Free Will Astrology


Horoscopes by Rob Brezsny


Week of February 14th, 2013

♈ ARIES

(March 21-April 19)
Afrikaner author Laurens van der Post told a story about a conversation between psychologist Carl Jung and Ochwiay Biano, a Pueblo Indian chief. Jung asked Biano to offer his views about white people. "White people must be crazy because they think with their heads," said the chief, "and it is well-known that only crazy people do that." Jung asked him what the alternative was. Biano said that his people think with their hearts. That's your assignment for the week ahead, Aries: to think with your heart -- especially when it comes to love. For extra credit, you should feel with your head -- especially when it comes to love. Happy Valentine Daze, Aries!


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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I want to remind you, in case you've somehow forgotten, that you'll never be able to bask in the love you want to receive from another person until you master the art of loving yourself with great skill and imagination. I'll go so far as to say that it's pointless to search for a perfect partner if you're not already your own perfect partner. Here's what Buddha had to say about the subject: "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, but that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anyone, deserve your love and affection."
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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.

♉ TAURUS

(April 20-May 20)
Have you ever sent a torrent of smart and elegant love messages to a person you wanted to get closer to? Now would be an excellent time to try a stunt like that. Have you ever scoured the depths of your own psyche in search of any unconscious attitudes or bad habits that might be obstructing your ability to enjoy the kind of intimacy you long for? I highly recommend such a project right now. Have you ever embarked on a crusade to make yourself even more interesting and exciting than you already are? Do it now. Raise your irresistibility! Happy Valentine Daze, Taurus!


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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Borrowing the words of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I've prepared a love note for you to use as your own. Feel free to give it to the person whose destiny needs to be woven more closely together with yours. "I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out."
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

♊ GEMINI

(May 21-June 20)
Happy Valentine Daze, Gemini! After careful meditation about what messages might purify and supercharge your love life, I decided to offer suggestions about what not to do. To that end, I'll quote some lines from Kim Addonizio's poem "Forms of Love." Please don't speak any of them out loud, or even get yourself into a position where it makes sense to say them. 1. "I love how emotionally unavailable you are." 2. "I love you and feel a powerful spiritual connection to you, even though we've never met." 3. "I love your pain, it's so competitive." 4. "I love you as long as you love me back." 5. "I love you when you're not getting drunk and stupid." 6. "I love you but I'm married." 7. "I love it when you tie me up with ropes using the knots you learned in Boy Scouts, and when you do the stoned Dennis Hopper rap from Apocalypse Now!"


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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What further wisdom would energize your love life? here's some excellent advice, courtesy of psychologist James Hillman: "For a relationship to stay alive, love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining." How will you act on this excellent counsel? Maybe you could take you and your closest ally to a sanctuary you've never dreamed you'd go to in a thousand years. Or do an exercise in which you ask each other questions you've never broached before. Or devise an experiment in which the two of you get to face an unfamiliar challenge together.
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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.

♋ CANCERIAN

(June 21-July 22)
This Valentine season, I suggest you consider trying an experiment like this: Go to the soulful ally you want to be closer to and take off at least some of your masks. Drop your pretenses, too. Shed your emotional armor and do without your psychological crutches. Take a chance on getting as psychologically and spiritually naked as you have ever dared. Are you brave enough to reveal the core truths about yourself that lie beneath the convenient truths and the expired truths and the pretend truths?


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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The three further love offerings I have might be a challenge for you to receive in the same generous spirit with which I'm giving them. Nevertheless, I suspect you can truly benefit from their bracing advice. So here are my gifts, starting with an insight from author Zora Neale Hurston: "Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." Your second oracle comes from writer James Baldwin: "Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." My third offering is from novelist Iris Murdoch: "Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real."
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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.

♌ LEO

(July 23-August 22)
"Sex is a substitute for God," says writer Cathryn Michon. "When we desire another human being sexually, we are really only trying to fill our longing for ecstasy and union with the infinite." I agree with her, and I think you might, too, after this week. Erotic encounters will have an even better chance than usual of connecting you to the Sublime Cosmic YumYum. If you can't find a worthy collaborator to help you accomplish this miraculous feat, just fantasize about one. You need and deserve spiritual rapture. Happy Valentine Daze, Leo!


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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As I meditated on what advice might purify and supercharge your love life, I got to thinking about a statement attributed to French poet Paul Valery. "Love is being stupid together," he said. There's an element of truth to this notion, but it's too corny and degenerate for my tastes. I prefer to focus on a more interesting and complete truth, which is this: Real love is being smart together. If you weave your destiny together with another's, he or she should catalyze your sleeping potentials, sharpen your perceptions, and boost your IQ. Your relationship should be a crucible in which you deepen your understanding of the way the world works. If you can't share your love with such a person, don't share your love with anyone.
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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.

♍ VIRGO

(August 23-September 22)
Lately you've been doing exemplary work on your relationship with yourself, Virgo. You have half-convinced your inner critic to shut the frack up unless it has a truly important piece of wisdom to impart. Meanwhile, you've managed to provide a small but inspired dose of healing for the wounded part of your psyche, and you have gently exposed a self-deception that had been wreaking quiet havoc. Congratulations! I've got a hunch that all these fine efforts will render you extra sexy and charismatic in the coming week. But it will probably be a subtle kind of sexiness and charisma that only the most emotionally intelligent people will recognize. So don't expect to attract the attention of superficial jerks who happen to have beautiful exteriors. Happy Valentine Daze!


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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During my quest for advice that might be helpful to your love life, I gathered some further words of wisdom. 1. "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." -Friedrich Nietzsche. 2. "Love is not about losing freedom; it's about sharing freedom with a partner who's as talented a liberationist as you." - my friend Sarah. 3. "I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the color of a furious harvest. I want to eat the sunbeams flaring in your beauty." - Pablo Neruda.
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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.

