Author Archives: Eric Francis

Moonshine Horoscope from Planet Waves

By Genevieve Hathaway

Photo by AA.

Note to Readers: This week, we’re trying a new horoscope, written by my friend Genevieve Hathaway. It pertains to your Moon sign. You can look that up by casting your chart at Astro.com or Serennu.com. You may need your time of birth. The Moon changes signs every three or so days, and the closer you are to the edge of a sign the more necessary it is to know the time of your birth. For this purpose, the approximate time will do, but it’s better to cast your chart right if you’re casting it for the first time. I suggest applying these interpretations to your Sun and rising signs as well and see what they have to offer. Please let me know how you like these horoscopes. I’ve enjoyed reading them and only made minor edits. — efc

Photo by AA.

Another Note to Readers: What Is Your Moon Sign About? Since this is our first Moon sign (Moonshine!) horoscope, I thought I would add a note about what that means — and we’ll put a longer article on the next edition but here is the basic rundown. In any natal chart, there are three basic personality elements; the Sun, the Moon and the rising sign. Think of the Sun as the expressive adult ego. Think of the rising sign as the face we put on for the world, and the future self we are trying to grow into. Think of the Moon as the inner core personality, which is closely related to the child we once were, and which is closely related to the influence of mother. The Moon describes security needs, personality tendencies that seem like they will never change, and the ‘real person’ we feel like inside, that we don’t always show the world. The house, sign and aspects of the Moon tell the story of this inner person so closely related to our childhood self. Also think of the lunar placement as veiling another influence, one that is usually hidden. More next time. — efc

Aries Moon — This coming month is a good time to ask the questions: Are you emotionally healthy? What does emotional wellbeing look (or feel) like for you? I’m not talking strictly about balanced feelings, but more that which you do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to ground your emotions and keep your intense, passionate emotional energy pushing out into the world in a positive, productive manner. Part of your unconscious habits, what you do without really thinking about it, is to shape your world your way. As a born initiator it’s important to come from a place where all that inner fire is harnessed. That is, for you, emotional well being. When considering your emotional health I propose you look closely at how you spend your time and note how you feel. A component of this is expressing your inner intensity and passion through your most loved activities — physical exercise and sex. Your environment also plays a factor: get enough rest, eat well and drink plenty of water so you don’t burn out. Notice how you feel after you eat different kinds of food, especially carbs, processed food, sugar, caffeine and alcohol. As you proceed this month, tone down your brash, devil-be-damned approach to life for a bit and use Virgonian precision, attention to detail, astute observation and analysis. Test, observe, connect the dots between what you do and how you feel, and then make lasting changes to your structures, approaches and routines. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check. has been published and is available. It is still available at the special subscriber discount price for all 12 signs, or the order price per sign. This year’s annual offers an extended written report plus 90 minutes of audio for each sign and rising sign. You will love it.

Taurus Moon — For you, February is about pleasure. I don’t just mean having a good time at a baseball game, but rather the kind of joy that resonates deep in your soul and with your higher self. This can be through a certain aspect of your work or work you would like to do, hobbies, or even activities you are curious about but have yet to label where they fit in your life. As the weeks progress you will be asked to reevaluate what gives you soul-satisfying pleasure. Part of becoming clear about which nourish you is the understanding that nourishment and pleasure are indeed important and have value. When that is true, you’ll build an emotional attachment and invest your emotional energy through thinking about it, talking about it, planning for it and doing it. Right now you may feel an expansive, seemingly endless amount of emotional energy to give to all aspects of your life, but in truth it is finite. You only have so much of yourself to give, only so much of an inner well to tap. So allocate your resources and energy wisely. Once you notice what gives you the most fulfilling and rewarding experience, prioritize that in your life. It’s about quality over quantity. So do less, and pour more of yourself and your time into that which has the highest value to you and gives you the most pleasure. Restructure where you put your energy and emotional attachment around that which energizes you, inspires you, lifts you up and helps you give back to the world. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Gemini Moon — Family patterns and themes often shape us for much of our lives, though this is particularly true for you now. These patterns, themes and emotional processes are deeply ingrained in our subconscious — so deep we often miss them. It’s like tightly woven threads that comprise a piece of string. Far away it looks like one seamless cord, but upon close inspection you realize it’s really a bunch of threads strung so tight they seem to be one thing. For the next few months you have a unique opportunity to make headway in separating those threads that are your parents’, grandparents’ and ancestors’ emotional processes from those that are distinctly yours. Mars retrograde is about understanding the details of your emotional composition. Chiron in Pisces provides you with a fine laser to do the delicate work of separating your family’s material, passed down through the generations, from your emotional patterns. Insight and realization will be coming down your psychic pipeline regarding these themes and how they affected you growing up — and now they influence you today, when you can do something about any unhealthy patterns and habits you discover. Some of these stretch back generations. They can stop with you; you can heal this ancestral material and move forward liberated from it. This is precision work, calling for focus and attention and most significantly the willingness to go deep. You may not be able to focus on one thing at a time, but soon you’ll discover how seemingly unrelated experiences are part of the same thing. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Cancer Moon — Children often have a hard time consciously recognizing or processing the impact their parents have on their emotional health. Adults are no different, with respect to the influences of their own parents. It can be hard to connect the dots between how our parents treated us and our current relationship to our own needs and desires. I would recommend starting with your father’s psychological legacy. What was your father’s psychological and emotional state when you were growing up? As an adult? Then, it follows — how did that affect you? When considering your father’s psychological state it’s helpful to consider the impact his mother and grandmother had on him. The key is to proceed from an open place of almost brutal honesty with yourself, separate from blame, guilt, shame, anger. Those emotions may arise. If there’s guilt or anger or you feel like blaming — that’s a clue you’re onto something and to sink into those feelings until you come out on the other side. You’ll learn something important. The Moon is all about needs and often our father’s viewpoints, themes and unhealed issues affect how we view our needs and our approach to getting them met. There is work here to be done, but it’s work that is worth doing. Once you are clear on your needs, then you can share them clearly with others, and make progress in building healthy relationships and setting healthy boundaries. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Leo Moon — A positive self-concept is crucial to feeling emotionally strong and secure. This month, you are getting real, tangible traction in reinventing your self-esteem, your values, your self-concept into healthier, more solid renditions. Or put it another way, if you have at times had a less than positive self-concept, you can make headway in clearing any old hang-ups in order to move forward consistently feeling good about yourself. A mirror of sorts is being held up, letting you see what is so close you can only become aware of it through its reflection. Many of these issues arising will be around abuse patterns and ‘daddy pleasing’ tendencies left over from childhood. The term ‘daddy pleasing’ refers to the unconscious or semi-conscious need to please or make happy the symbolic male authority figure. We feel this as fear or guilt or shame at the possibility of not pleasing this authority figure. There is something here about ending a karmic cycle of abuse, of healing the patterns and not propagating it for future generations. To end the cycle of abuse you must first recognize that the abuse took place, and that it influenced you. If there is no big elephant in the room regarding abuse in your life, remember these patterns can be subtle. It can be as simple as words that cut you down emotionally as a child. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

Last year we offered an All Access Pass for subscribers who wanted access to everything we offer in a calendar year. The response from our All Access subscribers was overwhelmingly positive, and we are happy to once again offer one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012. One price gets you a subscription to the weeklies and all other products on Planetwaves.net through December of 2012.

Using one password for everything, which you choose yourself, you’ll have easy access to every product, including birthday reports and special audio recordings, weekly email service, the annual edition, and whatever additional projects we create. It’s a great discount on a year of our work.

We trust that this idea is a fun way to meet your needs, whether you use astrology for daily spiritual inspiration, therapeutic purposes or pragmatic decision-making. And it’s truly a valuable resource for students of Astrology.

With the All Access Pass you’ll receive:

– Tuesday/Friday Email editions of Planet Waves weekly content and horoscopes. Follow Eric’s weekly and monthly interpretations for all of 2012.

– All sign birthday/ascendant audio for 2012. This is almost like getting a personal consultation with Eric for yourself and any loved ones whose astrology you track. Each audio report includes a fresh perspective on current transits and how they extend into the future, along with a special tarot reading for that sign.

– Your choice of the 2012 or 2013 annual edition, all 12 signs. This book-length online publication includes written and audio segments, is accessible by password at any time, and always meets rave reviews by readers who refer to it throughout the year for its long-range, big-picture guidance.

For More Benefits of the All Access Pass, Visit This Page.

Virgo Moon — Mars began its retrograde in your Moon sign at the end of January; it is slowly moving backward this month through your Moon sign. It is a call to live each day conscious of your emotional state, which may include a good bit of anger some days. Emotions are imperfect things. They connect us to our soul, our higher self, and clue us in on some of our most important boundaries. Most important, they cue us to how we’re responding to our environment. Body-level experiences, they can’t be reasoned away or berated if they seem messy. For someone who can live in your mind so much, what you associate with your emotions often has to do with your mindset. Remember — thoughts, words and actions influence how you feel. Act, think and speak from a conscious place, honoring the power they have over your emotional state. You can see the ‘flaws’ in how you feel, or you can flip that mindset and see your strengths. You are far more perfect than you give yourself credit for. That is not a call to an inflated, unrealistic ego, but more a statement of grace. Give yourself grace to be imperfect. You are your toughest critic. Practice giving grace and acceptance to others, and it will be easier for you to apply those same principles to yourself. Grace and acceptance are your building blocks to a healthier, happier emotional state. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Libra Moon — The boundary between your inner emotional dimension and unconscious self is a permeable membrane. That’s to say, by accessing your feelings you’ve very close to accessing what’s going on in your ‘unconscious’ mind. Much in the way of information passes through this imaginary membrane that divides the two, and you will benefit from that right now. Over the next few months, with Mars slowly grinding backwards in Virgo, give yourself plenty of Zen time. Do less, schedule fewer commitments, give yourself plenty of time away from computers and electronics. Stop (okay, slow down a bit) sharing your life in 140 characters on Twitter and updating Facebook, and take more time to relax around people and places that nourish you. You need real relational experiences, not mere connections. You may experience some psychic tension that could manifest as a general feeling of sickness without any easy-to-pinpoint symptoms. If you feel like you are being slowly steamed inside a pressure cooker, that’s a clue to do less and let some pressure off. These are signs to slow down and do things to help you unwind. As you come into balance and find a more stable, secure and most of all private inner place, take note of what new information comes through your psyche.
— by Genevieve Hathaway

Scorpio Moon — You’re not someone who can be talked into or forced to do something you don’t want to do. Desire is a motivating force for you in all that you do. If the desire piece is missing, it’s simple — you don’t do it. Desires have an emotional connection, especially for watery Scorpio Moons. You feel your desires with an all-consuming burning passion of intense emotions. Yet, these emotions do not fling you this way and that; you keep an iron fist on how you feel. Determining what you want is a process of experimentation and refinement. Experiment, and then based on the result, refine your needs and how they are met.
Then go after that and repeat the process. This month that experiment is asking what kind of relationship you desire to have with the larger public. This isn’t intellectual, it’s a gut question. How do you FEEL about your public self, that is, the one you project into groups or the community? Are you perceived accurately for who you are? Are you where you want to be? Don’t get lost in the murky and intense depths of your own emotions. Work from a clear place of observation and analysis, then adjust your life accordingly. As you continue to refine your relationship with the larger public, determining what works for you and meets your needs, see it as a work in progress that doesn’t seek perfection but rather to have greater clarity in your needs and desires. This will give you and those around you room to maneuver and explore. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Sagittarius Moon — Amidst any lack of clarity, uncertainty, or confusion you may be feeling regarding yourself and your needs, let me make one point clear — you do have a place in this world. A place that involves your highest needs for freedom, curiosity and expansion of yourself to be met. I would caution against seeing any confusion or lack of security as emotional instability; rather, it’s reconnecting you with the deepest core of your being. The foundation of your emotional security is being strengthened, but first the cracks, wear and tear must be investigated before they can be repaired. As you investigate areas of emotional insecurity, proceed from a place of open receptivity to what you find. The place to find the strength and security you seek is self-acceptance: that is, authentic acceptance of who you are and what is true for you. The first person that needs to honor you and how you live your life is you. What you are rebuilding now are vast networks of emotional security that may have been tested or shattered by years of isolation. Build strong pillars of inner strength that extend deep into the ground, through the Earth, and out the other side into a different dimension. Remember, this will take time. There is no rush, only a need for steady and persistent action. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Capricorn Moon — As a Capricorn Moon, you are currently being profoundly changed by Pluto moving through your Moon sign. This is a deep, internal process ripping out emotional foundations and patterns that do not serve you, and rebuilding them to authentically support you. This process is helping you find the answer to the question of how to get your emotional needs met. Part of resolving this question is understanding what your current philosophy toward your emotions and needs is, and what philosophy would best suit you. Is your current philosophy yours or one given to you by other people? Personal philosophies speak to both values and our perception of how the world operates. The thing about a personal philosophy is it you can change it, which means changing yourself and your perception of life. As you investigate new life philosophies surrounding your emotional needs and those of the people close to you, start from a point of ‘change is possible’ or maybe even ‘change is inevitable. Life is in essence a blank slate each day, if we consciously forget the past. It may seem like for many lifetimes you’ve had to cover up who you are deep inside, but that is the past and you are creating your future one day at a time — a very different future that will be filled with people who support your emotional needs. The key is to view each day with an open mind, rather than stuck in the pattern of covering up your needs and desires. And the key to that may well be understanding the role of guilt in your life, and choosing to do something about it. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Aquarius Moon — This month marks the first month of the rest of your life. You have lived a very, very, very long time with Neptune cruising ever so slowly around the sign of your Moon. What felt like “YOU” on a deep level has gotten an overhaul. This may have felt less like an overhaul and more like a gutting of the very thing that was you. Some people may call that an identity crisis, I propose it was more of a melting of internal structures that did not serve you, followed by an identity breakthrough. That phase of your life is over. As Neptune leaves your Moon sign and enters Pisces, the experience of your personality, of being you, is going to be more tangible, clear and accessible. This manifests as a feeling of being solid, knowing what you need, clear on your emotions, and centered on your identity. It’s like before what was the very essence of you would just slide through your fingers like Jell-o every time you tried to grab hold of it, but now it’s a solid structure that you can pick up, hold and take with you. Before the prior landscape of Neptune in Aquarius gets too far away to see the details, carve out some time to take stock of what you learned and how you changed over the past 14 years. Pay particular attention to details about your relationship with your mother. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Pisces Moon — You survived so many years in the desert with only the occasional oasis to keep you going that the new immersion in water may still feel like an oasis instead of a permanent ocean. It’s as though your inner world has been flat for the past 14 years with the occasional holographic trick of the eye where for a flash you could feel in 3D. But now your inner landscape is a prism with many angles, dimensions and colors. As you explore the new depths and dimensions of your emotional realm, you’ll have plenty of traction to proceed with intention instead of aimless floating. Explore, experiment and note what information comes up in your emotional realm. But more importantly, learn how to go inward, get what you need, and shift back into the present moment without getting lost in all the layers of your inner world. Like a crystal, your emotions contain many facets; facets that you can draw on in different situations. Get to know them now so that as this complex year progresses you have the vast amount of knowledge contained within your emotional senses at your fingertips. Remember, you don’t have to spend your life bending to the needs of others. You exist in your own right. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Neptune in Pisces: A Watershed Event

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In 2008, Pluto entered Capricorn and within a matter of months, we saw the collapse of the banking system and a massive heist of public resources by different private entities. It was an event so perfectly described by Pluto in Capricorn (which lasts till 2024) that it was a little eerie. Many astrologers had been discussing the potential for various forms of systemic collapse under Pluto in Capricorn, and one happened immediately after the transit began.

The world’s first underwater presidential cabinet meeting, held by Mohammed Nasheed off Irufushi Island in the Maldives in October 2009. Image is screen shot from “The Island President,” a documentary about Nasheed and his quest to call attention to global warming. As ocean levels rise, the Maldives could become geographically extinct.

Then in April 2010 when slow-moving Chiron ingressed Pisces, within 24 hours, the BP oil platform explosion and spill happened, dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months (and the well may still be leaking). Once again, an outer planet changed signs and we saw an event that was strikingly similar to the astrology involved — Chiron, which can call attention to issues of wounding and healing, put all eyes on the ocean.

In March 2011 when Uranus made its ingress to Aries, within hours an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, creating one of the top two worst nuclear disasters in history. Uranium, the primary fuel for nuclear reactors, is named after the planet Uranus, which has a volatile, even explosive quality at times. Aries is hot and fiery, and what happens close to the Aries Point (the first degree of Aries) can affect the world — and once again we had an effect that illustrated the astrology in a vivid way.

Astrologers are on notice: when slow-moving outer planets change signs, there may be an immediate effect. Pay attention.

Knowing that Neptune would be entering Pisces, I was on the lookout for a development at the beginning that would give us some clues about what might be up. I suspected that the rising of the oceans, involving global warming, would be an issue. Neptune is the planet of water, named for the god of the sea (and of earthquakes). Pisces is a big ocean. What happens when you put a lot of water in an ocean? The level rises — and that is exactly what’s happening due to the melting of the glaciers. It’s obvious that with Neptune in Pisces, we will be dealing with the reality and not the concept of global warming.

Former Maldives president Mohammed Nasheed after his underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. Image from “The Island President,” an upcoming documentary.

In a late edit to last week’s edition, which summarized the history of the past 14 years of Neptune in Aquarius, I mentioned that the global warming controversy was a kind of poster child for denial (Neptune) of science (Aquarius). An inconvenient truth that is convenient to deny, global warming may turn out to be the biggest scandal in the history of the world. Has anyone noticed that the biggest deniers are those who profit from doing so?

But not everyone has been in denial. At the head of the class has been the president of the Maldives, an island nation located just above sea level in the Indian Ocean. It’s the country with the lowest average elevation — 1.5 meters above sea level. One of the country’s outspoken politicians, Mohammed Nasheed, came home from exile in 2008 to be the first democratically elected leader of his country. Nearly 30 years of dictatorship ended with an authentic triumph for the people, and the inauguration of a progressive, intelligent president.

And Nasheed was breathing fire on the issue of global warming. The Maldives are so close to sea level that when the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami happened, most of the country (which consists of a group of islands) was submerged. That’s to say, most areas were flooded under one to three meters of water, a stark reminder of what is possible if ocean levels continue to rise.

When Nasheed took office in November 2008, he quickly brought global warming to the top of his agenda and became one of its most articulate spokesmen. He stated his intentions to have the country purchase land in India, Sri Lanka and Australia for its citizens to inhabit, saying, “We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.” If the rising of the seas wasn’t stopped, his own country would become geographically extinct by 2100. He spoke at the United Nations, and he participated in a recent documentary, The Island President.

Among other methods of getting attention, in 2009 Nasheed held an underwater meeting of his cabinet in scuba gear to illustrate the point that his country was being swallowed by the ocean. (For astrology fans, this happened with many planets in Libra, and during the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius.)

Then on Tuesday, just four days after Neptune entered Pisces, Nasheed was forced to resign the presidency at gunpoint. He was ousted by allies of the old dictator, who apparently wanted some of their power back, or didn’t want to face prosecution. Nasheed had just ordered the arrest of a criminal court judge who was allegedly refusing to allow corruption cases against members of the old administration to proceed. That was used as an excuse for the military and police to force him out of office.

The Maldives are a nation consisting of about 1,200 islands, close to the equator in the Indian Ocean. They are on average 1.5 meters above sea level — the lowest country in the world. Image from “The Island President,” which comes out in March.

The judge who Nasheed had arrested “was the chief judge of the Criminal Court, which is one of the middle-ranking courts in the Maldives,” according to one of Nasheed’s aides, quoted on Democracy Now! “And the government had accused him of defending the former dictatorship of [Mohammed Abdul] Gayoom. There was a number of cases against former regime members for [inaudible] and corruption, and some involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And the government contended that this judge was essentially preventing those cases from ever reaching fruition.”

Yet the effect is that one of the few people in power speaking up about global warming and rising sea levels was taken out of commission. As of press time, an arrest warrant had been issued for him. Many fear that he will be imprisoned, and his adversaries have stated that’s their goal. Despite this, he led a street rally on Thursday. BBC has reported that there is no sign of the new government trying to carry out the arrest warrant.

Nasheed has more important plans, focused on the fate of the Earth. He used his presidency to cast the Maldives as a canary in the coal mine of global warming. Many areas of Manhattan, he’s pointed out, are only slightly higher above sea-level than his country.

And there are American scientists who agree with him. One of them is Malcolm Bowman, a professor of oceanography at SUNY Stony Brook, who said in an interview, “Looking at the city, with the setting sun behind the Williamsburg Bridge, it’s a sea of tranquility,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine the dangers lying ahead.”

Severe beach erosion in the Maldives has claimed substantial amounts of coastal land. Image from “The Island President.”

He told WNYC Radio in New York that as global warming brings higher temperatures and more violent storms, flooding in parts of the city could become as routine as the heavy snows of this winter. We could even have “flood days,” the way the city now has snow days. Higher sea levels will give severe storms much more water to funnel toward the city.

“We could expect the FDR Drive to be underwater,” he told the station, referring to Manhattan’s East Side Drive. “We could expect the water lapping around Wall Street,” he said. “We could see vital infrastructure, hospitals, sewage treatment plants, communication conduits all paralyzed by flooding with seawater, which is very corrosive.” He said the city could resemble Venice in 200 years.

How would the city deal with this? Possibilities include building enormous storm surge barriers like the kind used in the Netherlands, much of which is below sea-level. The Dutch have managed to hold back the ocean successfully for many years. Or, the city could pull back from vulnerable neighborhoods, moving them to higher ground and using low-lying areas as parks and buffer zones. But given real estate values, that seems unlikely. And with half of the world’s population living within 200 km of the shore, we would have to build a lot of dykes to protect even the areas that could be protected.

All the studies in the world may not convince world leaders to take action. It’s going to take actual events, and even then, many people are too despondent or corrupt to deal with a problem this complex. And even when the proof comes in the form of an event, it can take a generation or more to get the physical infrastructure in place, such as happened after the North Sea flood of 1953. This flood affected the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.

Official New York City map showing flood zones. This is an actual document, not speculative.

