Monthly Archives: October 2013

Moonshine Horoscopes — Scorpio New Moon Edition

Dear Friend & Reader:

Sunday (Nov. 3) is the Scorpio New Moon and solar eclipse, exact at 7:50 am EST. (View full chart here; second chart) Genevieve Hathaway has interpreted this lunation for each of the 12 Moon signs in her horoscopes below.

Planet Waves

The conjunction of the Sun and Moon (the New Moon eclipse) is flanked on either side by Mercury (still retrograde) and Saturn. It’s all clustered near the lunar North Node, a calculated point that indicates that this eclipse is happening. And it looks intense.

North Node eclipses are associated with dharma, sometimes described as the soul’s path that we’re each on Earth to activate. It’s a more challenging path than simply sticking with what is familiar and comfortable. North Node eclipses give us a portal to new, unfamiliar ground — and that can invoke fear, especially if we try to cling to what is no longer serving us.

Mercury and Saturn so close to the Sun and Moon contain a caution against getting too caught up in fear-based secretiveness, isolation or the idea of ‘limitation’. Scorpio Moons can be brooding and dark; but Mercury is also offering a more conscious awareness of how emotions and thoughts influence each other. Saturn provides the stamina to work through your feelings once you’ve acknowledged them. Feelings deserve space in which to be felt fully and used constructively for deeper understanding — but they don’t need to run the show.

Making an exact sextile to this Scorpio grouping is Mars in Virgo. Sextiles are helpful aspects, but they ask us to make some effort to access that assistance. Mars is offering very practical, hands-on, specific energy and willpower in harmony with your consciousness, sub-consciousness, reason and powers of judgment. To have will and drive harmonized with all these levels of awareness is incredibly useful, but you do have to use it deliberately though your actions.

Taking clear, precise steps toward your goals (whether regarding sex, resources including but not limited to money, and deep inner transformation) is the idea. Keep moving with it. If you’re propelling yourself with intention into the depths of Scorpio, you’ll be able to use the momentum to resurface. It’s not the same as swirling in an eddy or sinking; ‘intention’ implies a vision, and desire to grow.

To read Genevieve’s horoscopes, it helps to know your Moon sign (where the Moon was at the moment of your birth), which you can find out by entering your birth data into Serennu.com. If you know your birth time, that will ensure accuracy — but often you can still be sure of its sign even if the exact degree is fuzzy. You can also read these horoscopes for your Sun and rising signs for additional insight.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter

 

These Moonshine Horoscopes are written by Genevieve Hathaway. Genevieve is an astrologer and Planet Waves contributor. She is available for astrology readings. You can contact her at genevieve@venusinblue.com.

 

Scorpio New Moon Moonshine Horoscopes | By Genevieve Hathaway

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This week’s Scorpio solar eclipse is bringing you into contact with your own personal power to heal emotional pain. You’ve been working and re-working an inner wound for some time, and it may have seemed like you kept coming back to the same point. What you were doing was moving through all the layers of fear and guilt to connect with the heart of the matter. As the energy ramps up over the eclipse, it may feel like there is a building tension inside of you — similar to a screw being turned tighter and tighter, pushing for honesty with yourself regarding what you are healing. Move with this energy; as you are truthful about the influence of other people on you and how it has contributed to this wound, notice how the feelings inside of you shift. You are establishing new patterns for healing emotionally. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — With one eclipse almost two weeks ago and another eclipse this week, it may seem as though life has accelerated to warp speed. A relationship dynamic is changing quickly. You have a few options available, though they may feel more like risks — as though they require daring and boldness. I suggest instead of viewing these situations as risky, which implies there is something to lose, take the longer view that these are opportunities to learn about yourself and those involved. What you are challenging is old internal programming that told you how relationships ‘should’ be structured. You are in a moment of breaking through those barriers, and embracing an openness about your relationships that allows for dynamics and structures based on who you and partners are as individuals — complete with unique needs, wants and desires. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Recently, it may have felt like your mind has its own agenda. As a small child, you adopted many negative thought processes, or scripts, from authority figures around you. Those mental programs are the voices in your head that have messages of doubt, fear or lack of worth. Lately, you have been able to observe what transpires in your mental space with more objectivity. This week’s powerful eclipse in Scorpio is calling you to claim authority over your thoughts and get rid of those adopted negative scripts. I suggest starting with recognizing a thought as one of these scripts or programs, and then applying precision and focus on a daily basis to insert new thought patterns. Try viewing this process as an opportunity to make your mind work for you — all the time. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — I propose a question: What is your relationship to your creativity? Do you set aside time, regularly, to nurture and tend it? If it has felt recently like you’ve run into more blocks than actual access to your creative potential, I suggest not worrying about it. What is being brought up for your review are any doubts you’ve carried regarding how creative you are. Currently, you have a lot of energy at your disposal to blast apart these blockages. Like throwing a stick of dynamite against a wall, you’ll be able to remove the barrier with little effort. And once those structures have been leveled, what will be left is an infinite well of creativity that you’ll always have access to. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — The solar eclipse taking place this week in Scorpio is highlighting the area of your chart that has to do with your sense of emotional security. I suggest paying close attention to what you learn this week; you are gaining important information on the cause of any feelings of insecurity or lack of solidity about who you are. By challenging emotional insecurities, you are further expanding out into your own life. Remember, you have a right to existence and to feel safe and secure in who you are. What you are reclaiming is something that is innately yours, but may have felt intangible because someone at a point in your life ingrained the idea into your psyche. As you move through this process, I suggest holding space for those around you to also strengthen their own emotional security.
— by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — For a while, it may have felt like you’ve been having the same conversations over and over without any sign of tangible progress. I suggest you persist with those discussions. Over the solar eclipse, information is shaking loose. Pay close attention to what others involved say and also what they omit or don’t say. Both will provide you with plenty of useful information to bring about the progress you seek. You are in a moment of making some positive changes regarding a few important negotiations, as though you turned a corner you never thought you would reach. The landscape surrounding these situations and the relationship dynamics with these parties is changing quickly, bringing you a reevaluation of how to proceed. Take time to check and double-check what you learn. Proceed thoughtfully, giving yourself time to fully grasp the scope of the new information you are gaining.
— by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Think of your self-esteem as a big block of ice, something you could hold, but couldn’t get in or surround yourself with. The eclipse is like an intense fire rapidly melting that ice in a bathtub. After the ice melts, you can sink deep into that water, letting it envelop you. This gives you a new way to interact with your self-esteem and a new way to exist in it, which is what the Scorpio eclipse will bring you into contact with. Like that water in the bathtub, this new avenue or mode of sensing yourself will be easier to shift into. As you take those steps to try out the new ideas emerging from deep in your internal space, what you are gaining is a form of self-esteem that is more in balance with your deeper sense of who you are. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

 

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — The solar eclipse this week takes place in your Moon sign, bringing a burst of energy to your emotional framework. This may seem like going from lighting a room with a candle to lighting a room with a massively powerful generator and a thousand light bulbs. You’ll be able to see every nook, cranny and crack. As you re-examine your inner space, go to work on all those crevices, dents and cracks. Follow your intuition as you work. If you feel the need to take out a wall and open the space up, do so. As you update your emotional space, do as many revisions and renovations as needed until you feel at home in the space. What you are building is an updated version of your emotional patterns that fits who you are authentically at this moment in your life. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — During this week’s eclipse in Scorpio, your 12th house may feel more like a packed conference room than a hidden realm. With a number of planets and minor planets moving through this area of your chart, the metaphorical conference room could get quite loud and boisterous. This may come with the feeling like there are a lot of competing voices and ideas going on inside of you. As you adjust your relationship to these different facets of yourself that are speaking up, how you communicate with your intuition will shift and adjust. What you are connecting with is how to refine and tune your collecting and processing of the information your intuition gives you. Ultimately, you are strengthening your connection with your psychic self, helping it communicate effectively with the emotional and mental aspects of yourself. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — As the eclipse takes place this week in Scorpio, I suggest considering how you make your plans and the steps you take to apply them. A particular goal may seem like it’s been especially resistant to planning and execution. I propose it’s not necessarily the goal that’s the issue; rather you’re being pushed to expand your approach. You have enough creativity and resources at your disposal to tackle even the most unconventional situation. At the moment, you are being pushed to apply those skills and resources. This may feel like it comes with a stretch, though instead of reaching for what you want, build a bridge to it through designing plans and putting them into action. As you practice this technique, notice how many larger and more complex goals you can now reach. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — As an Aquarius Moon, you don’t like limitations. In fact, you are generally happier to ignore them or hop over them without breaking stride. For a while you’ve been holding a vision for your career. Over this week’s solar eclipse in Scorpio, you are in a moment where what you imagine and the vision you hold for your career is even more important. As you work putting this vision into practice it is important to know what you can give and what you can’t give; in other words, where your limitations and boundaries lie. I suggest taking a new approach to the idea of limits — instead of something that restricts you, consider them a useful source of information to provide further clarity. What is on offer is the opportunity to apply this knowledge to help you shape and define the vision you hold for your career.
— by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Recently, you’ve been reevaluating a few important ideas regarding your belief system. Questioning what you believe and why may come with the sensation that what you are doing is very precarious — like the delicate web that holds your life together was one cut or break away from completely unraveling. Challenging and questioning what you believe and why has been a deep process that has taken you through layer after layer of your psyche. This week’s eclipse is shooting you out the other side of this process. Like exiting a wormhole, you may find yourself very rapidly in a new place in terms of the structures of what you believe. I suggest taking some time to explore this new foundation you’ve built, especially the areas where you feel a sense of belonging. This is a sign that what you’ve created grew from your deepest authentic self. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

 

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Uranus Square Pluto — and Your Moonshine Horoscopes

Dear Friend and Reader:

This week we’re in the midst of oceanic astrological forces; a time when internally and externally, much is in motion. Friday is the fourth exact contact of the Uranus-Pluto square, the astrological signature for this moment — and this entire era. And that’s only part of it.

Planet Waves
Rainbow near the top of Vernal Fall, Yosemite National Park. Photo by Amanda Painter.

The other major astrological event defining this week is the Scorpio New Moon and solar eclipse on Sunday. Genevieve Hathaway has made the New Moon eclipse the focus of this week’s Moonshine Horoscopes, interpreting it for all 12 signs.

In tonight’s Planet Waves FM, Eric will pay tribute to the elemental force known as Lou Reed, celebrating his life in music, interviews and astrology. He’ll also dive into the symbols coming out of the sky and the forthcoming total eclipse in Scorpio. Planet Waves FM posts by 8 pm Tuesdays, usually much earlier.

Today’s Daily Astrology column explores another angle of the week’s astrology, which is strong with Scorpio vibes: Mars is suggesting that getting focused on the physical is a way out of any sense that sex has gotten too ‘spiritual’ to be practical. And a Mercury-Saturn conjunction in Scorpio could get you introspective and focused on any very personal projects.

We began the week with an overview in Monday’s Daily Astrology of the forces available to us now. Despite the cautions that go with Mercury retrograde, this truly is a week in which to “Do it while you can.” Whatever “it” may be for you, there are openings through which you can step to advance your life forward; take them.

Len Wallick’s column will post at about noon. Today, he covers the building energy between Mars, Pluto and Chiron, with thoughts on how to use it constructively, rather than as a double-edged sword. Healing takes courage — and it is available to you now.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter

 

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This Land is My Land: The Story of Brook Farm CSA

Planet Waves

With the first frost approaching, Creek Iversen and a bunch of students from SUNY New Paltz about to go picking peppers on an autumn afternoon at Brook Farm. Photo by Eric Francis.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Some people have no sense of irony.

In June 2011, Mohonk Mountain House, a high-end hotel in New Paltz, NY, sold approximately 874 acres of its land to the Open Space Institute (OSI), the land preservation organization where former Mohonk Preserve board member Robert K. Anderberg is vice president and general counsel. Planet Waves readers have heard of Anderberg before — he’s the mastermind behind attempts to illegally claim large swaths of the Grandmother Land, where I take many photos, and put it into the hands of land conservancies.

This transaction is part of a much larger foothills preservation initiative by land conservation organizations that’s been in the news the past few years, the stated purpose of which is to protect land close to the Shawangunks from development. When you study the plans, however, it can start to feel like the region is being raided by land conservancies who intend to acquire every square inch they can get their hands on, by any means necessary.

Planet Waves
Working at Brook Farm CSA, October 2013. Photo by Eric Francis.

Almost immediately upon acquiring the land, OSI offered a lease to about 323 acres to an organization to which it’s closely related, called Glynwood Institute.

Described by Harvard University as “one of the nation’s leading sustainable agriculture and food organizations,” it does its best to present that image.

Glynwood and OSI are funded from the same pot of gold — the Wallace Foundation, created from the profits of Reader’s Digest, a favorite magazine of Middle America. Another interesting fact: OSI even owns the land where Glynwood’s headquarters is located, demonstrating OSI’s influence over Glynwood on the decisions you’re about to read about.

If you read Glynwood’s literature, you hear about how its mission is to encourage community-based agriculture. You’ll see pictures of horses pulling a plough, guided by young people, and greenhouses, and barns, and idyllic scenes of rural life the way things used to be. Their webpages and brochures are public relations masterpieces, appealing to the “back to the land” spirit of prospective donors to the organization.

Glynwood has plans to start up a number of farming incubator projects on the acreage it will be leasing from OSI (there is a rumor that this will be a 99-year lease, though I could not confirm that) all of which in theory are designed to help encourage the farmers of the future, in a controlled, almost academic environment rather than how it’s usually taught — through a form of apprenticeship.

As it turns out, there’s already a working farm on the land that Glynwood is leasing, called the Brook Farm Project. An actual organic CSA (community-supported agriculture) project, it’s been there for 10 years. After making many improvements to the land and farmhouse over the past decade, Brook Farm is a thriving community that by some miracle broke even in the 2013 growing season.

Planet Waves
Organic farmer Guy Jones tells Brook Farm supporters the story of how his farm was foreclosed on by Open Space Institute (OSI) when he could not make a mortgage payment after Hurricane Irene. Then they ‘flipped’ the property. Photo by Eric Francis.

In June, Brook Farm Project was informed by OSI, in the person of Robert Anderberg, that it would be shut down. Glynwood, for all its widely-advertised ideals, plans to commence its relationship to the community by kicking out an actual organic, community-supported farm run by young people — the very thing it says that it supports.

Brook Farm is a source of food for New Paltz families, a place for people interested in farming to work the land, and a place to meet others who have bonded into an extended family. Its farm stand near The Bakery in New Paltz had become a friendly summertime fixture.

A community meeting called by the Friends of the Brook Farm Project was held in October, which packed Deyo Hall with people concerned about the conduct of local land trusts and the closely related Glynwood Institute.

Among the facts that came out: Brook Farm takes up just 20 acres of the 323 acres that Glynwood will be leasing. Unless there’s some huge divergence in mission, values or purpose, one would think that the two projects could coexist in a mutually productive way. Three hundred twenty-three acres is more land than most local farmers can imagine, and is just one part of Glynwood’s land holdings.

Before I go any further, I have a question. How come every time I write an article mentioning OSI and the name Robert Anderberg, someone else is getting kicked out of their home, off of their land or being sued to have their property taken from them? Is this some coincidence, or is there a pattern?

At the Oct. 2 community meeting in support of Brook Farm, a man named Guy Jones, an organic farmer, told this story. Seven years ago, Anderberg approached Jones, saying OSI wanted a working farmer on a tract of land in Orange County that the organization was willing to sell to him.

“Farming is all we do for a living,” he said, knowing he would be the perfect tenant. But he was still skeptical. He said OSI came on like a buddy and persuaded him to take the offer — $300,000 for 110 acres, and they would hold the mortgage.

“At closing they banged me for another $100 grand plus a mandatory donation,” Jones said to the group of 75 Brook Farm supporters. Still, Jones became OSI’s poster child for organic farming, even appearing on the cover of the organization’s annual report.

Planet Waves
Photo by Eric Francis.

