"Silence is not silence, but a limit of hearing," writes Jane Hirshfield in her poem "Everything Has Two Endings." This observation is apropos for you right now. There are potentially important messages you're not registering and catalytic influences you can't detect. But their apparent absence is due to a blank spot in your awareness, or maybe a willful ignorance left over from the old days. Now here's the good news: You are primed to expand your listening field. You have an enhanced ability to open certain doors of perception that have been closed. If you capitalize on this opportunity, silence will give way to revelation.

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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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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 . . . .

Go here to read or hear the rest of "Healing Shocks."

Your ability to accomplish magic is at a peak, and will continue to soar for at least two more weeks. And when I use that word "magic," I'm not referring to the hocus-pocus performed by illusionists like Criss Angel or Harry Houdini. I'm talking about real feats of transformation that will generate practical benefits in your day-to-day life. Now study the following definitions by writer Somerset Maugham, and have faith in your ability to embody them: "Magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician."

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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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More and more creative people find they do their best work when they're feeling healthy and secure. We know writers who no longer need to be drunk or in agony in order to shed the numbness of their daily routine and tap into the full powers of their imagination.

We have filmmaker friends whose best work flows not from the depths of alienated self-doubt but rather from the heights of well-earned bliss.

Singer-songwriter P.J. Harvey is the patron saint of this new breed. "When I'm contented, I'm more open to receiving a lot of inspiration," she has testified. "I'm most creative when I feel safe and happy" . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

According to author Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian word toska means "a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness." Linguist Anna Wierzbicka says it conveys an emotion that blends melancholy, boredom, and yearning. Journalist Nick Ashdown suggests that for someone experiencing toska, the thing that's yearned for may be "intangible and impossible to actually obtain." How are doing with your own toska, Gemini? Is it conceivable that you could escape it -- maybe even heal it? I think you can. I think you will. Before you do, though, I hope you'll take time to explore it further. Toska has more to teach you about the previously hidden meaning of your life.

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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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Dear Goddess: Please make it immoral, illegal, irrelevant, unpatriotic, and totally tasteless for us to be in love with anyone or anything that's no good for us.

Teach us to know the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control.

Awaken in us the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing . . . .

Read or hear the rest of the Goddess Prayer.

"Gandhi's autobiography is on my pillow," writes Cancerian poet Buddy Wakefield. "I put it there every morning after making my bed so I'll remember to read it before falling asleep. I've been reading it for 6 years. I'm on Chapter 2." What's the equivalent phenomenon in your world, my fellow Crab? What good deed or righteous activity have you been pursuing with glacial diligence? Is there a healthy change you've been thinking about forever, but not making much progress on? The mood and the sway of the coming days will bring you a good chance to expedite the process. In Wakefield's case, he could get up to Chapter 17.

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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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I love you I love me I love you and me together

I love us I love them I love us and them together

Rilke said: "For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It's the work for which all other work is mere preparation."

Teillard de Chardin said: "Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire."

Leo Tolstoy said: "Everything I understand, I understand only because I love."

Pascal said: "If you do not love too much, you do not love enough."

Emily Dickinson said: "Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself."

You and I say: Because we love Ruby-throated hummingbirds sip from plum flowers and the moon sings its silver fragrance to the swans and volcanoes and fields of wheat . . . .

Hear or read the rest of this meditation.

In the 16th century, European explorers searched South America in quest of a mythical city of gold known as El Dorado. Tibetan Buddhist tradition speaks of Shambhala, a magical holy kingdom where only enlightened beings live. In the legends of ancient Greece, Hyperborea was a sunny paradise where the average human life span was a thousand years and happiness was normal. Now is an excellent time for you to fantasize about your own version of utopia, Leo. Why? First, your imagination is primed to expand. Second, dreaming big will be good for your mental and physical health. There's another reason, too: By envisioning the most beautiful world possible, you will mobilize your idealism and boost your ability to create the best life for yourself in the coming months.

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Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your unfolding destiny, check out 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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Celebrate Unhappy Hour at least once a month. During this ritual blowout, you have license to complain and rant about everything that's driving you crazy. Get a sympathetic listener to be your receptacle or deliver your blast straight into the mirror. If you prefer, write it all down. One way or another, grouse nonstop about your secret shame, raw sorrow, bottomless wrath, unspeakable guilt, and unnerving twists of destiny. Feel free to unleash guttural moans or rueful cackles.

