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Free Will Astrology
horoscopes for week of April 24, 2014
Aries (March 21-April 19)
If for some inexplicable reason you are not simmering with new ideas about how you could drum up more money, I don't know what to tell you -- except that maybe your mother lied to you about exactly when you were born. The astrological omens are virtually unequivocal: If you are a true Aries, you are now being invited, teased, and even tugged to increase your cash flow and bolster your financial know-how. If you can't ferret out at least one opportunity to get richer quicker, you might really be a Pisces or Taurus. And my name is Jay Z.
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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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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"Picture the Grand Canyon," says Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. "Every hundred years, a child comes by and throws a mustard seed into it. In the time it takes to fill the hole in the earth with mustard seeds, one mahakalpa will have passed. To perfect the virtuous heart -- the joy of integrity -- takes a thousand mahakalpas."
If that's true, then you've still got a lot of work to do. The good news is that civilization is in the midst of a critical turning point that could tremendously expedite your ripening. So you could make unusually great progress toward the goal of perfecting the virtuous heart in the next 40 years.
For best results, meditate often on the phrase "the joy of integrity." Get familiar with the pleasurable emotion that comes from acting with impeccability. And try out this idea from Gandhi: Integrity is the royal road to your inner freedom.
P.S. Oddly enough, the work of perfecting the virtuous heart is very effective in helping you master the art of cultivating everyday ecstasy. Meditate on the connection.
Taurus (April 20-May 20)
You remind me of a garden plot that has recently been plowed and rained on. Now the sun is out. The air is warm. Your dirt is wet and fertile. The feeling is a bit unsettled because the stuff that was below ground got churned up to the top. Instead of a flat surface, you've got furrows. But the overall mood is expectant. Blithe magic is in the air. Soon it will be time to grow new life. Oh, but just one thing is missing: The seeds have yet to be sown. That's going to happen very soon. Right?
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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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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Alice finds her way to Wonderland by falling down a rabbit hole. Dorothy rides to Oz on a tornado. In C. S. Lewis's >i>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy stumbles into the magical land of Narnia via a portal in the back of a large clothes cabinet.
In the sequels to all these adventures, however, the heroines must find different ways to access their exotic dreamlands. Alice slips through a mirror next time. Dorothy uses a Magic Belt. Lucy leaps into a painting of a schooner that becomes real.
Take heed of these precedents. The next time a threshold opens into an alternative reality you've enjoyed in the past, it may not resemble the doorways you've used before.
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Here's an excerpt from "Celestial Music," a poem by Louise Gluck: "I'm like the child who buries / her head in the pillow / so as not to see, the child who tells herself / that light causes sadness." One of your main assignments in the coming weeks, Gemini, is not to be like that child. It's true that gazing at what the light reveals may shatter an illusion or two, but the illumination you will be blessed with will ultimately be more valuable than gold.
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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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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"Keep exploring what it takes to be the opposite of who you are," suggests psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. This advice is one of his ideas about how to get into attunement with the Tao, also known as being in the zone.
How would you go about being the opposite of who you are? Try it and see if it drives you into a state of euphoria.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Would you like to forge new alliances and expand your web of connections and get more of the support you need to fulfill your dreams? You are entering the Season of Networking, so now would indeed be an excellent time to gather clues on how best to accomplish all that good stuff. To get you started in your quest, here's advice from Dale Carnegie: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
For more help in understanding your relationship with the game of life, 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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Check out this excerpt from "Those Who Do Not Dance," by Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral: "God asked from on high, / 'How do I come down from this blueness?' / We told Him: / come dance with us in the light."
I love this passage because it reminds me that nothing is ever set in stone; everything is always up for grabs. Even God needs to be open to change and eager for fresh truths. Furthermore, even we puny humans may on occasion need to be God's teacher and helper. Likewise, we can never be sure about what lowly or unexpected sources might bring us the influences we require.
What do Mistral's words mean to you? Imagine you're the "God" referenced in the poem. What blueness are you ready to come down from, and who might invite you to dance in their light?
Leo (July 23-August 22)
Does Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt run faster than any person alive? As far as we know, yes. He holds three world records and has won six Olympic gold medals. Even when he's a bit off his game, he's the best. At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, he set the all-time mark for the 100-meter race -- 9.69 seconds -- despite the fact that one of his shoelaces was untied and he slowed down to celebrate before reaching the finish line. Like you, Bolt is a Leo. I'm making him both your role model and your anti-role model for the foreseeable future. You have the power to achieve something approaching his levels of excellence in your own field -- especially if you double-check to make sure your shoelace is never untied and especially if you don't celebrate victory before it's won.
