Do You Believe in Astrology?

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QUESTION. How can an intelligent person possibly believe astrology has any merit?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. Many of the debunkers who try to discredit astrology have done no research on the subject. They haven't read smart astrological philosophers like Dane Rudhyar, don't know that seminal astronomers Johannes Kepler and Galileo were skilled astrologers, and aren't aware that eminent psychologist C.G. Jung cast horoscopes and believed that "astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity."

The closest approach the fraudulent "skeptics" usually make to the ancient art is to glance at a random horoscope column in a newspaper or on a website. To match their carelessness, I might make a drive-by of a strip mall and declare that the profession of architecture is shallow and debased.

That's one reason why these ill-informed "skeptics" spread so many ignorant lies. For instance, they say that astrologers think the stars and planets emit invisible beams that affect people's lives. The truth is, many Western astrologers don't believe any such thing. (You can read more comments about this below.)

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QUESTION. Because you pack your column with doses of wry humor and wild imagery, some people think you don't take astrology seriously.

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. On the contrary, I think my humor and imagery, along with my passion for crafting clich?-free language, demonstrate how much respect I have for astrology. With the vigor I apply to writing my oracles, I feel I'm alerting people to the possibility that astrology may have more credibility than both its sloppy practitioners and careless debunkers have afforded it.

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QUESTION. You have said in the past that you believe in astrology "about 80 percent." What's up with the other 20 percent?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. I use the same 80-20 approach with every belief system I love and benefit from: Qabala, science, paganism, transpersonal psychology, postmodern rationalism, feminism, and others. I take what's useful from each, but am not so deluded as to think that any single system is the holy grail the physicists call the "Theory of Everything." Unconditional, unskeptical faith is the path of the fanatic and fundamentalist, and I aspire to be a rowdy philosophical anarchist, aflame with objectivity and committed to the truth that the truth is always mutating.

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QUESTION. But don't you risk playing the same role the lazy astrologers do: enticing people to take on a superstitious approach to life and seducing them into believing their fate is determined by supernatural forces beyond the influence of their willpower?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. I call what I do predicting the present, not forecasting the future. My goal is to awaken my readers to the hidden agendas, unconscious forces, and long-term cycles at work in their lives so that they can respond to the totality of what's happening instead of to mere appearances. I want to be a friendly shocker who helps unleash their imaginations, giving them the power to create their destinies with the same liberated fertility that great artists summon to forge their masterpieces.

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QUESTION. How do you write your column? Do you use actual astrological data, or just go into a trance and let your imagination run wild?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. I draw up a weekly chart for the sun, moon, and major aspects of each sign. It's the framework within which I improvise. The artistic part of the work is harder to pin down. One of my guiding principles, though, is to treat each sign's horoscope as a personal love letter?to speak as intimately about the mysteries of the moment as if I were addressing a close friend.

Where do my inspirations come from? Dreams, letters from readers, overheard conversations, meditation, lots of reading in a wide variety of texts both sacred and profane, and the intensive cultivation of my own receptivity.

I also rely on fact-finding missions I call whirlygigs. During these, I steep myself with the intention of attracting lessons I don't know I need, then meander the streets at random, going places I've never been and striking up conversations with strangers with whom I apparently have nothing in common.

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QUESTION: Many modern skeptics/scientists' assumption imagine that astrology is based on the belief that the gravity or movements of the planetary bodies themselves is what influences us. Is that a misconception?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. Yes. It's another case of scientists not acting like scientists -- not bothering to research the subject they speak about authoritatively.

In his book *Cosmos and Psyche*, Richard Tarnas says the planets don't emit invisible forces that shape our destinies as if we were puppets. Rather, they are symbols of the unfolding evolutionary pattern. Just as clocks tell time but don't create it, the heavenly bodies show us the big picture but don't cause it.

Quoting Greek philosopher Plotinus, Tarnas writes, "The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together."

So it's not just the distant globes whose movements and relationships serve as divinatory clues. If you're sufficiently attuned to the gestalt of creation and pay close enough attention to its unfolding details, you can read the current mood of the universe in the arrangement of red onions in the grocery store bin or the fluttering of sunlight and shadow on the mimosa tree or the scatter of soap suds in your sink after you've finished washing the dishes.

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QUESTION. You confuse me in the way that you praise rational thought and the scientific method, yet reserve the right to believe in astrology, angels, miracles, and other woo-woo.

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. Thousands of amazing, inexplicable, and even supernatural events occur every day. And yet most are unreported by the media. The few that are cited are ridiculed. Why?

Here's one possible reason: The people most likely to believe in wonders and marvels are superstitious, uneducated, and prone to having a blind, literalist faith in their religions' myths. Those who are least likely to believe in wonders and marvels are skilled at analytical thought, well-educated, and yet prone to having a blind, literalist faith in the ideology of materialism, which dogmatically asserts that the universe consists entirely of things that can be perceived by the five human senses or detected by instruments that scientists have thus far invented.

