"To look at a thing hard and straight and seriously -- to fix it." Aries author Henry James said he wanted to do that on a regular basis. He didn't want to be "arbitrary" or "mechanical" in his efforts. I invite you to make this perspective one of your specialties in the coming weeks, Aries. Pick out a tweaked situation you'd like to mend or a half-spoiled arrangement you want to heal. Then pour your pure intelligence into it. Investigate it with a luminous focus. Use all your tough and tender insight to determine what needs to be transformed, and transform it.

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Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, 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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Breathe more like a wild boar and less like a parakeet. Act more like an unfathomable game with no time limit and less like a puzzle with just a few last pieces missing. Shimmer more like the aurora borealis in the early morning sky and less like a furnace heating a mansion. See more like a panther sees and less like your first teacher. Write more fat messages in the mist on the glass, and speak less about the skinny facts you know by heart. Eat more magic cookies and less brain candy.

Drug expert Jonathan P. Caulkins estimates that Americans are stoned on marijuana for more than 288 million hours every week. A U.N. report on global drug use concluded that Canadians consume weed at a similar rate. Among Europeans, Italians are number one and the French are fourth. But I encourage you to avoid contributing to these figures for the next twelve to fourteen days. In my astrological opinion, it's time to be as sober and sensible and serious as you ever get. You have the chance to make unprecedented progress on practical matters through the power of your pure reasoning and critical thinking.

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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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Try this meditation: Imagine that you are the wood and the fire that consumes the wood.

First, focus your awareness on the part of you that is the wood. You may tremble or gasp, feeling the jolt of your solidity disintegrating, your form changing. As you shift your attention to the part of you that is the fire, you may exult in the wild joy of power and liberation.

It may be tempting to favor the fire over the wood, to love the burning more than the being burned. But if you'd like to understand pronoia in its fullness, you've got to appreciate them equally. Can you imagine yourself being the fire and wood simultaneously? Is it possible for you to experience the deep pleasure of their collaboration?

I think it'll be better if you don't engage in much sacrifice, compromise, or surrender in the next two weeks. Normally they are valuable tools to have at your disposal, but for now they may tend to be counterproductive. Judging from the current astrological omens, I suspect you need to be more commanding than usual, more confident in your vision of how to take action with maximum integrity. It's time for you to draw deeper from the source of your own power, and express it with extra grace and imagination.

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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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One of life's bounties is its changeableness, which ensures that boredom will never last very long. You may underestimate the intensity of your longing for continual transformation, but the universe doesn't. That's why it provides you with the boundless entertainment of your ever-shifting story. That's why it is always revising the challenges it sends your way, providing your curious soul with a rich variety of unpredictable teachings.

Neuroscientists have turned up evidence that suggests you love this aspect of the universe's behavior. They say that you are literally addicted to learning. At the moment when you grasp a lesson you've been grappling with, your brain experiences a rush of a natural opium-like chemical, boosting your pleasure levels. You crave this experience. You thrive on it.

You will soon be escaping -- or maybe "graduating" is the right word -- from your interesting trials and tribulations. In honor of this cathartic transition, I suggest you consider doing a ritual. It can be a full-fledged ceremony you conduct with somber elegance, or a five-minute psychodrama you carry out with boisterous nonchalance. It will be a celebration of your ability to outlast the forces of chaos and absurdity, and an expression of gratitude for the resources you've managed to call on in the course of your struggle. To add an extra twist, you could improvise a rowdy victory prayer that includes this quote adapted from Nietzsche: "I throw roses into the abyss and say: 'Here is my thanks to the monster who did not devour me.'"

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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.

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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 phrase "new roses" can serve as an antidote to neurosis -- as a kind of magical spell. You might invoke it when you're in danger of getting undermined by either your own neurosis or someone else's.

If you notice, for instance, that your subconscious mind is spiraling down into a sour fantasy stirred up by one of your habitual fears, you could mutter a cheerful round of "new roses, new roses, new roses."

If your allies slip into the same compulsive behavior that they tend to get stuck in whenever stress overflows, you could chant "new roses, new roses, new roses" in a tuneful, affectionate tone.

