Category Archives: Horoscopes By Sign

Pisces 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

The theme of your charts continues to shift to the achievement and recognition areas, in a big way. In a few days, Saturn makes contact with the professional angle of your chart, your 10th house. While there is no automatic success, this at least is saying that your efforts will add up to some solid accomplishments, beginning now and over the next three years. At the same time, planets are rapidly gathering in Capricorn and on Sunday there will be a rather amazing New Moon right on the solstice. This describes your role in your community, and the important role of collaborators. What is interesting about the supposedly spacey and pleasure-seeking sign Pisces is the way that your solar chart describes your investment in organizations, culture and society. Indeed, the placement of Capricorn suggests that you’re a practical visionary, and this factor is coming through like thunder right now. Yes, there is work to do — though every day you will know that work is making a difference and adding up to something much larger than is obvious.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

Focus everything into your real work — the most important and most meaningful task at hand — the one that counts now, and in the long run. Yes, eat food and get regular rest, and then focus on your highest goals with everything you’ve got. You are in an extraordinarily rare moment where what seemed impossible is right within reach. You might say this is the time to crack the glass ceiling. To do this well, you must apply discipline and a basic plan of action. Clean up any loose ends that might bind you to the past, including emotional ones that may have a bearing on your work. Eliminate any disadvantages that you can possibly avoid. You’re about to make contact with the power of focus in a way that you may never have before. You’ll soon discover that, even if your methods have been a bit haphazard, you’ve accomplished many things that do in fact add up to a lot. Gathering them together will be easier than you think.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

Keep your plans big, and keep them to yourself. What you’re doing now — everything from the changes you’re initiating to the edge you’re walking along — has the power to grow into something far beyond what you currently have, or think is possible. You don’t need to trace that trajectory, or even plot out the scenarios. To do so would likely be to limit yourself. Rather, focus on the kernel of what you’re doing, as close to the seed of the idea as you can. Retreat inward rather than extend yourself outward, particularly on this one thing that you’ve got a grasp on, or that has a hold on your interest. Yes, the Sun in Sagittarius moving across your solar 10th house is about expanding and being visible, which you can do in other ways — in ways that are already tried and true. As for this new thing you’re discovering, keep that between yourself and your notebook.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

You’re about to get a taste of a kind of success that you may have decided was in the past, or that existed only in theory. You will not get there alone. What you are doing now, however, will take you further, and has a tangible quality that you may have been lacking. You are certainly someone who is motivated, even driven, by your dreams — though that is not nearly enough to satisfy you. From the look of your chart, what you want is accomplishment, which brings me to the ‘not alone’ part. The wealth in your life is the people in your life. This is not a fact that’s lost on them, and neither is their respect for you as an organizing principle. That, if anything, is how to think of yourself, rather than (say for example) as an achiever or leader. Your job is to pull the scene into focus. Your role is to propose purpose and to serve as a stabilizing factor in what is clearly an increasingly chaotic world. Your own stability will come from your ability to dance with the chaos rather than to resist it; and to gather energy rather than have it be depleted from you. To this end, food is a critical factor right now, as is water in all forms. Yet the real message of your charts in this rather large moment is to notice who is around you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

This weekend’s stunning New Moon in Sagittarius will put you into the spotlight. You’re already visible at the moment, though this will increase in a series of degrees over the next four weeks. Visibility is a good thing, for you. Contrary to the notion that Pisces people are reclusive and prefer to be invisible, there is also the extraverted, performance art type of Pisces. And this comes out in every fish person at some point — such as right now. Whatever you’re doing, visibility will help. Even if you’re a smuggler, be the kind who attends the Senate gala ball and you will blend in all the more perfectly. Other factors in your chart describe this moment as one of high achievement. Yes, there are issues brewing in the background, but you’ve got your wheels on the ground and have enough traction to be moving steadily. You may meet some truly influential people this week and next. Take phone numbers and make sure people remember your smile.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

Planetary aspects are cascading through the signs Aries, Scorpio and Capricorn. For some people they are shaking the world, and others feel like their world is being pulled apart. Yet behind the scenes of all of this astrology is Chiron in Pisces, and a few layers back is Neptune in Pisces. There’s plenty of turmoil available to get caught in. There is plenty that’s wrong with the world. But the influences emanating from your sign point to the deeper reality, the sublime and something close to the source. Where you invest your consciousness is your choice. That is the thing to remind yourself. Negativity is an extreme temptation now because it’s so prevalent, and so aggressive. There are so many people struggling. And denial is never the answer to the world’s problems. You have another option open; you have a line into a direct source of intelligence, strength and what I’ll call creative compassion. Praise creation and do your part in the healing process.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

You have many plans and ideas, and during the past two years you’ve been restless about getting them going. This has picked up since the Scorpio eclipse two weeks ago, which served to remind you that you want to live in a much larger world than the one you’ve been inhabiting for a while. Your chart is offering two ideas. First, be mindful of your perceived limitations. Know what they are. They might be related to time, money, prior commitments or some other issue. Second, pay close attention to your local environment and see where you are transcending those limits, right now and without going too far. Notice who, close to you, supports your wider vision, and team up with them. Yes it is helpful when other people are not holding you to your past. It’s even better, though, when you let go of your own past and therefore make space to create something new for yourself. That is what’s happening now.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

Clearly you are preparing for something. Yes it’s true, life is one long exercise in preparation, though this is unusual and you are in a particularly sensitive phase of that preparation. One element of your life to focus on is ethics. That does not only mean doing right by others; it means making sure you do right by yourself, and that you have taken care of all your necessary plans and details. Make sure that you hold others to the same standard: that we all keep our promises. Be sure you’ve read the books that you know you’re supposed to read, in order to be fully prepared for whatever it is you’re about to do. Proceed meticulously, take each step carefully, and gather your strength for the big move.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

What is it that you said you’ve always wanted to do with your life? When exactly do you think you’re going to do it? There is something in your charts saying that ‘when’ is right now. There’s something reminding you to connect your longterm vision with a point of focus — that is, to envision, to look and to actually see. That might feel like a beginning, but the truth is you began long ago. What you have in your hands is a moment when you can gather your principles all in one place, and recognize their validity. You have an even rarer moment when you can see the shape of time, and work with it. It is vitally important you recognize consciously that you have a future, and that your future is your most precious resource. It’s even more significant that you become aware of your vision, and that you connect it with these other ideas — the future and the shape of time. As you know it is easy to squander time, and that translates to being easy to squander a lifetime. Every force of nature seems to be guiding you in a better direction, that of embracing your potential as real, and honoring your own journey on Earth as a matter of integrity. This is not as dramatic as it seems, though you may have to establish some new patterns of consciousness. Like all journeys, that begins with a single step.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

Make sure you keep negotiating every arrangement in your life. Don’t let anyone think anything is a done deal, or that you are signed on forever, just because. In service of that, I suggest you make no longterm promises but rather be clear that everything is a work in progress. There are plans in action that you will consciously need to pause and reorganize. Take authority, stop the show and have the conversation. By now you’ve figured out that you’re the only person who can stop a runaway reaction. You are also the person who must combine the ingredients and get the chemistry right, so that the right thing materializes. There are no guarantees, though you have more influence than you think, particularly if you are willing to scrap any plans or ideas, rethink your situation and start over. People may grumble but the truth is that you are the one who is in the position of leadership. Mars in Sagittarius is reminding you of that continuously, and it’s the thing to remember.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

Ease back a little and let your momentum carry you. You have plenty; you have advanced more in recent weeks than you may have in recent years. Focus on what you’ve accomplished and study the ways that it’s taking you where you need to go and want to be. Focus on your agreements with others. Work from the idea that everything that could ever hang in the balance will be determined by a conscious, and fair, agreement with someone you care about, are close to, or do business with. The responsibility is on you to focus on mutual fairness, and it’s worth stating in advance that not everyone will agree with you, or at least not initially. Still, you must do what is right. To help ensure that, have a clear understanding of when decisions need to be made, and use your time gathering facts and points of view that will help you come from an informed place when the time arrives to implement your plan of action.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

This is certainly shaping up to be one of the more high-achievement times in your life. You are driven and determined to stop at nothing, which is calling forth some of your deepest resources. This includes your willingness to stand out; which really means your admission of how different you really are, and your commitment to making that difference work for you. You can, will and in truth must keep going — though I recommend that you take the time to slow down and appreciate the beauty that surrounds you. Make contact with the people you care about, and let them know you’re available to them. It would suit you well if your definition of success includes having the time and space to experience the world in purely human terms. This will be good for everyone, especially you — and good for business.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

For months the theme of self-esteem and money has been dancing around the charts, and it’s about to dance its way over to Pisces. This month’s astrology describes a revolutionary turn of fortune, as if you finally make contact with your real financial power. There is an inventive quality to this, and the thing to remember about any process of invention is that it involves experimentation until you get to the breakthrough point. Therefore, don’t be discouraged by any past ‘failures’ — they were the necessary ground to tread, an initiation process, to get you to where you are today. Indeed, it would seem the only thing that could stop you is the conscious choice to give up, and fortunately there are other factors in your chart that are leading you forward with a real sense of adventure. Adventure is not a trip to Disney World. It’s this unpredictable kind of thing, with ups and downs and challenges and a sense of independence — a sense of quest, with an unknown destination — and that’s exactly where you are right now. Just remember that your financial liberation is an essential element of the story, part of which includes exploring, and reminding yourself just how radical your values really are. There is a direct relationship between that and whatever you define as success. If you want a working definition of self-esteem as the concept applies to you, there you have it.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

You may be a source of controversy; you may step on a few toes; you may leave some people wondering; you may get some sincere accolades — and if you persist at whatever you are doing, you will succeed. As for the responses and reactions of others, remember how easy it is for people to talk shit. Critiques may be helpful — take them under advisement rather than eating them for a meal. Praise is cool, just don’t let it distract you. Stay on mission. Let nothing, and I mean nothing, eat at your confidence. Keep going. If you get fatigued (which is possible, given the late Virgo Sun, and Mars square Neptune this weekend) refresh yourself with music or time outside, and keep going. You may have many ideas pouring forth from your mind — just write them down and do not evaluate how you feel about them. Just keep going.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

I have never seen the word “achievement” in any textbook description of Pisces, which demonstrates why we need better sources than those books. Yet this quality — of aspiration, motivation, determination — is written all over the charts of Pisces because you have Sagittarius in your 10th house of reputation, profession and authority. Mars is about to cross the cusp of that house, and that is putting you in the mood to accomplish great things. This you will do, if you remember your highest goals and put integrity above appearance. Take no shortcuts to success, and make sure that you’re available and accountable for your decisions. There’s an element of this that may conflict with your image as a sensitive, empathic person. In truth there is no conflict between these elements of who you are, but just in case, the solution is to focus on the quality of your work, never compromising, and making sure you push the opportunity to have that work seen by as many people as possible.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Speaking of human, what is it that makes you a Pisces? What is the confirmation of your inner knowledge that you were born at the right time? Is it your love of nature, of sex, of music, of sensory experience in any form? Is it your unquenchable longing for cosmic connection, to yourself and to other people? Is it the love of sacred plants? Whatever it may be, this weekend (and Monday) is the time to go fully into that experience, with no expectations — give yourself the gift of a full-on experiment and see where that takes you. With the Moon conjunct Chiron and with Neptune right in the neighborhood, that could well be anywhere — or anywhere you want. For reference, the Moon ingresses Pisces Sunday at 7:47 pm EDT (23:47 UTC) and reaches full phase Monday at 9:38 pm EDT (Tuesday at 1:38 UTC). See you there!


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

Set out to do your very best work this month — that which you’ve always wanted or needed to do; that which you could not accomplish before; what you have considered improbable or impossible. A rare connection between Chiron in your sign and Jupiter in Leo (among other planets) is opening up a conduit that could grant what seems like miraculous powers of creativity and achievement. Yet because Chiron and Jupiter are the main players, and since this is astrology we’re talking about, the process is not automatic. You must bring your intentions, your energy and your ideas. You must bring yourself to the work every day, and resume as soon as you can if you must skip a day or two. The effort factor is what will be reduced or made more efficient, and rewarded by a tangible sense of progress. Yet I suggest you not look back — look forward and work steadily. Focus your goals one at a time, and keep your sense of perspective. By that I mean work with a meta-goal and notice how your individual projects relate to one another. There is a pattern that will start to emerge, and the pieces of the plan will begin to fit together. You may feel like you’re bringing in knowledge or wisdom from somewhere else, and there’s no harm acting as if that’s true.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

You must have faith in yourself no matter how much your confidence annoys other people. Yet for that to work, you must maintain an unusual level of self-awareness. For many people that is tricky enough. yet there’s one more element involved. You need to observe your environment with precision, while not taking on the burdens of others, or the issues they try to lay on you. And one more. It’s essential not to project your material onto others. The way to accomplish all of this is to maintain a high level of inner focus while you maintain a circumspect view of the world around you. Account for your viewpoint, then notice how many other viewpoints there are. Don’t confuse the two. Just because you’re correct does not mean that someone else has to be wrong. Just because something appears to be true does not make you wrong. True confidence goes beyond all of that, which is why it can be such a source of aggravation to those who cannot go there. You know you can. You know it’s time. And you know that faith trumps hope any day.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

One of the most intriguing things about this world, as opposed to many other worlds, is the diversity of experience that is possible here. You really can go anywhere right from where you’re sitting right now. In actual fact, anything is possible, which means that many seemingly conflicting possibilities are available at the same time. There’s also a huge diversity of potential in human nature, which leads to some amazing experiences, some dismal ones and a wide variety in between. For all of these reasons, it’s essential that you always keep in mind what you want. What you want is the only guiding force that you, personally, can use to guide your own life through such a maze of possibilities. That does not mean you will get what you want all the time, but what it does mean is that you have an organizing principle you can apply when making choices about people and circumstances. It’s fair to say that the freedom to choose is your only freedom at all, which is a good reason to stay awake and alert.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

You seem to crave bonding to a creative project, and I suggest you tie the knot. You may have several choices, but you know the one that you want as your primary devotion. Like any devotion, this will require what some would consider sacrifice, though this looks more like arranging your life around the commitment. You have plenty of energy — I really mean more than you need, so you actually have the mojo that you need to tune your life to the occasion. All of this coincides with some new horizons opening up on the work front. There seems to be something happening on a scale that you are unaccustomed to, at least any time lately, and it may feel a little daunting — though I suggest you not be daunted, and rather align yourself with the highest and best possibilities. That is your path to the highest and best results.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

You have just about everything going for you right now. It’s important to recognize these moments, because they’re relatively rare. One thing that might be getting in the way is how much you have to do, though you may have noticed that your responsibilities have taken a lighter vibration. You are able to get more done with less expenditure of energy. Take advantage of that and make sure you collect on the dividends. Speaking of, your work is worth more than you know. Send that message and send it consistently. More than anything, know it in your heart. While you have an abundance of energy, make some important changes that you’ve been putting off. They may involve your physical space, your diet, your work patterns, or taking up some activity that you’ve wanted to do for a long time. As for love, keep your heart open and the universe will take care of the rest.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

This can be one of the most productive times in your life. You have many options. You have tremendous freedom, in part because you’ve invested so much in mastering your skills — though freedom is also an invitation to choose carefully. Best of all, your energy is running strong and solid, and all you need to do is maintain yourself with basic movement, good food, water and as much sunlight as possible and you will remain in good spirits. With Jupiter in Leo, your 6th house of service and wellbeing, the two go together. There may have been times when you’ve resented how much you offer to the world, and you’ve noticed how little a great many people offer back, to anyone. Now that has been flipped on its head. You are the example of what is possible, and you are an inspiration to many people who might not believe it otherwise. You don’t need to say much about this, unless you have an appropriate occasion. In offering yourself, you improve your life and the lives of others. Yet you also do something on the meta level, which is to demonstrate that this is a viable way of life for many who want nothing more than to offer themselves in some way. Meanwhile, I would remind you again: choose what you want to do the most, and make sure you include that in your business plan.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

Make your work count. Recognize the value of what you do, by which I mean look carefully, note the facts, observe the world around you and really get it all the way. You have no need to look to others for reassurance, even though it’s likely that you are being recognized for your contribution. Part of this means recognizing the economic value of what you contribute. By that I mean its inherent value and its value to support you and those who directly benefit from it. Yet in the same way that a dollar is exchanged many times and is therefore more than its face value, your work extends far beyond your immediate circle of awareness and benefits those who you may never meet or know about. Therefore I suggest you use some exceptionally positive astrology and make it work for you — in every way, including how much fun you have doing it, and the special pleasure that comes from total dedication to quality.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

Use your allies. Or perhaps better said, count on your friends and your closest colleagues. You have some influential or even powerful friends, and you share plenty of common ground with them in terms of a desire to accomplish what is right and what is true. I suggest you be bold about making proposals and exploring your options for partnerships and associations that are not only mutually profitable but also beneficial to the wider community. Though Pisces has a reputation for lacking structure and direction, you do the best when you work with and within an organizational group of some kind, and you would be the likely person to initiate that. It’s not merely that you have that particular talent. You have something else going for you, which is the ability to go beyond the cynicism and defeatism that is so popular right now. Your Pisces vision can show you what is possible — and if you open your eyes and look you will see that means anything.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

Stay close to who and what you love the most. I know that recent months have had you running so hard you’ve been at the point of overheating. These experiences have led to finding ways to simplify your life, and keeping close to the experiences you value the most is a reward for that. There is a point of contact approaching. It looks like a combination of sexual and creative. Looking at those words on the page, however, I am reminded how few people would use them in the same sentence, no more than they would say ‘taking a shower’ and ‘creative’ in the same sentence. Well, besides the fact that many great ideas have been born in the shower, sex and creativity are flames in the same fire. One feeds the other. Where one is strong, the other has a much greater chance of being strong. It looks like your passion and your talent are approaching a flashpoint. This is art. This is love. This is life.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

Many factors have compelled you to stay focused in the moment, while also getting more in touch with the longer view of your existence. It’s true, to connect with that longer view you’ve had to climb what seems like an endless mountain, never seeming to reach the top. However, it seems like every now and then you turn around and get a look at the territory behind you and figure out how far you’ve come and what you’ve really accomplished. In doing this you’ve made progress getting out of the netherworld of “what might happen” in exchange for being clear about what is happening and what you want to do. The use of time is essential to maturity. Here on Earth, it’s not merely that time is finite for any individual; there’s also the not-so-small matter of not knowing how long life will last. That contradiction causes more problems than most people are aware of; for many it prevents them from making any real commitments. It’s only by being able to handle these two variables at once that you can make any actual progress. This month, Mars moves in your favor by entering water sign Scorpio after its nearly endlessly complex trip through Libra. This will allow you to take advantage of many factors that in the past seemed to only hold you back. Remember, your past problems are your future assets.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

The Sun enters one of the most dynamic areas of your solar chart over the weekend — what in astrology is known as the 5th house. This also happens to be your fellow water sign Cancer. Within this mansion of heaven are most of your most passionate dreams of creativity and connecting with others. One key to this house working is to make sure you risk something to get something. A theme of our particular era of history is to risk nothing to get everything. What I suggest you risk is taking initiative (approaching people rather than expecting them to approach you), immersing yourself in pleasures that don’t involve a controlled outcome (making music rather than listening to it), and most of all, approaching life with the trust of a child. At the moment you may be the only person you know who wants to live like this. Once you step up to the challenge, you will find others.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

Take control of your definition of success. Yes, control in any form is challenging, and it may be an illusion. Yet a clear definition of something would be one of the easier things to get some clarity on, as long as you remember that it’s an evolving work. The way this looks in the charts, you’re less likely to be trying to work something out conceptually and more likely to be describing something that you already understand, or that you can finally see clearly. The description matters because this is a fleeting moment. Granted, this subject feels palpable now, perhaps even vividly obvious. You have a rare perspective on the power of your reputation, which must at this point be able to pick up some of the labor that has always been left to you. Yet this particular point of view is in rapid motion, so I suggest you collect what you know in some form that you can access tomorrow, or in a year.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

There’s a way to experience the astrology of the next few days as a surge of confidence. There’s another way to experience it as everything coming unraveled. It might come across as fear of all the dark forces operating in you and the world, especially on the theme of sexuality, or it can manifest as a contact point with deep self-understanding. I would remind you that this is mostly a matter of perception, and that you have a choice in the matter as long as you see your options and consciously make a decision. The key will be this: if you feel like you’re losing control, don’t take that as a sign that you in fact are. Rather, take it as an invitation to focus, muster up your confidence and make a decision about how to proceed. There’s an emotional element to everything and I suggest you keep your focus there. This would be emotional with a direct connection to creative and sexual elements of who you are, remembering that these are a way to go deep into your primal nature. You don’t have to be civilized. Aware and real will work beautifully.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

When I sat down at my desk in April 1995 to write the first Planet Waves horoscope, I don’t think I could have imagined writing my 1,000th column. Yet here we are, nearly 20 years later, and I am grateful for that. Being a horoscope writer is mysterious enough perceived from the outside. From the inside, it’s the experience of getting to write to you — and that means ongoing introspection. The beauty of writing horoscopes is that to do so, I must carefully consider every aspect pattern I write about from 12 distinct points of view, and write both to and from that perspective. I would not want to be a horoscope writer were I not a Pisces, because Pisces is the ultimate sign of ‘shape shift and see things from 12 points of view’. That kind of holistic viewpoint is one essence of Pisces, and of Chiron in Pisces, and if you step fully into that perspective you will see the world in a way that few people can see. I believe that is a gift, given for a purpose, and in Pisces fashion, intended to serve the greatest good for all concerned.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

This is a rare and beautiful moment in your life — especially if you remember that the best thing you can do for yourself is to believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities and your goals. Know that you have the talent and the strength to accomplish what you set out to do. Trust that you have more than just enough; you have more than enough to make whatever happen. All you need is faith, and that is indeed a sign of strength. If you can’t muster that, then even the most basic modicum of trust in yourself will suffice. Tune into this on an emotional level, not just a mental one. Connect with the feeling of competence. If there are two sides to the argument, listen to both and choose carefully which one you believe. Most of all, allow yourself to feel desire and hunger for accomplishment. What you cannot do yourself you are capable of finding others who are loyal to you to do; be bold and ask for what you need. People will respond to your confidence, and this will create a cycle that feeds on itself. Your astrology portrays a time in your life when you possess unusual gifts, yet ones that are distinctly human. That is all you need to be, though I would add that most descriptions of what human means fall woefully short of what is possible — though the difference is almost always crossed by that distinctly human quality of faith in oneself.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

Looking at your solar chart I would take an educated guess that you wish things were simpler in your professional life. Many of the more meaningful small planets are clustered in your 10th house, and it has a churning feeling — the sensation of relentless developments, transformations and revisions. Yet this truly unusual set of conditions is the very thing that is helping you create or achieve what you are doing. For example, the presence of many seemingly smaller goals rather than one pointed objective is compelling you to be fully adaptable and to reassess what you’re doing on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Your mind is organized such that you can handle this much change. But there’s something more significant at work. You have the ability to observe the order in the chaos; to see a vision rise up out of the mists. And that’s exactly what you’re doing.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

You have made considerable progress in the two months since your birthday, and one of the ways you’ve done it is by taking matters into your own hands. One theme of Mars retrograde is being able to exert your will and fulfill your own intentions without relying on the motivation of others to get you going. You are learning to do things under your own steam, and learning to trust your ideas and perceptions. Your astrology indicates that if this is not going well, there’s still time to get with the program and, for example, stop waiting for anyone to act or to get out of your way, and then to decide what it’s time to do and get your ass in gear. In any event, the planets are leaning strongly in your favor through the weekend and indeed for the remainder of the season. You will maintain your momentum if you remember not to give your steam or your passion away to those who resist. At the moment, you are capable of letting go of nearly all your resistance, and there are some people around you who have the same idea.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

Emphasize the positive. If you do, you’ll experience less resistance, and as a result, you will have more time and energy. Enough is going well that you can get a foothold in those aspects of your life and build from there. What this will do is push the issue of whether you have faith in yourself. Everyone experiences insecurity; Pisces has its own special variety, which can be debilitating in a subtle way. Yet the other side of that is that you possess the potential for faith that can get actual results. The fact that two centaurs are in your sign — Chiron and Nessus — reveals the possibility that you are sensitive to how dark the world is right now. There is no way you can deny this, even if such an approach worked in the past. Yet both of these planets also grant an unusual power of self-healing. That is the first and most significant step toward expanding your creativity and sense of mission into a working method that has a beneficial influence on the world. At this stage of your life it’s essential that you never take your own healing process for granted, and equally vital that you not get hung up in it, as if it’s the only thing there is. Work with your collaborators, use your time well and extend your creative awareness to everyone whose life you touch.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

Remember, Chiron is in your sign. Given all the astrology that is surrounding us, if I had to tell you one thing, in one short sentence, I would say: Chiron is in your sign. Therefore, embody the healer. Be the place of sanctuary, the mind that is open to wisdom, the one who participates in the eternal chain of knowledge passed from teacher to student, one generation to the next. Tune your mind to the interconnectedness of all things. As you notice the connections, do your best to have patience with those who don’t see them, or who seem committed to not noticing. Remember that you have not chosen the path of sacrifice. There may be certain circumstances and things that you must renounce, but that is for the purpose of being open and available to that which is exponentially better. Remember, finally, in any situation you may encounter, to ‘seek not outside yourself’. Seek within for what you need — be it knowledge, resources, strength or awareness. You are not the source, but at this time in your life, a deep connection within you is opening up to the source. Ask sincerely and be willing to receive.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

Love and money — these are things that people seek out astrology for the most often, and the subjects your solar chart is speaking about the most clearly right now. Both share a common root, which is the esteem and respect that you have for yourself. True, it’s eminently possible to hate oneself to fortune and an abundance of attention, but that’s not what you want. Love says: recognize who you are, and do not doubt it. Embrace who you are and share that with the world. Make every statement in the affirmative and attract a cosmic reflection or counterpart you recognize. Money is saying something similar, though the commentary is about recognizing the illumination and inventiveness you can bring to the subject. Your solar chart is gleaming with the notion that your ideas are what is of value. Yet for that to manifest as prosperity, you must trust yourself and your ideas, and you certainly have the strength and clarity to do that. In three words, the common threads are self-respect, intelligence and trust.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

You are entering a phase of your life that I would describe as the era of Put Up With Nothing. Those with Pisces dominant in their charts are easy to transgress. Pisces is a soft sign, and it follows (or prefers to follow) different motives and guidelines than the rest of the world. This theme helps explain why artists and musicians are so often and so easily taken advantage of. Pushy people have an advantage over those who would prefer neither to push nor defend. You are now at a point of your maturity where that can, and must, come to an end. The time has arrived for you to be treated with some consistency, to have your values and intentions honored, and to be treated fairly. Yet here is the catch: you are the one who has to insist upon this. You are the one who has to set the boundary. You may have known this for a while, and may have avoided what is in the end a basic fact of life. Once you set the basic rules of play, and follow them, the next step is to get everyone around you to agree to them, which to you will feel like forcing yourself on them (it is not). And the bottom line is: put up with nothing.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

Claim your genius with money. I mean take hold of it, take ownership and put it to work. Get your mind going, and start sketching out possibilities. Remember that your most valuable resource is what you know. In our economy, you have the options to sell your time, your labor or your knowledge, and you probably proffer a mix of these options. But the most valuable one is your knowledge. It’s also one of the most challenging to convert into actual cash value, though you can apply your knowledge to that puzzle. The only thing that stands in your way is a particular kind of self-esteem crisis that might, in the past, have left you feeling like nobody cares about you. That’s not true, but I would remind you that for this particular project, you don’t need anyone to care about you — you need to care about yourself, and you need to take advantage of the self-interest of others. Ultimately what you’re doing has nothing at all to do with self-interest; that is a means to a much larger and more meaningful goal.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

Whatever may be going on around you, the waters deep within the Pisces sea can be clear and calm. They will be, if you remember to leave any trouble and turmoil at the surface. The spiritual reservoir of your sign is full right now, in part because the water trine that’s holding out a veil of protection over the world involves all three of the planets associated with your sign — Venus, Jupiter and Neptune. Yet this is also hinting that you will be in a vital supporting role to certain people around you, maybe to many people. It’s essential that you keep yourself nourished, rested and organized. Take the ‘self sacrificing’ thing about Pisces and set it aside — whoever invented that did a service to nobody. Your charts are about the pleasure you can experience, the creative expansion, the art and the music that you can experience, even amidst any strange and chaotic developments of the world. The thing to remember is that you don’t owe anyone anything, and that your life is a gift to yourself. If you live sincerely and in balance, you will be available to support others in unusual ways that sidestep many of the typical notions of what community or world service is about. The direct and rather bold message of your chart is that what serves you will serve others — a happy state of affairs.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

This weekend’s New Moon is a custom-tailored event, designed to ease your way through life, open up your potential and remind you exactly who you are. You could not want a better — or more interesting — solar return chart. It’s so beautiful it’s worth describing the astrology in some detail. Within your sign, the New Moon lands right between the two main players there, Neptune and Chiron. It’s leaning a little in the direction of Chiron, a planet that is granting you the abilities and perceptual skills of someone from the 23rd century, which is how you might feel sometimes. But Neptune is right there, bestowing a blend of clairvoyance and creative inspiration that could light up the countryside all around you. The Moon-Sun conjunction does one other thing — it’s trine your ruling planet Jupiter exact to one-sixth of a degree. This shows how far you’ve come in your ability to receive nourishment from the world around you. Just a few days after the New Moon, Jupiter stations to direct motion in Cancer, releasing even more of your potential. So I suggest you plant yourself firmly in the present, look around at the astonishing opportunities that surround you and remind yourself every day that the doors are all open.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

This monthly column marks my 20th anniversary as an astrologer and my 50th anniversary being on the planet. I’m happy to have made it half a century, though I am equally grateful to have devoted two decades of my life to daily study of, writing about and teaching astrology. I’m especially grateful to be a Pisces astrologer, because to me that means I have an understanding of all the rivers (that is, the signs) that flow into the ocean. The Sun is now in Pisces, and is making conjunctions to Neptune and Chiron in our birth sign. That means the waters are flowing freely at the moment, and it happens to be the season of your birthday. This setup means that you have equal access to intellect and intuition; to creativity and healing ability; to your expressive gift and your ability to receive and to listen. Make sure you put all these factors consciously into the mix of your life. Don’t leave anything out. You know you’re on a mission, and I suggest you give this everything you have, and make sure you collect the rewards of your efforts as you go. You are the specialist at long-range planning and deferred gratification. I suggest you adjust that slightly, focus on bringing what you’ve worked on forever to fruition, allow it to feed you and continue to learn whatever you can from anyone who is successful.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

Friday’s Full Moon will give you the gift of profound psychological insight. I suggest you apply it to your life, focus on the people you care about, and take in the information you need about what is motivating them. The chances are you will be right, and if you use that information, you will be able to make better judgment calls how to handle them. There’s so much crisis in the world right now, sometimes it seems like only a Pisces could look at it and not look away. Part of why you have this insight is because you’ve been compelled by various factors to get to know yourself in an unusually deep way. Yet most people squander this knowledge. I suggest you remember that Knowing Thyself is the most significant prerequisite for being able to function in the world, and for helping others. You have to do less than you think. Right now as the Full Moon peaks, I suggest you keep your focus inward, and seek ever-deeper self-understanding. You will have occasions to put that knowledge to the test.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

Do your best not to let anyone who seems thick or dull get on your nerves. Have some compassion for the fact that those who resist their own intelligence or intuition are out of their element with you. There is a slight conflict in that you are not thick, you value your own intelligence and you are ridiculously perceptive — therefore you notice the fact that so many people are walking around in a coma of denial. Here is the good news: You do have your influence on them, which is about as dramatic as layers of salt melting off of a deer lick (that’s a big block of salt people leave in their backyard in winter for deer). You may not see the block changing shape regularly but the deer notices that they are getting something good, which is also a vital nutrient. You may not notice people having radical revelations but you can trust that you’re having your influence, which will gradually get results in the form of having a deeper exchange with whoever is involved.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

Continue to take an organizational approach to your life and your work. Whatever you’re doing, you’re not in it alone. You are accompanied by those who have similar values as you do, and those who have similar respect for existence. You know that you’re alive in a moment of profound change, and you’re very likely to be feeling a calling to contribute. That is the theme on which to relate to others around you. Refuse to honor apathy or incompetence as values. Take the lead on focusing the mission of your community. Do this through constant communication with others, and with the determination to gently build consensus. You’re likely to feel like there is some missing element, lack of contact or a blind spot that you have to deal with; don’t take that so seriously. You’re on precisely the right path to get to the destination you want. Developments over the next week or so may not prove that point, though within a month or so I think you’ll be absolutely confident. Till then, have faith.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

You may feel like you’re dancing around the choice to immerse yourself totally in who you are — as if you’re playing a game of approach-avoid. Let’s assume that is true for a moment. When you feel any kind of approach-avoid, the first thing to check for is guilt. Fully soaking in your own reality implies that you will be yourself, and express yourself, without any reservations. Approach-avoid might show up as hesitancy with people knowing who you actually are, as if hiding it from yourself could in some way prevent them from finding out. That almost never works. People already recognize you and most are grateful for the example you provide. Some don’t seem that way, it’s true; you make some people nervous. I suggest, however, that you not underestimate the influence you have even on their lives. That said, it does not matter what anyone else thinks. Rather than avoiding anything, you actually seem to have come close to a discovery that you want to investigate, or have made an observation about yourself that you want to verify with some additional inner questing. I believe you’re about to discover how much sense you make; that is, that your seemingly most unworldly dreams, when subjected to logical analysis, actually make perfect sense. My saying this matters little, though — when you figure it out, it’ll rock your world and boost your confidence.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

Normally astrology would caution against being overly ambitious; understatement is a key aspect of writing horoscopes. It’s been a while, but to tell this story we would really need to go back to around autumn 1995, when Pluto moved into Sagittarius. This marked a time of transition from what you could call the seeking phase of your life to the actional phase. You made a commitment, or understood what was always in your heart. In the process, you’ve actually started to question what you thought was your tragic flaw, discovering that it’s different than you thought. Keep asking. There are answers.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

If you need something, you know the person from whom you can get it. If you have an idea you want to manifest, you have the resources to make it happen. You’re in a moment of extraordinary manifestation power, so the most significant thing you can do is identify your needs and desires, and articulate them to yourself clearly. Your chart is making an interesting point, something I’ve learned to consider any time I remember, which is that you may already have what you think you need. So before you go seeking and striving, look in your home, close to home and among the people that you know and love the best. In many ways 2014 is a time of reclaiming; a time of receiving; and of remembering. You need less than you think and you have far more than you know.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

Old friends will get you far this year, and they will be happy to hear from you. I suggest you look up everyone in your life whom you consider to have been a positive influence, and even a few people whom you think were a little dodgy, and see where they are at today. This will provide a point of grounding and orientation in what promises to be a truly extraordinary time in your life, especially where your mission is concerned. You are someone with a mission, and you are imaginative enough to dream it into reality. At the moment, your dream machine is running at full strength. You’ve never been someone who has done things just for business. You always act with a creative, social or spiritual purpose, which you then extend into your professional affairs. Some call this ‘right livelihood’. I would call it being aligned with your purpose, and then extending that into your personal relationships, your community and the world. It just happens that business is an excellent vehicle to conduct this kind of energy, and conditions are favorable to get the vibes rippling out into the world. You’re about to find out how much you have done right, how much you have left to accomplish, and that you possess the determination and talent to make it happen in high style.

