"The only way to get a difficult feeling to go away is simply to love yourself for it," says author Christiane Northrup. "If you think you're stupid, then love yourself for feeling that way. It's a paradox, but it works. To heal, you must . . . shine the light of compassion on any areas within you that you feel are unacceptable." While I personally believe this is a crafty strategy, I suggest adding a twist in order to double its effectiveness: As you're loving yourself for your difficult feeling, literally laugh out loud at how crazily worried and wound up you are about it.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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Sixth-Grade Zeitgeist Update
The following bon mots were scrawled on the backpacks and binders of sixth grade girls at Greenwood School in Mill Valley, California:
Learn as if you'll live forever
Explain yourself wildly, not carefully
Wake up -- but not too fast, or you might hurt yourself
Question authority, including the authority that told you to question authority
Give me chocolate or I'll scream
It's all so funny -- how can you not be laughing?
When you shout "halaluya," never spell it right
Live the freakiest truth
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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.

According to Harper's Index, 97 percent of us believe that following our own conscience is a sign of a strong character. On the other hand, 92 percent of us think that obeying authorities shows strong character. What that apparently means is that most of us feel we can and should heed the dictates of our own conscience and please the people who control things. In the coming weeks, I think that might be possible for you to do once or twice. But most the time, I suspect you'll have to decide between being either an impeccable rebel or loyal devotee.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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Have you ever played the game of "Tell me the story of your scars?" It's best to do it with a skilled empath who is curious about your fate's riddles and skilled at helping you find redemption in your wounds.

"How'd you get that blotch on your knee?" he or she might begin, and you describe the time in childhood when you fell on the sidewalk. Then maybe he or she would say, "Why do you always look so sad when you hear that song?" And you narrate the tale of how it was playing when an old lover broke your heart. The questions and answers continue until you unveil the history of your hurts, both physical and psychic. Treat yourself to this game soon.
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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.

Some people skip to the end of a book and read the last few pages while they're still in its early stages. They want to know what will ultimately happen without going through the steps that lead up to it. While it's harmless to prematurely peek at how a book's story resolves, trying a similar approach could cause problems if you do it with your life in the coming weeks. Distortions might arise from trying to "time-travel" to a future date and foresee the outcome of a process you're in the middle of. It could sap your ability to carry out the work you'll need to do. Or it may fill you with false expectations that cause you to misjudge your allies. Be patient.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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"Love is being stupid together," said French poet Paul Valéry. While there's an element of truth to that, it's too corny and decadent for my tastes. I prefer to focus on a more interesting truth, which is this: Real love is being smart together. If you weave your destiny together with another's, he or she should catalyze your sleeping potentials, sharpen your perceptions, and boost both your emotional and analytical intelligence. Your relationship becomes a crucible in which you deepen your understanding of the way the world works.

Think of an example of your closest approach to this model in your own life. Then formulate a vow in which you promise you'll do what's necessary to more fully embody the principle "love is being smart together."
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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.

Mazel tov is a Hebrew phrase meaning "good luck," but its literal translation is "may the stars be good to you." It suggests that stellar energies influence our fate. In his book Jewish Magic and Superstition, Joshua Trachtenberg riffs on Judaism's ancient debate about the subject: "The stars determine human actions, but they too are creatures of G-d, established by Him to perform this special function, and therefore the influence they exert is subject to His Will. Repentance, prayer, piety, charity, good deeds . . . are the instruments by means of which man can induce G-d to alter His decrees and consequently to modify the fate that is written in the stars for him." I offer this, Cancerian, as evidence that the title of my column, "Free Will Astrology," is not an oxymoron. You have more power to shape your destiny than you imagine -- and now is a perfect time to prove it.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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The German religious reformer Martin Luther was fond of referring to the faculty of reason as a "damned whore." He believed it gave itself in service to any old theory, often propping up specious arguments rooted in hidden emotional agendas.

Though I regard my ability to reason as a prized asset, I confess to having some of Luther's mistrust about it. Like most of us, I have corrupted my logical mind by sometimes using it to disguise and rationalize my subjective biases.

