Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Share what you know...
We are in a time when we must share what we know. To hold what we know inside is a refusal to be of service to the one who gave us life. Your intimacy with the Great Spirit is developed through maintaining your dialogue and your service to the Great Spirit. Without that dialogue, there is no intimacy. If you are to be an efficient messenger, you have got to pull yourself together, so that you sit in the center of your circle of truth and access the beauty that is all around you. If you don't take that responsibility, then you are taking a chance of not learning what you came here to learn...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Rob always hits the nail square on the head...
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning October 14
Copyright 2010 by Rob Brezsny
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease," said French philosopher Voltaire. With this in mind, let's evaluate your current discomfort. From what I can tell, healing forces beyond your control and outside of your awareness are going to be working their mojo to chip away at your problem. But it will still be wise for you to occupy yourself in activities that you think will expedite the fix. Doing so will minimize your anxieties, allowing nature to do what it does best.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Pronoia Is a Dangerous Taboo ~Rob Brezsny
The book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia is a conversation, not a dictation. It's an inquiry, not dogma.
We're explorers in search of the ever-evolving truth, not authorities proclaiming doctrine from on high. We refuse to be salespeople intent on getting you to be like us or buy our ideas. In fact, let's look at the downsides of the perspectives we celebrate.
The first thing you should consider before leaping into a relationship with pronoia is that it is utterly at odds with conventional wisdom. The 19th-century poet John Keats said that if something is not beautiful, it is probably not true. But the vast majority of modern storytellers -- journalists, filmmakers, novelists, talk-show hosts, and poets -- assert the opposite: If something is not ugly, it is probably not true.
In a world that equates pessimism with acumen and regards stories about things falling apart as having the highest entertainment value, pronoia is deviant. It is a taboo so taboo that it's not even recognized as a taboo.
The average American child sees 20,000 simulated murders before reaching age 18. This is considered normal. There are thousands of films, television shows, and electronic games that depict people doing terrible things to each other. If you read newspapers and news sites on the Internet, you have every right to believe that Bad Nasty Things compose 90 percent of the human experience. The authors of thousands of books published this year will hope to lure you in through the glamour of killing, addiction, self-hatred, sexual pathology, shame, betrayal, extortion, robbery, cancer, arson, and torture.
But you will be hard-pressed to find more than a few novels, films, news stories, and TV shows that dare to depict life as a gift whose purpose is to enrich the human soul.
If you cultivate an affinity for pronoia, people you respect may wonder if you have lost your way. You might appear to them as naive, eccentric, unrealistic, misguided, or even stupid. Your reputation could suffer and your social status could decline.
But that may be relatively easy to deal with compared to your struggle to create a new relationship with yourself. For starters, you will have to acknowledge that what you previously considered a strong-willed faculty -- the ability to discern the weakness in everything -- might actually be a mark of cowardice and laziness. Far from being evidence of your power and uniqueness, your drive to produce hard-edged opinions stoked by hostility is likely a sign that you've been brainwashed by the pedestrian influences of pop nihilism.
Before the onset of pronoia, you may feel fine about the fact that you generate much of your dynamic energy through anger, agitation, discomfort, and judgmental scorn. But once the pronoia kicks in, you'll naturally want more positive feelings to be your high-octane fuel. That will require extensive retraining. The work could be arduous, delicate, and time-consuming.
Are you truly ready to shed the values and self-images that keep you locked into alignment with the dying civilization? Will you have the stamina and inspiration necessary to dream up bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems? Do you realize how demanding it will be to turn yourself into a wildly disciplined, radically curious, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, ingeniously loving, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate master of rowdy bliss?
+
Try saying this aloud: "I die daily." It's one of our favorite formulas for success. Is it right for you? Say it again, using a different tone of voice this time. "I die daily." Chant it in a fake foreign accent. Sing it to the tune of the nursery rhyme "Frere Jacques." Play with it in the voice of the cartoon character you loved best as a child. Repeat it 10 times, or try other vocal experiments. Then muse on the following questions.
What do you need to kill off in yourself in order to tune in to the beauty that's hidden from you? What worn-out shticks are blinding you to the blessings that life is conspiring to give you? Which of your acerbic theories may have been useful and even brilliant in the past but are now keeping you from becoming aware of the ever-fresh creation that unfolds before you?