Aquarius 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

Don’t let the pressure get to you. Rather, have fun with it. I know that’s easier said than done, sometimes. I know you may not like to admit that you can thrive under pressure — and you do appreciate some serenity. Now, however, is the time to flourish as the psychic barometer rises. Using some tools will help. One of them will be structuring your time. Another will be setting priorities. Another will be getting enough sleep every night. This may be the most important resource you have, because you’re going to be processing a lot of events and developments in your sleep, some of which will come through boldly. Others will come through as impressions. Then I suggest you set specific, attainable goals. Leave extra time, like a 20% fudge factor, so that you apply time structure in a way that supports you rather than in a way that overwhelms you. A deadline is not the due date — it’s a container for how much time you have to get something done, plus or minus 20%.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

You appear to be on one of your independent streaks. And hey, it seems to be working. You need your freedom, and you alone understand how inherently this is woven into the fabric of your being. I suggest, though, that you check in with any significant others (one in particular, from the way the chart looks), and keep closer contact than you might ordinarily. This is not to cramp your style. There is someone in your life who wants nothing more than to be heard, but who may have difficulty expressing their emotional needs. I suggest you take just a little of that burden on. Take the initiative and ask how they’re feeling. Give them permission to open up. Your reward will be added freedom, enough to explore what you want, and enough to be trusted by someone you really care about. At the very least, you have nothing to lose by listening.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

Mars enters your sign on Thursday. Mars sign changes are always meaningful, and always noticeable, though this one bears a personal message to you. The theme is how you use your energy. That’s significant now because you will have access to plenty more — drive, motivation, persuasiveness and personal power. This may be off-putting to some people. You don’t need to make your case strongly, or for that matter at all. You will definitely need to apply diplomacy to any situation in which you find yourself. If you don’t add that as a conscious factor, you are likely to decide that you just don’t care and dust it up with someone needlessly. So I suggest you apply your best Aquarian cool, and distribute that Martian energy evenly through your circuits. Let Mars make you more of what you are: humane, idealistic, and — underneath a mind often boggled with a whole bunch of ideas — passionate and sensitive.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

Don’t let the pressure get to you. Keep your sense of humor. Get as much of your work out of the way before the holidays as you can, and give yourself a little space to live and breathe. Make sure that you plan plenty of time alone, get enough sleep as if it’s as important as oxygen or food. You are processing a lot. By that I mean that many of the revelations of past years are starting to make sense to you. Their truth and relevance is catching up with you and you are catching up with them. Yet this may be overwhelming, and I would propose that you need a vent. It might be a creative vent, an erotic one, or some time-shifting experience that helps you shift your context. Remember this if the inner pressure gets to be too much. While it’s also true that you have many worldly responsibilities at the moment, that is about to shift, and shift suddenly. You will still possess your influence, your insight and your modes of participation, but the burden of responsibility and perhaps of leadership is about to let up. I suggest you move with that, which for you will be a matter of trust. You have accomplished a lot the past two years, and I suggest you reflect on that with some true appreciation.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

If you can get your mind off of work and responsibility, you will discover that this is a perfectly vibrant time in your life. True, you are the kind of person who is at home in your work. You seem to be more oriented on ‘my work is my life’ than the natural ‘I have boundaries and I punch out at 5 pm’ type. Sometimes, however, it’s good to make some distinctions in this area, and now is a fine time for that. Anyway, your astrology is magnetizing you out into the social world at the moment, and by the weekend this will pick up considerable momentum. So get among friends, get out into society, and tell only your best stories about what you’re accomplishing and the many trials and tribulations that you’ve surmounted on your way to being a master of the game.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

Your mind is not a museum. Your mind is not a prison. Your mind is not the collected artifacts of your ancestors’ worst fears and unlived dreams. Your mind is something beautiful, alive, and an entity that is under your full guidance and influence. Whatever you may be going through, there is the underlying theme that your life is yours to live. This is intimately connected with your ability to discern the past from the present. It’s true that the past offers a sense of security, but since it no longer exists except as an idea and some old clay pots, cave paintings and religion, how much safety can it really offer you? One bold quest would be for you to challenge all forms of false security, fictional self-assurance and make-believe control, and come up with a fresh idea about why exactly you are free to live your life your way.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

My dad has Aquarius Sun, Moon and Mercury. In the 1960s, he was a young professor at what was then Pace College in Manhattan. Students there wanted to start a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) on campus, a leftie group. They could not find a faculty advisor, so he offered. But he was a conservative and they didn’t trust him. He responded, “I really don’t care what you believe. It’s not my business. As your advisor, my role would be to sign off on your meeting room, make sure the door is locked when you’re done, and so on.” The students said no, we cannot trust you (and it was obviously their loss). Without necessarily realizing it, we count on Aquarius people and that area of our own charts to ground this kind of objectivity and reasoned thought. Now that we are living through times as polarized as the 1960s, we need it more than ever. The place you risk slipping first is in your personal life, and the second is in your professional life. Keep a grip on reality, and a cool head. We are counting on your leadership.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

You seem more determined than ever to crack through the limitations of the past. The most direct way to do that is to question your own priorities. You have been doing this, though at a glacial pace. You have made changes, though it looks like there are many more that you have, for some reason, held off on. No doubt that is because you have not felt ready, though I suggest you question the role of your attachment to the past. People seem to think it natural that they get ‘set in their ways’, as if this were some kind of entitlement. That may be true, but you don’t want everything to which you are entitled — which would be a fine way to sum up the astrology of the next four weeks.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

I suggest you read a little about transactional analysis. That’s the form of therapy that developed the concept of transactions wherein people play the role of adult, parent or child. Everyone is involved in these transactions all the time, it’s just that they are rarely called what they are. Your job this month is to maintain the posture of adult. In that role, you need to relate to others as adults when possible. That is the easy part. Then comes relating to those acting like parents and children in a way that is appropriate, and wherein you don’t come out of the adult role — the place where you are stable, sane and fair-minded. People know how to play games designed to get one another out of adult role. People are, for example, constantly setting up situations where they must be treated as children, in a real sense compelling others into parent mode. You must be aware of this, not fall for it, and if you do, get back to your centered, present, adult mind as soon as you can. This is going to take some focus, as there will be situations wherein you will need to be rather bossy. With them, I suggest you do an adult thing and make sure that you establish, by agreement, the priorities and how the pecking order has to work in order to meet pre-established goals on time and in good form.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

It might seem difficult to have any foresight right now, though I suggest you keep looking forward. Push yourself a little if you must; it is better to be focused on the future than on the past. As for what has already happened, all you need is to accept what you learned. That is the whole point. Part of that involves knowing where you stand; that is, where you are. Apart from that, the past will prove to be of little use. There is a kind of astrological hypnosis operating right now that is trying to get you to think in reverse or obsess over the past. Snap out of it. Get up to a place with a view and look out at the landscape. Once you have a perspective on the lay of the land, you will be able to sense where you stand in the flow of time. One message from the charts is clear — planning is less important than sparking up ideas, and noticing which ones excite you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

You have the opportunity to make a splash, a crash or a controversy, with the potential to affect many people around you. I suggest you do none of the above, but rather allow your influence to work in ways that are understated and reserved. While you do this, you’ll need to live with the fact that there are things you don’t understand. For example, that might include not understanding why someone or something is harmful, even if you know intuitively that it is. Why does not matter as much as what your intuition is telling you. One particular aspect is suggesting that your words or actions could have an influence far beyond what you’re even aware of. The same aspect is saying that you are in a position receive information that you would otherwise be unlikely ever to find out. Yet will you know that this is happening when it comes your way? You will, if you’re paying close attention, which is the theme of the moment.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

The thing to do is take full responsibility for your situation — whether you like it or whether you don’t. To the extent that your life is a mixed bag, you have come a long way toward figuring out that you’re the one who has created or developed the elements of your existence that really work for you. Remind yourself of that fact. While there are definitely some situations calling for leadership, the thing your charts are calling for is self-leadership. Take a few weeks and organize your most personal priorities. Be clear about what you want, which today means resolving to become clear about what you want. This may take a little while; you’ve been distracted, though you now have some time and bandwidth to focus on what is the most meaningful to you. Remember, no matter how much you think you know, this will be a discovery process.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

There is nothing wrong with you, though something seems to be sending you that message. From the perspective of your solar chart, this appears as a thought form, probably something you picked up in childhood and that has had a grip on you ever since. You might find more than one of these ideas, and they might be clinging together in what psychology calls a ‘complex’. Events early in the month are likely to propel you to awareness of this issue, and to propel you to escape velocity. By now you have figured out that what I’m describing is a wholly internal situation. It’s not even vaguely caused by your current relationships; rather, your relationships follow the rules that you set for them. And now is the time to revise those rules in a truly radical way. In this process, it’s essential that you use words to express yourself. I recognize that words are not perfect and cannot express anything perfectly, but what they offer is evidence of your thought process. They allow you to track the evolution of your ideas about yourself. Your ideas manifest in a way that you can review the next day, share with others, or state as a tangible vision. Words can be edited, which means revised — which means you get to re-vision yourself with each successive draft. Words are images. Words are maps. And they hold the power of healing for you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be seeking a way to get out of the feeling of so much responsibility. It seems like you can handle the pressure, if you get a little time away from it. I suggest the thing you need is a different philosophical approach. You can begin with the idea that you will do what you’re committed to, and at the same time remember that you have other goals. The way to avoid competition between them is to use time more consciously — in other words, remember your long-term objectives and make sure that you put at least a little energy into them on a regular basis, without delaying them to the future. And remember your immediate needs, making sure that you put some energy into them every day. There is one last layer — that which you want to do but are not prepared to act on yet. Keep that list handy, and attach an action date to commencing that is within 12 months from today.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be finding your voice, in a way that is close to your heart — in your community. There are many ways to define community these days; this would seem to be the one that you consider your spiritual home, or your primary tribe. You have been unusually reserved, cautious or conservative in recent times of your life, and you are now being invited to step into a far more visible role, standing up for some cause, commitment or mission that you may have been reluctant to speak about in the past. You may feel vulnerable doing this, though I assure you that you are standing on a deep foundation, and that unlike most people, your leadership is grounded on the strength of your moral authority. I don’t say this lightly and I suggest you not take it lightly — and not let that stop you from going past your previous limits and taking a genuine risk for what is truly a worthwhile cause.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

What is it that makes you human? I would propose that it’s a self-reflective quality — the awareness of your own awareness, which leads to consciousness of your own existence. Because everyone has a unique emotional makeup, that consciousness might emphasize pain, or pleasure, or love, or anger, or desire, or the desire to create. Humanity is the capacity to be aware of such a feeling and to respond to it. As the Pisces Full Moon lights up the dimension of your horoscope associated with your inner resources, and the feelings you have for yourself, I suggest you let the awareness of any emotion, thought or desire remind you of the fact that you exist. After awareness, the next stage of evolution is the ability to respond to what you feel, and to consciously create a desired state of experience. You are closer to that self-creative state than you’ve ever been.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

Mother — the enigma, the force of nature, the essential thing to leave behind. By leave behind, I mean various things, such as ‘not allow to run your life’ and ‘resolve the issues that you inherited from her and her mother’. I also mean the role of mother, when that role is more or less finished, or when it’s ready to transform. Yet here is what really needs to transform for our whole society — the family as the authoritarian mini-state, borrowing from the words of a great 20th century philosopher. If we want any scant possibility to live on some shared level ground with one another, or to explore any collective form of leadership, we must go beyond the model of absolute authority that is then internalized into perpetual inhibition and approval-seeking. Father plays a role in this, though in our generations that more often involves being absent or only partially present than it does the former ‘father knows best’ model of family. This can still manifest as the disembodied, nagging conscience — what another philosopher called the superego. You need order in your life. Anarchy will not suffice. But neither will the absolute rule of law, emotional or otherwise. The thing to remember is that personal autonomy requires maturity and an evolved sense of responsibility, though one that does not demand answering to someone else.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

Others seem to repeatedly make the same mistakes, and there’s nothing you can really do about it. You cannot get control over them. What you can do is take charge of your life. But rather than do this in an abrupt or aggressive way, I suggest you take the motivation you’re feeling now and convey it into a longterm commitment. You know what you have to do. You know that ultimately you are responsible for your own existence. Even if there are outside factors influencing you, the quest of individual consciousness and volition seems to be about relating to them in a tangible way. That, in turn, requires a high level of awareness, and the willingness to stand up for yourself. Yet where that happens first is in your own life. It may involve a revolt against those who conditioned you to be submissive to them, at the expense of your own intentions. But remember — this is an inner revolution, not one conducted on the phone or in the streets.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

You may be feeling a call to take authority over certain areas of your life. If you run an organization, you may be feeling the calling to get a grip and make sure things happen right. I suggest you proceed gently, though I would caution that your astrology may be guiding you in the direction of being bossy. Keep the whole situation in mind, and spend plenty of time considering where other people are coming from before you make any additional demands on them. Your key to success is avoiding confrontation. It will help to have clear goals, then present those to people in a low-energy format and see if they are interested in signing on. This is leadership by agreement, which is a form of consensus-building. With consensus, the underlying values are the thing to focus on. Establish common ground, which will lead to common goals and the mutual desire to fulfill them. This is easier, more fun and more humane than the usual top-down school of management offered by the world.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

You’re getting the message to take charge, though you may feel like you’re headed for some obstacle you presently cannot see. That may be true, though to me it looks more like a point of contact where you actually get to accomplish something, make a change or take control of your destiny. There are two distinct sides to Aquarius. One is the egalitarian, we’re-all-in-this-together side. The other more resembles a drill sergeant. You’ll need to draw upon elements of both to make the most of the astrology that will be coursing through your chart like lightning the next couple of weeks. Remember that all groups need leaders, even if their only role is to focus the agenda and the conversation. Leaders are wise to draw their power from the consent of the governed, making it clear that leadership is an act of service. Get permission from those you would supervise, take charge and get things going.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Your life seems to be a story of claiming something and then giving something up. If you take charge and assert yourself, you may be noticing that there is a sacrifice associated with leadership — it might be added responsibility or a demand for impeccability. Yet while this is happening you are also being offered new opportunities and gifts from people who care about you. Indeed, beyond the world of duty and authority there is a whole other environment opening up, what you might think of as a gift economy. At first it may seem that it’s offering you more than you are offering back, and you may be wondering if there is a catch. Yet your chart suggests that you will never be asked to give more than you can offer, and that what seems like a small gesture to you might be experienced by someone else as truly significant and indeed unavailable elsewhere. Have confidence in that.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

You have a whole new world of relationships opening up with Jupiter spending the next year in your opposite sign Leo. That’s likely to manifest as more and as better, though I suggest you keep your eye on a few factors. For example, notice when a situation you’re in does not offer you space to live up to your potential as you feel it. Jupiter is likely to arrive with a longing for freedom. You certainly have the option to hunker down and wait for it to pass by — or you can respond in a creative way. Another theme of this transit involves making sure that people are who you perceive them to be. You’re likely to see many wonderful attributes in people, and I suggest that you get to know them well enough to see past your own projections. Note, this is the projection of the style of seeing only the best in people. This may be true, with some of them, though because Jupiter (especially in Leo) is so closely associated with image and appearance, it will be very helpful to make a policy of going past those layers, and actually getting down to the substance of who someone is. At the same time, your charts are calling on you to act, speak and choose from an authoritative place of confidence and commitment. May the world rise to meet you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

Who is your reference point for self-esteem? You need an example, and if you discover that you’re not finding too many of them in the world, consider that a sign that you’re using your discernment. Your astrology suggests that the past few months have had a special theme, which is understanding the emotional basis for self-worth, or lack thereof. It is not a mental exercise. For you self-worth resides at the root of your emotional nature. The central message of this time in your life is that no matter what anyone has done to you, or what has happened to you, you are the one who decides how you feel about yourself. You decide who you call as a witness. You decide who you believe. Ultimately, you make your own decision about who you are. Yet that decision has an emotional basis, not a logical one. That is the beauty, and the biggest challenge.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

Inner vision provided by this weekend’s Capricorn Full Moon will show you just how much space in your mind you’ve cleared out. Space translates to additional energy, room for your own thoughts and freedom from worry about what other people think. Space means freedom from the burdens of others, to an increasing degree. You’re not totally liberated, but it’s as if you realized you were living in an ancient mansion that had been passed down from generations before you. You took over one wing of the house, cleaned it out and started decorating and furnishing it the way you want. You have made it your own, which translates to many large and small developments in your life. This progress would not have been possible without all the inner clearing and renovation that you’ve been involved with. Consider this a good start. The light of the Full Moon will reveal how much further you can take the same basic idea.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

Compared to prior times in your life, even fairly recent ones, you are relatively free of over-burden or complexity. I know that everyone’s life seems complicated, but as people grow and master their various challenges, it’s easy to forget just how mixed up things were not so long ago. This gives you flexibility, it gives you a measure of freedom and a bit of excess capacity to assist someone who may be in need. Consider who in your life could benefit from your support — it may be intellectual, it may be something you can do for them in the political arena of business, or it might be a way you can assist with a financial strategy. Someone may reach out to you, or you may have been observing them for a while. I suggest you be efficient and a bit shrewd in how you offer your assistance, and how you go about implementing it. This may be as simple as an introduction to someone else, an idea, or focusing a group effort among others perfectly capable of making something happen.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

Now is the time to go from working on relationships to actually experiencing them. The difference could be emphasized more, though it tends to disappear into the haze. Now, it will rise like the Sun over your life. While you could identify a psychological dimension to anything, that recognition may be for the sole purpose of avoiding it. There will still be a strong temptation to analyze certain things till they are very nearly lifeless, which is part of a well-established pattern in the lives of many people. It often serves a purpose, which is to siphon off passion, and to create a seemingly sophisticated rationale for denial. I suggest you get the energy flowing in the opposite direction — toward passion, funneling vitality into your interests and your relationships rather than away from it. Take any opportunity not to analyze, to say you don’t know and have that be OK, even to take the risk of not caring about the motives of others. If you’re wondering about other people, pay attention to their actions and you will have more than enough information to work with. In a similar vein, I suggest you notice how obvious the choices you want to make really are. They require relatively little thinking and absolutely no overthinking. If something requires analysis, focus it on one question — whether something is in accord with your values. Remember — your values are intuitive.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

You must be realistic about money. There are multiple factors saying that you’re not necessarily doing that, and other factors that suggest you have significant ability to do so. Success will come from taking a practical approach to the whole subject — basics like understanding where your money comes from and where it goes. That kind of information is a matter of fact, not of speculation. The deeper level is making sure that you are doing what you understand to be correct, and then working with others who share this same core value. They do exist. There are also people who exist who are pretending to do so, and it’s essential that you be able to sort out who is who. The most significant quality to look for in any potential collaborator is a sense of fairness. The other is someone with whom ideas flow easily.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

Whatever you say and do is likely to make a vivid and widespread impression on the world around you, so keep it relevant and classy. You have unusual insight into what people are going through, especially what they’re not admitting to, though remember — just because someone doesn’t admit something doesn’t mean they don’t know. We have a conditioned tendency to assume that someone does not know, that they lack intention, that they’re not really informed. This is called denying awareness. Instead of doing that, I suggest you look for evidence of awareness, both in the people you engage with or observe, and within yourself. This is a form of affirmation requiring some bravery, because denial has its motives and its uses. The more you unravel denial, the more you’ll see you don’t want it.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

You are in an extended experimental moment, and this is the time to keep your mind open. For you that translates to exploring different patterns of communication, different topics, and the willingness to embrace the unknown. There are many ways to express yourself, and you have a few that you don’t use often. These possibilities may feel more tumultuous than you might expect under the current astrology, since the unknown comes along with the unpredictable and unexpected and that raises the question of unprepared. Oh, and possibly being perceived as such. I am, however, talking about words and ideas expressed and shared locally, not a spontaneous Broadway performance. Yet the fact of being known for what you express is indeed a factor that might be making you nervous. Be aware of an exaggeration effect with that; but what is not an exaggeration is how much you can learn from any experience of sharing anything you’ve created that has actually involved you taking a risk.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

There’s a direct relationship between insecurity that has its root in a sense of being injured, and the potential to be an equal partner to others. The two ideas mirror one another. If you have some sense of yourself as injured, then the idea that you could be someone’s equal will seem to lack any credibility. It might even be too frightening to consider. The sensation may be, if I am actually met on level ground, then this person may see through me. They may see what I’m struggling with. They may figure out how hurt I feel. Now, all of this is an idea. There is not the perfect, independent person, and anyway if you ever meet one, they would know the path that it took to get there. Part of being an equal partner involves having a healthy relationship to the plight and the quest of being human, which these days is pretty challenging. That is the level ground — it’s not about perfect people getting together to be perfect, or injured people getting together to be injured. And this level ground — well, it starts inside of you.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be having doubts about your power or your influence, and at the same time you seem to be tamping yourself down intentionally. This may be the best approach for the next few weeks as you work out some ethical issues that seem to be bothering you. This may be stuff that has been hanging around for a while, but which you’ve just been able to focus into a coherent thought. The question relates to one or both of your parents, which is why you can go for so long working something out that you don’t even know exists; it showed up before you were born, and you thought it belonged there. This would be a good moment to question everything you’ve taken for granted, any words of self-defeating ‘wisdom’ that any parent, teacher, caregiver or other authority figure ever delivered to you. One way to find such material if it’s buried is to consider any self-defeating thoughts you have and ask yourself where you learned them. They came from somewhere, but they will have little influence without your support and willingness to play along. It will then be up to you to teach yourself what is right, and to follow that teaching and see how it works. It will help if you gather others around you who affirm what you both know is true. There’s strength in numbers, especially for an Aquarius.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

You can take things more lightly than you have lately, and you’ll probably feel just that inclination. You might even call the feeling ‘spiritual contact’. However, one reason I try (not so successfully) to avoid the concept ‘spiritual’ is that it’s an abstraction of what you already contain and who you already are. So, an aspect that suggests that you’re growing on the dimension of faith suggests that you have more faith in yourself. An aspect that describes ‘messages from the gods’ can be interpreted as you getting into deeper contact with who you are and fulfilling your reason for living. An aspect that describes ‘lessons’ is also about your willingness to learn. All of these images relate to your chart, and therefore to your existence — suggesting a moment of enlightenment, which is to say, becoming lighter; a moment of contact, which means improved communication with yourself and, if you want, with others around you.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

Your chart describes a self-portrait or autobiography. As a living metaphor or ‘psychomagic act’, you might want to give that a try. I don’t mean a selfie. I mean an actual self-portrait of your mind. Meanwhile, remember that you project or insert yourself into everything you say, do, write or otherwise create. Be aware of this, and make sure you do it in a refined, conscious way, utilizing the art of understatement. If you’re doing something that is not intended to be a personal statement, such as business writing, or any professional activity, do it your own way, with some finesse, but don’t go out of your way to put your personal mark on the work. One other bit. You may be in ‘if you want a job done right, do it yourself’ mode. That may be true, but only after you seek input from everyone else, to get better ideas and to propagate a sense of involvement (and therefore investment). The larger theme of your life at this time is leadership, and this is a subtle art indeed.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

You may have the feeling that a close personal relationship has become so narrow that it’s not working for you. You are being called into a wider experience of life; you need your personal intimacies to grow and expand with you. One consideration here is that we are conditioned to create relationships that are ‘general partnerships’ rather than ‘limited partnerships’. In a general partnership, one size theoretically has to fit all, and one relationship is supposed to meet all purposes in our lives, which is plainly not practical in most situations. It might be, if you have an extremely retreating life, few ambitions and you don’t consider yourself on a path of rapid growth — none of which apply to you. Another dimension to this is that you need intense experiences. That’s just part of your nature. To have those experiences in a relationship, you need someone who can go there with you. You do a lot of guiding people into this concept, though that’s different from engaging with bold individuals who go there because they want to. Though this represents a big step from the seemingly intractable concept of one-on-one relationships that’s expected everywhere but hookup culture, you may need specific partners for specific aspects of who you are. This requires both confidence and mastery over your own life, and associating with others who trust you and who have authentic self-esteem.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

You can feel everything that’s happening, and it’s essential that you do. Those who are close to you may have no idea the extent of your sensitivity or how tuned into your personal world or the larger world around you, you are. The information that’s coming to you, and that will continue to come to you, is entering your awareness for a reason. I suggest you stay out of the fray; that you not leap into the center of the action, or involve yourself in anything that is only peripheral to your life — it would be way too easy to get distracted. Part of the deeper purpose of what you’re observing and — by direct extension, learning — involves an ongoing project in leadership training. One key to leadership is knowing when to get involved in a situation and when to back off. In this case, discretion is definitely the better part of valor. You seem to be in a grooming process for a very specific purpose, one that calls on you to have solid knowledge and many contacts, and that will make itself known when the time is right. Pay attention because the timing will be significant.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

I suggest you not assert your leadership or your authority until you’re absolutely clear that you have a vision to back it up. Yes this is a time in your life when you are being called upon to step up as someone who takes responsibility for something larger than yourself. Yet it’s also a time when you’re attempting to clarify your agenda and your priorities, and this is not proving to be easy. Your process of clarification seems to be intertwined with a relationship with someone you consider a little daunting or who seems to have a parental role in your life. That’s part of the psychology you’re working out. So the second phase of authority is really getting a handle on your inner parent. This seems to be a sticking point, and it comes back to the vision discussion. I’ll phrase this as a question — are you meeting any inner resistance when you expand your concept of your life? Does it feel like old resistance, and does that feel like it has someone’s personality on it? Effective leadership really does involve profound psychological clarity. It’s worth it.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

You may feel like you’ve had a thorn taken out of your foot, though if so, I suggest you make it into a piece of jewelry and wear it around your neck as an amulet for a while. You are emerging from a long phase of your life when the theme of consequences has been predominant. There may be elements of this particular journey that you can trace back to early 2005. Looked at one way, the theme of this extended transit was ‘taking things personally’ — and in the process, learning how not to do so. You might say that events of this transit (which included Chiron and Nessus in your sign) tested the whole theory of Aquarian ‘detachment’, compelling you to see your personal investment in everything around you, and to figure out whether that investment was really appropriate. Themes of your sign usually associated with control have transformed into themes of accountability, which is of course much more productive. Now a new phase has begun, which in a sentence I would describe as understanding that your values really are the bottom line; and understanding further that to be meaningful, you must update and revise your values regularly.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

You may be in an emotional dilemma, going back and forth about what you really believe, or what course of action is correct. This is compounded by the potential feeling that you have to do something, or make a decision, before time runs out. The problem is that each potential choice is so compelling you don’t know which is more valid. If this describes some aspect of your life, I have two ideas. One is: consider the potential that both are true at once, no matter how different they may seem (they are more closely related than they seem by the way). Then work out the math and figure out how the situation would seem in that case. Two is: consider the possibility that you’re dealing with a false dilemma. (I have a personal philosophy to consider the potential for any dilemma being a false dilemma). A false dilemma, in case you’re not familiar with the concept, is a pair of options, choices, potentials or outcomes where neither of the two is actually valid or meaningful. The solution to that is simple — come up with more possibilities.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

Despite the considerable fuss and turmoil of the world, you seem intent on grounding yourself in your home, with your partner, with your family or in your community (these, in some combination). That looks like the right idea at the right time. You are in a position to build your life from the center outward, similar to how a tree grows. You would have to be pretty tuned into nature to look at a tree and say, “Gee, I see it growing right now.” (Such is possible.) But you would have to be pretty out of it to look at the tree year after year and not notice that it’s filling out and becoming taller and stronger. Your professional activities are in a similar pattern of nearly imperceptible growth, but increasingly solid rooting. Your ruling planet Saturn is in your solar 10th house — perhaps its most functional place. The work of the 10th house is the slow building of one’s professional purpose, identity and image. Keep that process slow, and continue to make sure that your reputation is built on absolutely solid ground, making sure that every career-oriented contact you make has an actual emotional — that is to say, human — basis to the relationship. Take the time to slowly and meticulously orient around the goals that you hold the most dear to your heart. Then, work that blend of ‘make it happen’ and ‘let it happen’.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

If you feel that experiencing true self-esteem is like skating out into the middle of a lake on a somewhat warm winter day, not knowing how thick the ice is, you’re correct. That is, at least, how it’s manifesting now. You don’t need to be confident, only willing to dare. You don’t need external reassurance, only a modicum of not caring what others might think. And bear in mind that every past opinion or judgment about yourself is now calling on you to split the difference with some radically different factor or source of information. If you are wondering when you might encounter more like-minded people, or perhaps more accurately, those on a similar growth mission, you need look no further than the people who immediately surround you, with whom you share ideas regularly. Though the feeling of isolation may be quite real at times, it is wholly an illusion. And if you are wondering when the creative explosion is going to begin, count to three.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

There are those moments when you’re sure it’s the dark night of the soul — when you have no sense of direction, and when you doubt whether you have the strength to go on. But lately, you are experiencing these junctures as something more like a nearly impossible alchemy of transformation. This process goes as deep into you as anything ever has. No matter how challenging your inner life may seem (speaking of the next three months or so), or how isolated you may feel from time to time, you have a truly amazing phase of your life approaching when you can change everything by changing yourself. Or rather, you will be given all you need to make deep inner changes, which will manifest in your seemingly outer life. You may feel like you’re making only slow progress on your journey to self-knowledge and personal healing. Yet with these things, what you have is less important than what you do with them. If you use the self-knowledge you have gained, you will inevitably build on it. If you trust the process of your healing and allow that commitment to guide you in all of the decisions you make, you will advance your healing dependably. As you move through this territory, I have one suggestion. Be bold, and keep no secrets from others. Then be even more daring and keep no secrets from yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

I have seen a fear dynamic play out in couples, in particular the fear that someone is ‘too messed up’ to be happy in a relationship. Part of that involves experiencing others (including their partner) as being balanced or happy in contrast to the problems that one is experiencing inwardly. This dynamic is pushed pretty hard in a time when we’re always being convinced that others are more perfect than we are (a form of glamour). And it’s challenging in a time when there are plenty of factors and influences we need to deal with. Yet in our moment of history, there is little inclination to get help with one’s personal material, and a shortage of resources when someone does want to get help. That said, how are you feeling? Are you managing? Are you devoted to your healing? And if you are devoted, how are you expressing that? Don’t go it alone. Say how you feel, and ask for what you need. Open up and allow in the love.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

This would be a good time to avoid making decisions about money, including those about how you feel about your self-worth and the monetary value of your work. One thing about many, many Aquarians is an egalitarian spirit about money. This does not usually harmonize well with a world where the primary value seems to be greed. Indeed, in my short lifetime, I’ve seen greed go from a problem that some people have to a virtue to be aspired to. One productive thing you can do is remind yourself that you have an entirely different take on money than all of that. While you may not be ‘liberal’ on all issues, I am sure you’re firm on everyone having a right to food, shelter and pleasure. You don’t believe that others need to lose so that you can gain. Here is where you have a major advantage. Aquarius is one of the most structured signs, and wealth flows toward order and organization.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

This is the year when you’re going to figure out money. Yes, money. The great mystery. The endless source of worry. The eternally useful. The font of evil. The ever-elusive. You may be discovering that you have to be more realistic about this topic. You like to take a spiritual approach — which you always will — but I would propose that it’s more about practicality than it is about purity or idealism. In your particular case, there is a deep element of healing, which bears a strong resemblance to acting on what you know to be true. Any overly-idealistic notions you have about money are likely to obscure this fact. Any purity-based approach is likely to obscure this fact, such as the desire not to seem materialistic or to have ‘clean hands’. Practical starts with honoring your values. If you don’t like gambling, you don’t go to the track. If you feel any activity for which you are paid is out of accord with your values, choose what is in accord. There is little or no gray area here.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

Something is shifting for you on a deep inward level, which may feel like the healing of a kind of isolation or loneliness that has followed you around for a while. This has taken you a step closer to your soul, just when you were wondering if such a thing was even possible. Pay attention and you’ll notice that this keeps happening, with a slightly different feeling each time, though each time feeling like you’ve seated yourself in your own existence a little more firmly. It helps to make peace with the solitary nature of existence, or at least the compelling sensation of that effect. It’s the feeling of being alone in the universe that is a step in the awakening of every spiritually conscious person. That sensation of isolation does two things — it can come with the choice to give up looking outside yourself for what you can only find within; and it’s what opens the space to have the awakening of how alone you are not. That awakening is the dawn of authentic selflove. Nearly everyone who arrives there has earned it. They have faced their own darkness, to some real extent, and the mystery of their own existence. You are not done, but if your charts mean anything, you’re working with many more resources than you had just a few short months ago.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

It would seem you’re not getting a particular message because you’re either not believing something that’s true, or because people don’t seem to believe you. In any event, credibility is at stake at a time when you’re feeling very strongly about your values and your ideals. And whether you have all of what you want, or what you need, or not, there is a critical element of truth that’s coming into your life. Part of that truth binds you to your reality, and part of that truth leaves you free to grow into your purpose. Speaking of truth: while you’re obviously in a very excited state of sexual desire, you also seem to be a bit guarded and in an odd way, curiously asexual. Work that out and you’ll feel better.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

You’re getting to know yourself in a new way, and I do hope you’re interested in what you’re learning. You may be sick of the past, questioning the past and/or living in the past. Yet what you’re learning involves getting to the bottom of emotional attitudes and values that are very much a product of your conditioning, but which you have not fully evaluated your commitment to. Once you do, it will be abundantly clear what you want and what you don’t want; what is a positive influence and what is a negative influence. However, as you go about making up your mind what to do about this, beware if any guilt slips into your thinking. Guilt is evidence of control mechanisms that are leftovers from childhood. You are not betraying anyone by making up your own mind about how you feel. If anyone cares, remind yourself that your values are your business.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

You may be feeling like you have too much responsibility and not enough in the way of personal resources to support what you have to do. This can include money, though I am really talking about inner resources of the emotional and spiritual kind. I can see why you would feel that way; yet I can also see that you have many hidden resources that you may not have discovered yet. These might manifest as energy, ideas or strength that you can access if you want. The key thing to remember is that they are there waiting for you. To find them, you must go underneath your outer circumstances and make contact with the underlying nature of your situation. This should not be hard — the dimension where this information and energy reside are bursting with life, wanting your attention, if only you would turn it there. You may have the sensation that you would evoke chaos or tap into something that you don’t really want to know about, though I assure you that this is life-giving information. If there is chaos, that’s the thing that provides the fuel for your strength and creativity. Think of it this way: you face no situation for which you lack resources. It’s a matter of having some faith, making contact and making use of what you discover.

