Dear Friend and Reader:

Northern Hemisphere summer begins Monday with a series of planetary events, and as often happens, events in close proximity describe a theme. When the Sun makes its ingress into the cardinal sign Cancer, it will be conjunct an asteroid called Vesta.

Vesta Goddess Firedance. Photo by Pakalil.

This magnificently complex asteroid, I believe, holds the key to understanding how we might go about healing our often injured, burdened and confused sense of our sexuality. In one word, the method is devotion.

In this article I’ll do my best to describe the qualities of Vesta in a way that makes it possible to feel and experience them — and to put them to use in our relationship experiences. Vesta is primarily about tending the fire within. That fire, and that experience of constantly caring for it, becomes the focal point for organizing space; that is, the psychic space of our lives, our priorities, and our beliefs.

Vesta is represented by a hearth (actually, a chevron, though in mythology it’s a hearth), and that hearth is the center of the home. We make our homes, comfortably or not, primarily within our psyches. The fire is the core fire of human existence, which is inherently sexual and creative. We use this fire for light, for heat, for creative purposes (you could say, to prepare our meals, whatever form they may take on the physical and nonphysical levels of existence).

Honoring this would give our daily lives and our relationships, whether sexual or not, a central concept to work with. Vesta is inherently about one’s relationship with oneself, which is the thing we share with others no matter what form that sharing might take. It may seem a paradox, but there is a touch of the impersonal to Vesta, which to me is about a boundary between self and other that gives everyone a little extra space to be who we are. Yet there is something collective about Vesta as well: we all share the same inner fire, whether we recognize it as the same thing or not.

In the solstice chart, the Sun meets up with Vesta in Cancer, a sign associated with nourishment, nurturing, emotions, mother and the experience of incarnating. The Sun is about expression. It is the source of all light in the astrological system; it is the central point that holds the solar system together and provides an anchor for awareness and for one’s tangible place in the world. So Sun/Vesta in Cancer is one version of the full expression of Vestal energy.

Sculptures of Vestals, aged between 6 and 10 when appointed by the emporer, Vestals would serve for 30 years, learning the sacred rites for 10, performing the rights for 10 and teaching the rights for the last 10.The Vestal who lost her virginity was thought to jeopardize Rome itself. Photo by Ess Pea.

The next day, there is a New Moon, with Sun, Moon and Vesta in a precise conjunction. This is the first of many potent lunations (including three eclipses in July and August) that defines the current stretch of time. Happening so close to the beginning of a season (with the Sun still at solstice), this New Moon activates events that occur on a large scale that feel personal; and personal events that reach past our individual lives toward a collective experience.

Remember, this can be subtle, and noticing that anything of this kind is happening requires inner sensitivity and a sense of context that could truly be described as spiritual.

At the same time there is a conjunction of Venus and Mars in Taurus. A Venus/Mars conjunction brings together the male and female principles, and in Taurus there is the recognition that we each contain both, in our psyches and our bodies. The Taurus connection describes this as a resource that we possess and can share with others, once we take ownership of it ourselves. This is a clue. Much of our sexual pain comes from trying to experience our sexuality without actually being in possession of it first.

This event, too, is occurring in one of those subtle zodiac positions that connects personal events to collective ones — at the precise midpoint of Taurus, where the Sun is on Beltane. You can be sure that plenty of other people are experiencing something similar to what you are. Here as well, we get a sexual theme; Taurus is about sensuality, self-possession, physical contact and a property called biophilia. This is about resonating with life, which we get in part from the connection between Taurus and Venus. I covered this quality fairly recently in an article called “Kaleo: Venus Unbound.”

Let’s take these two factors individually, the Vesta aspect and the Venus/Mars aspect; and then let’s see what they add up to.

Vesta: Tending Fire, Holding Space

I had my first conscious experience of Vestal energy one autumn when I moved into a house in Hurley, New York. I love this experience because it’s an example of how an event in life can open the door to something supposedly mystical or mythological.

Ceremonial fire in the Chironian. Photo by Eric Francis.

At the time we moved in, my housemates and I didn’t have a lot of money, so we couldn’t start up the oil heat; but there was a very nice wood stove and a big pile of wood to go with it. However, the wood was wet, because it was pretty old and the season had been very rainy.

It’s possible to burn wet wood, but it takes a lot of work to get it going, and to keep it going. (It’s also a lot less efficient.) Once the fire was started, it was essential to keep it running hot, and to cycle the firewood into the kitchen so that it would have a chance to dry off next to the stove, if possible. This became a 24-hour devotion. The stove had to be tended at least every three or four hours. Being a few years into my astrology work, the Vestal symbolism of tending a hearth was not lost on me. This activity was similar to what the Vestal Virgins had as one of their primary responsibilities: to keep the sacred flame in the city’s central hearth going all the time.

As mystics, we regard outer fire as a symbol of an inner fire. The inner fire is the individual creative source within the psyche. Vesta, the asteroid, is associated with various forms of devotion, such as to work. (Most astrology books you read that mention Vesta will associate it with things like staying late at the office, and avoiding social interaction.) I view Vesta as the place where we must tend to our creative and sexual fires. Basically, it’s how one becomes an artist, a craftsperson or a lover. One must constantly apply attention to the creative flame, otherwise it can flicker out, burn too hot or go out of control. It’s not something you can do occasionally and get the same results. People with regular jobs often think of artists as ‘workaholics’. But that is an idea that disconnects the concept of work from that of personal development.

Many of Vesta’s best results come specifically from the art of devotion itself. As we progress we learn that we have the choice of what we devote ourselves to.

Lakshmi Girl celebrating Vesta on the vernal equinox in the Chironian, in Rosendale, New York. Photo by Eric Francis, March 29, 2007.

The flame and embers provide a source of heat, of light and of energy. They become the central organizing principle around which one’s life is organized. We all use Vestal energy, though most people express it in devotion to things that are not necessarily associated with their true calling. So the idea here is to identify some aspect of that calling and then tend the flame continually, a little bit every day. Then true creative gifts can emerge, and begin to take on their vital role in the world.

In the sign Cancer, the focus is on the home. It’s also about cultivating the devotion to self-nourishment. This is about taking care of yourself, not ‘rewarding’ yourself. The work associated with Vesta is of a specifically self-nourishing kind, even though in the short run it may require more effort than seems worth it. The key is to work the devotional angle, rather than the effort angle; Vesta is my college fiction professor saying on the first day of class that to be a fiction writer one must write one word a day. That means, you return to the project daily.

The sexual aspect of Vesta involves making contact with the sexual dimension to all of existence. The inner flame lights up the space inside us, and there, we can do our healing work. It also creates an inviting environment where others can seek contact, healing and rest. Vestal erotic practices involve holding the space open for others, witnessing their processes and experiences, and giving oneself sexually to sexual pleasure of others, as a gift of healing or love. This has nothing to do with romance, which tends to be narcissistic. Vesta is about standing back a little and allowing others to experience the heat of your inner fire, so that they may experience their own, or light it up for the first time.

Vesta is also about practicing compersion: holding space for the pleasure of others, that does not directly involve you. But this is another article, or maybe a book.

Venus and Mars: Exploring Inner Completion

In our relationships, we’re usually taught to seek in others what we allegedly don’t have in ourselves. This is the cause of enormous chaos, which is largely driven by compulsion, false expectation and by being cut off from both self-knowledge and human contact. The world plays a very mean game of turning emotional contact and sex into a commodity, without ever really saying what the price is.

Tempio di Vesta. Photo by Marco Chiaraluce.

There are other themes contained in a Venus and Mars conjunction. For example, our over-identifying with prescribed gender roles frequently creates setups where it’s difficult to recognize the common ground we share with others. This common ground would be the basis of our relationships, if we would allow it to be.

Venus and Mars conjunct in Taurus is about seeking some experience of how we contain our opposite polarity. This is literally true; for example, both males and females produce hormones of the opposite sex. Heterosexual-identified people can and often do experience sexual fantasies and attractions to people of either sex. Psychologically, we often emulate or express a diversity of gender attributes. Many of us envy the opposite sex in small and large ways.

Venus and Mars conjunct in Taurus bring this quality into focus, particularly at such a powerful time as the solstice. Taurus, and a conjunction, both point to an interior quality, something that we all contain within ourselves. It happens that this is something we seek in others all the time. The combination of Venus and Mars conjunct, and the Sun and Vesta conjunct, suggest that more than needing something, we all actually possess something that we can share, if we take care of it regularly.

Wouldn’t that be novel? Wouldn’t that be a new, useful definition of self-esteem?

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

WYSIWYG is the shorthand we used back in the day when my buds and co-workers were developing software long into the night; installed like lone space captains behind their glowing monitors in darkened rooms, navigating the internal challenges of whatever new program they were working through. Bit by bit they inched forward, the result of their last keystroke glaringly obvious: What You See Is What You Get. The cool part of that was that if they didn’t like what they saw, they’d back up, eliminate the command and start over. That particular satisfaction eludes most of us.

Wiz-ee-wig. Photo by Jake Hobart.

I suppose it wouldn’t if we each had the same mindset as my skilled and imaginative old friends, creating something from nothing, Big Idea firmly in mind; bugs and glitches considered only the wrinkles of a long process of refinement. They knew what they were shooting for, and kept it foremost in their minds. They couldn’t make a mistake; if something didn’t work, they simply corrected any error to refine their outcome. Why don’t we think that way? Why must all personal errors end up “baggage” and “wounding?” Why must we embrace everything we’ve ever experienced and drag it along to define who we think we are?

As we create our individual life program, it would be helpful if we’d loosen the linear space/time aspects, the 3D particulars, of our experience on the planet and seek remembrance of our own personal Big Idea; but we get lost in the bills to pay, the responsibilities to attend and the anticipated escape from them at the end of the day as we relax with a glass of wine or diversion of choice. We end our day exhausted from busyness, done with business and crashed on the couch; we start the next one picking up the thread of yesterday, living with the results of every wrong choice or episode, and expecting more of the same. If it looks the same, it must be the same, right? WYSIWYG.

Well, not unless we allow it; that’s the good news. Past programming can be identified and ditched; and we don’t even have to look back, if we’re willing to let go of the old. The bad news is that as long as we are looking at the screen, believing what we see but not fully in charge of the Big Idea that constitutes the center of our life-calling and desire, we are lost in the game but not experiencing the satisfaction of refining the product.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

NASA’s probably hoping the third time will be the charm, since the two space shuttle launches have been scrubbed in the past week, most recently Wednesday.

The United States flag waves in the breeze as the space shuttle Endeavour sits on launch pad 39-A Tuesday morning June 16, 2009 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Bazemore).

The Endeavour is on the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla., but a hydrogen leak caused NASA to scrub the early morning launch less than four hours before takeoff was scheduled, according to The Washington Post.

The leak — in a hydrogen vent line that is attached to the shuttle’s external fuel tank — is the same problem in the same place as the one that caused the first launch, set for last Saturday, to be scrubbed. According to the Post article, repairs had been made after that leak, including replacing the hookup and two seals. That did the trick back in March after a similar leak showed up, but not this time.

Endeavour’s mission will carry the Japanese contribution to the International Space Station, the module known as Kibo that includes a “front porch” that will be used — no, not for sitting in rocking chairs — for experiments in space. The Space.com website has a day-by-day schedule for Endeavour’s 17-day mission.

When a kid — especially a boy — gets a scar, he’ll usually come up with a story to tell his friends that’s much more interesting than the truth. Say, “I was attacked by pirates” rather than “I tripped on my shoelace and fell.”

One in a million… A teen in Germany has been hit by a meteorite as it hurtled to Earth at more than 30,000 mph and lived to tell the tale. Photo: Telegraph.co.uk

But a German teen named Gerrit Blank won’t have to bother with that, since it’s pretty hard to beat the truth: “I was hit by a meteorite.”

Gerrit, who is 14, caught a glancing blow from the streaking space rock as it plummeted to the earth late last week. He wound up with a three-inch scar on the back of his hand, according to a June 12 article in The London Telegraph. It reports that Gerrit saw a ball of light headed his way, then “a red hot, pea-sized piece of rock hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot-wide crater in the ground.”

The rock has been confirmed by scientists as having originated in space, making it a pretty rare thing: A meteorite that survived a trip through Earth’s atmosphere, where they usually burn up.

