The Space Needle is a tourist attraction in Seattle. It's taller than the Washington Monument but shorter than the Eiffel Tower. Near the top of the structure is a circular restaurant that rotates slowly, making one complete turn every 47 minutes. The motor that moves this 125-ton mass is small: only 1.5 horsepower. In the coming days, Aries, I foresee you having a metaphorically similar ability. You will be able to wield a great deal of force with a seemingly small and compact "engine."

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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Send out a big "Hey!" and "What's up?" to all the little voices in your head. Start with the still, small voice that's always ready to provide concise responses to the ingenious questions you come up with. But also acknowledge the others as well—even the crabby, reactive naysayer that's forever on the lookout for insults to your dignity, however tiny or unintentional; even the worrywart that wakes you up in the middle of the night to pester you with doubts and fears.

Love all the little voices in your head. Celebrate their vitality, their persistence, their attentiveness. Consider the possibility that you're lucky to have such a zealous group of advisors, even if all but one of them are off the mark a lot of the time.
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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.

"How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?" asked Bob Dylan in one of his most famous songs, written in 1962. "The answer is blowin' in the wind," he concluded. Many people hailed the tune as a civil rights anthem. Thirteen years later, a hippie cowboy named Jerry Jeff Walker released "Pissing in the Wind," a rowdy song that included the line, "The answer is pissing in the wind." It was decidedly less serious than the tune it paid homage to, with Walker suggesting that certain events in his life resembled the act described in the title. "Makin' the same mistakes, we swore we'd never make again," he crooned. All of this is my way of letting you know, Taurus, that you're at a fork. In one direction is a profound, even noble, "blowin' in the wind" experience. In the other, it would be like "pissing in the wind." Which do you prefer? It's up to you.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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There is a proverb from the American culture of the 21st century that I'd like to run by you: "Never reveal all you know, confess everything you feel, show how much you care, or give all you have."

Prove this proverb wrong. Cultivate power by revealing all you know, confessing everything you feel, showing how much you care, and giving all you have.
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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.

The Italian artist Duccio di Buoninsegna painted his Madonna and Child sometime around the year 1300. It's a compact piece of art -- just eleven inches high and eight inches wide. Nevertheless, New York's Metropolitan Museum paid $45 million for the pleasure of owning it. I propose that we choose this diminutive treasure as your lucky symbol for the next eight to ten months, Gemini. May it inspire you as you work hard to create a small thing of great value.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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If you're a left-winger, you may think right-wingers are stupid or evil or both. If you're a right-winger, you probably hold the same attitudes about left-wingers. A similar pattern prevails between most other groups that hold opposing views. You're a rare person if you've never looked at a certain group of people and thought to yourself, "They are all sick idiots."

But I'm asking you to find out what it's like to dispense with judgments like that. In fact, try living without any scapegoats whatsoever. If even for an hour per week, visualize the possibility that those with whom you disagree might be sincere and well meaning.

I'm not suggesting this exercise merely because it's a nice thing to do. It will also have the effect of giving you access to parts of your own intelligence that have been closed off to you.
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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.

When the comic book hero Superman first appeared on the scene in 1938, he had the power to jump over tall buildings, but he couldn't fly. By 1941, he was hovering in mid-air, and sometimes moving around while floating. Eventually, he attained the ability to soar long distances, even between stars. Your own destiny may have parallels to Superman's in the coming months, Cancerian. It's possible you will graduate, metaphorically speaking, from taking big leaps to hovering in mid-air. And if you work your butt off to increase your skill, you might progress to the next level -- the equivalent of full-out flight -- by March 2014.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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Oceans are not exactly teeming with life. In fact, they're mostly barren, and could rightly be called "wet deserts." Likewise, not all your emotions, even those that come in floods, are fertile. Some are automatic reactions that have discharged thousands of times since they were first programmed into you many years ago. They're often negative, and are not organic but mechanical, being inappropriate to the events that seem to stimulate them. They became fixtures when you were a very different person than you are now. Identify these.
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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 never too late to become what you might have been," said novelist George Eliot. I'd like you to keep that thought in mind throughout the rest of 2013 and beyond, Leo. I trust you will allow its sly encouragement to work its way down into your darkest depths, where it will revive your discouraged hopes and wake up your sleeping powers. Here are the potential facts as I see them: In the next ten months, you will be in prime time to reclaim the momentum you lost once upon a time . . . to dive back into a beloved project you gave up on . . . and maybe even resuscitate a dream that made your eyes shine when you were younger and more innocent.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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Many of us don't always know what we feel. We may have a vivid sense that we feel something, but we're not sure what it is. That's why musicians, writers, actors, and other creative people play such a crucial role in our emotional lives. Their work can help us articulate the enigmas fermenting within us.