"I die daily" means that it's not enough to terminate your stale mental habits just once. The price of admission into pronoia is a commitment to continual dying. You'll have to ask yourself rude questions and kick your own ass again and again. Today's versions of beauty, truth, love, goodness, justice, and liberation will pass away. To keep abreast of the latest developments -- to cultivate tomorrow's versions of pronoia -- you will have to immerse yourself regularly in the waters of chaos. Your relationship with pronoia will have to be a never-ending improvisation.
The dream of a steady-state utopia is anathema to Beauty and Truth Lab researchers. We're allergic to any paradise that resembles a spotless shopping mall within the walls of a gated community in heaven.
+
Pronoia is fueled by a drive to cultivate happiness and a determination to practice an aggressive form of gratitude that systematically identifies the things that are working well. But it is not a soothing diversion meant for timid Pollyannas strung out on optimistic delusions. It's not a feel-good New Age fantasy used to deny the harsh facts about existence. Those of us who perceive the world pronoiacally refuse to be polite shills for sentimental hopefulness.
On the contrary, we build our optimism not through a repression of difficulty, but rather a vigorous engagement with it. We understand that the best way to attract blessings is to grapple with the knottiest enigmas.
Each fresh puzzle is a potential source of future bliss -- an exciting teaching that may usher us to our next breakthrough.
Do you want to be a pronoiac player? Blend anarchistic rebelliousness with open-hearted exuberance. Root your insurrectionary fervor in expansive joy instead of withering hatred. Enjoy saying "no!" but don't make it the wellspring of your vitality. Be fueled by blood-red yeses that rip against the grain of comfortable ugliness.
+
"A Spell to Commit Pronoia," by psychotherapist Jennifer Welwood:
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I am given unimaginable gifts;
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 its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play it is pure delight,
To honor it is true devotion.
*☆*~♥~*☆*~♥~*☆*
We're explorers in search of the ever-evolving truth, not authorities proclaiming doctrine from on high. We refuse to be salespeople intent on getting you to be like us or buy our ideas. In fact, let's look at the downsides of the perspectives we celebrate.
The first thing you should consider before leaping into a relationship with pronoia is that it is utterly at odds with conventional wisdom. The 19th-century poet John Keats said that if something is not beautiful, it is probably not true. But the vast majority of modern storytellers -- journalists, filmmakers, novelists, talk-show hosts, and poets -- assert the opposite: If something is not ugly, it is probably not true.
In a world that equates pessimism with acumen and regards stories about things falling apart as having the highest entertainment value, pronoia is deviant. It is a taboo so taboo that it's not even recognized as a taboo.
The average American child sees 20,000 simulated murders before reaching age 18. This is considered normal. There are thousands of films, television shows, and electronic games that depict people doing terrible things to each other. If you read newspapers and news sites on the Internet, you have every right to believe that Bad Nasty Things compose 90 percent of the human experience. The authors of thousands of books published this year will hope to lure you in through the glamour of killing, addiction, self-hatred, sexual pathology, shame, betrayal, extortion, robbery, cancer, arson, and torture.
But you will be hard-pressed to find more than a few novels, films, news stories, and TV shows that dare to depict life as a gift whose purpose is to enrich the human soul.
If you cultivate an affinity for pronoia, people you respect may wonder if you have lost your way. You might appear to them as naive, eccentric, unrealistic, misguided, or even stupid. Your reputation could suffer and your social status could decline.
But that may be relatively easy to deal with compared to your struggle to create a new relationship with yourself. For starters, you will have to acknowledge that what you previously considered a strong-willed faculty -- the ability to discern the weakness in everything -- might actually be a mark of cowardice and laziness. Far from being evidence of your power and uniqueness, your drive to produce hard-edged opinions stoked by hostility is likely a sign that you've been brainwashed by the pedestrian influences of pop nihilism.
Before the onset of pronoia, you may feel fine about the fact that you generate much of your dynamic energy through anger, agitation, discomfort, and judgmental scorn. But once the pronoia kicks in, you'll naturally want more positive feelings to be your high-octane fuel. That will require extensive retraining. The work could be arduous, delicate, and time-consuming.
Are you truly ready to shed the values and self-images that keep you locked into alignment with the dying civilization? Will you have the stamina and inspiration necessary to dream up bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems? Do you realize how demanding it will be to turn yourself into a wildly disciplined, radically curious, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, ingeniously loving, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate master of rowdy bliss?
+
Try saying this aloud: "I die daily." It's one of our favorite formulas for success. Is it right for you? Say it again, using a different tone of voice this time. "I die daily." Chant it in a fake foreign accent. Sing it to the tune of the nursery rhyme "Frere Jacques." Play with it in the voice of the cartoon character you loved best as a child. Repeat it 10 times, or try other vocal experiments. Then muse on the following questions.
