creativity and imagination 

	• How to remember and work with one’s nightly dreams 

	• How to create interesting and loving relationships 

	• How to establish a habit of eating healthy food 

• End anti-democratic filibuster abuse in the US Senate.

• Wrestle and negotiate with our own shadows, making preemptive strikes on our personal share of the world’s evil, fighting the good fight to keep from spewing our darkness on those around us. 

• Create a system for universal single-payer health care and health insurance. 

• Develop a strategy to avoid being enthralled with the hypnotic lure of painful emotions, past events, and worries about the future. 

• To limit and control corruption in the banking industry, restore Glass–Steagall laws. 

• Kill off the bad conditioning within us that resonates in pathological harmony with militarism, misogyny, bigotry, oligarchy, and authoritarianism 

• Strive to attain freedom from our own unconscious obsessions and conditioned responses. 

• Overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Dissolve and ban laws that regard corporations as people. 

• Understand that we all carry with us at least one piece of someone else’s puzzle. 

• End gerrymandering. 

• Ensure equal opportunity for all genders and people of all sexual orientations. 

• Understand that offering our wise and affectionate attention is our gift to other people and animals. 

• Substantial cuts in US defense spending. Thirty percent would be a good start. (Even after such a slash, the US military would still be the largest in the world.) Also: an end to the US government supplying weapons and military aid to 57 other nations.

• Work to break all trances that keep us ignorant of our own magic. 

• Expand the Supreme Court and impose term-limits on its judges. 

• Cultivate our receptivity to subtle miracles, beguiling ephemera, and marvelous breakthroughs. 

• Institute a wealth tax on the richest one percent of billionaires. 

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Buy my books at Bookshop.org: https://tinyurl.com/BookShopBrezsny

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Here’s a short video of me reading poetry at the Strand Bookstore in New York City.

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of September 26

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): On the morning of January 27, 1970, Libran songwriter John Lennon woke up with an idea for a new song. He spent an hour perfecting the lyrics and composing the music on a piano. Then he phoned his producer and several musicians, including George Harrison, and arranged for them to meet him at a recording studio later that day. By February 6, the song "Instant Karma" was playing on the radio. It soon sold over a million copies. Was it the fastest time ever for a song to go from a seed idea to a successful release? Probably. I envision a similar process in your life, Libra. You are in a prime position to manifest your good ideas quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You have passed the test of the First Threshold. Congratulations, Scorpio! Give yourself a kiss. Fling yourself a compliment. Then begin your preparations for the riddles you will encounter at the Second Threshold. To succeed, you must be extra tender and ingenious. You can do it! There will be one more challenge, as well: the Third Threshold. I’m confident you will glide through that trial not just unscathed but also healed. Here’s a tip from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “Those who do not expect the unexpected will not find it.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): What development are you so ready for that you’re almost too ready? What transformation have you been preparing for so earnestly that you’re on the verge of being overprepared? What lesson are you so ripe and eager to learn that you may be anxiously interfering with its full arrival? If any of the situations I just described are applicable to you, Sagittarius, I have good news. There will be no further postponements. The time has finally arrived to embrace what you have been anticipating.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn screenwriter and TV producer Shonda Rhimes has had a spectacular career. Her company Shondaland has produced 11 prime-time TV shows, including Grey's Anatomy and Bridgerton. She's in the Television Hall of Fame, is one of the wealthiest women in America, and has won a Golden Globe award. As you enter into a phase when your ambitions are likely to shine extra brightly, I offer you two of her quotes. 1. “I realized a simple truth: that success, fame, and having all my dreams come true would not fix or improve me. It wasn't an instant potion for personal growth." 2. “Happiness comes from living as your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be."