But here's the problem: A majority of the artists who are easiest for us to find aren't exceptionally smart or original; they specialize in expressing hackneyed feelings. Many of the very best creators "remain in relative obscurity because of their resistance to formula efforts," writes journalist Alan Cabal. "Mediocrities latch onto whatever hits and repeat it endlessly in pursuit of cash or celebrity or both." If we look to the latter for illumination, we're cheated.

Your assignments: Get tough with the lazy or wounded part of you that is drawn to the mediocrities. Compile a roster of virtuosos who have developed a high level of proficiency in extracting esthetically exciting meaning from the fascinating chaos around us. Expose yourself exclusively to their work, devotedly avoiding the mediocrities' stuff, for a given period, say 100 days. Describe how this transforms you.
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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.

When I first arrived in Santa Cruz some years back, I helped start a New Wave-punk band called Mystery Spot. Our first drummer was a guy named Lucky Lehrer. After a few months, our manager decided Lucky wasn't good enough and kicked him out of the band. Lucky took it hard, but didn't give up. He joined the seminal punk band the Circle Jerks, and went on to have a long and successful career. Flipside magazine even named him the best punk drummer of all time. I suspect, Virgo, that in the next ten to twelve months you will have a chance to achieve the beginning of some Lucky Lehrer-type redemption. In what area of your life would you like to experience it?

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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The bumper sticker I saw said, "Having abandoned my search for the truth, I'm now looking for a good fantasy." Though it's meant to be sarcastic, it's a useful piece of advice.

Consider this hypothesis: The truth is so complicated and ever-shifting that it's impossible to pin down. Why try to understand the nature of reality when it's more productive and interesting to aggressively create the nature of reality? Why be preoccupied with conjuring up concepts to approximate the structure of the universe when the point is that we change everything we observe merely by looking at it?

As another bumper sticker says, "Life isn't about finding yourself. It's about creating yourself."
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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 my reading of the astrological omens, the next 12 months will be a time when you will have more power than usual to turn your dreams into realities. You'll have extra skill at translating your ideals into practical action. To help make sure you capitalize on this potential, I suggest you adopt this Latin phrase as your motto: a posse ad esse. It means "from being possible to being actual." So why not simply make your motto "from being possible to being actual"? Why bother with the Latin version? Because I think your motto should be exotic and mysterious -- a kind of magical incantation.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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"The reality of love is mutilated when it is removed from all its unreality." So said the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in his book The Poetics of Reverie.

He meant that realism alone is not enough for human beings to live on, especially in our most intimate relationships. We need fantasy to augment the merely factual perspective. We require poetic truths to keep the rational approach honest.

Without the play of the imagination, in fact, our understanding of the world is impoverished and ­distorted.

(P.S. Nietzsche said: "We have art in order not to perish of truth.")
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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 2010, two economics professors from Harvard wrote a paper that became a crucial piece of evidence for the global austerity movement. Politicians used it to justify their assertion that the best way to cure our long-running financial ills is for governments to spend less money. Oddly, no one actually studied the paper to see if it was based on accurate data until April 2013. Then Thomas Herndon, a 28-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts, dived in and discovered fundamental mistakes that largely discredited the professors' conclusions. I believe you have a similar mojo going for you, Scorpio. Through clear thinking and honest inquiry, you have the power to get at truths everyone else has missed.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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When I lived in Santa Cruz, I had an acquaintance named Barnaby who lived at a remote rural community called Last Chance Farm. Combination shaman, wise elder, and lunatic, he would on rare occasions slip into town and lead me on fact-finding missions he dubbed whirlygigs. "Steep yourself with the intention of attracting lessons you don't know you need," he'd say, and then we'd meander the streets at random, going places I'd never been and striking up conversations with strangers with whom I seemingly had nothing in common. Barnaby described the whirlygig as an urban version of the walkabout, which for Aborigines is a time when they leave work and wander out into the bush to commune with the mysteries of nature.

Carry out your own whirlygig. When you're done, write an essay entitled, "People, Places, and Things I Didn't Know I 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.

