Seeking Your Advice

Let Me Know What You Think and Feel

The most important thing to say here at the beginning is that I love offering you my Substack newsletters.

I’m in a chronic state of bliss because I have the privilege of talking about subjects that are interesting to me and knowing that many of you enjoy reading them.

Equally gratifying: Some of you buy paid subscriptions to my newsletter, providing me with money to support and encourage my work!

I hope you can imagine how grateful I am.

Having said that, I’m about to depart from my usual approach to the newsletter. In this issue, I will give you background about what’s going on for me and my work.

I completely understand if that doesn’t interest you. No worries!

As usual, my horoscopes for you are at the end of this newsletter. Scroll down!

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TWO HOPES

As I dive in, I will tell you my two hopes:

1. If you have feelings about what I discuss below, write to me at Newsletter@FreeWillAstrology.com. I can’t promise I will respond personally, but I will read everything.

2. If you’re so moved, offer your input about this proposal of mine: I want to hire a publicist and marketing specialist to help circulate my creative work to a larger audience. The project will start with my upcoming trilogy of novels.

Do you know anyone who would be great at this job?

The people I hire will like and understand that my body of work features multiple platforms, including my astrology writing and my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, as well as my novels, poetry, music, performances, newsletter, and social media creations.

The people I hire will appreciate and share my belief that LOVE in all its gorgeous complexity is life’s decisive and crucial truth—its key necessity and motivating force.

The people I hire will celebrate the poet Rilke’s idea: “For one human being to love another is the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”

In the coming months, these publicity and marketing people will begin the long-term project by focusing on my upcoming trilogy of magical realist novels:

(The above text is from the backs of all three books in the trilogy)

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Key themes in the Love Stories for the Earth are:

1. how the climate emergency impacts us on intimate psychological levels—and what we can do to heal;

2. how our ability to be effective activists thrives as we do inner work on our own wounds and fulfill our unique soul’s code;

3. how our ability to be successful activists flourishes as we cultivate deeply felt personal connections with the sentient intelligences of animals, plants, natural forces, and the Earth herself;

4. how our personal health and the health of the planet cry out for us to be in vibrant relationship with what I call The Other Real World:  the realm humans inhabit during dreams, meditations, and altered states—where our ancestors live full-time, along with fairies, elementals, devas, daimons, spirits, angels, and deities.

PS: The wonder tales in Love Stories for the Earth are fulfillments of promises I made in my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

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GETTING THE MAGIC, LOVE, AND BLESSINGS INTO WIDER CIRCULATION

An entrepreneur approached me with a proposal:

"Listen, Rob, your work should be getting out to a bigger audience,” he told me. “People are starving for the evocative messages you're putting out. That's why you need me. With my marketing machine, your name could become as recognizable as Deepak Chopra's. Let's build an entertainment conglomerate and hawk a hundred Rob Brezsny-style products."

"Thanks for your invitation," I said. "But that’s not an approach I want to take. People come to me seeking sanctuary from heavy-handed hype. They know I won't inundate them with relentless sales pitches. They appreciate that my main motivations are to rouse liberation, inspiration, and compassion.”

I told the entrepreneur that I would love to get my message out to a wider audience. And I would also welcome an increase in income. But any marketing project would have to be done artfully—with grace, joy, love, integrity, and fun.

I turned down the entrepreneur. He wasn’t the right choice for me.

Who would be the right choice? Emotionally intelligent, spiritually aware professionals who share at least some of my values and who would be skilled at expanding the reach of my lyrical ideas, practical love, magical activism, and soulful blessings.

Photo: my roots as a Sacred Janitor, attending to matters at the Bargain Barn thrift store in Santa Cruz, California

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HISTORY OF MY ANTI-HYPE

Since long before the entrepreneur’s inquiry, I have taken a low-key, respectful approach to presenting my work. Maybe I have erred on the side of minimal hype, but I have no regrets.

I have regularly gotten inquiries from marketers who want to pay me money for putting advertisements on my Free Will Astrology website or advertorials on my social media sites. I always say no. I have turned down tens of thousands of dollars in ad revenue.

I'm going on 29 years of maintaining this attitude. I launched my website in 1995 and have never had a paid ad on it.

One of my primary creations, the FREE WILL ASTROLOGY weekly horoscope column, has ALWAYS been free to readers.

(Many newspapers have paid me for the right to publish “Free Will Astrology,” but every one of those papers has been free to readers.)

For years, I have also given away an abundance of other free stuff. On my Soundcloud page and rock band’s page, there are over two hours' worth of my music.

My social media pages provide a constant stream of free info and entertainment that includes far more than my astrological musings. The sites I regularly update are two Facebook pages, one here and the other here, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Threads, and Tumblr.

Now and then on my social media, I publicize my books and my paid astrological services. But those posts are generally outnumbered by non-promotional posts at a rate of 20 to 1.

Online, I freely give away large sections of my books Astrology Is Real, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, and The Televisionary Oracle.

