How can you fulfill your potential as an Aries? What strategies will help you become the best Aries you can possibly be? Now is an excellent time to meditate on these riddles. One of my Aries readers, Mickki Langston, has some stellar tips to inspire you: 1. One of your greatest assets is your relentless sense of purpose. Treasure it. Stay connected to it. Draw on it daily. 2. Love what you love with pure conviction, because there is no escaping it. 3. Other people may believe in you, but only sometimes. That's why you should unfailingly believe in yourself. 4. It's your duty and your destiny to continually learn more about how to be a leader. 5. Don't be confused by other people's confusion. 6. Your best friend is the Fool, who will guide you to laughter and humility when you need it most, which is pretty much all of the time.

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"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. I'd like to inspire you to write a story of your own that begins like that. For help, tune into your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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You're a gorgeous mystery with a wild heart and a lofty purpose. But like all of us, you also have a dark side -- a part of your psyche that snarls and bites, that's unconscious and irrational, that is motivated by ill will or twisted passions or instinctual fears. It's your own personal portion of the world's sickness: a mess of repressed longings, enervating wounds, ignorant delusions, and unripe powers. You'd prefer to ignore it because it's unflattering or uncomfortable or very different from what you imagine yourself to be.

If you acknowledge its existence at all (many of us don't), you might call it the devil, your evil twin, your inner monster, or your personal demon. Psychologist Carl Jung referred to it as the shadow. He regarded it as the lead that the authentic alchemists of the Middle Ages sought to transmute into gold.

How are you doing on your work of changing your own personal lead into gold?

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I invite you to keep a running list of all the ways life delights you and helps you and energizes you. Describe everyday miracles you take for granted . . . the uncanny powers you possess . . . the small joys that occur so routinely you forget how much they mean to you . . . the steady flow of benefits bestowed on you by people you know and don't know. What works for you? What makes you feel at home in the world? For inspiration in this noble effort, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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Thousands of amazing, inexplicable, wondrous, and even supernatural events occur every day. And yet most are unreported by the media. The few that are cited are ridiculed. Why? Here's one possible reason: The people most likely to believe in miracles are superstitious, uneducated, and prone to having a blind, literalist faith in their religions' myths. Those who are least likely to believe in miracles are skilled at analytical thought, well educated, and yet prone to having a blind, literalist faith in the ideology of materialism, which dogmatically asserts that the universe consists entirely of things that can be perceived by the five human senses or detected by instruments that scientists have thus far invented.

The media is largely composed of people from the second group. It's virtually impossible for them to admit to the possibility of miracles, let alone experience them. If anyone from this group manages to escape peer pressure and cultivate a receptivity to miracles, it's because they have successfully fought against being demoralized by the unsophisticated way miracles are framed by the first group.

At the Beauty and Truth Lab we're immune to the double-barreled ignorance. When we behold astonishing synchronicities and numinous breakthroughs that seem to violate natural law, we're willing to consider the possibility that our understanding of natural law is too narrow. And yet we also refrain from lapsing into irrational gullibility; we actively seek mundane explanations for apparent miracles.

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What new influences are heading your way? How do you want to create your life story? How can you exert your free will to seek out the adventures that will bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny? I discuss the possibilities in your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of a maxim.

We half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain. We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our sleeping genius.

There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty -- let's call it the delightful dilemma -- that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when ­you're feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing this book is a good example. I've had abundant fun handling the perplexing challenges with which it has confronted me.

Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile. Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your predominant mood. Consider the possibility that being in unsettling circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the riddles you need most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions when you're preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or demeaning annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.

Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain. You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before you're forced to do so by fate's kicks in the ass.

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Want to go further in exploring and understanding the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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 Yanyuwa Aboriginal people live along the coast of Australia's Northern Territory. Their word for "fat" is nalu-ngiliny. It doesn't merely refer to the greasy stuff that grows naturally under the skin of animal bodies. It's also a metaphysical term for vitality.

Anything that's rich in nalu-ngiliny is healthy. A certain landscape may be considered fat, for instance, which means that it's fertile and sacred. When acacia flowers bloom each year, it's a sign that sea turtles and the marine mammals known as dugongs, favorite foods of the Yanyuwa, are "fat" and ready to be hunted.

