"You don't want to be the best of the best," said Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. "You just want to be the only one who does what you do." That's always good advice, but it will be especially apt for you during the next few weeks. You're entering a phase when competing with other people will get you nowhere fast. What will get you somewhere fast is nurturing your unique talents and proclivities. Do you know exactly what they are? If you're even a little fuzzy, make it your quest to get very clear.

You're got more strength and intelligence than you realize. For help in accessing those untapped inner resources, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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In his book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, historian Thomas Laquer suggests that the clitoris may have been unknown to male anatomists until 1559. In that year, Renaldus Columbus, a professor at the University of Padua in Italy, announced his discovery of the "seat of woman's delight," and declared his right to name it the "sweetness of Venus."

Is there a sublime pleasure whose existence you haven't discovered? Where is it? How can you find it?
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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.

What is the "soul," anyway? Is it a ghostly blob of magic stuff within us that keeps us connected to the world of dreams and the divine realms? Is it an amorphous metaphor for the secret source of our spiritual power? Is it a myth that people entertain because they desperately want to believe there's more to them than just their physical bodies? Here's what I think: The soul is a perspective that pushes us to go deeper and see further and live wilder. It's what drives our imagination to flesh out our raw experience, transforming that chaotic stuff into rich storylines that animate our love of life. With the gently propulsive force of the soul, we probe beyond the surface level of things, working to find the hidden meaning and truer feeling. I'm bringing this up, Taurus, because it is Celebrate the Soul Week for you.

How are you going to change what needs to be changed and accept what needs to be accepted? To get some support from me, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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If you're reading this, you're probably not a Cambodian orphan who grew up as a slave in a brothel or a Sudanese man kidnapped by a militia and forced to do heavy labor 18 hours a day or one of the millions of other victims of human trafficking around the world. But you may be yoked and subjugated in a less literal way, perhaps to a debilitating drug or an abusive relationship or a job that brings out the worst in you or a fearful fantasy about the looming collapse of civilization's infrastructure.

The good news is that you have the power to escape your bondage. Maybe it'll help you muster the strength you need if I remind you that your freedom won't be anywhere near as difficult to achieve as that of the Pakistani boy tied to a carpet loom in a dark room around the clock or the Nigerian woman who's beaten daily as she toils in the sugar cane fields for no pay.

Try this: When you feel overwhelmed by the sadness of your problems or the addiction of your compulsions, put on your best clothes and clean toilets at a homeless shelter, or give foot massages to workers at a sewage disposal plant, or sing songs, sip champagne, and play card games with patients at a psychiatric hospital. Be ready to get hit upside the soul with exotic varieties of ecstasy, which such acts will unleash.
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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.

"Nothing changes until it's changed in everyone's memories," said poet Alice Notley. I urge you to keep that in mind as you move forward, Gemini. In recent weeks, you have helped untie a knot that once seemed impossibly tangled, and you deserve kudos for that. But your job isn't done yet. Your next task is to work on loosening the snarls and smoothing the kinks that still linger in the imaginations of everyone involved.

Sometimes it's a challenge to try to figure out what's important and what's not important. If you'd like more of my input, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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It's possible there's still enough oil buried in the earth to sustain our civilization's exorbitant appetite for material comforts for another 100 years. Or it may be true, as some researchers suggest, that global reserves of black gold are rapidly dwindling, and 20 years from now we'll all be farmers and hunters sitting around campfires at night telling stories.

Whichever scenario comes to pass, you may be happiest and smartest and healthiest if you cultivate a simple and earthy relationship with luxury—something akin to poet Omar Khayyám's notion, which was "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou beside me singing in the wilderness." Comments? Questions? Celebrations?

P.S. The amount of oil left in the world has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to cultivate ecstasy.
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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.

In the 1925 silent film The Gold Rush, Charlie Chaplin plays a prospector during the Alaska Gold Rush. After a series of adventures, he finds himself stuck in a remote cabin on Thanksgiving Day with a ruffian named Big Jim. They're out of food, so Charlie gets resourceful, boiling his right shoe in a big pot and serving it up steaming hot. What the audience doesn't know is that the movie prop is made of sweet licorice, not leather. So while it may seem that dinner is a hardship, the actors actually had no trouble polishing off their meal. I see a similar scenario in your near future, Cancerian: something like eating a "shoe" that's made of candy.

How well is your imagination working these days? Could it use a boost? A prod? A jolt of inspiration? Try tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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Here's Caroline Myss' explanation of faith: "Faith is the power to stand up to the madness and chaos of the physical world while holding the position that nothing external has any authority over what heaven has in mind for you."

