When confronted by the senseless, it is natural for the mind to seek an explanation. Any accounting of what has already taken place offers an alternative to being confounded. If an explication proves to be spurious, however, it’s no help at all. In addition, no biological being is an exclusively mental construct. Life is more than just mind.

With the Sun only a day or so away from its next annual Pisces ingress, the environment for life on planet Earth is increasingly becoming a product of the human mind. It has not always been that way, nor might it always remain so. For the time being, though, that’s how it is.

Much of what you experience, probably more than you can ever know, has its origins in a thought. Among the most prominent exceptions is the Sun. Along with the Moon, the Sun and other celestial objects keep doing their own thing. Seasons still come and go. Tides continue to rise and fall, heedless of thought or thinking. Somehow, we all know this.

Such innate knowledge, in turn, leads us to look up without thinking. Even as far away as the greater and lesser cosmic lights demonstrably are, their presence makes itself known on Earth, and in your mind. But first, you have to behold them.

For the sky to make a difference in your life, you have to first be simply conscious of it — both long enough, and often enough to leave thought behind. It is perhaps not incidental how so many products of human thought (roofs, cities, artificial lighting and mythologies among other things) function to obscure an unfettered experience of the expanse above. Even so, it is also perhaps more important than ever before to do just that.

Fittingly, astrology’s emblem of consciousness (the Sun) is about to enter the zodiac sign that implies something more. Even though Pisces is justifiably associated with water, the two planets that find astrological domicile there also imply an expansive theme evocative of the sky.

Jupiter, the original ruler of Pisces, is on multiple levels of interpretation consistent with enlargement and extension. Interestingly, Jupiter is now in another water sign (Scorpio), a placement which is functioning to validate Jupiter’s connection to Pisces.

Then, the very name of relative newcomer Neptune (along with its correspondence to Pisces) cannot help but bring up associations with Earth’s counterpart to the vastness of outer space: the oceans.

As an additional point of fact, the Sun’s ingress to Pisces (which uniquely combines its association to water with a mutable quality) also lets us know that there is but a month left in the current season. Whether in the length of daylight, or through the behavior of plants and animals, it is evident that natural changes are in store.

Finally, and with exquisite timing to distinguish this next sign change for the Sun, Mercury (arguably astrology’s foremost representative of mind and thought) will begin rising — and setting — just after the Sun precisely as solar Pisces gets underway. Among the obvious implications of that shift in placement between Mercury and the Sun is one of mind moving to follow, rather than lead, awareness.

In combined result, now that we are on the other side of paired eclipses (and all that came with them) our celestial lights are moving as if to remind. We are being told that the past, incomprehensible though parts of it may be, is not destined to repeat any more than the season now coming to a close.

We are also being called from far beyond the reach of our current dominion of influence to broaden, rather than confine, the experience of being alive, so that life itself will not be further cheapened.

There is more to living than thinking or occupying yourself exclusively with the products of thought. If you do nothing else this weekend, behold the Sun, a tree, a bird, or anything else that did not originate within a human head. Take the time to actually be with it, and make time to do something of the same every day.

If you can do just that until the Sun’s impending voyage through Pisces has concluded, making a difference might very well take on a wider meaning than reason alone could ever provide.

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You can now get instant access to nine signs of the 2018 Planet Waves annual, The Art of Becoming — with more to follow. Order all 12 signs here to read your Sun, Moon and rising sign and those of loved ones, or choose your individual signs here.

You undoubtedly know what it is like to traverse a tunnel. For some, it is a discomforting experience. To others, the process represents a convenient shortcut. For most, such a passage combines elements of both perspectives. As we near the end of another period between two paired eclipses, it might be useful to keep the example of a tunnel in mind.

With Thursday’s New Moon and solar eclipse in Aquarius, we are coming out on the other side of a two-week period that initiated with the Leo Full Moon and lunar eclipse of Jan. 31. Plausibly, that interval can be interpreted as a tunnel through time, as well as space.

Science has empirically demonstrated that a line-of-sight alignment between celestial bodies behaves like a very functional shortcut. As one example, the gravitational distortion of space-time precipitated during such positionings has allowed astronomers to directly observe the existence of planets orbiting other suns so distant we call them stars.

