These horoscopes I write for you aren't primarily meant to predict the future. They are more about uncovering hidden potentials and desirable possibilities that are stirring below the surface right now. When I'm doing my job well, I help you identify those seeds so you can cultivate them proactively. Bearing that in mind, I'll pose three pertinent questions. 1. What experiments might stir up more intimacy in the relationships you want to deepen? 2. What could you change about yourself to attract more of the love and care you want? 3. Is there anything you can do to diminish the sting of bad memories about past romantic encounters, thereby freeing you to love with more abandon?

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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 German word selig can mean "ecstatic," "blessed," or "holy." It implies that profound bliss can be a divine gift; that deep pleasure may generate or come from spiritual inspiration.

The English language doesn't have a term comparable to selig, maybe because our culture regards ecstasy with suspicion. Religious people tend to believe that the blessed are those who are good and kind, certainly not those who are skilled at cultivating rapturous states. People who worship rationality, on the other hand, like intellectuals and scientists, often think of ecstasy as at best an irrelevant state, and at worst a nonproductive or deluded indulgence.

What would you have to do to place yourself in intimate alignment with the values embodied by the word selig?

The old Latin motto Gradu diverso, via una can be translated as either "Continuing on the same road, but with a different stride" or "Going the same way, but changing your pace." I think this is excellent advice for you, Taurus. By my reckoning, you are on the correct path. You are headed in the right direction. But you need to shift your approach a bit -- not a lot, just a little. You've got to make some minor adjustments in the way you flow.

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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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Is there really such a thing as free will, or are our destinies shaped by forces beyond our control?

Here's one way to think about that question: Maybe some people actually have more free will than others. Not because they have more money. (Many rich folks are under the spell of their instincts, after all.) Not because they have high-status positions. (A boss may have power over others but little power over himself.)

Rather, those with a lot of free will have earned that privilege by taking strong measures to dissolve the conditioning they absorbed while growing up. They've acted on the advice of psychologist Carl Jung: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

For years, Donna and George Lewis used a 33-pound, oval-shaped rock as a doorstop in their Tennessee home. Later they moved it to their garden. Then one day George analyzed it with his metal detector and realized it had unusual properties. He took it to scientists who informed him it was a rare and valuable four-and-a-half-billion-year-old meteorite. With this as our subtext, Gemini, I'm asking you if there might be some aspect of your life that is more precious than you imagine. Now is a favorable time to find out, and make appropriate adjustments in your behavior.

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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 her book Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes suggests that we all need to periodically go cheerfully and enthusiastically out of our minds. Make sure, she says, that at least one part of you always remains untamed, uncategorizable, and unsubjugated by routine. Be adamant in your determination to stay intimately connected to all that's inexplicable and mysterious about your life.

At the same time, though, Estes believes you need to keep your unusual urges clear and ordered. Discipline your wildness, in other words, and don't let it degenerate into careless disorder.

I've got a radical proposal, Cancerian. It might offend you. You may think I'm so far off the mark that you will stop reading my horoscopes. But I'm willing to take that risk, and I'm prepared to admit that I could be wrong. But I don't think I am wrong. So here's what I have to say: There is a sense in which the source of your wound is potentially also the source of the "medicine" that will heal the wound. What hurt you could fix you. But you must be careful not to interpret this masochistically. You can't afford to be too literal. I'm not saying that the source of your pain is trustworthy or has good intentions. Be cagey as you learn how to get the cure you need.

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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 seeds of the lodgepole pine and jack pine trees are so tightly compacted within their protective cones that they need flames to free them. It's only through the help of periodic conflagrations, then, that they're able to reproduce. Fire-dependent and fire-resistant, they can tolerate temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study with a conclusion we might expect to see in a tabloid newspaper or satirical website. It reported that there is a correlation between chocolate consumption and Nobel Prizes. Those countries whose citizens eat more chocolate have also produced an inordinate number of Nobel laureates. So does this mean that chocolate makes you smarter, as some other studies have also suggested? Maybe, the report concluded. Since it is especially important for you to be at the height of your mental powers in the coming weeks, Leo, why not experiment with this possibility?

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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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Philosopher Robert Anton Wilson proposed that the single greatest contribution to world peace would come from there being over seven billion different religions -- a unique spiritual path for each person on the planet. The Beauty and Truth Lab urges you to get started on doing your part to make this happen. What will your religion be called? What rituals will you perform? Write down your three core tenets.

I rarely waste my time trying to convert the "skeptics" who attack astrology with a hostile zeal that belies their supposed scientific objectivity. They're often as dogmatic and closed-minded as any fundamentalist religious nut. When I'm in a tricky mood, though, I might tell them about the "Crawford Perspectives," a highly-rated Wall Street investment publication that relies extensively on astrological analysis. Or I might quote the wealthy financier J. P. Morgan, who testified that "Millionaires don't use astrology; billionaires do." That brings us to my main point, Virgo: The astrological omens suggest that the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to put in motion plans to get richer quicker. Take advantage!

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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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"Believing" in God is like "believing" in the taste of fresh-baked bread without ever having tasted actual fresh-baked bread. But what if you could commune with the Divine Wow through up-close, personal encounters that are as vivid as eating fresh-baked bread? Some people have. You could, too. Formulate the intention to do so.

