Dear Friend and Reader:

Casey Kasem, the voice of “American Top 40” (and one of the most recognizable voices in American radio) died Sunday, and I’ve prepared a reading of his chart in tonight’s Planet Waves FM. His chart is focused on what most people find to be the most challenging house to read, or to live with — the 12th, which seems to exist behind a veil but also sometimes magnifies things to larger-than-life proportions (Madonna is another example).

Mithra-Varuna, the pre-Vedic deities, are associated with the minor planet Varuna, covered in today’s edition of Daily Astrology.

In current astrology, I check in with Mercury retrograding into Gemini (where it will be through the remainder of the retrograde), the Sun and Mercury opposite many planets in late Sagittarius, and the Cancer solstice.

In today’s Daily Astrology, I’ve written about Jupiter conjunct Varuna, an event that has not happened since 2002. Varuna is a protector of the righteous and those who uphold the proper functioning of the universe and everything in it. This reminds me of the concept of dharma — acting as if to hold the world together; it’s connected to a much older concept not of correct action, but of upholding the natural order of existence.

In the human realm, that includes honoring contracts, keeping promises and being good for one’s word.

Speaking of the sign Cancer, we are now offering the Cancer birthday reading at its lowest pre-order price. That price is good through Thursday night. I plan to have the reading done early next week.

As the Sun moves through these last degrees of Gemini, there are serious matters brewing in the world. Iraq is once again descending into intra-Muslim civil war, made possible by the United States destabilizing the country when it went to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003.

I learned a new word this week: caliphate, which is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader. The concept is that it can transcend national boundaries, and that official governments don’t matter. From what I am reading, this is the goal of the current uprisings in both Syria and Iraq.

Hobby Lobby lobbies for a hobby.

It’s also the goal of some religious activists here in the United States. We have a Supreme Court decision due, perhaps today, in the Hobby Lobby case (Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.). That’s the one about how corporations allegedly have the religious freedom of individuals, and should be able to prevent their female employees from having health insurance policies that cover birth control because it’s presumed by them to be a form of abortion.

(This, apart from the fact that the Hobby Lobby corporation has substantial retirement fund investments in drug companies that manufacture birth control and abortion drugs.)

This is an example of a systemic attempt to take ownership of women’s bodies and reproductive freedom on religious grounds (there are no other grounds that could be used to argue this point). The conservative bloc on the Supreme Court has several reasons to go for this, including its tendency to grant personhood rights to corporations and its desire to kiss up to the Christian right wing that put it into place.

But they also know they are opening the door to something really strange if they decide that companies can impose their supposed religious values on one class of employees. We’ve been tracking this case closely for months and are eager to read this decision, whatever it may say.

It’s going to be an interesting week in the run-up to the solstice, which is Saturday. I’ll have more for you when I return with a new edition of Planet Waves on Thursday night.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday morning and Thursday evening in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Hillary Ghee, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Amy Silver, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions.