Renegade: One Learning To Love
A grey, damp day! Yea! I hope to go for a walk this afternoon, an eyes-wide-open walkabout. Daytime temps are around the freezing point for the first time in many days. A mammalian body does not do well in a single digit environment. So, I plan to stroll a while, and enjoy what I can.
I’ve been seated here at Starbucks for several hours, by chance involved in one conversation after another. All have been enjoyable, opportunities for learning. I’d like to write something before departing. It seems timely that I pass on to you some words that came via email.
I wonder that I could ever resonate with the words of a devotee of astrology. As a recovering Christian fundamentalist, from a kid I was conditioned to believe that astrology is an ancient superstition, baseless, it’s devotees to be discredited. No wiggle room for discussion there!
I am not sure of the precise function which astrology plays in the life and work of writer Rob Brezsny. In what sense is astrology “real”? Are astrological signs “messages” from the universe? Are they touch stones for inspiration, stimulants for the imagination, or do they function as a literary device? Perhaps knowing is unimportant. Each of us is a product of a unique historical concatenation of events, each alone responsible for his/her life. In any case I resonate with his writing, his words strike a note within my heart.
I interpret these words as an inner conversation with oneself, or maybe an aspirational assertion, a “this-is-where-I-stand so help me God,” statement. So, here they are. Feel free subscribe to Brezsny’s newsletter.
I love your renegade soul and I love your ever-deepening eyes.
I love how unflinchingly you peer into the heart of your own darkness.
I love how you’ve making yourself more and more receptive to truths in their wild states.
I love how you can lose yourself in passion but never shirk your commitment to the good and the true.
I admire the way you never bear a grudge against the mountains that are in your way, but rather just work to get around them.
-MAESTRO OF THE OBVIOUS, excerpted from Astrology is Real by Rob Brezsny
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7 thoughts on “Renegade: One Learning To Love”
If you think reconciling astrology’s counterfactual assumptions with modern science is difficult in the abstract, Jerry, try it as the child of an (amateur) crack astrologer! My conscientious mom, who performed hours of arcane but precise celestial mechanics arithmetic by hand in order to calculate horoscopes, found it annoying that I argued with her on the grounds of rationality. She finally declared that if I wanted to study the subject in the depth she had, then she would consider my opinions. Not before. It was particularly hard to dispute that, especially since her astrological pronouncements tended to be spot-on.
My point or argument is that astrology is “true enough” if one appraises it as oracular, predictive of future outcomes. Fortune sticks also would be “true enough” in the same context. It does intrigue me that astrology and tarot cards are regarded metaphorically. The longevity of their use is undeniable.
So much of what we read, what we see, hear, smell, feel, is just a reflection of our inner selves. Of course we can expand our perception of the world through our senses and by absorbing information, but it all filters through the imperfect nature of our nervous system ending up soaked up by our subjective neurons.
As with many things such as poetry, the Tao, astrology, abstract paintings, the Bible, etc., we interpret the words or images within the context of reflections of ourselves. There are times when we’re astounded by the accuracy of the astrological prediction we read in the Sunday supplement: Leo’s will find it difficult to rise this morning, but will encounter a potential life changing meeting once they have had their coffee!
I suppose if one were to get hit by a bus that day (and you are/were a Leo), you might find it uncannily accurate since that is indeed a life changing meeting with the front of a bus. On the other hand, perhaps that same Sunday supplement suggested that if you are Libra, you should avoid buses. If only you had been born under that sign you would have lived. I understand that what I’ve presented here is silly, but the bottom line is that we take what we want from any advice, prediction, or prognostication. It’s all malleable information that we take with regard to whatever strikes our personal narrative.
It doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from the printed words we see, but if we want to grow, we must place it within the context of that personal reflection otherwise we allow it to guide us into uncharted and potentially dangerous waters where we give ourselves over to voodoo mentality. Just a few thoughts.
What if there is no purpose whatsoever for being hit by a bus, or for not being hit by a bus? What if our preference for purpose (need) is so great that sure enough, one is found one way or another. I think that is the gist of your argument.
Interesting that my thoughts/reactions to the other comments feel so different.
i resonated with the excerpt you shared from Breszny. It spoke to me of the wisdom that is unfolding as I age, the better person I am growing into now that I’ve the opportunity to slow down.
Loving my renegade soul even as it peers into my own darkness.
Seeing that truth is very different in its wild state as opposed to the societal expectations we have attempted to shape it to fit.
Realizing that yes, passion and commitment to good and true can coexist.
Understanding that the mountains in front of me are neither good nor bad, but exist only to challenge me and invite me to grow.
Thank you for this thought provoking blog.
It’s more like tea leaves. A reader of such premonitions, based on the leftover schmutz at the bottom of your cup, is actually reading you. Your body language, tone of voice, general demeanor, and such minutia as the dilation of your pupil. They may not even be aware of the different things they’re observing, but the tea leaves themselves are superfluous. Just as astrological signs, tarot cards, and all of the rest of the magical thinking has nothing to do with the physical card or the position of stars in the sky (the stars themselves only form this particular pattern from our perspective. Move a couple dozen light years to your left and you wouldn’t recognize the night sky). We all live in Plato’s cave, trying to make sense of an environment where we can only observe a portion of the true nature of the universe. But from that limited perspective, we do try very hard to make sense of it all and use the information we do receive to conjure up boogey men, or alien creatures, or patterns of animals in the night sky. I really believe that we do our very best to “SEE” reality from that perch inside our pitch black skull, but when if we can’t find an easy answer, we make something up and call it fact. If a person truly wants to find the answers, they first must stop believing in life after death, little green men from Mars, Mohammed, that Lizard people control the earth, the Illuminati, any omniscient god, Pizzagate, Jim Jones, Donald Trump, Big Foot, and on and on and on. It’s all nonsense. We only have a brief stay in this world and to waste it buying into any big lie is just incredibly sad.
Just to clarify, if you’ve never seen a personal horoscope, the difference between that and the “Sunday supplement” version you refer to, is the difference between a bespoke blazer tailored to your measurements and an off-the-rack jacket from Walmart.
No guarantee that either will make you look fabulous, but the latter is apt to fit your individual dimensions better.