I saw a man standing on that hill
walking around like he’s got no one
will I end up like him, all alone?
girl, when you go I’ve got no soul

— Bedouin Soundclash

Dear Friend and Reader:

Most of us, myself included, have spent much of our lives searching for our missing piece, in the form of a Special Relationship. I’m going to capitalize that term, because it’s a direct reference to a concept introduced by A Course in Miracles. Without giving a wholesale endorsement of that book, I think this is a valuable concept to understand if you’re working toward growth and better relationships; it seems to be the main thing standing in the way.

Illustration by Shel Silverstein.

Basically, the Special Relationship is something that is embarked on from a sense of incompletion. It should be no great surprise that it often leads precisely back to that place, because we cannot find completion in another person.

The Course takes the position that the search for this kind of relationship is a substitute for finding our inner core and living from there. In effect, what we think of as “love” becomes a substitute for what we think of as “God” and at the end of the day, or the end of our lives, this particular effort typically leads to neither.

This whole psychic ecosystem is perfect for marketing culture, and I think it’s perpetuated, in part, for that reason. There is so much unfulfillment — emotional, sexual, social and otherwise — that we live in a sea of spiritual hunger; and that hunger we attempt to fulfill either with products, ranging from stuff to make us more desirable to stuff for its own sake to stuff to kill others (our economy is still based on military spending). The constant search for this elusive missing thing creates a society based on attempting to find fulfillment where it is not. Have you ever considered the paradox of why we live on such a lonely planet, when people abound everywhere? How can everyone be looking for love at the same time, and not finding it? Well, maybe because many people want something they are not willing to give.

Of course there are relationships that do succeed; that is, the people get together and actually keep growing. They honor one another as individuals and not halves of a whole. Yet the substitute is far more common than the authentic thing, and rarely distinguished from the real thing. The repetitive problems that most people face in their relationships tend to compound over time and create an abiding cynicism about love. You don’t need to look too far to find this attitude.

This is not true of everyone, but I can tell you that most people who are in relationships that they find satisfying, and that are based on truth, do not look forward to the day when they might have to find someone else they actually get along with. Most of these qualify as Special Relationships because there are two entirely different standards for how to treat humanity: one for the special partner, and one for the rest of us. In that double standard, we’ve played divide and conquer with ourselves. The special partner gets special treatment, and they often get a special version of the truth that excludes anything that might threaten the relationship.

Many advertising images reinforce the idea of the Special Relationship over and over again, to the exclusion of other forms of intimacy. Romanticizing human relationships has caused more problems than it has created fulfillment, mainly by creating unrealistic expectations.

Untold millions of people live in relationships that they cannot really abide because the notion of living without a partner is so terrifying that they feel they have no other choice. It is astonishing to me how often we sacrifice who we are for the sake of having someone else, who is there allegedly to make us feel complete.

Note, I have just committed a form of cultural blasphemy by saying what I just said. Second note, many people are evolving past this game of seek-and-not-find, and as a result they are having a hard time connecting in fulfilling partnerships. Many have given up relationships outright. One problem compounding this situation is that we lack new models of relationship that allow us to conceive of coexisting as individuals in an atmosphere of truth. For many, the old models don’t work. New Models exist but for most people they are not developed well enough to understand; or they are still too controversial to be considered socially acceptable, even though many are longing for some new ideas. I know that a lot of people who have those new ideas are afraid to utter a peep, fearing that they will be rendered ineligible for partnership at all; but that’s no way to have a revolution — or a little fun, for that matter.

If you are catching on that there’s a problem, you’re of above average intelligence. If you can openly admit there’s a problem and that you want something more, you have some guts.

The Ruler of Libra, Retrograde in Aries

We could say a lot about the self-concept that leads to this crisis. Any concept of relationship must be based on a corresponding concept of the self that has that relationship, and I do believe the problem begins here, as does the solution. Let’s see what astrology has to offer if we look through it like a lens. Remember that what you’re reading is my interpretation, though I will leave my margin notes so you can follow my astrological reasoning.

The Birth of Venus. William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1879.

Venus is currently retrograde in Aries. This began Friday, March 6 and extends through Friday, April 17. This is a rare event; Venus is retrograde less than any other planet, and it presents some unusual opportunities. Venus is retrograde about six weeks out of every 18 months (about 8% of the time). The most recent Venus retrogrades in Aries were in March/April of 1977, 1985, 1993, and 2001 (yes, when the retrograde is in Aries, it’s always in March and April because Venus never strays far from the Sun).

Aries is the sign that represents self. Most people give Aries the keywords, “I am.” Alice A. Bailey describes it as the sign where the First Ray of Will or Power reaches human consciousness. Most of us don’t get so far as actual will or power; Aries becomes a stand-in for the self-concept. In traditional astrology, Aries is ruled by Mars, the god of war. It is a fire sign, entirely unlike the nature of Venus which is associated with air, earth and water (Libra, Taurus and Pisces).

Libra is the sign that is most closely associated with relationships. It’s the sign opposite Aries and often gets the keywords “We Are.” In addition to being about relationships, Libra’s main theme seems to be about aesthetics; that is, beauty. This beauty exists on the mental and the physical levels; a sense of balance, fairness and symmetry come along with this sign. Rather than conquer, Libra wants to perceive and create.

When you put Venus into Aries you can get some strange effects. For example, you can get an emphasis on glamour and appearance for its own sake. Much of our culture acts as if it had Venus in Aries owing to this one property. Today I glanced at the cover of Marie Claire and noticed the exciting article about what handbag would make you a big hit at the summer party. Indulging yourself in this kind of thing may be excusable because it’s supposedly fun, but in truth it reveals a deep problem with self-esteem. How far is that handbag really going to get you? And these symbols abound in our culture. How many people would not be seen using an older cell phone?

And how many people are willing to let on they don’t have a partner? There is so much pressure to be partnered in our culture that not having a wife disqualifies someone from being president. Chogyam Trungpa said in The Way of the Spiritual Warrior that a man must marry in order to have the appearance of decency. So the presence of this other glorifies and validates the existence of the self — Venus in Aries. But it’s often a cover for some profound insecurity.

We’ve all run into the experience of falling in love with oneself through the other, or being in love with being in love. The other is used as a kind of stand-in for the self because the other, at least temporarily, is more acceptable to the ego (which A Course in Miracles, by the way, defines as an identity complex constructed essentially of self-hatred). The love that could be felt toward oneself is projected onto another person. This works well enough until the misgivings and hatred we feel toward ourselves become projected onto another person.

The whole business of how we really feel about ourselves is profoundly taboo territory. Embarking on a journey of conscious self-knowledge, we can go through a lot of layers of misgiving, discomfort and shame before we reach a level of comfort and equanimity with ourselves; the most basic self-acceptance.

The Tense Relationship With Ourselves

But here is a little problem. Our concepts of self-acceptance, selflove and narcissism are often conflated; that is, we don’t have handy ways of thinking of them as distinct concepts. As a result, we can feel shame and embarrassment when presented with an opportunity to accept or love ourselves, because it comes along with a notion of self-aggrandizement. Working the other way, we can quickly confuse someone who is arrogant with someone who is confident or centered in herself.

Onyx from Book of Blue. Photo by Eric Francis.

Venus retrograde in Aries takes us into the territory of the relationship we have with ourselves. For one thing, it emphasizes the point that we have an inner relationship at all. That relationship is often suppressed because there is so much misgiving in there, which we call things like “low self-esteem” or “depression.” Most humans, so far as I can tell, have not come to terms with their own existence, and so our self-relating is fundamentally an exercise in doubt.

We could say a lot about where that doubt comes from; there are many sources. One place for sure is from our parents (a Cancer-Capricorn theme). I think that the real crisis of parental love involves the different agendas that parents and children have for one another. Most children go through a time when the parent or parents are the absolute center of their universe. But adults have more complex lives than kids, and invariably children are only part of the lives of parents.

This creates a power imbalance, and as relationships with parents are the template for relationships later in life, the stage is set for many disappointments. We can never hold the central place in anyone’s life that our parents held for us; they don’t love us like we love them. This is particularly true given that so many parents are negligent, which in many ways seems to be an inevitable fact of life in a society as complex and demanding as our own. I just barely have the focus to feed and take care of myself properly. I do it, but I’m right on the edge. How would I be able to take care of a child, and still do what I need to do as a member of society or as a creative person?

It does not help that many parents have narcissistic relationships with their children, that is, they see them as extensions of themselves rather than as distinct individuals. This problem is so pervasive that it’s nearly invisible. It explains why we live in a society where having a relationship is viewed as a sign of worthiness, a badge of honor or evidence of being human.

To see how this equation turns out, just listen to a few or a few dozen stories of the kinds of things people often do to one another when they’re in the process of getting divorced.

Plenty of what we experience in relationships — the adulation, the cruelty, the admiration, the love — is about projection. Venus retrograde in Aries is about taking back those projections, and seeking something within ourselves. That could be a feminine identity within the prevailing masculine concept of “self” that we exist with. That sounds like making a discovery of the inner goddess, a core feminine identity that is entirely different than what we normally think of as ourselves. For both men and women, Venus retrograde in Aries is about seeking the beauty we see outside ourselves, within ourselves.

Ange from Book of Blue. Photo by Eric Francis.

As Venus moves retrograde through Aries, it’s going to do three things that I mentioned last week. One is that on April 3, it’s going to form a square to Pluto in Capricorn. This is a deep, introverted aspect, and we encounter the Capricorn factor of those relationships with our parents. This aspect has a lusty, passionate quality that is both urgent and self-centered — and I think we need to let it be precisely that.

The second thing Venus is going to do is cross the Aries Point. This is the first degree of Aries, which is the place the Sun is when Northern Hemisphere springtime begins: the sidereal vernal point. This is the “personal is political” place in the zodiac — the place where we see that our lives are constantly at an intersection with the larger public life. There is a discovery that we have something in common with many other people; that we are not actually alone in our journey or our plight, but we have to be alone first to witness that truth and not expect others to invite us along.

There is also something here about being confronted by how rigid our ideas of sex and relationships are. Aries views nearly everything as a competitive sport, including love, friendship, etc. Venus in Aries is competitive oh boy, but turn her retrograde and you can turn the popularity Olympics into a deep inwardly-directed question. Our accepted relationship model leaves no room for experimentation; that is why so many people cheat. Most of us drag around a prudish quality that is more befitting a convent, only we live in a world where we are driven to artificially sexualize ourselves, or are confronted by constant sexual aggression. Venus square Pluto, much like Venus retrograde, turns this conversation inward, asking us to identify sources of both aggression and resistance within ourselves.

Finally, Venus gets wet. This is where we find the missing piece. Venus, the goddess, was born in the ocean and when she stations direct she will be in the last degree of Pisces. We’re suddenly relieved of all of this exploration and obsession over self and enter territory that is at once collective, spiritual and sexual. Venus stays in this degree for nearly two weeks (April 11-April 24) while she slows down, stations direct and begins to cover the territory where she was just retrograde.

To me this is an opening where something new can be born: a new idea about ourselves, a new sense of freedom and most of all, the sense of something we actually have to offer others. We do, but I’ll tell you this — it’s not a token. Love is not on the barter system. Like breathing, it’s something we do because we’re alive.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

THERE ARE VOICES all around us, 24/7, giving us information, opinion, criticism and advice. Too many of them, some say; an overwhelming glut of incoming information. Still, we listen, unable to avoid the din. Much of it, we must acknowledge, is our own mind-speak, critiquing what we hear and sorting out what is acceptable to us. Even asleep, we continue to talk to ourselves in images and dreamscapes.

Image by Eduardo Recife. / The New York Times .

There is a lot of noise and fear being broadcast in this current financial meltdown; the word Depression is being bandied about, sending people to a Google exploration of the experiences of early 20th-century Americans. While those relatives of ours didn’t have some of our social safety nets to depend on, like Social Security or Medicare or food stamps, they did have the benefit of less chatter to confuse them and clutter their mental/emotional body.

Many citizens couldn’t afford a daily paper back then, and even if they could, they got their news once a day, not in heart-stopping “breaking news” alerts; cable television didn’t loop continually with frightening statistics and dire projections. Instead, Americans had plenty of absorption time to consider the impact of news events, and eagerly gathered around their radios to listen to FDR encourage them in occasional informal speeches called Fireside Chats; something Obama is replicating as a weekly address on both radio and YouTube.

While the information stream may make 21st century discernment more difficult, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that what we face today is unique. It’s no accident that we use the term ‘toxic’ to describe assets acquired under less than moral circumstances; the whole of our financial system is toxic to the entirety of the planet and has been, in one way or another, for longer than we can remember. That it is failing now should be encouragement that the paradigm is finally shifting; still, if the word ‘failing’ has you clutching your heart in panic, throw it out with the garbage, won’t you? None of this is new to humankind; we’ve done it all before.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

Thursday was a close call for the International Space Station when a piece of space debris the size of a marble hurtled past and within just three miles, as reported by CNN. Station crew were ordered into the Soyuz capsule just in case an emergency evacuation was necessary, the article stated.

The International Space Station was nearly taken out by a chunk of satellite debris the size of a marble. Photo: NASA.

The idea that something barely a centimeter across can be that big a danger is pretty eye-opening, given that the amount of junk circling our planet runs into the tens of millions of objects, according to NASA’s Orbital Debris Program. And while the program’s websie says the space station should be tough enough to handle an impact by debris up to a centimeter in size, the real danger comes from the 200,000 objects that range from one to ten centimeters in size, and the 17,000 that are even bigger than that.

Not all the debris shares the same orbital altitude as the space station, of course, but there’s plenty of stuff circling Earth at varying altitudes, which could put any number of commercial and government satellites at risk. The best recent example is the Feb. 10 collision of the Cosmos 2251 satellite (a defunct Russian communications rig) and the privately owned Iridium 33 satellite. That orbital wreck produced more than 500 pieces of debris, all of which is being tracked (the folks at spaceweather.com are on top of new developments in that arena). Some small pieces have started falling into the atmosphere — nothing big enough to survive re-entry, it is believed — but it could be years before it’s all cleared out of orbit and indeed may never be.

And by then, even more junk — from other collisions or just the flotsam that accompanies a standard launch — will join the orbital traffic jam. Bonus: Space Weather has a user-submitted video showing the leftover chunk of Iridium 33 passing through the star field at this link.

There have been countless science fiction books, movies and television programs that depicted spacefaring cultures involved in noble, visionary and culturally diverse endeavors. And then there was BBC Television’s Red Dwarf, which is to Star Trek what Spaceballs is to Star Wars.

Okay, they score one out of three — the crew of the namesake interstellar mining ship was as diverse as it gets: The sole surviving member of the original crew (and possibly the human race), a hologram of his dead roommate, a neat-freak android, a bumbling supercomputer, and a humanoid that evolved from a cat (with a dose of James Brown apparently thrown in for good measure).

Make what you will of that motley assortment, but the sitcom was a big success for much of its 1988-99 run, and found a new audience when it was re-aired in America.

Now, 21 years after the show hit the airwaves, a special, two-episode reunion will be aired over Easter Weekend on the digital channel Dave in the U.K. Red Dwarf: Back to Earth will feature the original cast, according to an article on the BBC News website. The article says the broadcast will also include a “no holds barred episode without sets, special effects or autocue,” and a “making of” special. Doug Naylor, co-creator of the show, wrote the episodes.

During its run, Red Dwarf drew eight million viewers in 25 countries worldwide, and seven million DVDs and videotapes were sold, BBC News reports.

So, will American fans of the series get to see their (and we use this term very loosely) heroes in action over Easter Weekend or afterward? Sadly, no. A BBC America spokesman said there are no plans to air Red Dwarf: Back to Earth on the network at this time.

Thorncrown Chapel at Dusk.

It’s just a few frames in the middle second trailer for the upcoming Star Trek film — future U.S.S. Enterprise First Officer Spock, standing before an ornate platform, with wooden beams rising in an elaborate fretwork inside the building beyond. Those complex rafters are a structure worthy of any computer graphics artist’s best efforts. They just happen to be real, part of a small chapel sitting on a hillside three miles outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Noted by an architect and Natural State native (not to mention Trekkie) who blogs at Letters In My Soup, the structure is Thorncrown Chapel, designed by the late E. Fay Jones, himself an Arkansas architect and former student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Thorncrown, built in 1979-80, is almost entirely glass — 6,000 square feet of it — supported by intricate wooden rafters. The American Institute of Architects named it the Design of the Decade for the 1980s, and Jones received the AIA’s highest honor — the Gold Medal — in 1990. He died in 2004.

As to how Trek found its way to the Ozark Mountains, that’s still unclear. A call to Paramount Pictures had not been returned by press time.

— News briefs this week were written by Eric Francis — my Googleganger in Little Rock, AK.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 13, 2009, #757 – By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Your charts give the impression that you must do something but you don’t know quite what. Be aware what not to do: run in circles; mental or otherwise. The current moment about your life, so far as I can see in your charts, is about thought rather than activity. You have been through a lot lately, and it’s unlikely that you’ve sorted it out. Mars entering Pisces this weekend will help you slow down and study what you are feeling. As an Aries, you’re a deeper person than you think you are. Mars and other factors are striving to take you to a new depth with full awareness, though for a while it may not seem clear quite what to do once you’re there. Take your time and you’ll figure it out.

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

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
The emphasis switches to what rather than who. Connections are important; getting others to cooperate is important; having a vision must be foremost at this point, if you want your success to have substance. Substance means that your work reflects who you are rather than any number of other less-true possibilities. Apply this same substance to your working relationships and personal relationships and you can experience an extended moment of having an integrated life, where your inner awareness aligns with your outward movements — something that’s rare enough to find in the world. This alignment will become your ticket to the next crucial phase of your growth. It’s a worthy goal by itself, but it’s also a means to something else.

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 may not consider yourself a person of imagination, but so far as I understand Gemini, this is one of your greatest gifts. The problem with anything imaginative is that it takes someone with both drive and confidence to turn something you conceive with your mind into something that exists in the world, though this would appear to be exactly what you’re trying to do. Remember that your ideas are running ahead of your ability to do something about them, so there you will have to do some catching up with yourself — and this is best done gradually. Over the next few weeks you can reasonably expect both delays and unexpected surges forward, and I suggest not taking either as signs of anything other than movement and progress.

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

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Faith can indeed move the world; nothing else can, because every other ingredient is irrelevant without this one. You can safely stop doubting yourself. It’s a vile habit. You can, instead, feel your way to confidence. To do that you will need to either ignore or politely dismiss people who lack the willingness to dare. Yet consider that self-assurance is never perfect; indeed, when you are 100% certain, you’re more likely to be wrong. So I don’t suggest you go for absolute certainty but rather a sense of fair probability. This would include having the conscious willingness to be wrong. That, if you ask me, is true confidence. Meanwhile there are still a lot of people with a lot of opinions; and a couple of them have something worthwhile to say for themselves.

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 want clarity, and you deserve it, too. It’s too bad that so few people have any notion of what that really means, but take this as a reminder that you’re the one who ultimately decides if something or someone makes sense. This being said, your basis for making that decision is about to change. You have tried logic, and you’ve tried a lot of the stuff. When it comes down to determining something like whether you think someone is going to be harmful or helpful, you need to take two things into consideration: your first impression and your gut instinct. These methods of assessment get a bad name mainly because people ignore them against their common sense; this is largely a matter of wishful thinking, which at the moment is not your friend.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Once again someone or something is trying to get your attention. And it would seem that you are intent on making sure you don’t give that attention too easily. What you may not have deduced is that in trying to not pay attention to this factor, you are basically devoting yourself to it entirely, without getting the benefits of doing so; this, because you are withholding your willingness. You could ask yourself why you might be so intent on denying something; you can study what you have to lose by being willing to change. Or you can ask what you have to gain by taking notice and going with the flow of energy. From the look of your charts, what you have to lose is an ego attachment to the past; and what you have to gain is being fully present in your life.

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

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
Creativity is a process of self-creation. Part of creation usually involves deconstructing something, or at least seeing a process in terms of its elements. By now you’ve figured out that light and shadow, good and bad, positive and negative, and many other sets of polarities work together with awareness to create something new. With Mars joining other planets in Pisces, you have a chance to explore and understand these polarities in different ways. The first to consider are the distinctions you make between self and other, or the ways you align the concepts of self and other. To make a long story short, if you go looking for your missing piece, you’re likely to discover you had it all along.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
If you’re wondering where your passion went, don’t spend your time pondering, or waiting: you can have all the confidence you want or need, if you take a chance on the desire, goal or dream you’re now wanting to manifest. I recognize that you have a long list of things about which to be insecure. I also know you’re in a colossal struggle to feel some authentic sense of confidence in yourself, and safety on the planet. There are no shortcuts in spiritual growth, though in the world of personality there certainly are more and less direct routes to the same goal. For now, I suggest you decide how much value you want to place on fear, and how much you want to place on your creative power.

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’ve been going on and on about ideas, I know. The thing about ideas is that we don’t know their value till we try them, and we don’t know their real value until we go through a cycle or two of effort, success and overcoming obstacles (inner and outer). What I am really suggesting you do is start this process and get yourself involved. As the planets would have it, something has lit a fire under your buns and it seems like some emotional motivation is spurring you into action. Now that your emotions are in the picture, this is the time to use your mind; the time to plan what steps you want to take toward an immediate (rather than long-term) goal. Immediate means the next three months or so, but it really means right now.