What do you need to kill off in yourself in order to tune in to the beauty that's hidden from you? What worn-out shticks are blinding you to the blessings that life is conspiring to give you? Which of your acerbic theories may have been useful and even brilliant in the past but are now keeping you from becoming aware of the ever-fresh creation that unfolds before you?
"I die daily" means that it's not enough to terminate your stale mental habits just once. The price of admission into pronoia is a commitment to continual dying. You'll have to ask yourself rude questions and kick your own ass again and again. Today's versions of beauty, truth, love, goodness, justice, and liberation will pass away. To keep abreast of the latest developments -- to cultivate tomorrow's versions of pronoia -- you will have to immerse yourself regularly in the waters of chaos. Your relationship with pronoia will have to be a never-ending improvisation.
The dream of a steady-state utopia is anathema to Beauty and Truth Lab researchers. We're allergic to any paradise that resembles a spotless shopping mall within the walls of a gated community in heaven.
+
Pronoia is fueled by a drive to cultivate happiness and a determination to practice an aggressive form of gratitude that systematically identifies the things that are working well. But it is not a soothing diversion meant for timid Pollyannas strung out on optimistic delusions. It's not a feel-good New Age fantasy used to deny the harsh facts about existence. Those of us who perceive the world pronoiacally refuse to be polite shills for sentimental hopefulness.
On the contrary, we build our optimism not through a repression of difficulty, but rather a vigorous engagement with it. We understand that the best way to attract blessings is to grapple with the knottiest enigmas.
Each fresh puzzle is a potential source of future bliss -- an exciting teaching that may usher us to our next breakthrough.
Do you want to be a pronoiac player? Blend anarchistic rebelliousness with open-hearted exuberance. Root your insurrectionary fervor in expansive joy instead of withering hatred. Enjoy saying "no!" but don't make it the wellspring of your vitality. Be fueled by blood-red yeses that rip against the grain of comfortable ugliness.
+
"A Spell to Commit Pronoia," by psychotherapist Jennifer Welwood:
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I am given unimaginable gifts;
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 its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play it is pure delight,
To honor it is true devotion.
*☆*~♥~*☆*~♥~*☆*
Friday, October 1, 2010
HEALING SHOCKS
Rob Brezsny
Many of us are essentially asleep, even as we walk around in broad daylight. We're so focused on the restless narratives and repetitive fantasies unfurling in our heads that we only dimly perceive the larger
story raging in all of its chaotic beauty around us.
To have any hope of permanently breaking out of our fuzzy trance, we require regular shocks. A single jolt might cause us to briefly come to attention and see the miracle of creation for what it is, but once the red alert has passed, we relax back into our fixation on the dreamy tales our mind never stops telling us.
In the course of its conspiracy to shower us with blessings, life does its best to provide us with a steady flow of healing shocks. But because it tends to err on the side of tenderness, its prods may be too gentle,
allowing us to ignore them. Gradually, life will up the ante, trying to find the right mix of toughness and love, as it encourages us to WAKE UP!
But our addiction to the phantasmagoria is tenacious. The stream-of-conscious narratives and ever-bubbling fantasies, even when they're racked with torment and terror, are perversely entertaining. And so we may avoid responding to the kind shocks for so long that life finally has to resort to stronger medicine. Then we might get sick or lose our job or muck up our closest relationship.
It doesn't have to be that way . . . .
Many of us are essentially asleep, even as we walk around in broad daylight. We're so focused on the restless narratives and repetitive fantasies unfurling in our heads that we only dimly perceive the larger
story raging in all of its chaotic beauty around us.
To have any hope of permanently breaking out of our fuzzy trance, we require regular shocks. A single jolt might cause us to briefly come to attention and see the miracle of creation for what it is, but once the red alert has passed, we relax back into our fixation on the dreamy tales our mind never stops telling us.
In the course of its conspiracy to shower us with blessings, life does its best to provide us with a steady flow of healing shocks. But because it tends to err on the side of tenderness, its prods may be too gentle,
allowing us to ignore them. Gradually, life will up the ante, trying to find the right mix of toughness and love, as it encourages us to WAKE UP!
But our addiction to the phantasmagoria is tenacious. The stream-of-conscious narratives and ever-bubbling fantasies, even when they're racked with torment and terror, are perversely entertaining. And so we may avoid responding to the kind shocks for so long that life finally has to resort to stronger medicine. Then we might get sick or lose our job or muck up our closest relationship.
It doesn't have to be that way . . . .
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