Interpret All Omens Favorably

Hypothesis: All omens should be interpreted favorably.

All omens should be regarded as revelations about what can be done to successfully wrangle with our problems, perpetrate liberation, ameliorate suffering, find redemption, and perform the tricky maneuvers and ingenious tweaks that enable us to slip free of our mind-forged manacles and discover the deeper meanings behind and beneath our experiences.





WHAT WELCOMING POSSIBILITIES ARE AHEAD FOR YOU in the coming months? Will there be opportunities disguised as challenges?

EXPLORE THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE with my MID-YEAR AUDIO PREVIEW of YOUR DESTINY for the REST of 2021.

What new influences and experiences will be headed your way in the second half of 2021?

What fresh resources will you be able to draw on?

Would you like some guidance as you figure out how to make best use of those influences and experiences and resources?

To listen to my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE during the next six months, GO HERE.

Register and/or log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2021."

You can also listen to your short-term forecast for the coming week by clicking on "This week (July 6, 2021)."

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The in-depth, long-range Expanded Audio horoscopes cost $6 apiece if you access them on the Web. (Discounts are available for multiple purchases.)





MISSION STATEMENT

To celebrate my birthday recently, I wrote a brief summary of the principles that inspire my personal mission. Here they are:

* To be an aspiring Master of Curiosity.

* To know that playing is a consummate spiritual act.

* Being a purveyor of compassionate crazy wisdom.

* Don't suppress and deny and escape desire! Rather, apotheosize and enjoy desire, and channel it to commit transformative mystery and lyrical justice.

* Don't suppress and deny and escape ego! Rather, apotheosize and use ego as a tool to commit smart love.

* Completely identifying and blending my personal self with the One Self whose intelligence permeates all being and things.

* Infusing my writing with the soul of music. Infusing my music with the soul of writing.

* Syngergizing the Christ archetype with the Dionysus archetype.

* Exploring and expressing holy trickster feminism.

* Always asking: What is a masculine version of emotional intelligence?

* Daring to embody and express smart love.

* Know on a visceral level that consciousness is everywhere, in all things, in all creatures. Learn to commune with the myriad kinds of intelligence, not just the human variety.

* Resolved: Listening and empathy are superpowers.

* Figure out how to be more motivated to do good through love than through duty.

* The divine feminine is always here, has never waned. But too many human beings have lost the thread of direct communion with her. How to revive her presence in our hearts and minds?

* There is no such thing as permanent enlightenment—only an ongoing devotion to finding the newest, freshest versions of the raw truth in each moment.

* Practicing sacred activism and spiritual freedom fighting: conspiring to create a paradise on earth through practical political work — inspired by an ecstatic awareness of Divine Intelligence — that fosters justice and fairness for all

* The personal is the political. Every one of our thoughts, feelings, and actions has a political impact far beyond our individual lives.

* Doing what I do best and offering the unique gifts I have been blessed with to dissolve racism, misogyny, militarism, plutocracy, LGBTQ-phobia, ecocide, and all forms of bigotry.

* Love and respect and learn from all the animals. Seek communion with their intelligence.

* Every person and every creature are my teachers.

* One of the greatest gifts I can give to those I engage with is to transmute and refine my own darkness, ignorance, and woundedness.

* There are Other Real Worlds beyond the material realm, and I Iive there as much as I live here.

* Our nightly dreams are unparalleled sources of wisdom about how to become fully real.

* Dedicate my creativity to nurturing, inspiring, and liberating all those who are interested in my self-expression.

* My gratitude goes on forever.





FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Here's a link to my free weekly email newsletter, featuring the Free Will Astrology horoscopes, plus a celebratory array of tender rants, lyrical excitements, poetic philosophy, and joyous adventures in consciousness. It arrives every Tuesday morning by 7:30 am.

Read past issues of the newsletter since May 12.

Read past issues of the newsletter from before May 12.