OSI sold Jones a balloon mortgage, meaning that he would make interest payments, then pay off the principal at the end of the mortgage. When the balloon payment came due two years ago, Hurricane Irene struck and Jones lost $250,000 worth of crops in the flooding.

Despite the obvious hardship, OSI would not renegotiate the mortgage, Jones explained.

“They said ‘Give us all the money or get the fuck out’. They wouldn’t even talk. I owed them the last month’s interest and I was hoping to wrap that into a new mortgage. But they foreclosed and then they sued me for the last month’s interest,” needlessly forcing him off his land at a considerable financial loss.

“Then they resold the property. They flipped it. They sold it for $400,000 cash.”

“These guys are bullies,” Jones warned the supporters of Brook Farm Project, referring to OSI. “They’re not nice people and they’re not going to negotiate. They’ve got the title and they’re just going to drive it. They don’t need to listen to anyone.”

That much is true. Brook Farm organizers say they have been left out of all the significant discussions, and that OSI and Glynwood officials have refused to attend their meetings. The heads of OSI and Glynwood did not reply to emails sent to them for comment in this article.

Creek Iversen, who runs the farm, was put under a gag order by OSI officials, which led to the resignations of three Brook Farm board members in protest — gardening columnist Lee Reich, Culinary Institute instructor Rich Vergili, and Dan Getman, a local attorney.

“Recently, the board has not functioned as a board should — by consensus or majority rule,” they wrote in a resignation letter signed by all three.

Planet Waves
Brook Farmers Creek Iversen and Lisa Mitten. Photo by Eric Francis.

“Each of us also wishes to dissociate ourselves from the recent joint public statement released by BFP [Brook Farm Project], OSI, and Glynwood, as well as from statements made to Creek Iversen dictating his activities apart from the work for which he was hired. Neither of these activities were authorized by the board though they purported to be issued under that authority. And they contravened the board’s instructions. We cannot be part of a board that is treated in this way.”

Those involved with Brook Farm and the organizations supporting it say that Anderberg is directly involved in calling the shots, as general counsel of Open Space Institute.

In August, Planet Waves reported on a lawsuit that exposed how Anderberg, who serves as a land-acquisition agent for Mohonk, devised a scheme to purchase land from someone who the State Supreme Court ultimately determined did not own it. After securing a false deed, Mohonk then sued the rightful owners, Karen Pardini and Michael Fink, trying to legitimize its title. The courts rejected the effort, affirming Pardini and Fink as the actual owners.

I also reported how Anderberg, representing a land conservancy, once purchased a nonexistent interest in land from a former owner, then the conservancy tried to sue Pardini and Fink to take the land. That effort, too, was rejected by the State Supreme Court, which held that Pardini and Fink could bring a fraud lawsuit against the people who had done this to them.

More recently, I reported the well-known story of Louise Haviland, who in the 1980s owned land adjacent to the Mohonk Preserve. Anderberg personally purchased her mortgage from its holder, and after he did so, took advantage of a provision allowing him to call in the note — that is, to demand that Haviland pay him back all at once.

Planet Waves
Last watermelon of the year at Brook Farm. Photo by Eric Francis.

When she could not do that, Anderberg brought a foreclosure action against her and her tenants, ultimately taking possession of the land and selling it to Mohonk, which is often the beneficiary of OSI transactions.

Honest land preservation involves a willing seller or donor — not someone from whom land is unwillingly taken. OSI and Mohonk supporters overlook these transgressions, arguing for how much good the organizations allegedly do protecting land from development.

Nobody is contesting that Glynwood Institute and OSI have a right to choose their own tenant. No evidence shows that any of the land transactions involved in Brook Farm have been illegal, though I have not personally studied the deed record. Many locals have noted that as land coms off the tax rolls and is placed in the hands of conservancies, residents of the towns involved end up paying their share of the tax burden. That would be reasonable if the organizations really were acting in the public interest.

The common thread is about the illusion of something versus the underlying reality. The illusion perpetuated by Mohonk and OSI is that they are good neighbors and stewards, not land-grabbers. They go out of their way to perpetuate that image. Glynwood kicking Brook Farm off the land it’s occupied for 10 years challenges the illusion that Glynwood supports community agriculture or plans to help “incubate” young farmers.

The three organizations involved — Mohonk, OSI and Glynwood — seem to be playing a shell game with accountability for this action. For example, in a series of public statements, Glenn Hoagland, the executive director of the Mohonk Preserve, assured the New Paltz community that Brook Farm Project would be left alone.

In early 2012, The Oracle student newspaper at SUNY New Paltz covered the foothills acquisition project and reported that, “Hoagland confirmed that the Brook Farm CSA will continue leasing property.”

Planet Waves
The last squashes of the fall harvest, too small to sell but not too small to eat. Photo by Eric Francis.

In 2011, he told The Gunk Journal, “No major changes to the use of the land are contemplated, we would opt for what we call ‘mixed use’ conservation. That would mean a combination of public use of the lands, where possible, scientific research, educational work with schools and colleges, and the continuation of the present-day sustainable farming at Brook Farm.”

He made similar reassurances at a meeting earlier this year where Mohonk was seeking approval of the New Paltz Town Board on a state grant that would help with its acquisition of the foothills land — Brook Farm would stay where it is.

The problem here is that Hoagland is not in a position to make these statements about Brook Farm. Mohonk is managing a large tract of OSI’s land, though the property that Brook Farm currently occupies will be under the control of Glynwood Institute.

Perhaps Hoagland was mistaken, or maybe his statements were designed to reassure the community that Brook Farm, something it loves and cares about, would be left alone. He has said the same thing many times, and it turns out not to be true.

At the Oct. 2 community meeting about Brook Farm, Mohonk Preserve sent the chairman of its board of directors, Ron Knapp, to represent the Preserve. (Nobody from OSI or Glynwood attended; presumably Knapp was their guy in the room.) After listening to community members vehemently express their concerns about land trusts for three hours running, he stunned the room by asking people to make donations to the Preserve so that it could raise $2 million and purchase land from OSI. That is what I said, and I saw it with my own eyes: at the end of the meeting, Knapp tried to get a little cash out of a bunch of people trying to save the CSA that he was helping crush. Had I not been there, I might not have believed it.

Planet Waves
Creek Iversen teaches New Paltz students the basics of food production at Brook Farm CSA. Photo by Eric Francis.

The next weekend, Brook Farm Project held a concert and festival to build public support for its plight to stay on the land. Pete Seeger was on the schedule.

Twice, Glynwood Institute officials tried to talk him out of performing at the event. Yes, they contacted the 94-year-old singer, who has stood up for every imaginable progressive cause for the past 75 years, and tried to persuade him not to support the Brook Farm Project. As I said — some people have no sense of irony.

Tom O’Dowd is a former member of the board of directors of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, an environmental organization founded by Seeger. He wrote to Seeger on Oct. 3 and pleaded with him not to “join the unfortunate bashing of OSI, Glynwood, and Mohonk Preserve.”

The lobbying efforts didn’t work. Seeger performed as planned. Members of his organization were confused because they didn’t notice any bashing going on, just some young people trying to save their farm from green-coated agribusiness.

“I have not seen my father so pleased with an afternoon of music in a long time,” his daughter Tinya Seeger wrote to Brook Farm Project’s leadership. “The afternoon was such a relief for him. He loved seeing so many local singing young people and is enthusiastically in support of all of you.”

Many people in New Paltz and the surrounding towns feel the same way. The ball is now in Glynwood’s and OSI’s court — let’s see if they do the right thing.

Lovingly,

Additional Research: Amy Elliott and Lizanne E. Webb.

Note to those in the Albany, NY area: I will be the keynote speaker at the Property Rights Foundation of America conference Saturday. My topic will be “Preserving Our Property Rights Against Conservationists.” This will be held at The Century House, Latham, New York. For details please see their website.

 

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Clove Valley Cemetery on the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY. Photo by Eric Francis.

Scorpio in Two Directions

Monday, Mercury stationed retrograde in Scorpio, so you may have spent the past few days adjusting to the fact that the tide turned without you noticing. It’s often necessary to reset your mind and your routines after this meaningful little planet changes directions, so give yourself an opportunity to do that.

If you’ve been distracted from something, pick up where you left off. If you were in the midst of sorting out an emotional question, note that you may be seeing things from a new point of view now that Mercury is treading backwards through our zodiac, and will be doing so until Nov. 10. [Additional coverage here.]

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Chart for the Nov. 3 combined annular and total solar eclipse, set for Kingston, New York. The eclipse is conjunct retrograde Mercury, the North Node and Saturn.

Meanwhile, the Sun ingressed Scorpio early Wednesday morning EDT, making a forward trek across that sign. There will be a series of solar events the next two weeks — including a conjunction of Mercury and the Sun on Nov. 1 and a solar eclipse conjunct both Mercury and Saturn on Nov. 3.

Also on Nov. 1 is the fourth of seven events of Uranus square Pluto — the 2012-era aspect. This is the central event, the one marking the midpoint of a process that officially extends until March 2015, when we have the seventh exact square. Just to give you an idea how slow this process is, after the square, we will reach the opposition point of this cycle (Uranus opposite Pluto) in 2046.

All of this is happening at a time of year where there’s already plenty of concentrated energy and when we have that ‘thin veil’ sensation of Sun-Scorpio. That has been commemorated for millennia with holidays similar to Halloween, from Egypt to the Americas, that have celebrated the connection between the worlds of the living and the dead, honoring the ancestors and tuning in to the impending approach of Northern Hemisphere winter.

Remember, in the old days there were no guarantees of surviving winter, and many people (including children, the elderly and the infirm) did not. There was no guarantee that the food, the fuel or the candles would hold up. Nobody knew how long winter would last. We are fortunate to live in much more stable times now, but the memory is contained in our cells. Note that anyone who threatens the supply lines for basic necessities is not a friend.

Mercury, the Sun and the eclipse are part of the grand water trine that has been developing most of the year. In addition to all this Scorpio activity, the grand trine includes Jupiter in Cancer and Neptune and Chiron in Pisces.

That’s more emotional and psychic energy than we’re accustomed to, and it could be manifesting for some people as confusion or drama, or feel overwhelming. This is the time to see the patterns and do something about them, taking incremental steps and acting on what you know. If you know something and know you should take action, I suggest you ask yourself what’s motivating you.

One remedy to the emotional quality of the sky is Mars in Virgo. That’s suggesting that precise action, focusing on what needs to be done and getting it done efficiently and with some determination, will be helpful. Note that Mercury and Mars are occupying one another’s signs — Mars is the traditional ruler of Scorpio, Mercury of Virgo. The two placements are working together.

There is plenty to be done, and it needs to be done well so that you don’t have to go through the same thing three more times. Allow the Mercury retrograde process to help you work in layers, doing as much as you can, seeing what needs redoing or additional detail, and going deeper. The combination of those four factors, Mercury, Mars, Virgo and Scorpio, can produce some excellent results. There’s both cognitive intelligence and innate knowing; attention to detail and attention to the psychological angle of things.

Note to Readers: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck and Carol van Strum, with research assistance by the Planet Waves staff. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet.

 

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Republican Unraveling?

“Genetic Republican” and presidential great-grandson John G. Taft published a stern editorial in The New York Times on Wednesday, saying he didn’t recognize the party of his forebears in the “bomb-throwing obstructionism” currently underway, and comparing the Tea Party to McCarthyism. Taft echoes the sentiments of a Texas judge who denounced the party’s “ideological character assassination” in an announcement of his decision to run as a Democrat.

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Drunk on power and religion, Tea Party Republicans may finally be turning off their constituents — and ‘real’ Republicans.

A CNN poll shows that the Republicans have the approval of 12% of the country’s voters, while a Washington Post poll gave them 32% and the Tea Party less than a quarter. When respondents were asked about the government shutdown tactic, roughly eight out of 10 disapproved. Dissent from old-school Republicans continues to grow, with Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah suggesting that the hard-right faction needs “rehabilitation” and openly expressing concerns about the Heritage Foundation’s influence.

In New Jersey, Democrat Cory Booker won handily over Tea Party opponent Steve Lonegan, and Democrat Terry McAuliffe stands a good chance of winning the Virginia governor’s race.

Yet inside the scream machine, the most strident promoters of right-wing hysteria kept up the battle cry: the shutdown was heroic, and Obama and the Democrats are the ones who should worry. At GOP.com, banners demanded the firing of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul calmly endorsed “misinformation” as a viable tactic in a speech to a group of medical students.

On Fox Noise, Bill O’Reilly accuses Democrats of outright socialism, while Karl Rove suggests that the executive branch is “in la-la land.” Sean Hannity produced a segment in which three interviewees straight-out lied about having attempted to navigate the ACA website.

What’s driving this ongoing cesspool of idiocy? People for the American Way has a list of some 800 organizations and “think tanks” busily spewing policy suggestions and stirring feces on behalf of those who, like the billionaire Koch brothers, are desperately eager to defund the social safety net, crush workers’ rights, and promote corporate profit at the expense of both the environment and the people in it. Sloganeering and a drumbeat of fear are used to convince folks in the heartland and hinterlands that when the right-wing “saves the day,” they’ll have “their America” back.

It would seem that Tea Party darling Ted Cruz is staying true to his Christian Dominionist roots — a theological construct that exhorts evangelicals to go forth and seize all the money by divine right — which dovetails nicely with the goals of the corporate empire builders.

Back on Earth, 58% of Americans support marriage equality and marijuana legalization, and as of February of this year, 54% favored developing alternative energy sources.

De-Bugging the Affordable Care Act

Experts brought on board by the Department of Health and Human Services are striving to straighten out the operational issues facing HealthCare.gov, the central portal through which Americans are expected to access the insurance marketplace established under the Affordable Care Act.

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A 2012 rally in support of the Affordable Care Act in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of LaDawna Howard/Mountiewire.com.

Reports of site crashes and slow loading times have plagued the website’s soft launch, which coincided with the government shutdown of Oct. 1. What seems to be emerging is a textbook bureaucratic snafu, no doubt complicated by the intensity of the political debate surrounding the legislation that is styled “Obama’s signature accomplishment” by supporters and some odd confabulation of doomsday, slavery and Communism by right-wing pundits.

Those who have succeeded in using HealthCare.gov to create secure accounts and shop the insurance exchanges say the results aren’t bad; the subsidies offered do, in fact, create affordable healthcare choices. The Congressional Budget Office projects that by the end of 2014, about 16 million more U.S. citizens will have health insurance and that, over the next decade, the ACA will result in aslight reduction in the national deficit.

The processes of the several private contracting firms responsible for the nuts and bolts of the website and the government agency they were working with were rife with miscommunication, the site crashed during a test just hours before the rollout, and contractors apparently felt pressed for time and at the mercy of arbitrary decisions. These factors, aired during Congressional hearings on Thursday, offered ample grist for the blame mill, much of its outpouring aimed at Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Blamers, of course, conveniently ignore the fact that the noisome tantrum being thrown by extremist opponents of the law has required both Obama and Sebelius to stay focused on trying to correct massive onslaughts of misinformation, rather than hands-on oversight of the stuff under the hood. Demands that Sebelius be fired would, if accommodated, take one of the most knowledgeable players out of the game. Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reached out to techie-pioneer-turned-party-boy John McAfee as their vision of the Answer Man,a role he has apparently declined.

While it all gets sorted out, some Democrats are joining Republicans in advocating that enforcement of the individual mandate section of the ACA, which levies penalties against people who remain uninsured, should be delayed while the website gets fixed. An A-team of specialists has been brought in to troubleshoot the massive system, which is intended to be used by insurance seekers, insurance companies, and government employees from various agencies performing complex tasks such as income verification.

Estimates are that the website will be fully operational by the end of 2013 or early 2014.

 

Planet Waves

A Canadian Crackdown in the Fracking Clash

Indigenous Mi’kmaq protesters and Royal Canadian Mounted Police clashed on Turtle Island in New Brunswick on Oct. 17. Cars were burned and some 40 people arrested in a raid on the ongoing blockade the Mi’kmaq had established against shale gas exploration by SNW Operating Company of Texas.

