Author Archives: Amanda Painter

From Dreams to Reality: Mercury Square Neptune

This edition of Planet Waves features your weekly horoscopes by Eric Francis. If you’re not a Core Community or All-Access member, you can read the full edition through an individual issue purchase. Get our twice-weekly mailings and more when you sign up for a Core Community Pass here.

Dear Friend and Reader:

We all have that one area of our lives where we can’t seem to bridge our idealized version of things with actual reality. You know: like maybe you persistently believe you’ll be able to stretch time to fit all the things you want to do in a day, despite your unbroken track record of never doing so; or you repeatedly overlook potential partners’ honesty about themselves, instead concocting a dream-version of the person — and then feel shocked when they stay true to their flaws.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Maybe you always fall for the deal that seems too good to be true. Or, it continually surprises you when the comments you toss off without thinking on Facebook actually upset people who don’t understand “what you really meant.”

Those are just a few examples of the sort of thinking and situations you’ll want to beware of as we head into the weekend. What’s your unique twist on the theme? Write it down on a sticky note now and put it on your bathroom mirror so you don’t forget. Mercury and Neptune are coming to town, by way of Gemini and Pisces, and there’s a good chance all that air and water could fog up the mirror — i.e., your perception.

Mercury is currently slowing down in early Gemini, having entered the pre-retrograde shadow (or echo) phase earlier this week. If you noticed that a few telltale things such as your computer or communication went mildly wonky on Monday, that was your heads up: Mercury stations retrograde May 18 (or 19, depending on time zone).

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20th Anniversary of International Masturbation Month!

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Way back in 1994, then-Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Jocelyn Elders was invited to speak at a United Nations conference on AIDS. Asked whether masturbation would be appropriate to promote to young people as an alternative to riskier sexual activity, she replied, “I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.”

Dr. Joycelyn Elders with Good Vibrations Executive Vice President, Jackie Rednour-Bruckman, at Catalyst Con West 2013, where she applauded and endorsed International Masturbation Month efforts. Photo courtesy of Good Vibrations.

Sensible? Yes — but it was too much for the Clinton administration to handle, and she was fired. In response, the following year the Good Vibrations sex toy store in San Francisco dubbed May National Masturbation Month.

As Good Vibrations notes in an a blog post from earlier this week, it’s now International Masturbation Month, thank you very much. In the last 20 years, a lot has changed in American culture — some things for the better, some not (I’m looking at states implementing drastic regulations and waiting periods on abortion, for example). Masturbation is still not a family-dinner-conversation topic for most people, but then again, how many families actually manage to gather around the dinner table anymore?

The topic of self-pleasure is, I think, far less taboo than it once was. For all the ways the Internet is messing with how we connect and communicate — and even how we think — it has also made information and discourse about masturbation available to virtually anyone who can get online.

Yes, technology is having a questionable impact on the ability of younger generations to engage in truly intimate relationships, and a lot of the porn out there does not model “healthy” or “realistic” sex. But there’s a ton of masturbation to be seen out there, numerous legit resources for those with questions, and a lot more people talking about it like it’s the normal, pleasurable, healthy, non-shameful thing it is.

After all, once upon a time in 1970, Betty Dodson (Planet Waves’ sexual godmother) found out that while drawings of nude couples having sex might be a hit on Madison Avenue, a gallery show of female nudes masturbating was a non-starter. In fact, it got her dumped from the NYC art world. As Betty describes here, the ensuing realization that masturbation was the bottom line of sexual repression set her off on her legendary, and revolutionary, career of educating women and empowering them to take ownership of their orgasms.

Not everyone is on board; oppressive forces continue to work in powerfully insidious (and astonishingly obvious) ways. Plenty of people are still working their way out from under heartbreaking and still all-too-common burdens of guilt and shame about their bodies and desires. If you’re on that path — or just appreciate a good pro-masturbation pep-talk every once in a while, here’s Eric’s article titled How to Be Your Own Lover from (I believe) May of 2000.

As he writes in the epigram, “There’s more to a healthy relationship to yourself than great sex — but it helps. A lot.”

With that, I wish you a very merry month of May.

Beltane Scorpio Full Moon: Passion Magnified

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You know how whatever you give your attention to tends to get magnified? That is, whether you see a lot of positive or a lot of negative often has to do with your attitudes, worldview and emotional situation, in addition to your choice of focus. Well, Full Moons can also have a magnifying effect, as can anything to do with Jupiter. We have both at play this weekend.

