Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology for December 2009

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
December
© Copyright 2009 Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): When Carolee Schneeman was a kid, her extravagant adoration of nature earned her the nickname “mad pantheist.” Later, during her career as a visual artist, she described her relationship with the world this way: “I assume the senses crave sources of maximum information, that the eye benefits by exercise, stretch, and expansion towards materials of complexity and substance.” I hope that you’re attracted to that perspective right now, Aries. To be in most productive alignment with the cosmic rhythms, you should be in a state of nearly ecstatic openness, hungry to be stretched — like a mad pantheist.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Dear Rob: Last night my son and I were star-gazing. When we focused on the constellation Cassiopeia, an owl started hooting. Then a brilliant shooting star zipped by as a huge bat flew right over our heads. Was this a bad omen? Bats are creepy — associated with vampires. And in Greek mythology Cassiopeia got divine punishment because she bragged that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the sea god’s daughters. But I don’t know, maybe this blast of odd events was a good omen. Owls are symbols of wisdom and shooting stars are lucky, right? What do you think? Are we blessed or cursed? -Spooked Taurus.” Dear Spooked: The question of whether it’s good or bad luck is irrelevant. Here’s what’s important: You Tauruses are in a phase when the hidden workings of things will be shown to you — the mysterious magic that’s always bubbling below the surface but that is usually not visible.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The weeks ahead will be a ripe time to pull off magic reversals. May I suggest that you try to transform dishwater greys into sparkling golds? Or how about recycling the dead energy of a lost cause in such a way as to generate raw fuel for a fresh start? I’m confident, Gemini, that you’ll be able to discover treasure hidden in the trash, and that you’ll find a way to unleash the creative zeal that has been trapped inside polite numbness. Now ponder this riddle, please: Do you think there’s any mystical significance in the fact that the word “stressed” is “desserts” spelled backwards?

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Lately you remind me of the person Robert Hass describes in his poem “Time and Materials”: “someone falling down and getting up and running and falling and getting up.” I’m sending you my compassion for the times you fall down, and my admiration for the times you get up, and my excitement for the times you run. It has probably become clear to you by now that the falling down isn’t a shameful thing to be cursed, but rather is an instrumental part of the learning process that is teaching you marvelous secrets about getting back up and running.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “I burn for no reason, like a lantern in daylight,” writes poet Joseph Lease. I think that’s a succinct formulation of one of your central issues, Leo. Burning for no reason, like a lantern in the daylight, can be the cause of either failure or success for you, depending on subtle differences of emphasis. This is how it can be failure: When you’re mindlessly and wastefully burning through your prodigious reserves of fuel without any concern for the benefits it may provide you and others. This is how it can be success: When you are exuberant and self-disciplined in shining your light and radiating your warmth just because it feels so good and so right and so healthy, and without any thought about whether it’s “useful” to anyone.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In one of his short poems, John Averill (twitter.com/wiremesa) describes a scene that I think captures the essence of your current astrological omens: “Today is the day of the photo of moonrise over Havana in a book on a shelf in the snowbound cabin.” Here’s a clue about what it means: The snowbound cabin is where you are right now in your life. The moonrise over Havana is where you could be early in 2010. How do you get there from here?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): An estuary is a bay where the salt water of a sea mixes with the fresh water of rivers. These days you remind me of such a place. You are two-toned, Libra. You’re dual-purpose and double-tracked. You’re a hybrid blend of the yes and the no, the give and the take, the extravagant and the traditional. And somehow this has been working out pretty well for you. You’re not so much a dysfunctional contradiction as an interesting juxtaposition. You’re not being crushed by a squeeze of opposites so much as you’re getting massaged by the oscillating throbs of complementary influences. Keep doing what you’ve been doing, only more so.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Big shiny egos with flashy tricks may be mucking around in everyone’s business, calling narcissistic attention to themselves as they pretend to do noble deeds. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll be doing the hard, detailed work that must be done to serve the greater good — quietly and unpretentiously improving people’s lives without demanding major tribute. That approach will stir up some sleek, silky karma that will come in handy when you undertake the building of your masterpiece in 2010.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Dear Rob: I love to be proven wrong. That’s not an ironic statement. I actually get excited and feel creative when I acquire new information that shows me I’ve been operating under a misunderstanding. One of my very favorite life moments occurs when I am convincingly liberated from a negative opinion I’ve been harboring about someone. As you can tell, I’m quite proud of this quality. The way I see it, emotional wealth and psychological health involve having so much self-respect that I don’t need to be right all the time. -Sagittarian Freedom Fighter.” Dear Freedom Fighter: Thanks for your testimony. The capacity you described is one that many Sagittarians will be poised to expand in 2010. And this is an excellent time for them to start getting the hang of it.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In an early version of the tale of Pinocchio, friendly woodpeckers chiseled his nose back to its original size after it had grown enormous from his incorrigible lying. From a metaphorical perspective, Capricorn, a comparable development may soon occur in your own life. A benevolent (if somewhat rough) intervention akin to the woodpeckers’ assistance will shrink an overgrown, top-heavy part of your attitude, allowing you to proceed to the next chapter of your story with streamlined grace.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “There is light enough for those who wish to see,” wrote French philosopher Blaise Pascal, “and darkness enough for those of the opposite disposition.” I’m hoping you will align yourself with the first group in the coming weeks, Aquarius. More than ever before, what you choose to focus on will come rushing in to meet you, touch you, teach you, and prompt you to respond. Even if all the smart people you know seem to be drunk on the darkness, I encourage you to be a brave rebel who insists on equal time for the light.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): White dwarfs are small and extremely dense stars. They’re typically no bigger than the Earth but as heavy as the sun. You currently have a resemblance to one of those concentrated balls of pure intensity. I have rarely seen you offering so much bang for the buck. You are as flavorful as chocolate mousse, as piercing as the scent of eucalyptus, as lustrous as a fireworks display on a moonless night. Personally, I’m quite attracted to your saucy and zesty emanations, and I think most people with strong egos will be. But some underachievers with lower self-esteem may regard you as being more like astringent medicine. My advice: Gravitate toward those who like you to be powerful.

