Here’s an experiment for you. Sometime before Mercury overtakes Mars to share the same degree of Taurus at 7:03 pm EDT (23:03 UTC) tomorrow, refer back to Eric’s Monday Astrology Diary. Read it once again. Pay attention to where you feel the energy. Just by doing that you will have grasped some of Mercury conjunct Mars in Taurus, and gotten a hold of yourself in the bargain.  

You can do it now because Mercury need not yet be conjunct Mars for correlations to be palpable. You should do it before tomorrow evening because correspondences will probably wane quickly after Mercury leaves Mars behind.

Once you have grasped how a Taurus conjunction from Mercury to Mars feels in your body, you will have gathered something of what the constituents mean. What you gather is what will last and be useful. 

It’s about attention. It’s also about energy. It’s interesting to note that your attention and your energy have something in common. Both are subject to being diverted by external forces. Both can also be handled less than consciously. 

Versatile Mercury corresponds with thinking, among other things. To direct your own attention, you have to think. Unsurprisingly, it’s when you are not thinking that your attention either wanders or is subject to being misdirected, sometimes with undesirable consequences.

Along with desire, Mars is about energy (among other things). It can be ego-oriented — which, to quote Robert Hand, functions “to give you energy and support in maintaining your own separate, individual identity.” Then again, as Mr. Hand further describes, Mars also manifests as “energy in general, which can be harnessed for any type of work.”

Often, however, the question is whether it’s you or your energy in the harness. Just as often the answer comes down to what Eric called “one of the most vexing issues of our day”: self-esteem. That is where Taurus as the location of this particular conjunction of Mercury and Mars comes in, as a place to ground that issue.

Taurus is at least as grounded as any other sign, if not more so. It is also of the body as much or more than any of the other eleven fields of expression on the zodiac. Hence, planets traversing and/or merging in Taurus are best understood (at least in part) through the body.

That’s how you have more than just a reason to re-read Eric’s Sunday treatise again either today or tomorrow. You now have a purpose. So you might think for the purpose of directing your own attention — in order to attend to the expression of your own energy, and to listen to what your body tells you.

Most of all, the experiment proposed here today will reveal what happens to your self-esteem when you know it is you in charge of where your attention and energy are being put.

Once you get that connection, especially through your body, your sense of self-esteem just might take a turn for the better. Because you will know where it is rooted. Because you will know at least something of what you need to do anytime you need to get your self-esteem back.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Amanda Moreno

This week I’ve had several conversations about various online communities. Some have covered the apparent exodus from Facebook on the part of the “younger” folks. I apparently don’t fall into that category anymore, as I have no idea what Snapchat is and feel a stubborn reluctance to learn.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

Others have talked about series of self-help-esque videos they subscribe to on YouTube, paying specific attention to the comments that spring up and the relationships being forged between those who make the videos and those who watch. Then there is Fetlife, or “Facebook for the kinky,” complete with events and groups for every fetish imaginable.

These conversations have occurred alongside my growing awareness that people are requesting I do classes online. Once again, I experience somewhat stubborn aversion to the format. I prefer in-person exchange, and the nature of much of the work I do involves small group exchanges where physical presence seems vital. I rely on the container of the classroom in which to hold space for grief and anger.

I try to reframe this stubborn aversion quite frequently. I was reading a New York Times piece this morning that got me thinking a lot about how lucky we are to have online communities during this time of rapid change. As the author points out, our society tends to teach us the skills needed for external success while ignoring the skills needed to radiate “that inner light.” These are skills that help us to develop a moral compass and to engage our lives from a place of passion and continuously deepening self-understanding.

Online communities are definitely fertile grounds for the kind of external gratification and self-centered focus that allows us to promote ourselves and broadcast a highlight reel of our accomplishments and proud moments. But they can also be used for something else. As the digital revolution unfolds, we are faced with the challenge of using it for increased heart-centered consciousness rather than just as another form of superficial escapism.

The biggest example of this “something else” in my life is, of course, the Planet Waves community, although I am also a fan of a few “secret” Facebook groups that allow me to stay in contact with my various tribes around the world. What do these communities have in common? They are all full of people who the New York Times author calls “stumblers”:

The stumbler scuffs through life, a little off balance. But the stumbler faces her imperfect nature with unvarnished honesty, with the opposite of squeamishness. Recognizing her limitations, the stumbler at least has a serious foe to overcome and transcend. The stumbler has an outstretched arm, ready to receive and offer assistance. Her friends are there for deep conversation, comfort and advice.

