Here's the curious message I derived from the current astrological configurations: It's one of those rare times when a wall may actually help bring people together. How? Why? The omens don't reveal that specific information. They only tell me that what seems like a barrier might end up serving as a connector. An influence that in other situations would tend to cause separation will in this case be likely to promote unity. Capitalize on this anomaly, Aries!

To further explore the ripening blessings and interesting challenges in your life, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Dear Gorgeous Genius: You possess exceptional capacities that are absolutely unique. You're a masterpiece unlike any other that has ever lived in the history of the world.

Furthermore, the precise instructions you need to ripen into your genius have always been with you, even from the time before you were born. In the words of psychologist James Hillman, you have a soul's code.

You might also call it the special mission you came to Earth to carry out; the divine blueprint that contains the open secret of how to be perfectly, unpredictably yourself; the master plan that is your heart's deepest desire.

Would you like help in deciphering it? The Divine Intelligence Formerly Known as God is always on call, ready to help. It's your birthright to ask Her a specific question every day about what you need to do next to express your soul's code; it's also your birthright to receive a response.

The divine revelation may not be as unambiguous as a little voice in your head. It might appear in the form of a TV commercial, an odd dream, or an encounter with a stranger. It could be demanding and difficult, delivering information you'd rather not have to deal with. Or it might show up as a clear and simple feeling of knowing exactly what to do, and it could be easy and fun.
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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 my first dream last night, I gave you a holy book that you left out in the rain. In my second dream, I cooked you some chicken soup that you didn't eat. My third dream was equally disturbing. I assigned you some homework that would have helped you discover important clues about tending to your emotional health. Alas, you didn't do the homework. In the morning, I woke up from my dreams feeling exasperated and worried. But later I began to theorize that maybe they weren't prophecies, but rather helpful warnings. Now that you've heard them, I'm hoping you will become alert to the gifts you've been ignoring and take advantage of the healing opportunities you've been neglecting.

Need more whacks applied to your mental blocks? More caresses bestowed upon your growing edge? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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You know beyond any doubt that each of your heart's beats originates as a gift of love directly from the Goddess herself. You understand that the laws of physics are fine-tuned to create a universe in which you can thrive. You realize with visceral lucidity that everything you see is permeated with a single, unified conscious intelligence, of which you partake intimately. This intelligence is immortal, and thus, so are you. As you register the shocking joy of these truths imprinting themselves on your perfect body, every one of your cells purrs with luminous gratitude.
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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.

There's a good chance that your rhythm in the coming days will resemble a gentle, continuous orgasm. It won't be stupendously ecstatic, mind you. I'm not predicting massive eruptions of honeyed bliss that keep blowing your mind. Rather, the experience will be more like a persistent flow of warm contentment. You'll be constantly tuning in to a secret sweetness that thrills you subliminally. Again and again you will slip into a delicious feeling that everything is unfolding exactly as it should be. Warning! There are two factors that could possibly undermine this blessing: 1. if you scare it away with blasts of cynicism; 2. if you get greedy and try to force it to become bigger and stronger. So please don't do those things!

Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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In honor of your enhanced power to be yourself, I hereby reward you with a host of fresh titles. From now on you will be known as the Senior Vice President of Strawberry Fields and Hummingbirds, and the Deputy Director of Green Lights and Purple Hearts. Consider yourself, as well, to be the new Puzzle-Master Supreme, the Chief Custodian of Secret Weapons, and Field Commander of Free Lunches and Poetic Licenses.
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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.

Philosopher Jonathan Zap provides the seed for this week's meditation: "Conscious reflection on the past can deepen the soul and provide revelations of great value for the present and future. On the other hand, returning to the past obsessively out of emotional addiction can be a massive draining of vitality needed for full engagement with the present." So which will it be, Cancerian? One way or another, you are likely to be pulled back toward the old days and the old ways. I'll prefer it if you re-examine your history and extract useful lessons from the past instead of wallowing in dark nostalgia and getting lost in fruitless longing.

Would you like to hear me say some more about your ever-evolving destiny? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Consider the possibility that the people who seem to slow us down and hold us back are actually preventing things from happening too fast. Imagine that the evolution of your life or our culture is like a pregnancy: It needs to reach its full term. Just as a child isn't ready to be born after five months of gestation, the New Earth we're creating has to ripen in its own time. The recalcitrant reactionaries who resist the inevitable birth are simply making sure that the far-seeing revolutionaries don't conjure the future too suddenly. They serve the greater 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.

Picture a TV satellite dish on the roof of a peasant's shack in rural Honduras. Imagine a gripping rendition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played on the mandolin. Visualize the Dalai Lama quoting Chris Rock a bit out of context but with humorous and dramatic effect. Got all that? Next, imagine that these three scenes are metaphors for your metaphysical assignment in the coming week. Need another hint? OK. Think about how you can make sure that nothing gets lost in the dicey translations you'll be responsible for making.