The flooding was caused by a high spring tide and a severe windstorm that caused a storm tide. Existing sea defenses were overwhelmed and many breached. (Appropriately enough, this happened during a Saturn-Neptune conjunction. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita happened during a Saturn-Neptune opposition, which is similar to the conjunction.)

In the Netherlands, where 9% of the country’s farmland was flooded and 1,836 people died, a flood defense system was put into place, but it wasn’t completed until 1998, nearly half a century later.

There is no doubt that Neptune is associated with floods and events involving the sea, and Neptune in Pisces certainly seems to be the image of a lot more seawater. The thing about Neptune is that it’s a slow acting influence, until the drop that spills the cup. The story of floods is always the story of what was not expected, but which was obviously coming.

One thing to keep in mind from an astrological perspective is that Chiron in Pisces is running vanguard of Neptune in Pisces. During its whole time in Pisces, Chiron will be a few years ahead of Neptune’s progress, finally leaving in 2019 (about six years before Neptune leaves Pisces). Chiron will bring sufficient warning-type events that we can have all the foresight we might need. Precaution is another story.

Speaking of Chiron, Nasheed was born in 1969 right at the end of the last run of Chiron through Pisces. His Chiron is placed in the very last degree of that sign, which is also the last degree of the zodiac. It’s theme is the self-created person.

During the Sixties, we learned that martyrdom makes the movement stronger. It was an era of assassinations: JFK, RFK, MLK, names so common we don’t even need to say them, representing people who set an indelible example of leadership. I trust that this time around, Nasheed can make his point without becoming a martyr. In less than a month, he’s about to become a movie star, as The Island President, the documentary about him, is released to select theaters.

Let’s not forget that mythic Neptune can be as placid as the ocean can be, he can be equally violent and wrathful if wronged. The tyrants who seized power might recall just a few years ago when their whole country was under water. Don’t dis Neptune, ’cause paybacks are hell.

Lovingly,

Additional research: Fe Bongolan, Dale O’Brien, Amanda Painter, Yasa Angelus Sereno, Carol van Strum and Lizanne Webb. If you would like to see the film “The Island President,” here is a schedule.

Venus, newly in Aries, made a conjunction to Uranus last night/early this morning, depending on your time zone. Today that energized Venus makes a trine to Juno in Sagittarius. Also overnight Thursday to Friday, Mercury conjoined centaur Nessus in Aquarius. Saturn, which recently stationed retrograde in the last degree of Libra, is trine Pallas Athene in the last degree of Aquarius. Pallas will leave Aquarius for Pisces minutes after midnight EST on Sunday, where it will conjoin Neptune Monday. Later today (Friday) the Moon ingresses Libra at 2:54 pm EST, where it will oppose Uranus and Venus in Aries. Sunday the Moon ingresses Scorpio at 5:01 pm EST. The Aquarius Sun sextiles Eris in Aries Friday, then tomorrow squares Sedna in Taurus. Sunday the Sun makes a conjunction to Nessus. Mercury, also in Aquarius, sextiles the Galactic Center in late Sagittarius Sunday, and then on Monday makes an air trine to Saturn.

In the upside-down world of the Republican presidential primary race, candidates have taken aim against President Obama’s initiative that requires health insurance companies to pay for women’s birth control. In particular, he’s even required that religious institutions that don’t approve of birth control still make it available to their employees, who might benefit from it. (You can read more about this in Venus on the Aries Point in the News on our daily blog.)

Santorum after winning the Republican primaries this week.

Here is something to consider. Republicans have come out waving the flag of the First Amendment, saying that mandating that a Catholic hospital provide access to contraception for its non-religious employees is a violation of freedom of religion.

Actually, they have it backwards: any employer bound by federal anti-discrimination laws attempting to compel its employees to follow a religion they don’t believe in would be the real violation of the First Amendment — known as compelled speech. This is is so obvious that it’s comical. Many have noticed that modern Republicanism is a religious crusade focused on sex (and little else), but few are pointing out how bizarre this is.

Meanwhile, the competition for ‘most surreal comment’ prize continues at an exciting pace. Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator and representative from Pennsylvania, recently surged from behind, winning Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri on Tuesday. Santorum is famous for a 2003 episode in which he ignited the ire of gay rights activists when he implied a comparison between same-sex marriage and marriage based on pedophilia or bestiality. In response, sex columnist Dan Savage held a contest to coin a definition of “santorum.” The winning entry was “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex,” which was the top Google return for his name until recently.

Following his three-state win, Santorum took the pulpit and claimed that making birth control available was a product of, “The intolerance of the left, the intolerance of the secular ideology. It is a — it is a religion unto itself. It is just not a biblical-based religion. And it is — it is the most intolerant, just like we saw from the days of the atheists in the Soviet Union. It is completely intolerant of dissent, because they fear dissent. Why? Because the dissent comes from folks who use reason, common sense and divine revelation, and they want no part of any of those things.”

Note, this is coming from someone who in this primary race compared gay sex to people having sex with dogs, and from the same man who rebuked a college student who’d suggested people should be able to marry who they want (with regard to same-sex couples) by asking, “So anybody can marry multiple people? What about three men?” Notice that social conservatives are ahead of the curve, getting ready for when people start to speak up in favor of polyamory. That’s why they define marriage as one man and one woman.

Oops, sorry — here’s the real picture of Rick Santorum, after winning a few Republican primary elections this week.

Meanwhile, multimillionaire candidate Mitt Romney is calling out established D.C. Republicans on their lavish ways with money.

“Republicans spent too much money, borrowed too much money, earmarked too much, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have to be held accountable. This is one of the reasons the Tea Party grew up, of course, is that people were unhappy about incumbents, people who had spent their careers in Washington borrowing, spending and earmarking. … And in this race, I’m the only guy that hasn’t spent time in Washington. And Senator Santorum and Speaker Gingrich, they are the very Republicans who acted like Democrats. And when Republicans act like Democrats, they lose.” Once again, right words in the wrong order: Democrats are the ones who have become Republicans, going along with illegal wars and tax cuts for billionaires, among other things.

Newt Gingrich raised the right’s latest favorite bogeyman and invoked the obscene false-flag tragedy of the 9/11 attacks in a transparent appeal to people’s fear in the name of creating manufacturing jobs. “You think about an Iranian nuclear weapon. You think about the dangers, to Cleveland or to Columbus or to Cincinnati or to New York. Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3,100 Americans were killed. Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros, and it’s 300,000 dead, maybe a half million wounded. This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. And that’s why I think it’s very important that we have the strongest-possible national security. And so, I wanted to come see how you manufacture, remind the news media and others that manufacturing in America can be the dominant system in the world.”

Apparently Newt is happy to roll up his sleeves and do some manufacturing of his own when it comes to paranoia and its exploitation. Ron Paul, on the other hand, seems to be waging a stealth campaign for the surreal comment prize, given the lack of juicy quotes form this week in a quick search. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that one of the super-PACs supporting him is headed by a supporter of the 9/11 Truth movement.

If you pay attention at all to the news (even if it’s just the articles in this issue), don’t be surprised if you find yourself empathizing with the world’s injustices — and how they manifest in your own life. When the Moon moves into Libra later today, it opposes Uranus, Venus and Ceres, which are within a few degrees of each other on the Aries Point. Activity on the Aries Point tends to raise our personal struggles onto the cultural stage in some way, and brings political issues close to home. In this case, aspects of women’s health, women’s rights, motherhood and the health of Mother Earth may all feel especially compelling to you — especially with Uranus charging up the batteries.

When the Moon shifts to Scorpio on Sunday, watch your feelings closely. You might find your sensual passions intensifying; it’s also possible that any lingering frustration with the injustices you noticed earlier in the weekend could grow into brooding. One release point could come in the form of physical/sexual pleasure. You can also explore how it feels to put your money where your mouth is — literally or figuratively — with regard to your values. Taking action even in small ways can move energy. Neptune and Chiron in early Pisces suggest creative solutions that move from imagination to tangible practice would be a great way to channel your emotions.

U.S. regulators on Thursday approved plans to build the first new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years, despite objections of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, who cited safety concerns stemming from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster, Reuters reported. The NRC voted 4-1 to allow Atlanta-based Southern Co to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at its existing Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. The units will cost Southern and partners about $14 billion and enter service as soon as 2016 and 2017. How many solar panels could $14 billion buy?

The approval was cold comfort for nuclear industry officials who have touted a “renaissance” that has failed to materialize, undercut by high costs and the cheapest natural gas prices in about a decade. No nuclear power plants have been licensed in the United States since the partial meltdown of the reactor core of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. After the accident, the NRC adopted more stringent safety standards, which caused construction costs for nuclear plants to skyrocket and stopped dozens of planned plants in their tracks.

Just one day after a federal appeals court ruled California’s ban on same-sex marriage (called Proposition 8, or Prop 8) to be unconstitutional, Washington State positioned itself to become the seventh state to legalize gay marriage following a vote in the State House. Washington State lawmakers approved marriage equality legislation on Wednesday — just a week after it was passed by the State Senate. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the legislation into law next week. Meanwhile, this week’s ruling in California all but ensures that the same-sex marriage issue will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Art of Astrological Storytelling with Eric Francis

Note to Potential Participants: This workshop will be at UAC 2012, but I will be doing a test run in New York City at 1 pm on Monday, Feb. 27, 2012, hosted by Nightlight Astrology. Write to nightlightastrology@gmail.com for more information.

Eric Francis.

How do you write astrology in a way that others understand you? First you must understand the chart, then express it in ways that don’t rely entirely on astrological references. Metaphors, descriptions of form, color and other sensory data, and most of all, a cohesive narrative will help you relate to your readers and clients. Eric Francis, founder and editor of Planet Waves, has been developing astrology content on the Internet since its nascent days. His articles present world events as personally relevant experiences, and reveal how and why readers can participate in seemingly global changes.

In this workshop he will cover how to write astrology for novices that also breaks new ground and makes sense to those advanced in the field. We will work on the details of description, of phrasing ideas in an understandable way, what you assume your reader knows, and how to tell when you have a good idea to work with. Eric’s central idea is that the best way to ‘market’ your website is with excellent content.

If you’re going to be at UAC, come a day early and catch this workshop on May 23. It’s part of a full-day presentation being taught by Eric with Donna Woodwell. Here is the official website.

Eric Francis is an investigative reporter, photojournalist and essayist who has been a practicing astrologer since 1995. He’s a specialist in new planetary discoveries. He has written for many magazines and newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia, as well as for Astrology.com, StarIQ.com, Rob Brezny’s Televisionary Oracle and many other astrology websites. He’s taught astrology in England, Canada and across the United States at many conferences and events.

Austin Kleon, artist and author of the books Steal Like An Artist and Newspaper Blackout, has taken a unique approach to horoscope creation. Using newspaper horoscopes, he blacks out the text except for a few choice words to create a new message.
It’s a technique he began playing with to create poems out of redacted newspaper stories in 2005, as a way to beat writer’s block. You can read all 12 of his February horoscopes here. What do you think — did he get your sign right?

We’ve received much gratifying feedback on the 2012 annual edition, which provides readings for all 12 signs and rising signs. Here are a few of the notes that you’ve sent in. Subscribers may still purchase all 12 signs at the discounted price (12 signs for the price of three) or just get your individual sign.

“This is like you took a page from my soul and wrote it out for me to look at and remember, when I get lost, that there are breadcrumbs to knowing again. This is my first impression, that this is beautiful and accurate and poignant for us Tauruses this year. Thank you, Eric!”

Leo. Painting by Carlos Cedillo.

“Ok were you a plant in my house when I was growing up? The Virgo audio and written parts (so far, I still have yet to listen to part 3) are EXACTLY what I have experienced. The section about sex is so true it is as though you have been privy to my innermost thoughts! How can you know these details and articulate them so well? Thank you SO much for doing what you do so perfectly. Like an intense and beautiful light in a dark room, your insights are a wonder and an inspiration.”

“I ride with great glee on the positive, hopeful, visionary challenge you present in your readings. You pour crystal-clear light into the chalice. Thank you. I have been so thirsty.”

“I just listened to Eric’s 2012 Taurus horoscope and it was AMAZING! I learned some crucial, new information about myself that is really vital to my self-healing. I am just constantly blown away not just by Eric’s ability, but also his compassion and sensitivity.”

“I am absolutely amazed and grateful at how deep you went and how accurately you managed to describe or tap into the essential Leo SELF. Some of which I have kept hidden from all except those closest to me… Much Gratitude, Appreciation and Love to you Eric.”

“This roadmap of a horoscope is phenomenal. You nailed it! I have become aware of the power I possess to change my world and use it on a daily basis. We are all powerful beings, we must acknowledge this power. And thanks to Eric’s prediction, I just might save the world (or at least my little corner of it — with lots of love to boot)!”

“I don’t know where to begin in saying thank you. Such a careful and thoughtful package of insights put together with love and craft and care. I am very grateful for this.”

The February monthly horoscope (long edition) was published Wednesday evening, Jan. 25. The long edition of the monthly horoscope is now on a new schedule — it will be the only Planet Waves mailing the week that it comes out, giving the Planet Waves team a chance to slow down a bit once a month. The next long edition monthly horoscope will be published the evening of Weds., Feb. 22. There was not an Inner Space monthly horoscope for February due to an overload of work during the production of the annual edition. The next Inner Space will be published the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #890. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You may feel challenged by a situation that feels beyond your control — particularly one involving the opinion that others hold about you. Obviously what matters more is the opinion you have of yourself, but you’re especially vulnerable to outside influences right now. It’s the kind of setup where one thing could lead to another, therefore, when any one thing points in a direction that you don’t want to go, quickly make a decision to go another way. You seem to have a particular vulnerability where the opinions of coworkers are concerned, when you’re doing your best to mind your business and do your job. I would say do one better — make a point of doing your work in the most competent and creative way possible — and really shine despite what vibes you may feel are in the air or what anyone may think or say. Very simply, that whole head-trip is meaningless. The good part is that right now, many other elements of your life are beautifully meaningful.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — There may be some vivid contrasts in what you’re feeling and what others are perceiving about you. They’re not incompatible, but they are different enough that you need to account for any potential contrast. While on the one hand you may be creatively lit up, and have an abundance of good ideas, other factors suggest you want to be extraordinarily careful where communications are concerned, particularly where anyone in a position of authority is involved. What you say matters, and you cannot take it back. Along a similar line, the quality of any idea is only as good as your ability to express it or put it into action in a useful way. This could be a genuinely fortunate time in your life, when actual opportunities are abundant. But you can take no chances on anything other than careful, honest effort, and sincere gestures to cooperate within any group environment.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — As you’ve figured out by now, most spirituality has nothing to do with spirit and most religion has nothing to do with anything Divine. The substitute or the excuse is not the reality, though there are many who would — and do — confuse the matters. You cannot afford to be confused, though at the moment it could happen easily. The most likely entry point for misunderstanding is going to be false belief, so I suggest you subject what you hear and what others try to persuade you to an extra high level of verification. This would count for anything that you find is emotionally disturbing or where you get the sensation that you’re shutting down because you’ve encountered some information. That shutdown sensation may be precisely the clue you need to know that something is simply wrong. But doing nothing about it is not a useful option. At the very least, a clear decision is called for.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — This week’s Full Moon may still have you feeling like you just got off an entire afternoon on the teacup ride. Clearly, you’ve taken a few steps to renegotiate some of the more sensitive situations in your life, yet you likely figured out how much more you have to change. One particular situation where push came to shove contains a lot of good information for you, and I suggest you do some data mining and make the most of what you learn. There is something fundamental you can discern about your own nature and that of someone close to you. We may be talking about your relationship to a group. The truly important thing to focus on is how to make sure that your values, opinions and sense of presence do not take second place, or get swallowed by, some entity seemingly larger than yourself. Yet the way to distinguish yourself is not with how ‘different’ you are, but with the power and beauty of your gradually awakening sense of self-worth.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Your relationships are in a delicate spot, and you can help yourself immensely by being the person who defuses any tension and lets any seeming insult roll off your back. This may not be easy, because you’re almost as edgy as certain people around you — almost but not exactly. This is all going to come down to communication, which means being a specialist in understanding everyone’s motives: certain individuals around you, certain dynamics as they manifest in a group, and of course keeping a pulse on your own inner currents. Here is the thing to remember — life is more flexible than you remember it being any time in the recent past. Opinions are subject to change, facts are subject to reinterpretation and any situation you may encounter has many negotiable points. What will make that flexibility available is creativity: that is, imagination, seeing the possibilities, and knowing that any problem has a solution waiting to be discovered or invented.

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

With the All Access Pass you’ll receive:

– Tuesday/Friday Email editions of Planet Waves weekly content and horoscopes. Follow Eric’s weekly and monthly interpretations for all of 2012.

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Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You would be wise to pull your punches over the next few days — that is to say, meet aggression with something other than aggression. This won’t be easy but it’s definitely possible. If something makes you angry, start by shifting perspectives and figure out where someone is coming from. Merely empathizing with them will have a healing effect from the outset of the discussion or encounter. You will then be less inclined to think or act in a way that is self-judgmental — which is one of the best ways to defuse tense situations. You are the one who is dealing with the inner-violence dynamic. The person you’re connecting with is working through a mix of an identity crisis and self-deception. Therefore, be honest with yourself, listen with care, and set the example that there’s another way of looking at the world. Once you actually observe and acknowledge that, the whole relationship will shift.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Mars retrograde (now through April 13) is about you turning a corner in your relationship to fear. The thing about fear is that it seems so real, yet it so rarely works out to be true. Have you ever noticed that? Here is the thing about fear that is true, in my experience: it points to an energy source. What could be creative potential is converted into something, heavily tinged by the negative elements of the imagination, and something ‘unreal’ is created. The objective your charts seem to be describing is learning how to convert fear back into something creative. This would start first with feeling the fear or inner tension, acknowledging the inherently neutral nature of energy. Then notice how you color it one way or the other; how you make it into whatever it is. Though it’s emotionally difficult, stay with the feeling a little longer than you might otherwise, so you can get to the good stuff.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — One theme of this season is discerning what you think from what is true. Thoughts are powerful in that they have the power to subsume the mind. Whether you believe in ‘manifestation’, thoughts are creative, and they can also be destructive. It’s not a coincidence that the most destructive ones are those that are not true, by which I mean, the ones that are based on fear, attack or have no basis in verifiable reality. Yet one challenge you face is discerning those thoughts from what is real for you. The easiest way to tell the difference is going to be by the results. What leads to a creative outcome was a creative thought; what leads to conflict was a destructive or deceptive thought. To use this method of discernment you’ll need to track your mental process, through the actions it leads to, and then observe what happens. Think of this as observing yourself, which is a vital skill any time, but especially with Mars traveling retrograde for the next few months.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You need to apply effort, but a certain kind that to you might feel passive. The idea is to slip into the flow, and know when you’re there. You’re in one of the richest and most abundant creative moments for many moons — though this also has a potentially disruptive quality if you don’t ride the tiger just right. This is why I am suggesting a move-with-the-energy, no-resistance approach to what you have to do, and for engaging with the thoughts and ideas that pass through you. Definitely keep a notebook, and remember that not everything is worth acting on — but nearly everything will be worth considering, and some will be worth developing. Ideas for career development may have to wait, but it’s never too early to prepare with knowledge, strategies and most meaningfully, with a vision for what you want to do. Remember, visions develop in layers, and are combined of adding what you want and removing what you don’t want.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — I suggest you be cautious of any ideas that equate money to power. They are likely to be turned against you. You can think of money as creative potential or energy, but that is different than this thing we call power, as in the power to get people to do things, or to motivate you to action. If you’re looking for motives or inspiration, find more imaginative ones. You might think in terms of what inspires people to cooperate toward a creative goal, or any goal, for that matter. These days it seems that ideas have more energy than cash when it comes to focusing the energy of groups, and there’s certainly no shortage of those right now. I would note that there is a bold, new quality to what is coming through, which may seem to challenge your preference for what is tried and true. Yet it’s a fact that time marches on, and you’ve been trying to light the fires of progress for a long time.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — One of the defining characteristics of our moment is the refusal to think in terms of consequences. Notably, this is happening at a time when a lot of consequences of the past are emerging for everyone to notice. An aspect between the Sun in your birth sign and a small, potent object called Nessus, are a reminder to think your plans and desires through. Consciously consider a diversity of what-ifs. This is not for the sake of ‘worry’ but rather for the sake of considering your options based on the potential of what they might create. At the same time you’re doing this, you may be experiencing a boomerang effect of things that you initiated in the past and to which you did not devote this consideration. Now is the time to make the necessary corrections, one at a time, as you become aware of what needs to be done. Note that some will require going through layers to get to the core of the matter.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — There seem to be many hidden factors at work in your life, though the most significant, useful and creatively rich are the ones you can see, feel and hear. Certain factors in the astrology suggest that you have a line into the unseen aspects of your life, which you can navigate intuitively. Therefore, use your senses. Look and listen for opportunities, both to express yourself and to exchange with others. Most of all, feel what you’ve got: notice your resources, your potential and how much freedom you actually have to make choices. The truth is that many options are open, and your freedom is available to the extent that you can mix potential with focusing power. To get that equation right, it’s necessary to work both sides, and I suggest you experiment with one and then the other till you can put them both together. If you keep your eyes open and your mind on your priorities, that ability will come sooner rather than later.

Leo Full Moon: Thinking For Yourself

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Dear Friend and Reader:

We’re on the verge of the Leo Full Moon today. At the same time, Mercury is conjunct the Sun in Aquarius. So this is an unusual and especially influential Full Moon — which may be translating to feeling like there is some extra tension in the air — as well as the opportunity to resolve it. Full Moons often have a quality of providing a release point from deadlocks or stalemates. Today one might come in the form of an especially good idea that may have been plainly obvious, but which nobody noticed.

Chime Rinpoche. Photo by Eric.

The Full Moon is exact Tuesday at 4:54 pm EST. The chart describes looking at the world from the perspective of a child, and is a reminder to at least see the complexity that we weave around ourselves, even if we cannot do that much about it. The mere recognition of complexity is a simple idea, and it can help sort life out to its basic elements.

First, a little astrology background. A Full Moon is the opposition of the Sun and the Moon, with the Earth in the middle. At a Full Moon, the Sun and the Moon will always be in opposite signs. There’s generally a Full Moon in each sign once per year, though occasionally it will happen in the same sign two consecutive times. Because the Sun is now in Aquarius, the Full Moon is in Leo. This is an axis of the zodiac addressing matters of individuality (Leo) contrasted with group interests (Aquarius).

