Dear Fellow Traveler:

In the dozen years that Neptune has been in Aquarius — a transit that started the same year Bill Clinton was impeached, 1998 — there’s been an absurd increase in secrecy by government agencies. Particularly since the Sept. 11 incident, it seems like everything has become a state secret, held in the interest of national security and fighting terrorism. George Bush even traveled to Europe with a Secret Service portable potty to prevent foreign spies from analyzing his poo.

Nondescript-looking Room 641A was referred to in an internal AT&T document as the SG3 Secure Room, located on Folsom St. in San Francisco — where for years private Internet traffic was intercepted by the government. This was done in the name of “national security” when in fact it was the government who was keeping secrets — thousands of which have now been revealed.

At the same time, despite much lip service paid to privacy, government agencies such as the NSA have taken it upon themselves to collect our email and phone calls in vast databases, and provide themselves with all kinds of power to read our computer disks, enter our homes without leaving a trace and track our location by GPS anytime they want. People who live in cities are photographed walking on the street many times every day. The result is a sickening mix of nearly total lack of transparency by the government and the disappearance of any notion of the privacy of individuals.

There’s a reason for all the cloak and dagger: presumably, the government has something to hide and is paranoid about it. Secrecy is a form of deception; each would be impossible without the other. And there is a reason for all the prying ears and eyes: the fear that we might be spying on them, or plotting the BlackBerry revolt, or learning too much and putting it up on Blogger. Much of that secret information would presumably involve the ongoing occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, packaged as the “War on Terror.” These are projects on which the American government has invested about $1 trillion (plus interest) of our tax dollars, and those of our children and grandchildren, in just nine years. Along the way our government has killed somewhere around 100,000 civilians in those countries (that is the documented number; it’s really much higher, such as by a factor of four). Specific reports of civilian deaths have been especially difficult to track down, while the military reassures us how precise their bombs are, magically only hurting the bad guys — such as when a whole town is bombed.

We know exceedingly little about those wars or even why they’re being fought; nearly all of what we get is processed, filtered news from embedded reporters, jingoistic political rhetoric about freedom, and lots and lots of spin. We hear terms like “mission drift,” which means a war was started for one purported reason, with one stated goal, and it now has a different rationale and a different objective.

We have gradually discovered that the impetus for these wars was based on lies, whether you consider that American forces chose not to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in late 2001, or that the WMDs that Iraq was going to use to blow up the world didn’t exist — nor did its connection to the Sept. 11 terrorists. Wars, even the ones we think we love, are always based on lies. For example, numerous American companies provided supplies, equipment and technology to the Nazis during World War II, including Standard Oil (Esso, which became Exxon), IBM, ITT and others. Where there is war, there is deception.

The Full Moon and the Saturn-Uranus Opposition

And every rare now and then, the truth comes out. On Sunday as you’ve no doubt heard by now, an organization called WikiLeaks released to the Internet a database of 91,000 previously secret government documents collectively being referred to as the Afghan War Diary.

Villagers stand by a bombed settlement in Afghanistan. Statistics on civilian casualties are controversial because Britain and the U.S. have been accused of downplaying the civilian death toll. Photo: The Daily Mail.

The database contains, among other things, the ground-level paperwork for the war between 2004 and 2010, detailing numerous individual operations on a day-by-day basis. It’s a collection of original documents, much of it similar to a police blotter. It’s highly organized, searchable and impeccably programmed. In a phrase, it’s a diary of death.

The reports give daily statistics, in chilling, orderly detail, how many people we are killing and under what circumstances, providing a rare glimpse into the actual suffering involved in the occupation of Afghanistan. Because written data allows for comparison, they also shed light on how many civilian deaths are being covered up — that is, categorized as combat deaths. The categorization reduces the gradual killing of a population down to a bureaucratic function.

The database was made public Sunday evening within hours of the Aquarius Full Moon, which is like a natural surge of socially conscious energy. Sunday’s lunation made contact with many large or potent planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto), as if illuminating a subconscious circuit network and suddenly allowing information to move freely through awareness. And — incredibly — the documents were published the day before the fifth and final opposition of Saturn and Uranus, which is taking place precisely on the Aries Point. The first of these oppositions occurred on Nov. 4, 2008, the day Barack Obama was elected president, promising to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

For reference, aspects between Saturn and Uranus repeat about every 45 years, in a little cluster that is really one event. The last time we had a series of Saturn-Uranus oppositions was between 1965 and 1967. Here is a list. Because the Earth is orbiting closer to the Sun much faster than those two big boys, the aspect realigns five times over about two years, then the cycle moves on. The first four oppositions occurred in Virgo and Pisces. The fifth occurred after both planets had moved into new signs, Aries and Libra — precisely aligned with the first degree of the zodiac, called the Aries Point.

Initially, the release of the database sent out shockwaves and there was a sense of revelation. The pants of the war had been pulled down. Official spokespeople and retired generals have been all over TV, in the same breath saying that the information is old news and useless, and also calling the release of the data totally irresponsible and potentially harmful. Translation: the data reveals we’re lying to you. Then even “liberal” bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan said the data was basically a non-story. Robert Gates, the defense secretary, said this week that information in the database does not reflect official U.S. policy.

When I entered the document collection randomly for the first time Monday night, I landed on a report of a 2005 incident (categorized as a ‘non-combat event’) in which U.S. Marines had killed 37 unarmed civilians at a demonstration and injured 10 others. No combatants were killed, injured or captured on either side — just 47 civilian casualties at a protest. That sounds like a massacre. Now, is this why you work two days a week to pay Uncle Sam? I didn’t think so.

Page from the Afghan War Diary that reveals a Marines action causing the deaths of 37 civilians and the injuries of 10 others. No actual enemies were killed or captured, and the Marines took no casualties, indicating that this was basically a massacre of civilians.

This 2005 report was a rare example where it was clear what happened: the Marines were called in to quell demonstrations, and did so by opening fire on unarmed civilians. This is what we’re not supposed to know about; this is what Congress spent another $59 billion on this week before going home without extending unemployment benefits. We’re also probably not supposed to know that the military’s jargon word for unidentified “person” or “persons” is pax — the universal Latin word for peace. It is worth meditating on the crude, vicious cynicism of this as a way of glimpsing the military’s state of mind.

Earlier this week, I asked Carol van Strum, one of our editors and part of the legal team that trained me in corporate document analysis, to dip into the database and tell me what she saw. Here is the text of her first reply:

“Here’s what I did, for what it’s worth: looked at the first and last ten entries in several categories, and noted the following: 1) The absolutely insanely, improbably vast ratio between enemy killed and civilians killed (e.g., repeated air strikes on populated areas resulting in many enemy killed, but zero civilians); 2) Numerous discrepancies between the text reports and the accompanying charts, e.g., text reporting two enemy killed, chart listing zero; text reports eight enemy killed, chart lists 50 enemy killed; text reports 60 civilians killed, chart lists zero. Even to themselves and each other, military reports are unquestionably glossing over or lying about civilian casualties.”

Carol found this example of an air strike on a populated area where the Army reported 67 killed — all of them allegedly enemy combatants, but with no combatants wounded, and no civilians killed or injured. “A striking, consistent discrepancy is that the ratios of killed to wounded is preposterous, with frequent reports of many killed and none wounded,” she wrote. “Either they’re killing everything/everyone in sight, which would have to include civilians, or they’re making up numbers like in a Monsanto dioxin study.”

Here is another example of an air strike on a populated area where 17 “enemy combatants” are killed, none are injured, and no civilians are killed or injured. One potential reason for a “kill everyone and let God sort them out” policy would be to leave no witnesses who could testify to what happened.

From doing this preliminary research into the Afghan War Diary, it is clear that WikiLeaks intended to provide the media with a resource to conduct primary source research, rather than the usual policy of reprinting press releases or writing articles based on quotes from Pentagon briefings.

Background on WikiLeaks

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, oversees a populist intelligence network. Digitally altered photograph by Phillip Toledano / The New Yorker.

Not affiliated with Wikipedia (the term wiki is a Hawaiian word for quick, and in Internet jargon it’s an open-source framework for an easy-to-use database), WikiLeaks is basically a clearinghouse for information provided by public-interest whistleblowers. It is the ultimate nightmare for those who prosper and thrive on secrecy. Providing a secure portal for government officials to release secret documents in the public interest makes it more appealing to do so for those who have a conscience.

WikiLeaks has designed a system whereby its websites are hosted on hundreds of servers that are mirrored around the world. Though based in Sweden, it has no one location. The site has a secure document submission system so that government or corporate employees can submit documents, taking less of a risk of getting caught.

The site is organized to protect the identities of those who provide the material, and indeed under the laws of Sweden, it is legally obliged to do so. WikiLeaks then authenticates the documents before releasing them to the public. The files are scrubbed for hidden code that could reveal their source. While it hasn’t been established for sure who leaked the Afghan War Diary documents, last night CNN was reporting that Wired.com had posted a confession back in June. This came from from Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is being held in Kuwait in a separate incident of giving a classified document to WikiLeaks. Edited transcripts of the chat sessions where this information comes out have been republished by Wired.com.

