"Everything is complicated," wrote poet Wallace Stevens. "If that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore." I hope you will choose his wisdom to serve as your guiding light in the coming weeks. It is high time, in my astrological opinion, for you to shed any resentment you might feel for the fact that life is a crazy tangle of mystifying and interesting stories. Celebrate it, Aries! Revel in it. Fall down on your knees and give holy thanks for it. And by the way, here's a big secret: To the extent that you do glory in the complications, the complications will enlighten you, amuse you, and enrich you.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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Is the universe inherently friendly to humans? The answer's got to be either "yes, definitely" or "no, not really." It can't be in between. Whatever you may be inclined to believe, you've got to agree that there's no way to know which is true with absolute certainty.

So then isn't it stupid and self-destructive to live your life as if the universe is unfriendly? Doing so tends to cast a pall over everything. But if on the other hand you proceed on the hypothesis that the universe is friendly, you're inclined to interpret everything that occurs as a gift, however challenging it may be to figure out its purpose at first.

For three weeks, try living your life as if the latter theory were true.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

This is one time when you can be both the river and the bridge. In fact, I strongly suggest that you make every effort to be both the river and the bridge. I'll leave it up to you to interpret how this metaphor applies to your life, but here's a clue to get you started. Be a force of nature that flows vigorously along even as you also provide a refuge for those who want to be close to your energy but are not yet ready to be inside it and flow along with it.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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"The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground," says an Egyptian proverb. Keep that thought in mind as you head into your next phase of growth. What part of you needs to deepen as you rise up? What growth needs to unfold in the hidden places as you gravitate toward the light? How can you go about balancing and stabilizing your ascension with a downward penetration?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Almost exactly ten years from now, you will be blessed with an eruption of personal power that's so crafty and so practical that you will be able to visualize a solution to a problem that has stumped you for a long time. It may take you months to actually carry out that solution in its entirety, but all the while you will have the luxury of feeling perfect certainty about what must be done. And you know what the weird thing is, Gemini? Something very similar is in the works for the next few weeks: an eruption of crafty, practical power that will help you materialize the key to solving an old dilemma, hopefully followed by months of carrying out your lucid plan.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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If I ever produce a self-help manual called The Reverse Psychology of Getting Everything You Want, it will discuss the following paradoxes:
a. People are more willing to accommodate your longings if you're not greedy or grasping.
b. A good way to achieve your desires is to cultivate the feeling that you have already achieved them.
c. Whatever you're longing for has been changed by your pursuit of it. It's different from what it was when you felt the first pangs of desire. To make it yours, then, you'll have to modify your ideas about it.
d. Be careful what you wish for because if your wish does materialize it will require you to change in ways you didn't foresee.
Review your own life and identify experiences that exemplify these four principles.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Last night I had a dream in which I was addressing a crowd of thousands of Cancerians in a large stadium. I was referring to them as dolphins rather than as crabs. "I say unto you, my fellow dolphins," I proclaimed (I myself was born June 23), "that you have been given a sacred assignment by the great gods of time themselves. And that assignment is to master the art of Timeology." When I awoke from the dream, I was awash with feelings of deep relaxation and ease, although I wasn't sure why. I had never before heard that word "timeology," so I googled it. Here's how the Urban Dictionary defined it: "spending time doing what you want to do, not accomplishing anything major but also not wasting time." It so happens that this prescription is well-suited to our current astrological omens. I suggest that you and I be as playful as dolphins.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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A golden eagle with a seven-foot wingspan shot down out of the overcast sky and dived at my friend Maura's pet cockatoo, which was perched on the branch of an oak tree not 30 feet from her back door. Five of us watched with alarm from the outdoor table where we were sipping tea. We leaped up and began howling, hoping to scare the giant predator away. I ran to grab a baseball bat that Maura's son had left lying near the tree.

Then the unexpected happened. The eagle did not attack the cockatoo, but settled down peacefully beside it. Nor did the cockatoo flee. The two sat there together like old friends for about 10 minutes before the bigger bird flew away.

