The writer Oliver Burkeman has some advice that would be helpful for you Aries folks to hear right now: "When you assume your current preferences won't alter, you'll make bad decisions: embarking on a career or marriage, say, not with a view to its durability, but solely based on how it makes you feel now." I am most definitely not predicting that you are about to make the kind of bad decision Burkeman refers to. I'm sure my warning here in this horoscope will derail any temptation you might have to make short-sighted moves.

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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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 book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

I'm happy to report that help from the invisible world is available to you right now. Of course you won't be able to use it, let alone tune in to it, if you don't believe there is any such thing as help from the invisible world. So if you are the type of person who is very sure that reality consists of nothing more than what your senses reveal, I suggest that you temporarily suspend that belief. And if you are someone who has had direct experiences with blessings that come from the unseen realm, be aware that the imminent delivery is quite different from those you have known in the past.

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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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 new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

In her book A Monster's Notes, Laurie Sheck describes the nuances of the term "ghost" in the German language. A mediocre wine may be called unghostly, she says. A witty, lively person is "Rich in Ghostliness," whereas a dull, blank type "has no ghost in him." In this spirit, Gemini, I suspect you will have some pretty fine ghostliness working for you in the coming weeks. And there's a good chance that part of your extra-special mojo will arise from your creative engagement with energies that resemble the more traditional definition of "ghost."

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

A one-minute video commercial for The Cosmopolitan luxury resort in Las Vegas shows an elegant woman at a sumptuous feast. She's eagerly holding her dinner plate up to her face so she can lick it clean of its last delicious taste. The scene shifts to a well-dressed man who's down on all fours serving as a chair for a chic woman. She applies her make-up while gazing into the shiny mirror-like surface of a high-heeled shoe. New scene: An 80-year-old woman pats the butt of a handsome young stud with whom she's slow-dancing. At the end of the ad, a catchphrase appears: "Just the right amount of wrong." I say, let that be your mantra in the coming week, Cancerian.

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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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.

Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity in 1916. It had radical implications for the field of theoretical physics, but remained an unproven concept until 1919. Then a British physicist verified its accuracy with evidence gathered during a solar eclipse. The Times newspaper in London announced the event with the headline "Revolution in Science: New Theory of the Universe, Newtonian Theories Overthrown." Not wanting to be left behind, The New York Times assigned one of its own journalists to cover the revolution. Unfortunately, the person they sent was a sports reporter whose specialty was golf. His article was less than illuminating. The moral of the story, as far as you're concerned, Leo: When big developments are underway, show up at full strength, with all your powers engaged.

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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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.

"Never to get lost is not to live," writes Rebecca Solnit in her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost. In fact, she says that not knowing how to get lost is unhealthy. These are useful ideas to consider right now, Virgo. It will probably do you good to get at least semi-lost. As you wander around without a map or compass, I bet you will stumble upon important teachings. At the same time, I hope you will put some thought into how you're going to get lost. Don't just leave it to chance. Make sure there's a method in your madness.

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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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.

In the English language, "low man on the totem pole" is an idiom that refers to a person who has the worst job or the least status. He or she is considered to be at the low end of the hierarchy. But it's an incorrect metaphor. The creators of the original totem poles were indigenous Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest, and for them the figure at the bottom of the pole was the most important one. I foresee the possibility of a similar situation arising in your sphere, Libra. Be alert for a misapprehension that needs to be righted. It may be the case that what's last should actually be first. Something that has been beneath or behind "more important" matters should perhaps get higher priority.

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

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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.

In his book Karmic Traces, Eliot Weinberger describes the life story of naked mole rats. They're animals that never leave their underground tunnels. Normally you Scorpios have nothing in common with them. But in the coming days, I'm hoping there will be one resemblance. According to Weinberger, the naked mole rats "change direction by somersaulting." Metaphorically speaking, I think this would be an excellent strategy for you. There's no need to mope cautiously as you alter your course. No need to be lackadaisical and fitful and full of doubts. Just spring into action with a cheery bounce, and move on with a renewed sense of purpose.

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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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.

The famous philosopher John Searle unleashed a witty dig about the famous philosopher Jacques Derrida, saying he is "the sort of philosopher who gives bullshit a bad name." One of your fun assignments in the coming week, Sagittarius, is to do the opposite of what Derrida's work does. In other words, give bullshit a good name. How? Well, you could engage in creative verbal expressions that boost morale and propagate delight and lubricate worthwhile connections. Make up noble fictions that are more accurate and useful than the literal truth. Spread uplifting gossip that heals and invigorates.

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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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.

"The ideal piano player is the one who wants to be the piano," says a character in Thomas Bernhard's novel The Loser. He continues: "I say to myself every day when I wake up, I want to be the Steinway, I want to be the Steinway itself." Your assignment, Capricorn, is to apply this attitude to your own personal situation. In other words, merge with the tool you want to master. Immerse yourself in the skill you're working to perfect -- disappear into it. In your imagination, become completely united with the thing or person or experience you desire.

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

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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.

"The trouble with our age is that it is all signpost and no destination," said writer Louis Kronenberger. I'm concerned that you may have fallen under the sway of this kind of myopia, Aquarius. A steady stream of useful tips and clues has been appearing, but you're missing some of them. Your long-range goals aren't sufficiently clear, so you don't always recognize the significance of new revelations. Here's the cure: In your imagination, create a vivid picture of your next big destination.

Need more help deciphering the riddles and enigmas that are fueling your amazing story? 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.

A group of bicyclists in Southern California challenged a blogger to a race. They said they could cover the 38.4 miles from North Hollywood to Long Beach faster on their bikes than the blogger could get there by plane. As it turned out, they were right. Their trip took an hour and 34 minutes. As for the blogger, he had to drive to the airport, wait for the plane to depart, fly to a different airport, then catch a cab to the designated destination. He arrived about an hour after the cyclists. Can you guess which of those two modes of travel is the preferred metaphor for you this week, Pisces? The earthy, simple, stripped-down approach will get you where you need to go better than the big, elaborate, expensive method.

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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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.