"There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one." So says a character in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Unconsoled. At this juncture in your life story, Aries, it might be healing for you to make a similar declaration. Now is an excellent moment to say a final goodbye to plot twists that you wished would have happened but never did. To do so will free up stuck energy that will then become available for future projects. You may even awaken to exciting possibilities you haven't imagined yet.

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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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.
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If a cow is given a name by her owner, she generates more milk than a cow that's treated as an anonymous member of the herd. That's the conclusion of a study done by researchers at Newcastle University in the UK. "Placing more importance on knowing the individual animals and calling them by name," said Dr. Catherine Douglas, "can significantly increase milk production."

Building on that principle, I suggest that you give everything in your world names, including (but not limited to) houseplants, insects, cars, appliances, and trees. It will help you get more up-close and personal with all of creation, which is an effective way to cultivate pronoia.

In May 2011, two Nepali men reached the top of Mt. Everest after a six-week climb. Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa and Sano Babu Sunuwar had prepared an unprecedented way to get back down off the mountain. Strapping themselves to a single parachute, they leaped off and paraglided for 45 minutes, landing near a Sherpa village thousands of feet below the summit. I suggest you look around for a metaphorical version of a shortcut like that, Taurus. Don't do the next part of the journey the same way you did the previous phase. Take a more direct route. Enjoy an alternate adventure. Give yourself a fresh challenge.

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

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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.
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Sometimes the best gift you can give your ego is to tell it you're not going to be its slave anymore. You say to it, "I'm tired of being whipped around by every one of your ever-shifting little needs, and I'm sick of having to kowtow to your inexhaustible demands. I want to be free of your insatiable craving to be appreciated, recognized, and adored. Go away and leave me alone. I'm just going to be who I am without worrying about you at all."

Delivering this message may stimulate a healing crisis. Your ego could be temporarily rendered numb and irrelevant by its near death experience, and you'll get to go off and do what your soul wants to do.

Tell your ego you won't be its slave for a period of three days.

Seeking wisdom and chasing after pleasure are polar opposites, right? You must devote yourself to either one or the other, correct? You can be an enlightened servant of the greater good or else an exuberant hedonist in quest of joy, but not both. True? No. No. No. False. Wrong. Here's the bigger truth: Now and then, grace periods come along when you can become smarter and kinder by exploring the mysteries of feeling really good. Can you guess when the next of these grace periods will arrive for you, Gemini? Here's the answer: It's here now!

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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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.
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In American psychotherapy, the first question many practitioners ask their new clients is essentially, "What did your parents do to you to mess you up so badly?" One of my Japanese friends tells me that in his country, a therapist is more likely to ask, "What did your parents do for you? How did they nurture and support you?"

Without dismissing the possibility that your mom and dad did inflict damage on you, I'll ask you to concentrate on the Japanese-style inquiry for now. What are the best things that happened to you when you were growing up? What did your family and community give you that you've never fully appreciated?

Humans walked on the moon before anyone ever had the simple idea to put wheels on suitcases. Unbelievable, right? Until 1972, three years after astronauts first walked on the lunar surface, travelers in airports and train stations had to carry and drag wheelless containers full of their belongings. I suspect that a comparable out-of-sequence thing may be going on in your own life, Cancerian. In some ways you are totally up-to-date, and in other ways you are lagging behind. Now would be a good time to identify any discrepancies and start correcting them. Metaphorically speaking, I'd love you to have rolling luggage by the next time you take a journey.

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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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.
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Beauty and Truth Lab researcher Beth had a dream that she and her tribe were living peacefully at the foot of a mountain. Without warning, fiery ash and lava erupted. Everyone fled, desperate to escape. But before she had gone far, Beth heard a voice in her head say, "Run toward the volcano; it's your only safety." Feeling an inexplicable trust in the voice, she turned around and started heading back, whereupon the dream ended and she woke up. Soon after getting out of bed, she felt moved to face up to a certain dilemma she'd been ignoring in her waking life. When she solved the problem a day later, she felt gratitude for the dream that had spurred her to do the right thing: Run toward the volcano.

Have you ever heard of the sasquatch, also known as bigfoot? You know, one of those big, hairy, humanoid beasts that walks upright and lives in dense forests? Scientists assure us that there is no such thing. But then they used to say the same thing about the platypus. It was a myth, they declared; a figment of explorers' vivid imaginations. A duck-billed, egg-laying mammal simply could not exist. When the respected British zoologist George Shaw claimed there was indeed such a creature, he was mocked by his contemporaries. Eventually, though, the truth emerged and Shaw was vindicated. I suspect that you Leos will soon experience an event akin to the discovery and confirmation that the platypus is real.

