The coming week is likely to be abnormally free of worries and frustrations. I'm afraid that means you're not going to have as much right to complain as you usually do. Can you handle that? Or will you feel bereft when faced with the prospect of having so little to grumble about? Just in case, I've compiled a list of fake annoyances for you to draw on. 1. "My iPhone wont light my cigarette." 2. "The next tissue in my tissue box doesn't magically poke out when I take one." 3. "I want some ice cream, but I overstuffed myself at dinner." 4. "I saw a hipster wearing a shirt I donated to the Salvation Army and now I want it back." 5. "I ran out of bottled water and now I have to drink from the tap." 6. "My cat's Facebook profile gets more friend requests than me." 7. "I tried to spread cold butter on my toast and the bread ripped." 8. "I was really comfortable but I thought I could be really really comfortable so I adjusted and now I can't get back to my original level of comfort." 9. "When people tell me I should feel grateful for all I have instead of complaining all the time, I feel guilty."

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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For over two decades, Peter Jouvenal worked as a journalist and cameraman who filmed war-torn hot spots, including Iraq in the Gulf War and Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. He eventually retired from that gig and bought a restaurant in Kabul. He has few regrets, but one came after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

While exploring the organization's deserted safe houses, he happened upon a place where Osama bin Laden and his wife had recently lived. Among the items the couple left behind was one of her bras. In retrospect Jouvenal realized he should have pocketed the exotic piece of lingerie; a tabloid newspaper would have paid him a fortune for it. But because he had spent his entire career dealing with more mainstream news media that sought more respectable evidence, the idea didn't even occur to him until much later.

Was there ever a time when you were in such a deep trance, enthralled by your habits and belief system, that you failed to notice a valuable anomaly that popped up? How can you train yourself to be so alert that such a blunder won't happen again?
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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 state of California was named after a storybook land described in a 16th-century Spanish novel. The mythical paradise was ruled by Queen Calafia. Gold was so plentiful that the people who lived there made weapons out of it and even adorned their animals with it. Did the real California turn out to be anything like that fictional realm? Well, 300 years after it got its name, the California Gold Rush attracted 300,000 visitors who mined a fortune in the precious metal. Your assignment, Taurus: Think of the myths you believed in when you were young and the fantasies that have played at the edges of your imagination for years. Have any of them come true, even a little? I suspect that one may do just that in the coming weeks and months.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Imagine that you have been relieved of your responsibilities for a given time. They will be taken care of by people you trust. You won't have to work to make money during this grace period, but will be given all you need. Nor will you have to clean your house, wash your clothes, or buy and make your food. Now here's the big question: What will you do now that you are free to do anything you like?
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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 Bill Moyers' DVD The Language of Life, poet Naomi Shihab Nye is shown giving advice to aspiring young poets. She urges them to keep an open mind about where their creative urges might take them. Sometimes when you start a poem, she says, you think you want to go to church, but where you end up is at the dog races. I'll make that same point to you, Gemini. As you tune in to the looming call to adventure, don't be too sure you know what destination it has in mind for you. You might be inclined to assume it'll lead you toward a local bar for drinks when in fact it's nudging you in the direction of a wild frontier for a divine brouhaha.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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According to Jewish legend, there are in each generation 36 righteous humans who prevent the rest of us from being destroyed. Through their extraordinary good deeds and their love of the divine spark, they save the world over and over again. They're not famous saints, though. They go about their business anonymously, and no one knows how crucial they are to our well-being.

Might you be one of the 36? As a temporary experiment, act as if you are.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Renowned comic book writer Grant Morrison claims he performed a magic ritual in which he conjured the spirit of John Lennon, who appeared and bestowed on him the gift of a new song. I've heard Morrison sing the tune, and it does sound rather Lennon-esque. The coming week would be a good time for you to go in quest of a comparable boon, Cancerian: a useful and beautiful blessing bequeathed to you by the departed spirit of someone you love or admire.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Your addiction is obstructing you from your destiny, and yet it's also your ally.

What?! How can both be true?