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 consider yourself a person of high integrity, and you do a good job of maintaining both the truth of that, and the appearance. Lately, a question has been bubbling around your mind; you seem to have doubt about whether some value you hold, or action you’ve taken in the past, really met the test of being for the greatest good of all concerned. I would go so far as to say you’re questioning the appropriateness or ethics of something about yourself. Bear in mind that you are seeing the issue in magnified form. It’s smaller than it seems, but you won’t be able to do anything about it unless you enlarge it and get a good close look at it. Don’t be afraid to do precisely that. If you question your own integrity — and then resolve the issue — nobody can do it for you.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Your life has been consumed by one change after the next: truths coming to light, deep and potentially painful issues demanding your love and attention; and the question of whether you have any solid ground to stand on. You do, but it’s not the ground you think. In other words, it does not involve a relationship, nor does it involve how people see you. The ground you must learn to stand on is your sense of your own existence. Most clairvoyants you meet will tell you that a good few dead people don’t actually know they have ‘transitioned’. I would say that most people who are alive don’t realize the simple fact that they exist. One way to look at your current adventures, misadventures and explorations is as a quest for the truth of your existence. Try it and see.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Freedom is a choice, and most people don’t make it because they are either afraid they’re going to screw it up, or because the notion of taking full responsibility for one’s own life is too daunting. However, you’re figuring out that the responsibility is worth the reward, and reward at this moment is the ability to make some innovative choices about what you want to do with your future. Trust me: this moment matters. It matters that you overcome this deep human flaw of refusing to own your power of decision and anything that may flow from using that power. The one thing you cannot do is lapse in your responsibility to devote yourself to full awareness. Awareness takes energy, and you have plenty of that. It also takes willingness, which seems to be in no short supply. Therefore: go for it.

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

Dear Friend and Reader:

This week we are experiencing stand-out astrology involving Venus and Mars, synchronous with an historic conversation about the public’s involvement in personal choices reaching the California Supreme Court — Proposition 8. That, of course, is the ongoing saga over whether same-sex couples should have the same relationship rights as opposite-sex couples. Last November, California voters approved the referendum banning same-sex marriage, spurred on by a campaign heavily funded by the Mormon Church.

A Proposition 8 supporter, who did not want to be identified, prays while the California State Supreme Court listens to arguments over the constitutionality of Proposition 8. Photo by Paul Chinn/The Chronicle.

With Proposition 8, we have numerous deep, intriguing questions. For example, why is it a matter of public policy what kinds of intimate relationships people have? What would drive anyone to organize politically against individuals making a choice in their home lives? Does the public have a right to intervene, and if so, on what basis? Why do heterosexuals have the right to marry in the first place? If this struggle is about people being uncomfortable with the existence of gays and lesbians as full-fledged human beings, then what exactly is homophobia?

In case you’re inclined to think this is an issue affecting only queer folk, consider that anytime the state invades someone’s bedroom it could be anyone’s bedroom. We might ask how the government got past the front door.

If we look at the current astrology, we can see how personal this really is, because Venus and Mars are directly involved. The quick-moving inner planets are easy to feel and often get mixed up on the level of our personalities, desire nature and relationship experiences. Venus and Mars help us sort out the various shades of gender identity as an inner experience. Thursday, the day of oral arguments before California’s highest court, Mars made an exact conjunction to Chiron in Aquarius. Mars pulls together all things male, yang, assertive and warrior-like. Chiron is a relatively new planet (discovered in 1977) whose themes include individuality, awareness and the process of drawing strength from any healing process. They represent the two clearest archetypes of male warrior energy available.

Mars-Chirin aspects to me talk about the compromises that are put onto maleness at this time in history; men have few places they can actually be and exist as the wild things we are, at heart. We must be coated with civility at nearly all times, and are being feminized by both cultural expectations and environmental conditions (including chemicals).

Alternately, men are also seen as predators, even though we have ever fewer opportunities to hunt. But we still bear the stigma, and it is true that much of the time, sex is ‘blamed on’ men and the monster in their pants.

Put Chiron and Mars together and you can have a revolution. In Aquarius, this occurs in a region associated with ideas, science and developments in thought. Clearly we could use a few of those right now. Aquarius also reminds us this is a public conversation, one that (apropos of Chiron’s presence there) is long overdue. We have an excellent example of how Aquarius is about the struggle between individuality and what a collective body thinks it can do to make an individual conform to the rules. Chiron is stirring up this particular pot.

Mars and Venus an Allegory of Peace, 1770. Painting by Louis-Jean-Francois Lagrenee.

Then there is Venus, a planet associated with all things female, receptive, emotionally sensitive and most of all, valuable. Today (Friday), Venus stations retrograde in Aries, the sign with the keywords “I Am.” Retrogrades are about internal inquiries, and Venus in Aries is the perfect image to represent the question of how we feel about ourselves. I dare say this is sensitive territory. Most of us have mixed feelings in the matter of ourselves, and there is a wide swath of confusion where, for example, self-esteem (held to be a good thing) and narcissism (held to be a bad thing) overlap and are, for many, indistinguishable.

Venus in Aries can be proud, self-centered and more inclined to use the personal resources of others than to give them back — and often she will on some level feel entitled to do so.

Turn Venus retrograde in Aries and you can have an image of self-doubt, guilt, shame and embarrassment — shadow attributes of selflove or self-adulation (which can exist whether Venus is direct or not, and which show up many other ways in astrology). The moment of Venus stationing retrograde in Aries is like putting something into the scales of the love/hate relationship so many people on our planet have with themselves. The relationship can be so uncomfortable it’s stashed under the bed, keeping company with the dust bunnies and porno magazines. When that happens, it comes out in strange ways. I think that one of those ways is homophobia.

When one person gets freaked out, grossed out or tries to control the homosexuality of another person, we are walking around right inside this territory, but it is a communal issue as much as it is a personal one. Even if we’re not gay, homosexuality evokes the question of how we feel about ourselves. The physical and emotional field of a same-sex partner is, presumably, more similar to our own than that of an opposite-sex partner, so there is a sameness being explored.

If someone looks outside oneself at that and says, “how terrible,” that is a comment about how that person feels about his or her own existence. I think you would need to feel pretty disgusted with yourself before you told someone else how they can and cannot have a relationship with another person, and this is the drama we are seeing come to a head right now. Homo means same, and you are as close as it gets to yourself. I define homophobia as fear of self.

Venus retrograde in Aries gives us a chance to take the elevator down into the deepest feelings we have about our own existence. The process goes on for about six weeks, though this one has a special twist: Venus retrogrades back about 15 degrees and lands in the very last degree of Pisces, where it stays for about one week before re-entering Aries. This looks like a breakthrough; it’s the image of going deeper and deeper into self-awareness (Aries) and coming out in a collective place (Pisces).

Chiron and Achilles in a fresco from Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town in the region of Campania.

Aries represents the ultimate boundary: the definition of self in contrast to the existence of everything around us. Pisces is either the place before ego boundaries, or it dissolves them and draws individual consciousness into the collective cosmic waters. So as Venus backtracks in Aries along the way to its investigations of self-concept and self, remember that it’s heading back to the headwaters — to a place beyond self. At the point of Venus stationing direct, we may experience a moment of seeing what it’s like to be just a little beyond these attachments; or to see them for what they are.