Are you the eagle or the cockatoo?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

In an episode of the animated TV sci-fi series Futurama, we get to see inside the headquarters of Romanticorp, where "love research" is being done. One of the experiments involves robots delivering various pick-up lines to actual women. The line that works best is "My two favorite things are commitment and changing myself." I recommend that you make that your own catchphrase, Leo -- not just this week but for the foreseeable future. The entire year of 2010 will be an excellent time to deepen your commitments and transform yourself, and the weeks ahead will bring unprecedented opportunities to intensify those efforts.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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"Is it bad to live without a hell?" poet Pablo Neruda asks in The Book of Questions. Let's add these queries to his: Is it dangerous to live without the awakening force that an enemy provides? Is it naive to think you can achieve great success without the driving motivation that comes from thinking about ideas you hate?

Consider the issue from another angle. Dentists love tooth decay. Treating cavities provides them with a steady income. Likewise, exterminators are dependent on termites, lawyers need crime, and priests crave sinners. Lots of people have symbiotic connections with nasty stuff. In fact, isn't it true that most of us nurture our feelings for the things we love to despise and fear?

What's your favorite poison or adversary? Assume that your exposure to pronoia is changing you in ways that will require you to update your relationship with it. Speculate on how you'll go about this task.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers," advises a passage in the Bible, "for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." While that's always good counsel, it's especially apt for you in the coming days. I believe you will come into contact with people who can provide you with valuable teaching and healing, even if they're disguised as baristas or pet shampooers or TV repairmen -- and even if this will be the one and only time they will provide you with teaching and healing.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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Do you have a negative opinion of clouds? Are you inclined to regard them as symbols of gloom and malaise, interruptions in what you wish would always be clear blue sky?

If so, I'll ask you to revise your view. Consider the fact that in Chinese mythology, there are xiangyun, or "lucky clouds" that are harbingers of great blessings. Deities may even ride on them for pleasure. Among the Zuni Indians, the monster known as the Cloud Eater was feared because he devoured clouds that might bring replenishing rain. And modern meteorologists know that white, fluffy cumulus clouds are signs that fair weather is on the way.

Armed with these ideas, go out in search of your own personal lucky clouds.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Metaphorically speaking, you have recently begun crossing the water in a dream boat that has a small leak. If you keep going, it's possible you will reach the far side before sinking. But that's uncertain. And even if you were able to remain afloat the entire way, the shakiness of the situation would probably fill you with anxiety. My suggestion, then, is to head back to where you started and fix the leak.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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I give thanks for the dented rusty brown and gray 1967 Chevy 10 pick-up truck that my neighbor parks askew on the shoulder of the road near my house. Its messy beauty snaps me back to sanity when my own perfectionism threatens to de-soul me, or when all the shiny, sleek, polished things of the world are on the verge of hypnotizing me into believing that only they should be considered attractive.

Are there equivalent triggers in your life?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Some Scorpios bring out the worst in people. Other Scorpios draw out the best. Then there are those members of your tribe who sometimes bring out the worst in their fellow humans and other times bring out the best. Where do you fit in this spectrum? Regardless of your position up until now, I'm betting that in the coming months you'll be moving in the direction of bringing out more of the best. And it all begins now. To get the process underway, think of five people you care about, and visualize the wonderful futures that it might be possible for them to create for themselves.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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Some people feel polluted when they look at porn; others when they eat Pringles and Twinkies. Personally, I experience a sense of violation after being exposed to celebrity gossip. And yet, if I've learned anything about how to maintain a healthy relationship with purity, it's that a fanatical adherence to it is as dangerous as a compulsive rejection of it. This will be especially true for you as you practice the art of pronoia. I urge you, therefore, to rebel cagily now and then against your urge to be a perfectly nice perpetrator of goodness and beauty and truth and justice.

Here's one method that might work: Use sacred sarcasm to motivate your allies to cooperate more with life's benevolent conspiracy. For instance, you might say the following to a certain female friend, hoping it will prod her to swear off self-punishing behavior forever: "You sure honored your ancestors and left an inspiring legacy for your descendants during the month you spent courting that alcoholic womanizer."

Or say something like this to a person who has not been asking for enough in return for her gifts: "No doubt you impressed the gods and earned a heap of karmic credit for all the free work you gave away to that megalomaniac who ripped you off so brilliantly."
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

More than a few fairy tales feature the theme of characters who accidentally find a treasure. They're not searching for treasure, don't feel worthy of it, and aren't fully prepared for it. They may initially not even know what they're looking at, and see it as preposterous or abnormal or disquieting. Who could blame them if they ran away from the treasure? In order to recognize and claim it, they might have to shed a number of their assumptions about the way the world works. And they might have to clear up a discrepancy between their unconscious longings and their conscious intentions.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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When playing the card game known as bridge, you're fortunate if you're dealt no cards of any particular suit. It allows you to use the trump suit to win tricks.

