Explore the Big Picture of Your Life in 2016

Dear Readers,

I've gathered together all the Free Will Astrology horoscopes that address the far-reaching themes of your destiny in the coming months. Read a compendium of your written horoscopes for 2016.

In addition to these, I've created three-part, in-depth EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES about Your Long-Range Future. They go even further in exploring your prospects and challenges in 2016.

What will be the story of your life in the coming months? What new influences will be headed your way? What fresh resources will you be able to draw on? How can you conspire with life to create the best possible future for yourself?

To listen to these three-part, in-depth reports, GO HERE.

Register and/or log in through the main page, and then access the horoscopes by clicking on "Long Range Prediction." (Choose from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)

If you'd like a boost of inspiration to fuel you in your quest for beauty and truth and love and meaning, tune in to my meditations on your Big-Picture outlook.

Each of the three-part reports is seven to nine minutes long. The cost is $6 per report. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.

P.S. You can also listen to an Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.




My book
Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia is available at Amazon and Powells.

Here are excerpts:

UNLEASH YOURSELF

Even if you don't call yourself an artist, you have the potential to be a dynamic creator who is always hatching new plans, coming up with fresh ideas, and shifting your approach to everything you do as you adjust to life's ceaseless invitation to change.

It's to this part of you -- the restless, inventive spirit -- that I address the following: Unleash yourself! Don't be satisfied with the world the way it is; don't sit back passively and blankly complain about the dead weight of the mediocre status quo.

Instead, call on your curiosity and charisma and expressiveness and lust for life as you tinker with and rebuild everything you see so that it's in greater harmony with the laws of love and more hospitable to your soul's code.





GREAT AWAKENING

Civilization may be unraveling in a lot of areas; some of its structures may be collapsing; but it is also in the midst of a tremendous upheaval of creativity -- a flood of innovation and genius and love pouring out of millions upon millions of people -- a Great Awakening that is far louder and stronger and more interesting than the sleepy resignation and corrosive maliciousness and ignominious decline that the media prefers to focus on.





YOUR HOLIEST DESIRE

I invite you to devote five minutes to visualizing the fulfillment of your holiest desire, followed by five minutes of visualizing the fulfillment of a loved one's holiest desire.





YOUR ILLUSIONS

Some of your illusions seeped into you before you learned to talk. Others sneaked into you later, while you were busy figuring out how to become yourself. Eventually, you even made conscious choices to adopt certain illusions because they provided you with comfort and consolation.

There's no need to be ashamed of this. It's a natural part of being a human being.

Now here's the good news: You have the power to shed at least some of your illusions in ways that don't shatter your foundations.

To begin the process, declare this intention at noon every Sunday for the next six months: "I am calling on all the power I have at my disposal, both conscious and unconscious, to dissolve my illusions."





MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Eleven Reasons Why 2015 Was a Great Year For Humanity:

1. We got a lot closer to global, universal education

2. Extreme poverty dropped below 10%  --  the lowest rate ever

3. More people got connected to the internet than ever before

4. Millions of people gained access to finance for the first time

5. AIDS deaths came down for the 15th year in a row

6. Malaria death rates are at an all time low

7. Polio is about to be eradicated forever

8. Fewer people went hungry this year than ever before

9. More people have access to clean water

10. Child mortality plunged for the 43rd year in a row

11. We reached a tipping point in the fight against climate change

Read more.





MERCURY IS RETROGRADE UNTIL JANUARY 25. One of my favorite astrologers, William Sebrans,, gives ten reasons why we can appreciate the glitchy tweaks that this astrological configuration allegedly spawns:

1. Misunderstandings are now attributable to impersonal forces or gods in vacation mode. That is, we are for the time being in the clear and temporarily off the hook.

2. We expect things to not work, so when they do -- we are happier than before, when we expected them to.

3.We can spend hours now tossing out crap, purging mail sludge, organizing our micro-universes, and are entitled to call it all productive work. No need to rush forward, when it is salutary to shuffle backward for a spell.

4. We are forgiven in advance for impatience and frustration, but as well we are given extra permission to blow off the pressure and be calmly accepting of what we are are usually supposed to get upset with. Think: customer service.

5. For a few weeks, we get to hear less New Age murmurings about the Divine Flow, the power of creative visualization, and the power of surrender to Shakti -- and are allowed to focus on getting the job done any damned way we can figure it out.

6. If we are believers, we can find proof of the retrograde effect; if we are non-believers, -- we can find proof of the non-retrograde effect. Either way, we are vindicated.

7. We can watch more Merchant Ivory-period films and feel good about ourselves.

8. We can hand-write letters and craft arty post cards at work, while justifying the less efficient retro-fit communication as coming by Divine Decree.

