Researchers in Peru have recently tracked down many previously unknown varieties of wild cacao plants. What that means is that there are exotic kinds of chocolate that you and I have never dreamed of, and they will be commercially available within a few years. As delicious as your Chocolove XOXOX Extra Strong Dark candy bar may taste to you now, you will eventually journey further into a new frontier of ecstatic delectability. I propose that we use this theme as a metaphor for the work you have ahead of you right now. It is time for you to make good things even better -- to take fun diversions and transform them into experiences that engender transcendent bliss. Turn "yes" into "YESSSS!!!!"

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How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and conditioned responses? For assistance and inspiration, 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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"Love is being stupid together," said French poet Paul Valery. While there's a grain of truth to that, it's too corny and decadent for my tastes. I prefer to focus on a more interesting truth, which is this: Real love is being smart together. If you weave your destiny together with another's, he or she should catalyze your sleeping potentials, sharpen your perceptions, and boost both your emotional and analytical intelligence. Your relationship becomes a crucible in which you deepen your understanding of the way the world works.

Give an example of your closest approach to this model in your own life. Then formulate a vow in which you promise you'll do what's necessary to more fully embody the principle "Love is being smart together."

At your next meal, imagine that the food you are eating is filled with special nutrients that enhance your courage. During the meal after that, fantasize that you are ingesting ingredients that will boost your perceptiveness. The next time you snack, visualize your food as being infused with elements that will augment the amount of trust you have in yourself. Then you will be ready to carry out your assignment for the coming weeks: Use your imagination to pump up your courage and perceptiveness as you carry out smart adventures that you haven't trusted yourself enough to try before now.

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Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn't a barrier to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you every day. For inspiration in practicing this approach, 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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"For a relationship to stay alive," writes James Hillman, "love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining."

Make this your hypothesis. The next time you sense that you're about to say the same old thing to your closest ally, interrupt yourself and head off in the direction of storyland.

The leaves and berries of the deadly nightshade plant are highly poisonous. If ingested, they cause delirium and death. On the other hand, a drug obtained from the same plant is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It's helpful in treating many illnesses, from gastrointestinal and heart problems to Parkinson's. Is there a metaphorical equivalent in your life, Gemini? An influence that can either be sickening or healing, depending on various factors? I suspect that now is one of those times when you should be very focused on ensuring that the healing effect predominates.

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"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. I'd like to inspire you to write a story of your own that begins like that. For help, tune into 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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Would you like to make yourself more magnetic to blessings? You could experiment with good luck charms or magic amulets -- objects that you imagine might attract benevolence into your life. How about a replica of Brísingamen, the magical necklace of the Norse goddess Freya? When she wore it, neither man nor god could resist her allure. Or maybe a copy of the thyrsus, a wand wielded by Dionysus, the god of ecstasy? Or the bracelet of meteorite chunks I saw advertised as a luck-bringer in the back of a tabloid?

As fun as things like these might be, I believe there's a superior approach to the art of charging up your mojo. It's embodied by the metaphorical talisman that Tom Waits recommends in his song "Get Behind the Mule": Always keep a diamond in your mind.

Go get one of those diamonds.

A New York doctor offers a service he calls Pokertox. Jack Berdy injects Botox into poker players' faces so as to make their expressions hard to read. With their facial muscles paralyzed, they are in no danger of betraying subtle emotional signals that might help their opponents guess their strategy. I understand there might sometimes be value in adopting a poker face when you are in the midst of trying to win at poker or other games. But for the foreseeable future, Cancerian, I recommend the opposite approach. You're most likely to be successful if you reveal everything you're feeling. Let your face and eyes be as eloquent as they can be.

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I invite you to keep a running list of all the ways life delights you and helps you and energizes you. Describe everyday miracles you take for granted . . . the uncanny powers you possess . . . the small joys that occur so routinely you forget how much they mean to you . . . the steady flow of benefits bestowed on you by people you know and don't know. What works for you? What makes you feel at home in the world? For inspiration in this noble effort, 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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Butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, and bats love to drink the nectar that flowers offer. In return, these pollinators are expected to get some pollen stuck on their bodies and carry it away to fertilize other plants.

While the nectar is tasty, it's usually not pure sweetness. If it were, the first pollinator to come along would suck it all dry, leaving nothing for further visitors. And that wouldn't be good from the plant's point of view, because it would limit the number of places where its pollen would be disseminated.

