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Horoscopes for week of December 11, 2008

Verticle Oracle card Aries (March 21-April 19)
It's an ideal time for you to throw a party for all the people you've ever been and all the different selves who live within you now. Invite the teenager who once seethed with frustrated potential and the four-year-old who loved nothing more than to play. Include the hopeful complainer who stands in the shadows and dares you to ask for more, as well as the brave hero who comes out every now and then to attempt seemingly impossible feats of happiness. Don't forget any of the various personalities who have contributed to making you who you are. Celebrate your internal diversity. Marvel at how good you are at changing.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Write the following on a piece of red paper and keep it under your pillow. "I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day [put date here] that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world that deserves my brilliant passion above all others."
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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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Novelists and actors make a living by using their imaginations to create fictional stories. In recent years there has emerged a new group of workers whose pretending skills also earn them money. They make imaginary weapons, armor, potions, and other computer-generated gear to sell to people who play online role-playing games like World of Warcraft. I bring this to your attention, Taurus, because you're in a favorable phase to put your imagination to work in practical ways that increase your prosperity and security. As soon as you're finished reading this horoscope, start brainstorming about specific things you could do to convert fantasies into real-world wealth.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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In some spiritual traditions, devotees attempt an arduous process of self-transformation as they retrain themselves to perceive the world from God's point of view. If they succeed, they're honored with an initiation ritual and given a new sacred name to consecrate their altered state.

In my opinion, you've done work equivalent to the rigorous labor of those devotees. You may not have sequestered yourself for years in a mountaintop monastery, and you may not have risen every morning at 5 a.m. to say prayers for hours. Instead, your spiritual transformation has unfolded as you've dealt with the challenges of daily life during our epic moment in history, when unprecedented levels of destruction and creation are the norm.

You have earned the right, therefore, to enjoy an initiation that will welcome you into the pantheon of bodhisattvas, saints, wizards, and avatars. It doesn't have to be long and complicated, and you can create it yourself. As an example of what you might do, here's a ritual that some Beauty and Truth Laboratory's initiates have performed: 1. Eat a pinch of dirt to declare your solidarity with Mother Earth. 2. Burn a five-dollar bill to purify your relationship with symbols of wealth. 3. Kick yourself in the ass to affirm your ongoing intention to discipline your shadow.

As one of your initiatory rewards, you can adopt a fresh spiritual tag. There's no need to abandon your existing name; just add your new alias to the mix.

Here is a list of Native American-style titles and names you might want to steal for your own use. Feel free to dream up your own, of course: Wild Face . . . Shadow Wrestler . . . Kiss Genius . . . Boink Worthy . . . Fizzy Nectar . . . Rumbler . . . Rowdy Gusto . . . Bliss Mutator . . . Silky Banger . . . Painkiller . . . Mango Sucker . . . Fire Keeper . . . Wobble Binder . . . Earthshaker . . . Wish Crayon . . . Thumper . . . Gut Stormer . . . Storm Tamer . . . Goal Thwacker . . . Thrill Witch . . . Phoenix Nectar . . . Mucho Gusto Coco Loco . . . Pearly Thunder . . . Free Sigh
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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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Gemini (May 21-June 20)
I'm pleased to be able to offer you a Zen riddle that will prepare you well for the immediate future. Study it, meditate on it, and refer back to it often when dealing with upcoming challenges. Question: What did the big chimney say to the little chimney? 
Answer: nothing. Chimneys can't talk. I don't want to explain all the nuances of this helpful conundrum, Gemini, because it'll serve you better if you come to your own conclusions. But I'll get you started with this hint: Be vigilant for trick questions, and don't let those trick questions frame the debates you engage in. Do you know what red herrings and straw men are? Don't get distracted by them.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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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 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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Cancer (June 21-July 22)
I've got three related questions for you, Cancerian. 1. Are there any roles you play in which your selfish and unselfish tendencies overlap? 2. What situations allow you to be most completely yourself as you provide a fine service to others? 3. Which of your skills generate the most blessings and gifts? The next 12 months will be a favorable time for you to identify these roles, situations, and skills, and cultivate them to the max. You'll have prime opportunities to express your special genius while doing good deeds.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Plant orchids on a strip-mined hill.
Imagine you have a guardian angel who looks like Malcolm X.
Teach an animal to dance.
Hire a puppet troupe to reenact your life story using marionettes in Renaissance costumes.
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 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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Leo (July 23-August 22)
What country has more sand than any other? With its vast deserts, Saudi Arabia has got to be near the top of the list. Nevertheless, the Saudi government forbids the export of sand, worrying that it might eventually run out due to its construction industry's demands for the stuff. This irrational fear reminds me of you, Leo. You, too, have a certain bountiful resource that will never be depleted -- and yet you're chronically worried that it will. Please adjust your thinking. It's an excellent time to get more realistic about the true nature of your abundance.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Philosopher William James proposed that if our culture ever hoped to shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we'd have to create a moral equivalent. It's not enough to preach the value of peace, he said. We have to find other ways to channel our aggressive instincts in order to accomplish what war does, like stimulate political unity and build civic virtue.

Astrology provides a complementary perspective. Each of us has the warrior energy of the planet Mars in our psychological make-up. We can't simply repress it, but must find a positive way to express it. How you might go about this project?
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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.