On the downside, your addiction diverts your energy from a deeper desire that it superficially resembles. For instance, if you're an alcoholic, your urge to get loaded may be an inferior substitute for and a poor imitation of your buried longing to commune with spirit.

On the upside, your addiction is your ally, because it dares you to get strong and smart enough to wrestle free of its grip; it pushes you to summon the uncanny willpower necessary to defeat the darkness within you that saps your ability to follow the path with heart.

(P.S. Don't tell me you have no addictions. Each of us is addicted to some sensation, feeling, thought, or action, if not to an actual substance.)

Extol your sublime, painful addiction -- celebrate it to death. Ride it, spank it, kiss it, whip 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.

"There are works which wait, and which one does not understand for a long time," said Oscar Wilde. "The reason is that they bring answers to questions which have not yet been raised; for the question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer." I predict that sometime soon, Leo, you will prove that wisdom true. You will finally learn the brilliant question whose crucial answer you got years ago. When it arrives, you will comprehend a mystery that has been churning in the semi-darkness all this time.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Attention please. This is your ancestors speaking. We've been trying to reach you through your dreams and fantasies, but you haven't responded. That's why we've commandeered this space. So listen up. We'll make it brief. You're at a crossroads analogous to a dilemma that has baffled your biological line for six generations. We ask you now to master the turning point that none of us have ever figured out how to negotiate. Heal yourself and you heal all of us. We mean that literally. Start brainstorming, please.
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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.

Shedding is healthy -- not just for cats and dogs and other animals but also for us humans. Did you know that you shed thousands of particles of dead skin every hour? And just as our bodies need to shed, so do our psyches. I bring this up, Virgo, because you are in an unusually favorable phase to do a whole lot of psychic shedding. What should you shed exactly? How about some of these: old ideas that don't serve you any more, habits that undermine your ability to pursue your dreams, compulsions that are at odds with your noble intentions, resentment against people who did you wrong a long, long time ago, and anything else you carry with you that keeps you from being fully alive and radiant. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, the price of freedom and aliveness is eternal shedding.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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See how far you can spit a mouthful of beer
Pick blackberries naked in the pouring rain
Scare yourself with how beautiful you are
Stage a slow-motion water balloon fight
Pretend your wounds are exotic tattoos
Sing anarchist lullabies to lesbian trees
Plunge butcher knives into accordions
Commit a crime that breaks no laws
Sip the tears of someone you 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.

According to research published in the journal Psychological Science, many people are virtually allergic to creative ideas. When asked to consider a novel proposal, they're quite likely to reject it in favor of an approach that's well-known to them. (More info here: tinyurl.com/3oor4nq.) This could be a problem for you in the coming weeks, Libra, since one of your strengths will be your ability to come up with innovations. So it won't be enough for you to offer your brilliant notions and original departures from the way things have always been done; you will also have to be persuasive and diplomatic. Think you can handle that dual assignment?

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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To create a pearl, an oyster needs an aggravating parasite inside its shell. It builds layers of calcium carbonate around the invader, gradually fabricating the treasure. How long does it take from the initial provocation to the finished product? Five years for a pearl of average size, and as many as 10 years for a big one.

Our questions for you: How many years have you been engaged in the process of transforming your irritant into a masterpiece? How many more years do you think you still have to go?
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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.

"A single sunbeam is enough to drive away shadows," said St. Francis of Assisi. I'm afraid that's an overly optimistic assessment. In many circumstances, just one ray of light may not be sufficient to dispel encroaching haze and murk. Luckily for you, though, there will be quite an assortment of sunbeams appearing in your sphere during the coming weeks. Here's the complication: They won't all be showing up at once, and they'll be arriving in disparate locations. So your task will be to gather them all up and unite them so they can add to each other's strength. If you do that successfully, you'll have more than enough illumination to chase away any darkness that might be creeping around.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Ariel was going through a hard time. She'd been weaning herself from a painkiller she'd taken while recovering from surgery. Her cat ran away, and there was a misunderstanding at work. One night while at a nightclub with her friend Leila, she spied her ex-boyfriend kissing some woman. Meltdown ensued. Ariel fled the club and ran sobbing into the street, where she hurled her shoes on top of a passing bus.