So, how rare is it to be hit by a meteorite? The odds usually applied to the incident are one in a million. In fact, the folks over at Space.com dug into their archive and found only one other recorded incident where a person was struck by a meteorite. That was in 1954, when napping Alabama housewife Ann Hodges got a rude awakening after a 3-pound meteorite fell through the roof of her home, bounced off the furniture and struck her in the hip, leaving a bruise.

Space.com also tracked down a few near-misses over the years, including a spectacular 2004 event when a meteor weighing a ton and bigger than a fridge blew up in the night sky over Chicago, showering the Windy City with bits of space debris.

Word to the wise: If you’re invited over to a place called the Ice Physical Properties Laboratory for drinks, don’t get your own ice.

Post-doctoral researcher Mathieu Choukroun prepares an ice sample for study. The ice lab has special equipment and techniques for creating and working with ice. ( NASA/JPL).

That’s where scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are endeavoring to recreate the kinds of ice that have been discovered on frozen moons like Titan and Europa, according to an article posted Tuesday on the JPL web site.

Take, for example, Titan. Surface temperature? Oh, about minus 290 degrees. “Cryovolcanoes” belching a cocktail of “super-chilled liquids” onto the surface. The possibility of rich organic chemicals that might be “possible precursors to life.” To learn more about all this, JPL scientists are working to reproduce the kind of ice that would be found on that satellite of Saturn.

“We’re trying to shed light on processes that have occurred in the evolution of these bodies and understand what is happening on them now,” JPL planetary scientist Julie Castillo said in the article.

Sometimes it’s the elements that go into the ices — such as ammonia or various salts — that the scientists are looking to replicate. But there are also different types of ice, like “clathrate hydrates, water ices that form at low temperature and under high pressure and have molecules of different gases locked inside their ice crystals,” the article reports.

The goal of such experiments? Not to develop new novelty ices to flavor drinks down at the local bar, that’s for sure. Rather, it’s the continuing search for insight into where life might be found in our solar system and galaxy.

“Ice is found nearly everywhere in the universe and comes in many forms,” Castillo says in the article. “Where there is ice, there is often water, and where there is water, there is the possibility of life.”

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 19, 2009, #771 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
The Sun is about to move over the angle of your chart that grounds you to the planet. Despite your reputation as a feisty, self-assertive player, the real you is someone who needs the security of home and the comfort of a family. Recognize where this exists already, and create it where you can. The extraordinary astrology of the days right around the change of season emphasizes that you are the central focus of that experience. You are the one who must light and maintain the home fires, and then the people you seek and crave will be drawn to you. This involves your home, but it’s also about maintaining a psychic and emotional position of allowing everyone around you to feel at home, with who they are and with who they are becoming.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You have so much you want to express, and much that you need to express. Say it while you feel it. Let people know how much they mean to you. This is the kind of generosity that requires nothing except the presence of your heart. That presence is not a fleeting thing; it’s your true devotion, of the nature of an eternal flame. You are giving at this point in your life from a place of self-awareness and actually having something to offer. As you extend that gift, you will feel its presence more and more, and you’ll notice the quality that is generally filed under ‘spiritual’ — the more you give, the more you realize you have. Work with this for a while and it will turn some of your less functional beliefs about yourself upside down.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You may be wondering what you have to give up. This question has nagged you for the past month or more. Part of you has one idea and part of you has another idea, but I wonder why you’re thinking about this at all. One potential reason involves the depth to which we are indoctrinated into the idea of sacrifice. Offering willingly is one thing. Offering from a sense of owing others is another. The difference can become obscured if we lack a healthy sense of self-worth. In my experience, the first obstacle to self-worth is figuring out that you might be lacking in the stuff. As long as we keep telling ourselves we’re fine, we will overlook the issue. I suggest you phrase it as a series of questions, beginning with the words “what if?”

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Vesta and the Sun move into your sign over the weekend, followed by a spectacular New Moon. Venus and Mars are conjunct in your house of hopes and dreams, solid and dependable Taurus. All of this rates as an invitation to wake up to yourself, and to be aware of your presence in the world. Many other people recognize your value, your place and the meaning of what you have to offer; the missing piece is you stepping into that awareness yourself. Over the next few days you have a lot, and I do mean a lot, of help from the planets. If you notice feeling something different, if you wake up and notice that you are different, let it happen.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Your charts are taking on a larger-than-life quality that they frequently do this time of year, though at the moment you have a spectacular opportunity to act on it. If you are planning a business move of any kind, this is the time to reach upward. The key to success in this venture will be remembering that it’s not about you; you are involved, but what you are here to create is really something much greater. The key is to see yourself as part of that something, perhaps a large part, perhaps a small part, but in any event a significant one. One reason this is true is because you are the one who takes the initiative that enables something to actually happen. Be aware: the time is nigh.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Focus on bringing a key project to fruition. Remember that you may not be the one doing most of the work, but you are indeed the one in a central position of communication, which is to say coordination. You may not have ultimate authority, but you have access to everyone, mainly because they are the ones coming to you. This is not merely a neutral role, however. There is a theme involved. Your job is to remind people why something needs to happen. To do that most effectively, you need to open your eyes and be fully aware of the larger context involved. Nothing is happening for its own sake right now; nothing in the world. This theme of for a larger purpose is spray painted in every corner of the sky.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
These past few months may have resonated with more potential than success; with more crisis than creative opportunity. But think of all that as preparation; consider how much more aware you are now than you were just a few months ago. Now comes the moment of truth: focusing your priorities and making sure that you put your potential to the best possible use. The sky is about to light up with an opportunity. As I have been suggesting in the other signs, it may not be specifically about you. Your job is to hold space (Vesta theme) for something much larger to occur. How large is large? Look around you. Look at what you say you support, and what you know feeds the world. If it’s within reach, throw your support behind it.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
We live in a world where many, many people thrive on taking and a sense of entitlement that twists the mind if you think about it. Working most of my adult life as a journalist covering crimes committed by corporate and government officials, I have seen this over and over; but we don’t need to look that far. You can witness this in some of the most ordinary transactions. I suggest you take every single opportunity to reverse that trend: every opportunity to give, to love, to set free, to share, to express the truth; to offer rather than withhold; to include rather than exclude. Forget the ditty about how ‘it comes back to you’. Do it because it’s your soul’s calling to offer what only you can offer. Be grateful that you have so much, and take a few days off from wanting more. There is more to want than that: for example, a community and a world where everyone has just enough, particularly a sense of belonging.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
You are being called upon to give yourself totally not to any one relationship, but to every relationship. One of the big problems on our planet is that we live in a hierarchy of love. Some people are ‘more important’ than other people, and we can act in very strange ways because of this. The outcomes of this situation, however, prove the point that we really don’t know what role people have, and it’s fair to doubt that we have any discernment at all. Monday’s New Moon is calling on you to suspend all discernment and make sure that you are offering what you can to every situation you are in. I cannot tell you why, or how; I can only tell you what I am reading in the planets. You are a born humanitarian and you know it. This is not merely a dream.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
The astrology for the past two years has not been easy for Capricorns; at best you are questioning every belief you ever had. At worst you are looking at the world wondering whether there is any justice at all, even as you do your part to create that justice. Here is what I can tell you about your astrology right now: a large door is swinging open in these very days. You have the power to heal many of the wrongs that you see. Most of that comes from having a sense of perspective; there would be far less injustice if people could only see it for what it is. You can see it, and unlike many who get ground into the dust trying to make a better world, you are uniquely equipped to do your part.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Everyone has the gift of healing. When you get a little cut on your hand, have you ever marveled at how your body knows how to repair it? Your role might be to make sure the injury stays clean for a while, but then the body does its part. That is how being a good healer works. There are ailments you are suffering that will yield to this formula; there are injuries that others are suffering to which you can offer your consciousness and support. Monday’s spectacular New Moon in your 6th solar house — the house of healing, service and your best work — resounds with one message from ancient wisdom: let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food. Practice this and you will help many.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Pisces is blessed with natural access to a cosmic dimension of existence. In this respect, yours is the strangest sign of the 12, because so many things that matter so little to others make the greatest difference to you. At the same time, it’s also true that things that hurt others minimally can cause you the greatest emotional and psychological damage: things like subtle deception. Due to the ongoing conjunction of both of your ruling planets combined with Chiron in Aquarius, the world is becoming more like you are; more able to embrace your viewpoint; and more willing to give you space to exist. Move into that space now. You don’t need to take it, or take anything: the way is open.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Tuesday’s edition of Planet Waves will be a live webcast tonight. The program will cover the situation in Iran and the astrology of the summer.

Planet Waves Radio will be webcast tonight, Tuesday, June 16 at 10 PM ET on Blog Talk Radio. The Sun is wrapping up its course through Gemini, and as it reaches Cancer on Sunday, June 21 we enter the astrology of the summer. This consists of a New Moon a day after the solstice in the second degree of Cancer (activating the Aries Point) and then a series of three eclipses in July and August. This is a complete revision on the astrology of the first half of the year and portends a summer of many unusual developments and potential progress. The floor is open to talk about all of this, with a focus on the power of eclipses.

Also, the current strife in Iran is related to Pluto in Capricorn. I’ll post the Iran chart to Planet Waves Daily with a brief introduction later in the day, so you can get a look at that before the program.

Please tune in tonight at 10 pm ET.

Yours & truly,

Dear Friend and Reader:

My original theme for the week was to explore how the economic ‘downturn’ will help people find their roots. Without so many distractions of success and money to chase and houses to flip, we have a chance to do what’s important to us; to scale back the pace of our lives and this obsessive overscheduled busy-ness and recreational spending, and apply our creative and financial resources to what matters.

Leonard, a school teacher and minister from a Scandinavian country, is seen here teaching a Holocaust class at Auschwitz II – Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, where more than a million European people are estimated to have died. In a very straightforward way, he is explaining to these students that they are in front of the ruins of gas chamber/crematorium 2, how the process worked and what the implications are. The structure was dynamited as the Nazi officers retreated in 1944. More photos from this series are located here. Photo by Eric Francis.

The current planetary setup reflects a moment of true revelation. The triple conjunction in Aquarius is about an emerging new social pattern as well as we as individuals figuring out how to redefine and expand our personal civilization, and figure out how to merge it with the larger dance of society. I’ve described earlier how I believe we are opening up a communal psychic field where we can meet and exchange energy, as well as ground ideas into visible reality and explore there as well.

Chiron conjunct Neptune is about coming out of both individual and collective denial, clearing the haze and acting on the potential we have now (Jupiter in Aquarius, too). This takes some money, but not as much as poured into the kinds of crap that have been obsessively, incessantly indulged in during the years of the housing bubble. I view the current reshuffling of society as an opportunity to do a lot with very little, and moreover to focus on what we actually need and want to be doing rather than mindlessly running on a cappuccino treadmill.

Then, someone showed up at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC on Wednesday and tried to shoot the whole day down. He was stopped by a security officer who did his job and gave his life, apparently preventing yet another episode of mass murder-suicide.

This is the third political shooting in the past few weeks, all of them surrounding Mercury stationing direct in Taurus and making a square to the Aquarius triple conjunction. The shootings involved the assassination of an abortion doctor; a shooting at a military recruitment station; and now a purported Holocaust denier opening fire at the Holocaust Museum. This is a pattern. Each of these killings, despite being sold to us as isolated incidents, reflects an agenda and a set of values. Each represents something much larger than itself.

In the dialog that preceded writing this article, I was hashing out with my fellow editors how to approach the news of the week. One of them, Savas Abadsidis, suggested that the pattern of shootings is reflective of deep unrest, malcontent, frustration and rage that is taking root in the midst of an economic crisis with so many other injustices being perpetuated at the same time: billions going to banks but people sick and starving; GM and Chrysler fleeing abroad; wars raging on in Iraq and Afghanistan; state after state passing constitutional amendments against gay and lesbian people getting married; and so on.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Meanwhile there are a lot of people angry that a black man is president, that gay and lesbian people have any rights at all and that women still have the right to chose whether they want to have an abortion or not.

“I think there’s a growing unrest and it dovetails with what you told me is happening in the fall,” Savas wrote.

Good observation. Savas is not an astrologer but he was recalling a conversation about the forthcoming Saturn-Pluto square that has its first exact pass on November 15, followed by two additional passes on Jan. 31 and Aug. 21, 2010. Saturn is a solid structure and Pluto represents a force for change, progress and transcending the past. So the square between them is a change of form; and it would be inner form. It’s like a collectivized inner process of radical readjustment that spreads on a wide scale. It’s also potentially reactionary astrology that, on the collective level, feels like the other shoe dropping on the election of Barack Obama, and (more to the point) the progressive uprising that led to it. Whose shoe is it going to be? I think that the people who put Obama in owe it to everyone to hold him to his promises.