There’s also a planet in the mix right now — the Sun will be exactly conjunct Mercury in Aquarius. This Full Moon is therefore an alignment of the Moon, the Earth, the Sun and Mercury, all exact to the degree. That kind of rare alignment adds extra emphasis to the event, because there is a peak of the Sun-Moon cycle at the same time as a peak of the Sun-Mercury cycle. I don’t actually remember another simultaneous Full Moon with Mercury conjunct the Sun. It must have happened at some point, though this chart looks truly distinctive.

The Moon in Leo is more about heart than mind; it’s about feeling what is right — the way a child feels. And how would that be? A child’s thinking is animated mainly by one thing — curiosity. And this is the thing that is bred out of nearly all young people by the time they’re 18. What may remain in sexual curiosity is then carefully extracted and disposed of over the next few years.

Imagine the complexity of the Aquarius Sun, reflecting the innate passion and curiosity of the Leo Moon. We’ve all been here, and we’ve all seen it. Adults think in complicated ways. Kids just want to know how or why something is. Part of what adults learn from being around children is reconnecting with the curiosity they see reflected in children. The conjunction of Mercury to the Sun is a way of saying that there is still a child (as represented this time by Mercury) contained in every adult.

Thinking for yourself means thinking connected to the simple, curious, passionate desire to know. Conversely, most forms of group-think and acting like a zombie are based firmly on not wanting to know much of anything. This lunation is a reminder to connect with that kid in you who wants to know, and who (like most kids do) has a novel theory for why something is the way it is.

Often, the lack of this ingredient is why groups (including family groups) are the very thing that prevent people from thinking for themselves, or thinking at all. Remember that the family is the first group we encounter, and it sets the pattern for all the others. One thing about groups is that they often, by definition, involve sacrificing your own ideas or values for that of the collective, or what you think the collective thinks. With so much going on around us — as children or as adults — it’s easy not only to feel like we’re missing an essential part of ourselves, it’s possible to actually be missing something. The Leo Full Moon is asking us to consider the possibility that our own opinions may be quite different from those of the groups around us — and the implications.

Both the Full Moon and the Sun-Mercury conjunction represent an eruption of individuality — not the kind that has to make a fuss, but the kind that can consider existence from its own perspective, and maybe share it with someone else who may be curious.

Lovingly,

Sea Changes: Neptune Enters Pisces

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Today is the big day that Neptune ingresses Pisces to stay until 2025, the sign of which it’s the modern ruling planet. Neptune made a kind of test run into Pisces between April and August of last year; due to the retrograde effect we’ve had a few months since then to wrap up and review Neptune in Aquarius. While eras of history are seldom predictable, particularly down to the day, when a slow-moving, influential planet like Neptune changes signs, it’s something to take notice of. After 14 years in Aquarius, Neptune joins another slow-mover recently arrived in Pisces, Chiron. As I probably said about 10 times in the course of doing the annual readings, I would be a lot more nervous about Neptune in Pisces if not for Chiron’s grounded and pragmatic presence there.

This is the last of the 2012 outer planet transits taking its position. Whatever challenges Neptune may present, Neptune in Pisces is going to add depth, as well as a reminder that sensory experience is the thing we really want to do with our bodies. Neptune in Aquarius has been a kind of dry experience. We have experienced Neptune in an abstract form, for the most part as an idea devoted to business and marketing. Say what you want about Pisces, it is the original sign of peace and love, and a wellspring of creativity. Neptune in Pisces will add some water to our experience of life, and not a moment too soon.

If we study the history of astrologers attempting to forecast Neptune transits, we figure out that they’re highly unpredictable. Most people don’t understand this elusive influence, and I think that most astrologers are only familiar with part of the story. Neptune is an easily corruptable influence. It’s associated with this thing we crave, a kind of mystical longing, and the directors of TV commercials know how to play right into that. So do politicians and religious hucksters. Most people run on belief, not on reason, and one motto of Neptune in Aquarius has been “if I believe it, then it must be true,” along with a good bit of “if I don’t pay attention to it, then it must not matter.”

One thing we became accustomed to during this era is the sensation of increasingly complex systems, which keep becoming more complex with each endless update. A cell phone, a computer, a company — all of these things were much more elementary in 1998. Now everything seems to have 20 layers and 100 components and endless uses and is networked into every other system.

One of the things Neptune represents is idealism — and our idealism is often used against us. This partly accounts for all kinds of rosy predictions made about Neptune transits that don’t come true, and how we miss the problems even as they arise. Instead many seemingly unforeseen things happen, from the light and dark sides, as well as plenty of gray areas. It’s easier to see the effects of Neptune in retrospect. It’s as if the theme is everywhere during the transit, and the signs of the times are painted onto every wall and mirror — but putting them together is a little like seeing the cohesiveness in the different ‘parts’ of a dream. I’ll give some examples from recent history in a moment, and it will be pretty obvious what happened.

Side By Side: Aquarius and Pisces are Opposite Signs

First let’s consider the astrology itself. That will give some context. A couple of weeks ago I opened my Friday article with the Patric Walker quote about scratching a Virgo and finding a Pisces (which by the way is a good image of Chiron in Pisces). The idea is that signs that oppose one another on the astrological wheel are really part of the same thing and have more in common than they have differences. Virgo and Pisces are both mutable signs (same basic mental properties such as flexibility and a bit of nervousness, and, in the cycle of the year, coming at the end of their respective seasons). They are both feminine signs (Virgo is an earthy sign and Pisces is a watery sign). They are both oriented on goddess energy — Virgo depicts a goddess and Venus is exalted (that is, happy and dignified) in Pisces.

Photo by Eric Francis.

If you want to see the real opposite energies, look to the signs that are next-door neighbors. Aquarius and Pisces make a good example. Aquarius is a fixed sign (highly stable) whereas Pisces is a mutable one (changeable). Aquarius is a masculine sign and Pisces is a feminine sign. Aquarius is about rigid, stable patterns and Pisces is about how life is a watercolor in the rain.

Aquarius is an air sign and Pisces is a water sign. Aquarius represents the peak of energy of its season and Pisces represents the release of energy of the same season. The two have much less in common than Virgo and Pisces. Oh, one last thing — Aquarius is traditionally a Saturn-ruled sign (in modern astrology Uranus is the ruler but for many reasons, this is iffy); Pisces is traditionally ruled by Jupiter (and in modern astrology by Neptune, which works rather well). So when a planet moves across a sign cusp, there can be a dramatic shift in how that planet expresses itself. Neptune typically operates invisibly, as if in a hidden dimension, and that shift, as it manifests, can take everyone by surprise.

Neptune is an energy that blurs boundaries and dissolves structures and patterns. Aquarius is a sign that is all about structures and patterns, in particular, mental patterns, modes of social organization, concepts and technology. And for the past 14 years Neptune has been working its wonders on all of these things. One thing we can say for sure is that Neptune in Pisces is going to be a different story than Neptune in Aquarius. I think we’ll have a sense of relief with Neptune being in his own element. That is, of course, unless you prefer everything to be at arm’s length.

Neptune crossing the imaginary line between Aquarius and Pisces will change the rules to many games we have come to take for granted over a long span of time. We live in a culture that is just driven by Neptune, which relates to anything involving image, anything involving a mind-altering substance, anything involving a belief, and many different facets of creative thought, from visual art to music.

Water Under the Bridge: Neptune in Aquarius

Let’s look back for a moment before we look forward. Speaking in broad terms, Neptune in Aquarius has had two manifestations. One is the Internet, and by that, I mean the all-pervasive network that integrates web, email, streaming video, cable, and those programs that allow you to control your coffee pot, car and alarm system from your phone. One thing that’s happened during Neptune in Aquarius is that we have collectively projected ourselves into a new dimension of existence. This is at once a vast repository for fantasy (erotic, romantic and otherwise), marketing data, marketing opportunities, propaganda, incredible access to information, and one of the most astounding manifestations of freedom of speech in the history of history.

Ulmo, Lord of Waters From The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, speaks to Tuor (Earendil’s father and Elrond’s grandfather), warning him about the infiltration of Gondor. Ulmo is one of the few gods who never abandoned the dwellers of Middle-earth. He is in the cycle of sea-gods akin to Neptune. Painting is by Roger Garland.

The Internet is the first fully dependable alternate reality we have access to that does not require drugs. It is often described as a drug, appropriate enough in Neptune theory. Addiction to Facebook, porno, shopping, surfing — these are all things tossed about daily on talk shows. But this is to miss the point of the Internet entirely. It is the first place that large numbers of people can communicate freely with one another. If I had to choose an ‘addiction’, that’s the one I would pick. We have yet to understand the actual creative and political implications of having access to this realm.

Second, Neptune in Aquarius has represented a social pattern of mass deception, often involving violating the difference between truth and lies. One of the most telling quotes of the whole era came from Karl Rove, speaking anonymously to The New York Times, when he told the writer that guys like him (that is, the writer) were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.”

The watershed events of this era included the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that had separated investment banks from savings banks, one of the most damning boundary breaches of the whole era. That was followed by the fake impeachment of Bill Clinton (orchestrated in part by Newt Gingrich and Dark Lord of the Alternate Reality, Karl Rove) that started off the era.

Soon after came the stolen election of 2000, the false flag attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Enron/Arthur Andersen disaster, which became the business model of the new century, two incredibly deadly wars based on pretense and illusion (for the sake of profits and chaos), a second stolen election, hurricanes Rita and Katrina, the housing bubble burst / economic collapse and robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank of 2008, and finally the hope and change election of Barack Obama. Deep in there, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas that day in 2003, followed two weeks later by the dreamlike F-15 protests against the imminent Iraq war. There was Wikileaks, an absolutely perfect example of Neptune in Aquarius — basically, a boundary breach through which radical truth could emerge (though this had a lot of help from Chiron in Aquarius). And there was the Citizens’ United decision by the Supreme Court, which codified into law the notion that ‘corporations are people’ and can spend as much as they want buying elections.

Climate change sprung up a few times as an issue with Neptune in Aquarius, though primarily because it’s been reduced to a matter of belief. The denial machine just cranks out this notion that if you don’t believe it, it’s okay because that means it’s not true. The thing about scientific evidence (Aquarius) is anyone is free to ‘not accept it’ (a Neptune influence), especially in a mode of discourse that doesn’t have reason as a guardrail.

At the same time, fetuses were extremely busy becoming people as well (or at least their publicist-ministers were trying to convince us of that). It seemed that the only thing that was not a person was a person. We had the anti-abortion / anti-gay rights / anti-woman / anti-sex ‘Christian’ movement raising hell and brimstone and a big fuss about taxes. The anti-choice movement expanded its efforts into a campaign to ban birth control that few people have taken seriously enough to mention — let’s see how that works out. Despite this, the definition of marriage actually changed to include same-sex partnerships: a total rewrite of old religious law that some people somehow think has any meaning at all — which calls for executing homosexuals.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Many other events fit the pattern — these are the ones that stand out in memory. In the last months of Neptune in Aquarius, we have been treated to two bonus events: one of the most bizarre, hallucinogenic political freak shows in history — the Republican primary race that is still underway; and Arab Spring / Wisconsin uprising / Occupy movement (which I consider one event that verges on the paranormal).

The odd thing about all of these events — especially the evil ones — is how they became water under the bridge the moment they happened. It’s like they were forgotten even as we watched them. More astute observers noticed the lack of anger, and the lack of resistance by the people who were directly influenced. Besides the F-15 protest and Code Pink, what other organized war resistance can you think of? During most of Neptune in Aquarius, a protest meant signing an email petition. One exception to this was the anti-globalization movement that would show up every time the big boys would gather for one of their meetings.

While the political, corporate and financial powers that be were trying again and again to bring on the fascism fast and furious, they could not get a grip. The mass fantasy and marketing paradise we know as the Internet provided a public forum that enabled sufficient spread of information that we were saved by the First Amendment — and the people who put it to good use. The Internet, as ephemeral and elusive as it is, has protected us from utter deception and the people who would use it to take control of everything. The lies of FOX News (a creature of Neptune in Aquarius) were not only being worn away by Stephen Colbert; there were and still are many thousands of websites that reduced its influence substantially, and sometimes even negated it. Toward the very end of Neptune in Aquarius, the feds made a move on the freedom of the ‘Net and the world rose up in protest.

Photo by Eric Francis.

So, while a paradise didn’t exactly arise during Neptune in Aquarius, a free speech paradise certainly did. And hey, what good is free speech if you can’t use it to tell the truth or to lie like a banshee? The very thing we need with Neptune is discernment. The Internet has indeed presented us with a marketplace of ideas, and though it no longer works as a legal principle, caveat emptor is one of the most helpful rules of the road. In the verging-on-astral world of the Internet, you can expect some extreme polarities (apropos of the astral plane). Fact checking is a small price to pay for the ability to explore conscious dreamtime, where you can exist — at least in your mind and those of the people you correspond with — as anything you want. Boundaries of country, identity, gender, sex, political viewpoints and anything else that used to define us are now optional and entirely mutable.

For as vapid as the Internet can be on a bad day, and for the proliferation of spam and trivial, bottom-trawling websites, we really have co-created a place to meet, to engage with one another, to share ideas and to get work done. Many people who would not have had a way to express themselves can now speak to an actual audience. Though I admit my bias as a writer, publisher and artist, this is clearly an essential element of human freedom, and — at the moment, anyway — we actually have it.

Tear Down the Wall: Capricorn Alignment of 1989

Before I get into some ideas about Neptune in Pisces, let’s check in with an outer planet event focused on 1989: a series of conjunctions in Capricorn. These involved Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, which were basically all conjunct one another in a long series of events from ’89 through around ’94. In a sense, all the changes we are seeing in the world — including the manifestations of Neptune in Aquarius that we’ve been reviewing this week, as well as Uranus in Aries, come back to one particular epicenter in 1989: the chart for the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Chart for news about the Berlin Wall opening up, which led to the Berlin Wall actually opening up. Notice the planets with a 10 next to them — the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, precisely opposed by Jupiter. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were hanging around in a conjunction for a long time, and came with many changes in geopolitics. Conjunctions represent the beginnings of cycles, which are still active today. Then in a perfectly hilarious commentary, the chart says “broadcast with impact!” with the Sun, Mercury and Pluto in Scorpio rising. This astonishing story is worth reading — here is the Wikipedia page. Then look at the chart to see the similarities.

This is an important chart because of the conjunctions that it contains. Conjunctions start cycles, and this chart includes a triple conjunction of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune that is at the root of the world we currently inhabit (and often take for granted). This publication is produced with the help of our buddy Anatoly in the Ukraine. Before 1989, we were taught in school that he was ‘the enemy’. In 2012, he’s one of our best friends. Go figure.

Younger readers may not remember or even know about the manic terror of communism that was driven into the American soul between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s, which came down with a press release and the sound of a champagne bottle popping overnight between Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, 1989. Before then, you were either worried about Commies hanging out in garbage cans, or infiltrating Hollywood, or shooting missiles across the ocean at our cities. Many of our parents endured relentless duck and cover drills, hiding under their school desks, freaking out in honor of seemingly imminent nuclear war.

The chart is for the West German newscast the night of Nov. 9 that announced that East German refugees could exit directly through crossing points to West Germany, and that private travel between the two would be allowed. It’s one of the most amazing charts of the 20th century and I want to make contact with it for a moment, so we have some grounding. The events that were sparked off this day had a cascading effect that we are still living with today — as do the Neptune cycles that are described in the chart.

Let’s consider the aspects — then their implications. The simplified chart you’re looking at includes a four-planet conjunction in Capricorn, with Saturn and Neptune in a precise alignment. That aspect precipitated or symbolized (as you prefer) the dissolving of the boundary between East Berlin and West Berlin; hence, East Germany and West Germany; and hence, the whole “iron curtain” that divided Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe from capitalist Western Europe. The boundary is represented by Saturn and Capricorn; the dissolving by Neptune. The other two players are fast moving Venus (for love) and slow moving Uranus (for the sustained power of revolution).

To add a dash of humor to the chart, we have Jupiter exactly opposite Saturn and Neptune. To measure the alignments, look at the numbers next to the planets. The closer the numbers, the closer the alignments. These are really close. Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune are aligned with the Earth to the degree on that very day.

I’ve also left in an a witty conjunction that was rising exactly, as in exactly rising, exactly at the time of the event — a Sun-Pluto-Mercury conjunction in Scorpio. Remember that this is the chart for a news broadcast — talk about a TV show with impact. Remember how fast the ascendant moves — a degree every four minutes. You would think the announcement was timed by an astrologer. Actually, it was timed by the universe.

Once the announcement was made on German television, life imitated the media and chunks of the Berlin Wall became hot souvenirs as the wall was torn down. Photo by Dmitry Vrubel.

Remember that this was the same year China came up on the radar — Tiananmen Square happened, having much the same effect as the fall of the Berlin Wall — the merging of the East and the West, the most significant global boundary at the time. In 1989, Walmart existed in much smaller form but more to the point, 90% of the products were not made in China. That all happens after the Tiananmen Square incident, which was supposedly about liberty and ended up being about capitalism.

Included in this alignment is a truly rare event — the Uranus-Neptune conjunction, which happens less than once per century. It hadn’t quite happened yet as of this chart, but it’s still very close, close enough to be in full effect during this chart and historical event. Lining up Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn blew up nearly every boundary you can think of, particularly in geopolitics. The Eastern Bloc fell apart and dozens of ‘new’ countries showed up on the map.

Within 10 years, the border crossings had disappeared from across Europe, the Euro was imminent, and the big boys were reorganizing the world into new trade zones, encoded in GATT, NAFTA and other treaties. One day in 2006, I was driving from France to Belgium and came across one of these abandoned border crossing checkpoints. Seeing the abandoned booths and parking lots with grass growing out of them made the whole notion of borders seem as ridiculous as it is.

So in our current era of boundaries falling and everything becoming more permeable and information from your wallet sitting on numerous computer servers around the world, remember that there was a brick and mortar parallel that happened long before what we are now experiencing — and it starts with the alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — the four largest planets, with three of the four being in Capricorn, the sign of boundaries and containers.

The moral of the story is that when these planets get busy, actual stuff happens. And this particular chart is becoming active again because Pluto is in Capricorn going over all those planets there, and Uranus is in Aries, about to square them all. Maybe that will help us get rid of the absurd new border crossings that have been installed — that is, the ones currently run by the ever-charming TSA, which can’t seem to stop groping people, stealing from them and accusing them of being terrorists on the basis of a bottle of Poland Spring water.

The Ocean Refuses No River

Okay, end of deep history lesson — let’s consider some of the possibilities of Neptune in Pisces. But let’s begin with a question: Could anyone have predicted everything you just read, all of which involved Neptune’s transit through its last two signs, Capricorn and Aquarius? But in the end it makes sense that Neptune would have this effect on the two Saturn-ruled signs.

Photo by Eric Francis.

One thing we could say about Neptune in Aquarius is that a lot of people complained how shallow everything got. Aquarius really isn’t shallow (or deep); it represents the patterns of what we people do. It’s utilitarian, in a sense. Using a computer as a metaphor, it’s not good or bad — it does what it’s programmed to do, and then holds those patterns until something comes along to change them.

Aquarius has certainly become deeper and more visionary under the influence of Neptune. The whole enterprise is more flexible. Remember that this sign is represented by someone holding a jug of water — that jug is now full. And while we’re at it, computer programmers have become the high priests of our culture. For now, that is.

Pisces is a sign that is as deep and as vast as the ocean. It’s also as scary. The depths of creativity and surrender, the absence of logic, the open-ended encounter with the numinous — all of these are Pisces traits. There is something inherently mystical about Pisces, and that, too, is neutral until it’s polarized one way or the other. Pisces as we know it is limited only by our imagination.

And that is about to take a plunge. This could go a few ways; we could yearn for a simpler, more tactile and sensory means of creativity. Neptune in Pisces cannot be represented by zeros and ones. It’s not that zeros and ones will be a thing of the past; rather, many things that we might still remember will flood in and become more interesting. I could easily foresee a return to folk arts, actual non-digital music created with real instruments, and a desire for authentic, face-to-face human contact, complete with feelings.

Photo by Eric Francis.

While most of the achievements under Neptune in Aquarius were technological, I can see the emphasis shifting onto creative endeavors, simpler pleasures and a more authentic spirituality than we’ve seen in many places over the past 14 years. Today geeks are cool and artists are not quite so cool. That may change tomorrow. This is about receptivity: those whose psyche is better tuned to the Pisces realm will have greater contact with what Neptune is offering.

We all know there is potentially a shadow side to Neptune in Pisces, just as there was to Neptune in Aquarius. That could be about the total immersion in the unreal, people taking truly irrational beliefs to even further extremes than we’ve seen, and a new depth of drugs being the answer to everything. Let’s not go there for now — we have time to investigate that. It would help to remember that what grows is generally what we feed and encourage.

I chose to spend the ingress of Neptune into Pisces close to the ocean, out at Montauk. It’s off-season, prices are low, the weather has been great and the Atlantic is still the Atlantic. My first few nights I stayed in a place called Gurney’s and basically ate nothing but seafood.

The place has a spa, and in the men’s jacuzzi room (which they call the Roman Bath) there is an enormous relief sculpture of Neptune. You don’t need to be a student of mythology to recognize him. You can feel his presence. I sat there in the rushing hot water studying that face, considering the ambiguity of wisdom, rage, passion and humor that seemed to morph from moment to moment. The environment — the steamy, dim light — made the whole effect more dramatic. I looked at him and he looked at me and we formed a relationship. I’ve spent the past bunch of days with that image lit up in my mind. And I’ve been thinking. If I were Neptune and I had just spent 14 years in a fixed air sign, I would be really, truly happy to be coming home to Pisces.