WikiLeaks was founded by a man named Julian Assange, an Australian who got his start in computers as a teenager using a Commodore, and became a prodigy hacker. He was recently profiled in an article in The New Yorker. It’s a long piece — it will take about half an hour to read — though I recommend it because it will tell you something about who he is and why he does this work, and reveal something about how the world works. Here is the link to that article.

Scene from Collateral Murder showing a massacre of civilians by two American gunships. Many civilians and two reporters were killed. The video was decrypted and released by WikiLeaks in April.

One of the most notorious documents ever released by WikiLeaks was a video of a July 12, 2007 helicopter attack conducted by the U.S. Army, which killed Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, and an unknown number of civilians, including women and children. The Army refused to release the video. Finally a whistleblower provided a copy to WikiLeaks, which took Assange, who is a cryptologist, three months to decode. It was then published in April under the title Collateral Murder. The video clearly depicts the massacre, including the two Reuters journalists whose cameras were ‘mistaken’ for weapons. So far 139 journalists have been killed while doing their work in the seven-year Iraq occupation, as compared to 63 during all 20 years of the Vietnam War.

Earlier this month, Pvt. Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist).

The Chart for WikiLeaks

To cast the natal horoscope for WikiLeaks, I looked up the domain in the Who Is directory, which lists the owners of all websites and the date the domain was registered. In the case of WikiLeaks, the registration also gives the time and the place of the registrant, so we have enough information to cast a chart. Here it is below. Click for a larger image and here is a key to the glyphs. In case you want to look at the minor planets, here is a nice assortment.

Chart for the creation of the WikiLeaks domain, according to the WhoIs Directory. The chart’s ascendant connects to the Sept. 11, 2001 incident and the Dec. 26, 2004 earthquake in Indonesia. Full size image of chart is here, with a discussion. Not shown in the chart is the asteroid Arachne — which is about conspiracies and interconnections — right in that late Gemini ascendant.

The first thing I noticed is that the website was registered on St. Francis Day. That is a great patron saint to have.

In this section, I’ll point out just a few easy-to-spot chart features that give this horoscope its particular mark of distinction. This is one of the most astonishing custom-fit charts that I have ever seen. For one thing, Uranus, the revolutionary, is in the house of government — the 10th house. Uranus is in Pisces. The WikiLeaks team of hackers, cryptologists, secret donors and its international infrastructure make it impenetrable, in true Pisces style. Going after it is like trying to hit fog with a stick.

When I first cast the chart, something jumped out right away: the degree of the Gemini ascendant. That is the bold number 28 located on the left side of the chart, at the end of the horizontal line — the rising sign or the ascendant (same thing). The ascendant gets a sign and it also gets an exact degree. Sometimes an individual degree of the zodiac takes on historical meaning, and the degree 28+ Gemini showed up prominently in two of the most significant events of the 21st century so far. That is the position of the Moon in both the chart for the first World Trade Center strike on Sept. 11, 2001, and the Moon for the earthquake at Banda Aceh, Indonesia, that caused the Asian tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004.

That is correct: the Moon was in the same degree for both of those events; indeed, it was within one-tenth of a degree, a position that it occupies 12 times a year for all of three minutes. I cannot tell you what an earthquake (supposedly a natural event) has in common with a false-flag terrorist attack, except that both events drew mass-scale attention, changed the world and directly affected millions of lives within a very short time. Both events were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Now this very degree appears as the ascendant of WikiLeaks, an organization seeking vindication and justice for crimes against the people. The ascendant is like the chart’s call signal or identifying degree.

Sample of the Sept. 11, 2001 chart, showing the Moon at 28+ Gemini — the same degree as the ascendant of WikiLeaks. Full chart shown here.

In the ascendant of a chart, one degree will be present for about four minutes once every 24 hours. It moves very fast, and is therefore highly personal. So as you can see this is a stunning synchronicity, hinting at the scale of impact and influence that WikiLeaks might have. (Were I to make a prediction about this, I might say that we have a hint that WikiLeaks might someday get hold of documents establishing who actually orchestrated 9/11.)

The next feature I noticed is that there is a conjunction of the Sun and the Black Moon Lilith (BML) on the 5th house cusp. First see if you can find it. The Sun is the yellow circle with a dot in the middle, toward the lower right. BML is right next to it — the dark blue Moon symbol with a cross beneath it. Note that it has the same degree as the Sun — 10+ Libra. Among other things, BML can represent the dark, manipulative ghost stalking the interior of the mind, or in some way represents the side of life that we refuse to look at. In a phrase, you could call it shadow material.

That is a precise conjunction, within the same degree. The 5th is the house of ambassadors and diplomats. The Sun conjunct BML is lighting up all of our darkest national secrets like a Christmas tree. The 5th is also the house of taking chances, and you can be sure that the military informants, diplomats and other officials who submit documents know they are taking a gamble, but they know they must, to clear their conscience. They know they are complicit in murder. Imagine yourself in such a position, well paid, year after year, signing off on the killings of civilians, or witnessing that and not being able to speak up. It’s as if the Sun is giving expression to the elusive, dark part of the soul represented by BML.

So, too, are the creators of WikiLeaks taking a gamble. They must live on the edge, constantly tailed by intelligence agencies, threatened with prosecution for espionage and on the lookout for radioactive sushi.

One last thing. This will require seeing an aspect — how two parts of a chart talk to one another and combine forces to describe a set of traits. WikiLeaks was founded during the Chiron-Nessus conjunction in Aquarius in the mid-2000s. We wrote a lot about this conjunction, between two of the earliest-known centaur planets, at the time. Here is a short article we reprinted recently.

Section of chart for the Banda Aceh earthquake that caused the Asian tsunami, showing the Moon in the same degree as the WikiLeaks ascendant, 28+ Gemini. The full chart is posted here.

First, see if you can find that conjunction (in the topmost chart, with the full wheel represented). Look for a blue circle with an X in the middle on the upper right — that is the Part of Fortune. The conjunction is right below that — Chiron is the orange key over an ellipse, and Nessus is the light blue N over an ellipse. This is a slow-moving, generational conjunction. Chiron is at 4+ degrees and Nessus is at 3+ degrees. They are in the sign Aquarius, in the 8th house; you can read that as secrets kept from the public; or you can read that as agents of change working for transparency on the public’s behalf.

The aspect is coming from Mercury in Scorpio. Mercury is the green guy with horns, on the lower right side of the chart — very obvious. Take a look. You can tell that Mercury is in aspect to Chiron-Nessus because the numbers are similar — Mercury is at 2+, Nessus is at 3+ and Chiron is at 4+. The way you say that is, “Mercury square Chiron and Nessus.” Or, “Mercury in Scorpio square Chiron and Nessus in Aquarius.”

And what does that mean? Well, remember that Mercury rules the Gemini ascendant — this slippery, clever, technology-oriented planet is the identity of WikiLeaks. It would be their patron saint, except that St. Francis has that job. In Scorpio, Mercury can handle the deep, dark stuff and that is precisely what WikiLeaks does: its most significant reports have involved revealing civilian casualties, indeed, things that should be investigated as war crimes. Mercury seems to stand out in that house, and is also in a close trine to the Moon in Pisces; this suggests that fact-finding and intuition are both key tools that WikiLeaks uses to do its work.

Mercury is square the two centaurs; it meets them at a close 90-degree angle. Centaurs represent both healing process and something that is calling for attention. That something is a blight on the public trust that has been perpetuated by secrecy and deception. Notice that it’s near the 9th, an international house, and in Aquarius, representing electronic communication media. Mercury square these powerful planets will be satisfied with nothing less than total transparency. In Scorpio many of those secrets will involve death, as we have seen. Despite its own reputation for transparency, WikiLeaks knows a lot more than it talks about openly.

WikiLeaks is willing to take action — signified by the square — to reveal information that will actually make a difference. These people believe in the truth. They know it exists. They know that secrecy is a sickness and that lying destroys relationships. This week, in response to the revelation of the tragic facts of the Afghanistan war, people in positions of power told us over and over again that the truth does not matter. But I would ask you: if the truth does not matter, then what does?

Yours & truly,

Judith Gayle is taking a break this week.