The last degree of Pisces is one of my favorites. Its Sabian symbol (or degree image) involves a boy seeing the shape of a face profiled in the side of a mountain, and as he grows older he begins to look like that face. It is the degree where we get to visualize who and what we want to be; how we want to feel; what we want to do. It is about seeing and taking an example. Venus in this degree is the perfect culmination of the retrograde; we go from questioning self to asserting some creative authority over who we are, or rather, being ultra-receptive to who we might become.

Other aspects make this particular Venus retrograde really interesting. Toward the end of the retrograde, on April 3, Venus backs into a square with Pluto in Capricorn. Squares, particularly involving Pluto, have a way of compelling self-inquiry and soul-searching. Venus in Aries, so busy trying to figure itself out, meets the unstoppable hormonal power and evolutionary engine of Pluto. If I had to translate this, I would say: the ultimate emotional or erotic submission is to oneself. However we may try to seduce, embrace or control another, we can really only do these things internally, though many relationships attempt to dramatize this externally.

For its part, Pluto in Capricorn is redefining the notion of corporate and government authority. We might encounter it as authority itself, or as the gradually heating-up drive to reorganize everything in the physical world, from banks to marriage. Those sensitive to this aspect will encounter Pluto in Capricorn as an internal force. That is to say, we get a moment to see that our whole authority complex — whether we take authority over others, or fear authority imposed over us — is a personal experience. If we work with our inner authority, we are a lot less susceptible to the authority of others, including the “subconscious” influences that our parents had over us (Capricorn theme).

Then for the next two weeks (April 3 to April 17), Venus keeps going backwards, over the Aries Point, the place in the horoscope where personal and collective experiences intersect — apropos of the place where Pisces meets Aries. Venus dips into the primal waters from which she emerged and really gets to be herself, before stationing direct on April 17 and making her way across Aries again. She makes another square to Pluto on May 2.

On May 20, Venus finishes crossing the degrees where she was retrograde (the end of ‘shadow phase’ or ‘echo phase’) and enters new territory again — interestingly, while making an exact conjunction with the Moon. But we are a little ahead of ourselves: the month of May is an incredible time, which I will come back to soon enough. That is when we have not only my favorite holiday, Beltane, but the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune.

An outdoor exhibition of Nightmare Quilt (1989). Project by Beverly Naidus.

Let’s come back another planet with an Aries connection, Mars, which as we know is conjunct Chiron in Aquarius. Mars in Aquarius takes the story of the individual drama (Aries) and places it in a collective realm (Aquarius, the sign of All Of Us Here). Mars in this sign illustrates the ongoing tension between an individual and the people around him involved in being oneself, versus being who others expect us to be. Mars represents individual desire. Prop 8 is a nifty picture of society attempting to define who and what an individual is supposed to be.

Chiron has been in Aquarius for about four years, doing much the same thing that Mars is doing now, only on a deeper level. Chiron in Aquarius is a long, dragged-out process of an entire society finding its sense of existence, one person at a time, and in collective ways. Prop 8 itself is one example of this; the election of Barack Obama is another. Groups of people are beginning to find their voices in a clearly visible way that is oriented on healing. Note that it does not always feel this way — only at “special” times. If you think every day is special that will be annoying to you, but let it remind you that waking up is possible.

Add Mars to Chiron and we can suddenly feel this process viscerally. A lot of people don’t notice Chiron, but it’s suddenly impossible to miss when you add Mars. Or rather, the question implied is impossible to miss: what is this thing we call a “self” that is the source of so much drama, controversy and expenditure of energy, in the actual context of everything else? Chiron has a way of getting down to the existential level. Mars conjunct Chiron is like saying: Okay, I suddenly realize I exist. Now what?

Or: Wow, I am noticing that I barely notice I exist. I feel invisible. I need to assert myself in life, but I have no clue what I am exerting, or how it feels to anyone else. Mars conjunct Chiron can evoke the existential injury — that compromised sense of existence; then we might feel compelled to do something about it. Aquarius presents a complicated question, because it immediately implies existing in the context of so many people and patterns, and most of these want us to be just like they are, which you could sum up as unaware. So the struggle is one of self-awareness versus all the collective forces that are designed to get us to forget, forget, forget (advertising, negative news reports, petty self-obsession).

Mars to Chiron (and soon, conjunct Neptune) implies that Mars is acting in a full-spectrum way usually thought of as being the domain of Venus. It’s as if the Self implied by Mars opens up to all its senses and psychic faculties and tries to perceive the world as it is, and experiences existence itself as a relationship: to oneself, to other, to life, to a creative process. This sounds like what used to be called Getting Real.

If you ask me, we’re in a fine time for this particular adventure.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

There’s something interesting going on in the mortal mind; you may have noticed and wondered what it means. I’ve received jokes in my inbox these last few days accompanied by notes that say, “I don’t know why this is funny but I roared.” I’ve gotten Republican screeds that should have spun me up in righteous indignation but instead, made me laugh until I squirted tears.

Mirror. Painting by Susan Madsen.

Friends and readers have reported that daily reviews of cataclysmic news has them distressed on some primal level, yet feeling cheerful for reasons as yet unfathomable. Challenges that might have made me despondent and depressed in decades past have presented themselves, given me a brief and anxious moment, and then quickly become just another item on my quarrelsome little “To Do” list.

If you want perspective about your personal woes, look into the lives of those around you; that has more punch today than at anytime I remember. The old saw about crying because we have no shoes only to discover the person with no feet takes on new perspective as we look around us today. Someone who has, regrettably, lost a large percentage of their investments is still infinitely better off than those who are without a job and healthcare or who have surrendered their home to the bank.

Perhaps we’re not taking so much for granted these days; finding our inner gratitude. Life’s soap opera has become our daily fare — and with it has come a kind of insulation that provokes good humor and laughter? Wickedly Divine, that.

Economic factors obsess us. Not so long ago, Bush’s war was the touchstone of resistance for the progressive movement; yet this week, as Obama announced all the troops out of Iraq by 2011, that news didn’t even make the headlines in many papers. Our economic situation, rightly, not only resonates our old acquaintance with Third Chakra survival issues but vibrates the Plutonian signature of the coming transformation of power and responsibility.

The Washington Post’s EJ Dionne, who wrote an article on the President’s plan to rewrite our social contract and adjust distribution of wealth in a badly unbalanced nation, displayed an awareness of metaphysical reality in this statement: “Our political system adjusts badly when the familiar landmarks erected during controversies of the past are swept away and prepackaged arguments become obsolete.”

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

It really would have sucked, but fortunately it didn’t happen.

Barringer Crater on Earth. Photo by D. Roddy.

Buzzing by at 12 miles per second, the space rock known as 2009 DD45 passed within cosmic spitting distance of the Earth on Monday. The Near Earth Object (NEO) was discovered last week by Australian astronomers, and was easily tracked by NASA and others as it flew past Earth. In the past, asteroids were harder to follow, but advances in technology made 2009 DD45 as predictable as the order you put on your socks.

Computer World, our leading experts on random technological information that we don’t really need to know about, explains: “All of the data collected about the asteroid was fed into a program running on a Dell server running eight processors and Unix software. The program, called Sentry, used all the information to automatically make calculations about the asteroid’s path, its proximity to Earth and impact probabilities.”

All told, the NEO was about the same height above our satellites as the satellites are to the Earth. When it passed Tahiti at 13:44 Universal Time, 2009 DD45 was only one-fifth the distance to the Moon. It measured between 69 and 154 feet across.