Breakthrough will probably not arrive wrapped in sweetness and a warm glow, nor is it likely to be catalyzed by a handsome prince or pretty princess. No, Sagittarius. When the breakthrough barges into your life, it may be a bit dingy and dank, and it may be triggered by questionable decisions or weird karma. So in other words, the breakthrough may have resemblances to a breakdown, at least in the beginning. This would actually be a good omen -- a sign that your deliverance is nothing like you imagined it would be, and probably much more interesting.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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The factor most likely to drive us to addiction or illness is a lack of intimate contact with spirit. We all need a daily dose of vastness. Paradoxically, many of us would also benefit from more microscopic vision. Because we're so deprived of divine connection, we're half-dreaming all the time; our unconscious pining for the eternal source distracts us from the vivid little glories that are splayed out around us. And so we miss the Divine Wow from both directions.

Try this: Prime your connection with spirit by focusing your attention on tones and shapes you usually miss: reflections in windows, the sky between the oak tree's branches, the shadows on the water, the two different emotions in a friend's eyes and mouth.
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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 a wheat field, a rose is a weed -- even if that rose is voluptuous and vibrant. I want you to promise me that you will work hard to avoid a fate like that in the coming months, Capricorn. Everything depends on you being in the right place at the right time. It's your sacred duty to identify the contexts in which you can thrive and then put yourself in those contexts. Please note: The ambiance that's most likely to bring out the best in you is not necessarily located in a high-status situation where everyone's ambition is amped to the max.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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The German religious reformer Martin Luther was fond of referring to the faculty of reason as a "damned whore." He believed it gave itself in service to any old theory, often propping up specious arguments rooted in hidden emotional agendas.

Though I regard my ability to reason as a prized asset, I confess to having some of Luther's mistrust. Like most of us, I have corrupted my logical mind by sometimes using it to disguise and rationalize my subjective biases.

Can you imagine having so much self-awareness that you never turn your reasoning ability into a whore? Are you willing to probe with merciless honesty for the unconscious feelings that drive you to believe what you do, and to analyze the ways you mask your subjective biases as "objective fact"? Could you suspend all your preconceptions and greet every situation with a scrupulously open mind? Try to live up to that high standard for a period of three days.
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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.

Is your soul feeling parched? In your inner world, are you experiencing the equivalent of a drought? If so, maybe you will consider performing a magic ritual that could help get you on track for a cure. Try this: Go outside when it's raining or misting. If your area is going through a dry spell, find a waterfall or high-spouting fountain and put yourself in close proximity. Then stand with your legs apart and spread your arms upwards in a gesture of welcome. Turn your face toward the heavens, open up your mouth, and drink in the wetness for as long as it takes for your soul to be hydrated again. (In an emergency, frolicking under a sprinkler might also work.)

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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To the ancient Chinese, pigs were sacred because they could eat anything and turn it into energy. The creatures were regarded as masters of transmutation. Nothing, not even garbage, was unusable to them. The Chinese aspired to be like pigs in the sense of being able to learn from and derive benefit from every experience, not just the tidy, tasteful ones.

Borrowing this strategy, name two garbage-like experiences that you could turn into fuel for your growing urge to be a pronoiac co-conspirator.
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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.

Igor Stravinsky was a 20th-century composer who experimented with many styles of music, including the avant-garde work "The Rite of Spring." "My music is best understood by children and animals," he said. In my vision of your ideal life, Pisces, that will also be true about you in the coming week: You will be best understood by children and animals. Why? Because I think you will achieve your highest potential if you're as wild and free as you dare. You will be fueled by spontaneity and innocence, and care little about what people think of you. Play a lot, Pisces! Be amazingly, blazingly uninhibited.

Here's a gathering of all the Big-Picture horoscopes I've written for you this year. Check to see if they're relevant to the way your destiny has been evolving. You can also still hear a LONG-RANGE AUDIO PREVIEW for the REST of 2013 and beyond. Sign up and/or log in here, then click on "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2013." If you'd just like a report for the short-term, click on "This week (July 9, 2013)."

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"You may enjoy this movie if you shut down enough brain cells. I turned off all except the ones needed to remember where I parked my car." This observation comes from a critic's evaluation of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, but I've read similar comments in many reviews of other films and entertainment. Indeed, it's an approach that many intelligent people employ routinely in response to the shiny slop our culture offers up.

What about you? Do you assume you have to make yourself dumber in order to have fun? Has the well-crafted inanity of the world caused you to shut down your sensitivity? Work to reverse this trend. You'll receive help from unexpected sources if you do.
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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.