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Horoscopes for week of March 20, 2014
"When you plant seeds in the garden, you don’t dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet," says Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron. "You simply water them and clear away the weeds; you know that the seeds will grow in time." That's sound advice for you, Aries. You are almost ready to plant the metaphorical seeds that you will be cultivating in the coming months. Having faith should be a key element in your plans for them. You've got to find a way to shut down any tendencies you might have to be an impatient control freak. Your job is simply to give your seeds a good start and provide them with the persistent follow-up care they will need.
Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your unfolding destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted 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 usually solve problems by letting them devour me," wrote Franz Kafka. That's an interesting approach, I guess, and though it might work for a tiny minority of introverted, melancholy, hypersensitive artists, it's probably not a wise policy for you. It may be better to fervently resist any temptation you might have to allow your problems to gobble you up.
Instead, why not be like a gargantuan sea monster in the midst of a perfect storm? Rise up as high as the dark sky and growl back at the thunder. Shoot flames from your mouth at the lightning. Become too big and ancient and wild to ever be devoured.
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"Thank you, disillusionment," says Alanis Morissette in her song "Thank U." "Thank you, frailty," she continues. "Thank you, nothingness. Thank you, silence." I'd love to hear you express that kind of gratitude in the coming days, Taurus. Please understand that I don't think you will be experiencing a lot of disillusionment, frailty, nothingness, and silence. Not at all. What I do suspect is that you will be able to see, more clearly than ever before, how you have been helped and blessed by those states in the past. You will understand how creatively they motivated you to build strength, resourcefulness, willpower, and inner beauty.
How much do you want to know about your life? How far do you dare to go in your quest for self-mastery? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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In the film Fight Club, the character played by Brad Pitt storms into a convenience store with a gun, then herds the clerk out back and threatens to execute him. While the poor man quivers in terror, Pitt asks him questions about himself, extracting the confession that he'd once wanted to be a veterinarian but dropped out of school. After a few minutes, Pitt frees the clerk without harming him, but says that unless he takes steps to return to veterinary school in the next six weeks, he will hunt him down and kill him.
In my opinion, that's an overly extreme way to motivate someone to do what's good for him. I wish I could come up with a less shocking approach to coax you into resuming the quest for your deferred dreams. Can you think of anything?
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I bet your support system will soon be abuzz with fizzy mojo and good mischief. Your web of contacts is about to get deeper and feistier and prettier. Pounce, Gemini, pounce! Summon extra clarity and zest as you communicate your vision of what you want. Drum up alluring tricks to attract new allies and inspire your existing allies to assist you better. If all goes as I expect it to, business and pleasure will synergize better than they have in a long time. You will boost your ambitions by socializing, and you will sweeten your social life by plying your ambitions.
Would you like to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Do you want to uncover the secrets you've been hiding even from yourself? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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"The important thing," said French critic Charles Du Bos, "is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
Did he really mean at any moment? Like while we're in a convenience store buying a magazine? While we're lying in bed ready for sleep and reviewing the events of the day? While we're adrift in apathetic melancholy, watching too much TV and neglecting our friends? At any moment?! I say yes. At all times and in all places be ready to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.
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During her 98 years on the planet, Barbara Cartland wrote 723 romance novels that together sold a billion copies. What was the secret of her success? Born under the sign of Cancer the Crab, she knew how productive she could be if she was comfortable. Many of her work sessions took place while she reclined on her favorite couch covered with a white fur rug, her feet warmed with a hot water bottle. As her two dogs kept her company, she dictated her stories to her secretary. I hope her formula for success inspires you to expand and refine your own personal formula -- and then apply it with zeal during the next eight weeks. What is the exact nature of the comforts that will best nourish your creativity?
Do you wish you could get more clarity about the foggy, ambiguous situations you're dealing with? 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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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Lie on your back with your arms outstretched and have a friend measure the distance from the tip of one middle finger to the other. Do you have a wingspan similar to that of a hawk? Eagle? Osprey? The mythical thunderbird? Pterodactyl? Close your eyes and visualize yourself hovering and swooping above the treetops. What do you see below you?
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The Google Ngram Viewer is a tool that scans millions of books to map how frequently a particular word is used over the course of time. For instance, it reveals that "impossible" appears only half as often in books published in the 21st century as it did in books from the year 1900. What does this mean? That fantastic and hard-to-achieve prospects are less impossible than they used to be? I don't know, but I can say this with confidence: If you begin fantastic and hard-to-achieve prospects sometime soon, they will be far less impossible than they used to be.
Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Would you like help in solving the riddles that confuse you? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Russian scientists have discovered gold deposits in the dust of decayed tree stumps. The phenomenon occurs in forests growing in ground where there is gold ore. Over the course of centuries, the trees' roots suck in minute quantities of the precious metal, eventually accumulating nuggets.
Describe a metaphorically comparable process you could carry out in your own life over the course of the next 20 years. What invisible part of you is like a tree's roots? What's the gold you'd like to suck up?
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The Tibetan mastiff is a large canine species with long golden hair. If you had never seen a lion and were told that this dog was a lion, you might be fooled. And that's exactly what a zoo in Luohe, China did. It tried to pass off a hearty specimen of a Tibetan mastiff as an African lion. Alas, a few clever zoo-goers saw through the charade when the beast started barking. Now I'll ask you, Virgo: Is there anything comparable going on in your environment? Are you being asked to believe that a big dog is actually a lion, or the metaphorical equivalent?
Need more help in figuring out the questions life is asking you? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Visualize in detail your dream lover . . . your ideal soul mate . . . the embodiment of everything you find attractive.
Imagine that although this person feels the same way about you, there is a very good reason why the two of you can't make love or be together as a couple for a long time. Feel the sweet torment of your unquenched longing for each other, the impossible ache of fiery tenderness.
Picture all the ways you will work on yourself in the coming years to refine your soul and perfect your love, so that when the two of you can finally be united, you will have made yourself into the gorgeous genius you were born to be -- a pure blessing and uncanny gift for your beloved.
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In T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the narrator seems tormented about the power of his longing. "Do I dare to eat a peach?" he asks. I wonder what he's thinking. Is the peach too sweet, too juicy, too pleasurable for him to handle? Is he in danger of losing his self-control and dignity if he succumbs to the temptation? What's behind his hesitation? In any case, Libra, don't be like Prufrock in the coming weeks. Get your finicky doubts out of the way as you indulge your lust for life with extra vigor and vivacity. Hear what I'm saying? Refrain from agonizing about whether or not you should eat the peach. Just go ahead and eat it.
What fresh blessings will life bring you? What questions should you be asking? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted 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 hope you can obtain the Avatar Elixir stashed in the golden obelisk in the underground fortress beneath the glass mountain. It will allow you to produce the "triple-helix" energy that will give you the power to cross freely back and forth through the gateway between universes. Then wild beasts will obey your commands. Rivers will become your allies. Every star in the sky will shine directly on you. And if for some reason you're not able to get your hands on that Avatar Elixir, you may be able to achieve similar results by drinking a bottle of beer stashed in the lower left rear section of the beverage cooler at a convenience store within five miles of your home.
Magic might be wherever you think it is.
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Born under the sign of Scorpio, Neil Young has been making music professionally for over 45 years. He has recorded 35 albums and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In early 1969, three of his most famous songs popped out of his fertile imagination on the same day. He was sick with the flu and running a 103-degree fever when he wrote "Cowgirl in the Sand," "Cinnamon Girl," and "Down by the River." I suspect you may soon experience a milder version of this mythic event, Scorpio. At a time when you're not feeling your best, you could create a thing of beauty that will last a long time, or initiate a breakthrough that will send ripples far into the future.
Want to explore this chapter of your life story even further? Dig deeper? Push harder? Consider tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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After rejecting proposals from many directors, Bob Dylan finally authorized Oscar-nominated Todd Haynes to make a film about his life, I'm Not There. Five different actors and one actress portrayed Dylan, including Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, and Christian Bale. "I set out to explode the idea that anybody can be depicted in a single self," Haynes told The Sunday Times.
Name the six actors and actresses you would choose to play you in the movie about your life.
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There should be nothing generic or normal or routine about this week, Sagittarius. If you drink beer, for example, you shouldn't stick to your usual brew. You should track down and drink the hell out of exotic beers with brand names like Tactical Nuclear Penguin and Ninja Vs. Unicorn and Doctor Morton's Clown Poison. And if you're a lipstick user, you shouldn't be content to use your old standard, but should instead opt for kinky types like Sapphire Glitter Bomb, Alien Moon Goddess, and Cackling Black Witch. As for love, it wouldn't make sense to seek out romantic adventures you've had a thousand times before. You need and deserve something like wild sacred eternal ecstasy or screaming sweaty flagrant bliss or blasphemously reverent waggling rapture.