Lovingly,

PS: If you haven’t read Dale O’Brien’s article on Neptune in Aquarius, please check it out on the Reality Check blog. It’s amazing. Also if you’ve written something about Neptune lately and you want to share it with the Planet Waves audience, please let me know. — efc

Neptune enters Pisces today at 2:03 pm EST, after 14 years in Aquarius. It will stay in Pisces, the sign of which it’s the modern ruler, until 2025. The waxing Moon is in Gemini today, adding a chatty quality, and a sense of having some extra options, to complement the emotional/spiritual shift represented by Neptune ingressing Pisces. Tomorrow the Moon enters its own home sign Cancer just before 1:04 am EST. Monday morning the Moon slips into Leo at 8:24 am EST, on its way to the Leo Full Moon in Aquarius Tuesday at 5:54 pm EST (a Sun-Moon opposition). The Sun is halfway through Aquarius, which means it is halfway through the season, marking the cross-quarter days of Imbolc. Mercury conjoins the Sun in Aquarius Tuesday, marking the halfway point between retrogrades. Wednesday, Mercury sextiles Pholus in Sagittarius. Juno, newly in Sagittarius, is trine Uranus in Aries (exact Wednesday).

The Occupy movement has slipped off the front pages, and Arab Spring began nearly a year ago, but neither is over. Democracy Now! reports that following Saturday’s mass arrests of Oakland protesters, The San Francisco Bay Guardian says prisoners were denied medication; some with food allergies were refused a substitute for more than 24 hours. Prisoners were also kept in overcrowded cells, and some were reportedly beaten. Florida riot police have cleared out the Occupy Miami encampment after three months.

And in Portland, Maine, a judge has ruled that a city ordinance banning overnight camping is not a violation of free speech rights. Occupiers have been given the weekend to break camp and clear out. Protesters had been ordered to leave the park last month but the city held off enforcing the order until a lawsuit filed in Cumberland County Superior Court could be heard.

Malcolm Harris, an Occupy Wall Street activist in New York City, says Twitter sent him a copy of a subpoena this week seeking all of his user information and three months’ worth of tweets from his Twitter account. He had been arrested in October while marching on the Brooklyn Bridge with hundreds of others.

A waxing Cancer Moon tends to heighten emotional sensitivity, especially if the Moon is nearing full — as it is this weekend. You may find this is a good weekend for tending to your home environment and ‘nesting’. If you feel a strong urge to emote, give your feelings their space and see if you can harness some of the creative energy in the air right now to channel them in tangible, applied, beneficial ways. As you head into work Monday morning, use your foreknowledge of the coming Leo Full Moon on Tuesday to temper any ego flare-ups — your own, and your reactions to others’.

There can hardly be a better summation to Neptune in Aquarius than Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to potential Facebook investors, published as the transit ends. Fittingly, it echoes another publication issued as Neptune last entered Pisces. Zuckerberg speaks of accomplishing a social mission rather than building a company; of building a network from the bottom up and giving people control over what they share; of a more open and connected world which will help create stronger economies building better products and services; of a time when governments will be more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a few. These fine words and noble sentiments could almost belong in The Communist Manifesto, published at the exact moment when Neptune last entered Pisces in February 1848.

The planet of belief in the sign of scientific fact shows what can be achieved when unswerving faith is applied to technological advances. It remains to be seen whether this enterprise can translate into a shareholding enterprise while remaining true to its founder’s intentions. Some might suspect that we are about to witness “a loss-of-face” book, with users abandoning the site for fear that their personal histories will be exploited by the highest bidders. It’s probably been that way for a while, but the game is open now and shareholders will want maximum profits. As Neptune begins its transit of Pisces, perhaps Mr. Zuckerberg — clearly among the richest 1% — will take the lead on philanthropy. But that may be wishful thinking.

Now that we’ve collectively gotten to the point where we have to send a text message to see if it’s okay to call to find out if it’s a good time to stop by a friend’s house, Neptune in Pisces is here to bring back actual contact. As mentioned above, “Whatever challenges Neptune may present, Neptune in Pisces is going to add depth, as well as a reminder that sensory experience is the thing we really want to do with our bodies.” Massage therapist and writer Kate Bartolotta has experienced first hand (pun intended) how desperately we need the release of touch — physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. In her article “Eight Things I Learned from 50 Naked People,” she writes (among other things):

“Despite our obsession with sex, American culture doesn’t really encourage nakedness (physically or emotionally). And if all the pleasantries and social constructs we use weren’t bad enough, we add social media into the mix and distance each other even further. When we’re naked and silent, all of that falls away. What I learn from what a person tells me is miniscule compared to what I learn by feeling his skin, muscle and bone. By watching him move. By listening to his breath. By feeling his pulse.” When we stretch physically, we stretch emotionally, and vice versa — giving the soul room to breathe, in turn. And Neptune in Pisces is here to help.

Astrology Writing Class with Eric Francis at UAC

Here is some news. After I lobbied for years at various astrology conferences, the Association for Astrological Networking (AFAN) has signed on to sponsor a day of astrology writing and astrology ‘marketing’ at the United Astrology Conference in late May. I’ll be co-teaching the day with Donna Woodwell. My part of the day will be teaching astrology writing; Donna’s will be teaching various facets of marketing one’s astrology business.

Basically, in my half of the day, I’m going to explain and demonstrate how to do the kind of astrology journalism that I present in Planet Waves and on our websites. I will get writers past the astro*psycho*babble that is so common to our profession, and into clear and cohesive story telling. We will cover how to apply the basics of journalism to presenting astrology, how to explain aspects in a cohesive way, and in general, how to write if you want to be understood by mortals.

This will be a pre-conference intensive, before the conference opens — so you’ll need to show up a day early; the class is Weds., May 23, 2012 — and it will be in New Orleans. This class will be useful to ANY writers, not just astrology writers. The concepts are applicable to all forms of writing for a popular audience, whether you’re a blogger, columnist or aspiring journalist. Donna’s portion of the day will focus on website development, graphic communication and how to actually sell your business. This, too, is applicable to any form of a private practice, whether you’re a massage therapist or professional astrologer. Here is the official website for the class. Please write to me directly if you’re interested.

Jon Stewart: Newt Wants To Divorce Earth For Younger, Healthier Moon

Thursday, Jon Stewart noted that if Newt Gingrich wants to play down accusations that he is “grandiose,” then perhaps announcing his plans to establish a permanent, American lunar settlement if elected president might not be the way to go. Full of good ideas, he proposed that the Moon could apply for statehood if more than 13,000 people live there. But he’s opposed to statehood for Washington DC (and we would bet, for Puerto Rico).

“I ride with great glee on the positive, hopeful, visionary challenge you present in your readings. You pour crystal-clear light into the chalice. Thank you. I have been so thirsty.”

“I don’t know where to begin in saying thank you. Such a careful and thoughtful package of insights put together with love and craft and care. I am very grateful for this.”

Friday, Feb. 3, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #889. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Where is your feminine side hiding out, and do you even like her? She’s guiding you to be, and feel, and do, so much of what you associate as being unlike you. Yet the you whom she is supposedly so unlike seems to be going deeper into the subtler aspects of your nature every day. Your charts suggest you’re looking for something in yourself, yet your search has an indirect quality, as if you’re trying to create something by a process of reduction. I think that a more direct approach would work — including tuning into your senses, and considering what your dreams are telling you. What you may discover is that you’re really on a search for your focused power of logic, will and discernment. These are tools you need — and tools you may have misplaced. The role of the feminine side of your nature will be to guide you in their proper use; to provide a basis of ethics, and grounding in purpose.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Do you have the guts to actually be the person you want the world to think you are? Or perhaps more to the point, the person you want to be? Projecting an image is relatively simple. Finding the truth of who you are can be complex and challenging. It takes less courage to create an image than it does to seek within yourself and identify the truth of what you are trying to weave for the world to see. Now is the time to dare and take that inner quest. It’s not neat or tidy; for example, the other side of appearing sexy is the truth of desire. The other side of external beauty is the psychological struggle associated with doubt. Concentrated exploration often precedes inspiration, and we often have to reckon with the inwardly violent aspects of our nature in order to experience the gentler ones. Embrace those contrasts as a sign of authentic exploration; as evidence that there is substance behind your image.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Neptune now joins Chiron on the angle of your solar chart associated with achievement and reputation. For most people this would be challenging, because Neptune is difficult to grasp. But you’ve always had Pisces on this angle, and Neptune and Pisces are good friends. Chiron is currently on this angle as well, and Neptune and Chiron function well; you can think of Neptune as the paint and the idea, and Chiron as the discipline and refined talent that will help you express what you want. There is a catch, however. Some of the most amazing energy is focused in an aspect of life that you may not normally feel so ambitious about. Perhaps it occurs to you that you may create something special or leave your mark on the world, but in truth, do you? Now you have two compelling, longterm influences in this house. To accomplish anything, you will need to work diligently over a number of years. You will need to respect your own ideas. Most of all, you must be the very example of ethics.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — There is a difference between the mental sciences — reason, rationality and authentic intellectual creativity — and spiritual exploration. The two rarely work independently of one another. We all know this. Intellect without some inspiration will put an insomniac to sleep. Inspiration and even love without some grounding in cohesive thought can lead to huge struggles and misunderstandings. You may feel some inclination to experience these two elements of life as separate ‘things’. Yet since both are products or results of consciousness, they point to something deeper. What is that something? We’ve all heard the expression, “I think, therefore, I am” — though often without realizing how brilliant it is. We could add, “I feel connection, I experience beauty, I sense something larger than myself — therefore, I am alive.” Yet what is back there, deep in you, doing all this thinking and experiencing and feeling and noticing? It all points back to something, and that something is trying to get your attention.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You seem to be grappling with a question about how others perceive you. You may think that you’ve inadvertently misled someone into thinking you are who you are not. Or, you may feel like someone sees something in you that you’re not sure exists. I would turn that around; imagine that the truth of who you are is transparent, and that the people closest to you are not only capable of seeing you for who you actually are, they want to do so. What you have is an opportunity for an unusually intimate and revealing exchange, which may or may not be sexual; you will know which way to take things, and that question — considered so urgent and pressing most of the time — will have little of its usual weight or urgency. You have available one of those rare moments when intimacy is the true source of energy, which leads to many possible expressions. The ‘lesson’ if you could call it that is how being authentically yourself is the most fruitful way to live, and the easiest, and the one most likely to lead to peace of mind.

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Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Neptune embarking on its long journey across your relationship sign Pisces on Friday is an invitation to see the deeper potential in your encounters with other people. You can afford to be a little more idealistic than usual because Chiron is already there, keeping an eye on practical matters, focusing your awareness and making sure that the endeavor of every relationship is oriented on healing. With Neptune, the thing to embrace is the seemingly fleeting nature of reality, as perceived by the ego. In truth, what you’re getting are glimpses beyond the veil of normal consciousness, and examples of how to get there more dependably. The question of your relationships now orients on you being true to yourself first, which is the prerequisite to any other form of being true. You would do well to ask why this is even an issue at all. Most of why we are so obsessed with denial is because of moral judgments on pleasure. In the current structure of society, pleasure is acceptable only as an escape from pain. Yet that won’t get you through the door — you know, the opening you want to go through so dearly.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You may be feeling like you’ve gone all the way out to the edge, though with an unusual feeling. It’s like you’re having a dream of walking along a narrow walkway much higher up than you’re used to being, yet you’re not scared. If this were a dream, the meaning would in part come from the experience of the altitude but mostly from the feeling of not having any of the usual fear of altitude that you might have in such a delicate situation. If you tune in you may discover that most of your fears are operating in reverse. The things that might normally make you nervous are making you bolder. You know you live on the edge of time, but you’re somehow not concerned about time running out. This is a healthy way to approach your fears and your perceived limitations — as things that might be there but which don’t particularly bother you, or which are optional.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Many have noted the difference between the sexual experience we have in a fantasy and the one we have in reality. What happens in actual 3-D reality is different than what happens in fantasy mainly because more than your intent is involved, and there can be physical effects, influences or consequences of the actions taken — much less likely in the imagination. That said, most people don’t even bother to try their fantasies, and then on the rare occasion when they might, there can be a setup for disappointment if it does not live up. This is one reason why I suggest trying every fantasy at least three times (three-way sex, same-sex experience, s/m experience, etc.). Once is not enough to get the feeling; things can go wrong, and you or someone else might be nervous. Everything takes practice and acclimation. I mention this now because Neptune in Pisces is about to stoke your fantasies big-time, and Chiron in Pisces is saying that this comes down to experience — real experience based on real curiosity.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — The concept of ‘home’ has become elusive, as people become increasingly transient, as the family structure changes and as home — the building itself — has become the subject of a vast political and economic scandal. As well, the notion of what it means to feel ‘safe’ on the planet has changed and changed radically. The things my friends and I used to do as kids, unsupervised, would get some parents arrested today, while others neglect their children with bald, outrageous impunity. All of these questions are potential topics of Neptune ingressing the home and security angle of your solar chart. Yet the question is deeper and more personal: what do you need to do in order to feel like you’re safe on the planet, or in your home? You may come up with a long list of possibilities and I bet many of them would be valid. But I can sum it up in two words, if you like: emotional boundaries.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — There seems to be some unusual potential opening up in your relationships. This is based on two things, I believe. One involves your gradually finding your way to people whose values are similar to your own — similar enough to have a real conversation. The second is the gradual dissolving of the formerly strict partition between ‘lovers’ and ‘friends’. There is a third factor as well, which is that you’ve experienced just about every insecurity about yourself that a person is capable of feeling, and you’re now ready to stand on more solid spiritual ground. Ideally, this combination of factors would lead you to make braver, bolder choices in life. It would lead you out of your shell and make you willing to at least approach other people on potentially equal terms. There seems to be something holding you back. Can you figure out what it is?

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — The prevailing theme at this truly meaningful juncture of your life is seeing the consequences of living unconsciously. It seems like every day you discover something new that you have to address, but that would have been prevented — had you only been more conscious at some other time in your life. One thing about the cleanup process is that you will be able to take some fairly large strides, if you devote yourself to it diligently, and proceed with a spirit of growth rather than of fixing. That said, you could become something of an expert in consequences, in general — of conscious or unconscious life; of being loving or unloving; of having faith, or not. For the foreseeable future the essence of your life story is about self-value and self-esteem. I believe that all of these themes are directly related. Feeling good about oneself is not an illusion or a flight of fancy. It can be solidly grounded in truth, and this seems to be your most important mission.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Accept no illusions. That is the message of Neptune entering your birth sign. Many people in our society live and seem to thrive on illusions; just look at how many people are addicted to artificial sweeteners, and don’t mind the whole seizure/brain tumor thing. You can handle Neptune energy, because you’ve already got a lot of it in your chart. You may discover under this influence that you have more potential, and a lot more access to your deepest strengths, virtues and creativity. Yet the challenge is persisting in a boldly realistic view of life. Put up with nothing. Demand absolute authenticity, from yourself and from others. Being boldly realistic includes the well-established role of visionaries on our planet, no matter how large or small of a scale you work with that concept. Accurate perception balances realism and optimism, neither at the expense of the other. If you remember this, and practice it well, you can do, or experience, anything you want.

Aquarius 2012

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Dec. 14, 2012 #930 | By Eric Francis
If it’s true that Aquarius has a socially crusading nature, part of that is about the placement of Sagittarius in your chart — on the 11th house of your vision and your relationship to the public. This suggests a spiritual orientation within the world, and what is very likely to be a form of aspiration to grow and expand. Yet to what extent do you feel authentic in this? Do you ever get nervous when you’re seen as being ‘more spiritual’ than you feel? I would suggest that having your doubts is healthy, because you know that so much of what seems holy is such unmitigated hogwash, suds, grime and all. What makes spiritual real is its ability to manifest in relationships. A calling focuses itself as an inner alignment, which then must extend into social existence in order to have an influence. You may not feel ready to extend yourself this way; in truth you may feel less ready than you did a year ago. I would propose that these are healthy sensations, if you’re feeling them. None of this indicates actual lack of preparation, or lack of clear intention, only the willingness to reality check.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Dec. 7, 2012 #929

Remember that public image and self-esteem are two different things. No matter how anyone perceives you (or how you think they do), that only goes so far toward allowing you to feel good about yourself. In a similar way, public recognition does not substitute for being adequately compensated for your time, talent and effort. And having an edgy or spiritual appearance is, of course, not a substitute for what those things are supposed to represent. So, one theme that comes up for the next week or so is the difference between the appearance and the reality. One way you can go right to the heart of the matter is to forget appearances entirely. You are capable of this, though perhaps it will be persuasive if I say that you will make a more vivid impression on people if you don’t care how they perceive you. Also, I would remind you that you have very little influence over the impression you make. You never really know for sure, and you have more influence on focusing your need for affirmation inwardly rather than outside yourself.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Nov. 30, 2012 #928

How are you doing with your fear of deep contact? You seem to have passed through a series of gateways recently, which have led you both closer to others and more significantly, to yourself. You cannot really yield to anyone, or yourself, if you’re experiencing fear — neither physically nor emotionally. Or said another way, if you pass through your fear and self-judgment, you can emerge surprisingly intact as yourself. What you are doing is dismantling inner barriers that have blocked you from your inner awareness, and trapped certain aspects of yourself within compartments that are built of what you can think of as shadow material: guilt, shame, anxiety and the fear of not being good enough. One by one these are bursting, and what’s being released into your environment are little jolts of the creative and loving energy that they were containing. After a while, these bursts will give way to a steady stream of light which will not only be abundant, it will be infinite. The best thing you can do now to demonstrate this fact is to be generous with yourself and with others.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December | By Eric Francis
Standing in for Weekly Horoscope #927

I would suggest you take a less somber and more celebratory approach to life, to sex and to work. Remember — you’re not in this alone. That would be your worst fear, and thankfully it’s not vaguely possible. Yet something equally daunting is. In order to work with, bond with and grow with others, you must be willing to do these things with yourself. At first, deep self-embrace can feel like reaching for someone’s hand in the darkness. Yet imagine this hand in the darkness is grasping for you, though you cannot see where it is, or be sure that it’s there. It’s far easier to reach for someone else, but less meaningful until you’ve embraced your fear not of being alone but rather that you might not show up for yourself. The nice thing is that unlike in an interpersonal relationship, you get to decide what you’re going to do; you have all the influence and you make all of the decisions. When you get to the place where you’re entirely certain that you’re going to meet yourself, and know that you will never abandon yourself, that gives you a lot more freedom in everything you do, particularly in your relationships with others. The world has this one backwards, as the usual logic runs, “I will show up for myself when someone shows up for me.” By now you’ve seen the futility of this — and you’ve tasted the essence of nourishing yourself, which is your prerogative every moment of this life and beyond.

Planet Waves Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for December

The beautiful thing about paranoia is that the things we fear so rarely turn out to be true. Indeed, you could use those spontaneous, shocking moments of panic as a map to what’s the least likely to happen. Yet one thing we can say for sure is that fear is a huge waste of creative energy. Often I think that’s its purpose. Negative self-talk, that endless chatter of why you’re not perfect enough (sometimes disguised as how you’re going to be a better person) can turn a truly creative person into a neurotic mess. If you or anyone needs any self-improvement, the first step would be about not reminding yourself of that fact all the time. This will allow your creative flow to be what guides your life. Remember that everything that happens on Earth happens in a community of some kind, and it influences that community. If you need a code to live by — that’s the one.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Nov. 16, 2012 #926

One purpose of this past Tuesday’s total eclipse of the Sun in Scorpio was to blow through what felt like a glass ceiling that has held you down for so long. Yet what was this thing exactly? It was anything but transparent, so glass really isn’t a good metaphor. This was really about coming to terms with the darkness of the world, including some of your worst fears, your struggles with authority in various forms, and your fear of your own power. You have a tendency to whitewash the world in a philosophy of love and light, yet this doesn’t do anything to change the reality of a planet obsessed with control, survival and scarcity. The authentic expression of goodness depends upon a root into grief and suffering. Generosity depends upon awareness of the ways people deny one another. Freedom demands that you know how fragile freedom really is, how few people it actually exists for, and how much responsibility it entails. If you can do this, you will start to make contact with the true nature of trust.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 #925

You can do what you want in this lifetime; the question for now is how you get there. There’s an aspect of this related to how you conduct yourself in the world — the agreements and commitments you make (and whether you keep them), your ability to focus on what you want, indeed, your ability even to know what you want — which leads to the internal part of the process. Your necessity now is to align your most important goals with your most deeply held values. This is not merely a spiritual exercise. It’s about focusing your intentions and your energy and making choices from a centered place. Here is the problem: lately you seem to doubt what you’ve decided really matters. New ambitions are pushing aside long-held goals, and you may not be sure of them, or confident of where they will lead you. You are approaching a point of contact within yourself; a point of clarity. A lot will start to make sense in a short period of time, as long as you don’t resist. Be flexible. You will not break.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Nov. 2, 2012 #924

You may be finding it difficult to shine when you’re standing in someone’s shadow, yet the shadow may represent a figure from the past. Who might that be? Is it an idea about, or a memory of, one of your parents? Is it the fear that some authority might be imposed on you if you step out into the light? That would indeed be a shadow fear — and it may be the core of the matter. What would happen if you stepped into a position where you were actually visible, and fully responsible for your actions? This is what it’s like to be in an actual position of authority, and it’s why most people prefer to avoid that position. In exchange for this, they also get to have others in positions of authority or very strong influence over their lives, often feeling less powerful than nearly everyone. The time has arrived for you to confront all such feelings. You’ve reached a point of enforced growth where you must be your own most persuasive authority. Much of doing this involves addressing some longstanding issues within your own psychology — and now you can.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November 2012 #923

It was the astrologer Patric Walker (1931-1995) who handed John Lennon the beautiful line, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” This is a fair reading of your chart these days, particularly as regards your professional life. It’s true that some people are born knowing what they’re ‘supposed to do’, set about doing it, and succeed brilliantly. Most of the time, the process is an extended experiment, and devotion to one particular path or intention can be altered by a casual conversation at a party, a chance meeting or an opportunity that seems interesting. In those moments, it seems to be the hand of fate that’s guiding you, though what you call it doesn’t really matter — only that you notice when it’s at work. Through this month, there are two forces or factors guiding you. One is your traditional approach to success: set goals, work hard, be dependable. The second factor is the sensation of providence moving in your direction. It’s essential that you recognize this when it happens; it may not come in a form that you recognize, and in truth, everything that happens to you this month is part of a conspiracy to guide you to where you belong, and where you want to be. For this to work, you’ll need to let go of your desire to control your direction or the specific outcome, and muster up just a little faith in yourself. A little goes a long way.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Oct. 19, 2012 #922

Is there a mystery to success? There certainly seems so. Intelligence, a good plan and hard work are sometimes enough, though often there’s a necessary missing factor. I suggest you contemplate what that factor might be over the next few days, as the Sun gets ready to cross the midheaven of your solar chart. There is an answer to the riddle, and it’s pretty easy. It will be a lot more meaningful coming from you than from me, so I’m going to wait a week before telling you my theory. I will give you a clue, though — it involves something about the supposedly inherent nature of your zodiac sign, perhaps the quality most often noted by astrologers. Meanwhile, you seem to be confronting some issues about whether you’re a ‘popular’ person or not. There’s some actual fear involved in this equation, and I suggest you keep the discussion with yourself on that level, rather than the popularity level. It’s clear, though, that if you’re in harmony with yourself, others will feel much more in harmony with you — or you will simply move on when they are not.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Oct. 12, 2012 #921

Saturn has crossed the potent midheaven of your solar chart. That’s the angle associated with your highest goals, your reputation and your career. You have Scorpio on this angle, which suggests that you tend to take a secretive approach to the territory of your work; you might focus on the power aspect of success; and rarely are you trusting of others really wanting to help you. None of this sounds particularly Aquarian, I know. What I’m describing is far from visionary, inclusive or progressive. As you know, one of your roles on the planet is to bring these advances where they did not exist before. The challenge in doing so is opening up space within yourself for them to exist, where in the past they had no place. In other words, it’s now up to you to support open dialog, act on the basis of what you want to create rather than what you want to control, and most of all, to extend a measure of trust in environments where you might have presumed that impossible. You might think you’re not strong enough to do this — yet to ascertain just how strong you are, you’ll need to experiment.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Oct. 5, 2012 #920

“Culinary school is fun, but it doesn’t help you advance in this field at all. I feel like I paid thousands of dollars just to have fun, make good friends, hang out and cook all day.” This is a snippet of a conversation with a Facebook friend about her experience at Le Cordon Bleu. What she’s saying is true: you need to be in the kitchen, with all the heat and chaos, investing the time that it takes to learn your onions and build your reputation. To the extent you’ve already done so, you may be getting a message of encouragement or recognition this week, coupled with an opportunity of some kind. This may be a fleeting chance to advance — or investigate — your longterm goals. You may not think the opportunity is a perfect fit, though at this stage I doubt that perfection should be the goal. I propose that the best criteria would be: will I learn something useful from this experience, and contribute something positive? There is no instant success, which is the thing that for you will make success not only possible but inevitable.

