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Horoscopes for week of May 9, 2013
The Tarahumara Indians of northwestern Mexico are renowned for their ability to run long distances. The best runners can cover 200 miles in two days. The paths they travel are not paved or smooth, either, but rather the rough canyon trails that stretch between their settlements. Let's make them your inspirational role models in the coming week, Aries. I'm hoping that you will be as tough and tenacious as they are -- that you will pace yourself for the long haul, calling on your instinctual strength to guide you.
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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If you're typical, your natural curiosity was virtually extinguished at an early age by mediocre teachers, boring lessons, and oppressive classrooms. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if your imagination hadn't been squelched? What interesting adventures might you have sought out if your natural love of learning hadn't been crushed?
Let's launch a quest to undo the damage. Imagine I've handed you an undiploma: your official release from the soul-death of your formal education; the beginning of the healing of your wounded love of learning. What's the first thing you'll do to invoke a steady stream of inspired teachers and invigorating lessons?
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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.
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You may have only a dim idea about how your smart phone and computer work, but that doesn't prevent you from using their many wonderful features. While you're swimming, you know almost nothing about the physiological processes that are active inside you, and yet you have no problem making all the necessary movements. In that spirit, I'm not worried about whether or not you will grasp the deep inner meaning of events that will be unfolding in the coming week. Complete understanding isn't absolutely necessary. All you need to do is trust your intuition to lead you in the direction of what's interesting and educational.
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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"Is it bad to live without a hell?" poet Pablo Neruda asks in The Book of Questions. Let's add these queries to his: Is it dangerous to live without an enemy? Is it naive to think you can achieve great success without the driving motivation that comes from having ideas you hate? There are thousands of correct answers to these questions. What are yours?
Consider the issue from another angle. Dentists love tooth decay. Treating cavities provides them with a steady source of income. Likewise, exterminators are dependent on termites, lawyers need crimes, and priests are hungry for sinners. Lots of people have symbiotic connections with nasty stuff. In fact, isn't it true that most of us nurture our feelings for the things we love to despise and fear?
What's your favorite poison or adversary? Assume that your exposure to pronoia is changing you in ways that will require you to update your relationship with it. Speculate on how you'll go about this task.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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"I need not sell my soul to buy bliss," says a character in Charlotte Bronte's 19th-century novel Jane Eyre. "I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give." This would be a great speech for you to memorize and periodically recite in the next two weeks. Do it in front of your mirror at least once a day to remind yourself of how amazingly resourceful you are. It will also help you resist the temptation to seek gifts from people who can't or won't give them to you.
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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The factor most likely to drive us to addiction or illness is a lack of intimate contact with spirit. We all need a daily dose of vastness. Paradoxically, many of us would also benefit from more microscopic vision. Because we're so deprived of divine connection, we're half-dreaming all the time; our unconscious pining for the eternal source distracts us from the vivid little glories that are splayed out around us. And so we miss the Divine Wow from both directions.
Try this: Prime your connection with spirit by focusing your attention on tones and shapes you usually miss: reflections in windows, the sky between the oak tree's branches, the shadows on the water, the two different emotions in a friend's eyes and mouth.
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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.
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What is the big adventure you've been postponing forever because it hasn't been convenient? How about an intriguing possibility you have always wanted to experiment with but have consistently denied yourself? Or what about that nagging mystery you've been wishing you had the time and energy to solve? Wouldn't your life change for the better if you finally dived in and explored it? In the next two weeks, Cancerian, I urge you to consider giving yourself permission to pursue something that fits one of those descriptions.
For more help in understanding your relationship with the game of life, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.
When you're ready, carry out the exercise called Brag Therapy. Grab a good listener or a recording device, and boast extravagantly about yourself for at least 20 minutes. Expound in exhaustive detail why you're so wonderful and why the world would be a better place if everyone would just act more like you.
Don't be humble or cautious. Go too far. Heap extreme glory on yourself. Brazenly proclaim the fabulous qualities about you that no one has ever fully articulated or appreciated. Don't forget to extol the prodigious flaws and vices that make you so special.