Sign up here for your free subscription.








THREE KINDS OF DARKNESS

Varieties of darkness include:

* pathology and evil;

* the mysterious unknown—the source of the future;

* the shadowy, unripe parts of our psyches that are on their way to becoming more interesting and useful but are still awkward and inarticulate.

Hypothesis: We can help prevent outbreaks of the first kind of darkness by developing a vigorous personal relationship with the second and third types.

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Rebecca Solnit writes: “The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think. It’s an extraordinary declaration, asserting that the unknown need not be turned into the known through false divination or the projection of grim political or ideological narratives; it’s a celebration of darkness, willing – as that 'I think' indicates—to be uncertain even about its own assertion.

"Most people are afraid of the dark. Literally when it comes to children, while many adults fear, above all, the darkness that is the unknown, the unseeable, the obscure. And yet the night in which distinctions and definitions cannot be readily made is the same night in which love is made, in which things merge, change, become enchanted, aroused, impregnated, possessed, released, renewed.”

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Jody Woodlands adds: "And darkness is nighttime, and underground, and the space between the stars: the simple, restful, beautiful, is-ness of the physical world. Shade and shadows: how I need them especially in summer!

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Tonia Rose adds: "Darkness is the soil and the soul: the deep places of growth and life."





THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF PLAY

"Approfondement is a French word that means 'playing easily in the deep.'"

—Tom Robbins

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"We are fully human only while playing, and we play only when we are human in the truest sense of the word."

—Rudolf Steiner

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"The ancient Greeks knew that learning comes from playing," writes Roger von Oech in his book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative. Their word for education, paideia, he says, was close to their word for play, paidia.

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Psychiatrist Stuart Brown has proposed this simple definition: "Play is spontaneous behavior that has no clear-cut goal and does not conform to a stereotypical pattern. The purpose of play is simply play itself; it appears to be pleasurable."

In a study of 26 convicted murderers, Brown discovered that as children, most of them had suffered either "from the absence of play or abnormal play like bullying, sadism, extreme teasing, or cruelty to animals."

Brown's work led him to explore the biological roots of play. "New and exciting studies of the brain, evolution, and animal behavior," he wrote, "suggest that play may be as important to life—for us and other animals—as sleeping and dreaming."

—Stuart L. Brown, "Animals at Play"

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"How much courage is needed
to play forever,
as the ravines play,
as the river plays."

—Boris Pasternak, "Bacchanalia"

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"You can't know fire unless you play with it," says Mark Finney, a math whiz who develops computer models for fighting forest fires.

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Some readers have told me that there is no such word as approfondement in French, even though Tom Robbins says there is.

Here are some responses to that:

Poets and imaginative writers coin new words all the time, in every language. Some of my favorite authors, including Tom Robbins, exult in that playtime activity.

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Here is "The Complete List of Words That Shakespeare Invented."

Just a few:

academe
accessible
accommodation
addiction
admirable
aerial
airless
amazement
anchovy
arch-villain
auspicious
barefaced
baseless
batty
bedroom
belongings
birthplace
bloodstained
bloodsucking
blusterer

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New words added to English in 2021.

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The French dictionary added a record number of new words.

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21 New Words Worth Knowing in the French Dictionary.

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Every year the directors of the Italian dictionary Devoto-Oli issue a new version to include new words and meanings that have entered popular discourse. In 2021, the dictionary released a 600-new word update.

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There is a French organization that decides which new words will be officially allowed to be part of the French language. This group disallows many, many new words. But no one in France pays much attention to its judgments. French people use the disallowed words anyway.





BEE LOVE

I love this story about a beekeeper who gently moved an entire hive of bees into a new home.





PRACTICING HUMILITY

It's healthy to cultivate humility!

In that spirit, I link to a page on Amazon containing the worst, most scathing reviews for my most recent book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.


If you'd also like to read the good reviews, they're here.





