What Can We Do . . .

to not just survive but thrive?

RIGHTEOUS RESPONSES

I am sad and distraught about the decimations that the Trumpocalypse is wreaking on millions of people, not just in America but all over the world.

No atrocity on American soil can ever compare to the double genocide at the core of this country's origins. But Trump's Reign of Terror is just getting started, and it's already third on the list of America's Most Evil Atrocities.

What can I personally do in response to the ghastliness?

I can refuse to let despair colonize my imagination. I can safeguard my capacity for wonder and keep training my eyes to notice the everyday rebellions of beauty—the fox trotting through the alley at dusk, the kids painting sidewalks into cathedrals with chalk. I can align myself with networks of care, mutual aid, and joyful defiance. I can amplify voices that the Trumpocalypse seeks to silence.

I can make art, music, and ritual that strengthen the spirits of my allies. I can conspire to turn grief into songs and fury into strategies. I can study history to remind myself that tyrannies always fall, though often at great cost—and that liberation requires stubborn love as much as it does resistance.

I can donate money to grassroots groups defending the vulnerable. I can volunteer my time with local activists who are protecting immigrants, voting rights, reproductive justice, and the climate. I can check in on friends who feel isolated, making sure no one fights despair alone.

I can write letters to editors, call legislators, and show up in the streets with my body and my sign. I can teach, mentor, and pass on skills of resilience to younger allies. I can vote, organize, and stay alert—not just for the next election, but for the long, ongoing work of keeping democracy alive.

I can sharpen my rage into a luminous sword instead of letting it corrode into despair. I can name the Trumpocalypse for what it is: a death cult, a con of cruelty, a desecration of everything tender and wild. I can refuse its gravitational pull by being louder in my love, bolder in my solidarity, rowdier in my refusal.

Most of all, I can keep my own soul from becoming a miniature Trumpistan, polluted with cruelty and numbness. Instead, I will be a living sanctuary, an ecosystem of refusal and tenderness, a trickster priest of rowdy hope.

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Images: from my unpublished Tarot deck

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Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a police state?

Well, you can check that box off your bucket list.

We’re there. Read more: tinyurl.com/PoliceStateNow

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Tom Morello, from the band Rage Against the Machine, gives us his “Fuck Ice” playlist: tinyurl.com/FuckIcePlaylist

It features 65 songs that highlight protest, diversity, and inclusion. Composed of classics like Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" and Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," plus tracks from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, and more.

Terror, Grief, and Pronoia in the Age of Trump

I am rattled. I am aghast. I am in grief about the mayhem and atrocities that the Trump administration and its allies have unleashed upon the world. MAGA is a terrorist theocratic sect. ICE is a secret police force conducting ethnic cleansing. The Project 2025-sponsored “president” is a foreign-backed fascist thug perpetrating a coup d’état. America has been invaded and occupied by a hostile oligarchic death cult.

I don't toss around these words lightly. They are not hyperbole born of a temporary bad mood. They come from watching the erosion of truth, the demonization of the vulnerable, and the ever-tightening clench of barbaric authoritarian power. Millions of lives are imperiled, the earth is brutalized, and a grotesque parody of faith poisons millions of imaginations.

And yet, despite my horror at the runaway abominations, I am still a passionate devotee of pronoia: the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings.

Pronoia is not denial. It’s not naïve optimism. It’s not shoving daisies in gun barrels and pretending the guns aren’t loaded. My pronoia is rowdy, muscular, and complicated. It recognizes the grief and the terror, the corruption and the cruelty — and still insists on seeking out the currents of benevolence flowing all around us.

When I rail against the oligarchic death cult, I do so with the conviction that we are also surrounded by multitudes of life celebrations: people and movements devoted to compassion, justice, erotic intelligence, and ecological repair.

For every ICE agent wielding cruelty, there is a grandmother planting milkweed for the monarch butterflies. For every demagogue sowing hatred, there are communities weaving resilience out of music, prayer, dance, and boisterous rituals.