I have a fantasy that you will identify the things in your life that are nalu-ngiliny, and give them the honor and gratitude they deserve.

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What are the obvious secrets you can't quite see? How could you turn your challenges into daily gifts for yourself? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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 poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. The physicist Werner Heisenberg declared that the universe is made of music, not of matter.

And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories and music, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it's impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be.

That's why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales and tunes that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good.

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Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow. The waning reveals a different blessing than the waxing. Where are you in the great cycle of your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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Activist and author Naomi Klein tells a story about the time she traveled to Australia at the request of Aboriginal elders. They wanted her to know about their struggle to prevent white people from dumping radioactive wastes on their land.

Her hosts brought her to their beloved wilderness, where they camped under the stars. They showed her "secret sources of fresh water, plants used for bush medicines, hidden eucalyptus-lined rivers where the kangaroos come to drink."

After three days, Klein grew restless. When were they going to get down to business? "Before you can fight," she was told, "you have to know what you are fighting for."

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Whether it's your time to ferment in the shadows or sing in the sun, fresh power to transform yourself is on the way. Life always delivers the creative energy you need to change into the new thing you must become. I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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 Maasai people of Kenya don't have running water, toilets, or electricity, and their per capita income is $300 a year. They use cattle dung as plaster in building their homes because the scent helps repel lions, which dislike it, from venturing too close. And yet they are as happy with their lives as Forbes' magazine's "400 richest Americans" are with theirs -- even though the latter may live in 10,000-square-foot palaces with stained glass windows, French patio doors, limestone kitchen counter tops, spas, wine cellars, and Olympic-sized swimming pools.

This assertion comes from "Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being," a report done by psychologists Ed Diener and Martin E. P. Seligman. On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is "extremely dissatisfied," 4 is "neutral," and 7 means "extremely satisfied," the Maasai, the Inuit of northern Greenland, and the wealthiest Americans all scored 5.8.

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You can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing opportunities. I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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Dear Gorgeous Genius: You possess exceptional capacities that are absolutely unique. You're a masterpiece unlike any other that has ever lived in the history of the world.

Furthermore, the precise instructions you need to ripen into your genius have always been with you, even from the time before you were born. In the words of psychologist James Hillman, you have a soul's code.

You might also call it the special mission you came to Earth to carry out; the divine blueprint that contains the open secret of how to be perfectly, unpredictably yourself; the master plan that is your heart's deepest desire.

Would you like help in deciphering it? The Divine Intelligence Formerly Known as God is always on call, ready to help. It's your birthright to ask Her a specific question every day about what you need to do next to express your soul's code; it's also your birthright to receive a response.

The divine revelation may not be as unambiguous as a little voice in your head. It might appear in the form of a TV commercial, an odd dream, or an encounter with a stranger. It could be demanding and difficult, delivering information you'd rather not have to deal with. Or it might show up as a clear and simple feeling of knowing exactly what to do, and it could be easy and fun.

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Somewhere there's a treasure that has no value to anyone but you, and a secret that's meaningless to everyone except you, and a frontier that harbors a revelation only you would know how to exploit. Why not go in search of those things? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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You know beyond any doubt that each of your heart's beats originates as a gift of love directly from the Goddess herself. You understand that the laws of physics are fine-tuned to create a universe in which you can thrive. You realize with visceral lucidity that everything you see is permeated with a single, unified conscious intelligence, of which you partake intimately. This intelligence is immortal, and thus, so are you. As you register the shocking joy of these truths imprinting themselves on your perfect body, every one of your cells purrs with luminous gratitude.

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Take inventory of the extent that "No" dominates your life. Notice how often you say or think: 1. "That's not right." 2. "I don't like that." 3. "I don't agree with that." 4. "They don't like me." 5. "I'm not very good." 6. "That should be different from what it is." For help in retraining yourself to say "Yes!" at least 51% of the time, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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 are some healthy, exalted, positive states of being you might want to cultivate in the future:

* ACUTE FLUENCY. Happily immersed in artistic creation or scientific exploration; lost in a trance-like state of inventiveness that's both blissful and taxing; surrendered to a state of grace in which you're fully engaged in a productive, compelling, and delightful activity. The joy of this demanding, rewarding state is intensified by a sense that time has been suspended, and is rounder and deeper than usual.

