Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
How Much Aliveness Do You Want?
Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
May 12, 2021
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Dear Readers —
In the past four weeks, my newsletters have been expunged — in other words, censored — by three big mail servers. Many subscribers haven't received my deliveries.
Here's my solution: I will begin distributing the newsletter through Substack. That's why you're getting this right now! If it's OK with you, I will continue to send you my newsletter via Substack in the future.
There may be a bit of an adjustment process while I work out the kinks. Please bear with me.
Meanwhile, you can find the last four weeks' newsletters at my archives:
https://bit.ly/YouKnowHowToLove
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“Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves,” writes psychoanalytic author Adam Phillips.
How are you doing with that challenge?
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UPLIFTING OTHERS
May you never be the reason why someone who loved to sing, doesn't anymore.
Or why someone who dressed so uniquely, now wears plain clothing.
Or why someone who always spoke so excitedly about their dreams, is now silent about them.
May you never be the reason someone gave up on a part of themselves because you were demotivating, non-appreciative, hypercritical, or even worse—sarcastic about it.
—Mostafa Ibrahim
@UnschoolersCollective
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RE-GENIUS YOURSELF
Although we are all born geniuses, the grind of day-to-day living tends to de-genius us. That's the bad news. The good news is that you have the power to re-genius yourself.
Here's a ritual you can use to jump-start the process. https://tinyurl.com/GeniusYourself
Here's how the ritual begins:
The Greek philosopher Plato long ago recognized that in addition to eating, drinking, sleeping, breathing, and loving, every creature has an instinctual need to periodically leap up into the air for no other reason than because it feels so good.
HEAR AND READ THE REST: https://tinyurl.com/GeniusYourself
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BEAUTIFICATION
Cancer cells are constantly developing in our bodies. Luckily, our immune systems routinely kill them off. Similarly, our minds always harbor pockets of crazy-making misconceptions and faulty imprints. They usually don't rise up and render us insane thanks to the psychic versions of our immune systems.
How can you stay strong in your ability to fight off madness?
You know the drill: Eat healthy food, sleep well, get physical exercise, minimize stress, give and receive love. But as an aspiring pronoiac, you have at your disposal other actions that can provide powerful boosts to your psychic immune system. Here are examples:
Scheme to put yourself in the path of beautiful landscapes, buildings, art, and creatures.
Exercise your imagination regularly. Get in the habit of feeding your mind's eye with images that fill you with wonder and vitality.
Eliminate uhs, you knows, I means, and other junk words from your speech. Avoid saying things you don't really mean and haven't thought out. Stop yourself when tempted to make scornful assertions about people.
Every night before you fall asleep, review the day's activities in your mind's eye. As if watching a movie about yourself, try to be calmly objective as you observe your memories from the previous 16 hours. Be especially alert for moments when you strayed from your purpose and didn't live up to your highest standards.
With a companion, sit in front of a turned-off TV as you make up a pronoiac story that features tricky benevolence, scintillating harmony, and amusing redemption. Speak this tale aloud or write it down.
Take on an additional job title, beautifier. Put it on your business card and do something every day to cultivate your skill. If you're a people person, bring grace and intrigue into your conversations; ask unexpected questions that provoke original thoughts.
If you're an artist, leave samples of your finest work in public places. If you're a psychologist or sociologist, point out the institutions and relationships that are working really well. Whatever you do best, be alert for how you can refine it and offer it up to those who'll benefit from it.
If you're going through a phase when you feel you have nothing especially beautiful to offer, or if you think it would be self-indulgent to inject your own aesthetic into shared environments, turn for help to great artists and thinkers.
Sneak O'Keeffe or Chagall prints onto unadorned walls in public places, for instance. Memorize poems by Emily Dickinson and Hafiz, and slip them into your conversations when appropriate. Use Vivaldi's *Stabat Mater in C Minor* as your ring tone. Scrawl passages from Annie Dillard's *Teaching a Stone to Talk* on the walls of public lavatories.
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LOVING OUR LIVES
Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins died of typhoid fever after enduring years of health problems. He also had chronic melancholy and a mental illness that today we would call bipolar disorder. Yet his last words before he died were, "I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my life."
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"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
—Agatha Christie
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THE WHALE OIL LAMP INDUSTRY
Senator Ted Cruz tweeted: "The Green New Deal will destroy the American energy industry as we know it."