The Saturn-Pluto dynamic usually invokes some kind of conservative backlash. Summing up the current setup, we had a Saturn-Pluto opposition in the summer of 2001, just five weeks before the Sept. 11 incident that set the vibe of the next eight years and in many ways is still running our lives. There were a couple of predictions of terrorism and one prediction, by Papa Smurf astrologer Rob Hand, that we would have a war with Afghanistan. Nobody predicted that the events of the summer of 2001 would lead to the attempted establishment of a police state. No astrologer that I know of predicted the PATRIOT Act.

I don’t know what the November astrology is about, exactly, but if I were the White House astrologer I would be advising that security be turned up and that the president’s travel schedule be minimized for at least the last two months of the year and well past January.

The stage is also set for some kind of new fracture in the economic system to emerge. Whatever may be the case, this square takes place very close to the Aries Point, involving the directly related first degrees of Libra and Capricorn. This tells us that the matter affects a widespread public; and that individuals may feel the events privately, or that there will be a sense of ‘we’re in this together’. This is not true of every news event. This aspect represents the first significant test of the Pluto in Capricorn era, into which we transitioned during 2008 and are taking up fully in 2009. What emerges at that time reveals something that was already there, or rather, is already here.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Though Saturn square Pluto part one occurs in November shortly after Saturn enters Libra, we’re standing in the dynamic right now, which also involves a number of factors I went over last week. Summing up the current setup, Saturn and Uranus are at opposition, meaning that these two radically different energies are opposing one another. Then Saturn changes signs and moves into a square with Pluto; then Uranus changes signs to Aries, gradually moving into a square with Pluto.

This adds up to a long T-square of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, all taking place along the cardinal points — the Aries Point. This is a wild mix of revolutionary and oppressive energies that we will be working out clear through 2012.

Let’s take a look at the chart for the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, by a Holocaust denier. Before going there, I would point out that initially while not exactly mainstream, Holocaust denial is a kind of intellectual cult that has some momentum, and that momentum is troubling. It is an actual viewpoint, argued intellectually, not merely someone casually saying that something that many people saw and documented didn’t happen.

There are many historical and psychological reasons for this kind of denial, and while we may assign Holocaust denial to the crackpot files, the sentiments underneath it are pervasive enough to be concerned about. We may not want to think that there is an issue, but that in itself is a form of denial. The way the Holocaust happened and was allowed to happen involved denial, including the denial of an agenda. If it happens again, the same basic mental ploys will be put to work.

This conversation will necessarily involve looking at some technical points of a chart. I will interpret, leaving my margin notes in the conversation. I’m only going to use very close or ongoing aspects, so I will leave out the conversation of degrees.

The chart initially highlights three astrological events, mainly; these are compound events, involving several factors each. I’ll take them one at a time.

The first is that Saturn in Virgo is rising and Uranus in Pisces is in the descendent — putting the Saturn-Uranus dynamic (pluralism versus fundamentalism; progressive thinking versus neoconservative thinking) into the spotlight. You may recall that this aspect was exact for the first time on the very day that Barack Obama was elected. It represents the split that, sometimes quietly and sometimes not, currently has our nation by the throat. And finally it’s an opportunity for reconciliation and integration. Astrology is the kind of thing where you play the aspects on the level of your own enlightenment.

Click on image to enlarge.

Next, Mercury is in Taurus, having just finished its square to the triple conjunction in Aquarius. This is the event that basically drove many people to the brink of their sanity during the past couple of weeks. Mercury has extra power because this particular chart has Virgo rising; Mercury is therefore the ruler of the ascendant, always one of the most influential planets in a chart. At the time the shooter opened fire, Mercury (the planet of the mind, and which also represents the shooter in this chart) had just completed its chaotic, confusing and disruptive square to these three powerful planets exactly aligned in Aquarius. So we see the shooter’s state of mind represented here. What is interesting is that Mercury has already squared the conjunction at the time of the shooting, indicating a reference to the past; the denial of something in the past.

Mercury turns up in the 9th house of religion. He translates to someone who is stuck in his supposedly religious values, in delusion and denial (square Neptune), feeling like he has a broken mind (square Chiron) and exaggerating big time (square Jupiter).

I have said before that the triple conjunction in Aquarius represents something progressive and that Mercury in Taurus represents entrenched values, which have just had a run-in with progress. This is happening on many levels in our society right now. We are not going to go sailing blithely into a wonderful future; we have a lot of extremely confused people to contend with, people whose main attachment is to a past that they are basically hallucinating about. If you ask me, one of the crucial spiritual issues of our time is what to do with so many people who are so outraged about the supposed injustice of others having rights or simply living their lives freely.

Finally, the Moon in Capricorn has just completed a square to Eris, the planet that caused the reorganization of the solar system in 2006, including the change in category for Pluto and Ceres to a new concept, a dwarf planet. The Moon in Capricorn is a good image of conservative, structured or traditional thinking; and it has just made a square to Eris, in the 8th house of death. The Moon has already squared Eris, again referencing the past. Again, conservative values have been put through a kind of reality check and the result is extreme confusion.

Confusion about what? Eris is on the 8th house cusp. The goddess of discord and chaos is guarding the house of death and transformation. That’s often how it works. The Moon’s aspect points to the 8th house, which to me is the house that gives away what this chart is really about. The 8th addresses issues of sex, death, money and power, which combine in various configurations to cause all kinds of pain.

This is generally true until we sort them out and take them separately, one at a time. Then we see the relationships for what they are. Eris present on the 8th cusp, in Aries, represents rather stunning confusion regarding these issues, and the confusion is primarily coming in the form of an identity crisis. In other words, the confusion is so serious that it’s causing us to be in a state of chaos about who we are.

Illustration by Colette Coughlin.

We find three other points in the 8th house: the Part of Fortune (conjunct Eris), suggesting that someone is poised to benefit from the chaos; and Venus and Mars, in Taurus, which are about to make a conjunction. I am not a Vedic astrologer, but I am aware that when Venus and Mars are close together and there is a Venus retrograde involved, this suggests a competitive situation that is a special case. It depicts the male and female principles in some harsh competition, in the house of sex, death, money and power, and the Vedic astrologers don’t like this one at all.

Feeling this chart, and looking at the big picture that it offers, rather than analyzing it, the feeling is that this is a chart about sexual pain and frustration. Venus and Mars in the Taurus 8th house of a chart is sexually provocative. But if we see them in a chart where there is a mass murder being plotted, we can be pretty sure that the underlying issue is sex, and that, I believe, is true for our culture. The crisis is so serious that many people are even afraid to talk about it, much less do something about it.

We’ve been experiencing a profound case of sex denial since the early 1980s, when the United States began a national campaign of teaching children “abstinence” instead of basic facts about their bodies. In that regard, we have a pretty serious problem, given the tens of millions of people who have been through this indoctrination. Notably, this is not really a new movement in a country that is based on puritanical values. The denial of sex is a deep root in our culture, and it’s one that invariably leads to upsurges of violence and deep, fermenting rage that fuels many other seemingly unrelated problems. And some obviously related ones: rape is a crime that involve sexual rage, usually pointed at a woman.

Though few people actually say this, two of the most divisive issues our country is grappling with — homosexual rights and abortion — both directly involve sex. They masquerade as political, but they are as personal as, well, as personal as what you do in the shower. What we don’t like to admit, indeed, what we tend to actively deny, is that there are various political factions who are very concerned about what happens when you lock the door to your apartment. And it is not an accidental agenda. There is a reason that the same people who are against birth control are also against abortion: women are supposed to be mothers. That’s what it adds up to. As for queers, well, plenty of people feel that we can’t be having sex for its own sake. But like, whose body is it?

Sexual energy is not neutral. It’s vital and it’s creative and we all possess it in abundance. It takes a lot to turn sexual energy dark, but it only requires that we let it be what it is, for it to be creative and to offer us its life.

Next week, as Venus and Mars get closer to their exact conjunction on the solstice, at the exact midpoint of Taurus, let’s take this conversation a step forward.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Have you ever noticed that the difference between the word ‘evolution’ and ‘revolution’ is merely one consonant? Intuitively, we can describe both activities as something that moves us along; shifts us, pushes us forward. If we’re listening, we can also discern the root definition that makes the words revolution and revelation kin; we can feel the vibratory quality that links them. They’re of a bunch.

Viva la (R)Evolucion? Picture by Mark Hammergren.

During this Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron conjunction, I’d suspect that you’ve had a few revelations of your own, and you can expect more. If you haven’t witnessed your own temperament rise in decibels, you must have met that energy elsewhere in your travels; we’re feeling the wounds of yesterday and bringing them into the sunshine today. Messy business. Emotional pain is not useful unless it brings the seeds of revelation with it; in fact, most pain has to do with resistance. If we can have a serious talk with that portion of ourselves that resists feeling, forgiving and releasing what is chronic in our psyche, the dissolution of old patterns can begin; we cannot begin serious psychic surgery without first acknowledging that we need it.

Initially we must define our life patterns and witness the damage they do us; next, we must renegotiate our future by achieving some perspective and behaving in entirely different ways. This is internal work, but it always has an external counterpart — God/dess is good that way, waving flags. Connecting the cause of our circumstances to our limited beliefs about ourselves is the first step in changing our personal future; that’s taking responsibility for our own mess. Until we do that, we are subject to a thin and egocentric philosophy that keeps us in the lower, defensive aspects of our animal nature, old and unbreakable tribal loyalties, plodding ego-inflexibility and our millennia-old fear and shame base. Think Dick Cheney; enough said.

An early warning system to our limited thinking is found in another concept that interests me — counter-intuition. Let’s define, quickly, because this concept has been mangled. Intuitive describes our own deep resonance and soul response to incoming information; this is an inherent ability in each of us, access to our personal truth awaiting our attention and nurture. Being counter-intuitive is actually opposing, not intuition, but logic in favor of taking some path toward a greater purpose; but it can also be a form of self-delusion.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

The Cassini-Huygens space probe, which for nearly five years has been reporting from Saturn’s giant Moon Titan, has provided evidence that the weather patterns on Titan are similar to Earth’s but much slower. And that means longer summers, scientists say.

This infrared image of Saturn’s Moon Titan shows a large burst of clouds in the Moon’s south polar region. Photo: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Nantes.

A report from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory describes how the lingering cloud formations will mean a “warm and wetter”autumn on the Moon. One of the Cassini team members, Sebastien Rodriguez of the University of Paris Diderot, described the findings in the JPL news release.

“Titan’s clouds don’t move with the seasons exactly as we expected,”said Rodriguez. “We see lots of clouds during the summer in the southern hemisphere, and this summer weather seems to last into the early fall. It looks like Indian summer on Earth, even if the mechanisms are radically different on Titan from those on Earth. Titan may then experience a warmer and wetter early autumn than forecasted by the models.”

More information on the ongoing Cassini-Huygens mission, and the approaching spring equinox on Titan, is available at ArsTechnica.

The National Aeronautic and Space Administration would like to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2020, but a move by lawmakers to cut 16 percent from NASA’s 2010 budget could jeopardize some of the agency’s long-term plans for manned space flight.

NASA budget cuts start to bite. Collage by Joeforking.

According to SpaceNews.com, on June 4 the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee moved to reduce the space agency’s budget, reporting that, “The $670 million cut to the 2010 manned exploration request would leave $3.21 billion, which is less than is available for the effort this year.”

The NASA Watch website breaks down the numbers in a chart that shows the current financial year budget, NASA’s proposed 2010 budget, and the subcommittee’s proposed cuts.

The budget cuts, at this point, are still only recommendations early in the appropriations process. President Obama has created a 10-person panel to review NASA’s plans for the post-Space Shuttle era, and their report could influence how lawmakers view the space agency’s spending priorities.

Before Congress takes a knife to NASA’s programs, though, its members might want to check out an intriguing little article at Universe Today, entitled “8 Ridiculous Things Bigger Than NASA’s Budget,”to get a little perspective.

Those annoying little hoaxers are back at it, it seems.

Another Martian Mystery. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

NASA is getting the word out about a hoax e-mail that’s been proliferating lately. It claims that anyone looking out the window on August 27 will see a once-in-a-lifetime sight.