9. We can slow down.

10. We can slow down and repeat ourselves

~ William Sebrans,


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Now here's some additional commentary from me about Mercury Retrograde:

Mercury retrogrades are always heading our way -- an average of three per year. Also heading our way -- always, always -- are numerous astrological configurations that traditional astrologers interpret as malefic, miserable, and menacing.

As just one of many examples, some regard moon void-of-course with the same fear and loathing that they do Mercury retrograde, and the moon void-of-course is a regular and frequent occurrence.

For my sanity, I can't afford to be extra careful around these aspects. There are too damn many of them.

And as for the Mercury Retrograde itself:

Traditional astrologers regard each Mercury retrograde phenomenon to consist of eight phases:

Pre-Shadow phase

Pre-Shadow phase intensified

Mercury Retrograde Station

Mercury Retrograde Phase intensified

Mercury Retrograde Phase

Mercury Direct Station

Post-Shadow phase intensified

Post-Shadow phase

Every complete Mercury retrograde cycle lasts an average of 55 days. Since there is an average of three Mercury retrogrades per year, we are in some part of the Mercury retrograde phenomenon for at least 165 days per year -- about 45% of the time.

2016 is unusual because the first Mercury retrograde happens so early in the year. So this year, the complete Mercury retrograde cycle will cover 185 days, or a little over 50% of the year.

That's a lot of time to be on guard.

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I am aware that my views are not shared by many astrologers, but they reflect my observation and experiences. Here's a brief version:

Mercury does not mean communication snafus are inevitable. Rather, it tells you this is a propitious time to refine the ways you exchange information . . . and to concentrate harder on saying what you mean and meaning what you say . . . and to meditate on how to improve the ways you connect yourself to the people and resources you need and like.

Some people say that when Mercury is retrograde, it's a bad time to begin anything new. During one such period two years ago, an acquaintance of mine decided to delay accepting a dream job offer as editor of a magazine. By the time Mercury returned to "normal," the magazine had hired another applicant. I wish I'd have known, because I would have told her what I'll tell you: Some of America's biggest, most enduring Fortune 500 companies began when Mercury was retrograde, including Disney, Goodyear, and Boeing.

My deep skepticism about big corporations notwithstanding, the fact that their founders had great success in launching them during Mercury retrograde is a telling statement about Mercury retrograde.

In my understanding of astrology, there's no such thing as a bad astrological aspect. It's true that some may be more challenging than others, but every one of them presents an opportunity.

Having said that, I don't regard Mercury retrograde as being dauntingly challenging. If you fear and expect it to be, you may tend to be slightly more attractive to disruptive events. But then that's true about how every superstition works.





THE BEST THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN 2015

Slate has created a compendium of the best things that happened each day in 2015. Here are ten of the best:

1. Nigeria bans female genital mutilation.
2. HIV protection is effective in African women.
3. Hunger has become much less severe in the past 15 years.
4. States? juvenile prison populations drop.
5. Homelessness declined 11 percent in the U.S. from 2010 to 2015.
6. Reforestation effort in Ecuador breaks world record.
7. Africa has its first polio-free year.
8. New Ebola vaccine is highly effective.
9. Energy storage technology, which is crucial for solar power, is making great progress.
10. People taking pre-exposure prophylaxis are staying HIV-free

See the best events of the other 355 days.

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SIX HOPEFUL BREAKTHROUGHS IN 2015

From the brilliant Yes! magazine:

1. The world set ambitious goals for climate stabilization, and real leadership came from the grassroots.

2. Black Lives Matters changed hearts, minds, and policing practices.

3. Bernie Sanders forced inequality and the power of Wall Street into the national debate.

4. The politics of scapegoating ran short of scapegoats.

5. Americans reassessed the U.S. role abroad.

6. The United States began a turn away from a prison state.

Read more.

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AN ABUNDANCE OF GOOD NEWS

"There are fewer wars. Inter-state war has virtually disappeared. More countries around the world are democratic; more provide basic services like health care, clean water, and immunizations to their citizens; most adhere to a basic set of global rules and norms, participate in international institutions, and are integrated into an interdependent global economy."

Read more.

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THINGS ARE ACTUALLY GETTING BETTER, DESPITE WHAT THE MEDIA WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE

"The news is a systematically misleading way to understand the world," Steven Pinker says.

"Wars are far less common and deadly than in the recent past, terrorism is rare, and the European refugee crisis is nothing new.

"In the past five years alone, conflicts have ended in Chad, Peru, Iran, India, Sri Lanka, India, and Angola, and if peace talks currently underway in Colombia are a success, war will have vanished from the Western hemisphere.

"Attacks of the kind that killed civilians in Paris, Ankara, California, Beirut and Garissa in Kenya this year are big news because they are rare.

"Rampage shootings generate a huge amount of media publicity but account for a relatively tiny number of deaths."

Read more.

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THE U.S. IS SAFER THAN ANY MAJOR POWER HAS EVER BEEN

"When Americans look out at the world, they see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.

"In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history."

Read more.

