At a recent party, a guy I hardly know questioned my authenticity. "You seem to have had an easy life," he jabbed. "I bet you haven't suffered enough to be a truly passionate person." I didn't choose to engage him, but mused to myself, "Not enough suffering? What about the time I got shot? My divorce? My five-year-long illness? The manager of my rock band getting killed in a helicopter crash?" But after that initial reaction, my thoughts turned to the adventures that have stoked my passion without causing pain, like the birth of my daughter, getting remarried to the woman I divorced, and performing my music for excited audiences. I bring this up, Aries, because I suspect that you, too, will soon have experiences that refine and deepen your passion through pleasure rather than hardship.

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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 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're a star -- and so am I. I'm a genius -- and so are you. Your success encourages my brilliance, and my charisma enhances your power. Your victory doesn't require my defeat, and vice versa. Those are the rules in the New World -- quite unlike the rules in the Old World, where zero-sum games are the norm, and only one of us can win each time we play.

In the New World, you don't have to play down or apologize for your prowess, because you love it when other people shine. You exult in your own excellence without regarding it as a sign of inherent superiority. As you ripen more and more of your latent aptitude, you inspire the rest of us to claim our own idiosyncratic magnificence.

It's the Frank and Focused Feedback Phase, Taurus -- prime time to solicit insight about how you're doing. Here are four suggestions to get you started. 1. Ask a person who loves and respects you to speak the compassionate truth about what's most important for you to learn. 2. Consult a trustworthy advisor who can help motivate you to do the crucial thing you've been postponing. 3. Have an imaginary conversation with the person you were a year ago. Encourage the Old You to be honest about how the New You could summon more excellence in pursuing your essential goals. 4. Say this prayer to your favorite tree or animal or meadow: "Show me what I need to do in order to feel more joy."

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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 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? Palatial homes, attractive lovers, lottery winnings, career success?

Maybe. But just as likely: interesting surprises, unexpected challenges, gifts we hardly know what to do with, conundrums that force us 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."

Many of my readers regard me as being exceptionally creative. Over the years, they have sent countless emails praising me for my original approach to problem-solving and art-making. But I suspect that I wasn't born with a greater talent for creativity than anyone else. I've simply placed a high value on developing it, and have worked harder to access it than most people. With that in mind, I invite you to tap more deeply into your own mother lode of innovative, imaginative energy. The cosmic trends favor it. Your hormones are nudging you in that direction. What projects could use a jolt of primal brilliance? What areas of your life need a boost of ingenuity?

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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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At the heart of the pronoiac way of life is an apparent conundrum: You can have anything you want if you'll just ask for it in an unselfish way.

The trick to making this work is to locate where your deepest ambition coincides with the greatest gift you have to give. Figure out exactly how the universe, by providing you with abundance, can improve the lot of everyone whose life you touch. Seek the fulfillment of your fondest desires in such a way that you become a fount of blessings.

Love wants more of you. Love longs for you to give everything you have and receive everything you need. Love is conspiring to bring you beautiful truths and poignant teases, sweet dispensations and confounding mysteries, exacting blessings and riddles that will take your entire life to solve. But here are some crucial questions: Are you truly ready for such intense engagement? Are you willing to do what's necessary to live at a higher and deeper level? Would you know how to work with such extravagant treasure and wild responsibility? The coming weeks will be prime time to explore the answers to these questions. I'm not sure what your answers will be.

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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 from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, and soften your heart—even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections.

Each of us contains a multiplicity of selves. You may often feel like there's just one of you rumbling around inside your psyche, but it's closer to the truth to say that you're a community of various characters whose agendas sometimes overlap and sometimes conflict. For example, the needy part of you that craves love isn't always on the same wavelength as the ambitious part of you that seeks power. That's why it's a good idea to periodically organize summit meetings where all of your selves can gather and negotiate. Now is one of those times: a favorable moment to foster harmony among your inner voices and to mobilize them to work together in service of common goals.

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Need more whacks applied to your mental blocks? More caresses bestowed upon your growing edge? Listen 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.

Astrologer Caroline Casey offers an apt metaphor to illustrate how crucial it is for us to hear and read good stories. She notes that if we don't have enough of the normal, healthy kind of iodine in our bodies, we absorb radioactive iodine, which has entered the food chain through nuclear test explosions conducted in the atmosphere. Similarly, unless we fill ourselves up with stories that invigorate us, we're more susceptible to sopping up the poisonous, degenerative narratives.

Pike's Peak is a 14,115-foot mountain in Colorado. It's not a simple task to trek to the top. Unless you're well-trained, you might experience altitude sickness. Wicked thunderstorms are a regular occurrence during the summer. Snow falls year-round. But back in 1929, an adventurer named Bill Williams decided the task of hiking to the summit wasn't tough enough. He sought a more demanding challenge. Wearing kneepads, he spent 21 days crawling along as he used his nose to push a peanut all the way up. I advise you to avoid making him your role model in the coming weeks, Virgo. Just climb the mountain. Don't try to push a peanut up there with your nose, too.

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

"It isn't normal to know what we want," said psychologist Abraham Maslow. "It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement." He wasn't referring to the question of what you want for dinner or the new shoes you plan to buy. He was talking about big, long-term yearnings: what you hope to be when you grow up, the qualities you look for in your best allies, the feelings you'd love to feel in abundance every day of your life. Now here's the good news, Libra: The next ten months should bring you the best chance ever to figure out exactly what you want the most. And it all starts now.