These types of space rock fly-bys are surprisingly common, and many asteroids simply burn up in our atmosphere. In fact, an asteroid did just that about a century ago. On June 30, 1908 an asteroid of similar proportion to 2009 DD45 hit Earth: it broke into pieces before making impact, but the largest piece leveled trees in Siberia for 840 square miles.

In case you weren’t in Tahiti for DD45’s nighttime passage, you may get a second chance. Because its orbit is in an orbit that intersects Earth’s, DD45 may swing by again. Stay tuned.

What do you get when you mix Mormons, a virgin porn czar and a high-speed Internet connection? The most voracious consumers of subscription porn in the country.

Result number two when one Googles “naughty.” Utah’s citizens, according to Google Trends, is first in the nation in searches for “naughty,” “pornography,” “naked girls,” “striptease,” “topless,” “nude” and “strip poker.”

The Winter 2009 edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives published some intriguing research from Benjamin Edelman of Harvard’s School of Business [click here for the pdf]: In four different measurements analyzing broadband Internet connections and subscriptions to Internet porn, Utah’s residents are the number one purchasers of online subscriptions.

High consumption of Internet porn seems to be directly related to the level of social restrictions: states that ban gay marriage and are more conservative are more likely to watch heaps of porn. The Beehive State in particular (named for bees, not the hairdo) has duplicity down to a science.

Utah’s vocal about its opposition to pornography, and from 2001-2003 hired Paula Houston, a 41-year-old virgin, as Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman, aka Porn Czar. While the formal reason for ending the program was lack of funding, I’d venture a guess that the real reason was lack of chafing and increased use of two-handed typing.

Ms. Houston was a firm follower of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), whose headquarters are in Salt Lake City. The LDS’ stance on pornography is unequivocal: “Using pornographic material in any way is a violation of a commandment of God: ‘Thou shalt not…commit adultery…nor do anything like unto it’ (D&C 59:6). It can lead to other serious sins. Members of the Church should avoid pornography in any form and should oppose its production, distribution and use.”

While neither the Church nor the Porn Czar were able to stop Utah’s incessant watching and wanking, they did manage to slow it on Sundays. Mr. Edelman, author of the Internet porn study, explains: “on the whole, those who attend religious services shift their consumption of adult entertainment to other days of the week, despite on average consuming the same amount of adult entertainment as others.”

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 6, 2009, #756 – By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Venus stations retrograde in your sign Friday. Though this has been warming up for months, events this week are likely to take you in a new direction of self-understanding. One question you might ask is why you experience so many doubts. Normally we try to bury them in the closet or under a few martinis. Your doubts are your best teacher right now, particularly if you are someone inclined to think that how another person feels about you should determine how you feel yourself. True, that is all of us to some degree, but there is something extra special about the way you are perceiving your value in a relationship at this particular moment: follow your doubts inward and you will reveal some core truth about yourself, long suppressed.

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

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Are you tired of being a prisoner of yourself? I hope so. Admit, if you need to, that when you feel free you’re really on a kind of work furlough, intended to meet a certain purpose. Lately you’ve been experiencing some enormous progresses in how you encounter the world; true confidence in how you play your role in life, and possibly even an unusual sense of mission. Following this will get you part of the way toward self-knowledge. Your imagination will get you the rest of the way. Your growth right now is less about doing what you are afraid to do and much more about thinking what you are normally afraid to think.

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 seem to be at the whim of your insecurities lately, no matter how exciting or ambitious you may feel: there is an emotional stumbling block. I would call it getting lost in the small stuff, which may mean lost in things from the past that keep coming up and preventing you from making progress. One clue I can offer is that in order to know how you feel, you don’t need to grasp it intellectually. The more intense your feelings, the more intense your analysis — which is entirely counterproductive. This involves your relationship to the past. Yes, there are some things we need to understand before we let go of them, but too often this is just a trap; an invitation to stay stuck.

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

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
There comes a point where the opinions and cooperation of others matter only so much; you need to become the leader, which includes setting the terms of your relationships or at least starting the conversation. Many people around you are able to think of little other than their supposed financial concerns. This is one of the oldest time-wasters in history. I suggest you find people who have more exciting things on their minds. This is good for business; it’s good for creativity; it’s good for one’s social experience of life. Mostly, it is a sign of progress, of which there will be many in the next few weeks. That is, there will if you remember to keep it light and look for people with light in their eyes.

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 have a knack for seeing the good within the people who others judge harshly. You have your way of processing the negativity of others, of seeing their positive side, and it actually works. You may soon discover a problem or issue that someone close to you has been dragging around. This one may throw you a curve; though I would propose that in a few months it will seem like no big deal. Context is everything, and what you’re perceiving needs to be understood in its larger framework of life. All in all, this discovery and others you have made recently are part of what in retrospect you will see as one of the most fulfilling times in your relationship journey. And this, as you know, is about taking the bitter with the sweet.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Don’t fall for a mistake you’ve made many times the past five years, which is that everyone else is liberated and open-minded and you are stuck in your ways. It is true that many factors are influencing you to take an even more conservative approach to life than usual. One of those is the fear of instability. Another is that you may lack a rational explanation (or solution) for the anxieties that weigh you down. People who are less enamored of fear and more willing to take a chance are making themselves known to you. You can just as easily make yourself known to them, and while you’re at it, I suggest you question why you would experience fear at all — especially of a person.

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

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
What you learn about someone close to you this week will reveal something you need to know about yourself; something you’ve been wondering about for a long time. It is rare enough that other people can become a vector for our own self-understanding, and this is actually a prolonged experience you are embarking on now — a true journey of relationship. The thing to remember is that you have a vested interest in the outcome of things; and I would remind you that the outcome is neither set, nor predictable. Yet it does have one characteristic: it is subject to your visioning process, particularly of yourself.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Finally, what is practical or sensible is starting to matter less; I think this involves your recently adopting a different notion of “progress” than the one you’ve used for so long. Notably, someone close to you is leading the way. The lesson here is that the independence and autonomy of others is not only not a bad thing, it’s essential for a healthy relationship. When others change or define growth on their own terms, we often react as if it’s going to be the worse for us. I suggest you trust these developments, and take the opportunity to guide events day to day only as far as making sure you are having fun; that would be progress.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
A Sagittarius friend recently said that I keep commenting on ideas, ideas, ideas — and she’s still waiting for a good one. If you resonate with this thought, something is so obvious that you may be missing the point. Some ideas don’t seem to be worth much until we take a risk and get involved. The story of your life at this time is to go beyond potential and beyond concepts and engage yourself in what you value or believe in. I know that often it’s necessary to go through the motions for a while until you make the discovery of what really matters, and why. Other times there is the perception of a risk involved that we don’t understand. Work with your hands and your heart will follow.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Faith is not a technical issue; it involves suspending logic, though I would argue, applying discernment. Discernment that is liberated from rationality involves intuition on a level that few people would trust. They might say that logic dictated a certain course of action, or rather, avoiding one, but usually it’s about fear. What I’m getting at is that fear usually keeps us from doing the right thing more times than it helps us avoid the wrong one. There is a way of being that calls for exploring what makes you scared rather than dodging it, precisely to see what you were avoiding. And I don’t mean playing in traffic: I mean what is prudent enough, but makes you nervous anyway.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Your life has been like a kaleidoscopic mix of desires, fears, possibilities and breakthroughs, and true to form they are all blended among one another. At times you may not be able to tell the difference between what you yearn for and what repulses you; what you love and what makes you angry; what you need and what you think is excessive or unnecessary. For once, the expression ‘it’s all good’ comes to mind, and you seem to be in a liberated enough place to have this actually be true. The essence of that idea is not that everything that happens is good but rather that you are willing to apply your creative spirit to interpreting life’s events and decision points.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
This week’s Full Moon is a catch-up point for you: many things that have been delayed or waiting for their cue just offstage will make their entrance. You can count on activity building to a peak, followed by a few surprises — keep your plans flexible, and most of all stay in motion. You are about to connect with something larger than yourself, and larger than you’re accustomed to, and in some way it is about to connect with you. The central equation of your life right now is about balancing responsibility with freedom, and vice versa. The first thing to be aware of is that there is a relationship between the two. The second thing to be aware of is that if you work that relationship, there can be profound rewards, unattainable any other way.

