In its quest for nectar, a hummingbird sips from a thousand flowers every day. As it flaps its wings 70 times a second, zipping from meal to meal, it can fly sideways, backward, or forward. If it so desires, it can also hover or glide upside-down. It remembers every flower it visits, and knows how long it will take before each flower will produce a new batch of nectar. To some Spanish speakers, hummingbirds are known as joyas voladoras, or "flying jewels." Now take everything I've just said, Aries, and use it as a metaphor for who you can be in the coming week.

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.

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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 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.

In 1947, the impossibly wealthy Duke of Windsor went shopping in Paris to buy a gift for his wife, the Duchess. She already had everything she wanted, so he decided to get creative. He commissioned the luxury-goods manufacturer Hermes to build her a high-fashion black leather wheelbarrow. I am not urging you to acquire something like that for yourself, Taurus. But I do like it as a symbol for what you need in your life right now: a blend of elegance and usefulness, of playful beauty and practical value, of artistry and hard work.

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.

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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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Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.

When you're ready, carry out the exercise called Brag Therapy. Grab a good listener or a recording device, and boast extravagantly about yourself for at least 20 minutes. Expound in exhaustive detail why you're so wonderful and why the world would be a better place if everyone would just act more like you.

Don't be humble or cautious. Go too far. Heap extreme glory on yourself. Brazenly proclaim the fabulous qualities about you that no one has ever fully articulated or appreciated. Don't forget to extol the prodigious flaws and vices that make you so special.

What does this have to do with pronoia? When you audaciously identify your existing gifts, you set yourself up to become a magnet for even greater abundance. In fact, we recommend that you treat yourself to a Brag Therapy session regularly.

To whet your imagination, read an excerpt from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session I hosted in Milwaukee. "I have opposable thumbs," Eric exulted. "I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I'm asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up."

Your brain absorbs about 11 million pieces of information every second, but is consciously aware of less than .001 percent of all that richness. Or at least that's usually the case. Having analyzed your astrological omens, I suspect that you might soon jack that figure up as high as .01 percent -- a ten-fold increase! Do you think you can handle that much raw input? Are you amenable to being so acutely perceptive? How will you respond if the world is a ten times more vivid than usual? I'm pretty confident. I suspect you won't become a bug-eyed maniac freaking out on the intensity, but rather will be a soulful, wonder-filled explorer in love with the intensity.

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.

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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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Don't make nasty comments about yourself behind your own back.

Do play soccer in bunny slippers at dawn in a supermarket parking lot with a gang of sadomasochistic stockbrokers who've promised to teach you the Balinese monkey chant.

Don't decorate your thigh with a sloppy tattoo of the devil pushing a lawn mower.

Do wear a t-shirt that says, "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

Don't glide into a bar, scout around for the person whose face has the most pain etched in it, and ask that person to come home with you.

Do eat ripe organic strawberries that have been genetically modified and irradiated, and do chain-smoke Marlboros as you peddle your exercise bicycle, and do wander through a garbage dump while listening to Mozart on your iPod.

Don't get hooked on the fantasy that there are only two kinds of people, those who align themselves with the forces of light and those who align themselves with the forces of darkness.

Do start an organization called POMP (Proud Owners of Multiple Personalities), dedicated to erasing negative stereotypes about healthy non-schizophrenics who enjoy being a community of many different selves.

Don't lie on a floor surrounded by wine-stained poetry books, crumpled Matisse prints, abandoned underwear, and half-eaten bowls of corn flakes as you stare up at the ceiling with a mad gaze, muttering gibberish and waving your hands as if swatting away demons.

Do run along the tops of cars during a traffic jam, escaping from bad guys as you make your way to a helicopter that takes you to a spot hovering over an erupting volcano, into which you drop the Buns of Steel video.

Don't put your soul up for auction on eBay.

Do write a cookbook filled with recipes you've channeled from dead celebrities.

If you come upon a lamp with a genie in it, don't wish you had a magic wand.

You have a strong, intricate understanding of where you have come from. The old days and old ways continue to feed you with their mysterious poignancy. You don't love every one of your past experiences, but you love ruminating about them and feeling the way they changed you. Until the day you die many years from now, your history will keep evolving, providing an endless stream of new teachings. And yet at this particular moment in your destiny, Cancerian, I think your most important task is to focus on where you are going to. That's why I urge you to temporarily forget everything you think you know about your past and instead concentrate on getting excited about the future.