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OVERREACTION TO TERRORISM IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM

"Why do otherwise intelligent people keep saying silly things, like, 'We are probably in the most serious period of turmoil in our lifetime.'?

"Overreaction to terrorism is the true threat"

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SOURCES OF UNDER-REPORTED GOOD NEWS

Uplifting News

Good News Network





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

your debts forgiven

your wounds healed

your apologies accepted

your generosity expanded

your love educated

your desires clarified

your uniqueness unleashed

your untold stories heard

your insight heightened

your load lightened

your wildness rejuvenated

your leaks plugged

your courage stoked

your fears dissolved

your imagination fed

your creativity uncorked





In 2016, I invite you to have an improbable quest playing at the edge of your imagination: a heroic task that provokes deep thoughts and noble passions even if it incites smoldering torment . . . an extravagant dream that's a bit farfetched but not entirely insane . . . a goal that stretches your possibilities and opens your mind . . . a wild hope whose pursuit makes you smarter and stronger even if you never fully accomplish it.





Every January 1, many people make New Year's resolutions, promising to embark on programs of self-improvement. But your assignment now, should you choose to accept it, is to create a list of ANTI-resolutions.

Here are some questions to guide you:

1. What outlandish urges and controversial tendencies do you promise to cultivate in the coming months?

2. What nagging irritations will you ignore and avoid with even greater ingenuity?

3. What problems do you promise to exploit in order to have even more fun as you make the status quo accountable for its corruption?

4. What boring rules and traditions will you thumb your nose at, paving the way for exciting encounters with strange attractors?





Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating.

Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter.

Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good.





One of the blessings I hope you can conjure up in 2016 is a growing skill in the right use of memory. What would that involve exactly?

On the one hand, it would mean you'd cultivate a strong grasp of historical patterns; you'd be a keen student of the twists and turns of your own life's journey.

On the other hand, you wouldn't force every new event to be evaluated solely in terms of what has happened in the past; you'd recognize that some experiences may be mostly fresh.

Other ideas?





Forgive yourself for the blindness that put you in the path of those who betrayed you.





I wish I could do more than just fantasize about helping you achieve greater freedom.

In my dreams, I am obliterating delusions that keep you moored to false idols. I am setting fire to the unnecessary burdens you lug around. And I am tearing you away from the galling compromises you made once upon a time to please people who don't deserve it.

But it's actually a good thing I can't just wave a magic wand. Here's a much better solution: YOU will clarify your analysis of the binds you're in, supercharge your willpower, and set yourself free.





Resolved: In 2016, you will experience miracles at the rate of about one every two weeks.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

Take some paper and write "I am doing everything in my power to attract all the help and resources I need as I accomplish the following goal." Then compose a declaration that crisply describes exactly what satisfying, growth-inducing experiences you want most in 2016 -- and are willing to work hard for and even change yourself to attract, if necessary. Keep a copy of this magic formula under your pillow or in your wallet.





Experiment: Imprint yourself with the intention that in 2016, you will seek out the GOOD news at least as often as you seek out the BAD stuff -- that you will regard tales of affliction and mayhem and corruption and tragedy as no more interesting or worthy of your attention than tales of triumph and liberation and pleasure and ingenuity.

If this idea appeals to you, here are sources of GOOD news to get you started:

Yes magazine

Reddit Uplifting News

Good News Network

Heroic Stories





In 2016 I wish you joyous eruptions of profound gratification and gratitude; a constant flow of fluid insights and "ah-ha!" revelations that lead to cathartic integrations; a coming together of several different lucky trends, resulting in an exquisite healing; and captivating yet relaxing adventures that allow you to weave together diverse threads of your experience, inspiring you to feel at home in the world.





"You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. That's a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control."

? Elizabeth Gilbert





RE-DREAMING CHRIST

Some Christians might be shocked to learn that Jesus Christ is one of the Main High Magicians in the Beauty and Truth Lab's pantheon of deities and avatars.

They may believe that people like us -- Goddess-worshiping tantric Sufi Qabalist pagans who hang around with Zen trickster witches and espouse a socialist libertarian political philosophy -- couldn't possibly have an intimate and vivid relationship with the cosmic hero they claim to own. They act as if they have commandeered the trademark of one of the smartest wild men in history.

Christ was a champion of women's rights, an antidote to the established and corrupt political order, and a radical spiritual activist who worked outside religious institutions.

He was a passionate advocate for the poor and underprivileged. He owned nothing and had no use for the idea of "private property." He was uncompromisingly opposed to violence and war. Besides that, he was a master of love and he devoted his life to serving the Divine Intelligence. He even went so far as to say, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, and give away all your possessions."

I want to be like Jesus Christ when I grow up!

(But it's quite OK with us if you don't want to be like him. The good thing about adoring Christ's pronoiac glory but not being a Christian is that we don't have any investment in wanting you to do as we do. We want you to do as you do!)