Today The New York Times reported in its editions that the Gulf of Mexico has long been a dumpsite for mines, bombs and surplus ammunition — a story that Planet Waves reported in May.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 30, 2010, #826 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

You need to handle a relationship situation carefully, which means gently and consciously. Current cosmic energy patterns suggest that you might be inclined to push or struggle toward a potential future breakthrough, or go to great lengths to get your point across to someone. Be aware that the whole situation could easily blow itself out of proportion with you as the main energy source, and you would do well to set the thing aside for several days and pick up the conversation Monday or Tuesday. Yet you may be feeling obsessed or driven to press on with an issue or a blockage in communication. If you do, I suggest you be willing to let go of the relationship itself — you just may take things past the point where trust can be repaired. Therefore, if you value the relationship, take a vacation from it. If you’re ready to go to the mats, then soldier on.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Be careful not to let your frustrations with your work situation run out of control. You are in new territory now, where it’s incumbent upon you to develop new methods of organizing your work and, in particular, making decisions. There are times when it’s helpful to make choices from a state of frustration and there are times when it’s not. Right now, if you act impetuously, or identify too closely with what is not working, you run the risk of burning out or burning a bridge. I suggest you look at what is working, and set an agenda for yourself that is based upon the evolution of your maturity, talent and stamina. If you don’t feel like you’re doing anything right, that’s the place to pause and consider a more realistic, balanced viewpoint. And if you notice that your frustration is the result of conflicting desires, that means you need to set realistic priorities that take into account what you truly want rather than what you think you’re supposed to want.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

How can we explore new sexual territory in a society that all but bans the discussion, propagates ignorance and where nearly everyone suffers from some form of shame and injury? The way would be to open up the conversation, cultivate knowledge and awareness, and focus on healing. Many people have asked me, ‘What exactly is sexual healing?’ and ‘Where would I get such a thing?’ Well, one could write an encyclopedia about these topics, or travel the world in search of answers, and in the end it would come down to self-acceptance. Or you could say that it simmers down to an authentic state of wellbeing, which implies shedding judgment and allowing for the natural movement of feelings and ideas. Or, you could say that what we need most is to express our curiosity. You’re invited to explore whichever of these feels the best for you, remembering that they all exist outside the bounds of traditional relationship rules.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Have you ever written or drawn something that gave you the distinct sense that you were going to get raided by the cops, sent to a psych ward or be cast off from society? In my theory of art, that’s your clue that you know you’re doing the real thing. Guilt is a sign that you’re doing something right — not, as popularly held, something wrong. The reason I say this is because any authentic form of creativity or for that matter sexual expression is going to push boundaries, and the feeling of guilt is evidence that we are doing precisely that. Along these lines, any seeming threat to your security is evidence that you are successfully reaching for higher achievements. You are moving energy right now, and you’re about to move a lot more. Prepare for the internal experience of conflict, chaos, shifting foundations and actual tremors. Thus, explore your deepest pleasures, your daring ideas, your burning desires.

The Cancer Audio Birthday Report is now ready. This is more than an hour of astrology for Cancer and Cancer rising, covering the cardinal T-square from a personal perspective. I’ve also included a 20-minute tarot reading using the Voyager Deck by James Wanless. For instant access, order here for Cancer and Cancer Rising. Only $14.95, this also makes a meaningful and economical birthday gift.

Something has shifted in your mental environment, and as a result, your perception of relationships. You may be under more stress about this than you’ve been aware of, then it surfaces, and then it fades into the background again. The current pressure seems like the urgent need to make a decision. It’s like you’re living in a holoworld where you have to re-think and re-decide every decision you’ve ever made, and yet at the same time you may have many insecurities about doing just that. This state of being is here to teach you something, but it’s not literally true. It would be more accurate to call the whole effect an illusion, which you will be able to see more clearly once the feeling has passed. Then you will be either left wondering what all the fuss was about, or having the whole experience fade like a dream. Yet the symbols in the dream matter, and they will tell you a lot about yourself.

Leo birthday report coming soon.

You seem to have money on your mind. Either you’ve reached a state of overt conflict about your finances, or you’ve arrived at the point where you know you must proceed with focus and determination. In either case, you’re likely to come up against the idea that money is a bad thing. I’m not saying you really believe this; I’m definitely not saying you don’t believe this. I am, though, suggesting that you observe the thoughts and ideas that run through your mind as you work out what appears to be an extremely complex negotiation process with yourself. That would go a lot easier, were you not trying to drive such a hard bargain. The solution here is to be more generous with yourself, including generous with praise and with recognizing your achievements and value. When you detract from yourself, you detract from everyone else. When you give to yourself, you benefit, and you also ease the minds of the people around you.

You have reached a breakthrough point in your self-confidence. It’s about time — for how long have you gone through the gyrations of mental obsession or subtle, gnawing anxiety? Or fear that you’re not good enough or talented enough? The human mind is like a pipe bomb. Its power is not created merely by the heat and pressure of the explosive but rather by the containment that surrounds it. Breaking free of this containment releases your energy and provides you with a sense of both identity and of mission. But you don’t need to do this with explosive force, though even a little expression of focused power will reveal just how much authority you have in your life. I will say this: the astrology of the next few days suggests that you be gentle with the people around you. Your words and even your emotions have an influence that you may not recognize and won’t be able to feel immediately. When in doubt, understate your case. Express desires rather than demands. Easy does it.

You seem to be dealing with some inner authority that has taken over your life, and you’re ready to challenge that shadowy force. Doing this may take you places you could write off as negative or unappealing; with astrology like you’re having it is easy to take refuge in social situations or busy work. If you are going to do any kind of work, I suggest that it be inner journeying, and that can have a potent creative element to it. Yet whatever you’re doing, interior is the direction: that sole/soul space where you can move through the boundary that blocks you from your awareness of what you carry inside, your deepest fears, your most poignant desires. When you get to that space of the unspeakable, you will know you’re in the right neighborhood, though it seems essential that you find words or at least images to express your journey.

Try to avoid it as you may, you might find yourself in the midst of a controversy of some kind. Remember that controversy is a game, and it has little in common with what it is supposedly about. What you may be seeing is a dramatization of what happens when you dare to stretch out of your prescribed confinement. Prescribed by whom? Well, we could start with all those absurd social rules that we’re supposed to follow, and which most people follow knowing how silly they are. What we understand less is what this game takes away from us. I would propose that any controversy you may encounter is a distraction from your creative process that is so rich and promising right now, or that certainly can be if you tune into your core fire. There, I would propose, is the place to focus your love, your energy, your heart, your soul.

Leadership has drawbacks; it has challenges; it involves risks. For you right now, leadership is basic to your reality and your integrity, and moreover, deeply influential to who you are becoming. Nobody would accuse Capricorn of being irresponsible, but there are greater or lesser degrees to which you can reach from your deepest calling and sense of identity. It is possible to both avoid and engage your purpose. Pluto in your sign is providing you with a compelling evolutionary need to do exactly what is right for you. Mars and Saturn crossing your 10th house cusp — the house of your mission, your reputation and your means of expression in the world. This may have you feeling extremely ambitious, or like you really, really need to be cut a break. I suggest you keep your focus on your mission. Stay aware of the biggest possible picture. Stand out of the way and let somebody else tilt with windmills, while you do what you came here to do.

You can safely assume that all conflict you experience is a dramatization of your inner life. The two planets that rule your sign, Saturn and Uranus, are facing off, which to some will feel like a battle and to others like an opportunity to integrate the two dominant parts of your psyche. One of the things that makes Aquarius so interesting is the unique blend of tyrannical and liberationist; of open-minded and lock-step thinking; and the sense of being free and the deep questioning of whether there is any such thing as freedom. What the planets are illustrating is the idea that freedom comes from working out the seeming polarities not by meeting in the middle, but rather by experiencing both as an expression of something deeper. With Mars coming through the mix this weekend, I suggest strongly that you stay in touch with that something.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You are seeing how challenging it is to be involved in committed situations; you are figuring out how much care and caution is involved, and the extent to which you must maintain balance as a way of staying in touch with both sanity and pleasure. And then there are those days you want to smash the windows and the doors and the barricades and burn your diaries and your marriage license and smash your obligations into bits and, well, this weekend’s chart looks and feels like such a moment. I suggest you have a commitment-bashing ceremony this weekend. Give yourself a free space. Make sure you don’t make the mistake of arguing or fighting — merely take what is yours, namely, your existence. You are cordially invited to find something breakable and hopefully not too useful and smash it with a bat and scream and yell and have a lot of fun doing it. If you’ve ever considered bd/sm, go for it, or you desire, express your passion all the way.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Dear Fellow Traveler:

Today the Sun is right at the end of the sign Cancer. It’s one of my astrological traditions to publish the new monthly horoscope only after the Sun has entered the new sign; that happens Thursday evening in the States, overnight Thursday to Friday in Europe or Friday in Australia.

The Sun enters Leo in a sextile to Saturn, which is about to enter Libra as we speak. Saturn’s ingress into Libra commences another super-interesting, concentrated phase of Aries Point activity in the next few weeks, as it opposes Uranus (restructuring, surprises, integration of opposites), approaches a square to Pluto (turning point in the story), and is in opposition to Jupiter (two lifetimes in one). Note that Saturn will be in Libra through October 2012. Also in this concentrated phase of movement, covered in last week’s audio update, Chiron retrogrades back into Aquarius today, where it will linger in the last degrees, close to Neptune, until February 2011 (when it re-enters Pisces and stays until 2018-2019).

Now picture this: a lot of planets are changing signs, along with the Sun — which means that the Sun is in aspect to lots of other critters: to wit, Saturn, Chiron, Neptune, Uranus, and in a few days, Jupiter and Pluto as well. Normally I would be suggesting that the Sun is void of course being so late in a sign, but due to all these planets holding positions at the edge, the Sun is very much on track right now.

So — a busy week of planetary movement. I plan to keep myself occupied finishing the August monthly horoscope, Friday’s weekly horoscope and one article or another for Friday’s edition. I have two topics on the work bench. One is an article about how to choose a therapist. I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time. Another is about the square between Varuna and Eris, which we’re right in the middle of, and what this has to say about the BP oil spill. Let’s see what shakes out.