I happen to live in a city where stumblers abound. We’re frickin’ everywhere, and not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for that sense of belonging. I’m also aware that there are so many of us in the world right now who are choosing to orient our lives around the belief that we can — and have to — make a difference. We’re figuring out how to heal ourselves and the world by facing our inner demons and recognizing our gifts in order to serve the deepest needs of the world at large. Many of us are not embedded in physical communities that are supportive.

In that sense, these online communities most certainly are a blessing. Within them we become bonded with other like-minded people in the spirit of camaraderie, mentorship and authenticity. We get to exchange ideas, understandings, and sometimes disagreements with people we would never have otherwise met. Of course, the novelty of what Planet Waves has to offer — a community of paradigm-busting seekers who get to take ownership of the forum in order to be a part of spiritual collaboration and re-calibration in action — is quite unprecedented.

There have been so many times since I became involved with Planet Waves that I have been humbled and grateful for the opportunity to share and be witnessed, but it’s more than that. I get to hear other people’s stories, which often resonate with my own. I get to learn with and from such incredible souls, all of whom are constantly challenging assumptions and striving to see through to the heart of the matter. So I definitely get the beauty of online community.

Although I’m still working out that conflicted part of me that rebels against the thought of screen time, I’m aware that this technology is here to stay and that we get to make use of it in ways that serve the highest good, if we so choose. I don’t really think that means I’ll be migrating to Snapchat, although a migration away from Facebook is always running through my mind. But I will continue to work with and re-think the ways in which technology can be used to further connection in authentic, embodied and balanced ways.

By Sarah Taylor

Last week, the Ace of Swords appeared as the card on the left of the three-card layout; this week, it is the Ace of Disks. There seems to be a ‘reaching towards’ in order to bring something into fruition — whether that has been something at the forefront of your mind, or a strange itch that you’ve somehow felt you’ve needed to scratch.

Ace of Disks, Strength, Princess of Cups from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

This sense of an itch needing to be scratched is indicative of one of the ways an Ace can manifest. Because they are non-incarnate, they don’t take place in front of your eyes as one of the many situations or interactions depicted in the 2s to 10s. Nor are they aspects of the personality, as depicted in the Court cards. (More on that later with the Princess of Cups.)

Aces are the Alpha and Omega of their suit. Aces are the blueprint of the quality that each is designed to convey. Aces are eternal, unadulterated, never fully knowable, and exist in a parallel existence to your own. You can feel them. You can sense them. Sometimes the veil that separates you from an Ace can be so thin that it is almost ‘here’ — almost tangible. Sometimes it might reach you through an echo — or sidle up alongside you, defying your direct observation of it.

But it is there. Oh yes.

The way the Ace of Disks is making itself known is hinted at in the card illustration. A lone figure stands on a rocky promontory, looking out into open space. The night seems cool — chilly, even, given the snowy peaks in the middle-ground. Maybe that’s why the star in the distance seems so close: that crisp air bringing a definition to its rays, which stretch out in fine light-strokes from its centre.

And so the figure stands, looking at this celestial body in front of him. There is a reciprocity between person and star — both emitting a corona of light. I wonder if his own inner light is resonating with the pulse of light he both receives from, and transmits to, it. That star is so far away, and yet there is a connection.

What breaks my heart open when I look at this picture today is the spherical, hematite-like disk embedded the rock beneath the figure’s feet — as if we are privy to a secret that lies, as yet, unrevealed. That secret speaks something like this to me today:

You might think it is impossible. You might believe you have to reach far beyond the stretch of your most capable thoughts, your widest embrace, to find what it is that you’re after. But, listen here now: what you are looking for? You are it, and it is you. It isn’t ‘out there’. It is most assuredly right ‘in here’. Right under your feet. You have spent so much time and expended so much energy wishing on a star, you have forgotten that you are also that star.

This realisation unlocks something. This ability to own something that feels distant brings you into a new and infinitely more embodied and instinctual experience. You move from the ethereal to the visceral. Or you can … because you start to own it!

The words on Strength — the 8th card of the Major Arcana — start to define how it is that you are able to draw the Ace of Disks down into material, physical, visceral reality:

“manifold creative talents,” “power,” “integration of animal forces,” “passion (emotion).”

Disks are the densest of the suits, and so they speak to what you experience with your sense of touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight. Strength, embodied by the maiden and the lion, encompasses all of these. When you are dancing with the Strength archetype, you are both innocent and animalistic; you revel in your sensate experience. To quote Steve Vai on his album Passion and Warfare:

“We may be human, but we are still animals.”