Is there any hijacked hero you'd like to liberate? Any spoiled treasure you hope to redeem? Any detoured savior you want to get back on track?

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"The whole point of Jesus's life was not that we should become exactly like him, but that we should become ourselves in the same way he became himself. Jesus was not the great exception but the great example."

- Carl Jung

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"When Jesus said 'I and the Father are one,' he meant that he was connected to the raw data feed of pure experience."

- Tim Boucher





Here's a holiday gift you could give yourself: Resist and deflect and dissolve wrong-headed opinions about who you are and how you should live your life. (And I mean your own wrong-headed opinions as well as other people's.)





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

FREE MIND, WILD HEART

To be the best pronoiac explorer you can be, I suggest you adopt an outlook that combines the rigorous objectivity of a scientist, the "beginner's mind" of Zen Buddhism, the "beginner's heart" of pronoia, and the compassionate friendliness of the Dalai Lama. Blend a scrupulously dispassionate curiosity with a skepticism driven by expansiveness, not spleen.

To pull this off, you'll have to be willing to regularly suspend your brilliant theories about the way the world works. Accept with good humor the possibility that what you've learned in the past may not be a reliable guide to understanding the fresh phenomenon that's right in front of you. Be suspicious of your biases, even the rational and benevolent ones. Open your heart as you strip away the interpretations that your emotions might be inclined to impose.

"Before we can receive the unbiased truth about anything," wrote my teacher Ann Davies, "we have to be ready to ignore what we would like to be true."

At the same time, don't turn into a hard-ass, poker-faced robot. Keep your feelings moist and receptive. Remember your natural affection for all of creation. Enjoy the power of tender sympathy as it drives you to probe for the unimaginable revelations of every new moment. "Before we can receive the entire truth about anything," said Ann Davies, "we have to love it."

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To achieve what the Zen Buddhists call "beginner's mind," you dispense with all preconceptions and enter each situation as if seeing it for the first time.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities," wrote Shunryu Suzuki in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, "but in the expert's there are few."

As much as I love beginner's mind, though, I advocate an additional discipline: cultivating a beginner's heart. That means approaching every encounter imbued with a freshly invoked wave of love that is as pure as if you're feeling it for the first time.





DIONYSIAN MANIFESTO

I kick my own ass and wash my own brain.
I push my own buttons and trick my own pain.
I burn my own flags and roast my own heroes.
I mock my own fears and cheer my own zeroes.

Nothing can stop me from teasing my shadow.
I'm full of empty and backwards bravado.
My wounds are tattoos that reveal my true beauty.
I turn tragic to magic and make bliss my duty.

I honor my faults till they become virtues.
I play jokes on my nightmares
till I'm sure they won?t hurt you.
I sing anarchist lullabies to lesbian trees
and love songs with punch lines
to anonymous seas.

I won't accept gifts that infringe on my freedom.
I shun sacred places that stir up my boredom.
I change my name daily, pretend to be nobody.
I fight for the truth if it's majestically rowdy.

I brag about what I can't do and don't know.
I take off my clothes to those I oppose.
I'm so far beyond lazy, I work like a god.
I'm totally crazy; in fact that's my job.

Read the unexpurgated version of the above poem.





THE BEAUTY OF IRREGULAR THINGS

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."





YEAR REVIEW

How has 2015 gone for you? Have you been exerting your free will to create adventures that bring out the best in you, even as you have found graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?

If you'd like to review the Long-Range, Big-Picture Horoscopes I offered at the beginning of this year, check them out here.





LAST NIGHT AS I WAS SLEEPING
by Antonio Machado, translated by Robert Bly (excerpt)

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error! --
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.

And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures





YOUR LUCKY NUMBER

Your lucky number is 3.14159265

Your secret name is "Flux Luster"

The colors of your soul are sable, vermilion, and jade

Your magic talisman is a thousand-year-old Joshua tree whose flowers blossom just one night each year and can only be pollinated by the Yucca moth.

Your holiest pain comes from your ability to sense other people's cracked notions about you

Your sweet spot is in between the true believers and the scoffing skeptics.





MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Animals bridges, which may also be known as ecoducts or wildlife crossings, are structures that allow animals to safely cross human-made barriers like highways. A wildlife crossing can include: underpass tunnels, viaducts, overpasses and bridges, amphibian tunnels, fish ladders, culvets and green roofs.

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How Solar Power Could Slay the Fossil Fuel Empire by 2030.

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The Las Vegas Police Department had a history of deadly force incidents that drew the criticism of experts, civil rights leaders, and the Las Vegas community. Today, they?ve curbed the trend of excessive force and serve as a model for law enforcement agencies.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


You don?t have to be anything you don?t want to be. You don?t have to live up to anyone?s expectations. There?s no need to strive for a kind of perfection that?s not very interesting to you. You don?t have to believe in ideas that make you sad or tormented, and you don?t have to feel emotions that others try to manipulate you into feeling.