Homework: Go to YouTube and watch me give some pep talks and crazed lectures. Start here: http://tinyurl.com/lyr99n

CLICK HERE to learn more about Rob Brezsny’s “Free Will Astrology.”

CLICK HERE to subscribe to Rob Brezsny’s newsletter.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Rob Brezsny’s book, Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia, Revised and Expanded.

Lucy Harmer’s Shamanic Astrology Forecast – November 22 to December 21: OWL

“Lucy Harmer’s shamanic astrology book is truly amazing. I use it in my work every day as a therapist to help people understand their personality and find their pathway through life.”
–Jean-Francois Beltrami, counselor and kinesiologist

Welcome to Lucy Harmer’s Shamanic Astrology monthly forecast for the Northern Hemisphere! Each month Lucy shares inspiration and ideas for the coming weeks from her book Shamanic Astrology: Understanding Your Spirit Animal Sign.

Shamanic Astrology is based on the study of the movement of the sun and the moon during the different seasons of the year. There are twelve astrological ‘”signs” which are represented by twelve different spirit animals. To find out your own personal spirit animal sign (the sign you were born under), please check the table of spirit animals at the end of this article. Shamanic Astrology teaches us that inner power derives from knowing the properties, characteristics, and qualities of each spirit animal (known as their “medicine”), and applying this in our own lives.

Each month I will focus on the spirit animal for that month, and describe the “energy” of the month itself and also the influence of the moon. I will also indicate which other spirit animal signs will find this month to be particularly beneficial, and why.

November 22-December 21: OWL

Month of Hibernation and Long Nights

Spirit Animal Sign of the Month:
Owl is the spirit animal which corresponds to November 22 – December 21 (in the northern hemisphere). If you were born at this time, your spirit animal sign is Owl and you share Owl’s strengths of being fair, honest, wise, philosophical, idealistic, optimistic, and independent. You are someone who enjoys the good life! You may also share some of Owl’s weaknesses and can have a tendency to be restless, negligent, intolerant, proud, irresponsible, tactless, superficial and excessively optimistic.

Medicine: Owl’s medicine is the ability to seek out truth and justice in all
circumstances. This can be used in any ambiguous or unclear situation, to find the path to follow and to restore order.
Element: Fire
Stone: Obsidian
Color: Gold
Plant: Mistletoe

Energy of the season:
Owl’s month, which ends with the winter solstice, is that of hibernation and long nights. The sun is at its lowest in the sky and the nights are at their longest. This is a period for introspection, spiritual seeking, visions, plans and preparation for the future. Everything undertaken during this month will need a greater dose of enthusiasm, spontaneity, and optimism than at other times and will have to be on a sound ethical basis. Projects conceived now are often highly ambitious.