Monthly horoscope for October 2012 standing in for Weekly Horoscope #919

Saturn finally changes signs this month, ingressing Scorpio, where it will be into 2015. This is your 10th solar house, the one associated with your highest ambitions, your reputation and your true professional calling. Saturn through the 10th is sometimes associated with having the golden touch of King Midas; however for you there may be some extra challenges involved. As you hear and heed your calling, expect some adversity. Expect a tempering process, where you refine your goals. Imagine that your life is a theater production, where you do the performance, listen to the director’s notes, rewrite, rehearse and do the show again the next night — over and over again, with no intention of just ‘settling in’ to a routine. Bear in mind that the world does not owe you success: not because you’re a good person, not because you’re talented and not because you choose to develop any useful skill. Success is the product of all of these factors, and something else: your determination, and a commitment to be true to your values. This is the kind of success that doesn’t happen overnight, and to which you must dedicate yourself for much longer than you might think. Most of the early progress will be invisible, and you may be convinced you’re in the midst of a setback. It’s nothing of the kind — though you may see it that way unless one of your top priorities is to use anything and everything that you experience as a resource.

Planet Waves Inner Space Horoscope for October 2012

You’ve always felt like it was your place to accomplish great things. Now you get to address the obstacles that were in the way — and take the next step into tangible achievement. Yet this is very much a matter of taking things one step at a time, which you may have figured out was necessary a while ago. Remember that the idea is to learn how to get out of your own way — rather than to put new obstacles in your path. Yet you’re not always sure of the difference between these two things. Initially, I suggest you set out to accomplish less than you think you’re capable of, rather than shooting for the Moon. Know your vision, select one key piece of it, and give yourself the rest of the year to make it real. This will help you build your confidence on something solid.

Friday, September 21, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #918

Do you have to be powerful to be successful? It depends on your concept of power — and of success. If you view power as something that a king has, which is basically that of a ruler over people, success would be measured in how much authority you have. If you view success as the ability to get a job done well, power is more like the gift of being able to muster up cooperation, support and enthusiasm toward a goal. Under this model, power is also about any ability you have to move creative energy and resources in the direction you deem necessary, fun or useful. Under this second definition, you are just getting a taste of what is possible. Once Saturn crosses the success angle of your chart early next month, you will be taking a step up in the world — though initially that means an increase in your responsibilities, and the beginning of doing the work to establish and solidify your reputation. I don’t mean your image or the theory of success that you’re using — I do mean your actual reputation for achievement, which is very much a work in progress.

Friday, September 14, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #917

It’s time to stop being envious of anyone’s success, and to take the risk and enter the territory yourself. You’ve been getting this message for a while, and it’s not about to let up anytime soon; in fact it’s in the process of making a translation from desire to necessity. Here is one thing that might be helpful at the beginning of this trip: You associate success with a feeling. Sometimes it’s the feeling of power, but whatever it may be, you crave it emotionally. And that seems to be the thing you’re not going to have for a while, so therefore I suggest you come up with another metric. One useful one could be that you’re succeeding as long as you keep deepening your understanding of yourself, and of how the world works. That may not be tangible enough for you, though I would propose that it’s a lot more tangible than the feeling of success, especially if that feeling is one of authority over anything but yourself.

Friday, September 7, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #916

It’s less than one month before your ruling planet Saturn embarks on its journey across Scorpio, your solar 10th house. That’s the one associated with responsibility (both personal and public), reputation and honoring your true calling in life. This is indeed the time to review your past goals, and consider what your new objectives are. Yet I suggest you focus, and be discerning. They just about all fall under the general heading ‘easier said than done’, so I suggest that you reduce your plans down to the ones that motivate you the very most. You will need the extra energy provided by the desire to do whatever you’re doing for its own sake. When the time comes, that always provides more drive than the obligation to do something. Also, I would share with you one rarely stated fact about success. When you do succeed, you’re going to be doing a lot of whatever you’re succeeding at. So choose from among those activities that you wouldn’t mind doing 12 hours a day for a while. Usually, that translates to what you want to do, rather than what you’re allegedly supposed to do.

Inner Space Horoscopes for September 2012

You’re likely to be getting one message after the next to get your professional house in order. You have a logical side, though you tend to be driven by your emotions rather than by your gift for strategy when it comes to your career. With Mars occupying that angle of your chart now, pathos and passion are in more abundant supply than cool, calm logic. Think of this as contrast. How does the pathos/passion approach work to advance your most important goals? Does it even help you figure out what they are? That would be helpful. In October, the sky shifts to much more focused issues of exactly how you’re going to do what you want to do, assuming you’ve made up your mind what that is. The truth is that you already know; it’s time to stop hesitating.

Friday, August 31, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #915

Everything comes down to self-esteem. I do mean everything. While it’s possible to paper over your self-doubts or a spiritual hole, that comes at a significant cost, and it doesn’t work forever. You are, however, in a rare opening where you can see how your respect for yourself will lead to actual confidence. It’s clear that there is plenty that you want to accomplish; you have some real goals, and you must know by now that you’re at the get-serious point where professional matters are concerned. The key to acting on those aspirations begins with monitoring closely how you feel about yourself, and understanding why you tend to count yourself out. A viable measure of this is how often you say the words ‘I can’t’ as opposed to ‘I can’. That’s a belief, and I suggest you investigate the roots of that idea. Your chart at the moment suggests strongly that you can accomplish anything you want, and there’s plenty that you want. Why make excuses, or argue for your weaknesses, when you can actually participate in the world?

Moonshine Horoscope by Genevieve Hathaway, standing in for Planet Waves Weekly 914 for Friday, August 17, 2012. Edited by Eric.

Originality can be thought of not as doing something better, but rather differently and in a useful way. In this concept, there is a component of creativity and a component of independence. Both are needed to move outside limited mental and emotional boxes where most people reside. These days, you can slip out of the frameworks that are usually viewed as unmovable rules. This may involve finding the side door to get around what was thought of as ‘the way’ things had to be done. For the next few weeks, I suggest you apply a few original ideas to the daily process by which you accomplish your work. This will help you build a more elegant method for letting your inventive nature flourish. Start with an analysis of work tasks that need to be accomplished. Take a practical approach rather than a ‘creative’ one. Then some experimentation in how you go about completing your projects. Freedom to structure your time will bring you a creative flow that lends itself to production of high-caliber, unique material. — By Genevieve Hathaway

Friday, August 10, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #913

Do your best to shift the circumstances of your life onto level ground. If you cannot do that, notice the ways in which the field is tilted, though when you respond to that, you must do so with a sense of fairness. There really is a question of ethics at stake, and your longterm reputation may hinge on your choices during the next week or so. The issue may surround your career plans, such as your intention to embark in a new direction. You’re likely to be feeling some pressure here — and that is the thing to be mindful of. Taking some form of radical action would likely be premature, particularly if it means severing a tie. When considering the right thing to do, the idea to work with is that less is more. Once Saturn reaches Scorpio in early October, you will have a lot better sense of where you’re headed, and that’s less likely to be infused with conflict or tension.

Friday, August 3, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #912

You seem to be wrestling with your faith in yourself. If you tune in to that quality, you may notice that you’re angry about something. I just want to tell you — that’s okay. Anger is energy, and if you use that energy consciously, it can provoke you to have a spiritual breakthrough of some kind. You can then take that to the next level, which would be making a decision and acting on it. Starting in the autumn you will be amping up your career and your responsibilities. These next couple of months are the time to invest in your inner process — with a focus on a decision that you may feel has to be finalized in the next two weeks. I think you have longer than that, but within the first half of August I suggest you strive to understand what the issues really are. You’re weighing and balancing something, and you have to look exactly at what is on each side of the scale.

Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for August 2012

You may feel like you’re the cause of why an intimate relationship is in the spot that it’s in. Yet people get together based on some form of complimentary karma. The encounter has the qualities that it has for ‘reasons’ that everyone brings. Right now there may be an emphasis on the ways that you are wounded, or the ways that being betrayed (or betraying others) in the past is influencing the situation now. This is true as far as it goes: everyone you’re in relationship to has that part of themselves which engages with that part of you. You’re approaching the moment where it’s possible to heal the past and start anew — though if you’re currently in a relationship this has to be true for everyone, if the encounter is to be beneficial for anyone.

Friday, July 20, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #911

There’s a strong emphasis on getting clear in your relationships, and this will come into focus starting Sunday when the Sun enters your opposite sign Leo. Until then, I suggest you focus your energies on getting clear with yourself, while you have the time and space to do so — or rather, the inclination. You’re aware of needing to work through something deep that’s about you and nobody else — and stepping into taking action. It’s too easy to project this inner situation into a relationship, then lose track of what’s really going on with you. There’s something in your chart that suggests you’re moving beyond treating your relationships like a drug, or a kind of religious cult experience where you are the devotee. This is a matter of power — or you could say it’s about owning your power. It’s essential to maintain awareness of the difference between the idea and the reality. If you’re trying to manage your feelings (or those of someone else) with avoidance of any kind, that is not the reality.

Friday, July 6, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #910

It would be just brilliant if you spent some time hanging out with the idea that sex is an experiment. That’s a way of saying it’s a direct experience, driven by curiosity, which tends to have an outcome that’s uncertain till you get there. Part of the experiment is how the experience changes any of the people involved. When sex is alive within an alive relationship, that state of change is going to be pretty much continuous, and you’re about to get a taste of that. Rather than responding with the famous ‘fixity’ of Aquarius, I suggest you adapt the flexibility of Gemini and the multiple viewpoint property of Mercury. Over the next few weeks you’ll have the ability to look back over the whole story of the relationship, and the potential to work through some of the unresolved material — though as with the rest, I suggest you proceed in the spirit of an experiment.

Friday, July 6, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #909

Your faith in yourself seems to inflate and deflate like a balloon, though at the moment it’s building rapidly. I suggest you focus this through your work, and by that I mean the next phase of your work that’s unfolding. Now, ‘work’ may be the wrong word here; the feeling is more like an erotic craving to do or accomplish something, as if your happiness depends on it. So this isn’t work in the sense of effort, but rather connecting a deep desire to the focus you need in order to accomplish it. Don’t worry about whether you can do it; the thing your happiness actually depends upon is your willingness to take the chance. The conditions are such right now that you have the combination of raw desire, a good idea and the discipline to go at it every day. Try this for a while and see where you end up. Remember that creative impulses need a lot of guidance on this plane of reality, which includes deflecting any opinions contrary to what you want.

Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for July 2012

You seem to be pouring more and more energy into an effort to get yourself unstuck in a creative or relationship situation — perhaps both — though it would help if you did one little thing: think differently. That’s another way of saying ‘not the same’ or ‘new approach’ or ‘reconsider everything’ or ‘take a chance you would not normally take’. This is something that has to come from the inside rather than from trying to change your circumstances. A thousand colors of paint doesn’t make someone a painter, nor does being naked make someone a lover. What matters is making contact with the spark of passion inside yourself, then having faith in it long enough to do something creative. It’ll also help if you name your fear of loss for what it is; that’s blocking a lot of energy.

Friday, June 29, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #908

Events the next few days are likely to shine the light in such a way that you see your life from a new point of view. It will be like looking at a scene from your future that you cannot enter yet, because it hasn’t fully manifested. Yet at the same time your ability to envision yourself in a new way, in different circumstances, will feed your strength. In order to get from the place you are now to your vision for the future, you will need a combination of discipline, strategy and intuition in equal measure. There will be times when you have to defer to one or the other, though most of the time the three facets of thought will provide you with useful references to cross-check. You may be surprised to see the ways in which they confirm rather than contradict one another. One thing to keep in mind is the way that you use structure. I mean this as a concept by which you guide your thinking, and also as a real thing, which you might apply as the use of space, legal devices such as a corporation, and the way you use your time.

Friday, June 15, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #907

You may feel like your mind is in a state of chaos, and like you have to impose some authority over yourself to bring your thoughts under control. I suggest you consider whether it’s the imposition of control that’s creating the chaos, especially if it’s coming in the guise of a spiritual path. What you may need to do is purge your mind of old beliefs and teachings, whether you consider them religious, spiritual, mystical or the product of past self-improvement campaigns. No matter how much you want to be a better person, you’re still a person, and that’s always going to be a bit chaotic — unless of course you snuff out your creativity, your sex drive and your curiosity. Now, it may be that someone outside you is on an authority trip of some kind — all the better reason to focus your energy on your passion and vitality rather than using a tourniquet on yourself.

Friday, June 8, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #906

Be aware any time the idea of sacrifice comes up — listen for the word, and for the notion. The concept comes in two forms. One is what you supposedly must give up, in order to have something else you want, or to appease someone in power. That’s worth questioning carefully. The other notion is to ‘make sacred’, with the image of laying it on an altar. For your purposes now, these are both false concepts, which cover over something else. If you pause and consider what that is, it will be easy enough to discover, lurking right beneath the surface. The truth is, you don’t have to make any offerings to get more of what you want from life, and the false belief that you must do so is directly interfering with your process of establishing a goal, and taking action to make it real. While you’re figuring out what you don’t need to sacrifice, I suggest you check for other points of interference as well.

Friday, June 1, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #905

Sex is an experiment. It’s a gamble and it’s a form of play though mostly it’s an experiment, which is most dependably driven by a form of love known as curiosity. From the look of where the sky aligns with your solar chart, you have plenty of that going on right now, and that may be arriving with a deep desire to jump into new experiences. Here is a question, though: to what extent do you feel free to do that? What, if anything, is presenting an obstacle? You now have the power to go over, through or around it. One way to do that is to be clear about what you want, with yourself and anyone whom it may concern. It rarely is the presence or values of others that gets in our way — it’s how we choose to handle these things, which includes whether we’re going to be slaves to our inhibitions. There is a closely-related concept to sexual experimentation, and that is art. This may be the closest cousin to sex and it feeds many of the same aspects of our psyche and has an odd way of leading to hot encounters.

Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for June 2012

My old friend B’jamin once said that there are two kinds of people — those who drink water, and those who do not. We could probably write a whole book about all the ways there are ‘two kinds of people’, though the one that’s germane in your life right now is: people who are into art, and people who are not. There is the you who’s into art, and the you who’s not. Here is what your charts say: get into art. Get into people who are into art. Soak in art, soak in artists, and light your mind on fire and create the stuff. Don’t worry if it’s good. Just get busy with color, shape, form, sound and sensation. It might save your life; but really, it will make your life.

Friday, May 18, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #904

You seem to feel cluttered in emotional material, to the point where there is no room for you within your feelings or the four walls you inhabit. I suggest you make some space. Push the walls open, clear out people and things (including the ones you’re carrying in your aura) or get outside, at any time but especially for Sunday’s solar eclipse. If you have been struggling for ideas to move forward, you will discover that they were on their way once you made space for them. Creativity is not compatible with worry, and it’s rarely an attribute of what psychologists call the mind’s “problem-solving mode.” If you are trying to solve problems, make sure you define them in a clear way. Don’t assume you’ve already done this — people rarely do. If something has persistently not had a solution, then it’s likely you’ve defined the problem in a way that cannot be solved. In any event, keep your body moving and your mental energy flowing, changing your scenery until you arrive somewhere nourishing.

Friday, May 11, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #903

The Grateful Dead used to sing, “If you get confused, listen to the music play.” The current astrology says: “When in doubt, make your living space nicer.” Obviously you have more than this on your mind, including a diversity of concerns about where you’re at, whether you’re really making progress and what you’re doing with your life. Right now the astrology is showing me a picture of you putting down roots, of expanding into your space and of treating your living environment as if it’s your body (i.e., lovingly). Maybe have a small, spontaneous get-together in your home on Sunday evening, inviting over a few of your closest friends and maybe a few new ones. This specifically should happen in your personal space, not a public space of any kind (even if you may think your home is not up to par — nobody will care). Practice gratitude for the dry roof and the door that locks as the path to enlightenment.

Friday, May 4, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #902

Unfortunately, the term ‘unconditional love’ rarely means what it purports to say. It represents an ideal, and we may indeed get there — but for now, I suggest that you be fully aware of, and honest about, any conditions you have on any of the intimate situations in your life. This is not about being mean or controlling; it’s about being real with yourself, which is the one and only prerequisite to being real with others. Understanding your conditions means understanding your values. There is a direct connection between the two concepts; one is the outer expression of the other. By bringing these things to the surface of your awareness, you will be able to make better decisions — and you seem to be considering an important one now. Here is one specific theme to add to that equation: are you hesitating because a risk you took in the past did not work out? What is your relationship to this whole business of taking chances?

Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for May 2012

If you have any fear of settling down into a space you love, now is the time to get over it. I am picking up some kind of ‘security phobia’ in your charts, as if when faced with the potential to be comfortable and set up in a solid place, you get nervous. You may not have always been this way, and I suggest you remind yourself of a time in your life when that was not the case. Part of any anxiety about things being good is an acknowledgment of how badly things can go on this planet; therefore it sometimes feels better to live as if they’re already that way. Though as Lou Reed has said (and I know I’ve quoted this before), you can’t count on the worst always happening. True fact — it hardly ever happens. Therefore, relax and discover.

Friday, April 27, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #901

You are currently working the fine edge of a question that has been drifting through your subconscious for some time. It’s not necessarily that you’re closer to having the answer — but with a well-considered question you’re most of the way there. The subject involves the nurturing you received as a child, and how this influenced everything you believe about yourself. Many people discount this transaction — but it’s one of the most potent in the universe. This material has been subtly crystallizing out of your subconscious, making the themes and issues easier to work with and consider. You’ll know you’re making headway processing this material when you run up against some tangible resistance. That’s a metaphor for blocks that were imposed on you long ago; it’s like you’ve reached the limit that was set on how you could define yourself. Once you get there, you’ll know where the edge is — and then you will figure out a way to cross the boundary. — by Genevieve Hathaway

Friday, April 20, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #900

You know something, though I don’t think you know how true it really is. In other words, don’t be surprised when you discover that you were right. Now, being right isn’t everything, and some have gone so far as to say it’s the opposite of being happy. But I’m not talking about righteous — I mean that you have a hunch, a flash of insight or an idea that is actually valid. I suggest that rather than just letting it go, you keep working with it, and take the whole matter deeper. The reason you might not do that is that somehow the truth makes you nervous. You can be sure, in any event, that it will have impact. What good would it be otherwise? We don’t need any more trivial ‘information’ in the world right now. Here is the influence I see this revelation having: you just might feel less isolated. Would it feel good to learn that you’re not alone, that others are going through a similar experience, and that you can learn from one another? That’s what I see in your charts for the next few days.

Friday, April 13, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #899

Your mind has been a kaleidoscope lately, though if you’re trying to finish a project of some kind, this weekend will be a good time to do that. In particular, if you’ve been trying to write something, pull together a web project, organize your workspace or focus a business project, this is the time. One thing that will come in handy in the coming weeks is an updated resume or CV. I suggest you get that going, even if you don’t finish the work (those things take some time). Several factors that have been presenting a challenge to your mental focus are now out of the way, and other factors will offer the sense of having all of your wheels touching solid earth. Use these opportunities well. When the Sun changes signs into Taurus in less than a week, your professional goals and position in the business community will come into focus — and I suggest you be prepared well in advance. There’s an old expression I love: luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Friday, April 6, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #898

Think of everything you say and do as a commitment; as a promise. That ought to slow you down and put you into editing mode. While you’re doing that, listen to the commitment level contained in what others say to you. Analyze things specifically for where they register on the scale of give and take. When someone is speaking to you, what are they offering and what do they want? I suggest you listen with the intent of an auditor. You may find that some people are disconnected from what they want to exchange. Others however are lying about it outright. You will recognize them by an uneasy feeling you have, or the sensation that you ‘should’ accept something that you’re not interested in. Listen to what assumptions people make about you — especially those who don’t know you. And please beware of anyone who is in a rush. Most likely they’re trying to exploit what they perceive as a weakness. When in doubt, slow down the movie.

Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for April 2012

You may not feel like you’re making the progress you want — as if part of you wants to lurch forward while some other part of you is holding off. I suggest you resolve the tension by deferring to the voice that is hesitating. I can see something in the charts that you may not be able to see from your viewpoint in the world — which is that there’s a doorway you can go through. Visualize yourself in a dark room, so dark you cannot see where you are. But you have other senses: you can feel the surfaces around you. You can make a sound and estimate the size of the space. If you proceed slowly and thoughtfully you’re more likely to find your way out — and that is what your astrology is suggesting you do now.

Friday, March 30, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #897

It’s not how much money you have, it’s what you do with it. You do know this. I would add a reminder that your real focus must now be on resources in total, not merely on one kind of resource that has come to take the place of God (specifically, cash). I suggest you get clear about your agenda — that is to say, figure out what it is that you’re trying to do and why you want to do it. Once you have that down, I think you’ll quickly see that any plan you create calls for a diversity of resources, which would be true no matter how much money you have available. Pay particular attention to the things that money cannot buy — such as knowledgeable, helpful people; sincerity; the availability of a contact network. Over the next few days you may also come to some realizations about recent disruptions in a situation involving intimate partners. What you learn is not the end of the discovery, though it may point you toward an understanding of how procreation, and creativity in general, can scare the pants back onto certain people.

Weekly Horoscope #896 for March 23, 2012 — by Priya Kale.

A situation is asking you to be brave and have an honest conversation with a partner about how you feel regarding a stressful financial or personal situation. But do you really know how you feel? And do you know what someone else is thinking or feeling? And if you think you do, what makes you so sure? Be honest with yourself first, then you can be honest with others. More importantly be willing to listen. If you enter conversations now with an open mind and few preconceived opinions, you can renegotiate a situation or arrangement in a way that brings you more of what you need, and find a solution or arrangement that works for everyone involved. Be willing to question your perceptions, but don’t doubt yourself. Also, let go of subconscious fears that you face an impossible situation, or must deal with those determined to undermine your plans. What seems like an edgy or daring idea may be pure genius but perhaps you need to give it time to incubate. Brainstorming with someone you trust might help you find the missing piece. — by Priya Kale.

Friday, March 16, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #895

Recent events seem to have stirred up something of a psychological disturbance for you, and I suggest you take some time and let the waters settle down. Ask yourself the question: What is this really about? You seem to be aware that there are deep and perhaps troubling issues. I suggest you take your time with this and not decide it’s something that you can or must work out all at once. There are many excellent developments brewing in some of the most visible areas of your life, and you don’t want to divert energy away from them. I suggest you maintain a devotion to healing in the most positive way you can — as a loving commitment to your personal truth — and gently go deeper to figure out what you’re really working through. Meanwhile, you have some opportunities to be more visible than you normally are — and to feel more appreciated for what you do. You can help your healing process by carefully noticing how you feel when people express their authentic gratitude and admiration for you.

Friday, March 9, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #894

It’s good you’ve pulled back from the edge, and that the last few weeks seem to have gone without serious incident. Regardless of how unstable your life has been for how many weeks, seasons or years, this is a moment of settling down for you. Do what you can to make your home more your own; that will be a therapeutic exercise because it involves experimenting with a commitment. You might also open your mind to decisions about where the right place to live is, if you’re not in love with your present location. Whatever it takes to build your confidence, security and sense of grounding, I suggest you do. Time in the kitchen will be more restful than sleep. Make a list of your favorite foods, and go out and get them. This kind of grounding is good for your soul, and it’ll be good for your productivity. One discovery you can get into your body is that when you feel good, your life is easier. That’s easier than the other way around, and gives you clear direction where to invest your energy.

Friday, March 2, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #893

You have more power in someone’s life than you may think. Forget what the press release says, or how big of a shadow someone casts in your mind. Imagine you really do have influence. You have the power to say yes or no. You have the ability to grant or deny access. Indeed, you have the ability to take up space that might actually belong to someone else — physical space, or emotional. Are you feeling generous, or are you responding some other way? What is motivating you to act a certain way? The relationships are more involved than they may seem. There are several levels to what you’re feeling, and you may not be aware of some of them. Bear in mind that your choice to act a certain way may create a blind spot that prevents you from seeing the real effects of your choices or emotional posture. The deeper question I suggest you ask is, how do you want the situation to work out? Then act accordingly.

Inner Space Horoscope for March 2012

Aquarius has a reputation for liking to think, and I sure hope it’s true for you. For the next few weeks your mind will be less like a think tank and more like a furnace of hot ideas. I suggest that you try something radical, which is pick them up one at a time and dunk them in water. Cool them off, pick them up and see what you’ve got in your hand. Then, if you feel so inclined, gradually shape it into something that you want to work with. This is to say, ideas are one thing, and what you do with them is another thing. The mind can put out incredible amounts of power — and how you harness that power determines whether your creativity is useful or not. You may not be inclined to slow down for long enough to actually figure out what you’re thinking, though I suggest you give it a try.

Planet Waves
Planet Waves Weekly Horoscope # 892, for Friday, Feb. 24, 2012 | By PRIYA KALE

Recent events may have been eroding your faith and sense of security, but don’t be in a rush to fill a void. Essentially this boils down to a question of self-worth and self-esteem. A New Moon in your 2nd solar house (self-esteem and personal resources) marks a new cycle and period of growth for you financially, as well as within your deepest personal commitments. But rather than worry about what you mean to others, or whether you can ever have the material security you dream of — go deeper below the surface to clear space for what truly makes you feel safe beyond surface desires. Your family and support system have a lot to offer you, and you are indeed standing on solid ground. The more you recognize this, the more you can rise above the insecurities or superficial needs that so often lead you to doubt your worth. Also, your mother’s values may or may not be your own, but unless you become conscious of them you won’t recognize the difference. Gain clarity about what is most meaningful to you and you can attract the flow of abundance you seek. Pour your energy into the kind of commitments that mean the most to you and you’ll evolve a little bit every day as you move through the ebbs and flows of life. What you gain through this process will go way beyond just the tangible; it has an indescribable quality. — By Priya Kale for Planet Waves

Friday, Feb. 17, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #891

Yours is the sign of groups, but you’re equally invested in one-to-one relationships. Recent developments in an intimate situation are suggesting that it’s time to get out and be among people. You may have a tendency in the opposite direction: to withdraw, close up and avoid groups. However, I think you’ll find that once you get into a wider space and meet some new people you will feel like your old self or perhaps some new self you’ve never quite met before. Meanwhile, self-esteem questions persist. I suggest that you not view this as a crisis, but rather as an opportunity for growth. If you’re experiencing doubt in any form, one logical answer to that is to seek some information that might confirm or deny whatever issue you feel up against. However, the planets strongly suggest you look for the source of the doubt itself, remembering that it may have no basis in reality. The truth is, you’re a more sensitive person than you let on, and your sensitivity is running at an all-time high. So, proceed gently and the truth will come to you.

Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #890

One of the defining characteristics of our moment is the refusal to think in terms of consequences. Notably, this is happening at a time when a lot of consequences of the past are emerging for everyone to notice. An aspect between the Sun in your birth sign and a small, potent object called Nessus, are a reminder to think your plans and desires through. Consciously consider a diversity of what-ifs. This is not for the sake of ‘worry’ but rather for the sake of considering your options based on the potential of what they might create. At the same time you’re doing this, you may be experiencing a boomerang effect of things that you initiated in the past and to which you did not devote this consideration. Now is the time to make the necessary corrections, one at a time, as you become aware of what needs to be done. Note that some will require going through layers to get to the core of the matter.

Friday, Feb. 3, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #889

The prevailing theme at this truly meaningful juncture of your life is seeing the consequences of living unconsciously. It seems like every day you discover something new that you have to address, but that would have been prevented — had you only been more conscious at some other time in your life. One thing about the cleanup process is that you will be able to take some fairly large strides, if you devote yourself to it diligently, and proceed with a spirit of growth rather than of fixing. That said, you could become something of an expert in consequences, in general — of conscious or unconscious life; of being loving or unloving; of having faith, or not. For the foreseeable future the essence of your life story is about self-value and self-esteem. I believe that all of these themes are directly related. Feeling good about oneself is not an illusion or a flight of fancy. It can be solidly grounded in truth, and this seems to be your most important mission.

Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #888

Monday’s New Moon in your birth sign commences the Year of the Dragon. More specifically, it’s the year of the Water Dragon, a yin manifestation of bold, brash (and lucky) Dragon energy. This is the perfect image of Aquarius, the sign of the water-bearer. Yours is a masculine sign associated with a feminine substance. The blend for you is about asserting yourself, and taking chances, and depending on your popularity, and pushing your luck — in that distinctly Dragon way. Yet the way to do this best, with the Water Dragon as your mascot this year, is to hold feminine energy at your core. This is possible for both men and women — this is a matter of energy and not of sex. No matter how bold or cocky you are, stay open and receptive. No matter how lucky you are, be grateful. No matter how much you want someone or something, be open to it wanting you.

Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #887

Have you been feeling like a small cog in a big machine, rather in the dark about a situation that is drawing you deeper into the unknown than you may care to venture? Sooner or later you will figure out that fear is the scariest thing in the world. Although a financial commitment or sexual relationship is heating up, you can trust it is evolving just as it needs to even if you can’t see it yet. Trust your intuition about what you might sometimes feel is out of your control. That will help you be more aware of the subconscious fears that haunt you. These fears prevent you from making the progress you’re so devoted to these days. Recognizing this will help you summon the support you need. Yes, most people walk around the planet feeling little to no support for who they are and what they want. Yet that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Be your own friend and you will make some fun discoveries about who else wants to be your friend.

Friday, Jan. 6, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #886

You are certainly getting a tour of the light, the dark, the beautiful and the beastly. While I could be philosophical and say that it’s all part of the kaleidoscope of human experience, I am sure you would rather have your life be simpler. I know you’re getting exhausted with spending your days experiencing the kinds of extremes of existence that have characterized not only the past week but the past few months. You are at the end of a long, challenging phase of existence. By long I mean consider that what you’ve been living through is a phase that began in the late 1990s. You will recognize this a lot more clearly once it’s over — which by the way happens in early February, around the time of your birthday. Being a long phase there will not be an abrupt transition; tune in quietly and you will feel the subtle motion, ephemeral though it may be.

Before and After Neptune in Aquarius

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In what I trust is the last quirk of the publishing schedule after completing the 2012 annual, I had the choice today whether to write a late version of the Inner Space horoscope for February, or a letter to you. Given the quality of the moment, I’ve opted for the letter — a personal one rather than a newsletter. I will concentrate my 12-sign energy on the weekly horoscope for Friday. In case you missed the February monthly horoscope, here is a link to that.

Photo by Eric Francis.

We’re in a rare moment right now, and I want to describe what makes it so. By rare, I mean once in a lifetime, with special opportunities to observe ourselves and resolve certain lingering issues — or at least take a real step toward doing so.

This is the week that Neptune changes signs from Aquarius to Pisces; the precise moment is Friday at 2:03 pm EST. Outer planet sign changes are usually rare, but lately they have been coming in a cluster. Neptune spends about 14 years in each sign. So the theme of the moment is, in particular, getting some perspective on the past 14 years. Personal events will be meaningful, as will turning points that have influenced our whole culture.

Neptune began its trip through Aquarius on Jan. 28, 1998. A lot has happened since then — many changes to society, political events, numerous wars, many changes to our culture. It’s necessary to be observant of subtle changes when tracking outer planets, particularly with Neptune, but when you start making the before and after lists, you see some really interesting patterns.

Looked at another way, Neptune can represent an inspired state. This is natural for people who work with Neptune for a living, such as artists, musicians and composers; or rather, in order to do what they do, they’ve learned how to ground Neptune energy. The same would be true for a fiction writer, who you could say lies professionally but in a conscious, ethical way.

For those with less grounding, the inspired side of Neptune can be just as slippery as the delusional side. The many manifestations of what you might call false hope or false inspiration include believing what is not true because it’s convenient, being sold a ‘new lifestyle’ through a product, or falling for the many pitches for hope and change that are sold to us. I know you may not watch TV, but if you do, have you noticed how many drug commercials there are? Have you noticed how the warnings at the end are often half as long as the commercial? I always wonder who would buy a drug that suppresses psoriasis but could spontaneously induce cancer.

Much of what we call inspiration can lack traction or any sense of contact with reality. To work with Neptune constructively it’s necessary to take a long perspective, and by that I mean years; and to gradually focus your whole mind on the process. If there is going to be some kind of creative achievement, or some true potential for ‘hope and change’, it’s not going to come from outside; it’s going to come from us.

Neptune’s ingress into Pisces on Friday is the last of the outer planets taking their positions in the 2012 set of aspects. As I described in an earlier article called The Road to Xibalba, in Western astrology, what we have been calling “2012” consists of a series of events that began in 2008, when Pluto first ingressed Capricorn.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Then in 2010-2011, Chiron moved into Pisces; at about the same time, Uranus moved into Aries. Last April 4, Neptune slipped into Pisces, where it stayed for exactly four months. On Aug. 4, it retrograded back into Aquarius for the last time, and then Friday it leaves Aquarius and ingresses Pisces, where it will be till 2025.

Aquarius is the sign associated with groups, organizations, social patterns and thought patterns. Neptune is a planet that stokes the imagination, blurs boundaries and infiltrates everything that it touches. When Neptune is around, if you notice it, you might be asking yourself: Is this real or is this a dream? Many have asked that question before, but for a long time it was easier to avoid. Now that issue seems to be everywhere.

In more practical terms, what were your group associations, friendships and intimate relationships like before this transit and what are they like today? Think in broad terms: Are you more cynical, or more optimistic? Do you have more faith in humanity, or less? What has influenced you?

One of the most obvious manifestations of the Neptune in Aquarius era is this thing that used to be described accurately by the phrase, ‘the Internet’. It is perhaps the ultimate example of a thing both intimately private and vastly public. Fourteen years is before and after the Internet as we now know it. We have gone from Yahoo! mail to being able to control your coffee pot from your phone. Think of it this way. We used to surround the Internet. We used to have to go to it. Now it surrounds us, and infiltrates everything. It is ubiquitous, both as a product and as the wireless and microwave signals that soak through our bodies at every moment. At the same time, we occupy it — we project ourselves into it.

When you hear the discussions of “what is Facebook doing to our relationships?” that is just a subtle shade of the question. It’s a good one though; it really is time to evaluate the meaning of the word ‘friend‘. I am wondering what this total merging of the Internet with consciousness has done to the way that our souls engage existence; how we conceive of ourselves. One thing that happens a lot on the Internet is that we represent ourselves to others — and this can be in more or less honest ways. It’s now considered natural to be one’s own publicist, though we might want to count the cost of that — for example, the issues involved with raising image over substance in our most intimate encounters. Question: Are you lonelier now, or do you feel like you have more companionship, than you did in 1998?

There isn’t anyone who uses the ‘Net who has not encountered some of what can go wrong: the misunderstandings, the crossed communications, the feeling of being deleted, and most of all the sensation that everything we say here is tracked, recorded, documented and potentially available to anyone. The question is, how do we feel about that, and what has it done to our sense of personal containment? How does this influence our integrity? A Course in Miracles has an early lesson: There are no private thoughts. How do you feel, existing in that environment?

Photo by Eric Francis.

The thing with Neptune is that its effects are often more easily seen after a transit than during the transit, and we’re now in that last moment. With Neptune, it’s as if a fog rolls in, and something happens, and we can’t quite figure out what it was till the fog clears. Truly it is my perception that our culture has been living in an increasingly thick fog the past decade and a half, and many people have invested a lot of energy falling in love with their own delusions.

Today someone asked me why in my diary posts about Neptune in Aquarius was I only addressing the deceptive side of Neptune rather than the inspirational side. I will work up to it. Personally I thrive on the inspired side of Neptune. All of my interests spring from that well — photography, music, writing about spiritual matters or writing fantasy fiction. Yet in terms of the wider world, I may have a bias, because I am leery of the damage that can be done by this influence and how carefully it must be handled. Many days it seems like we’re drowning in the sea of true believership. I see some of the most inspired use of Neptune in Aquarius as being (in total) the more practical sides of the Internet, such as the way that Google makes information available and the way that Facebook makes people available. But then what do we do with that information or that ability to make contact? How creatively do we use it?

I am concerned about how and why we have taken some of the greatest con jobs in modern history so casually: fake wars, stolen elections, massive systemic heists of public funds, by the people who are charged with guarding them. I am less concerned with the events themselves and more with the way we’ve become so susceptible to them. We can ease the pain of that by believing all will be okay in the end, or that some good will have come of it, or that the world is better without Saddam Hussein, despite however many people were killed, hurt or displaced. With Neptune it’s always necessary to ask: Is what I believe actually true?

While we’re making inquiries, I suggest we ask ourselves whether we’re more or less real today than we were 14 years ago, and how we got to be that way.

I am curious where you’re coming from on these issues. Please write to me if you have any thoughts you would like to share with me or your fellow readers. I’ll be giving this a lot of thought between now and when I write Friday’s edition.

Lovingly,

P.S. — I am doing some of that thinking out loud on both the Planet Waves blog and the Reality Check diary.

Of Aquarius, Water and Dragons

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Dear Friend and Reader:

The Chinese Year of the Dragon began Monday, Jan. 23 with the Aquarius New Moon. The Dragon is the Chinese equivalent to the western sign Aries — high initiative and innovative. Dragon years are almost always memorable years in Western society, and 2012 will be no exception.

Meet Lagiacrus, the water dragon from Monster Hunter Tri. He’s a picky eater: organic-only and no red meat. To learn more about the game, visit this link at Amazon.com. Screen image of this magnificent water dragon is from Monster Wikia, to illustrate the Wii product. Wait — that’s what video games look like now? I have got to see this.

This is the Dragon year in the element water, which gives a yin or receptive feeling to the usually rather yang energy of this Chinese sign. (For contrast, the last Dragon year was 2000 — the Metal Dragon, which was a bit harsh.) It’s illustrated perfectly by Neptune changing signs just as the Water Dragon year begins, from Aquarius (where it’s been since 1998) to Pisces (where it will be until 2025). So here in the year of passionate water, we get some extra juice right from the start. (I’ll have a lot more to say about Neptune in Pisces in the Friday, Feb. 3 edition of Planet Waves.)

Speaking as a Dragon, I can tell you that one key to working with this energy is being conscious of how and when you push your luck. That is to say, Dragon is considered ‘lucky’, and those in harmony with this energy tend to thrive on taking chances. Yet this quality is best used with a touch of authentic discernment, for example, taking calculated risks, with a productive purpose — rather than stupid risks with no useful benefit to anyone. Yes, fun is sometimes sort of useful — but you can have plenty of fun and not create problems (or danger) for yourself or anyone else.

That said, the thing to do with that daring energy is, specifically, to dare. You might say that it’s about taking a chance on what you want. Most of what we consider ‘dangerous’ and avoid is really a comment on our psychology, and our perception — not actual risks. This is not the year to make excuses for why you’re not doing what you want, or why you refuse to even try. It’s the time to see those excuses for what they have been and what they have done to you. Most of why we might resist is contained in our mental patterns, and with that, we now have some help.

Also as of Monday, Mars turned retrograde in Virgo. In a word, this is about rethinking. You don’t hear the term “Mars retrograde” very often, but it happens. On the most basic level, Virgo describes how we think, and Mars retrograde is a high-focus investigation. Virgo is also a sign known for its intensity and even obsession (both described by Chiron rather than Mercury). But it’s a feminine sign, and those who try to express masculine energy through Virgo can be a little insecure doing so. Imagine how Virgo herself feels, taking up Mars as a guest for longer than the average vacation, eight months. The peak of that timespan involves Mars making apparent retrograde motion between Jan. 23 and April 13.

Between April 13 and late June promises to be an interesting time in the story of the world, and Mr. Cock and Balls treading backwards through the sign of the Virgin sounds like she becomes a woman in the process. Retrogrades are often recovery missions, about claiming lost energy, forgotten personal assets, and aspects of ourselves that threatened others when we were little. Every kid does this — to some extent figure out how not to piss off the adults, however meek or vicious the results may be.

Montauk facing south, toward Santo Domingo, winter 2012.Photo by Eric Francis. (Read Eric’s account of this particular wave.)

Children thus embark on a self-pruning process that can leave them feeling neutered as adults. This is the essence of the “little man” complex described by Wilhelm Reich. In Gestalt therapy it’s the essence of guilt. If we’re wondering where our energy, or curiosity, or creativity goes as we get older, this is the place to look.

That’s what retrogrades can help with. They can send us on a soul retrieval scavenger hunt. Mars in Virgo will be useful this way, helping us come to terms with what we think of as aggression (and might feel as self-aggression). For some, Mars retrograde in Virgo represents a calling to impeccability. For others, it’s a deep self-inquiry. For still others, it’s about healing desire and unhooking the many hangups that make it so difficult to express desire without guilt.

I suggest being mindful of the pattern establishment quality of retrogrades. The last time anything like this happened was in early 1965, when the script was cast for the thing called The Sixties that ensued.

Everything that happened during that spell of retrograde Mars in Virgo became ‘a thing’; it was etched into the realm of potential in such a way that stuck. The music, the war, the protests — the pattern was set, as the energy crested. In personal psychological astrology, this phase is a systems check for all of the high-intensity astrology that arrives in the late spring.

You may feel a palpable calling to improve your life, your health and your wellbeing during the next few months — and it’s essential that you proceed with any such quest gently. Warm up before you stretch, and remember, it’s not how far you go or how good you look, it’s how consciously you lean into the tension. This goes for body or mind.

Virgo is given to spells of harsh self-criticism without the help of Mars, or Mars retrograde. Given this it will be helpful to think of your feelings in terms of pleasure-guilt dynamics, and to consider any approach-avoid tendencies that you have in this light. Another theme I’ll be exploring with Mars retrograde involves aggression, self-aggression and what to do with anger. We need Mars energy in our lives, but the key is, we need just enough. Fortunately, Mr. Dragon will help us keep that in balance.