You are safe, and protected. Not by some outer force, but by your natural discernment of what serves you, and what doesn’t. When you are animal-like, you are tapped into your bodily wisdom. You, and the Earth, are one.

The outcome of this is one that is, funnily enough, not strictly bound to the ground at all. Cups as the tarot representatives of emotions are less dense than Disks. They are your watery nature — the heart that beats inside of the human-animal, which, when liberated, feels deeply, expresses naturally, and allows you to open your arms into the mystery of life and love.

From the Ace of Disks — beautiful but, at first glance, out of touch — you have the ability to look closer — and to reach nearer — to home, to find something that is not only very much in your grasp, but which also offers you a means of resting into self-generated ecstasy and taking a risk.

You do this by diving like the Princess (Page) of Cups, open-armed, and into a sky that embraces you as much as you are willing to embrace it.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Ace of Disks (the pure, limitless potential of Disks/Earth), Strength (Leo), Princess of Cups (the Earthy aspect of Water)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

“I’m baaaack!”  —Hillary Clinton, with a grin

Even as the echoes of the Uranus/Pluto energies begin to fade, the urge to act remains strong, but how, and to what end, rather like a pin-ball in play, bouncing, bouncing, making a clatter but not yet at rest. It’s probably best not to be too rash in considering our options.

This week a 22-year old Illinois man came to Washington for the Cherry Blossom Festival, taped a protest note that read “Tax the one percent” to his hand and shot himself dead on Capital grounds. A Florida mailman gathered up individual letters to each of Washington’s congress critters protesting corruption, and ignoring restricted airspace, flew his little one-man gyrocopter onto the Capital lawn. He described his action as civil disobedience “in pursuit of honest government that represents the people.” (He was white, there were cameras. We didn’t shoot him.)

On the Hill, approval of Loretta Lynch, candidate for Eric Holder’s replacement as U.S. Attorney General, has been stalled for 161 days. The White House is miffed and supporters have begun a hunger strike (to which I’d add they obviously underestimate the concern of those they seek to sway). Mitch McConnell has told the Dems that Lynch’s vote will be held up until the human trafficking bill — tabled by Dems due to a clause that refuses to allow funding to trafficking victims seeking abortion services — is approved. Yet another hostage situation in the halls of Congress, one that Obama hotly scolded Pubs about in his press conference with the Italian president on Friday.

Another big piece of legislation up in the air is the fast-track on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, passed through committee and fashioned into a bill, splitting the Democrats between those who are business-friendly and those who are progressive. Elizabeth Warren — who is NOT going to run for president, so the progressives should stop wasting energy and resources trying to woo her, and get on with business — and Bernie Sanders are championing the defeat of any fast-track legislation, while demanding a transparent look at all that’s being arranged behind the scenes.

Obama spoke to that question at the press conference as well, referencing China and our need to keep the ‘level playing field’ for America, but that means for American corporations, not the American public. Obama said, essentially, “Trust me, you know I’ve worked for the people since you elected me and I will continue to protect you.” But he is an establishment president, boxed into a fiscal reality that has been solidified over the last forty years, aided by — sad to say — Democratic President Bill Clinton with his nod to NAFTA, which resulted in millions of jobs disappearing overseas and increased American corporate plunder. The TPP appears to be even worse — or better, I guess, if you are a corporate CEO who is charged by law to put profit first and all else aside.

The TPP is too big to ignore and too important to dismiss because we’re ‘too busy.’ This is a battle finally begun (five-years awaited, negotiated in secrecy) and we’ll hear more about it, which is a very good thing since — face it — too many Americans have a limited knowledge of politics, even after having become aware that some knowledge of how these things work is critical to a less dangerous future. Time to pay attention.

But I need a break, so this week, just for ducks, let’s skip the hard stuff of plutocracy, policy and thwarted legislation, and take a look at the stable of presidential hopefuls who have already begun the tedious race for big money and popularity, pre-election and largely, pre-interest from the public. I’m a tad wary with this topic. I do NOT want to get stuck in this non-sense (two words) for the next 18 or so months because, essentially, it means very little. Paul Krugman made that point in an Alternet piece that points out the vast differences between the party philosophies, now that the right has become unyieldingly big business and anti-government, while lefty populism continues to grow in passion and commitment.

Yes, Hillary’s back as we knew she would be, just as we knew the glaciers would melt and Obama would be soundly ignored for all eight years. But this will not be a race between personalities, although they’re diverse enough on the right to fill the obligatory (you guessed it) clown car, bozo noses flashing in the sun and big shoes flopping.

