Joy Finds You

Treat every moment
as if it is not
preparation for something else.

—Shunryu Suzuki





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CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR UPGRADE

Think back to your first descent into the abyss many years ago. You were a raw rookie at the time, and didn't have many skills to help you negotiate the dark, dank regions. It was no surprise that you came back touchy and scarred.

But in each stint in the underworld since then, you've gained more proficiency at remembering who you are even when you feel lost.

In fact, I suspect that somewhere along the way you passed a crucial threshold. You learned the difference between repetitive, unnecessary pain and the kind of useful pain that rejuvenates and empowers. You discovered how a journey into the underworld can sharpen your soul's vision and enrich your creative passion.

Congratulations on the upgrade!





CLARIFY YOUR SITUATION

I get many requests from people who are going through challenging times in their lives and would like my personal advice. I wish I could respond to these inquiries, because they are often profound and well-thought-out, demonstrating an ability to define the problems at hand with lucid insight.

Unfortunately, I can't respond. My various lines of work are too demanding to add any other tasks to my life, no matter how interesting they might be. But I've developed a general response to those people who seek my personal input. I'm offering it below.

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I'm honored that you regard me as someone who might be able to provide answers or solace, but I don't think it would be responsible for me to fling advice your way without knowing more about the complexities of your problem. And I'm afraid I can't give the time necessary to explore those complexities.

The only thing I'll suggest, as you seek to clarify your situation, is for you to arrange to go on a retreat. During that time of withdrawal from the world's everyday madness, I urge you to avoid all media and to be as silent and relaxed as it's possible for you to be.

During the first part of your retreat, spend hours visualizing in your mind's eye the entire story of your life, from the earliest memory to the present moment.

During the second phase of your retreat, begin your meditations by establishing contact with the highest source of wisdom and love within you. You can call this source God or Goddess or your Guardian Angel or Higher Self. Spend luxurious time in dialogue with this source, making sure to ask these questions:

1. "What is it I want more than anything else?"

2. "What is the best way to serve the mission I came to Earth to carry out? What are the very best gifts I have to offer other humans?"

3. "What path will allow me to ultimately learn the most about wise love?"

4. "How do I need to change in order to get what I want, carry out my life's mission, and learn about wise love? What influences and attitudes do I need to eliminate?"

During the third phase of the process, write out a mission statement: what you want to accomplish by the time you die many years hence. Then create a master plan of the actions you will take in order to make that mission statement come true. Include three actions you will take in the next month to get more serious about accomplishing your mission.

During the fourth phase, visualize the following scenarios in lush detail: that God/Goddess loves you, that the entire universe is conspiring to give you the lessons and blessings and kicks in the ass and liberations you need exactly when you need them, and that you are ready to welcome that love and guidance with all your heart.

P.S. I'm a big believer in trusting your intuition. Even if it doesn't lead you to what your ego thinks is a successful outcome, your intuition will always guide you to the experiences that your soul needs.





IN SPIRITUAL MATTERS, GOD GRANTS ALL DESIRES

"In purely spiritual matters, God grants all desires," said philosopher and activist Simone Weil. "Those who have less have asked for less." I think this is a worthy hypothesis for you to try out.

To be clear: It doesn't necessarily mean you will get a dream job and perfect lover and ten million dollars. What it does suggest is this: You can have any relationship with the Divine Wow that you dare to imagine; you can get all the grace you need to understand why your life is the way it is; you can make tremendous progress as you do the life-long work of liberating yourself from your suffering.





UNLEASHING THE POWER OF YOUR IMAGINATION

Do the planets control our fates? Are we merely puppets of cosmic forces? Not in my view. I believe the study of astrology can be a liberating force, alerting us to our own unconscious motivations and revealing the long-term cycles in our lives.

In offering you my horoscopes, I aspire to unleash the power of your imagination to create the destiny you want. It is in that spirit that I named this column "Free Will Astrology." I hope it serves as a continual reminder that you are always the boss of you.





OVERCOMING OUR NEURAL BIAS FOR NEGATIVITY

"To overcome our neural bias for negativity, we must repetitiously and consciously generate as many positive thoughts as we can."

READ MORE

The article never advises us to refrain from saying no when discernment and boundary-making are necessary. It argues that we have a neural bias, a built-in biological predilection for negativity, that may have served our distant ancestors but is now a deep handicap.





LOVE IS HARD WORK!

"For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

—Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by M.D. Herter Norton

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"Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable, and noble kind of love."

—Delmore Schwartz





MAGIC SECRET

"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words," said Terence McKenna, "and that if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish."

