TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest invites good writers to create awful prose. This year Rephah Berg won with this passage: "Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.'' This is an example of how you might perform a goofy desecration of the thing you do best or love most. What's the value in that? If you approach it with a tender intention to take yourself less seriously, you'll awaken dormant power in the thing you do best or love most.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): According to music critic Jon Pareles, "A great rock song is a good tune plus some inspired irritant — a shout, a noise, an enigmatic line, a raucous solo." Let that theme be your guide in the coming week. You're at the peak of your ability to create catalytic beauty, but you're most likely to get the responses you crave only if you add a feisty bite to your self-expression.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): What are you waiting for? The perfect moment? The last straw? The missing link? I hate to tell you this (actually, I love to tell you this, though I know it might initially hurt your feelings), but all your waiting is in vain. As long as you hope for some magic intervention to do your work for you, the magic intervention will never happen. The minute you take your destiny in your own hands, you'll realize exactly what you need to do in order to succeed without the perfect moment, last straw or missing link.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): You've probably seen the bumper sticker that says, "He who dies with the most toys, wins." It's a brattier version of the original, which is, "He who dies with the most gold, wins." But neither of these will be of use to you in the coming months. You're not going to die, and besides, the toys and gold you have won't be a good measure of your success. What will be? Your determination to keep ruthlessly editing your to-do list so that it contains only the few things that are truly important and fun. Here's your official bumper sticker slogan: "She who lives with the shortest to-do list, wins."
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I just met a Navajo medicine woman who showed me the "squat of power" practiced by the Pleiadean star people. She said it would free me of any urge to watch TV, and it did. She also gave me a karma-free spell to unbind me from my enemies (it worked!), and slipped me some hot financial tips she'd gleaned on the astral plane from a departed spirit that used to work at Goldman Sachs. I can't reveal any of these useful hints to you; she swore me to secrecy. Don't feel deprived: You'll soon tap into equally exotic sources that will provide you with equally practical advice.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): As delicious as the soup will be, it might have a fly in it. Though the new paint job will for the most part be expertly done, I bet there'll be a flaw in the perfect sheen. Well-laid plans may proceed with alacrity right up to the moment when a key player hiccups during a critical course-correction. Do not, however, misread the overall omens. They're mostly pretty sweet. A smudge in the halo is not a sign of evil incarnate, but of goodness pushing for more wildness.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): How much longer can you wrestle with the confounding angel? How much more melodrama can you wade through without seeking refuge as a daytime TV junkie, your curtains drawn and empty cookie packages accumulating on the floor? Will there ever be an end to the soul-boggling, gut-jiggling education? I'll remind you of the vow you took before you were born: "My elixir of life will never taste like sugar water, but will always be a blend of at least 77 mouth-watering, high-potency, profanely sacred ingredients."
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian Janos Bolyai was born in Transylvania in 1802. By age 20 he was an accomplished violinist, mathematical prodigy, skilled linguist and the best swordsman and dancer in the Austrian army. At that time, he wrote a 26-page paper that was tacked on as an appendix to a long mathematical textbook penned by his father. Janos' contribution turned out to be revolutionary. Long after his dad's tome was forgotten, his short treatise helped lay the foundations for a complete system of non-Euclidian geometry. Make him your patron saint for the next six weeks. I believe that you are primed to spawn a pithy creation that will not at first receive due credit; you will establish a landmark that'll turn out to be more influential than what seems important now.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Maybe you have faithfully acted on my counsel for years, and yet have still not become rich, married a gorgeous genius or been profiled for your brilliance by the New York Times. Does that mean I've failed? Is it time to move on to a more useful prophet? If those goals are your most cherished aspirations, I suggest you re-evaluate your relationship with me. If, on the other hand, you'd like to master the art of being happy no matter what your external circumstances are, stick around. The opportunities to do that will be especially good this week.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Is there anything you can do to attract heavenly grace? Can you coax God into granting you sweet favors by being a really nice person who follows all the rules? Some theologians say, "no way." They view the gift of grace as a product of divine whim which can neither be cultivated nor predicted. Other commentators timidly suggest "maybe": There is a possibility that one's good works can stimulate the creator's generosity. I don't know the answer myself. But I suspect you'll soon be visited by an act of mercy that looks like supernatural kindness. So you tell me: Have you earned it — or are you a random beneficiary?
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You should now have your sixth sense trained on the corrupt entity you want to overthrow. Your spies should have fully infiltrated the inner circle. Your intelligence reports, I hope, are streaming in. Soon it'll be time to gather your top allies for one last pep talk and strategy session. I suggest you plan the coup for sometime between October 11 and 18. Is there anything missing from your data? Maybe this counsel: Listen to what has not been said. Watch what has not been done. In absence and silence you will find out the rest of what you need to know. We all have a war going on inside ourselves. What's yours? Is it just and fruitful or senseless and war? Tell all at
