Monthly Archives: October 2018

Libra New Moon, Conjunct Ceres, Square Pluto

Listen to tonight’s Planet Waves FM here

The Libra New Moon takes place at 11:47 pm ET on Monday, Oct. 8, less than a degree away form the midpoint of that sign. An event at the midpoint of a cardinal sign is in itself significant, granting it expanded influence through a connection to the Thema Mundi, the hypothetical chart of the world (which has 15 degrees Cancer rising).

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Justice by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris.

The closest and most striking aspect in this chart is a conjunction of the Moon and the Sun to Ceres. The first minor planet, Ceres represents the feminine principle as we associate her with Gaia, the Earth, and with the Virgin Mary. Ceres also represents the principle of liminality: that which is lurking on the horizon of consciousness, sometimes available to perception and sometimes not.

As such, it’s fitting that Ceres also represents the collective grief of women (she loses her daughter to the underworld, for half the year, anyway, which is a mythological representation of why it’s cold in the winter: the Earth is grieving for her).

Recent events surrounding the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court describe a kind of prolonged political winter, and have illuminated the anger and a sense of loss that many women feel in our time, and perhaps have felt for time immemorial. When grief of any kind is suppressed, it turns to depression, rage and chaos.

Yet apropos of the theme of liminality, we cannot ignore the grief of men: the untold millions who have died in wars for years, those who have been injured and disfigured, and those forced to serve (which means to kill people they often know are innocent); the agony of those falsely imprisoned and executed; the fathers who have lost sons, daughters and wives.

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Planet Waves Daily Oracle for Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Libra weekly for August 27, 2004.

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You are experiencing far too much anxiety for your own good. Worrying will not get the job done, besides which, you cannot rightly expect anything much to resolve itself with the planets in their current state. So please stop worrying. You are only wasting precious energy you could be allocating to sitting under a tree or hiding in the back of your favorite cafe scribbling in your notebook. I can assure you that as the next four weeks progress, each issue you are dealing with will resolve itself one by one. This will not be by magic, but miracles arise from love, not fear.

The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our Galaxy, Backstage and Core Community members. See this link for more information.


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Order Eric’s Autumn Reading, which will cover Venus retrograde and beyond, and comprises all 12 signs. This will give you crucial insight into your Sun and rising signs, plus those of your closest partners, friends, family members and prospective lovers. Each sign will be 30 to 40 minutes each, and the set will come with a video introduction. You may order here, or call us at (845) 481-5616.

Planet Waves Daily Oracle for Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Leo weekly for March 1, 2004.

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The Sun in Pisces has been making some excellent aspects, and allowing you to open doors and make some unusual progress. Whatever happened recently involving a joint financial situation or business proposition taught you that you can have faith in your gifts and talents, and that you’re a mutual resource for yourself and others. It is true that we live in a world of takers and shakers who do a good job of pawning themselves off as humanitarians. It’s also true that you have sufficient faith in humanity to see past that, and to believe what you see.

The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our Galaxy, Backstage and Core Community members. See this link for more information.


e-p2

Order Eric’s Autumn Reading, which will cover Venus retrograde and beyond, and comprises all 12 signs. This will give you crucial insight into your Sun and rising signs, plus those of your closest partners, friends, family members and prospective lovers. Each sign will be 30 to 40 minutes each, and the set will come with a video introduction. You may order here, or call us at (845) 481-5616.

Eve Ensler to White Women Supporting Kavanaugh: Stand with Survivors & Fight This Nomination

Links to today’s show transcripts:

Eve Ensler to White Women Supporting Kavanaugh: Stand with Survivors & Fight This Nomination
Opposition to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is growing across the country as the Senate prepares to vote on his nomination, just one day after senators were given their first chance to see the FBI’s new investigation into Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s claims that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. More than 300 protesters were arrested Thursday during a massive sit-in on Capitol Hill against Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by multiple women. The Senate is planning to hold a key procedural vote on his confirmation Friday morning. A final vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation is expected on Saturday. The decision rests on four senators who have not yet announced how they will vote: Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as well as Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright and author of The Vagina Monologues is interviewed. She is also the founder of V-Day, a movement to end violence against women and girls. She recently published “A Letter to White Women Who Support Brett Kavanaugh” in Time Magazine. She says to sexual assault survivors watching the Kavanaugh nomination unfold, “Your pain matters. Your experience matters. The trauma that you have faced matters. And there are many of us, many of us supporting you, loving you, holding you as you try to heal from this experience.”

