Thinking inside the box will be a crime against your nature in the coming weeks. The last place you want to be is in a pigeonhole. I advise you to stay far away from tight squeezes, claustrophobic "sanctuaries," and "convenient" confinements. If you're in a one-size-fits-all situation, you simply won't be able to access your highest intelligence. So then where should you be? I am rooting for you to wander into the wild frontiers where unsanctioned wonders and marvels await you. I'd love for you to find virgin terrain and uncharted territories where the boring old rules don't apply.

How much do you want to know about your life? How far do you dare to go in your quest for self-mastery? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
"Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax," writes Deepak Chopra in The Book of Secrets. "Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart."

If you use your imagination, you can sense the connection between the flight of a dragonfly and the intelligent organ that renews its commitment to keeping you alive every second of your life. So use your imagination.

Mike Finnigan is a veteran keyboardist and blues vocalist who has toured with more than 20 major acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Etta James, Leonard Cohen, and Los Lonely Boys. There's a primal quality to his singing. It's gritty and fluid and tempestuous, almost feral at times. I understand perfectly why Bonnie Raitt has called him a "tall drink of bacon." The sound he makes with his voice is that lush and tasty. Can you guess his astrological sign? It's Taurus, of course. I'm naming him your patron saint this week because you yourself are as close as you have ever come to being a tall drink of bacon.

Would you like to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Do you want to uncover the secrets you've been hiding even from yourself? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
The primary meaning of the word "healing" is "to cure what's diseased or broken." Medical practitioners focus on sick people. Philanthropists donate their money and social workers contribute their time to helping the underprivileged. Psychotherapists wrestle with their clients' traumas and neuroses. I'm in awe of them all. The level of one's spiritual wisdom, I believe, is more accurately measured by helping people in need than by meditation skills, shamanic shapeshifting, supernatural powers, or esoteric knowledge.

But I also believe in a second kind of healing that is largely unrecognized: to supercharge what is already healthy; to lift up what's merely sufficient to a sublime state. Using this definition, describe two acts of healing: one you would enjoy performing on yourself and another you'd like to provide for someone you love.

French painter Henri Matisse thought highly of his own work. He tended to ignore critics because he didn't think they understood his art well enough to produce intelligent critiques. There was one person whose opinion he was willing to heed, though; a single colleague who he said had earned to right to evaluate and assess his art: Pablo Picasso. I encourage you, Gemini, to come up with your own short list of people whose judgment you totally trust and respect. It's a good time to seek out their feedback on how you're doing.

Do you wish you could get more clarity about the foggy, ambiguous situations you're dealing with? Want more help in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss your coming week in greater depth in your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
"Creativity is like driving a car at night," said E. L. Doctorow. "You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." I would add that life itself is like driving a car at night. You're often in the dark except for what's right in front of you. At least that's usually the case.

But for a few shining hours sometime this week, I predict you'll be able to see the big picture of where you're headed. It will be as if the whole world is suddenly illuminated by a prolonged burst of light; as if you're both driving your car and also watching your your journey from high above. Write about what you see.

How is it possible that you have come so far and worked so diligently only to be resigned now to hanging out in limbo, waiting around for the lucky break that may or may not ever arrive? I'm here today to escort you out of this infernal place. If you resist, my assignment is to drag you out. Why am I so adamant? Because I am sure it's a mistake for you to be passive and hope for the best. You need to resume working diligently, focused for now on what's right in front of you without worrying too much about the big picture. In my opinion, that approach will lead you to unforeseen help -- and a clarification of the big picture.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Would you like help in solving the riddles that confuse you? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Imagine that the whole world belongs to you. The birch trees in New Hampshire's White Mountains are yours, and so are the cirrus clouds in the western sky at dusk and the black sand on the beaches of Hawaii's Big Island. You own everything, my dear sovereign -- the paintings in all the museums of the world, as well as the Internet and the wild horses and the eight-lane highways.

Please take good care of it all, OK? Be an enlightened monarch who treats your domain with reverent responsibility. And make sure you also enjoy the full measure of fun that comes with such mastery. Glide through life as if all of creation is yearning to honor and entertain you.

Your levels of personal magic are high. The radiance beaming out of your eyes is extra sparkly. There's an artistry to the way you are expressing yourself. Without even trying, you're exuding natural charisma and animal magnetism. In light of all these advantages, I suspect you will have an elevated capacity for both giving and receiving pleasure. In fact, I predict that your ability to feel really good and make other people feel really good will be at a peak. I hereby designate this the Week of Supreme Bliss.

Need more help in figuring out the questions life is asking you? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Here's an experiment worth trying: Don't try to analyze the Great Mystery. Instead, be the Great Mystery. Don't go with the Flow; be the Flow. Don't struggle and strain to put yourself in harmony with the Creative Surge of the Divine Wow. Be the Creative Surge of the Divine Wow.

The BBC reported on an expert who combs Switzerland's Risoud Forest to find the spruce trees whose wood can be made into the highest quality violins. After years of experience, Lorenzo Pellegrini knows which few trees will produce instruments with the most resonant tones. They grow slowly and have few knots. They need to have had enough water to grow strong, but not so much water that they're mushy. Your task in the coming weeks, Virgo, has a certain resemblance to the master tree-picker's work. It's time for you to start selecting and gathering the raw materials you will use to craft your own lyrical story in 2014.