What does this have to do with pronoia? When you audaciously identify your existing gifts, you set yourself up to become a magnet for even greater abundance. In fact, we recommend that you treat yourself to a Brag Therapy session regularly.
To whet your imagination, read an excerpt from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session I hosted in Milwaukee. "I have opposable thumbs," Eric exulted. "I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I'm asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up."
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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.
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Right now, Leo, you are a majestic and mysterious mess of raw power. You are a fresh, flaming fountain of pure charisma. Irresistible! That's you! Unstoppable! You! Impossible to fool and immune to the false charms of heartfelt mediocrity! You! You! You! In your current condition, no one can obstruct you from seeing the naked truth about the big picture. And that's why I am so sure that victory will soon be yours. You will overcome the fuzziness of your allies, the bad vibes of your adversaries, and your own inertia. Not all conquests are important and meaningful, but you will soon achieve the one that is.
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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Don't make nasty comments about yourself behind your own back.
Do play soccer in bunny slippers at dawn in a supermarket parking lot with a gang of sadomasochistic stockbrokers who've promised to teach you the Balinese monkey chant.
Don't decorate your thigh with a sloppy tattoo of the devil pushing a lawn mower.
Do wear a t-shirt that says, "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."
Don't glide into a bar, scout around for the person whose face has the most pain etched in it, and ask that person to come home with you.
Do eat ripe organic strawberries that have been genetically modified and irradiated, and do chain-smoke Marlboros as you peddle your exercise bicycle, and do wander through a garbage dump while listening to Mozart on your iPod.
Don't get hooked on the fantasy that there are only two kinds of people, those who align themselves with the forces of light and those who align themselves with the forces of darkness.
Do start an organization called POMP (Proud Owners of Multiple Personalities), dedicated to erasing negative stereotypes about healthy non-schizophrenics who enjoy being a community of many different selves.
Don't lie on a floor surrounded by wine-stained poetry books, crumpled Matisse prints, abandoned underwear, and half-eaten bowls of corn flakes as you stare up at the ceiling with a mad gaze, muttering gibberish and waving your hands as if swatting away demons.
Do run along the tops of cars during a traffic jam, escaping from bad guys as you make your way to a helicopter that takes you to a spot hovering over an erupting volcano, into which you drop the Buns of Steel video.
Don't put your soul up for auction on eBay.
Do write a cookbook filled with recipes you've channeled from dead celebrities.
If you come upon a lamp with a genie in it, don't wish you had a magic wand.
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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.
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A character in Herman Hesse's novel Demian says the following: "I live in my dreams. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own." Whose dreams do you live in, Virgo? What is the source of the fantasies that dominate your imagination? Are they the authentic outpourings of your own soul? Or did they originate with your parents and teachers and lovers? Did they sneak into you from the movies and songs and books you love? Are they the skewed result of the emotional wounds you endured or the limitations you've gotten used to? Now is an excellent time to take inventory. Find out how close you are to living in your own dreams.
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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Every fundamentalist divides the world into two camps, those who agree with him and like him and help him, and those who don't. There is only one right way to interpret the world -- according to the ideas the fundamentalist believes to be true -- and a million wrong ways.
The fundamental attitude of all fundamentalists is to take everything way too seriously and too personally and too literally. Imagination is a sin and a crime. Correct belief is the only virtue. Every fundamentalist is committed to waging war against the imagination unless the imagination is enslaved to his or her belief system.
And here's the bad news: Like almost everyone in the world, each of us has our own share of the fundamentalist virus. It may not be as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, the fundamentalism of Islamic terrorists or Christian politicians or CEOs who act as if making a financial profit is the supreme good or scientists who deny the existence of the 96 percent of reality imperceptible to the five senses. Our fundamentalism is not as virulent as theirs.
But still: We are infected, you and I, with fundamentalism. What are we going to do about it?
I say we practice taking everything less seriously and less personally and less literally.
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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.
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Charles Ives was a renowned American composer who lived from 1874 to 1954. Because his music was experimental and idiosyncratic, it took a long time for him to get the appreciation he deserved. When he was 73 years old, he won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for a symphony he had written when he was 30. I expect that in the near future you might be the beneficiary of a similar kind of mojo, Libra. A good deed you did or a smart move you made in the past will finally get at least some of the recognition or response you've always wanted.
