I’m not sure if many Planet Waves readers are sports enthusiasts like I am, but I confess that yes, I am a baseball- and football-loving nut from the Central Coast of California. That is hardwired into my system.

I am also a writer on culture and women’s issues. The affinity for such disparate interests as sports, art, women’s issues and popular culture has always co-existed comfortably inside me, and I drew upon those wide personal preferences to self-identify as a woman comfortable and conversant in non gender-stereotypical issues and interests.

But now we live in a world where the Internet exposes humanity’s dark side on a by-the-minute basis, and the videotape of former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice and his wife Janay in the elevator where he beat her unconscious has changed the game. I can’t bring myself to watch it anymore. The tape replay or football in general.

Initially, there were two sides of this story playing out in the court of public opinion: one that cavalierly dismissed the incident, calling the Rices’ altercation a domestic squabble and responding with “nothing-more-to-see-here, let’s-move-on”; in the other, Ray Rice is an abuser whom the NFL aided and abetted by covering up the story. As the story unfolded this month, we found that the NFL lied about knowing what they knew, and lied when regarding the brutality of the Rices’ elevator altercation. The NFL was sitting on the tape for six months and did nothing until that tape was released by TMZ.

It is that story that now has center stage, and the NFL is in crisis-control mode, scrambling for answers in an attempt to save the NFL brand, and maybe doing more than a little soul searching. In the world where Ray, Janay and most of America exists, the intense scrutiny the NFL is now under is miraculous in that it’s happening at all.

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Between the Libra equinox only hours ago, and the Libra New Moon only hours after this piece has been posted, the luminaries (Sun and Moon) are making a point. It’s simple. Phases and cycles are beginning for everybody all at once. You have a place. Your place is to participate; participation means “with others.”

Just when the Sun entered tropical Libra, it was at the same time directly overhead at Earth’s equator (with relatively equal days and nights worldwide), beginning a new season. Equinox is that simple.

The Sun will appear directly overhead just South of the equator tomorrow. After that, the Sun will rise and set a bit further South each day no matter where you are until the Capricorn solstice.

At the Capricorn solstice, the Sun will appear directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn just as the Sun is entering the tropical sign called Capricorn to start yet another season.

After the Capricorn solstice, the Sun begins rising and setting farther and farther North. It appears directly over the equator again just as it enters tropical Aries for another equinox six months from now.

After the Aries equinox, the Sun’s apparent path continues North until entering tropical Cancer in another nine months, just as it appears directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer. After which, the Sun heads South again.

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By Amanda Moreno

I’ve spent the past six weeks more than 3,000 miles from home, staying with a teacher-friend on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Here I am, a week and a half after the fact, still trying to get some traction in integrating whatever happened — because it was a time of such incredible growth. And so once again it’s time to use my tools.

Photo by Eric Francis.

These days I’m thinking a lot about Jung’s theory of the transcendent function.

This theory basically says that when consciousness is engaged in tension — when it’s torn between seeming opposites — the transcendent function is what arises in an attempt to bridge the two.

It is the source of incredible creative energy — just as polarization is the source of incredible destruction. These days, I feel like I’m existing as a mess of seemingly irreconcilable opposites — and so I just keep reminding myself to hold the tension, and I try to do something constructive with the energy. Or I just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

My heart has longed for total immersion in ‘healing’ work for some time. My time in Florida was the closest I’ve come. But now that the thirst for immersion has been somewhat satisfied, my creative juices are flowing full-force whenever they want to.

There lies one source of tension, because when my body is sitting in an office (at a very worthy non-profit that serves my direct community, mind you), creative energy is pulsing through me. Although I’m grateful for that baseline paycheck, and can maintain a positive attitude at my job, I long for the freedom to focus on my passion, and to incorporate what I’ve just learned in work with clients.

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By Sarah Taylor

“Dynamic action.” This is one of the descriptors on the Knight of Wands, who stands — or rather sits, intently and intensely — at the centre of this week’s tarot reading.