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

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

We are all teaching ourselves something, every moment of every day. Richard Bach put it squarely on the table in my old favorite, Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah: “You teach best what you most need to learn.” At any given point, the thing we seek enlightenment about is in front of us, under our nose, absorbing our attention; if we’re listening to ourselves, we’ll hear echoes of both the virtue of our quest and the holes in our understanding.

Rectangle 1. Painting by Brian Biedul.

What we’ve been teaching ourselves for quite some time now is how all the things we thought were going to keep us plump, content and safe were a big, unworkable lie. The whole mindset of ‘more, more, more’ has finally caught up with us. We live on a finite planet, and we cannot continue to consume it mindlessly without plundering and fouling it irreversibly. We cannot continue to venture out with our big guns and bully attitude to take what we need from our neighbors. What made us think we could? (That is a rhetorical question, of course, and I’m assuming you’ve instructed yourself well enough in the last years to know the answer.)

I’ve written over the last months about connecting dots; that is, noticing that one story or bit of news is directly related to another, showing movement toward something happening in our peripheral vision. I’ve encouraged you to follow the dots to define the bigger picture in your own lives and help demystify your challenges. Following the dots is a critical skill.

Last week, I caught a little bug that sent me straight to the couch with blankie and Kleenex box for a few days; I watched a lot of television, choices made for pure entertainment value, the kind of mindless stuff you can doze through without missing much. But you can’t escape the flags: you know, the ones that are constantly waving and telling us, “Look here, look here — this means something!”

Dear Friend and Reader:

I know how much you love my marketing letters, and you know how much I love to write them. But no matter how well we get the word out about Planet Waves, you do it better. Almost all of our new subscribers come from references from existing ones. Over the years, many of you have taken an additional step and signed up friends — and some excellent developments have come out of that kind of gesture. Thank you to you-know-who for signing up you-know-who’s BlackBerry.

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

So, we had an idea: make it easier. We have set up a sliding-scale gift page, where you can subscribe someone else and pick your own price. The subscriptions to Planet Waves Astrology News last for one year, and the fee ranges from $33 (less than half price) to $99 (a little more than full price).

Here is an opportunity for you to do something fun and enlightening for the people you care about while supporting a community, a progressive business model and our cosmic bullhorn. Planet Waves is the perfect gift for someone who is at a crossroads in their life, and could use some ideas and affirmation as they move forward.

Here is the link to the sliding-scale page. If you prefer to place your order by phone, call Chelsea during eastern business hours at (877) 453-8265 or (206) 567-4455 if you are outside of the U.S.

Thank you for turning the wheels of journalistic progress. We’re grateful to be part of such a supportive community.

Peace & passion,

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

NASA is preparing for another launch, on Thursday, March 5. The Kepler spacecraft will be the first to look for Earth-like planets: particularly “rocky planets that orbit sun-like stars in a warm zone where liquid water could be maintained on the surface,” NASA reports.

Kepler will spend 3.5 years watching one area of space for Earth-like objects. While this may seem like a long time to watch one patch of space, there are over 100,000 stars that resemble the Sun, and therefore may have an Earth-like planet orbiting it.

The launch will take place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Fl. The Cape area is best known for being a launch site and for the town’s high divorce rate. Its area code was changed to “321” and, while most say this is in reference to the number of launches from the station, it could also be a reference to how long it takes before a spouse walks out the door and heads for greener pastures.

The Taurus XL Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite, launched Feb. 24 in the last hours of a dark Moon, died an untimely death when it crashed into the Antarctic shortly after its scheduled morning launch in California.

From Eric Lanson’s OCO blog, hours before the launch: “Just to make this blog entry worthwhile, let me post a [great picture] of the Taurus XL launch vehicle with protective covers off. OCO is inside the fairing waiting for the ride to begin.” Image courtesy of NASA KSC/Analex and Orbital Sciences Corporation.

The chart for the launch featured a tight Mars-Nessus conjunction in Aquarius, suggesting the theme of self-sabotage that works at several levels. One interpretation of that theme was that the satellite’s technology would act against itself. According to preliminary reports, this is what happened. Too much weight on the rocket prevented it from reaching orbit, and a protective cover over the satellite that should have peeled off, didn’t.

This is NASA’s first launch with the Taurus XL, and it represents an expensive failure. The $278 million project was nine years in development and the engineering team spoke of its “bitter disappointment” over the loss.

Given the tremendous cost, a rebuild of the satellite any time soon is unlikely. Now, potentially groundbreaking data on global warming and carbon dioxide will have to come from other satellites, like Japan’s recently launched Gosat.

NASA’s plans to launch a second satellite to measure carbon soot and aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere may be delayed until engineers discover why the Taurus XL launch failed. Glory, the satellite due to launch in June, will use the same Taurus XL rocket. However, engineers will first take a second look at the Taurus technology. “Our goal will be to find a root cause for the problem. And we won’t fly Glory until we have that data known to us,” said NASA launch director Chuck Dovale. Today, NASA faces a serious public relations and funding challenge: how to get the American public (and Congress) to support funding for science and space exploration during a deepening recession.

Contrary to the success of the 1960s Apollo missions, over the past two decades NASA’s public reputation has been tarnished by spectacular failures. These days, satellite launches and CO2 emission data are unlikely to become a reason to celebrate among lower- and middle-class Americans.

Taylor Dinerman makes this case in a Feb. 9 essay of The Space Review.

The American public must be convinced that innovation, quality research and engineering are the only way we are going to make a sustainable recovery from this recession. Indeed, history has shown us the nations that embrace high standards of science and technology are the ones that boast the best economies.

The primary sabotage may not be circuit board Diode A failing to connect with Diode B, but rather about how NASA fails to connect with the public. NASA’s task in the near future will be to teach us why their work is worth our investment.

A class of prehistoric fish, which has been extinct since the end of the Devonian Period more than 380 million years ago, has recently grabbed the attention of scientists, who have called the animal a sexual trailblazer.

Sketch of Austrophyllolepis, a type of placoderm, one of the original fornicators. Illustration by J. Long.

Placoderms — armor-plated fish — were once considered noteworthy because they were among the first creatures on Earth with a jaw. Now they’re recognized for another first: scientists are saying placoderms in Western Australia were the first creatures that were fertilized within their mothers. “It was (previously) thought that such ancient fish would show a more primitive type of reproduction, with sperm and eggs combining externally in the water, as still happens with many modern fish.”