If you don't like the word "heaven" in Myss' statement, substitute a term that works for you, like "your higher self" or "your destiny" or "your soul's code." Modify anything else in it that's not right for your needs, as well. When you're finished tinkering, I hope you'll have created a definition of faith that motivates you with as much primal power as you feel when you're in 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.

Lots of toddlers in Indonesia smoke cigarettes, not just the chain-smoking two-year-old in the famous Youtube video. But don't you dare let your inner child get started on a similar habit any time soon, Leo. Make sure that sweet young thing is exposed to only the very best influences; feed him or her only the healthiest food, air, water, sounds, sights, images, and stories. The innocent, curious, wide-eyed part of you is entering a phase when rapid growth is going to happen, one way or another. It's your job to guarantee that the growth goes in the right direction.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your unfolding destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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The New York Times ran a story about philosopher Nick Bostrom, who 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 because I'd like to invite you to find out, one way or another, whether Bostrom is correct.

Make it your intention to cultivate a talent for knowing what's real and what's not. Develop a knack for escaping what's illusory and gravitating toward what's authentic. If you do these simple things, I bet you will earn a big reward: a chronic, low-key, blissful sense of union with pretty much everything that's appealing to you.

Bonus: Even if you do find out that we're living in The Matrix, you could become a messiah with resemblances to the character that Keanu Reeves played in the film trilogy. He could fly.
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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.

"We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly," wrote Anais Nin. "We are mature in one realm, childish in another." In you, Virgo, the discrepancies have been especially apparent lately. For example, your brainy insightfulness has been on a hot streak, while your gut wisdom has not. But I suspect this situation to shift in the coming weeks. My reading of the astrological omens suggests that your emotional intelligence is set to thrive. It will be fine if you concentrate on that phenomenon with all your heart, even if it means investing a little less energy in being an analytical whiz.

How much do you want to know about your life? How far do you dare to go in your quest for self-mastery? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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While loitering on a sidewalk outside a nightclub in San Francisco on a September night in 1994, I found the cover of a booklet lying in the gutter. Written by Marilena Silbey and Paul Ramana Das, it was called "How to Survive Passionate Intimacy with a Dreamy Partner While Making a Fortune on the Path to Enlightenment." Sadly, the rest of the text was missing. Ever since, hungry for its wisdom, I've tried to hunt down a copy of the whole thing, but to no avail.

I'm hoping that maybe you will consider writing your own version of the subject. If you do, please send it to me.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

In the old Looney Tunes cartoons, Wile E. Coyote is constantly chasing after the Road Runner, a long-legged bird that prefers running to flying. Presumably, Coyote would eat the Road Runner if he ever caught him, but he never does; the bird's too fast and smart. In one recurring motif, the Road Runner dashes into the entrance of a cave that's cut into a wall of sheer rock. When Coyote tries to follow him, he smashes into the rock, and it's revealed that the cave entrance is just a very realistic painting. I suspect that you're going to have the Road Runner's power in the coming week: an ability to find and use doors that are inaccessible to other people.

Would you like to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Do you want to uncover the secrets you've been hiding even from yourself? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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"Picture the Grand Canyon," says Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. "Every hundred years, a child comes by and throws a mustard seed into it. In the time it takes to fill the hole in the earth with mustard seeds, one maha­kal­pa will have passed. To perfect the virtuous heart—the joy of integrity -- takes a thousand mahakalpas."

If that's true, then you've still got a lot of work to do. The good news is that civilization is in the midst of a critical turning point that could tremendously expedite your ripening. So you could make unusually great progress toward the goal of perfecting the virtuous heart in the next 40 years.

For best results, meditate often on the phrase "the joy of integrity." Get familiar with the pleasurable emotion that comes from acting with impeccability. And try out this idea from Gandhi: Integrity is the royal road to your inner freedom.

P.S. Oddly enough, the work of perfecting the virtuous heart is very effective in helping you master the art of cultivating everyday ecstasy. Meditate on the connection.
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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.

I recently discovered a blues-gospel artist named Famous L. Renfro, who is also known as "The Flying Sweet Angel of Joy." His soaring, gritty music had a medicinal effect. It seemed to say to me, "You have the power to change your life in the exact way you want to change your life." Your assignment, Scorpio, is to find a new source of music or art or literature or film that has a similar effect on you: a flying sweet angel of joy that inspires you to do what has been hard for you to do. According to my reading of the astrological omens, such an influence is within your reach right now.

