"Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent," said playwright Lillian Hellman. "When that happens, it is possible to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea." Why does this happen? Because the painter changed his or her mind. Early images were replaced, painted over. I suspect that a metaphorical version of this is underway in your life. Certain choices you made in the past got supplanted by choices you made later. They disappeared from view. But now those older possibilities are re-emerging for your consideration. I'm not saying what you should do about them. I simply want to alert you to their ghostly presence so they don't cause confusion.

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How well is your imagination working these days? Could it use a boost? A prod? A jolt of inspiration? Try tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is 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 taste delicious
Animals understand you
Your importance is unusual

The funny faces you make
are interesting to look at
You fight for power in all the right ways

Ecstatic gratitude is pouring out of you
I see the best in you
Your divine attitude

You have strong feet and a pioneer heart

No one can overflow as well as you can

You are famous with God
You are famous with me
You are famous with the snakes and birds
and roses and pines
and oceans and earth and sky

A lost tribe salutes you from the other side of the veil

You remind me of a star

Hear this meditation.

Let's talk about your mouth. Since your words flow out of it, you use it to create and shape a lot of your experiences. Your mouth is also the place where food and drink enter your body, as well as some of the air you breathe. So it's crucial to fueling every move you make. You experience the beloved sense of taste in your mouth. You use your mouth for kissing and other amorous activities. With its help, you sing, moan, shout, and laugh. It's quite expressive, too. As you move its many muscles, you send out an array of emotional signals. I've provided this summary in the hope of inspiring you to celebrate your mouth, Taurus. It's prime time to enhance your appreciation of its blessings!

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Welcome to the Beauty and Truth Lab.

We're coming to you live from your repressed memories of paradise, reminding you that you can have anything you want if you will just ask for it in an unselfish way.

Welcome to the end of your nightmares, beauty and truth fans!

The world is young, your soul is free, and a naked celebrity is dying to talk to you about your most intimate secrets right now.

Just kidding.

In fact, the world is young, your soul is free, and at any moment you will feel a flood of ecstatic compassion for salamanders, oak trees, clouds, toasters, convenience store clerks, and even the ocean itself.

I'm your host.

My name is the Sacred Janitor at the Edge of Time, and I'm proud to announce that this is a perfect moment.

It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because you are on the verge of finally figuring out exactly what it is you really want more than anything else . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

Coloring books for adults are best-sellers. Tightly-wound folks relieve their stress by using crayons and markers to brighten up black-and-white drawings of butterflies, flowers, mandalas, and pretty fishes. I highly recommend that you avoid this type of recreation in the next three weeks, as it would send the wrong message to your subconscious mind. You should expend as little energy as possible working within frameworks that others have made. You need to focus on designing and constructing your own frameworks.

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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 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 poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. The physicist Werner Heisenberg declared that the universe is made of music, not of matter.

And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories and music, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it's impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be.

That's why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales and tunes that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good.

Hear this meditation.

The Old Testament book of Leviticus presents a long list of forbidden activities, and declares that anyone who commits them should be punished. You're not supposed to get tattoos, have messy hair, consult oracles, work on Sunday, wear clothes that blend wool and linen, plant different seeds in the same field, or eat snails, prawns, pigs, and crabs. (It's OK to buy slaves, though.) We laugh at how absurd it would be for us to obey these outdated rules and prohibitions, and yet many of us retain a superstitious loyalty toward guidelines and beliefs that are almost equally obsolete. Here's the good news, Cancerian: Now is an excellent time to dismantle or purge your own fossilized formulas.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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We're explorers in search of the ever-evolving truth, not authorities proclaiming doctrine from on high. We refuse to be salespeople intent on getting you to be like us or buy our ideas. In fact, let's look at the downsides of the perspectives we celebrate.

The first thing you should consider before leaping into a relationship with pronoia is that it is utterly at odds with conventional wisdom. The 19th-century poet John Keats said that if something is not beautiful, it is probably not true. But the vast majority of modern storytellers -- journalists, filmmakers, novelists, talk-show hosts, and poets -- assert the opposite: If something is not ugly, it is probably not true.