In response, Edward DeRuiter @edwardderuiter tweeted: "The electric lightbulb will destroy the American whale oil lamp industry as we know it."
Jim Vernier added: "The automobile will destroy the horse and buggy industry as we know it. Airplanes will destroy the steamship and steam train industries as we know them. Comets will destroy the dinosaur industry as we know it. Change will destroy the old thing as we know it — fact."
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MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:
Muddy Bride Sacrifices Dress to Deliver Calf During Wedding Reception. https://tinyurl.com/ryruwky8
They Melted Down 22,000 Firearms in Belgium, Recycling Them Into Steel. https://tinyurl.com/r8w3dx2v
79-Year-old Diver and This Fish Have Been BFFs for Nearly 30 Years—He Nursed Her Back to Health. https://tinyurl.com/4fm4ezww
Farms in UK Saved This Beautiful Duke of Burgundy Butterfly From Extinction. https://tinyurl.com/2dbk9k68
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For a lot more pronoiac resources and ideas, read my book *Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings*
Available at Bookshop.org: https://tinyurl.com/548hp8y8
Available at Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaBN
Available at Amazon: https://bit.ly/Pronoia
A free preview of the book is available here: https://tinyurl.com/PronoiaPreview
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Please tell me your own nominations for PRONOIA RESOURCES: Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning May 13
Copyright 2021 by Rob Brezsny
https://FreeWillAstrology.com
Grammar key: Asterisks equal *italics*
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): A fan once asked composer Johann Sebastian Bach about his creative process. He was so prolific! How did he dream up such a constant flow of new music? Bach told his admirer that the tunes came to him unbidden. When he woke up each morning, they were already announcing themselves in his head. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Taurus, a comparable phenomenon may very well visit you in the coming weeks—not in the form of music, but as intuitions and insights about your life and your future. Your main job is to be receptive to them, and make sure you remember them.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "I love unmade beds," writes Gemini poet Shane Koyczan. "I love when people are drunk and crying and cannot be anything but honest. I love the look in people’s eyes when they realize they’re in love. I love the way people look when they first wake up and they’ve forgotten their surroundings. I love when people close their eyes and drift to somewhere in the clouds." In the coming days, Gemini, I encourage you to specialize in moments like those: when you and the people you're interested in are candid, unguarded, raw, vulnerable, and primed to go deeper. In my opinion, your soul needs the surprising healing that will come from these experiences.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Trailblazing psychologist C. G. Jung said his loneliness wasn't about a lack of people around him. Rather, it came from the fact that he knew things that most people didn't know and didn't want to know. He had no possibility of communicating many of the interesting truths that were important to him! But I'm guessing that won't be much of a problem for you in the coming months. According to my astrological analysis, you're more likely to be well-listened to and understood than you have been in quite some time. For best results, ASK to be listened to and understood. And think about how you might express yourself in ways that are likely to be interesting and useful to others.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The French government regularly gives the Legion of Honor award to people deemed to have provided exceptional service to the world. Most recipients are deserving, but a few have been decidedly unworthy. In the latter category are Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, as well as drug-cheating athlete Lance Armstrong, sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, and Nazi collaborator Marshal Pétain. I bring this to your attention, Leo, because the coming weeks will be a favorable time to reward people who have helped and supported you. But I also suggest that you pointedly exclude those who have too many negatives mixed in with their positives.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In 2010, an American engineer named Edward Pimentel went to Moscow to compete in the World Karaoke Championship. He won by singing Usher's "DJ Got Us Falling in Love." His award: one million dumplings, enough to last him 27 years. I have a good feeling about the possibility of you, too, collecting a new prize or perk or privilege sometime soon. I just hope it's a healthier boon than dumplings. For best results, take some time now to clearly define the nature of the prize or perk or privilege that you really want—and that will be truly useful.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I will love it if sometime soon you find or create an opportunity to speak words similar to what novelist D. H. Lawrence once wrote to a lover: "You seem to have knit all things in a piece for me. Things are not separate; they are all in a symphony." In other words, Libra, I'll be ecstatic if you experience being in such synergistic communion with an empathic ally that the two of you weave a vision of life that's vaster and richer than either one of you could summon by yourself. The astrological omens suggest this possibility is now more likely than usual.
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YOU ALWAYS HAVE MORE HELP THAN YOU IMAGINE
Both people you know and people you don't know could very well come to your assistance and offer their support if you meet two conditions:
1. you believe you deserve their assistance and support;
2. you seek out and ask for their assistance and support.