Eve Ensler: Nobel Peace Prize For Mukwege & Murad Is an Award for Every Rape Survivor in the World
After a landmark year for the “Me Too” movement, which ignited an international conversation on sexual assault, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday morning to two champions of women’s rights who have built their careers fighting sexual violence: Physician Denis Mukwege and human rights activist Nadia Murad. Dr. Denis Mukwege founded the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999. The clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery as a result of sexual violence. Nadia Murad is a 25-year-old Yazidi Kurdish human rights activist from Iraq. She was kidnapped and held by the Islamic State for almost three years. During her captivity she was repeatedly raped. Eve Ensler is interviewed. She is an award-winning playwright and author of The Vagina Monologues and the founder of V-Day, a movement to end violence against women and girls. She is a good friend of Dr. Mukwege and has also worked with Nadia Murad.

Could Brazil Return to a Dictatorship? Glenn Greenwald on Possible Election of Far-Right Demagogue
Voters in Brazil head to the polls on Sunday in an election that could reshape the political landscape of South America. Polls show the current frontrunner is the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, a former army officer who has openly praised Brazil’s military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. Bolsonaro has a long history of making racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments, and has risen in the polls since September 8 when he was stabbed while campaigning. His campaign directly benefited from the jailing of former President Lula Inácio da Silva in April, who had been leading in all presidential polls before being forced to drop out of the race. Lula’s hand-picked successor, Fernando Haddad, is currently placing second in most polls. Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of the Intercept. He has been covering the election from Rio de Janeiro.


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Order Eric’s Autumn Reading, which will cover Venus retrograde and beyond, and comprises all 12 signs. This will give you crucial insight into your Sun and rising signs, plus those of your closest partners, friends, family members and prospective lovers. Each sign will be 30 to 40 minutes each, and the set will come with a video introduction. You may order here, or call us at (845) 481-5616.

Planet Waves Daily Oracle for Friday, Oct. 5, 2018

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Pisces weekly for May 16, 2008.

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Can you trust people? This is one of the questions humanity has grappled with for all of its recorded existence. There are people who think little of treachery; there are others who think little of giving themselves entirely. Neither of these two fairly rare types need to concern you. The people to focus your discernment on are those who cannot make up their mind. Beware of the color gray, and the feeling. Be mindful when anyone says one thing and then does another. The only way they can hurt you is if you fail to notice the pattern, and your charts say you run a chance of doing just that. Therefore, become a student of patterns, sequences, and of subtle variations on truth that may emerge from the process. Notice what they are, and make sure you use what you learn.

The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our Galaxy, Backstage and Core Community members. See this link for more information.


e-p2

Order Eric’s Autumn Reading, which will cover Venus retrograde and beyond, and comprises all 12 signs. This will give you crucial insight into your Sun and rising signs, plus those of your closest partners, friends, family members and prospective lovers. Each sign will be 30 to 40 minutes each, and the set will come with a video introduction. You may order here, or call us at (845) 481-5616.

sriyantra

In the Shadow of Venus

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Roy Scheider and Jessica Lange in All That Jazz.

Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio on Friday afternoon. Scorpio is where Venus is what you might call uncomfortable, in the sign opposite one that she rules (Taurus); in a sign ruled by Mars; yet also in a feminine sign associated with surrender, transformation, death and sexuality.

Scorpio is the home of all things unmentionable at the Thanksgiving dinner table. What Venus represents in this place of the zodiac is a discussion not found in most places in the world except for where high tantric teaching is welcome, and there are not many. However, it sometimes finds its way into popular culture as death showing up as a woman, and an unnamed phobia of women that is found in many cultures, including our own.

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One version of the Sri Yantra, a tantric mandala. The symbolism is all life and all of existence, including time and space, emerging from the feminine. One of the objectives of tantric practice is to turn awareness toward the source of existence, rather than our usual position of having our backs to it.

Within the tantric frame of reference, woman is the giver of life and therefore the one who takes it away. What we think of as the sacred feminine is the pool from which life emerges, and therefore into which it yields itself. Yet consider the daunting responsibility that would come with accepting this. And consider the potential for the abuse of power if it is denied, not kept in full awareness, or expressed in an unloving or toxic form.

Such is the root of our social and political woes. Imagine if every discussion of the role, power, and place of women began with the statement, “All life emerges from the female body. All of our mothers gave up something in order for us to live.”

