Dear Friend and Client:

Good morning in the States, afternoon in the UK and Europe.

Harvest at the Kingston Farmers’ Market. Photo by Eric Francis/Planet Waves.

There’s not another monthly horoscope for the Libra phase, and I’m currently working on the new monthly horoscopes for November — so I won’t be writing anything extra today.

I’ve published three monthlies for Libra time already: Planet Waves Monthly (the original ‘Planet Waves’ horoscope), Inner Space and the Alt Monthly. These three horoscopes focus on the sign change of Saturn from Virgo to Libra on Oct. 29. I suggest you find out your ascendant if you don’t know it, and work with that as well. Astrology is “all about the houses,” as a great newspaper astrologer once said, and Saturn changing signs definitely qualifies.

In yesterday’s daily edition, I talked about the station-direct of Jupiter (which was overnight) and Mercury exiting its shadow/echo phase (which it does Wednesday) and entering new territory. For our afternoon post yesterday, one of our writers attended President Obama’s speech at the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, DC and has provided some excellent, unique coverage.

We’re in that time of year when I’m preparing for the new annual edition, which I will announce shortly. As my friend and first spiritual study partner Scott Kalechstein used to say, it’s important to get the word in before you get the word out. I am now in the ‘getting the word in’ phase, as I study the charts and movements of the planets through mid-2011 as the warmup for writing the annual.

During this time of year, I take every opportunity I can to do less rather than more. As I see it, my primary job is to stay balanced, healthy and focused to do the best possible work on the annual edition. The astrology of 2010 is certainly calling for that kind of care and attention.

We will see you Friday.

Yours & truly,

Dear Friend and Reader:

We met the Yes Men a few weeks ago, after I spent Monday morning, Sept. 21 trooping around Manhattan as they gave out their climate change edition of the New York Post. This paracosmic spoof on the conservative tabloid was distributed to 100,000 New Yorkers as a global warming conference consisting of presidents, prime ministers and environment bigshots was pouring into the city. Distribution points outside the United Nations made sure that a bunch of copies made it into the proceedings, and the prank became national news.

Outside the Film Forum in New York’s Greenwich Village, where “The Yes Men Fix The World” premiered this week. Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

This week, a film featuring the boys premiered in a number of cities: The Yes Men Fix the World, a retrospective of their anti-corporate pranks over the past few years. This seemed like a fine occasion to look at their astrological charts and consider what their existence says about the nature of reality. [View movie trailer here. Several videos are linked from this article and they are all a lot of fun.]

The Yes Men — created and led by Andy Bichlbaum, a Libra, and Mike Bonanno, an Aries — specialize in impostering corporate executives, then delivering an environmental message to petroleum conferences, World Trade Organization meetings and even live on BBC World.

By yesterday afternoon, I still hadn’t tracked down Bonanno’s birth time. When I finally got him on the phone, I was fortunate that his mother was standing right there with him, and that she remembered when he was born. Then Mike invited me down to the city for some after-the-screening fun: what he described as a procession and some drumming but which really turned out to be the takeover of an enormous Whole Foods market in lower Manhattan. They are always stealth about their plans.

After cruising 100 miles down the New York Thruway and then through the streets of Manhattan, I arrived at the Film Forum in Greenwich Village just as the screening ended. Bonanno was on his way; he is a professor and had just finished teaching a class. I waited outside, where I ran into one of the guys whose job it is to follow them around with a video camera; this seems to be a whole genre of art. He said that the Yes Men worked relentlessly, as if he had been tracking them around the clock for days on end and needed a shower and a night’s rest.

Soon after, Andy Bichlbaum came strolling up to the theater, and a few moments later, Bonanno arrived; just about every screening gets its own Q & A session. I followed them in. Standing in front of the movie screen, they took questions from the packed audience: How do you pay for all these antics? How is it that you don’t get arrested or sued? Aren’t people starting to recognize you?

Then they explained the plan to take over the local Whole Foods store. Why? John Mackey, the CEO of the national health food chain, had recently published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal wherein he said that it’s not the government’s job to provide health care and we should all fend for ourselves. Yes, the CEO of the groovy, crunchy organic food chain thinks that we’re all on our own.

Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum take questions from the audience Thursday night in New York City. They then turned a moviegoing experience into an activist event, and the Uranus-Pluto square had begun. Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

“Health care is a service that we all need,” he wrote, “but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This ‘right’ has never existed in America.”

So he’s an erudite historian, and a patriot to boot. Interesting — a careful reading of the Constitution (or of the case law) does not reveal any intrinsic right of his corporation to exist perpetually, either.

Tonight, the Yes Men would be getting revenge. They passed around the lyrics to “Hey Mackey!”, sung to the tune of “Hey Mickey!” We would all meet in the frozen foods aisle and, after an announcement (via megaphone) of “a big spill in the health care aisle,” the protest would begin, operatically.

Hey, Mackey, you don’t seem to care
We’re not as rich as you but we still need health care.
Oh, Mackey, you’re so greedy can’t you understand?
It’s guys like you, Mackey!

They needed a singer to lead the chant; a hand went up, a guy came to the front, and he was handed the black, feather-adorned megaphone for an on-the spot-rehearsal. Then they said they needed a choreographer. Was there a choreographer in the house? A hand shot up near the back and they had someone to design a few cute little steps, the organic version of the Hokey-Pokey. Oh, and there would be SurvivaBalls involved — these huge inflated things that are supposed to enable corporate executives to survive floods, famines, pestilences, earthquakes and assault (in the event of climate change disasters). Using SurvivaBalls, the Yes Men had recently attempted to take the United Nations by sea, floating down the East River; only to be stopped by the NYPD five minutes later.

Audience participation: moviegoers transform into activists, take to the streets, and head east on Houston Street towards the Whole Foods Market. Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

Then the audience of about 150 got up, filed out of the theater, and headed east on Houston Street, toward the Bowery. I knew the Uranus-Pluto square of 2012 had begun. It was time to fight the power, in an organic foods store. We stopped for one last strategy session about two blocks away. The SurvivaBalls would need to discreetly take their positions various places, and would need time to suit up and inflate. (They are inflated with fans, and if the battery pack is charged, this can take as little as one minute. But it takes longer to suit up.) Everyone else would need to nonchalantly walk around the store, pretending to shop. Then we would hear the announcement and gather in the back and start the protest.

I was tracking Mike, who had taken off his ridiculous black helmet and was still wearing his lab coat. He put the black, feather-adorned megaphone into a shopping cart, picked up a few squash, set them down in the basket, and marched past the dairy aisle. Others walked into the store and feigned shopping. Hardly any of these people looked like they had ever been to a protest before; now they were stealthily congregating next to the non-GMO tortilla chips, waiting for the moment of action, wondering if they should pick up a few groceries for the weekend.

At one point, a security guard, catching onto the fact that something, um, unusual was going on, questioned me about my cameras, and instructed me not to take pictures in the store. “Oh, I would never take pictures here, I’m just a regular working guy on the way home from a busy day, doin’ a little shopping.”

“Who do you work for?”

“The New York Times.” I flipped out my Ulster County Sheriff press card, which he didn’t bother to read. Crisis avoided.

Andy Bichlbaum convenes a last minute strategy session in the dairy aisle of Whole Foods market on Houston Street. Photo by Eric Francis.

Several people asked me what was going to happen and what they should do; I said that this was the Yes Men moment. Their actions begin with an impeccable, carefully developed plan. Then things seem to fall apart. Then at the last second, it comes off flawlessly.

Suddenly we heard the announcement, coming from over near the salad bar. Loud and crackly and a bit obnoxious. ATTENTION SHOPPERS, THERE’S A SPILL IN THE HEALTH CARE AISLE.

Then the song and dance began, with drums, a bagpipe, clapping, and three adorable, enormous white critters waddling around. And the cameras and video cameras everywhere, more high-end Canons and Nikons than at a fashion show. And iPhones, cell phones and BlackBerries. I left a cell connection open to my friend Amanda in Maine, with the phone clipped to my camera strap, so she could hear the antics live. This was clearly the best documented supermarket takeover in history.

Hey, Mackey, you’re a swine, you’re a swine, you blow my mind
Hey, Mackey, what a pity you don’t seem to care…
Oh what you do Mackey, do Mackey.
Don’t break my heart, Mackey.

The mob moved toward the bakery aisle, and made a left at the kambucha. Security was now, finally, onto the plan. Guards and managers with walkie-talkies weren’t sure how to handle this. Technically, it was potentially a terrorist situation, and there were all these…cameras everywhere. People brazenly disobeying the “no photos” rule. This more than anything seemed to push them to the brink of panic. They looked extremely nervous. Some of the employees thought it was first-class funny. One of the guards tried to convince Bichlbaum to, well, convince him of something, but nobody stopped singing. It just seemed to go on and on.

The lyric sheet said to “repeat ad nauseam until real health care reform is passed,” and it actually seemed like it might last that long. But finally, we filed out into the street, everyone giddy. It had gone off impeccably. The SurvivaBall people unsuited. New York City police were buzzing around, wondering what to do; obviously they had been called by the store management. What exactly did they say? “It’s the Big Fig, only…he’s white…and there’s a bagpipe…”

The thrill of victory: SurvivaBall wearer outside Whole Foods. This product is allegedly made by Halliburton. Photo by Eric Francis.

Basically, the Yes Men had succeeded in getting everyone into their movie. Yet again. This is their specialty; and in truth, a Whole Foods was easy pickin’. They have taken on some big gorillas.

In what I often describe as the greatest prank in media history, Bichlbaum once impersonated a spokesman for Dow Chemical and, speaking to a live global audience on BBC World on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster in India, said the company was taking full responsibility for the toxic release and cleanup. Bhopal is considered one of the worst industrial catastrophes in history and has still not been remediated.

Dow Chemical had recently purchased Union Carbide, the perpetrator, for $12 billion, and for an incredible, uninterrupted five-and-a-half minutes Bichlbaum (using his alias Jude Finisterra) described how Union Carbide would be liquidated and the proceeds given to the toxic exposure victims. He added that Dow would open all of its product safety files to journalists and researchers and enter a phase of total transparency. Dow stock plunged 3% that day, costing shareholders billions.

But the Yes Men were not done. They went back to Andy’s apartment in Paris and, using Dow Chemical letterhead, issued a press release that said: what you just saw on BBC World was a hoax; none of it is true. We will not be cleaning up the site, we won’t be giving more money to Bhopal victims, we won’t be opening up our files — denying everything, point by point, upstaging Dow’s own PR department.

“We target people we see as criminals, and we steal their identity to try to make them honest,” explained Bonanno. Their Bhopal stunt on BBC World resulted in 600 articles appearing in the mainstream press; apparently, this is what it takes to get the media to cover something as important as the 20th anniversary of an industrial disaster that killed tens of thousands of people.

Andy Bichlbaum poses as Dow Chemical spokesman on BBC World, taking full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, which killed 25,000 people in 1984.

“You can’t help but fall in love with them,” said Paul Rapp, a Massachusetts attorney who has represented them and who helps from time to time. “They don’t do any harm, they’re provocative and they’re as ballsy as they come.”

The Yes Men got their start after acquiring the Internet domain GATT.org (a reference to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) where they posted a parody of a World Trade Organization website. “People looked at the site and didn’t look at the content,” Rapp explained. He said Michael Moore was one of the contributors, among other gifted satire writers.

Soon after, the Yes Men were contacted to make a presentation at a textiles conference in Helsinki, Finland, where they appeared as representatives of the WTO. In other words, in their first major coup, they were invited to the conference; they didn’t have to fake anything. “It landed in their laps and they said let’s go,” Rapp said.

“They went to Helsinki and advocated slavery. Nobody protested. They all took notes and then had lunch.”

It wasn’t until the Vivoleum hoax in 2007 that they actually were stopped. They got on the agenda at the Calgary Gas and Oil Exposition representing ExxonMobil, introducing a new product. “As humans begin to die as a result of calamities caused by climate change, their remains could be harvested for an alternative fuel source called ‘Vivoleum’ that would eventually replace oil,” Bichlbaum told the audience of oil execs from around the world.

They passed around lit candles purportedly made from the remains of a fictional Exxon maintenance employee named Reggie Watts, who died after responding to a toxic spill. They played a video tribute to Reggie, but by that time, security was escorting them out of the room. The owners of the conference called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who thought it was so funny they refused to arrest them. But the managers of the conference were infuriated and insisted that charges be pressed. According to Rapp, the Mounties recommended Canadian attorneys to defend them.

Now that we know who they are, let’s take a look at their charts. I obtained the birth information directly from each of them in the past few days; I am publishing the charts but not the birth data so that nobody steals their identities. The rest of this article includes a technical discussion; not everyone will be up to it but nobody is allowed to complain. If you’re a beginning student or even curious about astrology, try to follow along. I’m giving the details rather than just interpretations; and a discussion will be initiated Friday morning on the Planet Waves blog.

Right away, we see they have three important things in common. First, they’re born in the 1960s. Bonanno is born in 1968 and Bichlbaum is born in 1963. Here, we have a rare example of people living out the radical astrology of that era, which has its roots in the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo. Both men have that rare aspect in full force, and interestingly both have it in the 11th house — the house of community and the public. They feel that influence working in the public sphere, and are gathering energy and goodwill as a result of using that energy wisely and for the public good.

