What perplexing defeat was inflicted on you once upon a time -- a defeat that you still can't figure out how to rise above? What painful memory continues to lurk at the edges of your awareness, taunting you with its implication that you'll never be whole? This is the time and this is the place, Aries, to solve a riddle like that so that you can move on to the next chapter of your life. You will get unexpected help and inspiration if you make it your intention to heal what has been hard to heal. Halloween costume suggestion: a doctor or nurse wearing a sign that says, "Physician, heal thyself."

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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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 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. Go here to listen to "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

You don't have to be anything you don't want to be, Taurus. Please read that last sentence again, drinking it in as if it were an elixir you've been longing for since you were 13 years old. Here are some corollaries: You don't have to live up to anyone's expectations. There's no need to strive for a kind of perfection that's not very interesting to you. You don't have to believe in ideas that make you sad or tormented, and you don't have to feel emotions that others try to manipulate you into feeling. In short, you are free to be exactly who you want to be. Celebrate that this Halloween season. Costume yourself as the person you've been hiding.

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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Every January 1, many people make New Year's resolutions, promising to embark on programs of self-improvement. But your assignment now, should you choose to accept it, is to create a list of ANTI-resolutions.

Here are some questions to guide you: 1. What outlandish urges and controversial tendencies do you promise to cultivate in the coming months? 2. What nagging irritations will you ignore and avoid with even greater ingenuity? 3. What problems do you promise to exploit in order to have even more fun as you make the status quo accountable for its corruption? 4. What boring rules and traditions will you thumb your nose at, paving the way for exciting encounters with strange attractors?
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

On some occasions in the coming week, you'll be wise to act loyal, playful, and unironically enthusiastic. At those times, you will attract the influences you need if you adopt the mindset of a dog that loves to play Frisbee. On other occasions, Gemini, I advise you to be cannily self-possessed, fiercely attuned to your own needs, and determined to move at your own pace. Cat-like behavior will be rewarded at those times. Halloween costume suggestion: half-dog and half-cat.

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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Speak the following lines out loud:
I love everything about me
I love my uncanny beauty and my bewildering pain
I love my hungry soul and my wounded longing
I love my flaws, my fears, and my scary frontiers

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself
I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself
I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself
I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past," said Thomas Jefferson. It might feel a bit unnatural to live as if that were your motto, Cancerian, but I hope you'll try it for a while. Here's the experiment I propose: Whenever you have a spare moment, visualize a pleasurable and interesting scene you would like to create for yourself in the future. If a fearful image pops into your mind as you do that, imagine yourself rolling that image up into a ball and throwing it into a roaring fire. Meanwhile, any time your attention begins to wander off in the direction of the old days and old ways, pounce on it and redirect it into a vision of a fulfillment to come. Halloween costume suggestion: the person you'll be five years from now.

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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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 tone 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. Go here to listen to "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

According to San Francisco's Famous Wayne, the shoeshine king of the world, very few women get their shoes shined. Meanwhile, Ngo Thi Lam, the proprietress of the nail salon near my house, says that only a tiny percentage of her pedicure customers are men. I hope that you Leos buck these trends in the coming days. It's high time for you to try new approaches to the lowest part of you. You need to become more grounded, and an excellent way to expedite the shift will be to pay close, creative attention to your feet. Halloween costume suggestion: Find or create gorgeous, extravagant shoes that don't make your feet hurt.

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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For some seekers, spiritual enlightenment is the ultimate commodity. They believe that through diligent meditation and self-improvement, there will come a day when it will no longer elude their grasp. Breaking through to the singular state of cosmic consciousness, they will forever after own it, free and clear. Permanently illuminated! Never to backslide into the dull ignominy of normal human awareness!

Here's what I have to say about that: It's a delusion.

The fact is, the nature of perfection is always mutating. What constitutes enlightenment today will always be different tomorrow. Even if you're fortunate and wise enough to score a sliver of "enlightenment," it's not a static treasure that becomes your indestructible, everlasting possession. Rather, it remains a mercurial knack that must be continually re-earned.

If you want to befriend the Divine Wow, you must not only be willing to change ceaselessly—you have to love to change ceaselessly.

