Return to 2008 November 27th horoscopes
Week of November 27th, 2008
Have you ever arrived at a mountaintop on a clear day? Do you remember what you felt like? Can you re-imagine the sparkling purity of the air as it sweetened your lungs, the shimmering light that washed through you in lush waves, the exaltation of the sweeping vista as it lifted you to a deeper understanding of where your place is in this life? That's the kind of peak experience you need and deserve in the coming days, Aries. If you can't actually get to the top of a mountain, find the next best thing.
How much do you want to know about your destiny? How far do you dare to go? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
Yua is a term the Yupiit people of Alaska use for the spirit that inhabits all things, both animate and inanimate. A rock, for instance, has as much yua as a caribou, spruce tree, or human being, and therefore merits the same measure of compassion. If a Yupiit goes out for a hike and spies a chunk of wood lying on a frozen river bank, she might pick it up and put it in a new position, allowing its previously hidden side to get fresh air and sun. In this way, she would bestow a blessing on the wood's yua. (Source: Earl Shorris, "The Last Word," Harper's, August 2000)
The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells.
A Serbian beekeeper shares his deep religious fervor with the insects he spends so much time with. Slobodan Jeftic builds beehives shaped like churches because he believes bees have souls, too. I urge you to draw inspiration from his example, Taurus. Get together with your favorite animals for a rowdy prayer session. Bark or purr or neigh or chirp together. Run around with holy abandon, expressing primal gratitude for the vitality you've been granted. If you're not currently in an intimate relationship with special animals, then take this as an opportunity to elevate and celebrate the consciousness of your own inner creature.
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.
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 Laboratory 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.
If you're average, you blink about 17,000 times a day. But I'm urging you to reduce that number for the foreseeable future. Why? Because the coming days will put you in the path of meaningful, interesting, and useful sights that will be fast-paced and transitory. You might miss them if you blink too much. So open your eyes wider and for longer periods, Gemini, and get in the habit of checking in with your peripheral vision. Start now! What subtly amazing thing is happening right where you are?
Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
You taste delicious
Animals understand you
Your importance is unusual
The funny faces you make are interesting to look at
You fight for power in all the right ways
Gratitude pours out of you
You have strong feet
No one can overflow as well as you can
You are famous with God
A lost tribe salutes you from the other side of the veil
You belong to yourself
Two of the best money-saving steps you can take, says TV's mock pundit Stephen Colbert, are to stop filling your hot tub with champagne and stop lining your gerbil's cage with hundred-dollar bills. I highly recommend that you brainstorm about initiating similar conservative and preservative actions, Cancerian. It's time for you to get really serious about shedding wasteful habits, cutting out needless excesses, and culling trivial activities that impinge on the time and energy you have available for the really important things. This shouldn't be a cause for demoralization, by the way. On the contrary, the more creative you are about setting limits, the more long-term blessings you'll set in motion.
Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
The 17th-century surgeon Wilhelm Hilden had an interesting theory about healing. He developed a medicinal salve that he applied not to the wound itself but rather to the weapon that inflicted it. Though today we may sneer at such foolishness, the fact is that Hilden's approach has great potential if used for psychic wounds. Jesus understood this when he articulated the revolutionary formula, "Love your enemy." More than any other action, this strategy has the power to cure you of the distortions your enemy has unleashed in you. Try it out.
When he's in his prime, a male panda performs an average of eight handstands a day. There's no apparent evolutionary purpose in this stunt. He does it because it feels good. I suggest you make him your role model in the coming week, Leo. Identify three activities you can do not because they're "good for you" or because they'll advance some goal you're pursuing, but simply for the sheer fun of it. If you can't think of any play-time endeavors that fit this description, do the meditation and research necessary to find some. Whatever deeds you ultimately settle on, do them at least eight times a day. (P.S. Do you know how to do cartwheels?)
What blessings will life bring you? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
The English language is in a state of rapid ferment. New words are barging into the dictionary at an unprecedented rate, even as old familiars fall into disuse. There's one exception to this trend: profanity. Hoary favorites like "fuck," "shit," and "asshole" have gained an acceptance unthinkable 30 years ago, but fresh curse words are rarely coined.
At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we find the overused classics inadequate for expressing our evolving rage at injustice, ignorance, and ugliness. Furthermore, as deadening clichés, they don't satisfy the pronoiac mandate to use language with sonorous precision.
