You've been putting out and putting out and putting out, Aries. Good work! I'm impressed with the blend of high-minded generosity and ego-boosting self-expression you've synergized. Now, however, it's time to make a transition. You need to start taking in and taking in and taking in. Your radiance needs to be fed by other radiances. Congratulate yourself for how aggressive you've been, then cultivate an equally robust receptivity.

Where do you want to go in the coming week? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder? Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.

Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.
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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.

Don't try to understand the Great Mystery in the coming days, Taurus. Instead, be the Great Mystery. Don't go with the Flow; be the Flow. Don't struggle and strain to put yourself in harmony with the Creative Surge of the Divine Wow. Be the Creative Surge of the Divine Wow. Do you catch my drift? It has never been more important than it is now for you to be a uniter who is at one with everything and everyone you encounter. This is the time and this is the place for you to be an exhilarating and playful force of nature who's madly in love with all of creation.

Want to explore the coming week even further? Dig deeper? Push harder? Consider tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Become a rapturist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good.

Before bringing your work as a rapturist to strangers, practice with two close companions. Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions. It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy. Give them an imaginative boon they've been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, "I love the way you move me."
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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.

In the coming weeks I'd love you to learn more about how to heal your own pain and wash your own brain and right your own wrongs and sing your own songs. I'll be overjoyed if I see you grow in your ability to unbreak your own heart and unfreeze your own assets and unleash your own surprises and understand your own motives. This is, by the way, not a prescription for loneliness, but rather for self-sufficiency. In fact, the magic that has been missing from your collaborations with others will probably appear as soon as you resolve to be your own guru.

Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out you EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Here's the catch about pronoia: Life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it, but it doesn't necessarily give you exactly what you want, exactly when you want it. Talk about the differences between what you want and what you need.
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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.

According to the Haggadah, an ancient Jewish text, the first thing God made, before anything else, was the Torah. This book was "written with black fire on white fire." The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet became the raw materials out of which the Divine One forged heaven and earth. Now you, Cancerian, have a chance to get firsthand evidence of the power that language has to shape experience. In the coming days, I suggest that you formulate what you say with great precision. The words you use will have the power of the ancient magical incantation, abracadabra, which is derived from the Aramaic word meaning "I create as I speak."

No one knows you better than you do. But maybe you'll be inspired to dig up even more self-knowledge in the coming week if you tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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You are potentially a genius. Maybe not in the same way that Einstein and Beethoven were, but still: You possess some exceptional capacity that is absolutely unique. You're a masterpiece unlike any other that has ever lived in the history of the world.

Furthermore, the precise instructions you need to ripen into your genius have always been with you, even from the time before you were born. In the words of psychologist James Hillman, you have a soul's code.

You might also call it the special mission you came to Earth to carry out; the divine blueprint that contains the open secret of how to be perfectly, unpredictably yourself; the master plan that is your heart's deepest desire.

Would you like help in deciphering it? The Divine Intelligence Formerly Known as God is always on call, ready to help. It's your birthright to ask Her a specific question every day about what you need to do next to express your soul's code; it's also your birthright to receive a response.

The divine revelation may not be as unambiguous as a little voice in your head. It might appear in the form of a TV commercial, an odd dream, or an encounter with a stranger. It could be demanding and difficult, delivering information you'd rather not have to deal with. Or it might show up as a clear and simple feeling of knowing exactly what to do, and it could be easy and fun.

What question will you ask the Divine Wow today?
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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.

Many of us don't always know what we feel. At times we may have a vivid sense that we feel something, but we're not sure what it is. That's why musicians, writers, actors, and other creative people play such a crucial role in our emotional lives. Their work can help us articulate the mysteries unfolding within us. But here's the problem: There are some artists out there who aren't very smart or original; they express only the most hackneyed and superficial feelings. If we look to them for illumination, we're cheated. So your next assignment, Leo, is to home in on the enigmas that are swirling within you by seeking the guidance and inspiration of only the very best artists: those who have cultivated a high level of proficiency in their heroic struggle to find meaning in the fascinating chaos that surrounds us.

What greater adventure is there than exploring the enigmas of your unique destiny? For more hints about the week ahead, listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking. While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.
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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.

Are you ready to leave the past behind, drop all your assumptions, welcome the return of your innocence, adopt a beginner's mind, and start fresh everywhere? I hope so, because that's what the universe will be nudging you to do. Here are some words of wisdom to incite you and arouse you. (1) "You don’t know what you can get away with until you try." - Colin Powell. (2) "Never underestimate your power to change yourself." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (3) "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." - my friend Lucy Spinner. (4) "God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." - Frederick Buechner.

Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Is there anything more dangerous than getting up in the morning and having nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat you up? That state can be a threat to your health. If untreated, it incites an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might rouse some excitement.

Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself--indeed, you make yourself--through the riddles you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.
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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.

"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing," wrote German mystic Meister Eckhart (1260–1328). I suggest you make that your guiding thought in the coming days, Libra. The most important work you have ahead of you will involve dissolution, demolition, and deletion. I'll even go so far as to say that you're more likely to win big if you're vigorously committed to losing big. "Give it up!" should be your battle cry.

