"Do you know what insomniac dyslexic philosophers do?" asked one of the 20th century's great thinkers, Terence McKenna. "They stay up all night wondering if dog really exists." That just happens to be your assignment, Aries--whether or not you're an insomniac dyslexic philosopher. It's time, in other words, for you to intensify your exploration of life's deepest questions--even as you remember to do so with sparkling good humor and the intention not to take yourself too damn seriously.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating. Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter. Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good.

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.

In Buddhist tradition, bodhisattvas are seekers who put their service to others above their personal goals--even above their quest for the supreme peace that comes from enlightenment. In the eight-century prayer "The Bodhisattva Path," poet Shantideva wrote, "May I be the doctor and the medicine/ for all sick beings in the world/ until everyone is healed." That's a high standard to live by. In asking you to try it out for a limited time, I'm not expecting perfection. But my analysis of the astrological omens suggests that the people in your life fervently need you to be a source of strong medicine. More than that, you need to initiate the changes in your life that will ensue if you make yourself into a soothing balm, a potent remedy, a love tonic.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Thank your mother for the pain she endured while birthing you.
For three minutes on the first Friday of every month, close your eyes and imagine yourself riding a wild horse through a cemetery.
Fantasize that your so-called "dark side" is sweet and creamy.
When you come home after a day of triumphs, take out the garbage.
Dream you're a red-tailed hawk soaring over a shopping mall.
Forgive yourself for the blindness that put you in the path of those who betrayed you.
Buy seven used gowns worn by famous actresses to the Academy Awards show, and send them gratis to seven Guatemalan teenagers.
Visualize two versions of yourself, one male and one female, holding hands as they gaze into a reflection of the moon on a river.
Keep an image of a sphinx with you at all times.

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.

When East Timor gained its independence from Indonesia after a long, bloody struggle, the United Nations temporarily took control of the new nation, inundating it with aid and support. But the international agency's work was short-lived, lasting just three years, and ultimately became known as Quickfixville. The errors resulting from its hurried efforts have been hard to undo. Don't make a similar gaffe in the coming weeks, Gemini. It's not enough merely to have good intentions. Be deliberate and thorough as you undertake your corrective actions.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Whatever you choose to focus your attention on, you will get more of it. If you often think of everything you lack and how sad you are that you don't have it, you will tend to receive prolific evidence of how true that is. As you obsess on all the ways your life is different from what you wish it would be, you will become an expert in rousing feelings of frustration and you will attract experiences that assist you in rousing frustration.

If, on the other hand, you dwell on the good things you have already had the privilege to experience, you will expand your appreciation for their blessings, which in turn will amplify their beneficent impact on your life. You will also magnetize yourself to receive further good things, making it more likely that they will be attracted into your sphere. At the very least, you will get in the habit of enjoying yourself no matter what the outward circumstances are.

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.

It's almost time to bring an end to your phase of resting and recouping. The self-protective mode has served you well, but if you stay in it much longer it'll begin to backfire. Soon you'll need a wake-up call, an inflammatory summoning. If I were there with you, I might even sing you the opposite of a lullaby--a disturbing yet inspiring rant designed to rouse and agitate and excite you.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Novel intuitions are erupting from your smart heart, awakening you from any trance you've been ensnared in. You're breaking and escaping obstructions that have suppressed your brilliance. Your soul's code is unleashing itself, revealing in explosive precision why you're a miraculous work of art, proving with intricate artistry why you're a masterpiece unlike any other ever created in the history of the world.

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.

I was sitting in San Francisco's Cafe Gratitude, meditating on your horoscope. In my notebook I'd doodled a giant hand reaching down to earth from the clouds. It was holding a silver platter that bore a book whose title was "Fresh Instructions." This gift was being offered to a half-lion, half-human creature that represented you. Shortly after I finished this drawing, a woman came through the front door of the restaurant and sat at a nearby table. Her t-shirt had a message that was the perfect caption for the image I'd made: "Maybe God has bigger plans for you than you have for yourself."