Capricorn 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

All of this and many other things shall be revealed. Like, in the next three days or so. I would say you’re approaching the single most interesting moment of self-discovery of your life, but you’ve had a few of those lately. Still, one builds on the next. And it helps if you’ve cleared some debris out of the way, which you have done. One of the most intriguing things about your current chart is the blend of chaste purity and unfettered lust. You may be thinking you’re having some kind of identity crisis. Like, how can both of these things be true? It’s not that they can be true; rather, it’s essential that they be true at the same time. They are opposites that support and affirm one another’s existence. They are options that you can choose from at any time, and live in for extended periods of time. The White path and the Red path are simultaneous realities and they both lead to the same place — to yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

Your inner life and your outer life could hardly be more different. On the outside you’re the very image of impeccability. On the inside you want to explode with excitement, lust or cosmic energy. You may have those days where if someone brushes against you, you’ll let out a moan and burst. Said simply, an inner portal is open. Life force is pulsing through you, and that portal where all inspiration comes in is wide open. People work for years to make this happen, though it cannot be conjured — it can only be allowed, encouraged and appreciated. You might try to force that door closed, though that’s not really a good idea. It would be a waste of beautiful energy, and you could hurt yourself. I suggest you stop worrying what people might think if they knew what was really in your mind. Anyone perceptive enough to guess would be thrilled about it.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

Mars leaves your sign on Thursday, ending an interesting micro-era of your life. This began Oct. 26, and it probably started with a bang or two. Looking back, what do you see from a distance, and with the perspective of time? I would encourage your curiosity about the events of the second week of November. What did you learn? It has a bearing on the next few weeks, with the main point of contact being what happens when you judge yourself for things that are outside your control, or judge yourself at all. One of the ways that you, personally, handle the global self-esteem crisis is to detach yourself from the issue. It’s actually a pretty good strategy, since so much of “lack of self-esteem” is a kind of red herring. Often, it involves a con-job by someone else — in the distant past or five minutes ago. But sometimes you cannot distance yourself; sometimes you have to grab the question, look it in the face and say: AND?


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

If this isn’t the most interesting month of your life, it will likely come up on the top 10 list. It may be challenging to hold your center. You may feel like some vast change is about to sweep through your world. The astrology illustrates a scenario where you are surrounded by a vast amount of activity and energy, yet you appear holding yourself steady at a still point. Let the energy move around you. Allow yourself to be central rather than peripheral. Allow yourself to be the one sought after rather than the seeker. Allow others to be changed by you, without imposing any plans or intentions on them. There is so much momentum carrying you and your whole environment that you don’t need to. You will feel sane and stable if you observe rather than explain, if you allow your attention to expand rather than reacting to what others are saying or doing. I know that on Earth this is all easier said than done, but that’s true of just about anything. This will be worth the relatively small effort, with the greatest reward being the recognition of how many options you have open. To succeed at this you must do one thing, really — resist the temptation to rebel for its own sake. Speak softly and clearly when you truly have something to say — and trust that you will be heard.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

You know what you want. You’ve earned that knowledge and you’ve earned the privilege of striving for your preferences. At the risk of stirring up revolt against this currently derided thing, privilege, I will say this: Semantically, the word privilege has its origins as a law that applies to one person. Later, it came to mean an advantage granted. If you have some advantage, you have granted it to yourself. Though there are obviously precursors to that — for example, you know how to read, you are educated, you have a bank account, and others — the privilege I am talking about is something you have given to yourself by your own effort. If you want a balancing factor, I suggest that you proceed in full awareness of your environment, and strive to be responsive to your environment. If everyone did that, we would all be privileged and we would live in something close to utopia.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

It may seem like the Earth itself is cracking open under your feet. It may seem like the environment that surrounds you is changing so fast you have no way to keep up with it. Both of those are illusions that mask the deeper truth; that you are changing, faster than you ever imagined possible. Well, changing might not be the right word. What’s happening is that your inner nature is being revealed to you, and clearing out of the way everything that is unlike itself. As this is happening, your perception of your surroundings is changing, simply because perception is a direct result of how you experience yourself. There are times when you know this is true and yet it’s difficult to access that level of reality. There are times when it’s a lot easier, and now happens not to be one of them. Seize the moment. Let the energy moving through you be guided by the intentions of your deepest intelligence.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

Looked at one way, the paradox of existence is that existence begins within and extends without. Yet at the same time we are demanded not to be so self-centered. We must be relational and responsive to others, and yet we all know that all those others are in some way secondary to the fact that we can be fully self-conscious — aware that all consciousness, including of the other, happens within oneself. Rather than fight this, I suggest you experiment boldly with it. Ask yourself how much of your experience is relational and how much is projection. How much of the love you feel is love of the other, or love of yourself extended to the other? You may feel like you’re going to explode these days, and this question, asked now at this stunning moment in your astrological life, may blow your mind. I don’t think there are objective answers though I do think there are honest, interesting and pleasurable ways to navigate the hall of mirrors.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

Often has it been said that only you have the power to change yourself. Yet this is either too much responsibility for most people to handle, or it defies some other logic that external factors are what really make the difference. This month Mars and Pluto form a conjunction in your birth sign, an indication that you have the ability to rewrite just about any facet of your existence. Yet this cannot be haphazard, left to chance or done with blurry vision. You must focus, you must choose, and most of all you must hold yourself accountable for what you want and what you create. If you think of this as the cost of success, you will see that it’s not so high after all, though more than most think they can afford.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

You must keep your cool at all times. There will be times when this won’t be easy. You are potentially the most volatile ingredient in any situation, and in every one of those situations you have something to lose. It is of course a blight on our times how many people live like they have nothing to lose, which is creating an increasingly reckless society. You at least know you have something at stake. You can remind yourself that you depend on your friends and your allies, and that you would have little to show for your efforts had you not had their cooperation in the past, and if you don’t have it going forward. So you have a good reason to be aware of, and to adjust, your responses and your tactics. One way to know you’re in jeopardy is if you ever get the thought that you can go it alone. That may be your one warning, valid because it contains the idea that the people around you are expendable, and therefore, it does not matter how you treat them or how they feel. Yes, it can be burdensome to think about everyone and how they are doing, all the time — and I assure you that such care and attention could save your career, your reputation, your business or an important friendship. And if you stay alert and even-headed, you will have opportunities to solve problems and regain your creative grounding.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

Be careful in any leadership role that you might have. This would be an excellent time to step back and play the role of the impartial chairperson, or better yet, as the observer, listener and finder of fact. Do not let on that you have changed your posture; merely pay attention, and consider carefully what you know. It will be vital that you put your data into context. Take no single fact on its own; consider it in the context of everything else you know. One other point, perhaps the most significant — I strongly suggest you not repeat anything you hear, nor that you tip your hand on any solid discoveries or observations that you make. There is the vast potential for misunderstanding, and that could compromise your reputation, your leadership position or any political advantage that you have. Mud may be flying over the next few days — stay back and keep it off your nice new suit.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

Pay attention to your anxiety. Listen to it, and understand what it’s saying about you and your circumstances. Your fears may be running away with you at times; at least I suggest you notice when this is happening. Many people do not; or rather, are not mindful enough to know that fear is the issue, rather than the thing they are supposedly afraid of. It would be immensely helpful if you were to sort this one out, since if there is any issue it is fear and not the thing feared. Your current astrology is carrying some potent manifestation power, so I suggest you turn your energy toward something creative. Psychic energy is inherently neutral and can be turned to something loving or something toxic by choice. Though this is often forgotten, now would be the time to remember. Remembering means making the choice to focus the power of your mind in the direction you want to go, or what you want to become. Above all else, be truthful with yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

What are you withholding, from yourself or from others? What, in the way of feelings, nurturing, words, or anything? Withholding can come with a sense of power, whether over yourself or over others. Do you detect any of that going on? If so, what do you think is at the root of that drive? Is it the fear of being exploited? One thing that our business-driven, allegedly capitalist society does not like to admit is that it’s from giving that people figure out how much they have. If you’re experiencing the feeling of not having enough, I suggest you try offering yourself to the people around you. You have plenty, and you can also afford to be a lot warmer and more communicative. People like you more than you may think. They care about you more than you know. Your generosity would be an excellent way to acknowledge that — even as an experiment. For example, invite some friends over to a home-cooked meal.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

From time to time, or all the time, you may be feeling like you’re about to explode. You must be careful with this. You are indeed experiencing some profound internal movement, which is provoking you to question and investigate every aspect of desire. If you have not recognized this yet, I suggest that you weave together the many clues that you have. If there is an issue involved, it’s how much you conceal from yourself. This is not a joke. From the look of your chart, it would be fair to say that you conceal (or try to conceal) very nearly everything from yourself, as if doing so would somehow protect you from it. But now the action of Mars, one of your special agents, is provoking every one of your desires, your instincts, your secret issues and most of all, your ambition. The thing to remember is that you cannot pick and choose. To have your power, you must confront your shadow material. To have your strength in the present, you must confront your past. To embrace your desires, you surely must confront your fears. Not doing these things has been stirring up all kinds of chaos in your heart and soul. This is putting you under a lot of unnecessary pressure, and cutting off your true strength. Set yourself free and take a good look inside that vast, extremely interesting inner space you contain.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

You have a moment when you can really shine — whether that means advancing in your profession, initiating a new business or project, or raising your public profile in some significant way. This window begins Monday night (at the equinox, which is Sept. 22 at 10:29 pm EDT), though you may be getting manifestations earlier. I suggest however that you not make any serious moves until the Sun ingresses Libra (that is the equinox). In fact, you would be wise to consider your options until the Moon ingresses Libra just before midnight (EDT) on the 23rd, and extend that window through the New Moon on the 24th. (The opening lasts a while after that, but the New Moon is the main threshold.) Remember that you will be more visible during this phase, and the best thing you can do is put yourself in the right place at the right time (rather than trying to be everywhere all at once). Visibility means accountability. Be alert.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

People respect you in a way that you may not fully understand. Yet you may be receiving the message that you must set an example for others. Remember that such an example does not imply that you must be pure, or practice chastity, or deny that you have feelings and attachments. I suggest you focus the experience of your full humanity into what you offer the world, and draw strength from having no fear of controversy whatsoever. It is true that at this time in your life, you are creating an ever-greater impact on the world around you, and part of how you’re doing that is through focusing your sincerity. This is not an option. It’s not a frill. It’s an evolutionary imperative, and at its core is your ability to be real with yourself at all times. So accept no excuses, and grant yourself no casual exceptions. Progress is at stake –- of a rare kind, available in this moment.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

These years of your life have been some of the most driven and urgent ever, arriving with one enforced change after the next. Yet there is another way to evolve, which is to relax into what is possible. You don’t need to resist yourself, and you certainly don’t need to dwell on your worst fears. You can find that space inside yourself where you have no concerns at all about whether you’re accepted by others, or have a place in society, and when you get there, you may feel like you’re taking a warm bath for the first time. There is a way of being where you can, at least for a while, step out of any judgment, which is more likely to feel like stepping into self-embrace. If you feel a tinge of guilt, don’t fight it; keep going; you are headed in the right direction. It will rinse off of your skin like soap.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

Laced throughout the literature of spiritualism and occultism is the notion of religion as a kind of science. The idea holds that there’s a true religion, or that if religion is practiced truly, there will actually be a result. This may not manifest for you so overtly, though it may show up as a devotion to purity, to sacrifice, or to the notion that faith must in some way make sense. You’re a more organic person than this. Yes, I see the appeal of the idea, because the human psyche can be chaotic, and you are in an extended phase that often seems to carry the message grow or die. That is not neat or tidy, though I suggest you not succumb to the idea that your growth somehow depends upon your becoming a perfect person, or living your life perfectly. What you can have, and have plenty of, is faith in yourself. The beauty of faith is that it’s not dependent upon any precursor; there is no test you must take in advance. It’s just somewhere you allow your mind to go. You know you’re there because you have less to worry about, rather than more. You know you’re there when your intellect relaxes a bit and accurate information starts coming back to you. You know you’re there when you feel more confident but you don’t necessarily understand why.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

You may find yourself in a position where you need to take an unpopular position. That may be the right thing to do. I suggest however that you consider what, exactly, you’re pushing back against. Do you really need to assert yourself against anyone or anything outside yourself, or do you just need to do your thing? It depends on what your goal is, which is partly about your circumstances. For example, in order to make a statement, you don’t need to defend your right to free speech; you just need to say what’s on your mind. That strongly implies that you have a right to do so, and you don’t need to make that extra point. It seems that you want to find your distinct place in society. Therefore, do what you must, do what you want, and don’t explain yourself until someone tries to stop you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

You do not have to conform to what someone else wants or says is right for you. You do, however, have the option to agree with someone’s opinion, or to tailor what you’re doing to what you think would be socially appropriate. But is that really going to help you succeed? My take is that you will cover the most ground by tuning into what you know you want to express, and saying (or doing) it in your own way. True, you might make mistakes. You might rub some people the wrong way. You might transgress a few boundaries. And what if you do? It’s necessary to experiment with the edge in order to figure out where it is, and to determine your relationship to it. This is never mastered by considering the theory alone. Experience is the key, and while experience is its own reward, you can be sure that there will be others.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

The question of Self is written all over the sky right now. Many people offer the idea that all love is rooted in selflove, though there is a question lurking behind that — at what point does selflove become narcissism? I will tell you — it doesn’t. They are two different things, both of which are part of our psyches and part of our environment. Often narcissism describes the lack of selflove, which is how you can identify it. Yet there is that part of the psyche that must focus exclusively on its own experience; that must admire itself in a fully self-absorbed way, which is different from the gentler and subtler light of actually loving oneself. Narcissism is a problem, but the bigger question is what to do about it. Loving oneself is part of the solution, though I think that indulging the full experience in a fully conscious way can be helpful. Consider the possibility that your life is all about you. Consider the idea that existence is a reflection of the fact that you exist and nothing more. I am not saying this is true — I’m saying it’s worth running through your biocomputer and seeing what you get back.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Rare aspects this week suggest you have a knack for investments and other topics related to shared finances. You may experience a windfall, or the solution to a longstanding problem may suddenly manifest. It might look too good to be true. Of course, it’s your job to perform due diligence on even the best-looking opportunities or solutions, though you don’t need to approach this with suspicion. Contrary to popular belief, there is a surplus of energy in the universe, including money. If you want money, I suggest you be friendly with it and toward it. Recognize that nearly any profit or success emerges out of a collaboration of some kind, and that resources and talents can combine to create a synergistic condition — the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you proceed in an atmosphere of trust, and with people you respect, you’ll do very well.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

You may have this idea that you’re on the right track but heading toward an obstacle of some kind. You might also consider what could intervene long before that obstacle materializes. Said another way, nothing is certain; everything exists in a state of potential or of probability. Those factors are changing constantly as various factors blend and new factors emerge. It would be mighty healthy of you to think in some concept other than what you want as the guaranteed outcome. It’s not only how often this leads to misery. The fact that there is no absolute certainty is your best ally right now, because it keeps your potential open. Most people get panicky if they make contact with their potential or have anything less than the illusion of control. You don’t need illusions of anything right now; you need to be in the moment, responding to your environment, and aware of your feelings. Notice the ways in which you limit yourself, whether it’s with language (such as how you speak to yourself, or describe your possibilities) or by trying in any way to limit the range of your emotions. I suggest you have a long talk with yourself about the concept of appropriate. If you have a tendency to cram yourself into a box, this is the one. There is such a thing as appropriate, but it’s a lot more inappropriate than you may think.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

Your chart describes an inheritance of some kind. That concept can be expressed many different ways, though the overall inference is success and benefit. You have resources available to you and there are people willing to help you out. Should you be in a position to receive assistance of some kind from an investor, make sure you preserve your rights, that you don’t get in over your head and that you have a relatively easy way out of the arrangement if it does not work. Understand who is taking the risk and what risk that really is. Finally, keep the benefits in mind. Any arrangement would best be based on mutual benefit and on love of the work. The same aspect pattern describes a very friendly scenario in love and sex. Just keep reminding yourself that every person is their own individual, free to come and go as they please.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

This weekend brings an extraordinary Full Moon in your birth sign, and with that will come a surge of confidence and energy. Mixed in with that might be some bouts of insecurity, which may have you wondering which side of the equation is really true — your strength or your fear. This is a situation where the presence of fear serves a useful purpose, which is to alert you that you’ve entered (or are about to enter) some new personal territory. You may think of this as alerting you to actual, external risks. The real risk, it would seem, is to your dependency on structure, on following past patterns, and on the fear of venturing into unfamiliar territory — in a word, your ego. But don’t think of ego as an identity, rather as a set of attachments that hijack your identity. Your job is to get it back. Recognize your attachments and focus your courage. You asked to be set free from your past and this is your chance. You asked to do something different, and this is your opportunity.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

Do not cower in the face of beauty. Stand tall and make friends with those who are talented, passionate and charismatic. Consider them an example for how you can be. You would be wise to consider them a reflection of your potential self. One other suggestion, as the Cancer Sun moves into opposition to Pluto in Capricorn. You need to understand the impact you have on others. You’re quick to assume that you make no special impression; it would seem that many times you feel invisible. If that’s your perception, you have that backwards. You often make a profound impression on others — though you almost always miss this fact. If the impression you make does not align with how you feel about yourself, that is, if you are wondering how or why you could influence someone or be so noticeable ‘cus it’s just li’l ol’ you, I suggest you study the details of life more. Engage in closer conversation with people until you get a sense of who and what they perceive when they experience you.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

In the many months that Mars has been traveling through your 10th house of achievement and reputation, you’ve become more sensitive than ever to the opinions of other people in your life, and have discovered that all power and influence are based in relationships. This has come at a price: allowing others more influence in your life than you really want. You will now need to maintain awareness of those relationships and how they work while being more brassy, doing more of what you want and worrying less what people think. This is a fine line to walk, since you still may have the idea that your reputation is on the line. Yet you know that you cannot allow the bounds of your reality to be determined by others. There is a solution set to this seeming paradox, which is that people tend to respect those who are confident even if they don’t agree with them, or even like them. Rather than worrying whether others in some way object to you, pay attention to how they are in fact responding. If someone objects, notice how you handle it. Do you immediately want to yield to them, or do you ask yourself whether they are entitled to an opinion, and what that opinion counts for? Think of this as the next stage of leadership. It’s one where politics matters, but only to a limited degree.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

You may find yourself filled with a kind of ambition you have not expressed in a long while, or even dared to let yourself feel. I suggest you do this as the slow, steady burn rather than as some kind of revolt or revolution. Every bit of authority, influence or power you gain must be tempered by devotion to service and remembering that you’re accountable for every use of that power. Imagine that everything you say and do is part of the public record — that you can have no secrets. Imagine that you are responsible not just for everything you say but also for everything you hear, read and see. That may seem intolerable, or like too much pressure. Yet in a sense it’s true, and it’ll help you because the choices you make will continue to have an impact on other people for quite a while to come.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

Don’t worry if you feel like you’re going to explode. You probably won’t, though I suggest you find a way to let off some psychic pressure. Anything from art to orgasm to loud music will do, though definitely vent energy in the direction of creativity and/or pleasure. It would be useful to do this tonight, while the Moon is at exact full phase in a mysterious little (actually, enormous) dimension of your chart called the 12th house. Yet once the Full Moon passes, Luna herself will ingress Capricorn and be there through Sunday afternoon, so you get an extended moment of embodying movement, change and cracking free of whatever may have contained you. You do have the option to hold this energy down, which would be worse than a missed opportunity. The impulse to get drunk may be rather potent — that doesn’t count as creative either. Give yourself what you actually need and want. You know what it is.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

It’s finally come to the point where what other people think does not matter, and it’s got less influence on you than ever. Or certainly it can, while you take care of things that are absolutely not the business of anyone but yourself. One particular issue that may have been troubling you for ages is coming into focus, and you are in a position to do something about it. But to make full contact you have to pass through a kind of nonexistent barrier, similar to what used to be called the ‘sound barrier’. There is no boundary, just the fear of chaos, and the fear that your own sense of identity could be threatened by the healing process. I suggest you sit quietly with that and let the fear speak up even as you move forward. What you are seeking is also moving toward you, and when the meeting happens you won’t have to cross the whole distance yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

If you are trying to sort out the difference between self-esteem and narcissism, I have a clue for you. I know that these two ideas are often confused or conflated, and that’s a problem. It’s necessary to center one’s life on oneself, but there are many ways to do that. One way to distinguish them is to notice whether you’re interested in other people for their sake rather than for your own. The problem with narcissism is that it really does not care — either what happens to others, or how others actually feel about them. There is a kind of chilly emotional detachment to narcissism, and that is what makes it such a problem. If you care, show that you do. Don’t play it cool; be real. Say it in words and demonstrate it in deeds. Allow yourself to be part of someone else’s existence in a real way. This calls for vulnerability, the real thing. Now, if you happen to discover that you don’t really care so much? You can start by inquiring as to how that came to be. Once again it comes back to vulnerability.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

This is your take-charge moment, though for the next few weeks as Mercury treks backwards through Gemini, I suggest you keep this fact concealed. Rather, work with people on their familiar level of the game, of the company or of society. Learn everything you can, about them and about what they do. There is a style of leadership (such as onboard a ship) where the captain must have mastered every single station, task and routine that any of his or her sailors must do. This is the approach that I suggest you take. As you do so, establish relationships with everyone you know who is doing those tasks and make sure they know you appreciate them. Once Mercury stations direct, you will then step into a coordinating role. Again, this will not be the ordinary kind of top-down leadership that our society seems to worship, leading to the $25 million CEO who cannot actually do anything. As time goes on, and you demonstrate your competence and skill by passing through a series of initiations or tests, you will earn the respect of those around you. Along the way, I suggest you think of everyone as your potential benefactor and supporter rather than as a competitor. This will be a refreshing change, and who knows, maybe other people around you will start to pick up on the idea.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

Everything you’ve been doing the past few months has been mere preparation for the Take Leadership position you’re about to adopt. Since that was preparation, it’s worth remembering everything you’ve learned since early December, especially about your professional relationships. It is clear that you either want or are destined to dominate a certain situation, though you may realize you cannot do this in an obvious way. You must do it in an artful way. That involves an emphasis on beauty, any time you get the chance, but mainly it involves finesse in your relationships. Even if you’ve rubbed certain people the wrong way, you have the chance to make amends and align your mutual goals. One thing you can trust is that you have something of worth in the relationship, be it power, influence, talent, a vision or charisma. Remember that, and notice how well the skills of others compliment your own. That is a good position to be in.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

You may be allowing your mood or emotional state to hang in the balance on how someone else feels. You know well how you feel, though you may not be thrilled about it all the time. It would be better to address that basic fact of your reality than to pass the issue to someone else. My impression is that there is a commitment issue on your part. Were you to fully commit to the situation, you would have to do two things — pluck up some real self-esteem, and truly offer yourself. The two are related, more closely than is usually acknowledged. One way to reality check this is to consider the ways you hold back on the excuse that you’re not really valued. Were you to not hold back, you would have to put that theory to the test. You would need to find out, in reality, how much someone cares, and how they care. Then you would have to respond to that information. At the moment you seem to be in a state of limbo, waiting for someone else to take action. Very soon it will be your move — within about three weeks.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

With Mars stationing direct in your 10th house — the one that goes ‘all the way to the top’ — remember that leadership and authority are about relationships. These are not equal or level relationships, either. They are about authority, yet they also can be fair. What’s significant is that you are the one who must define fairness, and to do that, you must have a balanced mind, which is another way of saying equanimity. This is an interesting concept. It’s about one’s inner state, which has a way of expanding and reaching into the feelings of others. The relationships you’re building must be built on trust, and where you are in a position of authority, your willingness to play your role is a fundamental element of that trust. As the month unfolds, you’re likely to have a series of opportunities to step up to new challenges. I suggest you do this incrementally, never taking on more than you can handle. The goal is not to have power; the goals, if I may suggest a few, are to explore the feeling of competence, and what it’s like to collaborate with others in a satisfying way. Emphasize the quality of what you get done rather than how much or how impressive it is. If you’re concerned what others watching you might think, clearly, this is the focus.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

You know who you are and where you’re going. You know — but I don’t suggest you say a word to anyone else. Rather, begin to slip into the life you’re embarking on like a hand gently wiggling into a well-fitted glove. As I’ve suggested before, your astrology seems, on one level, to be pushing you into making radical decisions, particularly where your career or business is concerned. I am suggesting that you make subtle decisions, choices smaller than you may think matter. Most of them involve people and how you relate to them. In terms of your business life, everything you do right now comes down to the most intricate fabric of your human contacts, and the conscious cultivation of trust. Yet at the same time there is also a matter of appearance involved. You must be careful about ever using appearance to deceive. Rather, use the magic and power of presentation to convey the underlying truth of who you are. Present your real talents in the most elegant way, coming right from your soul. Most success is not built on this — yours will be.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

If I have not said it lately, I suggest you set any major career plans aside. You do need to work, so work well, and focus on developing trusting relationships with your colleagues and people in positions of authority. You will in the near future be counting on that trust. That is more than enough emphasis on your career. In fact, it’s exactly the emphasis that your chart is calling for: on real people, and real situations, right now. What you need to know about these situations is that the actual content is not restricted to work but rather is deeply intertwined with your integrity as a person, which is why it’s such a productive time to hang out there. As for everything else: your charts are describing an emotional state that’s all about asserting your independence. Here is a clue — you don’t need to assert it from anyone else; you only need to refine your thinking and step out of the limited concepts of a ‘self’ that have kept you trapped in the past. One theme of this inner discussion involves not needing to be so cocooned. You don’t need to hide your real personality three layers back from the world. When you introduce yourself to someone, let them meet you, right then and there.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

You are deep into a phase of enforced growth and changes, though you may not realize how much help you have. You seem to be feeling the pressure but not the support in your environment. True, Pluto in your sign is the original symbol of the lone wolf. Yet rather than feeling like it’s you against the world, I suggest you tune into the idea of you in cooperation with the world. If there is a disconnect, it’s emotional. Because other aspects of your astrology may have you feeling agitated and unstable, you may not notice the calmer, more consistent and friendlier influences in your surroundings. However, they are present, and willing to extend a helping hand if you would slow down and notice their presence. This will call for a change of emotional orientation on your part, which is so basic to the equation you can think of it as the whole purpose of being open to the love and kindness of others.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

If you’re going to rebel, focus on what makes no sense, and then wage the rebellion by making sense. Rather than object to what is ridiculous, propose the alternative. The posture of rebellion I am suggesting is not waged in the negative but rather in the affirmative. That leaves a lot more room for creativity, actual innovation and sense of humor. It also disguises the rebellion as something else, such as an invention or a party or art or something that is just interesting. There are a lot of stupid customs in the world, ridiculous beliefs, pointless social rituals and absurd expectations. You seem to be aware of this now more than ever, and determined to do something about it. As the next few days unfold, that may grow to the point of having revolution in your heart. So be it — and Remember The Onion.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

Of the many messages I could deliver at the time of the grand cross, at the top of the list is to protect your reputation. Like a bookstore, reputations take years to build and can burn in minutes. There is no indication in your chart that this will happen, but many factors conspire to raise the probability level. Therefore I suggest you temper your ambitions for the moment and focus on maintaining what you’ve currently got going on. You have plenty of responsibility, and some of what you’re being required to do is sufficiently ambiguous as to require considerable thought. One potential risk is ending up taking responsibility for the actions of someone else, so I suggest you refrain, for the moment, from doing anyone else’s bidding, no matter how politically expedient it may be. There are also likely to be a few matters from the past that are coming up for closure, especially involving your professional activities. Take care of them. The planets in their courses are, as you know, holding out a vision of success, yet it’s vital that you allow this to unfold in due time, and that you skip no steps on the way to getting there. Soon enough, once you’ve passed unscathed through your current adventure thanks to your persistent vigilance, you will once again be able to throw caution to the four winds.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

Though Mercury direct and Mars retrograde are dominating astrological news, something that influences you more personally is happening — on March 6, Jupiter will station direct in your opposite sign Cancer. This may hold the answer to the ‘so much potential, so little movement’ riddle. Yet when things get moving they are really going to rock. Jupiter will make an opposition to Pluto in your sign. With that, Mars in Libra and Uranus in Aries form a grand cross — an aspect that has you at the center. This is a moment of astrology that calls for a bold and courageous approach. Therefore, take what you would normally consider your idea of brave and magnify it by about 10-fold — then you’re in range. As part of this experience you may have to admit to yourself just how cautious you tend to be, and how that impacts your life. But forces larger than you are pushing you out of your safe zone and out of the labyrinth of your own mind, into the open where you can actually get something productive done. That as we all know is your bottom line.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

You will be summoned to leadership in the coming months, perhaps immediately. Events and your own desire for integrity and achievement will give you the opportunity to exceed your current abilities and expectations of yourself. What you must be cautious of is any moment when you’re doing something that cannot be reversed. This could be applied to many different situations, but I really mean decisions from which there is no going back. Despite that, you will need to be bold, and I suggest you assert that by listening to people you respect and taking what they say under advisement. That does not mean ‘take all advice’, it means consider what people say. This is basic politics and it’s also common sense. Speaking of politics — know who your allies are, and put them to work for you. Seek their assistance, and make sure they know how much you appreciate their contribution. Leadership is not all about the leader — it’s all about the people who surround and interrelate with that person. You want one or two people who are not afraid to disagree with you, assuming you have determined they are intelligent and respectful. When life is coming at you from all corners, make sure you have those corners covered. At the same time, you will command respect by standing on your own and never shrinking from a decision.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

Do you have the idea that others are acting like selfish, childish brats? Your chart suggests you might have that impression. You might be mistaken, however. I suggest you listen for clues how others perceive you — they may have the impression that all you care about is yourself. This is not a formula for domestic happiness and tranquility. As the Leo Full Moon builds and comes to a peak on Friday, I suggest doing what you can to avoid any kind of showdown, and instead, listen for common ground. The emotional space you share is likely to come in the form of values, your underlying ideas about what is true and necessary. I believe that most conflicts are superficial; so too are most differences of opinion. The solution to any seeming disagreement is to go deeper, below the surface, and see what’s going on down under the deeps of the sea. It’s another world down there.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

You may be feeling like your mind is anything but clear, however, your astrology is saying you have an opening for something better than clarity, which is originality. The chaos that’s swarming around your thought process is a necessary ingredient of authentic creativity. Perhaps a musical metaphor will help. It’s necessary to learn scales and theory and be somewhat disciplined to be able to play an instrument. When it comes down to having your own ideas, improvising or letting your feelings out, you have to step outside those frameworks and embrace the unpredictable with a flexible state of mind. Current planetary movements may seem to be overdoing this a little, though think of what you’re doing as surfing rather than paddling around a heated swimming pool. Also I would note, you cannot actually drown in an idea, and if you find one that seems like it could do that, you can be sure it’s a pretty darned powerful concept.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

Venus is about to return to direct motion in your sign after a six-week retrograde. Whatever has happened to you in these weeks, I suggest you make a conscious choice to remember what you learned, and put it to work on a daily basis. Remember what you discovered about yourself, and don’t forget that it’s really about you, here and now, not some alternate version of yourself somewhere else. You may be wondering why it was necessary to put up so much resistance to something so obvious. You don’t owe anything your emotional loyalty, and the sensation of owing is what would render any affection worthless anyway. That you still may struggle with guilt is the product of what was done to you — not what you did to others. You can heal almost any relationship with your sincerity. What you may appreciate is that’s exactly how you heal yourself.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

Something seems to have happened to you over the past couple of months, involving coming into deeper contact with your creative gifts and your sexuality. You probably know or can guess that I consider these elements of humanity to be closely related, stemming right from the same source. To develop one, it’s essential to develop the other. Venus retrograde in your sign beginning at the solstice, spanning through the end of January, has done something magnificent for you: you have embodied something that was previously abstract or that existed in potential. You have taken steps to reclaim gifts that may have previously made you nervous, that you took for granted or considered something that only had relevance when you were younger. Here is the ongoing challenge: Devotion to artistry and the arts of erotic love requires self-focus. Even in our narcissistic culture, that can be considered suspect, and it can certainly be an irritant (or threatening) to people who have never considered any such quest. You need courage to persist on this mission, and you need to be willing to wrap your whole life around what will seem like a form of over-focus. Yet the idea is not to get lost in yourself — in order for your work or your discovery to have relevance, it’s necessary to find yourself. You are well on the way. Keep going.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

I’m concerned that the pressure you’re feeling will translate to a hasty or premature decision on a financial matter. Let me be the first person to remind you that you have time to bide, and that there are certain key facts of which you are not aware. You will know when you’re working with enough information to make a key decision; it will be obvious. The fact that you’ve noticed that certain people are far from agreement does not count. You’re the person who holds the key to what everyone has in common, and that ‘what’ may be a who, in the form of yourself. But you haven’t figured out how powerful your bargaining position really is. Just be patient, like a spider in her web.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

You’re getting to know yourself in a new way, and I do hope you’re interested in what you’re learning. You may be sick of the past, questioning the past and/or living in the past. Yet what you’re learning involves getting to the bottom of emotional attitudes and values that are very much a product of your conditioning, but which you have not fully evaluated your commitment to. Once you do, it will be abundantly clear what you want and what you don’t want; what is a positive influence and what is a negative influence. However, as you go about making up your mind what to do about this, beware if any guilt slips into your thinking. Guilt is evidence of control mechanisms that are leftovers from childhood. You are not betraying anyone by making up your own mind about how you feel. If anyone cares, remind yourself that your values are your business.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

You know that you cannot be content with anything superficial or make believe, so you may as well not lose any more sleep over that. You’re discovering that you have something to say, and you may be wondering if anyone wants to listen. You can set that one aside too; your charts say that it’s time to get the word in before you get the word out. As you invest your energy in self-knowledge, and making the changes you have wanted to make for so long, you will become your message. Part of what you’re seeking in this process is an understanding of how things got to be the way they are. This applies to your life, and to any aspect of the world that you are seeking to influence, change, develop or in some way correct. The story of the world the way you perceive it corresponds directly to the story of your life. The changes you are going through connect to the urgent need for progress in the world. You are a kind of personal intersection between the two, but in order not to have that become a burden, I suggest you focus on your life and your learning process, and take action only when you feel profoundly moved to do so. Less is more — and when the time comes, that will be plenty.