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Police say at least five police vehicles were set ablaze in Rexton, New Brunswick, as RCMP began enforcing an injunction to end an ongoing demonstration against shale gas exploration Oct. 17. Photo: The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan.

Within a day, protests had sprung up across Canada in support of the Mi’kmaq and messages of support were pouring in from indigenous activists and environmentalists around the globe. In 2010, the government of New Brunswick opened one-seventh of the province to possible fracking, and Premier David Alward has refused calls for a referendum on the issue, in spite of (or because of) the evidence that two out of three Atlantic Canadians are against it.

Alward and Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock agreed on Friday to a cooling-off period, but it’s unclear whether any of this will impact the provincial government’s behavior. Indiscriminate mineral extraction and disregard for treaty rights are an unholy combination that puts the entire North American continent at risk of outcomes far more sinister than a few flaming cop cars.

In New York, Onondaga representatives paddled down the Hudson to the United Nations last summer in the company of non-native allies to win support for enforcement of the Two Row Treaty of peaceful coexistence, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court refuse a land claim suit that had been working its way through the courts since 2005. Since 1823, indigenous treaty rights have been considered subordinate to the Doctrine of Discovery, which holds that Christians may “discover,” take and use land held by non-Christians.

The Canadian government takes similar positions on the “rule of law.” Generations of frustration and the threat posed by fracking and tar sands extraction have crystallized the Idle No More protest movement, putting indigenous people and their allies on the front lines of the resistance. While international bodies like the UN have offered treaty rights proponents a sympathetic ear, national governments seem determined to keep stonewalling.

 

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Mountain Astrologer Article on Monsanto Available Free

Over the summer, The Mountain Astrologer published my investigative feature on the astrology of Monsanto. That article is now available free to all readers as a PDF download.

The article examines the natal chart of Monsanto — the first time this has been done in a competent and accessible manner (perhaps the first time ever). You’re invited to both read and share the PDF with others concerned about the rise of Monsanto and genetically modified organisms.

Group Says No Consensus on GMO Safety

The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility on Monday strongly refuted claims of GMO safety, saying it felt “compelled to issue this statement because the claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist. The claim that it does exist is misleading and misrepresents the currently available scientific evidence and the broad diversity of opinion among scientists on this issue.”

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The group gave several reasons in support of its position. First, recent calls by the European Union and the French government for more research to investigate the long-term health impacts of GM food consumption belie the claim that a consensus exists when it does not.

In addition, no epidemiological studies exist that investigate potential effects of GMO food consumption on human health. Since GMO foods are not labeled in North America, a major producer and consumer of GM crops, ENSSER said it is scientifically impossible to trace or study patterns of consumption and their impacts.

Due to this lack of data, claims that GMO foods are safe for human health based on the experience of North American populations have no scientific basis.

ENSSER also pointed out that claims of scientific and governmental bodies endorsing GMO safety are exaggerated or inaccurate; that there is no consensus on the environmental risks of GM crops; and international agreements show widespread recognition of risks posed by GM foods and crops.

Whether to continue or expand the use of GMO foods is too broad an issue to be based on “narrow scientific debate” and decisions need to encompass a broader range of society, the group stated. It believes that strong scientific evidence must be “obtained in a manner that is honest, ethical, rigorous, independent, transparent, and sufficiently diversified to compensate for bias.”

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From left, winners of the 2013 World Food Prize: Robert T. Fraley; Mary-Dell Chilton; and Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium. Photo: WFP Foundation.

ENSSER is a non-profit association whose purpose is “the advancement of science and research for the protection of the environment, biological diversity and human health against negative impacts of new technologies and their products,” according to its website.

UPDATE: Petitions with more than 345,000 signatures admonishing the World Food Prize Foundation for awarding this year’s Prize to top executives from Monsanto and Syngenta were delivered to the Foundation’s headquarters in Iowa hours before the ceremony, the Center for Food Safety said.

Often called the “Nobel Prize of agriculture,” the Prize, in its own words, “emphasizes the importance of a nutritious and sustainable food supply for all people.” Dr. Robert T. Fraley, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Monsanto, and Dr. Mary-Dell Chilton, founder of Syngenta, were two of the three recipients.

“With this award, the World Food Prize is perpetuating the false notion that genetically engineered crops are a solution to world hunger and malnutrition. This kind of biotech propaganda obscures the huge potential of low-cost agricultural techniques that actually increase food production and alleviate hunger,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the Center for Food Safety.

 

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Can We Heal Our Broken Oceans?

Few understand first-hand how gravely humans have damaged the world’s oceans, and the creatures who live there. Ivan Macfadyen, a yachtsman from Newcastle, Australia, recently sailed from Australia to Japan, and then on to Hawaii and the continental U.S. His assessment of our planet’s waters?
“The ocean is broken.”

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Australian yachtsman and activist Ivan Macfadyen aboard his boat, the Funnel Web. Photo: Max Mason-Hubers.

In a recent story for the Newcastle Herald, Macfadyen describes only catching two fish while sailing for 28 days between Australia and Japan. Sailing the same route ten years ago, catching fish for dinner had been easy.

“I’ve done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I’m used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds,” says Macfadyen. “But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen.”

The uncanny silence and apparent lack of sea life appear to have two major causes. One is huge trawlers that catch every fish they can in an area — and then toss overboard to rot everything that is not tuna. Another is tremendous quantities of trash, from plastic drink bottles to an entire factory chimney — much of it swept from land by the massive tsunami that hit Japan March 11, 2011.

“In a lot of places we couldn’t start our motor for fear of entangling the propeller in the mass of pieces of rope and cable. That’s an unheard-of situation, out in the ocean.”

As they sailed cautiously, listening to objects hitting the hull, something in the waters off the coast of Japan reacted with the paint job on that hull, fading it in an unprecedented way.

Two and a half years out, we’re only beginning to understand the magnitude of damage that tsunami set in motion — same with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where catches are severely reduced and tar balls continue to wash up — all on top of ‘regular’ pollution. When will we learn?

Toxic Dog and Cat Jerky Treat Alert

The Food and Drug Administration is asking pet owners and licensed veterinarians to help them track down information on why hundreds of dogs and cats have died since 2007 from eating poisonous jerky treats. About 3,600 have been sickened, and the numbers of illnesses and deaths has appeared to rise since January. The affected jerky seems to be chicken, duck, sweet potato and fruit-flavored varieties. Most seems to be made in China, however pet food manufacturers are not required by U.S. law to state the country of origin for each ingredient in their products.

For more information, see Wednesday’s blog post.

 

Planet Waves

The End of Sex? Maybe, in Japan

Japan’s under-40 population is turning away from marriage and sex by the millions, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper. It’s a trend that its media has named sekkusu shinai shokogun, or “celibacy syndrome.” If it continues, Japan’s shrinking population — now at 126 million — could fall further by one-third as soon as 2060.

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A 17th or 18th century woodblock print featured in a current exhibition at the British Museum in London depicts the good ol’ days, when the Japanese still liked sex.

Young people in Japan no longer feel duty-bound to have families; the very model of traditional marriage — breadwinning husband, stay-at-home mother — is repugnant to career-minded singles of both sexes.

Men don’t want the responsibility of a wife and family, while women know marriage and motherhood would end their careers, The Guardian reported. The World Economic Forum ranks Japan as one of the world’s worst nations for gender equality at work.

Sources for the story speculate that the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant left psychological scars as well, engendering feelings of futility and hopelessness.

“Both men and women say to me they don’t see the point of love. They don’t believe it can lead anywhere,” Ai Aoyama, a Tokyo sex and relationship counselor, told The Guardian. “Relationships have become too hard.”

Single Japanese people say they enjoy their unattached and nonsexual lives, seeing anything else as “too troublesome.” Japan’s Institute of Population and Social Security reports 90% of young women believe that staying single is “preferable to what they imagine marriage to be like.”

Aoyama tries to educate her clients on the importance of intimacy, whether it’s in a committed relationship or not. “It’s not healthy that people are becoming so physically disconnected from each other,” she said.

 

Planet Waves

Free Press vs. National Security: A ‘False Choice’

When governments threaten the ability of a free press to do its job by seizing reporters’ phone records, documents and names of sources, in the name of national security, it ultimately weakens them and sets up a “false choice” for its citizens.

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Gary Pruitt, president and CEO of The Associated Press, speaks about press freedom at the 69th General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association. Photo: David Zalubowski/AP.

Gary Pruitt, president and CEO of The Associated Press, made those remarks to the 69th General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association in Denver Saturday, adding that the U.S. Justice Department’s secret seizure of phone records of calls to and from AP reporters last year was one of the most blatant violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution the 167-year-old news cooperative has ever seen.

A free and independent press “differentiates democracy from dictatorship; separates a free society from tyranny,” he said.

In countries where journalists have fought long and hard for a free press, Pruitt said dictators can look to the U.S.’s example to justify their own media repression. The Justice Department’s actions “could not have been more tailor-made to comfort authoritarian regimes.”

Pruitt said he was encouraged by proposed Justice Department guidelines, introduced after the records seizure, that would give reporters more protections and guarantee that they will not be prosecuted for doing their jobs.

“But you can bet that we will be watching closely to make sure they are implemented and enforced,” he said.

 

Planet Waves

New Jersey Governor Stops Fighting Same-Sex Marriage

In the latest win for same-sex marriage, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie abandoned his fight against its legalization in his state. Christie had asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to ban same-sex marriages while he appealed the court’s earlier decision to uphold legislation that would allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. The court refused his request unanimously on Friday.

The legislation took effect at midnight Monday, and same-sex couples began wedding immediately through the night and into the early morning.

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Stewart Fishbein, left, and Peter Aupperle showed off the rings signifying their marriage at Hoboken City Hall on Monday. Photo: Bryan Thomas for The New York Times.

Christie, considered a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has maintained his stance against gay marriage despite its popularity in his home state, ostensibly because it is not popular with conservative voters in the rest of the country.

However, even while emphasizing that marriage should be between a man and a woman, Christie has also signed a bill outlawing “gay conversion therapy.”

Four months ago, after Christie had vetoed the bill allowing same-sex marriage, many activists thought he had solidly blocked their progress. According to The New York Times, however, Judge Mary C. Jacobson of State Superior Court ruled in September “that the state had to allow gay marriages to comply with the United States Supreme Court decision in June that guaranteed same-sex married couples the same federal benefits as heterosexual married couples.”

The SCOTUS decision meant that couples in civil unions in New Jersey did not have the same benefits as those in marriages, running counter to a 2006 New Jersey Supreme Court decision guaranteeing them equal protection.

 

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“Ocean plastics now outweigh the amount of plankton by at least six to one. This statistic is terrifying, and fuels my artistic endeavors,” says Angela Pozzi. Photo: Henry the fish; WashedAshore.org.

From Marine Menace to Transformative Art

Oregon artist Angela Pozzi understands that the first step in curbing the destruction of our oceans is to foster individual awareness through tangible means around our use and disposal of non-biodegradable materials. It can be hard to comprehend the 3.5 million pounds of trash collected from beaches across America — in just one day — by the Ocean Conservancy’s clean-up project last year.

Believing in creating “art for life’s sake,” Pozzi (who is lead artist for WashedAshore.org) collects plastic from Oregon beaches, sorts it by color, and creates large-scale sculptures of sea creatures with it.

“I wanted it to be where people would want their picture taken next to it,” said Pozzi to Hawaii’s KITV of her giant pieces of art, while there for the Pacific Rim Marine Debris Conference. “And then they would have to tell someone what they just had their picture taken next to.”

Not only is she leading a community effort involving volunteers and school children to create more large-scale artistic ambassadors, Pozzi is available for educational consulting, curriculum development and project design if you’d like to start a similar effort in your community.

 

Planet Waves

Mercury retrograde, healing codependency and Gary Lucas

Link to Program

This week I am honored to have world-class rocker Gary Lucas as my musical guest, on a program that addresses themes as deep as Gary’s music and lyrics. In this edition I cover the recently-begun Mercury retrograde in Scorpio, which will be followed by the Sun ingressing Scorpio early Wednesday morning EDT.

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Gary Lucas as seen from backstage at Backstage Studio Productions in Kingston, New York, this past summer as part of the Kingston Film Festival. Photo by Eric Francis.

I pick up where Monday and Tuesday’s editions of Daily Astrology begin, which is the theme of opening up to your own inner truth, and addressing denial and codependency.

All this astrology in Scorpio, especially the introspective Mercury retrograde, the forthcoming solar eclipse and the presence of Saturn — all basically working as one entity — provide a compelling image of how useful and empowering it will be to look within.

As for Gary Lucas: you get a full introduction, including a look at his chart and two truly magnificent tracks, one called Evangeline, from his 2000 CD Street of Lost Brothers, and then Ride of the Valkyries from the CD Coming Clean.

I give a fascinating overview of Gary’s chart, focusing on his cluster of planets in Gemini and Cancer and how they work together to produce someone who is like an atomic fusion reactor of creative energy who looks like he can get by on an hour of sleep a night.

 

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We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.

 

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Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

The extended monthly horoscope for November is below in this issue. We published the extended monthly horoscope for October on Friday, Sept. 27. Inner Space for October was published Friday, Sept. 20. Moonshine for the Libra New Moon published on Tuesday, Oct. 1. We published Moonshine for the Aries Full Moon Tuesday, Oct. 15. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday but for now it’s substituting for one Friday horoscope a month.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November 2013, standing in for weekly #972 | By Eric Francis
 

