In the 2000 film Cast Away, Tom Hanks plays an American FedEx executive who is stranded alone on a remote Pacific island after he survives a plane crash. A few items from the plane wash up on shore, including a volleyball. He draws a face on it and names it "Wilson," creating a companion who becomes his confidant for the next four years. I'd love to see you enlist an ally like Wilson in the coming week, Aries. There are some deep, messy, beautiful mysteries you need to talk about. At least for now, the only listener capable of drawing them out of you in the proper spirit might be a compassionate inanimate object that won't judge you or interrupt you.

*

To further explore the ripening blessings and interesting challenges in your life, 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.
*
I love this excerpt from "The Seeker," a poem by Rilke in his Book of Hours (translated by Robert Bly): "I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, / and I have been circling for a thousand years, / and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, / or a great song." Here's my own permutation: "I am circling around love, around the throbbing hum, and I have been circling for thousands of days, and I still don't know if I am a wounded saint, or a rainy dawn, or a creation story."

Compose your own version.

As far as I know, there has been only one battleship in history that was named after a poet. A hundred years ago, the Italian navy manufactured a dreadnought with triple-gun turrets and called it Dante Alighieri, after the medieval genius who wrote the Divine Comedy. Other than that, most warships have been more likely to receive names like Invincible, Vengeance, Hercules, or Colossus. But it would be fine if you drew some inspiration from the battleship Dante Alighieri in the coming weeks. I think you will benefit from bringing a lyrical spirit and soulful passion to your expression of the warrior archetype.

*

Need more whacks applied to your mental blocks? More caresses bestowed upon your growing edge? 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.
*
In the Western Hermetic version of the Qabala, every Hebrew letter is paired with a number, and so every word is also a number derived from the addition of its letters. Gematria is the practice of finding hidden resonance between words that have similar numerical values. Of the many poetic truths revealed through this art, one of my favorites is this: The Hebrew words for both "serpent" and "messiah" add up to 358.

Let's suppose this can be interpreted to mean that the snaky potency of your reproductive drive is potentially the source of your salvation. What implications might that have for how you cultivate the art of ecstasy?

If you go to a 7-Eleven convenience store and order a Double Big Gulp drink, you must be prepared to absorb 40 teaspoons of sugar. But what will be an even greater challenge to your body is the sheer amount of fluid you will have to digest: 50 ounces. The fact is, your stomach can't easily accommodate more than 32 ounces at a time. It's true that if you sip the Double Big Gulp very slowly -- like for a period of three and a half hours -- the strain on your system will be less. But after the first half hour, as the beverage warms up, its taste will decline steeply. Everything I've just said should serve as a useful metaphor for you in the coming week. Even if you are very sure that the stuff you want to introduce into your life is healthier for you than a Double Big Gulp, don't get more of it than you can comfortably hold.

*

Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, 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.
*
Elijah, the beer truck driver who lives in the trailer with old tires, rusty tools, and the husk of a 1975 Chevy El Camino littering the driveway, tells me that everything he knows about God can be summed up in the bumper sticker on the back of the El Camino, which reads "Theresa and Johnny's Comfort Food -- Live Free or Die."

Mythologist Joseph Campbell, on the other hand, suggested we should imagine a deity to be like a floating ball of fire that would immediately kill anyone it touched.

Then there's the poet Rumi. He envisioned God as your tender Best Friend and Unpredictable Ally who's always as close as your own breath.

Which version do you prefer?

If you surrender to the passive part of your personality, you will be whipped around by mood swings in the coming days. You will hem and haw, snivel and procrastinate, communicate ineptly, and be confused about what you really feel. If, on the other hand, you animate the proactive side of your personality, you are likely to correct sloppy arrangements that have kept you off-balance. You will heal rifts and come up with bright ideas about how to get the help you need. It's also quite possible you will strike a blow for justice and equality, and finally get the fair share you were cheated out of in the past.

*

Would you like to hear me say some more about your ever-evolving 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.
*
"Take time to stop and smell the flowers," says an old homily. Albert Hoffman, the Swiss scientist who discovered LSD and lived to age 102, had a different approach. "Take the time to stop and be the flowers," he said.