Sagittarius 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

The Sun is about to leave your sign and Saturn is about to arrive. This is like your Bar Mitzvah, only it’s the real thing. You are being reminded that you are an actual woman or man, someone who is capable of taking your destiny into your hands. That capability, that capacity or potential, is now ready to express itself through you. Be prepared to take life more seriously, which will require you to keep your sense of humor on at all times. Prepare to leave the swirling chaos of past years behind you. Get ready to draw some lines, and to work within those lines, which will help you concentrate your energy. Don’t be fooled by the idea that boundaries and timeframes are in some way limiting. For you in particular, they are the assurance of surpassing your limitations. You are someone for whom anything is possible — that is a core self-concept you possess. Now you’re about to demonstrate that it’s true.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

You are irresistible even to people who think they don’t like you, but now you’re working with some unusual charisma and influence. I don’t want to hype up what I see in your chart, though it has the quality of bending reality to your will — and that calls for caution. Pause for as few as five seconds and you will be able to see any situation from any point of view. That alone will be enough to convince someone that what you have is what they want. For that reason you must proceed thoughtfully with everyone you think you might influence. Think long-range and consider the long-term consequences. The idea here is not to have less fun, rather to have more fun with less inconvenience at some other time. However, that’s if you’re thinking small. If you want to influence something, focus on a goal of profound importance to you. If you’re craving contact, start with the one person who would mean the very most.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

You really do know — even if you think you don’t, and especially if you’re not supposed to. To make an observation, you don’t need to have read the book or collected the certification. There are some things you just know. You might call it intuition, but from the look of your solar chart it’s a heck of a lot deeper; more like the direct memory of something you learned a long time ago. This could be a fleeting experience for you, though I suggest you focus on any interesting revelations long enough to get the actual content and impact of the message. You could find yourself remembering all kinds of things that are absolutely beyond your experience, training and knowledge level. I suggest that you not declare yourself any kind of expert or lay claim to this information any more than to enter into a relationship with it. This is something that can develop over time, if you make the investment of focus and reflection.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

This month, Saturn enters your sign for the first time since Nov. 12, 1988, when the prior Saturn in Sagittarius phase ended. Since this promises to be big news on the Internet, here are some time details, then one thought: Saturn enters your sign on Dec. 23, then retrogrades back into Scorpio on June 14, 2015, and finally settles into Sagittarius on Sept. 17, 2015 (where it will remain for two years). As for that thought: You’re entering a time of transition. Part of what will make that real is focusing what you’ve learned about yourself since this time in 2012, and taking that to heart. In particular, the central topic is the nature of fear and how you respond to it. You might say we live in the age of, ‘I know a lot, but I don’t do anything with the information’. You are entering the age of, ‘I must use everything I know about myself’. In essence, this is the time of mastering your accountability for yourself, which means being accountable for that elusive thing known as self-knowledge. This is the thing you’ve been waiting for. You may not think so, but as this quality of existence begins to pick up momentum, I think you will get the idea. Central to the theme is being the master of your own life. Yes, you can do it.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

Once the Sun enters your sign Saturday, followed immediately by a thundering New Moon, you will see how little you had to worry about. But that never stopped anyone from ruminating unnecessarily. Two points come out of your chart, besides the timing of the big turning point of the moment, that New Moon Saturday at 7:32 am EST. One is that you seem determined to follow your intuition. I would suggest rather than doing that, you allow it to lead you. There is plenty of intuition to go around, but one of its properties is that it has nothing to do with fear. Second, you may have a tendency to take on the emotional baggage of others. Be especially aware around your mother or anyone who reminds you of her, or when you slip into some of her tendencies. It is vital that you stick to your own values, with passion, awareness and determination.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

You must feel like the weight of the world has been taken off your shoulders, and if you don’t, give it a day or two. You can trust at least one thing — what you are working out now, you will never have to work out again. Or to qualify that, you will not, if you go through it with full mindfulness and keep your mind on the many layers of what you are doing. You are standing in the midst of an opportunity to resolve issues that have followed you your whole life. What you have now that you have not had before is an opportunity to work on multiple layers of your situation at the same time. By situation, I mean your orientation on your existence, your self-concept and most of all, your fears. Yes, it’s taking some courage to face all of this, but it’s courage that is quickly rewarded by an increase in confidence and the craving to take the next step. In this space, setbacks matter little, because they are seen as the temporary bumps or the learning opportunities that they are.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

There’s a storm blowing somewhere in your soul. It’s shaking your windows and rattling your walls, though it’s inside you, not outside. Other astrology suggests you are feeling like time is closing in on your desires and your plans for your life. Your chart describes the sensation of approaching some kind of last chance or final opportunity. This is a feeling more than a reality, though it can be a useful feeling indeed. One message of your charts is that time is not infinite, when counted on a human scale. Indeed, our time on Earth is rather finite, and we are dealing with an unknown. One reading of your chart is to respect every unknown in your life. As part of that you are being called upon to respect time, and the passage of time.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

Don’t let the pressure get to you — or rather, you don’t have to. You can if you want to, though your situation feels more urgent than it is. The sense that you are approaching some limitation or obstacle is more of an inner reality than an outer one. And there is a corresponding inner development — that of resolve and determination in a way that you have rarely ever felt in such a focused way. Yes, you are born under one of the most ambitious signs, capable of marshaling your energy like few others can. Yet as I am sure you’ve been aware, you must gather your strength in a new way, to meet objectives that you have yet to fully encounter. If you cooperate, the outcome is certain.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be under pressure to get your life together, as if the responsibility gene has woken up. To me it looks more like the ‘be true to yourself’ gene is kicking you from the inside. You might say that’s the most significant responsibility you have, and at the moment it seems to be shocking you to your senses. Aspects this month may be sending you the message that this is your last chance to accomplish something of real meaning. It’s not your last chance, though it’s worth respecting the finite nature of time, and of a lifetime. Opportunities are temporary in their current form. They may reincarnate as something else, though the opportunity you have now is an original. You might be wondering if it makes sense to proceed based on a sense of frustration or limitation. For example, if you don’t resolve it before you make a move, will you carry that sensation with you into your next endeavor? There are two distinct schools of thought on this matter, one being that you begin something new exactly where you left off from the previous endeavor; therefore, never make a decision from a point of frustration. Another is that such a place offers you the necessary leverage, friction or motivation to break out of your inertia. Those moments are indeed precious, and I think they can be rooted in true strength.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

There is power in chaos. It would seem that one of the only ways to get access to real energy is to turn up the entropy level. Molecules in a pot of water get increasingly chaotic in their movement as the temperature increases. Yet what the pot of water has going for it is focus. It has organization. There is a plan, which contains the chaos. For example, the heat is below the water and the two are separated by a metal container. Then it’s safe to turn up the energy and increase the chaos level. That’s about how your charts look. There is a chaos factor, and there is a precision factor. There is a plan. Follow your plan. Do not skip steps and don’t take anything for granted. You know what you’re doing but you still must follow your pre-flight checklist down to the last detail, and make every move with care and intention.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

Take it easy — and I do mean super easy. Be cool. I don’t mean act cool, I mean keep your emotional temperature chill and pay attention to each decision you make, no matter how small. Any subtle intention, even admitting your inner desire honestly, can change the course of your life. This is not the time to flirt with loss of control, or with imprecision. The thing is, you may not recognize when you’re doing so. Therefore, be especially careful with idle curiosity, where drugs or alcohol are involved, or in any moment where you’re star-struck by another person. On the creative and constructive side, you have in your hands a truly unusual moment to make actual decisions that point your life in the direction that you want to go. Just remember the concept of a fulcrum. If you point your arrow one fraction of an inch to the left or to the right, you could miss your mark by a yard, or a mile.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

Mars continues to make its way across your sign, and has one of its most glorious and/or challenging moments this weekend — it will be square the centaur planet Chiron in Pisces. You might want to do something that challenges your present sense of emotional ‘worthiness’ or belonging. I would say the more triggered you are, the better. That’s because triggers can reveal your true inner dynamics, which are exactly what you want to know. You absolutely must know the connection between what seems to block you from what you want to do now, and any early wounding you experienced that is working at the root of that situation. This is not merely about making contact with your pain. It’s about knowing your inner landscape intimately, so that you can work with the territory and use your resources effectively.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

Mars is transiting your sign all month long, and it’s making 17 conjunctions to everything from asteroids to centaur planets to the Galactic Core. Translated into English, you more resemble some kind of superhuman mutant than your average person. You may be feeling your strength more profoundly, as well as your doubts and your seeming imperfections. I assure you, however, that what you’re experiencing is distinctly human. You’re being called, or perhaps compelled, to notice a process that has been underway for years. You usually get some sense of this around the time of your birthday. Now you’re seeing and feeling something that may be vaguely familiar, but which you’ve never quite perceived acutely. One manifestation of this journey has been an inability to focus a clear definition of who you are, a clear sense of identity. You cannot even fake it, which I would say is a beautiful thing. You may, however, feel like as you experience each one of these seemingly different facets of who you are, you’ll be looking for some logic or some unifying theme. That would be you. The dreamer is never separate from the dream, no matter how many forms it takes. The perceiver is never separate from perception. The artist is never separate from their art. Follow this thread and you will emerge in a space where this is so obvious that it’s funny.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

An interesting mix of energies in your solar chart casts you in two different roles — the agent provocateur, and the perfect diplomat. That adds up to subversive. Being a successful subversive is a skill, and you can go a long way to mastering that skill over the next few days. The thing to remember is that people trust you, and they look to you as an example. The less you say about certain topics the better you will be able to convey your real meaning. Listen for the ways in which people are already likely to agree with you, and take that as your lead. Tap into the ideas and motives of others. This will help you avoid evangelizing, or seeming like you have an agenda. In order to do this with any integrity, you must be clear about what you want to achieve and why. Be real with yourself. Do not make excuses.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

Mars ingressing your sign on Saturday will, at least, demonstrate that your worst fears were not true. At best, you will focus your goals with new commitment and determination. While Sagittarius is associated with many things, remember that its deeper meaning is the one-pointed determination to follow your highest calling and to get the job done. Sagittarius at its best brooks no distraction, no competition, no compromises. Mars, which itself carries the symbol of focused determination — the same arrow that appears in the Sagittarius glyph — emboldens that whole program of getting the job done. On the physical plane and especially on our planet, you need this kind of strength and focus to cut through the nearly limitless bullshit that is flying around, and to avoid the many diversions that prevent most progress. You certainly have an adventure ahead — though one with a clear purpose and as much assurance of success as is possible. Choose your direction. Go forward, and keep going forward.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Creativity must have an emotional source. It can feed you intellectually, and feed your quest, but the drive to create is body-level, akin to the need to breathe, or your response to pain. Actually those are fitting metaphors for the creative process, as it does involve an in-breath and out-breath of experience, and some of the world’s greatest creative works have served artists, musicians and writers as a way to process loss. For you, creativity helps you build your inner home. When you tap your gifts, you create a space of safety for yourself, and you can then move into that space and live more confidently. You might think of that as a kind of healing cave, from which emerge many resources and jewels you can share with those you love and care about.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

All this energy you’re feeling is not just coming from you. Some of it is; your brain and body are running hot. You definitely burn food into calories that fuel your nerves and muscles. Yet you’re also tuning into other sources of power and strength, which you might think of as coming from beyond you, or from some aspect of yourself as yet unacknowledged or undiscovered. I suggest you leave that particular theme an open issue, and observe the ways in which you’re inspired, motivated and guided to action. Notice what forces conspire to assist you. Observe whether plans you made long ago are gradually coming to fulfillment. This may have the effect of getting you to consider what you want in the future, not on the basis of whether you think it can be attained but rather whether you think it is the right thing for you. What’s most exciting is how the concept of ‘right for you’ is merging with the notion of ‘right for the world’. One thing our entire society struggles with is the problem of separate and competing interests. If a higher power or superior intelligence is helping guide and coordinate your life, one of the first places you’ll be taken is where there’s efficiency, and where your personal efforts support, and are supported by, the efforts of others.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

You may be wondering when your luck will run out. You’re not there yet, and you have a long way to go. What I suggest you consider is when your fear will run out. You seem to have reached a limit of how much you can worry, how concerned you can be, how averse you are to taking the kinds of chances that you really want to take. It would seem that your even greater fear is allowing yourself to actually feel. This story is older than you, and it may be as old as civilization, so you don’t have to take it so personally. For sure there is a family story involved, and I suggest you note the relatives whose emotions either ran below the freezing point or never seemed to drop below the boiling point. Yet what is indeed personal is that your own need to feel is exceeding your resistance. And in one burst, you may experience anything from pain to guilt to raw desire of a kind that you are often reluctant to admit to. Start with yourself. Then consider the virtue of living out loud.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

God loves you, but what do you fear? Your charts describe a scenario where your darkest ideas of what is possible meet your most faithful expectations. I think it will be necessary to stay in contact with both sides of this equation, and to get swept away by neither of them. Your fears speak of an emotional issue that you’re trying to resolve. It’s something that prevents you from fully expressing your freedom of choice. The feeling may be some shade of, “If I do what I want, the worst thing will happen.” That is not true, but it is a feeling. On the other side of the equation, you can feel your horizons opening up and you know that much more is possible than you’ve dreamed of any time lately. There is substance to your desires, which can take on structure and form as real experiences. That is a workable tool rather than a promise or a guarantee. Therefore, stay true to your vision for yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

So many possibilities! So much hesitation. What is going on? That would be a good question to ask yourself. I detect a scenario where you feel as if pursuing the best life has to offer could lead to the worst life has to offer. I think this is a common phenomenon, though for you right now it may be operating in an ‘unconscious’ way. By that, I mean that it may seem like something else, or you have not given language to what you are experiencing. As for those supposedly worst things, they all seem to be shadows cast over desire. Desire is indeed haunted in our society — by various religious perspectives that call it sinful, or attachment, or the cause of all suffering. I suggest you be honest with yourself about what you want, and put it into words so that you can look at them and read them back to yourself. You may need to go through several layers of desire to get to the core of the onion; or you may recognize a distinct, unique constellation that says something that only you understand.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Allow your fear to motivate you. Most spiritual paths teach that fear is false or that it’s meaningless or that it’s bad. I believe that fear is energy. It’s also connected to an early-warning system that has been hijacked by various entities (religion, warmongers, drug salesmen) and which basically drives people insane. Yet addressing fear is an essential element of growth, no matter what branch of growth we’re talking about. Right now, your fear describes something about your potential. It’s as if when you identify something that you’re anxious about, consider whether the opposite is true, and let that be a statement of the possibilities that are open to you, or a comment on what you want to accomplish. You could say that fear is sending you the worst possible information. You could say that it’s sending you truly useful information if you know how to work with it.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

Focus on your plans, by which I mean specific plans to go specific places or do specific things. Did I say specific? Most people work with general plans, such as “I will be a musician” or “I will be rich” or “Someday I will write something.” Or to give another example, “Someday I won’t have to do this job I don’t like.” The combined action of Mars and Jupiter is calling for you to focus your self-knowledge into a course of action. Remember that this does not need to be a ‘permanent commitment’ or ‘what you want to do for the rest of your life’. It’s what’s significant now, that your soul is calling for you to do now. There may be a place involved, though not necessarily. If you are getting information about a place, I suggest you test your theory and actually go there. In general I would say the theme of your solar chart is test your theory. If you are into a particular art form or method of personal expression, design a project that you bring to completion — make sure you choose your scale so you can go from start to finish in a few weeks or months, rather than something designed to go on for years. You will both benefit and build confidence from the feeling of intending and then achieving. Then do something new.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

You are starting to see possibilities where you did not see them before. Correspondingly, you may also be seeing problems you didn’t notice before, though I would propose that those problems may not exist. You may be saying that if the problems are not real, then how do I know the potentials are real? Well, the mind is better at making up problems that don’t exist than it is at coming up with solutions or creative options. Even if this is a matter of emphasis, it will pay to focus your attention on what works, or what will help, rather than on what might not be going well. One thing I’ve noticed in my decades of working with people as their astrologer is that most are not so good at seeing the possibilities. You are — and if you want, you also have the discipline to make them real.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

Your ruling planet Jupiter is about to change signs, and this means it’s time to focus your energy and your intentions. There is enormous potential in this transit, but you will need to be clear, apply energy and follow through on what you start. For the past month or so it’s been possible to run a little wild, to skimp on commitments and to let yourself be dominated by your emotions rather than on what actually makes sense logically. At the same time, you’re seeking real creative freedom and solid collaborations. And, I would remind you that you’re working with real creative power — which comes with responsibility, and connecting your creative power to an actual purpose that serves humanity. Jupiter in Leo will boost your creative confidence, and make sure you get to live out the connection between creativity, passion and fun — but when you get to the essence of Leo, it’s about responsibility to the community. Leo puts work above play, and above money. Look after these details. You are well respected but this will raise the stakes — your integrity is on the line.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

As you communicate and otherwise relate to people, be sure not to hold them to your past. It’s likely that others have moved beyond certain spiritual or emotional matters that you are still grappling with, or have no special need to address them now. Therefore, align yourself with their present, and keep your focus in that framework of reality. This will have the effect of calling you forth into your present, where you know that you can see over the limits that may have been in your life before. You have not necessarily surpassed each limit. You may still have work to do (who doesn’t?). Yet you know that this is also a matter of two points of view; two approaches to life. One is deeply engrained, indeed, it goes back generations. One points to the way that anyone goes beyond history, beyond the limits supposedly set on their success and happiness by their predecessors. Others will lead the way for you, and you will lead the way for them.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

As Jupiter shifts into fire sign Leo for a one-year visit, you will discover your horizons are expanding vastly. This is partly a factor of having resolved or removed yourself from so many past agreements, engagements and entanglements. Your sense of time, of distance, of your own potential and of devotion to your talents are all about to go into expansion mode, as is your faith in yourself (or your higher power, however you prefer). The key now is finding out what this new phase of your life has to offer you before getting involved in anything that might limit your options. The opportunities and the temptations to limit yourself will be disguised as something else. Someone or some situation may call on you to compromise a core value in a covert way. It might seem minor at first. For hypothetical example, you may do your best work at night, an old fact of which you’re fully aware. But being absorbed in your work evenings might not be tenable to a relationship partner. That can lead to tension or to conflict, which can be distracting you from exploring something you know is essential. You know what is right; one question is whether you will you see this as what it really is. Remember — you have yet to discover what life is about to offer you. Keep your options open.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

Remember the element of chaos in passion. Remember that when you choose to feel, you don’t always get to pick which feelings come up. Most of all, remember that long ago you decided you don’t want your life to be predictable. Yet this means giving up control, or rather, the illusion of control. You cannot make decisions for other people — count yourself fortunate that you’re aware enough to make some decisions for yourself. Yet ultimately you want to make all of your own decisions, which is the only control you need — and it’s also about the closest you can come to an assurance that life is indeed fair. The other assurance is to keep your promises, and focus on making sure that others keep their promises to you. I suggest you conduct an inventory of unfinished business in this aspect of your life, and strive for full integrity.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

Tonight’s Full Moon in your birth sign is an interesting specimen, and I’ve never seen anything so Sagittarian in my life. You could be inspired to go on the bender of a lifetime and throw yourself into that light-pulsing experiment where you come out the other end before you even went in. You might gallop through the forest and be standing before the ancestral cave where you can meet any relative going back countless generations. You may get called in one direction, keep going and find out that you’ve taken yourself to a place you only vaguely suspected existed. As I said, the ultimate Sagittarian moment. Give yourself some space and time to do something with it. You need more freedom and you need it soon — and as long as you’re paying attention you’ll be able to go wherever you want and land yourself safely on solid ground.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

You must feel like you’re headed to a new place, or to a new place in life, with some bold determination — and you can afford to proceed with confidence. The fact that certain other people around you may lack cohesion or direction is not a reflection on you, and I suggest you not take it on, no matter how tempting that may seem. As the Moon rapidly builds toward full phase, exact in your sign on the 13th, you will need to keep your focus, slow down and make decisions more consciously. It will be increasingly important that you not be influenced, sidetracked or distracted by others, and the potential is definitely there. At the same time, as the days go by you will have the potential to be more reactive than usual, especially if you’re under the influence of alcohol. So between now and the 14th I suggest you be conscious, even scrupulous, about this. You are at a critical juncture in your life and I suggest you avoid setbacks and make every decision count.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

For a little while, consider everything a potential message from the gods. You’re philosophical, curious and adventurous enough to do this. Listen carefully to what people say, and imagine for a moment that it’s a direct revelation of truth. Observe the visual world around you for symbols that have personal or universal meaning. This isn’t because everything you see is indeed a divine message (though the case could be made that it is, from a metaphysical standpoint). Rather, I suggest you do everything you can to keep your mind open to the cosmos. If you do, you’ll notice things that you might not have noticed had you considered everything simply to be average, ordinary stuff as most people will perceive it to be. Notice, in particular, the quest, desire or struggle for the people to orient on healing. Listen to what they say and notice the choices they make, no matter how small or meager they may seem. Notice that value taking hold anywhere around you — anywhere at all.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

Much that you could not talk about, or find anyone willing to discuss, is about to become a household topic. It will be up to you to make them a household topic, though you know it’s time for you and the people around you to speak in an open way about what is obvious. You can initiate the discussion gently, and you may be surprised to see that people respond. Seen one way, they are reflecting you and responding to your commitment to truth. Seen another way, they are tapping the underside of their own nature, and that particular aspect has more in common with who you are than it does with who they usually are, or think they are. Therefore, I would encourage you to have all the unusual, irreverent or taboo discussions that you’ve ever wanted to have. Get good at it. Find out how easy it is to lure people into revealing the truth of who they are, and use that information wisely. In one sense you will be looking into a mirror — but a mirror so clear, it will be entirely convincing that what you see is not a reflection. You don’t need to believe it’s a reflection — you can merely ask yourself how you would respond if what you were seeing reveal itself in others was, hypothetically, some aspect of yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

You may think you’ve been struggling to fit into the world someplace, when you’ve actually been succeeding at doing just that. I know it may not feel that way, but there’s a discovery or two you have yet to make about what the changes of the past few months have really been about. One thing I can tell you is that determining the direction of your life is not merely a process of elimination. It’s true that eliminating non-viable options is critical, and you’ve done some of that, but that’s not all you have to do. I suggest you take an inventory of what is working in accordance with your stated life plans. Notice what is already happening in some form or fashion the way you say you want your life to be. Notice where your gifts are already recognized. Notice who tells you, or in some way demonstrates, “you belong here,” and notice how that feels. Use that information to make any further choices.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

This can be a brilliantly productive time for you with work-related contracts and collaborations. You are in an unusually opportune moment, and I suggest you do two things. One is to take advantage of it in a conscious way. You have some options open, therefore you can afford to have some criteria. The most significant of them is to make sure that in any work, collaboration or contractual situation, you are treated as human, and that your human needs are recognized. Gravitate not just toward the money but also toward the places where there is food, water and a comfortable environment. The second factor involves discipline. All the talent and opportunity in the world are worthless without commitment, honoring time structure and working within the needs of the larger organization or community in which you are participating. There are really two skill-sets described in that statement: one is the discipline aspect and the other is the political aspect. Be alert, ready to grow and prepared to do your best work — right now.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

By now you have a pretty good idea who your friends are. You seem to have learned the value of both being appreciated and of pissing people off. It’s not that being annoying is a viable way of life, but in noticing who is irritated by you and who welcomes you, you can have an accurate sense of where you belong. Your life is not about popularity — it’s about finding your strongest, most viable place in society and working from that point of advantage. Carving out your niche is usually a process of trial and error, and for that to work you need both. Creating a space for yourself on the planet can have some brilliant moments, and it will inevitably get on some people’s nerves. Being your own person requires a measure of not taking things personally. It’s just that you’ve been so sensitive to what people feel, and it has not been easy for you to have a thick skin. One thing to consider is the extreme importance of allowing others to own their feelings, which implies that you do not own or control their feelings. When you’re handed something you don’t want, you have a right to pass it right back. In this process of establishing boundaries, you will take possession of what you feel, and what you intend to accomplish. That is the crucial step.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

This is not the time to make or break contracts — you’re under too much pressure, there are variables you don’t know about, and it’s essential that you figure out what you want before you commit to anything new. I suggest you hold to your current course as the grand cross and solar eclipse do their work, though obviously if you encounter something interesting to do, do it if you want, as long as you don’t sign away any portion of your future longer than an evening or weekend adventure. The very most significant thing you can do is to see your options. This really is one of the great challenges facing humanity, even in this time of so many alleged choices. Most of the usual options don’t apply to you; they are too trivial. Your astrology suggests this is a time of authentic, deep decisions for you, and to make such decisions you need some idea of what is available. Your fiery nature usually likes to jump into things headlong without considering what might develop. Your current astrology is saying you need to be a clear thinker, an analyst and a visionary to make the most out of your options, many of which you don’t yet know exist.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

Remember how sensitive you are, which is another word for how vulnerable. One corner of your astrology describes this vividly — a healing process designed to address some emotional pain that you’ve wanted to let go of forever. While healing is always assured, the path is not always direct, and you now have the opportunity to actually focus on what has been difficult to resolve. Another corner of your chart has you bouncing off the walls with ideas and plans and crackling with energy. It looks like you’re ready for action. Now, without real awareness of your needs as opposed to your desires, you could find yourself in a tight spot. So I suggest that the first thing you do is honor your vulnerable side first. That may mean being a little less spontaneous than you like to be. Then once you’ve done that, you can make choices for the adventures you want that are based on (for example) who among your friends is actually sensitive to you. That is the main thing you need, in a friend, love or traveling companion of any form: someone who can feel you.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

In any given situation, there are two basic patterns you can follow. The thing you need to know is that in following one of these patterns, the other one is likely to be concealed, reduced to a faint memory or not part of your awareness at all. If you manage to come back to your center (which may happen as a result of frustration), notice that you have another way to proceed. When you take that route, the prior, more frustrating one will seem not to exist, and for a while you will be able to proceed in a more productive way. Yet the real mission described by your astrology is integrating both of these modes. One might have logic dominating and the other emotion dominating. One might be based on facts and the other on intuition. In order to work at full strength, both sides of the equation need to be balanced. Both originate from you; both are rooted in what you already know and have considerable experience with. All you need is to be mindful of that fact.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

If you subtract the drama from the sex, the sex will be a lot more interesting. I know that for most people this is like decaffeinated instant coffee with Splenda and Cremora, or trying to get drunk on a Shirley Temple. There exists a kind of conditioned association between drama and sex, in particular, drama based on insecurity. I would propose that you don’t need that. I also suggest you subtract the “does he/she love me?” question from your erotic encounters, along with “what will happen to us in the future?” and “will we do this again?” Let basic trust and being turned on be enough for now. Have your experiences in the moment you’re having them, giving and receiving love in real time. The insecurity factor to me looks like a ruse. By ruse, I mean to use a polite word for bullshit. You might try treating it as such, just for an experiment. The other part of the experiment will involve not treating anyone else’s insecurity as if it’s valid for you.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

You seem to be central to many events and activities around you. Actually, this appears to be so true that the most significant thing you can avoid is losing yourself in the midst of all the excitement, the drama and the goings-on. Whether you recognize it or not, the resources that are being drawn on are your emotional resources. You might think it’s your creative talent, your money or your ideas; you might have those moments when you think it’s your sexual energy (and you would be getting closer). The thing you have, that which others want and think they need or are just drawn to without understanding at all, is your emotional pool. You might be saying, “The Only Astrology Book You Ever Need said Sagittarians aren’t so emotional,” though astrology books don’t really point to this quality about you. Yet it’s as real as you are, and it’s present right now, and I suggest you insulate yourself a bit and keep a meter on what you share with others, so that you have sufficient reserves of your own. In addition, it’s imperative that you set your own course in life without being distracted by those with whom you’re sexually involved or with whom you may share a bank account. This is a time when you must be absolutely free to make your own decisions, and make them without hesitation.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

You may be finding it difficult to reconcile two different projects or sets of plans or goals, which feel like two left shoes on one day and two right shoes the next. Keep working both sides of the equation separately, doing your best to not mind that one does not seem to fit the other. Devote yourself fully to whatever you’re doing at the time. Remember that the ‘big picture’ is still there whether you see it or not, and that there are more moving parts to this equation than just two. After a while you will start to tune in to the common ground, and the shared purpose, of the different things you’re experimenting with. When discussing your plans, stick to specific people who have been helpful in the past, or with whom you share an unusual bond now. The meeting place where ideas intersect with the people who can carry them out will begin to open up, especially as you let down your guard and open up. Remember that ideas and people are the two most important resources you can have available; they lead directly to all else, and your life is rich with both.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

Don’t worry if you think people don’t like you, or if you’re having some difficulty managing your social relationships. I suggest you take the events of the next few months as an extended opportunity to learn where you really stand with people, and also to learn how to build your overall standing in the community. I don’t mean your popularity — I mean real things like trust, dependability, loyalty and the willingness to stand up for what you believe in, even if it’s going to piss off some people. Though you have it in you to be the supreme diplomat, you are also a Sagittarius, and your sign is equipped with a sharp edge. Still, it may be necessary to err on the side of asserting yourself. Do that firmly, directly and with understatement. Be a keen observer for passive-aggressive tendencies in yourself or in others. The ‘passive’ part is just a ruse for the ‘aggressive’ part, so get underneath that if necessary and suss out the source of that energy. Meanwhile, any relationship or encounter can lead to contact with anyone. That’s a good incentive to say friendly things about people, and a reminder that in your life, the usual seven degrees of separation between you and any other person is about to be reduced to one or two degrees of separation. The world is small, and it’s getting smaller.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

Jupiter, the official Sagittarius planet, is holding a long opposition to Pluto right now. It’s in a very strong sign, indeed, one of its favorites (Cancer), but being at the end of a long retrograde can feel like having key elements of your life on hold a little longer than you were planning. Meanwhile the opposition to Pluto is putting a focus on the ways in which you must evolve in order to get where you want to be going, so there’s a purpose for the pause — that being your opportunity for focus. To me this looks like taking up the emotional issues, particularly over-dependence and your struggle with independence, in your relationships. What’s the history of this subject, how have you handled it in the past and how are you handling it today? If you are tempted to think that this is an inconvenient time to approach this subject, I would say as an astrologer this is the most convenient time to take up the subject matter in the easiest and most direct possible way.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

At this time in your life, the concept of fair exchange is a necessary ingredient in your growth and your happiness. Be aware what you can contribute to any situation — that is to say, without feeling exploited. Be aware of the people who give to you so generously. Be aware of their devotion to you. It may seem un-Sagittarian to openly express gratitude, but I assure you that it would merely stand as evidence that you are a conscious and magnanimous citizen rather than another of the blocks and stones we so often keep banging into. There is no situation in your life that feeds you that you don’t have the power to feed and support. Your own well-being, your sense of belonging and most of all your need for fairness depend on it. Without aiming to appeal to your self-interest, let me say this another way. Everyone benefits from your generosity, of heart, of soul, of your wisdom and your resources. You benefit by being reminded how much you have.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

You are reaching the point where, if you don’t make a conscious move, you know something is going to come ‘out of nowhere’ and make the move for you. This is a way of life for some — wait long enough, something happens, a decision is made for them. In their minds, they are ‘saved’ from the responsibility of having to choose. That however subverts the single most important power we possess — the power of decision. I suggest you remove the elements of chance and self-coercion from your decision-making process. Stay as far as you can from that zone where you feel like you will be forced to choose. You don’t need to experience life on this level. The pleasure of the moment is about acting in a way that is wholly voluntary and in full accord with what you know, what you want and how you feel.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

You could have things be a lot easier than they currently are; you seem to have figured out that allowing yourself to be involved in complex situations is a way of learning about yourself. You seem to be in a scenario where your connection to someone else is like a personal development laboratory, or where you’re seeking self-actualization in the context of a relationship. You may have also figured out that such a thing does not work for you, and are resisting being so immersed in someone else, or anyone, with every cell in your being. There does seem to be a question lurking behind all of this, which is the extent to which you allow yourself to feel your feelings, and whether you need the assistance of someone else who resonates with you. This is a good question, with many implications — though the main theme is that of emotional independence. You would do well to ask, especially under your current astrology, whether that is possible, and if it is, what it means. At one extreme of the spectrum is the loner, with no emotional investments. At the other is someone codependent, whose emotional state is totally invested in what others think. The balancing point is healthy interdependence. That is built of mutual respect, self-reflection, communication and honoring for yourself and for everyone else what measure of freedom we have here on Earth.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

By the time you convince yourself that it’s okay to really get involved in a rapidly developing situation, the action may have subsided. I understand that your commitment is a precious thing, though this preciousness also provides a cover story for a kind of annoying reticence that you’ve long had to contend with. What you’re really committing to is having an opinion or idea that you’re willing to state openly rather than merely contemplate. You may be concerned that if you say anything directly, you won’t be allowed to change your mind. That’s not true, but you’ll just need to say that’s what you’re doing. Closer to home is why you wonder so much what people might think about what you think. Once you call back the projection, you’ll see that this is nothing other than self-doubt. And the only thing you can do about that is take a chance on your own intelligence.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

You may be looking right into a blind spot. That is to say, you may be looking at something and seeing nothing, or seeing in an inaccurate way. We all know about the blind spot in rearview mirrors; you think you’ve got a full view but there are hidden areas. The one I’m describing is not rearview but directly forward view. Someone may have a point of view that you’re not seeing, or that they are intentionally concealing. Someone close to you may be acting on incomplete or inaccurate information. I suggest that you suss this out gently, but with full intention. Determine what the people close to you believe and find out their motives for doing so. While you’re doing that, be aware that it’s not a good idea to follow people whose point of view you have not examined closely.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

Your life is not as complicated as it seems. It’s true that your sign is currently hosting one of the most impressive collections of planets I’ve ever seen (all of them ‘minor’ planets, but no less potent). You are indeed facing many deep spiritual issues, and it will help you to see them that way rather than as psychological. The prevailing theme of the next few seasons is about how you invest your life into the lives of others. It’s necessary to learn a mode of sharing with others that is not a general partnership/total surrender but rather a limited partnership on certain topics or themes. I don’t mean to imply being partially committed. I mean being wholly committed in specific ways, such that you are able to reserve enough of your time, space and vital force to create your own existence the way you want it. As you may know, it’s also time to get serious about money. It may seem like some great mystery how to acquire or concentrate the stuff, but it’s actually a practical matter based on specific skills. Make a point of acquiring those skills at the same time you do something more fundamental, which is make sure you don’t violate your own values or principles. There is no conflict here — they are really the same thing.