“Mars will look as large as the Full Moon,”the e-mail reads. “No one alive today will ever see this again.”

Well, truth be told, no one alive today will see it on August 27, either, or any other day.

According to a NASA press release refuting the hoax e-mail, “Only in Photoshop does Mars appear as large as a Full Moon.”The myth-busting website Snopes.com seconds this conclusion, noting that it would take a 75x telescope for Mars to look that big to a viewer.

The roots of this hoax appear to dip back to 2003, when Mars actually did come closer to Earth than any time in the past 60,000 years. But even then, NASA points out, to the naked eye it appeared to be little more than a bright, red star.

The only thing as big as the Full Moon in the night sky remains, well, the Full Moon. As noted by NASA, “To see Mars as big as a Full Moon, you’ll need a rocketship, and that may take some time.”

To which we echo the space administration’s own conclusion: Bummer!

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 12, 2009, #770 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric Francis does individual astrological consultations, and will be through November 2009. Eric commits to consultations from year to year, stopping for about three months in November. We keep a list of interested clients. To request a consultation, please write to chelsea@planetwaves.net. Thank you.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Surf the waves of chaos; that’s how it always is, but sometimes the wind is behind you and sometimes it’s blowing you sideways. At the moment you have just the right leverage; there is a rare moment of balance in the planets, and you’re approaching the culmination of a long process of making peace with something about yourself, something you feared that many people would judge harshly. Don’t rush these next couple of weeks — savor them, live from moment to moment, and appreciate each observation of how you are not (yet) complete as a state of potential; as an opportunity for fulfillment.

Read your 2008 annual for Aries. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aries and Aries rising here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Fear is of the essence. It’s the second most powerful force on Earth, but learning that fact takes most people a lifetime. More challenging still is the use of fear as a positive force rather than one that hobbles us. I suggest you stalk your fears rather than letting them stalk you. For too long they dominated your life: the sense of impending chaos, skating on the brink of the unfamiliar, and feeling like one half of you is real and the other half is not (but which is which?). You are now on solid ground. You’ve recently found reason to be more honest with yourself. You know that what you fear, you really desire.

Read your 2008 annual for Taurus. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Taurus and Taurus rising here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Over the next few days a series of portals is opening up; this may manifest as a sequence of events, of ideas, of encounters with people and with an overall awakening of an attitude you’ve never quite felt before. While you’re someone who likes to take things at face value — this is one of your potential downfalls, by the way — these events will encourage you to look and feel deeper than what is obvious; to embrace the potential contained in something that may or may not be true. In other words, you’re being invited into a truly rich state of potential, with no guarantees. This is an ideal situation here on Earth.

Read your 2008 annual for Gemini. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Gemini and Gemini rising here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You currently have astonishing power to establish your worth in the eyes of others. Make sure you get it yourself, and please don’t waste your time about it. That is: make sure you take steps to be aware of your value in your eyes; and then establish that value in the eyes of others. Though confidence is always hard-won, many actors on your stage are not only inviting you to take a step, they are demonstrating that you can do so right now. Then go into each agreement and arrangement with a bold sense of who you are, confident that you are the only one who can provide the world with that special thing you provide. If you have never had this particular thought, I think you’ll enjoy the experiment.

Read your 2008 annual for Cancer. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Cancer and Cancer rising here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You’re being compelled to take a narrower approach to many of the possibilities that you see in the world. Yet the planets are offering a kind of exchange program: for everything you feel you must give up, whether to keep your focus or because you don’t have the energy, there will be a residual gain. It may be knowledge; it may be insight; it may be an opportunity better suited to match your current state of energy and commitment. This will work on the financial level; every savings you make can open up a possibility that is either free of charge or profitable. Of course, some things are well worth spending money on.

Read your 2008 annual for Leo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Leo and Leo rising here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You’re about to free up a lot of mental bandwidth, and to step out of a bog that seems to have had you in its grip for many weeks on end. Beware that the acceleration could be a little disturbing; you’re not actually losing control, though you’ll need to shift your awareness to maintain your sense of balance. Let one thing lead to another: an unusual opportunity or career development comes from a combination of being willing to have less glory or ‘credit’ for a truly brilliant idea, and a deeper sense of achievement. What constitutes brilliant? Please, set a high standard and try again no matter what.

Read your 2008 annual for Virgo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Virgo and Virgo rising here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
You are the third side of the triangle: the defining point that shifts a dimension; the stabilizing factor; the focal lens of a process that is grounding something very new in the world. You have the perfect psychic orientation to be in this role. It’s the kind of leadership that guides but does not direct; that maintains equilibrium between two very potent forces that have plenty in common but are also distinctly unique. I suggest you lean toward the more active side of your potential role rather than passive. Inject some of your energy into the mix. Focus on what may be the missing element: beauty.

Read your 2008 annual for Libra. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Libra and Libra rising here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
It’s clear that the past couple of months have presented certain difficulties communicating about a sensitive matter or whole subject area that you really need to get out into the open. Actually, the person or people you need to get an exchange going with have been working their way onto the same page, though they have not necessarily been saying much about it. Once the conversation begins, it has the potential to go some interesting places, and into some deep places. There may be some role reversal involved. There will be some transposing of words into actions and actions back into words. Be bold, and please allow yourself the space to allow any idea to become a potential reality.

Read your 2008 annual for Scorpio. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Scorpio and Scorpio rising here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
I trust the next few weeks will help you ease back on some of the overwhelm that has dominated your life for so long. Or at least it will ease back from you. What you need now more than anything else is focus. Learn to say no (again); learn to prioritize (again); learn to stay close to home, whenever you can. The most interesting stuff in the world is going on in your mind, not splayed out all over the planet’s surface. Also there is a healing need that I suggest you bump up on your agenda. It may involve a relationship; it may involve your sexuality; it may involve getting something crucial into balance in your body. The thing that will guide you toward that healing is specifically your senses.

Read your 2008 annual for Sagittarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Recent planetary movements have increased your appetite for adventure, and over the next few weeks this is likely to reach a new peak. The question is: what constitutes an adventure for a Capricorn? I would propose: something new. Something you’ve never done before; going someplace — emotionally or physically — that takes you out of a familiar space. I don’t think anything is going to satisfy your curiosity or your craving for contact. You are the one who needs to make the moves; you are the one who must make it happen. Don’t wait for that magic email or SMS. Make decisions and take action. Live up to being so bold.

Read your 2008 annual for Capricorn. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Capricorn and Capricorn rising here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
There is a spirit of freedom in the air over the next week or so, but freedom is strictly something that exists in potential. You can sit around watching television or wondering what to eat; or you can make a series of choices to explore, to expand yourself, and to stretch your thinking at least far enough to get around to the other side of your inner globe. There would seem to be an aspect of who you are that is seeking a voice; that is seeking the opportunity to be heard by you. As the Sun makes a trine to the rare conjunction taking place in your sign, this is a singularly unique time to take personal territory that has eluded you for years or decades.

Read your 2008 annual for Aquarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aquarius and Aquarius rising here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Keep pursuing your vision for yourself, or rather, keep becoming it. For all the thousands of spiritual, psychological and metaphysical books written telling us how to ‘get there’, it remains true that every person must establish their own relationship to existence. What you are doing now is having effects now, but you’re also establishing an energetic pattern that will carry you forward for years to come. It may be difficult to see how this is true today, but when you look back at this time in your life even with a year or three years’ perspective, you will see the astonishing extent to which so much follows logically. Therefore: keep creating, with all you’ve got.

Read your 2008 annual for Pisces. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Pisces and Pisces rising here.

Dear Friend and Leader:

Lately I am hearing the discussion about 2012 happen just about every day. The concept of this being an important year was introduced to popular culture by Jose Arguelles at the time of the Harmonic Convergence in 1987. His work is inspired by Mayan astrology, and in that system we experience a turnover in the calendar, which — so far as I have been able to discern, from the best source I have — reaches the date 13.0.0.0.0 on Dec. 21. 2012.

Part of Chichen Itza ruin complex in the Yucatan part of Mexico at the height of the Mayan civilization some 1500 years ago. Photo by Michel Mintaka.

That 13 at the front tells us that on the winter solstice of 2012, the 13th baktun will have ended. A baktun is 5,125 years and five of them represent a “great cycle” — the precessional cycle of about 26,000 years. (Our scientists still cannot calculate an exact length of one precessional cycle.) This is one full wobble of the Earth’s axis, which makes the backdrop of the cosmos seem to slide along and which causes the astrological ages to change.

When you hear about the “Age of Aquarius” that is a reference to precessional movement. There are no exact dates when the astrological ages begin and end (though it’s pretty clear from the early Christian iconography that we were in the Age of Pisces at the time of the presumed birth of Jesus/Joshua). Generally when people talk about an astrological age, they are making reference to the position of the Sun on the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. This will come about one day earlier every 70 years. However, a Mayan scholar and philosopher named John Major Jenkins has proposed that what we need to be looking at if we want to understand the Mayan system is not the first day of spring but rather the first day of winter — the position of the Sun at the Winter Solstice. That would be the position of the Sun on the first day of Capricorn, which incidentally is where Pluto is hanging out lately.

When you look at that, you find that it aligns closely with the center of our galaxy, and this, he says, is where we need to be getting our information. Because of the Earth’s wobble, that position is retrograding towards the Galactic Center and in particular the dark band at the center of the galaxy, which is known to some modern-day Mayan thinkers as the Road to Xibalba. It is the mythical opening to another dimension, the Mayan underworld; and the symbolism is distinctly yonic in nature. Cave systems in Belize and Guatemala have also been referred to as the entrance to Xibalba, though one physical expression referred to by K’iche’ peoples is the dark rift which is visible in the Milky Way.

Jose Arguelles – Closing the Cycle Seminary, Rome – Italy. Photo by Frank DaSilva.

Let’s set aside the Mayan symbolism for now and consider the Western astrology on the road to 2012. As of June 1, 2009 we are exactly 1,300 days from the winter solstice of 2012. During that time we experience many significant changes. For example, Uranus, Neptune and Chiron all change signs. We recently experienced the sign change of Pluto, which transited from Sagittarius to Capricorn (where it will remain until about 2023). As the other outer planets follow suit, our perception of the world will shift again and again with each of the transits.

Then there exist a wide diversity of aspects that tell the story. The most significant of which is occurring right now, as you read this: Chiron conjunct Neptune in Aquarius. Jupiter also happens to be in the mix and even through June these planets are within one degree. Through the month of June they remain in an exact conjunction. My sense is that this is astrology that will shape our time in history. More to the point, it is helping open up a new dimension of reality wherein we have increased creative authority over our lives. And we can, together, create a space where we can meet in psychic space and physical space and restructure our patterns of social interaction.

When we talk about the need for humanity to get free of its current moribund spiral descent into fear and self-repression, materialism and darkness, opening up such a living space, and recreating our relational patterns, is essential.

Aquarius, where this conjunction is taking place, is the sign of both mental and social patterns. Neptune, which has been there for a decade, has melted away the structure of our old patterns, though for many introducing a layer of pure fantasy, media haze and drug haze that makes it impossible to see reality. Chiron focuses Neptune energy, at once applying it precisely and providing an antidote, if necessary. Chiron is like a utility that helps us work with the energy of the outer planets.

Its conjunction to Neptune draws in and clarifies Neptune energy like a laser, which can be applied to awareness, to healing and to creative endeavors. Jupiter adds a wisdom factor, the quality of expansion and a global theme.

A group taking part in the “Harmonic Convergence” perform their sacred dance in the grounds of the ruined 14th century Chapel of St Michael. Credit: Topham Picturepoint.

This aspect is big, and it is rare that we actually get to live through astrology consciously as it shapes our generation. Such is one of the powers granted by the Internet, and I am certain that the Net is one of the most important platforms for the changes we are witnessing. Yet what I am really describing is an entirely natural network in consciousness that is opening up and that we can access. I described this recently as a phenomenon of 6th dimensional morphogenetic fields in my weekly magazine.

This aspect holds well into 2010 and is a threshold to what follows next, leading to the first full-on 2012 astrology, which occurs in June 2012: the Venus transit of the Sun, and Uranus square Pluto. The Venus event is a precise conjunction to the disk of the Sun, a rare event the Mayans revered. Uranus square Pluto is astrology that says liberation and revolution like nothing we have seen since the mid-1960s.