ENLIGHTENMENT GAFFES

To all I care about, here’s a friendly tip: enlightenment is gaffe upon error upon blooper.

—poet Ikkyu





NON-BINARY FUTURES

There are about 1.2 million non-binary LGBTQ adults in the United States, according to the first broad-based population estimate of this kind. That’s the population of Dallas, Texas.

A Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Youth.

Beginner's guide to being an ally to trans people.





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.





ACQUIRING GOOD PROBLEMS

Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself—indeed, you make yourself—through the puzzling dilemmas you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.





12 LEVELS OF FRIENDSHIP

Taariq Ismail @TaariqIsmail writes: In Arabic, there are 12 levels of friendship.

1. Zameel — someone you have a nodding acquaintance with

2. Jalees — someone you’re comfortable sitting with for a period of time

3. Sameer — you have good conversation with them; this is where things get serious

4. Nadeem — a drinking companion (just tea) that you might call when you’re free

5. Sahib — someone who’s concerned for your wellbeing; now we’re in the real ranks of friendship

6. Rafeeq — someone you can depend upon. You’d probably go on holiday with them

7. Sadeeq — a true friend, someone who doesn’t befriend you for an ulterior motive

8. Khaleel — an intimate friend, someone whose presence makes you happy

9. Anees — someone with whom you’re really comfortable and familiar

10. Najiyy — a confidant, someone you trust deeply

11. Safiyy — your best friend, someone you’ve chosen over other friends

12. Qareen — someone who’s inseparable from you. You know how they think (and vice versa)





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.





ALL OF CREATION LOVES YOU

The Beauty and Truth Lab is coming to you live from your repressed memory of paradise, reminding you that all of creation loves you very much.

Even now, secret and not-so-secret allies are cooking up mysteries that will excite you and incite you for years to come.

Even now, the Earth, moon, and sun are collaborating to make sure you have all you need to make your next smart move.

But here's the loaded question: Are you willing to start loving life back with an equal intensity? The adoration it offers you has not exactly been unrequited, but there is room for you to be more demonstrative.

Half of the art of pronoia is about being improvisationally receptive to life's elaborate scheme to shower you with blessings. The other half is about learning to be a co-conspirator who assists life in doling out blessings —- to help everyone else get exactly what they need, exactly when they need it.

Visualize yourself being able to recognize the raw truth about the people you care about. Imagine that you can see how they already embody the beauty their souls' codes have promised as well as how they still fall short of embodying that beauty.

Picture yourself being able to make them feel appreciated even as you inspire them to risk changes that will activate more of their souls' codes.





IN PURELY 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.





MARRIED TO YOURSELF?

I invite you to deepen and intensify your commitment to the most important person in your life -- you. One way to further that sacred cause is to get married to yourself. In my book, I've created a text you can refer to as you perform the wedding. Or you can use my text for inspiration as you create your own version.

Below is an excerpt. (To read the whole text, go here.)

I ME WED

Let's begin by telling a simple truth: You will probably never create a resilient, invigorating bond with the lush accomplice of your dreams until you master the art of loving yourself ingeniously. A wedding ritual that joins you to yourself could catalyze an uncanny shift in your personal mojo that would attract a fresh, hot consort into your life, or else awaken the sleeping potential of a simmering alliance you have now.

If you're feeling brave, try speaking the following words aloud:

"I am no longer looking for the perfect partner.
I am my own perfect partner."

Say it even stronger:

"I am no longer looking for the perfect partner
to salve all my wounds
and fix all my mix-ups
and bridge all my chasms.
I am no longer looking for the perfect partner
because I am my own perfect partner."


TO READ THE REST OF "I ME WED," go here.





WHEN YOUR SOUL IS READY

"There is a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears," writes Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

But the magic of that formula may not unfold with smooth simplicity, she says: "The teacher comes when the soul, not the ego, is ready. The teacher comes when the soul calls, and thank goodness—for the ego is never fully ready."