Rick Tarnas in his book Cosmos and Psyche said that in his astrological study of history, people born with one of the major Uranus-Pluto aspects find their place in history when the next one arrives — which it’s doing at the moment: the Uranus-Pluto square that’s coming into focus and which begins to reach full strength in the spring. (I’ll show this aspect influences all the signs in the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves, Cosmic Confidential.)

Andy Bichlbaum leads the anti-corporate choir in Whole Foods. Photo by Eric Francis.

The second thing they have in common is nearly the same ascendant; not just Scorpio rising, but within one degree: Bonanno has 2+ Scorpio rising and Bichlbaum has 3+ Scorpio rising; they are exact to within one degree of precision. When people have the same ascendant, it’s easy for them to share a worldview. Regardless of what year they were born, they experience the passage of planets through the houses at the same time. Mars rules the ascendant of both charts; but if you look at their Mars placements, they are nearly in exact opposition, to within one degree.

Third, Bonanno has seven planets and points in Aries (innovative, bold, self-aware) and Bichlbaum has five planets and points in Libra (a drive for justice and talent for making things beautiful). Both men are artists and designers. They have bold alignments in the cardinal signs that mirror one another, and when you see them in action, that’s how it feels. Like many talented actors who work closely together, they can anticipate one another’s moves, communicate without needing too many words, and function as a unit without sacrificing their individuality. (In an interesting parallel to their opposite Sun placements, Andy is born on the West Coast, in LA, and Mike is born on the East Coast, in NY.)

I gave the charts to Tracy Delaney at Serennu.com to find the coolest minor planet placements. In her view, this involved Ixion, a small planet just beyond Pluto’s orbit; and Ceres, the former asteroid. Both Mike and Andy have these two points placed prominently. Ceres deals with food, nourishment, grief and processes that create or restore balance. Ixion is all about morality and morality plays.

“Mike has Ixion exactly rising, and Andy has Ixion conjunct Moon. Both have Ceres in the 12th house, conjunct the ascendant,” she wrote.

“Ceres/Ixion is a good description for environmental atrocities. Ixion is also ‘capable of anything’ as you often say. They seem to be bringing out the delineation for us: ‘going way too far’, ‘shocking behaviour’, etc. Nice to see Ixion can be expressed so positively.”

SurvivaBall wearing protester waddles out of the store. Photo by Eric Francis.

As I described in the Mighty Equinox edition, over the next few years, potent planetary energy moves into the cardinal signs. This began with Pluto moving into Capricorn in 2008-2009, and will continue with Saturn moving into Libra later in the month. By next spring, Jupiter and Uranus make visits to Aries (including an exact conjunction on the Aries Point), and the trend will continue with Mars entering Libra over the summer. This energy only builds from here, and the Yes Men are all but assured a continued rise to prominence.

The obvious question, though, is what gives them the ability to do what they do? That is to say, imposter nearly anyone and walk through walls? And get away with it over and over?

Bichlbaum’s chart gives the first and perhaps the best clues. He has a loaded 12th house, which makes him not just a natural born actor, but also a talented shapeshifter.

Take a look at his 1st house — four points in Scorpio, in particular a Mars-Neptune conjunction. Anyone with this conjunction is going to have an intense life. They have a visionary quality, which could manifest as anything from a gift for filmmaking, poetry, photography, and a tendency to take very big risks. They’re not afraid to risk it all if they have to; it’s been described as Kamikaze. And that’s exactly what the Yes Men do: they dive in headlong, and see what happens.

But Bichlbaum works with a plan; he is a master of the game. He has the asteroid Pallas Athene precisely conjunct the Sun, which gives him an innate understanding of politics, law, strategy and plenty of protection. I think he’s actually going to end up at the negotiating table on behalf of the public when the climate change endgame arrives.

No arrests; no teargas; no nonlethal weapons, Tasers or paramilitary cops. Photo by Eric Francis.

Bonanno has a chart of a different color: it’s difficult to pack more Aries into one horoscope than he has. This gives him initiative and inventiveness — and in the 6th house a strong drive to service. This is Aries at its best: self-awareness, self-confidence and devotion to getting the job done. Bonanno is capable of nearly infinite amounts of work, which he mingles with a quest for pioneering adventure. Check out his Chiron directly on the Aries Point, to the degree. It will be interesting to see how his career develops when that Jupiter-Uranus conjunction happens there on June 8.

Bonanno is born between a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse (you can tell, in part, because his Sun is on one of the lunar nodes). Being born during or even near eclipses gives the feeling of living with the hand of fate on one’s shoulder, it can make one’s life seem larger than life, and can grant access to a wide public.

He has a chart that pulls the Sixties astrology into full focus: check out the sextile between Neptune and Uranus (with a 25 next to each of them), and the Sun showing up at the point of a yod (at 26 degrees of Aries).

Remember as you study these charts, these are talented men who are responding to the times in which they live. They have determined to put their natural gifts to work for a purpose. Notably, neither has “given up a career” to do this work; both currently work as university professors.

We all have gifts. The Yes Men are rising to the occasion of history, and they are in tune with the times: the only people who can tell the truth have a sense of humor. Their message actually seems to be getting through, and now they’re movie stars. As Paul Rapp, their sometimes lawyer said yesterday, “It’s easier to get people to see your way of thinking when you get them to laugh rather than throw bricks at them. That’s just human nature.”

Yours & truly,

PS, readers in the New York area are invited to meet me Saturday for the 6:15 showing of The Yes Men Fix the World. This will be at the Film Forum in Manhattan, on West Houston reet west of 6th Ave. Note, it would be smart to purchase tickets online in advance! For directions and other information you can call the theater at (212) 727-8110. I’ll get there by about 5:30 pm and I plan to go out for dinner somewhere afterwards. If you plan to be there, please drop me a note at dreams@planetwaves.net. I’m planning to bring my dad, who is a nuclear industry public relations specialist.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I’ve been thinking about endurance; it’s not a happy word in this current sociopolitical climate. It conjures up visions of trudging onward, making do, standing against the storm. It often assumes that those who endure have some magical capacity to withstand any perceived loss or happenstance, no matter how grim, and emerge unscathed; that they are muscled and boned a bit differently than much of frail humanity, that they have an extra bit of oomph that the rest of us don’t possess. Stuff and nonsense, of course; we’re all configured with everything we need to endure and even overcome any slings or arrows aimed our way. We’re not just bodies, not just a tumbled collection of wounded emotions and thwarted desires; we are all — as Dannion Brinkley, who survived three Near Death Experiences and has written convincingly of the wisdom he received during those events, puts it — powerful spiritual entities.

The Strongest Souls. Photo by Accretion Point.

To assume that endurance requires glass-half-empty experiences that limit and diminish us pits us against the wisdom of our own life path; who can say what is random occurrence and what we’ve put in our own way to stumble upon, to overcome, to grow through? Kahlil Gibran tells us that, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Only a person who has endured and understood the journey can say, as did he, “The deeper sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.” In my own life, the most difficult periods plowed the ground for harvest; the greatest sorrows led me not to answers that would lull me back to sleep but to questions that pushed me forward into exploration and expanded awareness. Those who endure gather strength in increments, like mighty redwoods that add another thin ring year after year, decade after decade; or the grains of sand that slowly but surely become magnificent pearls.

Twenty-five years ago I sustained a personal trauma, a turning point in my life that set me back hard. A rather dim friend, studying to be a psychologist, told me that she ‘saw the Phoenix arising’ in me; that I’d be fine. Soon after, my Phoenix found itself in intensive care with viral pneumonia in both lungs; I lapsed into a coma, saw the Light, received a gentle chiding about my use of personal will and was sent back to get on with it. NDE? Assuredly. Smooth sailing on the other side of such an experience? Of course not. Brinkley, who was twice struck by lightning and suffers pain to this day, begged to be released from his body and allowed to remain on the Other Side on the occasion of all three NDEs. Our human ego, our tangled emotions, our limited self-perception are all 3D attributes that both define us and thwart our progress; endurance requires real internal work, a daily flexing of spiritual muscle that is grist for the mill of the Gods, grinding slowly and growing our beauty.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

 

 

We’ve come a long way since the Apollo program, when we would loft a rocket into space, land gently on the Moon, plant a flag, collect a few rocks and take some pictures for use on MTV. Today, NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was scheduled to slam into the Cabeus crater, located close to the Moon’s south pole, at 7:31 am ET.

The best places to explore on the Moon may be the toughest to land on. So we’d really like to know exactly what’s there before we try. Punching the Moon in the nose is one way to find out! Credit: Tom Lucas & Dave Brody.

The event was broadcast live on NASA TV, which will doubtless replay the video more often than a Billy Mays commercial in heavy rotation. If that’s not enough, you can watch it over and over on your iPhone.

So what’s up with this intentional crash landing? Well, the “punch in the nose,” as the wags at SpaceNews.com put it, will enable NASA to determine what’s in the soil of the lunar surface at that point. The way you do that is you make a big plume of dust and then you analyze it using spectrometry, among other things. All this talk about water up there — well, we just had to dive in.

Knowing what resources are there will help NASA determine where to establish landing sites in the long run, should they return men to the Moon. And who knows, maybe there’s gold; and we’re going to need a place for a really big prison colony; and a staging area for deep space travel; and so on.

According to NASA’s website for LCROSS, the exercise is a two-stage operation. First, a rocket that the mythically clueless wonders have called Centaur, will slam into the Moon, sending up a debris plume that may reach 10 kilometers in height. Up above, the LCROSS mothership will first photograph the whole thing and stream video directly back to NASA, then pass through the plume and analyze the debris. What’s NASA looking for, specifically? Signs of water and “water fragments” (OH molecules), as well as salts, clays, minerals and organic bits and bobs.

Then the mothership herself will strike the surface, creating a second debris plume. That will be examined by the Hubble Space Telescope — as well as, NASA hopes, hundreds or thousands of backyard astronomers with 10-inch or larger telescopes, which should be capable of spotting the action from planetside. Once is never enough.

 

One of the most alluring things about space is that because of its very vastness, it’s possible for truly enormous things to effectively be hidden in plain sight for centuries, even millennia. Then, one day, some clever stargazers think of a new way to look at part of the sky that’s been stared at countless times before, and suddenly something truly magnificent appears.

An enormous ring discovered in infrared light by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The yellow line shows the orbit of the moon Phoebe, which circles through the newfound ring, represented in tan. Both Phoebe and the outer ring orbit at an angle of 27 degrees from the main ring plane (they also orbit in the opposite direction of the other rings and most of the moons). Credit: NASA.

This week, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working with the Spitzer Space Telescope, identified a new ring around Saturn — a ring so vast that its size is hard to comprehend.

The inside edge of this ring is some 3.7 million miles away from Saturn, and the ring itself is 7.4 million miles wide. It’s not very dense; at 20 particles per cubic centimeter, you couldn’t walk around on it. That’s reason it wasn’t spotted sooner. Within it orbits Saturn’s moon Phoebe, which is one of the planet’s most distant satellites; both Phoebe and the ring, in fact, orbit in the opposite direction of the rest of the moons and rings.

The ring was found by University of Virginia-Charlottesville astronomer Anne Verbiscer and her colleagues, who used the Spitzer Telescope’s infrared imaging system to identify the giant ring. According to the JPL website’s article on the discovery, infrared was the key to finding the ring.

“The ring would be difficult to see with visible-light telescopes,” the article reads. “Its particles are diffuse and may even extend beyond the bulk of the ring material all the way in to Saturn and all the way out to interplanetary space. The relatively small numbers of particles in the ring wouldn’t reflect much visible light, especially out at Saturn where sunlight is weak.”

Added Verbiscer: “The particles are so far apart that if you were to stand in the ring, you wouldn’t even know it.” Of course, he means “float around in the ring.”

Another Saturnian mystery may have been solved by the discovery of the new ring, as well. Back in 1671, the astronomer discovered a Saturn moon he named Iapetus, and several years later he noted the moon has a giant dark spot on it. Now it’s suspected that the spot was created by impacts of materials from the ring on Iapetus, “slamming the icy moon like bugs on a windshield,” according to JPL.

The first thing most astrology readers are going to ask is: what is the implication for astrology? My reply: the solar system, which makes up most of our symbolic set of references for the astrology we do, is a work in progress. We hardly know anything about it.

It’s remarkable that this discovery is announced just as Mercury was making a conjunction to Saturn, in aspect to the Galactic Core (see Wednesday’s daily astrology post). This is a message from Saturn. And it’s about the galactic nature of Saturn (for eons, thought to be the outermost planet): this ring has the distinct image of a galaxy, a far-flung plane of dust.

The ring also does something a little like Pluto or a Centaur planet: it intersects the plane of Saturn’s traditionally referenced rings at an angle. Pluto’s angle of intersection the Sun’s equator is about 11 degrees. This ring intersects at about 27 degrees. So there’s a mystery. If some force is holding the other rings in place where they are, some other previously unknown force is holding this one in place. That raises more questions than it provides answers, though one implication is that this is how Saturn works in astrology as well. It has another influence than the one we think it has.

