"You can't know fire unless you play with it," says Mark Finney, a math whiz who develops computer models for fighting forest fires. I offer that as a motto for you in the coming week, Aries. I'm not saying you should purposely ignite a conflagration for the sake of impulsive experimentation. I'm not saying you should kick smoldering embers around like soccer balls or light a cigarette while you're pumping gasoline or buy yourself a flame-thrower. What I am saying is that it will be in your interest to learn more about how to play safely with intriguing, useful fires. (Finney's quote comes from the July 2008 issue of National Geographic.)

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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The novelist Willa Cather once said: "One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness. One only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere."

But I disagree with Willa Cather. I share the view of Rick Foster and Greg Hicks, who wrote the book, How We Choose to Be Happy: The 9 Choices of Extremely Happy People. They say that the number one trait of happy people is a serious determination to be happy. In other words, they say bliss is not an accident that you stumble upon by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere. Bliss is a habit that you can cultivate. Which theory would you prefer to believe?

Here's what I say. Terence McKenna said it for me: "I believe reality is a marvelous joke staged for my edification and amusement, and everybody is working very hard to make me happy."
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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 time for keeping the doors closed is passing. But it is not yet the right moment to fling them wide open. According to my reading of the omens, your best strategy is to keep doors ajar -- open just a crack, letting some air in and allowing a hint of your light to trickle out. This will discourage unfocused wanderers from barging in, while at the same time it encourages worthy candidates with a healthy curiosity to sneak peeks inside.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Try this meditation: Imagine that you are both the wood and the fire that consumes the wood. When you focus your awareness on the part of you that is the wood, you hurt; it's painful to feel your sense of solidity disintegrating. But as you shift your attention to the part of you that is the fire, you exult in the wild joy of liberation and power.

It may be tempting to visualize yourself more as the fire than the wood. But if you'd like to understand life's blessing in their fullness, you've got to be both wood and fire simultaneously.
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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.

"There is a rose in Spanish Harlem," sings Ben E. King in his old pop ballad. "It is a special one/ It's never seen the sun/ It only comes out when the moon is on the run." King is fantasizing with longing about an alluring woman from a hardscrabble neighborhood. The rose is "growing in the street/ right up through the concrete" -- a delicate beauty blooming amidst tough conditions. Your assignment, Gemini, is to cultivate a connection with your equivalent of that rose.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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While you and I are together here:

Your favorite phrase is flux gusto

The colors of your soul are sable, vermilion, ivory, and jade

Your magic talisman is a thousand-year-old Joshua tree whose flowers blossom just one night each year and can only be pollinated by the yucca moth

Your holiest pain comes from your yearning to change yourself in the exact way you'd like the world around you to change

Your soil of destiny is peat moss

Your mythic symbol is a treasure chest dislodged from its hiding place in the earth by a flood

Your lucky number is 13 to the 13th power

Your sweet spot is in between the true believers and the scoffing skeptics

A clutch of frog eggs from an unpolluted river is your auspicious hair-care product

The anonymous celebrity with whom you have most in common is the jester who followed Buddha around and kept him loose

The question that perks you up when your routine becomes too rote is this: What possesses the bar-tailed godwit to migrate annually from Alaska to New Zealand by hitching rides on gale-force winds?
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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.

Every second of your life, your bone marrow produces 100 trillion molecules of hemoglobin, the stuff that carries oxygen from your lungs to the rest of you. Meanwhile, every minute, your immune system begets 10 million lymphocytes, which are key players in your body's defenses. These are just two examples of the endless marvels you produce, Cancerian. You are a creator of the first order. You're a supreme maker and a generative genius. Remember that in the coming days. It will help you be confident and purposeful as you birth minor miracles and intimate wonders.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Material in the "Free Will Astrology" horoscopes may be too intense and controversial for some readers. It contains graphic scenes of peace, love, joy, passion, reverence, splendor, and understanding. Within these pages, there is a severe dearth of references to alcoholism, suicide, prostitution, bigotry, lawsuits, greed, explosions, child abuse, terrorism, embezzlement, plane crashes, extortion, medical malpractice, betrayal, armed robbery, heart disease, rape, arson, and torture. Therefore, you should proceed with caution if you are a jaded hipster who is suspicious of feeling healthy and happy. Ask yourself: "Am I ready to stop equating cynicism with insight? Do I dare take the risk that exposing myself to uplifting entertainment might dull my intelligence?" If you doubt your ability to handle relaxing breakthroughs, you should avoid reading the "Free Will Astrology" horoscopes.
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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.