Need more help deciphering the riddles and enigmas that are fueling your amazing story? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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If you have encountered examples of the following evidence, tell us about it. Send your testimony to the Beauty and Truth Lab at uaregod@comcast.net. You might want to include the following:

1. bliss that flows toward you because you've made a habit of expecting it and cultivating it;

2. good news that's really interesting; fascinating stories that provide an antidote to the media's obsession with hardship, anguish, deterioration, and death;

3. states of emotional wealth and psychological health: raw material for the manual that will be the corrective for the DSM-IV; the missing half of the story;

4. mirabilia: mysterious revelations, rejuvenating prodigies, ineffable breakthroughs, beguiling ephemera, sudden deliverance from boring evils;

5. plain old everyday miracles;

6. the good news you've gone out and created.
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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.

Here are some ways to get more respect: 1. Do your best in every single thing you do -- whether it's communicating precisely or upholding the highest possible standards at your job or taking excellent care of yourself. 2. Maintain impeccable levels of integrity in everything you do -- whether it's being scrupulously honest or thoroughly fair-minded or fiercely kind. 3. On the other hand, don't try so compulsively hard to do your best and cultivate integrity that you get self-conscious and obstruct the flow of your natural intelligence. 4. Make it your goal that no later than four years from now you will be doing what you love to do at least 51 percent of the time. 5. Give other people as much respect as you sincerely believe they deserve. 6. Give yourself more respect.

No one knows you better than you do, but maybe I can help you dig up even more self-knowledge. Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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You're a gorgeous mystery with a wild heart and a lofty purpose. But like all of us, you also have a dark side -- a part of your psyche that snarls and bites, that's unconscious and irrational, that is motivated by ill will or twisted passions or instinctual fears. It's your own personal portion of the world's sickness: a mess of repressed longings, enervating wounds, ignorant delusions, and unripe powers. You'd prefer to ignore it because it's unflattering or uncomfortable or very different from what you imagine yourself to be.

If you acknowledge its existence at all (many of us don't), you might call it the devil, your evil twin, your inner monster, or your personal demon. Psychologist Carl Jung referred to it as the shadow. He regarded it as the lead that the authentic alchemists of the Middle Ages sought to transmute into gold.

How are you doing on your work of changing your own personal lead into gold?
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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 German poet and philosopher Friedrich von Schiller liked to have rotting apples in his desk drawer as he worked; the scent inspired him. Agatha Christie testified that many of her best ideas came to her while she was washing dishes. As for Beethoven, he sometimes stimulated his creativity by pouring cold water over his head. What about you, Libra? Are there odd inclinations and idiosyncratic behaviors that in the past have roused your original thinking? I encourage you to try them all this week, and then see if you can dream up at least two new ones. You have officially entered the brainstorming season.

Wouldn't you love to learn more about who you really are? What better adventure is there than learning about your soul's code? For more hints, listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Thousands of amazing, inexplicable, wondrous, and even supernatural events occur every day. And yet most are unreported by the media. The few that are cited are ridiculed. Why? Here's one possible reason: The people most likely to believe in miracles are superstitious, uneducated, and prone to having a blind, literalist faith in their religions' myths. Those who are least likely to believe in miracles are skilled at analytical thought, well educated, and yet prone to having a blind, literalist faith in the ideology of materialism, which dogmatically asserts that the universe consists entirely of things that can be perceived by the five human senses or detected by instruments that scientists have thus far invented.

The media is largely composed of people from the second group. It's virtually impossible for them to admit to the possibility of miracles, let alone experience them. If anyone from this group manages to escape peer pressure and cultivate a receptivity to miracles, it's because they have successfully fought against being demoralized by the unsophisticated way miracles are framed by the first group.

At the Beauty and Truth Lab we're immune to the double-barreled ignorance. When we behold astonishing synchronicities and numinous breakthroughs that seem to violate natural law, we're willing to consider the possibility that our understanding of natural law is too narrow. And yet we also refrain from lapsing into irrational gullibility; we actively seek mundane explanations for apparent miracles.
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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 expensive for the U.S. to hold prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba: $800,000 per year for each detainee. That's 30 times more than it costs to incarcerate a convict on the American mainland. According to the Miami Herald, Guantanamo is the most expensive prison on the planet. How much do you spend on locking stuff up, Scorpio? What does it cost, not just financially but emotionally and spiritually, for you to keep your secrets hidden and your fears tamped down and your unruly passions bottled up and your naughty urges suppressed? The coming weeks would be a good time to make sure the price you pay for all that is reasonable -- not even close to being like Guantanamo.