 

The Indonesian island of Sumatra, devastated by a powerful earthquake Sept. 30, was dealt further blows in the following days as huge mudslides ripped through some areas. According to The New York Times, as many as 600 people were buried by landslides after the earthquake, taking the estimated death toll well past the 1,100 previously reported.

On Thursday, Typhoon Melor continued its creep northward through Japan’s minor islands, heading for the main land masses and threatening heavy rains and high winds. The Tokai region was expected to receive more than 15 inches of rain Thursday, prompting Toyota to shut down its manufacturing plants in the area around the city of Nagoya, Japan’s third-largest city.

Meanwhile, in India a week of flooding has left more than 250 people dead in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, located in the country’s southern region. More than 2 million people fled their homes during the inundation, MSNBC reports.

And Southern California was on the good side of a cold snap this week, as temperatures dipped 10 to 15 degrees below normal  and winds died down — all boons to firefighters who were working to contain the 7,100-acre Sheep Fire that had been raging through the mountains, timber, and chaparral — not to mention communities — in the San Bernardino National Forest.

 

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, October 9, 2009, #787 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Most people strive for stability in their relationships, which is good until it gets boring. Elements of your work life may be influencing you to seek a little jolt of excitement elsewhere, but be gentle on the people you love. You have an opportunity to see how far your insecurities will allow you to go. You’ve been sensitive lately; the past seems very close by, and your fears seem easily provoked. Confidence is most meaningful to dial in when you’re feeling less than confident, which is one of those emotional paradoxes that works brilliantly when you get a handle on it. Remember, if you’re feeling fear, give the fear a voice. Pay attention if you notice yourself shaking things up for their own sake. True intimacy happens on the uncertain edge, and you’re close to it now.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You seem to be doing a lot of negotiating with yourself about whether to take a risk on something; though what you’ve left out of the conversation is a real assessment of what that risk actually is. It’s too easy and entirely popular to think, This is too risky, but rarely do we ask what we have to lose. This question would help whether we have plenty to lose or, as is more likely the case for you now, very little to lose by allowing yourself to experiment. Well, the one thing you stand to lose is a false belief that someone else is in charge of your life. Nobody wants to think this; usually it comes up in the form of excuses that all cook down to some version of, “If I try this, my mother won’t approve of me.” And then?

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Mercury is about to become free of its retrograde in Virgo, a transit that has made progress seem like a thing of the past. The process has certainly given you plenty to meditate on, and you may be wondering if you’re any better for having gone through so much mental and emotional introspection. I suggest that you not try to make up your mind about this right now; try to avoid judging anything at all. Simply move forward and see where you end up in a few weeks. For a while you’ll still be covering what seems like old territory, doing some things over and rethinking history yet again. You’ll notice the difference vividly when you arrive in new territory, and that’s the time to keep your focus on what is new and what you’re creating.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
The question “What is a self?” is an old one, yet few people have answered it for themselves. If we ask what is a man or what is a woman, the answer is part biological fact and part social concept; a construction with no truth anywhere but in our minds — and thus open to interpretation. You’re at a point where it’s become necessary to let go of a model or concept of who you think you are. Yet it would be wise of you not to confuse this with who you actually are. The past can be a tyrant, all the more so because we tend to be out of contact with it, or discount its influence. There’s a way to deal with the past effectively: with total awareness. If you do that, you can trust that the choices you make now will indeed have the power to help you change your life.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Who hasn’t looked at a cat and wondered what’s going on in that mind? In the secret life of Leo, you’re harder on yourself than nearly anyone recognizes. I reckon that in the past week you’ve had a revelation or two about why that doesn’t work, and as the next couple of weeks progress, you’ll be gifted with some ideas about a better policy by which you can run your life. I’m not suggesting that you suspend your ethics, which serve you well; I am proposing that most self-improvement is less about ‘working on yourself’ and more about making up your mind about what you want and what is right for you. Contrary to some astrological rumors you are not a selfish person by nature, though you need to be just selfish enough to take care of yourself well.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You often torment yourself with the details, but not like this. However, you do seem to be working your way toward the conclusion of a process that has lingered since midsummer. I would remind you that you’re not working on anything but yourself. Here’s a little exercise that I learned from uber-Virgo Brad Blanton, author of Radical Honesty. Every time you say the word “it,” get rid of the T. That would mean that “it’s difficult” translates to “I am difficult.” “It’s expensive” would translate to “I am expensive” and “It’s nice out” would become “I feel good today.” As you play this game, you’ll start to notice how much projecting you, me and the rest of us do. Once you do that, you can start to claim your reality as something you create or at least witness on your own terms.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
We tend to view having a strategy as a good thing, and sometimes it is. Yet sometimes having a plan isolates us from being spontaneous, which is one of those things that allow for authenticity and intimacy. The fact that you’re being so conscious of your plans seems to be born out of a missing sense of your own existence. True, you’ve been dragged through quite a lot the past week, but that hasn’t given you an actual sense of who you are; though hopefully it’s offered a clue as to what’s missing. Each time you find yourself making a strategy, pause and ask yourself what you really want. If you find yourself being mentally defensive and trying to ward off dangers that don’t exist yet, stop and ask again. Let the answers guide you.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
You seem to be enmeshed in an old belief that you’re trying to get rid of and thus improve your life. Some make it sound like it’s the easiest thing in the world: change your beliefs and change your life! Most of us know it’s not that easy. Usually, we have no clue what we believe, much less why. If you look honestly, you may discover that you’re hooked in emotionally rather than intellectually; and that the root comes from a hidden pattern that you picked up from your family, which is in turn rooted in religion. I would propose that most religious beliefs are emotional rather than spiritual in nature. Whether they are true doesn’t matter. That we feel better for a moment is the goal, and it’s one that’s no longer serving you.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Jupiter, the planet associated with your sign, is sitting close to a halt in Aquarius. This tells me that an idea is getting ready to either start moving, or come to fruition. Anyone involved in the actual manifestation of ideas, which is probably something you attempt on a regular basis and even succeed at, knows that they seem to take on a life of their own. To the extent that life has included a lot of sleeping in, walking backwards and irritating your friends, it now seems ready to include progress, utility and a bit of fun. There’s not a rush here — some of the best stuff on its way, especially in the concept/project department, develops over the next six months. All of it grows from what you’ve been up to lately, and what you are doing now. Therefore, take one step at a time, and the occasional opportunity for a leap.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
If you perceive yourself in danger, remember that you’re protected. This protection won’t get you too far into a string of felonies, but it will support and embrace you when you know you’re doing the right thing for yourself and for the people you love. Herein lies a slippery matter, though: what if there’s a conflict between the two? What if doing the right thing for yourself hurts others? The truth is, most of the time it does not. Something else is going on: not only are you being given an opportunity to see your fears for what they are, you have an opportunity to see your strengths for what they can do for you. Remember, as so many do not, that there’s a difference between a fear and a crisis.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Someone just pointed out to me that one manifestation of the Age of Aquarius (a very long age lasting 2,000 years, and a relatively short one of lots of planetary energy coming through your birth sign in our current era of history) is that everyone has to endorse everyone else or nobody believes anything is valid. We know this is more ridiculous evidence of how much trouble many people have thinking for themselves, a trait so rare few people even have a clue. I would pose two questions this week: one is how can you take a ride on this property of existence in a constructive way? Second, can you bring awareness to your own struggle in thinking for yourself? Or put another way, have you signed up anyone to run your life?

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
This has not been an easy stretch of your life in certain close relationships, but you’re no worse for wear. In fact, the clarity you’ve gained has been worth all the effort. You may be lacking the angst and the drama of recent months, but that’s not a substitute for happiness. You can handle a crisis, but I assure you that you would not prefer them if you had an alternative, and you’re now being invited to give yourself precisely that. You are about to enter new territory in your personal and sexual relationships. The way to maximize this astrology is to look for points of agreement you share with people, and work from there. If you have similar ideas about food, eat together. If you have values in common about money, do business. If you share common ground about sex, create some sex.

BY ERIC FRANCIS

Today’s bonus horoscope is our third monthly for the Libra cycle of the Sun. Imagine reading it in one of those big thick fashion magazines, only down in Australia. We’ll be back with another Tuesday bonus edition next week, but it won’t be a horoscope. See you with a regular edition Friday! –efc

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Keep two ideas side by side: Leadership and Relationship. You’re in an unusual position of authority, but your strength is in your ability to negotiate and create agreements that benefit everyone. If you’re looking for a way to get attention, remember that passion is what actually inspires people. Express your vitality in an original way and very nearly everyone will respond.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You’re discovering that your old beliefs don’t stand up to the test of the current version of your life, or of the world. This may be the best news you’ve ever had. Once you make friends with this, you will see it as potential and nothing less. Make sure your new beliefs leave plenty of room for achievements that you would have decided were impossible just a few seasons ago.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You’re now free to take on your more desirable creative passions. During the past couple of months you’ve thought them over, and I trust made some decisions about what’s important to you. You’re holding two keys in your hands: one of them says use what you know; the other one says that true creativity involves taking a risk, a leap or a guess.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You will have a rare glimpse into the innermost feelings of someone close to you during the next few weeks; and more meaningfully, they will know you can really sense what’s going on with them. Stay open and give honest feedback, but know that your ability to resonate with their feelings is the thing that will gain and keep their precious trust.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You’re seeing the end of so many financial woes, and I hope by now you’re figuring out that their source involved too much focus on details and not enough on ideas. Be clear with yourself just how much wealth or independence you think it will take for you to feel safe and secure. Then get yourself to that level and notice how you feel. From there, you will have options.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Saturn is about to make its exit from your birth time, and when you look back on this extended phase of your life, you will notice one thing, really: you finally came to terms with who you are. Now that you have that significant benefit, it’s time to put it to work. It’s your privilege to achieve what can only be done by a confident person.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
You have had enough being alone, or feeling alone. With any luck you’ve used this time in your life to get to know yourself, and to embrace the mysterious nature of your own existence. I also trust that you’ve faced a few fears that persisted far too long. What happens next will demonstrate one thing, at least: it was worth the wait, and the effort.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
You are an introspective person by nature, and sometimes you wish you were not. I suggest you prepare for an extended phase of life when your primary goal, more than ever before, becomes getting to know yourself. The specific task you will master involves how to maintain your balance in your deepest relationships, a skill that we all could use.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
You know it’s time to get serious about money. It’s been that time for a while. The problem seems to be that your best ideas don’t seem to have a direct connection to cash flow. That, I assure you, is a matter of applying the same creativity that created the ideas in the first place. It’s also a matter of believing in yourself. Try it and see.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
You’re about to have your first real test of where your new definition of yourself meets up with your highest vision of achievement. Years from now, remember one thing: I did not say ‘second highest’. In the weeks and months to come, aspire to the one thing that you know is at the very top of your priority list, and which has been for a while.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
To most people, I can say: only you know who you really are. To an Aquarian I would say: who you are is so complex and so deeply concealed that you often have a challenging time figuring it out yourself. You’re about to glace into an excellent mirror, taking the form of one particular decision you make that will reveal your true identity.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
You have a gift that many people strive for: the ability to experience your sexuality and your spiritual nature as one thing. If you imagine that most of your friends don’t quite have this skill, the strange things they do and the odd struggles that grow out of their choices will at least seem easier to grasp. Remember: you can do things differently.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Overnight Saturday to Sunday is the Aries Full Moon. That’s the Moon in Aries opposite the Sun in Libra. Aries is the sign of “I am” and Libra is the sign of “we are.” This lunation is about the meeting point of individuals and the relationships we encounter. The tune of this Moon as I’m calling it is: how can we be ourselves in relationships, a whole person relating to another whole person, instead of being half of a couple?

The many faces of marriage.

As Saturn works its way toward Libra (making its first ingress in just four weeks), relationships will be a defining theme of the next couple of years, so this is just a warm-up.

Saturn in Libra brings in the Aries Point (Saturn will soon oppose the first degree of the zodiac, as discussed in last Friday’s edition), so the conversation occurs at the astrological nexus of our private lives and public discourse. Aries is all about self, self-awareness and on the dark side, selfishness, but then by some cosmic miracle it backs into a very wide dimension where we’re al connected.

With planets gathering directly on the Aries Point (Jupiter conjunct Uranus, next spring) or in aspect to it (Saturn square Pluto beginning in November), the subject will be big news and it will come with many twists, innovations and surprising developments.

Even in the most basic terms, Saturn in Libra will help us clear the decks and identify our most fundamental values; emphasize the importance of human contact; and give us a way to think about the concepts by which we structure our personal lives. Saturn in Libra may serve to highlight our phobia about talking openly about actual relational themes; Saturn almost always takes us into fearful territory for the purpose of getting over ourselves.

Yet when you combine it with an opposition from Jupiter (expansion, culture, ideas, benefit) and Uranus (innovation, invention, revolution) on the Aries Point (the personal is political) we have an image of events driven by many people waking up and discovering who they are. And this will always express itself in relationships, which will stretch and crack open and grow in order to handle the surge of individualistic energy.

A dance for gay youth sponsored by Openarms Youth Project in Tulsa, OK. Photo by Brent Humphreys for The New York Times.

