I suspect you'll be a genius of awkwardness in the coming week, Aries. What that means is that you'll have a knack for doing the half-right thing at the half-right time--and yet that's exactly what'll be necessary in order to bring about unexpected outcomes that are in everyone's best interests. In the short run you may make a perfect mess, but I bet that will ultimately add more beauty and intrigue to the big picture.

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Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.

When you're ready, carry out the exercise called Brag Therapy. Grab a good listener or a recording device, and boast extravagantly about yourself for at least 20 minutes. Expound in exhaustive detail why you're so wonderful and why the world would be a better place if everyone would just act more like you.

Don't be humble or cautious. Go too far. Heap extreme glory on yourself. Brazenly proclaim the fabulous qualities about you that no one has ever fully articulated or appreciated. Don't forget to extol the prodigious flaws and vices that make you so special.

What does this have to do with pronoia? When you audaciously identify your existing gifts, you set yourself up to become a magnet for even greater abundance. In fact, we recommend that you treat yourself to a Brag Therapy session regularly.

To whet your imagination, read an excerpt from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session I hosted in Milwaukee. "I have opposable thumbs," Eric exulted. "I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I'm asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up."
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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.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa of the Taurus this horoscope has been prepared for: I'm hoping you will bring your helpful influence to bear on our little darling's dilemma. I know that in your own past you once had to navigate your way through complications similar to those that Taurus is now facing. So even if you have died and are in spirit form, please bestow your advice and encouragement, whether that's delivered by phone, via telepathy, in dreams, or in person. One more thing: Please don't let your wise blessing get tainted by any lingering disapproval you might be harboring about the path our beloved Taurus has chosen. This is a time for your smart love, not your judgment.

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The "Kumulipo" is an old Hawaiian prayer chant that poetically describes the creation of the world. The word literally means "beginning-in-deep-darkness." Here darkness doesn't connote gloom and evil. Rather, it's about the inscrutability of the embryonic state; the obscure chaos that reigns before germination. Talk about the last time you dwelt in kumulipo.
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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.

In the language of archetypal psychology, the term hierosgamos means "sacred marriage." It may refer to a literal coming together of two people whose bond is a gift to God. Their love for each other serves as an inspiration to their community and galvanizes them both to express their wildest beauty. Because their union is dedicated to a higher cause beyond their personal happiness, they strive with ingenious devotion to transmute the dark, unripe aspects of their own nature. The term hierosgamos also has a bigger meaning, beyond the enlightened relationship of two intelligent people. It may refer to any merger of opposites that's precipitated through divine grace and that unleashes surprising healing in all directions. In the coming weeks, Gemini, you are a prime candidate to experience at least a metaphorical version of hierosgamos.

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Imagine that you have been relieved of your responsibilities for a given time. They will be taken care of by people you trust. You won't have to work to make money during this grace period, but will be given all you need. Nor will you have to clean your house, wash your clothes, or buy and make your food. Now here's the big question: What will you do now that you are free to do anything you like?
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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.

"A quiet evening alone with friends can be an ecstatic experience for Cancerians," say Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers in their book The Secret Language of Birthdays. "Yet many born under this sign have strange aspects to their personalities which must be periodically revealed in public." I suspect this description will be particularly apt in the coming weeks. You may feel an irresistible urge to express your eccentricities to a bigger audience. My advice is to make definite plans to unveil the most interesting versions of your oddness at times and places of your choosing. That way it won't unexpectedly pop out half-cocked when it might cause embarrassment.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are my short, sweet astrological revelations delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

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If I ever produce a self-help manual called The Reverse Psychology of Getting Everything You Want, it will discuss the following paradoxes:

a. People are more willing to accommodate your longings if you're not greedy or grasping.

b. A good way to achieve your desires is to cultivate the feeling that you've already achieved them.

c. Whatever you're longing for has been changed by your pursuit of it. It's not the same as it was when you felt the first pangs of desire. In order to make it yours, then, you will have to modify your ideas about it.

d. Be careful what you wish for because if your wish does materialize it will require you to change in ways you didn't foresee.

Review your own life and identify experiences that exemplify these four principles.
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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.