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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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.
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"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words," said Terence McKenna in Alien Dreamtime, "and that if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish." Here's my version of that hypothesis: What world you end up living in depends at least in part on your use of language.

Do you want to move and breathe amidst infertile chaos where nothing makes sense and no one really loves anyone? Then speak with unconscious carelessness, expressing yourself lazily. Constantly materialize and entertain angry thoughts in the privacy of your own imagination, beaming silent curses out into eternity.

Or would you prefer to live in a realm that's rich with fluid epiphanies and intriguing coincidences and mysterious harmonies? Then be discerning and inventive in how you speak, primed to name the unexpected codes that are always being born right in front of your eyes. Turn your imagination into an ebullient laboratory where the somethings you create out of nothings are tinctured with the secret light you see in your dreams of invisible fire.

Kyoka is a Japanese word that means a flower reflected in a mirror. I suggest you use it as a metaphor to help you understand what's happening in your life right now. Here are some clues to jumpstart your ruminations. Are you more focused on the image of what you love than on what you love? If so, is there anything wrong with that, or is it perfectly fine? Are you more interested in ephemeral beauty that you can admire from afar than in tangible beauty you can actually touch? If so, is there anything wrong with that, or is it perfectly fine? Should you turn away from a dreamy surrogate and turn toward the real thing? If so, why?

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

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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.
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As a boy, renowned Spanish matador Manolete was a sissy. He rarely played outside, preferring to be near his mother as he read books and painted pictures.

Psychologist James Hillman explains this by suggesting that the youthful Manolete had already sensed his destiny, intuiting that one day he would be alone in the ring facing down angry 2,000-pound bulls. His childhood behavior was a way of marshaling his strength and shielding him from the enormity of the challenges he would seek out one day.

Is it possible that what you have considered a weakness or vulnerability has actually been preparing you to express a signature strength?

A British researcher poured 300 million facts into a computer program designed to determine the most boring day in history. The winner was April 11, 1954. It was selected because almost nothing important happened except an election in Belgium. I'm wondering if you Libras might reach that level of blah sometime soon. The astrological omens suggest it's a possibility. And frankly, I hope that's exactly what happens. You need a break from high adventure and agitated activity. You would benefit from indulging in some downtime that allowed you to luxuriate in silence and stasis. The time has come to recharge your psychic batteries.

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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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.
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Sometimes we have a strong sense of what our destiny is calling us to do, but we don't feel quite ready or brave enough to answer the call. We need a push, an intervention, a serendipitous stroke -- what you might call "fate bait." It's a person or event that awakens our dormant willpower and draws us inexorably toward our necessary destiny; it's a thunderbolt or siren song or stage whisper that gives us a good excuse to go do what we know we should do.

Do you have any ideas about how to put yourself in the vicinity of your fate bait?

You won't be the recipient of good luck in the coming days. Nor will you experience bad luck or dumb luck or weird luck. No, Scorpio. The serendipitous slew of synchronicities that will slip and slide into your sphere requires a new word, which I have coined for this occasion. That word is "shluck." Shluck is a cracked yet plucky sort of backwards luck that provides you with an abundance of curious slack. Shluck slings your way a series of happy accidents and curious coincidences that give you experiences you didn't even realize you needed. To take maximum advantage of shluck's benefits, you have to dispense with your agendas and drop your expectations.

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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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.
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During my years in college, I enjoyed watching the evolution of Richard, a shy geek in my creative writing classes. Long before he penned a single good poem, he was a bohemian art poseur. On his backpack there was a button with the image of rock poet Patti Smith. He often wore a T-shirt bearing a quote from poetry icon Allen Ginsberg, and he was never without his book of Rimbaud poems. Everywhere I went I saw him scribbling ostentatiously in his journal as he chain-smoked clove cigarettes.

To my surprise, Richard's work gradually began to match his persona. By sophomore year he'd spawned some evocative poems, and soon after he graduated, he published a fine chapbook. In his development I witnessed a perfect example of the saying, "You become what you pretend to be."

Your assignment: Decide what you want to become, and start pretending to be that thing. Or else: Be careful what you're unconsciously pretending to be, because you just might become it.