Warming up the topic, this past Sunday, The New York Times Magazine did its annual article on sex: Coming Out in Middle School. The writer visited the lives of young people who were exploring some version of queer, and also talked to their heterosexual allies in school organizations known as Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs).

From this article, you find out that many places, it’s easier for kids to be out of the closet than it was 10 years ago. Middle school is notoriously brutal on sexuality. There’s so much fear and judgment mixed with this phase of hormone overdrive that most people never get over it. Once those junior high school social patterns set in, they usually keep their grip till well past retirement age. In all, the article was optimistic, while pointing out that even in cool places like San Francisco, some students still fear judgment, while in supposedly backwater places like Oklahoma there can be surprisingly enlightened values.

It’s great to see this kind of progress. I attended one of the most progressive, experimental high schools in the country — John Dewey High School in Brooklyn — and by the time I graduated in 1981 there was not one out gay male. There were some presumed lesbians but they weren’t differentiated from feminists. There was absolutely no discussion of homosexuality when every other social or political issue was open season.

What the article did not note is that the conversation of sex within school walls or the school system is set in the context of abstinence-only sex education, which incidentally got $50 million more in federal funding this week. Begun in 1981, abstinence “education” informs students that their only choice is to abstain from sex until monogamous, heterosexual marriage. In other words, not only have schools refused to offer sex education to students, many have provided an ongoing tirade of disinformation, often disturbing in its specific attacks on gay, bi, lesbian and questioning students and for its intolerance of masturbation.

This attempt at repression through abstinence indoctrination seems to have created a generation of young people for whom experimenting with and exploring both sexual identity and gender identity is more or less normal.

Victoria Woodhull, namesake of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, was the first woman to run for president, and was a proponent of what she called free love.

I was curious for some theories how this kind of progress bubbled up from a culture that’s been told over and over that the only good sex is no sex. So I called up Carol Queen, a sex educator and board member of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, to get her theory. As a student in 1975, she founded GAYouth, one of the first youth organizations in the country in her school in Eugene, Oregon.

“While abstinence-only is the law of the land for youth, all those young people for the most part have access to the Internet,” she said Thursday. “That’s the real game changer here. People who are getting in touch with their sexuality and feel the need for some support go online first and get it, and understand that they may have some opportunities to come out, to organize, to find like-minded others in their own communities, and that’s what I think is really driving this phenomenon in the wacky and repressive and sinister world of abstinence education.

“Here’s why I say sinister. I say sinister because it’s a project of the political right to refuse information to young people who need it. To me that is not okay. I don’t need to give information in an overwhelming way to young people who don’t feel like they need it. But refusing information to people who need it is a problem. And it’s made young people band together to get that information, to reach out and get that information.”

She said that kids tend to make stuff up, to tackle the question of what to do with their sexual desires, which “the kind of repression that is being attempted with this policy” encourages.

“What’s shocking is that communities both more liberal and more conservative across the nation have been forced to, and in many cases, have chosen to buy into this, because they don’t want to take the responsibility for giving real information to youth. So that leaves youth hanging on their own. I say this as someone who saw the effects of this as a young person activist myself in the 1970s. I saw this problem in my own life and the lives of my friends and was activist around it.”

The Times piece described the emergence of Gay-Straight Alliances in many high schools.

“The whole phenomenon of the Gay-Straight Alliance is a really important one,” Queen said. “The notion of this is that youth across the sexual orientation spectrum are going to find these issues relevant. It’s a nascent political support organization, in a way. But it’s also a social support network of students who don’t feel as though queer is horrible. Plenty of straight students want support for more progressive sexual notions and are probably attracted to organizations for that reason.”

Stevie Jay at a recent performance. He is challenging the definitions between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’. Click for video.

Stevie Jay is a stage performer whose one-man shows take on issues of sex and sex culture. He met Chelsea one day down in Florida, and she sent him my way.

In his performances, he uses wit, charm and common sense to seduce his audiences outside their comfort zone. He’s advocating getting rid of, or going beyond, the concepts of gay, queer, straight and their cousins, feeling that their use is basically finished. He just performed five nights in Providence, RI.

“When I was in Providence, I met men who were members of various social groups for gay men, e.g. yoga classes for gay men, rowing clubs for gay men, etc.,” Jay wrote to me last night. “It’s been said a thousand times, but apparently it can’t be said enough: it’s not as if ‘straight men’ get together and form clubs and organizations based on their sexual orientation, like ‘Yoga Classes for Straight Men’, or ‘Straight Men’s Rowing Club’. Unless the activity is sex, is there really a reason to group yourself with other people based on sex? It’s not like sucking cock or eating pussy is an indicator of one’s personal integrity or represents one’s deepest values. It’s just sex. It’s like food. We all need to eat. I like to eat pizza and you like to eat hamburgers. End of subject. Are you telling me that we’ve got to have a freaking symposium? Pizza eaters vs. hamburger eaters — we need to practice tolerance. I don’t get it!”

Reading this, I called him up and made sure he understood that before there was the modern, trendy version of identity politics, there were gay men organizing in Greenwich Village because their hangouts were being raided by the cops; one could get arrested just for walking in the door. Just like there aren’t yoga classes for straight men, there also aren’t bands of gay cops raiding bars frequented by heterosexuals, clobbering everyone for sport.

He gets it; he was in his young 20s living in Miami when Anita Bryant commenced the modern anti-queer movement by advocating the repeal of a local ordinance in Dade County, Florida, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. She teamed up with Jerry Falwell on this project, and anti-gay hatred reached a new peak. He remembers people screaming anti-gay comments at him from car windows. His feeling is that now, identify politics merely divides people, rather than fostering any kind of unity.

“I feel like this is a major blind spot — especially among folks who tend to be progressive and liberal in their thinking,” he said in his email. “So much gnashing of teeth about equal rights, calling for the dismantling of heteronormalcy while simultaneously using the word ‘queer’ to describe people who are same-sex oriented (sexually). The word ‘queer’ means ‘odd’, ‘weird’, ‘abnormal’, — and there are untold numbers of self-proclaimed ‘queer people’ who passionately campaign for the mainstream world to accept them and stop regarding queer people as abnormal. Great — you’ve got a neon sign above your head that says weirdo and you’re angry because people regard you as a weirdo, and you demand to be treated as normal and not weird. It’s a lot to ask.”

Start of polyamory contingent at San Francisco Pride 2004. Photo by Pretzelpaws, courtesy of Wikpedia. If you ask me, this kind of political display is ridiculous and accomplishes nothing except familiarize people with what they must think is a new kind of plastic.

He continued, “Men love men and women love women, and that’s a reality of being human. And to take that simple reality and turn it into a ‘thing’ via giving it a label adds all kinds of weight and significance and existential/social/interpersonal conflict that are nothing more than mental constructs and have nothing to do with the reality of simply loving someone or simply being attracted to someone.”

His implication is that the queer movement isolates us from intimacy rather than offers us to it — which is the purpose of most social games. Usually, closeness to others is the last thing people want, despite their claims. More often, motives like tribalism, being part of an in-group, being seen as better than others or the need to be a victim take precedence over actual bonding or the sharing of contact. Games and pastimes are put to work to take up our bandwidth and guarantee arm’s-length relationships with one another.

I have been having a similar conversation within the polyamory community, in which I’ve been active as a writer and presenter since 1997. Polyamory means the capacity or practice of having committed relationships with more than one person, but with everyone consenting to the experience. I’ve been encouraging the leaders of the poly movement that I know to stop using the label, and to cast their message in terms of something of benefit to all people who are in relationships or want to be. For years, I’ve presented at poly conferences thinking, the people who say they’re monogamous are the ones who would benefit the most from this information. And it’s a much larger audience.

The great thing about the label “polyamorous” is that people who feel that way, on hearing the word for the first time, can discover that there are other people like them. I’ve heard over and over again the same story: “I learned that word and I discovered that I’m okay.”

And baby makes… four: (from left) Laurel Avery, Roland Combes and Juliette Siegfried with their baby, Maya. They were recently featured in an article on polyamory in the Independent. Polyamory has got a good bit of press this year, including a special about how trendy it is shown on MTV last month.

The problem is that it becomes both a label and a club. Unless you live in a city large enough to have specifically poly events, such as pot-luck dinners (a common kind of poly get-together), announcing you’re polyamorous pretty much guarantees you’re not going to get a date. You say poly and the person listening to you hears cheater.

Since few people bother considering the ethical issues of relationships, it’s outrageous to think that someone who admits to being nonmonogamous would be the person to open up the topic — however, it’s true; the discussion of ethics and sensitivity is easily half of the polyamorous discussion.

My message to the poly club, and the monogamous club, which I recently offered in a French television interview:

There are relationships and there are communities. All relationships are one on one, no matter what the style. If you have three boyfriends, you must relate to each of them individually. The basis of any relationship is trust and communication. These subjects will come up, by name or not, in any relationship, no matter what the style.

Relationships all exist in the context of community. Communities either support relationships or stress them; relationships either support community, or isolate us from it.

Many monogamous relationships isolate people. One cannot often be monogamous and also be available for new relationship experiences, whether sexual or not. Often what we say, feel and do comes under the tyranny of jealousy, of which we rarely question the validity or cause, or note the damage that it does. Many monogamous relationships compel people to lie about their reality, since the illusion of exclusivity has to be maintained. But we don’t generally have the communication skills or self-esteem to have a real conversation, even if we want to. And most relationships are governed by the fear of being abandoned rather than the pleasure of loving.

The underlying issue is honesty: about what we want, feel, need, and have done. Only the truth is erotic; love is real to the extent that we allow ourselves to be real. Relationships are either inherently honest or dishonest. Everyone loves more than one person, but the question is, can we admit it, or does that fact have to isolate us from the people we care about? And why do we have to hide? Are we using the relationship experience to cover up our insecurities, or is it a journey toward resolving them?

I turn around, and it’s fear. I turn around again, and it’s love.

Yours & truly,

The Aries Full Moon of Oct. 4, 2009 takes place overnight from Saturday to Sunday in the United States and early morning Sunday in the UK and Europe. Incidentally, that is St. Francis Day (when you can bring your llama, cat or dog to church some places). Here is the chart, with a few details. Note the opposition of the Moon and Sun across Aries and Libra; that’s what makes it the Full Moon.The Moon and Sun are always in opposite signs and houses for the exact Full Moon. It is an opposition or the peak of a cycle.

Chart for the Full Moon, cast for Kingston, NY. The ascendant will be Leo through much of the northeastern United States and move toward Cancer in the western states. The Full Moon is overnight Saturday to Sunday in most United States time zones, occurring at 2:10 am in NY, and 11:10 pm in Los Angeles.

In this chart, the Sun appears in the 3rd house and the Moon appears in the 9th house. Remember, the houses will change depending on where you are in the world; to see the chart for your area, you need to cast it using your own coordinates. However, the positions of the planets don’t change; only the positions of the angles (such as the ascendant) and the houses.

You can see the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune on the 7th house (middle of chart, right hand side), an appropriate placement for the themes of today’s article, which focuses on queer youth movements and polyamory going beyond their old definitions and social identities. Whatever the style relationship we chose or need to choose, they all have one thing in common.

We also see a lot of Virgo activity in this chart, on the lower left: another triple conjunction of Venus, plus newly-direct Mercury (still slow and powerful) and Saturn. These three planets oppose Uranus in Pisces (top, toward the right, in blue) which is conjunct the asteroid Juno. This meeting of Uranus and Juno could be summed up as “reinventing marriage.”

Mars (symbol from men’s bathroom) is close to the south node of the Moon, which is about the need or the effort to old emotional rage and violence, and indeed negative emotional habits of any kind. If I were reading this chart cast locally for a specific question, the 12th house would suggest that the habits were both hidden and rooted in fear.

Mars is closely trine Uranus in Pisces, which suggests an opening for what I’ll call ‘spiritual’ energy — higher vibration energy from a nonphysical or not conventionally physical source. Mars has squared Eris (a glyph that looks a lot like Mars), which was exact midweek. Therefore, this is a separating square, suggesting that the subject matter is in the past — which fits the theme of Mars on the south node: we see something here about resolving old anger towards women.

While we’re on the subject of gender, Venus is in Virgo: both thoughtful and self-critical. There is the capacity for logic if you can let go of that thing about striving for perfection by means of picking every last zit.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

While many in the Northern Hemisphere welcomed the equinox and the arrival of autumn, recent weeks have arrived with an unusual cluster of natural events around the world. These events coincide with unusual Aries Point activity, astrology that has a way of rippling into the lives of many people.

People made their way through a rubble-strewn street in Padang. Photo: Dita Alangkara/Associated Press.

Wednesday night, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world. According to published reports, by Thursday night it was known that more than 1,2000 people had been killed in the city of Padang and nearby areas, which were just 30 miles from the epicenter. Sumatra was the scene of the infamous 2004 earthquake, which had an epicenter 155 miles off the coast of Banda Aceh, on the northern end of the island. An estimated 130,000 people were killed in the 2004 magnitude 9.2 quake and subsequent tsunamis.