My newsletter is free for those who want it to be (though readers can subscribe for a fee if they choose). I know some Substack writers are putting ads in their newsletters, but I don’t want to do that.

My Youtube videos are fun, but I don’t make any money from them.

THE REALITIES OF SELF-PUBLISHING

I suspect my various creative expressions could reach a bigger audience than they do—more readers and listeners who might truly benefit from my messages but don’t know about them yet. And I would like that to happen.

A secondary consideration, which is less important but still of value, is to earn more money than I do now.

I was indigent for many years of my adult life—below the poverty line, really—though I haven’t been poor for a while now.

But I would indeed like more money coming in for this key reason: I would love to be able to spend what’s necessary to get my future books and music albums done right.

Although I have worked with big publishers and record companies in the past, I no longer do that. Beginning with my recent book ASTROLOGY IS REAL, and from now on, all of my next 20 books will be self-published. Same with my music albums: self-published.

On some other occasion, I will talk about why I made the decision to stop allying myself with big companies. For now, I will simply note that going solo means I pay for everything myself.

For example: In getting a self-published book ready for publishing, I pay out of my own pocket for all the work I need to produce an excellent result.

I hire at least two editors to advise me on each manuscript’s content, plus at least one copy editor to proofread the final text.

I pay artists and book designers to design the cover and the inside of the book (two different tasks). I pay a fee for the artwork on the covers.

I pay for a helper to make the self-published books available through all the online book sellers. In the past I have paid for book promotion by experts, and I would like to continue to do that for my future books.

If anyone is interested, I would be happy to detail the finances that went into the production of my recent book ASTROLOGY IS REAL. Here’s a snapshot: It cost me $14,250 to produce, and it required 5,600 hours for me to write. Even if I pay myself nothing for that labor, I would like to recoup the production costs. Still working on that!

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FUTURE BOOKS

Here’s the lowdown on the books I’ll be publishing throughout 2024 and 2025.

I am almost finished with a trilogy of novels I have been working on for over 13 years. They are:

Holy Rivers: Book 1 of Love Stories for the Earth

Lucky Storms: Book 2 of Love Stories for the Earth

The Other Real World: Book 3 of Love Stories for the Earth

Here’s a blurb about these books from New York Times’ bestseller adrienne marie brown (she doesn’t capitalize her name):

"With his trilogy of Love Stories for the Earth, Rob Brezsny unleashes his wild imagination and his multiple ways of seeing and knowing into a visceral love note. These novels feel like songs, sets of spells, tantric dances, and fierce fights for this earth.

“Brezsny invites us into a way of dreaming that can weave us back into relationship with each other, with all that has lived and all that will live."

- adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism and Grievers Trilogy

Hear the podcast conversation of adrienne maree brown and me

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For over ten years, I have also been working on 12 astrology books, one for each sign of the zodiac. Six of them are 95% done, and I’m well underway with the other six. Their titles:

Free Will Astrology: Love Oracle to Liberate Your Imagination: Aries

Free Will Astrology: Love Oracle to Liberate Your Imagination: Taurus

Free Will Astrology: Love Oracle to Liberate Your Imagination: Gemini

The other nine books have similar titles, except of course with each of the other signs.

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HERE’S HOW I EARN MONEY

• Many alternative newsweeklies pay me for publishing “Free Will Astrology,” though there aren't as many of those that there used to be. The pandemic and the internet have put many of those papers out of business.

• People buy my Expanded Auido Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes at https://RealAstrology.com.

• This Substack newsletter is available for free or as a paid subscription, and some people choose to pay the subscription.

• I welcome one-time donations at my Paypal site: https://paypal.com/paypalme/GiftsForRob

I also make a modest amount of money from book sales.

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MY WORK SCHEDULE

Typically, I work seven days a week and ten hours a day. There’s so much to do!

I write my weekly astrology column. I write and record weekly Expanded Audio Horoscopes. I write daily text horoscopes. I have a helper on the business side of things, but I also do lots of business myself.

Every day, I update four of my social media pages. Once a week, I update my webpage. Once a week, I send out two Substack newsletters.

I also interact with readers a lot.

And then there’s the work on my 20 upcoming books, which includes writing them and overseeing their production.

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Free Will Astrology Week of April 25