SOFTEN THE ORANGE A LITTLE IN THE CORNER

"When I look at a sunset, I don't say, 'Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple in the cloud color.'"

Psychologist Carl Rogers was describing the way he observed the world. "I don't try to control a sunset," he continued. "I watch it with awe."

He had a similar view about people. "One of the most satisfying experiences," he said, "is just fully to appreciate an individual in the same way I appreciate a sunset."





IS RECEPTIVITY INTERESTING TO YOU?

"Receptivity is not a passive state. Nor is it a blank emptiness, waiting around for whatever happens to come along. In inviting you to cultivate receptivity, I don't mean you should become a lazy do-nothing bereft of goals, reacting blindly to whatever life throws in front of you.

Receptivity is a robust readiness to be surprised and moved, a vigorous intention to be awake to everything you can't control.

When you're receptive in the pronoiac style, you have strong ideas and a powerful will and an eagerness to disseminate your unique blessings, but you're also animated by the humble certainty that you have a lot to learn."





BRAG THERAPY

Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.

When you're ready, carry out the exercise called Brag Therapy. Grab a good listener or a recording device, and boast extravagantly about yourself for at least 15 minutes. Expound in exhaustive detail why you're so wonderful and why the world would be a better place if everyone would just act more like you.

Don't be humble or cautious. Go too far. Heap extreme glory on yourself. Brazenly proclaim the spectacular qualities about you that no one has ever fully articulated or appreciated. Don't forget to extol the prodigious flaws and vices that make you so special.

What does this have to do with pronoia? When you audaciously identify your existing gifts, you set yourself up to become a magnet for even greater abundance. In fact, we recommend that you treat yourself to a Brag Therapy session regularly.

To spur your imagination, read an excerpt from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session I hosted in Milwaukee.

"I have opposable thumbs," Eric exulted. "I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I'm asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up."





IS IT BAD TO LIVE WITHOUT A HELL?

"Is it bad to live without a hell?" poet Pablo Neruda asks in The Book of Questions. Let's add these queries to his: Is it dangerous to live without the awakening force that an enemy provides? Is it naive to think you can achieve great success without the driving motivation that comes from thinking about ideas you hate?
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Consider the issue from another angle. Dentists love tooth decay. Treating cavities provides them with a steady income. Likewise, exterminators are dependent on termites, lawyers need crime, and priests crave sinners. Lots of people have symbiotic connections with nasty stuff. In fact, isn't it true that most of us nurture our feelings for the things we love to despise and fear?
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What's your favorite poison or adversary? Assume that your exposure to pronoia is changing you in ways that will require you to update your relationship with it. Speculate on how you'll go about this task.





INDIVIDUALISM CAN BE FUN, HEALTHY, AND LIBERATING, BUT . . .

"The surest defense against evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even eccentricity. Evil is a sucker for solidarity. It always goes for big numbers, for confident granite, for ideological purity, for drilled armies and balance sheets."

—Joseph Brodsky

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P.S. We should make sure we don't fall into the error of believing that individualism engenders narcissism, greed, selfishness, superiority complexes, and feelings of entitlement. The most individuated people I know are humbly aware of the interconnectedness of all things, and eager to give their gifts generously.





TO WANDER ABOUT, LOOKING FOR SOMETHING

Science writer Lewis Thomas said that the English word "error" developed from a root meaning "to wander about, looking for something." That's why he liked Darwin's idea that error is the driving force in evolution.

"The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA," said Thomas. "Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music."





INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DEEP SELF

Are our schedules too rigid to allow magic to seep in? Then we must mutate that schedule!

Are our brains so crammed with knowledgeable opinions that no fresh perceptions can crack their way in? Then we must flush out some of those opinions.

Are our hearts so puckered by the stings of the past that they can't burst forth with any expansive new invitations? Then we must unpucker our heart, for Goddess's sake.