 
  Verticle Oracle card Virgo (August 23-September 22)
After meditating on how best to energize your love life, I decided to direct you to this passage from John Welwood's book Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart: "Everyone knows perfect love in their heart, for the human heart is a direct channel through which absolute love pours into this world. At the same time, human relationships are imperfect expressions of that love. This creates a painful gap between the perfect love we know in our hearts and the imperfect, incomplete ways it is expressed in our relationships. When we imagine that relative human love should be something it is not -- absolutely unconditional -- we suffer disappointment and wind up distrusting love itself. We also hold grievances against others for not loving us rightly or against ourselves for not having won that love. This gives rise to a universal human wound -- the sense of not feeling loved for who we are."


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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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 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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Libra (September 23-October 22)
"I was walking down the street agonizing over what to do about a particularly troublesome person in my life," writes Tai Moses in her blog (aerophant.com), "when I saw a playing card laying facedown on the sidewalk. I turned it over." It was a joker. Her thoughts immediately turned to the words of the philosopher Alan Watts: "When you get the message, hang up the phone." I hope you'll be inspired by Moses' experience, Libra. For now, the best approach to take with your knotty dilemmas is to welcome them as wild cards and X-factors that will bring you interesting experiences and valuable lessons -- and just stop worrying about them.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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A thousand years from today, everyone you know will be long dead and forgotten. There’ll be nothing left of the life you love, no evidence that you ever walked this planet. That, at least, is what the fundamentalist materialists would have you believe. But suppose the truth is very different? What if in fact every little thing you do subtly alters the course of world history? What if your day-to-day decisions will actually help determine how the human species navigates its way through the epic turning point we’re living through? And finally, what if you will be alive in a thousand years, reincarnated into a fresh body and in possession of the memories of the person you were back in this era? These are my hypotheses. These are my prophecies. Which is why I say: Live as if your soul is eternal.
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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.


 
  Verticle Oracle card Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
In one episode of the TV show "Seinfeld," Elaine couldn't get her favorite Chinese restaurant to deliver take-out food to her apartment. The manager said her neighborhood was just beyond the boundary of where his drivers were authorized to travel. But Elaine was determined. She went over to the apartment building across the street, which was within the restaurant's delivery zone, and set up an alternate home for herself in a janitor's closet. I suggest you adopt a similar strategy, Scorpio. If you can't get what you want in the place where you are, shift your location.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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In The Book of Embraces, Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano writes, "The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, or 'feeling-thinking,' to define language that speaks the truth." Describe a time when you pulled off the feat of thinking with your heart and feeling with your head.
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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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
There are 300,000 surveillance cameras set up all over the city of Beijing, spying constantly on its citizens. London, a supposed bastion of democracy, has 500,000 such cameras. I highly recommend you don't visit either place in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. It's crucial for you to avoid influences that make you feel self-conscious or guilty. You've got to hang out in spots where you're not being watched, scrutinized, and evaluated. While you're at it, you might also want to tell your Inner Critic to shut the hell up. You need wide-open, judgment-free spaces, both without and within.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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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."
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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.


 
  Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
In California's recent election, citizens voted to liberate poultry. Proposition 2 passed, mandating that from now on farmers cannot confine chickens in cages where they're unable to spread their wings. Meanwhile, in the same election, voters decided to make it illegal for gay people to be married, a right that had previously been granted by the California Supreme Court. How odd is it that chickens got a measure of freedom while gays had one of their precious freedoms cut away? I'm warning you to be wary of a metaphorically similar scenario looming in your personal life, Capricorn: in which one liberty is upgraded while another is sacrificed. Fight to make sure there's no net loss.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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Similarly, chanteuse Billie Holiday believed a good singer should never sing a song the same way twice. If you use all the same phrasing and melody, she said, you’re failing your art.

The only Zen master we know--whose name we can’t tell you because she changes it every week, and we haven’t heard the latest one--likes to quote the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus: "You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you."

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has the last word: "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible
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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.



 
  Verticle Oracle card Aquarius (January 20- February 18)
Would you like to consistently be in the right place at the right time in the coming weeks? Personally, I'd love you to have that knack. It would make my job more enjoyable, since I could fall asleep each night with the comforting thought that you are meeting your dates with destiny while you're at the height of your powers. So what IS the best way to ensure that you will have impeccable intuition and a great sense of timing? Here's what I say: Set aside all expectations about what the past implies and what the future may bring. Instead, cultivate a desire to recognize and respond to the raw truth of each new moment.


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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A common obstruction to a vital intimate relationship with another human being is what I call the assumption of clairvoyance. You imagine, perhaps unconsciously, that your partner or friend is somehow magically psychic when it comes to you—so much so that he or she should unfailingly intuit exactly what you need, even if you don’t ask for it. This fantasy may seem romantic, but it can single-handedly sink the most promising alliances. To counteract any tendencies you might have to indulge in the assumption of clairvoyance, practice stating your desires aloud.
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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.


 
  Verticle Oracle card Pisces (February 19-March 18)
There's a new elective surgery that makes it impossible to ever blush again. It's an expensive procedure that involves boring a hole in your armpit and cutting the nerve endings that are responsible. I wouldn't recommend it for you, even though you're entering a phase when you'll be more prone than usual to blushing. Why? Because, according to my projections, your main reason for blushing in the coming days will be due to receiving sudden, unexpected, or long-withheld praise. I believe it'll be a time when you're acknowledged for the good things you do. Blush away!


Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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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.
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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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