Scorpio 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” “It was love at first sight.” “I have never begun a novel with more misgiving.” “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” “You better not never tell nobody but God.” Every story begins with a single line, a statement of the truth as it is in that moment. No matter how complex the scenario, nor how many people are involved, nor how ordinary or strange, to tell the story, one must begin — and you surely have a story to tell. It seems to be bursting from your mind and aching to be expressed. There is so much that it may seem impossible. Yet I would encourage you to begin. You might find this better done with an older kind of writing — a pen or pencil on the page rather than an electronic device. This will foster a sense of seclusion rather than the idea that everything is public the moment you write it.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

Keep your money to yourself, at least for a few days. Be careful making any commitments that are indefinite or that you don’t understand. Any ‘good time’ you have needs a fixed budget, such as how much you spend on alcohol, how much you spend to impress someone or how much you put on credit. Your charts seem to be offering some caution around expenditures associated with your infamous holiday generosity. The other side of this astrology is that you may be sitting on some unusual potential for earning revenue, which I suggest you consider with authentic interest and care. This plan must not require an outlay of cash, and if it does, I suggest you pause until the Sun enters Capricorn on the 21st before making any commitments. It could be good, though you really need to think it through methodically and perhaps with expert advice.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

Aah yes family, the original group. The tribe. The thing to which we think we belong, and yet somehow, so often, do not belong. The group by which all other groups are measured. You may encounter the temptation to define yourself by the ways in which you’ve got nothing in common with those people. You may be feeling some anger, directed at the past, perhaps for the way things are today. You may get the urge to “burn down their house” (metaphorically, of course). Anger is useful. It’s a reminder that you may actually have a beef with someone, though it’s not always clear who, or why. I suggest you sort that out. Start by assuming that anger is a clue; merely a clue. Then once you have that clue, follow it in and see if you can figure out the dynamic. Don’t be attached to any one discovery. Hang loose and be flexible as you move from idea to idea. You will learn a lot the next few weeks as you do this.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

This month a pressure you’ve endured for quite a while starts to come off of you. You might also think of it as an external support system. Its absence will be an experiment, and a test of how strong you’ve become. You may not feel entirely confident, similar to the end of healing a physical injury, uncertain whether you’re up to who you were before. Yet this experiment is about going far beyond who you were, and it’s about exploring and developing new forms of strength. In the past, you have put great reliance on your emotional power to get the world to bend to your will. What you are learning is how to reason carefully. You have also been able to sidestep the idea of self-reliance, in part due to your ability to take part in structured entities and know how to work within the tribe. Yet Saturn making its first foray out of your sign this month is an indication that you will be learning some significant ways to be self-sustaining and emotionally independent. This also translates to a greater degree of freedom, which often you’ve been willing to sacrifice in exchange for certain social bonds that have sustained you. This will be a gentler process than you may think. Yet it will also be more meaningful and more necessary than you believe.

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

Don’t worry about how to do it, just take the first step and get moving. You seem to think that you need to have your whole strategy or agenda planned out, but that’s never the way things work. Sure, you can sketch out a rough plan, but I think that even that would go against your purposes because you could easily get hung up on having that plan be the right plan. What you need is some momentum; what you need is movement in what seems like it might be a good direction to go. If you meet resistance or challenges, then take them one at a time. You are embarking on actual terrain, which has geographic features like hills and streams. These have never stopped the human race from getting anywhere, most of the time without a map, and I don’t think they will stop you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

Nearly every stitch of planetary activity this week is focused in your sign, or involving the planetary rulers of your sign. That may feel like a lot of pressure. You may be trying to push out the walls, looking for a little more room to breathe. At times you may be longing to get outside of your own thoughts and feelings and push into some new reality. I would say that’s exactly the point. Some of the most magnificent astrology is happening four signs away in Pisces, your fellow water sign. You can go anywhere you want in your chart. The way you do that is by shifting your perspective, your activities and your agenda. Sometimes you can do that by changing locations. The place to go is Pisces, which is your 5th house. In astrology that is the house of pleasure, art, creation, games and risks taken for fun. It’s also the house of sex. Your astrology is saying get out of your mind and into your senses.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

Your chart is urging you to mind your politics, which means finding a means of working with the established power structure that’s around you. Said another way, your chart is urging practicality. Yet there is some passion burning in your mind, some idea, something that you must say, do or revolt against. Saturn in your sign is protecting you from cutting loose inappropriately. Saturn is reminding you of your responsibilities and of your own need to be accountable. Yet there is this sensation inside of you. What to do? Let’s use some astrology. Thursday is the Full Moon in your opposite sign Taurus, something of an emotional high tide for you. In two weeks there will be a New Moon in Sagittarius. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you want to say or do, take those two weeks and check back in with yourself.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

You are bigger than any situation in your life. I would also remind you that no situation is intractable — everything is subject to movement. Everything is subject to change. That fact of existence is your best friend right now, since you have a tendency to live so much of your life as if certain things will never change. Use your discernment and apply this principle to what you know you want to move on from, but doubted that you could. Remember all the time that growth and change are inseparable; that they are necessary partners. In the midst of this, I would remind you that your capacity to feel is something to embrace as your best navigational tool. Yes, the modern way of life is to eschew feelings and tap on an icon. I would say pause, feel, and be well-guided.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

There is a sober quality to your charts this month, though it may take you a little while to catch onto that. You will the moment you get your mind out of the clouds, and away from any idealistic visions of how things might be. There are times for idealism and there are times to be fully focused on what is happening right now. If you want to unlock the potential of your moment, if you want to have it be more than a dream or a potential, I suggest you take the grounded and steady approach to your life. What is required the most of you is commitment. Not the words or the idea, but steadfast action, sustained over time. There are days when you will need to be content with less progress than you know is possible. That is why you will measure your progress in longer stretches of time than a day, a week, or even a month. When things seem difficult you must not allow yourself to lose your gumption or to choose what seem like easier options. Easier is not necessarily better, though there will be times when you’re sure that it is. In just a few weeks, Saturn will begin the process of moving from your sign to Sagittarius. Saturn has been a consistent guide and mentor to you, and in the remaining time that Saturn is in your sign, it’s necessary to internalize the Saturn principle, which translates to self-leadership.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

You don’t have to live with this uncertainty for long, though I suggest you make the most if it. Uncertainty is important, it’s helpful, and it gets a bad rap. I’m sure you’ve noticed how people rush faster in the direction of false certainty than they do in the direction of an honest question. I can promise you at least one thing from your astrology: If you ask honest questions, you will get real answers. They may not come immediately, and there will be enormous benefit in focusing on the mystery. A gifted therapist in my community named Joe Jastrob once said in a workshop (I am paraphrasing — it was a while ago) that it takes strength to stand in the face of the unknown, but that one simply must do it if they want to live their truth. Therefore, do not rush. Don’t jump to conclusions. Let the unknown be the unknown.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

Mars, the planet traditionally associated with your sign, is conjunct something called Pholus this weekend (exact Tuesday, Oct. 14). Mars is the planet of action, self-assertion, desire and at times, aggression. The best key phrase for Pholus I’ve encountered is ‘small cause, big effect’. It’s also associated with runaway reactions and unintended consequences, which can sometimes go on for years. This meeting is happening in Sagittarius, a fire sign best represented by the flaming arrow. The cosmic message is twofold. One is, pay attention to what you do, what actions you take, and how you direct your desire. The other side is that a little (of anything) can go a long way. You do not need a lot of anything, be it effort, intention, desire or any form of ‘push energy’, to get a result. Apply your intention and your willpower with extreme care.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

Your inner struggle comes down to your ability to receive nourishment. If I were to teach an introductory therapy class, the first segment would cover understanding blocks to receiving love, and blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. The first thing to do is to take care of yourself in a conscious, dependable, structured way. Start with what you eat. Food is not a game, and it’s not connected to statistics (calories, pounds, stone, etc.). It’s not about image. You know what is nourishing for you and what is not. If you are gluten-free, gluten-free cookies might not be what you need; you might need more mineral-rich foods (for example). The thing is, you know. And if you think of this more as an act of receiving than of giving, you might find it easier to negotiate with yourself. Then, of course, there are people. Some are nourishing and some are depleting. It’s good to know who has what you’re willing to receive.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

You may be wondering when things are going to change; you may start to think you’re going backwards rather than making progress. You may seem to lose sight of an important goal, or some crucial idea that you’ve been developing. Fear not. The astrology of the next few weeks is certainly mysterious and will leave plenty of people guessing. Yet as those weeks unfold, you will discover that something is brewing under the surface, and that something is likely to manifest on the day that the Sun ingresses your sign, which is Oct. 23. Now, this leaves a question of what to do if you find yourself in a zero-gravity space, or feeling like you’re unable to think clearly. Your chart says that you will get maximum value from getting lost in your work. Proceed with what you are doing, with full devotion, authentic passion and a healthy dose of curiosity. Imagine that you have no need to think about what’s coming next, nor any desire to do so. Keep yourself focused on the task at hand, which over the next two weeks is likely to get more interesting and take on a value of its own; that is, to be interesting for its own sake. You could call this art or science in its most essential and sincere form, which is the setup for an inevitable breakthrough.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

You know more than you think you know, though it would help immensely if you let go of your attachment to what you know is not true. That would be a long list of things, stories, behaviors, tendencies, goals you’re not really interested in — and the ways you can get dragged into the self-deception of others. The less emphasis you put on all that is untrue, the more energy you will have to focus on what is life-affirming and creative. This may have a daring quality, or the sensation that you’re ‘doing something wrong’ by doing what you want. Alternately, that list of what is untrue may feel comfortable and normal, and if you notice that, I suggest you think it through and ask yourself why exactly that is. There is a reason, and if you understand the reason you will go a long way toward liberating yourself from that whole dimension of drama.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

I’m here today to remind you of something the magnificent Lois Rodden, one of the great astrologers of our lifetime, once said to me. Mercury, she said, is often considered the money planet (mainly since it’s associated with merchants and commerce), but for money, the planet you really want on your side is Mars. The reason for that is because making money requires motivation and focused intention. Mars is about to ingress Sagittarius, your house of available resources (the 2nd house), and that will provide just those elements. Yet there is one caveat — that your mode of creating resources be connected to your soul-level mission, or what most people would think of as your true values. I’ll say this another way. You’re about to get a serious boost in your money-creating power and for it to work well for you and for everyone else, focus that energy on doing the right thing. You know what it is.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Monday’s Pisces Full Moon happens in what you might think of as the pleasure center of your solar chart — the 5th house. Most of what passes for pleasure in Western society is really an effort to avoid pain. There are several ways you can tell the real thing from the counterfeit version. One is the presence of curiosity about yourself, and it’s an intensely pleasurable curiosity. It’s the kind of feeling good that goes deeper into previously unknown, or forgotten, regions of who you are. Another is the desire for freedom. That can translate to craving the unknown, which is a specific kind of liberty. This will teach you something about pleasure anxiety, which is really a form of self-control rooted in a ‘need’ for what is absolutely familiar. Take an extended moment and allow your existence to be a mystery and an adventure. You are being invited into an unusually deep inner space.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

It’s possible to be motivated by both ideals and money, but don’t confuse one for the other. It’s possible to take profits gained through more conventional motives and invest them in what you consider socially relevant, though this usually requires a level of care and discipline that most people only ever dream about. You might ask what gets in the way of translating what you think of as materialistic into what you hold as spiritual — that is, what values, or what conflicting desires. I suggest you check in with whether you hold back when it comes to your own stated commitment to make the world a better place. Are you concerned that it’s futile, or that it will take too long to make a difference? It may be true that you’re doing everything in your power to stretch beyond your limits and make a positive contribution, but only you can know that for sure. Be aware that a deeper level of motivation is starting to wake up and make itself known. It’s a kind of calling that can only be answered by taking action — not in the future, but right now. Here is the catch: right now has to last a long time, because only sustained action gets results. For that to happen, you really have to be in harmony with yourself and with your deepest motives.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

You know you want to let go. You seem to be holding on as a matter of will, but deeper down you know that what you need to do is let go of all the resistance in your body. This is not about letting go of your commitments, or of your desire for some consistency in your life. Rather, it’s an invitation to honor the truth that life not only involves change, it is based on change. This is true for everything from the development of an individual fetus to the evolution of a species to how we will respond to the biosphere crisis. Perhaps the single most useful, most beautiful and most potent human attribute is adaptation. You don’t want to give up this power; you want to work with it as closely as you can. Change is imminent, and the truth is it can serve you very well, if you participate as its creative partner.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

How honest with yourself can you be? If there is some limit, what is the hang-up? Your life story for the next couple of weeks will be about working your way to that boundary or limit. Many times in your life, you’ve found it easy to be in denial. Now, between your own inner pressure and the lurking sensation that you cannot respond to your own needs, denial will verge on impossible. Incidentally, there seems to be something here about your mom. The reason she did not respond to her own needs was not because she didn’t want to — by my estimation, it was because at key times she was not flexible enough to change when she needed to. That is the name of the tune — flexibility. The more conscious the better.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

I love the connection between the word ‘authority’ and ‘authorship’. Authority means taking control over something, which is directly related to creating a story. If we add the concept ‘authorized’, that means you certify that the story you are creating is in fact of your own creation, and something you approve of. How would it feel to live this way? You know you want to; you know that the element of story has been vital to your life lately, as has the element of being present for your own power, and also willing to use it. If this makes you nervous, think of it as writing the story you want to tell. The great thing about writing is that it can be rewritten, revised and re-thought-through, and when you are doing this with your whole existence, you know you really are living. You are indeed the author of your own life, so pick up your pen and make contact with the page.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Consider the ritual aspect of everything you do — making breakfast, getting ready for work, preparing to go out. Think of these things less as habits than as moments of preparation for an experience. Take every step consciously, with as much mindfulness as you can muster. Notice how you feel while you’re doing this. One attribute of ritual is preparing space — that might be your desk or your living room or a clearing in a forest. It might be your kitchen before baking or your bedroom before a lover comes over. Focus on the use of space, its purpose, how it feels and how it looks. Remove anything that is extraneous. And consider the central organizing principle of the space, the way that a hearth used to define the central idea of a home. Every space has its hearth — know what it is, and tend the fire.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

After spending eight months in a strange and sensitive angle of your chart (known as the solar 12th house), your ruling planet Mars has ingressed your sign. This may have arrived with the sensation of your ear pressure equalizing after a fast elevator ride. And you may suddenly have the added confidence of knowing what you want. In consciousness and in biology, the human experience is driven by desire. It has all kinds of names, with various inflections of good and evil attached to them, though they amount to the same thing. That thing is the desire to live and to experience life, and it’s likely that you’ve been infused with this sensation in a whole new way. The question is how you respond and/or react. Lately you seem more given to the moralistic/control side of the spectrum than is useful. It would be helpful to recognize when you’re judging yourself and others for something that is either natural or not harming anyone. You may feel some need to live up to an image, that is, to be perceived a certain way for the sake of your reputation. If there’s a devil, this is it. While you must always be mindful of integrity, that is different from any form of obsession over what people may think about you. There is only one person who needs to respect you, and that is you — with any luck, just for being real.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

Sleepwalking, being in autopilot, trance state, spacing out. Everyone drifts into this state at some point, though currently many people are drifting through life paying as little attention as possible. Often this is aided and abetted by alcohol, pills or other substances. I don’t know your personal circumstances, but I do know your solar chart. Right now you need to pay attention. I could list off a dozen reasons from just your solar chart, though let’s skip that. Pay attention. Notice where you are and who is around you. Notice what you’re doing and why. Come out of the dream state and enter fully waking state. That means taking nothing for granted and yes, as one of your Scorpio cousins recently said to me, it means keeping your mind alert and active at all times even if this seems really weird. Engage your awareness fully, in manual mode, and keep waking up as many times as necessary.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

Saturn in your sign is the original symbol of enforced growth. Saturn is saying, “It is time.” It’s true that most people experience Saturn as a depressive influence, as a burden or as a limit — though this is a limited perspective, and it most likely does not take into account the essential factor of maturity. Saturn in your sign is saying you need a structure to your life that embraces all of the functions you want to fulfill as an adult with the freedom of choice. Your life is not about recreation. It’s not about self-fulfillment. Those are ingredients in a whole life, but not the whole purpose of life. In a word, your current purpose is fulfilling your function; taking up elements of why you came to this planet at this time. One measure of purpose is your creative work product. It’s about what you make, which is an expression of your purpose. The key here is tangibility — the actual substance of achievement, not merely an abstract concept of growth.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

Mars retrograde is over, and the planet that traditionally rules your sign will soon be in your sign; then you can add up your various losses and gains and see where you really stand with yourself. But before that happens, you’re about to go on a kind of odyssey — an inner and outer adventure. Some of the places you go will seem oddly familiar. Others will seem entirely new. What you must be careful of, in the first instance, is your unconscious actions leading to strife among others. The core of this journey is being able to maintain your mindfulness and understand the impact of your thoughts and your actions. In other words, you are learning to pay attention. This does not mean tiptoeing around others who are easily provoked. It means engaging them directly, and recognizing the influence that you have on them and on your environment. You have substantial power in your hands. You must learn how to use it wisely — and the next three to four weeks will bring many opportunities to do so.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

So — what good is fear? I mean obsessive fear, anxiety, worry and panic? What purpose has it served during the past few seasons, besides providing a way to burn up energy? I know these emotions are rampant, and they’re usually considered something that cannot change. Now, one option is that you can compromise with fear, which will basically leave you stuck. Or you can take a stand within yourself. Fear is actually a toxic form of desire, and the antidote to fear is clear, bold desire. Like many things, I know this logic is reversed by the world (such as in the form, “if I were only unafraid, I could allow myself to desire”). Yet it’s easy to see that this is self-defeating. Desire is the starting point. Consider the outcome you want in any situation. This is the most important factor. Once you know that, the steps and the logic leading to it will become clear. If the steps do not become obvious, go back to your stated outcome, consider it carefully, and make sure it’s what you want, and make sure it’s described in a legible way. Make sure there are no hidden compromises involved. What you’re about to discover is that you want more from life, and to accomplish that, you must be willing to admit that it’s true.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

The Sun’s ingress into Cancer this weekend is telling you that it’s time to take a wider view of your own life. That probably means figuring out how narrow your perspective may currently be, so that you know where exactly to stretch your boundaries. How many miles do you consider to be a long distance? How many years a long time? What achievement would you define as being truly significant? As part of this review, I suggest you consider your parents’ expectations for themselves and notice some of the ways you may have taken them on. To the extent that you’re pushing against something or experiencing resistance, you might consider whether you’re trying to surpass a limit that was set during your upbringing. This might even stem from the limited worldview of a grandparent that has been passed down the generations. It’s time for you to determine the boundaries of your own life. Remember, you live in a wider world than nearly anyone who came before you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

You have a perfect view of who someone is. If you pay attention you notice that this seems like peering into a mirror. The unusual thing is how different from how you feel the image in this mirror looks. You may be feeling old and looking at young, knowing it’s yourself. You may be feeling inflexible and looking at the very picture of relaxation. You may be feeling unworthy and know that you’re being embraced by love. You don’t have to trust this image or accept it as real, though it would be useful if you asked yourself, “what if what I’m seeing is real?” Just consider the potential and notice your response. One thing I would point out is that you may be harboring some fantasies of purity. Those could take a diversity of forms, including ideas of celibacy, virginity, relationship orthodoxy, or wanting to work out your issues with your parents before you get close to anyone. Go where it’s hot.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

Saturn in your sign is urging you to hold fast, while other factors are saying that you must dance with existence in a bold way, with the rhythm seeming to change from moment to moment. Yet you’re no longer dancing at the edge of a cliff, or under any threat to your existence. Your relationship to your fear has changed profoundly over the past six months, and this has changed your relationship to existence. Perhaps I may offer a point of clarification there. Imagine you live a life where you don’t fear that the universe or the world is a hostile place. It may not always be fully cooperative, but you know it’s not specifically hostile toward you. How would you live differently? At the moment you are being asked or feel compelled to change in some way that you know is profound, and that seems (correctly or not) like an either/or choice. How would this choice be different if you could proceed with trust in existence? Remember, fear ain’t what it used to be.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

What happens when you get what you want is always an interesting reality check. Not everyone is happy about it. Not everyone is comfortable. Some people are thrilled and others are resentful. Some feel entitled and some feel guilty. Some want more, and some are eager to share. So, I would put the question to you — how do you feel when you get what you ask for? Next level or layer, how do you feel honestly wanting who or what you want? How do you feel when you notice or see whomever or whatever that is? Some people feel control, some feel greed, some feel desire, some feel appreciation, some feel a focusing of their intent. Your astrology calls for careful reflection on your responses to who or whatever you may desire, inquiring deeper than you might ordinarily go, noticing things subtler than you might usually observe. Pay particular attention to fear that may arise, in any of its many forms.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

In most of my recent Scorpio commentaries, I’ve explored the concept of fear, and the way your charts are describing how you’re working it out. The sum total of this topic is that the most poignant, threatening subject of fear is oneself. This manifests many ways, including as fear associated with dropping the charade and being oneself. It’s always fear that keeps the game of being ‘someone else’ going. It manifests as fear of one’s potential. Or it can express itself as the quality of needing to hide behind a barricade, concerned what will happen if you come out. And one of the most common, and for you debilitating, ways it can manifest is fear of your sexuality. All of the pseudo-conservatism we are seeing in our current era of history, and false modesty and intentional ignorance of biology, are all expressions of fear of sex and sexuality. This is especially distressing and debilitating for you because your sign is all about sex: the sign that in ancient astrology rules the sex organs, and in modern astrology one’s hormones, desire and the nuances of attraction. Because life emerges from sex, the fear of sex, in any form, is fear of life. You who want to be alive need to align with your desire and your erotic power, as if it were the cosmic gift that it actually is.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

You may have dreamed many dreams about what you would do, if only you were less afraid. You may have even tried, and succeeded, to go beyond your own inhibitions. The journey of Mars through your 12th solar house has been a study in these hesitations, which has served to remind you how much time you’ve spent wondering if you were doing the right thing, or what might have happened if only things were some other way. It’s time to leave your regrets behind you and confront the moment in which you stand, edgy though it may be. You’re not really standing at the edge of a cliff; you’re standing right on the edge of your relationship to yourself. There really is no point hesitating about that. If you were fully committed to your relationship with yourself, many factors in your life would seem far more confident than they often do. And that moment of full commitment is about to arrive.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

Take your time working out an emotional issue, and remember, this is about how you feel rather than being about a relationship. It may seem for all the world and in your imagination like the subject matter is partnership or involvement with someone else. That’s a kind of mirage. Here’s a way to think about it: As in dream interpretation, every aspect of the dream is an aspect of yourself. Given that you may be in a phase of increased unusual dream activity, that’s a good thing to keep in mind. Dreams are deeply personal and situation-specific. There are no stock interpretations for dream symbols. If you remember that all aspects of the dream are facets of your own psyche, and your own state of mind, it will be much easier to discern what messages you’re receiving from yourself. The same can be said of any thoughts involving a relationship. I’m not saying that other people involved don’t have volition or intent — rather, I am saying that your experience is your experience, and that is the place to start.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

For months, Mars has been retrograde in Libra, the most sensitive angle of your solar chart. This has provoked your imagination and your anxiety, and stirred you up emotionally. Now the retrograde is about to end, though once Mars stations direct on May 19, it will take more than two months to reach your sign. This phase takes the discussion to the subject of privacy and secrecy. Two months is enough time to make decisions about what you share and what you hide in your relationships. I suggest you make a careful inventory of what you allow others to know about you and what you choose to conceal, and why. Along with that, I suggest you look at any strategies you may have to insulate yourself, such as keeping separate groups of friends for different purposes, or managing whether certain individuals do or do not get to meet certain other individuals in your life. All of these scenarios present not just a map of your concept of intimacy, but of your concept of reality. These last phases of the Mars retrograde process are likely to emphasize the fact that you must live in a transparent way if you’re going to trust existence. Every secret you keep affirms that the world is dangerous and threatening. Every time you reveal yourself, you demonstrate that it’s safe to be alive as the person you really are.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

You may feel lost or powerless when the exact opposite is true. What you’re experiencing now is a perfect example of the distinction between perception and reality. Of course, if you feel lost, you’re likely to act that way, and that will be real to you. The main challenge you face is twofold. One is that you have an overwhelming sense of responsibility, to someone or something — I suggest you direct it toward yourself. The other is denial. It’s easy for you to pretend that what is, is not (in a diversity of forms.) Over the next 10 days, you will have a number of orientation points that will help you determine where you stand with yourself. Some of these may emerge in moments of conflict. If you are in a situation where you are triggered or where you strongly disagree with someone, that is a point of orientation. You will be able to see clearly what your opinion about anyone or anything really is — and that is the very thing you want to navigate by. This means that all emotions, negative and positive and seemingly neutral, will be useful — in truth, everything you feel and learn must go to productive use. That is the nature of your moment.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

Your situation is not as complicated as it seems. I know, it does seem complicated, but actually it’s your emotional state that’s the thing creating the interference. Like, what is the source of all this worry, and why are you so convinced that it’s actually an accurate response to the world? It’s true that your ruling planet Mars is stirring the pot, provoking you and agitating your anger (subtle though it may be) and possibly keeping you up at night, even though there’s unlikely to be a serious or even moderately serious issue. It’s true that Saturn is in your sign, close to your Sun, and may be weighing on you with a sense of responsibility or the weight of the world. Listen to me. Relax. Cheer up. Wake up. Get outside your house and out of your head. You live in a much bigger world than you think, and the people who live here love you more than you care to admit. Yes, this is a moment of growing up, and settling some long unresolved psychological business. It’s also potentially one of the boldest times of your life. Don’t miss it.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

Note the fear factor and the healing factor, and where they meet. Most of what needs healing involves — or is specifically — fear. Yet it’s difficult to see this when so many factors are designed to inflict fear in its many forms: ads designed to provoke insecurity about your self-image, earthquake warnings, economic threats and the usual litany of health-related ‘news’. In order to exist in any kind of balance, it’s necessary to consider your responses to all of those influences. Yet there is an inner scenario that you’re unraveling, something that is distinct and personal and that cannot be accounted for by any visible influence. To a greater extent than you may recognize, your fears surround abandonment and issues of fidelity in relationships. These can take many forms, morphing and disguising themselves — that is the speciality of fear. Rather than accept this theory, I suggest you test it out, and inquire when you are feeling some deep concern whether it involves abandonment or fidelity — whomever might be responsible.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

You may be having panic attacks over some potential change in your work environment or work assignment. That kind of response is not exactly the key to success. I suggest you remove from your thinking any need to ‘feel appreciated’ and replace it with the need to focus your mind, your efforts and your intentions on what actually matters. Focus on the nature of commitments being made to you, and asked of you. Once the changes you’re going through gather actual momentum, there will be the moment where you have to give up control over the outcome. But that does not mean giving up awareness of where you are at any moment, or the words that come out of your mouth, or listening and hearing the words that are said to you. Said another way, lack of control over the outcome is a thing apart from maintaining your presence and awareness and using what you know to make moment-to-moment assessments and decisions.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

It would be easier to deal with fear if we could recognize it when we see it. Yet the problem with fear, and its first cousins guilt and anger, is that most of the time, we don’t recognize them when we see them, or feel them. They take so many forms, come wrapped in so many packages and dressed in so many disguises, we could be dealing with them all day and still not know it. And that is precisely what we do. Your job is to know when you’re dealing with these emotions, and when they are driving you. It is only this awareness that will protect you from being manipulated and manipulating others. Only this awareness will allow you to connect with more loving motives. At the moment, it seems like the entire ‘outer’ world we are witnessing is being driven by dark emotions and self-serving motives. At the same time many things seem wrapped in a blend of ambivalence and ignorance that could lead otherwise intelligent people to support the cause of (for example) fracking or genetically modified foods. Yet neither your most wholesome survival instincts nor your most sublime creative guidance will be apparent when you’re caught in the deceptive, slippery haze of fear, or guilt, or anger. And that is what you must now focus every skill and grain of wit into transcending. If there is a road to truth, it is surely the same one away from lies.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

In modern astrology your sign is ruled by Pluto, but in traditional astrology it’s ruled by Mars. Now your two guiding planets are headed for an unusual meeting, which takes place in late April. Yet this is the kind of thing to consider long in advance. What this event gives you is a kind of growth lever. Consider the very most important changes you would make in your life — the ones you wish you could make, but don’t have the time, strength or resources for. Now is the time to consider doing precisely those things, whether you know how you’re going to get it done or not. The idea is to set your intention, but in the immediate moment, to draw in a vision for how you want your life to be. Then, elaborate specific changes you want to make from there, and you have set the wheels in motion. It’s likely that events will conspire in some unexpected way to bring some of those changes to fruition, and others that obviate seeming necessities may turn out to be less than necessary. Powerful forces are at work; it’s essential that you remain alert.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

Fear is a fact of life on Earth, the planet of eat or be eaten. How you handle your fear is not a given; you have many options. How you exercise them will make a difference. Let’s start with the basics: fear is a form of energy and it points to a deeper energy source. If you treat it that way, and seek understanding of what is not immediately obvious, you will learn that fear does not need to be debilitating, and that in fact it can be empowering. The first thing to do is let your fear speak. Get the message of what it’s saying. Translate it into terms that are clear, and that lend themselves to decisions. You’re likely to feel the most panicky when you feel like you lack the power to choose. Therefore, information that leads to a state where you can make decisions is what you want and need to have. Indeed, we could call this the theme of the entire Mars retrograde. This is a set of transits intimately linked to you because both of your ruling planets — Mars and Pluto — are so directly involved. When this fully takes shape in late April, you are likely to feel some serious pressure to make progress on many things you have set aside or left for the future. The thing to remember is to get the information you need in order to make an informed decision, and then another.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

Friday and this weekend you get a clear line of sight on some of the material that’s going to come up when Mars stations retrograde on March 1. The information will come across more as an FYI than a warning; more of a ‘to do’ list rather than a ‘do or die’ list. You have time to clear many small matters off of your agenda before Mars stations retrograde, so that you can focus on the more important things when the time comes. Much of what you will be focusing on through the duration of the retrograde are matters of mental and psychological balance. This is what’s called inner work. I suggest you set your life up to accommodate this, as much as possible. I know it’s difficult to have time for anything, though from the look of your charts, you will be drawn into handling some of the deeper issues that have taken up residence in your life, and if you focus on them you will be able to make some adjustments and grow through them. The sooner you start the better.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

Scorpios are often regarded as the sign known for their intensity rather than for taking care of people. My take is that this involves the anxiety others experience when confronted by someone who compels them to feel something other than a sugar high. I want to propose that your presence is an actual source of nourishment and support, even if you make people uneasy sometimes. Or to refine that statement, you have the option to focus your presence and your influence in a wholly positive way, and you’re in a moment when the faint of heart are more receptive to you than they usually are. Don’t underestimate the extent to which you play into their fantasies and their desires. People often refuse to admit who and what they want, or worse, they’re afraid that actually having that experience will in some way change them. In honor of that, I suggest that you be open to what you want, and to having it, with full awareness that you will change for doing so.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

A loved one or close partner may influence you to change your mind about something you have believed — or misbelieved — for a long time. Don’t worry if it feels strange that you’re being influenced by someone else; if there is trust, that is the bottom line. Coming around on an issue or giving up an old position is a necessary skill. The world has a lot of this that it needs to do, in order to get out of its current circumstances, which specifically come down to being stuck in the past. Yet there is a deeper lesson about you needing, and wanting, to be more mentally flexible, and more open to new ideas. Nothing has validity merely on the basis of “that’s how it was done before.” Value must re-affirm itself in every moment. It’s often said that there is nothing like an idea whose time has come — I would add there’s nothing like an idea whose time is done.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

It’s essential for your wellbeing to sort out what influences in your life are nourishing and which are depleting. This is not as easy as it seems in a society where it’s considered normal for people to eat unhealthy food for the sake of ating, to have relationships for the sake of relationships and to purchase many things that they don’t need and barely even want. Since that is the cultural standard, it’s necessary to take the time to figure out whether something you take in — be it food, entertainment, information, family influences or emotional contact — actually sustains you. It would be worthwhile to consider this question in the context of any sexual influence as well. I think the concept of ‘addiction’ is overused and misunderstood, but it begins to have meaning when there is the quality of some influence potentially controlling your life. If during the next few weeks you find yourself at a full stop, or feel like you can no longer effectively negotiate with yourself, that’s the time to take some time and inquire about the issue of control. There is often an associated question about whether you want the responsibility implied by self-determination. The most common reason I’ve seen people abandon their power is because it seems to offer liberation from the consequences of their own mistakes. That’s one form of liberation that will never serve you.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

Your relationships may have taken a serious turn lately but I suggest keeping things a little lighter. Make sure you can always see yourself in others. And remember to focus on options rather than seeing one dubious choice staring you in the face. You have at this point in your life a responsibility not only to fulfill your commitments; you have a responsibility to shed commitments that no longer work for you. This may seem contrary to what everyone is saying and what everything is pointing to but I assure you it is true.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

You have no need to consider anyone, or any idea, a threat. It’s true that some influence is trying to undermine your thinking about something, and it’s also true that you may be frustrated trying to get anything done, hampered mainly by some challenges focusing. You can afford to slow down and think strategically. Retrace your steps and think about three or four moves ahead. But mainly, don’t let anyone undermine your confidence by offering a suggestion or an idea different than you might have come up with yourself. One of the most helpful roles others can play in your life is to do just that. If anyone seems to get under your skin, it’s likely to be because they have said something you were already thinking. While you may not have the answers right now, you definitely have access to the right questions.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

You may be feeling like you’re under some strange pressure, which on one level feels like the necessity to get control of your life. On another level you’re being pushed to cut loose, and to dive into your passions, your fears and the desire that you’ve spent so much time denying. So what do you do, hold fast or let go? Saturn in your sign is providing a boundary. Though it may feel like you have to make necessary changes, Saturn’s real message is about getting to know yourself. Meanwhile, Mars, your ruling planet, will be spending much of the year in the zone of your chart where you conceal your deepest feelings, needs and anxieties. Unless you follow Mars into that mysterious realm, you may feel like you’ve ‘gone missing’. If that happens, take it as a message to look within rather than obsessing over circumstances, other people or external responsibilities. You will get your work done; you will keep your promises. The time has come to keep a promise to yourself, which is to clarify your inner relationship as your top priority. Though many would think this idea as comprehensible as Mandarin, you know this already. The calling to absolute self-honesty has been nagging you very nearly forever, and it’s high time you answer.