I propose a Friends Cleanse. It would be a three-week-long process of reviewing your support team and web of connections. If you feel up for the challenge, start this way: Take inventory of your friendships and alliances. If there are any that have faded or deteriorated, make a commitment to either fix them or else phase them out. Here's the second stage of the Friends Cleanse: Give dynamic boosts to those relationships that are already working well. Take them to the next level of candor and synergy.

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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.

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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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Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up. Through some magic you don't fully understand, you're still breathing and your heart is beating, even though you've been unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that's just right for your body's needs, as it was before you fell asleep.

You can see! Light of many colors floods into your eyes, registered by nerves that took God or evolution or some process millions of years to perfect. The interesting gift of these vivid hues is made possible by an unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun, which continually detonates nuclear reactions in order to convert its own body into light and heat and energy for your personal use.

After Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass in 1855, he made sure it would get the publicity he wanted. He wrote anonymous reviews of his own book and submitted them to several publications, all of which printed them. "An American bard at last!" began the glowing review that appeared in one newspaper. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Virgo, you now have license to engage in similar behavior. You will incur no karma, nor will you tempt fate, if you tout your own assets in the coming weeks. Try to make your bragging and self-promotion as charming as possible, of course. But don't be timid about it.

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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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Dear Beauty and Truth Lab: I was wondering if you had any information about Beyonders, people who were born under no star and who are therefore not ruled by the stars. - Wannabe Beyonder

Dear Wannabe: It's impossible to be born under no star. However, we all go through periods when we're relatively free from the authority of the stars we were born under and therefore immune from cosmic compulsion. During these times, we're less susceptible to the whims of fate and the demands of the past and the inertia of karma. Our willpower has more breathing room, and we're more likely to fulfill Einstein's dictum, "Imagination is more important than knowledge.

If you carry out the assignments I recommend, you will boost your charisma, your chutzpah, and your creativity. Here's the first one: Try something impossible every day. Whether or not you actually accomplish it isn't important. To merely make the effort will shatter illusions that are holding you back. Here's your second assignment: Break every meaningless rule that tempts you to take yourself too seriously. Explore the art of benevolent mischief. Here's the third: Clear out space in your fine mind by shedding one dogmatic belief, two unprovable theories, and three judgmental opinions. Give yourself the gift of fertile emptiness.

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For more help in understanding your relationship with the game of life, 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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Of the many things that have gone right for you during your time on Earth, the most crucial was your birth. As you crossed over the threshold, trading the warm dark sanctuary for the bright noisy enigma, you didn't die! It was a difficult act of high magic that involved many people who worked very hard in your behalf. The skills they provided in helping you navigate your rite of passage were in turn made possible by previous generations of threshold-tenders who bequeathed their expertise.

Months before that initiation, a more secret miracle bloomed: Your life began as a single cell, spawned by the explosive fusion of two highly specialized bundles of chromosomes. How could that tiny package of raw material have possibly grown a brain and liver and heart and stomach over a period of a few months? What inscrutable genius guided and oversaw the emergence of your fully formed infant body, that virtuoso creation, from the slimmest of clues?

In the 16th century, roguish French author Francois Rabelais published a comic novel entitled The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel. In the course of his satirical story, a learned teacher named Epistemon takes a visit to the afterlife and back. While on the other side, he finds famous dead heroes employed in humble tasks. Alexander the Great is making a meager living from mending old socks. Cleopatra is hawking onions in the streets. King Arthur cleans hats and Helen of Troy supervises chambermaids. In accordance with the Rabelaisian quality of your current astrological aspects, Scorpio, I invite you to meditate on the reversals you would like to see in your own life. What is first that maybe should be last? And vice versa? What's enormous that should be small? And vice versa? What's proud that should be humble? And vice versa?

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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.

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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 can drink a glass of water. You can spread butter on a slice of toast. You can wash your hair and prune your plants and draw infinity signs on a piece of paper. Your hands work wonderfully well! Their intricate force and sustained grace are amply supported by your heart, which circulates your blood all the way out to replenish the energy of the muscles and nerves in your fingers and palms and wrists. After your blood has delivered its blessings, it finds its way back to your heart to be refreshed. This masterful mystery repeats itself over and over again without you ever having to think about it.

