Return to 2008 July 17th horoscopes
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Horoscopes by Rob Brezsny
Week of July 17th, 2008
♈ ARIES
(March 21-April 19)
After studying your astrological omens for the upcoming weeks, I got really excited. There was so much I wanted to tell you. I popped a chunk of organic, fair-trade, cruelty-free, espresso-tinctured chocolate in my mouth and sat down to type an extravagant message. Maybe it was because I was overly pumped up, but in the next moment I accidentally swallowed the candy whole. What a waste! I'd gotten none of the bliss of sliding it around my tongue and mouth. But I recognized this apparent bad luck as a sign of what I needed to tell you: Don't get so worked up about the oncoming pleasures that you engorge them whole without even tasting them.
Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.
I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.
To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."
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Imagine that you have been relieved of your responsibilities for a given time. They will be taken care of by people you trust. You won't have to work to make money during this grace period, but will be given all you need. Nor will you have to clean your house, wash your clothes, or buy and make your food. Now here's the big question: What will you do now that you are free to do anything you like?
The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
♉ TAURUS
(April 20-May 20)
In his book In My Other Life, Paul Theroux imagines another version of himself -- the "story of a life I could have lived had things been different." I think you'd benefit from carrying out a similar exercise, Taurus. Daydream about the inner potentials you've never developed, the inviting destinations you've never actually sought out, the initial interests that never grew into full-fledged relationships -- and then fantasize that you are in fact doing those things. Aside from being fun, this experiment could lead you to actually try out some possibilities that maybe you should have considered long ago. And it might at least free up energy that has been trapped inside feelings of remorse.
If I ever produce a self-help manual called The Reverse Psychology of Getting Everything You Want, it will discuss the following paradoxes:
a. People are more willing to accommodate your longings if you're not greedy or grasping.
b. A good way to achieve your desires is to cultivate the feeling that you've already achieved them.
c. Whatever you're longing for has been changed by your pursuit of it. It's not the same as it was when you felt the first pangs of desire. In order to make it yours, then, you will have to modify your ideas about it.
d. Be careful what you wish for because if your wish does materialize it will require you to change in ways you didn't foresee.
Review your own life and identify experiences that exemplify these four principles.
♊ GEMINI
(May 21-June 20)
Kate Knapp Johnson's poem "Meadow" begins like this: "Half the day lost, staring/ at this window. I wanted to know/ just one true thing// about the soul." She goes on to imply that she wasn't successful in her meditation. You, on the other hand, will enjoy a boom time if you go in quest of such insight. By next week, you could discover at least five true things about the soul. Here's one possible truth now: The soul needs nourishing stories in the same way the body needs healthy food.
"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 an enemy? Is it naive to think you can achieve great success without the driving motivation that comes from having ideas you hate? There are thousands of correct answers to these questions. What are yours?
Consider the issue from another angle. Dentists love tooth decay. Treating cavities provides them with a steady source of income. Likewise, exterminators are dependent on termites, lawyers need crimes, and priests are hungry for 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?
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.
♋ CANCERIAN
(June 21-July 22)
I really do feel that you're here with me as I create these horoscopes. In a sense, you're my assistant. Our telepathic connection is utterly palpable and practical. The hopes and questions you project my way stream into my higher mind, coloring my psychic environment and enriching my desire to give you exactly what you need. Now, in accordance with the astrological omens, I'm asking you to give our collaboration more conscious intention. It's time for you to be aggressive about seeking help and inspiration -- not just from me, but from everyone. Try this for starters: Once a day for five minutes, visualize that you and I are sitting face-to-face and discussing the issues that feed your longing to be brave and free and authentic and smart and loving and creative.
Don't make nasty comments about yourself behind your own back.
Do play soccer in bunny slippers at dawn in a supermarket parking lot with a gang of sadomasochistic stockbrokers who've promised to teach you the Balinese monkey chant.
Don't decorate your thigh with a sloppy tattoo of the devil pushing a lawn mower.
Do wear a t-shirt that says, "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."
Don't glide into a bar, scout around for the person whose face has the most pain etched in it, and ask that person to come home with you.
Do eat ripe organic strawberries that have been genetically modified and irradiated, and do chain-smoke Marlboros as you peddle your exercise bicycle, and do wander through a garbage dump while listening to Mozart on your iPod.
Don't get hooked on the fantasy that there are only two kinds of people, those who align themselves with the forces of light and those who align themselves with the forces of darkness.
Do start an organization called POMP (Proud Owners of Multiple Personalities), dedicated to erasing negative stereotypes about healthy non-schizophrenics who enjoy being a community of many different selves.
Don't lie on a floor surrounded by wine-stained poetry books, crumpled Matisse prints, abandoned underwear, and half-eaten bowls of corn flakes as you stare up at the ceiling with a mad gaze, muttering gibberish and waving your hands as if swatting away demons.
Do run along the tops of cars during a traffic jam, escaping from bad guys as you make your way to a helicopter that takes you to a spot hovering over an erupting volcano, into which you drop the Buns of Steel video.
Don't put your soul up for auction on the eBay website.
Do write a cookbook filled with recipes you've channeled from dead celebrities.
If you come upon a lamp with a genie in it, don't wish you had a magic wand.
♌ LEO
(July 23-August 22)
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free," said the sculptor Michelangelo about a statue he made. Let that approach be your guide in the coming weeks, Leo. Proceed according to the hypothesis that the beautiful thing you want to create is embedded in stuff that's hiding its true nature, and your job is simply to liberate it from what's extraneous.
The factor most likely to drive us to addiction or illness is a lack of intimate contact with spirit. We all need a daily dose of vastness. Paradoxically, many of us would also benefit from more microscopic vision. Because we're so deprived of divine connection, we're half-dreaming all the time; our unconscious yearning for our eternal source makes our minds wander and saps our energy to dig in and master the gritty details that are right in front of us.
♍ VIRGO
(August 23-September 22)
"Dear Rob 'Fat-Burner' Brezsny: I used the Sweet and Sassy Toner video and lost only two pounds in five weeks. I tried the No More Love Handles program and actually gained weight. The only thing that really worked was your column. Reading your horoscopes has, I'm convinced, been responsible for bringing me much closer to having my dream body. You've helped me jettison a ton of psychic fat, not to mention a wad of guilt, a load of concern about what other people think of me, and a mass of remorse about the past. I never realized how much of my extra weight had to do with psychological burdens I was carrying. This is the lightest I've ever been! Grateful Virgo." Dear Grateful: Give yourself credit, too. It has been courageous of you to get rid of your unnecessary buffers. By the way, this week will be the climax of the shedding process. Celebrate your success by emptying out even more.
Every fundamentalist divides the world into two camps, those who agree with him and like him and help him, and those who don't. There is only one right way to interpret the world—according to the ideas the fundamentalist believes to be true—and a million wrong ways.
The fundamental attitude of all fundamentalists is to take everything way too seriously and too personally and too literally. Imagination is a sin and a crime. Correct belief is the only virtue. Every fundamentalist is committed to waging war against the imagination unless the imagination is enslaved to his or her belief system.
And here's the bad news: Like almost everyone in the world, each of us has our own share of the fundamentalist virus. It may not be as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, the fundamentalism of Islamic terrorists or Christian politicians or CEOs who act as if making a financial profit is the supreme good or scientists who deny the existence of the 96 percent of reality imperceptible to the five senses. Our fundamentalism is not as virulent as theirs.
But still: We are infected, you and I, with fundamentalism. What are we going to do about it?
I say we practice taking everything less seriously and less personally and less literally.
♎ LIBRA
(September 23-October 22)
Barack Obama may not be the messiah, but in comparison to the person he will replace as President of the United States next January, he's the second coming of King Arthur. Still, it's crucial to keep in mind that Obama can't single-handedly and magically heal all the havoc inflicted on America and the world by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The resuscitation will have to be accomplished primarily by we-the-people, and as much on the local level as in the federal realm. In the same way, Libra, fixing the problems that are vexing your personal sphere must be the task of the whole group, not just the boss or leader. I suggest you work on convincing everyone to take more responsibility and be more accountable. It's time to apply the principles of grass-roots democracy to your own life.
You're a star -- and so am I. I'm a genius -- and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn't require my defeat, and vice versa.
Those are the rules in the New World -- quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play.
In the New World, 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.