Libra 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

Gee, it looks like you’re expecting company. Or like you’re headed to a family reunion. Or like the family reunion is headed to you. Ok, that doesn’t exactly qualify as spot-on clairvoyance with Kwanzaa, Christmas and Hanukkah coming up, though it is a fair reading of your chart. That symbolic picture looks like a collection of every relative and ancestor you ever had is sitting at your kitchen table. Not the formal dining room — I mean stuffed into the kitchen, up against the stove, with bread in the oven. It looks like a collection of characters of wit or at least wisdom, including Uncle Ralph with his dirty jokes, cousin Martha who still after all these decades wears a mini skirt in December, and the presence of many people who have sat around that table in years past who are now memories. Even if that gathering does not come to you, then go to it — and bring someone who’s never been among your tribe before. They will notice many things invisible to you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

You have a story to tell. But you seem to be hesitating. You seem to think it’s too much, maybe more than anyone wants to hear, or more than you want to say. That, and you appear to be waiting for a moment where you can approach the work thoughtfully and carefully, with some discipline. I suggest you move forward now. You can have all the discipline in the world, and if you’ve lost contact with the seed of your idea, with the drive and the living impulse inside you, the perfect moment won’t mean much. So scratch your pen or pencil on the paper, even if it’s in broken or scattered thoughts that you cannot seem to capture fully. Work your way up to a few sentences. Soon enough you will have the focus to develop what now exists in a state of potential. At that time, any first draft at all is better than a blank page.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

It’s time to bring the passion back into sex. Passion does not necessarily mean love affair, and it does not mean soul mate. It has nothing to do with ‘spiritual’ unless you’re someone who associates spiritual with biology. This is less about being horny and more about being curious and creative. Imagine if we unhooked from sex all those other values, and just left curious and creative. We would have something fun to play with. You in particular need sex to be interesting, whatever kind of sex it may be. Interesting translates to something different, and a spirit of experimentation. I know this passage of writing will never get into The Missionary’s Guide to Perfect Fidelity, and that’s a good thing too. You’re not a missionary and perfect fidelity is not your goal. In fact it may be the last thing on your mind right now. Remember, curiosity, creativity, experimentation.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

We all live in ‘the environment’, which we usually think of as the air, the water, the neighborhood, the cityscape or some other external factor. You’re about to be taken on a journey through your mental environment. You will have the option and the ability to see how real, or unreal, it is. Yet real or unreal is not the actual dilemma. The dilemma is the relationship between inner and outer. To what extent is your inner environment influencing or even controlling your perception? The boundary between inner and outer may seem extremely thin at times, and at others, it may seem like it’s as wide as a canyon. The thing to do, while you have an excellent opportunity, is to experiment. Is it really true that when you smile the world smiles with you? Is it true that when you’re feeling depressed you cannot tune into happiness in a sincere way? How powerful is the mental filter? This question matters a lot, because if the answer is, ‘It controls everything else’, then you may decide that you need to learn how to master this element of yourself. Or at least, you may decide that you need to master the art of exploring your own mental environment. Events over the next few weeks will facilitate that, as long as you remember that everything you perceive is not necessarily what it seems to be.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

From the look of your charts, the heavy feeling that may have been stalking you the past week or so is about to clear out of the way. However, it remains an option. That’s the thing to remember, and to remember all the time. State of mind, and emotional state, is optional. The problem is that it doesn’t always feel that way, and when you need that information the most you may be the least likely to have it available. Now is a good time to memorize the fact that you have a choice, because your options are not only wide open, they have equal magnetism, equal accessibility. You can move between them like moving from room to room in a physical space. Notably, all of your options have value right now; once you start exploring them you are likely to see that each supports the other. The most significant point here is learning how not to get stuck in any one of them.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

Often I wish there was a better term for self-esteem. It seems like such a reductionist way to describe the quest for meaning and value that everyone on the planet goes through at some point. What is clear from your charts is that you rarely let on that this is happening. You have a cat-like way of concealing your interior reality. What you cannot do at this point is hide from yourself. Indeed, the thing that’s happening now is a kind of inner confrontation where several levels of your personal belief system are merging into one cohesive reality. The reason this is challenging is because those levels have a way of conflicting. There are different versions of events, values you’ve collected from a variety of sources and that have been formed by different influences. And then there is what you organically know to be true. You might simplify this whole process by starting right there.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

Don’t struggle for self-esteem. Offer it to yourself. You do seem to be experiencing some kind of inner conflict, rooted in whether you really approve of yourself or are acceptable to others. Yet if that language resonates, I suggest you go deeper, to that level that you might be inclined to describe as raw, real, emotional or controversial. There is another layer to this self-esteem thing, and that is about cracking out of a shell that you were put in when you were very young. If you’ve kept yourself in that shell, it’s likely been to make sure that you have the approval of others (particularly if they controlled your supply of food and access to shelter). At this point, the thing to do is everything you want to do that you think would be shocking to all those people. You are not doing it to prove how shocking it will be. You would be doing it to demonstrate that they really don’t care, and you really are free to make your choices.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

I have written many times that self-esteem is the most significant problem in Western society. There are bigger problems where people don’t have toilets, but on our side of the tracks, self-esteem is what you might call the plague. You’ve been onto this one for a while. I think you know what I’m getting at. Self-esteem regulates all other possibilities. There are some people who just naturally feel good about themselves and can live that way, though they are few and far between. You are going through a series of what you might think of as tests or experiments that will help you cultivate respect for, and confidence in, yourself. You have what it takes; you are strong and you have some energy. And you will be happy you passed through this phase of psychological growth — once you stand up and walk right into the territory.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

You must continue to be careful with your money, though if you are both cautious and shrewd, you can come out well ahead by one month from today. Financial literacy is something that’s sorely lacking in a culture that’s supposedly all about money. However, ignorance is not your friend, not now and not ever. Presently, there are practical matters that need your attention, but the larger theme seems to be a question of honor. I know those don’t usually count for much, especially where money is concerned, though at the moment this is something that matters a great deal for you. Honor translates to impeccability. It means that all your actions with money and finance must match your stated values, including how you earn and how you allocate your resources. It’s essential that you work with a plan, and with full knowledge of how much you have at any time. Money is a measurement of power, though few people see it that way; it’s more often a place where they feel disempowered or cut off. Nobody who is good at handling or manifesting money got that way by accident. At minimum it required a decision and at most a long series of experiments, challenges and lessons. Do your part to help yourself. Get serious about your finances. Get real about how important this is to you and the people who depend on you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

You may be feeling, acting or speaking rather unlike yourself. The thing is, you know you’re still you. You know that nothing has really changed. It just seems like there are other voices popping up from your psyche, saying or thinking things that are out of character. I would ask though, are they really? Or have you tapped into something deeper than you usually access? Have you changed your perspective (literally, your physical or psychic point of view) enough to change your opinion? The current astrology may be subtly tricking you out of a long-held position, including the notion that you struggle to change your mind. You might think of that as the illusion of being stuck, which is merely a kind of ‘special effect’, and one that has never served you well. The ability to shift your point of view both rapidly and accurately is not just a fantastic creative gift — it’s a matter of survival.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

You may be waiting for the other shoe to drop, though I suggest you not waste your time waiting. It’s up to you to take conscious steps in the direction that you want to go, which may involve taking a new route or deciding on a new destination from the one you were considering yesterday. Between sticking to one course for decades, and changing one’s mind every 15 minutes (the two most popular options, it seems) is the reality that change happens. You are in the process of encountering a series of influences that are shaping the course of your life. Note carefully whether you’re resisting these changes, and in the alternate, whether they seem to be taking you by surprise, happening totally outside of your control.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

The Sun has a long story to tell before it leaves your sign in a few weeks. There are many adventures ahead, though you might not notice that if you cling to any form of certainty, or go out of your way to avoid change. Indeed, progress is impossible without change, and so I suggest you tune yourself to all kinds of movement, large and small. Do yourself a huge favor and let go of any expectations you have on other people, and for that matter, yourself. You seem to be sending yourself a mixed message about whether you matter. You are neither the most important thing nor totally insignificant. Between the two is a whole range of actual, authentic meaning, though you are unlikely to believe that if you try to convince yourself otherwise. Nourish your soul. Feel, look and listen.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

Stay close to your roots. Stay close to the person you have always been — the one you have come to trust. You often forget that this being resides right inside you, below your various circumstances, ideas about yourself and most of all, your relationship scenarios. One particular bond could become volatile and unstable; this will compel you to locate and to stand on your foundations. Yet you might want to consider the ways in which not doing so has contributed to that instability. You are at the point where losing contact with your self-respect can result in a nearly immediate shakeup in your life. The remedy, then, is not to ‘fix’ the relationship but rather to move closer to your core. This will have the effect of putting you in a calmer state of mind, and helping you see that there is nothing to fight about; there is no real controversy. Still, you may imagine that others want to dominate you, and that the only way to prevent that is for you to dominate them. I suggest you try a different approach, which is taking a wholly positive, constructive view of the situation. Your battle cry needs to be something like, ‘How can I make the most of this?’ or ‘What can I offer this situation?’ Your ability to do so is a dependable and immediate metric of your self-worth.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

It’s time to refine (and apply) your political skills, which are your social skills, though a special kind. By political I mean your ability to negotiate, as well as to work within an organizational structure, or within a power structure, to be helpful and also to get a positive result. This is no minor skill in a world where so much is decided on the basis of how well people get along, and who has the informal influence. Politics, properly understood, goes beyond the level of formal social roles. It’s all about how people relate to one another as people, establish the pecking order, exchange favors and exchange resources. Politics is about how people motivate one another and get something done. Other factors in your chart describe you as a bull in a china shop, for whom the notion of diplomacy might be entirely repugnant. Don’t go there — you will lose. Relate to people in a way that you both understand, and never count yourself out of the game.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

Don’t get too caught up in plans and strategizing — plenty more useful information is about to emerge, timed approximately with the Sun’s arrival in your sign in just over one week, followed by a magnificent New Moon. You may, however, be obsessed with one particular plan that seems like exactly the right thing to do, and it may be. I suggest, in that case, that you make a generous list of everything you don’t know and keep all of that in mind. As long as you know you don’t know, you will be on solid ground. Remember that idea: the key to knowing is to know when you don’t know, and to the best extent you can, to know what information you are missing. Then be patient, and pay attention to what comes your way. Once you structure your learning process, you magnify its power, and make more efficient use of the information that comes to you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Pleasure, imagination, curiosity — these are some of the most potent healing tools available to us. Yet to be effective there needs to be some soul presence, or a conscious idea of seeking self-knowledge. I am not talking about entertainment. For many people the opening into the healing dimension may as well be a sealed door expertly polished into marble to make it seem like it’s not there. However, it is most certainly there, and you already have confirmation that such a dimension exists and that you can indeed access it, even if you cannot predict when. Right now the astrology is aligning in a way that makes this dimension closer than ever, and that increases your ability to feel your way to it. Just remember that you know you’re responding to something that is real, and to which you have direct access, if you need it.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

Focus less on appearances and more on saying what you really mean. You might even consider forgetting appearances entirely and investing everything into speaking, and living, your truth. I normally would not cast this in such polarized terms, though these two concepts are often mutually exclusive. Appearances are usually designed to conceal the truth. You have a choice to make, though it may not be so starkly clear now as it’s likely to be around the time of your birthday. The decision involves not just whether you want to live with a veil thrown over your reality, and therefore isolated from others, but also why you would want to do so. You are more transparent than you think, and it would support your concept of integrity to be seen and known for who you are. This is for you, not for anyone else. One happy result will be you’ll have more energy to invest in what you love the most dearly. Yet there is something deeper at play here, which is your need to have an open conduit of communication with others, one that is based on actual vulnerability. I recognize how scary this is, especially in our moment of social history when the climate is chilled to below freezing. Others may think this works fine for them; you need warmth, contact and most of all, honesty.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

When people are afraid to look within themselves, usually this is associated with the darkness they expect to be there. Sometimes it seems like the whole world is in reaction to this one perceived fear — that the inner world is a kind of nightmare. But what if the opposite is true? If you feel any aversion to looking inward, consider that what you’re afraid to see is the light that’s within you. It may be that the veil of self-blame is just that, a scrim that blocks your inner view, onto which all kinds of scary imagery is projected. You may find that obstacle especially frustrating over the next few days, to the point where you’re ready to tear it down and see what’s actually on the other side. You can trust one thing, at least — there is another side, and what’s there is different from the movie projected onto the screen.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

What exactly are you struggling with? What is the nature of your inner conflict? Is it about what you want, or what you want but you’re denying yourself? What are those two factors involved, the desire and the denial? There’s another angle of approach to your life that will feel much more fruitful. It can start with not trying to prove, deny or disprove that you’re worthy of love, no matter how you feel. Rather, you can take the leap to loving — that is, loving everyone. This may sound crazy, or like nostalgic 1960s jive. It is anything but jive, especially for you, right now (if astrology means anything). Widen your world. Expand your sense of yourself by encountering more people in more places. Take a breath and notice how alive the people around you are, and count yourself as one of them. If you cannot quite get there, take every opportunity to learn from example — especially from people who know how to forgive themselves as a way of life. This is the key, to nearly everything.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

Do you really want to be the boss? Do you really need to? Despite some recent impulses to that effect, I really don’t think so. Taking authority (in any conventional form of the notion) would be pointless in this situation. Yes, you know things really should be happening a certain way. What you want is cooperation. For that to happen, it would help immensely if you cooperated. Make it a point to work with, collaborate with, and draw inspiration from others. Consider this a special benefit of who you are. Out of these associations, another model of leadership will emerge — something more distinctly collective, made of individuals, self-organized, in which everyone has their unique role. Everyone knows that the world can work this way, and many people have been envisioning this for decades. Even if it’s not happening on a massive scale, it can happen in your life.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Yes, you are naturally social, though this is going past all limits now. You are in a moment of contact, so spend as much time around other people as you can, especially in small groups rather than crowds. Of course, the meeting that turns out to be the most meaningful could come at any moment, so be alert to who is around you and take every opportunity to say hello to someone you don’t know who you happen to meet in a public place. There’s another side to this — this is an excellent time for financial negotiations, particularly where your career is concerned. The thing to remember is that you are a rare resource, you possess knowledge and skills and you get results even in the midst of the unraveling world. You have solid ground to negotiate from. Your asset value to others will have at least one fine moment this week where you get no compensation; the term is pro bono.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

Mars has finally left your sign, which changes a relationship dynamic that seems like it’s been stuck for months. The actual dynamic that changes is a resounding message of looking to yourself for the fulfillment that in the past you would seek only in relationships. We have this idea, perpetuated by generations before us (but basically a romantic concept) that we must seek completion in another person. This is a setup for incomplete people seeking completion with one another, and never finding it. This is so taken for granted that people who do not play this game are considered weird, and those who work toward a sense of inner fulfillment and resilience have relatively little to discuss with others who avoid this whole topic. That is a disclaimer — reaching into yourself for your opposite polarity may have the effect of alienating you from certain people who play a mean game of gotta-be-normal. Yet other factors in your astrology suggest that you are so resplendent, visible and bold that you are a powerful example for your friends. You have the chance to deepen your relationship to yourself and to find a place where your relationships to others are not based on a neurotic need for self-completion. Hold that energy and you can have experiences of actual sharing and exchange rooted in being a whole person who appreciates the company of other whole people.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

Although Mars stationed direct in your sign on May 19, it has yet to enter new territory. Said another way, Mars is still in ‘shadow phase’ and has not gone past the degree where it stationed retrograde back in March. This happens soon — but not before one final experience of whatever the retrograde symbolized. True, it meant many things to many people, but since early December your life has had a dominant feeling, a recurring theme or persistent issue. It’s the one thing that many or most things have had in common. There is an underlying circumstance or pattern that is related to this issue, and you’re about to see what it is. There is some theme of fairness, and it’s related to honoring commitments. It may also be related to the ways in which you hold others to honoring their commitments to you. The way you did things in the past will no longer serve you. Now you have one distinct advantage: you know this, and that will help you make the decision you need to make.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

Mars in your birth sign, combined with a variety of other factors, describes you in a situation where you may have to push an issue that you don’t feel comfortable doing. The sensation will be something like exceeding your authority, and possibly feeling guilty about it — but knowing intuitively that you’re correct in doing so. This might also come with the feeling of claiming some space to exist that you might have previously abandoned. Be aware of the fear of others wanting to get revenge or acting against you subversively — this is more of a feeling than an actual probability, but the feeling is what counts, because it has the power to dominate your reality. Said simply, the time has come to pluck up the courage to run your own life. That means being direct with others, which means speaking up, not festering on your own secrets till they ferment into resentment.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

You seem ready to attempt something that in the past would have had you shaking at the knees. However, you’ve come a long way since then, and you’ve come a long way the past couple of months. You can question whether you’re confident enough. You can question whether you’re ready. You can question whether you’re standing on a solid foundation. But the only way to answer those questions is through experience. Experience will require that you actually assert yourself — or rather, that you continue to do so, because Mars in your sign for the past seven months has done a lot for your initiative. Said another way, you’ve figured out that your role is not merely passive; your role is not merely to adapt. Your role is to be someone who changes your world in creative ways. And to the extent that anyone can ever give you permission to do that, you just got it.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

This month, two planets describing forces that have shaped and even defined your existence move on to other signs. Jupiter exits the cardinal cross and ingresses Leo, which represents a windfall or step up in the world. Your point of view shifts from parental to peer-to-peer. More significantly, Mars will exit Libra, where it’s been since early December, and ingress Scorpio. Mars plus Libra has been an odd mix — maybe one of the strangest in astrology; we’ve all had to live with it, and you’ve experienced it most directly. Putting it politely, this transit has been provocative. The result has been to put you into contact with a new dimension of who you are. You may not have changed your boundaries much, but you discovered what they are, and you discovered that you need to work with them consciously. The deeper question is about what motivates you, what drives you, what values exist on the level of breathing, and this I reckon you’ve made some progress understanding. You have one more quest before you fully engage this energy. It involves exaggerated feelings, and recognizing when they are in some way taking over your mind. You must be able to safely handle intensity, passion, lust and the drive for experience. But that’s different from anything exaggerated.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

You may finally be letting go of some residual anger and resentment, but also feeling a sense of loss. All you really need to do is to be conscious of this fact, rather than keeping it stuffed somewhere. The tides of your life will be turning rapidly over the next few days, and it will be vital that you stay focused on the moment you are in, which is another way of saying be present for your own life. Options are likely to open up suddenly and unexpectedly, and if your mind is in any way preoccupied with the past, you will miss what life is offering you. Note that this might be an exit path from any number of situations that you are not happy with. Yet you must take a break from arguing for what is impossible and instead come to an understanding with yourself that in truth anything is possible, if you keep an open mind.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

The question, as always, is “how is the sex?” Yes, there’s a con game going around where you’re never supposed to admit that; not long into any conversation sex is supposed to genuflect to relationship. While we all need, want and do sail the good ship Relate, that’s often a way up the ladder and out of the water on which it floats. Among the many aspects of sex to consider is what you love that you also feel guilty about. The reason does not matter — guilt is extremely creative at coming up with rationales to justify its own existence. If there’s such a thing as the ego, this is it. It may be the power aspect of a relationship that turns you on. It may be the age factor and it may be that you seek from another person what you really want to give yourself, and you’re letting that be OK for now. Now, as for my original question…


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

In order to slip into the ease of your situation, you must also slip into the unknown, which may be intimidating or feel like you would totally lose yourself in the process. You would, but it would be somewhat like losing the feeling of being tired in order to feel rested, or losing feeling stuck in order to feel like you’re free to move. The movement you seek at the moment may feel like an intellectual freedom, though in truth it’s the freedom to embrace your own process of emotional healing. Please go slowly if you’re tempted to insert ‘spiritual healing’; where I see you ready to do the deepest work is on the level of trust, which pretty much makes anything else possible. In order to trust your environment, you would have to trust yourself first, and that is what the unusual astrology of the next few days describes. Make your decisions gently and remember, you are writing or sketching in pencil, not with a tattoo pen.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

You have all kinds of plans, you’ve been unusually decisive and yet you may be wondering how much progress you’ve made the past month or so. The real marker of progress is your direction of movement, not how far you’ve come. Look for evidence that you’re more committed to what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve let go of that was not working for you. Consider the extent to which you express the value you hold for the important people and situations in your life. Notice whether you show up someplace significant, and how you feel when you do. Do you feel more confident than you have in the past? Your astrology describes you as internalizing or dialing-in personality features that are not typical to what you’ve done in the past. So this may be a tentative kind of confidence, like what you might feel when you’re in an unfamiliar place yet still know you have the experience and maturity to handle anything that might turn up.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

Yours is known to be one of the most laid-back signs, but you know this is an act. In fact you are one of the most driven and determined individuals you know, once you make up your mind what you want — and as long as you don’t simmer in resentment and regret, uncertain whether you deserve something. Now, you always have the option to hook into that, but it’s old, and it’s the very thing you’re trying to let go of — so I suggest you cut your losses, give back what is not yours, and move on with a clear conscience. If you have to make amends to anyone, do so sincerely and move on. If you need to apologize to anyone, do so and get on with your life. And one other thing: if you have to forgive anyone, including yourself, then integrate that into everything else you’re doing as part of the move-on process. Forgiveness is not stuffing something, or forgetting something, or demanding that someone take the blame. It’s the opposite of all these things, and though nobody can really explain the process, it does exist and it seems to be easier if you ask for help in whatever spiritual language you speak. The most important thing nearly everyone agrees on about forgiveness is that in truth, it’s not about anyone but yourself.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

You are approaching a moment of truth. It could be about any aspect of your life, though it’s likely that an intimate situation is involved. Your charts tell a story about your having gone through a series of initiations over the past six months, which has put you in a place where you could hardly have expected to be. You may, as a result, have outgrown a relationship. Rather, it looks like you’ve become the thing that you’ve always sought in other people. That means that you no longer need them to provide it; this in turn will save you loads of time and energy pursuing something outside yourself. Yet at the same time, you want to relate to others, and this is suggesting that your contacts with others will benefit from a new purpose. I don’t know what that will be, but I would propose that it’s more about being a whole person than it is about being half of a relationship.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

Rare is the moment when you can encounter your perfect match, but you may be there. It’s an ‘opposites attract’ kind of thing, but the question is, what kind of opposites? Inverse, converse, reverse or obverse? They all have one thing in common, which is the root verse, which means to turn — therefore, much will depend on which way you turn. I suggest you turn toward who you desire, and face them. Speak if you want, though what will get their attention is your magnetism. Note, it may take a little while; during that time I suggest you be patient, friendly and take care of yourself. The most significant direction you can turn toward is awareness of your own existence, and your freedom to choose. That you may have considered this perilous in the past, and that you may have your concerns now, should not stop you. The path through life is guided by decision, though too often we ascribe that power to fate.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

After nearly three months of Mars retrograde in your sign, I trust you’ve done some thinking about what you want. It looks like you’ve learned about what you don’t want. Mostly your charts suggest you’ve seen what happens when you set the whole matter of desire aside, and just ‘let things happen’ and ‘see how they work out’. One hint from your astrology is learning to experience desire without guilt. To do that, you might need to use guilt as a way of discerning the degree to which you actually want someone or something. Guilt is a toxin, but for you it also may be a sign of authenticity. How is this possible? Guilt is an indicator of having been pruned, controlled and manipulated. It’s an emotional response that clues you into being under the perceived control of someone else, whether in the distant past, the recent past, or by someone in your life now. Authentic desire is one of the most dependable methods of navigation through the physical plane. For that to work, you must take hold of the freedom, indeed, the necessity, to want what you want, and also learn the art of unraveling guilt so that you have true authority over your life. This is one of the most challenging growth lessons in existence, but it’s also one that delivers both immediate and long-term results.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

Confidence is the issue. On Earth it’s always the issue, but for now, it’s really, truly, the issue. Keep that in mind every moment, and ask what you would do, if only you had the confidence. Meanwhile, you need to keep in mind when you are reacting, when you’re responding and when you’re provoking. The difference may be sly and subtle; for example, you may be reacting to someone a certain way in order to provoke a response. You may resort to manipulation. In order to be confident, you have to know what you’re doing. You must understand the politics of any given situation, including the most intimate, and proceed appropriately. Chances are that will involve a blend of being real and choosing your words carefully. Doing both will compel you to know your own mind, and to practice stating your desires and your intentions to others. Said simply, you have to stop bullshitting people about who you are and what you want. Withholding your true feelings is not getting you anywhere, and you know personally how many setbacks it’s been responsible for. It’s time to be real and only real.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

I can only imagine what it feels like to be you right now, and when I do, my imagination goes a bit wild. Then again, I’m not a Libra and you may be feeling overwhelmed by the various surges, pulses and astonishing variety of experiences that life is offering you. One message that you may be getting is, there’s no point living like it’s 1994 or 2004 or for that matter April 2014. If your chart is pointing you overwhelmingly to one idea, it’s about the present catching up with you, all at once, in a big way. Wherever you’ve been, whatever frame of mind you’ve been trying to contain the experiences that are coming your way in, everything will be a lot easier when you experience now as if it’s now. It’s difficult to describe the incredible weight that humanity bears trying to force the present moment into its prejudices about the past (but we can see some of that pain dramatized in politics and what families put themselves through). Nobody needs that, even if they have not figured it out. You have better things to do with your time and vital force — a lot better.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

Be mindful of the emotional reactions of others. Notice when you’re getting drawn in. This is easier said than done, particularly with the transits that your solar chart is taking right now. It’s difficult enough to maintain one’s individuality under the best circumstances in our society, when you’re confronted daily by so many forces telling you who and what you’re supposed to be. Your current charts have a potent emphasis on the emotional dimension of relationships. It’s not easy to distinguish your feelings from those of someone close to you. At the same time, there seems to be someone compelling in your environment with whom you identify closely — and that’s a temptation to ‘lose’ yourself in them. One solution to this puzzle is maintaining a high level of self-awareness and making decisions in every moment. Another potential is getting drawn all the way into the scenario, finding your way out, and evaluating what you learn. Question: how much time do you have on your hands?