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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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If I ever produce a self-help manual called The Reverse Psychology of Getting Everything You Want, it will discuss the following paradoxes:
a. People are more willing to accommodate your longings if you're not greedy or grasping.
b. A good way to achieve your desires is to cultivate the feeling that you've already achieved them.
c. Whatever you're longing for has been changed by your pursuit of it. It's not the same as it was when you felt the first pangs of desire. In order to make it yours, then, you will have to modify your ideas about it.
d. Be careful what you wish for because if your wish does materialize it will require you to change in ways you didn't foresee.

Review your own life and identify experiences that exemplify these four principles.

Practitioners of the Ayurvedic medical tradition tout the healing power of regular self-massage. Creativity expert Julia Cameron recommends that you periodically go out on dates with yourself. Taoist author Mantak Chia advises you to visualize sending smiles and good wishes to your kidneys, lungs, liver, heart, and other organs. He says that these acts of kindness bolster your vigor. The coming weeks will be an especially favorable time to attend to measures like these, Scorpio. I hope you will also be imaginative as you give yourself extra gifts and compliments and praise.

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Need more help deciphering the riddles and enigmas that are fueling your amazing story? Listen 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 you're an aspiring master of pronoia, you see the cracks in the facades as opportunities; inspiration erupts as you careen over bumps in the road; you love the enticing magic that flows from situations that other people regard as rough or crooked.

"That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal," wrote poet Charles Baudelaire, "from which it follows that irregularity—that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment—is an essential part and characteristic of beauty."

The coming weeks will be one of the best times ever for wrestling with God or tussling with Fate or grappling with karma. Why do I say that? Because you're likely to emerge triumphant! That's right, you lucky, plucky contender. More than I've seen in a long time, you have the potential to draw on the crafty power and unruly wisdom and resilient compassion you would need to be an unambiguous winner. A winner of what? You tell me. What dilemma would you most like to resolve? What test would you most like to ace? At what game would you most like to be victorious? Now is the time.

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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 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 time for the Gratitude Fest. Write thank-you notes to the creatures, both human and otherwise, that have played seminal roles in inspiring you to become yourself.

Who have been your guides along the way, both the purposeful teachers and the inadvertent helpers? Who has seen you for who you really are? Who has nudged you in the direction of your fuller destiny and awakened you to your signature truths? Who has loved you very, very well?

Are you grunting and sweating as you struggle to preserve and maintain the gains of the past? Or are you smooth and cagey as you maneuver your way towards the rewards of the future? I'm rooting for you to put the emphasis on the second option. Paradoxically, that will be the best way to accomplish the first option. It will also ensure that your motivations are primarily rooted in love and enthusiasm rather than worry and stress. And that will enable you to succeed at the second option.

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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 from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Receptivity is not a passive state. Nor is it a blank, empty waiting around for whatever happens to come along. In urging you to cultivate receptivity, I don't mean you should become a lazy do-nothing bereft of goals, reacting blindly to whatever life throws in front of you. Receptivity is a robust readiness to be surprised and moved; a vigorous intention to be awake to everything you can't control.

When you're receptive in the pronoiac style, you have strong ideas and a powerful will and an eagerness to disseminate your unique blessings, but you're also animated by the humble certainty that you have a lot to learn.

Do you believe that you are mostly just a product of social conditioning and your genetic make-up? Or are you willing to entertain a different hypothesis: that you are a primal force of nature on an unpredictable journey? That you are capable of rising above your apparent limitations and expressing aspects of yourself that might have been unimaginable when you were younger? I believe the coming weeks will be a favorable time to play around with this vision. Your knack for transcendence is peaking. So are your powers to escape the past and exceed limited expectations.

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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 from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Whatever you choose to focus your attention on, you will get more of it. If you often think of everything you lack and how sad you are that you don't have it, you will tend to receive prolific evidence of how true that is. As you obsess on all the ways your life is different from what you wish it would be, you will become an expert in rousing feelings of frustration and you will attract experiences that assist you in rousing frustration.

If, on the other hand, you dwell on the good things you have already had the privilege to experience, you will expand your appreciation for their blessings, which in turn will amplify their beneficent impact on your life. You will also magnetize yourself to receive further good things, making it more likely that they will be attracted into your sphere. At the very least, you will get in the habit of enjoying yourself no matter what the outward circumstances are.

In one of your nightly dreams, Robin Hood may team up with Peter Pan to steal unused treasure from a greedy monster -- and then turn the booty over to you. Or maybe you'll meet a talking hedgehog and singing fox who will cast a spell to heal and revive one of your wounded fantasies. It's also conceivable that you will recover a magic seed that had been lost or forgotten, and attract the help of a fairy godmother or godfather to help you ripen it.

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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 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've been practicing radical authenticity lately," my friend Brandon told me. "I'm revealing the blunt truth about unmentionable subjects to everyone I know. It's been pretty hellish—no one likes having the social masks stripped away—but it's been ultimately rewarding."

"I admire your boldness in naming the currents flowing beneath the surface," I replied, "but I'm curious as to why you imply they're all negative. To practice radical authenticity, shouldn't you also express the raw truth about what's right, good, and beautiful? Shouldn't you unleash the praise and gratitude that normally go unspoken?"

Brandon sneered. He thought my version of radical authenticity was wimpy. I hope you don't. As a budding lover of life, you have a mandate to be honest in both ways.