Employing this “gravitational lensing” phenomenon has provoked a range of responses comparable to the experience of tunnels. Some are pragmatic, and appreciative of how the method enhances our ability mitigate limits imposed by distance and barriers. Others are less than comfortable about the possibility that Earth might very well be the subject of detection and observation by the same means.

The line-of-sight alignment of Earth with our local star and Moon (resulting in eclipses) functions to do much the same thing to space-time as does gravitational lensing, but on a far more subtle level. The relatively short distance between the Sun, Earth and Moon (as compared to the unimaginably vast space between stars) is the reason for such nuance, but the innuendo is no less real.

Indeed, perceptions commonly accompanying an experience of living through a period between eclipses are not only real, but an affirmation of proficiencies conferred by life itself.

By providing a method to apprehend and objectify what would otherwise only be inferred by the quality of life between eclipses, the place of astrology is validated as well. Among other things, astrology provides a context through which we can distinguish what has made this particular pair of eclipses unique.

One prominent astrological context of the Jan. 31 eclipse thematically emphasized the highly personal and often subjective complex of factors that combine to form your unique point of view. Hopefully, you have been able to find, receive or create at least some validation and affirmation of your perspective in the interim.

Implicitly, coming out on the other side of the emblematic tunnel after Thursday will be accompanied by a complementary benefit: appreciation and compassion for any and all others who have taken the same trip.

Should you find yourself wondering whether your experience is all there is, hopefully you will be able to apprehend that your point of view is just one of an uncountable many.

Ideally, you will also be able to comprehend that yours is a fine and magnifying sensibility. Shining like a star, you are — as is any and everybody else — all placed on a vast spectrum (much like the many and varied ways of experiencing a tunnel). That the eclipses may have conferred an improved ability to better discern the details of each and any being’s place on that spectrum cannot help but to make life both much bigger and more personal at once.

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Even if you were to narrow your focus, the next handful of days will probably defy at least some of your anticipations. So long as you see such potential as a good thing, it will not matter what your opinion of astrology is. Given a chance, however, what the zodiac and sky are now combining to say could very well be both informative and useful.

The temptation here is to go all technical on you. That’s because the astrological details are as elegant as they are complex. Such an approach, however, would ultimately and unavoidably be counterproductive for any attempt to gain erudition or solve problems.

If you will allow it, some orientation would be a good place to begin. In a very real (as well as symbolic) sense, the premise offered here is that we are now in a transitional phase. The celestial character of 2017 is tapering down, but still very much a part of the big picture. By the same token, many of 2018’s cosmic trends have yet to distinctly surface, even though they are undeniably ramping up.

It would be plausible to interpret the upcoming Aquarius New Moon and partial solar eclipse on Feb. 15 as the tipping point of this posited transitional tableau. Interestingly, the very same New Moon (only the second since the Capricorn Solstice of Dec. 21. 2017) will herald the next Asian Lunar New Year.

In essence, astronomically derived reckonings from two divergent cultural perspectives are arguably in the process of merging in agreement on an initiating moment. If you can see merit in that argument, you will also have a useful template to frame unanticipated experiences.

On the whole, it would not be advisable to get caught up in all of the technical details contributing to such a template — even if they are delicious. Even so, it would also be a good idea (and not a contradiction) to acknowledge the prevalence of complexity over specificity for the time being.

Paradoxical as it may seem, a narrow focus alone is unlikely to provide either the data or solutions you’re most likely to be looking for next week. Your life could (in the near term, at least) very well require a more diverse and inclusive approach than ever before to achieve the most manageably simple outcome.

The better you can grasp that, the better your hold on what looks to be a slippery future.

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Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

Few things are as familiar as a Full Moon. Plausibly, somewhere in your genes (which, in effect, are the collective experience of life before your lifetime), an ancestral memory of a fully illuminated Moon dwells. It’s also likely that your own first sighting of the Moon on the other side of the sky from the Sun was so long ago as to be lost from readily recoverable memory.

What goes with a Full Moon is also familiar. Night is as bright as it ever gets, as the side of the Moon facing Earth is not only fully lit, but also in the sky all night long. What’s more, there’s a subjective component that depends on who you are and “where” you are at.