For decades the U.S. government has handed out far more welfare benefits to big corporations than to poor people. Companies like IBM, General Electric, Boeing, and others rake in over 100 billion dollars of subsidies each year. In other words, socialism has been a prominent feature of our so-called capitalist system for a long time. Recently, Karl Marx's influence has made even deeper inroads into the American way, with the government becoming part-owner of many banks in order to keep them solvent. Will any of this fantastic largesse be extended to us regular citizens, like maybe in the form of nationalized health care? I can't answer that. But I do know this, Leo: In the coming months, you will get help from powers that you regard as above and beyond you.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It's the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It's a mode of retraining your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.

PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with 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.

For many people, 10:30 a.m. is the single best time of day to come up with fresh insights and new ideas. But that won't exactly be true for you in the coming week. I mean, 10:30 will be a time when you're likely to be really smart, but then so will 11:30, 1:05, 2:37, 3:46, and 4:20. For that matter, 6:35 may also bring a gush of high intelligence, as well as 7:27, 8:19, and the last ten minutes before bedtime. What I'm trying to tell you, Virgo, is that you're in a phase when being brilliant should come pretty naturally.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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"The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is--it must be something you cannot possibly do." What is that task 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.

Ruminate a minute about the people who don't see you for who you really are. Some of them are enemies, but others may be loved ones or allies. Consider the possibility that you have unconsciously bought in to their beliefs about you; that you are at least partially trapped in the habit of acting like the person they think you are. Now visualize what it would be like to free yourself from the images and expectations they have of you. Imagine the exhilaration you'd feel if you answered only to the still, small voice of your own lucid intuition. The coming weeks will be a good time for you to practice this high art.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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With luck and persistence, you will be able to claim the rewards promised you at the beginning of time--not just any old beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, freedom, and justice, but rather exhilarating beauty that incites you to be true to yourself; crazy wisdom that immunizes you against the temptation to believe your ideals are ultimate truths; outrageous goodness that inspires you to experiment with boisterous empathy; generous freedom that keeps you alert for opportunities to share your wealth; insurrectionary love that endlessly transforms you; and a lust for justice that's leavened with a knack for comedy, keeping you honest as you work humbly to liberate everyone in the world from ignorance and suffering.
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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 New York Times ran a story about philosopher Nick Bostrom. He believes there's a significant chance our world is actually a computer simulation. In his scenario, you and I are living in a version of The Matrix. Our "brains" are merely webs of computer circuits created by our post-human descendants, who are studying "ancestor simulations" of their past. I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because it's an excellent time for you to find out, one way or another, whether Bostrom is correct. Right now you have a special talent for knowing what's real and what's not. You've also got a knack for escaping what's illusory and gravitating toward what's authentic. So even if you do find out that we're living in The Matrix, you could become a kind of messiah with resemblances to the character that Keanu Reaves played in the film trilogy.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up. Through some magic you don’t fully understand, you’re still breathing and your heart is beating, even though you’ve been unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that’s just right for your body’s needs, as it was before you fell asleep.

You can see! Light of many colors floods into your eyes, registered by nerves that took God or evolution or some process millions of years to perfect. The interesting gift of these vivid hues is furthermore made possible by an unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun, that continually detonates nuclear reactions in order to convert its body into light and heat and energy for your personal use.

You can walk! Your legs work wonderfully well. Your heart circulates your blood all the way down to replenish the energy of the muscles in your feet and calves and thighs, and when the blood has delivered its blessings, it finds its way back to your heart to be refreshed. This wondrous mystery recurs over and over again without stopping every hour of your life.

You can smell aromas and you can hear sounds and you can taste tastes, many of which are quite enjoyable. You can think! You can feel feelings and visualize images of things that don't even exist. You’re in possession of the extraordinary power of self-awareness. Do you realize how far-fetched that stupendous ability is? You not only know that you are you. You also know that you know that you know you are you.

Each of the 50 trillion cells in your body can be considered a sentient being in its own right, and they all act together as a community, performing an ongoing act of prodigious collaboration.

By some improbable series of coincidences or long-term divine plan, language has come into existence. Millions of people have collaborated for many centuries to cultivate a system for communication that you understand very well. Speaking and reading and writing give you great pleasure and a tremendous sense of potency.