The Wheel of Fortune, Knight of Wands, The Hierophant from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl.W- Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

The Knight of Wands is described elementally as the fiery aspect of fire. In his highest expression, he is Eros embodied in the masculine principle: directed, focused, charged, yet also mature and contained. You can see this in the flames that lick in the background — an extension of his red hair — his strong jaw — suggesting resoluteness — and his hand in a fist resting on his forehead. He is ready for action.

What interests me most in the card is the monochrome of white, and the black and white surface, that come together in the negative space created by his arm and the side of his face. My eye is drawn to it time and again. It feels like a ‘break’ — a fire-break, a haven from the flames. To me, it is space to think — a place of focus and integration of energies that would otherwise have nowhere or nothing to breathe. He ‘holds’ that space, and the flames back, with his fist. There is Will at work here. Far from burning out of control, he is able to work with the fire — his fire — in a way that brings measure and presence to his experience.

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By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

This was the week that Scotland did not secede from the United Kingdom. I’m sure the relief was palpable at Balmoral castle, where the Queen and her entourage no doubt celebrated by staying up past their bedtime and taking extra lemon in their tea. Oh, I kid the royals (a Bill Maherism.) While the Scottish vote was decisive to remain aligned with the UK, I suspect that a good many Scots are seething over their failure to break away. Satirist Andy Borowitz summed up the core of their disenchantment with a faux-statement from Queen Elizabeth II:

The Queen ended Friday’s address to the Scottish people on a conciliatory note. “Let us all, each and every one of us, move forward now as one great nation, enjoying the benefits and the history of our glorious and historic union,” she said. “Even the forty-five percent of you who are wankers.”

I understand the Scots’ fierce necessity to flex their muscles for independence, and I confess I’m a tad disappointed they didn’t achieve it. My paternal grandmother, one of seven siblings, was born a McDiarmid, a first-generation American clan so proud, thin-skinned and contentious that I only dare mention their scratchy communal disposition now that they’re all dead. Orphaned young and scattered across the Midwest, they found one another by the time they were adults, and although each was a true original, it was obvious that they’d each been popped out of the same defiant, determined DNA mold. Based on personality traits alone, seems to me that if anybody should have their own definitive slice of the pie, it’s the Scots.

The UK is comprised of England, Northern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland seceded in 1922, no longer part of the UK), Scotland and Wales. It seems like a no-brainer to suggest that the United Kingdom hasn’t been united since — well — ever, really. Anybody remember a blue-faced Mel Gibson as William Wallace, he and his clan showing their bare rumps to the attacking British army? Three hundred seven years after they were safely in the fold, the Scots still chafe under British rule. And we surely don’t have to discuss the Irish at length, do we?
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By 9:03 am EDT (13:03 UT) on Sunday Venus will have advanced through Virgo to the point where it will be sixty degrees away from Saturn in Scorpio. That will be an aspect called a closing sextile. The result of that aspect will largely depend on the extent to which your participation is reciprocation.

Venus sextile Saturn will not happen in a vacuum. It will take place just hours before Mars advances through Sagittarius to precisely square Neptune in Pisces.

For all intents and purposes, astrological events that are only hours apart can be considered concurrent. Hence Mars-square-Neptune will be functionally simultaneous with Venus-sextile-Saturn.

Eric has emphasized Mars heavily this week here on Planet Waves, and justifiably so. Look at your own life and how desire, wanting, assertion and other issues associated with Mars have come to the fore since Mars entered Sagittarius last Saturday.

Additionally, the impending Martian square to Neptune has received a lot advance attention for good reason. Mars aspects tend to express significantly for days and days before they are exact. Also, Neptune is known for the width of what astrologers call its ‘orb of influence’.

Venus sextile Saturn, however, is no slouch. Venus is, in the words of Robert Hand, “a Yin planet.” As such, Venus is by definition a reciprocal complement to the “Yang” that Mars (among other things) represents.

Also by definition, the relationship between Yin and Yang is not static, it is dynamic — a matter of constant and cyclical reciprocation that (to coin a common phrase) “makes the world go `round.” Hence, there is a sense of reciprocation going on in the separate but simultaneous aspects Venus and Mars are even now moving towards.

