We all have addictive and obsessive tendencies. They are fundamental to being human. So the challenge is not to eliminate them -- that's not possible -- but rather to harness them. If you hope to keep them from dragging you down, you must work hard to channel them into activities that enhance your life. How are you doing on this score, Aries? Are you chronically dependent on drugs, gambling, sugar, or chaotic relationships? Or are you, instead, hooked on the courage you summon when you face your fears and the willpower you invoke as you free yourself from your limitations? Now is an excellent time to upgrade your addictive and obsessive tendencies.

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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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Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don't really need and aren't good for you. But you shouldn't disparage yourself for having them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted.

Rather, think of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a faculty that will one day be far more expert. They're how you practice as you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.

Our planet's most abundant mineral is called bridgmanite. It's an amalgam of iron, magnesium, silicon, and oxygen. Until recently, no one had actually seen it because it lies so deep underground it can't be reached by digging tools. Scientists have only known about it from studying how earthquake waves moved through it. That changed in the last few years, when two mineralogists found bridgmanite in an ancient meteorite. They were able to analyze the nuances of this basic mineral for the first time. I predict a comparable development for you, Taurus. In the coming months, you will become more familiar with a core part of you that has always been a mystery. The revelations may occur with the help of an influence that resembles a meteorite.

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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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Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield espouses an interesting method for dealing with negative and unwanted thoughts. Don't let them possess you, he says, and don't assume you have to act them out. On the other hand, don't struggle mightily to suppress them, either. Instead, try this: Bow to the offending idea. Acknowledge and admire its power. Express your gratitude and respect to it for galvanizing so much of your psychic energy.

Some conspiracy theorists are paranoid that aliens or government agencies use radio waves to try to control their minds. They wear tin foil hats to protect themselves from the evil transmissions. But a recent study shows that this protective head gear has an effect that's opposite to what it's supposed to. In fact, it actually amplifies the intensity of radio frequencies, making it even more likely that mind-control signals would work their dastardly magic. This problem probably does not apply to you, but I suspect you are suffering from a comparable glitch. An approach you're pursuing or an attitude you're cultivating is having an impact contrary to what you imagine. Now is an excellent time to make adjustments.

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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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Imagine it's 30 years from now. You're looking back at the history of your relationship with desire. There was a certain watershed moment when you clearly saw that some of your desires were mediocre, inferior, and wasteful, while others were pure, righteous, and invigorating. Beginning then, you made it a life goal to purge the former and cultivate the latter. Thereafter, you occasionally wandered down dead ends trying to gratify yearnings that weren't worthy of you, but usually you wielded your passions with discrimination, dedicating them to serve the highest and most interesting good.

I can't remember the last time you've had as much artistic freedom as you have now. It's as if life has given you a slew of wild cards and X-factors to play with. You don't have to answer to the past as much as you usually do. You are less beholden to the demands of duty and the constraints of karma. Here's the best perk: You have been authorized by both the higher powers and lower powers of the cosmos to fall in love. With whom? With what? Everyone! Everything!

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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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Imagine this scene. You're really thirsty -- so dehydrated that you're feeling faint. Yet here's the weird thing: You're walking along the bank of a wide river that's so clear you could see the bottom if you looked. But you're not looking. In fact, you seem oblivious to the surging force of nature just a few yards away.

Is it invisible to you? Are you so preoccupied with your suffering that you're blind to the very source that would end your suffering?

Up ahead you see a man. As you approach, you realize he's holding a bottle of water. You run to him and beg him to let you drink. He readily agrees. Gratefully, you guzzle the precious liquid, then thank him profusely.

As you walk away, he calls after you, "By the way, there's a lot more water over there," and he points to the river.

Do you hear him? If you hear him, do you believe him? Or do you keep walking, hoping to find another person with another bottle somewhere up ahead?

For much of its history, the United States claimed ownership of the ocean within three miles of its coasts. That changed in 1988, when the federal government declared that hereafter it would have sovereignty over the ocean as far as 12 miles from land. With that action, American territory increased dramatically. I invite you to consider a comparable expansion in the coming months, Leo. Seize more space. Seek further privileges. Ask for a bigger piece of everything.

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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 came into this world as a radiant bundle of exuberant riddles. You slipped into this dimension as a shimmering burst of spiral hallelujahs. You blasted into this realm as a lush explosion of ecstatic gratitude. And it is your birthright to fulfill those promises.

Poland's most renowned ghost hunter is frustrated. Having invested a fortune in spectral detection equipment, Piotr Shalkevitz finds that there are fewer and fewer spooks to investigate as the years go by. I'm not qualified to speak about whether or not the whole world is experiencing a decline in the ghost population. But I'm confident that this is exactly what is happening for you Virgos. Recently, the haunted elements of your life have begun to dissipate. And in the next eight months, I expect that you will be freed from most, maybe all, of the ghosts and pesky demons that attached themselves to you once upon a time.

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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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Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself -- indeed, you make yourself -- through the puzzling dilemmas you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.

"To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often." Winston Churchill said that, and now I'm passing it along to you -- with one caveat. I don't expect you to be perfect, and never will. To shoot for perfection is risky. It may set up unrealistic expectations that lead to bad mental hygiene. It tempts you to avoid messy experiences, some of which might be essential to your growth. So I will offer a revised version of Churchill's maxim for your use: If you want to improve, you must change. If you want to keep improving, you must change often. And the coming months will be prime time for you to keep improving and improving and improving.

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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 order to live, you've got to be a demolisher. You take plants and animals that were once alive and rip them apart with your teeth, then disintegrate them in your digestive system.

