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Horoscopes for week of June 12, 2008
"Successful representations of reality become more important than the reality they represent," writes W. Daniel Hillis at The World Question Center (tinyurl.com/ywth3). Examples: paper money supersedes gold; a painting has more value than the landscape it depicts; the status that an achievement brings begins to overshadow the achievement. The coming days are an excellent time for you to contemplate how this phenomenon might be in play in your life, and whether it's causing any distortions you need to correct. Start with this meditation: Is there any way in which you've become so focused on the map that you have neglected the territory?
Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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Contrary to what the Bible says, it won't be the meek who shall inherit the earth. On the other hand, the arrogant power mongers won't collect the legacy either. Neither the indecisive wimps nor the acquisitive bullies will contribute much to creating the New World.
Who, then, will inherit the earth? What kind of human beings are best-equipped to thrive in the evolving game of life? We say it will be the well-disciplined pleasure-seekers who are in vigorous dialogue with their own dark sides, who balance the masculine and feminine aspects of their natures, and who master the fine arts of working at their play and playing at their work.
Assume our definition has some validity for you. What would you have to do to become more like one of the inheritors of the earth?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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While driving in suburbia, I saw a sign in the yard of a home whose grounds were being renovated. It was an ad for the landscaping company that was doing the work. "Mesmerize visitors with your garden," it read. Judging from your astrological omens, Taurus, I think you're in an excellent position to do just that. It's your turn to enthrall and enchant people with your metaphorical "garden," whether that's a gourmet meal you cook, an outing you plan, a set of songs you sing, a report you prepare, or any other fine demonstration of your beauty and talents.
How much do you want to know about your destiny? How far do you dare to go? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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Somewhere in the world is a tree that has been struck by lightning in such a way that the scorch marks show your initials. Find that tree.
Somewhere in this world, there is a treasure that has no value to anyone but you, and a secret that is meaningless to everyone except you, and a frontier that possesses a revelation only you know how to exploit. Go in search of those things.
Somewhere in this world, there is a person who could ask you the precise question you need to hear in order to catalyze the next phase of your evolution. Do what's necessary to run into that person.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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"The best time for me is when I don't have any problems that I can't buy my way out of," said Andy Warhol. If that formulation is true, you're going to have a light warm breeze of a week, Gemini -- a time so smooth and easy and free you may wonder if the gods made a mistake and bestowed the sublime karma of some beatific saint on you. Here's my prediction: The only problems you'll have will be those you can buy your way out of. And they won't even be very expensive.
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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You are a metropolis of 50 trillion citizens, says biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton. Each of the cells in your body can be considered a sentient being in its own right. They all act together as a community, performing an ongoing act of prodigious collaboration. You are an epic collaboration.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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In the film War Games, a hacker taps in to a remote mainframe and begins to play a game he finds there. As it turns out, the mainframe is an artificially intelligent supercomputer that serves as hub of operations for the U.S. Air Force, and the game has real-world consequences. The hacker inadvertently triggers a cascade of events that could launch an actual global conflagration. After many scary plot turns, the danger of disaster dissipates when the supercomputer makes a momentous decision: The only way to win the game is to not play it. That approach could work well for you, my fellow Crab. The game you're playing is nowhere near as dangerous as the one in War Games, of course, but why not play to win?
Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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The Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi lead many peaceful rebellions against oppressive governments, first in South Africa and later in British-controlled India. At first he called his strategy "passive resistance," but later disavowed that term because it had negative implications. He ultimately chose the Sanskrit word satyagraha, meaning "love force" or "truth force." "Truth (satya) implies love," he said, "and firmness (agraha) is a synonym for force. Satyagraha is thus the force which is born of truth and love."
Give an example of how you have employed satyagraha in the past, and another example of how you might invoke it in the future.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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ButlersGuild.com named Mr. Ravi Shankar as its Butler of the Year. Serving as Head Butler of the Qasr Al Sharq hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Shankar "always acts with complete integrity in everything he does." Your simple yet arduous assignment, Leo, is to be worthy of that same description. Are you up to the challenge? Can you be morally and ethically impeccable, between now and noon on June 18, in every single thing you do and say and think? Do you have the willpower to be absolutely free of hypocrisies, deceits, and manipulations? Can you refrain from speaking derisive or careless words about anyone, while at the same time being rigorously authentic and intent on telling the deepest truths?
Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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"Nothing's going right in my life. I feel anxious and paranoid all the time. My relationships are a mess." In my line of work, people make confessions like that to me. My first response is usually something like this: "Do you habitually gobble junk food near bedtime, steal a paltry five hours of sleep per night, gulp two cups of coffee and no breakfast in the morning, then bolt to a workplace where you get no sunlight or exercise and sit in an uncomfortable chair?" They often reply, "You must be psychic! How did you know?!" My point is that many psychological troubles stem from our chronic failure to take good care of our physical needs.
Name three things you can do to promote pronoia in yourself by taking better care of your body.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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"The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," said journalist Finley Peter Dunne. In that spirit, Virgo, here are your assignments for the coming week: 1. Critique and question and agitate the parts of yourself that are complacent or addicted to convenience. 2. Give help, sympathy, and encouragement to the parts of yourself that are off-center or out-of-focus. 3. Shake up the static, habit-entranced situations you see around you. 4. Be generous and creative with those who are suffering.
What blessings will life bring you? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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While living in Manhattan in the 1950s, the avant-garde composer John Cage felt beleaguered by the omnipresence of radio sound. Rather than piss and moan, he wrote a musical piece that featured several radios tuned to different frequencies. After that, he was always able to respond to street radio noise with a pleasant sense of "They're playing my song."
In a way similar to Cage, transmute your relationship with something that annoys you so that it pleases you.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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"I've been all over the world and have lived among every kind of culture," wrote Dan Liebert on mcsweeneys.net, "and I can say, without any hesitation, that the most ignorant, rude, selfish, and self-centered people on Earth are babies." I agree with him, though I've got to add that it's senseless to get mad at babies for being such jerks. Their brains simply aren't sufficiently well-developed to be any different. This line of thought can be applied to a whole range of bad behavior by people who have technically reached adulthood: They engage in ill-advised actions not out of evil intent but because they're emotionally immature. Keep that in mind as you deal with anyone who's doing unreasonable things. Be the composed adult who's in charge of leading the big babies.
Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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Beauty and Truth Laboratory researcher Romney Austin adorned her Honda Civic with her first-ever bumper sticker, "Give Yourself to Love." While proud of announcing her compassionate philosophy to the world, she was also nervous. Hadn't she raised the pressure on herself to live up to her noble ideals?
A week later, she snapped. A guy chatting on a cell phone in a Lexus SUV cut her off in traffic, and road rage moved her to give him a middle-finger salute. Soon she added a new bumper sticker to the left of the first: "Get In, Sit Down, Shut Up, Hold On."
When I asked her about the contradiction, she confessed, "I've just accepted that I've got a split personality."
A week later, her conflicting sides reached a compromise. Romney pasted the word "and" in the space between the two stickers, to create a new thought: "Get In, Sit Down, Shut Up, Hold On, and Give Yourself to Love." She called to announce the good news: "I'm whole again!"
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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Danny Anderson was out feeding his horses in Prosser, Washington when a rattlesnake slithered into the barn. Anderson took a shovel and decapitated it. The dangerous creature was neutralized, right? Not quite. When Anderson reached down to pick up the severed head a few minutes later, it pulled off a nightmarish move seen only in horror films: It came back to life just long enough to bite him. Luckily, Anderson was fine after a trip to the hospital to receive anti-venom treatment. The metaphorical moral of the story, as far as you Scorpios are concerned: When your brave efforts finally eliminate a threat, don't let down your guard or get overconfident. Be absolutely positively sure that it's really gone.
Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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In ancient Rome, gladiator contests were as popular as today's football games. The warriors back then were not hired heroes as they are now, however. They were slaves or convicts who were forced to fight. Even if they won, they were usually required to return and risk their lives another day. Now and then a grizzled veteran of countless struggles-to-the-death was awarded with the ultimate prize: a wooden sword, symbolizing the end of his role as a gladiator and the beginning of his life as a free man. I'm telling you this because I believe you have earned your own personal equivalent of the wooden sword. Make one for yourself.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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You really have no right to tear yourself down. Badmouthing yourself is a first-degree sin, and so is being mean to yourself or depriving yourself of the care you need to thrive. This is always true, of course, but in the coming week it's more crucial than ever that you refrain from even the subtlest forms of self-abuse. To be anything less than an imaginative lover and nurturer toward yourself could upset the cosmic equilibrium so profoundly that everyone else would suffer, too. Therefore, you owe it to the rest of us to shower yourself with blessings.
Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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May you eat an unfamiliar dessert in a strange land at least once every three years.
May you wake up to salsa music one summer morning, and start dancing while you're still half-asleep.
May you spray-paint Rilke poems as graffiti on highway overpasses.
May you mix stripes with plaids, floral patterns with checks, and yellowish-green with brownish-purple.
May you learn to identify by name 20 flowers, 15 trees, 10 clouds, and one extrasolar planet.
May you put a bumper sticker on your car or bike that says, "My god can kick your god's ass!"
If you bury your face in your tear-stained pillow and beg God to please send you your soul mate, may you not slur your words in such a way that they sound like "cell mate."
May you dream of taking a trip to the moon in a gondola powered by firecrackers and wild swans.
May you actually kiss the earth now and then.
May you find many good excuses to say what physicist Niels Bohr once did: "Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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Pumice, which is created by volcanic eruptions, is filled with holes, which means that it's sometimes light enough to glide on the surface of a body of water. I urge you to use this floatable rock as a metaphor. Think of the heaviest burden you're carrying -- an apparently insoluble problem, a thankless responsibility, a task that seems impossible -- and imagine over the next few days that it is changing into a hunk of pumice. When the transformation is complete, visualize yourself throwing it into a fast-flowing river, and then watch as it gets carried away, ultimately turning into a tiny, bobbing speck that disappears over the horizon.
Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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"If you bring forth the genius within you," said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, "it will free you. If you do not bring forth the genius within you, it will destroy you." Is there any aspect of the genius within you that you're not bringing forth? If so, what can you do to change that?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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In his song "Bird on a Wire," Leonard Cohen says, "Like a bird on a wire / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free." Your assignment, Aquarius, is to wail, moan, or croon your own personal version of that song. Here's how I suggest you proceed. First, identify specific actions you've taken to advance your quest for liberation. Include even the modest accomplishments and goofball attempts. Second, imagine the strategies you'll pursue in the future to get more leeway and latitude for yourself. You might want to start by purging your mind of beliefs that place unwarranted limitations on you. Now start singing!
No one knows you better than you do. But maybe you'll be inspired to dig up even more self-knowledge if you tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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In an article about storytellers in the Los Angeles Times, Leslie Berger profiled a high school teacher named Luigi Jannuzzi. "He once saved the life of a student who was choking on a Life Saver," Berger wrote, "and thus discovered his own gift of gab: He told the kid a joke so funny that his laughter popped the candy out of his throat."
Make up a story in which your sense of humor saves someone's life.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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It's an ideal time to stir up fresh insights about important people whose charms you've grown numb to . . . to mutate your perspectives about situations you've become overly familiar with . . . to come up with revised interpretations for past events about which new information has emerged. To get in the right frame of mind, study these novel definitions of common words, supplied by readers of The Washington Post in response to a contest. Airstrip: to pretend to take off your clothes. Algebra: lingerie worn by mermaids. Blunderbuss: to French-kiss your boss's wife at the office Christmas party. Bumbling: butt cheek piercings. Fulcrum: a supermodel's big meal. Flagellation: beating on your political opponent by questioning his patriotism.
What greater adventure is there than exploring the enigmas of your unique destiny? For more hints, listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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In the Greek epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus and his men become stranded on an island belonging to the sorceress Circe, who uses her magic to transform the men into pigs. Later, though, she changes them back into men—only they're younger and taller and better-looking than before they were pigs.
Tell an analogous story from your own life: an experience in which you were turned into a pig for a while, and became a more beautiful version of yourself when the spell was broken.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
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© 1995-2013 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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