While there is a lot of noteworthy astrology on the way to 2012, that is the year that the really interesting movement begins. However, I can assure those who wish to participate in the strange, the new and the unworldly will find plenty of intrigue and growth opportunities as these aspects unfold on the road to Xibalba.

All in all, what we need to give up is our attachment to our fears, our defenses and inert fantasies. We don’t need to give these things up all at once — the place to start is with our commitment to them. What I am saying here is that the reason we tend to have so much negativity in our lives is because we’re attached to it. That doesn’t mean we want it, but it does mean we tend to cling to it like it was some precious thing to be proud of, rather than something to let go of and embrace the framework of the next phase of reality.

One other crucial quality we must embrace is the feminine side of our brains, meaning our body and our consciousness. I don’t mean gender bending, but rather a true encounter and integration with the biophilic (sensitive to all of life) quality that is distinctly female. I would propose that this is something essential particularly for women; through this process they can bring in their natural healing gifts and allow them to flourish.

The following is an abbreviated list of events between now and 2012. More examples are available at PlanetWaves.net.

Chariklo square Chiron (2009-2012).

These are two very small, meaningful planets orbiting our Sun in the relatively new centaur class. They are currently in a square (90-degree) aspect. This aspect repeats in seven separate events between now and 2012, and as such is a constant companion along the way. The square is currently from Scorpio to Aquarius. It will gradually shift to an aspect between Sagittarius to Pisces.

The Milky Way near Cygnus showing the lane of the Dark Rift which the Maya called the Xibalba be or Black Road.

In mythology, Chiron and Chariklo were consorts; she was a nymph and the wife of the famous surgeon, healer and mentor. Their story contains none of the philandering, mockery and hubris that is so common to the Greek myths. Yet they endure the many pains of the world and endure the flaws of both humanity and the gods. Chiron is about healing processes that benefit from or demand the raising of awareness and a humble approach to life, as tempered by awareness of both mortality and immortality.

In a square aspect, they are here to help us work out a dynamic in our relationships that is held internally. Our issues with fear, abandonment, psychic pain, physical sickness, inferiority and jealousy are all internally mediated. Chariklo’s presence is calling us to be present for our own healing process. She is holding devoted space for us to make peace with our dualistic human/animal nature, and to gradually integrate the two without judgment.

Saturn square Pluto (2009-2010)

An antiwar movement is emerging in Afghanistan. Photo by Shah Marai.

In November, Saturn transits from Virgo to Libra. Once there, it will begin a series of three squares to Pluto in Capricorn. This will take place in aspect to the Aries Point, that is, the first degree of Aries, which magnifies the connection between the personal and the political. When Saturn and Pluto get together, the results can range from violence to a conservative backlash against our inherent freedom as humans.

In 2001, we experienced the opposition of Saturn and Pluto and we all saw the results, which lasted for the ensuing decade and created damage we are still dealing with. Indeed, we will for a long time. We now have an opportunity to see how our own obsession with fear and suppressing our life force contributed to the catastrophic aftermath of the Sept. 11 incident.

People who fancy themselves ‘conservative’ will have a chance to see the fear that is at the core of that ideology. Those who fancy themselves ‘liberal’ will have an opportunity to apply structure and discipline to their lives in the way that is essential to existing in an actual state of freedom. Through this aspect we will all have a significant opportunity to assess our relationship to fear. We will get to bear personal witness to the idea that trust is the key to love.

Chiron and Neptune enter Pisces (2010-2012).

Photo by Frank Verro.

Both planets are now at the end of long passages through Aquarius, in a conjunction. As this conjunction separates, Chiron will lead the way into Pisces, beginning in 2010. Neptune will follow over the next two years (slow planets take a while to go into a new sign, usually retrograding back into the prior sign once.) In effect this is one transit and represents the full activation of Pisces energy.

We are accustomed to all the toxic forms of Pisces, from violent films to television advertising to wanton consumption of alcohol to every mood-altering pharmaceutical to spill out of corporate laboratories by the train carload. We obsess with status, fashion, appearance, glamour and living fantasy lives. Then to this we try to add a little sprinkling of ‘spiritual’ as if that would magically open the way to God.

Neptune is the modern ruler of Pisces. Its presence there will refresh the spiritual waters, flooding through both society and consciousness with revitalizing life. Chiron will make us aware of how toxic our ways of living and thinking are, and introduce — often poignantly — awareness of how we need to feel our emotions, our bodies and our souls.

Uranus enters Aries (2010-2011).

The mighty liberator Uranus, the planet of foresight, technological advance, innovation and revolution, will personally cross the Aries Point three times starting in 2010, ending up in Aries to stay for seven years in 2011. If we are looking for a tipping point where the signs of change are inevitable, and this odd thing known as ‘the public’ actually wakes up, this is the event. On the personal level, this aspect says we have to think of ourselves differently. The real evolution is not a news event but an awakening of who we think we are. But we don’t need to wait around — this awakening is happening right now, just when we least expect it.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I’ve been thinking about thinking. Motivational speaker James Allen tells us, “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” In times of upheaval, it’s a sure bet that thoughts are zooming around in the ethers like birds startled out of their nest, flapping and dodging and making a din. Errant thoughts, most likely — unpoliced, let loose in panic. I could wish we’d be more deliberate with our thought process, but, as Henry Ford put it, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.”

Thinking. Photo by Andrew Tansj.

This business of taking back our lives, making them work in collaboration and harmlessness while discovering and replacing the old patterns that held us in servitude (if not paralysis) will take generations to accomplish. We’ve made a few good steps this last week, overlaying a new template on some of what is outworn; and we’ve had a few sharp reminders of the mindless, emotional thought process we must rise above if we are to regain our national sanity.

Under the umbrella of the Chiron/Neptune/Jupiter mix, we saw a ‘pro-life’ zealot walk into a church and murder a doctor who provided late-term abortion for often desperate families. In the unenlightened soul, Jupiter has the capacity to puff us up in self-righteousness and God-delusion, fuel our confidence; Neptune provides the fantasy and Chiron the wounded disgruntlement. Given the limited consciousness of some Americans, the eventuality of this kind of incident was all but fated, driven by this combination of energies; only a matter of when and where. The where turned out to be a church vestibule on a Sunday morning in Wichita, Kansas.

Another example of this overblown energy came at the announcement of a new Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor appears, at first blush, to be the epitome of the prototype necessary to balance out a male-dominated court and a growingly diverse American population. She is a she, for starters, and a Latina, raised by her widowed mother in a South Bronx housing project. One would think that her early accomplishments — high school valedictorian, graduating summa cum laude from Princeton University to become an editor of the Law Journal at Yale Law School; then on to become a judge, as well as work in public and private practice — would be heralded by the Republicans who are constantly berating the little guys for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, which Sonia obviously did.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

Artist’s rendition of the view from a hypothetical airless planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A. Picture from the Wikimedia Commons.

Somewhere out there in the galaxy is another planet suitable for human habitation. And two sets of scientists are racing to see if that planet might be found in the nearby Alpha Centauri system.

Writing for The Washington Post, reporter Joel Achenbach describes the efforts of the two groups — one American, one European — to be the first to confirm the existence, long suspected, of a planet in that system.

The American team is making 100,000 observations of the Centauri system and analyzing them to try and find a planet. Their European counterparts apparently have more sophisticated equipment, the article states. Both have their electronic eyes focused on our nearest stellar neighbor, a binary star system that is practically next door to our sun.

Of course, astronomically speaking, the distance to something “right next door” is still, well, astronomical. In the case of Alpha Centauri, more than four years of travel at the speed of light, if that ever proves possible. Or, as Achenbach puts it poignantly in his article: “The venerable robotic probe Voyager I, which has traveled farther from Earth than any manmade spacecraft, is racing away at nearly 11 miles per second and has already traveled 10 billion miles. It would need on the order of 80,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri were it traveling in that direction.”

That, naturally, makes any manned mission (much less colonization) little more than water cooler talk for a long while yet. However, the scientific community is looking at new options for exploratory spacecraft. Among those is the idea to go small. As Achenbach relates in his article, the first vessels to cruise the reaches of interstellar space might be less Starship Enterprise than “Cellphone Enterprise: a small, speedy spacecraft, crammed with nanotechnology and capable of beaming snapshots back home.”

And from the Trivial Coincidences Dept., in the mid-1990s science fiction show Babylon 5, when humans took to the stars the first society they encountered was the Centauri Republic. But those folks didn’t live in the Alpha Centauri system, it turns out; the name was just a “translation error,” it seems.
 

Front row, Commander Mark Polansky (right) and Pilot Doug Hurley. Back row (left to right), astronauts Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Canadian Space Agency’s Julie Payette, Tom Marshburn and Tim Kopra, all mission specialists. Kopra is scheduled to join Expedition 20 as flight engineer after launching to the International Space Station with the STS-127 crew. Image credit: NASA.

A week from this Saturday, NASA will launch the Space Shuttle Endeavor with a seven-person crew on a mission to the International Space Station.

This follows hot on the heels of a tremendously successful mission last month to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. (Speaking of that trip, have you seen this great photo by Floridian George Fetter at SpaceWeather.com?)

On tap for this trip by Endeavor is construction and installation of the Kibo laboratory, built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which PhysOrg.com reports will “allow experiments to be exposed to space.”

Kibo is the Japanese word for “hope.” According to Wikipedia, the lab will be the largest single module on the International Space Station; the first two parts were delivered by earlier shuttle missions, and next week’s launch includes the final section. Kibo has its own robot arm for moving experiments between the pressurized portion of the module and the exposed facility or “Terrace.”

NASA has slated 16 days for this mission, which will include five space walks.
 

Wheel slippage during attempts to extricate NASA’s Mars Rover Spirit from a patch of soft ground during the preceding two weeks had partially buried the wheels by the 1,899th Martian day, or sol, of the Spirit’s mission on Mars (May 6, 2009). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

When you’re stuck in a rut, that’s usually a good time for some introspection.

That’s exactly what NASA had its Mars Rover Spirit do this week. The six-wheeled robot ran into soft soil back on May 1 and got stuck. The space agency has been trying to figure out a way to get it moving again since then, and this week they had an epiphany: Use Spirit’s microscopic imaging camera to take pictures of its underside, so engineers can better see what they’re working against.

The result is a patchwork of images stitched together into a panoramic view. It’s a little fuzzy — that camera is designed to take pictures from only about 2.4 inches away — but “the mosaic is still very useful for helping to assess the rover’s state,” according to the website for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Frankly, few would blame NASA if it decided to let Spirit rest where it lies. The robotic explorer has exponentially exceeded expectations. Designed to operate for 90 sols, or Martian days, after landing on the red planet January 4, 2004, Spirit has now seen more than 1,800 sols of duty. However, NASA is still looking for a way to free Spirit from the sandy soil in the region now known as “Troy” so it can continue its mission.

So far, Spirit has encountered evidence of water ice on Mars, but no signs of life — and certainly nothing like the mission’s mascot.

By Eric Francis of Little Rock, AK

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 5, 2009, #769 – BY PRIYA KALE

Today Priya Kale is standing in for Eric Francis on the weekly horoscope. For more daily astrology, horoscopes and information on consultations please visit www.cosmicdiaries.com

Aries (March 20-April 19)
The heavens seem to be opening up their wisdom to you now and I suggest you do all you can to be receptive and listen to the messages coming through. There is an idea which can open your mind to a whole new world of very real possibilities. You’ve been perhaps disillusioned in the past and although painful this has only brought a priceless awakening to reality through the fog. The rewards for your courage are beginning to come through in spades and if you haven’t seen tangible proof yet you won’t have to wait too much longer. But whether love or success, remember it is quality and quantity that you are after. You are a person of impeccable taste, so why settle for anything less than pure gold?

Read your 2008 annual for Aries. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aries and Aries rising here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly…” Your life right now is truly an embodiment of this phrase. After recent life-and-death battles, you are now in a phase of resurrection and coming into your own. As you dare to venture out into this world, you may feel divided within yourself, but there is a truth staring you in the face regarding a deeply personal or financial situation that you would do well not to deny. Recent events may have brought you a deeper understanding of where your wounds lie, healing and releasing you from their grip. Be proud of who you are and what you have to offer. This is the story of your becoming — but who you are and what you are made of may even surprise you, if you can let go of old beliefs that dare to limit your success.

