Believe it or not, whatever has been limiting your movement has also been expanding your capacities. It's true. The pinching sensation you've had to endure has been covertly generating psychic fuel that you will soon be able to access. Therefore, Aries, I say unto you: Praise your squelchers and constrictors! Be grateful for your stiflers and tweakers! They have primed you for the arrival of a luminous boon.

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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Whatever you choose to focus your attention on, you will get more of it. If you often think of everything you lack and how sad you are that you don't have it, you will tend to receive prolific evidence of how true that is. As you obsess on all the ways your life is different from what you wish it would be, you will become an expert in rousing feelings of frustration and you will attract experiences that assist you in rousing frustration.

If, on the other hand, you dwell on the good things you have already had the privilege to experience, you will expand your appreciation for their blessings, which in turn will amplify their beneficent impact on your life. You will also magnetize yourself to receive further good things, making it more likely that they will be attracted into your sphere. At the very least, you will get in the habit of enjoying yourself no matter what the outward circumstances are.
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

"An uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter," says the Talmud. But professional dream researcher Stephen LaBerge thinks that's too broad a statement. In his book Lucid Dreaming, he says dreams are more like poems than letters. If you try to extract literal meanings from them in the service of your ego, they may reveal nothing. But if you're willing to find lyrical, unexpected information that could aerate your imagination and dislodge you from your habits, dreams are more likely to be useful. Keeping in mind everything I've said, Taurus, treat the events of your waking life in the coming week as if they were poems coming from a dreamy part of your psyche that's enticing you to change your life.

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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Novel intuitions are erupting from your smart heart, awakening you from any trance you've been ensnared in. You're breaking and escaping obstructions that have suppressed your brilliance. Your soul's code is unleashing itself, revealing in explosive precision why you're a miraculous work of art, proving with intricate artistry why you're a masterpiece unlike any other ever created in the history of the world.
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

As you navigate your way through the challenges ahead of you, should you rely on what you know or on what you don't know? That's a good question. I'm inclined to advise you to go with what you know when it concerns your security, and to go with what you don't know when you're pursuing pleasure. So if you're trying to come to a decision about what will make you feel at home, trust what the past has taught you. But as you seek creative inspiration and effervescent adventure, shed all precedents. P.S. This is one of those rare times when you can interweave comfort and thrills, safety and risk, tradition and novelty.

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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Where exactly does happiness come from? That's the riddle posed by David Meyers and Ed Diener in their article, "The Science of Happiness," published in The Futurist magazine. I invite you to write your own answers to their question. Map out the foundations of your own science of happiness. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good. What specific experiences arouse your deepest gratification? Physical pleasure? Seeking the truth? Being a good person? Contemplating the meaning of life? Enjoying the fruits of your accomplishments? Purging pent-up emotion?
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

Her brush with sublime wisdom has done wonders for Paris Hilton. "Kabbalah helps you confront your fears," she told Us magazine. "Like if a girl borrowed my clothes and never gave them back, and I saw her wearing them months later, I would confront her." You can snicker if you like, but Paris's testimony exemplifies my main point for you: It's crucial that you get practical use out of your religion or spirituality. So please take measures to vigorously translate your highest ideals into your everyday actions. What would it mean, for example, to invite God to inhabit your lips as you kiss someone? Or to prepare your food as if you were going to offer it to a beloved saint? Or to speak every word as if it were a well-crafted prayer? Ask yourself 20 times a day, what would Buddha (or your greatest hero) do?

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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Philosopher William James proposed that if our culture ever hoped to shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we'd have to create a moral equivalent. It's not enough to preach the value of peace, he said. We have to find other ways to channel our aggressive instincts in order to accomplish what war does, like stimulate political unity and build civic virtue.

Astrology provides a complementary perspective. Each of us has the warrior energy of the planet Mars in our psychological make-up. We can't simply repress it, but must find a positive way to express it. How you might go about this project?
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

What you're about to leave behind is helpful but a bit dull; it's fortifying but old-fashioned; comforting but homely. What you're headed toward, on the other hand, is invigorating, through slightly disruptive; it's futuristic and amusingly confusing; interesting but also a real test of your flexibility. The transition may happen faster than you thought it would. Congratulations in advance on being a good-natured transformer.

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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How Pronoia Works, from an old Taoist folk tale

There was once a poor farmer who could afford to own just one horse. He cared well for the animal, but one summer night, it escaped through a weak fence and ran away.

When his neighbors discovered what had happened, they visited to offer their condolences. "What bad luck!" they exclaimed. The farmer replied, "Maybe. Maybe not."

A week later, the fugitive horse sauntered back to the homestead, accompanied by six wild horses. The farmer and his son managed to corral all of them. Again the neighbors descended. "What great luck!" they exclaimed. "Maybe," the farmer replied. "Maybe not."

Soon the farmer's son began the work of taming the new arrivals. While attempting to ride the roan stallion, he was thrown to the ground and half-trampled. His leg was badly broken. The neighbors came to investigate. "What terrible luck!" they exclaimed. The farmer replied, "Maybe. Maybe not."