In a world that equates pessimism with acumen and regards stories about things falling apart as having the highest entertainment value, pronoia is deviant. It is a taboo so taboo that it's not even recognized as a taboo . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

"I would not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well," said the philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau. In accordance with your astrological constitution, Leo, I authorize you to use this declaration as your own almost any time you feel like it. But I do suggest that you make an exception to the rule during the next four weeks. In my opinion, it will be time to focus on increasing your understanding of the people you care about -- even if that effort takes time and energy away from your quest for ultimate self-knowledge. Don't worry: You can return to emphasizing Thoreau's perspective by the equinox.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Many of us are essentially asleep, even as we walk around in broad daylight. We're so focused on the restless narratives and repetitive fantasies unfurling in our heads that we only dimly perceive the larger story raging in all of its chaotic beauty around us.

To have any hope of permanently breaking out of our fuzzy trance, we require regular shocks. A single jolt might cause us to briefly come to attention and see the miracle of creation for what it is, but once the red alert has passed, we relax back into our fixation on the dreamy tales our mind never stops telling us.

In the course of its conspiracy to shower us with blessings, life does its best to provide us with a steady flow of healing shocks. But because it tends to err on the side of tenderness, its prods may be too gentle, allowing us to ignore them. Gradually, life will up the ante, trying to find the right mix of toughness and love, as it encourages us to WAKE UP!

But our addiction to the phantasmagoria is tenacious. The stream-of-conscious narratives and ever-bubbling fantasies, even when they're racked with torment and terror, are perversely entertaining. And so we may avoid responding to the kind shocks for so long that life finally has to resort to stronger medicine. Then we might get sick or lose our job or muck up our closest relationship.

It doesn't have to be that way. We could cultivate in ourselves a sixth sense for the wake-up calls life sends us. We might develop a knack for responding with agile grace to the early, gentler ones so that we wouldn't have to be visited by the more stringent measures . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

You are entering the inquisitive phase of your astrological cycle. One of the best ways to thrive during the coming weeks will be to ask more questions than you have asked since you were five years old. Curiosity and good listening skills will be superpowers that you should strive to activate. For now, what matters most is not what you already know but rather what you need to find out. It's a favorable time to gather information about riddles and mysteries that have perplexed you for a long time. Be super-receptive and extra wide-eyed!

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is 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 sweetly and deeply. As you inhale, remember that the calcium in your bones and the iron in your blood were originally created at the core of a red giant star that died billions of years ago.

As you exhale, allow your perfect animal body to gentle explode with luminous gratitude. Feel streams of orgiastic compassion flowing out of your wild heart in spiral hallelujahs . . . .

Hear the rest of this meditation.

Poet Barbara Hamby says the Russian word ostyt can be used to describe "a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room, and return, it is too cool." A little birdie told me that this may be an apt metaphor for a current situation in your life. I completely understand if you wish the tea had lost less of its original warmth, and was exactly the temperature you like, neither burning nor tepid. But that won't happen unless you try to reheat it, which would change the taste. So what should you do? One way or the other, a compromise will be necessary. Do you want the lukewarm tea or the hot tea with a different flavor?

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Help Wanted: We are looking for a benevolent troublemaker of any gender to serve as a model for a statue of the Egyptian goddess of justice, Maat. You must be willing to sit on a lion, wear ostrich feathers, and hold a sword aloft for long hours.

Your thighs should be strong and you should be able to make your eyes be wild with the desire to stir up both balance and mercy everywhere you go. Ideally, you are in a phase of your personal life when you are sincerely angry about all forms of injustice, even those that don't directly affect you your own interests. Scrupulous curiosity is also a plus.

Hear this meditation.

Russian writer Ivan Turgenev was a Scorpio. Midway through his first novel Rudin, his main character Dmitrii Nikolaevich Rudin alludes to a problem that affects many Scorpios. "Do you see that apple tree?" Rudin asks a woman companion. "It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit." Ouch! I want very much for you Scorpios to be spared a fate like that in the coming weeks. That's why I propose that you scheme about how you will express the immense creativity that will be welling up in you. Don't let your lush and succulent output go to waste.

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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 from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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We are waking up.

As heaven and earth come together, as the dreamtime and daytime merge, we register the shockingly exhilarating fact that we are in charge -- you and I are in charge -- of creating a brand new world. Not in some distant time or faraway place, but right here and right now.

If you do not bring the genius within you, it will destroy you. But if you do bring forth the genius within you, it will free you.

As we stand on this brink, as we dance on this verge, we cannot let the ruling fools of the dying world sustain their curses. We have to rise up and fight their insane logic; defy, resist, and prevent their tragic magic; erupt with our sacred rage and supercharge it.

But overthrowing the living dead is not enough. Protesting the well-dressed monsters is not enough. We can't afford to be consumed with our anger; can't be obsessed and possessed by their danger.