I hope the oracle above provides you with the inspiration you need to do what you've got to do and change what needs to be changed. But if you need more clues, listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE, where I go further in exploring your mysteries.

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Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of a maxim.

We half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain. We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our sleeping genius.

There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty -- let's call it the delightful dilemma -- that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when ­you're feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing this book is a good example. I've had abundant fun handling the perplexing challenges with which it has confronted me.

Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile. Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your predominant mood. Consider the possibility that being in unsettling circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the riddles you need most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions when you're preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or demeaning annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.

Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain. You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before ­you're forced to do so by fate's kicks in the ass.
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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 time is it, boys and girls? It's Floods of Fantastic Gratitude Week: a perfect opportunity to express your passionate appreciation for everything you've been given. So get out there and tell people how much you've benefited from what they've done for you. For best results, be playful and have fun as you express your thanks. By the way, there'll be a fringe benefit to this outpouring: By celebrating the blessings you already enjoy, you will generate future blessings.

For more help in understanding your relationship with the game of life, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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The Yanyuwa Aboriginal people live along the coast of Australia's Northern Territory. Their word for "fat" is nalu-ngiliny. It doesn't merely refer to the greasy stuff that grows naturally under the skin of animal bodies. It's also a metaphysical term for vitality.

Anything that's rich in nalu-ngiliny is healthy. A certain landscape may be considered fat, for instance, which means that it's fertile and sacred. When acacia flowers bloom each year, it's a sign that sea turtles and the marine mammals known as dugongs, favorite foods of the Yanyuwa, are "fat" and ready to be hunted.

I have a fantasy that you will identify the things in your life that are nalu-ngiliny, and give them the honor and gratitude they deserve.
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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.

Telling the whole deep truth and nothing but the whole deep truth isn't necessarily a recipe for being popular. It may on occasion provoke chaos and be disruptive. In an institutional setting, displays of candor may even diminish your clout and undermine your ambitions. But now take everything I just said and disregard it for a while. This is one of those rare times when being profoundly authentic will work to your supreme advantage.

Would you like further inspiration as you scheme and dream to make the most of life's sometimes puzzling opportunities? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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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.

"Show me the money" is a meme that first appeared in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. It has been uttered approximately a hundred trillion times since then. Have you ever said it in earnest? If so, you were probably demanding to get what you had been promised. You were telling people you wanted to see tangible proof that they valued your efforts. In light of your current astrological omens, I propose that you use a variation on this theme. What you need right now is less materialistic and more marvelous. Try making this your mantra: "Show me the magic."

What exactly are you looking for? How would you describe the experiences you want more than anything else? It's possible my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE could give you additional help in figuring that out.

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Activist and author Naomi Klein tells a story about the time she traveled to Australia at the request of Aboriginal elders. They wanted her to know about their struggle to prevent white people from dumping radioactive wastes on their land.

Her hosts brought her to their beloved wilderness, where they camped under the stars. They showed her "secret sources of fresh water, plants used for bush medicines, hidden eucalyptus-lined rivers where the kangaroos come to drink."

After three days, Klein grew restless. When were they going to get down to business? "Before you can fight," she was told, "you have to know what you are fighting for."
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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.

My acquaintance Jacob fell for a woman who also professed her ardor for him. But in the midst of their courtship, as the mystery was still ripening, she suddenly left the country. "I've got to go to Indonesia," she texted him one night, and she was gone the next day. Jacob was confused, forlorn, dazed. He barely ate for days. On the sixth day, a FedEx package arrived from her. It contained a green silk scarf and a note: "I wore this as I walked to the top of the volcano and said a five-hour prayer to elevate our love." Jacob wasn't sure how to interpret it, although it seemed to be a good omen. What happened next? I haven't heard yet. I predict that you will soon receive a sign that has resemblances to this one. Don't jump to conclusions about what it means, but assume the best.

Want to hear more about the subconscious factors and hidden forces that may be influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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The Maasai people of Kenya don't have running water, toilets, or electricity, and their per capita income is $300 a year. They use cattle dung as plaster in building their homes because the scent helps repel lions, which dislike it, from venturing too close. And yet they are as happy with their lives as Forbes' magazine's "400 richest Americans" are with theirs -- even though the latter may live in 10,000-square-foot palaces with stained glass windows, French patio doors, limestone kitchen counter tops, spas, wine cellars, and Olympic-sized swimming pools.

This assertion comes from "Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being," a report done by psychologists Ed Diener and Martin E. P. Seligman. On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is "extremely dissatisfied," 4 is "neutral," and 7 means "extremely satisfied," the Maasai, the Inuit of northern Greenland, and the wealthiest Americans all scored 5.8.
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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.