One day before the Sumatra quake, another earthquake in the South Pacific sent tsunami waves crashing into the Samoas. Thursday that the tally of the dead had risen to at least 160 and property damage was widespread, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The magnitude 8.0 quake struck off Samoa at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 17:48 GMT) Tuesday. The islands soon were engulfed by four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high that reached up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland.

The Samoas lie about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, ust east of the international date line. Some of the islands are an unincorporated American territory.

Meanwhile, the second tropical cyclone in less than a week is bearing down on the Philippines. Typhoon Parma threatens the island nation in the western Pacific Ocean with catastrophic flooding, mudslides and destructive winds tonight into Saturday. While part of the large typhoon will stay offshore, the northeastern part of Luzon province is expected to be hard hit.

Just days ago, Tropical Storm Ketsana brought massive flooding to Manila, the Philippine capital, following close to 20 inches of rain in some areas.

September was also a month of heavy rains in the Southeastern United States, especially in Georgia. Devastating flooding resulted, and images of the impact of rising waters can be seen at the website of the Citizen-Times of Asheville, NC.

Meanwhile, in Australia there were both floods and fires in the past weeks, as well as the gigantic dust storm that swept in from the Outback to cover Sydney, coloring the skies (and everything else) in red and orange.

As for the adage that “everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it,” British astrophysicist Piers Corbyn predicts extreme weather events around the globe using “predictable aspects of particle and magnetic effects from the Sun.” Check out his September 2009 forecast on YouTube.

One wonders what wonders Guy Laliberté will come up with while floating around the International Space Station for the next week.

Guy Laliberté playing at the $25,000 World Poker Tour – No Limit Hold’em Championship. Photo by FlipChip / LasVegasVegas.com.

If you don’t know his name, it’s quite possible you know his work: he founded and owns Cirque du Soleil, the innovative Canadian circus troupe that started humbly as a group of street performers and now has permanent installations around the globe. Laliberté, now a billionaire who according to published reports paid $35 million for this trip into space, is the mastermind behind the Cirque, which has virtually nothing in common with P.T. Barnum’s three-ring affairs: for example, animals (with the possible rare exception of dogs) are not used.

In fact, perhaps the best word to describe Cirque du Soleil’s unique shows is “otherworldly,” which makes Laliberté’s orbital escapade quite apropos. His performers sail above the ground on gossamer wings of billowing fabric, or exhibit bizarre behavior that could easily be described as “alien.” Anyone who has watched one of Cirque’s themed performances would likely be little surprised the boss has ridden a rocket into space. His employees almost certainly wouldn’t be.

Laliberté, born in 1959, has a Virgo Sun clustered with the Moon, Venus and Pluto. He is a technician. However, his conjunction of Mercury and Uranus in Leo make him an innovator and showman.

But what does it mean to have this man, this literal clown, this juggling, stilt walking, fire breathing, unapologetically unreformed street performer on the International Space Station?

For the future of manned space flight, it might be a very good thing. After all, the Golden Age of space exploration was characterized by a sense of wonder. The man who now floats in orbit over our heads has both the creative genius and the outreach (Cirque’s permanent shows in Las Vegas draw 9,000 people every night) that scientific agencies like NASA lack. Imagine if he translates his time on the International Space Station into a new show that hundreds of thousands of people would see in just a few years, then Cirque du Soleil, the Circus of the Sun, could literally put stars back in the public’s eyes again.

And as for the people who aspire to one day reach for those same stars, they have a new mantra: “Hey, if going to space is so easy even a clown can do it, why can’t I?”

Brain = Computer. It’s a pretty simple equation, one kids have been learning for decades now, and it does offer up a pretty clear idea of the basic function of that marvelous, squishy mass of stuff inside our skulls.

Well, the website PhysOrg.com is reporting that one new study hints that Brain = Wireless Hub might be more accurate.

Pre/post central sulcus. Image: PhsyOrg.

Here’s the gist: At any given time, your brain is the destination of an incredible number of signals. Some of those signals offer conflicting information, or suggest courses of action that are mutually exclusive — the article at PhysOrg suggests grabbing a hot platter, where one signal is telling you to drop it before your fingers burn, while the other is telling you not to drop it because your dinner will wind up all over the floor.

The article quotes Ezequiel Morsella, an assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University and the study’s lead author, who says this means the brain is less like a single computer and more like “a set of computers that control different tasks, consciousness is the WiFi network that allows different parts of the brain to talk to each other and decide which action ‘wins’ and is carried out.”

Furthermore, PhsyOrg reported, “The study finds that we are only aware of competing actions that involve skeletal muscles that voluntarily move parts of the body, the bicep for example, rather than the muscles in the digestive tract or the iris of the eye.”

There is actually a Fun Home Brain Experiment you can perform along these lines. It’s called a Stroop Task, and it works like this: Print the words GREEN and YELLOW, one over the other, on a piece of paper (or go to this web site). However, use yellow letters for the word GREEN, and green letters for the word YELLOW. Show it to a friend (because it’s always more fun to experiment on your friends) and ask them to name the color of the top word. There’s a very good chance that instead of saying “yellow,” which is the color of the ink, they’ll say “green,” because they’re conditioned to read the word.

The study was released in this week’s edition of the journal Emotion.

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, October 2, 2009, #786 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
This weekend’s Full Moon is raising questions in a partnership, but just what questions are they? One thing stands out: can you be yourself in a particular relationship? Or is the whole thing a political exercise, wherein you must follow a kind of intellectual choreography? Second, can you extract yourself from these old emotional patterns that you know you need to be free from? Bear in mind that this is a matter of how you’re going to do it, not whether you will do so. Beware of a potential overlap in the issues, which is how your own life story has led you to the situation you’re currently in. Life is not about playing a role in a drama; it’s about having an authentic experience. If you use that as a reference point, the specifics will be more obvious.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You may feel like a partner or colleague is way ahead of you in terms of their ability to express creative energy, and that they make everything look easier than it will ever be for you. If you keep that opinion, you’ll miss the obvious truth that you’re sitting on a well of untapped creative energy. You’ll benefit profoundly from sizing up your relationship to your inspiration, and noticing what you do with it when it arrives. That relationship feels stressed, as if the ideas you entertain are more of a fancy notion than something you can reduce to a practical plan of action. What you may not be remembering is that everyone who already knows how to do something learned how from someone, and then turned that knowledge into experience. This takes consistency and dedication, and more than anything, willingness to learn.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Suddenly you understand something that seemed impossible to sort out just a few days ago. That something would be your own feelings, which were mired in conflicting internal viewpoints and moreover, a sense of self-reproach. If there is anything you’re not forgiving yourself for, now would be the time. You seem to be working through this issue in layers. The last phase involves coming face to face with the part of you that both judges you and is stuck in the past. Whatever you hold in your mind is an idea, and all ideas are subject to change. What you may not have figured out yet is that you are an idea, though throughout your life many people have tried to have a hand in shaping you. It’s time to value your own opinion about yourself above all others.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
We hear the word “proactive” a lot, and today is a good day to talk about what it means. Simply: setting up the present so that you increase the likelihood of the future that you want. Opportunities are opening up with this weekend’s Full Moon, and your job is to remove from your path any obstacle that you can perceive. Look straight at the future you want to create. Be bold and tell yourself what it is, going further than describing it in general terms. What comes your way will surprise you and is outside the scope of my vision, but it’s clear that doors you didn’t even know existed will be opening; contacts you make now can lead you far and wide. Maintain your optimism, do your small part, and recognize a gift when you see it.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
In an odd and unexpected way, your fears will provide you with vital information. This is rarely so; fear tends to be the thing that steers us wrong nearly every time. The key now is to engage yourself in a dialog, though this may feel awkward or unproductive. It will be worth the effort. Primarily, the fear will orient on a concern that you cannot change something rooted in the distant past. Your motivation to do so is an indescribable internal pressure compelling you to make some immediate change, based on a belief that seems to have suddenly reversed. If you can recognize the pressure or anxiety specifically for what it is — that is to say, actual fear rather than one of its candy-coated feelings — you will be able to enter into a direct dialog with yourself. Remember, the real information is veiled. See the veils for what they are, and remove them one at a time.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Though much remains unresolved, one especially difficult point of confusion suddenly worked itself out this week. The added challenge is that you may be looking at what feels like too many options, and relationships you don’t understand. Meanwhile, the most exciting and positive opportunity seems like the most daunting, and the one that will jolt you out of your old tendencies. I suggest you look at every decision you make for the next few months as a point of no return, and consider every chance a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Things have not been moving too quickly for you; they have been moving far too slowly. The main thing that’s been hanging you up is your own idea of who you are. That is about to change fast, and I suggest you go with the flow.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
What if everything in your life, all the improvements you want to make and every issue you’ve identified, hung in the balance on the food that you eat? Any nutritionist would tell you this is true every day of your life, but your astrology says it’s something to consider now. Whether you’re considering how to advance your professional goals or your emotional state (which are related), or how to make your relationship a better place, think food. More to the point, think differently than the food your parents taught you to eat. They didn’t know everything, and a lot has changed since you were a kid. You’re older and you can’t live on your old diet of ramen and ghetto pasta. You need actual flavor and nourishment.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Family or community matters seem to be occupying more bandwidth than they deserve. Yet over the next few weeks as matters begin to work themselves out, you’ll likely agree that it was worth the time and effort. What you’ve accomplished over the past four or five months will help you ensure that you proceed into some truly exciting, challenging times with a clear head. While you may feel responsible for your family and tend to take on responsibility for groups of all kinds, you (thankfully) have a limited leadership role. At the least, you have learned to share responsibility and learned how to tell others they need to look after their own affairs, and look after one another. The key will be heading into the future with no guilt that you’ve promised yourself to take on less of their stuff.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
The primary skill you must bring to your professional activities involves public relations. You have invested your labor, your ideas and your time. Now you need to present yourself to those who have the power to make a difference. For anyone oriented on doing quality work, the process of presenting that work comes with its own challenges. Despite its blustery reputation, Sagittarius faces many of the same challenges the rest of us do when it comes to advancing their own cause. But you do love a challenge, and currently it involves having faith in the quality and value of what you are achieving. The public relations phase is, for you, the harvest phase. I propose, though, that you’ll have a pleasant surprise when you get into the groove: a lot of new ideas coming from the people you talk to.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Be on the lookout for a revelation that will greatly advance your long-term goals. You might discover something that was hidden, or come up with an entirely new idea. Indeed, if there was ever a weekend to draw up the 10-year plan for your life, this is the one. Remember, plans are a sketch that gets you thinking; a space to explore the possibilities; a space to stretch into territory not exclusively defined by what was possible in the past. That is the best value of plans: something to aim for, but not to be trapped within. Once you have a sketch (one page in length will suffice) you can ask yourself if it works for you, and adjust accordingly. But these will not be ordinary plans; rather, something more like channeling your future self.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
You need to live with the tension for just a few more weeks. Mercury has stationed direct and the Full Moon is about to pass; many people will feel better as these events take hold. In terms of direct results, Aquarius is on a bit of a time delay; as we anticipate Jupiter and other planets stationing direct in your birth sign. Before that happens, I suggest you conduct all your conversations with the utmost care and awareness. People who say casual things to you will reveal profound insights into your life. They will spark off inner processes that get you asking the right questions, and provide a mirror for your most difficult-to-see issues. Note all these things carefully. When your life goes into overdrive in a few weeks, you will be very pleased to have this information.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
The Full Moon in Aries this weekend will light up the horizons of your financial potential. Yet any such awareness really comes from a deeper level, which is learning (in the words of my office manager Chelsea’s Pisces husband TJ) how to feel good about yourself. This is the name of the game, fellow fish. When you feel good about yourself, your life goes well. When you don’t, things tend to slide backwards. When you feel beautiful, you get dates. When you don’t, you’re left wondering why not. For you especially, the heart of your cosmic mission needs to start with your emotional environment: the feeling-tone of your existence. Eat well, live well, and invest in yourself. Hold the world to a high standard for how to treat you, and be willing to meet it yourself. The rest will follow.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Earlier this week, we experienced the first Libra equinox with Pluto in Capricorn: Sun square Pluto in the cardinal signs. This is the most recent of many firsts associated with this still-new Pluto transit. In a few weeks Saturn will enter Libra and we’ll experience another major event: Saturn in Libra square Pluto, one of the true stand-out sluggers in the vast aspect repertoire of astrology. If you want to understand the astrology, check out the news: a global climate summit in New York, the G20 erupting into massive protest and certifiably creepy police response, wildfires and floods and the weather going mad — what’s a girl to do?

Not Burning Man. The worst dust storm in decades swept across Eastern Australia on Wednesday, blanketing Sydney and snarling transport as freak conditions also brought earthquakes, giant hailstones and even a tornado. Photo: The Standard.

All of this is associated with the Aries Point — the potent first degree of the zodiac — because the planets involved are poised in the first degrees of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn). That puts them right near the Sun (i.e., conjunct, square or opposite) any time there is a change of seasons; for quite a while, these seasonal turning points will seem bigger than usual, and as they are today, come with concentrations of wide-reaching news that actually matters to us as individuals or feels like it should. For a while, every season will feel like another year; and with each passing season the news becomes more personal.

