Two animals are pictured prominently on Australia's coat of arms: the kangaroo and the large flightless bird known as the emu. One of the reasons they were chosen is that both creatures rarely walk backward. They move forward or not at all. Australia's founders wanted this to symbolize the nation's pledge to never look back, to remain focused on advancing toward the future. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to make a similar commitment, Aries. Is there a new symbol you might adopt to inspire your intention?

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The alchemists said the magic formula for enlightenment was Visita Inferiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem, or "Seek out the lower reaches of the earth, perfect them, and you will find the hidden stone" -- the treasured philosopher's stone.

Jungian psychologists might describe the process this way: Engage in a relationship with the blind and sickly parts of yourself, perfect them, and you will awaken your hidden divinity.

The Simpsons is an animated sitcom that will soon begin its 29th consecutive year on TV. During its run, it has told over 600 stories. The creators of another animated sitcom, South Park, once did an episode entitled "Simpsons Already Did It," which referenced their feelings that it was hard to come up with new tales because their rival had already used so many good ones. I bring this up, Taurus, because I suspect your life story will soon be spinning out novel plots that have never before been seen, not even on The Simpsons or South Park. You could and should be the Best Storyteller of the Month.

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Abraham Maslow's definition of real listening: to listen "without presupposing, classifying, improving, controverting, evaluating, approving or disapproving, without dueling what is being said, without rehearsing the rebuttal in advance, without free-associating to portions of what is being said so that succeeding portions are not heard at all."

Love won't exactly be free in the coming weeks, but there should be some good deals. And I'm not referring to risky black-market stuff obtained in back alleys, either. I mean straightforward liaisons and intriguing intimacy at a reasonable cost. So if you're comfortably mated, I suggest you invest in a campaign to bring more comedy and adventure into your collaborative efforts. If you're single, wipe that love-starved look off your face and do some exuberant window-shopping. If you're neither comfortably mated nor single, money may temporarily be able to buy you a bit more happiness.

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What are mirabilia? They're phenomena that inspire wonder, winsome curiosities, small marvels, eccentric enchantments. Here are a few:

* The National Center for Atmospheric Research reports that the average cloud is the same weight as 100 elephants.

* The average river requires a million years to move a grain of sand 100 miles.

* With every dawn, when first light penetrates the sea, many seahorse colonies perform a dance to the sun.

* A seven-year-old Minnesota boy received patent number 6,368,227 for a new method of swinging on a swing.

* Clown fish can alter their gender as their social status rises.

* In the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, the hero and heroine fall in love without ever gazing upon each other, simply by hearing tales about each other's good deeds.

* Twelve percent of the population believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

* The closest modern relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex may be the chicken.

* Kind people are more likely than mean people to yawn when someone near them does.

* Singing Gregorian chants can cure dyslexia.

* All the gold ever mined could be molded into a 60-foot bust of your mom.

* The moon smells like exploded firecrackers.

* The most frequently shoplifted book in America is the Bible.

* Black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep.

* There are about 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. Every square inch of your body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

* French author and statesman André Malraux observed that Jesus Christ was the only anarchist who ever really succeeded.

* In his book The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead, physicist Frank J. Tipler offers what he says is scientific proof that every human being who has ever lived will be resurrected from the dead at the end of time.

The current state of your fate reminds me of the sweet confusion alluded to in Octavio Paz's poem "Between Going and Staying": "All is visible and elusive, all is near and can't be touched." For another clue to the raw truth of your life right now, I'll quote the poet William Wordsworth. He spoke of "fleeting moods of shadowy exultation." Is the aura described by Paz and Wordsworth a problem that you should try to fix? Is it detrimental to your heroic quest? I don't think so. Just the opposite, really: I hope you can hang out for a while in this pregnant mystery -- between the yes and the no, between the dark and the light, between the dream and the reality. It will help you learn what you've been too restless to tune in to in the past.

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Would you like to make yourself smarter and more beautiful? Are you interested in increasing your capacity for ecstasy and improving your health? Consider the possibility of celebrating regular Gratitude Fests.

During these orgies of appreciation, you could confer praise and respect on the creatures, both human and otherwise, that have played seminal roles in inspiring you to become yourself. You would devote yourself to invoking and expressing thanks.