Saturn and Neptune have a similar reciprocal relationship, albeit less familiar than the Yin-Yang dynamism between Venus and Mars. That’s because humanity was not consciously aware of Neptune until the 19th Century. That’s where you come in as a participant in the astrology developing toward its culmination this coming Sunday.

You are aware of Neptune, and more consciously so than those who have lived before you. You almost certainly learned about it in school. In all probability you have seen at least one photograph of Neptune relayed back to Earth by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989. You were at least present in 2006 when astronomers (not astrologers) made a not-entirely-scientific decision to “demote” Pluto and restore Neptune to the position of outermost planet in the solar system.

You, more than any who have lived before you, know the truth of Robert Hand’s statement that “Neptune dissolves what Saturn builds”; not as the end of a process, but as part of a reciprocal dynamic with Saturn — which (in its own way) assures that the world continues to go `round.

Now, as Venus approaches its last major aspect to Saturn before they conjoin again this coming Nov. 13, you are unavoidably part of the dynamic. You know that in order for anything on this constantly changing Earth to be sustained it must be periodically dissolved, so that it can be re-built. You know you must take part, especially by reciprocally supporting things you are passionate about (Mars), and things you are receptive to (Venus).

The dynamic cannot proceed without you. You, who have greater awareness than those who have gone before. It is not enough simply to feel desire for Mars to work with Venus, you must show your desire tangibly. It is not enough to be receptive to energy for Venus to work with Mars, you must reward energy with real-world substance.

By the same token, you must lead the way in recognizing how what was built (Saturn) in the past cannot be sustained by resisting change. Neither is it enough simply to stand aside and watch when things dissolve (Neptune). You must do your part to keep the cycle going and contribute to a better and more sustainable re-building after necessary, appropriate and (hopefully) intentional dissolution takes place.

The world does not go `round by itself. It never has. Now humanity is entering a new era when we are (like it or not, know it or not) becoming part of what has kept the world going `round.

One way or another you know the truth, and you know that participation has now become reciprocation. It remains only for you to decide how and where your participation will be expressed. Please choose wisely so as to sustain your own desires and values through the world’s next turn. If you can do that — just that — you will have done your part, which is all anybody can ask.

Sunday will be a whole new day. See you there.

Offered In Service

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

By Carlos Cedillo

Hello dear readers! Yes, I had an unexpected break last week. It was a 6 Kame/Death day, Sept. 8, 2014, and there was a very big solar flare and Full Moon trine Mars and Saturn.

My computer was just one of many things that got fried and died last week. This is all good as we learn to appreciate letting go of things that no longer serve us and prepare for our new lives we are co-creating with the universe.

Last Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014, Obama also tried to announce another ‘war’ we are supposed to start against the ISIS group of terrorists WE armed, ostensibly to fight Bashar Assad’s army in Syria.

Fortunately, his announcement came during a time that Venus is descending from its position as the Morning Star — what the ancient Maya described as diving into the Sun — and she will be behind the Sun on Oct. 25, 2014, (Muharram, Islamic New Year).

So even though the announcement came on a strong Venus energy day, 8 Qanil/Rabbit, that energy will not be sustainable. In contrast, Venus was very prominent as the Morning Star on Sept. 11, 2001.

According to an article by John Major Jenkins written in 1995, a new 104-year Venus cycle began on April 3, 2001, which was 1 Ahau/Sun. Venus rose as the morning star that day and remained so through Sept. 11, 2001, when she was still very prominent in the morning sky.

I held a 1 Ahau/Sun “Xochiquetzal” fire ceremony March 22, 2011, in San Marcos, Texas. Because of the importance of this day in the Venus cycle, I believe the name of one of the hero twins of the Popol Vuh myth cycle, Hunajpu, translates as “1 Ahau.” Venus is being born from the head of the Sun! Now I understand why 1 Ahau is known to the Aztecs as Xochiquetzal’s (Flower maiden’s) day.

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