How much do you want to know about your destiny in the coming week? How far do you dare to go? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of an ultimate truth.

We half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain. We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our sleeping genius.

There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty--let's call it the delightful dilemma--that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when you're feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing this book is a good example. I've had a good time handling the perplexing challenges with which it has confronted me.

Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile. Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your predominant state of mind. Consider the possibility that being in unsettling circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the riddles you need most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions when you're preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or demeaning annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.

Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain. You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before you're forced to do so by divine kicks in the ass.
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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.

On the Whosoever.org website, Thomas Woodrooffe describes Mother Teresa's actions in Calcutta in 1993. She tended intimately to the sick and dying without asking them their religious beliefs or judging them for any behavior that might have played a part in their illness. In contrast, fundamentalist missionaries were roaming Calcutta's streets at the same time, handing out religious propaganda to the diseased and destitute, warning them they'd face eternal damnation if they'd didn't convert to the One True Way. Keep that difference in mind during the coming weeks, Scorpio. You're in a phase of your astrological cycle when you have tremendous power to heal people, fix misaligned energy, and provide the kind of moral leadership that raises everyone's integrity levels. Be like Mother Teresa, not the fundamentalist missionaries.

Want more help in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss your coming week in greater depth in your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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To many people, "sacrifice" is a demoralizing word that connotes deprivation. Is that how you feel? Do you make sacrifices because you're forced to, or maybe because your generosity prompts you to incur a loss in order to further a good cause?

Originally, "sacrifice" had a different meaning: to give up something valuable in order that something even more valuable might be obtained. Carry out an action that embodies this definition. For instance, sacrifice a mediocre pleasure so as to free yourself to pursue a more exalted pleasure.
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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.

While I was out in the California wilderness doing a vision quest, I came upon a painting in a cave that I immediately sensed was an oracle for the current state of your life. In the painting, there was a hunter who had dropped his bow and arrow on the ground. He appeared to be dancing inside a circle of eagles. The birds were also at ground level and had their wings spread, as if dancing with the hunter. I encourage you to come up with your own interpretations of this oracle, but here's how I see it: You need to commune with wildness in a way you have never before imagined. The best way to proceed is to empty your mind of all thoughts about what you can get out of the experience, and instead cultivate the free-wheeling, no-expectations attitude that comes when you're dancing uninhibitedly.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny in the coming week, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Many concepts we use to interpret our experience originated in books written by people who are long gone. That's why philosopher Norman O. Brown (who died in 2002) says in his book Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis, "The bondage to books compels us not to see with our own eyes; compels us to see with the eyes of the dead, with dead eyes. There is a hex on us, the authority of the past; and to exorcise these ghosts is the great work of magical self-liberation."

Melville Davisson Post (who died in 1930) echoes the theme in his book Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries. "It is the dead who govern. Look how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! All the writers, when they would give weight and authority to their opinions, quote the dead. Our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!"

Whose dead eyes do you see with? What would it be like to see the world without them?
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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.

"The harder that we love, the deeper we're gonna feel," sings Keith Greeninger in a rootsy tune from his Glorious Peasant CD. That's good advice for you right now, Capricorn, since what you especially need to guide you during this phase of wandering and exploration is ever-deeper and ever-more-nuanced feeling. I'll add a corollary that may help as well: The softer you love, the smarter your emotions will be. You can love harder and softer at the same time, right?

Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life in the coming week? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Have you ever seen the game called "Playing the Dozens?" Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other. Here are some examples: "You're so dumb, if you spoke your mind you'd be speechless." "Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper." "You're so ugly, you couldn't get laid if you were a brick."

I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of "Playing the Dozens." Instead, try a new game, "Paying the Tributes." Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them. The best stuff will be specific to the person you're addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: "You're so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head." "You're so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous." "Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy."
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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.

"The chemo treatments burned out all the math skills in my brain, which were already pretty meager," said Risa, a friend who survived cancer a few years ago. "On the other hand, they awakened my ability to feel perfectly at ease while in the midst of paradoxical situations that everyone else finds maddening and uncomfortable. The chemo also made me ridiculously tolerant of people's contradictions, sometimes even their hypocrisies, and freed me to enjoy life as an entertaining movie with lots of interesting plot twists rather than as a pitched battle between everything I like and everything I don't like." I have really good news for you, Aquarius: If you make use of the current cosmic opportunities, you can achieve Risa's state of mind without the prod of anything even remotely as extreme as cancer or chemotherapy.

What blessings will life bring you in the coming week? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Charles Darwin said the "survival of the fittest" is a central factor in the process of evolution. What exactly did he mean by that? He makes it clear in his book, The Origin of Species: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

What would you have to do to make yourself superbly fit according to Darwin’s definition?
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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.

William Henry Harrison died in 1841, just a month after he'd been inaugurated as U.S. president. When a messenger went to Vice-President John Tyler to inform him he had ascended to the highest office in the land, Tyler was down on his knees playing a game of marbles. I'm guessing there'll be a similar scenario in your immediate future, Pisces. Big magic may come to visit you while you're in a lowly position. Or maybe an imposing invitation will arrive while you're in a humble situation.

Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks in the coming week? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.

Name three specific actions you'd like to try in order to improve your luck.
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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.