Who teaches and helps you? Who sees you for who you really are? Who nudges you in the direction of your fuller destiny and awakens you to your signature truths? Who loves you brilliantly?

The imminent future will be a favorable time for refurbished models and revived originals. They are likely to be more fun and interesting the second time around. I suspect that this will also be an auspicious phase for substitutes and alternatives. They may even turn out to be better than the so-called real things they replace. So be artful in formulating Plan B and Plan C, Leo. Switching over to backups may ultimately bring out more of the best in you and whisk you toward your ultimate goal in unexpected ways.

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I invite you to meditate on the relentlessness of your yearning for love. Recognize the fact that your eternal longing will never leave you in peace. Accept that it will forever delight you, torment you, inspire you, and bewilder you -- whether you are alone or in the throes of a complicated relationship.

Understand that your desire for love will just keep coming and coming and coming, keeping you slightly off-balance and pushing you to constantly revise your ideas about who you are.

Now read this declaration from the poet Rilke and claim it as your own: "My blood is alive with many voices that tell me I am made of longing."

In the coming weeks, you might want to read the last few pages of a book before you decide to actually dive in and devour the whole thing. I also suggest you take what I just said as a useful metaphor to apply in other areas. In general, it might be wise to surmise the probable outcomes of games, adventures, and experiments before you get totally involved. Try this fun exercise: Imagine you are a psychic prophet as you evaluate the long-range prospects of any influences that are vying to play a role in your future.

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Whenever I write about romance and togetherness, I attract a storm of complaints from readers who are solitary. "How dare you imply that everyone has or should have a partner!?" is a typical protest. "I'm quite content being alone!" is another.

Let it be known that I do not believe your happiness depends on having a spouse or lover. What I do suspect, though, is that your soul needs some sacred relationship in order to thrive, whether it's with a good friend, a beloved animal, a beautiful patch of earth, the Divine Wow, or anything that's not you.

Whenever I invite you to seek deeper, wilder communion, feel free to interpret it as a call to explore any kind of intimacy that draws you closer to the secret heart of the world.

"Dear Dr. Astrology: I'm feeling lost, but am also feeling very close to finding my new direction. It hurts! It would be so helpful if I could just catch a glimpse of that new direction. I'd be able to better endure the pain and confusion if I could get a tangible sense of the future happiness that my pain and confusion are preparing me for. Can you offer me any free advice? -Lost Libra." Dear Libra: The pain and confusion come from the dying of the old ways. They need to die a bit more before the new direction will reveal itself clearly. I predict that will happen soon -- no later than October 1.

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Traditionally, the Seven Deadly Sins -- actions most likely to wound the soul -- are pride, lust, gluttony, anger, envy, sloth, and covetousness. We have formulated a fresh set of soul-harmers, the Four Foolish Virtues. They are as follows:

1. being analytical to such extremes that you repress your intuition;

2. sacrificing your pleasure through a compulsive attachment to duty;

3. tolerating excessive stress because you assume it helps you accomplish more;

4. being so knowledgeable and opinionated that you neglect to be curious.

Any others you'd like to add?

Welcome to "Compose Your Own Oracle," a special edition of Free Will Astrology. Departing from tradition, I'm temporarily stepping aside so you can have the freedom to write the exact horoscope you want. Normally, you might be in danger of falling victim to presumptuous arrogance if you imagined you could wield complete control over how your destiny unfolds. But in the days ahead, that rule won't be as unyielding, because cosmic forces will be giving you more slack than usual. Fate and karma, which frequently impel you to act according to patterns that were set in place long ago, are giving you at least a partial respite. To get the maximum benefit out of "Compose Your Own Oracle," identify three plot developments you'd like to weave into a self-fulfilling prophecy for your immediate future. Then start weaving.

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Every act of genius, Carl Jung said, is an act "contra naturam": against the natural course of things. Indeed, every effort to achieve psychological integration requires a knack for breaking out of the trance of normal daily life -- to do what doesn't come natural.

The eighteenth-century mystic Jacob Boehme had a similar perspective. The great secret to becoming enlightened, he said, is "to walk in all things contrary to the world."

Qabalist teacher Paul Foster Case agreed. He said that living an ethical and spiritually intelligent life demands that we reverse the usual ways of thinking, speaking, and doing.