Energy of the moon:
Owl’s new moon started on Nov 16th and the full moon is on December 2nd 2009. The period from November 22nd until December 2nd is the ideal time for conceiving or launching projects. These will have a high rate of success, as long as they have a sound ethical foundation. After the full moon, from December 3rd until 15th December, time is best used for introspection and deep spiritual growth. This is a time for learning from the past and for setting new goals for the future. December 16th brings the new moon in Snow Goose; this is a time for putting new structures in place for the year to come, with much determination.

This month is particularly favorable for the following signs:

Owl:
If your sign is Owl the energy of this month is very favorable because it corresponds to the month and the moon of your birth. A new cycle is about to start in your life and this is the best time to start planting seeds. Use the sun’s energy to take stock and head off in a new direction.

Falcon/Salmon:
If your sign is Falcon or Salmon, this is a very lucky month for you, with lots of harmony because you are in your own fire element. A multitude of opportunities will open up for you in this period and this is the best time to give destiny a helping hand!

Raven/Otter:
For Raven and Otter people, this is a very dynamic month, full of energy which favors the conception and birth of new projects. You will feel new motivation and a renewal of your energy at this time.

Table of Spirit Animal Signs:

To find your spirit animal sign, just locate your birthday from the dates below, according to your place of birth. If you were born north of the equator (eg; USA, Canada, Europe), then look for your date of birth in the column headed “Northern Hemisphere.” If you were born south of the equator (eg; Australia, New Zealand, South Africa), then look for your date of birth in the column headed “Southern Hemisphere.”

© Copyright 2009 Lucy Harmer

Shamanic Astrology is available for purchase directly through NorthAtlanticBooks.com, as well as major book stores and online retailers.

CLICK HERE to learn more about courses, seminars and workshops offered by Lucy Harmer.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Shamanic Astrology.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Discovering Your Spirit Animal.

Author Symposium: ALL ABOUT CHI

An acupuncturist, a Reiki teacher, and two artists who work with chi and creativity and chi gung will present their healing arts on Saturday, Nov. 21 from 2-4 p.m. at Berkeley Public Central Library in downtown Berkeley. This is the second author panel in the free series Get Well! Alternative Practitioners Talk With You About Healing, sponsored by North Atlantic Books and Berkeley Public Library.

Moderator for the Nov. symposium is Lindy Hough, Co-Founder and Publisher of North Atlantic Books in Berkeley.
The panelists:
- Kaleo and Elise Ching, Chi and Chi Gung;
Authors of Chi and Creativity: Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist
- Don Beckett, Reiki healer;
Author of Reiki–The True Story: An Exploration of Usui Reiki
- Robert Johns, Acupuncturist;
Author of The Art of Acupuncture Techniques

Authors will describe their practices and theoretical framework and read from their books. Audience questions will be followed by a book signing.

Kaleo and Elise Ching live and practice in El Cerrito, Robert Johns practices in Berkeley, and Reiki teacher Don Beckett is from Mesa, Arizona.

“We’re interested in helping people understand how these modalities work and how effective they are. Hearing how our authors, who are also practitioners, treat different diseases helps people see whether a given modality might be helpful with their own troublesome conditions or something a loved one is struggling with.” Most people who don’t use alternative medicine find it hard to distinguish how these different systems work. “The goal of the November panel is to have the audience come away with a clearer idea of how chi energy works in Reiki, acupuncture, chi gung and creative work,” Hough said.

“The Berkeley Public Library is excited to be working in partnership with North Atlantic Books to better serve the interest in mind/body/spirit their readers are seeking,” said Douglas Smith, Deputy Director of the Library. “We’re pleased to be expanding our programming, outreach, and collections in these important directions.”

ALL ABOUT CHI
Get Well! Alternative Practitioners Answer Your Questions About Healing series
Saturday, November 21, 2009
2pm-4pm
Berkeley Public Central Library
3rd Floor Community Meeting Room
2090 Kittredge Street
Berkeley, CA 94704

Do you plan to attend this event?

Wheelchair accessible. To request a sign language interpreter, real-time captioning, materials in large print or Braille, or other accommodations for this event, please call (510) 981-6107 (voice) or (510) 548-1240 (TTY); at least five working days will ensure availability. Please refrain from wearing scented products to public programs.

