"Men should be barred from holding public office for 100 years," says billionaire Ted Turner. "Men have been running the world for too long and they've made a mess of it." If women were in charge, he adds, "It would be a much more peaceful, prosperous, equitable world in a very short period of time. You'd have a huge shift away from military budgets and into education and health care." I agree with everything Turner said except when he implied that men should be prohibited from serving. That's totalitarian, the exact opposite of what I trust a feminine majority would usher in. From an astrological perspective, by the way, 2008 is prime time to move forcefully in the direction of bringing more women into power. And it so happens that Aries people of both genders are best able to lead the way. To jumpstart your ability to fulfill this potential, I urge you to take three actions in the coming week to foster female authority. Men, you may devote two of these to boosting your inner woman.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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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."
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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.

Musician Chuck Prophet has artistic integrity even if he isn't a mega-star. He keeps making records that are inspired by his creative urges rather than by a lust for fame and riches. At age 43, he still tours all over creation, performing in small and mid-size clubs. "I have a dark need to drive around the world in a van like I'm 22," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "And I'm good at it, too. I'm good at staring out of a window for long stretches." Prophet's your role model in the coming week, Taurus. I hope he inspires you to do whatever's necessary as you go about the business of promoting what you love to do with dogged integrity.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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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 play 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 Powells.

I've got some of the strangest good news you've ever heard. Ready to open your mind to the odd opportunities? Get this: 1. Your wild speculations could serve you better than your educated guesses. 2. Your experimental urges might be smarter than your cautious plans. 3. Your "stumbles" may lead you to brilliant detours. 4. You just may be able to create lucky breaks out of apparent mistakes.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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"If you bring forth the genius within you," said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, "it will free you. If you do not bring forth the genius within you, it will destroy you." Is there any aspect of the genius within you that you're not bringing forth? If so, what can you do to change that?
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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 World Dream Bank (WorldDreamBank.org) collects tales recorded by spirited dreamers. I'd like to call your attention to one of those dreams, because you'll benefit from entertaining similar themes. Here's a paraphrased report: "I dreamed I was a telepathic teenage unicorn with five hearts. My lesbian twin, an untameable mare from the Middle of Nowhere Desert, came to join me, as did my best friend, a cute Tyrannosaurus Rex doctor on roller skates. We built a boat and sailed off into a warm red sea, headed towards a rite of passage that we looked forward to as a fun adventure. We passed a buoy with a sign that said, 'Beware of Insane Swimming Bunnies.' We weren't scared in the least. We had packets of magic confetti that we knew would make the bunnies sane."

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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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."
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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.

Tibetans use the phrase "Gadrii nombor shulen jongu," which literally means "to give a green answer to a blue question." It's what happens when a person offers a reply that is unrelated to the question that has been asked. This is an apt description of a certain situation you're either dealing with now or will soon be. It may be that someone close to you is responding with irrelevant answers to your piercing inquiries. Or it might be that you have misunderstood a mystery that a friend has presented to you. A third possibility: A question you've been asking yourself is the wrong question. (Thanks to the book Toujours Tingo for the Tibetan phrase.)

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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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 Powells.

"Success means controlling your own time," observed actor Rod Steiger. "If you gain control over 60 percent of the time in your life, you are really successful." In 2008, Virgo, you will have far more power than you've had before to fulfill this definition of success. And right now you happen to be in a phase of your astrological cycle when your hard work toward this goal will have maximum impact. The ironic fact of the matter is that it's an ideal time to slave away in behalf of greater freedom.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, and soften your heart—even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections.
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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.

"When it comes time to do your own life," wrote author Rosellen Brown in her book Civil Wars, "you either perpetuate your childhood or you stand on it and finally kick it out from under." According to my analysis of the omens, Libra, you will, sometime in 2008, reach the pivotal point Brown referred to. And the coming weeks could be a big turning point. So which way will you go?

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. The physicist Werner Heisenberg declared that the universe is made of music, not of matter. And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories and music, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it's impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be. That's why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales and tunes that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good.

Astrologer Caroline Casey offers an apt metaphor to illustrate how crucial it is for us to hear and read good stories. She notes that if we don't have enough of the normal, healthy kind of iodine in our bodies, we absorb radioactive iodine, which has entered the food chain through nuclear test explosions conducted in the atmosphere. Similarly, unless we fill ourselves up with stories that invigorate us, we're more susceptible to sopping up the poisonous, degenerative narratives.
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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 Onion newspaper cites a government study showing that America's top product isn't cars, corn, pot, or porn, but rather rich, buttery goodness. "Soaring demand among consumers for the melt-in-your-mouth sensation of buttery goodness meant that more then 32 million tons were manufactured and consumed last year," the report said. I advise you to make that experience a top priority in the coming week, Scorpio -- even if you're normally a bigger fan of what The Onion terms "crispety-crunchitiness" or "chewy, double-stuffed deliciousness." According to my analysis of the cosmic omens, you're most likely to thrive if you pursue silky, smooth, velvety, plush feelings of every kind.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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With the authority vested in me by the little voice in my head, I'm pleased to give you permission to add another job title to your résumé: prophet.