Identify a situation in your own life where a lack of a certain resource can work to your advantage, allowing you to be a free agent, an X-factor, a wild card; freeing you to capitalize on loopholes that aren't normally available; giving you access to luck that comes to you through what you're missing.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Everyone alive has some kind of learning disability. I know brilliant physicists who are dumb about poetry. There are fact-loving journalists whose brains freeze when they're invited to consider the ambiguous truths of astrology. My friend John suffers from dyslexia, while I myself am incapable of mastering the mysteries of economics. What's your blind spot, Capricorn? What's your own personal learning disability? Whatever it is, this would be an excellent time, astrologically speaking, to work with it. For the next few months, you will be able to call on what you need in order to diminish its power to limit you.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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I was never the class clown. I am not a troubled but devilishly handsome wastrel living on a trust fund. I've never beaten up anyone, have steadfastly not aspired to write like Raymond Carver, and have never played strip Scrabble with a junkie violinist on a leaky waterbed in a Key West penthouse. There are so many things I am not and will never be, and I'm glad I know about them. It helps me stay focused on exactly who I am. What about you? Who aren't you? Fantasize about all the paths you will never take. Put it in writing.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

"We cannot change anything until we accept it," said psychologist Carl Jung. "Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." Make that your hypothesis, Aquarius, and then conduct the following experiment. First, choose some situation you would like to transform. Next, open your heart to it with all the love and compassion you can muster. Go beyond merely tolerating it with a resigned disappointment. Work your way into a frame of mind in which you completely understand and sympathize with why it is the way it is. Imagine a scenario in which you could live your life with equanimity if the situation in question never changed. Finally, awash in this grace, meditate on how you might be able to actually help it evolve into something new.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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Do you have an unconscious belief that the forces of evil are loud, vigorous, and strong, while good is quiet, gentle, and passive? Gather evidence that contradicts this irrational prejudice.

Are you secretly suspicious of joy because you think it's inevitably rooted in wishful thinking and a willful ignorance about the true nature of reality? Expose these suspicions as superstitions that aren't grounded in any objective data you can actually prove.

Do you fear that when you're in the presence of love and beauty you tend to become softheaded, whereas you're likely to feel smart and powerful when you're sneering at the ugliness around you? As an antidote, for a given amount of time, say a week or a month or a year, act as if the following hypothesis were true: that you're more likely to grow smarter when you're in the presence of love and beauty.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

If you were going to launch a career as a rap artist any time soon, I'd suggest that maybe you use the alias "Big Try" as your stage name. If you were planning to convert to an exotic religious path and get a new spiritual name, I'd recommend something like "Bringit Harder" or "Pushit Stronger." If you were about to join an activist group that fights for a righteous cause, and you wanted a new nickname to mark your transformation, I'd urge you to consider a tag like "Radical" or "Prime" or "Ultra." And even if you're not doing any of the above, I hope you'll carry out some ritual of transition to intensify your commitment to your life's vital dreams.

Factual information and reasonable thinking alone are not sufficient to guide you through life’s labyrinthine tests. You need and deserve regular deliveries of uncanny revelation. One of your inalienable rights as a human being should therefore be to receive mysteriously useful omens on a regular basis. In this spirit, I offer you the free weekly horoscopes you read here. If you ever want more, and think it's worth paying for, try my daily text message 'scopes or my expanded audio 'scopes.

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My friend Riley was the first member of her family to attend college. None of her hardscrabble Irish forebears had ever pursued higher education. In her senior year, Riley began having nightmares of her relatives trying to stop her from finishing school. In one recurring dream, her great-grandfather burned all her textbooks. In another, a mob of aunts and uncles tackled her and held her down as she tried to get to class.

Despite these psychic obstacles, Riley persevered in her studies and eventually got her diploma. The week after graduation, she had another dream: A host of her ancestors came to her in the form of a of a great choir singing songs in praise of her success.

Riley's psychotherapist speculated that the dream meant she had not only overcome the inertia of her heritage, but had also healed an ancient wound of her family going back many generations.

Is there a similar accomplishment you're capable of? What is it?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.