Last Week for Long-Range Audio Horoscopes

You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.

—Jon Kabat-Zinn





WHAT OPPORTUNITIES ARE AHEAD FOR YOU in the coming months?

There's just one week remaining to hear 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 coming months?

What fresh resources will you be able to draw on?

Would you like some inspiration as you imagine how to make best use of those influences and experiences and resources?

What questions should you be asking so as to create the best possible future for yourself?

To listen to your BIG PICTURE horoscopes online, 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 hear a short-term forecast for the week ahead by clicking on "This week (July 20, 2021)."

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The horoscopes cost $6 apiece. Discounts are available for multiple purchases.





15% REBELLIOUS RAGE, 85% COMPASSION AND CELEBRATION

Tending to my sanity and being in compassionate service to the world require me to be in a chronic state of rebellion.

But here's an important caveat: While the rebellion can and should be partially fueled by anger at the consensual mass hallucination that's mistakenly referred to as "reality," it must be primarily motivated by love and joy and the desire to bestow blessings.

A healthy proportion, at least for me, seems to be 15% rage, indignation, and complaint, and 85% compassion, celebration, and lust for life.





SEEK OUT THE LOWER REACHES

The alchemists said the magic formula for enlightenment was Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem, or "Seek out the lower reaches of the earth, perfect them, and you will find the hidden stone"—the treasured philosopher's stone.

Jungian psychologists might describe the process this way: Engage in a relationship with the wounded and sickly parts of yourself, refine them, and you will awaken your hidden divinity.

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"The great epochs in our lives are at the points when we gain the courage to rebaptize our badness as the best in us." —Friedrich Nietzsche

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Jung: "Whoever loves the earth and its glory, and forgets the 'dark realm,' or confuses the two (which is mostly what happens), has spirit for his enemy; and whoever flees from the earth and falls into the 'eternal arms' has life for an enemy."

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The Bible quotes the radical first-century religious activist Jesus Christ as follows: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." Sounds like he had a good strategy for working with his shadow.

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In the New Earth, it won't be your material wealth that will win you the most bragging points. Nor will it be the important people you know or the deals you've swung or the knowledge you've amassed or your mate's attractiveness.

What will bring you most prestige and praise in the civilization to come will be your success in transmuting lead into gold—how thoroughly you have integrated your shadow and tapped into its

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"Suffering can't be avoided," James Broughton told Jack Foley. "The way to happiness is to go into the darkness of yourself. That's the place the seed is nourished, takes its roots and grows up, and becomes ultimately the plant and the flower. You can only go upward by first going downward." —James Broughton, as told to interviewer Jack Foley, All: A James Broughton Reader

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"It is by going down into the abyss that you recover the treasures of life," wrote Joseph Campbell. "Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."

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In her book Zen Miracles, Brenda Shoshanna defines the shadow as the unacceptable aspects of ourselves that we dump into our unconscious minds. As we avoid looking at that hidden stuff, it festers. Meanwhile, we project it onto people we know, imagining that they possess the qualities we're repressing.

The antidote to the predicament, says Shoshanna, is to "eat our shadow"—haul it up from out of the pit and develop a conscious connection with it. Doing so not only prevents our unacknowledged darkness from haunting our thoughts and distorting our relationships; it also liberates tremendous psychic energy.

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The goddess Hecate lives in the underworld. According to poet Robert Graves, she is the mistress of sorcery, "the goddess of ghosts and night-terrors, of phantoms and fearful monsters." On the other hand, he notes, Hecate "presides at seed time and childbirth; she grants prosperity, victory, plentiful harvests to the farmer and rich catches to the fisherman."

How can a single deity embody such seemingly contradictory archetypes? Graves: She symbolizes "the unconscious in which beasts and monsters swarm. This is not the living hell of the psychotic, but a reservoir of energy to be brought under control, just as Chaos was brought to cosmic order under the influence of the spirit."

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Robert A. Johnson. writes: "It is also astonishing to find that some very good characteristics turn up in the shadow. Generally, the ordinary, mundane characteristics are the norm. Anything less than this goes into the shadow. But anything better also goes into the shadow! Some of the pure gold of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that great leveling process that is culture.

"Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy, but to own the gold in the shadow is terrifying. It is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out you are a bum. Of course you are both; but one does not discover these two elements at the same time.

"The gold is related to our higher calling and this can be hard to accept at certain stages of life. Ignoring the gold can be as damaging as ignoring the dark side of the psyche, and some people may suffer a severe shock or illness before they learn how to let the gold out."

—Robert A. Johnson





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HOW TO BE YOUR OWN PROPHET

I suspect that none of us has the capacity to foretell the future of the human race. No one -- not psychics, not doomsayers, not intelligent optimists, indigenous shamans, no one.

There is a strong case to be made that this is the worst of times, and an equally strong case that this is the best of times; a strong case that everything will collapse into a miserable dystopia and a strong case that we are on the verge of a golden age. It’s impossible to know in any “objective way” which is “truer.”

Anyone who asserts they do know is just cherry-picking evidence that rationalizes their emotional bent. The variables are chaotic and abundant and beyond our ken.

In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to create a golden age.

P.S. The best way to prepare for the unpredictable is to cultivate mental and emotional states that ripen us to be ready for anything:

* a commitment to not getting lost inside our own heads;

* a strategy to avoid being enthralled with the hypnotic lure of painful emotions, past events, and worries about the future;

* a trust in empirical evidence over our time-worn beliefs and old habits;

* a talent for turning up our curiosity full blast and tuning in to the raw truth of every moment with our beginner's mind fully engaged;

* and an eagerness to dwell gracefully in the midst of all the interesting questions that tease and teach us.

Everything I just described also happens to be an excellent way to prime yourself for a chronic, low-grade, always-on, simmering-at-low-heat brand of ecstasy -- a state of being more-or-less permanently in the Tao, in the groove, in the zone.





LOVE IS BEING STUPID TOGETHER?

"Love is being stupid together," said French poet Paul Valéry. While there's a grain of truth to that, it's too corny and decadent for my tastes.

I prefer to focus on a more interesting truth, which is this: Real love is being smart together. If you weave your destiny together with another's, he or she should catalyze your sleeping potentials, sharpen your perceptions, and boost both your emotional and analytical intelligence. Your relationship becomes a crucible in which you deepen your understanding of the way the world works.

Think of an example of your closest approach to this model in your own life. Then formulate a vow in which you promise you'll do what's necessary to more fully embody the principle "Love is being smart together."





YOUR THIRD

Imagine that the merger of you and your best ally has created a third thing that hovers near you, protecting and guiding the two of you.

Call this third thing an angel. Or call it the soul of your connection or the inspirational force of your relationship.

Or call it the special work the two of you can accomplish together.

And let this magical presence be the third point of your love triangle.





17 GOALS TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD
by Jason Beaubien

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

10. Reduce inequality within and among countries.

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

Read more.





GOLDEN REPAIR

Kintsukuroi or kintsugi is a Japanese word that literally means "golden repair." It refers to the practice of fixing cracked pottery with lacquer that's blended with actual gold or silver.

Metaphorically, it suggests that something may become more beautiful and valuable after being broken. The wounds and the healing of the wounds are integral parts of the story, not shameful distortions to be disguised or hidden.




CHOOSE YOUR THOUGHTS?

"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





DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES

I write daily horoscopes, available as text messages sent to your phone. They're shorter than the weekly 'scopes, but more frequent. You can get these regular bursts of inspiration for 67 cents a day if you sign up for a subscription.

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

As always, you can also buy and listen to my Expanded Audio Horoscopes.





THE HISTORY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH DESIRE

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.





SECRET METHODS

1. The Master Codex is hidden in the wall between the Hall of Mists and the Soul Kitchen. When you find it, add graffiti and cartoons to it.

2. The Beasts of the Wheels of Time are quite ticklish. That's one of the keys to rendering them harmless. Another key is to entertain them with the gibberish they love.

3. It's OK to steal the celestial trumpet from the stingy angel if you use it to heal a broken soul.
4. At least once a year, dive into the sleep mirror and cleanse the water you find there.

