Free Will Astrology


Horoscopes by Rob Brezsny


Week of September 25th, 2008

♈ ARIES

(March 21-April 19)
Every day for 44 years, the German writer Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt composed a poem for his wife, the lively and brilliant Karoline von Dachroden. In accordance with your astrological potentials, Aries, I will ask you to briefly imitate his prodigious outpouring of creative love. Every day for the next two weeks, please find it in your wild heart to make a sublime, or at least gorgeous, offering to someone or something you adore.


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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Mirabilia is a word that refers to events that inspire wonder, marvelous phenomena, small miracles; it's from the Latin mirabilia, "marvels." Here's your mirabilia report for the coming week: The average river requires a million years to move a grain of sand 100 miles. Kind people are more likely than mean people to yawn when someone near them does. There are always so many fragments of spider legs floating in the air that you are constantly inhaling them wherever you go. Gregorian chants can cure dyslexia. Bob Hope donated half a million jokes to the Library of Congress. Bees perform a valuable service for the flowers from which they steal. The moon smells like exploded firecrackers. Physicists in Tennessee coaxed electric signals to travel through coaxial cable at four times the speed of light, even though the equipment they used was cheap stuff from Radio Shack. Revlon makes 177 different shades of lipstick.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♉ TAURUS

(April 20-May 20)
A recent National Geographic article reported on nudibranches: colorful, oddly shaped slugs that live in the sea. The members of a typical species, Nembrotha kubaryana, are whimsical blobs of neon green swirled with orange and purple. The slugs are "blind to their own beauty," however, because their eyes can only register the difference between light and dark. The "blind to their own beauty" thing reminds me of you, Taurus -- especially these days. Would you do me a favor and acknowledge your own charms more aggressively?


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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When many people talk about their childhoods, they emphasize the alienating, traumatic experiences they had. It has become fashionable to avoid reporting memories of the good times in one's past. This seems dishonest—a testament to the popularity of cynicism rather than a reflection of objective truth.

I don't mean to downplay the way your early encounters with pain demoralized your spirit. But as you reconnoiter the promise of pronoia, it's crucial for you to extol the gifts you were given in your early years: all the helpful encounters, kind teachings, and simple acts of grace that helped you bloom. Remember them now, please.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♊ GEMINI

(May 21-June 20)
Jack Kerouac made a "list of 30 essentials," themes that guided him as a writer. To mark your entry into the most expressive phase of your astrological cycle, I offer you a few of his guidelines. Even if you're not a writer, they can be applied to how you create your life. 1. Submissive to everything, open, listening. 2. Be in love with yr life. 3. Something that you feel will find its own form. 4. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind. 5. Blow as deep as you want to blow. 6. Visionary tics shivering in the chest. 7. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind. 8. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog. 9. Accept loss forever. 10. Believe in the holy contour of life. 11. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge. 12. You're a Genius all the time. (The whole list is here.)


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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Congratulations. Every cell in your perfect animal body is beginning to purr with luminous gratitude for the enormity of the riches you endlessly receive. You are becoming aware that each of your heart's beats originates as a gift of love directly from the Goddess herself. Any residues of hatred that had been tainting your libido are leaving you for good. You are becoming telepathically linked to the world's entire host of secret teachers, pacifist warriors, philosopher clowns, and bodhisattvas disguised as convenience store clerks.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♋ CANCERIAN

(June 21-July 22)
The tabloids report that Cancerian Tom Cruise has plans to build a $10 million bunker designed to save him and his family when the evil alien overlord Xenu attacks Earth, fulfilling a prophecy of his religion, Scientology. If the reports do have a grain of truth, and Cruise has in fact been considering the project, now would be an excellent time for him to begin construction. I'm not saying that I believe Xenu's on his way. My point is that you Crabs will place yourself in harmony with cosmic rhythms if you attend to matters that will bolster your security, help you feel safe and peaceful, and foster domestic bliss.


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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Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder? Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.

Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♌ LEO

(July 23-August 22)
"I do not seek, I find." Pablo Picasso said that many years ago, and I hope you will use it as your motto in the coming days. It could help you keep your conscious mind out of the way while your unconscious mind works to bring you what you really require. In other words, Leo, you may miss the point if you're obsessed with a specific answer or goal. It'll be more important to stay alert for what you don't even realize you need to know. Here's a corollary to add to your main theme. "The true worth of an experimenter," wrote physiologist Claude Bernard, "consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks, but also what he did not seek."


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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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.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♍ VIRGO

(August 23-September 22)
Many people who pray don't limit their conversations with God to purely spiritual and ethical matters. In fact, money is one of the main subjects the Divine Wow is asked to address. If you've never had the chutzpah to do this yourself, I suggest you try it soon. Higher powers of all kinds, from your boss to the loan officer at the bank to the Creator Herself, may be unusually receptive to your pleas. I'm guessing you'll be able to tap into financial help "from above," or that you will make a connection with an elevated source of wealth that has previously been out of your reach.


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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Psychologist Carl Jung believed that all desires have a sacred origin, no matter how odd they may seem. Frustration and ignorance may contort them into distorted caricatures, but it is always possible to locate the divine source from which they arose. In describing one of his addictive patients, Jung said: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst for wholeness, or as expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

Therapist James Hillman echoes the theme: "Psychology regards all symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way." A preoccupation with porn or romance novels, for instance, may come to dominate a passionate person whose quest for love has degenerated into an obsession with images of love. "Follow the lead of your symptoms," Hillman suggests, "for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul."
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♎ LIBRA

(September 23-October 22)
Against all odds, you are finally finding a way to quit that nagging "addiction." You're shedding a dependency that isn't worthy of you. You're weaning yourself from a passion that hasn't brought out the best in you. Congratulations on your hard, meticulous work, you epic hero, you. In the aftermath of your exacting struggle, please don't immediately initiate another obsessive relationship with a new mania. Enjoy the benefits of being blank and clean and empty for a while.