Am I being ironic? Only partially. The truth is, you generate numerous predictions every day. The source is your imagination, which tirelessly churns out visions of what you'll be doing in the future. The featured oracle of the moment may be as simple as a psychic impression of yourself devouring a fudge brownie in an hour or as monumental as a fantasy of building your dream home in Hawaii.

Your imagination is a treasure when it spins out scenarios that are aligned with your deepest desires. Indeed, it's an indispensable tool in creating the life you want; it's what you use to form images of the conditions you'd like to inhabit and the objects you hope to wield. Nothing manifests on the material plane unless it first exists as a mental picture.

But for most of us, the imagination is as much a curse as a blessing. You're just as likely to use it to conjure up premonitions that are at odds with your conscious values. Fearful fantasies regularly pop up, many disguising themselves as rational thoughts and genuine intuitions. They may hijack your psychic energy, directing it to exhaust itself in dead-end meditations.

Meanwhile, ill-suited longings are also lurking in your unconscious mind, impelling you to want things that aren't good for you and that you don't really need. Anytime you surrender to their allure, your imagination is practicing a form of black magic.

These are the imagination's unsavory aspects, which Zen Buddhists describe as the chatter of the "monkey mind." If you can stop locating your sense of self in the endless surge of its slapdash fantasies, only then might you be able to be here now and want what you actually have.

But whether your imagination is in service to your noble desires or in the thrall of compulsive fears and inappropriate yearnings, there is one commonality: Its prophecies can be pretty accurate. Many of your visions of the future do come to pass. The situations you expect to occur and the experiences you rehearse and dwell on are often reflected back to you as events that confirm your expectations.

Does that mean our mental projections create the future? Let's consider that possibility. What if it's at least partially true that what we expect will happen does tend to materialize? Here's the logical conclusion: It's downright stupid and self-destructive to keep infecting our imaginations with pictures of loss and failure, doom and gloom, fear and loathing. The far more sensible approach is to expect 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 Powells.

The world's record for skipping stones across the water belongs to Russel Byars. In July 2007, he threw a stone that bounced along the surface of the Allegheny River 51 times before it sank. If that mark is destined to be broken, it may be done by a Sagittarius in the coming week. Your tribe will have an exceptionally light touch. You'll have a knack for getting things to do what they supposedly can't do, even to the point of seeming to violate the law of gravity. You'll be at the peak of your ability to perform amusing tricks, pull off good mischief, and accomplish odd little miracles.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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Evil is boring. The universe is friendly. Life is on your side. Joy is your birthright.
Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. In fact, all of creation wants you to succeed.
Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Retrain your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
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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.

After studying your planetary aspects, I got on my bicycle and took a vow to scour the world for an omen that would embody their meaning. Within a few minutes, I spied what my intuition immediately knew I was looking for: a carport with grass growing on the roof. Here are two interpretations of the oracle: 1. It's now possible for something to grow in a place that you thought was barren and/or over your head. 2. Fertility will abound in a high place that isn't usually hospitable to sprouting seeds.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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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 Powells.

"To be young, really young, takes a very long time," said Picasso. I agree. It's not easy to hone your ability to see the world fresh over and over again. You've got to work for years to immunize yourself against the millions of people who think they're got everything figured out. To cultivate an ingenious and fully awakened innocence, you have to continually shed your temptation to rely on habitual responses, never ceasing from the effort to greet every experience with a beginner's mind. This playful approach to life goes against the grain of every religious teaching, every political system, and every ideology, which means that only the fiercest individualists with a highly developed sense of self can summon the courage to do it. It so happens, Aquarius, that you're now primed to make rapid progress in this noble undertaking.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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When you're an aspiring master of pronoia, you see the cracks in the facades as opportunities; inspiration erupts as you careen over bumps in the road; you love the enticing magic that flows from situations that other people regard as rough or crooked. "That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal," wrote poet Charles Baudelaire, "from which it follows that irregularity—that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment—is an essential part and characteristic of beauty."
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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.

Whether or not you're a Catholic, I recommend a good stiff dose of confession for you. It's the most effective action you can take to clear out your psychic congestion and prepare the way for an influx of cathartic realizations. So find someone who won't judge you for your so-called sins, and tell him or her about things you've done in the past year that make you feel squeamish or guilty. If there is no such person, confess to a beloved animal, a favorite tree, a passing cloud, or the morning sun.

You can still listen to my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008. Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is about 6-9 minutes long. A new short-range forecast for this week is also available.

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It's time for the Gratitude Fest. Write thank-you notes to the creatures, both human and otherwise, that have played seminal roles in inspiring you to become yourself. Who have been your guides along the way, both the purposeful teachers and the inadvertent helpers? Who has seen you for who you really are? Who has nudged you in the direction of your fuller destiny and awakened you to your signature truths? Who has loved you very, very well?
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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.