Aldous Huxley was the renowned 20th-century intellectual who wrote the book *Brave New World,* a dystopian vision of the future. Later in his life he came to regret one thing: how "preposterously serious" he had been when he was younger. "There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet," he ruminated, "trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That?s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling . . . Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you?re feeling deeply."

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"When Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh was invited to the San Francisco Zen Center, the students asked him what they could do to improve their practice. He had entered a monastery at age sixteen, was an ordained monk, and had endured the horrors of the war in Vietnam. I imagine they expected some rigorous prescription for deepening their spiritual life.

"Thich Nhat Han's response: 'You guys get up too early for one thing; you should get up a little later. And your practice is too grim. I have just two instructions for you. One is to breathe, and one is to smile.'"

- from "True Refuge," by Tara Brach.





A conversation between two of the characters in my book The Televisionary Oracle:

"Remember, there is a difference between grateful anger and dehumanizing hatred," he shouted above the din.

"What do you mean?" I yelled back.

"Grateful anger is good darkness. Dehumanizing hatred is bad darkness."

"More clues, please."

"Grateful anger flows when you have engaged and studied your shadow. Dehumanizing hatred flows when you have ignored and denied your shadow. One is fertile, the other hysterical."

A mathematical formula: I liked that. I assumed he meant the shadow that Carl Jung described. The unripe and unillumined corners of the soul.

He continued: "Grateful anger is when you feel thankful for the irritating people and sickening situations that have spurred you to clarity and righteous action. Dehumanizing hatred is when you are so in love with your terrible emotion that you forget what needs to be changed and turn yourself into your enemy."

- The Televisionary Oracle





"I became aware of the world?s tenderness, the profound beneficence of all that surrounded me, the blissful bond between me and all of creation, and I realized that the joy I sought in you was not only secreted within you, but breathed around me everywhere, in the speeding street sounds, in the hem of a comically lifted skirt, in the metallic yet tender drone of the wind, in the autumn clouds bloated with rain.

"I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all, or a predaceous sequence of chance events, but the shimmering bliss, beneficent trepidation, a gift bestowed upon us and unappreciated."

- Vladimir Nabokov, "Beneficence" in "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov"

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"Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement . . . get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible. Never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel, Jewish theologian and civil rights activist

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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."
- Rainer Maria Rilke

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"The whole world is a series of miracles, but we?re so used to seeing them that we call them ordinary things."
- Hans Christian Anderson

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"I will wade out till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers. I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air, alive, with closed eyes."
- E.E. Cummings

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"The whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight."
- Osho

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"For aren't you and I gods? Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Release life's rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying. Everything is screaming. Laughter. Running."
- Vladimir Nabokov





In early 2015, I wrote horoscopes for the coming year -- previews of the issues I thought you'd be facing and the opportunities that would come your way in the months ahead. I invite you to review them now and let me know if they were useful. Write to Truthrooster@gmail.com.





If you'd ever like to make a contribution to me via Paypal, here's where to do it.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


The phrase "new roses" can serve as an antidote to neurosis -- as a kind of magical spell. You might invoke it when you're in danger of getting undermined by either your own neurosis or someone else's.

If you notice, for instance, that your subconscious mind is spiraling down into a sour fantasy stirred up by one of your habitual fears, you could mutter a cheerful round of "new roses, new roses, new roses."

If your allies slip into the same compulsive behavior that they tend to get stuck in whenever stress overflows, you could chant "new roses, new roses, new roses" in a tuneful, affectionate tone.





You don't have to tone down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.

You're a star -- and so am I. My success encourages your brilliance, and vice versa. Your charisma enhances my power -- and vice versa.





Life is a vast and intricate conspiracy designed to keep us well-supplied with blessings. What kind of blessings? Ten million dollars, a gorgeous physique, a perfect marriage, a luxurious home, and high status? Maybe.

But just as likely: interesting surprises, dizzying adventures, gifts you hardly know what to do with, and conundrums that dare you to get smarter. Novelist William Vollman referred to the latter types of blessings when he said that "the most important and enjoyable thing in life is doing something that's a complicated, tricky problem for you that you don't know how to solve."

The Christian writer C. S. Lewis said: "I thank God that He hasn't given me all the things I've prayed for, because as I look back now I realize it would have been disastrous to have received some of them."
Pronoia provides the boons and prods your soul needs, not necessarily those your ego craves.

Pronoia doesn't promise uninterrupted progress forever. It's not a slick commercial for a perfect summer day that never ends. Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow. The waning reveals a different kind of blessing than the waxing.

But whether it's our time to ferment in the valley of shadows or rise up singing in the sun-splashed meadow, fresh power to transform ourselves is always on the way. Our suffering won't last, nor will our triumph. Without fail, life will deliver the creative energy we need to change into the new thing we must become.