There's another problem. Anger has become one of the trendiest emotions of all. In moderation it can be a righteous force for constructive change. But its hackneyed omnipresence means the vast majority of its outbreaks are trivial. The paucity of colorful obscenities is aggravated by an abundance of frivolous fury.
How can you purge the clichéd ire that dilutes the useful, inspired stuff? One good method is to make fun of it by expressing it bigger than life. Try this. Go alone to a place where it's safe to feel blind rage. Envision a person or thing you love to hate, then unleash the following mantra 15 times in the most vulgar tones possible: "You miasmic heap of shaved-off cemetery warts. You mangled preen of politicians' tongue scabs. You brackish tripe of experts' ego tinkles. You fragile crap of orphaned tyrants. You demented cluster of fickle weasel vows. You curdled slosh of rotting fracas-spawned opinions."
It might be a good idea to temporarily avoid wearing stiletto heels, Virgo. The risk of slipping while wearing them is greater than usual. In a similar vein, I suggest you refrain from tightrope walking, putting yourself on a pedestal, or dreaming of climbing a ladder to the clouds. Two more suggestions: Don't look down on people whom you imagine are inferior to you and don't promise more than you can deliver. You catch my drift? Stay away from high and mighty forms of expression. Choose low, deep, and funky positions instead. Be as down-to-earth as you can possibly be.
Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
In order to live, you've got to be a demolisher. You take plants and animals that were once alive and rip them apart with your teeth, then disintegrate them in your digestive system.
Your body is literally on fire inside, burning up the oxygen you suck into your lungs.
You didn't actually cut down the trees used to make your house and furniture, but you colluded with their demise.
Then there's the psychological liquidation you've done: killing off old beliefs you've outgrown, for instance.
I'm not trying to make you feel guilty—just pointing out that you have a lot of experience with positive expressions of destruction.
Can you think of other forms this magic takes? As an aspiring master of pronoia, it's one of your specialties--a talent you have a duty to wield with energetic grace.
The wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy loves how smart her husband is. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd quotes Carla Bruni-Sarkozy as saying, "He has five or six brains which are remarkably irrigated." I suspect that description will apply to you in the coming weeks, Libra. Even if you have had just one brain up until now, you will seem, at least temporarily, to have as many as six bright facets to your intelligence. I advise you to sic this superpower on complex dilemmas that have baffled you for many moons. You'll have an excellent chance to break them down into component parts and solve the hell out of them.
Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
You are potentially a genius. Maybe not in the same way that Einstein and Beethoven were, but still: You possess some exceptional capacity that is 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.
What question will you ask the Divine Wow today?
At one point during the comedic film Life of Brian, set in ancient Rome, the hero Brian is working as a vendor selling snacks to spectators at a gladiator match. "Wrens' livers," he says. "Jaguars' earlobes. Wolf nipple chips. Get 'em while they're hot." A potential buyer turns to him and asks, "Got any nuts?" Brian says, "I haven't got any nuts. Sorry. I've got larks' tongues. Otters' noses. Ocelot spleens." Judging from your current astrological omens, Scorpio, I suspect you may soon be in a position analogous to the spectator. You will really want plain old basic nuts, but someone will be trying to get you to sample the wrens' livers. My advice? Steer clear of exotic stuff you don't have an appetite for. Hold out until the nuts are available.
Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking. While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.
There's a new source of abundance available for you to tap into, Sagittarius. It won't necessarily come in the form of a pile of cash or an influx of hot suitors or an upgrade in your social status. I mean those things are possible, but I'd rather concentrate on identifying the plenitude that's more likely to occur: increased energy. Your health is likely to be at its peak, and so will your generosity of spirit. Your senses will bring you a wealth of fresh perceptions, and your love of life will expand and intensify. And who knows? This enhanced vigor might help you corral a pile of cash or hot suitors or an upgrade of social status.
Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
Is there anything more dangerous than getting up in the morning and having nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat you up? That state can be a threat to your health. If untreated, it incites an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might rouse some excitement.
Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself--indeed, you make yourself--through the riddles you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.
Last June, Neculai Ivascu was re-elected mayor of Voinesti, a Romanian town he had led for almost two decades. The only problem was, he was dead. "I know he died," said one of the villagers who voted to return him to office, "but I don't want change." I hope you won't go that far in your resistance to the forces of evolution, Capricorn. It's time for at least some of your old ways of thinking and being to expire, and there's no wisdom in trying to prop them up. My advice is to be brave: Gracefully agitate for transformation.