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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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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Confounding lessons and delightful shocks have been increasing in frequency during the recent past and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. In light of that fact, you may want to find some new ways to express your amazement. Clichés like "Jesus H. Christ!" or "Holy crap!" or "What the fuck?!" may not be sufficient to capture the full impact of the aha! moments.
To get you launched in the right direction, I'll suggest a few fresh exclamations. They're not designed to become tried-and-true replacements for the lazy phrases you're using now, but are rather meant to jog your imagination and inspire you to conjure up a constantly changing variety of ever-fresh invocations. Now see how these roll off your tongue: "Great Odin's raven!" "Radical lymphocytes!" "Cackling whacks of jibber-jabber!" "Frosty heat waves!" "Panoramic serpentine!"
Virgo (August 23-September 22)
In his unpublished book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig coins new words that convey experiences our language has not previously accounted for. One that may apply to you sometime soon is "trumspringa," which he defines as "the temptation to step off your career track and become a shepherd in the mountains, following your flock between pastures with a sheepdog and a rifle, watching storms at dusk from the doorway of a small cabin." To be overtaken by trumspringa doesn't necessarily mean you will literally run away and be a shepherd. In fact, giving yourself the luxury of considering such wild possibilities may be a healing release that allows you to be at peace with the life you are actually living.
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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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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A friend gave me a live rosebush in a planter for my birthday last June. After a few weeks, its five red flowers withered and turned brown but didn't fall off their stems. I left them there, perversely fascinated by the dead blooms that wouldn't let go. Months later, in late November, five new flowers blossomed. Then the bush displayed a mix of the living and the dead.
Would you have plucked off the dried-up old blooms, or would you find it more beautiful with both the living and the dead together?
Libra (September 23-October 22)
"The supreme pleasure we can know, Freud said, and the model for all pleasure, orgasmic pleasure, comes when an excess tension built up, confined, compacted, is abruptly released." That's an observation by philosopher Alphonso Lingis. I bring it to your attention, Libra, because I expect that you will soon be able to harvest a psychospiritual version of that supreme pleasure. You have been gathering and storing up raw materials for soul-making, and now the time has come to express them with a creative splash. Are you ready to purge your emotional backlog? Are you brave enough to go in search of cathartic epiphanies? What has been dark will yield light.
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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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 his book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, historian Thomas Laquer suggests that the clitoris may have been unknown to male anatomists until 1559. In that year, Renaldus Columbus, a professor at the University of Padua in Italy, announced his discovery of the "seat of woman's delight," and declared his right to name it the "sweetness of Venus."
Is there a sublime pleasure whose existence you haven't discovered? Where is it? How can you find it?
Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
The potential turning points that might possibly erupt in the coming days will not become actual turning points unless you work hard to activate them. They will be subtle and brief, so you will have to be very alert to notice them at all, and you will have to move quickly before they fade away. Here's another complication: These incipient turning points probably won't resemble any turning points you've seen before. They may come in the form of a lucky accident, a blessed mistake, a happy breakdown, a strange healing, a wicked gift, or a perfect weakness.
To further explore the ripening blessings and interesting challenges in your life, 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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If you're reading this, you're probably not a Cambodian orphan who grew up as a slave in a brothel or a Sudanese man kidnapped by a militia and forced to do heavy labor 18 hours a day or one of the millions of other victims of human trafficking around the world. But you may be yoked and subjugated in a less literal way, perhaps to a debilitating drug or an abusive relationship or a job that brings out the worst in you or a fearful fantasy about the looming collapse of civilization's infrastructure.
The good news is that you have the power to escape your bondage. Maybe it'll help you muster the strength you need if I remind you that your freedom won't be anywhere near as difficult to achieve as that of the Pakistani boy tied to a carpet loom in a dark room around the clock or the Nigerian woman who's beaten daily as she toils in the sugar cane fields for no pay.
Try this: When you feel overwhelmed by the sadness of your problems or the addiction of your compulsions, put on your best clothes and clean toilets at a homeless shelter, or give foot massages to workers at a sewage disposal plant, or sing songs, sip champagne, and play card games with patients at a psychiatric hospital. Be ready to get hit upside the soul with exotic varieties of ecstasy, which such acts will unleash.
Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
If you happen to be an athlete, the coming week will not be a good time to headbutt a referee or take performance-enhancing drugs. If you hate to drive your car anywhere but in the fast lane, you will be wise to try the slower lanes for a while. If you are habitually inclined to skip steps, take short cuts, and look for loopholes, I advise you to instead try being thorough, methodical, and by-the-book. Catch my drift? In this phase of your astrological cycle, you will have a better chance at producing successful results if you are more prudent than usual. What?! A careful, discreet, strategic, judicious Sagittarius? Sure! Why not?