Aquarius is an air sign, though its symbol is a container of water (or in early renditions, a ruler to measure the depth of the Nile). The Water Dragon is assertive and expressive in a way that comes from a feminine core. This is the year when fortune favors the bold. The Dragon of Chinese fame has none of the baggage that it has in Western mythology; in China, it’s the very essence of good fortune. As mentioned, Dragon is the sign related to Aries in Western astrology — cardinal (high-energy) fire energy.

So, be brash, bold and daring — in subtle ways too.

Lovingly,

SCHEDULE NOTE — This is the only edition of Planet Waves this week. It includes the February monthly horoscope, long edition, which is below. There is not an edition Friday. We will see you again Tuesday with the Inner Space monthly horoscope for February. Don’t miss Daily Astrology & Adventure, and I’ve been been writing some short essays on the Reality Check homepage. — efc

NOTE TO CAPRICORNS AND AQUARIANS — I am indeed planning your birthday reports. No exact date on the schedule, but it will be soon after resuming the Planet Waves FM podcast, which has been on a one-month hiatus. — efc

Neptune in a Flask

When I was studying marine biology at John Dewey High School, I heard of this place called the New York Ocean Science Laboratory (NYOSL), out in Montauk — at the far end of Long Island’s south fork. That always seemed perfect — to have an ocean science lab out here on the far-flung edge of the North American continent, more than 100 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. All kinds of complex aquatic systems exist around here — besides the ocean itself, there are inland lakes and ponds, streams, bays, harbors, wetlands and islands.

Grow room by the Sea — Algae stock grows in Erlenmeyer flasks at the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery in Mondauk, NY. The algae provides microscopic food for infant oysters, clams and scallops (while they’re in the larval stage). After the algae matures here, the cultures are moved to much larger vats where the algae blooms under natural light — then a bunch of pea-sized mollusks have a feast. Photo by Eric.

I’ve looked for the lab many times on the ‘Net and I’ve never been able to find it — and I learned why today. The New York State Legislature cut its funding in 1979, before the Internet existed. So, it never had a website or a web presence of any kind, and there are few references to its existence. Even asking the locals, most only seemed to have heard of it.

The land was almost all sold to build condos, and most of the place (originally a former WWII torpedo testing facility) was torn down. The one remaining building fell into ruins. Then in 1986, someone thought to open a shellfish hatchery. NYOSL’s remaining structure was renovated and revived, and the Town of East Hampton (which includes the hamlet of Montauk) created a place to breed clams, scallops and oysters. So many of these critters are harvested from the water that the stocks were nearly depleted before World War II. So it makes sense to reinvest in the ecosystem.

With some help from the local newspaper, I tracked down the lab’s manager and visited there yesterday. It’s a gritty little operation, with a small staff. The facility is designed to get mollusks to mate, which they do by spewing their sex cells into the water — and then the staff collect the larvae. These are fed algae, which is bred first in beakers like the ones you see above, then in larger vats. Only the smallest fish eat algae stock; once they’re big enough, they are put out into a nursery or live on racks, in both of which cases they consume the naturally occurring algae in bay water.

Both Chiron and Neptune in Pisces are going to call attention to the oceans. The oceans are the immune system of the planet, and the wetlands are the spawning grounds where nearly all marine life has its roots. Chiron in Pisces is the essence of marine science — the spirit of inquiry, documentation and acknowledgement of the issues we face and the healing that’s necessary.

We’re going to need both scientists and facilities to understand and help us deal with the changes the world is going through. This has been true for as long as there’s been industrialization, though I can tell you from much experience covering polluters that they don’t like scientists. They don’t like research. The less that’s known about the effects of all this industrial activity and pollution, the better. Not everyone agrees with that.

The East Hampton hatchery is not a research lab; it provides a practical function, which is restocking the waters from which so many people eat and make a living. That’s a good start. I’ll post another photo to Planet Waves tomorrow.

Monthly Horoscope for February 2012. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Focus on your health. The potential problem I see is stress. However I also see an opportunity to cultivate habits and patterns of living that open the way to your vitality and longevity. Your best window of opportunity for this endeavor is from now through mid-April, when the influential planet Mars treks backward in Virgo. Let’s start with stress — which in this case seems to be a study in how you handle obstacles created by the need for attention to details. If you’re experiencing any kind of a setback, view it as an opportunity to solve a lot of seemingly minor issues that you want to work out anyway, only now you have an excuse. The whole theme of ‘rethinking’ is one that will help you relax into a truly creative space, which will be good for you. As for wellness opportunities — the story boils down to remembering that you exist in physical form, and physical activity is good for you, indeed essential to keeping your psychic energy in balance. You have so much voltage running through you at the moment that balance and clarity count for extra. I suggest you start by unraveling or undoing habits you don’t want — such as subtracting certain foods from your diet — and then gradually shift your momentum into what you consciously want to establish or create. This is a simple formula. As you liberate stuck energy and aggravating factors, more of your vital force becomes available for creative purposes.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Einstein once said that imagination is more powerful than knowledge, which describes perfectly how the planets are speaking to you right now. You may be discovering that certain things you knew for sure are no longer as valid as you thought. Curiosity will save the day, as you can quickly shift from any sense of disappointment about what’s not true toward an inquiry into what is. Curiosity about yourself is high on the agenda, though this is the kind of curiosity you must answer in experience rather than in theory. You seem to have reached a new depth of relationship with your opposite-sex self, which implies experiencing both of your inner gender polarities as more distinct and vivid. They have a relationship to one another, and you have a relationship to them. Your creative quest involves diving into new and even improbable experiences of yourself. By improbable, I mean that if you have an experimental spirit and turn your sense of inquiry onto yourself, you may discover unexpected new inner territory. You’ll notice things about yourself that you don’t identify as, but which are no less part of your psyche. The question might arise: how far do I go exploring with others or physically experiencing what I desire? I would say, start where you feel safe, and work your way out to the edge of that. Test your boundaries. A significant aspect of this is expressing in words to yourself and to others what you want, for the pleasure of doing so.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — It’s a miracle that anyone feels safe on our planet, with all that seems poised to go so wrong. Yet actual conditions have minimal influence on one’s level of security or insecurity; the assessment is usually based on an internal metric — and becoming conscious of this is the theme of the coming few months. Let’s start with the idea that your level of fear is influenced by much of anything outside you. If the sources of fear were really external, our lives would be strewn with the nonstop disasters envisioned by our anxieties. In truth very little that we fear actually happens. Fear has its origins — and many of those are likely to involve family baggage. We come into this life with patterns that go back generations, though we prefer to think that our minds work in some original way. The fears you experience might be so directly attributable to others it’s as if they come tagged with the name of the source. For the next three months you have the opportunity to take out the trash — identify and make a conscious choice to let go of every insecurity that you don’t want. I know that fears are among the most persistent thought forms, though part of their staying power involves a lack of understanding where they come from. In any event, I suggest you define as a primary goal your desire to feel safe living here. By the way, this works out to be a leadership question.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Logic is one of the most powerful tools in the shed, though it doesn’t work for everything. I suggest you test your logic and also apply logic to test your conclusions, and see how both factors check out. Just remember, logic rarely points to what is possible. More often it points to what is seemingly impossible, not worth doing or not even worth trying. For that reason alone, it’s worth testing. Every significant human achievement was significant specifically because it defied the prevailing logic of its day. Some limit was exceeded; some purpose not previously recognized was fulfilled; someone saw potential in a way that nobody else had noticed, or at least dared to try. In a similar spirit, I suggest that you open your mind’s eye to your potential, to unlikely possibilities and to the vision of things that don’t yet exist. Consider how you want to shape your life over longer spans of time than you usually think about, say perhaps 10 or 20 years. Allow creativity to bring something new to the conversation when typical approaches to problem-solving don’t get you where you want to be. Challenge yourself to both seeing the limits of how you think now, and to conceive of your life in certain ways that project you into entirely new territory. The world is wider than you may think; places you’ve never been, and experiences you’ve never had, are waiting for you — no matter what anyone may deem as possible or impossible.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — One of the reasons that many Leos feel so good about themselves is that you’ve figured out that it makes more sense than feeling any other way. You take an almost scientific approach to self-esteem, rationally assessing the ways in which you both excel and other ways in which you need improvement. The world would be a better place if more people did this, though if lately you’re noticing that you fall short of your own standards, you need a new way to measure. I can think of two qualities to consider. One is in your ability to find common ground with people. That is an astonishing gift to have, because common ground is the substance of which cooperation is made. Second, you tend to project yourself into the community that surrounds you in a clear way that people can understand, no matter what point of view they’re coming from. They’re extensions of the same deeper property you have, which is your ability to hold people together like the Sun keeps its planets in their orbits. Over the next several months you seem poised to move into wider and more visible public roles that relate to both social and professional aspects of life. More will be at stake; bigger risks than usual will be on the line. Before you take your new role, I suggest that you really understand the truly unique gifts you have, so that you have full confidence in them when you need them the most.

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Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — There’s only so far you can take the concept of integrity before it ceases to be practical. In fact pushing things out to an extreme of impeccability can have the opposite effect, of making you (or any human) want to break some rules just for its own sake. With Mars retrograde in your sign, I suggest you beware of this kind of reactionary effect. Make some room in your relationships for some of what cannot be verified or judged. People need to believe some of their own illusions, and they can often do so harmlessly enough. I recognize that it’s sensible in some ways to judge people (including yourself) on the basis of whether they’re being strictly truthful, or whether they fit precise metrics of authenticity. Yet that doesn’t leave much room for imagination, which we depend upon to get through the day, every day. I suggest you view the people around you in a more idealistic light. See them for the good things they offer and make an effort to overlook what might annoy you. If you do this enough you’ll get better at doing the same thing for yourself. All of the flaws in the world do not add up to perfection, so if you’re looking for happiness, you will need to look somewhere else, or rather, look another way. Remember that much of what the mind sees is the mind itself. There are other approaches to seeing, though instead of wondering what they are, I suggest you open your eyes and look.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — How strongly can you identify with someone else’s experience? Or maybe the more accurate question is, how much do you want to? It would seem that someone in your environment is teaching you a lot — and has also become a powerful influence in other ways. This situation has been developing for a while, though it’s only recently that you’re noticing just how much the experience is helping you rearrange your perspective. In recent seasons, you’ve been investing lots of your energy into organizing your life, focusing on maturity and getting clear about what’s important to you. Yet it seems you’ve been trying to do this from an internal orientation, avoiding competing influences. Along the way, certain distinct elements in your outer environment have been playing a role that you may not have noticed till recently. Someone who others might think is too ‘challenging’ to be around has proven to be an inspiration, in particular, driving you to express your full talent and individuality. This is of course more than most people can stand for themselves — all that awakeness and talent and full expression of energy kind of stuff is scary for lots of people. You’re in one of those situations where your best option is to rise to the occasion and take full advantage of the situation. If you can handle some unpredictability and running a bit higher voltage than you usually do, you’ll get the benefits of a truly one-of-a-kind creative partnership experience.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Everyone wants to be popular, but not everyone recognizes the potential cost. Everyone wants a meaningful role to play in their community, but hardly anyone is willing to do the work. Everyone wants to be seen as someone with integrity, though few are willing to make the investment in themselves to deserve that distinction. At the moment you have all of this going on, and you may be wondering how much progress you’re making. I would propose that you’re in the ‘cleaning and scaling’ phase of a new relationship to whatever you think of as the public: your circle of friends, your immediate community or perhaps some wider audience. I suggest that as you go through this phase, you take an experimental attitude, rather than assuming any long-term successes or failures based on what happens in the immediate future. The situation isn’t perfect, but it’s clearly workable — as long as you don’t set perfection as a goal. If more things than usual seem to be going wrong, or if certain objectives seem to be slipping out of reach, that’s because you’re testing a number of things in practice that you had only worked out in theory. You’re also getting to experience how ‘human nature’ responds when you turn up the energy, and you’re learning something about group dynamics that for some reason was not obvious before. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a dependable working method, try this on: be clear with people and they will be clear with you.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Focus on your work and not your career. There is a difference, though it’s often forgotten. Keep your emphasis on what you’re doing now, rather than on the trajectory of what you intend to be doing, have decided to work toward, or where you’ve been previously. Let your experience only be relevant when it provides actual information you can work with. See what it’s like to proceed for a while with no ambition to be more visible, respected or even successful; rather, get into the Be Here Now experience of full presence in your immediate activity. That is where the real energy is for you personally, whichever way we might look at your charts. In the current version of the world, there is way too much emphasis placed on supposed success, on the technical side of the creative process and on this elusive thing known as fame. Where your charts are the strongest right now is on the quality of your creative or work experiences as well as the results you get; on the chemistry you have with your collaborators; and on being known as someone who does the job well, rather than being known for its own sake. As you focus on the present and your present efforts, you will gradually redefine your notion of success. You will shift your relationship to authority, including both your inner authority and those who seem to hold power in the external world. And when you proceed after this experiment, you’ll truly be your own boss.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — You are by nature an intuitive thinker. However, that’s another way of saying creative thinker. Yet creative is a matter of emphasis, with the emphasis being on noticing what you have not noticed before, or seeing what others do not; your apparent lack of logic often works to your benefit. You’re now in an extended phase of your life when the theme is how you think. You may be discovering that there is no such thing as ‘pure reason’, though it’s possible to ask reasonable questions. You may suddenly be able to tune into your perception and notice patterns that were not obvious before. This may seem clairvoyant, in particular if you don’t know how you reached a certain conclusion. Therefore, I suggest that you allow your mind to work in its new way, and if you’re wondering how you arrived at a certain destination, work your way backwards from your recognition to the facts that initially led to it. For the sake of credibility, you might want to leave some of your calculations in the margin, so that others know that there are steps you took to get where you’re going. However, don’t let them get in your way when you’re working independently of others. For your own sake, making sure that there are logical steps after the fact will help build your confidence in your observation skills. They may not seem important today, but the way the world is going, you’re going to be glad you have them the moment you need them.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Lately you seem to have your doubts about where you stand with yourself, though I suggest you give that a rest. You are, at least, becoming fully self-aware and determined to know the truth about yourself. This is an excellent start. I would caution you against listening to what others try to convince you of, particularly if a sexual or financial relationship has gone awry or turned negative any time recently. You still have a lot of your self-esteem invested in that situation — and it’s going to take some time to work this out. I suggest you think of this as a technical exercise that will gradually get results. If there’s a spiritual component, that might be about compassion and patience. Know that your personal resources are more valuable than whatever you may have invested in the relationship. Indeed, it would seem that there’s relatively little invested, in terms of actual commitment; there seems to be more of an entanglement that you now have the responsibility of working out. As when untangling anything else, you cannot push, and you have to remember not to pull too hard. Yet the thing to really keep in mind is that this is not a measure of your value, to yourself or to anyone else. You’re merely in a situation that is calling for care and attention, and that you will easily let go when the details are resolved — and when emotions settle down. You can help by keeping them as cool as possible.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — This month, Neptune arrives in your sign, to stay until 2025. It is rare that you get to say that a new phase of your life has begun. However, astrology also provides a metric. Neptune in your sign will shift your experience of yourself — and as a result, your experience of the world you live in. Yours is the most watery of the water signs. Yet there’s just one planet that’s directly associated with water — Neptune. It moves extremely slowly, and has been hanging out since 1998 in an angle of your chart where its best properties have been difficult for you to access. This has had two effects. One is that you’ve had to turn your sensitivity up, in order to compensate for what was not immediately available. You’ve had to make company for yourself when you were feeling isolated, and find softness within when there seemed to be none around you. I suspect that any residual sense of isolation is going to gradually dissipate over the next few months, and your relationships — all of them — are going to go through a phase of adjustment. The gist of that story is that you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable being who you are, and exist in a world that’s more your kind of climate. Others, in turn, will need to adapt to your being more grounded in your being — or rather, they will or they will not, but either way, you’ll feel more at home.

Scratch Some Virgo, Find Some Pisces

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Dear Friend and Reader:

The late, great horoscope writer Patric Walker once wrote, “Scratch a Pisces and you’ll find a Virgo under their skin.” Though this was a cute one-liner that I read in The New York Post, Patric was alluding to a real astrological principle: the ‘opposite’ signs contain one another. In a sense, they’re not even really opposite; they are aspects of the same thing, and in this way a polarity of two signs — any two signs — works as one entity.

Daybreak at Gale Crater on Mars. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

When signs on both sides of the polarity have planets or notable events in them, this is especially noticeable — and that’s what’s happening these days with Virgo and Pisces.

Mars is currently in Virgo, making an extremely rare eight-month visit that includes an approximately 11-week retrograde. (The retrograde extends between Jan. 23 and April 13.) That’s placing an unusual emphasis on Virgo, since Mars does not usually move that slowly, and because (particularly when retrograde) it’s not considered the best fit for Virgo. If you have this placement in your chart, however, you’re likely to have a sharp mind, a passion for technology and a drive to make things right. You might have a lawyer-like mind and be a kind of martial artist at argument. Yet you also might need to ‘step down’ your voltage so you don’t blow out your transistors, or those of the people around you.

On the other side of the sky, Chiron is currently in Pisces, where it will be into 2019. Neptune is due to arrive on Feb. 3, and it will remain there until 2025. These are slow-movers that will change the shape of the world, our perception of the world and our experience of existence.

Such events, taken together, qualify as the full activation of the Virgo-Pisces axis — what I will call the axis of practical imagination. Virgo expresses the technical side of nearly anything, based on its tendency toward integrated or applied knowledge. Pisces expresses the imaginative side of the psyche, which can often inspire the more practical modes of expression.

The two have to work together in order for much of anything worthwhile to happen. Think of the circuit board and all the ingenuity required to create it as an expression of Virgo. Think of the concept ‘Macintosh’ as an expression of Pisces. To do anything innovative, it’s necessary to have both ends of the polarity working, which is the challenge that both artists and technicians face every day. Usually someone is oriented toward one side or the other — they like the creative end but not the practical end — or vice versa.

Mars in Virgo: The Mind on Fire

Let’s start with a careful look at the Virgo side of the polarity and come back to Pisces. Mars in Virgo is the mind on fire. This placement can represent a drive for integrity, impeccability or even perfection. Healing and self-improvement can become obsessions. There is the drive to fix things. If Mars in this sign turns on itself, the result can be a painful and even tortured neurosis. Casting Mars retrograde in Virgo in the best light, I see an inquiry of some kind, a questioning of conventional values, and an intellectual quest that continually questions itself.

This is what you look like when you have Mars in Virgo conjunct Uranus and Pluto. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was not born with Mars retrograde, but he experienced it as a fetal American. He’s seen here during one of his last NIN performances at The Music Box, Hollywood, CA on Sept. 8, 2009. Photo: Mykal Burns/Wikipedia.

This is not going to be so comfortable for everyone, however. If Socrates was right about an unexamined life not being worth living, a good few people may be getting the message that it’s time to do things differently. The self-critical attribute of Virgo is famous. Add to that Mars retrograde and it may be time to open an astrological support hotline.

On the other hand, this will be excellent astrology for those who are in therapy, doing spiritual counseling or who are devoted to their healing — as long as they convert judgment into compassion and perfectionism into the intention of gradual improvement. In Reality Check, my 2012 annual edition, I interpreted Mars retrograde through the signs as a systems check for the astonishing events of late May through late June 2012. Mars retrograde in Virgo will help us clear our mental blocks, preconceived ideas and useless information from our minds before the energy turns up exponentially.

For retrograde hunters, the last time Mars was retrograde in Virgo was in 1997, but part of that cycle happened in Libra, so we did not get the full effect. Mars did something similar in 1950, splitting a retrograde between Virgo and Libra. Mars spent a little piece of its 1995 retrograde in Virgo as well.

The last all-Virgo Mars retrograde was the famous one that took place in early 1965, famous in my mind, anyway, because Mars passed through the Uranus-Pluto conjunction. Doing so, it stirred up a lot of collective energy, helping spark what we think of as the 1960s. That conjunction, which happens less than once per century, combined the revolutionary power of Uranus with the evolutionary power of Pluto and set many things in motion.

In January, Pres. Lyndon Johnson made his “Great Society” speech. This was the era of “guns and butter.” Two months later, he sent the first combat troops to Vietnam. The Civil Rights movement was on fire in Alabama, where James J. Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, was beaten to death — one of several members of the clergy to be killed by the KKK. In April, the first anti-Vietnam War march, organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), drew 25,000 people (and that was just the first of many impressive antiwar protests that year).

In May, 40 men burned their draft cards at the University of California at Berkeley, and marched a coffin to the local Draft Board. Good thing, too. By July, Johnson nearly doubled both the ground troop count in Vietnam and the number of men drafted. (He also signed the Social Security Act of 1965, which provided for Medicaid and Medicare). In other words, the historical era that we actually think of as the Sixties emerges during the Mars retrograde of 1965.

Births from this specific era of 1965 include Trent Reznor, Robert Downey, Jr., Eric Cantor and Sarah Jessica Parker. A piece of timeless artwork that manifested in this moment was the recording A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. The Beatles recorded “Ticket to Ride,” a song about abortion. (Later in the year, they went full-on psychedelic, with “Day Tripper,” “Nowhere Man” and “Norwegian Wood.”)

And This is Now

We are now having another all-Virgo Mars retrograde, the very first since then. What’s interesting is that we are once again in a potent Uranus-Pluto phase — the square. This is the first Uranus-Pluto quadrature (90-degree type) aspect since the ’60s, and it’s pretty easy to feel the resonance between our era and that one. This Mars retrograde will awaken Uranus and Pluto in the natal charts of many people born in the ’60s. It’s fair to say that for a while, the world will feel a little more like home to ’60s babies — though this isn’t just about Virgo.

A Love Supreme was recorded by John Coltrane’s quartet in December 1964 and was released February 1965 — right at the peak of Mars retrograde in Virgo. It remains one of the most memorable and enduring recordings of that era, which is saying a lot.

Our current Mars retrograde also arrives with a Pisces awakening. At the moment, Venus and Chiron are in Pisces. The Sun arrives for a month in late February. And most significantly, Neptune is about to arrive, which will shift the story of the world, and allow the realm of imagination to be more tangible and accessible. When the question is one of method, we find a counterpart in purpose in its counterpart energy, Pisces. When it’s one of proof (in Virgo) we have a matter of faith (in Pisces). Looked at another way, our problems are never solved by technology alone. They are solved by the creative use of creative technology.