To keep nectar-drinking sessions short, therefore, most plants include a touch of bitterness in the blend.

When we are launching any big project, our minds hide from us the full truth about how difficult it will be. If we knew beforehand all of the tests we would eventually face, we might never attempt it. Economist Albert O. Hirschman called this the principle of the "hiding hand." It frees us to dive innocently into challenging work that will probably take longer than we thought and compel us to access new resources and creativity. To be clear: What's hidden from us are not only the obstacles but also the unexpected assistance we will get along the way.

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All of creation loves you very much. Even now, people you know and people you don't know are collaborating to make sure you have all you need to make your next smart move. But are you willing to start loving life back with an equal intensity? The adoration it offers you has not exactly been unrequited, but there is room for you to be more demonstrative. For help in cultivating this approach, 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 Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them," wrote novelist Margaret Atwood. "There ought to be as many for love."

Here are a few that the ancient Greeks devised, according to Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon's book Through the Looking Glass.

Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is "horniness," though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one.

Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself—like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you're cool too.

Eros isn't sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls.

Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn't advance your self-interest.

Your assignment is to coin three additional new words for love, which means you'll have to discover or create three alternate states of love that have previously been unnamed. To do that, you'll have to put aside your habitual expectations and standard definitions of what constitutes love so that you can explore an array of nuances, including varieties you never imagined existed.

The literal meaning of the Swedish word smultronställe is "wild strawberry patch." Metaphorically, it refers to a special place that feels like your private sanctuary. It may be hard-to-find or unappreciated by others, but for you it's a spot that inspires you to relax deeply. You might have had a life-changing epiphany there. When you're in this refuge, you have a taste of what it's like to feel at home in the world. Do you have a smultronställe, Virgo? If not, it's time to find one. If you already do, spend extra time there in the coming week.

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What is the obvious secret you can't quite see? How could you turn your challenges into daily gifts for yourself? For clues to mysteries like these, 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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A common obstruction to a vital intimate relationship is what I call the assumption of clairvoyance. You imagine, perhaps unconsciously, that your partner or friend is somehow magically psychic when it comes to you -- so much so that he or she should unfailingly intuit exactly what you need, even if you don't ask for it. This fantasy may seem romantic, but it can sink the most promising alliances.

To counteract any tendencies you might have to indulge in the assumption of clairvoyance, practice stating your desires aloud.

If I'm reading the astrological omens correctly, the bells are about to ring for you. The festive lights will flash. The celebratory anthems will throb. It's like you're going to win a fortune on a TV quiz show; like you will get an A+ on your final exam; like you'll be picked as homecoming king or queen. But it's possible I'm a bit off in my projections, and your success will be subtler than I anticipate. Maybe, in fact, you are about to accomplish the Healing of the Year, or discover the Secret of the Decade, or enjoy the Most Meaningful Orgasm of the Century.

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Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow. The waning reveals a different blessing than the waxing. Where are you in the great cycle of your life? For inspiration in figuring it all out, 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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Write the following on a piece of red paper and keep it under your pillow. "I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day, [put date here], that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world that deserves my brilliant passion above all others."

A teenage Pakistani boy decided he wanted to help his country's government clean up the local Internet. Ghazi Muhammad Abdullah gathered a list of over 780,000 porn sites and sent it to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Big job! Hard work! I would love to see you summon similar levels of passion and diligence as you work in behalf of your favorite cause, Scorpio. The coming weeks will be prime time for you to get very excited about the changes you would like to help create in the world.

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Whether it's your time to ferment in the shadows or sing in the sun, fresh power to transform yourself is on the way. Life always delivers the creative energy you need to change into the new thing you must become. For more help in understanding it all, 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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Even if your heart's not exactly shattered at the moment, it has no doubt been so at some time in the past. I invite you to feel a wave of sadness about your suffering, then move on to this possibility: that having a broken heart is one of the best things that can happen to you.

Why? Because it strengthens your humility, which makes you smarter. It demonstrates to you that you have a tremendous capacity for deep feelings -- far more than you're normally aware of. It breaks down defense mechanisms that have desensitized you to the world's secret beauty. It may also inspire you to treat other people's hearts with greater care, making it more likely that you'll be able to create intelligent intimacy in the future.