* BLASPHEMOUS REVERENCE. Acting on the knowledge that the most efficacious form of devotion to the Divine Wow is tinctured with playful or mischievous behavior that prevents the buildup of fanaticism.

* COMIC INTROSPECTION. Being fully aware of your own foibles while still loving yourself tenderly and maintaining confidence in your ability to give your specific genius to the world. To paraphrase Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral: following the Byzantine ploys of your ego with compassion and humor as it tries to make itself the center of everything, even of its own suffering and struggle.

* COMPASSIONATE DISCRIMINATION. Having astute judgment without being scornfully judgmental; seeing difficult truths about a situation or person without closing your heart or feeling superior. In the words of Alan Jones: having the ability "to smell a rat without allowing your ability to discern deception sour your vision of the glory and joy that is everyone's birthright."

* EMANCIPATED SURRENDER. Letting go of an attachment without harboring resentment toward the stimuli that led to the necessity of letting go.

* INGENIOUS INTIMACY. Having an ability to consistently create deep connections with other human beings, and to use the lush, reverential excitement stimulated by such exchanges to further deepen the connections. A well-crafted talent for dissolving your sense of separateness and enjoying the innocent exultation that erupts in the wake of the dissolution.

* HOLY LISTENING. Hearing the words of another human being as if they were a direct communication from the Divine Wow to you.

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How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and conditioned responses? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in your Expanded Audio Horoscope.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015."

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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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Consider the possibility that the people who seem to slow us down and hold us back are actually preventing things from happening too fast. Imagine that the evolution of your life or our culture is like a pregnancy: It needs to reach its full term. Just as a child isn't ready to be born after five months of gestation, the New Earth we're creating has to ripen in its own time. The recalcitrant reactionaries who resist the inevitable birth are simply making sure that the far-seeing revolutionaries don't conjure the future too suddenly. They serve the greater good.

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Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn't a barrier to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you every day. For inspiration in practicing this approach, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week.

I'm also still offering a MID-YEAR BIG-PICTURE PREVIEW -- an audio report about YOUR LONG-TERM DESTINY. To hear it, log in through the main page, and then click on the link "Long Term Forecast for Second Half of 2015." The cost is $6.

What are your visions and plans for your life in the next ten to twelve months? Could you use some inspiration as you mobilize your higher powers? Tune in. (The cost for either the weekly forecast or the long-term report is $6, with discounts for multiple purchases.)

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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 are some healthy, exalted, positive states of being you might want to cultivate in the coming weeks:

* CRAZED KINDNESS. Having frequent, overpowering urges to bestow gifts, disseminate inspiration, and perpetrate random acts of benevolence.

* ECSTATIC GRATITUDE. Feeling genuine thankfulness with such resplendent intensity that you generate a surge of endorphins in your body and slip into a full-scale outbreak of euphoria.

* IMAGINATIVE TRUTH-TELLING. Conveying the truth of any specific situation from multiple angles, thereby mitigating the distortions that result from assuming the truth can be told from a single viewpoint.

* JOYFUL POIGNANCE. Feeling buoyantly joyful about the beauty and mystery of life while remaining aware of the sadness, injustices, wounds, and future fears that form the challenges in an examined life.

* NONRESENTMENT SYNDROME. Having an ability to be friendly, open, and helpful to people with whom you disagree.

* RADICAL CURIOSITY. Characterized by the following traits: an enthusiasm for the mystery embedded in the mundane; a preference for questions over answers; an aversion to stereotyping, generalizations, and jumping to conclusions; a belief that people are unsolvable puzzles; an inclination to be unafraid of both change and absence of change; a strong drive to avoid boredom; a lack of interest in possessing or dominating what you are curious about.

* WILD DISCIPLINE. Possessing a talent for creating a kind of organization that's liberating; knowing how to introduce limitations into a situation in such a way that everyone involved is empowered to express his or her unique genius; having an ability to discern hidden order within a seemingly chaotic mess.