Even as President Obama was addressing the United Nations climate change summit, the cover of CNN included news of a drowning mother caught in a Georgia flood; wildfires that raged in California and a state of emergency was declared; Sydney, Australia, was swarmed with a dust storm that made it look like a Martian landscape; and Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, caught H1N1.

At the UN, Obama also raised an issue we haven’t heard about in a decade: nuclear nonproliferation. He warned that, having evaded disaster in the Cold War, we now face the threat of regional nuclear arms races (India versus Pakistan; Israel versus Iran) and “loose nukes,” of which there are many as a result of the decomposition of the USSR. [Text, video of Obama’s presentation at this link]

“No longer do we have the luxury of indulging our differences to the exclusion of the work that we must do together,” he said, which gave me an instant aha as I saw him say the words: exploiting differences and conflicts is a way to avoid the important work that we as humanity have to do. This is the game of stopping the conversation about health care reform by accusing someone of being a socialist; on one level, all of our red herring arguments amount to the admission of being too lazy to do anything, or too invested in another values system but not willing to admit it outwardly.

Unsuspecting New Yorker reads the cover of the fake New York Post outside Grand Central Station, which announces: We’re screwed. Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

When I got back from the city Monday night, I stopped in at a local bar to deliver some copies of the fake New York Post that went out that day, created by the Yes Men. This is the edition designed to focus the conversation of climate change on real issues. The bartender said she wished she could do something about climate change, but she had to work three jobs. I asked her why she had to do that, and she said, to pay her mortgage and also that she liked to go shopping and take expensive vacations. Let’s see: carbon footprint 101.

Often, getting involved is not a luxury. It just kinda happens to a person. As David Byrne said, the world crashes into your living room. Or you feel a calling; an assignment or calling chooses you and all the excuses (lack of time, lack of motivation, etc.) vanish.

As powerful planets gather around the Aries Point, we’ll experience things that cramp our particular let’s call it “middle class” style, disrupt the usual patterns of our lives or call us into action: maybe all three at once. There are also social movements coming, more sophisticated cooperatives (fuel, food, medical), new kinds of housing arrangements that will consist of small, focused communities more efficient than the current choices, and if we can say nothing else, options will be opening up. In work, technology, rrelationships, child rearing and family structure. Dust off your old copies of the Whole Earth Review — we will need them.

Said astrologically, we will be and in fact currently are witnessing and experiencing many consequences of powerful planets coming into focus with the Aries Point. The star of the show will be the revolutionary planet Uranus entering Aries next spring, making a T-square with Saturn and Pluto. By early next summer, the aspects involve a conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in the first degree of Aries, which always — always — brings an exciting year of progress. Let’s tag this the cardinal sign T-square, so that it has a name. A T-square involves planets at three points of a cross; the sign supposedly missing is Cancer, but there is in fact something there, an odd point called Kronos (another conversation, truly, but it involves authority and taking authority). Uranus and Pluto will remain in a square through around 2016, making seven exact contacts and representing a sequence of events that, simply put, rock the world.

Yes Men Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum pose in their “Yes Men faces” for a photo-op outside the UN. They orchestrated the creation and distribution of 100,000 copies of a counterfeit “New York Post” warning about the effects of climate change, as scores of heads of state and environmental ministers arrived in town. Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

And we are getting a taste of those vibes right now. (Of potential interest, I’ve so far neglected to mention that Uranus in Pisces and Saturn in Virgo are both square the Galactic Center in Sagittarius. I did a lot with Pluto conjunct the GC in ’05 thru ’07 but noticed the current aspects to the Galactic Core about a thousand times after I saw them with my eyes.)

Add it all up and you’ve got a before-and-after scenario where it’s one kind of world now and it will be another kind of world when these aspects start to pass us by. I’ve said before that this is astrology that makes the Sixties look like a walk in the park. Why, exactly? When the same three planets lined up around 1966-67, causing all kinds of uproars, they were in the mellow, slow-acting mutable signs Virgo and Pisces. When they align continuously along the run-up to 2012 and beyond, they will be in fast-acting, high-impact cardinal signs, closely aligned with the Aries Point.

This setup seems to be located a few seasons into the future, but in truth we are experiencing the dynamic now and have been for well over a year. Human consciousness takes a while to figure out what’s already been going on for a while.

The effect of anything aspecting the first degree of the zodiac is to turn big things personal; world events are arriving with the reality of having direct impact on our lives.

Most New Yoprkers just seemed puzzled when they read the cover of a New York Post which mysteriously had a conversion experience and was taking up environmental issues rather than celebrity gossip. Photo by Eric Francis.

To wit, a major climate change summit at the United Nations, in preparation for the main event in Denmark that will occur around the time of the first Saturn-Pluto square. Anyone who thinks this is just another meeting of world leaders has not read enough science fiction. This is occurring concurrently with a meeting of the G20 in Pittsburgh, where the leaders of the world’s major economic powers will be grappling with many of the same issues. The G20 protests exploded into protests the like of which we have not seen since Seattle in 1999, including some very dark conduct by law enforcement.

Human consciousness has another problem: we tend to separate cause and effect. We believe in effects without a cause and we think that all this stuff we’re doing is never going to have a result or consequence of any kind; and most of us are pretty certain we’re ineffective.

Yet in our moment, we have the ability to influence the future in a way that has never happened in recorded history; or as the case may be, to abdicate our potential to make the future better for our children and for many generations to come. That is, as long as we’re not too busy paying for vacations.

My pre-equinox day spent on the move with the Yes Men (Monday from 4 am, starting at the Empire State Building, well into the afternoon) was incredible fun, good for journalism and introduced me to the climate change issue in a new way. The question some people may be asking is, is this kind of thing useful? Or is it just fun and games? Well, estimating that two or three people read each of those precious copies of the fake Post, I would say that now an extra quarter million people — some of them in actual positions of power — now have new information. Many, many people on the ground have new information. Lots of folks got involved and spent the day making a difference, and having fun (the two work well together).

Outside Grand Central Station, Ana White, a former fashion model, declares herself an oil painter in a one woman-protest. This is not indicated in her sandwich sign; she would explain the “I’m an artist” part if you talked to her. Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

When we think that something is ineffective, or if we don’t want to get involved (or are scared to get involved), it’s likely that the issues are internal; that is to say, personal emotional or psychological hooks. The growth piece is, for example, learning how not to tell yourself that you’re ineffective, but rather, committing to learning how to be effective (and cheerleading your own accomplishments). It’s about creating relationships that support your values, rather than undermine them. If you find yourself telling yourself “you can’t fight City Hall” there is something here about your worldview and your relationship to your parents; and exploring that is the growth piece — the personal empowerment piece — of participating in your community.

Of course, once you do get involved, you’ll get a tour of the human personality and its tendency to make its own affairs as political as possible. It’s wise to avoid organizations and causes that politicize themselves, internally, but then we always have the challenge of learning how to work with one another in a productive way. There is the challenge of learning how to be an individual in any kind of collective environment.

One thing I love about the Yes Men is that they come from a tradition of theater and art. They’re the jesters, telling the truth. Their leadership and the respect they receive are based on their talent, commitment and the strength of their human bond. Their whole scene was groovy in the way that they focus on having fun and never missing a good laugh; and they’re spontaneous in addition to being extremely organized. People they invited to distribute the fake New York Post had no idea what they were getting involved with until turning out to the Empire State Building at 4 am Monday — that is trust. They drew the sweetest, most easygoing bunch of New Yorkers you can imagine.

Their classy approach included black, screen-printed New York Post satchels for utility and the perfect prop. The Yes Men were able to do what few other protesters are able to accomplish: get a coherent message into the hands of the people in power (at least some of them) and also out to the public, then have the whole thing picked up by the media in a way that repeated the correct message: we have to pay attention to climate change, and do what we can about it.

Mom-daughter team at the Empire State Building, 4:30 am Monday, ready to give out copies of the climate-change edition of “the New York Post.” Photo by Eric Francis / Planet Waves.

Activism (I prefer to think of it more descriptively as participation) involves social networks and also self-directed individuals who collaborate. Here, we’re into Aquarius territory. There has been plenty of planetary activity in this sign peaking this year (and continuing into next year), concentrated on Chiron’s and Neptune’s long journeys through it. Chiron’s presence, in particular, is challenging us to wake up and function as an individual with and within a collective.

While there are conflicting viewpoints on whether we’re in the Age of Aquarius yet, there’s one property of the times we’re experiencing that distinctly has that quality: we get into patterns that it’s very difficult to get out of. As the Aquarian Age persists, this will become more palpable; and the sooner we get out of our negative patterns, the better.

They seem to be about routine, obligation and responsibility, but in truth they are mental patterns: ideas, concepts and habits of thought that can leave us with the feeling that we can never change — until something comes along and forces us to adapt. I really and truly wonder: how many people who got laid off recently wanted to get a new job and kept telling themselves that?

The change we are going through, and about to go through, may not be convenient, but regardless, it’s upon us, calling on us to get involved rather than to get a job.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

We live in funny times. No, I’m being serious (wocka wocka!) If we weren’t so absorbed with the need to make sense out of all the garble and nonsense, draw some conclusion about this surrealistic void-space in our transition from one era to another, we might be able to relax and find a few laughs. Lord knows we need some; the shifts and stressors of this period have the ability to create us as brittle, vulnerable and humorless. That is, of course, a choice and we’re seeing a number of citizens make it. Bummer, as we used to say; and not part of any productive solution to our challenges.

Laughter Tablet. Photo: My Pinoy Humor Blog.

I’m not so sure we are capable of making sense out of everything in this moment, anyhow; some of it is absurd to the point of brain-freeze, and not nearly as tasty. It takes an increasingly light touch to get through the day and a suspension of the myriad judgments we used to make when we thought we knew what we were about. I’m not suggesting that we let go of that thread of rationality that binds us all in common purpose; I’m proposing that those of us who have already taken the lay-line of this new landscape stop agonizing over the map and have a bit of confidence that we’re on the right track. Shift is sweeping us all along, the astrology is opening doors to vaster consciousness and the collective spiritual intention has put all of humankind on a remarkable journey; those of us who will come out on the other side of the tunnel with a smile on our face are those who cultivate one now. Indeed, our choice of optimism, hope and humor is our protection and safety net.

Do you need something to tickle your funny bone? I’ve heard it said, and rightly, that laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense. As the world is lush with nonsense at the moment — what can be said of a political climate that has prompted many news articles to come with this disclaimer: this is NOT an Onion article — it shouldn’t be difficult to spot an opportunity to lighten up. For whimsy, how about Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) showing up on Jay Leno’s new nightly spot to show off his Abstinence Ring? For cutesy, take a peek at this collection of Green commercials. For farce, consider the oh-so-serious lecture given by an aide to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn at the recent Values Voter Summit, that proclaimed Playboy magazine a recruitment aid for homosexuality. For satire, the faux-ad done by Will Ferrell and others — Hollywood speaks out to help insurance companies — has been picked up by MoveOn and spread around the nation. This last proves the wisdom of Francoise Sagan’s notion that, “One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.”

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

There was a time when an event like the G20 economic summit would stir the interest of a comparatively small group of die-hards: Policy wonks, finance majors, journalists working the international relations beat, and maybe a handful of protestors from fringe groups leery of a single world government.

Students marched past a coffee shop in Pittsburgh on Wednesday ahead of the G20 economic summit meeting. Photo by Gerald Herbert / AP.

Well, the G20 summit is being held in Pittsburgh right now, and things are a little more … lively. With protestors of all stripes converging on this Pennsylvania steel town, the city and federal government expected to spend $19 million on security during the conference, which started Thursday and ends today.

Expect similar scenes at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Dec. 7-18 of this year. Many groups are expected to arrive and protest the deliberations there — even some that support reduction in carbon emissions but think government and energy companies are hindering progress.

What’s changed, that these once-esoteric events have become hotspots for mass protests? Our awareness, that’s what. With information becoming more and more easily available all over the world, thanks especially to the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, more people are aware of what is being dealt with at these conferences. And that means more minds are pondering the significance of every detail of those negotiations, and their consequences.

Some might decry this trend of protest-ization of virtually every international issue or conference. Do the images we see on television and in newspapers — often depicting opposing groups of protestors struggling over barriers, waving signs and screaming insults at each other — cloud the bigger message of these meetings: That these governments, however imperfect, are at least coming to the table to discuss the pressing issues of the day?

Truly, it’s hard to say. But one thing can certainly be taken away from this trend: More people, in more places, are aware of how even the most technical elements of international relations can impact the lives of individuals. And that awareness has also resulted in movements like microfinance, increased education of women, protecting rain forests and overstressed fish populations, and many more. People around the world have grasped the big picture, in other words, and in the long run that’s most likely going to wind up good for the planet and its inhabitants.

That would be Saturn, the majestic sixth planet of our Solar System, whose rings have fascinated stargazers for centuries. Thanks to NASA’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, in orbit around the gas giant for five years now, it is possible to appreciate those colossal rings in a whole new light.

Of the countless equinoxes Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from Earth … none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini. Image credit: NASA.

The magnificent photos that NASA recently released provide the best view yet of Saturn’s rings, which is perhaps best viewed in this slideshow. But it wasn’t just spectacular photography that was reaped from this mission — scientists also picked up new information about the rings, themselves.