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.

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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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Every fundamentalist divides the world into two camps, those who agree with him and like him and help him, and those who don't. There is only one right way to interpret the world -- according to the ideas the fundamentalist believes to be true -- and a million wrong ways.

The fundamental attitude of all fundamentalists is to take everything way too seriously and too personally and too literally. Imagination is a sin and a crime. Correct belief is the only virtue. Every fundamentalist is committed to waging war against the imagination unless the imagination is enslaved to his or her belief system.

And here's the bad news: Like almost everyone in the world, each of us has our own share of the fundamentalist virus. It may not be as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, the fundamentalism of Islamic terrorists or Christian politicians or CEOs who act as if making a financial profit is the supreme good or scientists who deny the existence of the 96 percent of reality imperceptible to the five senses. Our fundamentalism is not as virulent as theirs.

But still: We are infected, you and I, with fundamentalism. What are we going to do about it?

I say we practice taking everything less seriously and less personally and less literally.

In 1928, Bobby Pearce won a gold medal in rowing at the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. An unforeseen event almost sabotaged his victory. As he rowed his boat along the Sloten Canal, a family of ducks swam leisurely from shore to shore directly across his path. He stopped to let them pass, allowing an opponent who was already ahead of him to gain an even bigger advantage. Yet he ultimately won the race, rowing with such vigor after the duck incident that he finished well ahead of his challenger. I foresee a comparable sequence in your life, Leo. Being thoughtful and expressing compassion may seem to slow you down, but in the end that won't hinder you from achieving your goal -- and may even help.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your unfolding 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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Receptivity is not a passive state. Nor is it a blank, empty waiting around for whatever happens to come along. In urging you to cultivate receptivity, I don't mean you should become a lazy do-nothing bereft of goals, reacting blindly to whatever life throws in front of you. Receptivity is a robust readiness to be surprised and moved; a vigorous intention to be awake to everything you can't control. When you're receptive in the pronoiac style, you have strong ideas and a powerful will and an eagerness to disseminate your unique blessings, but you're also animated by the humble certainty that you have a lot to learn.

In one of her "Twenty-One Love Poems," Adrienne Rich talks about her old self in the third person. "The woman who cherished / her suffering is dead. I am her descendant. / I love the scar tissue she handed on to me, / but I want to go from here with you / fighting the temptation to make a career of pain." With your approval, Virgo, I'd like to make that passage one of your keynotes in the coming months. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you will have an excellent opportunity to declare your independence from an affliction you've been addicted to. Are you willing to say goodbye to one of your signature forms of suffering?

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.

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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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Where exactly does happiness come from? That's the riddle posed by David Meyers and Ed Diener in their article, "The Science of Happiness," published in The Futurist magazine. I invite you to write your own answers to their question. Map out the foundations of your own science of happiness. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good. What specific experiences arouse your deepest gratification? Physical pleasure? Seeking the truth? Being a good person? Contemplating the meaning of life? Enjoying the fruits of your accomplishments? Purging pent-up emotion?

"You should be interviewing roses not people," says a character in Anne Carson's book The Autobiography Of Red. That's sound poetic advice for you in the coming days, Libra. More than you can imagine, you will benefit from being receptive to and learning from non-human sources: roses, cats, dogs, spiders, horses, songbirds, butterflies, trees, rivers, the wind, the moon, and any other intelligences that make themselves available to you. I'm not saying you should ignore the revelations offered by people. But your emphasis should be on gathering in wisdom from life forces that don't communicate with words.

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.

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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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Whatever you choose to focus your attention on, you will get more of it. If you often think of everything you lack and how sad you are that you don't have it, you will tend to receive prolific evidence of how true that is. As you obsess on all the ways your life is different from what you wish it would be, you will become an expert in rousing feelings of frustration and you will attract experiences that assist you in rousing frustration.

If, on the other hand, you dwell on the good things you have already had the privilege to experience, you will expand your appreciation for their blessings, which in turn will amplify their beneficent impact on your life. You will also magnetize yourself to receive further good things, making it more likely that they will be attracted into your sphere. At the very least, you will get in the habit of enjoying yourself no matter what the outward circumstances are.

