Your next assignment is to inject more fun into your job -- or into anything that feels like work, for that matter. You've got a head start because lately you've been playing harder than usual. That should give you creative momentum as you reinvent your approach to activities that push you to your limits and test your resolve. For best results, be open to the possibility that you really don't have to keep being bored and cranky in places where you've assumed you will always be bored and cranky.

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.

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Become a exhilarationist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good.

Before bringing your work as an exhilarationist to strangers, practice with two close companions. Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions. It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy. Give them an imaginative boon they've been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, "I love the way you move me."
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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 astrological omens, I closed my eyes and asked the spirits for a psychic vision that would symbolize your imminent future. The scenario that came up was a pair of toddlers dressed in fine purple satin garments and wearing golden hats. They looked like a prince and princess, and were wandering around inside a ritual circle about ten yards in diameter, drawn with white chalk in a green meadow. Vases of cut flowers and statues of gods and goddesses ringed the circle. So what does my vision mean? Maybe this: Two magnificent possibilities have recently been born or will soon be born. You should cast a protective spell around them, letting them amble and dally within a proscribed area as their magic ripens.

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.

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Here's the catch about pronoia: Life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it, but it doesn't necessarily give you exactly what you want, exactly when you want it. Talk about the differences between what you want and what you need.
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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 spas are now offering their clients "butt facials." The cost for smoothing and toning your skin in the lower realms can range up to $800 per session. At that steep price, I can't in good conscience mandate the procedure for you. But the astrological omens are favorable for you to take special care of things at the bottom of your life, even if they are more metaphorical in nature. So please brainstorm about how you could upgrade your ballast, strengthen your foundation, and give your center of gravity a boost.

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.

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You are potentially a genius. Maybe not in the same way that Einstein and Beethoven were, but still: You possess some exceptional capacity that is absolutely unique. You're a masterpiece unlike any other that has ever lived in the history of the world.

Furthermore, the precise instructions you need to ripen into your genius have always been with you, even from the time before you were born. In the words of psychologist James Hillman, you have a soul's code.

You might also call it the special mission you came to Earth to carry out; the divine blueprint that contains the open secret of how to be perfectly, unpredictably yourself; the master plan that is your heart's deepest desire.

Would you like help in deciphering it? The Divine Intelligence Formerly Known as God is always on call, ready to help. It's your birthright to ask Her a specific question every day about what you need to do next to express your soul's code; it's also your birthright to receive a response.

The divine revelation may not be as unambiguous as a little voice in your head. It might appear in the form of a TV commercial, an odd dream, or an encounter with a stranger. It could be demanding and difficult, delivering information you'd rather not have to deal with. Or it might show up as a clear and simple feeling of knowing exactly what to do, and it could be easy and fun.

What question will you ask the Divine Wow today?
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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.

Studies show that 58 percent of us think our IQs are higher than average. That can't be true, of course. But maybe one sign of a person with a below-average IQ is the delusion that he's pretty intelligent. Having said that, however, I confidently predict that at least 58 percent of all Cancerians will exceed the mediocre norm in the coming weeks. The figure may even rise as high as 75 percent. The astrological omens suggest you have the potential to be smarter than you've ever been. Use your acuity constructively!

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.

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In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking. While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.
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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.

Was there a dream that you abandoned some time ago? Was there a power you recklessly gave up? Do you ever think longingly about a knack or skill that withered away because you stopped wielding it with the regularity and excellence it demanded? It's time to revisit defeats like those, Leo. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you're in good shape to reimagine the original experiences in ways that could help you recover what was lost.

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.

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Is there anything more dangerous than getting up in the morning and having nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat you up? That state can be a threat to your health. If untreated, it incites an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might rouse some excitement.

Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself--indeed, you make yourself--through the riddles you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.
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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 advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness," wrote French poet Paul Valery. From that perspective, Virgo, I bet you'll be sparkling and brisk in the coming days. You will be cheeky and saucy, crisp and rosy, bright and well-ventilated. There'll be so much delightfully hard-to-understand novelty flowing your way that you will be awakened again and again and again, rising to a higher level of awareness each time.

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.

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Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of an ultimate truth.

We half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain. We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our sleeping genius.

There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty--let's call it the delightful dilemma--that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when you're feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing this book is a good example. I've had a good time handling the perplexing challenges with which it has confronted me.

Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile. Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your predominant state of mind. Consider the possibility that being in unsettling circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the riddles you need most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions when you're preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or demeaning annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.

Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain. You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before you're forced to do so by divine kicks in the ass.
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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 19th-century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau accomplished a lot. Among his voluminous body of work was Civil Disobedience, a book that inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. In the two-million-word journal he kept for over two decades, he wrote about nature with a precision and care that prefigured modern-day environmentalism. But Thoreau also knew how to relax, and he was free of anxiety about living up to other people's standards of success. One passage in his journal reads, "For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it." He's your role model for the rest of 2008, Libra. May he inspire you to give yourself the slack you need and compete with no one but yourself as you become more of the unique work of art you were born to be.

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.

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To many people, "sacrifice" is a demoralizing word that connotes deprivation. Is that how you feel? Do you make sacrifices because you're forced to, or maybe because your generosity prompts you to incur a loss in order to further a good cause?

Originally, "sacrifice" had a different meaning: to give up something valuable in order that something even more valuable might be obtained. Carry out an action that embodies this definition. For instance, sacrifice a mediocre pleasure so as to free yourself to pursue a more exalted pleasure.
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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.

Everyone's life is a hero's journey, yours included. You have been on an epic quest ever since you first realized that your destiny is unlike anyone else's, and that you have specific tasks to master as you pursue the long-term dreams that are uniquely meaningful to you. But like all the rest of us, you sometimes lose sight of this big-picture view for months at a time. You may even be fairly happy as you focus on your daily details without any thought of where your you'll be years from now. If that's the rhythm you've been in lately, Scorpio -- and I suspect it is -- it's about to change. Your immersion in the next major phase of your hero's journey will begin soon.

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.

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Many concepts we use to interpret our experience originated in books written by people who are long gone. That's why philosopher Norman O. Brown (who died in 2002) says in his book Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis, "The bondage to books compels us not to see with our own eyes; compels us to see with the eyes of the dead, with dead eyes. There is a hex on us, the authority of the past; and to exorcise these ghosts is the great work of magical self-liberation."

Melville Davisson Post (who died in 1930) echoes the theme in his book Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries. "It is the dead who govern. Look how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! All the writers, when they would give weight and authority to their opinions, quote the dead. Our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!"

Whose dead eyes do you see with? What would it be like to see the world without 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.

Michelangelo never finished two-thirds of the sculptures he started. Basketball mega-star Michael Jordan failed on 26 different occasions when he was given the ball to try the game-winning shot as time ran out. Of Bob Dylan's 57 albums, maybe only 15 of them are masterpieces. I bring these facts to your attention, Sagittarius, in the hope that they will give you some perspective on the down times in your own track record. More importantly, I want to let you know that in the coming weeks you should have access to the kind of energy that Michelangelo, Jordan, and Dylan had when they were creating their legends.

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.

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Have you ever seen the game called "Playing the Dozens?" Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other. Here are some examples: "You're so dumb, if you spoke your mind you'd be speechless." "Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper." "You're so ugly, you couldn't get laid if you were a brick."

I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of "Playing the Dozens." Instead, try a new game, "Paying the Tributes." Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them. The best stuff will be specific to the person you're addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: "You're so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head." "You're so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous." "Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy."
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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 bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes," wrote Plato in The Republic, "either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye quite as much as of the bodily eye." He goes on to say that when a person leaves the light and enters into the shadows, his vision in perplexed, being unaccustomed to the dark. And when he moves from the murk into the brightness, it takes a while for his sight to adjust to the dazzle. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Capricorn, you had to deal with the first kind of temporary blindness about three weeks ago, and will begin experiencing the second kind any day now.

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.

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Charles Darwin said the "survival of the fittest" is a central factor in the process of evolution. What exactly did he mean by that? He makes it clear in his book, The Origin of Species: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

What would you have to do to make yourself superbly fit according to Darwin’s definition?
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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 addition to food, air, water, sleep, and love, every human being needs stories. No one can psychically survive without the continuous flow of narrative through his or her imagination. And just as there is a big difference between the physical nourishment provided by a salad or by a candy bar, so is there a wide range of quality in the stories you expose yourself to. Soaking up the adventures of über-playboy Hugh Hefner and his three girlfriends on the TV show "The Girls Next Door" will probably deplete your energy and lower your intelligence, while reading Tom Robbins' novel Jitterbug Perfume may enhance your mental hygiene and sharpen your perceptions. What I'm saying here is always true, of course, but it's especially important for you to keep in mind right now. From what I can tell, you're ravenous for beautiful, uncanny, uplifting stories.

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.

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Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.

Name three specific actions you'd like to try in order to improve your luck.
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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 uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions," said British writer Antony Jay. If you'd like to be in close alignment with cosmic rhythms, Pisces, you will keep that meditation in the foreground of your awareness. Your imagination will be extraordinarily fertile in the coming week, and I can't think of a better way to deploy it than to smoke out and lovingly annihilate the lazy, useless, and just plain bad questions that are threatening to lead you and others astray.

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

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Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder? Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.

Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.
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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.