For many Aries, independence is a virtue that flows in abundance -- so much so that it's sometimes on the verge of becoming excessive and turning into a vice. That's why I'm thrilled to inform you that the mysteries of dependence could be especially intriguing and useful to you in the coming days. They might also lead, paradoxically, to a form of interdependence that would in the long run nourish your independence. So how about it? Without compromising your free-wheeling spirit, can you blend yourself more thoroughly with trustworthy souls who care about you?

Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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 Powells.

Alison Covarrubias is a mentor for female entrepreneurs. Her "Ladies Who Launch" program inspires women to be brave and brazen as they develop their own businesses. One of Covarrubias's prime pieces of advice: "If you don't feel like you're going to throw up, you're not taking enough risks." That's also my message for you, Taurus. In the name of smart gambles and tricky success, I dare you to push yourself way out of the comfort zone.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
"I’ve been practicing radical authenticity lately," my friend Brandon told me. "I’m revealing the blunt truth about unmentionable subjects to everyone I know. It’s been pretty hellish—no one likes having the social masks stripped away—but it’s been ultimately rewarding."

"I admire your boldness in naming the currents flowing beneath the surface," I replied, "but I’m curious as to why you imply they’re all negative. To practice radical authenticity, shouldn’t you also express the raw truth about what’s right, good, and beautiful? Shouldn’t you unleash the praise and gratitude that normally go unspoken?"

Brandon sneered. He thought my version of radical authenticity was wimpy. I hope you don’t. As a budding lover of life, you have a mandate to be honest in both ways.
*
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 a survey, one out of every ten people says the Internet makes them feel closer to God. I predict that you will be part of that group in the coming days, Gemini. But it's not just surfing the Web that will bring you into more intimate communion with the Divine Wow. Washing dishes will do it, too, as will buttering toast, brushing your teeth, and skipping down the street. For that matter, throwing imaginary rocks at the sky, blowing your nose on your sleeve, and pretending you're a rock star will put you into a more fluid alignment with the Primal Root. Pretty much everything! What if you're an atheist? You're free to ignore the evidence of Spirit's presence pressing in on you from all sides. But even if you do that, I bet you'll still enjoy a profoundly enhanced sense that life is wildly meaningful.

Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
*
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 physicist Paul Steinhardt, "Good science creates two challenging puzzles for each puzzle it resolves." I propose that we expand that formula to make it apply to life in general: Good decision-making about anything at all creates two challenging puzzles for each puzzle it resolves. That should be your guiding meditation, Cancerian. You are currently at the height of your ability to wrestle long-standing dilemmas into more satisfying configurations. I expect that whenever you capitalize on this potential, you will conjure up fresh riddles that will energize you for weeks.

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

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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 Powells.

Are you fully prepared for your showdown with The Machine? Are you as confident as you need to be in order to fight for the rights of soulful beauty? Of course not. None of us is ever perfectly prepared as we go up against the Big Lies of the mechanical thinkers. But I do have great faith in your ability to prevail -- especially if you strengthen yourself with this meditation from the book Less Than One, by Joseph Brodsky: "The surest defense against evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality -- even if you will, eccentricity . . . Evil is a sucker for solidarity. It always goes for big numbers, for confident granite, for ideological purity, for drilled armies and balance sheets."

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

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
*
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.

My songwriter friend Darius has created some fine music, but he periodically goes through phases when everything he produces sounds contrived. It's not writer's block he suffers from. During his bouts with bad composing, he's often teeming with ideas. The problem is that he gets caught up in a vortex of too much thinking. He can't stop his mind from tinkering endlessly with every raw impulse that wells up. Recently he joined the Immersion Composition Society, an organization that helps "talented basket cases" and "tortured geniuses" cut through their tendency to over-analyze and thereby reconnect to their pure inspiration. One technique: Musicians agree to take on firm deadlines that compel them to create songs wicked fast. I hope you find the equivalent assistance for your own field of expression, Virgo. The time is ripe for you to dissect less and build more.

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

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
*
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.

"What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn't have any doubt," wrote columnist Hal Boyle. "It is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn't want to go anywhere else." Your assignment for the rest of 2008, Libra, is to do whatever's necessary to make yourself fit this description. The next eight months will provide unprecedented opportunities to turn yourself into a river flowing toward your destiny with surprisingly sublime freedom.

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

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
*
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.

You're not any more narcissistic and egotistical than the rest of us, but this week happens to be your special time to make amends for being that way. Therefore, I recommend that you try the following corrective measures: 1. Every day, do three things motivated by compassion that are helpful to people you know. 2. For a few minutes each day, use your imagination to get inside the mind of someone you care about and see the world through his or her eyes. 3. Every day, take at least one action that will in some way beautify your environment, contribute to the well-being of strangers, or help save the world.

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

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
"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?
*
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.

Traditional astrologers say that Sagittarians are the master travelers of the zodiac; no other sign roams as far and as wide as yours. But if that's true, how do you explain William Blake and Emily Dickenson, two of history's greatest Sagittarian poets? They barely left their neighborhoods, content to explore a narrow sampling of the planet's wonders. The answer is that they covered vast distances in the inner realms, seeking out adventures in exotic territories of the imagination. I'm thinking their approach would work really well for you in the coming weeks.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
*
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.

It's an excellent time to make yourself more magnetic to blessings. You might want to experiment, therefore, with good luck charms or magic invocations -- anything that you imagine might attract benevolence into your life. How about the potion that is popular in South Africa right now? It's a concoction cooked up from ground-up vulture bones. Or maybe the kind of mystic jewelry I saw advertised in one of the tabloids, a necklace made of meteorite chunks? Both of those would pale in comparison, however, to the thing I consider the very best attractor of blessings. It's the sacred metaphorical talisman that Tom Waits recommends in his song "Get Behind the Mule": Always keep a diamond in your mind.

Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
*
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 the spell is broken, Aquarius, you will be able to tap into resources that you've been cut off from. When the spell is broken, you will finally notice three big, beautiful secrets that have been staring you in the face. When the spell is broken, you will slip down off a clean, lofty perch where it has been hard to relax and arrive at a low, funky spot where you'll be free to feel things you haven't felt in a long time. When the spell is broken, it will be because you have decided to break it.

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

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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."
*
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 eat any food that's incapable of rotting," says Michael Pollan in his book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. In other words, highly processed foods with a long shelf life don't contribute to your optimum vitality. I'd like to expand this rule to make it an all-purpose guideline for life. Try out this hypothesis: If you're involved with any person or situation that never decays, or if there is some part of you that never decays, that's highly suspicious and may be a problem. Like growth, rot is a natural phenomenon. Indeed, every advancement requires or brings the disintegration of whatever it replaces. You can't grow if you don't rot! The "perfection" of stasis can be hazardous to your health! So let me ask you, Pisces: What's due to rot in your world?

Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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?
*
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.