Want to hear more about the subconscious factors and hidden forces that may be influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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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.
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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.
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"There are no right answers to wrong questions," says science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin. And that's why you must be so conscientious about coming up with the very best questions. Right, Scorpio? All your efforts to hunt down solutions will be for naught unless you frame your problems elegantly and accurately. Now here's the very good news: Your skill at asking pertinent questions is at a peak. That's why I suggest you make this Focused Inquiry Week. Crisply define three questions that will be important for you to address in the next seven months.
To further explore the ripening blessings and interesting challenges in your life, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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Where exactly does happiness come from? That's the riddle posed by David Meyers and Ed Diener in their article, "The Science of Happiness," published in The Futurist magazine. I invite you to write your own answers to their question. Map out the foundations of your own science of happiness. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good. What specific experiences arouse your deepest gratification? Physical pleasure? Seeking the truth? Being a good person? Contemplating the meaning of life? Enjoying the fruits of your accomplishments? Purging pent-up emotion?
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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.
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Charlie Parker was a great jazz musician. As a saxophonist and composer, he was an influential innovator. Unfortunately, he also had an expensive heroin addiction. It interfered with his ability to achieve financial stability. There's a famous story about him showing a bystander two veins on his arm as he prepared to shoot up. "This one's my Cadillac," he confessed. "And this one's my house." I'm bringing this up, Sagittarius, in the hope that it will provide a healthy shock. Are you doing anything remotely like Charlie Parker? Are you pouring time and energy and money into an inferior form of pleasure or a trivial distraction that is undermining your ability to accomplish higher goals? If so, fix that glitch, please.
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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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.
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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.
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"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good," said iconic songwriter Woody Guthrie. "I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world." Amen, brother Woody! I have the same approach to writing horoscopes. And I'm happy to advise you, Capricorn, that you should have a similar attitude toward everything you put out and take in during the coming week. Just for now, reject all words, ideas, and actions that demoralize and destroy. Treat yourself to a phase of relentless positivity.
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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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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The preceding oracle comes 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 know not what my past still has in store for me," testified the Indian spiritual poet Tukaram. I believe most of us can say the same thing, and here's why: The events that happened to us once upon a time keep transforming as we ripen. They come to have different meanings in light of the ever-new experiences we have. What seemed like a setback when it first occurred may eventually reveal itself to have been the seed of a blessing. A wish fulfilled at a certain point in our history might come back to haunt us later on. I bring up these ideas, Aquarius, because I think you're primed to reinterpret your own past.
Would you like to hear me say some more about your ever-evolving destiny? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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George prayed every day for three years to win the lottery, but never heard from God or hit the jackpot.
Finally, God woke him up in the middle of the night. "George, is that you who's been praying so hard to win the lottery?" the Supreme Being boomed.
"Yes, Lord, desperately!"
God paused for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "George, I'll tell you what. I want you to meet me halfway. Buy a ticket, OK?"
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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.
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According to legend, Jennifer Lopez's butt is insured for $300 million. Bruce Springsteen has supposedly insured his voice for $31 million and wine expert Angela Mount is said to have insured her taste buds for $16 million. In that spirit, Pisces, I encourage you to consider insuring your imagination. To be clear, I don't anticipate that you will have occasion to collect any settlement. Nothing bad will happen. But taking this step could be a fun ritual that might drive home to you just how important your imagination will be in the coming weeks. Your power to make pictures in your mind will either make you crazy with unfounded fantasies and fearful delusions, or else it will help you visualize in detail the precise nature of the situations you want to create for yourself in the future.
Need more help deciphering the riddles and enigmas that are fueling your amazing story? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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Is it really healthy to have a shrill, 25-words-or-less opinion about everything, as radio and TV talk shows seem to imply? Would anyone mind if now and then you served as a compassionate witness about the hot-button issues? Is it conceivable that you could simply sit on the fence in the midst of the wars of words and beam articulate sympathy at both sides?
Yes, you can. You have the rebellious resourcefulness to be a freedom fighter without hating anyone. Go out and prove it.
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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.
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© 1995-2013 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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