Your body is literally on fire inside, burning up the oxygen you suck into your lungs.

You didn't actually cut down the trees used to make your house and furniture, but you colluded with their demise.

Then there's the psychological liquidation you've done: killing off old beliefs you've outgrown, for instance.

I'm not trying to make you feel guilty -- just pointing out that you have a lot of experience with positive expressions of destruction.

Can you think of other forms this magic takes? As an aspiring master of pronoia, it's one of your specialties -- a talent you have a duty to wield with energetic grace.

"Sex is like pizza," said comedian Mel Brooks. "Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good." That's a generalization, of course. I'm sure you can think of times in your past when mediocre pizza and mediocre sex were just plain mediocre. But work with me on the overarching principle, Scorpio: Some of the finer things in life just can't be spoiled. They are always at least moderately pleasurable and interesting and lucky -- and usually more than just moderately so. According to my reading of the astrological omens, your immediate future will be filled to the brim with these finer things.

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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 role as DJ Debi Newberry in the film Grosse Pointe Blank, Minnie Driver defines the term shakabuku as a swift spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever. That's the kind of jolt you're more likely to get if you've been avoiding the entreaties of your shadow.

But if you send your shadow flowers on special occasions, or periodically give it license to blubber its horrible secrets while sobbing on your lap, it might be more inclined to deliver a whoopibuku, which is a soft spiritual stomp on the toes that inspires you to make a course correction.

Ancient people knew about Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn because all of those planets are visible to the naked eye. From the second millennium B.C. until the late 20th century, only three additional planets were found: Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. (Pluto was later reclassified as a dwarf planet, however.) Then in 1992, astronomers began to locate planets orbiting other stars. On one spectacular day in February of 2014, NASA announced it had identified 715 new planets. I foresee a similar uptick for you in the next seven months, Sagittarius. Your rate of discoveries is about to zoom.

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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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It's a great privilege to live in a free country. You're fortunate if you have the opportunity to pursue your dreams without having to ward off government interference or corporate brainwashing or religious fanaticism.

But that's only partly useful if you have not yet won the most important struggle for liberation, which is the freedom from your own unconscious obsessions and conditioned responses. Becoming an independent agent who's not an unwitting slave to his or her shadow is one of the most heroic feats a human being can accomplish.

When Evan Lattimer's 92-year-old father died in 2007, she inherited his large collection of odd relics. It included a cigar smoked by W. C. Fields, Greta Garbo's driver's license, Abraham Lincoln's shaving mirror, a bearskin coat owned by General George Custer, and Napoleon Bonaparte's penis. Many items turned out to be quite valuable to collectors. One eager bidder offered to buy the famous genitalia for $100,000. I suspect that in the coming months, you will experience events that have some resemblances to this story. For example, the legacy you receive may not be what you expected, but could turn out to be more useful than you imagined.

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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 song "Get Behind the Mule," Tom Waits tells us to "Never let the weeds get higher than the garden." That's good advice. But maybe you shouldn't go overboard and become a fanatic who acts as if weeds are evil demons from the ninth level of hell.

It turns out that some weeds are good for flowers and vegetables, protecting them from predatory insects. So say horticulturalists Stan Finch and Rosemary Collier, writing in Biologist magazine. When the bugs come looking for their special treats—the plants we love—they often get waylaid by the weeds, landing on them first and getting fooled into thinking there's nothing more valuable nearby.

So for example, when cabbages are planted in the midst of clover, flies lay eggs on only seven percent of them, compared to a 36 percent infestation rate on cabbages that are grown in bare soil with no clover nearby.

This could be a useful metaphor in working with your own versions of impurities and interlopers. Make sure there are always a few chickweed or henbit weeds surrounding your ripening tomatoes.

Here's your assignment: Get more organized and purposeful about having fun. Think harder about what makes you feel good, and plan more aggressively to bring those feel-good experiences into your life. In offering these prescriptions, I'm not advocating irresponsible hedonism. Not at all. In my view, you will become a better servant of those you care about by boosting your commitment to pleasure. You will carry out your duties with more aplomb and effectiveness. Raising your joy quotient is actually a formula for becoming a better human being.

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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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In the New Earth, it won't be your material wealth that will win you the most bragging points. Nor will it be the important people you know or the deals you've swung or the knowledge you've amassed or your mate's attractiveness.

What will bring you most prestige and praise in the civilization to come will be your success in transmuting the unripe, ignorant, and shameful aspects of your psyche into golden assets that fuel your power to give blessings to the world.

The Appalachian Mountains span 1,500 miles from Newfoundland to Alabama. They are the seventh longest range in the world. And yet they have shrunk over the eons. Their average height is 3,000 feet, but when they were young they were probably twice that high. What happened? There has been constant erosion caused by rivers, glaciers, wind, tree roots, lichens, and oxidation. Rain and condensation have also played a role because when water freezes, it expands, creating a wedging force. I propose that we make what has happened to the Appalachians a symbol of what's possible for you in the next eight months, Pisces. Through steady, small actions, you can significantly grind down a mountainous obstacle.

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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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Some religious traditions teach the doctrine, "Kill off your longings." In their view, attachment to desire is at the root of human suffering. But the religion of materialism takes the opposite tack, asserting that the meaning of life is to be found in indulging desires. Its creed is, "Feed your cravings like a French foie gras farmer cramming eight pounds of maize down a goose's gullet every day."

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we walk a middle path. We believe there are both degrading desires that enslave you and sacred desires that liberate you. Do you harbor both kinds within yourself? Do you know which are which?