No, 2016 will be a race about political policy, despite the sex of the lefty frontrunner. It would be a fine thing if we could include a third party, like the Green (with its stellar exploratory candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, among others), but this continues to be a fledgling movement, garnering less than one percent of the presidential vote. We’re stuck with the two we know best, warts and all (and the cure would come with a healthy dose of campaign finance reform for starters, then an inoculation of populist oversight and effective regulation, along with a commitment to accountability).

Traditionally, we like our presidential nominees to pass muster in central casting — at least the 20th century version — which is one of the reasons St. Ronnie the Reagan remains perpetually beloved, even as his tenure tore at the fabric of populist democracy established by FDR and gave permission for the racism, elitism and corporatism we see surrounding us today. We don’t want our candidates to be too young, too old, too fat or too thin, too radical or too wimpy, and God help them if they’re not white or male.

Enter the 2016 wannabes: a compendium of all of that and more. So early in the dance it’s hard to get any traction on the silliness between now and then, but for the record, here’s where we are today.

Of those who have formally announced, Ted Cruz continues to use all his dog-whistles to call in the faithful, and it will be difficult to shake their confidence in him, since no one else has his religious bona fides (except perhaps Huckabee, who USA Today says will announce on Friday night). For the majority of Republicans, Ted is a truly wonderful human being but much too radical to be elected president. This assumes ANY Republican is electable as president, given their relationships with the Latino, black, female and younger demographics.

Rand Paul announced last week with his father carefully hidden in the back row among his supporters, not to steal Rand’s thunder, I would assume. His rambling speech was less than artful, and now he’s proven himself touchy, rude and sexist in early exchanges with women reporters, although he’s acknowledged his temper and pleads that he’s equally rude to man and woman alike. Rushing to his defense (no pun), shock-jock Limbaugh called Rand’s barking at Savannah Guthrie just an example of the candidate standing up for himself, inadvertently giving the Dems something to trounce him about. Not that they need an excuse, given Rand’s inconsistencies. The Tea Party likes this current streak of Libertarianism, which fits nicely into the Federalist position of states rights and “Don’t Tread On Me” civil liberties, but they’ll never ever EVER go for isolationism. The military industrial complex is one entire leg of fiscal stability in the U.S. at this point. Nobody on the right is interested in chopping off that leg.

Marco Rubio has announced, making himself out to be the hope for tomorrow. This line from his speech, “Yesterday is over, and we are never going back,” an overt hit at Hillary’s age, is belied by the tired ideas that keep his proposed policies mired in the past. Rubio is attractive and charismatic, and will perhaps find stronger purchase in the future, but right now he’s not going too far, too fast. He is considered unproven in a party that values its pecking order, and while touted as a Republican man of color (he’s Cuban), it’s best to remember in a party mostly supported by old white people, he’s a MAN OF COLOR.

While he has yet to commit, ditto that for Indian-American Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, whose approval numbers are so slim at home (around 24 percent) he’s hinted at asking Duck Dynasty’s deeply and disturbingly fundamentalist patriarch, Phil Robertson, to join him as vice presidential candidate. Once promoted as the face of young Republicanism, Jindal keeps shifting farther right, which is fine for the base but not for party prospects. Well to remember that while in college, he practiced exorcism on his roommates as a tenet of his faith: good with Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, but pretty much a deal-breaker with mainstream America.

Newly verbal this week, Chris Christi is smug and belligerent, bigger than life (also no pun) and the kind of take-no-prisoners politician that ran Tammany Hall back in the early days of this country. He doesn’t take no for an answer and insults those who don’t agree with him. Yet to announce his candidacy, he’s declared that if he does, he will beat Hillary, will not tolerate marijuana use in those states that have legislated for it and will make major changes to Social Security. Big talk from a man whose numbers are tanking at home and whom the religious-right wouldn’t touch on a bet.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker led the early pack of hopefuls, his ego helping him rise to the top like a hot air balloon. Walker has made a name for himself by killing off unions, culminating in a recent vote that rendered his state “right to work” (which means the right not to pay union dues and then wonder too late what happened to all your worker protections). A recent survey indicates that his stronghold demographic — political independents — now disapprove his job at home by a 24-point margin, and he’s lost a big chunk of party support since October. Like Rick Perry, his answers to political questions were not up to snuff. I think of Walker as someone like George W., not the sharpest tool in the shed but canny and well connected. That is likely not enough to get the nod this time around.