Can you imagine having so much self-awareness that you never turn your reasoning ability into a whore? Are you willing to probe with merciless honesty for the unconscious feelings that drive you to believe what you do, and to analyze the ways you mask your subjective biases as "objective fact"? Could you suspend all your preconceptions and greet every situation with a scrupulously open mind? Try to live up to that high standard for a period of three days.
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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.

This oracle was originally commissioned by a spiritual wilderness school to train its students in high-stress meditation. It has been tested by disciplined explorers who've learned to be fluid and resourceful in the midst of natural chaos. Now it's being made available to you, Leo -- just in time for the last stretch of your dash (or crawl) across the wasteland. By contemplating the code phrase that appears at the end of this message, you will discover the key for turning poisons into medicine, taking advantage of your weaknesses, and knowing your direction without a compass. Here it is: Love the beauty and intelligence that are hidden in your darkness.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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Robin Norwood's self-help book Women Who Love Too Much deals with a theme that has gotten a lot of play in recent decades: If you're too generous to someone who doesn't appreciate it and at the expense of your own needs, you can make yourself sick.

An alternative perspective comes from French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who said, "When one does not love too much, one does not love enough." He was primarily addressing psychologically healthy altruists, but it's a good ideal for pronoia lovers to keep in mind.

Decide whether you need to move more in the direction of Norwood's or Pascal's advice. Develop a game plan to carry out your resolve, then take action.
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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.

In Terry Pratchett's book Wyrd Sisters, there's a passage in which he talks about how the sun conspires with the forest to pump millions of gallons of sap hundreds of feet from the ground up into the sky. And it all happens "in one great systolic thump too big and loud to be heard." That's the kind of activity I recommend for you in the coming weeks, Virgo. Collaborate with the source of all life -- the physical sun, if that's your preference, or God or Goddess, if that works better for you -- to pull off a huge movement of lifeblood that brings sustenance from below to above.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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The Italian city of Florence harbors the richest trove of art treasures in the world. Its many museums are hot spots for outbreaks of a rare psychological disorder. Foreign tourists sometimes experience breakdowns while standing in the presence of the tremendous beauty, and are rushed to the psychiatric ward of Florence’s Santa Maria Nuova Hospital.

"Many visitors panic before a Raphael painting," reports Reuters. "Others collapse at the feet of Michelangelo’s statue of David." Psychiatrists have referred to this pathology as the Stendahl Syndrome, named after the French novelist who wrote about his emotional breakdown during a visit to the city’s art collection in 1817.

As you embark on your explorations of pronoia, you should protect yourself against this risk. Proceed cautiously as you expose yourself to the splendor that has been invisible or unavailable to you all these years.
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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.

In July 1969, astronaut Buzz Aldrin was the second human to walk on the moon. That was the good news. The bad news was that as he carried out his heroic feat, he wet his pants. He testifies to the event in the documentary film In the Shadow of the Moon. I suspect you may soon have a comparable experience, Libra: experiencing a little boo-boo or no-no while you're riding high. Though it may make you feel vulnerable at the time, it's trivial in the big scheme of things and isn't likely to stick with you. How many people even know that Aldrin accidentally peed at his moment of glory?

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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"We are attracted to people who express the qualities we deny or repress in ourselves," says creativity expert Shakti Gawain. Using this idea as your hypothesis, take an inventory of the people you’re most drawn to. Ask yourself whether they have talents and dreams that you wish could come alive in you. If you find this to be the case, consider the possibility that it’s time to claim those talents or dreams as your own.
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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.

About nine million people see this column regularly. On average, nine of them experience a one-in-a-million coincidence each week. In the next seven days, however, I believe as many as 90,000 of my readers will have that kind of mind-blowing synchronicity, and most of them will be Scorpios. That's because your tribe is in a phase when happy accidents and miraculous flukes are practically unavoidable. Even if you don't brush up against a one-in-a-million stroke of lucky fate, I bet you'll be touched by a one-in-a-thousand event.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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Declare amnesty for the part of you that you don’t love very well. Forgive that poor sucker. Hold its hand and take it out to dinner and a movie. Tactfully offer it a chance to make amends for the dumb things it has done. And then do a dramatic reading of this proclamation by the playwright Theodore Rubin: "I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."
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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.