Our mysterious bodies crave delight and fertility. Our ancient imaginations demand fresh tastes of infinity.

In the new world we're creating, we need lusty compassion and ecstatic duty, ingenious love and insurrectionary beauty. radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

Asking you Sagittarians to be patient may be akin to ordering a bonfire to burn more politely. But it's my duty to inform you of the cosmic tendencies, so I will request your forbearance for now. How about some nuances to make it more palatable? Here's a quote from author David G. Allen: "Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind." Novelist Gustave Flaubert: "Talent is a long patience." French playwright Moliere: "Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit." Writer Ann Lamott: "Hope is a revolutionary patience." I've saved the best for last, from Russian novelist Irene Nemirovsky: "Waiting is erotic."

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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All I ask of you: Be my slow-motion dance. Be my birthday earthquake. Be my spiral marble staircase in the middle of a Vermont meadow. Be my handstand on a barstool, my whirlwind week in clown school, my joke shared with a Siberian shaman while shopping for T-shirts at Sears. Be my last because . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

"If you ask for help it comes, but not in any way you'd ever know." Poet Gary Snyder said that, and now I'm passing it on to you, Capricorn. The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to think deeply about the precise kinds of help you would most benefit from -- even as you loosen up your expectations about how your requests for aid might be fulfilled. Be aggressive in seeking assistance, but ready and willing to be surprised as it arrives.

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You're got more strength and intelligence than you realize. For help in accessing those untapped inner resources, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is 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 real secret of magic is that the world is made of words," said Terence McKenna, "and that if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish."

Here's my version of that hypothesis: What world you end up living in depends at least in part on your use of language.

Do you want to move and breathe amidst infertile chaos where nothing makes sense and no one really loves anyone? Then speak with unconscious carelessness, expressing yourself lazily. Constantly materialize and entertain angry thoughts in the privacy of your own imagination, beaming silent curses out into eternity.

Or would you prefer to live in a realm that's rich with fluid epiphanies and intriguing coincidences and mysterious harmonies? Then be discerning and inventive in how you speak, primed to name the unexpected codes that are always being born right in front of your eyes. Turn your imagination into an ebullient laboratory where the somethings you create out of nothings are tinctured with the secret light you see in your dreams of invisible fire . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

For a limited time only, 153 is your lucky number. Mauve and olive are your colors of destiny, the platypus is your power animal, and torn burlap mended with silk thread is your magic texture. I realize that all of this may sound odd, but it's the straight-up truth. The nature of the cosmic rhythms are rather erratic right now. To be in maximum alignment with the irregular opportunities that are headed your way, you should probably make yourself magnificently mysterious, even to yourself. To quote an old teacher, this might be a good time to be "so unpredictable that not even you yourself knows what's going to happen."

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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I want to be free
in the mystery of love
I want to be wild
when the world begins again
I want to wake up and listen
Be in love with my life and death
and I want you to be there with me

I want all the children
to have enough to eat
I want all the angry men
to destroy their own pain
I want us all to be happy
and crazy and safe and real
I want everybody to be loved

Hear this meditation.

In the long-running TV show M*A*S*H*, the character known as Sidney Freedman was a psychiatrist who did his best to nurture the mental health of the soldiers in his care. He sometimes departed from conventional therapeutic approaches. In the series finale, he delivered the following speech, which I believe is highly pertinent to your current quest for good mental hygiene: "I told you people something a long time ago, and it's just as pertinent today as it was then. Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice."

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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 from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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When an old tree in the rain forest dies and topples over, it takes a long time to decompose. As it does, it becomes host to new saplings that use the decaying log for nourishment.

Picture yourself sitting in the forest gazing upon this scene. How would you describe it? Would you dwell on the putrefaction of the fallen tree while ignoring the fresh life sprouting out of it? If you did that, you’d be imitating the perspective of many modern storytellers, especially the journalists and novelists and filmmakers and producers of TV dramas. They devoutly believe that tales of affliction and mayhem and corruption and tragedy are inherently more interesting than tales of triumph and liberation and pleasure and ingenuity.

The German actor Udo Kier summed up the general consensus in an interview he did a few years ago. "Evil has no limit," he sneered, blustering like a naughty genius. "Evil has no limit. Good has a limit. Good is not as interesting as evil."

Two hundred years ago the poet John Keats said that if something is not beautiful, it is probably not true. But Udo Kier and his many compatriots disagree with Keats. With one voice, they imply that if something is not ugly, it is not true . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.