Be mindful of all the transitions this week: once again, many key planets are making moves all at once, which we will feel one way or another. You may notice yourself a little extra excited, edgy, nervous or that mix of eager and anxious that reminds you of transition and how much potential it has. The world may seem to be moving around you, but really it’s moving inside of us too.

Catch you Friday.

Yours & truly,

PS, remember that I post a free audio update at this link each Wednesday morning. The URL stays the same and the archives are all collected there. And if you’re looking for one of our audio products, here is a little boutique. Leo and Capricorn birthdays will be arriving in the next week or so, as will the rest of the Cosmic Confidential key life transits audio.

PPS, we have split up the midyear report into 12 individual products for $9.95 each, for those who want to purchase only one sign. Or you can still get all 12 for one price.

Dear Fellow Traveler:

One week ago today, I sent out an assignment, suggesting that if you’re into astrology it’s a good idea to know the house and sign of your Moon. With the Sun (and a recent solar eclipse) in Cancer, I thought this was an appropriate time to get you started. Many people are participating in a discussion page on the topic. [Note that Tuesdays we run monthly horoscopes when available. Today’s edition is a bit more elaborate than I usually do on an off-horoscope Tuesday — this article took on a life of its own, and our Moon Experiment is turning into a fun adventure.]

Frankish castle at Aliveri, Evia. The image brightness is improved with an extra-overexposed shot. Photo by Chris Kotsiopoulos.

Why know your Moon information? It’s as influential as your Sun, though often in subtler, more introverted ways. Knowing your Moon will help you understand yourself, help you observe your emotional tendencies, and working with the information will help you get more out of astrology. Depending on how you relate to it, your Moon sign can represent what feels like a ‘true self’ or inner core reality. It can represent the self that was familiar to you as a child, and which was overpowered by the more public aspect of who you are that is described by the Sun. The Moon can describe a diversity of emotional themes and insecurities that you experience inwardly and rarely reveal to others. And it can reveal what motivates you based on your deepest inner needs. So obviously it’s good to know this information.

The Moon also tells us something about the chart native’s mother, and her influence on our lives. Mother and father contribute equally half of our DNA, but mother’s body is where we are gestated. She is the first voice we hear and the first face we see. Many of us are nursed by mother, and spend most of our time with her during the first two years of life. Therefore she shapes our personality profoundly. The Moon’s house, sign and aspects describe this process, and also describe something about the mother’s life. The wise astrology student treads this territory carefully, and fills in the chart with as much information from the client as possible.

Let’s start with the basics: defining our terms. Even more basic: here is a key to the astrological symbols you might see in these charts. They are not coded by color; this is a black and white table.

The Moon Sign. This is the sign of the zodiac where the Moon is at the time of your birth. The Moon moves through a sign in about two to two-and-a-half days, depending on the speed it’s traveling. The speed depends on how close the Moon is to the Earth. When it’s close (perigee), it moves through the signs faster, and when it’s far (apogee), it moves through the signs slower. You don’t always need your time of birth to know your Moon sign, but if it comes up near the beginning or the end of a sign, the time becomes more critical. The Moon sign describes your personality style, the kind of kid you were, your approach to your feelings, the quality of energy you run through your body, and describes the cyclical tidal current of your emotions.

The Moon’s House. The house placement describes how and where you tend to express the energy of your Moon. The sign is more of an inner reality that others can notice; the house is more about what you do, how you express yourself, where you hang out, and where you are comfortable. Houses often address physical locations, settings and scenarios. The house the Moon is in depends on your time of birth, sometimes (such as when the Moon is in an angular house) down to the minute. The house, as a physical thing, tells us where the Moon is in relationship to the Earth’s rotation: is it high in the sky? Is it on the horizon? Is it directly below? The Moon’s house changes 12 times a day, which is why you need to know your time.

Fill in the blanks and you have all 12 houses. House 1 is always on the left side of the chart, below the horizon line. The ones in color are the sexually-oriented houses — though all houses have some suggestion of relationship and creativity. Chart by Eric and Sarah.

To combine the house and sign takes some study, observation and imagination. It takes seeing the Moon, the sign and the house in the context of one another. Then you factor in the aspects. This is why one of those database ‘custom printouts’ cannot actually read your chart. It takes a human being to see these layers in the context of one another. To do the basic math, first you consider the sign and house separately. This is part thinking, part feeling.

Then you make up a story about how they go together, using tangible examples of expression. Symbols stand for something else; we are here to find out what they stand for. If you look at your own chart you might see the connections right away, though these placements will gradually give up their secrets for years and years.

I don’t have a ready-made guide to the Moon through the signs, though those are easy to find and not entirely dependable. Make sure you look up many descriptions of your placements. Don’t let anyone traumatize you by telling you how boring or weird you supposedly are.

What I do have are two different guides to the houses: one that addresses the houses generically, and another that looks at the houses as an expression of sexuality. This one also has a map so you know which house is which.

Note, the houses and the signs overlap in a pattern unique to each chart. The numbers around the outermost wheel are the location of the house cusp within the sign. There are 30 degrees per sign and any one of them can land on any house cusp. Note also that the house cusps are fuzzy, while the signs are distinct. When a planet or point gets near a cusp (which happens often), it will take on the properties of the next house, or combine the influences of two houses. The example charts will make this a little more obvious. See if you can follow my thought process.

Let’s start with The Artist (formerly known as Prince, or Prince, formerly known as The Artist formerly known as Prince). Below is the section of his chart that contains the Moon. His Moon is in early Pisces and the 4th house. Note that the 4th house is one of four angular houses — that is, it’s extra prominent. Those houses are the 1st (identity), the 4th (home/security), the 7th (partnerships) and the 10th (career/reputation).

Prince’s Moon is in Pisces and also in the 4th house. To see the sign, you look at the glyph right near the planet in question; the numbers tell you where in the sign the planet is located. In this case, the Moon is at the beginning of Pisces, indicated by its low number on a scale of 0 to 29. Above and to the left, Mars is on the Aries Point, on the 5th house cusp.

You can tell it’s early Pisces because the Moon’s number is low — just under two degrees. Pisces Moon says artist (if you can handle the flowy energy, muster some discipline and not spend your whole life spaced out on drugs, drink and fantasy). It also says sensitive, feminine, imaginative, introverted, mamma’s boy, subtle, isolated. Now when we put that in a house, we get a place: at home. From the 4th house we get some specific themes: security, dependency, family, old-fashioned, oriented on the past. This boy is extremely sensitive: I cannot imagine a more sensitive lunar placement.

Notice that with Chiron having visited Pisces briefly, Prince is back in the news with a new album, (and his ridiculous assertion that the Internet is ‘over’). Chiron is crossing back and forth over his 4th house cusp and his Moon, which seems to have the effect of waking The Artist in him from sleep mode.

Note how his natal Pisces 4th house Moon describes his inner self (homebody, quiet guy) rather than the one he projected early in his career (wild freaky sex guy), which was more like Mars exactly on the Aries Point in the 5th house (Mars is the first red glyph to the upper right of his Moon, with Eris above and to the left, and then a lunar point called Black Moon Lilith above that — as you might have guessed, a complex sexuality and relationship to women that strives to dance with and embrace the dark feminine). The 5th has a lot to do with sex and partying, but at heart, The Artist is a homebody who would rather hang out with his dogs. According to Wikipedia he is not only a Jehovah’s Witness but also one who goes out knocking on doors, visiting people at home. Perhaps this is a little weird, but not when you’re as insecure as he is. After all, according to the Witnesses, only 144,000 people get to go to heaven.

Neil Armstrong is someone who stands out in the history of our country, of science and of exploration. Indeed, he was the first human that we know of to set foot on another planet. Note that his famous quote when making that footprint in the dust was actually, “One small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.” He was a little nervous and dropped the ‘a’.

The Moon in Neil Armstrong’s chart is conjunct the Galactic Core, for which there is no glyph. You just know that anything at about 26 Sagittarius is aligned with the core.

It makes sense that he has a Sagittarius Moon: these people are optimistic, they like to roam far and wide and they love adventure. There is a pioneering quality to this Moon. It’s fiery and doesn’t like to hear about limits. Note that it’s in an exact conjunction to the Galactic Center, suggesting that Armstrong had an actual spiritual role representing humanity as the commander of our first truly off-planet expedition. The GC is located at about 26 degrees of Sagittarius, and its presence colors that whole sign and all our mythology about it. For example, Sagittarius is about foreign cultures, vast distances and faraway places. We think of it as being unworldly or spiritual. These ideas long predate the discovery of the Galactic Core in the early 1930s.

Neil’s Moon is in the 8th house, which is edgy and daring. The 8th is the house of death and transformation, so it’s always on the brink of something different, exciting and potentially dangerous. Indeed, some 8th house Moon people are addicted to crisis. The 8th addresses collective property, so it’s interesting that he claimed the Moon on behalf of the United States. This Moon has an affinity for death and the affairs of the dead, and would not necessarily be particularly scared — hence he could command a ship that was going on an extremely dangerous mission. His lunar house placement helps explain how he was able to drop The Eagle down on the lunar surface, making many spot decisions in the midst of a computer crisis, with 25 seconds of fuel left, and live to tell the story. Trivia question: what sign was the Moon in, at the time Neil set foot on its surface?

