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Horoscopes by Rob Brezsny


Week of May 12th, 2016

♉ TAURUS

(April 20-May 20)
"Creativity is intelligence having fun." Approximately 30,000 sites on the Internet attribute that quote to iconic genius Albert Einstein. But my research strongly suggests that he did not actually say that. Who did? It doesn't matter. For the purposes of this horoscope, there are just two essential points to concentrate on. First, for the foreseeable future, your supreme law of life should be "creativity is intelligence having fun." Second, it's not enough to cavort and play and improvise, and it's not enough to be discerning and shrewd and observant. Be all those things.

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"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. I'd like to inspire you to write a story of your own that begins like that. For help, tune into 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 designed to keep us 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 just as likely: 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 the latter types of blessings when he said that "the most important and enjoyable thing in life is doing something that's a complicated, tricky problem for you that you don't know how to solve."

The Christian writer C. S. Lewis said: "I thank God that He hasn't given me all the things I've prayed for, because as I look back now I realize it would have been disastrous to have received some of them." Pronoia provides the boons and prods your soul needs, not necessarily those your ego craves.

Pronoia doesn't promise uninterrupted progress forever. It's not a slick commercial for a perfect summer day that never ends. Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow. The waning reveals a different kind of blessing than the waxing.

But whether it's our time to ferment in the valley of shadows or rise up singing in the sun-splashed meadow, fresh power to transform ourselves is always on the way. Our suffering won't last, nor will our triumph. Without fail, life will deliver the creative energy we need to change into the new thing we must become.