Do you remember when you were born, by the way? It was a difficult miracle that involved many people who worked very hard on your behalf. No less miraculous is the fact that you have continued to grow since then, with millions of new cells being born within you all the time to replace the old ones that are dying. It's just like magic.
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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 his book Signs of Success, astrologer Steven Weiss says "The question 'Do you believe in astrology?' is like asking someone if they believe in art." I agree. Picture a no-nonsense physicist gazing at a Kandinsky painting, with its teeming blobs of mad color and exuberant shapes, and declaring it to be a superstitious eruption of delusion that's not based on a logical understanding of the world. Like Kandinsky's perspective, astrology at its best roots us in the poetic language of the soul, and isn't blindly submissive to the values of the rational ego. It's here to liberate our imaginations and encourage us to think less literally and to visualize our lives as mythic quests. I bring this to your attention, Sagittarius, because right now it's crucial that you spend some quality time in modes of awareness akin to Kandinsky's and astrology's.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. The physicist Werner Heisenberg declared that the universe is made of music, not of matter.

And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories and music, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it's impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be. That's why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales and tunes that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good.
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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.

Check out this excerpt from "Those Who Do Not Dance," by Chilean poet Gabriel Mistral: "God asked from on high, / 'How do I come down from this blueness?' / We told Him: /come dance with us in the light." I love this passage because it reminds me that nothing is ever set in stone: Everything is always up for grabs. Even God needs to be open to change and eager for fresh truths. Furthermore, even we puny humans may on occasion need to be God's teacher and helper. Likewise, we can never be sure about what lowly or unexpected sources may bring us the influences we require. What do Mistral's words mean to you, Capricorn? Imagine you're the "God" referenced in the poem. What blueness are you ready to come down from, and who might invite you to dance in their light?

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Six miles from Maui is a Hawaiian island that tourists never visit—Kaho'olawe. The U.S. Navy seized it in 1941 and used it as a target range for decades. After years of protests by Native Hawaiians, the Navy finally stopped bombing and began a clean-up campaign. In November, 2003, it formally turned control of the island over to the rightful owners.

"You can get a feel on Kaho'olawe of what it was like to live on Hawaii at the time of our ancestors," says Native Hawaiian Davianna McGregor. "We can practice our traditions there without it being a tourist attraction. It's one place we can go to be in communion with our natural life forces."
Each of us has a personal version of Kaho'olawe: a part of our psyche that has been stolen or colonized by hostile forces. To grow bolder in exploring pronoia, you'll need to take back yours.
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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.

All of the good works you do in the coming week will send ripples far and wide, but not all of them will be recognized and appreciated. I hope that's OK with you; I hope you won't get obsessed with trying to get all the credit you deserve. The fact is, your influences will be more effective and enduring if they are at least partially anonymous. Ironically, your power will be greater if it's not fully noticed.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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"Whoever has, shall be given more and more," reads the Gospel of Matthew, "while whoever has nothing, even what he has will be taken away from him."

Pronoiac translation: 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 abundant evidence of how true that is.

If, on the other hand, you dwell on the good things that make you feel grateful to be alive, they will probably multiply.
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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.

Describing his writing class at Sarah Lawrence College, Jeffrey McDaniel says: "There are two kinds of humor: ha-ha humor that is light and airy and floats into the sky like a balloon, vanishing as the giggling subsides; and then there is a darker, heavier humor that is still there when the laughter stops, a humor that must be reckoned with, a humor with teeth." I suggest, Pisces, that you make the latter your specialty, your passion, and your medicine. Consort with belly laughs and sublime guffaws that rouse the ferocity you need in order to penetrate deeper into the heart of the Great Mystery.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on the riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.

But more than any other vision I've ever tested, pronoia describes the way the world actually is. It's wetter than water, stronger than death, and truer than the news. It smells like cedar smoke in early spring rain, and if you close your eyes right now, you can feel it shimmering like the aurora borealis in your organs and muscles. Its song is your blood's song.

Some people argue that life is strife and suffering is normal. Others swear we're born sinful and only heaven can provide us with the peace that passes understanding. But pronoia says that being alive on the rough green and brown earth is the highest honor and privilege. It's an invitation to work wonders and perform miracles that aren't possible in any nirvana, promised land, or afterlife.

I'm not exaggerating or indulging in poetic metaphor when I tell you that we are already living in paradise. Visualize it if you dare. The sweet stuff that quenches all of our longing is not far away in some other time and place. It's right here and right now.

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew the truth: "Earth's crammed with heaven."
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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.