Leila retrieved her and sat her down on a bench. "Because up until now you've displayed such exemplary grace in the face of chaos," Leila said, "I'm giving you a free Crazy Pass. It gives you a karma-free license to temporarily lose your mind." This compassionate humor helped Ariel feel more composed. The rest of the night she partied with elegant savagery, achieving major relief and release without hurting ­herself.

Now I'm awarding you, too, a free Crazy Pass. How will you use 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.

Poet Elizabeth Alexander says that in order to create a novel, a writer needs a lot of uninterrupted time alone. Poems, on the other hand, can be snared in the midst of the jumbled rhythms of everyday chaos -- between hurried appointments or while riding the subway or at the kitchen table waiting for the coffee to brew. Alexander says that inspiration can sprout like grass poking up out of the sidewalk cracks. Whether or not you're a writer, Sagittarius, I see your coming weeks as being more akin to snagging poems than cooking up a novel.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Think about your relationship to human beings who haven't been born yet. What might you create for them to use? How can you make your life a gift to the future? Can you not only help preserve the wonders we live amidst, but actually enhance them? Keep in mind this thought from Lewis Carroll: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward."
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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.

"A true poet does not bother to be poetical," said the poet Jean Cocteau. "Nor does a nursery gardener perfume his roses." I think that's wise counsel for you in the coming weeks, Capricorn. It's important that you do what you do best without any embellishment, pretentiousness, or self-consciousness. Don't you dare try too hard or think too much or twist yourself like a contortionist to meet impossible-to-satisfy expectations. Trust the thrust of your simple urges.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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For years, I lived 13 miles from the top of Mt. Tamalpais, one of the highest peaks in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every day I gazed at it from afar through my window or while riding my bike in the hills, marveling as it glided through its ever-shifting relationship with the sky and seasons. It was a remote yet familiar beacon, an awe-inspiring touchstone against which I could measure my own undulating rhythms.

Eventually I moved to a new home at the foot of Mt. Tam. I felt as if I'd become part of it -- was embedded in its protective and majestic aura. It was no longer an objective gauge, but rather an intimate tone and texture in my subjective experience of myself.

Risk a comparable shift, from being there to being here; from outside to inside; from strength absorbed at a distance to power felt up close.
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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.

Collectors prefer wild orchids, says William Langley, writing in the UK's Telegraph. Orchids grown in nurseries, which comprise 99.5 percent of the total, are tarnished with "the stigma of perfection." Their colors are generic and their petal patterns are boringly regular. Far more appealing are the exotic varieties untouched by human intervention, with their "downy, smooth petals and moistened lips pouting in the direction of tautly curved shafts and heavily veined pouches." Whatever your sphere or specialty is, Aquarius, I suggest you model yourself after the wild orchid collectors in the coming days. Shun the stigma of perfection.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Notice how you feel as you speak the following: "The strong, independent part of me resisted the embarrassing truth for a long time, but I finally came to accept that I'm someone who craves vast amounts of love. Ever since I surrendered to this need, it doesn't nag me all the time, as it used to. In fact, it feels comforting, like a source of sweetness that doesn't go away. I never thought I'd say this, but I've come to treasure the feeling of having a voracious yearning to be loved."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

While doing a film a few years ago, actress Sandra Bullock stumbled upon a stunning secret: Rubbing hemorrhoid cream on her face helped shrink her wrinkles and improve her complexion. I predict that at least one and possibly more comparable discoveries will soon grace your life. You will find unexpected uses for things that were supposedly not meant to be used in those ways. Here's a corollary, courtesy of scientist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, that describes a related talent you'll have at your disposal: "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2012. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7-9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Devote yourself to your heart's desire with unflagging shrewdness. Make it your top priority. Let no lesser wishes distract you. But consider this, too. You may sabotage even your worthiest yearning if you're maniacal in your pursuit of it.

Bear in mind the attitude described by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run with the Wolves: "All that you are seeking is also seeking you. If you sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time."

Speculate on what exactly that would look like in your own life. Describe how your heart's desire has been waiting for you, seeking
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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.