"If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders."

-Andrew Harvey, *The Return of the Mother*

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"To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weakness -- that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things."

-Pablo Neruda, *The Book of Virtues*

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"No work is more worthwhile than to be a sign of divine joy and a fountain of divine love."

-Andrew Harvey





"We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure."

-Macrina Wiederkehr





"Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely."

- Adam Michnik




"Give us this day our daily hunger," prayed French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. "Give us this day our holy longings," prayed me.





This is what my Goddess friend Durga told me, and I believe her:

"1. I vow to Siamese-twin together my bad-ass, no-hype, wide-eyed self with my tricky, strategic, puzzle-loving self.

"2. I vow to rage on like a dancing warrior in the urban wilderness, keeping peak experiences and total slaphappy victory at the top of my priority list, while at the same time I play hide-and-seek with the dark delicious secrets that fuel my soul's lust for wicked meaning.

"3. I vow to deepen the collaborative efforts of my suck-out-the-marrow-and-spit-out-the-bones craziness and my listen-carefully-to-the-flow-of-the-underground-river caginess."





MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

Rojava is a Kurdish region in Northern Syria that?s ruled by feminists. Rojava?s constitution enshrines gender equality and religious freedom. Recruits to Rojava?s 6,000-strong police force receive their weapons only after two weeks of feminist instruction.

Wind-power company to replace bird-killing Altamont turbines.

California bans antibiotics in meat.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.

The people I trust the most are those who are always tenderly wrestling and negotiating with their own shadows, making preemptive strikes on their personal share of the world's evil, fighting the good fight to keep from spewing their darkness on those around them. I aspire to be like that, which is why I regularly kick my own ass.

How-to-kick-your-own-ass lessons are available at 2:20 of this video:

How-to-kick-your-own-ass lessons are also available at 7:30 of this video:

Here's the "Kick Your Own Ass" anthem.





"I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people, to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole."

- Lauren Oliver

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"We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger."

- T. S. Eliot, "The Cocktail Party"





"The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them."

- Steve Hall

An interviewer urged the Dalai Lama to discourse on how to cultivate lovingkindness. His Holiness said, "That may be too much to ask. How about if we just work on getting the 'kindness' part right?"





It seems that we are more often frightened than hurt, and that we tend to suffer more from imagination than from reality. ?
?Lucius Annaeus Seneca





"Imaginal hygiene is the inner art of self-managing the imagination, to defend it from forces that compromise, pollute, colonize, shrink, and sterilize it, and to cultivate those that illuminate, expand, and nourish it."

The above is an excerpt from a wonderful piece by M. T. Xen, which I highly recommend.

You can also listen to my six-minute take on the power of your imagination.

Or read my piece here.





I mourn the bad news, and also offer a lot of good news.





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


LIBERATE YOUR IMAGINATION

The fundamentalist takes everything way too seriously and way too personally and way too literally. He divides the world into two camps, those who agree with him and those who don't. There is only one right way to interpret the world, and a million wrong ways. Correct belief is the only virtue.

To the fundamentalist, the liberated imagination is a sinful taboo. He not only enslaves his own imagination to his ideology, but wants to enslave our imaginations, too.

And who are the fundamentalists? Let's not remain under the delusion that they are only the usual suspects -- the religious fanatics of Islam and Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism.

There are many other kinds of fundamentalists, and some of them have gotten away with practicing their tragic magic in a stealth mode. Among the most successful are those who believe in what Robert Anton Wilson calls fundamentalist materialism. This is the faith-based dogma that swears physical matter is the only reality and that nothing exists unless it can be detected by our five senses or by technologies that humans have made.

Life has no transcendent meaning or purpose, the fundamentalist materialists proclaim. There is no such thing as a divine intelligence. The universe is a dumb accidental machine that grinds on endlessly out of blind necessity.

I see spread out before me in every direction a staggeringly sublime miracle lovingly crafted by a supernal consciousness that oversees the evolution of 500 billion galaxies, yet is also available as an intimate companion and daily advisor to every one of us. But to the fundamentalist materialists, my perceptions are indisputably wrong and idiotic.

Many other varieties of fundamentalism thrive and propagate. Every ideology, even some of the ones I like, has its share of true believers -- fanatics who judge all other ideologies as inferior, flawed, and foolish.

I know astrologers who insist there's only one way to do astrology right. I know Buddhists who adamantly decree that the inherent nature of life on Earth is suffering.

I know progressive activists who sincerely believe that every single Republican is either stupid or evil or both. I know college administrators who would excommunicate any psychology professor who dared to discuss the teachings of Carl Jung, who was in my opinion one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. I know pagans who refuse to consider any other version of Jesus Christ beyond the sick parody the Christian right has fabricated.

None of the true believers like to hear that there are at least three sides to every story. They don't want to consider the hypothesis that everyone has a piece of the truth.