There's a higher part of your brain that will also provide you with insight and guidance if you turn to it in humility and seek its input.
Whether or not you actually believe in spiritual beings, they, too, are ready to offer unexpected help, support, blessings and resources.
If you don't believe in their existence, I invite you to pretend you do for a while and see what happens. If you do believe in them, formulate clear requests for what you'd like them to offer you.
I may also be able to provide you with compassionate guidance, both through the written horoscopes I provide in this newsletter and the Expanded Audio Horoscopes I offer online and via telephone.
To listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope online, go to https://RealAstrology.com
Register and/or log in through the main page.
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The cost is $6 per sign online. (Discounts are available for bulk purchases.)
You can also listen over the phone by calling 1-877-873-4888. The cost is $1.99 per minute. Each forecast is 4-5 minutes long.
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"Your Expanded Audio Horoscopes seem to have the effect of activating my inner teacher. Thanks!"
—Eleanor Axelrod, Toronto
"When I listen to your audio horoscopes, I feel like I'm tuning in to what a friend has to say about the current state of my life."
—Arnella Simpson, Seattle
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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Sometimes people don't like the provocative posts I publish on Facebook. They leave comments like, "You stupid idiot!" or "I hope you commit suicide!" and far worse. When I delete their messages, they become even more enraged, accusing me of censorship. "So you don't believe in free speech, you jerk?" they complain. I don't try to reason with them. They don't deserve any of my time or energy. But if I did communicate with them, I might say, "My Facebook page is my sanctuary, where I welcome cordial conversation. If you came into my house and called me an idiot, would it be 'censorship' if I told you to leave?" I hope these thoughts inspire you to clarify and refine your own personal boundaries, Scorpio. It's a good time to get precise and definite about what's acceptable and unacceptable from the people with whom you engage.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Have you ever kissed a monster in your nightly dreams? Have you won a chess match with a demon or signed a beneficial contract with a ghost or received a useful blessing from a pest? I highly recommend activities like those in the coming weeks—both while you're asleep and awake. Now is a good time to at least make peace with challenging influences, and at best come into a new relationship with them that serves you better. I dare you to ask for a gift from an apparent adversary.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What does it mean to "follow the path with heart"? I invite you to meditate on that question. Here are my ideas. To follow the path with heart means choosing a destiny that appeals to your feelings as well as to your ambitions and ideas and habits. To follow a path with heart means living a life that fosters your capacity to give and receive love. To follow the path with heart means honoring your deepest intuitions rather than the expectations other people have about you. To follow the path with heart means never comparing your progress with that of anyone else's, but rather simply focusing on being faithful to your soul's code.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): "It's a good thing when people are different from your images of them," wrote Aquarian author Boris Pasternak. "It shows they are not merely a type. If you can't place them in a category, it means that at least a part of them is what a human being ought to be. They have risen above themselves, they have a grain of immortality." I love that perspective! I'm offering it to you because right now is a favorable time to show that you are indeed different from the images people have of you; that you transcend all stereotyping; that you are uncategorizable.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You have personal possession of the universe's most monumental creation: consciousness. This mercurial flash and dazzle whirling around inside you is outlandishly spectacular. You can think thoughts any time you want to—soaring, luminescent, flamboyant thoughts or shriveled, rusty, burrowing thoughts; thoughts that can invent or destroy, corrupt or redeem, bless or curse. There's more. You can revel and wallow in great oceans of emotion. Whether they are poignant or intoxicating or somewhere in between, you relish the fact that you can harbor so much intensity. You cherish the privilege of commanding such extravagant life force. I bring these thoughts to your attention because the time is right for a holiday I call Celebrate Your Greatest Gifts.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson tells us, "The pedigree of honey / Does not concern the bee; / A clover, any time, to him / Is aristocracy." I suggest you be like Dickinson's bee in the coming weeks, my dear Aries. Take pleasure and power where they are offered. Be receptive to just about any resource that satisfies your raw need. Consider the possibility that substitutes and stand-ins may be just as good as the supposed original. OK? Don't be too fussy about how pure or prestigious anything is.
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Homework. Send testimony or proof of how you've seized control of your own life. Truthrooster@gmail.com
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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.
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Contents of the Free Will Astrology Newsletter are Copyright 2021 Rob Brezsny
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