That’s because in August, Saturn reached its equinox, which happens twice during its 29.7-year orbit, just as it does during an Earth year. With the rings lit directly edge-on, the images taken by Cassini revealed that they are not as uniformly flat as previously expected; instead, they appear corrugated, like a tin roof.

Furthermore, scientists noted that there are some “bumps” along certain rings that cast long shadows over their neighbors when illuminated by the equatorial sun. If “bumps” is the right word for something that would have to be as tall as the Rocky Mountains, by NASA’s estimates.

“The biggest surprise was to see so many places of vertical relief above and below the otherwise paper-thin rings,” Linda Spilker, deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a news release on the JPL.gov website. “To understand what we are seeing will take more time, but the images and data will help develop a more complete understanding of how old the rings might be and how they are evolving.”

Added Carolyn Porco, a Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado: “We thought the plane of the rings was no taller than two stories of a modern-day building and instead we’ve come across walls more than 2 miles [3 kilometers] high. Isn’t that the most outrageous thing you could imagine? It truly is like something out of science fiction.”

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, September 25, 2009, #785 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You appear to be in some kind of struggle between work and relationships, manifesting any one of several ways; for example, as something within working relationships, or between your ‘work life’ and your ‘relationship life’. Actually, it looks like what you’re grappling with is insecurity. In other words, with doubt, with questioning yourself, and with the feeling that your apparent limitations will never allow you to accomplish anything truly significant. This is more likely to be an issue if you actually want to do something meaningful, so you can at least credit yourself with that. I suggest, in everything you do and feel, that you ask yourself: is this supporting my purpose, or fighting it? That will open two doors: contact with your sense of mission; and assessing everything on a simple metric — if you remember.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
If your mind releases a flood of ideas and passionate desires, notice whether you resist or go with the flow. There is a difference, and I suggest you get good at discerning it. What you normally offer yourself is a litany of excuses for not taking action, based on presumed consequences, ungrounded expectations and, in a word, fear. One of the things you fear is making a decision from which you cannot turn back. This is always true, in any event. Making any decision is a risk, and risk is the most important thing to become friendly with right now. Life goes like this: you take a chance and see how it works out. Then take another, and see how it works out. Then you do it again. Being mired in conflict is a temptation but not a viable option.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You seem to be stuck on an emotional point. You may also not know that’s what’s going on; it’s difficult to identify the true nature of a hangup when you’re in the midst of it. If you’re obsessing over finding ‘the right strategy’, that is a sign that you’re snagged. But how do I know the issue is emotional? Well, that’s what your solar chart suggests. Here’s what else: you are secretly trying to negotiate with one or both of your parents; to do what you think would impress or please them. This has been going on for a while, but not so blatantly as at this particular moment. Issues lingering from childhood usually go away when we want them to, so here is a question: what purpose is it serving? Clue: it’s a huge distraction.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You have a right to not express yourself. You don’t owe the world any explanations, and you don’t need to explain anything about yourself that you don’t fully understand. You might want to explore the position of giving no excuses, reasons or rationales to everyone. Let every statement be some form of, “This is what I am doing.” If someone asks you why, reply with some form of, “This is what I am doing,” or don’t reply at all. I also suggest you try doing a few things that you want to do, which specifically defy the will of others. Try pushing against the world in a way that lacks your usual diplomacy, but which specifically fulfills one of your goals.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Several factors suggest strongly that you take a gander at discerning whether you are making certain choices based on what is important to you, or what is important to others. I say this because it’s a significant step in the kind of sorting out of priorities that you’re up to lately. It’s fine to work to impress others, as long as you know you’re doing it, as long as it supports the relationship, and as long as you’re conscious and willing. Problems arise when others run your life by what amount to unspoken expectations, which may have no validity at all. Pay particular attention to the issue of ‘how you are supposed to get things done’, meaning, pay careful attention to your methods. How you do things, literally the steps you take, represent an important value that is yours and yours alone. Collaborating is one thing; being ruled by a silent dictator is another.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Why are you so obsessed with analyzing your motives? I suggest you make a short list of all your possible intentions and work from there. That is to say, resolve the issue in a tangible way, in logical, black-and-white terms. You are entirely too suspicious of yourself, which leads to internal misunderstandings. This in turn leads you to blame yourself and others for issues that don’t exist, while missing many opportunities to connect with people on clear, simple terms. For that to work, you need to simplify the terms of your relationship with yourself. If you are in conflict, there is likely to be something you are denying. It will come out in vivid colors when Mercury changes direction next week, but you don’t have to wait till then.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
The Sun is now in your birth sign, but this may not be granting the renewal, relief and sense of awakening that it usually does. It’s difficult to overlook the feeling that something huge is lurking behind the scenes of your existence, something over which you have no control. There’s a bit of an exaggeration going on for you; what you’re feeling is impending change. Remember though, this isn’t the kind of change you can plan. It’s the kind you must embrace when the time comes; and it won’t arrive all at once. The adjustments that will significantly improve your existence will arrive in a series of decisions. This information can relieve you of the need to plan, though I suggest you experiment with ideas for what you want.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Chiron pioneer Melanie Reinhart once described this era of history as being about “breaking the taboo on God.” I suggest you break the taboo by describing God in detail. Make a list of the attributes, powers, motives and agenda of God as you perceive or experience he/she/it. Second, look closely at what you were told about God, by parents, religious instructors, teachers, television and other external sources. Make an accounting of what they believed, and note how it’s influenced what you believe. This is all by way of making your many thoughts and ideas conscious rather than having them lurking in the background. If you were raised in a ‘non-religious’ or ‘atheist’ household, that merely means that the concepts are buried that much deeper. Get them out in the light, where you can see them.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Continue to exercise the utmost care and patience where your career goals or projects are concerned. At the moment, you may have a number of reasons to think that things are going badly or are delayed beyond any hope of a meaningful outcome within a timeframe where it matters. Proceed gently and focus your mind on solving old, seemingly small problems rather than blazing ahead. Issues that now seem intractable will unravel themselves over the next two weeks. A few significant obstacles that you perceived as impossible to surmount will reveal that they are smaller and less daunting than they seemed over the next two months. When they move, the main thing you will notice is how much you have accomplished over the past couple of years; those achievements are the foundation that you will build on.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
You are, at the moment, getting a look at what will be possible in the future. What is possible in the future is usually possible now, but several things can intervene: one might be a sense of readiness. Another might be the availability of resources or other people. Yet these things are more often ideas than actual obstacles; you already have your strategy in place, and you would be wise to assign anything you’re considering in the distant future as something you can do more immediately. With the Sun now crossing the most public angle of your solar chart, you need to see yourself as a leader, as an innovator and as a person of action; simply put, that is what you are.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Your world is getting bigger. Finally and at long last, you have a sense of what is possible, as a feeling more than as a list. This feeling is crucial because it’s the experience of granting yourself permission to dance with your own potential. Aquarius is the sign of the zodiac that is about mental patterns. Many astrological factors have been conspiring to get you off the tracks and out of the mental maze that you’ve been calling a personality. In truth, your unconscious has sent you just about every kind of signal and given you the opportunity to experience just about every kind of test that’s available. Yet there are few experiences so powerful as stepping outside the door and recognizing that you can do anything you want.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
You are the lucky sign that gets to have Libra as your 8th solar house. The 8th house is one of the most challenging; most people associate it with jealousy, power struggle and with crisis. But taken Libra style, the powerful relational attributes of the 8th house come out: for example, the desire and willingness to have authentic exchanges with people; to share, though in a beautiful and creative way; and the capacity to experience your changes in a way that is elegant and compassionate. The Sun’s course through this sign for the next month is a kind of live-action preview, which will offer you many rich possibilities. The gears fully engage when Saturn ingresses Libra in late October.

Actor Patrick Swayze, who died of pancreatic cancer on Sept. 14 at age 57, seemed to defy one of the stereotypes that society and, especially, Hollywood have cultivated: Tough guys can’t be sensitive.

Patrick Wayne Swayze (August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009) Photo: PR/WENN.com

That alleged contradiction was his hallmark in Dirty Dancing, and in Ghost, and even in Road House, where he both knocked heads and waxed philosophical.

“Get in touch with your feminine side” has been a mantra of self-discovery for decades. “Easier said than done,” declared our macho-centric culture. Swayze, however, seems to have captured that essence; he was a man’s man who drew guys to the box office because of his toughness, and a ladies’ man who captured women’s hearts through his tenderness. That combination made him a huge box office draw despite lukewarm critical reception — which he didn’t seem to care much about, anyway. Not a surprising attitude, perhaps, for a man who was a long-time practitioner of Buddhism.

Swayze was a super-Leo with Virgo rising; super meaning that he had the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Pluto in Leo, along with the South Node. Born two days before a solar eclipse, he was born with star quality and seemed to live with the hand of fate on his shoulder. The combination of Leo Sun and Virgo ascendant (and Venus) is a combination that seems to offer a larger-than-life quality, also seen in the horoscope of Madonna.

He had the asteroid Terpsicore, the Greek muse of dance, mixed in with all those Leo planets. This was most closely conjunct the Black Moon Lilith, an elusive, verging on nonexistent point that gives the impression he could dance with the nonphysical realm and embrace the very darkest qualities in women gracefully. This gift shows up elsewhere in his chart, such as a powerfully placed Eris.

His rising degree — 24+ Virgo — puts his natal angles precisely in line with the Saturn-Uranus opposition that was exact the week he died. Saturn was in his rising degree or ascendant, and Uranus in his setting degree, or descendant.

He died less than a year before his second Saturn return. Most astrologers looking at that would likely feel that he had left something undone, or was somehow evading a crucial point of maturity on the physical plane; yet his life does not resemble the many greats who died just before their first Saturn return, from Kurt Cobain to Jimi Hendrix.

Click on image to enlarge.

Much has been made of his origins — the son of a rodeo rider and a choreographer –- and his fairytale romance: He met his wife, a dance student of his mother, when she was a teen and they were married until the day he died. But like any person, there was more to Swayze than met the eye.

This can be said of anyone; humans are for the most part inscrutable creatures, but when your Sun is in the 12th house, there is something about you that’s mysterious and not fully invested in the material plane. If you are fortunate and you do your part to both take creative risks and ground your talent in discipline, it’s possible to garner considerable success. He had Saturn conjunct Vesta in Libra in his 1st house, which suggests that he was willing to set aside his own idea of personal gain in lieu of doing what was right, as he understood it.

The surname “Swayze” is not one you run across every day. According to Ancestry.com (which cited the Dictionary of American Family Surnames from Oxford University Press), Swayze is a variant of the English name Swasey. That name is likely a form of Swijse, which is Dutch and a variant of the Dutch name Wijs.

Which in turn means “wise” — and wisdom is also not something you run across in a person every day, though he seemed to possess it in a Yoda-like fashion.

Perhaps most famous for his role in Dirty Dancing, what’s overlooked by all but his most ardent fans is that Swayze also sang one of the songs on the movie’s soundtrack, the ballad “She’s Like The Wind,” which also featured vocalist Wendy Fraser. This is a considerable achievement for an actor.

It wasn’t his only venture into recording, either. He also sang the song “Raising Heaven (In Hell Tonight)” on the Road House soundtrack. That’s not nearly as likely to turn up on your local classic rock station, though.

For an actor who had been on the scene more than 20 years but who didn’t turn out a box office smash every year or two, Swayze had remarkable staying power in the culture, indicated, among other factors, by his birth at the time of an eclipse. In human terms, perhaps it’s because he spoke to an archetype that resonates with us as human beings: A savoir. Strong in mind and body and spirit; able to protect us physically and emotionally. It’s something men and women both can identify with. And it’s a fine legacy to leave.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

When was the last time you had a hangover? Had a balls-out, overindulgent, cutting-loose evening … with, I don’t know, a bottle of warm Sake, for instance, or a nice aged Scotch … that saw you falling into bed with a case of the spins and waking with a pounding head, blessedly-vague memories of outrageous excess and a mouth that tastes like the bottom of a bird cage? OK, well, if you haven’t done anything that humbling lately, surely you remember the last time — or one spectacular instance; and if you haven’t ever been there, then go do it now. I’m not proposing that you become a chronic drunk or strip off your clothes as you sing Karaoke at the local beer joint, which in my case is a little shack called the Mule Lip and is infamous for its bar fights and public humiliations. I’m suggesting that blasting ourselves out of the straightjackets of all that’s acceptable and safe, all that we expect of ourselves, gives us valuable information about our humanness. And experience is everything.

The oldest hangover remedy is to simply keep drinking. Photo by David Bowman / TIME.

Of course, we have to pay attention to what we learn; most people who do something like that tend to put it behind them as quickly as possible, stuff those images and feelings down into their memory basement as a glitch in their norm. Sadly, some others make such behavior their ‘new true,’ and slowly diminish themselves with substance, more at ease with their uninhibited subconscious behaviors than the tightly patterned conscious ones. Here in the Patch, I’m cozy with a bunch of Alcoholics Anonymous members because they ping on two of my prerequisites for awareness; they’re patient with other people’s foibles and they try to tell themselves the truth. Because of their sobriety process, they’re ‘teachable’ — open to self-exploration. Since I appreciate all paths, I see theirs as a somewhat violent but expedient way forward; although they might not agree, given the nature of their regrets. But we get to a productive Now by making sure that Then is mined for all the wisdom it offers, and they’re miners for sure. Life is messy; and if it isn’t, we’re missing out on some worthwhile short-cuts eschewed by those who work toward a mistake-free life (and good luck with that, by the way!)