Thomas Edison perfected the invention of the light bulb; then he developed all the apparatus that was needed to power the thing (with some help from Tesla); and was the founder of Edison Electric, which became GE — one of the world’s most powerful, persistent, annoying corporations. Edison had the Moon in Capricorn, which is absolutely perfect about 10 different ways.

Like many inventors and inventions, Edison had plenty in Aquarius, which you can see on the right side of the chart (Mercury, Sun, Neptune). He was part visionary, part delusional and part frustrated. On the left side of this figure you can see the Capricorn alignment: Mars, Juno, Moon and centaur Pholus. The combination of Moon-Pholus in Capricorn says small cause, big effect, specifically in business — that was Thomas Edison.

These people have a way of commanding respect, if they can rise above their own emotions for long enough. This is a somber, serious, even depressive Moon with a knack for survival and a love of tradition. Michael Lutin once told me that if there was ever a nuclear war, he would shack up with someone with a Capricorn Moon. Leave it to GE to provide guidance systems for nuclear missiles, because it’s good business (or it was, during the Cold War). That Cap Moon makes it easy for Edison to slip into a corporate mentality. But these individuals also make good revolutionaries because they can dial in the revolutionary tradition.

In the 3rd house, he has a lot of ideas and focuses them on business. With Juno conjunct his Moon, he was married to his ideas — and there was a certain austerity in that marriage. He had a bit of a narrow mind. But notice how those planets are on the Aries Point (from Capricorn). He has literally impacted every person on Earth many times over, whether you count the light bulb, or the concentrated pollutants that GE has introduced to the ecosystem, which are in the cells of every animal. The Sun-Mercury-Neptune conjunction in Edison’s chart speaks volumes about GE’s inability to tell the truth on any matter for which it has responsibility.

Edison recently got some coverage in Time magazine. One observation that comes through the articles is that Edison was great at inventing things but not so clever at sensing their wider application. For example, he was convinced the early phonograph was destined to be an office dictation machine (completely focused on office/business, in stereotypical Capricorn style). He let his competitors beat him with its use for music, in part because he hated most popular music and thought it a waste of time. As for his early moving pictures: he was convinced that his little one-person peepshow-style viewing device was the way to sell the experience to people, not projecting onto big screens for mass audiences. In frustration his head engineer working on the moving pictures projects left to work for several of Edison’s rivals in Southern California, thereby helping to birth Hollywood.

He had dogged determination (Mars, the Moon and other planets in Capricorn), but was often mistaken in where the inventions were most suited/could have the biggest profits, especially where it ended up being entertainment. Except for one thing: his thoughts about private viewing devices turn out to be a century or more ahead of their times. He could be talking about an iPod or iPhone.

Pearl S. Buck or Sai Zhenzhu was one of the most successful and influential writers of the 20th century. She was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, suggesting her extraordinary place in history. To do this you would need some very strong energy running, which we find in a Moon-Venus conjunction in the sign Cancer. Note, she also has the Sun and Mercury in that sign — and an odd little hypothetical point called Transpluto that gives extremely potent focusing power.

Pearl Buck had Venus and the Moon conjunct on the 5th house cusp, which we would count as part 4th house and mostly 5th house. The cusps are not firm lines, though they look like they are. As noted by William Lilly, a house cusp is sensitive for at least five degrees before the actual line. Here, the Moon and Venus are working together right in that zone. Way to the left, notice the extremely rare Neptune-Pluto conjunction (in Gemini).

That Cancer Moon and all those other Cancer planets and points give us a picture of her deep emotional commitment to the topics she wrote about.

According to Wikipedia, “In 1949, outraged that existing adoption services considered Asian and mixed-race children unadoptable, Pearl established Welcome House, Inc., the first international, interracial adoption agency.” She wrote on a diverse variety of topics including women’s rights in Asian cultures, immigration, adoption, missionary work and war.

We find the experience of the whole planet as her home in her Cancer Moon and we find her daring creative drive in the 5th house placement. She wrote dozens of novels and nonfiction books, which gives a clue to the creative mojo of the 5th house and in particular the 5th house Moon.

Last and certainly not least, we have Rachel Maddow, the first openly lesbian Rhodes scholar, and the first openly lesbian prime time news anchor. We’ve seen her chart before in a recent edition of Planet Waves Astrology News. Here is another example of the Pisces Moon, which you can see in her soft, sweet demeanor, her commitment to service and her diverse mind. She prefers to live in an isolated part of the country (rural Massachusetts), where she moved so that she could get her work done. This theme of isolation often comes with strong Pisces.

Rachel has the Moon in Pisces on the 3rd house cusp. It’s conjunct Mercury in Pisces in the 3rd house; the conjunction suggests that her intuition and her mind are working closely together. She has the kind of mind that knows the truth, then has to go back and document it.

Note that the Moon is conjunct Mercury, which makes her a natural, intuitive communicator. Emphasizing this point is that the Moon is in her 3rd house, of ideas and communications. Let this dispel any idea that the Moon in Pisces cannot focus or that Mercury in Pisces cannot write. Rachel is about 100 times more sensitive and intuitive than she lets on — indeed, there is little distinction between her intuition and her intellect, but she is able to navigate both effectively.

These few examples give you a sense of how to work with the layers of information. There is plenty more that would come out of a detailed study of the Moon’s aspects, and it always helps to have a sense of who the person’s mother is or was, because this will be reflected in the Moon’s placement. How to read this is a tricky call, and it reveals how many layers a single point can work on: though the Moon has a lot of different meanings. The way to work this is to consider the Moon’s placement irrespective of any other concept; just think about how it might describe the chart native’s mother. Try this with your chart and see if it works.

Let’s keep the conversation going on the discussion page, and see where we go from here.

Yours & truly,

Dear Fellow Traveler:

We have nearly arrived at the total solar eclipse in Cancer. There are many kinds of eclipses, and this is just the second total solar eclipse in Cancer since the June 2001 event that rewrote existence. (The most recent was last July.) The June 21, 2001 eclipse was precisely on the Aries Point, in the first degree of the sign Cancer. In other words, it happened on the solstice, and was extraordinarily powerful for that reason.

Sunday’s total solar eclipse in Cancer, set for the location of the astrologer. The eclipse itself is on the top right side of the chart — note the Moon and the Sun with the number 19 next to them (that is the degree location). Juno is the purple asterisk-like glyph to their right. The inverted horse shoe is the South Node of the Moon. When the Sun is near either one of the Moon’s nodes, you know that an eclipse is in the vicinity. Also of note is the cluster of planets in Virgo. These are on the top left of the chart. In order the planets in Virgo are Venus, Vesta, Mars and Saturn. Saturn is about to ingress Libra and make its 5th and last opposition to Uranus (in blue, directly opposite Saturn).
Click for larger version.

Now we have many other planets gathered around the Aries Point, all of them aligned in the cardinal signs. Those are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, as well as the lunar nodes. I am aware that this time in our lives is offering many people more stress and change than they can process. The eclipses are intensifying the effect: we will be in different territory Monday after the conjunction, and as the energy shifts we will gradually see where that is.

So take it as easy as you can, talk to people you resonate with rather than those who resist your perception, and move with the energy. Given that the eclipse is in the sign Cancer, that means high emotions and, as you will read later, some stress on partnerships. Do that crablike thing and move sideways if you need to. Focus on your basic needs.

There are a lot of planets in Virgo right now, and Saturn is changing signs: these factors point to additional mental stress. So go easy on the self-critique, and if your lover isn’t giving it to you, give it to yourself.

Oil Spill As Metaphor

Cancer is a water sign. It’s difficult to think about water without remembering the Gulf of Mexico, the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream. Everyone has their favorite place in that part of the world and I keep thinking about what is going to happen to Key West. Yesterday I heard that tar balls washed up on the Texas coast. Maybe that will get them into the game: we need a state with a lot of influence to keep the pressure on BP and the feds. I’ve also heard that by August we could expect the oil spill to reach Miami. That’s a lot of beachfront real estate, something to consider for those who don’t care about dolphins.

As someone both trained and naturally inclined to read the signs and symbols, I also cannot think about what’s happening down in that magnificent inland sea without considering what this says about the emotional nature of humanity, and the extent to which we are collectively overdosing on everything that is not conducive to peace, contentment or creativity.

By overdosing, I mean everything from what we see on television to what passes as food and beverages. Every time I see someone walk by with a can of Arizona iced tea, I cringe. I mean how we do nearly all of our socializing on the Internet, where we can safely delete one another. I mean the extent to which we are inflicted with about 10 new reasons a day to get lost in anxiety, and we have few examples or techniques to get out of it: besides, you know, the usual mantras of “it’s all good” or “we’re all screwed.” It’s true that we need to organize politically and environmentally to deal with this stuff, but we also need a kind of psychological activism so we can learn techniques to cope with and process the way the world is now. We need to learn our options.

I wonder why, when I flip through the cable channels, I go past five murder investigations and a couple of murder trials. Conversations about relationships are relegated to the circus of daytime television. How often do you see an artist talking about their work — that is, as compared to crime scene investigations? I would say it’s a ratio of about 1:500. I never imagined that politics would get polarized into the hyped-up state of vindictive chaos that it’s in (the Clinton impeachment should have been a clue), as our country racks up debt for war against a nonexistent enemy and cannot, at this point, solve its own problems. We could, of course, if we could agree what they are, agree to do something and agree that the people who profit from perpetuating the problems have to be moved out of the way.