Pronoia teaches me that to resist effectively, I’ve got to cultivate joy as fiercely as I curate my outrage. My anger fuels my sacred fight, and my glee and bliss nurture my soulful lust for life. The fascists want us depleted, numb, and cynical. But pronoia dares me to be tender, ecstatic, and wildly imaginative even as I confront their horrors.

So I hold both truths: America has been assaulted and overrun by a hostile oligarchic death cult perpetrating its toxic rot — and yet the universe is still conspiring, through love and mystery, to shower us with blessings. My task is to live inside this paradox with brazen courage, to grieve and celebrate at once, to mourn the mayhem while magnifying the miracles.

That’s my resistance. That’s my pronoia.

To embody pronoia in this vicious time is to make ourselves vivacious transmitters of the LIFE FREQUENCY — and an antidote to the putrid, festering frequency suppurating from the death cult’s megaphones.

It means practicing daily acts of enchantment and solidarity: feeding one another, protecting and amusing one another, making art, singing loud, showing up in the streets, and inventing rituals of care that remind us we are radiant animals keen on claiming our right to delight.

It means refusing the invitation to collapse into despair, and instead cultivating a stamina of wonder, a muscular aptitude for gratitude, a feral exuberance that can’t possibly be domesticated by fear.

To bestow pronoia is to treat our imaginative joy and fertile reverence as contagious medicine. When we embody it, we bless others with our bold joie de vivre. When we laugh and carouse and celebrate with audacity, we undermine authoritarian control.

As we love with unruly devotion, we unmask the fraudulence of their necropolitics. In this way, pronoia isn’t merely a private consolation. It’s a steady blast of festive resistance, a raucous healing counter-spell, a treasure we circulate to nourish the fire of our brilliant compassion, our genius empathy, and our unconquerable drive for justice.

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Links to all my other stuff: linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of August 28

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In Andean cosmology, the condor and the hummingbird are both sacred messengers. One soars majestically at high altitudes, a symbolic bridge between the earth and heaven. The other moves with supple efficiency and detailed precision, an icon of resilience and high energy. Let’s make these birds your spirit creatures for the coming months. Your challenging but feasible assignment is to both see the big picture and attend skillfully to the intimate details.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the ancient Greek myth of Psyche, one of her trials is to gather golden wool from violent rams. She succeeds by waiting until the torrid heat of midday passes, and the rams are resting in the cool shade. She safely collects the wool from bushes and branches without confronting the rams directly. Let this be a lesson, Libra. To succeed at your challenges, rely on strategy rather than confrontation. It’s true that what you want may feel blocked by difficult energies, like chaotic schedules, reactive people, or tangled decisions. But don’t act impulsively. Wait. Listen. Watch. Openings will happen when the noise settles and others tire themselves out. You don’t need to overpower. You just need to time your grace. Golden wool is waiting, but it can’t be taken by force.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 1911, two teams tried to become the first humans to reach the South Pole. Roald Amundsen’s group succeeded, but Robert Falcon Scott’s did not. Why? Amundsen had studied with Indigenous people who were familiar with frigid environments. He adopted their clothing choices (fur and layering), their travel techniques (dogsledding), and their measured, deliberate pacing, including lots of rest. Scott exhausted himself and his people with inconsistent bursts of intense effort and stubbornly inept British strategies. Take your cues from Amundsen, dear Scorpio. Get advice from real experts. Pace yourself; don't sprint. Be consistent rather than melodramatic. Opt for discipline instead of heroics.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): A lighthouse isn’t concerned with whether ships are watching it from a distance. It simply shines forth its strong beams, no questions asked. It rotates, pulses, and moves through its cycles because that’s its natural task. Its purpose is steady illumination, not recognition. In the coming weeks, Sagittarius, I ask you and encourage you to be like a lighthouse. Be loyal to your own gleam. Do what you do best because it pleases you. The ones who need your signal will find you. You don’t have to chase them across the waves.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1885, Sarah E. Goode became the fourth African American woman to be granted a U.S. patent. Her invention was ingenious: a folding cabinet bed that could be transformed into a roll-top desk. It appealed to people who lived in small apartments and needed to save space. I believe you’re primed and ready for a similar advance in practical resourcefulness, Capricorn. You may be able to combine two seemingly unrelated needs into one brilliant solution— turning space, time, or resources into something more graceful and useful. Let your mind play with hybrid inventions and unlikely pairings.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I expect you will be knowledgeable and smart during the coming weeks, Aquarius. But I hope you will also be wise and savvy. I hope you will wrestle vigorously with the truth so you can express it in practical and timely ways. You must be ingenious as you figure out the precise ways to translate your intelligence into specifically right actions. So for example: You may feel compelled to be authentic in a situation where you have been reticent, or to share a vision that has been growing quietly. Don’t stay silent, but also: Don’t blurt. Articulate your reality checks with elegance and discernment. The right message delivered at the wrong moment could make a mess, whereas that same message will be a blessing if offered at the exact turning point.