Astrology’s approach to a Full Moon provides a detached and emblematic perspective with the potential to enhance your personal, eyewitness experience by contributing to its context. If, for some reason, you’re unable to witness any given Full Moon, astrology also helps you to anticipate what the correlating inner and outer climate are likely to be.

Something of the same might be said for a special case of Full Moon known as a lunar eclipse.

Lunar eclipses vary from solar eclipses (which take place during a New Moon, when the Sun and Moon are moving together in the same part of the sky) in two basic ways. First, solar eclipses tend to be measured in minutes and are visible to a comparative few. Lunar eclipses, on the other hand, are often measured in hours. In addition, lunar eclipses can (weather permitting) potentially be viewed by billions of people at once.

For those who can (and do) see it, tomorrow’s total lunar eclipse will be a dark one. It will be a Full Moon very unlike itself. Hence, an unfamiliar experience. It is thus reasonable to expect that the subjective part of that experience will include something of the unfamiliar, and even the unexpected.

Dealing with the unfamiliar and unexpected is easier for some than it is for others. What is exhilarating for one person can very well be uncomfortable for another. In between (and, in effect, bridging) those two extremes is a perspective which takes interest, seeking to better understand.

Any enhanced understanding derived from an unfamiliar experience would, by definition, be something special — and potentially valuable. If you get to see tomorrow’s Full Moon in Leo (with the Sun on the opposite side of the zodiac in Aquarius) during the lunar eclipse, keep that one principle in mind.

Even if you are not in the right place at the right time to actually see tomorrow’s lunar eclipse, astrology can still prepare you to make the most of the experience. Intrinsically, the notion of unfamiliar (and possibly unexpected) still holds, but more in the context of your environment.

Even more specifically, you would be well advised to notice (and be curious about) any components of your climate tomorrow that have to do with collaborations and groups in your past.

Most of all, no matter what your subjective experience tomorrow, it is very likely that you will not be alone. Whether you are exhilarated or challenged, it is likely that you will have many in your company. For that reason alone, any endeavor to be good company is just as likely to pay dividends — and not just for you.

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Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

If astrology were an exact science, it would be possible to anticipate the course of earthly events as far into the future as we can predict celestial movements. Obviously, that’s not the case. Context and correlation are essential. That’s how astrology often works so well to provide deeper understanding in hindsight. Yet, there is undeniably something more.

As with great music and many other forms of art, astrology is implicit rather than explicit. The same can be said for some works of pure mathematics that have had to wait a long time before somebody came along to recognize a worldly application.

One reason to have faith in yourself and other human beings is our innate ability to work with the implicit. To cite just one example, you don’t have to be told what Beethoven meant to say. You recognize it in correlation to, and in the context of, your own life. Even if the style of a given artist is not to your taste, you know what’s elegant and compelling, and what’s not.

It is precisely your ability to sense a lot without benefit of an explanation which is so very compelling about the astrology of 2018 so far. It started with something plain to see. The civil calendar most of us use told you a new year had started. At the same time, weather permitting, you could look up and see a Full Moon.

In the days since, a significant number of planets came into proximity to one another on the zodiac during a relatively short period of time. As that was happening, a lot of long-standing issues reached a point of coalescence and corresponding precipitation.

Then, just this week, a significant number of successive celestial events (the initiation of a new lunar cycle quickly followed by the Sun changing signs, to name just two) indicated something more still in the process of developing.

In essence, that process implies a substantial shift in what you might call background. As result, context is in flux. Old correlations no longer hold. Redefinition is underway, and evident both in the sky and in your life.

The concept of a “new order” (a phrase originally coined thousands of years ago by the ancient Greeks — and maybe even before that) has finally become so old and outdated as not to resonate with experience anymore. It feels empty because it is.

If, on the other hand, somebody were to say or write “new environment” or “new climate” nobody would need to explain it to you. As profoundly implicit as they are, that particular pair of alternative phrases is bound find a much richer and more vivid correlation to, and context in, your everyday life than “new order” ever will.

That single, self-evident fact may be distressing to those invested in an old order which, for a long time, has been continually disguised under a series of new-order fleeces. The better to fleece you with, perhaps.