All of this and a lot more plays into our anxious emotional state right how: what you might call our water body. People really are scared about what is happening to the world. Personally, I find this to be impressive. Yet we don’t know how to turn that fear into action. The Gulf of Mexico is quite a metaphor for how we tend to deal with our water body: our emotional body. I just got an email from Chelsea’s husband, T.J., directing me to an Associated Press story reporting the following:

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”

Algae in a beachfront salt-water pool in the North Sea, St. Malo, France. Photo by Eric Francis.

I am also reminded of the Planet Waves report from the spring about how until recently the Gulf of Mexico was used as a dumping ground for millions of pounds of unexploded bombs as warships returned from sea.

If you’re following the news, you may have heard the theory that there is a massive methane bubble under the blown-out well that could, if it ignites, create a massive fireball, eruption and tsunami.

And CNN is reporting that nearly all of the people who worked on the Exxon-Valdez oil spill are now dead. This should remind us that petrochemicals are toxic. If you’re not supposed to sniff your car’s fuel tank while you’re pumping gas, you should not be exposed to raw petroleum without a respirator and Tyvec suit. From what I hear, that ain’t the way it is on the Gulf of Mexico right now: the workers cannot get the protective gear they need.

I’ve been working as a card reader and astrologer since the late 1980s and that means I’ve been listening to a lot of people tell me their stories. This is how most of us deal with our emotions. We take chances that we don’t calculate. We don’t take precautions that would be easy. Then we dump the old bombs and cap the wells and call that turning over a new leaf and moving on.

Water Recovers Gradually

Of course, this doesn’t usually succeed. Fire, air and earth can burn, blow and quake (and move on), though water heals and returns to equilibrium slowly. What is damaged by water is slow (if ever) to repair, and we need to be mindful that water itself can be damaged rapidly. Once there is a toxic release, it can take a long time to recover, if it ever does. Real-life evidence of this is that it’s nearly impossible to find fish that’s not contaminated with mercury, PCBs, flame-retardants and many other persistent chemicals.

Clam digging on a cold, damp afternoon in the north of France. Photo by Danielle Voirin.

And it’s difficult for us to proceed through our emotional world without encountering their emotional equivalents: deception, resentment, fear, guilt and shame — no matter how much we want (or say we want) love and emotional contact. We absolutely can heal these things, though there are a few prerequisites. One is we have to want to. Another is that we need to set about to do it on our own, acquire the tools we need, and surround ourselves only with cooperative people.

I wish this was how most of us lived. The world would be a lot happier place: an easier place to be. The way most of us treat our emotional reality, it’s as if we woke up one day and discovered 27,000 capped oil wells and a million tons of bombs at the bottom of our personal pond, and have no idea where they came from. This is for the most part true. The past is more complex than most people can deal with, without help — and how many people get help? How many people do you know who go to therapy and love their therapist? We don’t realize that the unresolved pain and injury of our mothers and fathers is visiting us even from the seventh generation or longer into the distant past.

If we want to recover, we need to plan for a long journey, and take the first steps ourselves. Nobody can make that commitment for us, and no matter who wants you to feel better (and by that I mean heal emotionally), you have to want it for yourself or it’s not going to happen. There are moments of breakthrough, but it doesn’t happen in that instant, hyper-convenient way that we Westerners have been conditioned to believe that progress is made. We don’t turn off the computer and turn it back on. Apparently dying, visiting bardo and reincarnating don’t do that much as well. Most people live through the same stuff lifetime after lifetime.

Most of that stuff happens in the context of intimate relationships, and the current pair of eclipses has a lot to say about those. I would note that how we handle our intimate relationships is the single most important factor that determines how we will handle our relationship to the world: that is, with “the system” and the power structure. Indeed, the two will reflect one another — and the whole setup will have its underlying roots in our relationships with our parents.

Cancer-Capricorn: The Relationship Axis

In recent years, an ancient document surfaced that is a key to understanding astrology. I admit, this is not getting a lot of news. I first reported on this in 2007. It’s called the Thema Mundi, a theoretical chart for the world left for us by the classical-era Greek astrologers: the Founders, as they are known. The big news in this chart is that Cancer is rising, suggesting that the 1st house or ascendant is a Cancer influence and not an Aries influence. This has many implications for astrology and the corresponding study of human nature. I call this the 90-degree shift.

Waterfall in High Falls, New York. Notice the little grotto in the back of the image, toward the left. — I just discovered that the other day. Photo by Eric Francis.

Cancer rising for the chart of the world actually makes a lot of sense. Humans have to pause and take care of one another, no matter how much we try to play the every man for himself game of Aries. Our reality is primarily emotional: how we feel is nearly everything. Cancer in the ascendant puts Capricorn on the descendent, which is the 7th house or relationship angle of the chart. We tend to enter relationships with thoughts of family, nurturing, need and cozy emotional exchange (Cancer) and we tend to end up in highly structured or confined situations characterized by parent-child dynamics, financial bonds, obligation, guilt and all the trappings of history (Capricorn).

If Cancer is the 1st house and Capricorn is the 7th house in the chart for the world, the current eclipses are happening across the self/relationship axis of the chart. We just had a lunar eclipse in Capricorn conjunct Pluto, and now we have a total solar eclipse in Cancer. These events are getting that whole axis shaking: our relationships and our ideas about relationships, and the subtle pool from which our feelings and responses emanate. While planets pile up on the ‘personal is political’ Aries Point axis (reshaping the world at large), we have something distinctly inward and personal happening as well — and what is personal affects the world.

There is no private life that is not in some way guided, shaped or dictated by a larger public life. All critters learn by example. Your dog, your cat, your kids, you personally: we all learn, and teach, by example. Notably, most of our ideas about relationships are no more original than what you see on TV and in movies. If you’re below a certain age (I’m not sure what, though) you’re lucky these days if they’re more original than what you find in porn. (The Onion recently did a video mock of a TV discussion panel on the theme, “Is pornography sending our children the wrong message — that sex is pleasurable?”)

And all of this has been passed onto us by our beloved ancestors, with a lot of help exploiting our pain from the advertising industry. This, basically, is our emotional Gulf of Mexico disaster. We could do something about this with some willingness and desire. All of this territory is mapped out. The problems are well understood. As Adrienne Rich wrote, there are methods but we do not use them. With all this eclipse activity, you may be deciding that it’s time to apply a method or two; to get some help. Don’t give up on that after the eclipse has passed and the immediate pressure is off: this game is just getting going.

Eclipse of the Moon in Capricorn, Conjunct Pluto

These eclipses are showing us what we have to clean up, and are pointing to some strong potential for what we can create if we do. I thought the June 26 eclipse in Capricorn was particularly beautiful at illustrating what we have to confront and let go of in our emotional patterns, which is overidentificaiton with the other. I recognize the value of companionship, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I am describing the loss of any boundary between the identities of two people.

Cap Gris Nez (top left) as seen from Cap Blanc Nez on the north coast of France, along the English Channel. Photo by Eric Francis.

We call this romance and commemorate it with large diamonds, expensive dinners and mortgages, but what we have is one of the most significant evolutionary impediments imaginable. We are taught to lose ourselves in the other, and then we call this holy. How can it be cool to lose yourself in the other when you are the only thing you’ve really got?

Let’s think astrologically, step by step. The Moon rules Cancer, the 1st house (= I am) of the Thema Mundi. It was eclipsed in Capricorn, the 7th house (= we are) of the Thema Mundi. That feels like facing pain, enforced growth, the death of a situation, an imminent change in a situation, or outright immolation. Whatever the Moon represents has been through quite a process in these recent weeks, which has shaped its entire experience of relationships. It has recast the sense of ‘self’ that exists in relationship, pointing to what is impossible, what is urgently necessary and most of all, what we truly desire.

There has been an actual break in continuity, though only after acknowledging something from the past, and admitting that Pluto is still new in Capricorn and will be there until 2023-2024. This reminds us of a much longer process of completely redesigning our relationships: perhaps as an intentional act, perhaps as we crawl out of the rubble.

I’m aware how much people resist new ideas about relationships, as if such were not even possible to imagine or create. For the most part we are still dragging around two options: the meaningless hookup, or Cinderella and Prince Charming. We have a lot of other options, but to get there, we need to consider what we do to ourselves and one another by so often experiencing our relationships so unconsciously. In short, we need to begin this whole conversation by admitting our failures, including the failure of our ‘institutional’ forms of relationship.

Eclipse of the Sun in Cancer, Conjunct Juno

We could cut the whole discussion of relationship forms short by beginning with the idea that our primary relationship is to ourselves. Before we conflate this with egotism, narcissism, self-absorption, vanity or being conceited (all of which our culture teaches us to do, mostly through advertising), let’s admit the simple truth that the one truly lifelong relationship we have is to ourselves.

Healthy plant drawn towards the daylight on a rainy Paris afternoon. Photo by Danielle Voirin.