Working as a journalist for the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, Simon Eroro wanted to interview a group of indigenous rebels in a remote jungle. He decided he was willing to do whatever was necessary to get the big scoop. After making a difficult journey through rough terrain to reach them, he was told he would be given the information that he sought on one condition: that he be circumcised with bamboo sticks as part of a cleansing ritual. Eroro agreed to the procedure, got the story, and ultimately won a prize for his report. I don't recommend that you go quite that far in pursuit of your current goal, Sagittarius. On the other hand, it might be wise for you to consider making a sacrifice.

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You can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, 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. For more help, 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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Compose and cast a love spell on yourself. There's no need to consult pagan books about how to proceed. It may even be better if you improvise homemade conjurations and incantations.

Be sure to formulate a clear intention of what you want to accomplish with your mojo. Example: "I want to make myself irresistibly lovable." For best results, stand naked in front of an altar crammed with magical objects that symbolize both lust and compassion.

Kintsukuroi is a Japanese word that literally means "golden repair." It refers to the practice of fixing cracked pottery with lacquer that's blended with actual gold or silver. Metaphorically, it suggests that something may become more beautiful and valuable after being broken. The wounds and the healing of the wounds are integral parts of the story, not shameful distortions to be disguised or hidden. Does any of that resonate with you about your current experience, Capricorn? I'm guessing it does. Let's call this the kintsukuroi phase of your cycle.

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Somewhere there's a treasure that has no value to anyone but you, and a secret that's meaningless to everyone except you, and a frontier that harbors a revelation only you would know how to exploit. Why not go in search of those things? For inspiration, 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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Bring the spirits of sampling and the mash-up into your relationship life. Sampling is what happens when a musician openly lifts a riff out of an existing song and inserts it into his or her own composition. In a mash-up, a producer takes parts from two different songs to assemble a new song that has elements of both originals but is an entirely new creation.

How might you apply these approaches to your collaborations with intimate allies? For example, you could "sample" a close friend's favorite catchphrases or clothes, and use them as your own. Or tell that person a story from his or her own past, but recount it as if it happened to you. The two of you could write a journal entry together, taking turns spinning out each new line. You might even switch roles for a day, trying out what it actually feels like to be the other person.

Near the end of his career, the painter Henri Matisse created a paper-cut composition he called Le Bateau, or The Boat. It is an abstract piece that does not depict a literal boat. That's why the Museum of Modern Art in New York should perhaps be forgiven for mistakenly hanging it upside-down back in 1961, upon first acquiring the piece. Fortunately, after a month and a half, a knowledgeable person noticed, and the position of Le Bateau was corrected. I'm wondering if there's a comparable phenomenon going on with you right now, Aquarius? Is it possible that a part of your life got inverted or transposed? If so, will you be sharp enough to see the goof and brave enough to fix it? I hope you won't allow this error to persist.

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When they say "Be yourself," which self do they mean? Certainly not the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and stand alone at the end of time on a mountain of pretty garbage. So which self is it? For guidance, 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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Play the game called "Tell me the story of your scars." It's best to do it with a skilled empath who is curious about your fate's riddles and skilled at helping you find redemption in your wounds.

"How did you get that blotch on your knee?" he or she might begin, and you describe the time in childhood when you fell on the sidewalk. Then maybe he or she would say, "Why do you always look so sad when you hear that song?" And you'd narrate the tale of how it was playing when an old lover broke your heart. The questions and answers continue until you unveil the history of your hurts, both physical and psychic. Treat yourself to this game soon.

"I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice," said British author G. K. Chesterton, "and then going away and doing the exact opposite." I'm going to endorse that approach for you, Pisces. In my astrological opinion, I don't think anyone can possibly give you accurate counsel in the coming weeks. Your circumstances are too unique and your dilemmas are too idiosyncratic for even the experts to understand, let alone the people who care for you and think they own a piece of you. I do suspect it might be useful for you to hear what everyone has to say about your situation, though. Seeing their mistaken or uninformed perspectives should help you get clarity about what's right.

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Take inventory of the extent that "No" dominates your life. Notice how often you say or think: 1. "That's not right." 2. "I don't like that." 3. "I don't agree with that." 4. "They don't like me." 5. "I'm not very good." 6. "That should be different from what it is." For help in retraining yourself to say "Yes!" at least 51% of the time, 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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You understand that you can never own love, right? No matter how much someone adores you today, no matter how much you adore someone, you can't force that unique state of grace to keep its shape forever. It will inevitably evolve or mutate, perhaps into a different version of tender caring, but maybe not. From there it will continue to change, into either yet another version of interesting affection, or who knows what else?

Describe how you could get the hang of putting this tricky wisdom into practice.