The way I see it, tending to my sanity and being in service to the world require me to be in a chronic state of rebellion.

But here's an important caveat: While the rebellion can and should be partially fueled by anger at the consensual mass hallucination that's mistakenly referred to as "reality," it must be primarily motivated by love and joy and the desire to bestow blessings. A healthy proportion, at least for me, seems to be 15% rage, indignation, and complaint, and 85% compassion, celebration, and lust for life.

Almost two-thirds of us confess that if we are alone, we might sip milk directly from the carton rather than first pouring it into a glass. Fourteen percent of us have used milk as part of our sexual activities. One out of every five of us admit that we have "borrowed" someone else's milk from the fridge at work. Most shockingly, four percent of us brag that we have blown milk out our noses on purpose. I expect that in the next two weeks, you Sagittarians will exceed all these norms. Not just because you'll be in the mood to engage in mischievous experiments and playful adventures with milk, but because you're likely to have a loosey-goosey relationship with almost everything.

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Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself -- indeed, you make yourself -- through the puzzling dilemmas you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.

The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to raise funds in support of political prisoners, or to volunteer at a soup kitchen, or to donate blood at a blood bank. In fact, any charitable service you perform for people you don't know will be excellent for your physical and mental health. You can also generate vivid blessings for yourself by being extra thoughtful, kind, and generous toward people you care for. You're in a phase of your astrological cycle when unselfish acts will yield maximum selfish benefits.

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This is a perfect moment.

It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because you and I are waking up from our sleepwalking, thumb-sucking, dumb-clucking collusion with the masters of delusion and destruction.

Thanks to them, from whom the painful blessings flow, we are waking up.

Their wars and tortures, their crimes against nature, extinctions of species and brand new diseases.

Their spying and lying in the name of the father, sterilizing seeds and trademarking water.

Molestations of God, celebrations of shame, stealing our dreams and changing our names.

Their cunning commercials and blood-sucking hustles, their endless rehearsals for the end of the world.

Thanks to them, from whom the painful blessings flow, we are waking up.

Their painful blessings are cracking open more and more gashes in the shrunken and crippled mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality." And through the fractures, ripe eternity is flooding in; news of the soul's true home is pouring in; our allies from the other side of the veil are swarming in, inspiring us to become smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

We are waking up.

Hear or read the rest of "This Is a Perfect Moment."

In his novel The Jungle, muckraker Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) exposed the abominable hygiene and working conditions of the meat-packing industry. The uproar that followed led to corrective legislation by the U.S. Congress. Sinclair remained devoted to serving the public good throughout his career. He liked to say that the term "social justice" was inscribed on his heart. Drawing from his inspiration, Aquarius, I suggest you decide what your soul's main motto is -- and imagine that it is written on your heart. Now is a perfect moment to clarify your life's purpose, and intensify your commitment to it; to devote even more practical, tender zeal to fulfilling the reason you were born.

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Brainwash yourself before someone nasty beats you to it. Study the difference between wise suffering and dumb suffering until you get it right. Commit crimes that don't break any laws. Visualize Buddha at the moment of orgasm. Build illusions that make people feel so beautiful they can't stand to be near you.

Pretend to be crazy so you can get away with doing what's right. Sing anarchist lullabies to homosexual trees. Love your enemies in case your friends turn out to be jerks. Review in detail the history of your life, honoring every moment as if you were conducting a benevolent Judgment Day. Eat money. Drink the sun. Dream like a stone. Sing in the acid rain.

You know that "patch of bothersome weeds" growing right in the middle of your life? Is it really a patch of bothersome weeds? Or is it perhaps a plot of cultivated blooms that once pleased you but has now turned into a puzzling irrelevancy? Or how about this possibility: Is it a chunk of languishing beauty that might flourish and please you again if it were cared for better? Those are excellent questions for you to pose in the coming days, Pisces. According to my interpretation of the astrological omens, it's time for you to decide on the future of this quizzical presence.

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You're an immortal freedom fighter who longs to liberate all sentient creatures from their suffering.

You're a fun-loving messiah who wants to help your fellow messiahs claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright.

You're a vortex of fluidic light that has temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins. And why did you do that?

Read the rest of this oracular essay.