"The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian," wrote philosopher George Santayana. I agree with him. That's why, as I analyze the astrological omens, I can confidently predict that you will have the right to claim all of the following titles in the coming weeks: the Beguiler with the Most Enticing Ideals, the Moral Authority with the Most Trustworthy Allure, and the Charmer with the Most Ethical Temptations.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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"Is it bad to live without a hell?" poet Pablo Neruda asks in The Book of Questions. Let's add these queries to his: Is it dangerous to live without an enemy? Is it naive to think you can achieve great success without the driving motivation that comes from having ideas you hate? There are thousands of correct answers to these questions. What are yours?

Consider the issue from another angle. Dentists love tooth decay. Treating cavities provides them with a steady source of income. Likewise, exterminators are dependent on termites, lawyers need crimes, and priests are hungry for sinners. Lots of people have symbiotic connections with nasty stuff. In fact, isn't it true that most of us nurture our feelings for the things we love to despise and fear?

What's your favorite poison or adversary? Assume that your exposure to pronoia is changing you in ways that will require you to update your relationship with it. Speculate on how you'll go about this task.
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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.

In the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel," a wicked stepmother convinces her husband that the only way the two of them will survive poverty and starvation is to take his children deep into the woods and abandon them. That way there'll be two fewer mouths to feed. The kids overhear the plan, and as the adults lead them into the middle of nowhere, Hansel, the son, surreptitiously leaves a trail of white stones. This allows him and his sister Gretel to find their way back home later. The stepmom is chagrined. A few weeks thereafter, she once again convinces her spouse to leave the children in the wastes. This time Hansel drops breadcrumbs to mark the path, but they're eaten by birds and the kids have no way to get back. Moral of the story: When you get sucked away from your source, leave clues that are more like stones, not crumbs. Alternative moral of the story: Don't return to a source that doesn't want you there.

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Don't make nasty comments about yourself behind your own back.

Do play soccer in bunny slippers at dawn in a supermarket parking lot with a gang of sadomasochistic stockbrokers who've promised to teach you the Balinese monkey chant.

Don't decorate your thigh with a sloppy tattoo of the devil pushing a lawn mower.

Do wear a t-shirt that says, "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

Don't glide into a bar, scout around for the person whose face has the most pain etched in it, and ask that person to come home with you.

Do eat ripe organic strawberries that have been genetically modified and irradiated, and do chain-smoke Marlboros as you peddle your exercise bicycle, and do wander through a garbage dump while listening to Mozart on your iPod.

Don't get hooked on the fantasy that there are only two kinds of people, those who align themselves with the forces of light and those who align themselves with the forces of darkness.

Do start an organization called POMP (Proud Owners of Multiple Personalities), dedicated to erasing negative stereotypes about healthy non-schizophrenics who enjoy being a community of many different selves.

Don't lie on a floor surrounded by wine-stained poetry books, crumpled Matisse prints, abandoned underwear, and half-eaten bowls of corn flakes as you stare up at the ceiling with a mad gaze, muttering gibberish and waving your hands as if swatting away demons.

Do run along the tops of cars during a traffic jam, escaping from bad guys as you make your way to a helicopter that takes you to a spot hovering over an erupting volcano, into which you drop the Buns of Steel video.

Don't put your soul up for auction on the eBay website.

Do write a cookbook filled with recipes you've channeled from dead celebrities.

If you come upon a lamp with a genie in it, don't wish you had a magic wand.
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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.

"The ancient Greeks knew that learning comes from playing," writes Roger von Oech in his book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative. Their word for education, paideia, he says, was close to their word for play, paidia. Your next assignment, Libra, is right in line with this theme. First, identify the teachings that will be most important for you to master in 2007. Second, figure out how to include play as a major component of your learning process.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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The factor most likely to drive us to addiction or illness is a lack of intimate contact with spirit. We all need a daily dose of vastness. Paradoxically, many of us would also benefit from more microscopic vision. Because we're so deprived of divine connection, we're half-dreaming all the time; our unconscious yearning for our eternal source makes our minds wander and saps our energy to dig in and master the gritty details that are right in front of us.

Practice seeing the little things. Gather glimpses of colors, shapes, tones, and shifts you usually ignore.
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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.

You know those fuel-delivery planes capable of pumping gas into a larger plane that's already aloft? I think you'd benefit from enlisting the services of their metaphorical equivalent in the coming week. Given how high and fast you're soaring, it would be a shame for you to have to come all the way down to earth to fill up your tank. And yet it's clear to me that one way or another, you're going to have to replenish your supply of propellant.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are my short, sweet astrological revelations delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

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Every fundamentalist divides the world into two camps, those who agree with him and like him and help him, and those who don't. There is only one right way to interpret the world—according to the ideas the fundamentalist believes to be true—and a million wrong ways.

