In the course of reducing the mystery of nature to a set of mechanical laws, Charles Darwin suffered greatly. "I cannot endure to read a line of poetry," he mourned in his journal. "I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have almost lost my taste for pictures and music. I lament this curious loss of my higher aesthetic tastes. . . My mind seems to have become a machine for grinding general laws, out of larger collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive." I bring this to your attention, Virgo, because I want you to be very careful not to let your love of logic and reason damage your capacity to perceive magic and enjoy the ineffable. Ideally, of course, you'll always be able to draw on both capacities equally. It's a crucial moment in the evolution of your power to do that.

Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life in the coming week? Listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Every January 1, many people make New Year's resolutions, promising to embark on programs of self-improvement. But your assignment now, should you choose to accept it, is to create a list of ANTI-resolutions.

Here are some questions to guide you: 1. What outlandish urges and controversial tendencies do you promise to cultivate in the coming months? 2. What nagging irritations will you ignore and avoid with even greater ingenuity? 3. What problems do you promise to exploit in order to have even more fun as you make the status quo accountable for its corruption? 4. What boring rules and traditions will you thumb your nose at, paving the way for exciting encounters with strange attractors?
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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 Barnes & Noble.