Read your 2008 annual for Taurus. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Taurus and Taurus rising here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Events this week bring you a moment of truth asking you to be honest with yourself how you feel about an important business or personal relationship. But more importantly this is asking you to be honest about who you truly are and what you identify with on the deepest, most core subconscious level. You are recognizing deeper desires that you haven’t dared acknowledge before, but what is awakening now within you is so real that it is impossible to deny. It may be scary to let go of your inhibitions to the extent of having to deal with heavy emotions when your natural tendency is to keep things light. But I suggest now the deeper you are willing to go, the higher the peak [of ecstasy or success] you are likely to reach. Be true to yourself and all else will be revealed in the light of that.

Read your 2008 annual for Gemini. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Gemini and Gemini rising here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You’ve been spending more time undercover and discovering there is another side to you that you often don’t reveal to yourself, let alone others. But events now are asking you to come back out into the light of day to see how this affects your daily life and relationships. You’ve been searching for something to stabilize you but this will only come when you are ready to be honest with yourself above all of your deepest, sometimes divided, desires. You may fear that the truth is too much to handle but truly this is about letting go of the darker fears that control you and threaten to have you living a double life. Be willing to be honest within an important conversation without allowing yourself to feel judged. Your ability to confront your fears head on is more likely to bring you solid proof of what is real, and that this is nothing to be afraid of.

Read your 2008 annual for Cancer. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Cancer and Cancer rising here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Whether you realize it or not you are making a huge shift this week, turning a corner toward recognizing the true depth of your worth. But this will only come when you can resolve your own criticism of yourself that stands a tall wall in between you and the dream in your heart. You may be trying to be rational about this, but don’t forget every great dream that has ever manifested began with a leap of faith. If you can acknowledge your desire to be bold and take a chance on something you feel passionately about you are more than likely to see a way this can become a reality. You are entering a phase when the world is catching on to your gifts and what you have to offer. Perhaps it’s time you woke up to this too.

Read your 2008 annual for Leo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Leo and Leo rising here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Your professional life seems to be in focus right now and there may be an issue you feel deeply divided about. But I suggest you recognize your deeper need for emotional fulfillment to be recognized for being exactly who you are — no pretenses. This will prevent any misplaced feelings of resentment or emotional anxiety that can arise for not having your needs met. If you can acknowledge your own insecurities you can move past them, releasing any feeing of being stuck regarding a difficult choice. You have more power than you give yourself credit for. But your true strength lies in your wisdom and ability to stay true to a greater selfless dream you’ve been working patiently to manifest. The rewards are not too far over the horizon as you will soon see.

Read your 2008 annual for Virgo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Virgo and Virgo rising here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
After months of learning yourself in the light of your relationships, you are being called upon to take a bold move into the unknown. Surprisingly or not so surprisingly this is actually about to show you just how much you have allowed past demons to control your current reality, which is nowhere near as shaky as you may feel. As scary as it seems, if you can let go of your emotional fear and be honest with yourself about a great hope you carry, you can gain the higher perspective you need regarding a deeply intimate or financial partnership. Recognize your core values and be willing to use your imagination. A partner is leading the way but if you can trust, this is leading to a meeting place of equals in the most real sense of the word.

Read your 2008 annual for Libra. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Libra and Libra rising here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
You’ve dared venture to the ‘other’ side and may feel torn about whether you are making the right choice, but ask yourself how much of these are your own worst fears. You are more grounded in reality than you’ve been in the recent past and stand on solid ground. A partner is coming into their own after a deep phase of introspection and is willing to offer you the stability you’ve been looking for. Indeed you may have to get over your own sense of mistrust in the situation and more importantly recognize your own infinite potential in the light of a deeply intimate or financial situation. In all conversations and communication speak from the heart and be willing to let go of old mental patterns. There is a divine truth revealing itself to you and what you have to offer. This is more real than any demons of past fears you could conjure up.

Read your 2008 annual for Scorpio. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Scorpio and Scorpio rising here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
With a Full Moon in your sign, it seems you are learning an important truth about yourself in the light of a relationship. You may be feeling fairly disillusioned at this point that things could ever move forward within a partnership situation. But what you are learning is the need to stay true to yourself even in the face of changing reality. You have always been a step ahead of the rest when it comes to your vision, but please realize just how much your mind tends to play tricks on you, bringing you more pain than pleasure in the long run. Stay in the present and stay with what is real. If you can let go of your desire to control the outcome of a situation, it is more than likely to bring you more of the real harmony and pleasure you seek as a part of your daily life. Everything you do, be it work or play, if you do it with love — the action itself will be your reward.

Read your 2008 annual for Sagittarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
You’ve been working hard lately toward a long-time personal goal or ambition, but I suggest you find some quiet time now to pay attention to a deeper, wiser message coming through. If you feel like a slave to your routine, recognize these are usually your own high expectations rather than anyone else’s judgement of you. Find a balance now within your daily life to accommodate your need for a sense of accomplishment as well as the need to follow your soul passion. Something has the potential to touch your heart deeply this week, but for that you may first have to take a leap of faith and live your truth wholly. You can be your own worst critic — and you know what they say about all work and no play…

Read your 2008 annual for Capricorn. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Capricorn and Capricorn rising here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
A creative or sexual partnership reaches a crucial turning point this week. You may feel two ways about a situation that seems risky to begin with, without the added pressure of someone else’s critical thinking, so don’t fall into that trap. But remember you are known as the revolutionary of the zodiac because you have the rare combination of optimism and luck that allows you to take a risk on a dream and have it pay off. In an important conversation surrounding your security and your inner well-being, be honest and bold. You have not yet reached the bottom of the barrel and you are about to find out its real depth is as limitless as your soul. There is more comfort and security making its way to you if you are willing to speak up for what you know is true in your heart.

Read your 2008 annual for Aquarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aquarius and Aquarius rising here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
It may have felt like you’re talking around in circles in an endless debate and now you may feel like you’ve reached a fork in the road. But you turn a corner this week within a close personal situation. Partners have been slow to come around to recognizing your deep vision, but your honesty and truth has not gone unnoticed or unheard as you will soon see. Your imagination is your greatest gift. You are a visionary, who has the magical ability to manifest thought and word into tangible creations of untold value — but this is because your dreams are rarely selfish. Wishful thinking may be a phrase for some; for you it is a very real way of life. Use your powers now and use them wisely…

Read your 2008 annual for Pisces. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Pisces and Pisces rising here.

Dear Friend and Leader:

A couple of weeks ago, I got a suggestion from my inner guide to stop interpreting the Aquarius conjunction. I follow this voice carefully in my astrology writing. It’s given me plenty of information but never before suggested that I shut up. “You’ve been working on this for 14 years. Stop explaining the energy and focus on working with it,” is the message I got, basically verbatim. Fourteen years? All my roads lead here; to this desk; all words to this very sentence.

Aquarius. Photo by Eric Francis.

It was time for a break anyway, so I started canceling things (like editions of Planet Waves Radio), farming writing assignments out to my colleagues and doing other things (visiting friends, photographing new people and places, writing fiction, and so on). Finally I slept through the Gemini New Moon and realized that I had indeed disengaged myself. With the first peak of the Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune conjunction upon us, and with Mercury stationing direct on Saturday, I am here with a few additional notes.

Mercury will station direct in late Taurus, square the alignment in late Aquarius, so the two events are intimately related.

It will take Mercury about 11 days from now, slowly walking forward in Taurus, to align at precisely 90 degrees with the triple conjunction (this will be the third pass of this square, and the most precise). Mercury is the planet of mind, and vibrates closely with Aquarius all the time; Taurus is the sign of the body. The message is that we are trying to embody an idea. That is to say, it’s time to get it out of our heads, out of the abstract realm, and into the physical, sensory dimension where we can work tangibly with the changes we are making.

I have described the Aquarius alignment as one of the most meaningful conjunctions of our lifetimes. I am speaking collectively and individually. This is a big statement, particularly since (at the moment) there seems to be nothing special going on in the world unless you’re really impressed by Korea’s nuclear test or GM fleeing to China; and yes we have a Supreme Court nominee (see article below) and that is pretty important; but nothing overt (such as on TV) that would lead someone to say, “Gee whiz, what a superb moment of human evolution. What a great time to be on the planet.” Unless of course you’re looking carefully, and unless your perception sees the particular wavelengths that would resolve something so subtle. Because this aspect involves Neptune, and is in a sextile to the Galactic Core in Sagittarius, I am pretty sure it’s invisible to most people. Both Neptune and the Core have the property of disappearing into the background. But so do most big aspects — unless something horrid happens (such as Sept. 11) or unless the planets turn up the dial on sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll (the 1960s, 2012).

If we look with the long view, it’s fairly easy to see what it all adds up to, but it’s difficult to see the astrology in its moment, and that is one of the true challenges of paying attention to astrology at all. Also, one’s personal transits can send us into crisis, and I’m hearing a fair bit of that now, but we need to understand the nature of the crisis. To me this is speaking clearly about getting to a lighter density level than the one we’re conditioned to hang out on. This involves adjusting our relationship to matter/mater/mother.

Spiral Fantasy by Alfred Laing. This is a fractal-generated image; it’s a mathematical equation. A fractal is a still portrait of Chaos Theory in motion. When you hear someone say that “there are patterns in the chaos,” this is an example – and so are you.

We also need to shift our relationship to what was formerly called ‘chaos’ or ‘information overload’. One message that astrology is sending us is about embracing apparent complexity. In recent years, more than 200,000 planets have been discovered orbiting our Sun (most of them since Pholus and QB1 showed up in 1992) — so many that most don’t have names and probably never will. If astrology is a model of consciousness, this is evidence of a change in the model and what it represents, which would be you and me.

As humanity struggles to keep up with the haze of technological development, climate changes and economic changes, there is another struggle, one usually going on beneath the surface of consciousness, which is about needing our spiritual progress to keep pace with all the options we’re given. By spiritual progress I mean ethics, and I also mean awareness of, and a relationship with, a thinly veiled dimension of reality that provides us with better information than we get most other places; and by that I mean living information that will help us heal our lives and do what we came here to do.

That bit! Tell me: would it be fair to say you were born to do what you are doing today? You were born to do something, and to find out what that is it’s necessary to get beneath the appearances of life, below the surface and away from the expectations of others and pay attention to something closer to the core; and by pay attention I don’t mean a fleeting glance or a whim; I don’t mean a workshop.

The problem — and it’s a big one — with this dimension of consciousness is that it denies something called the ego. By ego I don’t just mean the arrogant guy in a suit and aviator sunglasses who thinks a movie should be made about him, despite how boring his life really is. I mean the complex of fear-based concepts that creates a notion of ‘self’ which wants to run the universe on its own frightening terms. This is an identity that is usually experienced as some combination of competitive, jealous, controlling, negative and unwilling to yield to collective needs, or for that matter, authentic personal needs.

The ego eats fear to thrive, and creates fear as waste; it’s a kind of breeder-reactor. Television news is one of its favorite foods. It occupies itself with games, such as “How much does it cost?” or “Look what I can get away with,” or “I’m only trying to help you.” (Google Transactional Analysis for more info. Or get one of the best books ever written, Games People Play.)

Or how about, “I’m not going to be with anyone till I’ve healed all of my issues and I find the perfect partner.”

The original title for Woodstock was “Aquarian Exposition.” That is indeed Jerry Garcia on the left; Jimi to the right; Janis below; Grace lower right.

Then there is the community game. I am starting to cringe every time I hear an expression like “LGBT community” or “Facebook community.” There are a lot of imaginary groups that exist in the midst of Neptune in Aquarius, such as the Fair Trade coffee drinking community. And there is a profound need to get together; to align our vision and our ideals in a way that is not as simple as getting on an Internet group. Part of why so many people are so lonely right now (a Neptune function) is that most of us don’t know how to get together any more; how to share a goal or an idea and work toward it.

Something else is possible; many other things are. When we’re introduced to a perspective on the world that offers us not only freedom from these patterns but also the gift of abundance; an opportunity to participate; and an unusual level of awareness, this fear-based pattern can (and usually does) go into revolt mode (illness, addiction, rage, guilt, self-sabotage). Or it can try to put the biocomputer into sleep mode (unavailable, wandering, lost, delayed, bored, depressed, frustrated). One very common reaction is simply fear, with nothing special to back it up; just ongoing fear of the unknown or unfamiliar.