The fundamental attitude of all fundamentalists is to take everything way too seriously and too personally and too literally. Imagination is a sin and a crime. Correct belief is the only virtue. Every fundamentalist is committed to waging war against the imagination unless the imagination is enslaved to his or her belief system.

And here's the bad news: Like almost everyone in the world, each of us has our own share of the fundamentalist virus. It may not be as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, the fundamentalism of Islamic terrorists or Christian politicians or CEOs who act as if making a financial profit is the supreme good or scientists who deny the existence of the 96 percent of reality imperceptible to the five senses. Our fundamentalism is not as virulent as theirs.

But still: We are infected, you and I, with fundamentalism. What are we going to do about it?

I say we practice taking everything less seriously and less personally and less literally.
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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.

"Whether we are on the threshold of a Golden Age or on the brink of a global cataclysm that will extinguish our civilization is not only unknowable, but undecided," said Edward Cornish, President of the World Future Society. I bet that in the past year you've had comparable fantasies about the fate of your own personal destiny, Sagittarius. At times, it must have seemed as if you were teetering on the brink of a sulfurous abyss that was within shouting distance of the yellow brick road to paradise. Talk about conflicting emotions! But now that crazy-making chapter of your life story is coming to an end. No more teetering for you. No more inhaling noxious fumes from the infernal regions. I believe you have already been offered or will soon be offered an escort to the beginning of the yellow brick road. Let's hope you're not so addicted to the fascinating glamour of your pain that you turn down the escort.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are my short, sweet astrological revelations delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

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You're a star--and so am I. I'm a genius--and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn't require my defeat, and vice versa.

Those are the rules in the New World--quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play.

In the New World, you don't have to tone down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.
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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.

"The problem, if you love it," said Jiddu Krishnamurti, "is as beautiful as the sunset." He did not mean this ironically, nor was he indulging in sentimental wish-fulfillment. He was one of the toughest-minded spiritual teachers ever born. As you slip into a phase when your problems are especially gorgeous and entertaining, Capricorn, I urge you to remind yourself of his wise thought at least five times a day. Here's a second nugget for you to chew on often. It's a lyrical, hard-assed Zen proverb: "The obstacle is the path."

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

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At the heart of the pronoiac way of life is an apparent conundrum: You can have anything you want if you'll just ask for it in an unselfish way. The trick to making this work is to locate where your deepest ambition coincides with the greatest gift you have to give. Figure out exactly how the universe, by providing you with abundance, can improve the lot of everyone whose life you touch. Seek the fulfillment of your fondest desires in such a way that you become a fount of blessings.
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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.

Your assignment in the coming weeks, Aquarius, is to become a coordinator of synchronicity and director of synergy in all the environments where you hang out. To begin, remind yourself of what those terms mean. Synchronicity is the wonderfully spooky feeling that comes when two or more events occur in a way that might superficially seem to be mere coincidence, but that is actually a sign of a deeper underlying pattern that transcends rational understanding. Synergy is when two power sources collaborate on a surprisingly energetic creation in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. (Here are more thoughts on synchronicity and synergy.)

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are my short, sweet astrological revelations delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

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Every act of genius, Carl Jung said, is an act contra naturam: against nature. Indeed, every effort to achieve psychological integration and union with the divine requires a knack for working against the grain. The 18th-century mystic Jacob Boehme recommended the same technique. The great secret to becoming enlightened, he said, is "to walk in all things contrary to the world." Qabalist teacher Paul Foster Case agreed: "The basis of the spiritual approach to life, the foundation of the everyday practice of a person who lives the life of obedience to esoteric law, is the reversal of the more usual ways of thinking, speaking and doing."

Name the ways you already use this approach, and brainstorm about others you might like to try.
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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.

If you want to be in perfect alignment with the astrological omens, you will live your life in the coming weeks with a restless confidence that bigger is better. You'll risk going over the top, digging too deep, and stretching your limits beyond the comfort level. I suspect you'll even begin to resonate with the description once applied to Hong Kong by its last governor: "sparkling, noisy, argumentative, handsome, cluttered, exotic, international--all the things a great city should be."

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES

My DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES are my short, sweet astrological revelations delivered seven days a week to your cell phone or mobile device.

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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."

Give an example of this kind of blessing from your own life.
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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.