Free Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal at Café Gratitude

If 10,000 households spend their Thanksgiving meal dollars on local food, we’ll invest about $446,100 into our communities. Sounds pretty good to me! But for those who won’t be preparing their own holiday meal this year, Café Gratitude will be serving a FREE Thanksgiving Meal at each of their restaurants.

For the past 5 years, every open Cafe Gratitude location (all in the San Francisco Bay Area) has served this free meal to an average of 300 people, as a way to give back to customers and to the community for their support and patronage all year long. On Thanksgiving, the cafes operate on 100% volunteer efforts, of both employees and non-employees. This year there will be four Cafe Gratitude locations serving the Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal, all open from 11am to 3pm. Please join in the festivities and bring your friends and family, bring someone new, or come serve your community!

Participating Locations:

San Francisco
2400 Harrison Street (@20th Street)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone: 415-830-3014

Berkeley
1730 Shattuck Avenue (@ Virginia)
Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone: 510-725-4418

San Rafael
2200 Fourth Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
Phone: 415-578-4928

Healdsburg
206 Healdsburg Avenue (in the Olive Leaf)
Healdsburg, CA 95448
Phone: 707-723-4461

To volunteer for the Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal at Café Gratitude, please arrive to the location nearest you, between 11am and 3pm. There is no need to RSVP. Together, all volunteers will serve as many meals as possible, until all the food is served.

Café Gratitude gives special thanks to Veritable Vegetable, Bariani Olive Oil, and other local merchants, who have donated food to the Thanksgiving meal in past years. To donate this year, please contact info@cafegratitude.com.

Will you be attending? If you don’t reside in the Bay Area, is there a free Thanksgiving meal in your city?

Café Gratitude has published several books with North Atlantic, including I Am Grateful, Sweet Gratitude, Sacred Commerce. They are all printed on 100% recycled paper!

CLICK HERE to learn more about Café Gratitude and to get more details about the Thanksgiving Appreciation Meal.

Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology for November

One of our favorite new consciousness websites, RealitySandwich.com, is now featuring excerpts from Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia, Revised and Expanded. Want to get a taste of Brezsny’s optimistic outlook? CLICK HERE to read “Glory in the Highest, Part One.”