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Your plans may unfold more slowly than you were expecting, as if you’re living in a parallel world where time runs at half-speed. This is not only necessary; it will be helpful. Typically you run so fast you don’t look back to reflect on where you’ve arrived. Then the movement itself becomes the thing to do for its own sake, which happens not to be for your sake. The purpose is some form of healing, rest and repair. It would be a good idea to seek out someone’s assistance, or to notice who is in your environment — most likely a professional and not a friend or relative — and willing to assist with your healing mission. One other purpose of taking work, projects and social activities slower is so that you can place your focus on what appears to be a significant transition in a personal relationship. Your astrology describes this both as a release point and as an opening; as the invocation of a limit and your ability to surpass a previous blockage. This relates directly to your healing path, and though you cannot control the outcome, you can influence it in a positive way by being attentive to your own needs and always taking responsibility for what you can do to improve the situation, starting with yourself. No matter what it may seem, ultimately your life is not about anyone but you.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Driving is a metaphor for life. Notice the road conditions at all times, make sure you’re in good shape to be behind the wheel, and most important, stay in your lane. You might also want to keep track of whether you’re coming or going. I know that’s a funny old expression that few people think about, but I do mean knowing whether you’re going toward something or away from it; whether you’re approaching or avoiding, and why. The approach/avoid thing seems to involve something you’re simultaneously trying to remember and to forget. The astrological syntax translates to, “Question your mother’s logic about sex.” I think when questioning the teaching of our parents or of anyone, it helps to extend their logic and see where it would take you if you went the whole distance with it. You are likely to find that it’s not even vaguely suited to guide you through where you are in your most intimate relationships. That logic, such as it is, was shattered a long time ago, though you may still be maintaining some loyalty to it. In truth you’re at an absolutely unique crossroads in your life, and you may feel you have to make a huge decision right now. I don’t think that is true. Where there is a commitment, it has already been made. Where one is lacking, that much will be obvious.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Do you feel like you’re trying to pass some kind of psychic kidney stone? Thankfully, unlike the physical body, the spiritual body has the ability to process large ‘objects’ in a way that doesn’t force them through tiny openings. Indeed, however large this thing you need to purge yourself of is, you have the ability to move it along and send it on its way. Your astrology can be illustrated with some ideas from homeopathy, a branch of medicine more people deserve to know about. When it works, homeopathy seems like magic, and compared to other forms of medicine, there’s relatively little the patient has to endure. But two things are necessary. The price of admission to homeopathic healing is admission — revealing to the practitioner what you’re experiencing, in intimate detail. That translates to revealing something to yourself, with scrupulous honesty, ongoing, never satisfied that you’re reached the bottom. The second qualification of homeopathy is the healing crisis — in releasing old pain, it must come to the surface. Going through that consciously is a necessary prerequisite to feeling good and being healthy. Honesty and awareness — perhaps the two things most lacking in our world now, and the fact that they’re missing is one of the most prevalent causes of sickness. What passes for healing is usually denial and suppression of the symptoms. You’re ready for the real thing.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Has the whole sex thing been a little weird, whether mired in karma, needlessly complex or seemingly nonexistent? You may find the topic annoying and wish it would go away, or feeling some deep need, wishing something would actually happen. Count yourself lucky if you’re experiencing this on the level of “you can’t always get what you want, but you can get what you need” — though where sex is concerned, that’s pretty boring. By sex, I mean both the experience and the relationships in which it occurs, the agreements involved and what is exchanged. Saturn has been in Scorpio, your solar 5th house, for a year, and it’s leading you to be more careful, or putting the brakes on your adventures. At the same time, Saturn points us in the direction of authentic necessity and always gives more than it takes away. You have reached a kind of crux point on whatever it is that you’re going through; events of the next few weeks are likely to come with a bold transformation, and to reveal the deeper contents of your feelings. The essence of Saturn in this area of your chart is about taking total responsibility for your sexuality and for what you exchange with others. Mercury retrograde is about finding the intersection of your fantasies and your reality. The eclipse is the catalyst that starts the reaction — and an X factor.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — The central question of this month’s solar eclipse is safety — when and where you feel grounded and confident of your environment. While this may seem to be about having a dry roof, food to eat and dependable companionship, the question quickly slips into how you feel about yourself. Self-criticism is one of the most direct pathways into feeling threatened or unpleasantly vulnerable. Often self-critique is projected onto others, which is designed to vent pressure. However, projecting it onto a relationship turns out to be just as painful. How safe you feel reflects how much you like yourself. If you feel unsafe in your environment for direct reasons you can document, that, too, may be a reflection of how you feel about yourself. Whatever may be the case, you are in a phase where you can take some giant steps toward learning about self-esteem. The planets are aligned perfectly so you may learn from the mistakes of others. We live in a time in history when the way most products are sold is to make people feel inadequate. Legions of manipulation artists are paid an ocean of money to ‘educate’ us how horrid we allegedly are, and charge us money to feel better. Often we try to con ourselves using similar means. It does not work. If you think you need a reason to feel good about yourself, I suggest you go deeper.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You stand to benefit significantly from all manner of weird events that unfold over the next month or so. It may not seem that way, though I suggest the best strategy is to maintain your independence and stay out of the fray — until you notice that it’s the perfect time to make your move. The way the astrology looks, that’s going to be in the later innings; let the adventures, misadventures, games and dramas develop for a while, as you pull back and get the wide view. This is another way of saying maintain your independence, which may feel like being antisocial. What is currently passing for social among certain people you know isn’t exactly social, either — the more congenial mode (in the immortal words of the Grateful Dead) is to ‘take a step back/take another step back’. Give people space to be themselves, and give yourself space to be yourself. Perspective is everything. Observe the action from all angles. Yes, there are several ways to read the astrology indicating how personally you could take things, but you’ll feel silly if you take things personally and then discover in the end that it had nothing to do with you. Meanwhile — be optimistic. My dog-friend Jonah is a Virgo and whenever there’s any activity in the kitchen, he’s standing there wagging his tail. I would call that faithful expectancy.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — There is a cosmic feeling to your charts right now, as if you encounter some spiritual intervention that helps you work out an emotional knot you’ve been carrying around nearly forever. The way the picture looks, you’ve been drawn with increasing intensity to focus on a group of issues that seemed daunting and even impossible to address, not knowing how you would do it. Yet at a certain point, you seem to have suspended doubt, and then soon after that, you seem to have made a commitment to yourself. That was akin to the choice to make an investment in yourself. The thing with an investment is that it’s never a sure thing. You have to put up a lot of energy (in various forms, including emotions and money) before you get a return. Then, that return might be something entirely different than you are expecting (which seems to hold true for both business investments and for deeply personal ones). It looks like something is about to come to fruition. I will say this, however: the die is not cast. Your imagination will have an influence, though when you go there, you may experience some fear. Consider that fear a psychological response to the expression of your potential power. If you feel guilt, consider that direct evidence that you’re moving in the right direction — that of claiming your value, your personal power, your resources and your independence.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Scorpio has a reputation for being the sign of jealousy. Perhaps one of the most misunderstood emotions, that goes along with Scorpio being one of the most misunderstood signs. You seem to have been grappling with jealousy lately, whether your own or that of someone else. It doesn’t matter which; you would need to address it in either case, and the same awareness is called for. Jealousy has two main components — attachment and control. That differentiates it from envy, which is about wanting what someone else has. Underneath this is a spiritual struggle that’s about to come to a head. If you find yourself feeling especially strong emotions, including the desire to control anyone in any form, pause and notice what’s going on beneath the tempest. Don’t be distracted by the surface layer or cast of characters. The real subject matter is between you and existence, or said another way, what you encounter walking that fine line between existence and non-existence. Below the drama is the sensation of how close to the edge you walk, all the time. Think of the turbulence as a fear reaction, though it’s worth questioning: what exactly are you scared of, and in the spirit of the Serenity Prayer, what exactly can you do about it? There may not be answers to these questions, but the cosmos of your psyche has some relevant information for you.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You seem to be working through the whole love vs. fear thing — that there are two emotions, and that all other feelings and sensations emerge from one or the other. One does not cancel the other out or compensate for the other; there really is a choice. However, you may be getting the occasional torrent of fear that obscures the love you’re feeling. There’s a potential lure to the fear in that it’s blended with passion, potentially sexual passion. It may reach into some of your deepest, darkest desires, yet at the core is a form of anxiety. I’ve been studying this one with my spiritual teacher Elisa Novick: it’s a tricky one. The love, alternately, has a cosmic feeling to it, and may feel disembodied or impersonal; that may seem to contradict your desire to go for the physical and the embodied, though you still have that option open to you. The ‘choice between fear and love’ may manifest as the option to build on one foundation or the other. If you thought of it in those terms, the choice would be easy. You may be wondering where the fear will go, if you choose to place the home known as your soul on love. There’s a vent opening up, through which fear or any other negative emotion can be returned to the universe as unconditioned energy — liberating you in the process.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) –You may not feel like the flavor of the month, but if you refuse to be swayed by group opinion, you’ll discover how much respect people have for you. At the same time you’ll discover a new depth of self-respect. This word — respect — means to see again. There’s a re-evaluation implied, with the result being seeing something that you hadn’t seen before. This lends some credence to the idea that respect can be earned or gained as people get to know one another, or get to know themselves. And there is the hint that it may take some time for that to happen, especially if your ruling planet Saturn is involved in the equation (which it is). Therefore, allow some time to pass, during which there may be a bit of confusion, mixed or missed messages, and a little competition for a niche. Remember, though, that your niche is all your own — the thing you do that nobody else can do; the gift you have that is yours alone, and which you may discover in the process of offering it to others. As you move through this territory, just make sure that you don’t con yourself into coming to any ‘final’ conclusions about who you are, what you do or what you have to offer. Make room for a discovery process — there’s plenty to discover.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — I’ve often pondered the phrase ‘authority issues’. One definition is not knowing one’s place in the order of things. The result can be attempting to act with greater influence than one has, or with far less. We see manifestations of both in our society, and the particularly toxic equation of those on a power trip acting out on those on a powerlessness trip. Noticing this dynamic may convince you that you want to get out of the game entirely. True authority begins with your relationship to yourself. It becomes real the moment you recognize that no other person can dictate that relationship, no matter how hard they try and regardless of what happened in the past. This month’s solar eclipse is a reminder to be on the lookout for what you might call ‘shadow figures’ from the past who you’ve internalized. They may boss you around and attempt to tell you who you are and how to feel about yourself. One attribute of finding your authority will be taking back your consciousness from hijacking by these inner voices. The first step in this process is recognizing that they are not you. They may seem convincing but really, if you listen carefully, you will be able to hear the difference. Then you’ll be able to feel the difference, in the form of feeling a lot better about yourself.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — It is amazing how the division between that which is erotic and that which is spiritual is so successfully pushed as a political agenda. Perhaps it’s even more astounding that it still works. I reckon it’ll work for as long as people feel misgivings about themselves. It will work for as long as sex and/or some form of allegedly spiritual idea are accepted as ways to gain power over people — and people are willing to give that power away. You’ve reached a point in your growth where this is simply untenable. Rather than trying to dismantle the power trip, I suggest you focus on the essentially spiritual beauty of pleasure, be it of body, of soul, of the emotions, of nature or all of the above. This is not a matter of theory — it’s about appreciating your existence and recognizing as birthrights feeling good, feeling open and being able to share yourself. It’s easy to let yourself be distracted by those preaching hellfire, including its more subtle form as guilt. Consider the extent to which, if you ever experience these things, they are an inheritance from previous generations. Those who passed them on to you lacked your knowledge, your freedom and your appreciation of life. They were more subject to superstition and had fewer resources available. Simply put, they were not you, right now, living the life you are living.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

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This Week at Planet Waves: Under a Scorpio Sun

Dear Friend and Reader:

This week the sky deepens its shift toward Scorpio, as tomorrow the Sun ingresses this fixed water sign that ‘fixes’ the season begun last month. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, that means autumn; for all readers, it means a season marked by the themes of secrets, sex, deep transformation and taboos.

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Photo by Amanda Painter.

Eric will take up these themes and more in his broadcast of Planet Waves FM tonight, which will post by 8 pm EDT. He will add some extra commentary on the theme of codependency, alcohol and substance abuse, covered by Amanda in today’s Daily Astrology — see below.

Eric began the week in Monday’s Daily Astrology column by inviting readers to see and challenge the many ways we carry denial about ourselves. Mercury stationed retrograde in Scorpio Monday, initiating us into a three-week period designed to cut though any games of ‘pretend’ we’re playing with ourselves. An upcoming solar eclipse in Scorpio should give us a boost in that.

In today’s Daily Astrology column, we’ve noticed that the current astrology calls to mind “the Karpman triangle” — a configuration that shows how the abuser-victim-enabler relationship of co-dependency can become a self-perpetuating system. A square between Vesta in Virgo and Pholus and Ixion in Sagittarius brings in the way that alcohol and a sense of detachment can be used to justify immoral or toxic behavior.

Later today Len Wallick describes how, once the Sun enters Scorpio tomorrow, its aspect to Neptune in Pisces offers an opportunity for you to understand more consciously that elusive yet pervasive planet. Len’s column posts to the blog at about noon.

Yours & truly,


Amanda Painter

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That Was Not Cute

Dear Friend and Reader:

Wednesday night, the Tea Baggers and Dominionist Christian factions of Congress surrendered the U.S. government back to the larger political system. When the Senate passed its bill reopening the government, and when Obama made his announcement that the struggle was over (for now), the Moon was in the last degree of Pisces, that is, the last degree of the zodiac.

Planet Waves
Cartoon by Jen Sorensen.

Some would say that’s a void of course Moon (making no new aspects in the current sign, therefore representing a foul ball). Yet the Moon will always have some influence in Pisces, and I grant an exception to the void Moon for the truly beautiful and strange last degrees of that sign.

When the House took action a bit later, the Moon was more appropriately in Aries, headed for a conjunction to Uranus and a square to Pluto — the members of that legislative body have obviously not had their fill. As far as they’re concerned, the Anti-Sixties are just getting cooking. Activism is fun. Revolution is in the air.

At least from what I can see on the surface, Pres. Obama handled this crisis masterfully. He refused to negotiate with terrorists, and he knew to back off from making any public comments the past four or five days to let the political pressure on the perpetrators intensify. The rest of the Democrats held their ranks. It was gratifying to see them show some spine and even a little muscle. Admittedly they were playing a defensive game — this was not about getting something done. That is still missing, in a moment when there’s plenty that needs doing.

Astrology played a role, or at least illustrated how the conflict resolved. We saw the mental orientation of Mars, newly in Virgo, have its influence. In Leo, Mars is passionate and wants to be visible — and it can also be blustery, aggressive and full of bravado. (If you have natal Mars in Leo, the unique aspects in your chart will help describe why you might be soft-spoken and introspective and express it in more constructive ways.)

In Virgo, Mars wants precision, focus and attention to detail. The inclination is to fix things rather than to damage them.

We saw the deadlock-breaking quality of the Full Moon do its thing, augmented by an eclipse. Though the shutdown of the government and pushing the country to the brink of defaulting on its debts shook up everyone paying attention, and rattled global leaders from Japan to China to the IMF, things could have been a lot worse had this persisted just another 48 hours. It’s better to have this kind of mess resolved before an eclipse rather than after one.

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By Tom Toles, copyright © 2013 The Washington Post.

I tend to take this kind of stuff personally. I’ve been feeling edgy the whole two weeks this has persisted. I know the potential consequences and I know the astrology. But more than that, I understand the psychology and the agendas moving beneath the surface.

Just when I thought the whole thing could not get any more appalling, I turned on the television Thursday morning to see some Republican senator gasbag on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program trying to justify the shutdown based on how they allegedly want to protect the American people from the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Others were getting TV airtime saying we have to get the debt and deficit under control — knowing full well that the sequestration cuts are doing precisely that, and in an extreme form. And knowing full well that has nothing to do with it.

If you translate this into a domestic violence situation, it’s like someone telling the cops they beat up their spouse to prevent them from going to community college.

There are Republicans from the fringy side of the tent who are claiming victory after this whole instigated crisis, and who are no doubt coming home to their district as heroes who shut down the works of the mean, nasty federal government that pays their airfare and for their posh taxpayer-supported cars and health insurance.

Other members of the Party of No have promised that the fight is not over; they will be back in January, when these same vulnerabilities can be exploited again. Based on Wednesday night’s actions, the continuing resolution funding the government lasts until Jan. 15 and the country’s borrowing power lasts until mid-February. That is not long, but the astrology will be a little less perilous — at least temporarily. (There is a serious crunch point for the U.S. government in April, which has often been a distressing month in American history.)

Many of these emotionally and intellectually vapid people are promising more of this insanity, despite approval of the Republicans dipping below 24% and approval of the so-called Tea Party down to 21% — in politics, that’s when you know you’re in the toilet. That is true martyrdom, and martyrs make me nervous.

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Copyright © 2013 The International Herald Tribune / NY Times Co.

While this whole thing has our attention, I want to add a few thoughts that I have not seen offered anywhere else in the media.

The people who did this to us are people we’ve been dealing with for a while. The unholy marriage of religion and politics that really got cooking in the early 1980s, when Reagan was first president and Karl Rove was Boy Wonder making his way to the top of the game, is a dangerous thing.

This is part of the same political movement, with many of the same people, who want to turn women’s bodies into a political battlefield, and who want to control who has sex with whom, and when, and under what circumstances. They are the same people who want to ban abortion, birth control and sex education — all three.

This is the same movement that believes government should be by the corporations, of the corporations and for the corporations. They are the same people who believe that taxes are for the little people. There’s a lot of corporate money behind this movement, and thanks to the Citizens’ United decision, there is no limit to what can be spent to brainwash the population.

Meanwhile, it’s as if global warming is not happening, fracking doesn’t harm the earth or groundwater and toxic sludge is good for you. Nobody needs proper medical access; just go to the emergency room and you’ll be fine. Our society has problems, and right when we need leadership we are getting nonstop antics. The behavior we are seeing from our elected leaders is decidedly alcoholic.

The agenda goes a lot deeper than denial and petty games, however. What we witnessed the past 16 days looked on the surface like a shutdown of the government over an issue, but I think it was something more sinister: a coup attempt. It was an attempt to destabilize the government and the economy, create chaos and take power.

Planet Waves
Frightening cover of the current edition of The New Yorker. Here is a link to the related article.

We have seen a number of these in the past 50 years, starting with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Since the late 1990s they have become more frequent — the fraudulent impeachment of Bill Clinton; the stolen election of 2000; the absurdly false-flag Sept. 11 scenario and the rise of the national security state; the disgusting wars that have infected the Middle East like a festering case of impetigo; the crash of the economy in 2008; and, skipping over a few details, this somewhat successful attempt to seize the government and, more significantly, its finances.