This was the week that saw the President give his long-awaited speech on healthcare reform to the combined Congress. Televised in prime time, we all got to see the reaction of the Big Three — Obama, Biden and Pelosi — to a shout-out from Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who yelled “You lie,” to the assertion that illegal aliens would be exempt from receiving healthcare services under the new proposals. Our respected Congressional pomp and circumstance fell prey to tea-bagging town-hall’ism and caused everyone, nation-wide, to gasp aloud. Just one of those little Uranian surprises that we can expect more of in the coming days.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

This week’s news takes us from Patrick Swayze, a man who embodied virtues that embrace both the masculine and the feminine, to a controversy over an athlete who didn’t fit an international organization’s gender expectations. We somehow don’t think it strange that most athletic competition is strictly segregated by sex; men and women generally don’t compete against one another, unless of course the game depends on mental prowess above all else. Yet gender isn’t what it used to be.

A brief recap: 18-year-old South African Caster Semenya, the women’s world record holder in the 800 meter run, won the 2009 World Championships in Berlin this August. However, she subsequently became the focus of high-profile, and humiliating, questions about whether she was, physically, a woman.

Recently, the results of physical examinations of Semenya were leaked from within the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the agency that ordered the testing. Apparently Semenya has no ovaries or womb, but does have internal testes. The offensive term “hermaphrodite” was immediately tossed around by a gleeful tabloid press. Yet the test results have raised more questions than they answered, many of them on social and philosophical issues.

Semenya’s postmodern gender is reflected in her natal chart as the Sun mixed in with the extremely rare triple conjunction of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune that rocked the world in the late 80s and early 90s. That conjunction seemed to melt away structure, coming with the disappearance of the USSR and the transformation of China into a new breed of capitalist communism.

Venus is in Aquarius, a masculine sign. Mars is in Taurus, a feminine sign (though the two are not quite in a square aspect). The Moon is in Libra, conjunct Nessus — there is a long story there, one that we need Semenya’s personal history for. But her story is very much reflective of the gender anarchy of our own times.

Writing about the testing, the medical exams and the circus atmosphere that has surrounded the runner’s dilemma, Columnist Dave Zirin at The Nation finds the whole scenario to be disgusting.

“Besides being a cruel and idiotic practice, sex testing doesn’t account for the idea that gender is at least in part socially constructed and far more fluid than the iron categories of male and female. An 18-year-old woman is being torn apart in the press for doing nothing but winning a race. If it is the goal of the media and the IAAF to destroy the life of a young, talented female athlete by outing her as potentially intersex, then they are not simply pitiless; they are socially repugnant.”

Zirin is not the only one raising questions about the morality of this process and the way in which Semenya was being treated by IAAF authorities. The bloggers at The Science of Sport in South Africa also see rampant unfairness and illogic surrounding the situation.

For starters, sports science and marketing consultant Ross Tucker wonders how the IAAF could have let this situation develop in the first place.

“The fact of the matter is that these allegations are not new. They have followed Semenya for a few years. Therefore, there was ample time to verify sex (again, a difficult process) and clear the way for her to compete… Because it was not, we are sadly seeing that Semenya will be the loser in what might well become an ugly story.”

But even more crucial, Tucker writes, is the complete lack of understanding regarding the difference between gender and sex.

“‘[P]rivate parts’ do not alone constitute male or female. This is a rudimentary distinction, but does not acknowledge a range of developmental conditions that can cause male characteristics to develop without there needing to be male reproductive organs…The fact that ASA [Athletics South Africa] believe that ‘asking her to show us her private parts’ will do the job suggests that they have little idea of the issues.”

Zirin sums up the chauvinism of the situation: “Exceptional male athletes are treated like kings, not sideshow freaks. But for women to join them on the royal dais, you must appear as if you can step seamlessly from the court or track and into the pages of soft-core porn. Freaks need not apply.”

Unless you’re a climber or a geologist, rocks may not rank high on most people’s list of “things I’m looking for in a place to live.” But when you’re talking planets to live on, rocks are everything.

An artist rendition of the first rocky extrasolar planet called Corot-7b. Photo: AP Photo/ESO.

Earth is a rocky planet. Mars, Venus and Mercury, likewise. And if mankind is ever going to set foot on a planet circling another star, there will need to be something to set foot on. Well, rocks — specifically a rocky planet — are the best bet.

That’s why Wednesday’s announcement of the discovery earlier this year of Corot-7b is such a big deal. It’s the first rocky extrasolar planet discovered by astronomers, and orbits the star Corot, which is 500 light years away in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn).

Corot-7b is a hot rock, too. In fact, an article by AP writer Seth Borenstein notes the planet is so close to its star that the surface temperature is some 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s also fast, to the tune of 466,000 mph, orbiting its sun in 20 hours. That makes Mercury, our solar system’s speedster with an 88-day orbit, a tortoise by comparison.

But setting aside the hostile environment, Borenstein reports that this planet is “a major discovery in the field of trying to find life elsewhere in the universe,” according to Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution, who wasn’t involved in the discovery.

An extrasolar planet is any planet that is discovered orbiting a start other than our Sun. The first such planet discovered, according to The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, came in 1989. Its name is hardly poetic — HD114762b — but maybe you can call it “b” for short since the rest of that alphanumeric code is the identity of the star it circles. That’s astronomy for you, eh? Fortunately, its constellation has a lyrical name and an interesting association: Coma Berenices, or Berenice’s Hair.

According to Wikipedia, “Coma Berenices is one of the few constellations to owe its name to an historical figure, in this case Queen Berenice II of Egypt, wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes (fl. 246 BC–221 BC), the king under whom Alexandria became an important cultural center.” The article also attributes the “promotion” of Coma Berenices to a constellation to Tycho Brahe, an astronomer of the 16th and 17th centuries who also had a really fun idea about our solar system that, like so many other early theories, were undone by modern science.

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, September 18, 2009, #784 – BY PRIYA KALE

For more astrology, horoscopes and information on Private Consultations please visit www.priyakale.com/blog. You can email Priya at priya@priyakale.com with feedback and comments.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You reach a turning point within a partnership now allowing you to readjust a crucial balance. No matter what or who you feel has power over you, this is about equal partnerships and fair agreements. You have found your sense of purpose and you know what you are trying to build will require dedication and commitment. A partner for their part is committed to healing this partnership with their devoted daily presence. You are getting a chance to clear the air, so be willing to ask for the help you need, renegotiating agreements based on mutual needs. Avoid critical tendencies and be open to good advice when you hear it. Brilliant ideas often come while doing the most menial tasks, so pay attention while doing the dishes, in the shower or even out in the marketplace…

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Yours is an earthy kind of love that blooms, because of your endless devotion, but on a deeper level there is a need for healing that you must admit to yourself first. You can have this if you can make the conscious effort to seek perspective, balance and co-operation on a daily basis, rather than project any sense of powerlessness or get into power struggles. Yours is an earthy, sensual kind of passion that settles for nothing less than the most luxurious expression of your energy — be it love or sex or creativity. As you evolve to a higher understanding of your own core power, you could reach tangible and emotional peaks of success and ecstasy. Just allow yourself to be open to receiving a divine truth and a deeper understanding of what wants to heal you with its grace. When in doubt, listen to your heart. It hears the things the ears do not.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You are revisiting a part of your past which holds the key to your future. Be open to a radical solution that unravels a deep mystery you’ve been intent on resolving. Something may feel like a bit of a risk, but you don’t have to make any new commitments yet. You are just turning a corner towards a deeper understanding of your inner being. Whatever it is you are deathly afraid of, it can lose its grip once you realize this is about an inner surrender rather than anything external. You are securing your home base now. Even if it takes a bit longer to sort out the details of a close personal situation, you can get the ball rolling by conquering your own fears first. And then as Eric Francis said to me once, “You can’t pull the parachute string, unless you jump first.”

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You reach a profound turning point within a close personal situation asking you to open your mind and evolve to a greater sense of perspective. If what you seek is inner peace you will have to confront and resolve your own possessive tendencies. Be honest with yourself now about what you want out of love and what you need to feel more at ease. This will mean adopting a daily, conscious process of being true to your heart and a greater wisdom. You can tend to be fairly self-critical — now you can resolve a dilemma simply by being open to greater inspiration. As the quote goes: “We are never given a wish without being given the power to make it come true. We may have to work for it however.”

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You reach a turning point asking you to be brutally honest with yourself. More than what you “want” this is a question of what you “think” you are worth. If you listen to what someone is saying to you; this is not criticism but can heal you of the voices that keep you trapped inside your head saying you’ll never be “good enough.” You are indeed more critical of yourself than anyone else. No matter what you feel has power over you, recognize the value of what you have to give. You can renegotiate arrangements now to bring greater understanding and balance. There is no success that is out of reach if you are willing to work towards it with your selfless devoted affection. The results of this will be emotional and tangible success that opens your heart to the very real magic that surrounds you every day.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You’ve recently felt a surge of passion burst through your defensive walls. This has forced you to go deeper to find your core integrity and consciously move forward as you begin a new phase of your journey. You are reaching a deeper understanding within yourself now, about who you are. This may come in the face of a deeply personal situation which is as risky as it is tempting. But resolve any sense of powerlessness you feel and don’t waste time doubting or projecting fear. You are a beautiful being capable of untold passion, a deep sense of fairness, with tangible, creative and sexual prowess. But mostly this is about you finding faith in yourself in the face of unpredictability, knowing above all you have what it takes — a heart of gold.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
After a recent surge of activity, a part of you is going underground to discover deep treasures in your soul that fill you with nostalgia. Allow yourself the time for this evolutionary journey and take comfort in that which heals you. But as the Sun moves into your sign and squares Pluto this week, you have to face your deathly fears of the past and come out of the shadows into the light. This need not be a struggle, you can turn a corner from a darker past, by consciously deciding to not become a prisoner of your fears. Find a balance now that allows you to build your life on your own rules. It may take a little while longer before you can make sense of all the details or pieces of the puzzle you think are missing. But if you keep yourself open to inspiration there could be a radical solution to an issue it’s been hard to wrap your head around.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
You are evolving to a higher consciousness now. But the thing with awareness is you can never go back to not knowing. You can resolve your subconscious fear of relationships, when you are willing to admit them to yourself. You are seeing more clearly your own duality and this may be painful to admit. If you avoid projecting your doubts onto the world, there is a greater truth emerging. You can reach a new depth of understanding within an important relationship, if you are willing to listen. Remember the heart hears and sees what the ears and eyes do not. It may sound unbelievable but you can if you want experience a more earthy kind of love and tangible abundance, that awakens, heals and liberates you all at once.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
You are turning a corner towards greater financial freedom this week. After the recent battles with your sense of security this may sound unbelievable. But don’t be afraid to re-negotiate an existing arrangement, it can only benefit you in the long run if you stay rooted in what you know you are worth. You have a deep respect for tradition and authority, which at times holds you back from reaching your highest ideals. But there is no struggle here, you can find a balance if you recognize your own power within a situation. You are due to receive recognition over the coming weeks for your lasting devotion. Accept and receive this with grace and humility. The hardest part is behind you, now comes a time for reaping the rewards.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
You reach a turning point in your career, putting you in the spotlight again. It may be scary given your recent doubts, but I suggest you leave yourself open to imagination. A dream you’ve had is slowly starting to piece itself together, giving you a vantage point of the solid abundance available to you. Do what you can to conquer your fears and need for control. If you can keep an open mind and sense of perspective you can reach a deeper understanding of a perplexing dilemma. Be honest and willing to listen, a piece of information you hear can liberate you from your anxiety about the future. It may take a little longer to sort out the details. But if you keep a sense of the highest hopes in your heart, you can manifest them with love and dedication.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
A recent confrontation has forced you to move past a point of no return. You can taste freedom now, but at the same time this means resolving any fears you have about success. When it comes to intimate and financial agreements something is igniting a deeper desire of possibility. It may be scary to think you can reach for something so emotionally and tangibly rewarding. Be honest with yourself and others about your deeper needs for healing. You can reach new agreements within your relationships, that stabilize you, if you are willing to truly listen to what someone is trying to say. You are building relationships now that have soul lessons for you and can stand the test of time. Remember, you get what you give.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
You are at the start of a new cycle within your relationships and there may be a powerful association you share with someone that is asking you to go deeper. This could be a sexual or financial relationship, but it has the ability to open up your world in emotional as well as tangible, material ways. Consciously avoid projecting power struggles and recognize the value of surrender, not to anyone or anything but your own needs for companionship and co-operation. Overcome your fears of being locked into something you cannot escape from. As long as you are willing to keep an open dialogue with partners, you can rework arrangements so you feel there is a sense of fairness and balance. You are reaching another level of understanding within a partnership, which can liberate as much as it heals.