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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In Homer's epic tale, The Odyssey, he described nepenthe, a mythical drug that induced the forgetfulness of pain and trouble. Modern culture has turned the myth into reality: There are now many stimuli serving that purpose.

If Homer were alive today, we wonder if he'd write about a potion that stirs up memories of delight, serenity, and fulfillment? Imagine that you have taken such a tonic. Spend an hour or two remembering the glorious moments from your past.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♏ SCORPIO

(October 23-November 21)
What reasons might you have to celebrate your own private holy day? Why might you want to go off by yourself or in the company of special people and conduct a reverent ritual that reinvigorates your knack for having fun? Here are some possible answers: 1. You're overdue for a break from everything you usually do. 2. You're hungry for the magic that happens when you take refuge in the sacred. 3. It's time to stop the world and jump off long enough to break the trance you're in. 4. You would generate uncanny blessings by paying tender attention to your origins, returning to your sources, and examining the foundations of your life.


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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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.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♐ SAGITTARIUS

(November 22-December 21)
Many Americans regard the Pledge of Allegiance as a supreme oath of loyalty to the United States. When I was a kid, we used to recite it to start each school day. Members of Congress still make it their opening salutation at every session. It's not well-known, though, that the Pledge was composed by a Socialist, Baptist minister Francis Bellamy. Republicans might swoon in apoplexy if you presented them with this proof that an extreme left-winger was a fervent patriot. But doing that would be right in alignment with your assignment in the coming week, Sagittarius. You will receive encouragement from the cosmos whenever you seek out and express facts that disprove prevailing biases and mistaken beliefs.


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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Many people believe that happiness is a rare commodity attainable only through dumb luck. "One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness," said novelist Willa Cather. "One only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere." I disagree. My perspective is the same as the Buddhist researchers Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. In their book How We Choose to Be Happy: The 9 Choices of Extremely Happy People, they reveal that the number one trait of happy people is a serious determination to be happy. Bliss is a habit you can cultivate, in other words, not an accident that you stumble upon by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♑ CAPRICORN

(December 22-January 19)
Norepinephrine is a hormone that can make you feel good even when it's generated by stress. According to a study by the Positive Health Center in London, successful women produce that hormone in abundance. I have no medical research, just astrological guesswork, to back up my claim that you Capricorns will have a special relationship with norepinephrine in the coming weeks. As a result, high-pressure situations that might have sapped your energy or frayed your nerves in the past may actually energize you. You could find yourself having a blast as you push harder to foster excellence.


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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Meditate naked under a waterfall.
Relive the last day of your childhood.
Sip the tears of someone you love.
Rebel against your horoscope.
Create a luxurious orphanage in Romania.
Pick blackberries in the rain.
Feel sorry for a devious lawyer.
See how far you can spit a mouthful of beer.
Give yourself another chance.
Dream of stealing the peaches of immortality from a dragon guarding Plato's cave.
Write a love letter to your evil twin during a lunar eclipse.
Sing the first song you ever heard.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♒ AQUARIUS

(January 20- February 18)
Aquarian hockey mom and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is a "cocky wacko," according to former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee. While it's no surprise that a member of your tribe would be referred to as a wacko, the "cocky" designation is atypical. Many Aquarians never build a strong enough ego structure to feel as confident as they'd like, let alone slip into the realm of having too damn much confidence. So even though I disagree with most of Palin's political positions, and harbor a deep sadness that a more thoughtful and compassionate person didn't make it onto the Republican ticket, I urge you to cop some of her attitude in the coming days. Conduct experiments that will help you feel what it's like to cruise around with more than your usual amount of pride.


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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Robin Norwood's self-help book Women Who Love Too Much deals with a theme that has gotten a lot of play in recent decades: If you're too generous to someone who doesn't appreciate it and at the expense of your own needs, you can make yourself sick.

An alternative perspective comes from Blaise Pascal, who said, "When one does not love too much, one does not love enough." He was primarily addressing psychologically healthy altruists, but it's a good ideal for pronoia lovers to keep in mind.

Decide whether you need to move more in the direction of Norwood's or Pascal's advice. Develop a game plan to carry out your resolve, then take action.
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

♓ PISCES

(February 19-March 20)
Here's one way to reduce global warming: inject huge amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere. So says Professor Tim Flannery, an Australian sustainability activist. What's the best way to accomplish that? Add sulfur to jet fuel. The atmosphere would then repel a portion of the sun's rays, leading to an effect called "solar dimming." Oh, by the way: As a side effect, the planet's sky would probably turn yellow -- a rather extreme shift, Flannery acknowledges, but necessary if we want to save the environment. Are you contemplating an equally drastic step in your own personal sphere, Pisces? Before you decide to go in that direction, why not try a series of smaller, incremental actions with less dramatic consequences?


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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Most people associate innocence with naiveté. Conventional wisdom regards it as belonging to children and fools and rookies who lack the sophistication or experience to know the tough truths about life. But the Beauty and Truth Laboratory recognizes a different kind of innocence. It's based on an understanding that the world is always changing, and therefore deserves to be seen fresh every day. This alternative brand of innocence is fueled by an aggressive determination to empty one's imagination of all preconceptions. "Ignorance is not knowing anything and being attracted to the good," wrote Clarissa Pinkola-Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves. "Innocence is knowing everything and still being attracted to the good."
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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 Amazon or Powells. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

© Rob Brezsny 1995-2024