The next day, soldiers visited the farmer's village. Strife had recently broken out between two warlords, and one of them had come to conscript all the local young men. Though every other son was commandeered, the farmer's boy was exempted because of his injury. The neighbors gathered again. "What fantastic luck!" they exclaimed. "Maybe," the farmer said. "Maybe not."
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

I hate to lay a sports metaphor on you, Virgo, let alone one articulated by a hockey player. But it's such an apt description of the approach that will work best for you in the coming week, I had to bring it to your attention. "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been," quoth Wayne Gretzky. Apple CEO Steve Jobs liked those words so much, he made them his own when he introduced the iPhone to the public back in January 2007. Now I hope you will find a way to apply the idea in your own sphere.

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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A Spell to Commit Pronoia, by psychotherapist Jennifer Welwood:

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I am given unimaginable gifts;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.

Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play it is pure delight,
To honor it is true devotion.
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

Delfin Vigil interviewed the band Social Studies for the San Francisco Chronicle. He asked guitarist Aaron Weiss, "What is the meaning of life?" Here's what Weiss said: "Wearing a big name tag, having something stuck in your teeth, walking around with toilet paper stuck to your shoe while awkwardly trying to hit on girls. Living on this planet is worthless without the proper amount of humility." While I think that's close to what the meaning of life has been for you recently, Libra, the definition will soon change to something like this: You come on stage to greet an adoring audience, do a riveting song and dance, then announce that you won't be doing any more shows for a while because you're about to go off and get busy on creating your next big splash.

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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To become a master of desire, keep talking yourself out of being attached to trivial goals and keep talking yourself into being thrilled about the precious few goals that are really important. Here's another way to say it: Wean yourself from ego-driven desires and pour your libido into a longing for beauty, truth, goodness, justice, integrity, creativity, love, and an intimate relationship with the Wild Divine.
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

Three enlightened teenagers I know have formed a gang called The Disciples. It's dedicated to plying the dangerous arts of humility, curiosity, and optimism -- three qualities that are so undervalued in our culture as to be almost taboo. Here's their motto, which reveals how far they're willing to go in order to listen well, keep their egos in check, and constantly scour their surroundings for reasons to be grateful: "We have no issues and no problems, but only questions." I urge you to start your own branch of The Disciples, Scorpio -- or at least work on cultivating their approach.

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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Notice how you feel as you speak the following: "The strong, independent part of me resisted the embarrassing truth for a long time, but I finally came to accept that I'm someone who craves vast amounts of love. Ever since I surrendered to this need, it doesn't nag me all the time, as it used to. In fact, it feels comforting, like a source of sweetness that doesn't go away. I never thought I'd say this, but I've come to treasure the feeling of having a voracious yearning to be loved."
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

A poet friend of mine hatched a scheme for writing a book in record time. He bought a round-trip ticket for a Greyhound bus that would take him from Oakland, California to New York City and back. He vowed that over the course of those nine grueling days and 6,000 miles, as he ate stale sandwiches from vending machines in bus stations and slept sitting up surrounded by strangers, he would churn out an epic-length poem about the experience of traveling cross-country on the most populist form of transportation. The experiment worked. His book was witty, shocking, and entertaining. I urge you to give yourself a comparable assignment, Sagittarius. Invoke the magic of a strict deadline to create something beautiful that will last a long time.

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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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

I would love to place an elegant gold crown on your head. I have the urge to declare you monarch of the expanding realm, maker of new laws, and reshaper of the collective vision. Are you up for wielding that much power? Can you handle an increased level of responsibilities? Or would you prefer to preside over a smaller domain, content merely to keep the daily grind from erupting into chaos now and then? It's mostly up to you. What do you want?

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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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

Unable to control his appetite for prostitutes, New York's Governor Elliot Spitzer destroyed his career. Many observers were aghast at the incomprehensibility of his sacrifice. But Phillip Weiss, writing in New York, said he understood. Spitzer desperately "wanted some 'strange'" -- novelty that's hard to get when you make love with just one person for many years. That's not the kind of variety I advise you to consider in the coming weeks, Aquarius. According to my reading of the omens, it will be prime time for you to seek out some "strange," but not through multiple lovers. Rather, embark on travels outside your usual haunts, entertain surprising ideas unlike any you've been willing to think about before, and pursue unpredictable encounters with people who have a lot to teach 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.

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Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating. Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter. Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good.
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.

In a story about author Gore Vidal in The Independent, Archie Bland reports on an event that happened just after Vidal's parents were married. While traveling to their honeymoon, dad told mom, "'There's something very important I want you to know." Mom grew radiantly expectant, imagining he was about to profess his love with a thrilling intensity. But dad had something else in mind. "I have three balls," he confessed. In the coming week, Pisces, I suspect that one of your expectations will meet a fate similar to mom's hope. But don't fret. In the long run, the revelations that come are likely to be more interesting and valuable to you than the "I have three balls" shocker.

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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Thank your mother for the pain she endured while birthing you.
For three minutes on the first Friday of every month, close your eyes and imagine yourself riding a wild horse through a cemetery.
Fantasize that your so-called "dark side" is sweet and creamy.
When you come home after a day of triumphs, take out the garbage.
Dream you're a red-tailed hawk soaring over a shopping mall.
Forgive yourself for the blindness that put you in the path of those who betrayed you.
Buy seven used gowns worn by famous actresses to the Academy Awards show, and send them gratis to seven Guatemalan teenagers.
Visualize two versions of yourself, one male and one female, holding hands as they gaze into a reflection of the moon on a river.
Keep an image of a sphinx with you at all times.
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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. Go here to listen to a podcast of me delivering a new excerpt from the book.