The United States is made of tough stuff. From my perspective, most of us who live here are political centrists, who want to be left alone. There’s a good bit of live and let live to the American way of life. I think that even to many conservatives, the kind of behavior we’ve just seen has a disgusting reek to it.

Our Constitution is flawed but strong enough to have withstood many assaults. But there is only so hard and so long you can rip at something, or beat on it, or abuse it, before its integrity starts to give way. There is only so hard you can beat on people and abuse their trust and lie to them before they get fatigued and lose their desire to fight and to participate. If the economy fails and many people have little to eat, they may or may not respond politically — it’s usually easier to cave in to whatever political forces promise to rescue them.

The attack we have just experienced is part of a much larger, longer-term political agenda than it seems to be on the surface. It is more successful than it seems on the surface. It is funded not just by money but also by mania, psychosis and I believe a kind of magic: the mustering up of dark forces, including superstition, fear, conflict and deception.

The sexual agenda perpetuated by this crew is not just a side dish but rather is a well-documented form of divide and conquer, infiltrating the most private spaces of relationship, dividing people against one another, dividing them against their bodies, tapping into the painful sexual abuse so many have suffered, harvesting human emotion and delivering it right back to the population as something dangerous and toxic but in an unrecognizable form.

It’s time we get wise to the agenda. Then it will be a lot more obvious what to do — in terms of personal work and collective action.

Lovingly,

Note to Readers: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck and Carol van Strum,  with research assistance by the Planet Waves staff. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet.

 

Planet Waves

Eve of an Eclipse – the Benefit of the Doubt
The Aries Full Moon and lunar eclipse takes place Friday at 7:38 pm EDT. And then on Monday, Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio, the sign of secrets, shared resources and the occasional emotional drama.

Eclipses arrive with an ominous feeling, and there is certainly that kind of atmosphere surrounding this event. They describe imminent change; they describe the shift of some context. But there’s also a question: do you take [whatever] drama seriously?

Planet Waves
Artemis, goddess of the Moon, manifested on the back of the BSP Theater in Kingston two weeks ago. Note, Len Wallick says this is also an image of Haumea, and I heard a rumor that one of the neighborhood teenagers has said it also depicts another entity besides Artemis. Still tracking that one down. Photo by Eric.

That could be said of any situation that’s under the influence of this eclipse, which amounts to everything happening right now, in whatever realm, whether public or private. I suggest you ask yourself where it’s logical to place the benefit of the doubt: do you assume that everything is going to be fine, or factor in that there is some risk that needs to be addressed?

One thing I’ve noticed is that as time goes on, many people seem more willing to ignore risks, and we are seeing many results of that. Worst-case scenarios deserve mention.

When the Sun is near an eclipse, that’s a little like a karmic toll plaza. You have to settle the karma to move on, or else multiply it. It’s time, therefore, to focus on getting things in order, resolving conflicts and making sure you have a balanced view of your life.

This eclipse event may be placing some stress on relationships. The question is, to what extent does expressing your instability destabilize your emotional and sexual partnerships? How far can you go being yourself before you start to feel unstable with another person? How far can they go being themselves before you start to feel insecure?

There is some information coming from the Mercury retrograde department. I mean that literally — the issue beneath the surface, that is, the deeper material, may involve secrets being kept. If you find yourself in a relationship scenario where the independence issue seems to be a factor, go deeper and account for what has not been said.

You can start with a list of everything that you have not revealed to the person or people you’re intimate with; you can make a second list of everything you think you have not been told. Those lists will tell you where you stand with whoever is involved. Ideally, in any truly intimate situation, you would have no withholds and no suspicions — a condition that most people would probably say is unthinkable.

Planet Waves
Chart for Friday’s eclipse of the Moon. To see the corresponding solar eclipse and minor planet lists for both events, please visit this link.

One other point of astrology to cover: this week, Mars ingressed Virgo. This placement is calling for precision, for focus on the details and for a measure of impeccability. It’ll affect everyone’s chart differently — notice where your physical energy is directed, how you relate to anger and which way your obsessions tend to lean.

Notice how you relate to factors in your environment that call for attention and repair. Notice where you direct your best efforts.

While in Virgo, Mars will oppose two planets — first Neptune (exact Sunday) and then Chiron (exact Halloween). For now, let’s consider the Mars-Neptune opposition and what I will call the doubt factor.

You may doubt that it’s really worth reaching for integrity; you may doubt what you know; you may feel like your efforts are not worth much and it’s better to have a good time and not worry so much.

You may be right. But how would you know?
You may get good information, and wonder if it’s true. You may get useless information that you trust.

Under the current astrology all of this needs to be handled carefully. In the face of missing information, one must either make an assumption or wait for additional data. All of this needs to be handled consciously over the next five or six days. Who gets the benefit of your assumptions? Who gets the benefit of the doubt?

What information are you waiting for? Pay attention — it’s on its way. With additional research by Amanda Painter and Alison Beth Levy.

 

Planet Waves

This Week’s GMO Lawsuit Roundup

Monsanto hired on Wednesday the lobbying firm of former senator Blanch Lincoln, who used to head up the Senate Commission on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. She’ll have plenty to do. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit this week against the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) for allegedly unscrupulous actions it took to defeat Initiative 522, which would require labeling of genetically modified foods.

A similar suit filed by grassroots group Moms for Labeling was dismissed on a technicality earlier this month, but the attorney general has picked up the ball, alleging that the GMA has illegally concealed the identity of big-money donors after soliciting funds that went straight into a Defense of Brands Strategic Account, which has been used to fund “No on I-522.”

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Under Washington law, the 300-member trade association should have formed a separate political committee, registered with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), and filed reports indicating who contributed, how much they contributed and how the money was spent to oppose I-522.

None of that was done, and after a citizen action letter was received by the AG’s office in August, an investigation indicated that more than $7 million collected from anonymous donors went to opposition groups.

In his complaint, Ferguson is seeking a restraining order that would immediately compel GMA to register with the state’s PDC and disclose donors’ identities, as well as attorneys’ fees and other injunctive relief as necessary. “Truly fair elections demand all sides follow the rules by disclosing who their donors are and how much they are spending to advocate their views,” Ferguson said in a press release, noting that public disclosure laws had been in place since 1972.

Washington’s battle over I-522 has been heated for months. Monsanto donated $262,156 to the “No” campaign last May, prompting a reporter at The Spokesman-Review to note that most of the anti-522 donations were flooding in from out of state. The campaign against the initiative was launched by the Washington Farm Bureau.

A similar ballot initiative was defeated in California last year after Monsanto donated $8 million to its opponents. Investor group As You Sow has filed a shareowner resolution against Monsanto and several other food giants, asking that they refrain from such activities.

Sixteen lawsuits originating in Oregon over the unwelcome presence of genetically modified wheat on a farmer’s land have been consolidated by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation into the Kansas City, Kansas court of U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil. In making the determination, the panel cited the geographic convenience of locating the cases near Monsanto’s St. Louis headquarters, where “the majority of the common evidence is likely to be.”

Meanwhile, Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana), a farmer, managed to get the Monsanto Protection Act defunded in the funding resolution that reopened the government last Wednesday night.

Don’t Miss the GMO Mini-Summit!

A global GMO Mini-Summit being held Oct. 25-27 will bring together leading scientists and food activists for an in-depth examination of the planet’s Monsanto problem.

Planet Waves

Hosted by John and Ocean Robbins, co-founders of the Food Revolution Network, and Jeffery Smith, founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology, the event offers three days of panel discussion on the ecological, socio-economic and health-related consequences of GMOs, as well as a look at the current politics surrounding Monsanto from the front lines.

Ten experts, including Canadian biotechnologist Thierry Vrain, environmental activist Vandana Shiva, and AllergyKids founder Robyn O’Brien, will give half-hour interviews on topics ranging from how to eat safely to global food security and in-depth GMO science.

Registrants for the weekend conference will also have access, by Internet or phone, to ten more expert presentations over the next five weeks. Basic registration is free; an optional $97 upgrade includes transcripts and digital downloads. For more information and registration, visit the summit’s webpage,

 

Planet Waves

Worldwide Coal Use to Surpass Oil by End of Decade
Cheaper now, immensely costly later: coal consumption is predicted to surpass oil by 2020, driven by rising demand in China and India, despite efforts around the world to curb carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Planet Waves
Chinese coal power plant. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Coal is less expensive than oil, and according to a presentation by energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie at Monday’s World Energy Conference in Washington, D.C., that’s the power source those countries will choose to fuel their economies. Coal demand in the U.S., Europe and the rest of Asia will remain steady, it said.

China is the world’s top consumer of coal, and it will drive two-thirds of the growth in global coal use, predicted to reach 4,500 million tons of oil equivalent, overtaking oil at 4,400 million tons, according to the firm. China has no alternative to coal, with its domestic gas output limited and liquefied natural gas imports more costly than coal, said William Durbin, president of global markets at Wood Mackenzie.

Coal is abundant — encouraging lower prices — and will become even more so as lower-grade coal from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa begins to be traded during the remainder of this decade, according to Alstrom, a power infrastructure provider.

 

Planet Waves

Steubenville Redux: Maryville, Missouri’s, Football-Player Rapists

Nodaway County, Missouri, prosecutor Robert Rice added his voice Wednesday to the chorus of officials suddenly calling for a special prosecutor to reexamine a case in which two high-school athletes had charges dismissed for raping two young teenage girls after getting them drunk — all videotaped by a third boy. It’s a sadly familiar mix of teen athletes, alcohol, corrupt officials and victim-blaming.

In January of 2012, Matthew Barnett — then 17 and a popular football player and grandson of a retired state representative — and three other student athletes invited 14-year-old Daisy Coleman and 13-year-old Paige Parkhurst to a party.

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Daisy Coleman, left, and Matthew Barnett.

Barnett and the boys plied Coleman with hard liquor; Barnett had drunken, nonconsensual sex with Coleman; a 15-year-old admittedly raped Parkhurst; and Coleman was dumped outside her house half-clothed and semi-conscious in freezing temperatures.

Two months after arresting the boys in what looked like a solid case, all charges were dropped.
Rice said at the time that it was a regrettable incident among “incorrigible teens” and could not be prosecuted due to lack of evidence, despite a rape kit showing tears to Coleman’s vagina and self-incriminating statements from both boys.

Facing considerable harassment in Maryville, the Coleman family relocated to their former home in Albany. In April of 2013, the house they still owned in Maryville was burned to the ground.

After the Kansas City Star reported on the case this week, international shaming and hacktivist collective Anonymous seems to have convinced officials to reopen the matter. Officials now calling for the case to be reopened include Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and House Speaker Tim Jones.

Plainly, there’s an effort underway to avoid Maryville’s becoming the next Steubenville, Ohio, where the focused efforts of Anonymous — although criticized by some as harsh and scattershot — are still resulting in fresh charges being brought. Anonymous plans a “Twitter storm” and an Oct. 22 rally in Maryville.

 

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Friends Without Benefits: Teens and Social Media

Nancy Jo Sales, writing for Vanity Fair, spoke to teenaged girls and boys across the country about their use of social media and how it shapes what they expect from their peers (and from themselves) when handling relationships, communication, peer pressure, sexual desires, boundaries — even just meeting face to face.

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Connected or alienated? The new social life or relationally stunting? Image: video still, KTRK-Houston.

The kids Sales talks to speak of peers being “obsessed with the feeling they have fame,” and of 13-year-olds posting “inappropriate” selfies, then thanking the boys who call them sexy. Asked how they transition from online interaction to real-world contact, a group of girls blinks and says, “Facebook chat.”

Kids from 8 to 18 spend more than 11 hours per day plugged into a smart phone, computer or TV.

Ninety-three percent of boys and 62 percent of girls have seen Internet porn before they turn 18, according to a 2008 study in CyberPsychology & Behavior. And although the CDC reports that teen sex is not on the rise, the landscape around it is changing.

Porn’s influence and that of the impersonal world of digital contact is evident in the kinds of sexual requests and demands being made, how kids react and how deep the social and psychological repercussions can be. What counts for entire ‘relationships’ are begun, ended and used as weapons via social media and texting.

High-profile news stories are becoming increasingly common about teens attempting or committing suicide after enduring merciless bullying, slut-shaming and slander by their peers. Steubenville and Maryville are extremes, yet in a way, just the tip of the iceberg. Kids used to get a respite from abusive peers when they left school; with social media, there is nowhere to hide.

“Social media is destroying our lives,” said one girl to Sales. “So why don’t you go off it?” Sales asked. “Because then we would have no life,” replied her friend.

 

Planet Waves

Google Switches Teams, Joins ALEC

Google is now a member of ALEC, the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, according to NationofChange.org. Google joins fellow Internet companies Facebook and Yelp in supporting ALEC.

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ALEC is a corporate-funded organization that teams with like-minded state lawmakers to roll back labor rights, environmental protections, civil rights, and public health measures.

Google built its image as a pioneering anti-capitalist company, yet its membership in ALEC belies that image, and ‘Netizens are not pleased. A recent email alert from RootsInAction.org garnered some telling responses:

“Better check your definition of EVIL — look it up on Google,” and “Please don’t fund tyranny. You were supposed to be one of the good guys.”

Trans-Pacific Treaty Proposes Restrictions on Internet Usage

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement is ratified — possibly as early as the end of this month — a free and open Internet may be one of its first casualties.

“We know from leaked drafts [of proposed changes] that these draconian measures could criminalize your everyday use of the Internet, force service providers to collect and hand over your private data, and give old industry conglomerates more power to fine you for Internet use,” according to an Alternet.org article.

President Obama is trying to fast-track the TPP through Congress, meaning that members would be forced to vote on the agreement without the possibility of sharing, discussing or amending its contents. Some representatives have objected, such as Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who has described the Obama administration’s secrecy about the TPP as “an assault on democratic government.”

 

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Detail of the container painting “Muses” by Riuske Fukahori, in the ICN Gallery in London last year.

Goldfish Salvation

Never underestimate Mother Nature when you need some help in the creative inspiration department. While artist Riusuke Fukahori was struggling with his creative vision, he let his pet goldfish be his muse. Since then, he has developed this passion into incredibly lifelike three-dimensional paintings by layering acrylic paints onto clear resin, until the fish appear suspended in time and space. You can view a brief, wordless video here showing Fukahori making magic.
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U.S.A. on the Brink — and Mercury, and the Eclipse, and Mars

Every edition of Planet Waves FM I forget to mention one thing — and unlike text, I cannot do a quick edit before sending it out. This week that thing is the role of religion in the current government crisis. I mention that a bunch of Fundy Xtians — Dominionists, as they are properly known — are behind this. What I don’t make is the connection to their “let’s take a federal default out for a spin” mentality.

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Scene from Kris Perry’s “Machines,” installed in the main theater at Backstage Studio Productions as part of the O+Festival this past weekend. Photo by Eric.

They know it would be catastrophic; and that is what they live for. Things going well is not enough. Getting their way is not enough — their way is The End. This is why the founders of the United States divided church and state, not just in the Bill of Rights but in the Constitution itself.

In this week’s edition I cover the federal mess and the associated astrology: Mars ingressing Virgo; Friday’s eclipse of the Moon in Aries; Mercury stationing retrograde in Scorpio; and an eclipse of the Sun in Scorpio. Amanda has been tracking all of this copiously and competently in Daily Astrology; I provide some extra commentary and context here.

Our musical guest is Kris Perry and his MACHINES project. I describe my experience of the music-sculpture installation, meeting Kris and why I think the whole thing is so impressive. Kris is a genuinely interesting guy, an artist down to his cells, and sufficiently “not a musician” to have invented many instruments and what amounts to a new genre of music. If you go to the project’s homepage, you will see Kris explain what he does.

If you’re curious about the O+ Festival and want to hear some cool interviews, Rob Galgano spent the weekend cruising around the event with his digital recorder getting spontaneous impressions. Here’s a playlist, which he says is growing as he processes the audio and posts it to Soundcloud.
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We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.