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Bordering the Pacific Ocean for a thousand miles, Chile’s Atacama Desert is a place of stark and startling beauty. Unfortunately, its pristine landscape is also a dumping ground for vast amounts of discarded clothes that people bought cheaply, wore out quickly, and didn’t want anymore. Is there any other place on earth that more poignantly symbolizes the overlap of sacred and profane? In the coming weeks, Taurus, you will possess a special aptitude for succeeding in situations with metaphorical resemblances to the Atacama. You will have an enhanced power to inject ingenious changes wherever messiness is mixed with elegance, wherever blemished beauty requires redemption, and wherever lyrical truths need to be rescued from careless duplicity or pretense.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): My Gemini friend Alicia thrives on having a quick, acute, whirling-dervish-like intelligence. It’s one of her strong points now, but it wasn’t always. She says she used to be hyperactive. She thought of serenity as boring—“like some wan, bland floral tea.” But after years of therapy, she is joyous to have discovered “a kind of serenity that’s like sweet, frothy hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.” I’m guessing that many of you Geminis have been evolving in a similar direction in recent months—and will climax this excellent period of relaxing growth in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): All Cancerians who read this oracle are automatically included on the Primal Prayer Power List. During the next 13 days, my team of 13 Prayer Warriors and I will sing incantations to nurture your vigor, sovereignty, and clarity of purpose. We will envision your dormant potentials ripening. We will call on both human and divine allies to guide you in receiving and bestowing the love that gives your life supreme meaning. How should you prepare for this flood of blessings? Start by having a long talk with yourself in which you describe exactly why you deserve these gifts.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A meme on Instagram said, “The day I stopped worrying about what other people think of me was the day I became free.” This sentiment provokes mixed feelings in me. I agree it’s liberating not to be obsessed with what people think of us. On the other hand,  I believe we should indeed care about how we affect others. We are wise to learn from them about how we can be our best selves. Our “freedom" includes the discernment to know which ideas people have about us are worth paying attention to and which are best forgotten and ignored. In my opinion, Leo, these are important themes for you to ruminate on right now.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia is a holy place for Islam. Jerusalem is the equivalent for Judaism, and the Vatican is for Catholicism. Other spiritual traditions regard natural areas as numinous and exalting. For instance, the Yoruba people of Nigeria cherish Osun-Osogbo, a sacred grove of trees along the Osun River. I’d love it if there were equivalent sanctuaries for you, Virgo—where you could go to heal and recharge whenever you need to. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to identify power spots like these. If there are no such havens for you, find or create some.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In my astrological opinion, you are entering a period when you can turn any potential breakdown into a breakthrough. If a spiritual emergency arises, I predict you will use it to rouse wisdom that sparks your emergence from numbness and apathy. Darkness will be your ally because it will be the best place to access hidden strength and untapped resources. And here’s the best news of all: Unripe and wounded parts of your psyche will get healing upgrades as you navigate your way through the intriguing mysteries.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): According to my astrological perspective, you are entering a phase when you could dramatically refine how relationships function in your life. To capitalize on the potential, you must figure out how to have fun while doing the hard work that such an effort will take. Here are three questions to get you started. 1 What can you do to foster a graceful balance between being too self-centered and giving too much of yourself? 2. Are there any stale patterns in your deep psyche that tend to undermine your love life? If so, how could you transform or dissolve them? 3. Given the fact that any close relationship inevitably provokes the dark sides of both allies, how can you cultivate healthy ways to deal with that?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I feel sad when I see my friends tangling with mediocre problems. The uninspiring dilemmas aren’t very interesting and don’t provoke much personal growth. They use up psychic energy that could be better allocated. Thankfully, I don’t expect you to suffer this bland fate in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. You will entertain high-quality quandaries. They will call forth the best in you. They will stimulate your creativity and make you smarter and kinder and wilder. Congratulations on working diligently to drum up such rich challenges!

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1894, a modest agave ferox plant began its life at a botanical garden in Oxford, England. By 1994, a hundred years later, it had grown to be six feet tall but had never bloomed. Then one December day, the greenhouse temperature accidentally climbed above 68 degrees F. During the next two weeks, the plant grew twice as tall. Six months later, it bloomed bright yellow flowers for the first time. I suspect metaphorically comparable events will soon occur for you, Capricorn. They may already be underway.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Have you felt a longing to be nurtured? Have you fantasized about asking for support and encouragement and mentoring? If so, wonderful! Your intuition is working well! My astrological analysis suggests you would dramatically benefit from basking in the care and influence of people who can elevate and champion you; who can cherish and exalt you; who can feed and inspire you. My advice is to pursue the blessings of such helpers without inhibition or apology. You need and deserve to be treated like a vibrant treasure.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In his book Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception, Thom Hartmann theorizes that distractibility may have been an asset for our ancestors. Having a short attention span meant they were ever alert for possible dangers and opportunities in their environment. If they were out walking at night, being lost in thought could prevent them from tuning into warning signals from the bushes. Likewise, while hunting, they would benefit from being ultra-receptive to fleeting phenomena and ready to make snap decisions. I encourage you to be like a hunter in the coming weeks, Pisces. Not for wild animals, but for wild clues, wild signs, and wild help.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Have you ever gotten your mind, heart, and soul in sweet alignment with the spiritual beauty of money? An opportunity to do that is available. During the next four weeks, you can cultivate an almost mystical communion with the archetype of well-earned wealth. What does that mean? Well, you could be the beneficiary of novel insights and hot tips about how best to conduct your finances. You might get intuitions about actions you could take to bring more riches into your life. Be alert for help from unexpected sources. You may notice that the more generous you are, the more the world’s generosity will flow your way.