And here's the really bad news: We all have our own share of the fundamentalist virus. Each of us is fanatical, rigid, and intolerant about products of the imagination that we don't like. We wish that certain people would not imagine the things they do, and we allow ourselves to beam hateful, war-like thoughts in their direction.

We even wage war against our own imaginations, commanding ourselves, sometimes half-consciously, to ignore possibilities that don't fit into our neatly?constructed theories. Each of us sets aside certain precious beliefs and symbols that we give ourselves permission to take very seriously and personally and literally.

Our fundamentalism, yours and mine, may not be as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, the fundamentalism of Islamic terrorists and right-wing Christian politicians. It may not be as destructive as that of the CEOs who worship financial profit as the supreme measure of value, and the scientists who ignore and deny every mystery that can't be measured, and the journalists, filmmakers, novelists, musicians, and pundits who relentlessly generate rotten visions of the human condition.

But still: We are all infected, you and I. We are fueling the war against the imagination. What's your version of the virus?

How might we start curing ourselves of the fundamentalist virus and move in the direction of becoming more festive and relentless champions of the liberated imagination?

For starters, we can take everything less seriously and less personally and less literally.

We can laugh at ourselves at least as much as we laugh at other people. We can blaspheme our own gods and burn our own flags and mock our own hypocrisy and satirize our own fads and fixations.

And we can enjoy and share the tonic pleasures of healing mischief, friendly shocks, compassionate tricks, irreverent devotion, holy pranks, playful experiments, and crazy wisdom . . . .

READ THE REST OF THIS ESSAY.





PRONOIA'S VILLAINS?

According to Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, Judas was actually a more exalted hero than Jesus. He unselfishly volunteered to perform the all?important villain's role in the resurrection saga, knowing he'd be reviled forever. It was a dirty job that only a supremely egoless saint could have done. Jesus suffered, true, but enjoyed glory and adoration as a result. Let's apply this way of thinking to the task of understanding the role that seemingly bad people play in pronoia.

Interesting narratives play an essential role in the universal conspiracy to give us exactly what we need. All of us crave drama. We love to be beguiled by twists of fate that unfold the stories of our lives in unpredictable ways. Just as Judas played a key role in advancing the tale of Christ's quest, villains and con men and clowns may be crucial to the entertainment value of our personal journeys.

Try this: Imagine the people you fear and dislike as pivotal characters in a fascinating and ultimately redemptive plot that will take years or even lifetimes for the Divine Wow to elaborate.

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There is another reason to love our enemies: They force us to become smarter. The riddles they thrust in front of us sharpen our wits and sculpt our souls.

Try this: Act as if your adversaries are great teachers. Thank them for how crucial they've been in your education.

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Consider one more possibility: that the people who seem to slow us down and hold us back are actually preventing things from happening too fast. Imagine that the evolution of your life or our culture is like a pregnancy: It needs to reach its full term. Just as a child isn't ready to be born after five months of gestation, the New Earth we're creating has to ripen in its own time. The recalcitrant reactionaries who resist the inevitable birth are simply making sure that the far-seeing revolutionaries don't conjure the future too suddenly. They serve the greater good.





A message I love, ritten by William Sebrans

"While people around the world process internally and externally their responses to the recent terror in France, Lebanon, Iraq, Cameroon, Chad, and all over the world -- doing so with all manner of goodwill, anger, political ruminations de jour, tactics, finger-pointing, judgment of each others' modes of expression, fear, silence, and noble resolve -- I remain left with two understandings:

"1. To re-commit daily to a practice of Self-realization that embodies the mystery of life, and that transcends the fierce drama and vicissitudes of human affairs -- as the Buddha and all great teachers have resolutely encouraged.

"2. To practice visible and invisible acts of kindness, forbearance, artfulness, and goodwill in the daily traffic of life.

"These practices and gestures will not generally make headlines, will not make us invulnerable to grief and shock, nor secure us the satisfying universal justice we might seek on this plane. They likely will not generate fierce debate, change policy, or get lots of likes in the Facebook lane. Nor will they pardon us from the eventual and even imminent demise of the body.

"They will, however, upgrade Life in the moment and endorse possibility in a way that marks a winged victory over the oppressive state of mind and transcends the dark illusions of our times.

"I think 'God' is indifferent, and should be, being beyond duality... But the Angels are rooting for us, is my bias of choice."

- William Sebrans






Below is an excerpt:

Dear Goddess: Please make it immoral, illegal, irrelevant, unpatriotic, and totally tasteless for us to be in love with anyone or anything that's no good for us.

Teach us to know the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control.

Awaken in us the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing . . . .

Read or hear the rest of the Goddess Prayer.





EXPERIMENT: Review in loving detail the history of your life. Remember how and why you came to be where you are now.

Extra Credit: Figure out a way to feel gratitude for it all.