When Libra-born Mohandas Gandhi was 19, he moved to London from his native India to study law. Soon he got caught up in the effort to become an English gentleman. He took elocution lessons and learned to dance. He bought fine clothes and a gold watch-chain. Each morning he stood before a giant mirror and fussed with his hair and necktie until they were perfect. In retrospect, this phase of his life seems irrelevant. Years later he was a barefoot rebel leader using nonviolent civil disobedience to help end the British rule of India, often wearing a loincloth and shawl made of fabric he wove himself. With this as your inspiration, Libra, identify aspects of your current life that contribute little to the soul you must eventually become.

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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 Judeo-Christian cultures, many people associate the sky with the masculine form of God. According to this bias, the Supreme Father rules us all from on high -- up, away, far from here. But if you were an ancient Egyptian, the sky was the goddess Nuit, her body its very substance. She was a loving mother whose tender touch could be felt with each new breath.

For one day, act as if you and the sky goddess are in constant contact.

This might be controversial, but I suspect that for now your emphasis shouldn't be on sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Instead, your specialties should be hard-earned intimacy, altered states that are solely the result of deep introspection, and music that arouses reverence and other sacred emotions. You are entering a phase when crafty power is less important than vigorous receptivity; when success is not nearly as interesting as meaningfulness; when what you already understand is less valuable than what you can imagine and create.

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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 some ancient Greek dramas, a god showed up out of nowhere to cause a miraculous twist at a crucial point in the tale. This divine intrusion was referred to as theos ek mechanes, literally "god from a machine," because the symbolic figure of the god was lowered onto the stage by a crane. In modern usage, the term is Latin -- deus ex machina -- and refers to a story in which a sudden event unexpectedly brings about a resolution to a baffling problem.

Write a tale in which you're the beneficiary of such an intervention.

You are entering a phase when you will reap rich rewards by nurturing the health of your favorite posse, ensemble, or organization. How is the group's collective mental health? Are there any festering rifts? Any apathetic attitudes or weakening resolves? I choose you to be the leader who builds solidarity and cultivates consensus. I ask you to think creatively about how to make sure everyone's individual goals synergize with the greater good. Are you familiar with the Arabic word taarradhin? It means a compromise that allows everyone to win -- a reconciliation in which no one loses face.

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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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Neither God nor the gods are dead, but they seem to be disappearing because so few of us are capable of carrying on authentic relationships with them anymore. The materialist delusion rules: Millions believe that nothing's real unless it can be perceived by the senses. Churches and temples are full of ethical people, but many of them have no clue about how to know or feel or converse with the divine intelligences.

What can the deities do, having been banished from our conscious knowing? Jung said they have no recourse but to worm their way into our lives as sickness and pathology. Repressed, they come in the back door.

Which of your maladies or pains might be gods in disguise? How might you get them to take off their masks and begin knocking on the front door?

The good news is that America has more trees than it did a hundred years ago. Aggressive efforts to replace the decimated old-growth forests have paid off. The bad news is that the new forests have a far less diverse selection of tree species than the originals. The fresh batches are often crowded into smaller spaces, so wildfires are more massive and devastating. And because so many of the forests are young, they host a reduced diversity of plant and animal life. All in all, the increased quantity is wonderful; the lower quality not so wonderful. Is there a lesson here for you? I think so. In your upcoming decisions, favor established quality over novel quantity.

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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 Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke urged an aspiring bard to change the way he imagined the Supreme Being. "Why don't you conceive of God as an ally who is coming," Rilke said, "who has been approaching since time began, the one who will someday arrive, the fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? Why not project his birth into the future, and live your life as an excruciating and lyrical moment in the history of a prodigious pregnancy?"

How would your life change if you made this idea your working hypothesis?

If Pope Francis isn't traveling, he comes out to meet the public in St. Peter's Square every Wednesday. During one such event last January, he took a few moments to bestow tender attention on a talking parrot that belonged to a male stripper. I foresee a comparable anomaly happening for you in the coming days. A part of you that is wild or outré will be blessed by contact with what's holy or sublime. Or maybe a beastly aspect of your nature that doesn't normally get much respect will receive a divine favor.

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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 reader named Michael McCarthy wrote to say he plans to start a new religion, the "First Church of the Rude Awakening." It will be based on the principle that having a pleasant life cannot serve as a motivation to seek enlightenment and salvation. McCarthy believes that no one ever bolts up out of bed one morning and says, "I'm so happy, I think I'll go meditate and pray and make myself into a better person for as long as it takes, so I can find God and say thanks."

Disprove this theory. Detonate an epiphany precisely because you're in an excellent mood.

"My definition of a devil is a god who has not been recognized," said mythologist Joseph Campbell. "It is a power in you to which you have not given expression, and you push it back. And then, like all repressed energy, it builds up and becomes dangerous to the position you're trying to hold." Do you agree, Pisces? I hope so, because you will soon be entering the Get Better Acquainted with Your Devil Phase of your astrological cycle, to be immediately followed by the Transform Your Devil into a God Phase. To get the party started, ask yourself this question: What is the power in you to which you have not given expression?

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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 Frederick Buechner's book On the Road with the Archangel, the star is the archangel Raphael. This supernatural helper has a tough gig: gathering the prayers of human beings and delivering them to God. Here's how he describes the range of pleas he hears: "There are prayers of such power that you might say they carry me rather than the other way around. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and half-hearted that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some prayers are very boring."

Compose a prayer that's so powerful and entertaining that it could thrill an archangel.