Free Will Astrology


Horoscopes by Rob Brezsny


Week of May 17th, 2007

♈ ARIES

(March 21-April 19)
"The Only Three Questions That Count" is the title of a book by Ken Fisher. I'm stealing it to use as the theme of your horoscope. So your next assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to craft three essential questions that will guide your journey between now and the end of 2007. These queries should excite your natural curiosity about the life issues that matter most to you. They should be carefully and precisely formulated. And they should motivate you to keep your mind wide open and hungry as you hunt for more insight into your most bafflingly interesting mysteries.


Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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A common obstruction to a vital intimate relationship with another human being is what I call the assumption of clairvoyance. You imagine, perhaps unconsciously, that your partner or friend is somehow magically psychic when it comes to you—so much so that he or she should unfailingly intuit exactly what you need, even if you don’t ask for it. This fantasy may seem romantic, but it can single-handedly sink the most promising alliances. To counteract any tendencies you might have to indulge in the assumption of clairvoyance, practice stating your desires aloud.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♉ TAURUS

(April 20-May 20)
It's about time you got the chance to be knocked on your ass by a flood of positive surprises and good feelings. I hope you're trusting enough to go with the tidal flow, even if it does temporarily render you a bit woozy. Naturally you'd like to know if this giddy surrender will land you in trouble. Is there any chance that you'll have to endure some karmic adjustment at a later date because of the fun you're having now? Here's my prediction: absolutely not. If anything, your enthusiastic cooperation with the free-form dazzle will shield you from any negative repercussions.


Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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"I’ve been practicing radical authenticity lately," my friend Brandon told me. "I’m revealing the blunt truth about unmentionable subjects to everyone I know. It’s been pretty hellish—no one likes having the social masks stripped away—but it’s been ultimately rewarding."

"I admire your boldness in naming the currents flowing beneath the surface," I replied, "but I’m curious as to why you imply they’re all negative. To practice radical authenticity, shouldn’t you also express the raw truth about what’s right, good, and beautiful? Shouldn’t you unleash the praise and gratitude that normally go unspoken?"

Brandon sneered. He thought my version of radical authenticity was wimpy. I hope you don’t. As a budding lover of life, you have a mandate to be honest in both ways.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♊ GEMINI

(May 21-June 20)
For years I made my home in a Northern Californian city called San Rafael. Near the end of my time there, I discovered that the Miwok Indians who lived in the area for hundreds of years before the white men stole it had a different name for it: Nanaguani. I was embarrassed that it had taken me so long to know such a fundamental fact about my own neighborhood. Make this the starting point for your assignment this week, Gemini, which is to learn more about the origins of the people and places and things that are most important to you.


No one knows you better than you do. But maybe you'll be inspired to dig up even more self-knowledge if you tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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"Kumulipo" is an old Hawaiian prayer chant that poetically describes the creation of the world. The word literally means "beginning-in-deep-darkness." Here darkness doesn’t connote gloom and evil. Rather, it’s about the inscrutability of the embryonic state; the obscure chaos that reigns before germination. Think about the last time you dwelt in kumulipo.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♋ CANCERIAN

(June 21-July 22)
Reality is not all it's cracked up to be. Just because millions of people suffer from the same hallucinations doesn't mean those hallucinations are objectively true. I share Salvador Dali's perspective: "One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams." For these reasons and many more, I don't automatically dismiss people who live in their own fantasy worlds. Their dreamy concoctions may be no more deluded than those of normal people, and might be far more fun and amusing. Everything I just said is a preface for the main point of this horoscope, Cancerian, which is to give you temporary license to escape into the most beautiful mirage you can conjure up. Love your fantastic visions. Let your imagination run far, far away with you.


What greater adventure is there than exploring the enigmas of your unique destiny? For more hints, listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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Write the following on a piece of red paper and keep it under your pillow. "I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day [put date here] that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world that deserves my brilliant passion above all others."