That's my advice to you. Don't just set aside a few stolen moments to sniff the snapdragons, taste the rain, chase the wind, watch the hummingbirds, and listen to a friend. Use your imagination to actually be the snapdragons and rain and wind and hummingbirds and friend. Don't just behold the Other; become the Other.

In his 1982 martial arts film Dragon Lord, Jackie Chan experimented with more complex stunts than he had tried in his previous films. The choreography was elaborate and intricate. In one famous sequence, he had to do 2,900 takes of a single fight sequence to get the footage he wanted. That's the kind of focused attention and commitment to detail I recommend to you in the coming weeks, Leo -- especially if you are learning new tricks and attempting novel approaches.

*

Need more help deciphering the riddles and enigmas that are fueling your amazing story? 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.
*
Beauty and Truth Lab researcher Rebecca Rusche coined the word "careenstable." Here's her explanation of how it originated: "In high school, my mom used to let me use her VW Beetle to go to basketball practice. One night after practice, a friend and I were chatting and drinking Coke when we decided to see how fast we could get the Beetle going down a nearby dirt road. Soon we were careening at 65 mph, shouting 'careen!' every time we hit a bump and flew into the air.

"When we arrived back at the gym and got out of the car half an hour later, we saw my Coke can sitting on the front bumper next to the license plate. I nudged it softly to see if it was lodged in there, but it fell right off -- wasn't stuck at all. I thought, 'There must be a word for this magic,' and thus 'careenstable' was born. It came to mean anything that maintains its poise in the midst of wild, fast movement."

Give an example of how you could experiment with making careenstable work in your own life.

In 1786, Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard were the first explorers to reach the top of 15,781-foot Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border. They were hailed as heroes. One observer wrote that the ascent was "an astounding achievement of courage and determination, one of the greatest in the annals of mountaineering. It was accomplished by men who were not only on unexplored ground but on a route that all the guides believed impossible." And yet today, 228 years later, the climb is considered relatively easy for anyone who's reasonably prepared. In a typical year, 20,000 people make it to the summit. Why am I bringing this to your attention? Because I suspect that you are beginning to master a skill that will initially require you to be like Balmat and Paccard, but will eventually be almost routine.

*

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.

*

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.
*
Sacred is trendy! Among the many recent books that invoke the concept are Sacred Flowers, The Sacred Art of Hunting, Sacred Hoops (about basketball), Sacred Monsters, Sacred Hunger, The Sacred Landscape, and Sacred Sexuality. It's fine with me, really. I'd like to sacralize the whole damn world.

There was one case, however, that tested even my capacity to find holy meaning everywhere: a class offered at the New Age Expo called "The Sacred Art of Publicity." When I saw that, I nearly spit out the gulp of goji berry and spirulina smoothie that I had just sipped. "What's next?" I thought. "Sacred shopping for automatic weapons? Sacred gambling at an Indian casino?" But in the next moment I had to admit that even those might be possible.

What's the most outlandish sacred act you can think of pulling off? Do it.

Those who invoke the old metaphor about the caterpillar that transforms into the butterfly often omit an important detail: the graceful winged creature is helpless and weak when it first wriggles free of its chrysalis. For a while it's not ready to take up its full destiny. As you get ready for your own metamorphosis, Libra, keep that in mind. Have plans to lay low and be self-protective in the days following your emergence into your new form. Don't try to do loop-the-loops right away.

*

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.

*

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.
*
Many life processes unfold outside of your conscious awareness: your body digesting your food and circulating your blood; trees using carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight to synthesize their nourishment; microorganisms in the soil beneath your feet endlessly toiling to create humus. You don't perceive any of these things directly; they're invisible to you.

Tune in to this vitalizing alchemy. Use your X-ray vision and sub-sonic hearing and psychic smelling. See if you can absorb by osmosis some of the euphoria of the trees as they soak in the sunlight from above and water from below.

According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you Scorpios are currently the sign of the zodiac that is least likely to be clumsy, vulgar, awkward, or prone to dumb mistakes. On the other hand, you are the most likely to derisively accuse others of being clumsy, vulgar, awkward, or prone to dumb mistakes. I recommend that you resist that temptation, however. In the coming week, it is in your selfish interests to be especially tactful and diplomatic. Forgive and quietly adjust for everyone's mistakes. Don't call undue attention to them or make them worse. Continue to build your likeability and fine-tune your support system.