There's no better time than now to ask the big question or seek the big opening or explore the big feeling. People are not only as receptive as they will ever be, they are also more likely to understand what you really mean and what you are trying to accomplish. Which door has been forever locked? Which poker face hasn't blinked or flinched in many moons? Which heart of darkness hasn't shown a crack of light for as long as you can remember? These are frontiers worth revisiting now, when your ability to penetrate the seemingly impenetrable is at a peak.

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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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Your imagination may be the best gift you've been given. It's the source of your creative power. If there's a particular experience or object you want to bring into your life, the first thing you've got to do is visualize it. The practical actions you take to manifest your dreams always refer back to the pictures in your mind's eye. And so every goal you fulfill, every quest you carry out, begins as an inner vision. Your imagination is the engine of your destiny. It's the catalyst with which you design your future. Do you know where it comes from? Do you have any idea how powerful it is?

The writer Donald Barthelme once came to see the artist Elaine de Kooning in her New York studio. Midway through the visit, loud crashes and bangs disturbed the ceiling above them. De Kooning wasn't alarmed. "Oh, that's Herbert thinking," she said, referring to the metal sculptor Herbert Ferber, who worked in a studio directly above hers. This is the kind of thinking I'd love to see you unleash in the coming days, Capricorn. Now is not a time for mild, cautious, delicate turns of thought, but rather for vigorous meditations, rambunctious speculations, and carefree musings. In your quest for practical insight, be willing to make some noise. (The story comes from Barthelme's essay "Not-Knowing.")

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Want to hear more about the subconscious factors and hidden forces that may be influencing your life? 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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May you eat an unfamiliar dessert in a strange land at least once every three years.

May you wake up to salsa music one summer morning and start dancing while you're still half-­asleep.

May you spray-paint Rilke poems as graffiti on highway overpasses.

May you mix stripes with plaids, floral patterns with checks, and yellowish-green with brownish-purple.

May you learn to identify by name 20 flowers, 15 trees, 10 clouds and one extrasolar planet.

May you put a bumper sticker on your car or bike that says, "My god can kick your god's ass!"

If you bury your face in your tear-stained pillow and beg God to please send you your soul mate, may you not slur your words in such a way that they sound like "cell mate."

May you dream of taking a trip to the moon in a gondola powered by firecrackers and wild swans.

May you actually kiss the earth now and then.

Sidney Lumet was an American director who worked on 50 films, including 14 that were nominated for Academy Awards, like Network and Dog Day Afternoon. Actors loved to work with him, even though he was a stickler for thorough rehearsals. Intense preparation, he felt, was the key to finding the "magical accidents" that allow an actor's highest artistry to emerge. I advocate a similar strategy for you, Aquarius. Make yourself ready, through practice and discipline, to capitalize fully on serendipitous opportunities and unexpected breakthroughs when they arrive.

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To further explore the ripening blessings and interesting challenges in your life, 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 been loved? I bet you have been loved so much and so deeply that you have become blasé about the enormity of the grace it confers. So let me remind you: To be loved is a privilege and prize equivalent to being born. If you're smart, you pause regularly to bask in the astonishing knowledge that there are many people out there who care for you and want you to thrive and hold you in their thoughts with fondness.

Animals, too: You have been the recipient of their boundless affection. The spirits of allies who've left this world continue to send their tender regards, as well. Do you "believe" in angels and other divine beings? Whether or not you do, I can assure you that there are hordes of them beaming their uncanny consecrations your way. You are awash in torrents of love.

"It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too," said American writer Josh Billings. I agree with him. It's not impossible to solve the mystery of who you are, but it can be hard work that requires playful honesty, cagey tenacity, and an excellent sense of humor. The good news is that these days it's far less difficult and inconvenient than usual for you to deepen your self-understanding. So take advantage! To get started, why don't you interview yourself? Go here to see some questions you could ask.

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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 you're with a team of explorers in Antarctica. You're climbing the 2,000-foot granite spire called Rakekniven that thrusts up out of the ice in Queen Maud Land. The temperature is 10 degrees below zero. There's not a plant or animal in sight. The blinding white emptiness of the wasteland beneath you fills you with desolate reverence, alienated awe, and soaring gratitude. You are far from everything that normally gives you comfort. Why do you feel so good?