 

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Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

We published the extended monthly horoscopes for October on Friday, Sept. 27. Inner Space for October was published Friday, Sept. 20. Moonshine for the Libra New Moon  published on Tuesday, Oct. 1. We published Moonshine horoscopes for the Aries Full Moon Tuesday, Oct. 15. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscopes on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday but for now it’s substituting for one Friday horoscope a month.

 

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Weekly horoscope for Friday, Oct. 18, 2013 #971 | By Eric Francis

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Friday’s eclipse in your birth sign reveals that you’re trying to shake off an old emotional influence of some kind, knowing that it’s not serving you. You can let it go, and you seem determined to do just that with every cell in your body. The challenge, though, is the sensation of instability that comes with not being boxed in by this feeling or expectation. This is one of the ways that negative attachments and emotional habits can keep you or anyone trapped — by that little thing they seem to offer. I suggest that you address that directly, and do what you can to stabilize on a new level of understanding. You have that available, as your ruling planet Mars has changed signs to Virgo. This will allow you to ground in your work, in a firm sense of purpose and in a framework of ideas far more stable and useful than the dramas that were keeping you busy.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You are being called to address certain details of your erotic or romantic life in a new way, with greater focus and determination. But do you have all the information you need to be working with? Various factors suggest that many details will be emerging over the next few days. You don’t need to go digging, though you do need to pay attention for subtle changes in the story, shifts in where the people involved are coming from, and secrets that have yet to be revealed, including what you may be withholding from others. You are in a situation where honesty is the best policy for all concerned, though you only have control over yourself. You have influence over others, though, and one way you can exert that influence  is not to settle for partial information. This is a moment of reckoning, when it’s time to get to the roots of the situation. Remember, there is no such thing as a half-truth.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Have you noticed the direct connection between your emotional well-being and your physical stamina? There are emotional factors that may be putting a drain on your overall health; they look like stuck patterns that are hangovers from unresolved transactions with others. Said another way, be on the lookout for situations where promises may have been made but not kept, or where information that should have been forthcoming was withheld. You can address all of that in fairly short order, if you focus on it now. With Mars crossing the sensitive home and security angle of your solar chart, changes in your living situation are in motion, and if that is true, you want to be working with full information from anyone concerned. If you find yourself getting irritable or angry, or feeling worn down, stop and ask a few questions. Knowledge is power, and there’s no substitute for it.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Be conscious how you use your power, which includes your visibility. With an eclipse of the Moon in your 10th house, you may be feeling invisible or like you lack influence — though if so, you’ve got the equation backwards. You have extra influence now, though I suggest you use it in subtle ways. While you may have to do some overt taking charge, your solar chart suggests that in many situations, the best course of action will be to work from behind the scenes. The factor to work with is trust rather than authority; that’s because in truth there is no more authentic authority than trust. Focus your efforts on those whose intelligence you respect and can depend on. They are most likely to be the people with whom you will feel like you’re on level turf. You’re in a position of authority and responsibility, though I suggest you work from the ground up rather than from the top down.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — The way is open for a dialog in some of the most sensitive situations in your life. Yet the operative word is sensitive. The other operative word is open. The situation calls for little else; if you can maintain that, others are likely to take the initiative and say what they need to say to you. Even if others don’t say anything, if you listen and are receptive you will learn enough, and your awareness will have a positive influence on the situation. Meanwhile you seem to be involved in a delicate balancing act of your own — your emotional body is telling you one thing and your political or strategic sense is telling you another thing. There is a point of contact, and you’re approaching it gradually. I can give you a clue how it looks or feels. You seem to be facing an inner dilemma, which involves two conflicting points of view. As you do your best to work it out, a third viewpoint will emerge that helps you transcend the conflict that turns out not to have been one.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — The arrival of Mars in your sign has helped take some pressure off of you, and has demonstrated that your worst fears were both unrealistic and untrue. What matters is what’s both true and connected to reality, and by that I mean what you can verify in documented fact. This will be critical over the next few days as Mars makes an opposition to Neptune, which may lead you to question things for which you have solid evidence and observations that are based on careful analysis. Remember — just because you may have a momentary doubt does not mean that you’re wrong, no matter how potent your insecurity may be. The best course of action is to keep an open mind for additional information and insight, while keeping your eye on the known data and what it points to. The Grand Canyon was not formed 6,000 years ago, no matter what some people think they believe.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Planet Waves

Attention Libras (and those with Libra rising or Moon): We’ve got big news for you: Your 2013-2014 birthday reading by Eric Francis is ready!

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Friday’s lunar eclipse in your opposite sign Aries is a reminder that you can only be yourself; you cannot be anyone but yourself. If that is true, it’s also true of the people in your life, including those with whom you are the most intimate. One of the most common modes of ‘preserving’ relationships and ‘making them work’ is that our culture trains us to be someone other than who we are. At the same time there’s relatively little information about how to be oneself, and few situations where it’s appropriate. That all said, it’s ultimately inevitable — and people put in the same room, the same home, the same company or any other form of the same time and place, will eventually figure that out. Being who you are and acknowledging others for who they are is the foundation of a relationship, even if it seems to threaten it at first.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — The more self-accepting you are, the more others will be accepting of you. The only reason this might be seen as a trite or clichéd bit of advice is if someone has not tried it, or if they struggle to get there. Self-acceptance provides a form of inoculation against anyone’s judgment of you. It also provides a pass for all kinds of inappropriate or hurtful behavior. The way your chart is set up, the theme comes along with an imperative for integrity, which is under focus now. The message is: embrace yourself and patrol your own borders. Monitor your own conduct. Love yourself, share yourself when you feel it’s appropriate and make amends when you’ve acted in a way that is out of integrity. That’s not a pre-condition of self-love — but forgiveness is. In the end, you will get there; you may as well go there sooner; and eventually you figure out that it’s the place to start.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You have an extended opportunity to accomplish some great things, though to get there you must focus on the details. If you’re in a leadership role or even in a parental role, you may have to focus on the details of others. In either case you will need to go out of your way to do so gently. The sensation is persistence and setting an example rather than any form of aggressive leadership. You have available to you a depth of emotional access that gives you what I can describe as a heart connection. The same factor also puts you in contact with your sense of injury. It’s a fine line to walk, but for you it’s necessary; you are gradually approaching a crossroads where you will make a firm commitment to the mutual healing of yourself and the people in your life, or perpetuating something from the past that you know really needs to end.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Many efforts have been made to reconcile religion with science. It’s a noble effort, though I think that the only possible point of contact is the honest pursuit of truth, which is not guaranteed by either mode of inquiry. Frequently we see where both have become the same form of dictatorship. What will help you most now is to ask honest questions. Ask them of yourself, ask them of others and ask them of existence. Consider the responses you get to be like food, which must be chewed in order to be digestible. When you get a response, from whatever source, the best thing you can offer back, and offer to yourself, is thoughtful consideration. Make the choice not to be intimidated by the search for truth, or for understanding. Learn not to be intimidated by thinking you were wrong; bypass that entirely in place of what is real.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Even the principle of accountability can be taken too far — such as when you’re expected to take responsibility for the actions of others. This is an important boundary though one demarcated by a fine line, perhaps a bit too fine. In my reading of Friday’s lunar eclipse chart, your accountability centers around knowing what you are and are not responsible for. Perhaps the most challenging thing is being responsible for your own feelings, especially when you’re in the context of a relationship to someone else. One thing I would remind you of is that you’ve covered this territory before, and quite possibly mastered it more than once. You don’t need to go back to a prior level of knowledge or experience, though to do that you must use what you know. So I suggest you spend some time considering what you’ve learned about yourself, in recent years and over the course of your lifetime. Your situation will feel a lot simpler.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You need fear no one. Whatever rattles or chills your bones — be it aggression, deception, delusion or chaos inflicted by others — you are larger than it, and it’s no match for you. For this to work, though, you need to remain open, and you need to remain connected to yourself. It’s your true essence that will protect you, not your defenses. Your values are what protect you from being swallowed bPisces (Feb. 19- March 20)y the madness of the world, and guide you away from conforming to what others say you should believe or how you should act. It’s your openness to others and your willingness to relate on mutually acceptable terms that gives you your standing among them, rather than any illusion of ‘going it alone’. You can therefore afford to look at everyone and everything with a twinkle in your eye, remembering that your presence in the world is based on strength, openness and love.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

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Moonshine Horoscopes — Aries Full Moon Edition

Dear Friend and Reader:

Friday is the Aries Full Moon and penumbral eclipse, exact shortly before 7:38 pm EDT. (View full chart here; that link also includes the Scorpio New Moon and solar eclipse chart.) Genevieve Hathaway has interpreted this lunation for each of the 12 Moon signs in her horoscopes below.

Eclipses are pattern-setting events; they are also portals into a kind of accelerated time-space, when your life can seem to move forward by quantum leaps. Therefore standard modern operating procedure for eclipses is to be sure you do things on and around the day of an eclipse that you love and want to focus on for the next 6-12 months. Get your ship pointed in the right direction.

Planet Waves

The Aries Full Moon/eclipse is the Libra Sun (relationships, balance) opposite the Moon in Aries (‘I am’, impulsiveness), with the Earth in the middle. In the mix is the minor planet Eris, conjunct the Moon.

Eris is a marker of our times, representing the identity chaos/crisis society has been struggling with for a long time. (Eris has been in Aries since the 1920s, so nearly everyone alive now has this placement.) Eris in this chart is likely bringing to a head any tension between individual needs and relationship needs, or the ‘individual you’ and the ‘relationship you’.

Have you ever noticed a difference between how you exercise your independence, or how ‘true’ you are to your deepest desires and values, whether you are single or coupled? If so, this Full Moon may turn your focus inward to examine them, and could dissolve a relational deadlock that has been brewing.

The Libra Sun is urging balance in relationships; the Aries Moon could trigger emotions. Mercury nearing its Scorpio retrograde says: stop and think; understand that you’re feeling your thoughts right now; communicate carefully and be flexible with any travel. Eris will draw attention to any ways you’ve divvied yourself up for others — and asks what you want to do about it.

To read Genevieve’s horoscopes, it helps to know your Moon sign (where the Moon was at the moment of your birth), which you can find out by entering your birth data into Serennu.com. If you know your birth time, that will ensure accuracy — but often you can still be sure of its sign even if the exact degree is fuzzy. You can also read these horoscopes for your Sun and rising signs for additional insight.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter
Planet Waves

We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.
These Moonshine Horoscopes are written by Genevieve Hathaway. Genevieve is an astrologer and Planet Waves contributor. She is available for astrology readings. You can contact her at genevieve@venusinblue.com.

Aries Full Moon Moonshine Horoscopes | By Genevieve Hathaway

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Conversations and situations with close partners that began during the Libra New Moon in early October are coming to a head. These discussions and situations are pushing you to make contact with how you FEEL about them. Your first instinct is to act, but what you are being called to do now is to be in tune with your emotions and let how you feel guide your decision-making and communication processes. I suggest taking a brutally honest approach with yourself — get clear on what you want, then work from there.  Think of this as a process of checking in on your internal state through negotiations and agreements with others. What you are building are patterns that utilize your emotions as a tool for creating the kind of relationships that fit both you and your partners. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Your subconscious world has been a busy place for some time. It may have felt as if there was a room inside of you that you couldn’t always access, and unexpected ideas and emotions seem to come out of this hidden space at unexpected times. The threshold between your conscious self and your unconscious space is becoming more like a flexible boundary rather than a solid wall. In fact, applying a little more energy, you can push right through it. I suggest taking time now to explore what you find in your psychic body. What you are gaining is a better understanding of how to access this hidden space whenever you want to, giving you a greater understanding of your deepest desires, needs and wants. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — At the moment, how you feel about your network may be rapidly changing — as quickly as daily or even hourly. This could come with the sensation of being a small boat tossed around on a turbulent sea, or like there is no solid ground to stand on. It may feel as though the groups you are investing in are quickly shifting and evolving faster than you can connect with them emotionally. Instead of seeing this process as separate, I suggest taking the longer view of your being one of the contributing forces for change. Take note of the ripple effect your actions and emotions have on your large network. You are being called to have a vision for your network and to build that vision through your thoughts, feelings and actions. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — The current astrology is highlighting your career angle. What does your highest calling look like? And are you living it? You are being called to do an emotional assessment of your work and to investigate whether it is resonating with your strongest sense of meaning and purpose. As you move through this exploration, I suggest turning to your inward state as one of your most useful pieces of information. Pay attention to which things truly excite you and fill you with energy. Also notice what makes you feel good about being you. These are clues to bring more of it into your work life. Do more of these things that connect you with your highest calling. You are setting patterns for the kind of work you do, patterns that will last many years. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — This week’s Aries Full Moon is bringing plenty of heat and emotion to some of your long-held ideas. Over the past few weeks, you’ve been pulling apart a few deeply held personal beliefs that you’ve carried around for a long time. What you are working through are feelings about your role in the world — feelings that have sometimes kept you from meeting your full potential. On offer is an opportunity to heal and move beyond these emotional blocks. You’ve made a lot more progress lately, more than you may realize. As the pressures build over the Full Moon, an idea stemming from a feeling will help you break through your internal blocks. This may come with the sensation of exploding into your world. You can also think of this as a moment of arrival into more of who you are. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — The past few weeks have brought up questions surrounding your shared resources, specifically what others are giving or providing to you. I suggest viewing resources as more than money, rather as anything that helps you accomplish something. Your Moon sign is very resourceful and you are used to being the one giving the resource instead of receiving it from others. As those around you offer things that will help you reach your goals in your daily life and current projects, remember there is nothing lacking in you when you accept what’s offered. I propose instead viewing those around you as another one of the resources in your life that you can draw on. Notice how much further you get when you work together and allow others to bring their resources to situations. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Planet Waves

Attention Libras (and those with Libra rising or Moon): We’ve got big news for you: Your 2013-2014 birthday reading by Eric Francis is ready!

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — A relationship dynamic you are working through is helping you connect with a certain emotional need. What you are making contact with is how the boundaries in the relationship have served or not served to support you as an individual. I propose you consider the perspective that for there to be harmony in a relationship, both individuals’ needs as individuals must be supported and respected. This means yours as well as your partner’s. For a while you may need to be the one to state your needs first. As you bring that level of respect to yourself as an individual, partners will follow suit. Hold space for an open, honest dialogue to occur. What is on offer is stronger support for you and your partner’s unique individual natures and desires. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Your psychic body has been a busy place for quite some time with a lot of energy concentrated there. Like a smith forging a sword, your subconscious space has been forged, worked and reworked in the heat, fire and pressure of the astrology we’ve been experiencing. You have the opportunity now to examine what you’ve been crafting one layer under the surface of your consciousness. This may feel like an “aha” or breakthrough moment, though what you are accessing is something you’ve had for quite some time, just not in a form you recognized or could touch. What you are connecting with is how to use your internal space like a finely crafted tool. What you are gaining is an even more diverse tool belt, to craft and shape what you envision for your life. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — As the week unfolds, plenty of unexpected people and situations may show up, particularly regarding sex. I suggest maintaining an attitude of openness, allowing yourself to meet what comes into your life without any expectations. Think of this as holding space for all possibilities to manifest. Operate from a position of letting go of preconceived ideas or requirements. Instead, do what you do best — let your curiosity lead, and hold space for partners to do the same. You are in a moment of making contact with some deeply creative and playful energy that will lend itself to some soul-enriching sexual moments for both you and partners. As you go on this sexual exploration, maintain an open dialogue with partners. Doing so offers greater intimacy both with others and with yourself. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Your emotional space is heating up quite a bit. This may come with the sensation of your inner landscape being erratic, or as though the emotional tether that keeps you grounded has been cut. If unexpected emotions arise, I suggest not assuming that they are linked to current situations in your life. Certain work situations may appear to be the catalyst, but I suggest taking the longer view. Like magma slowly making its way up through a volcano via lava tubes in the Earth’s crust, emotions that were buried a long time ago are rising to the surface of your mind and then bursting forth. As you work through these feelings, sit with what you experience, peeling back the layers to reach the actual root of the feeling. What you are gaining is the opportunity to heal and clear out old, lingering emotions. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Recently, you’ve been working through questions surrounding the role you play in your local community and the larger world. If any frustration arises regarding rectifying obligations in your home town with a larger purpose that is calling you beyond your local area, I suggest viewing it as a motivating factor that is pushing you to apply your creativity. As an Aquarius Moon, you are good at creating solutions that can incorporate seemingly competing ideas or situations. You are able to get around mutually exclusive viewpoints to think so far outside the box that others may feel you are operating in a different reality. In some ways you are — you don’t get limited by the constraints that others believe exist. As you move forward, finding a way to accomplish both what you want locally and internationally, maintain your focus on the idea that your reality is shaped by you. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You are being called to reassess how your internal world interacts with your outer experience. I propose an idea — that your inner emotional state is one of your greatest resources. Feeling good about yourself and your life is a powerful tool you can harness to create the kind of outer world you envision. I don’t mean if you feel good you’ll solve world hunger, rather that feeling good puts out energy on the right wavelength to help you create more of what you want in your life. I suggest starting with the small things around you that bring sensations of emotional joy and grounding. Make sure to do some of what you love every day and channel the feeling that brings into your projects, tasks, relationships and endeavors. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

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Aries Full Moon Eclipse — and your Moonshine Horoscopes

Dear Friend and Reader:

If you’re feeling a little like this week is packed to the gills full of some kind of edgy anticipation (whether creative and positive or stressful and negative), yet it’s been tricky to get traction on all the things you must do, you are in tune with a busy sky. It’s a sky that continues to find at least partial expression in the deadlock in the U.S. government. Chances are you can see and feel it in your personal life, too — and everything is about to shift.