For anyone who honors this, it’s more difficult for the idiots to slip into our lives (it’s possible, but we might not roll out the red carpet for them). It takes two unconscious people to make an unconscious relationship. The minute one is conscious and able to admit their own best interests, they are free to move on. This, of course, takes commitment to one’s own cause. And that, to me, is what a total eclipse in Cancer is all about.

Remembering that this takes place in the 1st house of the Thema Mundi, and that Cancer is the sign of incarnation, this eclipse is about incarnating as yourself.

Mixed right in with the eclipse is Juno, and in her highest manifestation she is about commitment: so this eclipse is about unifying one’s commitment to oneself. Juno is conjunct this eclipse within one degree: she is right there, setting the theme.

Juno has another dimension, though. She is the embodiment of our expectations, our pain and most of all, our jealousy in relationships. We have a lot of concepts of ‘what a relationship is’ and ‘what a partner is supposed to be’, including one’s own role as such. Women are given a lot more of this baggage than men (Simone de Beauvoir explains this in The Second Sex: women are taught to have a relationship as a primary life goal and men are taught to have relationships as part of their lives). So Juno represents this conceptual level of what a spouse or being a spouse represents, and that needs to be taken apart and looked at honestly.

Part of why we have such narrow ideas about relationships is the jealousy that Juno represents. We throw one another into all kinds of bondage because we are jealous.

The problem is not so much that we get jealous, but that we worship jealousy. We organize our lives around avoiding jealousy at any cost, usually through lies, secrets and denial, and this is where most of our relationship energy goes. In that environment, growth is basically impossible. Basically you have a choice: you can say ‘I’m a jealous person and that’s how it is’ or you can say ‘jealousy is an opportunity to grow, and I want to grow’.

The connection may not seem obvious at first, but you may discover that jealousy is your best teacher, your best opportunity to set yourself free and the thing that teaches you what love is not, and what love truly is.

Yours & truly,

Coxing Kill on the Grandmother Land in Ulster Country, New York. Photo by Eric Francis.

Parsing The American Dream

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Boy the way Glen Miller played
Songs that made the hit parade.
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days.

And you knew who you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men,
Mister we could use a man
Like Herbert Hoover again.

Didn’t need no welfare state,
Everybody pulled his weight.
Gee our old LaSalle ran great.
Those were the days.

— All in the Family lyrics by Charles Stouse and Lee Adams

Archie Bunker (All In The Family): One of the sitcom characters you’d kill in real life. He’s a bigot who is mean to just about everyone who walks in the door. On the show, they somehow make this endearing. In real life you’d just stop going over to Archie Bunker’s place. Bunker was played by Caroll O’Connor, one of the great television actors of all times.

Archie Bunker. That’s a name most of us recognize, the prototype for ignorance, bias and racism wrapped in an almost — but not quite — loveable package of human frailty. Norman Lear’s creation of a 1970s American family as cultural battleground cracked open the mythology of sanitized television families that had been force-fed to the public through the 1950s and 1960s. For the first five years of All In The Family, the nation couldn’t look away. The character of Archie was originally designed to remain unlikable, but Carroll O’Connor brought a vulnerability to the role that broke through the bigoted crust of a population mesmerized by its own image. In the end, Archie was allowed to evolve into a gentler creature, but it should be noted that as he did so, the public lost interest.

There’s another name being bandied about these days, a name some of us recognize but few of us know much about. Herbert Hoover, our one-term 31st president, was a curious creature who combined both softly liberal and sharply conservative views. He was skilled at problem-solving and organizing, with a reputation for stringent micromanaging. He put his faith in volunteerism and business rather than in government sponsorship, carefully guarding both the GDP and the public coffers, and streamlining spending. He inherited a fiscal mess and let the banks fail in the early 1930s. When he finally decided the economy needed government stimulus, it was too little too late.

Hoover was an austerity president who believed that the public could pull itself up by its bootstraps. He staunchly refused to offer public aid when the Great Depression took root, even when nearly a quarter of the population were without work and homeless. Tent cities sprang up boasting his name: Hoovervilles. In one of those gaffes one is never able to live down, he defended his policies by announcing that the hobos were eating better than ever. Archie Bunker might have said something similar, and now you know why you’re hearing Hoover’s name in the news.

Continued at this link…

Planet Waves 2010 Midyear Report is Ready

Dear Fellow Traveler:

The midyear audio report is ready. For subscribers, this is a 12-signs-for-one-price audio product. Originally planned at 10 minutes per sign, it came out to about 25 minutes per sign, with an introduction for all the signs. This report will work for your Sun, Moon and rising signs — and you can even scope out what’s going on with your kids and significant others. The report is ready. I’ve raised the price for all 12 by $5 as promised; the project came out so well that the signs are being sold individually to non-subscribers. The report covers outer planet transits, the cardinal T-square and the eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn. It’s solid astrological work and I trust you will find it helpful.

This photograph shows the total solar eclipse of Oct. 24, 1995, as seen from Dundlod, India. Credit: Fred Espenak/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Last week a reader asked how to work with the rising sign aspect of my reports, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

As you know, we’re in the midst of one of the most unusual alignments of our lifetimes. This is the cardinal T-square that is synonymous with 2012. At the heart of the matter is the square of Uranus and Pluto, the one that will make the Sixties look like a walk in the park. That square is within three degrees now, joined by Jupiter, Saturn and a pair of eclipses. All of this is lined up with the Aries Point, which is like a magnifying/focusing effect. Everyone is affected by this astrology no matter what their sign.

Some people are experiencing this as calm weather, and by the way, I don’t suggest you worry about that. There are some individuals and some charts aligned harmoniously with the current process of rapid change. When you look back on these years you will be amazed at what you experienced, who you became and what you accomplished.

For others, there is quite a bit of unrest, turbulence, pressure and weirdness, and you may be wondering what is next. This report will be applicable to both perspectives, because they are two sides of the same process.

The audio introduction is about half an hour, then each sign gets about 25 minutes devoted to it. I am also including a wrap-up segment summarizing what I learned doing the 12 signs, covering the eclipses specifically. The report is ready now, well in time for the total solar eclipse on July 11. We’re offering this for only $24.95 to existing clients now. Later on in the week, we will be selling each sign separately, so you’ll save substantially by ordering right away.

What About my Rising Sign?

I write Sun-sign horoscopes and detailed reports that work whether you know your natal chart or not — that is my specialty.

Now for the reader question, which pertains to how (for example) the Aquarius birthday report relates to Aquarius rising; or how any one of the signs in the Midyear Report works for your rising sign.

The great Patric Walker, one of my spiritual mentors, once said of astrology: “It’s all about the houses.” He was a newspaper astrologer, so he meant the solar houses of a horoscope column.

He meant it for natal charts as well. It’s possible to take a chart with an accurate ascendant (based on your birth time) and strip out all the planets and just read the house pattern — that’s how well houses work. So when I think through your astrology, about 51% of my energy goes into what house an influence (such as an eclipse) occurs in. For your Sun sign, I use the solar house system, which works beautifully. I also suggest you know your rising sign and pay as much attention to my interpretation for that sign as you do for your Sun sign. And as a Cancer rising Moon child, I pay attention to lunar energy all the time. So the better you know your chart, the more information you’ll have available from my work — and the better the value.

To find your rising sign, all you need is your birth time and a five-minute trip to Astro.com. If you don’t feel like doing that, your Sun sign (also called your birth sign) will give you the information you’re looking for.

Here is the link to order your Midyear Report from Planet Waves (instant delivery). Subscribers can still get all 12 signs for one price — $24.95. If you’re currently a subscriber to Planet Waves Astrology News, renew early combined with the report and get a discount on both. Make sure you use the same email address that your issues come to!

For readers who have not subscribed to Cosmic Confidential, here is a combined offer for $44.95 — all 12 signs of Cosmic Confidential plus all 12 signs of the 2010 Midyear Report. If you purchase the combined offer, you will receive instant access to Cosmic Confidential, your confirmation letter will contain access info for the Midyear Report, and you will receive an email notice when the Midyear Report is done.

You can also order by phone by calling Chelsea at (206) 567-4455. Thank you for doing your metaphysical shopping at Planet Waves.