You're got more strength and intelligence than you realize. For help in accessing those untapped inner resources, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Lewis Thomas was a physician who wrote elegantly about biology in books like The Lives of a Cell. I want to bring your attention to his meditation on warts. "Nothing in the body has so much the look of toughness and permanence as a wart," he wrote. And yet "they can be made to go away by something that can only be called thinking ... Warts can be ordered off the skin by hypnotic suggestion." Thomas regarded this phenomenon as "absolutely astonishing, more of a surprise than cloning or recombinant DNA."
Using your mind power, go ahead and shrink, dissolve, or banish a wart or wart-like vexation.
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Actor Gary Oldman was born and raised in London. In the course of his long career he has portrayed a wide range of characters who speak English with American, German, and Russian accents. He has also lived in Los Angeles for years. When he signed on to play a British intelligent agent in the 2011 film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he realized that over the years he had lost some of his native British accent. He had to take voice lessons to restore his original pronunciations. I suspect you have a metaphorically comparable project ahead of you, Capricorn. It may be time to get back to where you once belonged.
How are you going to change what needs to be changed and accept what needs to be accepted? To get some support from me, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Meditation teacher Wes Nisker helps students learn to calm the frenetic chatter of their minds. As earnest as he is in this heroic work, though, he also appreciates the importance of not trying too hard. As you pursue your pronoia practice, call on his influence now and then. It'll keep you honest and prevent your anal sphincter from getting too high-strung.
Here's a blurb for one of his workshops. "This day will be of absolutely no use to you. Nothing will be furthered or accomplished by coming. Expect a time of effortlessness, relaxation, and poetry, hanging out, maybe a little mindfulness meditation -- all for nothing. Some might understand this as a protest against our culture's speedy, goal-driven nature, but we know it won't amount to a hill of beans. Good intentions and purposefulness must be checked at the door."
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Every now and then, you're blessed with a small miracle that inspires you to see everyday things with new vision. Common objects and prosaic experiences get stripped of their habitual expectations, allowing them to become almost as enchanting to you as they were before numb familiarity set in. The beloved people you take for granted suddenly remind you of why you came to love them in the first place. Boring acquaintances may reveal sides of themselves that are quite entertaining. So are you ready and eager for just such an outbreak of curiosity and a surge of fun surprises? If you are, they will come. If you're not, they won't.
Sometimes it's a challenge to try to figure out what's important and what's not important. If you'd like more of my input, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted 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 am a devout atheist," writes Tom of Ohio, "but I have to explain to my atheist friends that I do pray to the 'GodIdontbelievein.'
"My first direct contact with this Divinity arrived when I was coming out of anesthesia after surgery. I was somehow aware of my existence but totally sensory-deprived. As I emerged from total unconsciousness, a tiny flickering Tinkerbell-like creature in the form of a shimmering globe of light fluttered into my consciousness and hovered irresistibly before my internal eyes. I was in love with it and it loved me.
"In fact it was me, or at least the manifestation of cosmic energy that settles in me and is my being. It gave me a blessing of good will, then went about its business of operating my body. In parting, it gave me the assurance that it would always be there for me and with me, and would join me after it shut the body down for the last time.
"Since that first encounter, I commune with the little sparkling wonder every so often. I thank it for its presence and it thanks me for mine, though we are actually one and the same. I find myself praying to it, though there's really no need to -- it knows me better than I do, and guides me toward my goals, though I know not what they are."
Inspired by Tom's report, write a love note or an expression of appreciation for the shimmering globe of wonder that animates your life.
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Before she died, Piscean actress Elizabeth Taylor enjoyed more than 79 years of life on this gorgeous, maddening planet. But one aptitude she never acquired in all that time was the ability to cook a hard-boiled egg. Is there a pocket of ignorance in your own repertoire that rivals this lapse, Pisces? Are there any fundamental life skills that you probably should have learned by now? If so, now would be a good time to get to work on mastering them.
How well is your imagination working these days? Could it use a boost? A prod? A jolt of inspiration? Try tuning in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.
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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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At New York's Museum of Modern Art, I brought my face to within a few inches of Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night. It looked delicious. I wanted to kiss it. I wanted to eat it. Its stars were throbbing and voluptuous. The night sky shimmered with spiral currents. In the foreground, the cypress tree flared like a shadowy flame.
I could also see that the artist had been less than thorough in applying his paint. Especially on the edges, but also in the middle of the painting, slivers of untouched canvas showed through. Fierce, innocent, nourishing, reckless, unfinished, this priceless work drank my attention for a long time, constantly refreshing my eyes with its ceaseless movement.
Can you be at peace with the fact that your masterpiece may always be unfinished?
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© 1995-2013 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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