*

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.

*

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.
*
In certain Native American traditions, the hole was a symbol for the female genitalia, through which souls enter this realm. In American scientific lore, a wormhole is a backdoor shortcut between two places in space separated by an astronomical distance. In my personal mythos, those are my two favorite nuances in the archetype of the hole.

When I was a kid I loved to fantasize that I'd obtained a magic hole like the one Bugs Bunny had in the comic books. It was a portable hole that Bugs could take with him everywhere and apply to any barrier he needed to slip through. Once he even managed to slap it up against the sky, giving him access to another dimension where the whole world was inside him, not outside. (Or was that a dream I had?)

What would you do with your portable magic hole?

You have cosmic permission to be bigger than life and wilder than sin. You have a poetic license to be more wise than clever. And you should feel free to laugh longer than might seem polite and make no apologies as you spill drinks while telling your brash stories. This phase of your astrological cycle does not require you to rein yourself in or tone yourself down or be a well-behaved model citizen. In fact, I think it will be best for everyone concerned if you experiment with benevolent mischief and unpredictable healing and ingenious gambles.

*

For more help in understanding your relationship with the game of life, 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.
*
"The people of future generations will win many a liberty of which we do not yet even feel the want," said German philosopher Max Stirner. See if you can become aware of an interesting freedom that has not previously been on your radar screen.

For over 2,000 years, Chinese astronomers have understood the science of eclipses. And yet as late as the 1800s, sailors in the Chinese navy shot cannonballs in the direction of lunar eclipses, hoping to chase away the dragons they imagined were devouring the moon. I have a theory that there's a similar discrepancy in your psyche, Capricorn. A fearful part of you has an irrational fantasy that a wiser part of you knows is a delusion. So how can we arrange for the wiser part to gain ascendancy? There's an urgent need for you to stop wasting time and energy by indulging in that mistaken perspective.

*

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.

*

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 Doctrine of Original Sin? We spit on it. We reject it. We renounce it and forget it and annihilate it from reality. In its place we embrace the Doctrine of Original Fun. This reformulation asserts that it is our birthright to commune with regular doses of curious beauty and tricky truth and insurrectionary love. A robust, heroic joy is even now roaring through us, bringing us good ideas about how to apply the metaphor of ingenious foreplay to everything we do. We will not waste this euphoric deluge on any of the million and one numbing little diversions that pass for pleasure among the ecstasy-starved pursuers of mediocre joy. Rather, we will remain ever alert for the call of primordial delight."

Squirrels don't have a perfect memory of where they bury their nuts. They mean to go back and dig them all up later, but they lose track of many. Sometimes trees sprout from those forgotten nuts. It's conceivable that on occasion a squirrel may climb a tree it planted years earlier. I see this as a useful metaphor for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. You are on the verge of encountering grown-up versions of seeds you sowed once upon a time and then forgot about.

*

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.

*

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 really important kind of freedom," said David Foster Wallace, "involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."

Is that an interesting kind of freedom to you? Can you imagine any scenario in which practicing it would crack you open and pour you into an ecstatic state?

On a German TV show, martial artist Jackie Chan performed a tough trick. While holding a raw egg in his right hand, he used that hand to smash through three separate sets of four concrete blocks. When he was finished, the egg was still intact. I see your next task as having some resemblances to that feat, Pisces. You must remain relaxed, protective, and even tender as you destroy an obstruction that has been holding you back. Can you maintain this dual perspective long enough to complete the job? I think you can.

*

Want to hear more about the subconscious factors and hidden forces that may be influencing your life? 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.
*
Poet Kay Ryan told the Christian Science Monitor how she cultivates the inspiration to write. She rouses the sense of a "self-imposed emergency," thereby calling forth psychic resources that usually materialize only in response to a crisis.

Please note that she doesn't provoke an actual emergency: She doesn't arrange to have a loved one get pinned beneath the wheels of a car. She doesn't climb out onto the window ledge on the 22nd story of a high-rise. Instead, she visualizes hypothetical situations that galvanize her to shift into a dramatically heightened state of awareness.

What imagined emergencies could you invoke to inspire your deep self to rise up and make its mark?