CRAFTY OPTIMISM

Pessimism is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.

So it's hard work to be lovers of life -- taboo, against-the-grain work. We've got to be both wrathful insurrectionaries and crafty optimists. We've got to cultivate cheerful buoyancy even as we resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully forged and seductively packaged by those among us who have bravely volunteered to play the role of know-it-all deceivers.

We have to learn how to stay in a good yet unruly mood as we overthrow the sour, puckered mass hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as "reality."

Maybe most importantly, we have to be dedicated to the cause of beauty and truth and love even as we keep our imaginations wild and hungry and free. We have to be both disciplined and rowdy.





YOUR IMPROBABLE QUEST

I invite you to have an improbable quest playing at the edge of your imagination: a heroic task that provokes deep thoughts and noble passions even if it incites smoldering torment . . . an extravagant dream that's a bit farfetched but not entirely insane . . . a goal that stretches your possibilities and opens your mind . . . a wild hope whose pursuit makes you smarter and stronger even if you never fully accomplish it.





1. Discourage all traces of shame.

2. Verify the irrational.

3. Multiply all opinions.

4. Blush perpetually in gaping innocence.

5. Burrow beneath the subconscious.

6. Bear no cross.

7. Extend all boundaries.

8. Pass from one world to another in carefree devotion.

9. Exhaust the primitive.

10. Generate the free brain.

11. Forego no succulent filth.

12. Acquire a sublime reputation.

13.. Make one monster at least.

14. Inhabit everyone.

These suggestions were generated by Kenneth Patchen.
See the rest.





"Here is a new spiritual practice: Don't take your thoughts too seriously."
- Eckhart Tolle


"Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness."
- Eckhart Tolle




MORE PRONOIA RESOURCES:

For the first time, the Canadian government has a cabinet with an equal number of men and women.

The Mindful Life Project is an organization that brings meditation, yoga, and mindfulness training to classrooms.

"The Lax Kw?alaams Band, a Canadian first nations people living in a remote part of British Columbia, turned down an offer amounting to $267,000 per person to allow a natural gas pipeline and processing facility to be built on their lands."





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


EXPERIMENT: Be scarier than your fears. If an anxious thought pops into your mind, bare your teeth and growl, "Get out of here or I will rip you to shreds!" If a demon visits you in a nightly dream, chase after it with a torch and sword, screaming "Begone, foul spirit, or I will burn your mangy ass!"

Don't tolerate bullying in any form, whether it comes from a critical little voice in your head or from supposedly nice people who are trying to guilt-trip you. "I am a brave conqueror who cannot be intimidated!" is what you could say, or "I am a monster of love and goodness who will defeat all threats to my integrity!"





I love your pilgrim soul and I love your ever-deepening eyes.

I love how unflinchingly you peer into the heart of your own darkness.

I love how you're making yourself more and more receptive to truths in their wild states.

I love how you can dive into your in passion but never shirk your commitment to the good and the true.

I admire the way you never bear a grudge against the mountains that are in your way, but rather just set to work getting around them.

I love your commitment to deciphering the code you left for yourself before you came into this life.





In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking.

While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we suggest balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the BLISS BLITZ.

During this celebration, you tune out the numbing banality of the daily grind. But instead of shrinking into asceticism, you indulge in uninhibited explorations of joy, release, and expansion.

Turning away from the mildly stimulating distractions you seek out when you're bored or worried, you become inexhaustibly resourceful as you search for unsurpassable sources of cathartic pleasure. Try it for a day or a week: the BLISS BLITZ.





?This body that we have, this very body that?s sitting here right now in this room, this very body that perhaps aches, and this mind that we have at this very moment, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive.

"Furthermore, the emotions that we have right now, the negativity and the positivity, are what we actually need. It is just as if we looked around to find out what would be the greatest wealth that we could possibly possess in order to lead to a decent, good, completely fulfilling, energetic, inspired life, and found it right here."

- Jack Kornfield





Below are more excerpts from my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


Devotional Pronoia Therapy. Experiments and exercises in becoming a gracefully probing, erotically funny, shockingly friendly Master of Orgasmic Empathy

1. What causes happiness? Brainstorm about it. Map out the foundations of your personal science of joy. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good.

To get you started, I'll name some experiences that might rouse your gratification: engaging in sensual pleasure; seeking the truth; being kind and moral; contemplating the meaning of life; escaping your routine; purging pent-up emotions. Do any of these work for you? Name at least ten more.

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2. Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book *The Luck Factor* presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop.


How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.

Name three specific actions you'll try in order to improve your luck.

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3. Dumb suffering is the kind of suffering you're compulsively drawn back to over and over again out of habit. It's familiar, and thus perversely comfortable. Smart suffering is the kind of pain that surprises you with valuable teachings and inspires you to see the world with new eyes.

While stupid suffering is often born of fear, wise suffering is typically stirred up by love. The dumb, unp