Planet Waves
Old apple tree at Gilsland Farm, Falmouth, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

We’re covering the astrology for you on several fronts. First up, Genevieve Hathaway has written this week’s Moonshine horoscopes specifically for the Aries Full Moon eclipse.

Eric sifts through these events and more in tonight’s broadcast of Planet Waves FM. He will cover the astrology and the religious issues associated with the budget showdown, looking closely at Friday’s Full Moon eclipse and Mercury retrograde.

For an overview of this week’s primary themes, check out Monday’s Daily Astrology column. Covering Mars entering Virgo and opposing Neptune, this Mercury shadow phase and more, the column outlines some of the reasons you may feel ready to take action — and the reasons why doing so with extra mindfulness, attention to detail and careful communication matters.

Today’s Daily Astrology column considers the Libra Sun opposite Eris in Aries. This is a ‘proving moment’ for Eris — and a great reason to consider the “individual self” versus “relationship self” dilemma so many people find themselves in.

If you check back on the blog around noon today, you can read the latest from Len Wallick. In today’s column, he’ll be outlining how to prepare for the “whirlwind trip” of our upcoming eclipse season.

Finally, we wanted to let you know that Genevieve is teaching an hour-long workshop on Mercury retrograde tonight, Oct. 15, from 7-8 pm PDT at Shift Massage in Seattle, Washington. She will be covering the basics of Mercury retrograde, how to avoid the setbacks and delays generally associated with Mercury retrograde, and how to use the astrology to your advantage — plus specifics about the upcoming Mercury retrograde, which begins Oct. 21. If time permits, she can answer participants’ questions about how Mercury retrograde affects their natal charts.

You can register here and contact Genevieve directly at genevieve@venusinblue.com.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter

Planet Waves

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A Spiritual Crisis, and a Political One

Dear Friend and Reader:

Just a few brief comments on the government shutdown. Like most people, you may be having difficulty tracking this issue; to me it looks like a government shutdown for its own sake. But it’s one that makes most building takeovers that I’ve covered seem mature, since most students know enough to focus on a few demands that can actually be met by the administration.

Planet Waves
Donna Rice with her husband Barry after they traveled from Chicago to Zion National Park in Utah, closed due to the government shutdown. Photo by Trent Nelson.

One of the ways you know that this situation is drama for its own sake is that the first demand (defund the Affordable Care Act) was not going to happen. By the time the government was shut down and the creeps behind this protest figured that out, the demands started changing — the current one being the promise of discussion of slashing social programs.

All the Republican talk of “jobs, jobs, jobs” has led to their blocking hundreds of thousands of people from being able to go to work. All the talk about supporting small business has been belied by the thousands of businesses hurt or destroyed by the shutdown.

A few things are bugging me. One is that the original pretense, how bad the ACA allegedly is, is not an issue that warrants this kind of radical intervention. Not, particularly, since it’s the affirmed law of the land. Our extremely conservative Supreme Court already approved it, after Congress voted it into law and the president signed it into law. If a small minority wants to take matters into their own hands, that is one definition of tyranny — and thankfully it’s become obvious.

If a minority of politicians are declaring the ACA unconstitutional, and saying that it’s illegitimate despite being approved by every branch of government, they must be citizens of some other country. The reward they have got, if you believe a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll published in the past 24 hours, is that the Republicans and the Tea Party have never been less favorably thought of, while popularity for Obamacare has never been higher.

That some politicians would take advantage of the disgraceful health-care situation, using it against people, even going so far as to try to convince women not to go for routine gyn exams, is authentically disgusting. Health insurance, at minimum, provides some thin safety net between a routine disease and going bankrupt. In no other advanced country besides the U.S. do people flirt with this fate — and it’s especially propbematic given the unemployment situation, when people have lost their jobs and their health coverage.

Another problem is the involvement of Dominionist religion in this crisis, and that seems to be significant. Personally I don’t have a good feeling about people who preach the end of the world, and they seem to be the ones calling the shots.

Planet Waves

The Dominionist position is old hat: you accept our point of view or we will burn you at the stake. I don’t think these people have any proper role in government.

We also have what I will call a spiritual problem involving John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives. He is not who he pretends to be, a dude from Ohio; to see what kind of entity he is one’s third eye needs to be open, and I don’t consider it safe to conduct this kind of inquiry because of the energies involved. In human form, he controls the flow of bills to the floor of the House of Representatives. This one entity has the power to choke off whether progress is possible; he can personally keep this going or let it resolve, and we have no reason whatsoever to trust him.

That this is essentially a spiritual problem means that we might find a spiritual solution. I think that Boehner must be a focal point. The meek integrity that is binding him to the physical plane appears to be weakening, but he still has some thrash and resistance left in him. Holding him in white light will help neutralize him, though he won’t like it as much as the synthetic UV rays his leathery, orange skin seems to devour in his tanning bed.

It’s true that our debt crisis is what has made us subject to this kind of blackmail and other forms of external control. It’s essential to see this for what it is — the debt itself is an intentional construction. At the end of the Clinton administration the U.S. was well on the way to paying down its debt and had eliminated the yearly federal budget deficit. Economically and in many other ways, things were going pretty well at the time.

Then came a stolen election; a false flag terrorist event; a series of tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans; eliminating taxes on many of the largest corporations; a huge, unbudgeted, federally funded drug giveaway; a bloated national security state taking over nearly everything and occupying a billion square feet of office space; several very long, ongoing wars; and then a second 9/11, in financial form, allegedly requiring trillions in bank bailouts.

All these things have at least one common factor — they start under Cheney-Bush, and they got us into this position. And that is where we find ourselves — compromised, and in a sense, possessed.

Planet Waves
Colbert takes on the shutdown, proposing games like Not Sorry! and Operation Denied Due to Pre-Existing Condition.

The astrology lurking around is not all that encouraging. The federal shutdown has now been conflated with the debt ceiling issue. The debt ceiling is about the government’s ability to borrow money to make interest payments on funds that it’s already borrowed, and to meet some current obligations as well. Both could be resolved by simple, one-sentence acts of Congress.

Non-political federal budget officials say we hit the debt ceiling on Oct. 17, which is on the eve of a lunar eclipse, and just four days before Mercury stations retrograde. Depending on how you look at it, that combination of factors could represent a breakthrough or it could be a further descent into mire and chaos. We don’t know what would happen if the U.S. defaults on its obligations, since it has never done so.

As I’ve mentioned, the main U.S. chart, the Sibly chart, is under a lot of stress. That comes to a peak next April, when the grand cross including Mars retrograde in Libra, Jupiter in Cancer, Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn, is focused to the degree around the U.S. Sun.

Many have wondered how we are going to wrest our country back from these bizarre interests that have nothing to do with the general welfare of the American people, or even the business community. It is a pressing question; we will be asking it for a while.

There is a simple political analysis here: many Republicans who would vote to get us out of this mess are going along with the mob because they don’t want to be “primaried” — that is, knocked out of their Republican slot by a candidate further to the right. So they put their own self-interest above the collective interest. Their federal job is more important than everyone else’s federal job — or the stability of the world economy.

Here we see the problem with self-interest and why, once again, this is really a spiritual crisis rather than a political one.

Lovingly,


Planet Waves

Accelerate, with Precision

Our current astrology is about acceleration. The Moon is now waxing toward a Full Moon eclipse in the sign Aries, which happens Oct. 18. Eclipses often come with the sensation of concentrated experience, events speeding up and a sense of destiny or fate in operation.

Planet Waves
Next stop — a lunar eclipse in Aries, followed by a solar eclipse in Scorpio. Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.

The mid-Libra Sun is applying in a square aspect to Jupiter in Cancer. This looks like some emotional/relational drama, with the principle of balance (via Libra) pushing up against the tendency to over-feel and run in cycles (Cancer). It’s necessary to honor both and to remember that you cannot smooth out the surface of water with a canoe paddle.

Venus, which is often cautious and tends to speak second, is now in Sagittarius, a more freewheeling sign than many others – and Venus is headed for a square to Chiron, which is emotive, given to taking risks, and is anything but cautious. This is a reminder to stick to your values; they are your guiding principles. But if your principles back you into a corner, this is a time to reevaluate rather than overreact.

Venus square Chiron likes to push limits and can have a tendency to be so emotionally driven as to suspend judgment. The quest may be for an emotional high, sexual power or just the need to have fun. Yet where Chiron is involved, it’s necessary to engage the sentient part of one’s mind — the part that actually makes conscious decisions about what you do and do not want to do. If not, the Venus-Chiron square can have a sense of emotional injury. In this case, the opposite of injury would be integrity.

Perhaps most significantly, we are about to experience the fourth of seven Uranus-Pluto squares, the generation-defining aspect involving two of the most potent outer planets. This spans from 2012-2015 with a margin of at least three years on either side of that date range. The fourth event, the epicenter of the whole series, is within range now, and will be exact on Nov. 1. The series of Uranus-Pluto aspects is about acceleration of the historical process, the chaos factor and the drive to change that we are all experiencing so poignantly now.

To sum up, we’re experiencing many energetic, compelling aspects at the moment and, like using a chain saw or a welding torch, this kind of power demands precision, control and focus. If not, there can be mishaps, opportunities lost and time and energy wasted.

Planet Waves
Chart for Mars ingress of Virgo on Tuesday, Oct. 15. From there, Mars will oppose both Neptune and Chiron, an interesting combination.

Mars is currently in the last degrees of Leo, which is slippery and a little dangerous. It’s fiery Mars in a fire sign working the edge of the territory. That alone calls for precision and thoughtfulness when it’s more likely to signify bravado, risk-taking and a bit of machismo.

It’s also a comment on subject matter relating to male gender material. For example, there is the question: what is the relationship between sexism and male homophobia? One possible contact point is that male homophobia involves a man’s relationship to his inner feminine, as does his relationship to women. By one analysis, homophobia and sexism are the same thing — with inner and outer manifestations.

Mars will slide through the last degrees of Leo and arrive in Virgo on Tuesday, Oct. 15. Here is where some precision enters the picture, though you don’t want it to be too late. I suggest you get ahead of this transit, and focus on the details early, as annoying as they may be.

This theme is repeated by Mercury, which is slowing down to a retrograde that begins on Oct. 21. Some have noticed that the effect is starting to take hold, now that Mercury is in its first echo phase ahead of the retrograde; that’s happening now, as Mercury crosses the degrees where it will be retrograde (from Oct. 21 through Nov. 11).

Mercury stations retrograde within a couple of days of the Full Moon eclipse in Aries on Oct. 18 (which also happens to be the deadline for the debt ceiling limit). The world may be going crazy, but you don’t have to — or at least you can use a little planning, and just a bit of caution, to prevent mishaps and keep focused on your plan. If you don’t have one of those, I do suggest you make one up, and keep it flexible.
Planet Waves

Angry About their Own Idea

It’s clear the far right dreads the possibility that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may actually improve the health care situation for uninsured Americans. What’s amusing is that in 1989, the guts of what’s now called Obamacare — requiring individuals to obtain coverage or face a tax penalty — was proposed by the Heritage Foundation as a way around single-payer health care.

Planet Waves
President Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010.

The idea was adopted with a vengeance by Republicans in 1993 as a counter to the Clinton health care reform proposals under the name Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act. (You can view a chart comparing the two here.) Now, it’s what they seem to revile the most. What is in reality corporate medicine is deceptively being called socialized medicine.

As of Thursday, Republicans in Washington had dropped their demand to defund the ACA and were pushing for an agreement to postpone the debt ceiling crisis for six weeks while their proposed negotiations continue over government expenditures. (Those discussions have been happening for a long time.)

Defaulting on the debt, although some on the far right have said it’s no big deal, is widely viewed as a prescription for a worldwide recession that would make 2008 look like a hiccup.

Meanwhile, congressional approval ratings have fallen to 5% in an AP-GFK poll; the evidence is clear that conservative groups have been pushing for this idea since Obama’s re-election.

A “memo to the movement” signed by a long list of right-wing leaders was endorsed last Valentine’s Day by FreedomWorks, a direct offshoot of the Koch-funded Citizens for a Sound Economy. The memo lays out a blueprint for the defunding of Obamacare, “easily done through a series of appropriation riders” attached to a continuing resolution to fund the government. Perhaps it’s not so easy, since Republicans have dropped that as a demand.

Heritage Foundation branch Heritage Action for America is a signatory to the memo, which describes the Affordable Care Act as “an unprecedented attack on life and religious liberty.”

Trans-Pacific Partnership Marches On

Uncle Sam’s shutdown may have placed obstacles in the path of various citizens attempting to access everything from monuments and parks to FHA loan information, but never fear: collusion with multinational corporations continues unobstructed.

Secretary of State John Kerry appeared in place of Pres. Obama at a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) summit in Indonesia this past week, where plans are being finalized for the agreement involving Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

Planet Waves
Don’t let the cute monkey mask fool you: the TPP is neither friendly, fair, nor more fun than a barrel of you-know-what. Photo of protester in Japan this spring by Issei Kato/Reuters.

The Citizens’ Trade Campaign has raised serious questions about the trade agreement, which has been in negotiation since 2008 with massive input from corporations and hardly any from legislators of the nations involved.

Writing in 2012, Laurel Sutherlin of Rainforest Action Network foresaw dire consequences for “everything from affordable medicines, Internet freedoms and intellectual property rights to democratically enacted labor laws and environmental protections … a wish list of the 1%.”

Unlike past trade agreements, this one has not been rolled out for public review; what is known about it has come mostly via Wikileaks and includes a provision whereby corporations’ lawsuits against governments will be heard by a tribunal of international trade lawyers.

Past leaks of draft sections include provisions that allow Big Pharma to undermine access to affordable medicine in developing countries, privilege corporate banks over credit unions, favor fossil fuels over alternative energy and establish some provisions of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), already rejected by the U.S. Congress.

In fact, “This is not mainly about trade,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, on Democracy Now! “It is a corporate Trojan horse.”

Right-wingers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Heritage Foundation, to name but two, get all melty and tingly at the idea of greater globalization; the Heritage folks believe it will help neuter state-owned enterprises. Obama is currently seeking a “fast-track” authorization process that would allow him to sign off on the agreement without Congressional approval.
Planet Waves

Political Wrangling Holds Up Hawaii Pesticide Bill

One of the Kauai County (Hawaii) councilmen who earlier this year introduced a bill that would increase the county’s oversight of the heaviest agricultural users of restricted-use pesticides on the island — Dow, Syngenta, BASF, Pioneer — is accusing the county administration of dragging its feet on a vote.