Lucky you: All of creation is conspiring to help you live like 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. Go here to listen to "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

If you and I were members of the French Resistance during the German occupation of our country in World War II, I'd want you to serve as the communication hub for our community. With understated ferocity, you would gather data about what's going on behind the scenes. You'd be precise and economical in relaying messages between your comrades and allies, accurately representing the information people entrusted you with. You would be alert without being overwrought, and discerning without getting distracted by inefficient rage. In that dire setting, Virgo, I bet you'd be indispensable. I challenge you to bring those same skills to bear in the relatively benign circumstances you're now in the midst of. Halloween costume suggestion: French Resistance leader.

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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The Golden Rule is a decent ethical principle, but it could be even better. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" presumes that others enjoy what you enjoy. But that's wrong. There are many things you'd like to have done unto you that others would either despise or be bored by. Here's a new, improved formulation, which we call the Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would like to have you do unto them.

Using this improved formula is not just a virtuous way to live, but is also the best way to ensure the success of your selfish goals. The rituals and spells of various occult orders purport to be supercharged techniques for imposing your personal will on the chaotic flow of events, but I say that practicing the Platinum Rule outstrips all of them as an exercise to enhance your power and happiness.
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

"If you don't make mistakes," says Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek, "you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake." Take that to heart, Libra. Here are some of the questions you might want to ask yourself in the coming days: 1. "Am I dallying with minor challenges that are beneath me?" 2. "Are my current dilemmas truly worthy of my soulful intelligence?" 3. "Should I go in search of more interesting problems?" 4. "Is it time to upgrade the level of mistakes that I'm risking?" Halloween costume suggestions: a magnificent klutz, a daring clown, or a pioneer wearing a big band-aid on your booboo.

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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HELP WANTED. Practical dreamers with high emotional intelligence needed to become experts in the following subjects: the art of possessing abundant resources without feeling greed or a sense of superiority; the science of cultivating luxurious comfort in a way that does not lead to spiritual sloth; and a knack for enjoying peace and serenity without diluting one's ambition.
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

In the coming week, you can generate a lot of good karma for yourself by being an initiator. That's why I advise you to never sit back passively and merely watch what's unfolding, but rather formulate a vision of what you'd like to see happen, set your intention to make it happen, and then plunge into action with brisk aplomb. Halloween costume suggestions: fire-starter, seed-planter, fertility god or goddess.

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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Most religions designate a special class of people -- priests, rabbis, ayatollahs -- to oversee official communications with the Source. This has led to a prevailing assumption, even among those who don't follow an established faith, that we can't initiate a divine conversation without the aid of a professional class of trained mediators. Among some sects of the ancient gnostics, in contrast, everyone was regarded as a potential prophet who could experience epiphanies worthy of becoming part of the ever-evolving doctrine.

As you create your own spiritual path, experiment with this approach. What might you do to eliminate the middleman and commune directly with the Source?

Name the ways you already use this approach, and brainstorm about others you might like to try.
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

Medical insurance is out of reach for 46 million of my fellow Americans. Our country is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as with a ghostly omnipresent foe known as terrorism. Our national debt is stupendous, our stock market has plunged, and many companies once thought to be towers of strength have failed. Meanwhile, right next door, Canada has universal healthcare and a budget surplus. Its banks are solvent and it is embroiled in zero wars. Am I jealous? Of course. Am I planning to emigrate? No. I'm going to stay here and keep agitating for goodness and justice and beauty. After evaluating your astrological omens, Sagittarius, I suggest that you do the equivalent in your own life: Stand your ground as you work to fix the flawed situation you've been given; don't flee to where the grass seems greener. Halloween costume suggestions: an elder statesman, wise crone, or charismatic teacher.

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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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.

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.

Meditate on how one of the symbols of plenitude in Nepal is a mongoose vomiting jewels.

Once a year on the day before your birthday, say these words into a mirror: "It's bad luck to be superstitious."

Start a club whose purpose is to produce an archive of controversial jokes and obscene limericks about beauty, truth, and love.
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

You have the potential to throw the best party ever, and also to elevate the radiance of other people's parties through the force of your personality. Your social instincts are superb, by which I mean they're brilliant when it comes to mixing business and pleasure and knowing how to strengthen alliances while invoking maximum fun. Your knack for getting people to work together in a noble purpose is at a peak. Halloween costume suggestion: a cross between a party animal and a community organizer. Or you and your friends could re-enact the Boston Tea Party.

