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Horoscopes for week of September 8, 2005
When I was 19, a masked gunman pumped a load of buckshot into my hip after a student demonstration. To this day, I have 43 pieces of metal in my body. What kind of metal? That's an important question. Until I find out the answer, I can never get an MRI. Medical technicians tell me that unless they're sure the shards in me aren't the kind of metal that could be moved by the MRI's strong magnetic field, they can't risk it. In a worst-case scenario, the shards might move so much they'd cause internal bleeding. And that's the story of how unknown factors from a past event are still affecting my life today. I believe you're now facing a comparable situation, Aries, though in a more metaphorical way. Go get the answers you need.
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To become a master of desire, keep talking yourself out of being attached to trivial goals and keep talking yourself into being thrilled about the precious few goals that are really important. Here's another way to say it: Wean yourself from ego-driven desires and pour your libido into a longing for beauty, truth, goodness, justice, integrity, creativity, love, and an intimate relationship with the Wild Divine.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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From the window of my office I look down on a blackberry bush whose berries are now ripening. In the last 20 minutes, I've watched a sparrow figure out the best way to feast. At first the bird tried to land on the flimsy branches of the bush, but after a few tries it realized they couldn't hold its weight. Its revised strategy was to grab a single berry in mid-swoop and alight on the branch of a nearby apple tree so it could relax with its meal. It did this ten times. I recommend a similar approach to you, Taurus. According to my astrological analysis, you won't be able to enjoy your treats in the place where you find them. You'll have to pluck them, fly away, and savor them at a distance. Like the sparrow, you should keep returning for refills.
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We will ignore the cult of doom and gloom and embrace the cause of zoom and boom. We will laugh at the stupidity of evil and hate, and summon the brilliance to praise and create. No matter how upside-down it all may temporarily appear, we will have no fear because we know this secret: Life is crazily in love with us—wildly and innocently in love with us.
Pronoia means that even if we can’t see and don’t know, primal benefactors are plotting to emancipate us. The winds and tides are on our side, forever and ever, amen. The fire and rain are scheming to steal our pain. The sun and moon know our real names, and the animals pray for us while we’re dreaming. Do you believe in guardian angels and divine helpers? Whether you do or not, they’re always wangling to give you the gifts you don’t even realize you want. Can you guess how many humble humans are busy making things for you to use and enjoy?
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To hear more suppressed truths like these, read my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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America's first President George Bush, a Gemini who reigned from 1988 to 1992, had almost as quirky and paradoxical a mind as his son, who is the current leader of the free world. "I have strong opinions of my own," Bush the First once said, "but I don't always agree with them." Let that quizzical gem be your watchword in the coming days, Gemini. Disavow three strong opinions you've been proud of in the past, but which you no longer agree with. Try to get it through your beautiful head that you're not the person you were when you first acquired those old beliefs, and it's time to leave them behind.
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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.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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A lot of the teens I know have tattoos, but not my neighbor's 16-year-old daughter Lucretia. Fear of boredom is the main reason. "If I got a tattoo today, I'd be tired of it in six months," she explained to me. "And then what would I do? Undergo the torture of having it erased? I just can't deal with anything that would be a permanent part of me." Make her your role model this week, Cancerian. You're in the most transitory phase of your astrological cycle. For best results, revel in the parade of flashy beauty and captivating diversions, but don't get too attached to any single one.
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Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don’t really need and aren’t good for you. But you shouldn’t disparage yourself for having them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted. Rather, think of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a faculty that will one day be far more expert. They’re how you practice as you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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You are becoming very relaxed. All tension is flowing out of you. Your worries are dissolving. With each breath, your body feels a growing sense of peace and well-being. Your mind is expanding naturally, allowing you to experience a harmonious attunement with life. In response, deep sources of practical intelligence are welling up into your awareness, filling you with good ideas about your long-term financial future. Soon you will begin writing down a ten-step master plan that will go a long way toward making you into a money magnet in the next 18 months.
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Plant orchids on a strip-mined hill.
For 24 hours, imagine in great detail that you have a guardian angel.
Sing the first song you ever heard.
See how far you can spit a mouthful of beer.
Make believe you are the ocean king or thunder queen.
Improvise a fresh bedtime story for someone you love.
Put on an inflatable sumo wrestler costume and play a bagpipe as badly as possible.
Watch TV with your third eye.
Sip holy water blessed by a smart teenage girl.
Bear in mind that you are the Chosen One, and so is everyone else.
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The preceding love letter comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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You don't want to have to answer to the past, right? It's a waste of time. Nor do you even feel like rebelling against the way things used to be or rejecting the stale old expectations people would like to hold you to. I don't blame you, Virgo--especially now, as you enter the frontier zone where the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. The way I see it, it's your sacred duty to shake off all the sacred duties from yesteryear as you go forth to create the future.
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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.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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The Gobi Desert in Central Asia is one of the world's biggest and most inhospitable wastelands. Temperatures there range from -40 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. And yet not far below the endless sand is a vast water table. Well-diggers strike water nine out of ten times they drill. I regard the Gobi as an apt metaphor for your current situation, Libra. While it may be true that you're currently surrounded by arid extremes, a wealth of revivifying emotional riches lies just below the surface.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Evil is boring. The universe is friendly. Life is on your side. Joy is your birthright.
Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. In fact, all of creation wants you to succeed.
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.
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To hear more suppressed truths like these, read my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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Please don't sit on your ass any more than you have to in the coming week. That's always a good rule to observe, but it's especially important to honor it now. The cosmic truth of the matter, Scorpio, is that you can't possibly make the right decisions if your physical energy is stagnant or if your field of vision is unchanging. For the sake of your future, for the health of your emotions, for the love of God, get out into the wild open spaces. And if that's not feasible, at least saunter around the neighborhood more than usual. Here's your motto, courtesy of St. Augustine: Solvitur ambulando, which is Latin for "It is solved by walking."
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Rainer Maria Rilke: "For one human being to love another is the most difficult task of all. It’s the work for which all other work is mere preparation."
Teilhard de Chardin: "Someday 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, human beings will have discovered fire."
Leo Tolstoy: "Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love."
Blaise Pascal: "If you do not love too much, you do not love enough."
Emily Dickinson: "Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "He who is in love is wise and becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses."
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "Love, love, love: That is the soul of genius."
Krishnamurti: "The problem, if you love it, is as beautiful as the sunset."
Henry David Thoreau: "There is no remedy for love but to love more."
Erica Jong: "Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more."
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The preceding reminders come from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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The entertainment industry foists a lot of garbage on us. Stupid sex, gratuitous fear, and ugly violence are the norm. TV and film executives defend themselves against critics who accuse them of pandering to the lowest common denominator. "We merely give people what they want," they say. To put that lame excuse in context, I'll quote Henry Ford, the automotive pioneer: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." I hope that perspective inspires you to aim higher in the coming week, Sagittarius. Don't give anyone (including yourself) what they're accustomed to desiring; give them something better and more beautiful.
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While you and I are together here:
Your favorite phrase is flux gusto
The colors of your soul are sable, vermilion, ivory, and jade
Your magic talisman is a thousand-year-old Joshua tree whose flowers blossom just one night each year and can only be pollinated by the yucca moth
Your holiest pain comes from your yearning to change yourself in the exact way you’d like the world around you to change
Your soil of destiny is peat moss
While you and I are together here:
Your mythic symbol is a treasure chest dislodged from its hiding place
in the earth by a flood
Your lucky number is 13 to the 13th power
Your sweet spot is in between the true believers and the scoffing skeptics
A clutch of frog eggs from an unpolluted river is your auspicious hair-care product
The anonymous celebrity with whom you have most in common is the jesterwho followed Buddha around and kept him loose
The question that perks you up when your routine becomes too rote is this: What possesses the bar-tailed godwit to migrate annually from Alaska to New Zealand by hitching rides on gale-force winds?
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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Back when it was still a fledgling business in the 1950s, the McDonald's hamburger franchise caught the attention of a salesman named Ray Kroc. He joined the team as an executive, and soon began thinking about buying the company outright. His advisors counseled him against it, but Kroc said he had "a feeling in his funny bone" that it was the right thing to do. Years later, he had become a billionaire, renowned as one of the world's titans of industry. I'm not necessarily saying you will amass a comparable fortune, Capricorn, but decisions you make in the coming weeks could be as life-changing as Kroc's--and maybe even instrumental in ensuring that you fulfill the mission you came to Earth to carry out. Trust the feelings in your funny bone.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
These are the rewards promised you at the beginning of time: not just any old beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, freedom, and justice, but rather exhilarating beauty that incites you to be true to yourself; crazy wisdom that immunizes you against the temptation to believe your ideals are ultimate truths; outrageous goodness that inspires you to experiment with irrepressible empathy; generous freedom that keeps you alert for opportunities to share your wealth; insurrectionary love that endlessly transforms you; and a lust for justice that’s leavened with a knack for comedy, keeping you honest as you work humbly to liberate everyone in the world from ignorance and suffering.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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I'm taking a risk with the message I have for you this week. My intention is not to flatter you or inflate your ego, and I know that some of you may be tempted to do just that when you read what I have to say. Please resist that temptation. My advice is not meant to jack up your pride but rather is designed to boost your confidence. I want to impress on you how important it is not to seek solutions to your problems from experts, teachers, or anyone beside yourself. Ready for your assignment? Speak the following sentence 20 times a day for the next week: I am the answer.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
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.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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I predict that a new fashion trend will arise in the coming months: the intentional cultivation of "sacred acne" as a form of facial decoration. Hip magazines will offer instructions on how to compel pimples to appear in the shape of mythological emblems and religious symbols. I also predict, Pisces, that before the end of 2005 you will figure out how to take advantage of a quality you've always considered a liability. This seeming weakness or unloveliness may even become a spiritual asset. The transformation begins now.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT
Like all of us, you have desires for things that you don't really need and aren't good for you. But you shouldn't disparage yourself for having them, nor should you conclude that every desire is tainted. Rather, think of your misguided longings as the bumbling, amateur expressions of a faculty that will one day be far more expert. They're how you practice as you work toward the goal of becoming a master of desire. It may take a while, but eventually you will get the hang of wanting things that are really good for you, and good for everyone else, too.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book. It's called PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, and is available on the Web at Amazon and Powells.
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© 1995-2013 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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