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

You may feel like you live in the hall of mirrors. But if you look closely at what seems to be your reflection, you might notice that it doesn’t vaguely resemble who you know yourself to be. Indeed, the whole mirroring thing seems to be an illusion that is only real to the extent that you believe it. Your solar chart describes where you will find yourself — in the zone of consciousness where you’re willing to take a risk. Where you feel the potential, the calling or the need to dare, that is where you’re the most likely to find yourself, as in discover something new about yourself. You will know you’re in that space because it feels distinctly different than the mirror chamber or echo chamber that you were in before. You will know you’re there because it has the distinct sensation of something to gain and something to lose. Note that your ruling planet Venus is in Aquarius. That is a reminder to be yourself and not buckle under the pressure or low standards of any group in which you’re involved.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

Mars retrograde in your sign is about to take center stage. Mars represents a process that started long ago and over which you have little control; it seems to represent something that you must go through and experience at full intensity. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that would be the best course of action. Yet several factors describe the way you might be inclined to take this experience in an unconscious way, acting out the past, or that of your ancestors. For you, there are two keys to this astrology. One is to remain fully present in your experience of what is happening. Find people who are willing to help you stay grounded and give you honest feedback, and moreover, who are able to provide a sense of context. The other is to maintain your compassion at all times. The theme of Mars retrograde in Libra is a dangerously slippery form of inwardly directed anger. Venus, the actual planet that represents you, is placed in Pisces, where you are being invited to see your life from a whole other perspective. The time has arrived to devote yourself to healing as a full-time occupation. If you want to do your part in helping resolve the global crisis and guiding humanity through its raging adolescence, your own healing process is the place to begin — and now is the time.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

Mars stations retrograde in your birth sign this weekend. It will be retrograde exclusively in Libra through May 19. The last time this happened was 1982; the time before that was 1935. So Mars retrograde in Libra is fairly rare, though this one stands tall because it’s happening at the peak of the Uranus-Pluto square. If we think of Libra as the sign about the love of beauty and balance, this Mars retrograde is about as un-Libra as it gets. It will push every inner boundary, packed with an explosive charge of every imaginable passion, drawing energy from some unusual underground source. This is Libra more in its role of welding torch, and it grants you a gift that must be handled carefully and with precision. As the retrograde develops, you will discover how influential you are, and how carefully you must use that gift. While you need not learn that the hard way, that is, by damaging people and things you care about, you need to be vigilant. Pay attention as you do your part to be constructive, helpful and integral to the situations in which you participate. Remember, this is not about power. It’s about dharma: acting as if to hold the world together.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

Mars is about to station retrograde in your sign. That spans from March 1 to May 19. The retrograde process actually reaches back to early December, when Mars first entered Libra. So if you notice any shifts, changes or shakeups in the coming week or two, take the story back to late last year. The theme of this retrograde is profound self-discovery, though it may seem at first that others are the forum for what you learn, and you are the forum for their learning. That will work for a while, as you explore your inner dynamics within the context of a relationship. Yet as the retrograde progresses, you may feel the need to have certain experiences on your own. The forces involved are too powerful to cling to anyone or anything. If you feel a need, desire or obligation to maintain a connection or commitment, make sure you proceed in a way that is open and honest, and most of all, that works for you. If your personal needs require you to shift the pattern of relating, do so in a way that preserves trust and your options in the future. Said another way, you can live your life without burning your bridges — something you would come to regret. Your emotional involvement with someone may be intricate and delicate, and that calls for special handling, high awareness and always — always — remembering who you are.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

We live on a lonely planet — one inhabited by more than seven billion people. That being the case, the loneliness must be a product of consciousness, regulated by a diversity of internal factors. Most of those are emotional. One thing you’re in the process of doing is carving out more inner emotional space for yourself, which is closely related to dismantling the influences of early caregivers and family patterns that you know have locked you into a kind of crypt. You are, stone by stone, feeling by feeling, dismantling this inner environment. The thing to remember is how this is bigger than you. It’s about what was done to you, and the ways in which the distant past was imposed on you without your having a choice in the matter. Now you are discovering that you do have a choice, but that discovery is coming at a cost. The cost is going through the feelings, recognizing your situation and taking appropriate action.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

The current astrological news involves Mercury retrograde, which may be making it more challenging than usual to keep your composure and your focus. However, for Libra, the more compelling factor in your solar chart takes place on March 1 — Mars stations retrograde in your sign. Retrogrades of Mars are among the most palpable. They can put even confident and decisive people into a state of limbo, because Mars is all about going for what you want. When retrograde in your sign, Mars will have the effect of putting you into contact with the aspect of yourself who desires and who chooses. If there is a healing crisis associated with this, it’s along the lines of being honest with yourself about your desire. It’s also about maintaining a steady keel when you have reasons to doubt — that is, not allowing your doubts to take over your whole mind. The next three weeks of Mercury retrograde will be excellent practice for the real adventure.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

You’re not a child anymore — be glad of that. You are also larger than the maze of feelings that have dominated you for so long. It would be worth asking why you had to make the mistakes so often, so that you don’t have to make them again. Yet there really was only one error in judgment, which was doubting your right to exist as the person you are — not who anyone else would have you be. There is always another opportunity to make that mistake — or to choose differently. The new form it could take is reluctance to do what is right for you; or as reluctance to act on your feelings. You might assign that to an emotional obligation, however if you feel any sense of obligation or guilt, you are probably dealing with a hangover from someone who was determined to teach you that you were not really free. Any such teaching would be false, because such a thing cannot be determined by anyone but you.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

The past five weeks of Venus retrograde seem to have been designed to help you understand the impact of your family history, and your complex emotions. The two are related; partly why your emotions are so complex is because you filter them through so many past impressions and memories. Yet many of those are not your own; they are habits and values you picked up from various people who influenced you. Take the time to sort out what belongs to you and what does not. Once you claim what is your own and let go of what belongs to others, you will feel a lot less lost, and be able to call yourself more fully present. This does not necessarily involve severing ties to anyone, though at times that is necessary. But it will help you immensely to know when someone else’s emotions became a point of orientation for you more important than your own feelings, and to see the distortion that created. That may go in two directions at once — being overly self-centered at times, and not being able to find your center at others. Understanding why you are the way you are is a theme that persists through most of the year. You’re likely to continue your review of the past, which is for the sole purpose of helping you know yourself better. That, in turn, will help you have clearer, more trusting relationships.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

Surviving is a gift you were bestowed with long ago and have proven over and over again that you can make use of. Yet is human life about survival? It may be, in sub-Saharan Africa. It may be, when an earthquake hits China. But as people living in an advanced culture with many creative and economic opportunities, we need to do better, and you need to do better. I suggest you go on a hunt for where your ideas about life came from. I would propose that most of them are not really ideas — they are really emotions that pass for ideas, or emotions that you try to explain or deal with rationally. Please, stop explaining and start feeling. If you can do that for a while, you will start to feel like one person instead of one person cut into many parts.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be working out some deep insecurities, or grappling with self-doubt. Yet I would suggest that what’s really happening is that you’re letting go of some issue that’s been pestering you forever. This seems to involve whether you really need someone else to ‘make’ you feel safe and secure in the world, whether you can do it on your own, and what you need in order to do so. This is an excellent time to question the emotional influence that others have on you, or rather, that you seek and strive for. You need to know when you’re being overpowered, or giving up your power, so that you have a basis for choosing to do something else. This is likely to involve your family. Do they really help you feel safer on the planet? Do they encourage you to go beyond your self-doubts, or make you wonder when you’ll ever get around to getting over them?


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

Let this be the year you succeed at not making the same mistakes as in the past. Mistakes are excellent learning laboratories, though for that purpose, usually one or two tries is sufficient. This is your time to learn from past errors in judgment or less-than-careful decisions, whether they happened recently or in the distant past. Mars in your sign for most of the year will give you plenty of opportunities to review; so too will the retrograde of Venus that began recently. So much historical data may be bubbling to the surface that you may be overwhelmed. But it’s all going to boil down to one thing, which is how you make decisions. I am familiar with the special struggle that many born under your sign personally describe. It’s not that you don’t make up your mind; it’s about how you hesitate before doing so. That hesitation is different than considering the factors involved in a particular choice. These days, you’re likely to be pushed in some direction by circumstances or by someone close to you if you don’t choose a direction of your own. Though this may temporarily relieve the burden of making the decision, it doesn’t take away responsibility for the consequences. You know what is right for you. You always have and you always will. Trust that.

Virgo 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be in a titanic struggle with your own boundaries. It’s as if some force inside you is trying to break free of every inner constraint you’ve ever lived with, and some outer shell is trying to hold you together, fearing what might happen if you really let go. This is a head-trip. The thing you’re experiencing is a self-concept; an idea about who you are rather than the actual thing you truly are. These ideas can be powerful. We live in the age of self-identification; the whole “I identify as” trip is running at full throttle, and of course, there is an ocean of difference between self-concept and self. It may be an ocean that you’re trying to protect yourself from, because if you open up, you’re going to set sail on the vast sea of experience. This will indeed reveal that any narrow self-identity cannot withstand the uncontainable truth of who you are. If you’re tempted to cling, and notice that it hurts, then feel — and experience.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

If you’re on a sexual purity campaign, don’t be surprised if it backfires. You seem to be trying to contain an abundance of emotional energy and afraid you might lose control. The way to keep some influence over the situation is to be real with yourself, and vent some steam. You could probably do a lot more than that and feel even better. From one point of view, your solar chart reads as if you’re concerned some authority figure is looming over you and going to question why you’re feeling so much all the time, or why you want to do whatever it is that you want to do. You don’t have to explain that any more than a bird has to explain why it flies. And if you do feel as if you must rationalize your existence, otherwise be confronted by authority, this would be the perfect time to ask yourself why, or rather whether, that is even true.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

Listen to what your body is saying. Your body will reveal secrets about your past, if you will only listen. I suggest you ease back on sugar, caffeine and anything else that might alter your consciousness, at least over the next few days. This is for the express purpose of tuning into the messages that are profoundly important but also can be easily obscured. The thing you might have to offer in the equation is the willingness to experience some discomfort. You might also need to sort out the content of what is happening in a current relationship until you understand the subtext. And you will need to see beneath any feelings that you may have about your family, particularly your father’s side of the family. All of this will be worth it. It will be a small inconvenience to bear, on the way to making what could be the first of many discoveries that set you solidly on the healing path.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

What does it take to unravel conditioning, guilt and resistance? What does it take to be the person you are every minute of the day, with no pretense? Usually it takes a process. For some people there can be a breakthrough or sudden awakening, and ultimately no matter what the process or lead-in may be there is that moment of choice, of full awakening. Your chart suggests two parallel experiences, as if you’re digging a tunnel from two sides of the river. From one side of the river is a trip through your conditioning, which is resulting in heightened awareness of your environment. You may have some shocking insights as you take this journey, and you may figure out that your perception is mostly the result of past impressions. At times they may seem impossible to escape, but once you see them you’re most of the way there. From the other side of the river, you are determined to express yourself. This is the external side of the journey, where you are setting yourself free to say what you want to say and make what you want to make. No matter how you look at this experience, the ultimate point of arrival is the same thing: not being trapped in the past. To most, this seems like a pipe dream or an absurd notion. To you it’s a necessity.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be running circles in a small, dark space. There is a vast expanse just outside your door. Yet you have to step outside to see it, to feel and experience it. What you’re really doing is giving yourself a break from a particular mental thought pattern, which is also a change in environment. You can accomplish this most easily with a change in physical space, even if it’s a day trip or a few nights away. One method I use is that I have several work spaces, all equally functional. In weeks when I have 10 projects due, it helps to bounce around from space to space. Café-hopping can do the trick; there are many possibilities. The idea is to actually see and use the relationship between mental space and physical space. The constant change of perspectives will help you keep your ideas fresh and your mind interested in what you’re doing. Right now that is essential.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

I would love nothing more than to think the world is becoming more enlightened, but I have my doubts. What I do not doubt is that right now you are gaining insight into yourself. I also know that you’ve earned the knowledge that is coming to you, from you. The past few days in particular have been rich with discoveries about how you think and some about why you think that way. In particular, you may be seeing the power of what you can do when you understand the influence of your emotions on your mental processes, and when you take steps to discern the basic difference between those two orders of reality. Think of it this way: Emotions are something that are more likely to happen to you. Thought is something you fly like a glider. Your mind may be providing the atmospheric conditions that make flight possible, but you are guiding the craft.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

You may experience flashes of insight into aspects of yourself that are usually difficult to penetrate or even see. However, I suggest you not succumb to the temptation to go mental or spiritual on yourself, and get locked into your mind or concepts. What you are seeing and feeling is calling for a physical response, driven by passion and curiosity. It’s calling for an emotional response, driven by the desire to feel whatever it is you need to feel. There is a deep undercurrent of subverting guilt, propriety, purity and any other form of self-denial or self-repression. I am sure you know all of this. You can feel how deeply you are being called to allow yourself to be, to feel and to call out your own name to existence.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

Your chart strongly suggests that this is the time to practice speaking from your feelings. You have a lot of feelings to speak about, and you could just as easily, indeed more easily, retreat into silence. But that would only reinforce the illusion that you are in this all alone. And silence is a form of attempted control, and provides the conditions necessary for self-deception. The way to stay honest and in truth to remind yourself that you’re free is to share with others what you think and how you feel. You may have many reasons not to. I assure you there are several very good reasons to be bold and live as if your life depends on being true to your word about how you feel, especially when it counts the most.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

Maintain your clarity of mind. There are forces in motion that are way larger than you, and they seem to be in operation in all areas of your life. You are not going to control them, but there are more and less appropriate responses. The more appropriate responses all begin with applied intelligence. Rather than being about how smart you are, this is about what you do with your information and your observations. It’s about what information you use to inform the choices you make, and knowing when you must make those choices. I assure you there will be moments when a decision seems too difficult, without enough time to think about it carefully. That is why you must be aware of your environment, prepare in advance to the extent that you can, and most of all, know yourself. The sensation of time as pressure is something to consider. Rarely will any perceived shortage of time be as urgent as you think. What is vital is that you set a structure for time, and work with a plan at all times. Set a deadline for everything. If you have to make a decision, make an inquiry and determine how much time you reasonably have. What feels like you have an hour may turn out to be two days. What feels like forever may be one week. Clarity of mind translates to time is of the essence.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

As usual, the question of the day comes down to whether your love for yourself is conditional or not. There seems to be some new question brewing along these lines, though you may not have given it a name. Indeed you may have called it every other thing. It seems like you have every reason to approve of yourself, what you have to offer and the progress you’ve made — and you have one little gripe, grudge or disagreement with yourself. One danger you face is projecting that inner discord into a relationship. That would seem to take you off the hook, but really it would complicate matters significantly and cloud the simple fact that this all comes down to how you feel about yourself. If you are in some way disapproving, you might want to pause and ask why — and really get to the bottom of things. The chances are it was long ago, far away, and lurking around as if it still matters.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

Defiance is not a substitute for personality, nor could you consider it a sign of strong character. It might feel that way, and if it does, you must raise your standards. You are in one of the most emotionally reactive moments in years, a strong comment given how much you’ve been through in that time, and how provoked you’ve so often been. Mindfulness is therefore essential. Once you are in reaction, you cannot impose mindfulness on yourself; by that point it’s possible only to vent (which is not another word for ‘process’). You need to maintain your awareness of your mental and emotional state long before you get there, and I would count resistance, stubbornness or defiance as warning signs that something deeper is going on. In a world where everything and everyone seems to be vying for your attention, it’s not easy to take total responsibility for what you feel, though that would be a helpful intention to set.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

Mercury stations retrograde in the angle of your chart associated with written communication — and with gossip. I suggest you stick to writing, at least most of the time, since there is a delay interposed, and you can edit it. Any time you talk about anyone else, you’re right on the verge of what can potentially harm your reputation or that of someone else. Therefore, be careful what you say. If you’re going to say (or publish) anything, make it positive and as short as possible. The deck is stacked in such a way that what you say now will have unexpected influence later on. Therefore, you might want to think strategically, using your power of speech and written communication to lay the seeds of what you want to grow. As the Grateful Dead said, “If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind.” If you plant love, trust and respect, you will harvest the fruits of intimacy.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

You may be more emotional than you’ve felt in years, wondering just how everything you were sure you had worked out is suddenly reminding you of its existence. While it’s true that some of what you’re feeling is a calling to deeper healing, other experiences are more like reviewing an extremely vivid book of the history of your life. Even though you have made immense progress resolving the past, and doing what my Virgo friend Paloma calls “cleaning the tree” of your family of origin, it’s necessary that you stay close to your roots. This is because your roots are your connection to the Earth, and therefore your connection to your own strength. But as you know, this connection takes you deeper than any ordinary concept of the ground, and shifts your awareness to what you might call the cosmic ground of existence. All of your experiences have served to deepen your ability to feel, and to make contact with what many other people would consider to be entirely extraordinary. Therefore, treat all of your experiences and all of your inner feedback with respect and even a bit of reverence. As this phase of your journey continues, it will grow deeper the more conscious you are. It’s heading very steadily in the direction of a discovery of yourself, about the true nature of the past, and your deepest origins.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

Use your power of attraction; use it consciously, though at the moment this is your greatest advantage. If you usually try to maintain a neutral appearance or drop below the radar, I suggest you polarize consciously in the direction of beauty and allow yourself to be more visible than usual. You know that your ongoing self-critique is no longer working for you, if it ever did. This may be a difficult habit to break, however, you’re likely to figure out that it’s more toxic now than ever. In the past you could exist more or less peacefully in a state of not wholly approving of who you are. However, the circumstances of your life and of your evolutionary journey are such that you can no longer do this. Your entire purpose must surround your quest for self-respect, which you then extend into relationship to others, in the spirit of recognizing some aspect of yourself in everyone.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

You must be cautious of the self-critical qualities of Virgo for the next few days, lest they undo something that could work out brilliantly for you. If you find you’re taking yourself apart in any way that feels unpleasant or like it’s the return of an old habit, pause and shift the narrative. The problem with self-criticism is that you can pawn it off on yourself as some form of improvement. However, that is rarely true, and when it is true, it will last for about five minutes maximum before you take constructive action or engage in a healing process. But there is something suspect about any self-judgment that comes up for you now, especially if it arrives in the form of needing to be more spiritual, or needing to focus more. The real themes of your chart are keeping an open mind and encouraging forgiveness, of yourself and of others. This is a fine line to walk — keep your eyes and ears open.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Imagine a world with no concept of ‘other’ or of opposition, a world where you are in harmony with everyone and everything around you. This may be difficult to conjure up on a planet where just about everyone and everything seems to be in some state of competition or conflict with something else, though I invite you to use your imagination. How might that feel? Now consider the possibility that each day that you live is a step that you take on the way to getting to that place of integration. In truth such a state of existence begins within your mind, not as something you impose on yourself but rather as something you observe about yourself. What’s beautiful about the next few days is an opening through which a rather unusual light shines, and you get to see yourself reflected in it.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

At this time in your life, some of the most important soul-level work you can do involves sexual healing. This process has been in progress for about six years, since Pluto entered Capricorn, your solar 5th house. Pluto describes what one author famously called “the evolutionary journey of the soul.” Normally the 5th is the place we seek fun and pleasure, though you have Capricorn in this house, which can act as a reservoir of past conditioning. It can store up shame and guilt from past generations. And Pluto is now opening the barriers that contain those fossilized emotions, all in the interest of setting you free. As this happens, it’s essential that you remain aware of what your body is feeling. You may be tempted to take the process to the mental or abstract level. You may be tempted to go to the astral or fantasy level. I suggest you stay grounded, as in bare feet on the ground. It’s essential that you take risks, especially some that you’re the most averse to. More significantly, it’s time to go past the expectations of purity that you think others have of you. Most of these are in your own mind, and they tend to create aversions to both risks and to pleasure. To open pathways to relating, creating and feeling good about yourself, this is where to invest.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

Self-critique is not the answer to everything, nor is endless mental rationalization. You are entitled to feel how you feel. It’s neither right nor wrong. If you don’t like how you feel, you have two choices — one is to understand the cause and do something about it; another is to change your mind. You can do the second without doing the first, though I would say that’s unlikely. In the end, you will just have to change your mind. The problem with the analysis of cause is that it can be biased, and in this scenario, the bias is likely to be against you. The thing to remember is that you were not born in a vacuum. You entered the world through multiple strands of DNA, into one or more pre-existing family situations, and with your own personal karma. While it’s true that things were done to you, in order to get to the next level, you will have to go beyond blame. Accountability is another thing, and that requires documentation, multiple viewpoints and a balanced analysis. Mostly it involves owning what is yours, and letting go of what is not yours.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be straining with the need to express yourself in some way, though for whatever reason you cannot bring yourself to do it. I think you know exactly what you want to say, and you may even be ready to commit to your point of view. But something seems to be stopping you. What you’re likely to be feeling is a blockage that’s been there for a while, but now it’s being matched by a new depth of intensity and urgency, most of which is emotional. What you are yearning for is expression on the level of visceral need rather than on the level of intellect. Remember that when you make the choice to express yourself — it’s not necessary to prove anything, or to be right, or even to be precise. It’s only necessary to ‘go there’ — to go where you want and need to go, and to get your feelings out and onto paper as best you can. The temptation to analyze, dissect and disprove may be strong. Be stronger.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

Are you searching for The One? For the ideal counterpart or reflection of yourself who would complete your life that everyone would approve of, which would lead to perfect happiness? Oh good! I didn’t think so. But you may be feeling some social pressure to fulfill that script. You may be seeing many other people around you play out this particular drama, and you certainly know the perils. I would mention that many seemingly lesser aspects of the game amount to the same thing — the search for the one boyfriend or girlfriend instead of a friend or lover, to give one example. I believe and have observed that people can find unusual compatibility, though the search for The One is much different from this. Your relationship life is potentially far more colorful and more fun than anybody’s prewritten script, anything that your friends would recognize, anything that your friends would approve of.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Use your imagination — for everything. It is a powerful resource and it’s especially rich right now. Your tendency at the moment might be to think in ways that are more narrow, more connected to what has gone wrong in the past, or to consider your options with a hyper-vigilant sense of responsibility. I suggest you go in the opposite direction — wide open, considering the possibilities, no matter how risky or dangerous they may seem. Think way outside your normal sense of scale. If you consider a long trip 100 miles, multiply that to 1,000 miles. If you are considering renting an apartment, consider a house and imagine what you might do with the extra space. Apply this to your whole life — what you do, what you want to create, and most of all, who you are. You are much bigger than you think.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

You may be wondering why relationships have to be so challenging. You may even be wondering if they need to be that way. I think that mostly this involves the various rules and definitions we put around connecting with others, which includes various regulations around sex. There’s also a kind of seeming ‘unconsciousness’ hanging like a fog over the whole region of life where people connect emotionally and sexually. It is this slumber from which humanity needs to awaken. Mixed in with the fog are all kinds of moralism, judgment, expectations and unresolved baggage from the past, and from past generations. By this measure, waking up is not especially appealing, as these are the things to which one usually awakens. On a good day there is also love, passion and desire, and though these would rightfully be the incentive to connect, they’re not exactly in style right now. They involve something real, and tactile, and where there is the risk of not being in control all the time. And if there is one thing our society is addicted to at this moment, it’s control. Where does this leave you? I would say it leaves you free to evaluate what you want, which I think is going to take some honesty and a risk. You might also evaluate what you are wholly willing to offer — which will definitely take some honesty and a risk.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

Notice who you meet or even randomly encounter over the next few days, and treat everyone with fully conscious respect. Eliminate any standoffish attitude you might have, burn off any fog that might sometimes surround you, and focus on who you are speaking with. Treat everyone with care and compassion, and lean in with an ear for how you might help. Go out of your way to treat everyone the same way, which means with the utmost attentiveness. It is an unfortunate habit of current society to take an uppity approach with people based on the flimsiest excuse, with no excuse or out of habit. It seems too much to ask for people to present themselves to the world with even a modicum of humility, as if to do so is to lower oneself in some way. This is a profound misunderstanding, and it’s one that you don’t want and cannot afford right now.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

In all matters professional, keep your strategy in mind. You are likely to have your goal in mind, and there is a chance you will put your goal above everything, which will not get you any closer to that goal. Part of your strategy must involve an extreme helping of diplomacy. You must present the right demeanor or posture to the appropriate person, and be aware at all times to whom you are speaking. Your solar chart cautions that you could be perceived as authoritarian or driven by jealousy — which are unlikely to be true (however, I suggest you do a careful check-in with yourself on these matters, since it is possible). I suggest you strive for consistency with people, which is a sign of maturity and your respect for them. And be cautious at the least thought that others do not care about you, or don’t respect you. That is a trap, and it’s unlikely to be true.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

Mercury, the planet associated with your sign, has returned to direct motion in the angle of your chart associated with your professional activities and reputation. You may discover that a long series of developments that made no sense, or that seemed to work to your disadvantage, have put you in a position of distinct advantage. You need to think in a clear strategy. Your plan cannot merely be about how to achieve your goals. That would be easy enough. Rather, you need to achieve your goals and make sure that you don’t do any damage; that you work with others and build relationships for the future; that you learn and know what you are learning. What you’re experiencing is on one level a political exercise. It’s about fostering mutual cooperation. The person who brings this idea into the equation is the one who is helping pioneer a future where we go beyond winners and losers, and where the game is about everyone coming out ahead.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

You’ve said many times that you want people around you who are more sensitive and whose feelings are closer to the surface. Yet how do you respond when you actually encounter them? I suggest you observe yourself carefully over the next few weeks and see what you notice. You have a few choices for what to do. One is to go into paralysis mode — to freeze up, to put on a facade, to go passive. Another is to push them away. Neither of these is likely to be what you want, but they’re fairly typical responses to those who in some way ‘threaten’ us by being willing to feel. Another is to engage with them directly, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you. In this context, uncomfortable equates to vulnerable. I am describing one of the core crises of our culture, one that is largely being driven by our relationship to technology. In the world as it is, it’s easy to avoid just about anything, it’s easy to have the feeling of control (for example, by ignoring someone’s communications) and therefore easy to weave yourself into a state of isolation. In this sense, obsession with text messages is not so different from obsession with porn. One of the prices you pay to get out of this is allowing authentic contact to happen when you have the opportunity, which always happens today, not tomorrow.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

Inch by inch you are treading in the direction of some unusual success. This could take many forms, but the most beautiful form it will take is accountability. Grab that stuff with both hands till you’ve fully embraced the idea that you are entirely and gloriously responsible for your own life. Celebrate the power of decision, even if it’s between corn-syrup Coke or Mexican Coke with actual sugar. Choose consciously everything you do, whether you think it’s good for you or not. Practice being the master of your destiny — for several days on end. Get into the feeling. Remind yourself when you wake up every morning, no matter how you may feel. Remember especially when you wake up on the morning of the 22nd.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

Success works in strange ways. Be open to unusual events that work to your advantage, even things others would prefer to avoid. That might include anything from your own insecurities to a flight being diverted and ending up in a city you didn’t plan to be in. You might not get along with someone and notice how that helps you out. You might meet your boss’s boss’s boss one day and discover that you hit it off. Without veering an inch toward superstition, you can consider everything you see and hear to be a potential message from the goddesses and gods, however you may think of them — preferably as your close allies and mentors. In that case you can welcome any sources of inbound information, and you can trust your perception and what you say about what you notice. The more candid you are, the more you will see who is really on your wavelength.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

In all matters requiring leadership or your relationship to authority figures, you’ll need to proceed gently, seeking clarity at every turn. I suggest however that this be emotional clarity, which is to say, tap into where people are coming from on the level of feeling first, make contact with that and then figure out where they are coming from intellectually. This order of flow is from the easier mode to the more complex one, though connecting on the emotional level will make everything easier to see. You may feel a strong temptation to do otherwise, especially since others may be expressing an argumentative tone or quibbling over facts that don’t seem to matter much; that is exactly what I suggest you not get lost in. I also suggest you sidestep any direct use of power and not give any specific instructions until you have more information than you have today. The nice thing is you can afford to be empathic, and to honor people for who they are, even if they don’t necessarily notice you.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

If you have to solve the same problem repeatedly, you’re not really solving it. If you figure something out and come up with the same solution again and again, you’re probably not taking action. This week’s New Moon in your 10th house of achievement is an invitation to do things differently. That means setting new goals, and approaching them with different strategies. The upcoming Mercury retrograde is calling on you to take a more intuitive approach to what you do, rather than a logical one. I don’t mean an emotional approach, though at this point there is no denying what you’re feeling; there is no denying what you want or what you need. Intuition is gentler, quieter and contains more specific information than most other forms of inner contact. It may contain a caution but rarely contains actual fear. So if you’re feeling fear, I suggest you look into what that’s about. Your solar chart suggests you ask yourself about the fear of going deep. Since you want to go deep, you’ll have to confront that issue.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

Examine carefully your values as they relate to the spiritual and financial aspects of your life. They’re not really separate; indeed, they are inseparable except for an idea, and that is the idea I’m suggesting you look at. This is not an easy idea to translate out of the charts, but here’s my best throw. It’s not necessary to give up success to have some form of spiritual growth, or not in the way that you think. Western religion is all over the map on this one — some say that wealth is a reward from God, some say that one must give it all up to get any respect from God. But what does God have to do with it? Who is this mysterious authority figure making bold, sweeping and seemingly contradictory statements about what must be so? And why do they apply to you? I suggest you examine carefully the concept of sacrifice — that which you must give up in order to make something sacred, or to win the favor of God. Your charts in my reading reveal a passionate drive for something that includes devotion, creative passion, a visionary quality and the potential for monetary success. There are, as you well know, two ways to read nearly anything; of the two this is the creative, life-affirming one, the one where you come out the winner, in harmony with existence.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

Mars stations direct in your money house (Libra) just as the Sun enters your career house (Gemini). This is a great combination. Mars is the money planet — making money takes motivation. The Sun is a fine indicator of work and reputation. Put the two together and you can allow success and financial motivation to drive your desire to succeed, and allow success to drive your financial goals. This may all seem too worldly and not so spiritual, though I would define ‘spiritual’ as being responsive to the conditions of your environment and your current stage of growth. The past six months have come and gone with all kinds of questions about money, and the best direction you want to be taking. It looks like the next week will provide you with significant information, though I think your deepest discovery will be about who or what is the most important to you, and what you want to do about that fact.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

This is a blessed moment for you. You may not fully trust that unless you try it out, and experiment with your ideas in a way that you have not done before. This looks and feels like a continually moving impulse, a little different every day and maybe every hour. It’s essential that you stretch your vision. If you perceive a need, expand your concept of what is possible to fulfill it. If you have something to say, be bold enough to say it. Eventually you’ll reach that angle where you know it’s time to take authority over something larger than just your life. Along the way, there’s a fine line between what serves you and what serves others; ideally there is a synergy between the two, where what is profitable for you immediately expands to the benefit of those you care about the most. It’s the hot fulcrum where selflove meets love. The beauty of this kind of symbiotic (plus-plus) relationship is that there is always enough.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

Managing your finances, and working your way to true prosperity, is a matter of balance. Many different elements are involved, similar to the ‘credits’ and ‘debits’ lines on a bank statement, but more complex. There is the equation where time must balance out with money; making more money often means investing more time. There is the time and energy equation; sometimes you have time, but you have to manage your energy. Perhaps the most significant one is, how do you go beyond a linear model, that is, a dollar-per-hour model of supporting yourself? That’s a way of asking, what is the value on your intelligence? In order to support yourself on your ideas, you must understand the value of your ideas to others — and then connect with those other people. These are some of the themes that are described by Mars stationing direct in a few weeks, and working them out all month long will help you set yourself on a productive path. One more thing: there is no substitute for commitment; there is no alternative to applying yourself fully to what you want to do. Often where there is a question of money or of self-support, commitment is the heart of the matter. The dedication you must offer can seem like it requires a sacrifice. Yet in truth, what you offer must be wholly voluntary.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

The question, “What next?” is second only in importance to “What now?” One depends on the other. You get to the next place from where you are now. So start by evaluating your exact location and status at this moment. Then figure out how you got here. I suggest you use logical tools such as a chronology, a list of your prior goals, a list of your current goals, and who you are trying to please. It will be extremely helpful if you do an analysis of your financial situation, and study your assets and your liabilities. Note exactly where your money comes from and where it goes. Figure out what you could or would do if you had more money or less debt. I can give you a little vignette that may help make the point. When people say to me, “I would go to therapy but I can’t afford it,” I suggest that they go to the first session and say they want to work on why they don’t have enough money for the things they need. If this moment in your life comes with one turning point, it’s about taking a no-bullshit approach to your finances.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

Observe life with the perspective of a playwright or filmmaker — see the details, see the drama, let your mind engage the beauty and the weirdness — but don’t get wrapped up in it emotionally. Everything that happens to you is creative fodder, the more so if you invite yourself to play with the world. And play is the word, the operative concept and it seems the thing you want to do the very most. Yet this is creative play, and rather than being an idle pastime, it’s the kind of play that influences you and sparks your imagination. As you get drawn in, you may find yourself having an idea that has some real influence, some actual mojo behind it. If you pursue this idea it’s likely to take you on something of a ride, by which I mean an adventure. By the way, your chart is strongly suggesting it’s also a sexual adventure of some kind, and if that is true, I just have two suggestions: have fun, and make sure you take the necessary steps to keep your options open. There will be time for experiences that create lifelong bonds, but so far as I can see, this is not one of them.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

Be mindful of the emotional reactions of others. Notice when you’re getting drawn in. This is easier said than done, particularly with the transits that your solar chart is taking right now. It’s difficult enough to maintain one’s individuality under the best circumstances in our society, when you’re confronted daily by so many forces telling you who and what you’re supposed to be. Your current charts have a potent emphasis on the emotional dimension of relationships. It’s not easy to distinguish your feelings from those of someone close to you. At the same time, there seems to be someone compelling in your environment with whom you identify closely — and that’s a temptation to ‘lose’ yourself in them. One solution to this puzzle is maintaining a high level of self-awareness and making decisions in every moment. Another potential is getting drawn all the way into the scenario, finding your way out, and evaluating what you learn. Question: how much time do you have on your hands?


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

It’s necessary that you keep a handle on who you are, what you want and what you’re doing. I say this because of the vast amount of activity in your relationship angle (Aquarius, Pisces and Aries) and so little happening in your own sign. Your ruling planet Mercury is deep in the mix of your relationship stuff, which may be describing a real challenge finding yourself in the midst of lots of movement and excitement in your environment. The planets are describing no specific or direct way to do this, that I can see. The best idea I can offer you is to know what you think, despite what anyone else might think. It would be supremely easy to lose yourself in the viewpoint of others, so if you are aware of and strive to focus your own point of view, you have the easiest possible means of tracking who you are. So yes: the path to individuality starts with knowing your own opinion. (It always did.)