And that is where we are as the Sun (self-emblematic of conscious awareness) moves out of Capricorn (the sign of establishment) and into a new background of expression in Aquarius (the sign of a defined collective; or, alternatively, a collective redefined) to begin this weekend.

Among the only pertinent questions from this point forward are whether and when the familiar light of both the actual and symbolic Sun will be recognized to be shining both from and upon something unlike, but not necessarily unlikable.

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Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and we expect to publish by the end of this month. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

A big part of the astrology so far in 2018 can be summarized neatly. In less than a fortnight, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto have clustered in one quadrant of the zodiac to precipitate a series of conjunctions. Next week, the best known and most fundamental conjunction of them all (a New Moon) will end this brief episode and begin another.

A conjunction occurs when two objects or calculated points occupy the same degree of the same sign. In general, this aspect becomes operative before it is exact, and drops off shortly after the inevitable separation. What a conjunction ‘means’ is usually contextual.

In general, however, one can see three correlations with conjunctions — though often only in hindsight. First, a conjunction represents the start of a new cycle between the two (and sometimes more) objects in question. Implicitly, an old cycle is closed at the same time. Just what the nature of the ending concurrent with a beginning turns out to be depends on the nature of the objects involved, and where their merger takes place.

Moving into and during the conjunction, the objects in question also tend to briefly merge their identities. One temporarily becomes more difficult than usual to distinguish from another. Once again, context pays a big part. Sometimes one partner is distinctively dominant.

Finally, there is usually what you could call a ‘blind spot’ involved. As is often the case with being literally or metaphorically close to a person, place or event, it takes some separation to gain perspective and see with clarity what the coming together implied.

Sometimes you can see conjunctions in the sky, weather permitting. That was recently the case with Venus and Jupiter rising in tandem shortly before the Sun. Notably, such is not the case with a New Moon.

Next week, the template through which all conjunctions are interpreted (the Sun and Moon merging, this time sharing the same degree of Capricorn) will kick off an entirely different — though not necessarily less eventful — fortnight.

With the Capricorn New Moon (coming either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, depending on where you live), you can reasonably expect 2017 to finally begin fading and 2018 to start coming on stronger.

Indeed, well before January comes to a close, you may witness what (at the time) seem to be sharp distinctions and abrupt transitions. In fact, any such perceptions will probably change with time.

If the preliminary conjunctions of January are an indication of events in your life, any upcoming events that appear to be precipitous will (upon separation) instead be shown to be of longer manifestation. This does not have anything whatsoever to do with unalterable destiny or pre-determined fate, by the way.

Instead, what you experience and witness before the end of January will most likely be (at least partially) a product of the broader perspective that comes with detachment. You will be able to contribute to the process if you want to.

Should you get a chance to spend a few days (or possibly even hours) away from what you have been close to since the new year dawned, it would probably be a good idea to take it. In particular, you might want to put your personal electronic device down more often. In general, a day or weekend under a different roof or on the road could also function to open your eyes.

Because the Full Moon at the end of January will also be a total lunar eclipse, any eye-openers you can manifest with intent before then will likely pay big dividends before February is even halfway through.

Offered In Service

The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual by Eric Francis, will be your best guide to the major astrological shifts ahead. If you pre-order now, you’ll not only get all 12 signs of the written reading for $99, but we’ll include three extra videos covering the forthcoming sign changes of Saturn, Chiron and Uranus. These videos are only included if you get all 12 signs. You may choose your individual signs here.

Depending on your time zone, Mercury will end more than two months in Sagittarius either late tomorrow or early Thursday. Normally, Mercury clips through a given sign in about three weeks. Only a retrograde can keep Mercury confined for so much longer. As result, this particular Mercury ingress to Capricorn is especially worthy of your keeping it in mind.

In fact, among Mercury’s many terrestrial correlations, your mind (and how you use it) is among the most prominent. The fact that Mercury will begin an in-sign conjunction with Saturn upon entering Capricorn would appear to emphasize that correspondence.

For astrologers, Capricorn is one of two signs (along with Aquarius) where Saturn finds domicile. For this reason, Saturn will implicitly be the dominant partner in its impending merger with Mercury. This single factor indicates that how you think might be something else to be consciously aware of for the remainder of this week.