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Where exactly does happiness come from? That's the riddle posed by David Meyers and Ed Diener in their article, "The Science of Happiness," published in The Futurist magazine. I invite you to write your own answers to their question. Map out the foundations of your own science of happiness. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good. What specific experiences arouse your deepest gratification? Physical pleasure? Seeking the truth? Being a good person? Contemplating the meaning of life? Enjoying the fruits of your accomplishments? Purging pent-up emotion?

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.

The 5.5 million people who live in Papua New Guinea speak 820 different languages, or one per every 6,707 people. Two villages within an hour's walking distance of each other may use utterly different tongues. The situation there has a certain metaphorical resemblance to the current state of your fate, Virgo. The various parts of your world aren't communicating with as much fluidity and frequency as they should be. Your job in the coming weeks is to serve as a master translator, spreading understanding among them. It's time to unite the fragments.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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How Pronoia Works

There was once a poor farmer who could afford to own just one horse. He cared well for the animal, but one summer night, it escaped through a weak fence and ran away.

When his neighbors discovered what had happened, they visited to offer their condolences. "What bad luck!" they exclaimed. The farmer replied, "Maybe. Maybe not."

A week later, the fugitive horse sauntered back to the homestead, accompanied by six wild horses. The farmer and his son managed to corral all of them. Again the neighbors descended. "What great luck!" they exclaimed. "Maybe," the farmer replied. "Maybe not."

Soon the farmer's son began the work of taming the new arrivals. While attempting to ride the roan stallion, he was thrown to the ground and half-trampled. His leg was badly broken. The neighbors came to investigate. "What terrible luck!" they exclaimed. The farmer replied, "Maybe. Maybe not."

The next day, soldiers visited the farmer's village. Strife had recently broken out between two warlords, and one of them had come to conscript all the local young men. Though every other son was commandeered, the farmer's boy was exempted because of his injury. The neighbors gathered again. "What fantastic luck!" they exclaimed. "Maybe," the farmer said. "Maybe not."

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.

Uber-model Elle McPherson has been nicknamed "The Body" for 20 years. But now an almost equally legendary star of the fashion runway, Heidi Klum, is trying to horn in on the title. She, too, has begun to call herself "The Body," enraging McPherson and her team. While these two superegos fight it out, I'm going to borrow their trademark and apply it to you Libras for the next three weeks. Why? Because your physical organism will be at the peak of its health and attractiveness. If you listen closely to its signals, it will give you good ideas about actions you can take to further promote your well-being. Even more than usual, it will be a source of wisdom and pleasure. You will have every right, therefore, to call yourself "The Body."

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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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.

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.

In his book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, Roger von Oech quotes one of his clients, an architect: "Play is what I do for a living; the work comes in organizing the results of the play." Make this your guiding principle in the coming weeks, Scorpio. Ask the universe to give you lots of opportunities to mess around and improvise blithely and resurrect your playing-in-the-sandbox consciousness. Come up with good excuses to let your attention wander and explore previously off-limits fun and games. A few weeks from now, you can begin organizing all the good ideas that your frisky experiments will generate between now and then.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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To become a master of desire, keep talking yourself out of being attached to trivial goals and keep talking yourself into being thrilled about the precious few goals that are really important. Here's another way to say it: Wean yourself from ego-driven desires and pour your libido into a longing for beauty, truth, goodness, justice, integrity, creativity, love, and an intimate relationship with the Wild Divine.

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.

The phase you're entering may prove to be ridiculously confounding--ridiculous both in the sense of absurdly extreme and very funny. Yet the immediate future also promises to provide you with unprecedented opportunities to outgrow limitations you may have imagined were permanent. To honor this synergistic blend of slapstick confusion and juicy potential, I'm offering you two pieces of advice. The first is from Eleanor Roosevelt: "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." The second is from Edward Teller: "When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Notice how you feel as you speak the following: "The strong, independent part of me resisted the embarrassing truth for a long time, but I finally came to accept that I'm someone who craves vast amounts of love. Ever since I surrendered to this need, it doesn't nag me all the time, as it used to. In fact, it feels comforting, like a source of sweetness that doesn't go away. I never thought I'd say this, but I've come to treasure the feeling of having a voracious yearning to be loved."