In 2005, an expedition led by John Long of Museum Victoria to the Gogo Formation of Western Australia resulted in the discovery of fossilized remains of “a partially ossified skeleton of a juvenile (placoderm) and the mineralised umbilical cord” within the tail section of a female. The discovery proved the ancient fish fertilized its young internally.

Thinking sex news is great, but why should we mammals give a damn? “It shifts how we think about how reproduction evolved. You’re a jawed vertebrate and I’m a jawed vertebrate, so this is our own history,” Zerina Johanson, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, told Reuters.

In other sex news, the oldest penis in the world was recently found in the UK, and it doesn’t belong to David Attenborough…

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, February 27, 2009, #755 – By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Keep your cool if you feel antagonized by a friend. You’re likely to overreact, and that would not help anything or anyone. It may be that someone has waited for weeks or months to resolve something that needed to be taken care of ages ago, and you have a right to be annoyed. Make your statements clear and do your best not to be judgmental. Remember, you are right and you don’t have to prove that point in order for it to be true. You only need to stand your ground and keep the communication clear. If you suspect that the influence of a third party is involved, it’s probably a good idea not to say anything. Deal directly, one on one.

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

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
This week will have its ups and downs for you professionally, and you may not know who to believe when the time comes to believe anyone. It would help if you trust your own motives, and not use others as a reflecting pond to help you determine whether you are talented or legitimate. At the moment, you are unusually impressionable, and your beliefs about yourself are approximately the consistency of wet clay. Those beliefs need to come from you. We are all accustomed to looking at the world for feedback, but with rare exceptions, that feedback is superficial and off point. Mainly it does not address that the source of your confidence, if it is to be authentic, must originate from an inner source. It’s there — you just have to find it.

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

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Beliefs get too much credibility. Generally, they lack any association with facts, and they are used as guidelines to collect specific facts that support a point of view. I suggest you be leery every time you or someone else says the word “believe” this week. In particular, question yourself. Beliefs are generally attached to an agenda. That agenda may involve maintaining a narrow viewpoint or an attempt not to threaten others. Aspects over the next several days seem designed to shake up your perception of the world, to provide some contrast between what is true and what is not, and to compel you to take a wider point of view. I suggest you let them do precisely 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 will need to stand your ground this week, though you want to be mindful when you are being rigid. Flexibility is essential, and too often it is considered a weakness. So how exactly would you stand your ground and also be flexible? The most important ground in the known universe is awareness. That is the first and often only boundary that we need. Second, make an effort to ensure that you and the people you are talking to or doing business with agree on the basic facts of any situation. If the facts change, the prior agreement will serve as documentation. Finally, there is a spiritual issue, and that involves identifying what, for everyone you speak with, is their bottom line. Know your own bottom line, that is, the one most important thing you are working for — and you will have a basis of perception.

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

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
People are keeping you on your toes, and you are lucky to get a night’s sleep lately. We live in times wherein we are expected to run our lives with the cool efficiency of a computer. It is difficult to do this and still maintain any sense of creativity, spontaneity or authenticity. Difficult, but you can do it. Many factors suggest you need to be receptive and respond in the moment to what is right in front of you, but there is an instinctual factor that you are being called to work with. Someone appears to be saying one thing and you seem to be feeling something else. If you think like a machine, the facts will add up one way. If you both think and feel, they will add up another way. If this happens, I suggest you point it out.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
The concept ‘mental’ is described by three signs of the zodiac: your own, Gemini and Aquarius. Gemini describes, elaborates and reveals options. Aquarius tends to invent. Virgo analyzes and strives to make repairs. You are now in an environment where all three of these things are happening. Your role is not limited to an archetype or a personality style. You have a talent to morph into whatever you are called upon to do. Remember, though, that Virgo has a special commitment to healing. That healing must begin with yourself but it extends beyond yourself. Like all people equipped with a human ego, you can get caught in ideas or modes of thought that are purely self-serving. If you notice that happening, gently step out of that pattern.

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

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
I have suggested a few times that what most people think of as creativity is not a neat process. Generally you see a potter’s showroom, not the workroom. An artist may begin a painting six times before embarking on the version that you see. Good writing often needs to be dismantled and put back together several times before it makes sense and actually moves people to thought. Think of yourself as a creative project, and as a work in progress. Remember that everything you are doing is an idea in motion, and will likely need revision in the near future. The creative process is one long endeavor in not getting stuck in the past, but while maintaining a thread of continuity.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Many people consider Scorpio to be the most psychological sign of the zodiac. I suspect this will hold true over the coming week or so, and if so, I suggest you be aware of one particular issue. Why do so many people feel that their effectiveness is compromised? Is it because they have failed in the past, or because they never tried? This is an epidemic; look around at the people you know, and the people you meet on the street, and notice how many of them have given up. Some have given up in the guise of trying; others have given up in the guise of overwork or over-commitment; yet others in despair. You are walking the line between a sense of confidence and failure. I would remind you that the core part of you is very much alive, in tune with your goal, and determined to succeed.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
You may not know what to think, and you may be concerned that the harder you try, the more likely it is you will fail. There is a value often ascribed to Sagittarius that this sign runs on luck. The great wheel of the zodiac suggests that it’s the karma of Sagittarius to apply slow, diligent effort over a long period of time. Under this model, growth comes in gradual, though visible stages. At the moment I suggest that you leave nothing to luck, to hope or to a promise made in the past. I would remind you that this is a time in your life when your reputation is being established. The impressions you make now will last for years or even decades. Make sure that you’re clear with the people whose respect you value, and whose opinions will determine your success.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Let’s apply the theory of the Golden Flaw to your financial picture. This is my theory of Chiron, developed with the help of astro-maestro Robert Hand. There is a situation in your money life (it could be in anything from your spending patterns to your accounting system) that is showing signs of trouble. If you identify and address that problem, you will flourish financially; if you ignore it, you may experience a kind of collapse. This is to say, that which you identify as a problem is actually a resource, indeed, the most potent resource you have. Like all things of value, it is likely to deteriorate or turn to a liability if you ignore it. Pay attention and take action; thus spake Chiron.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
The astrology rippling through your sign is nothing short of a miracle, unless of course you are straining under the influx of energy. Mercury rushing through is having this effect of making you feel like a different person every day, but the thing to remember is that you are not; you are you. I suggest you equate the sense of movement with psychic mobility rather than an identity crisis. Allow that mobility to give you freedom: for example, from the notion that you have to format your life in some way in order for it to work. There is danger in trying to organize the present or plan the future, that danger being that you might miss both. With Mercury so prominent in your chart now, focus on your senses, and you will not miss anything.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
This is the year of your life that you will defy every prejudice about Pisces, particularly the one about how passive you’re supposed to be. Historically that passivity has indeed been a problem, whether in obvious or subtle ways. Yet there are conditioning factors both inside your awareness, and outside your awareness, that are calling you to maximize your potential. If you find yourself acting in ways that seem unusual to you, whether it’s getting up early or working all night; whether it’s shifting your diet or adjusting your mental patterns so that you purge any trace of negativity from your language, encourage yourself directly, and make sure you carefully notice the many rewards of progress, one of which is, of course, progress itself.

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