♏ SCORPIO
(October 23-November 21)
In ancient Egypt, wealthy people adorned their pet crocodiles with gold bracelets, amulets, and other jewelry. Let's use that as a metaphor for you in the coming week. What is the most beastly and dangerous part of your psyche, and how might you beautify it? What steps could you take to civilize or ennoble your reptilian brain? Are there any ways you could make the crocodilian aspect of yourself look less scary and more inviting?
At the heart of the pronoiac way of life is an apparent conundrum: You can have anything you want if you'll just ask for it in an unselfish way. The trick to making this work is to locate where your deepest ambition coincides with the greatest gift you have to give. Figure out exactly how the universe, by providing you with abundance, can improve the lot of everyone whose life you touch. Seek the fulfillment of your fondest desires in such a way that you become a fount of blessings.
♐ SAGITTARIUS
(November 22-December 21)
It's like you've stumbled upon the Cosmic Lost and Found Office, Sagittarius. Whether or not it happened "by mistake" is irrelevant: It's an opportunity to recover good stuff that prematurely disappeared from your life. But keep in mind that your valuables may be mixed in with abandoned and forgotten junk, both yours and other people's. You might initially feel discouraged at the prospect of having to wade through all that meaningless dross in order to locate your treasures. Don't give up. Your diligence will ultimately be rewarded.
Every act of genius, Carl Jung said, is an act contra naturam: against nature. Indeed, every effort to achieve psychological integration and union with the divine requires a knack for working against the grain. The 18th-century mystic Jacob Boehme recommended the same technique. The great secret to becoming enlightened, he said, is "to walk in all things contrary to the world." Qabalist teacher Paul Foster Case agreed: "The basis of the spiritual approach to life, the foundation of the everyday practice of a person who lives the life of obedience to esoteric law, is the reversal of the more usual ways of thinking, speaking and doing."
Name the ways you already use this approach, and brainstorm about others you might like to try.
♑ CAPRICORN
(December 22-January 19)
Here's my first question: Are you willing to change yourself in ways that would allow you to get more of the love you long for? Here's my second question: If you are willing to change yourself, are you capable of actually carrying out those changes, thereby creating a permanent shift in your identity? If your answer to those two questions is yes, the coming weeks will be prime time to get to work. Now here's my third question: In what precise ways would you have to change yourself in order to get more of the love you long for? Write down or print out your thoughts on a piece of red paper.
Life is a vast and intricate conspiracy designed to keep us well supplied with blessings. What kind of blessings? Palatial homes, attractive lovers, lottery winnings, career success? Maybe. But just as likely: interesting surprises, unexpected challenges, gifts we hardly know what to do with, conundrums that force us 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."
Give an example of this kind of blessing from your own life.
♒ AQUARIUS
(January 20- February 18)
A cardinal had a confrontation with my picture window yesterday. For 45 minutes, it hammered its beak against the glass. With the help of my good friend and research assistant Google, I figured out that the bird had probably mistaken its own reflection for a rival that it was trying to attack. Now I'm offering this scene as a cautionary metaphor for you, Aquarius. Keep three lessons in mind: 1. If you feel the urge to fight others, you're probably mad about something in yourself. 2. Watch your tendency to get fixated on an image that is at best a distorted representation of a real thing and not the real thing itself. 3. Don't hurt yourself or drive yourself crazy in an effort to chase away an illusion.
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 20 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 fabulous 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 whet 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."
♓ PISCES
(February 19-March 20)
The uterus of a pregnant sand tiger shark is not exactly a peaceful sanctuary. Her eggs hatch in there well before she gives birth. Soon the multiple embryos begin a fight to the death. By the time the mother goes into labor, there's just one pup remaining. I suspect there's now a similar kind of survival-of-the-fittest struggle going on within the metaphorical womb of your imagination, Pisces. Several pretty good brainchildren are tussling for supremacy. Which one will defeat and eat the others and grow into maturity? I bet we'll find out soon.
The "Kumulipo" is an old Hawaiian prayer chant that poetically describes the creation of the world. The word literally means "beginning-in-deep-darkness." Here darkness doesn't connote gloom and evil. Rather, it's about the inscrutability of the embryonic state; the obscure chaos that reigns before germination. Talk about the last time you dwelt in kumulipo.
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