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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Say this: "Novel intuitions are now erupting from my smart heart, awakening me from any trance I've been ensnared in. I am hereby breaking and escaping obstructions that have hindered my ability to express my soul's code. All of my unique capacities are being unleashed, all of my potentials activated. I recognize that I'm a miraculous work of art, a masterpiece unlike any other ever created in the history of the world."

Say this: "I am a genius. I am a lucky, plucky, good-sucking genius."
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

If I were dressing you for Halloween, I would be inclined to draw on the inspiration of those old fairy tales that feature the theme of restoration: like the prince who, because of a curse, has lived for years as a frog, only to be returned to his rightful body and role through the kiss of a merciful soul; or like a princess who is stolen as a baby from the royal family by an old bear and raised by the beast in a forest cave, but is finally tracked down and rescued by the queen on one of her endless searches. I bet your actual life will feature a storyline similar to those.

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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Since 1994, Mexico's Zapatistas have evolved from a small guerrilla army fighting for the rights of indigenous people to an international cultural force whose battles are mostly waged with symbols and words. The Zapatista leader, who goes by the pseudonym Subcomandante Marcos, always appears in public wearing a mask. Every 12 months or so, his old mask wears out and he has to replace it with a fresh one.

I think this would be a good standard for all of us to live up to: to molt our personas, or social masks, at least once a year. It's that time for 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. Go here to listen to "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.

If you knew how perfect a time it is for you to dance the forbidden dance, you would begin immediately. You would break out the sexy, world-in-upheaval grooves you sometimes slip into during your ecstatic flying dreams. You would unleash the words that have never been spoken, crack the codes that have never been broken, and give the love that has previously been verboten. Please, dear Pisces, have faith in your ability to thrive in the wild frontier where many of the rules are negotiable and every fantasy is ripe to be mutated. Halloween costume suggestion: the dancer who dances the forbidden dance.

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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In some spiritual traditions, devotees attempt an arduous process of self-transformation as they retrain themselves to perceive the world from God's point of view. If they succeed, they're honored with an initiation ritual and given a new name to consecrate their altered state.

I have the same problem with this custom that I have with the idea of enlightenment: Once isn’t enough. Just as anyone in his or her right spiritual mind has a duty to keep claiming fresh varieties of enlightenment until the end of time, so should the initiations and renamings continue forever.

In my opinion, these considerations apply to you. You may not have sequestered yourself for years in a mountaintop monastery, and you may not have risen every morning at 5 a.m. to say prayers for hours, but you are an authentic devotee who has undergone equivalent ordeals. Your spiritual transformation has unfolded as you've dealt with the challenges of daily life during our epic moment in history, when unprecedented levels of annihilation and resurrection are the norm.

You have earned the right, therefore, to enjoy enlightenment after enlightenment and initiation after initiation and renaming after renaming.

I invite you to get started with a do-it-yourself initiation ceremony. It doesn't have to be long and complicated, and you can create it yourself. As an example of what you might do, here's a ritual that some Beauty and Truth Laboratory's initiates have performed: 1. Eat a pinch of dirt to declare your solidarity with Mother Earth. 2. Burn a five-dollar bill to purify your relationship with symbols of wealth. 3. Kick yourself in the ass to affirm your ongoing intention to discipline your shadow.

As one of your initiatory rewards, consider adopting a fresh alias during this and every initiation you carry out in the future. You can abandon your existing name if you want, or simply add your new tag to the current mix.

To celebrate the occasion, I invoke on your behalf the inspiration of all shedding things. Your tree of power will be the eucalyptus, whose bark peels away to reveal fresh layers beneath. Your lucky symbol will be the molting snake. Your sacred insect will be the silverfish, which bursts through its exoskeleton as it grows a new and bigger one. Your role model will be Japanese artist Hokusai (1760–1849), who had such a passionate commitment to reinventing himself that he celebrated 60 births, each time giving himself a new name.
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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 "This Is a Perfect Moment," a podcast featuring material from the book.