If performed regularly, Unhappy Hour serves as an exorcism that empties you of psychic toxins. Pronoia will then have a chance to flourish as you luxuriate more frequently in rosy moods and broad-minded visions.

To hear or read the rest of the Unhappy Hour ritual, go here.

"Anytime you're going to grow, you're going to lose something," said psychologist James Hillman. "You're losing what you're hanging onto to keep safe. You're losing habits that you're comfortable with, you're losing familiarity." I nominate these thoughts to serve as your words of wisdom in the coming weeks, Virgo. From an astrological perspective, you are in a phase when luxuriant growth is possible. To harvest the fullness of the lush opportunities, you should be willing to shed outworn stuff that might interfere.

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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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This is a perfect time for you to learn more about the difference between your fearful fantasies and your authentic, accurate intuitions.

Knowing the difference is one of the greatest spiritual powers you can possible have. So let's explore what it means: knowing the difference between the frightening, alienating pictures that sometimes pop into your imagination, as opposed the simple, warm, clear direction that is always available from the deepest source within you.

To hear or read the rest of the essay "Fear Versus Intuition,"go here.

On Cracked.com, Auntie Meme tells us that many commonly-held ideas about history are wrong. There were no such things as chastity belts in the Middle Ages, for example. Napoleon's soldiers didn't shoot off the nose of the Sphinx when they were stationed in Egypt. In regards to starving peasants, Marie Antoinette never derisively said, "Let them eat cake." And no Christians ever became meals for lions in ancient Rome's Colosseum. (More.) In the spirit of Auntie Meme's exposé, and in alignment with the astrological omens, I invite you to uncover and correct at least three fabrications, fables, and lies about your own past.

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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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Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up. The vast majority of everything is working with breathtaking efficiency and consistency.

Read or hear more about why this is true.

Poet Charles Wright marvels at the hummingbird, "who has to eat sixty times his own weight a day just to stay alive. Now that's a life on the edge." In the coming weeks, Scorpio, your modus operandi may have resemblances to the hummingbird's approach. I don't mean to suggest that you will be in a manic survival mode. Rather, I expect you'll feel called to nourish your soul with more intensity than usual. You'll need to continuously fill yourself up with experiences that inspire, teach, and transform you.

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Do you wish you could get more clarity about the foggy, ambiguous situations you're dealing with? Want more help in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss your coming week in greater depth in 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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Life is a vast and intricate conspiracy that's guaranteed to keep you well supplied with blessings.

What kind of blessings? Ten million dollars, a gorgeous physique, a perfect marriage, a luxurious home, and high status?

Maybe. But it's just as likely that the blessings will be interesting surprises, dizzying adventures, gifts you hardly know what to do with, and conundrums that dare you to get smarter.

Novelist William Vollman referred to these types of blessings when he said that "the most important and enjoyable thing in life is grappling with a complicated, tricky problem that you don't know how to solve."

Sculptor Henry Moore had a similar idea. He said, "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is -- it must be something you cannot possibly do."

So in other words, pronoia does not guarantee that you will forevermore be free of all difficult experiences.

It doesn't ask you to pretend that everything is sweet and harmonious all the time.

On the contrary, when you embody the spirit of pronoia, you build your optimism by loving your challenges, not repressing them.

You know that your problems are gifts from the Goddess that are designed to make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

You welcome each fresh puzzle as a potential source of your future bliss, as an exciting teaching that will usher you to your next breakthrough.

To hear or read the rest of the essay "Shadow Blessings," go here.

"Anybody can become angry," said Greek philosopher Aristotle. "That is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." I'm pleased to inform you, Sagittarius, that now is a time when you have an exceptional capacity for meeting Aristotle's high standards. In fact, I encourage you to honor and learn all you can from your finely-honed and well-expressed anger. Make it work wonders for you. Use it so constructively that no one can complain.

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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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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.

Psychologist Carl Jung believed that all desires have a sacred origin, no matter how odd they may seem. Frustration and ignorance may contort them into distorted caricatures, but it is always possible to locate the divine source from which they arose. In describing one of his addictive patients, Jung said: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst for wholeness, or as expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

Psychotherapist James Hillman echoes the theme: "Psychology regards all symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way." A preoccupation with porn or romance novels, for instance, may come to dominate a passionate person whose quest for love has degenerated into an obsession with images of love. "Follow the lead of your symptoms," Hillman suggests, "for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul."