And yes, self-aggrandizement and arrogance are some of its most fun toys. More lately, dwelling on integrity is one of the most popular games we play, which can almost always be identified by the inability to laugh at oneself. Too much integrity is not healthy. The Golden Gate Bridge sways in the breeze.

Sex, for its part, has profound power both as a tool for awakening and for going deeper into sleep. But there is a paradox, which is that it’s very difficult to awaken without tangible sexual awareness; applied awareness. The reason sex is such a powerful ally for either seeming side in this struggle is that it’s so deeply connected to one’s biocomputer, existing in a constant dialog with our DNA and wanting to express one of humanity’s prime directives: creativity.

The Elusive and the Theoretical

Speaking of DNA, let’s pretend that Chiron hadn’t been discovered and all we knew about right now was the conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune. Jupiter expands and Neptune both envisions and dissolves. In Aquarius, this would be about idealism and ideas, involving some social phenomenon. We might be thinking of things like progress, a social vision, and so on, all of which was directed by ‘God’ showing up in the form of Jupiter and Neptune, two very divine kinds of planets. Near the last Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Aquarius, in 1843, in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, John L. O’Sullivan wrote of “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence.” That is, expansion of the United States westward. In order to do this we had to have a vision and slaughter a lot of Native Americans and Buffalo, and I do mean a lot. Under this conjunction in Aquarius there was an expedition to explore the Rocky Mountains, and a large migration of humanity westward across Turtle Island.

Last week, scientists found this crude computing device, believed to be about 12.000 years old, in the back of the Lascaux Cave in southern France.

The problem with a conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune (particularly in Aquarius) is that it can be delusional and in denial of the future consequences of the very future it seeks to colonize. For our part, we are still blazing into our technological future. I am absolutely impressed by cell phone addiction. People, er, young women come to my studio and their cell phones get more calls than Jonathan Cainer gets. (I’ve had to enact a remove the battery rule, and if that doesn’t work I will leave a bucket of water near the door.) I am astonished how many 14-year-olds have iPhones, which give one access to the global library known as the Internet. And if you tell someone under age 30 that George Washington and Abe Lincoln were great friends, they are likely to believe you.

Speaking on the individual level, this conjunction is the culmination of the “I’m very nearly perfect because I do yoga” phase of social history, a close cousin of, “I’m going to be the best me I can be.” This high horse is finally starting to be seen as the merry-go-round that it is; being spiritual in the theoretical sense offers little in the way of practical advantage unless you get along with your neighbors, including the ones that want to get your clothes off. Despite years of spiritual practice, a vast ocean of people feel like they have nothing to offer the world; no clue what they want to do; and are at war with themselves, their partners and their whole concept of relationship. Sexual attraction still sends a significant portion of the population in to panic mode. It ain’t the freakin’ Sixties any more.

This crisis exists in thought only, having nothing to do with who we are or what is possible.

I could see Jupiter-Neptune in Aquarius, on one level, being about a notion of where we think we’re supposed to be that we are not: how much progress we’re supposed to have made, what we wanted to do that never happened, and so on. There is the sense of how the future is supposed to be happening now, but we can’t quite dial it in, largely because Jupiter and Neptune can be so elusive and Aquarius can be so theoretical. The whole thing has this feeling of how spiritual it’s supposed to be, if only I could catch it in my butterfly net.

Apropos of Aquarius, let’s consider one last idea before we move onto Chiron’s involvement here. This is one of the most contradictory signs of the lot; it’s about freedom, innovation and individuality on one side of the calculus, and it’s about conformity and rigid, boxy thinking on the other. The mental patterns of Aquarius are not easily seen or addressed, partly because they are so intimately involved in awareness itself. Meanwhile, Neptune in this sign has been working to dissolve those patterns. Part of what we have experienced is a pattern involved with Neptune itself, in its lower vibrations: much of our society’s activity manifesting as a socially acceptable (Aquarius) psychoactive substance (Neptune). You can probably name ten of them without even trying too hard. Some are digital; some are other things.

I really wonder how many train carloads of mood stabilizers have been manufactured since 1998 — you know, how many miles it would stretch. But I don’t wonder why we think we need them: if we were really to keep pace with all this progress, we wouldn’t be the same person two days in a row, and that pressure can certainly be painful. Looked at one way, the world gives us plenty to be depressed, anxious and uptight about. Whether it’s true, and how you respond, are another story.

Chiron: Grounding in Experience and Reality

There have been 12 conjunctions of Jupiter and Neptune since 1843, just before the discovery of Neptune (see article below). That conjunction, as mentioned, was in Aquarius. So the current conjunction references the discovery of Uranus in 1846; we just experienced the Neptune return of Neptune’s discovery. Out of all these Jupiter-Neptune conjunctions, Chiron was present for just one of them, the one in 1945, in Libra, weeks after World War II ended. The success of the Western world and Japan in the postwar years offers both encouragement and a warning.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Chiron’s presence in this conjunction changes everything. For those who are trying to grasp what Chiron is and how it works, think of it as a utility that 1) helps us raise awareness, and therefore facilitates healing; and 2) makes the energy of the outer planets available to us in a tangible form.

This second property, worth its own article, was sketched out briefly by Barbara Hand Clow. It’s easy to understand in a conjunction with either Jupiter or Neptune. Jupiter (not really an outer planet, but still obscure enough to get partial credit) is like a vast database of ideas and possibilities, usually associated with world culture, knowledge, spirituality, or religion. Chiron contacting Jupiter helps us dial in specific ideas and apply them. Chiron is almost always about going from the general to the specific; from the theory to the experience. Therefore Chiron to Jupiter is about the application of an idea to your life or to the world. It’s about direct participation in society, especially in Aquarius. And it’s about the crisis of what we don’t know. You could say that the conjunction of Chiron to Jupiter translates to know want you don’t know, then find out if you can — and do something about it.

Looked at another way, Chiron conjunct Jupiter is the perfect expression of think globally (Jupiter) and act locally (Chiron).

As for Neptune, this is an extremely complex energy at this time in our history. It is often summed up incompletely and somewhat uselessly as the higher octave of Venus. Yes, Neptune should be about spiritual love as opposed to special love; but our obsession with fear turns Neptune famously toxic. If Venus is ‘love’ and Neptune is ‘in love’, the reality of love can and often is substituted with the illusion of in love; indeed, the obsession with being in love as opposed to simply loving. Neptune is about an aura of glamour as opposed to the earthy beauty of Venus. And it’s about the psychotic fantasy that God’s love is more important than human love, because as we know from reading the Bible, ‘God’ is a jealous SOB.

Neptune, due to the predominance of fear on our planet at this time, is associated with a lot of D words: delusion, denial, drink, drugs and deception. It’s also associated with dreams, which for too many people are more about the fearful or irrational kind than they are about holding a vision for our lives. Neptune would indeed be part of that vision, and it is, when we find it; it can represent the numinous, the miraculous, and the impossible. Geoff Cornelius calls it the daemon; the “genius or spirit” (in the words of Lilly) that is working behind the face of astrology and what we are seeking from astrology.

Neptune is also about sensing the need to go beyond fear; to embrace a dimension of awareness that is invisible to the senses. This dimension is not really documentable by normal means. It’s more of the ‘paranormal’. Neptune’s energy is usually too vague or nebulous to directly access. Chiron serves as a focusing device, like a lens, or a funnel. It gathers the energy of Neptune and puts it to some direct use. It will also shock us out of the denial represented by Neptune, calling our attention to what matters and to what it’s been more convenient to overlook.

With Jupiter and Neptune together, focused by crystal Chiron, we have a lot of power on our hands: to raise awareness, to heal, and to apply the concepts we have been learning for so long. Theoretical knowledge and self-improvement are useless unless we put them to use. What we need to be reminded of is that the goal is not perfection; there is no such thing on this plane of reality. Often our attachment is to being perfect or doing something perfectly rather than being real. In fact with Chiron one of the things we often need to deal with is the fact of incompletion or imperfection, and to proceed despite it. Chiron is about solving problems, which is always a work in progress — and which suggests that there exist problems to solve in the first place, so many that life will work a lot better if we resolve to have fun doing it.

We live in a moment of the most incredible potential. We carry technology in our pockets that would have made the Apollo mission engineers envious. We have access to information about ourselves that can help us grow, change and shape our lives. We have visions for ourselves, and we have truly incredible creative potential that we could indeed realize — if not for these annoying mental blocks; except for all this irritating, boring fear. And — if you think astrology has anything to add to the conversation, or for that matter even if you don’t — we have a brilliant alternative.

Yours & truly,

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, taken on V-J Day, 1945.

In 1843, there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius, close to our current conjunction, which predated and in a sense predicted the 1846 discovery of Neptune (see article below). (This is also to say that Neptune recently had the Neptune return of its own discovery position.) Then the next conjunctions were as follows: 1856 in Pisces (the first technologically ‘modern’ conflict, the Crimean War, ends); 1869 in Aries (Wyoming becomes the first place in the world to give women the right to vote); 1881 in Taurus, with Saturn right there (the Sioux end the American/Indian conflict with surrender, Kansas jump starts prohibition); 1894 in Gemini (a new form of communication, moving pictures, are invented); 1907 in Cancer (American financial disaster is stopped by financiers fronting the bill); 1919-1920 in Leo (Germany was not happy, and would be back); 1932 in Virgo (as the ‘Great’ Depression was taking hold); 1945 in Libra, conjunct Chiron (just as World War II ended, appropriately enough); 1958 in Scorpio (Beat Generation, predicting a bit of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll to come); 1971 in Sagittarius (dawn of the modern New Age); 1984 in Capricorn (that form of spirituality known as Paranoid Fundamentalist Neoconservatism); 1997 in Capricorn (more of the same); and finally 2009 in Aquarius — notably, the first in Aquarius since the discovery of Neptune in Aquarius.

— Eric Francis / Melanie Andrews

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

The emotional rollercoaster we’re riding in these last weeks continues to spin us up and over, taking us higher, dropping us lower and then plunging ahead non-stop; and, white-knuckled passengers on this thrill-ride, everything’s moving too fast to get more than an impression of where we are and what we’re doing. On a purely mundane level, the chaos and confusion keeps us in perpetual motion and disorientation; on a psychic level, we’re taking a trip deep into the bowels of the human condition. Our own.

Emotional Landscape. Photo by F. Alejandra.

If the channelers are right about this time period — one in which there is purging of old, anachronistic thought, the acceptance of responsibility for dark deeds of the past and rebalancing of energies in order to move into renewed awareness of our planet and ourselves — then it seems to me we’re right in the ‘zone,’ looking at all of it spread before us like a banquet of inequities and cruelties and mishaps both intentional and un. It’s all right here to examine. These rare opportunities to snap awake and leap forward come in times of extremes; we have a choice, now, whether to look or turn our heads. I urge you to stand in your growing humanity and your bright possibilities, and look carefully. It’s required, if we are to release the pain and renew our spirit.

We are assessing not only our own personal karmic load, born into families and tribes that define us, but our national mythology as well. In the long view, it seems to me that’s what we’ve been doing since the ball dropped in Times Square to announce the birth of this new century. Our behavior has become ever more transparent, more obvious and, in some cases, disturbingly predictable than we could have imagined; for some of us, we’re seeing it for the first time.

This is what the spiritual traditions call the ‘observer’ position, and unless we are willing to witness ourselves and our activity — hopefully without judgment, taking in information with non-attachment — we remain bit players in the script of our own lives. The more perilous life becomes the more we seek to answer the age-old question: who the hell AM I? Perhaps that’s what our personal play has always been about, anyway; surely millions of American plays, rewritten, have the capacity to rewrite the collective national script.

 

By Steve Bergstein | Psychsound

When Barack Obama was elected President last November, the first thing I thought about was the Supreme Court, the one branch of government that has final say on the meaning of the U.S. Constitution and federal laws. It is the Supreme Court that breathes life into the First Amendment, religious freedoms, protection against police abuses. Without a Supreme Court that cares about these values, this would be a very different country.

President Barack Obama has tapped federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. AP Photo.

I don’t have any real expectation that President Obama is going to stop the war in Iraq or maintain a foreign policy that respects democracy or human rights. None of the other presidents gave a damn about these things, and the system is too corrupt for an independent president to chart a different path. But I knew that Obama would make a difference in his judicial appointments; any choices by Obama would be an improvement over George W. Bush’s Supreme Court picks.