Rick Perry, enhanced by thick-rimmed dweeb glasses to make him seem less dim, is in New Hampshire with the other wannabes this weekend to schmooze the electorate. Rick called Hillary a “pig in a poke,” linking him as ideological kin to the Pub county supervisor in Milwaukee, whose mouth had already made her a public figure for nicknaming Hillary “Ovary.” Brace yourself for much much more of this, since Clinton IS the threat they’re facing, and sexism is the easiest brass ring to grab as the calliope plays.

Hearken back with me now to those 2012 news bulletins regarding Hillary’s pant suits. Resolve to push past this inanity, not wallow in it. Promise to examine, support or critique her policies against a progressive template. I suspect some on the right have evolved enough to keep their yaps shut even if they’re thinking sexist thoughts, but certainly not all. Some of the theatrics are fun, if not taken to heart. Pushing aside the pig and ovary comments, this week her stop at Chipotle for lunch was portrayed by FOX News as an overt nod to the Hispanic vote. Perhaps this week she’ll pick up Chinese takeout and put everyone into tailspin.

So far, Hillary has done a pretty good job of embracing progressive concerns, although some of it seems a direct turnabout, as Dem. Gov. Martin O’Malley, as yet undeclared, has accused. She may be good on environmental issues now, but in her last gig as Secretary of State, she acted as an encouraging voice for international fracking. She has talked about amending the Constitution to rid us of Citizens United, but she’s also projected her campaign to cost some 2.5 BILLION (with a B!) dollars, so I suppose one would have to follow the other, eh?

She’s depending on smaller donors this time around, and mimicking Obama’s use of social media, but there seems little doubt she’s already lined up her billionaires. The charity that she and her husband and daughter run hasn’t given up on foreign contributions as yet, and likely won’t. They will have to establish an unscalable wall between money for the poor and any hint of pay-for-play. And of course, there’s Big Dog Bill. What to do with Bill.

Since she is likely the Dem candidate, and the first woman president, Hillary could benefit from a liberal tune up. If she’s going to turn out those voters who could lift her boat in 2016, she needs to get a sense of how passionately they want progressive change. Warren isn’t running, but it’s apparent that Bernie Sanders is, and that will put the right questions on the floor in debate. Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chaffee, a popular Independent ex-governor, along with O’Malley from Maryland, seems anxious to climb on board. Add hawkish Jim Webb from Virginia, and we still don’t know about Joe Biden. That’s a quorum, then, and a platform for some of the more important issues to get a public airing.

Although there are no sure bets on the right, and Jeb is considered far and away too moderate to suit primary voters, it seems reasonable that he will find his way to the nomination. Of the proposed candidates, Jeb is the most house-broken politician. However, his embrace of immigration reform is a black spot on his resume, and he has a lot of private baggage, including fishy business deals over the years, a Hispanic family, and his older brother, once the Decider, now a painter. Despite those hiccups, Jeb is conservative to the bone, although a party set to ‘primary’ old faithful John McCain for not supporting a right-wing agenda may not appreciate that. I loathe the idea of a Clinton/Bush dynasty campaign, but there seems no avoidance, given the dearth of likely challengers. Frankly, I don’t think it’s much of a contest, and much less about personalities than policy and money.

The choice, I believe, will be stark enough that there will be little doubt about what’s being voted for. WHO turns out to vote will again be the issue, I think. The country is by and large more liberal than conservative, and it has looked on the Pubs’ obstruction with a good deal of trepidation. Although the party hits the right cultural notes, many of their own aged and aging party members may have trouble accepting attempts to change Medicare, Social Security, and even that highly effective Democratic project known as Obamacare.

Doug Sosnik, adviser to Big Bill Clinton back in the day, wrote a Politico article titled “Groucho Marx’s Republican Party: Why the GOP is in more trouble than you think.” In it, Sosnik elaborates on this Groucho quote: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

Right now, the GOP’s biggest problem is that the country isn’t looking for the kind of change that their party is offering. The Tea Party-inspired insurgent wing of the GOP is so consumed with completing its political takeover that it’s either unable or unwilling to do what it takes to appeal to the group of voters Republicans need to take back the White House.

All the talk of Clinton’s inevitability in 2008 has soured the pundits on using that word, but I will. Unless something monumental happens, Hillary is inevitable as our first woman president. With many months to go, we would do well to push her as far to the left as possible, knowing that she will default back to moderate when the time is right.

So this is that moment when the left can get traction on how it expects its leadership to behave. This is that period when the political expectation is larger than mere rhetoric. The whole nation will be discussing the issues we care the most about. And seriously, dearhearts? That IS change we can believe in. We’ve come a long way, baby, from the dark, if hopeful days of 2008, and that’s a very good thing.