"Dear Flow Meister: I've been surfing the tidal waves of emotion for many days, and am proud to say I haven't wiped out once (though here were two near-misses). But to tell you the truth, I don't know how much longer I can perform this balancing act. How much stamina can one person have? Do you psychically see signs that I'll reach shore anytime soon? -Wobbly Surfer." Dear Wobbly: I predict an end to your trials by Wednesday, July 23 -- or earlier if you, too, become a flow meister.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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If you're typical, your natural curiosity was virtually extinguished at an early age by mediocre teachers, boring lessons, and oppressive classrooms. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if your imagination hadn't been squelched? What interesting adventures might you have sought out if your natural love of learning hadn't been crushed?

Let's launch a quest to undo the damage. Imagine I've handed you an undiploma: your official release from the soul-death of your formal education; the beginning of the healing of your wounded love of learning. What's the first thing you'll do to invoke a steady stream of inspired teachers and invigorating lessons?
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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.

"Ice cream is both innocent and erotic," writes Klintron on Technoccult.com. "Coffee promises to be both stimulating and relaxing." These examples illustrate the idea of "paradessence," or paradoxical essence, which was developed by Alex Shakar in his novel The Savage Girl. I suspect that you'll specialize in paradessence in the coming days, Capricorn. Will that make you feel tormented by crazy-making contradictions or will it excite you with an expanding sense of complex possibilities? It will be largely up to your intentions. Which would you prefer?

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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After seeing the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the ancient writer Philo of Byzantium wrote, "He who has laid eyes on it will be convinced that the world of the immortal gods has moved from heaven to earth."

Seek out an experience that provokes an equally breathtaking response in you. Or do whatever you can to generate feelings of sincere reverence and awe.
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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.

It's Wallow in Your Envy and Jealousy Week. During this holiday, you may in good conscience explore your covetous resentments and plumb the depths of your longing for what others have attained. Here's the payoff: Giving yourself this perverse pleasure should keep you relatively free from envy and jealousy for the next three months. To get yourself in the mood, read this excerpt from Dave Morrison's poem "Jealous": "I am jealous of those who do stupid things and feel no shame. I am jealous of the dead for their reduced workload, jealous of newborn babies for their clean records. I'm jealous of those older than me for what they know, and those younger than me for what they don't. I am jealous of dogs who don't think about living, or dying, they just do."

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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Jungian analyst Arnold Mindell explores the relationship between mind and body. He believes you can achieve optimum physical health if you're devoted to shedding outworn self-images. In his book The Shaman's Body, he says, "You have one central lesson to learn—to continuously drop all your rigid identities. Personal history may be your greatest danger."

Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, agrees. Raised as a male, she later became a female, but ultimately renounced gender altogether. "I love being without an identity," she says. "It gives me a lot of room to play around."

What identities would be healthy for you to lose? Describe all the fun you'd have if you were free of them.
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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 oldest penises are 400 million years old. Discovered in Scotland in 2001, they're part of the fossilized remains of an arachnid species known as daddy longlegs. In reporting their find, the paleontologists marveled that the reproductive organ was two-thirds the size of the entire creature. Let's make this ancient genital a power symbol for you, Pisces. (If you prefer, you can focus on the 400-million-year-old daddy longlegs' vaginas that were also found.) I hope it inspires you to think back to the time when your sexual desires first began to stir. The future of your intimate relationships will benefit from you reconnecting to the primal purity of your original erotic urges.

Want to go further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also offering a MID-YEAR PREVIEW -- an audio report on YOUR DESTINY from JULY through DECEMBER 2008.

To hear my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE in the next six months, simply log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2008."

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Write the following on a piece of paper and keep it under your pillow. "I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day [put date here] that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world that deserves my brilliant passion above all others."
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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.