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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Liubai is a Chinese term that means “to leave blank.” In traditional ink painting, it referred to the portions of the canvas the artist chose not to fill in. Those unpainted areas were not considered empty. They carried emotional weight, inviting the eye to rest and the mind to wander. I believe your near future could benefit from this idea, Pisces. Don’t feel you have to spell everything out or tie up each thread. It may be important not to explain and reveal some things. What’s left unsaid, incomplete, or open-ended may bring you more gifts than constant effort. Let a little stillness accompany whatever you’re creating.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In some Buddhist mandalas, the outer circle depicts a wall of fire. It marks the boundary between the chaotic external world and the sacred space within. For seekers and devotees, it’s a symbol of the transformation they must undergo to commune with deeper truths. I think you’re ready to create or bolster your own flame wall, Aries. What is non-negotiable for your peace, your creativity, your worth? Who or what belongs in your inner circle? And what must stay outside? Be clear about the boundaries you need to be your authentic self.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Centuries ago, builders in Venice, Italy, drove countless wooden pilings deep into the waterlogged mud of the lagoon to create a stable base for future structures. These timber foundations were essential because the soil was too weak to support stone buildings directly. Eventually, the wood absorbed minerals from the surrounding muddy water and became exceptionally hard and durable: capable of supporting heavy buildings. Taurus, you may soon glimpse how something you've built your life upon—a value, a relationship, or a daily ritual—is more enduring than you imagined. Its power is in its rootedness, its long conversation with the invisible. My advice: Trust what once seemed soft but has become solid. Thank life for blessing you with its secret alchemy.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Inuit myth, Sedna is the goddess who lives at the bottom of the sea and oversees all marine life. If humans harm nature or neglect spiritual truths, Sedna may stop allowing them to catch sea creatures for food, leading to starvation. Then shamans from the world above must swim down to sing her songs and comb her long black hair. If they win her favor, she restores balance. I propose that you take direction from this myth, Gemini. Some neglected beauty and wisdom in your emotional depths is asking for your attention. What part of you needs reverence, tenderness, and ceremonial care?

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In ancient Rome, the lararium was a home altar. It wasn’t used for momentous appeals to the heavyweight deities like Jupiter, Venus, Apollo, Juno, and Mars. Instead, it was there that people performed daily rituals, seeking prosperity, protection, and health from their ancestors and minor household gods. I think now is a fine time to create your own version of a lararium, Cancerian. How could you fortify your home base to make it more nurturing and uplifting? What rituals and playful ceremonies might you do to generate everyday blessings?

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In Persian miniature painting, entire epics are compressed into exquisite images the size of a hand. Each creation contains worlds within worlds, myths tucked into detail. I suggest you draw inspiration from this approach, Leo. Rather than imagining your life as a grand performance, play with the theme of sacred compression. Be alert for seemingly transitory moments that carry enormous weight. Proceed on the assumption that a brief phrase or lucky accident may spark sweet changes. What might it look like to condense your full glory into small gifts that people can readily use?