William Shockley was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who co-invented the transistor. He also helped launch the revolution in information technology, and has been called "the man who brought silicon to Silicon Valley." Time magazine named him one of the hundred most influential people of the 20th century. On the other hand, Shockley became a controversial advocate of eugenics, which damaged his reputation, led many to consider him a racist, and played a role in his estrangement from his friends and family. I suspect that you will have to deal with at least one Shockley-type phenomenon in the coming weeks, Scorpio. Will you overlook the bad stuff in order to take advantage of the good? Should you?

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.

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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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Evil is boring. The universe is friendly. Life is on your side. Joy is your birthright.
Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. In fact, all of creation wants you to succeed.
Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Retrain your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

Novelist Herman Melville wrote that in order to create art, "unlike things must meet and mate." Like what? "Sad patience" and "joyous energies," for example; both of them are necessary, he said. "Instinct and study" are crucial ingredients, as well as humility and pride, audacity and reverence, and "a flame to melt" and a "wind to freeze." Based on my interpretation of the astrological omens, Sagittarius, I believe you will soon need to meld opposites like these as you shape that supreme work of art -- your life.

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.

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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 prayed every day for three years to win the lottery, but never heard from God or hit the jackpot.
Finally, God woke him up in the middle of the night. "George, is that you who's been praying so hard to win the lottery?" the Supreme Being boomed.
"Yes, Lord, desperately!"
God paused for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "George, I'll tell you what. I want you to meet me halfway. Buy a ticket, OK?"

Haggis is a Scottish pudding. According to the gourmet food encyclopedia Larousse Gastronomique, it has "an excellent nutty texture and delicious savory flavor." And yet, to be honest, its ingredients don't sound promising. To make it, you gather the lungs, liver, small intestine, and heart of a sheep, put all of that stuff inside the stomach of the sheep along with oatmeal, onions, salt, and suet, and then simmer the whole mess for three hours. I'm guessing that your work in the coming week may have a certain metaphorical resemblance to making haggis, Capricorn. The process could a bit icky, but the result should be pretty tasty.

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.

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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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Is it really healthy to have a shrill, 25-words-or-less opinion about everything, as radio and TV talk shows seem to imply? Would anyone mind if now and then you served as a compassionate witness about the hot-button issues? Is it conceivable that you could simply sit on the fence in the midst of the wars of words and beam articulate sympathy at both sides?

Yes, you can. You have the rebellious resourcefulness to be a freedom fighter without hating anyone. Go out and prove it.

Almost a hundred years ago, world-famous comedian Charlie Chaplin decided to take part in a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest in San Francisco. He did his best to imitate himself, but it wasn't good enough. He didn't come close to winning. But I think you would have a different fate if you entered a comparable competition in the coming weeks. There's no question in my mind that you would be crowned as the person who most resembles you. Maybe more than ever before, you are completely yourself. You look like your true self, you feel like your true self, and you are acting like your true self. Congratulations! It's hard work to be so authentic.

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.

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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 you're typical, your natural curiosity was virtually extinguished at an early age by mediocre teachers, boring lessons, and oppressive classrooms. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if your imagination hadn't been squelched? What interesting adventures might you have sought out if your natural love of learning hadn't been crushed?

Let's launch a quest to undo the damage. Imagine I've handed you an undiploma: your official release from the soul-death of your formal education; the beginning of the healing of your wounded love of learning. What's the first thing you'll do to invoke a steady stream of inspired teachers and invigorating lessons?

"The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease," said French philosopher Francois-Marie Voltaire. That principle will be useful for you to invoke in the coming weeks. You definitely need to be cured, although the "disease" you are suffering from is primarily psychospiritual rather than strictly physical. Your task will be to flood yourself with fun adventures, engaging stories, and playtime diversions so that nature can heal you without the interference of your worries and kibitzing.

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

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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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"Is it bad to live without a hell?" poet Pablo Neruda asks in The Book of Questions. Let's add these queries to his: Is it dangerous to live without an enemy? Is it naive to think you can achieve great success without the driving motivation that comes from having ideas you hate? There are thousands of correct answers to these questions. What are yours?

Consider the issue from another angle. Dentists love tooth decay. Treating cavities provides them with a steady source of income. Likewise, exterminators are dependent on termites, lawyers need crimes, and priests are hungry for sinners. Lots of people have symbiotic connections with nasty stuff. In fact, isn't it true that most of us nurture our feelings for the things we love to despise and fear?

What's your favorite poison or adversary? Assume that your exposure to pronoia is changing you in ways that will require you to update your relationship with it. Speculate on how you'll go about this task.