To hear or read the rest of this essay "What If Your Desires Are Holy?", go here.

To celebrate your arrival at the height of your sex appeal, I'm resurrecting the old-fashioned word "vavoom." Feel free to use it as your nickname. Pepper it into your conversations in place of terms like "awesome," "wow," or "yikes." Use a felt-tip marker to make a temporary VAVOOM tattoo on your beautiful body. Here are other enchanted words you should take charge of and make an intimate part of your daily presentation: verve, vim, vivid, vitality, vigor, voracious, vivacious, visceral, valor, victory, and VIVA!

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Need more help in figuring out the questions life is asking you? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out 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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Although we are all born geniuses, the grind of day-to-day living tends to de-genius us. That's the bad news. The good news is that you have the power to re-genius yourself.

I'm going to give you a ritual called "Re-Genius Yourself," which you can use to jump-start the process. Below is an excerpt. To hear or read the entire ritual, go here.

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.

I'm not pandering to your egotism by telling you these things. When I say, "Be yourself," I don't mean you should be the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and stand alone at the end of time on top of a Mt. Everest-sized pile of pretty garbage.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the self that says "Thank you!" to the wild irises and the windy rain and the people who grow your food.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the rebel creator who's longing to make the whole universe your home and sanctuary.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the dissident bodhisattva who's joyfully struggling to germinate the seeds of divine love that are packed inside every moment.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the spiritual freedom fighter who's scrambling and finagling and conspiring to relieve your fellow messiahs from their suffering and shower them with rowdy blessings.

To hear or read the rest of this essay "Re-Genius Yourself," go here.

When he was a boy, Mayan poet Humberto Ak'ab'al asked his mother, "What are those things that shine in the sky?" "Bees," she answered mischievously. "Every night since then," Humberto writes, "my eyes eat honey." In response to this lyrical play, the logical part of our brains might rise up and say, "What a load of nonsense!" But I will ask you to set aside the logical part of your brain for now, Aquarius. According to my understanding of the astrological omens, the coming days will be a time when you need a big dose of sweet fantasies, dreamy stories, and maybe even beautiful nonsense. What are your equivalents of seeing bees making honey in the night sky's pinpoints of light?

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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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Your imagination is the single most important asset you possess. It's your power to create mental pictures of things that don't exist yet and that you want to bring into being. It's the magic wand you use to shape your future.

And so in your own way, you are a prophet. You generate countless predictions every day. Your imagination is the source, tirelessly churning out images of what you will be doing later.

The featured prophecy of the moment may be as simple as a psychic impression of yourself eating a fudge brownie at lunch or as monumental as a daydream of some year building your dream home by a lake or sea.

Your imagination is a treasure when it spins out scenarios that are aligned with your deepest desires. In fact, it's an indispensable tool in creating the life you want; it's what you use to form images of the conditions you'd like to inhabit and the objects you hope to wield. Nothing manifests on this planet unless it first exists as a mental picture.

But for most of us, the imagination is as much a curse as a blessing. We're often just as likely to use it to conjure up premonitions that are at odds with our conscious values. That's the result of having absorbed toxic programming from the media and from our parents at an early age and from other influential people in our past.

Fearful fantasies regularly pop up into our awareness, many disguising themselves as rational thoughts and genuine intuitions. Those fearful fantasies may hijack our psychic energy, directing it to exhaust itself in dead-end meditations.

Every time we entertain a vision of being rejected or hurt or frustrated, every time we rouse and dwell on a memory of a painful experience, we're blasting ourselves with a hex . . . .

Read or hear the rest of "You Are a Prophet."

"Sometimes, a seemingly insignificant detail reveals a whole world," says artist Pierre Cordier. "Like the messages hidden by spies in the dot of an i." These are precisely the minutiae that you should be extra alert for in the coming days, Pisces. Major revelations may emerge from what at first seems trivial. Generous insights could ignite in response to small acts of beauty and subtle shifts of tone. Do you want glimpses of the big picture and the long-range future? Then be reverent toward the fine points and modest specifics.

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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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DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It's the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It's a mode of training your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

OBJECTIVE OF PRONOIA: To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate Master of Rowdy Bliss.

HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is your birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.

PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.

GUIDING QUESTION: "The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is -- it must be something you cannot possibly do." What is that task for you?

Go here to read or hear the rest of "The Experiment."