Yours & truly,

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 9, 2010, #823 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

By their nature, shadow images hide from our perception. By our nature, we tend to not want to see them. So the denial of shadow material — such as fear, guilt, shame and insecurity — is pretty much built into this thing we call human nature. But if we want to grow, and that means grow out of our anxiety and self-reproach, we simply have to face these matters, and I don’t mean in the form of a fleeting glimpse. You are in a rare moment when you can peer into this dimension of yourself and observe them as if you are looking through a fog. The question is what to do with what you see, and I would say focus your attention for as long as you can. Remind yourself that every effect has a cause. See if you can get to the point where you can see fear as an option that you choose, or not.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You seem to be married to an idea, and are using this as a substitute for devotion to yourself. What you’re feeling as commitment may be part of a plan to stabilize the ebb and flow of the human tide, which can be an annoying thing to go through constantly — especially for one born under your sign. But ebb and flow is what we do the most dependably. Any notion of commitment, to another person, to yourself or to the work that you do, needs to include room for fluctuation (this, even the designers of bridges and skyscrapers know well). This weekend’s total solar eclipse is encouraging you to be flexible in your ideas about everything and everyone in your life. Take some of that space to see things as they are rather than as you insist they should be, or should have been. I’m pretty sure you will like your new perception better than the old one.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

If you’re getting involved in a financial partnership, or a personal relationship that includes the merging of finances, I suggest you get a few things out on the table. One is the scorecard that you’ve accumulated during this particular encounter. State your resentments and your unresolved issues in clear terms. Be honest about your values and whether you think they align with the values of the other person. Then invite your counterpart to do the same — and listen well. You may feel compelled to yield to what is important to someone else, and this may evoke several layers of response. I would remind you that the history of this relationship goes back long before this relationship, and you may need to take extra care that you’re not bringing in the past unfairly. You will soon see how much you have to gain by faith and fairness.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Western culture, particularly the United States, seems bent on denying the past. Yet in order to grow, we have to make peace with the past, take the information we need and let history go: which is different than denial. Indeed, it’s precisely the opposite use of the mind. At the moment, your relationship to yourself is evolving rapidly, and that in turn is shifting your relationships to others. This is having visible and productive results. The past has weighed heavily on your emotional life, and it’s only recently that you’ve been able to acknowledge your disillusionment and admit what you want. You’re well on your way to finding the present, and you are more emotionally available than you’ve been in a long time. This is something to neither rush or to delay, but to embrace consciously. Then spread that energy to everyone you meet. Notice who they are, today.

Imagine yourself in gestation, suspended in fluid. Feel the gentle movement, the distant sounds and the light that’s coming from inside you rather than around you. This space has the quality of paradise, yet you’re also confined. You have everything you need, but you have no influence over the flow of events. All you can do is focus on the changes you’re going through: on what you feel, and on who and what you’re becoming. You know you’re growing so fast that eventually you won’t be able to contain yourself in this enclosed bubble, but for the moment it’s serving its purpose. Now notice: you’re not alone. The vibrations and emotions you’re experiencing are, in part, influenced by a source outside yourself. You’re in relationship to whatever this other thing is, and it’s influencing you powerfully. Be aware of this: all your growth depends on it.

You’re finally letting go of that heavy quality that has dominated your life for so long, and that has influenced so many of your decisions. Your anger is beginning to change into something else, something more useful. Your need to take total authority over yourself and certain people around you is beginning to reveal itself as less than helpful. The reason you’re noticing these things now is because you have an option; you can see that you have a choice, and you’re making the obvious decision. But there is something else. You know that every decision you make opens up a world of possibilities, some of which you cannot see, and none of which you can predict exactly. Letting go of that false sense of control is what will gently guide you into true freedom.

You are embarking on a creative partnership that has the potential to help you express your true talent. There’s something ‘old’ about this arrangement and something entirely new about it. Every positive quality to this arrangement has a negative counterpart somewhere in your history. Yet instead of that history repeating itself, it’s as if the problem points are being redeemed into something useful, indeed, something that benefits and nourishes everyone involved. These two ideas — benefit and nourishment — are your best friends right now. Notice when they are present in your environment, and nourish them right back. Keep a positive flow. As Saturn enters your sign, the winds of change will sweep through your life. Be alert, look for the best in every situation and remember: you know yourself. Use that knowledge and it will grow.

Rather than having faith in a relationship, I suggest you aim to trust existence. In order to do this, you must have faith in yourself: a precious and rare element on our planet. In our world, we put enormous energy into romance, marriage, expectations, commitments and striving for the perfect bond. Then it’s as if we don’t notice how often this fails. Yet the thing we’re really not noticing is what it’s a substitute for, which is clarity, self-respect and faith in existence. If you look, you can see why. The more we run toward supposedly permanent emotional entanglements, the less emphasis we place on who we are. They’re mutually exclusive because our relationships are so often based on something other than who we are. No matter what you’re experiencing right now, you can trust that you’re moving closer to the truth of yourself.

You need to sort out an emotional commitment from a financial commitment. This is usually known as marriage, though even if you’re not married or if the relationship I’m describing isn’t with your spouse, the feeling is similar. The boundaries seem to be all over the place. You’re not sure whether to take authority or make some kind of sacrifice. Actually, there is something in this situation that’s out of your control, which evokes some memory of childhood. Here’s what you can do as an adult: you can be creative. You can pay attention to the details. You can shift the conversation away from adversity and petty wrangling toward allegiance and your mutual need for security and common ground. If you come to a point where you feel helpless, remember you are not; your power is in the strength of awareness, communication and the decisions you make.

Shift into proactive mode. For the past few months you’ve been able to ease away from the feeling that you need to be six steps ahead of everyone, and you needed the rest. Now you’re back to a distinct need to be on top of your game. That means mapping out the chessboard, knowing who is who and where you stand with everyone, and seeing what options you have. As the next few weeks unfold, you will need to make a series of decisions, and they count. Indeed, you’ve made several choices the past year-and-a-half that didn’t quite count, and now you’re playing for keeps. But you’ve learned plenty, and you’re ready to apply that knowledge. Let me clue you in on one thing you may not be noticing: people — such as colleagues, bosses, clients, peers or whoever — respect you a lot more than you think. Step into that space and live like your life matters. It most surely does.

Stretch your horizons, and I mean far and wide. The nature of your life is about to take on new dimensions, as if you are shedding a skin or outgrowing a previous set of conflicts, delays and irritating situations. Before that you experienced a series of jolts that seemed ‘well intentioned’ on the part of the universe, but which were also far from comfortable and only nominally useful. Your current astrology speaks of opening up a new life that feels like cracking out of a psychic cocoon and discovering you’re alive. Remember the ways in which you’ve strived to exceed the bounds you knew could never limit you. You could call this waking up to yourself. Yet a relationship potentially is involved, and potentially solid and productive, which I mean in the deepest long-term sense. I suggest you take authorship and widen your field of potential, based on what you want to experience and accomplish with unfettered honesty or bold imagination. Don’t let yourself be limited by your prior concept of what is possible; that is the very thing your psyche is ready to outgrow.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

This weekend’s eclipse pulls back the veil over some of the aspects of your life that are the most precious to you: emotional bonding, meaningful sensual pleasure, your creative passions and your sense of adventure. AndI am sure it comes as welcome news that you’re at a culmination point. You don’t need to eat from this whole buffet at once, though there is certainly a meal coming. Rather, imagine yourself fully entering this dimension of your life, finally allowing yourself to relax the emphasis on so many things that supposedly violate your true nature. You’re not giving up everything you’ve learned; it will still be there when you need it. What has been lacking is your full commitment to what you want, and this is that part that you alone can offer. If you find you’re giving yourself reasons why not, stop looking for reasons of any kind. Indulge your experience because you can. Be real because that’s the thing to be.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Dear Fellow Traveler:

We’re into that phase of the month when Tuesday editions are something other than monthly horoscopes — here is the July long monthly and here is July Inner Space. We also have interesting coverage of Sunday’s solar eclipse on Daily Adventure & Adventure, our main blog — which today includes coverage of the point Lilith.

Today I have an astrological self-study project for you, which is looking up your Moon sign and house placement. This is a new idea for a Tuesday edition — let’s see how it goes.

If you are interested in astrology, knowing the placement of your Moon is basic. In truth, it is essential. The Moon represents your core personality: the child self that grew into an adult role. The Moon also speaks to your basic needs, and it describes your mom.

I bring this up now because the Sun is in the sign Cancer, ruled by the Moon, and we are about to have a total eclipse in that sign as well. So that places emphasis on the Moon.

If you seek understanding of yourself through astrology, you want to know about your Moon. It can help you explain a lot of things that are not covered by your Sun sign, including aspects of your personality that you don’t like to reveal to others or, alternately, that you overemphasize because they are so familiar. The Moon can also tell you how your mom’s personality transferred into your own, and where your mom’s influence is sneaking into your life.

Finally, the Moon can be understood as the “child self” because it describes our most basic needs for nourishment and attention.

An accurate Moon position depends on knowing your birth time. If you don’t have your time of birth, you can get your Moon sign or something close to it, though not the house your Moon is in (which changes about every two hours). So, step one, as with any astrological project, is look up your birth time. I don’t suggest you believe the “about dinner time” kind of description; go for your birth certificate, or get a more detailed description from a parent or other relative. You may need to call your local health department, which will advise you on how to get a certificate with the time, if it is available. Note that many replacement certificates lack the birth time.

The next step is to go to Astro.com, where they have a nifty, convenient system for casting your chart. I just did it — it’s easy and the programming is smooth, cheers to Astro-Dienst. This is going to give you the basic data, not an interpretation. That second portion, how to work with your Moon placement, I will cover one week from today.

If you take these steps, you’re also going to know the rest of your planets. Many of you will be seeing your natal chart for the first time. I would suggest you look at it with wonder and not “confusion.” Astrology is based on a language, and it takes time to learn even the basics, but you can get good information straight away, if you know where to look.

Please let me know how it goes. We have posted this letter to a discussion page. To use this discussion page you will need to create an identity in our blogging system or use the one you have. Creating an identity takes about 30 seconds. There, you may discuss your findings and state your questions. I’ll check that page tonight and ask other Planet Waves astrologers to check in as well. Let’s see what we learn.

Yours & truly,