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Your Moonshine Horoscopes for the Scorpio Full Moon

Standing Apart from Mommy Internet

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By Amanda Painter

Most people I know have an ambivalent relationship to their Internet life and social media experience — neither wholly positive nor wholly negative. We’re all hurtling at fiber-optic speeds along a path whose implications for how and where we locate identity, self-esteem and emotional/spiritual nourishment are questionable (when they’re questioned at all).

Photo by Amanda Painter.

This weekend’s first quarter Moon looks like it will be pushing your awareness of what that dynamic is really about, and what you need to do about it for your own emotional peace.

If you’re someone for whom a day without a selfie that gets 40 “likes” is a day when you feel unseen and unloved and question your life’s worth, pay close attention.

The Sun is in early Taurus, having ingressed Monday. The Moon is in Cancer right now, feeling tuned-in emotionally and especially keen on cozy domestic pursuits for the next couple days. It enters Leo Saturday at 9:13 am EDT.

By 7:55 pm Saturday night, the Leo Moon will make a right angle to the Sun (90 degrees). In the sky, you’ll see half of the Moon illuminated.

A first quarter Moon generally has the quality of feeling like a wave starting to build: it’s not cresting yet (that would be the Full Moon), but you can use its “push” energy to move projects into gear. It’s also about integrating what you learn as you turn that corner.

This particular first quarter Moon happens to be a T-square. Exactly across from the Moon and square to the Sun, asteroid Ceres is in early Aquarius. This is the planet of motherhood and agriculture/nourishment (among other things) in the sign of elite groups, crystallization of ideas, and technology.

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For Earth Day and Every Day

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Dear Future Generations: Sorry

A friend of mine posted this Prince Ea video to YouTube Monday and wrote, “I’m not sorry. I’m ready. I am. Are you? A must watch…all the way through.” Definitely watch until the end. The ask yourself: are you ready? — Amanda P.

Welcome to Solar Taurus and a Wealth of Planet Waves

It’s Been Five Years Since Deepwater Horizon

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Almost unbelievably, it’s been five years today since the largest offshore-drilling oil spill in the U.S.: the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill. The event occurred just hours after Chiron entered Pisces on April 20, 2010 (sadly and ironically just two days before Earth Day) — making it a clarion call to take a hard look at the health of this planet’s waters.

The BP oil spill was the worst disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico since Katrina and the world's worst oil spill since the Exxon Valdez incident. Photo: Gather.com

The BP oil spill was the worst disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico since Katrina and the world’s worst oil spill since the Exxon Valdez incident. Its effects continue. Photo: Gather.com

Eric, his longtime colleague and mentor Carol van Strum, and the network of Planet Waves researchers sprung into action immediately, gathering information about Deepwater Horizon and analyzing the astrological chart for the explosion and spill, as well as government documents related to the incident.

A series of articles documented that the spill happened near underwater munitions dump sites at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Here is one article, and here is a follow up.

In May and July of that year, Planet Waves also produced two notable feature articles on the event for our subscribing members: Tales from Topographic Oceans, from May 7, 2010; and A Pause in the Anti-Sixties, from July 16, 2010, when it looked like the continuously leaking oil well had finally been capped.

Planet Waves also published intermittent blog posts on the progress of the spill and subsequent cleanup. In more recent years, ECO items in subscriber issues noted the slow recovery in the Gulf of Mexico — both of the ecosystem and of the industries (such as shrimping) that rely on it.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council today, “Five years later, offshore oil and gas production in the Gulf is little safer, and by some measures, even more dangerous. There may be fewer oil wells in the region than before the blowout, but regulators have counted more accidents, spills and other hazardous incidents per well.”

While this is disheartening, it, too, points to Chiron. Still in Pisces, this centaur planet with a critical message continues to ask for our attention. Its work — our work — is not yet done when it comes to this planet’s oceans.

If you’ve been with Planet Waves for a few years, you’ve probably come to expect the level of astrological insight offered in those two linked subscriber editions above; astrology used to help us understand and learn from some of the most important world events we’ve all witnessed. If you’re a new visitor, I hope you’ll dive in and take a good look; what you read in those two members’ issues is only one facet of what you can expect with a Core Community Pass to Planet Waves.