No one knows you better than you do. But maybe you'll be inspired to dig up even more self-knowledge if you tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
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 an ultimate truth.
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 a good time 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 state of mind. 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 divine kicks in the ass.
One of the greatest landslide victories in any election for U.S. President was Ronald Reagan's in 1984. He got 54 million votes, 17 million more than his opponent. On the other hand, Reagan's total was only 31 percent of all the Americans who were eligible to vote. So his "landslide" consisted of fewer than one out of every three adults. In the recent election, Barack Obama also won almost 31 percent of eligible voters, with 67 million votes. I think these vignettes provide an interesting caveat that you'd be wise to consider, Aquarius. In your personal sphere, a supposed majority might not be a majority at all. People in authority may have less of a mandate than they claim. As a result, you could have more power to spread your influence than you imagine.
What greater adventure is there than exploring the enigmas of your unique destiny? For more hints, listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
Cancer cells are constantly developing in our bodies. Luckily, our immune systems routinely kill them off. Similarly, our minds always harbor pockets of crazy-making misconceptions and faulty imprints. They usually don't rise up and render us insane thanks to the psychic versions of our immune systems.
How can you stay strong in your ability to fight off sickness and madness? You know the drill: Eat healthy food, sleep well, get physical exercise, minimize stress, give and receive love. But as an aspiring pronoiac, you have at your disposal other actions that can provide powerful boosts to your immune system. Here are examples:
Scheme to put yourself in the path of beautiful landscapes, buildings, art, and creatures.
Exercise your imagination regularly. Get in the habit of feeding your mind's eye images that fill you with wonder and vitality.
Eliminate uhs, you knows, I means, and other junk words from your speech. Avoid saying things you don't really mean and haven't thought out. Stop yourself when tempted to make scornful assertions about people.
Every night before you fall asleep, review the day's activities in your mind's eye. As if watching a movie about yourself, try to be calmly objective as you observe your memories from the previous 16 hours. Be especially alert for moments when you strayed from your purpose and didn't live up to your highest standards.
With a companion, sit in front of a turned-off TV as you make up a pronoiac story that features tricky benevolence, scintillating harmony, and amusing redemption. Speak this tale aloud or write it down.
Take on an additional job title, beautifier. Put it on your business card and do something every day to cultivate your skill. If you're a people person, bring grace and intrigue into your conversations; ask unexpected questions that provoke original thoughts. If you're an artist, leave samples of your finest work in public places. If you're a psychologist or sociologist, point out the institutions and relationships that are working really well. Whatever you do best, be alert for how you can refine it and offer it up to those who'll benefit from it.
If you're going through a phase when you feel you have nothing especially beautiful to offer, or if you think it would be self-indulgent to inject your own aesthetic into shared environments, turn for help to great artists and thinkers. Sneak O'Keeffe or Chagall prints onto unadorned walls in public places, for instance. Memorize poems by Rilke and Hafiz, and slip them into your conversations when appropriate. Program your cell phone so that its ring is Vivaldi's Stabat Mater in C Minor. Scrawl passages from Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk on the walls of public lavatories.
Research by forensic anthropologist Martin Jarvis suggests that Johann Sebastian Bach's wife probably wrote some of his music. Anna Magdalena didn't get the recognition she deserved because "women were not allowed to take credit for composition" in the 18th century. I expect a comparable theme to emerge in your own life, Pisces. A source that has operated behind the scenes may come forward. A helper who has not previously been given proper due could be acknowledged. A woman whose good work has been obscured by sexism or a man whose efforts have been distorted by injustice might rise up and claim her or his rightful place.
Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead.
Celebrate Unhappy Hour at least once a month. During this ritual blowout, you have license to complain and rant about everything that's driving you crazy. Get a sympathetic listener to be your receptacle or deliver your blast straight into the mirror. If you prefer, write it all down. One way or another, grouse nonstop about your secret shame, raw sorrow, bottomless wrath, unspeakable guilt, and unnerving twists of destiny. Feel free to unleash guttural moans or rueful cackles.
If performed regularly, Unhappy Hour serves as an exorcism that empties you of psychic toxins. Pronoia will then have a chance to flourish as you luxuriate more frequently in rosy moods and broad-minded visions.