♎ LIBRA

(September 23-October 22)
The coming days could be an animalistic time for you, and I mean that in the best sense. I suspect you will generate lots of favorable responses from the universe if you honor the part of you that can best be described as a beautiful beast. Learn fun new truths about your instinctual nature. Explore the mysteries of your primal urges. See what you can decipher about your body's secret language. May I also suggest that you be alert for and receptive to the beautiful beast in other people? Happy Valentine Daze, Libra!


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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To further our meditation on romance, let's consider psychologist Carl Jung's words: "People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul." Do you fit that description? Have you ever employed tortured logic to explain to yourself why you're not following your heart's promptings? In the past year, did you take a detour that has led you further and further away from your true home? Are you engaging in evasive measures in order to keep yourself from seeing the open secret about love that's right in front of you? I'm just asking, not accusing. Only you know the correct answers.
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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.

♏ SCORPIO

(October 23-November 21)
For the French Scorpio poet Paul Valéry, swimming had an erotic quality. He described it as fornication avec l'onde, which can be translated as "fornicating with the waves." Your assignment this Valentine season, Scorpio, is to identify at least three activities that are like sex but not exactly sex -- and then do them with glee and abandon. The purpose of this exercise is to educate and cultivate your libido; to encourage your kundalini to branch out as it intensifies and expands your lust for life.


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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"Love at first sight may be a matter of instinctively recognizing someone who will allow you to continue in comfortingly familiar -- and often destructive -- patterns learned in childhood." So said Salon.com's Lisa Zeidner in her review of Maggie Scarf's book Intimate Partners. Make that idea your watchword. Let it be the beacon that guides you away from the sentimental illusions about romance that you may still be drawn to. After all, there are few things that undermine authentic love more than infantile wishes and naive fantasies.
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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.

♐ SAGITTARIUS

(November 22-December 21)
This Valentine season, meditate on the relentlessness of your yearning for love. Recognize the fact that your eternal longing will never leave you in peace. Accept that it will forever delight you, torment you, inspire you, and bewilder you -- whether you are alone or in the throes of a complicated relationship. Understand that your desire for love will just keep coming and coming and coming, keeping you slightly off-balance and pushing you to constantly revise your ideas about who you are. Now read this declaration from the poet Rilke and claim it as your own: "My blood is alive with many voices that tell me I am made of longing."


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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What advice would be useful for your love life? Not this observation by The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening: "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." Do not, under any circumstances, make those your words to live by. Instead, consider the following counsel from Norman Mailer: "Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to."
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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.

♑ CAPRICORN

(December 22-January 19)
According to physicists Yong Mao and Thomas Fink, you can tie a necktie in 85 different kinds of knots, but only 13 of those actually look good. I encourage you to apply that way of thinking to pretty much everything you do in the coming week. Total success will elude you if you settle on functional solutions that aren't aesthetically pleasing. You should make sure that beauty and usefulness are thoroughly interwoven. This is especially true in matters regarding your love life and close relationships. Togetherness needs a strong dose of lyrical pragmatism. Happy Valentine Daze, Capricorn!


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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Clarissa Pinkola Estes said this in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves. "The desire to force love to live only in its most positive form," she wrote, "is what causes love ultimately to fall over dead." She obviously doesn't mean you should seek negativity on purpose. Rather, you should freely acknowledge that even the most sublime intimacy has a dark side. As long as you welcome love's difficulties, it will remain vital.
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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.

♒ AQUARIUS

(January 20- February 18)
"All these years I’ve been searching for an impossible love," said French writer Marguerite Duras late in her life. The novels and films she created reflect that feeling. Her fictional characters are often engaged in obsessive quests for an ideal romance that would allow them to express their passion perfectly and fulfill their longing completely. In the meantime, their actual relationships in the real world suffer, even as their starry-eyed aspirations remain forever frustrated. I invite you, Aquarius, to celebrate this Valentine season by taking a vow of renunciation. Summon the courage to forswear Duras's doomed approach to love.


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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You need love almost as much as you need food and drink. Not just any old kind of love, though: It has to be high-minded and mysterious, and neither sentimental nor tormented. Hoping to steer you towards what you really need, I'm offering you the poetic words of Pablo Neruda. Say or write them to the person whose destiny needs to be woven more closely together with yours: "Our love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning. Our sleep is a secret tunnel that leads to the scent of apples carried on the wind. When I hold you, I hold everything that is--swans, volcanoes, river rocks, maple trees drinking the fragrance of the moon, bread that the fire adores. In your life I see everything that lives."
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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.

♓ PISCES

(February 19-March 20)
To avoid getting hacked, computer tech experts advise you to choose strong, hard-to-guess passwords for your online accounts. Among the worst choices to protect your security are "123456," "iloveyou," "qwerty," and, of course, "password." Judging by the current astrological omens, Pisces, I'm guessing that you should have a similar approach to your whole life in the coming days. It's important that you be picky about who you allow into your heart, mind, and soul. Make sure that only the most trustworthy and sensitive people can gain access. Your metaphorical password might be something like this: m*y#s@t&e?r%y.


If you missed any of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, I've bundled them all in one place. Go here to read them. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES for 2013, or an audio forecast for the coming week.

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What advice might beautify and elevate your love life? The following insights should help. 1. "We are not the same person this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person." - W. Somerset Maugham. 2. "People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that love must change into some other love which is unlike the original." - Iris Murdoch. 3. "Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new." - Ursula K. Le Guin. 4. "A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day." - Andre Maurois.
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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.

© Rob Brezsny 1995-2024