The media is largely composed of people from the second group. It's virtually impossible for them to admit to the possibility of events that elude the rational mind's explanations, let alone experience them. If anyone from this group manages to escape peer pressure and cultivate a receptivity to the miraculous, it's because they have successfully fought against being demoralized by the unsophisticated way wonders and marvels are framed by the first group.

I try to be immune to the double-barreled ignorance. When I behold astonishing synchronicities and numinous breakthroughs that seem to violate natural law, I'm willing to consider the possibility that my understanding of natural law is too narrow. And yet I also refrain from lapsing into irrational gullibility; I actively seek mundane explanations for apparent miracles.

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QUESTION. Can you sum up your approach to seeing the world?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. My outlook combines the rigorous objectivity of a scientist, the "beginner's mind" of Zen Buddhism, and the compassionate friendliness of the Dalai Lama. I blend a scrupulously dispassionate curiosity with a skepticism driven by expansiveness, not spleen.

To pull this off, I have to be willing to regularly suspend my theories about the way the world works. I accept with good humor the possibility that what I've learned in the past may not be a reliable guide to understanding the fresh phenomenon that's right in front of me. I'm suspicious of my biases, even the rational and benevolent ones. I open my heart as I strip away the interpretations that my 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, I don't want to turn into a hard-ass, poker-faced robot. I keep my feelings moist and receptive. I remember my natural affection for all of creation. I enjoy the power of tender sympathy as it drives me 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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INTERVIEWER: Can you provide a 25-words-or-less summary of what "Free Will Astrology" is not?

ROB'S BREZSNY'S ANSWER. My Free Will Astrology horoscopes are not rooted in or justified by any belief system, doctrine, fairy tale, authoritative teacher, elaborate secret joke, mystical wishing, well-rationalized bias, or rebellion against science. My horoscopes are fueled by poetry and in service to the liberated imagination.





ARCHIVES OF FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Here are the Free Will Astrology horoscopes from a year ago. (When you reach the link, scroll down to read your horoscope.)

Here are the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you at the beginning of 2018. How are they working for you?

Here are the Free Will Astrology archives for the last 15 years





CRITICISM

Below is some reader email that came in recently. (If you'd like to tell me your opinions on my work, either positive or negative, send them to Truthrooster@gmail.com.)

Mr. So-Called Astrologer: I was browsing through the Folio Weekly newspaper in Jacksonville, and saw your horoscopes, and really had to say: what the hell?!

One horoscope has a bunch of synonyms and antonyms mushed together. What is ?strong softness? supposed to mean? Or ?daring acts of nurturing?? Just sounds like nonsense to me.

Another horoscope has a weird story about the history of cars (although thanks for providing the moral of the story, because otherwise I would not have realized the point)

So this is just my request to, if possible, give us more of a horoscope and less of a game of words that really do not have any usefulness.

Hold off on the irrelevant stories and be more direct in giving some practical advice about my finances or who I should date. Maybe put in some numerology or even what to watch out for in the current week.

I love reading horoscopes but yours were very confusing and disappointing.

Thank you :)

Fran R.





SUPPORT

I was born under the sign of Cancerian the Crab. One of the potential weaknesses of our tribe is that we can tend to be almost pathologically self-sufficient. Some of us may find it challenging to ask for help and support. In my continuing effort to overcome this inclination, I'm asking for your support!

If you would like to contribute to me and my ongoing work, please visit my Virtual Tip Jar at Paypal.

You can also contribute to my well-being by buying the Expanded Audio Horoscopes I create every week. These forecasts are different in tone and content from the written horoscopes I provide here. They're my four- to five-minute-long ruminations about the current chapter of your life story. They're available here.





LOVE RULES

"I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
- Vincent van Gogh

"Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love."
- Leo Tolstoy

"Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself."
- Emily Dickinson

"Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal."
- Sark

"For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It is the work for which all other work is mere preparation."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

"If you do not love too much, you do not love enough."
- Blaise Pascal

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."
- Erica Jong

"Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don't stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies."
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's sweet."
- Pablo Neruda

"The most vital right is the right to love and be loved."
- Emma Goldman

"Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Letters to a Young Poet," translated by Stephen Mitchell

"There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don?t work."
- Ana?s Nin





SHADOW BLESSINGS

Here's a spell to commit pronoia, authored by psychotherapist Jennifer Welwood. I invite you to say it.

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;

Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within me;

Opening to my loss and pain and ignorance,
I remember who I am and what I'm here for.

Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.

Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me

and becomes itself transformed
into the blessing it always was.

Listen to this piece as a spoken-word piece