Saturn has a way of imparting structure, form and order. To a certain extent, the same can be said of Capricorn. As regards to mental processes, such an effect is usually a very good thing — unless it also serves promote a state of mind oblivious to other points of view.

Ideally, the next several days of Mercury moving to finally share the same degree of Capricorn with Saturn on Saturday will be used for tasks requiring acute mental focus. Beyond that, there are even higher aspirations whose time has at long last come. In order to manifest such extra potential, the cosmos will need assistance from you.

To realize the upside of Mercury’s conjunction with Saturn (and, to some extent, that of Mercury in Capricorn until the end of the month), while simultaneously keeping the downside at bay, some discernment on your part will be necessary.

It will be more than helpful to exercise critical thinking without also being critical of either yourself of others. Even more useful will be an ability to practice compassion towards anybody and everybody you cannot bring yourself to either empathize or even sympathize with. One example would be how the Dalai Lama publicly exhibits magnanimity towards a nation that has annexed his homeland, forcing him into exile, while bringing untold hardship onto his fellows in the bargain.

Even though most of us cannot afford to practice the same degree of forbearance exhibited by the Dalai Lama (even if any of us were capable of it), he is a far better example to follow than any of those who feel licensed by possession of a social media account to mercilessly and profusely criticize others.

While a Mercury ingress is not as big a deal as (say) Saturn changing signs, this particular case would be an especially good time to pick your spot instead of picking a fight.

Offered In Service

The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual by Eric Francis, will be your best guide to the major astrological shifts ahead. If you pre-order now, you’ll not only get all 12 signs of the written reading for $99, but we’ll include three extra videos covering the forthcoming sign changes of Saturn, Chiron and Uranus. These videos are only included if you get all 12 signs. You may choose your individual signs here.

There’s a lot going on presently, both in the sky and in the world. As regards to public affairs, it would be fair to say a large number of occurrences are competing for your attention. It would also not be surprising if your personal life were emulating both the celestial and public flurry. For most, if not all, one pertinent question is where to begin.

On the Atlantic side of the U.S., an onslaught of winter weather is of immediate and urgent concern. At many locations in that same area, a significant number of people have found it worthwhile to stand in line today to purchase a certain controversial book.

If you were to take a clue from that single combination of events, it would make sense to begin an analysis of our current astrology by paying attention to what Mercury is doing.

As is the case with other sign rulers, Mercury has a sizable portfolio of correlations. What is emphasized among the large number of Mercury’s earthly associations at any given time will usually depend on context.

We live at a time when, for a combination of reasons, books printed on paper have a questionable future. Plausibly, that would go double for bookstores. Hence, to have a large number of people brave serious weather and queue up for something which could be obtained by delivery or digital auspices is an event worthy of note.

Among the many things Mercury corresponds to is information. In this century, the printed word has faced intense competition as a source of information. Even so, no other way of accessing data can duplicate the stability of a book. Once ink is committed to paper, the only way of eradicating or distorting what it says is through the implementation of drastic and draconian measures that cannot be concealed.

Somehow, a substantial number of us still seem to know that.

Mercury is now in the last handful of days before it finally leaves behind the segment of Sagittarius where it has moved back and forth since mid-November. Interestingly, the same, brief period of time will see a flurry of interactions among Mercury and other major planets reach a climax — which has been building for weeks — before they all move to develop new themes more commensurate with a new year.

Assuming there is some truth in the observation that what occurs above is reflected here below, Mercury thus seems to be a prime indication of what to make of this moment. In essence, much of what’s happening now is a summation of what has gone on before. In one case, at least, that consolidation is being committed to a lasting form — one that will serve as a stable future reference beyond the easy reach of those who would prefer that both your memory and attention span be short.

If you look at it that way, the next handful of days will not be so intimidating after all. In all probability, we can expect some density and intensity, but that too shall pass. Afterward, new business will be at hand. From all appearances, the best way to approach that near future will entail not forgetting the past, while also being newly unbound from it.

Offered In Service

The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual by Eric Francis, will be your best guide to the major astrological shifts ahead. If you pre-order now, you’ll not only get all 12 signs of the written reading for $99, but we’ll include three extra videos covering the forthcoming sign changes of Saturn, Chiron and Uranus. These videos are only included if you get all 12 signs. You may choose your individual signs here.