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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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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It's possible there's still enough oil buried in the earth to sustain our civilization's exorbitant appetite for material comforts for another 100 years. Or it may be true, as some researchers suggest, that global reserves of black gold are rapidly dwindling, and 20 years from now we'll all be farmers and hunters sitting around campfires at night telling stories.
Whichever scenario comes to pass, you may be happiest and smartest and healthiest if you cultivate a simple and earthy relationship with luxury—something akin to poet Omar Khayyám's notion, which was "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou beside me singing in the wilderness." Comments? Questions? Celebrations?
P.S. The amount of oil left in the world has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to cultivate ecstasy.
Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
My interpretation of this week's astrological data might sound eccentric, even weird. But you know what? Sometimes life is -- or at least should be -- downright unpredictable. After much meditation, I've concluded that the most important message you can send to the universe is to fly a pair of underpants from the top of a flagpole. You heard me. Take down the flag that's up there, and run the skivvies right up to the top. Whose underpants should you use? Those belonging to someone you adore, of course. And what is the deeper meaning behind this apparently irrational act? What exactly is life asking from you? Just this: Stop making so much sense all the time -- especially when it comes to cultivating your love and expressing your passion.
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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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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Here's Caroline Myss' explanation of faith: "Faith is the power to stand up to the madness and chaos of the physical world while holding the position that nothing external has any authority over what heaven has in mind for you."
If you don't like the word "heaven" in Myss' statement, substitute a term that works for you, like "your higher self" or "your destiny" or "your soul's code." Modify anything else in it that's not right for your needs, as well. When you're finished tinkering, I hope you'll have created a definition of faith that motivates you with as much primal power as you feel when you're in love.
Aquarius (January 20- February 18)
You need to take some time out to explore the deeper mysteries of snuggling, cuddling, and nuzzling. In my opinion, that is your sacred duty. It's your raison d'etre, your ne plus ultra, your sine qua non. You've got to nurture your somatic wisdom with what we in the consciousness industry refer to as yummy warm fuzzy wonder love. At the very least, you should engage in some prolonged hugging with a creature you feel close to. Tender physical touch isn't just a luxury; it's a necessity.
Would you like to hear me say some more about your ever-evolving 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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The New York Times ran a story about philosopher Nick Bostrom, who believes there's a significant chance our world is actually a computer simulation. In his scenario, you and I are living in a version of The Matrix. Our "brains" are merely webs of computer circuits created by our post-human descendants, who are studying "ancestor simulations" of their past. I bring this to your attention because I'd like to invite you to find out, one way or another, whether Bostrom is correct.
Make it your intention to cultivate a talent for knowing what's real and what's not. Develop a knack for escaping what's illusory and gravitating toward what's authentic. If you do these simple things, I bet you will earn a big reward: a chronic, low-key, blissful sense of union with pretty much everything that's appealing to you.
Bonus: Even if you do find out that we're living in The Matrix, you could become a messiah with resemblances to the character that Keanu Reeves played in the film trilogy. He could fly.
Pisces (February 19-March 20)
Your body contains about four octillion atoms. That's four with 27 zeroes after it. Believe it or not, 200 billion of that total were once inside the body of Martin Luther King, Jr. For that matter, an average of 200 billion atoms of everyone who has ever lived and died is part of you. I am not making this up. (See the mathematical analysis here: http://tinyurl.com/AtomsFromEveryone.) As far as your immediate future is concerned, Pisces, I'm particularly interested in that legacy from King. If any of his skills as a great communicator are alive within you, you will be smart to call on them. Now is a time for you to express high-minded truths in ways that heal schisms, bridge gaps, and promote unity. Just proceed on the assumption that it is your job to express the truth with extra clarity, candor, and grace.
Need more help deciphering the riddles and enigmas that are fueling your amazing story? 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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While loitering on a sidewalk outside a nightclub in San Francisco on a September night in 1994, I found the cover of a booklet lying in the gutter. Written by Marilena Silbey and Paul Ramana Das, it was called "How to Survive Passionate Intimacy with a Dreamy Partner While Making a Fortune on the Path to Enlightenment." Sadly, the rest of the text was missing. Ever since, hungry for its wisdom, I've tried to hunt down a copy of the whole thing, but to no avail.
I'm hoping that maybe you will consider writing your own version of the subject. If you do, please send it to me.
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