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
November
© Copyright 2009  Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): There was a time when wetlands were considered dismal and unproductive. At best they were thought to be a waste of space, and at worst stinky breeding grounds for insect pests. For over 200 years, many marshes, bogs, and swamps were filled with dirt and transformed into places suitable for farms, houses, and recreational areas. But all that has changed in the last 30 years. Science has rehabilitated the reputation of wetlands, showing how crucial they are. They clean toxins from water, help control floods and soil erosion, and are home to more biological diversity than any other ecosystem. The coming weeks would be an excellent time for you to make a comparable conversion, Aries. Something you once demeaned or underestimated could become an inspirational catalyst.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the coming weeks, you will have the potential to articulate what has never been spoken before and to name truths that everyone has been avoiding. Uncoincidentally, you may also be able to hear what you’ve never been able to hear up until now and tune in to truths you’ve been oblivious to. As you might imagine, Taurus, you must fully activate both of these capacities in order for either to function at its best.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Nature’s rhythm is cyclical. Everything alive waxes and wanes. If you’re smart, you honor that flow by periodically letting parts of your world wither or go to sleep. If you’re not so smart, you set yourself up for needless pain by indulging in the delusion that you can enjoy uninterrupted growth. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Gemini, this is your time to explore the creative possibilities of ebbing and slackening. Ask yourself the following question, which I’ve borrowed from the Jungian author Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “What must I allow to die today in order to generate more life tomorrow?”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Pregnant women sometimes have unusual cravings. From the fourth to sixth month of her daughter’s gestation period, for example, my friend Marta was on occasion beset by the longing to eat toothpaste. I’ve known other women who fantasized about nibbling on mud, coffee grounds, and chalk. Fortunately, they all resisted the urge, which is what health practitioners recommend. Instead they tried to figure out if their bodies were trying to tell them about some legitimate deficiency of vitamins or minerals. I offer this to you as a metaphor to keep in mind. As your own special creation ripens, you may experience odd desires. Don’t necessarily take them at face value.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): It might be tempting to turn your home into a womb-like sanctuary and explore the mysteries of doing absolutely nothing while clad in your pajamas. And frankly, this might be a good idea. After the risks you’ve taken to reach out to the other side, after the bridges you’ve built in the midst of the storms, after the skirmishes you’ve fought in the Gossip Wars, you have every right to retreat and get your homebody persona humming at a higher vibration. So I say: Be meticulously leisurely as you celebrate the deep pleasures of self-care.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Hey Rob: I was having trouble finishing my novel  — typical writer’s block. So I sidetracked myself into making silly creative projects — papier-mache chickens, masks made out of junk mail, collages incorporating bottle caps and dryer lint. I can’t say any of it is ‘art,’ but I feel creative again and my house is full of colorful stuff I whipped up myself. If you wait to be perfect, I concluded, you’ll never make anything. I tried something I knew I’d be bad at, so failure didn’t matter. Now I’m branching out with my inadequacy — not waiting for Mr. Perfect but having a beer with Joe Flawed, forgetting to be right all the time, admitting that I haven’t a clue. I’ve become smilingly, brilliantly dumb. -Inappropriate Virgo.” Dear Inappropriate: Congrats! You’re doing exactly what I want to advise all Virgos everywhere to try.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): At a yard sale today, I paid a dollar for a stained, pocket-sized horoscope book with many of its pages missing. The reason I made such an odd investment is that it had a forecast for Libra for the first part of November 2009, and this forecast struck me as even more useful than the horoscope I had composed for you. As a public service, I’m providing it here. “The graceful dragonfly lives for just a few months. But a sequoia tree’s time on earth can last 2,000 years. In the same way, some bonds, some creations, some worlds, endure for a mere blink in eternity, while others are destined to outfox the ravages of time. What will be the lifespan of the dream you recently hatched, Libra? It is time to decide and take action.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Your anti-role model — the person you should be the opposite of — is the Scorpio warrior, U.S. General George Patton, also known as “Old Blood and Guts.” He once said, “Practically everyone but myself is a pusillanimous son of a bitch.” That’s an attitude you should especially avoid in the coming weeks, since your success will depend on you seeing the best in people — even if they sometimes don’t seem to warrant it. P.S. It may be OK to think of yourself as “Old Blood and Guts” if and only if you dedicate your ferocity to the service of smart love and ingenious collaboration.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Congratulations, Sagittarius! Free Will Astrology’s Task Force on Creative Suffering has confirmed that your current dilemmas are exceptionally interesting and useful. You have demonstrated an impressive talent for getting embroiled in riddles that promise to bring out your dormant reserves of vitality and ingenuity. The dumfounding questions you’ve been wrestling with are high-caliber tests that have drawn you closer to the heart of the reasons you’re here on Earth. Take full advantage of this beautiful mess, my dear. Chaos this fertile is hard to come by.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): When Dante was nine years old, long before he became one of Italy’s supreme poets, he fell in love with Beatrice, an eight-year-old girl he met at a May Day party. They never had a close relationship. In the years after their initial encounter, they met infrequently, and both eventually married other people. But Beatrice played a crucial role throughout Dante’s life, although she died at the age of 24. She was not just his muse, but also his “beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and the queen of virtue, salvation.” Dante even wrote her into his Divine Comedy in the role of a guide. Is there any person or influence in your life equivalent to Beatrice? Any once-upon-a-time blessing that might be ready to give you the fullness of the gifts it has been waiting all this time to deliver?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I would love it if you could find a sword that could cut itself. Or a fire that could burn itself. Or some water you could wash. But even if you can conjure the magic to attract an experience that simply resembles one of those marvelous paradoxes, it would set in motion a series of epiphanies that would liberate you from an inferior paradox — a confusing absurdity that is not worthy of you and that has been draining your life force.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The planets are aligned in such a way that suggests you may be able to experience an orgasm solely by meditating. This rare cosmic alignment also means that it’s conceivable you could generate money or attract new resources by following your holy bliss, or that you might stumble upon the tricky treasure you’ve been looking for in all the wrong places. But I can’t say for sure that you will actually be able to capitalize on any of these remarkable opportunities. It will depend on whether you can more fully express one of the skills that is your birthright as a Pisces: being wild and disciplined at the same time.

Homework: I invite you to launch a crusade to raise the level of well-being everywhere you go. Report results to FreeWillAstrology.com.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Rob Brezsny’s “Free Will Astrology.”

CLICK HERE to subscribe to Rob Brezsny’s newsletter.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Rob Brezsny’s book, Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia, Revised and Expanded.