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.

You may not have God on your side, but you've got the next best thing. Invisible means of support will soon become visible. Life may even give you permission to have your cake and eat it too. I'll go so far as to speculate that you'll be the beneficiary of a conspiracy to help you achieve goals you didn't even know you needed to achieve. In light of the fact that you will have most of the help you could possibly require, I can think of only one piece of advice that might prove useful: Being a little rowdy or impish could give your goodness greater impact.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Philosopher William James proposed that if our culture ever hoped to shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we'd have to create a moral equivalent. It's not enough to preach the value of peace, he said. We have to find other ways to channel our aggressive instincts in order to accomplish what war does, like stimulate political unity and build civic virtue.

Astrology provides a complementary perspective. Each of us has the warrior energy of the planet Mars in our psychological make-up. We can't simply repress it, but must find a positive way to express it. How you might go about this project?

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.

"What is Great Purple?" asks Japanese poet Nanao Sakaki in his book Let's Eat Stars. Is it "a piece of purple sky floating in my lover's eyes?" he speculates. "A cloud made of purple wine passing over Mt. Fuji? The color of a full-blooming magnolia's root? The shadow of a star visible only to birds? The light of the last water you drink?" I invite you, Aquarius, to brainstorm your own answers to the question "What is Great Purple?" According to my reading of the astrological omens, you now have a special relationship not only with plain old everyday purple, but with sublime, magnificent, life-changing PURPLE. It's a perfect moment to develop a closer relationship with whatever Great Purple means to you.

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Life is a vast and intricate conspiracy designed to keep us well supplied with blessings. What kind of blessings? Palatial homes, attractive lovers, lottery winnings, career success? Maybe. But just as likely: interesting surprises, unexpected challenges, gifts we hardly know what to do with, conundrums that force us to get smarter. Novelist William Vollman referred to the latter types of blessings when he said that "the most important and enjoyable thing in life is doing something that's a complicated, tricky problem for you that you don't know how to solve."

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.

"What's irritating about love is that it's a crime that requires an accomplice," said French poet Baudelaire. This is a perfect brainteaser for you to contemplate right now, Pisces. Start your musings by trying to figure out what the hell he meant. Ask yourself, in what sense is love a crime? Obviously, he's not saying it's literally a felony or misdemeanor. Is he implying, then, that love, when practiced correctly, disrupts routine, disorganizes the orderly flow, and violates conventional wisdom? That's what I conclude, but you may have a different opinion. Let's also meditate on why Baudelaire thought it's irritating that loves requires an accomplice. Personally, I don't understand that. While I enjoy breaking the rules of respectable behavior by myself, I also find it exhilarating to have a co-conspirator. What do you say?

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are short, sweet bursts of illumination delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are weekly spoken-word reports on your destiny. They're three to four minutes long.

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Review in painstaking detail the history of your life, honoring every moment as if you were conducting a benevolent Judgment Day.
Forgive yourself of every mistake except one.
Create a royal crown for yourself out of a shower cap, rubber bands, and light bulbs.
Think of the last place on earth you'd ever want to visit, and visualize yourself having fun there.
Test to see if people are really listening to you by asserting that Karl Marx was one of the Marx Brothers.
Track down people who are impossible to love, and love them defiantly without expecting anything in return.
Steal lint from dryers in laundromats and use it to make animal sculptures for someone you admire.
Fantasize you're the child of divine parents who abandoned you when you were two days old, but who will soon be coming back to reunite with you.
Once a year, say these words into a mirror: "It's bad luck to be superstitious."

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.