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♌ LEO

(July 23-August 22)
The members of the Superbroke Brass and Tin and Strings Electric Marching Band Ensemble wrote to me at my MySpace page. "We're here to fight the Evil Anti-Groove," they said, "to liberate the SuperFlow of the Universe, and to loosen the Sphincter of the Collective Unconscious. I hope you'll march with us some day." I bring this to your attention, Leo, because your mission in the coming weeks should be much the same as theirs. Your personal success and satisfaction will be directly tied to how skilled you are at enhancing the well-being of your group, tribe, or community.


Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don’t really need and aren’t good for you. But you shouldn’t disparage yourself for having them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted. Rather, think of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a faculty that will one day be far more expert. They’re how you practice as you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♍ VIRGO

(August 23-September 22)
"Welcome to the never-ending brainstorm session," reads an advertisement for Barclays Bank, one of the most successful financial institutions in the world. It's an approach that has some similarities to the ethic that prevails at Toyota, the company that makes the world's best-selling car. Its core principle is kaizen, a Japanese word meaning "continuous improvement," though it can also be translated as "to take apart and put back together in a better way." A blend of these attitudes is what I recommend to you during the coming weeks, Virgo: kaizen meets the never-ending brainstorm.


How much do you want to know about your destiny? How far do you dare to go? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Plant orchids on a strip-mined hill.
Imagine you have a guardian angel who looks like Malcolm X.
Teach an animal to dance.
Hire a puppet troupe to reenact your life story using marionettes in Renaissance costumes.
Make believe you are the ocean king or thunder queen.
Improvise a fresh bedtime story for someone you love.
Put on an inflatable sumo wrestler costume and play a bagpipe as badly as possible.
Watch TV with your third eye.
Sip holy water blessed by a smart teenage girl.
Bear in mind that you are the Chosen One, and so is everyone else.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♎ LIBRA

(September 23-October 22)
"There can be no transformation of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion," wrote psychologist Carl Jung. That should be your motto in the coming week, Libra. Clear thinking and impeccable logic will not be sufficient to guide you to your next great adventure. You need the driving force of succulent emotion rising up in your solar plexus, the lush power of raw sensitivity piercing your heart. Feel as deep as you dare.


Want more help in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss your coming week in greater depth in your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Philosopher William James proposed that if our culture ever hoped to shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we'd have to create a moral equivalent. It's not enough to preach the value of peace, he said. We have to find other ways to channel our aggressive instincts in order to accomplish what war does, like stimulate political unity and build civic virtue.

Astrology provides a complementary perspective. Each of us has the warrior energy of the planet Mars in our psychological make-up. We can't simply repress it, but must find a positive way to express it. How you might go about this project? The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♏ SCORPIO

(October 23-November 21)
Last year the top hedge fund managers in the U.S. earned an average of $363 million a year. I haven't been able to determine what percentage of those plutocrats are Scorpios. But whatever the number is, I predict it'll rise during the remaining months of 2007. The members of your tribe--not just in the upper crust, but those of all crusts--are poised for the greatest financial upgrade in years. And one of the most favorable periods for expansion is dead ahead.


Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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If I ever produce a self-help manual called The Reverse Psychology of Getting Everything You Want, it will discuss the following paradoxes:
     a. People are more willing to accommodate your longings if you’re not greedy or grasping.
     b. A good way to achieve your desires is to cultivate the feeling that you’ve already achieved them.
     c. Whatever you’re longing for has been changed by your pursuit of it. It’s not the same as it was when you felt the first pangs of desire. In order to make it yours, then, you will have to modify your ideas about it.
     d. Be careful what you wish for because if your wish does materialize it will require you to change in ways you didn’t foresee.
     Review your own life and identify experiences that exemplify these four principles.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♐ SAGITTARIUS

(November 22-December 21)
This week may feel like a far-off trumpet playing mournfully at dawn as you awaken from a dream about buying pomegranates in a seedy but oddly appealing open-air market in Morocco. It could also resemble the sensation of talking on the phone long-distance to a person you both love and hate as rain falls on a metal roof and you gaze at a lunar eclipse that's breaking through a round hole in the cloud cover. In other words, Sagittarius, it'll be a time that's rich in hard-to-classify emotions. I expect you'll have experiences that will both spook you and energize you, both mesmerize you and liberate you.


Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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A thousand years from today, everyone you know will be long dead and forgotten. There’ll be nothing left of the life you love, no evidence that you ever walked this planet. That, at least, is what the fundamentalist materialists would have you believe. But suppose the truth is very different? What if in fact every little thing you do subtly alters the course of world history? What if your day-to-day decisions will actually help determine how the human species navigates its way through the epic turning point we’re living through? And finally, what if you will be alive in a thousand years, reincarnated into a fresh body and in possession of the memories of the person you were back in this era? These are my hypotheses. These are my prophecies. Which is why I say: Live as if your soul is eternal.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♑ CAPRICORN

(December 22-January 19)
I wish I could get a newly discovered species of beetle or an underground lake of ice on Mars named after you. I wish I could buy you a temple in Bali, and arrange for you to have your fortune told by the blind prophetess of Rio de Janeiro. And I wish I could dress you in 200-year-old velvet robes and silk scarves once worn by Turkish royalty. You richly deserve honors and blessings like these, Capricorn. It's that time in your astrological cycle when life is supposed to overflow with rewards for the good work you've been doing for a long time. I urge you to be vividly confident that you do indeed deserve these rewards, and radiate that faith in all directions.


What blessings will life bring you? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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In The Book of Embraces, Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano writes, "The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, or 'feeling-thinking,' to define language that speaks the truth." Describe a time when you pulled off the feat of thinking with your heart and feeling with your head.

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♒ AQUARIUS

(January 20- February 18)
The Inuit people of Canada's far northern territory of Nunavut have a word that describes an old friend who's acting oddly. In recent years, as global warming has gained momentum, they've applied this term, uggianaqtuq, to their environment. What are the symptoms? The sea ice forms later each winter and thaws earlier in the spring. Robins and biting flies have arrived in places where they've never been before. The sky is whiter and hazier, even on clear days. I suspect you'll experience a version of uggianaqtuq in the coming days, Aquarius. Something familiar will behave in a way you've never experienced. That could be good or bad or a mixture of both. Which way it goes may depend in part on whether you refrain from jumping to conclusions. It may also hinge on your willingness to redefine the meaning of "good" and "bad."


Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
When you're an aspiring master of pronoia, you see the cracks in the facades as opportunities; inspiration erupts as you careen over bumps in the road; you love the enticing magic that flows from situations that other people regard as rough or crooked. "That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal," wrote poet Charles Baudelaire, "from which it follows that irregularity--that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment--is an essential part and characteristic of beauty."

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

♓ PISCES

(February 19-March 20)
Your word of the week is incubation. It refers to the act of a parent animal sitting on eggs to keep them warm as the fetuses inside mature to the point of hatching. In a more metaphorical sense, "incubation" means the process of protecting and nurturing an idea or possibility as it ripens. Dream workers also tout "dream incubation," in which you describe a problem that you'd like to have addressed by your dreams, and hold it in your mind as you fall asleep. If you do this with a strong intention, your dreams will eventually help you solve the problem. I invite you to apply this meditation on incubation to the work you have ahead of you, Pisces.


Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Tantric sex practitioners say an artful lover never makes love the same way twice.

Similarly, chanteuse Billie Holiday believed a good singer should never sing a song the same way twice. If you use all the same phrasing and melody, she said, you’re failing your art.

The only Zen master we know--whose name we can’t tell you because she changes it every week, and we haven’t heard the latest one--likes to quote the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus: "You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you."

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has the last word: "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible

The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

© Rob Brezsny 1995-2024