Do you wish you could get more clarity about the foggy, ambiguous situations you're dealing with? 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. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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Alice finds her way to Wonderland by falling down a rabbit hole. Dorothy rides to Oz on a tornado. In C. S. Lewis's >i>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy stumbles into the magical land of Narnia via a portal in the back of a large clothes cabinet.

In the sequels to all these adventures, however, the heroines must find different ways to access their exotic dreamlands. Alice slips through a mirror next time. Dorothy uses a Magic Belt. Lucy leaps into a painting of a schooner that becomes real.

Take heed of these precedents. The next time a threshold opens into an alternative reality you've enjoyed in the past, it may not resemble the doorways you've used before.
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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.

Your old self is the fuel you will use to burn your old self to the ground. This bonfire will liberate your new self, which has been trapped in a gnarly snarl deep inside your old self. It's only at first that you'll feel freaked out by the flames. Very quickly a sense of relief and release will predominate. Then, as the new you makes its way to freedom, escaping its cramped quarters and flexing its vital force, you will be blessed with a foreshadowing of your future. The intoxication that follows will bring you clarity and peace of mind.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Would you like help in solving the riddles that confuse you? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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"Keep exploring what it takes to be the opposite of who you are," suggests psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. This advice is one of his ideas about how to get into attunement with the Tao, also known as being in the zone.

How would you go about being the opposite of who you are? Try it and see if it drives you into a state of euphoria.
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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.

"Do we love Heaven more than God?" asks poet Paula Cisewski in her book Ghost Fargo. I think that's the kind of cryptic question you Capricorns would benefit from mulling over in the coming weeks. Your mind needs to get its customary categories shaken up and rearranged . . . needs its habitual grooves broken up and diverted . . . needs its easy certainties flushed and abandoned. Can you think of any other queries that will help you accomplish this noble work? Let me offer a few to get you started: 1. Do we love love itself more than we love the people we say we love? 2. Do we fear failure so much that we interfere with our cultivation of success? 3. Do we obsess on our longing to such a degree that we miss opportunities to satisfy our longing?

Need more help in figuring out the questions life is asking you? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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Check out this excerpt from "Those Who Do Not Dance," by Chilean poet Gabriela 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 might bring us the influences we require.

What do Mistral's words mean to you? 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?
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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.

The Sanskrit word buddhi refers to the part of us that adores the truth. It's good at distinguishing between what's real and what's false, and is passionately attracted to liberation. Although it may go into long periods of dormancy in some of us, buddhi never falls asleep completely. It's always ready to jump into action if we call on it. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Aquarius, the buddhi aspect of your psyche will be extra special big strong and bright in the coming week. In my opinion, that's better than winning the lottery.

What fresh blessings will life bring you? What questions should you be asking? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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Confounding lessons and delightful shocks have been increasing in frequency during the recent past and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. In light of that fact, you may want to find some new ways to express your amazement. Clichés like "Jesus H. Christ!" or "Holy crap!" or "What the fuck?!" may not be sufficient to capture the full impact of the aha! moments.

To get you launched in the right direction, I'll suggest a few fresh exclamations. They're not designed to become tried-and-true replacements for the lazy phrases you're using now, but are rather meant to jog your imagination and inspire you to conjure up a constantly changing variety of ever-fresh invocations. Now see how these roll off your tongue: "Great Odin's raven!" "Radical lymphocytes!" "Cackling whacks of jibber-jabber!" "Frosty heat waves!" "Panoramic serpentine!"
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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.

I like how snowboarder Graham Watanabe described his experiences at last February's Winter Olympics. He wasn't content with making a generic comment like "It was awesome!" or "No words could describe how great it was!" Instead he got florid and specific: "Try to imagine Pegasus mating with a unicorn and the creature that they birth. I somehow tame it and ride it into the sky in the clouds and sunshine and rainbows. That’s what it feels like." As you break through your previous limits in the coming weeks, Pisces, I'd love to hear you summon some bursts of articulate jubilation akin to Watanabe's.

Want to explore this chapter of your life story even further? Dig deeper? Push harder? Consider tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Glory in the Highest.

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A friend gave me a live rosebush in a planter for my birthday last June. After a few weeks, its five red flowers withered and turned brown but didn't fall off their stems. I left them there, perversely fascinated by the dead blooms that wouldn't let go. Months later, in late November, five new flowers blossomed. Then the bush displayed a mix of the living and the dead.

Would you have plucked off the dried-up old blooms, or would you find it more beautiful with both the living and the dead together?
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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.