Monsanto is not subject to the bill because Roundup is classified by the EPA as a general-use pesticide, not a restricted-use pesticide, according to activist group Stoppoisoningparadise.org.

Planet Waves
Supporters urging the Kauai County Council to stand up for the island’s children by supporting the public’s right to know what chemicals are being applied, plus when and where. Photo: www.StopPoisoningParadise.org — Pass Kauai Bill 2491.

Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. asked Tuesday during a full council hearing for a two-month extension so his administration can work with the state and county government on the issue.

But Councilman Gary Hooser believes severe budget cuts to the state Department of Agriculture’s pesticide oversight function make it crucial that local authorities take it over immediately, to prevent more harm to people and the environment.

For instance, 150 residents on the west side of Kauai, where most of the biotech operations are situated, filed a lawsuit in 2011 against DuPont-Pioneer, alleging their products were making them ill and driving down property values.

Included in the measure would be restrictions around schoolyards. Studies cited by Stoppoisoningparadise.org have proven neurotoxic pesticides contribute to the “rising rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, widespread declines in IQ and other measures of cognitive function” and that “evidence of links to certain childhood cancers is particularly strong.”

“We need to do something. We can’t count on the state. In our particular situation, I believe there is urgency. The doctors we talked to in those committee hearings believe there is urgency and we can’t sit around and wait for the state to get its act together,” he said.

Yet county officials know that pesticide oversight is not cheap — Kauai County Council Chair Jay Furfaro initially put the price at $4.4 million for the first two years and $911,000 every year after that. Supporters of the bill would like to see the biotech companies responsible for the pesticides absorb the cost.

Last month, days before the Kauai council committee voted on Bill 2491, Gov. Neil Abercrombie promised that he would work with the Hawaii legislature to restore funding and positions for pesticide regulation within the health and agriculture departments.

He also suggested that agricultural companies would voluntarily comply with new safety and health guidelines that would be put in place while the legislature and department heads deliberated on stricter controls. Supporters are skeptical of the governor’s promises, saying he is trying to derail the county’s efforts for stricter controls.

Planet Waves reported in August on this bill, the original version of which included extensive regulations of both pesticides and genetically modified organisms.

Last month, however, the Kauai County Council’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee amended the measure to focus more closely on pesticide use. The committee passed it 4-1 on Sept. 27, and the council will reconvene next Tuesday to address it again.
Planet Waves

Judge Set to Determine Fines Against BP in Deepwater Horizon Case

Phase two of the civil trial against BP for its role in the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster began last week. The focus this time will be on determining how much oil actually spilled — and if government attorneys succeed in proving their number, 4.2 million barrels, it could mean the demise of BP.

Planet Waves
Marine reef ecologist Scott Porter works to remove oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill off his hands in June 2010, south of Venice, Louisiana. Photo: Eric Gay/AP.

The first phase of the trial about two months ago centered on whether BP was grossly negligent or not, and in this Judge Carl J. Barbier has not made a ruling.
But if he agrees with the government’s position that there was gross negligence and that 4.2 million barrels were spilled, the fines could amount to more than $18 billion, according to a New York Times article.

“They would have to sell assets to keep the company afloat,” said Fadel Gheit, a senior oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Company. “It would wipe out all of their cash.”

BP is arguing that it was simple negligence and that only 2.45 million barrels were spilled. If the judge finds in its favor, it will pay fines of no more than $2.7 billion. Legal experts believe the actual fine will fall between the two extremes, according to the article.

This phase of the trial will also determine if BP prepared adequately for a blowout and if it responded properly once the oil started flowing.

Update: The director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, has offered to exchange his own freedom for the release of 28 environmentalists and two journalists facing piracy charges in Russia after they allegedly climbed aboard a Russian Arctic oil platform from their ship last month. In addition, Russia is charging them with possession of illegal drugs reportedly found on the seized Greenpeace vessel.
Planet Waves

A Women’s Health Win in California

Amidst the near-constant onslaught of states passing ever-tighter restrictions on abortions (68 passed by states so far this year), California is bucking the trend. Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law Wednesday that allows nurse practitioners and other non-physicians to perform abortions via “vacuum aspiration” during the first trimester.

Planet Waves
California isn’t just L.A., San Fran and San Diego; 52% of California counties lack an accessible abortion provider. Image: thisispersonal.org.

Critics accuse the governor of putting abortion-industry profits above the well-being of women and children and argue the bill will lower the standard of medical care for women.

Asked for commentary, Planet Waves member and medical consultant Hal J. Cohen D.O., remarked that as long as non-physicians are “well trained and credentialed,” the system should work fine.

He added, “The key to having this function smoothly is appropriate backup.

“For instance, NP anesthesiologists have backup in the hospital. Relatively quick, nearby access to a hospital is needed here as well. If these above safeguards are in place, I think it’s a reasonable and relatively safe way to expand much needed services.”

California joins Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Hampshire in allowing nurse practitioners to perform this type of abortion, which uses a tube and suction. California and several other states already allow non-physicians to prescribe drugs for pregnancy termination.

According to The New York Times, at least 8,000 such abortions have been provided safely by nurse practitioners, certified midwife nurses and physician assistants since 2007, as part of a University of California, San Francisco, pilot program. Complication rates for non-physicians were comparable to those for surgeons (below 2%).
Planet Waves

What Are We Modeling? One in Ten Youth Commit Sexual Violence

If the title alone does not disturb you, perhaps this will: according to The Los Angeles Times, “One in seven believed that he or she was ‘not at all responsible for what happened,’ and almost 4 in 10 said they considered the victim somewhat or completely responsible for the reported incident.”

The numbers come from the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, a non-profit organization based in San Clemente, Calif., that surveyed 1,058 teens and young adults. Nearly one in ten reported having been a perpetrator of sexual violence. The numbers are supported by bi-annual stats compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Planet Waves
Image by Katherine Streeter for NPR.

Survey respondents ranged from 14-21 years old, with slightly less than half aged 14-17. One in four respondents answered that their last victim was not a dating partner; previous research in this area has focused mainly on violence among dating partners and in college-aged individuals acting outside the need for parental consent.

The research, published by JAMA Pediatrics earlier this week, focused on participants in the center’s ongoing Growing up with Media study, which began in 2006. Among its findings is that 17% of the perpetrators had looked at violent or X-rated material in the past year; only 3% of the non-perpetrators had done so.

Michele Ybarra, the center’s president and director of research, cautions that the “findings should be interpreted cautiously” and that the study should be replicated — but warns even more urgently of the need to emphasize “bystander” training and intervention in the nation’s secondary schools and colleges. “Such training emphasizes the responsibility of peers not only to discourage and prevent negative behavior within their group or community, but also to recognize, stop or report such behavior when they witness it,” according to the Times article.

It also underscores the need for adults to be aware of the attitudes, behavior and speech they are modeling for youth when it comes to sex and relationships — both in terms of what we do, what forms of media we bring into our homes or support with our consumer dollars, and what we say to teens directly.

“We absolutely need to have conversations with our kids about what healthy sex is and what unhealthy sex is,” says Ybarra. Parents could say, “‘If you have to convince your partner, maybe that’s not the right way to have sex.’ Even simple messages like that are important.”

 

Planet Waves

Planet Waves

Please note: Planet Waves does not endorse inebriation for inebriation’s sake (Pholus, we’re watching you!), nor does the publisher or his staff wish to upset or trigger anyone recovering from substance abuse. That said, Neptune, Dionysus and Bacchus have all endorsed this messaging campaign — and heck, at this point, taking almost any kind of action must be better than taking none. Thanks, Uranus and Pluto!

Drunk-Dialing Congress

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade — or, in this case, lemonade spiked with vodka while you call up members of Congress with your free hand.

A group called Revolution Messaging has designed a website for the purpose — drunkdialcongress.org — complete with talking points, drink recipes and an embedded calling platform so that all you have to do is type in your own phone number to be connected to a random member of Congress. The idea is based on the time-honored (or dishonored) ‘tradition’ for people under the influence to dial (or misdial) a friend, lover, ex or random stranger and weep, babble or rant embarrassingly into the receiver.

Why do this? The site notes, “As Members of Congress quickly returned from their final symbolic, non-effective and otherwise useless votes to avert a government shutdown, the heavy drinking began. Reports of our representatives getting plastered on the government’s dime — the one we have left — have come streaming in from witnesses all over Capitol Hill. Now’s your chance to tell your Representative what you really think of their actions.”
Planet Waves

We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.

 

Planet Waves

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

We published the extended monthly horoscopes for October on Friday, Sept. 27. Inner Space for October was published Friday, Sept. 20. We published the Moonshine horoscopes for the Pisces Full Moon Tuesday, Sept. 16. Moonshine for the Libra New Moon published on Tuesday, Oct. 1. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscopes on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday but for now it’s substituting for one Friday horoscope a month.

 

Planet Waves

As mentioned, I’ve taken a week off from the horoscope. However, I’ve tried something I’ve considered for a long time — allowing the Oracle to choose interpretations from the vast database of prior horoscopes. The Oracle is a bit spooky responding to individual queries to individual questions; it works beautifully as a daily feature. So I thought I would try sign-by-sign. I made the queries myself on Thursday, asking for a weekly horoscope for each of the signs, one at a time. The returns are absolutely random, with about a 1 in 10,000 chance of any one entry being chosen. Some themes recur — the idea of ‘ethics’ shows up twice. There seems to be an emphasis on professional activities. I am curious how they work for you. Please let me know. — Eric Francis


The Oracle Horoscope, standing in for Weekly Horoscope 970, Oct. 11, 2013

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Reassurance has not come in quite the form you expected, but it has arrived and it’s here to stay. There is more news to come, in both personal and professional relationships, and the sometimes strange territory where they meet. It’s true that mixing personal involvement with work, or daring to allow a relationship to take on a purpose, are considered risky by many people, and often threaten to have sloppy results if things go wrong. The actual problem is people having no real sense of what others are thinking and feeling, and not bothering to ask. I suggest you take this opportunity to reveal yourself, and to make any long-overdue inquiries that could give you an excellent change of perspective.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Not everyone has to agree with you. Not even you have to agree with yourself all the time, but, sooner or later, you eventually work it out. What you may soon discover is just how prophetic you’ve been at predicting your own life, despite the mental and emotional challenges you’ve been through lately. On one level it may seem like you’ve been getting accurate images of your future. Looked at another way, you’ve been taking your visions and, by some mysterious process you may not understand, you’ve been making those images real. There’s a word for it: imagination.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — About six weeks ago, around the Virgo New Moon, you learned something about yourself. I reckon you had a revelation that gave you permission to take a certain risk, and your thoughts quite likely pointed to why that risk was the logical step to take. I want to remind you of that thought process, and let you know that you stand in the spot where the choice or action is possible. This may involve a relationship, one which you are ready to approach directly and with a level head. And it, too, is ready to approach you. Remember, though, that the true meeting is within yourself.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — I can see you writing in your notebook, or on a napkin, “Okay, this time I’m actually going nuts.” Well, okay, I hear you, but it’s not quite for sure. What’s happening is that a lot of internal energy is getting liberated (associated with Mars) at the same time a marvelously complicated situation is unfolding in your mental world. Conditions are such that the increased energy is amplifying your perception of what is happening, though the situation does warrant a close look. It is dangerous to be too invested in your own personal value system; that’s one message of this crisis. There are a lot of ways to accomplish the same goal, or meet the same need. One message of your current chart is to strive for diversity in your thinking, including what you learn from other cultures and people from other countries.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — If the astonishing run of luck, activity and inspiration the past few weeks has eased off, all that’s happened has indeed left you a different person. I would propose you figured out the importance of being grounded and building your dreams on solid foundations. Yet in truth, nothing has left the neighborhood or passed you by. Its form has changed, and in many respects, it’s become more accessible to thought (as inspiration sometimes is not). Also, you are starting to ask the important financial questions about the idea, and they do indeed have answers. Remember, if something doesn’t have a solution, it may not be a problem.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Close partners seem to be of two minds — or perhaps two bodies, in that people who usually vehemently disagree seem to be singing from the same book of hymns. It may be that the passing of yesterday’s lunar eclipse has released the tension in the air like a good thunderstorm, or that people went so far into polarized directions on their opinions that they have finally started to meet on the other side of the house. Everything that seemed so incredibly important yesterday can now fade happily into memory. So don’t focus so much on the details that you miss the surreal nature of the moment, when the cat lays down with the mouse. Resist fits of jealousy as well — these people all love you.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

 

Planet Waves

Attention Libras (and those with Libra rising or Moon): We’ve got big news for you if you’re a Libra, or were born with Libra as your rising or Moon sign: Your 2013-2014 birthday reading by Eric Francis is ready!

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Not all problems can be solved by money. Money can be very useful, but it is utterly useless without ideas to back it up. Isn’t it amazing that virtually any crisis, difficulty, struggle or puzzle can be solved with a single thought? In case you are trying to work something like this out (and people may be depending upon you to do so) here is the formula that will work for any difficulty this month. Consider your problem, any problem, and imagine that a mom and a small child (about five years old) are working on solving it together. There are some suggestions the mom has, and others that the child has, but between them they see the whole situation, and poof, the solution appears.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — People treat you fairly but that’s partly because you stand up for yourself. It’s also because you’ve long ago figured out that this elusive little thing in the world called ‘ethics’ is alive and well in your mind. You live in a world where there is actual right and wrong. This week may present you with an ethical dilemma that comes in various shades of gray. At the time it may not seem like there is a correct answer or solution. You may in the end have to make a decision that’s based on your intuition or do what feels right. You can trust yourself. With you the chances are that if it feels right it is.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — When seeking money, remember your ethics. When working for advancement in your career, remember your ethics. I say these things knowing we live in a world where the concept of ethics seems outmoded and even useless. I assure you, it’s not. Whatever the current trend in thought, no matter how popular, useful and effective it may be to forego questions of authenticity, or matters of right and wrong, there is such a thing as karma. We are all subject to it. I don’t think you’re an unethical person; rather, I see a spell of astrology where the ends might seem to justify the means. They do not. How you go about something, from the specific methods you use, to the motivation that drives you, is every bit as meaningful as what you accomplish. Indeed, the two are so closely related as to be the same thing: if you notice you’re being driven by some form of ambition, you might want to check your goal and make sure that it’s really something you want. For an extended phase of your life, you are being granted a mantle of power. You have an aura of authority, and that connotes responsibility. I suggest you live like your telephone is tapped and like you’re being followed around by a television crew. Live as if you are actually accountable for your actions. You are. You are also accountable for the constructive, creative and sincere deeds to your credit, but on that particular theme, I suggest you let others do the talking.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — A variety of unusual factors are conspiring to push your professional life ahead by light years. These are recent developments and they’re impossible to miss. You may at times feel like you’re losing control of the process, but that’s part of what happens at times of big change, and part of how you know you’re actually there. Within the experience, you have a lot of room to make several very specific decisions about what you want to be doing and how. You may need to negotiate with certain people a little bit — but you’re in the perfect position to do so.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Things seem to be going well. But how well is well enough? Usually we have no idea how good life is until we express our wealth, personal gifts or success in some tangible way. Misers are miserable simply because they withhold themselves. The prevailing logic of the world says that to give something is to give it up. I would propose that in this case, to give what you have is to keep it. And it gets better yet. The accompanying discovery is that you have far more than you ever imagined. Take this on the most private level (rather than business or social) and you’re more likely to see what I mean. Your instincts are telling you that you need to express an emotional reality of some kind, and express it from the deepest and most generous place within you. It may feel like a tremendous personal risk. More good will come of it than you think.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.
Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Apply creativity to everything you touch, thought you think and person you know. That’s how to access the miracle no matter what situation you find yourself in. Living is an art; loving is a science; emotion is a craft in which we sail the waters of feeling and passion. You can afford to take absolutely any chance you want as long as you keep your mind in the most alert state available. This may seem like a great responsibility but the alternative is far too dull to seriously consider.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You can get all 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for the special reduced price of only $29.95. LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

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