Yet this is unacknowledged; it’s the biggest open secret in the world. And as something that is not admitted, not recognized, not ritualized, and surely not celebrated, it is part of the repressed world of what Jung called shadow material.

Into the Realm of Shadows

With any retrograde planet, we find our way to the shadow realm: what is forgotten, lurking in the recesses of the past (personal, ancestral and collective); what is not openly spoken of; what is expressed in a way that is ‘unacceptable’ or inappropriate; what is misunderstood; and what is consciously repressed.

In a natal chart, retrograde planets can represent a form of mastery that must be recovered, though it might seem problematic or a dubious gift until it’s claimed fully and reabsorbed into the psyche.

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NYT Exposé: “Self-Made Billionaire” Donald Trump Built Empire on Father’s Money, Tax Dodging & Fraud

Links to today’s show transcripts:

NYT Exposé: “Self-Made Billionaire” Donald Trump Built Empire on Father’s Money, Tax Dodging & Fraud
President Donald Trump built his personal brand and presidential candidacy on the claim that he was a self-made billionaire whose only head start was a “small loan of a million dollars” from his father. But a New York Times exposé has revealed that Trump inherited much of his family’s wealth through tax dodging and outright fraud, receiving at least $413 million in inflation-adjusted dollars from his father’s real estate empire. David Barstow is interviewed and is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times and the lead author on the new investigation, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches from His Father.” Barstow shares a byline with Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.

ACLU Formally Opposes Kavanaugh, Citing Credible Sexual Assault Allegations & Partisan Temperament
The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has opened an investigation into President Trump for fraud and tax evasion following a major exposé by The New York Times revealing that Trump inherited nearly half a billion dollars of his family’s wealth through tax dodges and outright fraud. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has also called for a city probe, and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has urged the IRS to investigate the president. The Times’ 13,000-word investigative report found the late Fred and Mary Trump transferred more than $1 billion in wealth to their children, paying less than 5 percent of the $550 million in taxes they should have paid under inheritance tax rates. Donald Trump also helped his parents undervalue real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on IRS tax returns in order to reduce taxes.


e-p2

Order Eric’s Autumn Reading, which will cover Venus retrograde and beyond, and comprises all 12 signs. This will give you crucial insight into your Sun and rising signs, plus those of your closest partners, friends, family members and prospective lovers. Each sign will be 30 to 40 minutes each, and the set will come with a video introduction. You may order here, or call us at (845) 481-5616.

Beneath the Waves and Back: Venus Stations Retrograde

By Amanda Painter

On Friday, at 3:04 pm EDT (19:04:14 UTC), Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio. We’re in one of those odd years when we get a series of ‘personal planet’ retrogrades in a row, sometimes overlapping each other. I think these years tend to have a distinct feel to them; I don’t know about you, but a significant chunk of 2018 has felt a little bit like limbo, or like one long phase of inner processing, and it looks like that might continue almost through the end of the year.

Playa Brava, Culebra, Puerto Rico. Photo by Amanda Painter.

Playa Brava, Culebra, Puerto Rico. Photo by Amanda Painter.

Mercury’s three yearly retrogrades is a pretty familiar pattern. But this year, Mercury’s second retrograde overlapped with the summer’s Mars retrograde. And then later this fall, several hours after Venus stations direct on Nov. 16, Mercury will station retrograde the same day.

I mention this not to freak out or depress anybody, but rather so you can get oriented with an eye toward continued introspection. Yes, you will have to continue taking necessary action in your life; you might be in the process of making big changes and choices; exciting opportunities could come your way, as might frustrating challenges that you’ll need to address.

As I understand it, these retrogrades are not about treading water so much as they are about seeking new levels of self-understanding, or reviewing what got you where you are so you can plot an informed course forward. Yes, there are certain precautions and guidelines — such as avoiding unnecessary large purchases while Mercury is retrograde, or not assuming that the new lover you hook up with during a Venus retrograde is ‘The One’. But that’s not the same as being too afraid to do what needs to be done.

So what’s unique about the chart for Venus stationing retrograde tomorrow? For one thing, Venus will change apparent direction in close conjunction with a hypothetical point called Poseidon (the Greek version of Neptune; associated with enlightenment and illumination) and with the asteroid Persephone (the goddess brought to the underworld by Pluto to be his wife, resulting in the seasons as she makes her annual journey above ground and then back down again).

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