What fresh blessings will life bring you? What questions should you be asking? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Jungian analyst Arnold Mindell explores the relationship between mind and body. He thinks you can achieve optimal physical health if you're devoted to shedding outworn self-images. In his book The Shaman's Body, he says, "You have one central lesson to learn -- to continuously drop all your rigid identities. Personal history may be your greatest danger."

Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, agrees. Raised as a boy, she later became a woman, but ultimately renounced gender altogether. "I love being without an identity," she says. "It gives me a lot of room to play around."

What identities would be healthy, even ecstatic, for you to lose? Describe the fun you'd have if you were free of them.

Here's the bad news: For all of us, including you, there is a gap between our intentions and our actual effects. Here's the good news: Now is your special time to narrow that gap. More bad news: All of us, you included, are periodically guilty of sending out mixed messages. We confuse people with our ambivalence; what we say is sometimes different from what we feel. More good news: Now is your special time to reduce your mixed messages to as close to zero as possible. One more taste of bad news: Like all of us, you are a bit hypocritical. You engage in behavior that you criticize in others. You don't practice what you preach. One last piece of good news: Now is your special time to work on being forthright, genuine, and consistent.

Want to explore this chapter of your life story even further? Dig deeper? Push harder? Consider tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
"You can't wait for inspiration," proclaimed writer Jack London. "You have to go after it with a club." That sounds too violent to me, though I agree in principle that aggressiveness is the best policy in one's relationship with inspiration.

Try this: Don't wait for inspiration. Go after it with a butterfly net, lasso, sweet treats, fishing rod, court orders, beguiling smells, and sincere flattery.

"I am very fond of strawberries and cream," said author Dale Carnegie, "but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish." That's a good teaching story for you, Scorpio. In order to get your desires fulfilled by the people who have the power to do that, you should give them what they actually long for -- not what you long for, nor what you wish they would long for. This is always true, of course, but it's especially applicable to what's going on in your life right now.

You're got more strength and intelligence than you realize. For help in accessing those untapped inner resources, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Become a rapturist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good.

Before bringing your work as a rapturist to strangers, practice with two close companions. Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions. It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy. Give them an imaginative boon they've been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, "I love the way you move me."

Touted as a prime source of "kick-@ss spirituality," author Danielle LaPorte has advice that's good for you to hear. "You will always be too much of something for someone," she says, "too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy." But that's exactly as it should be, she adds. It would be a mistake to "round out your edges," because then you would "lose your edge." And I'm here to tell you that you need all of your edge right now, Sagittarius. It's time to ignore people's mediocre expectations and push past their limits. To be true to yourself, you will probably have to be too much of something for several someones.

How are you going to change what needs to be changed and accept what needs to be accepted? To get some support from me, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
What is the holiest river in the world? Some might say the Ganges in India. Others would propose the Jordan River or the River Nile. But I say the holiest river is the one that's closest to where you are right now.

Go to that river and commune with it. Throw a small treasure into it as an offering. Next, find a holy sidewalk to walk on, praise the holiness in a bus driver, kiss a holy tree, and shop at a holy store.

Going into my spiritual mentoring session with the priestess, I had the intention of discovering truths about myself I didn't know before. That meant stirring up revelations about my ignorance as well as my potentials. I wanted assistance in facing my flaws as well as in tapping into my dormant powers. It worked. Her guidance was a potent catalyst. I was able to shed the debilitating nonsense stories I'd been telling myself about who I am. I awakened strengths that had been asleep. What I wish for you, Capricorn -- indeed, what I *predict* for you -- is a comparable experience. To expedite matters, go out in search of a person, adventure, or breakthrough that can help provide you with the kind of prod I received.

Sometimes it's a challenge to try to figure out what's important and what's not important. If you'd like more of my input, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.

Name three specific actions you'll try in order to improve your luck.

I bet people will be gossiping about you more than usual. Is there anything you can do to ensure that it's mostly benevolent gossip? Yes, there is. First, make sure that when you gossip about others, you are unfailingly positive in your comments. If you don't have anything good to say about someone, don't say it. Second, be on your best behavior. Communicate clearly and don't even think about taking unethical shortcuts. Finally, contribute more inspirational energy than usual to every group you're part of. Be an effervescent team player.

How well is your imagination working these days? Could it use a boost? A prod? A jolt of inspiration? Try tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier? Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.

Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.

Maybe your ego isn't big enough. I'm serious. Is it possible that you could benefit from being more proud of yourself? Would it be healthy for you to give yourself more credit for the struggles you have weathered and the skills you have mastered and the beauty you have managed to forge out of the chaotic raw materials that life has given you? I've got a good feeling about this, Pisces. I can imagine you summoning the playful courage you will need to express more confidence. I can even picture you beginning to fantasize about embarking on certain stirring adventures you've never believed you were strong enough to try before now.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your unfolding destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
*
Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt drew up an index to categorize the discomfort caused by stinging insects. The attack of the bald-faced hornet is "rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door." A paper wasp delivers pain that's "caustic and burning," with a "distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut." The sweat bee, on the other hand, can hurt you in a way that's "light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm."

In bringing this to your attention, I want to inspire the pronoiac rebel in you. Your homework is to create an equally nuanced and precise index of three experiences that feel really good.