Here's my version of that hypothesis: What world you end up living in depends at least in part on your use of language.

Do you want to move and breathe amidst infertile chaos where nothing makes sense and no one really loves anyone? Then speak with unconscious carelessness, expressing yourself lazily. Constantly materialize and entertain angry thoughts in the privacy of your own imagination, beaming silent curses out into eternity.

Or would you prefer to live in a realm that's rich with fluid epiphanies and intriguing coincidences and mysterious harmonies? Then be discerning and inventive in how you speak, primed to name the unexpected codes that are always being born right in front of your eyes. Turn your imagination into an ebullient laboratory where the somethings you create out of nothings are tinctured with the secret light you see in your dreams of invisible fire.

P.S. "The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words," wrote Philip K. Dick in his essay, "How to Build A Universe That Won't Fall Apart in Two Days."

—from Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
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Listen to "Magic Secret"





THE PEOPLE I TRUST

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.

(For a demonstration of how to kick your own ass, go here — about three minutes in)


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The above is an excerpt from my book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings





YOU TASTE DELICIOUS

Of the many songs I've written and co-written, this is my favorite right now: "You Taste Delicious."

First version sung by Adrienne Mehri Shamszad

Second version sung by me






BLESS YOUR APPETITE

Bless your appetite. May it be voracious and unapologetic.

I'm sending you much respect for your buried needs and secret yearnings. May they flow into plain view for you to embrace and celebrate.

Congratulations for your willingness to name the unspeakable truths and acknowledge the embarrassing fears. May you be willing to rebel against your self-image for the sake of gaining access to deeper reserves of power and competence.




Here's a prescription that may help you make optimal use of your precious life energy:

Set an intention to clarify your intentions about the essential matters in your life. Say "I am clarifying my intentions about . . ."

1. "who I really am"

2. "whom and what I love"

3. "how I want to serve my fellow creatures and the planet Earth"

4. "the unripe qualities in myself that I am ripening"

5. "what I need to do next"

6. "the best way for me to make money"

7. "the moral principles I hold most strongly"

8. "the truth about my relationship to the Source"

9. "the best use of my creative energy"

others?





SPIRITUAL POWER OF FEELINGS

"Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves.

"The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath.

"Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation





THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Here's a thought experiment you could try for the next 24 hours: Every time a negative or fearful thought rises up, substitute a thought, imagination, or memory that energizes you and makes you feel genuinely good.

It's only for one day. You can do it!





COMPASSIONATE POLITICS

I want the following: Medicare for All. Drastic decrease in military budget. Raising the minimum wage. Equal pay for equal work. Making it easier for workers to join unions. Free tuition at public colleges and universities. A Green New Deal. Police department reform and criminal justice reform.

Wealth tax. Much more gun control. Pathway for citizenship for all immigrants. Universal Basic Income. Reparations for African Americans and Native Americans. Elimination of the Electoral College. Legal marijuana.

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Kamala Harris wasn't my first choice for VP, but I support her wholeheartedly. Joe Biden was nowhere near my first choice for President, but I support him wholeheartedly. Onward to victory over the Trumpocalypse!

The future of the human race depends on Biden-Harris winning.

I hope we will also do everything in our power to help Democrats keep their majority in the House and gain the majority in the Senate.





THE SACRED IS IN THE ORDINARY

"The great lessons from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's back yard, and that travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred. To be looking everywhere for miracles is a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous."

—Abraham H. Maslow

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"The lesson that life constantly enforces is 'Look underfoot.' You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world."

—Naturalist John ­Burroughs

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"If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion."

—Lin-Chi, translated by Thomas Cleary

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"We want to be God in all the ways that are not the ways of God, in what we hope is indestructible or unmoving. But God is fragile, a bare smear of pollen, that scatter of yellow dust from the tree that tumbled over in a storm of grief and planted itself again."

—Deena Metzger, Prayers for a Thousand Years, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon





MY DAILY HOROSCOPES

Some people don't know that I write daily horoscopes, available as text messages sent to your cell or smart phone.

They're shorter than the weekly 'scopes, but on the other hand they're more frequent -- every day of the week.

My weekly horoscopes are free, but the dailies cost about 67 cents a day if you sign up for a subscription.

If you think you might enjoy getting regular bursts of inspiration from me to illuminate your adventures, check them out.

Go to https://RealAstrology.com. Register or log in. On the new page, click on "Subscribe / Renew" under "Daily Text Message Horoscopes" in the right-hand column.





INTERVIEW WITH ME

INTERVIEWER: 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 BREZSNY: 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 may be superstitious, uneducated, or 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.