5. Find an animal you trust, and persuade it to help you steal at least two Peaches of Immortality from the Queen of Shapeshifters. (One peach for you and one for an enemy you care for.)

6. Sing your way into the Magic Dumping Ground during a full moon and befriend the Holy Squirmer. She will give you the elegant dreamsquawk signs.

7. The Frost Worm will let you pass unscathed through the Forgotten Realm if you have learned to use your third eye to watch TV.

8. The Pearl of Great Price is much closer than you think. To get another clue about its whereabouts, tell jokes to the Caller in the Darkness.

9. You are the Chosen One, but then so is everyone else.





NEW WORDS

Are there any new words you'd like to invent? Here are a few of mine:

pyrokleptomania, n. A brave and noble compulsion to steal fire. Derived from the Greek myth of Prometheus, who pilfered a glowing coal from the gods and gave it as a gift to humankind.

hypephobic, adj. Afraid of hype.

lapidrowdy, adj. Performing intricate tasks with a boisterous spirit. Derived from a blend of "rowdy" and "lapidary," the art of cutting, polishing, and engraving gems.

demagnostic, n. A person who provides leadership by rousing people's noblest ambitions and high ideals, not by pandering to their fears and jealousies. Derived from a blend of "demagogue" and "agnostic."

chantepleure, v. To sing and weep simultaneously.

chiaroscurofy, v. To find a comfortable place where you are partially in darkness and partially illuminated, or half in shadow and half in sunlight.

angel-retentive, adj. In contrast to "anal retentive," angel-retentive refers to a person with a relaxed openness to the possibility of miracles that confound the rational mind.

menstruarchy, n. Rule by menstruating women; a reverse of tradition, in which menstruating women were segregated and banned from important decision-making. In a menstruarchy, menstruating women are thought to have special powers of perception, insight, and wisdom, and are therefore best qualified to make decisions that affect the collective. A menstrual council may be composed of women whose cycles vary so that at any one time, several council members are menstruating.

smadgic, n. A wizardly transmutation of a mundane or boring situation into a fascinating adventure or exploration. Derived from "magic" and "smidgen," a small portion.

taurocoprology, n. First coined by Harper's magazine, it means the study of bullshit--how to use it creatively, how to recognize when it's being used, and how to make it work for you instead of against you.

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"Bend words. Stretch them, squash them, mash them up, fold them. Turn them over or swing them upside down. Make up new words. Leave a place for the strange and downright impossible ones. Use ancient words. Hold on to the gangly, silly, slippy, truthful, dangerous, out-of-fashion ones."

—Kyo Maclear





THANK YOU, TEACHERS!

I am a unique character. But the paradox is that I would never have been able to become my singular self without the inspiration, help, influence, and love of hundreds of other unique characters.

I like to keep in mind that all humans and all animals and all spiritual beings are potentially my teachers. Many of them have been spectacular teachers who have shaped me in unpredictable and unexpected ways.

I will never be able to express all the gratitude I feel. But I try to express it nevertheless!





DISMANTLING THE PATRIARCHY

Dismantling the patriarchy from within is central to my work as a human being.

Listening well and cultivating empathy and expressing practical compassion are prime elements in my sacred political activism.





OUR COLLECTIVE INITIATION

William irwin Thompson writes: "We are experiencing the initiation of the human race into a new level of consciousness, and that is a very terrifying experience. It does no good to turn and run from the terror of our darkness into light; we must sit it out: zazen.

"We must take our counsel from The Tibetan Book of the Dead and realize that these frightening projections of famines, economic disasters, ecological catastrophes, floods, earthquakes, and wars are all only the malevolent aspects of beneficent deities.

"If we sit and observe them, do not identify with them, but remember our Buddha-nature, we will not be dragged down by them into an incarnation of the hell they prefigure. If we run from them, we validate them; we give the projections the very psychic energy they need to overtake us.

"Then, as Jung has pointed out, the situation will happen outside as fate."

—William Irwin Thompson, Evil and World Order





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.





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.