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I have performed in many poetry readings. Some have been in libraries, auditoriums, cafes, and bookstores, but others have been in unexpected places: a laundromat, a bus station, a Walmart, a grocery store, and an alley behind a thrift store. Both types of locations have been enjoyable. But the latter kind often brings the most raucous and engaging audiences, which I love. According to my analysis, you might generate luck and fun for yourself in the coming weeks by experimenting with non-typical scenarios—akin to me declaiming an epic poem on a street corner or parking lot. Brainstorm about doing what you do best in novel situations.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I have two related oracles for you. 1. During the unfoldment of your mysterious destiny, you have had several homecomings that have moved you and galvanized you beyond what you imagined possible. Are you ready for another homecoming that’s as moving and galvanizing as those that have come before? 2. During your long life, you have gathered amazing wisdom by dealing with your pain. Are you now prepared to gather a fresh batch of wisdom by dealing with pleasure and joy?

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SUPPORT

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please consider

buying my books

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Meme words are adapted from the TV series Once Upon a Time

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Here comes the Hating and Mating Season. I want to help you minimize the “hating” part and maximize the “mating” part, so I will offer useful suggestions. 1. To the degree that you can, dissolve grudges and declare amnesty for intimate allies who have bugged you. 2. Ask your partners to help you manage your fears; do the same for them. 3. Propose to your collaborators that you come up with partial solutions to complicated dilemmas. 4. Do a ritual in which you and a beloved cohort praise each other for five minutes. 5. Let go of wishes that your companions would be more like how you want them to be.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Many fairy tales tell of protagonists who are assigned seemingly impossible missions. Perhaps they must carry water in a sieve or find "fire wrapped in paper" or sort a heap of wheat, barley, poppyseed, chickpeas, and lentils into five separate piles. Invariably, the star of the story succeeds, usually because they exploit some loophole, get unexpected help, or find a solution simply because they didn't realize the task was supposedly impossible. I bring this up, Taurus, because I suspect you will soon be like one of those fairy-tale champions. Here's a tip: They often get unexpected help because they have previously displayed kindness toward strangers or low-status characters. Their unselfishness attracts acts of grace into their lives.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):  You are in a phase with great potential for complex, unforeseen fun. To celebrate, I’m offering descriptions of your possible superpowers. 1. The best haggler ever. 2. Smoother of wrinkles and closer of gaps. 3. Laugher in overly solemn moments. 4. Unpredictability expert. 5. Resourceful summoner of allies. 6. Crafty truth-teller who sometimes bends the truth to enrich sterile facts. 7. Riddle wrestler and conundrum connoisseur. 8. Lubricant for those who are stuck. 9. Creative destroyer of useless nonsense. 10. Master of good trickery. 11. Healer of unrecognized and unacknowledged illnesses.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Tanzanite is a rare blue and violet gemstone that is available in just one place on earth: a five-square-mile region of Tanzania. It was discovered in 1967 and mined intensively for a few years. Geologists believed it was all tapped out. But in 2020, a self-employed digger named Saniniu Lazier located two huge new pieces of tanzanite worth $3.4 million. Later, he uncovered another chunk valued at $2 million. I see you as having resemblances to Saniniu Lazier in the coming weeks. In my visions of your destiny, you will tap into resources that others have not been able to unearth. Or you will find treasure that has been invisible to everyone else.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Marathon foot races are regularly held worldwide. Their official length is 26.2 miles. Even fast runners with great stamina can't finish in less than two hours. There's a downside to engaging in this herculean effort: Runners lose up to six percent of their brain volume during a race, and their valuable gray matter isn't fully reconstituted for eight months. Now here's my radical prophecy for you, Leo. Unless you run in a marathon sometime soon, your brain may *gain* in volume during the coming weeks. At the very least, your intelligence will be operating at peak levels. It will be a good time to make key decisions.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Is there a greater waste of land than golf courses? They are typically over 150 acres in size and require huge amounts of water to maintain. Their construction may destroy precious wetlands, and their vast tracts of grass are doused with chemical pesticides. Yet there are only 67 million golfers in the world. Less than one percent of the population plays the sport. Let’s use the metaphor of the golf course as we analyze your life. Are there equivalents of this questionable use of resources and space? Now is a favorable time to downsize irrelevant, misused, and unproductive elements. Re-evaluate how you use your space and resources.

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