We forget that the Constitution and federal laws can be interpreted in different ways. Two highly intelligent judges can see things differently, and even men and women of good faith can find themselves on opposite ends of the most profound legal issues of the day. This is why many Supreme Court cases are decided by a 5-4 or 6-3 vote. Few decisions are unanimous. When you consider that every case that reaches the Supreme Court originated in the lower federal and state courts, the same issue may have been chewed over two or three times by different judges as the case made its way to the Supreme Court. The law is so malleable.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

 


Say somebody wanted to ram a giant hunk of metal into your front yard, just to see what happened afterward. Not a very enticing proposal, is it?

LCROSS will accompany the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to the Moon. Credit: NASA.

Well, that’s exactly what two space missions — NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) and Japan’s Kaguya/Selene project — will be doing in coming years.

According to an article in Astrobiology Magazine, the LCROSS mission is set to launch June 17 and when it reaches the moon, it will hurl the spent second stage of its Atlas rocket booster into a lunar crater. Scientists expect the resulting debris plume to reach six miles in height, and various instruments (possibly including the Hubble Space Telescope) will scan it for the presence of water (in the form of ice crystals) and mineralogical information.

A companion mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), will launch at the same time and place a satellite in orbit around the moon. Its instruments will be used to identify potential safe landing areas for future manned moon missions. For thumbnail sketches of upcoming NASA missions to the moon and other objects, visit this website.

The first shot at the moon’s surface, however, will be made by the Kaguya explorer of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The craft has been orbiting the moon since February 1, providing information to JAXA scientists, and is scheduled to impact on the surface on June 10. The debris plume will likewise be monitored and analyzed for information about the makeup of the lunar surface.

Images from JAXA’s Kaguya project, including HD video, can be found at the Selene (SELenological and Engineering Explorer) website.

Charles F. Bolden Jr., a retired Marine Corps general who has been to space four times, including once as commander of a 1986 shuttle mission, has been named by President Barack Obama as his choice to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Major General Charles F. Bolden, Jr. Credit & Copyright: NASA.

According to an article in The New York Times, Bolden was Obama’s advisor on space policy during his transition into the presidency. He also has ties to the aerospace industry, the article reported, noting Bolden’s work “as a lobbyist for ATK, which manufactures the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle” and having served “on the board of Gencorp Inc., whose Aerojet subsidiary has a contract to build engines for the planned astronaut capsule.” And according to The Washington Post, he “is currently the chief executive officer of JackandPanther, a Houston-based military and aerospace consulting firm.”

Times have been tough for the space agency. With the astronomical costs of space flight, the agency has struggled to justify its mission even before the recent financial crisis. However, as reported at the Huffington Post, Bolden is seen as “calming” and “well liked” at the agency, with one friend quoted as saying he will bring “balance” to the agency and help foster cooperative efforts with other nations.

It won’t hurt that he’s spent time in leadership positions at NASA; Bolden has been an assistant deputy administrator there. If confirmed, Bolden would become the agency’s first African American administrator. He would also be only the second astronaut to head up NASA since it was established 50 years ago.

Obama also named Lori Glover, who was formerly associate administrator at NASA, to be deputy administrator, second in command to Bolden.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down safely in California on Sunday after weather cancelled the original plan to land at Cape Canaveral in Florida. But while the mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope was considered a smashing success on all fronts, it has also led to debate about NASA’s long-range mission.

A Smithsonian Institution image details the future Orion spacecraft, which won’t have the space shuttle’s versatility. Photo by Eric Long.

The Washington Post reports that the senior project scientist for Hubble is raising objections over the Constellation initiative — the next generation of spacecraft that will succeed the Space Shuttle program when it is retired next year. The new craft will lack the cargo bay and robot arm of the shuttles, said David Leckrone, and that means it will be harder to service Hubble or other orbital equipment. Leckrone is to retire in October, according to the article.

That criticism was rebuffed by other officials at the space agency. The article quoted Edward Weiler, head of space science at NASA, who noted that “there’s nothing up there that’s serviceable.” He also pointed out the extreme expense of the Hubble program — some $10 billion.

Voices have emerged on both sides of the debate at NASA in the wake of Leckrone’s original comments, which were on the NASA website.

The Constellation program is designed to get men back on the moon and, eventually, to Mars. It will not feature an airplane-like design reminiscent of the familiar shuttles, but will have capsules launched by rockets, more along the lines of the Apollo and other early space programs.

By Eric Francis of Little Rock, AK

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 29, 2009, #768 – BY PRIYA KALE

Today Priya Kale is standing in for Eric Francis on the weekly horoscope. Eric Francis returns to the weekly horoscope next week.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You’re feeling pressure like you haven’t in a while to make something happen. Something’s gotta give and you know it. Only you may fear that things will get worse rather than better. You’ve been deeply re-evaluating your involvement in a situation, you know what you want now and you know the only way to get it is to ask for it. In an important conversation this week — I would suggest you be determined yet gentle; driven but focused and speak as well as listen. You are learning an important truth which could be your ticket to wield a powerful situation to your advantage. You can have more of what you want, in terms of tangible rewards and success, once you recognize the value of what you have to offer. You don’t have to push, just plant a few seeds in the right minds and watch it all come to life.

Read your 2008 annual for Aries. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aries and Aries rising here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
With astrology the way it has been in your chart, you may have felt like watching the action play out from behind the curtain rather than in the audience or being the star of the show. You’ve been in a phase of deep soul discovery which has had you keeping a low profile, reticent to say much. But the time is coming to verbalize all you’ve learned and act on the passion stirring within you. There is a great force about to sweep through your life, sure to change your beliefs of what you thought was possible. Especially when it concerns an important partnership, you are due to discover greater depth and potential which you may not have dared acknowledge before. It will take less effort than you think, just a firm resolution to be honest with yourself and speak from a place of deep awareness. Your time in the spotlight is near, think of this as a time when your entourage gathers around to celebrate your arrival.

Read your 2008 annual for Taurus. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Taurus and Taurus rising here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You’ve been dealing with deep personal doubts, a feeling of groping in the dark and perhaps fear that you are going to be stuck in a situation longer than you like. But you are awakening now to a profound truth that may come as a solid hunch suggesting the ground beneath your feet is laden with more potential than you first realized. This is true. But you may need to resolve the importance of one partnership or financial situation that has its hold over you. There is a painful past you need to let go of but recognize that can only come when you confront it. It may take a while to all come together but something deep within your soul is coming to life — be patient as you nurture this dream. If you can trust your own instincts regarding the worth of something, it is more than likely to open up a chest of treasures rather than Pandora’s box, revealing to you the gold mine you are standing in.

Read your 2008 annual for Gemini. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Gemini and Gemini rising here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
A conversation you have with a friend or close partner this week is likely to reveal to you an important truth or piece of information that you may have felt you lacked. You know things cannot go on the way they have been when it comes to an important situation. You’ve been asserting your power and may be revved up to solidify something. You’ve also been learning dark truths about your relationships and the need to keep a check on manipulative tendencies within yourself and another. Be aware of these but less critical and more focused on rewriting the rules in favor of the greater stability, honesty and trust. There is a practical way forward from here if you are willing to let go of the past and listen to solid advice when you hear it — it could be your ticket to freedom.

Read your 2008 annual for Cancer. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Cancer and Cancer rising here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You may have been deeply contemplating a career situation, while trying to keep your passion alive for your highest ambitions. You may feel deeply divided at the moment but your willingness to look at both sides of a situation is giving you the upper hand right now. If you can be patient and think win-win, you can rework a professional situation to your advantage and bring it to life. Recognize your own power within a situation now, to reach for your highest potential and have it manifest in tangible rewards and recognition for your efforts. You may not need to use as much force as you think, just have a willingness to rewrite a few rules in your day-to-day existence. Power is something that you either use or lose. But the truly powerful know they never need to flaunt it. Use yours and use it wisely.

Read your 2008 annual for Leo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Leo and Leo rising here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You’ve been patiently surveying your options and events have been pulling you out of your comfort zone to explore hidden potential. You may have been questioning yourself at this time, wondering if there is any truth to your perception of how things could be. Your persistence in going deeper in your quest for truth is soon to be rewarded. A deeply intimate or financial situation that you’ve been caught up in is soon to reveal its true worth to you. It may mean you have a change of heart or simply decide to let go of old rules that do nothing more than cage your passion in fear. Trust your highest judgement and find your voice to speak from a place of wisdom when it concerns an important situation. This is about you being true to your desires and your heart, if anything, and only what is real and solid will do.

Read your 2008 annual for Virgo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Virgo and Virgo rising here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
A deeply personal or business partnership has held your attention for a while. You’ve been right to think there is something you don’t yet know. No one likes the feeling of being kept in the dark, but as the truth surfaces this week listen closely to what is being said. What you learn has the potential to change everything. A partner seems ready to go deeper and offer you the security you’ve been looking for, but on your part there is likely a darker past you need to let go of. You are rebuilding foundations and any rules based on past interactions need to be turned in favor of new ones. Emotionally and financially, the rewards for your patience, hope and clarity are about to start becoming a reality.

Read your 2008 annual for Libra. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Libra and Libra rising here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
You’re filled with fire and you know something that needs to give in a situation that has you feeling stuck. But the way through this seems to be an old debate that just won’t go away until you give it the attention it deserves. In an important conversation be willing to listen with an open mind to what someone is trying to say. If you do, you can bridge an important gap and come to a richer understanding of where someone is coming from and more importantly, what they mean to you. You may have to let go of the darker thoughts that threaten to control your mind, but the rewards seem to far outweigh any sacrifices you would have to make in this situation. It’s time to get real, and remember actions speak louder than words.

Read your 2008 annual for Scorpio. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Scorpio and Scorpio rising here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
It’s taken courage to follow your heart boldly, but it may feel like you’ve hit a wall with important negotiations. Although partners have been reticent to speak up, they have been processing information and someone breaks their silence this week. This should be a flood of relief in the right direction, showing you that you aren’t indeed crazy for the ideas you’ve been having. There have been painful realizations you’ve had to wake up to — but indeed this is a reality that opened your mind to transcendental levels of awareness. If you can pay attention to the message coming, you will see there is a way forward for you to have more of the sexual and creative satisfaction as part of your daily life. Who says you have to sacrifice personal pleasure for work? Everything you do now, let it be a conscious act of love and creation and that is what will manifest as your tangible reality.

Read your 2008 annual for Sagittarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
You may have been deeply perplexed about a situation close to your heart. It may have had you in two minds about a risk you’ve been contemplating, but feel like you don’t have enough information about. But this week brings you to a moment of truth, gearing you with enough forward momentum to take that leap. You’ve been deeply soul searching and there is more depth to you than even you realized. Be honest above all with yourself now about a reality that you can no longer deny. You can be happy and successful doing the things you love and which bring you joy, but you may have to give yourself permission first. This has always been your challenge. Right now it may feel like you are jumping off a cliff, but if you can have faith in yourself as you follow your heart you are more than likely to land in the lap of sensual pleasure and sexual, creative passion rather than any abyss you may fear.

Read your 2008 annual for Capricorn. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Capricorn and Capricorn rising here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
You’ve seen yourself mirrored and distorted in the eyes of the people around you so much lately, that it has been absolutely essential to keep clear of projections and an awareness of who you are at all times. You could NEVER just be one of the crowd. But truth is the crowd does not really want to be one of the crowd either. Your ability to keep sight of your soul even when other people are being indecisive is what keeps you ahead of the game. If you’ve been concerned regarding an important matter surrounding your home, family or security, there is important news surfacing which is likely to prove to be reassuring and bring a flood of relief. It will though require you to get over the darker fears that control you and actually take that step towards allowing yourself to feel comfortable in your own skin.

Read your 2008 annual for Aquarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aquarius and Aquarius rising here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Your awareness of yourself and a core transcendental reality of humanity has grown in leaps and bounds. But in one partnership situation it may feel as if you’ve hit a wall. Partners have been reticent to speak and it may have been hard to get a word out of them. You may fear that you are not being heard. But even if you have felt invisible, trust on a deeper level there has been a process of feeling stuff out. A partner has been listening and processing what you’ve been saying and this week you learn an important truth. In an important conversation be honest and willing to listen, there is valuable information surfacing. If you can use your imagination and put your money where your mouth is — there is a lucrative idea you have now, which could be the stepping stone to the greater vision you’ve been trying to manifest as your gift to the world.

Read your 2008 annual for Pisces. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Pisces and Pisces rising here.