What our era has in common with the mid-’60s (indeed, nearly the whole decade) is once again the presence of Chiron in Pisces — something that blended the focusing power of Virgo with the softer light of Pisces. I think of Chiron in Pisces as being the side of the ’60s that was about love, peace and beauty. This was a spirit represented, among other manifestations, by The Beatles, who provided a soundtrack and embodied a peace-loving, creative ethos available beneath all the turmoil of the era. Their musical repertoire also tracks the speed with which the era progressed. (It was just 15 months from “A Hard Day’s Night” to “Yesterday,” though it seems like a lot longer.

We’re now entering a time of history that will make the ’60s seem like a day at the shore. The Uranus-Pluto square that fully takes hold in June describes an extended phase of awakening, creative expression and surges forward in many necessary aspects of life. Yet this radically progressive astrology is forming in a world where the human spirit has been all but moralized or legislated out of existence, or worse, subsumed in advertising. Still, we have the strength to wage ideological battles and attempt to prove our points either intellectually or with intellectual bullying.

Beneath the hashing out of supposed right and wrong, of evidence and proof, of bombastic rhetoric, there is a softer reality. Amidst the chaos we’re witnessing and indeed about to witness, there is a calm voice speaking and asking reasonable questions, if anyone is willing to listen.

Of course, there are always those who want us to believe what defies reason and rationality, and plenty are ready to do so, thinking it’s much easier. I think we needed to take notice when Karl Rove made his famous comments making fun of the ‘reality-based community’ — that is, everyone who did not worship at the altar of his delusions. We live in a culture that already extols image above substance and there’s hardly a day when we can get that going in the right order.

Twenty-twelve or Bust! Okay — we got there. This Sixties-styled bus is reminiscent of the highly organized psychedelic vibe that has its roots in the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1965-1966. Photo: Johannes Aubele/Wikipedia.

Mars retrograde in Virgo is a reminder to check the facts, to check your logic and to test your perceptions against some other metric. Yet the thing to remember is that all the facts in the world don’t add up to the truth. All the proof in the world does not tally up to something that makes sense. The final gesture of bestowing something with the blessing of ‘being real’ comes from each of us. Let’s consider the rational/irrational spectrum a bit differently, with a physical metaphor.

During 14 years that have led to Neptune ingressing Pisces, we’ve had Neptune in Aquarius (between 1998 and early 2012). Much like Virgo, the realm of Aquarius describes patterns of information, and studying those patterns could help us establish some basis by which we can assess what we perceive, that is, determine what’s real and what’s not.

During this era, the Internet has manifested as a way to give many people access to knowledge and factual information, but for the most part, it has a different purpose. During those 14 years of Neptune in Aquarius, the Internet went from something that existed in relatively few households to something that everyone carries in their pocket. What started as the realm of academic research, repositories of information and a foundation of knowledge has transformed into a realm dominated by fantasy, shopping, games and entertainment.

The Internet has also manifested in everyday life as a communication medium, replacing everything from leaflets to mail to the telephone to shortwave radio.

I would offer two early thoughts about Neptune in Pisces. Consider that the emergence of the Internet as we currently know it — a kind of fantasy shopping dimension — is more about the lack of imagination than too much of the stuff. Neptune in Aquarius encouraged us to use imagination a certain way, basically, the most effective way to either make money or spread propaganda. There is relatively little beauty for its own sake on the Internet. Neptune in Pisces is a reminder to honor precisely that: beauty and truth for their own sake.

Second, we have learned something about communicating over a nonlocal network, by which we’re linked through wires, fiber optics cables and wireless portals. It’s time to move away from this metaphor and recognize that we’re all connected, and we all influence one another, without all the gadgets.

Lovingly,

SCHEDULE NOTE — Next week Planet Waves will publish on Wednesday evening only. That will be the February Monthly Horoscope and monthly overview. For listeners of Planet Waves FM, I will be resuming on Weds., Feb. 1.

PERSONAL ASTROLOGY NOTE — I interpret Mars retrograde in Virgo for all of the signs and the rising signs in the 2012 annual readings. I consider this one of the most significant personal transits of 2012 and key preparation for the events to follow later in the year.

A Decade of Mars Retrograde

Mars retrogrades for 72 days every 25.6 months. A Mars retrograde occurs when the Earth, which moves faster than Mars, passes between Mars and the Sun. This creates the effect of Mars seemingly moving backwards, much like if you’re on a faster train passing a slower train. Both trains are going ahead, but the slower one seems to be going backwards from the perspective of the faster one. The effect is supposed to be an illusion, but it’s one that can wiggle your stomach and get you to question reality for a second — just like a Mars retrograde.

The Vulva on Mars — the biggest canyon in the solar system — dwarfing the Grand Canyon — is on Mars. Photo courtesy of APOD and the Viking Project.

Mars will be visible in the sky through the winter and spring, as it always is when the retrograde happens. Remember that one definition of ‘retrograde’ is ‘close to the Earth’.

The distribution of signs where Mars retrograde occurs is grossly uneven. The retrogrades tend to concentrate in the range of the zodiac between Cancer and Sagittarius. They occur very rarely in Aquarius or Capricorn, and only occasionally in Aries, Taurus and Pisces.

The experience of any inner planet retrograde is shaped in part by the planets that are aspected in the process. This year, planets in Pisces, the sign opposite Virgo, are the main actors shaping Mars retrograde. These include Chiron, Neptune and, briefly, Venus.

Read more…

Aquarius wood cut circa 1826.

Friday the Sun enters Aquarius, the fixed sign of this season, at 11:10 am EST. Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius) always arrive at the middle of the season, representing its peak energy. We’re approaching the Aquarius New Moon on Monday, just as Mars stations retrograde. We are just two weeks away from Imbolc or Candlemas, the Midwinter holiday.

Once in Aquarius, the Sun aligns in a sextile with the Ceres-Uranus conjunction in Aries, and a square with Jupiter in Taurus. Both those aspects are exact on Sunday. Also Friday, Venus in Pisces is sextile Pluto in Capricorn. On Saturday, Mercury in Capricorn makes a trine to asteroid Psyche in Virgo (talk about it, whatever it is), and a square to outer planet Haumea in Libra (don’t let your mind get in the way of your creativity).

Then on Sunday, Mercury squares Eris in Aries (who am I really?). Venus in Pisces opposes Eros in Virgo (who do I want, really?). Monday, Mercury forms an earth trine to Mars in Virgo, hours before Mars stations retrograde until April 13. The waning Moon begins in Sagittarius today, then ingresses Capricorn at 5:40 pm EST. It enters Aquarius at 9:53 pm EST Sunday, and conjoins the Sun on Monday at 2:39 am EST for the Aquarius New Moon and beginning of the Chinese Year of the Dragon.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Everyone’s favorite megacorporate sock puppet, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, is now headed for a recall election after citizens there handed in one million signatures demanding his ouster. They were only required to collect half that number but apparently weren’t taking any chances. Walker’s decision to gut public employee labor unions sparked months of huge protests in Madison last winter, though last year he hadn’t been in office for long enough to recall.

In February 2011 he was punked by Ian Murphy, a writer with the alternative-news site Buffalo Beast, who managed to Skype with Walker for an hour under the pretense of being billionaire conservative benefactor David Koch, calling to encourage Walker in his battle against public unions. The recordings were published and Walker’s life was never quite the same.

There is no date set for the recall election because the signatures have not been verified — but as soon as a date is set we’ll have a look at the chart. Walker himself is a 1967 model Scorpio. Just because you were born in the Sixties doesn’t make you a freak. But he should be, with five planets in Virgo (including the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, with Venus sandwiched in) and the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Neptune in Scorpio. I think Scott just needs to put on Pink Floyd, smoke the peace pipe and mellow out for 20 minutes.

This would help especially with Mars about to retrograde over all his Virgo planets, which will no doubt provide some kind of awakening experience for him.

On Wednesday President Obama rejected the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. He had been forced to make an early decision on that issue in a deal with Republicans over extending the temporary cut to Social Security-related taxes. They got their decision.

Tarsands Mining and Waste Sulfur Piles. Photo: Wikipedia Commons.

The proposed pipeline would stretch from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. Tar sands extraction is an energy-intensive process, and has stripped approximately 232 miles of land in the last 10 years in Alberta. According to Canada’s environmental ministry, expected expansions in the next decade could result in the destruction of 740,000 acres of boreal forest and a 30 percent increase in carbon emissions.

Obama announced he was turning down TransCanada’s application for the pipeline because there was not enough time to review an alternate route that would avoid the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska. Granted, Obama said he was only making his decision based on time constraints, not on the pipeline’s “merits” — and Keystone has already said it will reapply for the permit. But in the meantime, this counts as a victory for the health of the Earth and its occupants of all species.

In an interview with Democracy Now! Thursday, Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska said, “This was a real victory for people standing up.” People turned out in record numbers in Nebraska to speak out against the pipeline. Kleeb added, “In Nebraska, you know, this did not kind of fall on party lines. We had folks from our urban communities in Lincoln and Omaha holding hands with our conservative farmers and ranchers on the eastern and western and, of course, in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. We really were united as a state. And for a while, we even had a lot of the Republican leaders in our state on our side. It was only until they realized that President Obama may deny this pipeline that they wanted to be on the opposite side.”

Anti-PIPA/SOPA protest Wednesday in New York City. What they mean is, it’s no longer okay to pretend to not know how the Internet works.

On Wednesday, many Internet sites — including Planet Waves — staged a blackout protesting two proposed laws, SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect Intellectual Property Act). Both were creatures of old-guard big business, and their proposed method of stopping alleged copyright infringement amounted to giving large media companies and the government the direct power to block access to websites via a kind of blacklist.

By mid-day numerous cosponsors of the bills had backed down, with many admitting they don’t really understand how the Internet works. I previewed the blackout and gave an overview of the basic issues in this article, and then claimed victory in an article called January 18, 2012. In the first article I mention the Righthaven debacle that has fortunately come to an end.
I’m planning to return to the issue of copyright trolling later in the year with more sordid tales featuring Righthaven, Getty Images and Photo Attorney.

Also for Rachel Maddow fans, don’t miss her opening segment Wednesday night about how sponsors of the laws had committed copyright infringement right on their Twitter feeds or official webpages. Hypocrisy or ignorance? “Congress famously does not understand the Internet,” she says. Don’t miss the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens describing how the Internet is “a series of tubes.” Really. Don’t miss this one — it’s priceless.

Marianne Gingrich talks about The Newt Thursday night on ABC News.

Even as “social conservative” Rick Perry dropped out of the Republican primary run and endorsed Newt Gingrich, Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne, gave an interview Thursday night in which she said that her former husband wanted to have an open relationship. This brings the polyamory question to the national political stage, though I wonder who will notice. What makes it ‘polyamory’ as opposed to ‘cheating’ is that, at least in that one conversation, Newt actually said what he was doing and what he wanted.

Marianne Gingrich (nee Ginther), who was married to Gingrich from 1981 to 2000, told ABC News that when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich. “And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do’,” Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. “He wanted an open marriage and I refused.” She described her “shock” at Gingrich’s behavior, including how she says she learned he conducted his affair with Callista “in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington.”

“He always called me at night,” she recalled, “and always ended with ‘I love you’. Well, she was listening.” All this happened, she said, during the same time Gingrich condemned President Bill Clinton for his lack of moral leadership and indeed helped spearhead the campaign to have him impeached.

Stephen Colbert has cleared the way for an at least theoretical presidential run in Saturday’s now hotly contested South Carolina Republican primary — while pointing out the absurdity of the Supreme Court ruling allowing unlimited corporate spending on elections (see one of his campaign ads here).

If you live in South Carolina, you can vote for Stephen Colbert by voting for Herman Cain in Saturday’s Republican primary election there.

The decision, Citizens United vs FEC, which had its two year anniversary this week, held that corporations are people and that money is speech. Hence, it’s now the law of the land that corporate “people” can speak in elections with as much money as they want. For months, Colbert has been running his own political action committee, or Super-PAC, called “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.”

Colbert has thrown his body into the political machine, proving how ridiculous it is. He took this a step further last week when he announced on his program The Colbert Report that he would form an exploratory committee to make a run for “president of the United States of South Carolina,” his home state. He has been polling at about 15% there, better than many other presumably serious candidates did in other states.

But because he was barred from entering the race and simultaneously running Super-PAC, Colbert gave up control of his organization to Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show. Colbert’s Super-PAC has since been re-named “The Definitely Not Coordinated with Stephen Colbert Super-PAC.”

The problem is that Colbert is not on the South Carolina ballot, and write-ins are not allowed. But someone who is on the ballot is no longer running — Herman Cain. So if you want to support Colbert, he’s asking that you vote for Cain.

Among other projects, The Definitely Not Coordinated with Stephen Colbert Super-PAC has also released a TV ad insinuating that Mitt Romney is a serial killer because be believes that “corporations are people, my friend,” but as head of Bain Capital, he murdered so many of them.

Two days ago it was a foregone conclusion that Mitt Romney would win the South Carolina primary, but that has changed fast this week. South Carolina is considered important because the winner of that state’s Republican primary has won the Republican nomination going all the way back to Ronald Reagan. It’s a state known for its gloves-off political brawls, which helps explain Colbert.

There is not a regular edition of Planet Waves FM this week. I am resting my voice and my soul after laying down some 20 hours of 2012 audio the past couple of months. Planet Waves FM will make its spectacular return to the Internet with the edition of Weds., Feb. 1. 2012. Meanwhile if you are looking for some hot audio, check out the Reality Check readings. Each sign gets three half-hour segments of easy-to-follow astrology that is getting rave reviews.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for January 2012 included the written version of the Top Five Events of 2012 (available as audio here). This was the long written horoscope, with extended interpretations for each of the 12 signs. We also published the Inner Space for January 2012, a shorter horoscope that came out one week later. The February extended monthly horoscope will be published to subscribers on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 25. There will be just one issue that week — the long extended monthly and its introductory materials. There will be no Friday edition. If you are not a subscriber and want to receive all of the Planet Waves horoscopes, you can get a free trial subscription, or you may sign up for up to one year. If you regularly forward Planet Waves materials to friends or relatives, please purchase them a gift subscription. We offer special discounts if you want to sign up several of your friends — if you would like to take advantage of that please call Chelsea at (877) 453-8265 or email chelsea@planetwaves.net.

Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #888. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — In truth, it’s all a family affair. The ridiculous standards we put on our happiness, our mental habits, our eating habits — all have their origins in our family. When you strive to change any of these things, you’re actually going against your ancestral pattern. Remember this as you improve many aspects of your everyday life. Remember, too, that as you change seemingly personal things, like what you eat, you’re engaging with a deeper emotional layer, and making the changes might come with the feeling of ‘betraying’ the people who gave you the habits you’re trying so diligently to change — and as the Bible tells us in one of its more astute moments, you cannot serve two masters. I suggest you be ready to engage with the patterns underlying whatever ordinary kinds of things you want to change. What you eat or going to the gym in that case could amount to authentic therapy.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — One of the most deeply ingrained patterns involves sex and — more significantly — how we think about sex. Mars making its retrograde in the angle of your chart associated with pleasure and experimentation is also involved in the Virgo dimension. If you’re looking for why, so often, you have to think about whether you’re going to think about something, rather than just trying it as an experiment — look no further. There’s something for you in Mars retrograde about being comfortable with taking risks, and most of those risks involve how you think of yourself as a sexual being. Many people spend their lives seemingly trying to impress others with their purity, which is another way of saying with their hangups. There’s an old expression: free your ass and your mind will follow. Or is it really free your mind and your ass will follow? Actually, you can do both at once.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — The issue of whether you feel safe on the planet is the essence of the forthcoming Mars retrograde for you. In our time of history, when it’s impossible to feel too threatened and when there’s no such thing as a long enough password, and when (as The Onion put it recently) 98% of Americans are afraid of 98% of Americans, feeling safe is an act of faith. Fortunately, that’s the very door that’s opening for you right now. Ultimately, all the reasons you can give yourself for not thinking you have enough, or contemplating all that could go wrong if you take action, or all the seemingly external pressure you’re under, add up to very little. You will end up trusting your situation because you don’t have any other choice. Now, if you can work backwards from there, you will see that you have more reasons to trust what is actually true than to trust your anxiety, which only misleads you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You may be concerned that if you want to renegotiate a partnership situation, you’ll be giving up the whole thing. Whether this is true, or whether it’s an idea you have, amounts to the same thing — a feeling you have that could influence how you make an important choice in a partnership. I suggest you look at your history and see if you can find parallel moments, or one parallel moment, where you encountered a loss because you wanted to make a change, that would be helpful. Yet there seems to be something else going on: your need to let the past go. That this is easier said than done is not news to anyone, but discovering why it’s so challenging would qualify as an actual breakthrough. Here is a clue: What we call letting the past go involves two parts: one is reckoning with what happened, and the second part is embarking on something else. Which is harder for you?

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — In a few days there will be a New Moon in your opposite sign Aquarius. This event is a reminder that you need to include more of you in your life. If you follow the teachings of Jell-o pudding, you can declare it “me o’clock” and have “time to yourself.” Yet the actual challenge seems to be about seeing every aspect of your life as something where you not only should be included but to which you are in fact integral. At the moment, however, this involves a lot of other people. When you’ve integrated yourself in that integral way, you may wonder what is left: what time, what space, what freedom to choose. I can tell you one thing from your astrology — you’re looking at the world with a blind spot in your vision. When that shifts, which it’s about to do, you will see that your involvements hold the key to your freedom. There will be an art to seeing just how that works.

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Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Mars stations retrograde in Virgo on Monday, which is a somewhat famous event in the astrology of our lifetimes. There hasn’t been an all-Virgo Mars retrograde since 1965, and it was an extremely eventful time in history. For you this phase, lasting through April, is a review of how you handle your will; said another way, it’s a question of what you do with your strength. One thing this retrograde seems poised to teach you about is the ways in which you use your power against yourself (and what to do about it). Another turning point involves how you might go about correcting something within yourself that you’ve identified as having outdone its use. One thing I would suggest is that you’re not alone. One mode of self-improvement is the “fix yourself” model. Another is the “look to a trusted example” method. Exemplars are never 100% pure positive examples; often they present a mix of what you want and what you don’t want. But there is someone in your life who understands your situation better than you do, mainly due to their experience and perspective.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — It’s time to notice the relationship between vulnerability and anxiety. For many people who strive to be whole, loving and authentic, this is the very thing they stumble over. Currently the planets are arranged in such a way to illustrate a certain point — that point being that anxiety is one thing and vulnerability is another. They seem to be more closely related than they are, and if there is a relationship, it’s not cause and effect. More often it’s circumstantial: fear and openness happen in similar times and places, though for different reasons. Try to see each of these things as its own entity. You will learn about your fear if you consider the nature and causes of that emotion; you will learn about how to be open, and how to handle yourself when you’re vulnerable, by exploring that sensation. If you confuse them or think of them as one experience, you’re likely to miss learning benefits — and the pleasure that comes with a bit of emotional freedom.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You think people are a lot harsher toward you than they actually are. I mean, I’m not there; I’m just reading your astrology, and I’ve known a few Scorpios here and there. It seems that you might project a certain ‘critical factor’ onto your friends, assuming that you’re being judged or scrutinized when this is not true. I suggest you test the theory in a somewhat oblique way, which is to be encouraging of everyone around you. Affirm what they want, what they do and what they accomplish. You don’t have to be sugary about this — saying yes, and taking opportunities to lend your actual, physical, material support, will teach you a lot. I am suggesting that you personally take action to reverse the dynamic that you may perceive in your environment. Notice when you give support or affirmation and when you withhold it. Notice the role that jealousy plays in your interactions with others. Most of all, notice how good it feels to say yes.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Does it matter what the boss thinks? No — if you set your own standard of excellence. Speaking as a boss, I can tell you that’s the one thing I’m looking for in the people who work for me: self-regulated quality control, and clear internal motivation to grow and improve. If you fire up those qualities in yourself, and find your own reasons for being motivated to do good work, you will set yourself free from a whole bunch of external bossiness in your life. Pay attention to the details of what you’re doing, and notice the implications of decisions you make and you will find yourself enjoying some actual autonomy. Unless, that is, you work for a petty tyrant — in which case you might just need to cut yourself loose from that situation sometime during the next three months. One thing I suggest you not do during that time is attempt to be in charge of anyone but yourself. That comes later.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Many religions feel that if you’re a good person, God rewards you with wealth. I’m wondering how you feel about that theory, and related issues, like how many patently evil people have so much. My theory is that financial success involves two things: one is how you feel about yourself, and the other is motivation. Now, many people feel positively horrid about themselves and make a lot of cash — I don’t count that as success. Your astrology is encouraging you to work out a meaning of success that includes faith in yourself and faith in something beyond yourself. However, I suggest you take them in that order, and do everything you can to withdraw energy from the expectations of others — especially your parents. In case you’re in a religious mood, every time you think of the concept God or spirit, insert your parents into the equation and see how it adds up.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Monday’s New Moon in your birth sign commences the Year of the Dragon. More specifically, it’s the year of the Water Dragon, a yin manifestation of bold, brash (and lucky) Dragon energy. This is the perfect image of Aquarius, the sign of the water-bearer. Yours is a masculine sign associated with a feminine substance. The blend for you is about asserting yourself, and taking chances, and depending on your popularity, and pushing your luck — in that distinctly Dragon way. Yet the way to do this best, with the Water Dragon as your mascot this year, is to hold feminine energy at your core. This is possible for both men and women — this is a matter of energy and not of sex. No matter how bold or cocky you are, stay open and receptive. No matter how lucky you are, be grateful. No matter how much you want someone or something, be open to it wanting you.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Most of the action in the sky right now (most, not all) involves your sign and your opposite sign Virgo. This is a study in you and your relationships. Mars in your opposite sign is turning up the contrast in your experiences. Lately everything has seemed to be in greater relief, with brighter light and darker shadows. At the same time, Venus and Chiron are in your sign, heightening your self-awareness. For the next few months you get to work out the details of your relationships. You get to see where the tense points are, and better still, you will have the opportunity — and the skill — to do something about them. The key will be seeing the origin of any relationship experience as being the extension of an inner dynamic. I am not saying ‘blame yourself’ but rather notice how you might contribute, or how a personality you have might lead you to respond a certain way. You will see the solutions within yourself — and benefit greatly from that discovery.