In the old fairy tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," the poor woodcutter Ali Baba is collecting firewood in the forest when he spies a gang of thieves bragging about their exploits. Observing them from a hiding place, he hears them chant a phrase, "open sesame." This magically unseals the opening to a cave that happens to be full of their stolen treasure. Later, when the thieves have departed, Ali Baba goes to the cave and says "open sesame" himself. The hocus-pocus works. He slips into the cave and steals a bag of gold from the robbers' plunder. This story has resemblances to an adventure you could enjoy sometime soon, Sagittarius. I suspect you may discover your own version of "open sesame." It will give you access to a less literal and more legitimate bounty.

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

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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.
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In his book Starbucked, Taylor Clark says there's a woman who goes to a Seattle Starbucks every morning and orders a "decaf single grande extra vanilla two-percent extra caramel 185-degrees with whipped cream caramel macchiato."

Maybe her request seems overly fussy and demanding, but it could be a good act for you to mimic. Try this: For a given time, say 12 days, be equally as exacting in asking for what you want. Assume that you have a poetic license to be extremely specific as you go about your quest for fulfillment.

Your ability to heal rifts and bridge gaps is unusually high. You could connect seemingly irreconcilable elements and forge apparently impossible links. Former allies who have become estranged might be moved to bond again through your compassionate intervention. I'm not promising amazingly miraculous feats of unification, but I'm not ruling them out, either. You have a sixth sense about how to create interesting mixtures by applying just the right amount of pressure and offering just the right kind of tenderness.

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

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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.
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"Why, I don't even respect myself, I tell ya," said comedian Rodney Dangerfield. "When I make love, I have to fantasize that I am somebody else!"

Experiment with just the second half of that formulation. While you're making love, fantasize that you're somebody else. But do it because you care deeply about yourself -- so deeply that you want to transcend your customary reactions and expand your identity. Do it because you dare to awaken to previously unknown possibilities of who you might be.

My friend Harry said he wanted to teach me to play golf. "Are you kidding?" I asked him incredulously. "The dullest game on the planet?" He tried to convince me that it would provide lots of interesting metaphors I could use in writing horoscopes. "Name one," I challenged him. He told me that "Volkswagen" is a slang term that describes what happens when a golfer makes an awkward shot that nevertheless turns out to be quite good. "Hmmm," I replied. "That is exactly the theme I have decided on for the Aquarius horoscope."

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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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.
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There was an indignant uproar after revelations in 2006 that James Frey's best-selling "memoir" A Million Little Pieces contains fabrications. He hadn't actually lived all of the experiences he depicted therein.

Hearing about it prompted me to ruminate on whether there's any such thing as a completely accurate account of any person's life. My conclusion: no.

In every autobiography and biography ever written, the author imaginatively strings together selectively chosen details to conjure up artificially coherent narratives rather than depicting the crazy-quilt ambiguity that actually characterizes everyone's journey.

If you and nine writers set out to tell your life story, you'd produce 10 wildly different tales, each rife with subjective interpretation, misplaced emphasis, unintentional distortions, and exorbitant extrapolations from insufficient data.

Celebrate the malleability of reality. Regale listeners with stories about the time you worked as a pirate in the Indian Ocean, or rode the rails through Kansas as a hobo, or gave a down-on-his-luck CIA agent sage advice in an elevator. When you call to get pizza delivered and the clerk who takes your order asks your name, say you're Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton. When someone you're meeting is annoyed because you're late, say you couldn't help it because you were smoking crack in the bus station bathroom with your mom's guru and lost track of time. If asked how much education you have, say you have three PhDs, one each in astrobiology, Russian literature, and whale songs.

Do you remember being in your mother's womb? Probably not. But here's what I know about that time: In the first few weeks after you were conceived, your body grew at a very rapid rate. Once you were born, if you had continued to expand and develop with that much vigor, you would literally have grown to be as big as a mountain by now. So let's be thankful you slowed down. But I do want to sound an alert and let you know that you are currently in a growth spurt with some metaphorical resemblances to that original eruption. It's basically a good thing. Just be aware that you may experience growing pains.

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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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.
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George III was King of England from 1760 to 1820. During the last years of his reign, he gradually became more and more detached from reality, talking to himself for hours on end and addressing trees as if they were people. When he first began losing his mind, his servants and assistants made a conscious decision to help him feel more comfortable by acting eccentric themselves.

Their collusion with George's pathology is an extreme example of a situation that all of us are at risk of. Our associates and loved ones may fall into a rhythm of going along with our odd ideas and bad habits, encouraging us to continue doing what we probably shouldn't do.

Are your allies refraining from busting you or calling your bluff, when they probably should? Bust yourself. Call your own bluff.