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

Events of this month may seem like a huge spectacle, something that you’re destined to witness rather than participate in. It’s also possible that what you see will seem so close to home that you will fail to notice what is happening outside your immediate environment. I suggest you go beyond what seems to be directly personal and reach with your awareness into wider circles. Make contact with those who have a global perspective, those who are not caught in their own little reality bubble — that will help take you beyond the limits of your own perception. You may be feeling a bit boxed into your reality, as if you’re reluctant to change your mind about something. Yet everything you’re seeing, hearing and experiencing is howling and cheering for you to do precisely that, to get in tune with the moment. If you are feeling like “I don’t want to change my own mind; I would rather have it changed for me,” that is what will happen, but it won’t be the most pleasant or creative way to experience the current astrology. The more creative approach will include allowing others to gently lead you beyond what is familiar. Some of those experiences will come through your relationships and some will come as a result of them. Still, the idea is the same — embrace others who are willing to take you beyond yourself.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

This weekend’s New Moon in your opposite sign Pisces shows the clouds parting, the dimensions opening and you having the ability to peer into the mysterious heart of your relationships. You may be amazed to find out how much your relationships have everything to do with you; you are the one thing all your personal associations have in common. Two factors emerge with this New Moon: Mercury is pointing to the need for ongoing commitment to healing. Mercury in Aquarius is a reminder how influential groups are — you can surrender your power to them, or you can take leadership in them. Stationing direct on Friday, Mercury reveals the role of self-esteem in how you relate to others. When you feel good about yourself, you will set an energy pattern for others to express their love and for you to receive it. When you doubt yourself, you will doubt that anyone cares, which is a good way to shut out love. If there is a core lesson in the coming months, it’s about not projecting your need for self-esteem into your need to be ‘loved back’ by another person. Start with loving yourself and you will notice all the love that is already, as in currently, coming your way.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

You must focus on the question of what is real and what is not. This will not be as obvious as it seems. I suggest you not assume you have this one right, no matter how confident you feel. Indeed I suggest you not assume anything, and make careful note of the facts of the situation. Opinions can be deceiving, and it’s essential to recognize them when you experience them. Facts are statements that can be documented and proven true or false. They are not about an emotional rationale or persuasive feeling; whether a fact stands up comes down to the data that supports it, preferably collected over time. The first area of your life to go over carefully is your relationships with loved ones, friends and partners. Do you have any outstanding commitments to them? Is there anything that got lost in the shuffle of the past couple of busy months? Is there anything you need to clear up? If you have made yourself invisible or have gone below the radar, if you’ve left facts out of the story or are avoiding anyone, now is the time to engage with them in a meaningful way. As you do this review, I suggest you consider the way in which your self-esteem may be influencing you. Consider how you act toward others when you’re feeling good about yourself and when you’re not. Your observations may surprise you.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

You may feel like you’re under some pressure that you don’t understand and cannot identify the source of. This may be showing up as you feeling like you have more problems than you’ll ever be able to solve. I suggest you avoid ‘fix it’ mode, whatever form that may take. The thing to do first is to observe, and the thing to observe first is your mind and its patterns and thought forms. This is the origin of the situation. You are in one of those spaces where your thoughts are creating what seems to be your reality. This is often the case, though it’s not usually as obvious as it is now. Consider yourself on an expedition to find some deception that you were pressured into believing as a child, or that was given to you as an unbending truth. Once you get to that core false idea, you will be able to see how influential it is — and then make a decision what to do about that.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

You will need to play it cool with a partner, and not allow yourself to get caught in an emotional current that may have nothing to do with you. The question seems to be whether and how much you’re willing to be part of someone else’s delusion. You may have a clue that this is what’s going on, though till now you have not been able to do much about it. As the next few weeks progress, it will gradually become clearer what has been happening. The biggest trap remains trying to fix someone, or persuade them to your point of view. They will either come around to reality or not — the more vital matter for you is your own commitment to reality. At a certain point, logic and your own commitment to your healing will take over. You have been firm about this for a while; you get how important it is. Remind yourself again.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

You currently have some of the most interesting sex transits I’ve seen in a while. Here’s how it looks to me: The hot-spot is self-focus — that of you or whomever you’re interested in. Many experience this but few will say much about it. Part of our culture’s obsession with relationship is a way of making narcissism acceptable and cool. It’s culturally acceptable to express it through another person. In reality we are all in relationship to one another’s self-love (or less savory feelings directed toward oneself). How the partners feel about themselves, rather than about one another, sets the tone of the relationship more than anything, in my view. And this is what you are free to explore, in an unusually delightful way. This would go from the dark to the light, not just the feelings you say are ‘good’. Another way to read this chart is as the bold message to indulge in guilty pleasures. And I’m not talking about Fettuccine Alfredo.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

If you’re hesitating about a relationship commitment, I would remind you that there is no rush. You may sense that you’re heading for deep water, or like you’re gradually being drawn into a situation that you don’t fully understand. When you are ready, this may be fully appropriate. Yet if you’re uncertain of yourself, slow down and observe your environment. The first thing to listen to is your intuition. If you suspect that you’re not being given full information, or if you have a hunch that you’re in any way being deceived, then pause and begin to look more deeply into the facts. You don’t need to do this in an accusatory way, but rather in a way that seeks grounding in objective information. Consciously seek the truth, and make sure that you actually understand what you learn. Address any denial factor that may be present; be mindful of what you ‘don’t want to know’ or ‘refuse to believe’. This process will take a bit of scrupulous honesty with yourself, though there may be clues that get you closer to the heart of the matter. I suggest you investigate with extra care any situation involving alcohol, or the influence of mood-altering drugs, be they prescription or otherwise. The question to ask is: how is this influencing your relationship to reality? How is it influencing intimacy? You want to know.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

The continuing adventure of your life is about to chill a bit, but before that happens you’ll likely start to feel like you have more energy to meet the many challenges you face. But the greatest virtue you could hope for now is just simply patience because it’s going to take a little while for things to work out. You would do well to disconnect from what seems like the state of perpetual flux of one particular person or situation. Remember that no one can enter into a clear agreement unless they know where they stand and that, if it’s not obvious, is the root of the problem. But meanwhile don’t be surprised if your own position starts to squirm. Everything will squirm around right eventually.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

Over the next few days you will have a series of opportunities to assert your leadership and your intelligence, though the most significant thing you’ll be tapping into is your creativity. Yet the true artistry of the moment is taking an inspiration and conveying it into something practical and immediate, designed to address a current problem. I’m not talking about art for art’s sake, but rather the use of innovation for the purpose of getting something done, solving a problem or initiating a discussion. You may find yourself in the role of facilitator, and if you can focus the energy of a group, you will find that you solve the problem a lot more quickly. But you’re the one who will seed the group with the idea that it will grow and crystallize. Don’t wait for it to come from someone else. At the moment, you’re the one with the fire in your mind.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

There is no question that relationships remain the focal point of your life this year, though the theme brings a deeper focus on sexuality. I would describe this as seeking a purpose rather than treating it as something that’s just there, or that can be taken for granted. Most people don’t consider the notion of existing with a sexual purpose, though they also don’t consider how disorienting the lack of one can be, and how it leads directly to giving away one’s power. You will begin to make discoveries the moment you make the commitment to doing so, and harness your creativity and life-force energy as you make contact with how real and how vital these themes are for you. The connection point to your relational experiences may seem intuitive or obvious, though it’s worth stating. What is healing and empowering to you will either strengthen the people in your life, or have a way of repelling them. You’ve needed to overcome the fear of that particular effect for a while; now you’ve reached the point where you must be in harmony with the people with whom you’re intimate, because you are now capable of embracing them more deeply than ever. To do this safely and honestly, having a sense of purpose, and sharing it openly, is essential.

Leo 2014

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, #1029 | By Eric Francis

You may feel like you have to hold up the sky in a partnership or marriage. Your role is indeed integral to the situation, though leave the work of supporting heaven to the gods. You have plenty of ordinary human work to get done, though you would benefit by applying various techniques of coordination, cooperation and delegation. Yet you need to be the organizing principle, supplying the core intelligence that will get the job done. Think of the delegation of authority as something you give to someone, and then take back when the task is complete. As long as the task is delegated and not complete, you’re still on the hook. Hence follow-through is essential to that ‘core intelligence’ role. So too is structure, and the conscious use of time. Just don’t make the error of feeling like you’re in this alone. There is plenty of support around you; you just need to ask.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014, #1028 | By Eric Francis

Once you contact the creative force within you, you won’t be able to stop it. You might be inclined to take other approaches to the current task at hand — such as labor, toil, effort, time applied to the situation and old-fashioned thoroughness, which all have their moments. Currently though, the force to be reckoned with is the power of an idea, indeed of many ideas. Take up the motto that there is a creative solution to everything. To use this method takes awareness, and a constant dialog with yourself about what you are doing, and why, and the nature of your reality. It requires seeing everything as a new possibility, all the time. That takes more discipline than doing anything the same way every time. Soon enough you will need to develop and apply the ideas that you’re having, and as the planets move over the next few weeks that will develop naturally. Just keep that inner dialog going.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, #1027 | By Eric Francis

Pride is the last feeling that you want to stoke right now. There are others that will work much better — like cooperation. I was going to say “group integration” but that’s a term better used in the Aquarius horoscope. This astrology is coming from Aquarius by the way — in the form of Mars entering your opposite sign. As for pride, I know the temptation may be there, though it will come off to others as confrontational, and that’s unlikely to be what you want to do. At the same time, you may be noticing that others are asserting themselves to you, that is, asserting their will and their ideas. The key is to meet them without resistance. Imagine the encounter as more like dancing and less like wrestling. When dancing you have to apply some strength and firmness and yet be flexible and flow. Then imagine a group of people doing this dance, without choreography — just music. Listen for the music.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2014, #1026 | By Eric Francis

Get ready for an adventure — artistic, creative, erotic, childish, challenging, risky — and remember to pace yourself. You can be as bold an adventurer as you want, as long as you remember to sleep at night and eat real food. I know that what often seems like the most fun involves being up 24 hours a day, neglecting one’s health and otherwise going over the deep end. You may be inclined to do that, though I am looking ahead to the charts after you come back down to the ground, and they are suggesting a conscious approach to whatever bold thing you do. In essence I am saying to take a balanced approach when you will have lots of opportunities not to do that. Perhaps as encouragement I can offer the idea that you will go deeper, learn more and get more accomplished if you do the food/water/sleep thing than if you don’t. The kinds of edgy adventures, experiments and thought excursions indicated by your charts will benefit from presence of mind. Much of what you learn will come across in subtle ways, in hints and in cues. Plus, in anything risky there is at least some potential danger, and the way to mitigate that is to be present in your own mind and body. That said, your astrology really is calling for a bold and fearless approach to it all.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, #1025 | By Eric Francis

Right now it’s easier to work out any emotional blocks or tension through creative activities than it is through other forms of ‘sorting yourself out’ or ‘getting to the bottom of things’. You may think this is cheating — painting your troubles away, or working it out on drums, or maybe even in bed. Well, on the art studio couch would be better. Art serves a purpose to humanity, and it’s not a luxury. It’s an absolute, bottom-line psychic necessity, and by the way it’s entirely unrelated to how creative you supposedly are or are not. The blank canvas or page, the silent space into which you can make sound, represent a more than symbolic encounter with total potential when you allow yourself a moment of anything at all being possible. Then you dare to do something, anything. The result is an effect that can soak through your entire being and inform every aspect of who you are.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014, #1024 | By Eric Francis

Recent events have compelled you to consider what you really mean when you say words like ‘safe’, ‘secure’, and ‘confident’. Indeed you have had the opportunity to question the very ground you walk on; the ground on which your house is built. This may not have been easy but it will have positive results. One of them is the reminder that there are certain things you need to take less seriously, and certain other things you need to take more seriously. If you are going through a sorting-out process, that would be right on time with your astrology. This will naturally extend to all matters of family and may take you on an unusual journey into your tribal and genetic lineage. There are things you can learn now that have never been available before, and may never be available again. Please treat this moment as what it is: one of a kind.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, #1023 | By Eric Francis

Clearly you must take charge, which means mustering your confidence and making intelligent decisions. But it also means coming from a place of oversight — a place with a view, where you can take in the whole scene, and also consider what is going on under the ground. Now and for the foreseeable future, you will need to have this perspective, which translates to the ability to see into the distance and to pay attention to what you observe. It will then be necessary to communicate what you know to others, particularly under the influence of astrology that may have you inclined to keep secrets or at least keep quiet. From many standpoints this would be unadvisable. Your position is specifically that of making sure key people know what you know, and making sure they understand your interpretation of circumstances and events. Think that through carefully.


Inner Space Monthly Horoscope for November, 2014, #1022 By Eric Francis

What is it that creates confidence? Some people are born with it; but for most people, it’s cultivated through experience. If you were to say to a young person, all the things you would prefer to avoid are the ones that will give you the most confidence, that might not sound so appealing. I am here to tell you that you’ve already built up that particular strength, and any challenges you might experience over the next month or so are things you’ve already been through in some form. As such you can draw on your wisdom and strength and come out feeling like you are indeed strong and wise. Note that when authentic, mixed with that will often be a touch of insecurity, which is designed to keep you on your toes.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November 2014, #1021 | By Eric Francis

It’s not as complicated as it seems. It will be, if you try to analyze your emotions, and re-analyze them, and expect everything to add up to the same thing every time. To me, your solar chart says the place to start is to set limits, including limits on yourself. If you feel any competitive or jealous vibes, that is the place to start. If you feel resentful that you cannot express some deeply held need or even a basic feeling, that’s the place to set a limit, in the form of knowing that such cannot persist. If there is a need for leadership in your environment, everyone must play their role in a cooperative way. The challenge of your astrology seems to be finding a balance between being the center of your own world, and being part of the wider world. That balancing point involves being clear what you have to give. You are in an excellent position to offer support and affirmation, even though it’s clear that you are facing certain distinct emotional challenges. Yet as you acknowledge and work out these matters, you must stay a few levels above them, and a few steps ahead of them. Your planning must involve your probable emotional and physical state if certain conditions emerge, and include a plan to avoid those conditions. Be clear, especially with yourself. Be professional, including and especially in your own home.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, #1020 | By Eric Francis

Be clear in what you communicate. That means read what you write before you send it, and consider what you say before you say it. The planetary setup suggests that small misunderstandings could get blown out of proportion. When you’re evaluating what you are relating to others, remember the idea of evil genius Frank Luntz: It’s not what you say, it’s what other people hear. That means consider and listen for potential interpretations of your message other than what you intend, and account for them. Understand what biases people have, and more than anything tune into where they are coming from emotionally. If you do, it will be easy to see that you must tailor your message not so much for your audience but rather for the environment that surrounds them. We live in tense times, and this is a moment of especially high anxiety. Be soothing, and work consciously to solve problems.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, #1019 | By Eric Francis

Learn to speak clearly in language that expresses your emotional needs and you will find that people treat you more fairly. This may be a setup, stacking the deck in your own favor. It may also bring on a shift of perspective. If you are feeling like someone is out to cheat you, cheat on you or take something from you, step back and slow down. You may be looking right at someone’s supposed motives, though if they seem sinister or complicated, consider that there is a simpler way to solve the puzzle. Ask yourself one question — where does accountability fit the picture? For yourself first, and for them second? By accountability I don’t mean blame, I mean individuals willing to take responsibility for what is so, and having the strength to make necessary adjustments. This is a two-part process.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, #1018 | By Eric Francis

Now is the time to think about your long-term plans — from a high perspective that allows you to see for miles. For as bold as you are, you can be a bit near-sighted, and what you need now is a point of view that allows you to consider some possibilities that you’ve never considered. Even if you think you’re onto something big, climb a little higher and look around. Then look up and consider whether there isn’t another level from which to look and see. I’m not talking about ambition — I’m talking about a vantage point. You may have to struggle against some emotional insecurity or a touch of agoraphobia as you do this. Yes, you might want to actually get out of the house and take a little trip — or a long one, and look at the various scenarios of your life and notice what you learn about them. I am sure you’ll be surprised.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for October 2014, #1017 | By Eric Francis

Most people are constrained by what they believe is possible, or rather, what they believe is impossible. Over the next few weeks, all of that is about to go pop. Things you never imagined in the realm of possibility will emerge as something you can do right now. Embrace the idea that in truth, anything is possible. You don’t even need to ‘believe’ it, or see how you could get there. You must only get out of your own way, and refrain from trying to convince yourself that something cannot be done. Along those lines, it would help if you elected not to subject yourself to the influences of anyone who is telling you what is not possible, particularly if you know they are coming from the place of their own injury. This can be challenging, since so many people think they have a vested interest in convincing others what cannot be done, or protecting them from the possibility that their dreams won’t come true. Be mindful of this and learn to recognize this viewpoint when you hear it. Your world is opening up. Your horizons of space and time are widening. Your sense of who you are is arising before your eyes. You need not debate this with yourself; rather, step into the future with calm confidence and you will see that you’re standing on solid ground.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, #1016 | By Eric Francis

Presentation counts for everything right now. The details matter less. You must be aware of them, but don’t bog down your message with too much information. You might be inclined to do this in the spirit of integrity, though your integrity will shine through. Therefore, focus on appeal, and on your ability to translate into a language that many people understand. Make sure you convey some excitement about what you’re creating, and your sense of adventure. Whether you’re involved in a business project or directing your energy into a personal relationship, the approach is the same. Know that any encounter or enterprise has the ability to take you to a depth that you’re not expecting. This could be depth of contact, commitment, or expressing your passion in a tangible way. If you encounter resistance, persist gently. Rather than sailing directly into the wind and current, take a diagonal route (in sailing terms, tack a few times) and keep your destination in mind as you do.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014, #1015 | By Eric Francis

Creativity is delusional. That’s the whole idea. It’s not supposed to make perfect sense or be practical. It’s a kind of impassioned fantasy, or journey begun with an unknown destination. One vital element of creative exploration is that you allow it to be pointless, seemingly for its own sake, or for a diversion. Then refinement comes later; that requires a different kind of discipline, a shift in viewpoint and ongoing review. Yet that is not the heart of the matter, the thing with no substitute. The core is allowing yourself that space of freedom from some worldly intention other than to allow your ideas to flow. It’s true that some artists and musicians get lost in this aspect of the work, and never get to the refinement stage. For now, don’t worry about that. Other aspects suggest you will focus that level of activity, and that you will be able to connect this to your vocational or business plan.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Go beyond secrecy and taboo in any form. The more secrets you let out of the bag, the more fun you will have. There are two reasons for this. One is that keeping information to yourself is like wearing a brick around your neck. The other reason is that all of the really enticing stuff we have to share is usually kept behind the veil of secrecy, where it doesn’t get a chance to flourish. The Pisces Full Moon takes place in one of the most intimate angles of your chart. You will get a chance to see that intimacy means openness and transparency. To get the benefits of this event, it would be helpful to lean into the side of revealing more rather than revealing less. If you find yourself revealing one fact or feeling, that is the one to reveal. You will feel better, and unplug those places where your energy has been getting blocked.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2014, #1013 | By Eric Francis

Though the Sun has moved on to Virgo, he has very courteously left Jupiter in Leo for the next 11 months. Going back years, there have hardly been any slow-moving planets visiting your sign (Saturn was the most recent one, and that was between 2005 and 2007). You now no longer need to feel like you must make something from nothing. You now have your own little solar system to play in, a planet 1,200 times the size of Earth, with 67 confirmed natural satellites. Jupiter is opening up a profound source of knowledge for you, though rather than being some form of abstract information, I mean direct wisdom. The idea is not to learn this wisdom but rather to become it. This may seem like a stretch for you, but this is the specialty of Jupiter — to broaden your horizons, to widen your mind and to open up a field of potential that you never knew existed. But this is more than wide; there is depth and a concentrated flow of energy revealed by the aspect pattern that Jupiter is making. That is depth you can access, and energy that will flow directly to you. There is no skill you cannot learn or apply. There is no problem you cannot solve. It is essential that you remain open and as free from negative thought patterns as you can.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 22, 2014, #1012 | By Eric Francis

Life is a game of truth or dare, or rather, truth and dare. When you admit the truth, you’re more likely to dare. This is an emotional level of alchemy. The reason the truth is so daring is because it demands action. The way this shows up in your chart, the first bold step is admitting how you feel. That will take a lot of pressure off of you, especially if you feel like the walls are closing in, or if you have no space to admit to your desire. It seems as if decisions made long ago, especially those related to your home life, are confining you. And that alone may be frightening. Yet it would be less frightening if you would practice some emotional flexibility. Here is a clue — that would feel like losing control. It’s not, exactly; what you would be losing is the illusion of control, and gaining access to a connection to flow and movement that allows you to actually steer your boat down the river.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 14, 2014, #1011 | By Eric Francis

You don’t have to push yourself so hard, especially around financial or family issues. And you don’t have to worry, even though that would seem to be one of your ‘natural’ inclinations. Worry is like driving with the brakes on; energy that could go into momentum is put into heat and unnecessary wear and tear. Focus on your resources, and on your ability to manifest more if you need them. Focus on the fact that people care about you, which has a magnetic and otherwise attractive quality. But that won’t work if you have yourself under undue pressure. If you want to use your mind, focus on ideas and putting them into action. Once you get past the thin, barely existent layer of self-critique, you will find that you are a wealth of ideas, which will go well with having the drive and the energy to put into using them well.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, August 7, 2014, #1010 | By Eric Francis

Your life seems to be hanging in the balance, and you may be experiencing some situations as being unusually polarized. This might be showing up as a ‘me versus them’ scenario. You also seem incredibly restless, which is why you may feel like you have interests that are different from those of others, who themselves may be feeling restless and counting on you for stability. Sussing out the full equation, I suggest that the thing, the idea or the necessity that everything is teetering on is nourishment. There are many other manifestations of the astrology, though they appear to be superficial. The nourishment factor is the deepest level. You need it every way, such as food, space to yourself, space with others, and sex. Space and sex intersect with the presence of Vesta in Scorpio — though this may be tricky, because there may be so many people around, sex will happen when there is space for it to happen. This is a core element of nourishment, though most would pretend otherwise.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 31, 2014, #1009 | By Eric Francis

Jupiter has been welcomed into your sign by a spectacular New Moon. Mars in Scorpio is lighting a fire underneath you and looks like it’s challenging you to get free of your emotional comfort zones or discomfort zones — whichever the case may be. In any event, be aware of the fear that might hold you back from fully expressing yourself or from taking advantage of the fact that you carry immense protection right now, as well as charm, charisma and a sense of potential. The only thing that could stop you is being afraid or wanting to exert control over what does not need to be controlled. Part of the scenario involves what happened to certain relatives if they started to feel ‘too good’ or as if life was going ‘too well’. This is an old story that you’ve wanted to end for a while, and you can now write its last chapter.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2014, #1008 | By Eric Francis

You have every advantage leaning in your favor, yet you may still feel insecure. In the past you might have worried about bad things happening, not having enough or whether you could take care of the people you’re responsible for. Insecurity 2.0 is about wondering whether you have what it takes to live up to your own potential. You may feel a sense of promise that life is offering, but you don’t know how to manifest it. You may have so many options available that you don’t know what to choose — and you know that if you choose them all, you may be spread too thin. Let’s go back to the beginning — all those factors working for you, described by the Sun, Mercury and Jupiter in your sign (and a spectacular New Moon beginning the Sun’s run through Leo). That all points to something new, though I would ask if you’re carrying some regret or sense of loss from the past. Are you thinking, “life cannot be as good as it might have been”? That would fit the scenario. I assure you that it can be, though it will be necessary to call forth some passion and courage from within. This cannot be applied from the outside. It’s the part of a goal that has nothing to do with the goal — it has everything to do with you.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 17, 2014, #1007 | By Eric Francis

You may be concerned that you have some unknown or undetected weakness or vulnerability, which is persisting even with Jupiter in your birth sign. It’s true that there is something concealed, that you’re concerned about revealing or don’t want known about you. But that is not necessarily a disadvantage. If you work with this feeling, you may discover that it contains power. You can, for example, consider that something you perceive as fearful may play to your advantage. Whatever you’re sensing has the power to go both ways. That much is clear. But that does not mean that it’s a random factor. On one level you’re experiencing a test of your expectations, or of what you presume in the face of missing information. Life is holding out some unusual promises for you now. That is sometimes a little edgy. Keep your thoughts positive. In the end, you will be glad you saved yourself needless anxiety, and fostered the skill of positive thinking.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 10, 2014, #1006 | By Eric Francis

If you are concerned about a matter of health, I suggest you guide yourself away from worst-case scenarios, and keep a focus on taking care of yourself. Self-care is the theme of your life these days, which comes with many different dimensions. One of them is finding that space where your work is integrated in a healthy way with the rest of your existence. For a while it may seem like you’re resolving a paradox, which is true. You may have to experiment with one end of the equation for a while, then the other, in order to find not only the right balance but also the point of integration you’re looking for. Jupiter ingressing your sign next week will give you more energy and better ideas to work with. You will have a bolder idea of what success is, and what it means to you. That will give you a goal you can work toward, and that you can feel good about. In healing, in work and in every facet of life, motivation is everything.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, July 3, 2014, #1005 | By Eric Francis

Don’t fall for the sensation of being lost. Choose any one point of orientation and that feeling will disappear. That might be work. It might be your health. It might be your family. If you have one focused motive or intention, your other priorities will fall into their correct place. You cannot sort them all out at once, or take care of everything at once. It will be simple enough to put things in order, once you know your first priority. In reality, all of the subjects I’ve described are related; it’s really a matter of emphasis what you call it. While you’re prioritizing, I suggest you comb through the events of the past six months and notice whether you’re still responding to life in ways that may have been appropriate much earlier in the year. Many things are about to change in your life, and it will help immensely if you keep your focus on the present and the future. You may not know it yet, but the past really is gone.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2014, #1004 | By Eric Francis

You seem to have a choice of responsibility in name only, or responsibility without a name. Either way, you’re being asked to step up to something larger; you are hearing a calling, though it’s complex and not easy to translate. What happens comes down to how you interpret that calling, and how you choose to respond. There’s considerable tension involved in the whole situation, and you may be feeling it pull on you, perhaps threatening to pull you apart, without recognizing it’s there, much less knowing what exactly it is. If so, I suggest you carefully review any situations that seem to compete with one another, and any elements of your life where factors within them seem to compete. As you do this, notice what you determine is not subject to change or to movement, and what you determine is. Your assessment may or may not be correct, though it will help if, for example, when you determine something cannot change, you ask yourself why it cannot change. If you determine something can change, notice what you do about that — whether you invest energy in making the change. Back to my original premise. Responsibility in name only is easy to control and requires no flexibility. Responsibility without a name requires your full commitment both to flexibility and exchanging the concept of control for something much more productive, which is influence.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 19, 2014, #1003 | By Eric Francis

Saturday the Sun changes signs into Cancer and this should help set you free from the idea that you have a lot of options, none of which seem to count for much. In fact, all of your options count, and they count for more if you see them as working together rather than as against one another. The sensation may be like settling an argument with yourself where both sides come out winners. Or you may get to the place where you know you didn’t make any sense before, then suddenly you do — a development that may actually describe slipping into your senses and having the world appear in a more vivid way. I would remind you, personally, that within you is the source of all healing. The conscious and willing focus of intent on something or someone calling out for healing can and often does have an influence that could only be ascribed to a miracle, which in fact it is.


Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, June 12, 2014, #1002 | By Eric Francis

Some of the most interesting stuff in the world is right in plain sight. It may be peering out from the other side of the mirror or one step off of the main drag into a little alley, but it’s right there. Nearly all of it, in fact. Most people aren’t nearly as sly as they seem. Indeed, they are rather transparent, and just good at turning one aspect of their nature in the direction of most who can see them. You seem to have plunged into another dimension of your world as a spy among the familiar, who are now turning up in all kinds of interesting colors and shades. Can anyone else see this? Look around for who can. You may not want to say anything if you see the gleam in their eye. As for yourself, this would be a fine time to put out for all to see something you’ve wanted to show off for a while.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 6, 2014, #1001 | By Eric Francis

Public discussion of private issues can be extremely distorted. Rather than avoid it outright, I suggest you observe the twists and compare them to what you know. There’s a pattern to the way sensitive matters are twisted; there is an agenda, and if you see that agenda for what it is, you will be doing yourself and the men in your life a huge favor. There is something that desperately needs to be understood for what it is. What’s complicating matters is that the issue has two distinct sides, and it’s wrapped up in some of the most taboo subject matter of our culture. You have a distinct line in on whatever this is — you can see and feel it for what it is, and can see through the apparent split or controversy over right and wrong. If there seems to be a paradox involved, you’re the person most likely to be able to see right through it. This will come as a benefit to everyone.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 30, 2014, #1000 | By Eric Francis

You need to get out more — and not just for social purposes, but also for business purposes. You can walk the line between them just fine and have fun in any event, though it’s clear that you need a wider conversation than you normally get to have. This will serve two purposes — one is that you’ll be able to consider more diverse points of view, which I suggest you instigate by engaging people in conversation. Second is that you will get to overcome certain insecurities that have become more noticeable in the past year or so. What seems to be happening is that your viewpoint is being confined to a smaller place, thus, it cannot stretch out like it might otherwise. When you do get out and among others, make sure you converse with people about anything and everything, no matter how weird, questionably appropriate or taboo. Listen to what others say about their existence and you will learn a lot about yours.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2014, #999 | By Eric Francis

You play a unique role in the culture, and this month your charts are describing that as a publicist for something weird, intriguing or that goes against the normal grain of society. It could be your project, it could involve someone close to you and it might also be that you’re going to be taken on a tour of all that dances to the tune of its own drummer. You’re likely to make some big scores or turn up a few gems in your process of exploring and experimenting with some aspect of culture. But you may not know what they are, so the idea is to be very observant and to treat everything as a potential gem. Doing this involves being more than a consumer or passive participant in the world around you. Think of yourself more as a cosmic talent scout, someone surveying new artistic or business territory, or going to unusual places and finding the most creative people. In these weeks you have the potential to cultivate or discover ways to increase your income, but there are two caveats. One is that you must be following your true calling. The second is that you need to be flexible enough to adjust and adapt to a continually changing environment. As it turns out, this aspect of life is one of your most adaptable, and where you have the most natural curiosity.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 16, 2014, #998 | By Eric Francis

The Sun’s entry into Gemini will make it easier for you to catch up with all the changes that have been going on around you. You haven’t exactly been left in the dust, but progress does seem to be moving a little faster than you prefer to go. Your solar chart suggests that the most meaningful thing you can do is be available and visible. Take every opportunity to engage and converse with others well beyond your home office, your cubicle or the cafe where you usually work. You’re the one who must bring the initiative and reach out to others. Make the call, send the email, start the conversation. Gemini is the 11th house of your solar chart — the house that brings the greatest benefit, the income rewards of your work. Gemini says this will happen through human contact, and the Sun says that starts with visibility. So freshen up and take every opportunity to be seen and heard.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 2, 2014, #997 | By Eric Francis

You don’t need to hold up the sky. You only need to keep your feet on the ground. If you can do that, you will know which way is up, and you will feel the Earth supporting you where you stand, and as you walk. Keeping a connection to the ground will help you keep your perception in your senses rather than in the more abstract parts of your mind. Time will slow down a little. You will be able to feel more clearly, and as a result, have clearer ideas about what to do when you feel you must take action of some kind. This weekend’s astrology is offering you a chance to gradually find your center. From there, all the swirling will seem to be going on around you rather than within you. Your own stability is central to your success; your ability to hold to a steady course, to lead by example and to be proactive on the issue of fairness. Yes, I can see that at times you may be experiencing some profound emotional insecurity, but that is what can happen when you choose to remove the past as a basis for what happens in the future.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2014, #996 | By Eric Francis

It’s time to assess your relationship to the technology that surrounds you. There are days when you love it and days when you want to throw it all in the nearest swimming pool. I believe that the ‘technology issue’ currently represents the most critical turning point of the human race, and you may be feeling this in spades right now. You are more susceptible to its influences than many other people. I suggest you investigate how your use of devices has influenced your existence. Has interconnectivity connected you or isolated you? How much more time do you spend inside versus outside as contrasted to earlier in your life? When you think back 10 or 20 years, how was your social life different, in particular your group involvements? What about your one-on-one intimacies? Do you trust people more or less? One last thought: where do you think the infiltration of humanity by technology is headed, on the largest scale you can imagine? These questions are more complex than they may seem; they are the stuff that sociologists will be looking at for many decades to come. Yet within the emotional and spiritual levels of your life, the answers are accessible to you, and they will be meaningful. If there is something you’re concerned about on your behalf or that of your children, I suggest you make adjustments now.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 18, 2014, #995 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be facing the ongoing challenge of mental clarity and organizing what may feel like an overwhelming workload. The key to simplifying your scenario is systems design. There are always simpler, more efficient and more effective ways to do things. Success often involves accomplishing more, so the methods you used when you were less successful (or had more modest plans) need rethinking and revision. Begin with a blank template and make an inventory of all you want to get done, all that’s demanded of you by your situation and the resources you have to work with. You can include assets that you would like to be working with but don’t have available yet; one of the most important concepts of the new design is flexibility, and another is the prerogative — clearly stated and kept right in the front of your mind — of creating options. If a system is to be flexible, it has to be designed as such from the beginning. Perceived limits need to be accounted for, and addressed directly as variables — not as mandates. You’re accustomed to being the most flexible aspect of any scenario. Now the time has come to bring everyone and everything else up to that same standard.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 11, 2014, #994 | By Eric Francis

Focus your vision. By vision, I mean your visioning process, and keeping your eyes peeled on what is the most significant factor. I know a lot is happening, and there are plenty of distractions in your environment. Think of your vision as a wide-angle lens. You’re going to come in super close and focus a macro kind of shot, yet everything else will still be visible, but blurry. This will help you see your subject in context. That is critical — that you leave what you’re observing in the framework of its environment, rather than “zooming in” on it, taking out everything that’s around it. Note that the momentum of your charts is catapulting you beyond some previous concept, idea, plan or way of doing things. You will land where you are looking, which is why you want to look right at where you’re intending to be, and to keep that set within its environment. Remember that you are part of your environment. Always see yourself in that context as well.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 4, 2014, #993 | By Eric Francis

You need some new ideas, and your solar chart suggests that one place to look is old ideas that were forgotten, were not fully tested or never really given a chance. The byways of time are strewn with these abandoned concepts, well-thought-out solutions that were not applied to their corresponding problems, and lessons learned that were then set aside. If something has persisted, look for the lapses of awareness that may have led to that situation. You want to wake up before anyone else does. You want to be the one to take responsibility and solve any past issues before anyone else does, and you will need to be assertive. Meanwhile, back to my original premise of some of the best solutions having already been come up with — that is worth investigating and developing. Think of it like digging deeper in a mine to find the gold. Any time you’re confronted with a problem, before you try to solve it, ask yourself whether you’ve already solved it. When you need a new brilliant idea, ask yourself whether you’ve already come up with it.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 28, 2014, #992 | By Eric Francis

There’s no such thing as perfect faith, but there is such a thing as very powerful old-fashioned ordinary faith. And that, you have plenty of. Here is the thing: Faith might work so well that it would shock you. It might compel you to reorganize your whole belief system around what is actually possible that you didn’t think was possible. Note that you may find yourself in some kind of dialog or interchange with someone close to you about whether something is possible. The image glaring out of your chart is of you doing what is right for you no matter what anyone else believes or refuses to believe. So you don’t need to lose any sleep over that small matter, nor do you need to distract yourself with anyone else’s doubts. Nor do you need to convince anyone of anything — just act on the best intuition that you have. Then when your environment starts to provide feedback, adjust your beliefs accordingly. Then be ready to adjust them again.


Planet Waves Monthly for April 2014, #991| By Eric Francis

It is time to step up and take leadership whether or not you think you are ready. For this to work, your idea of leadership needs to evolve. It’s not a supporting or coordinating role; those are the people that leaders need around them, and I suggest you get a few supporters and coordinators onto your team. Leadership is making sure the right thing happens at the right time. That will take cooperation, and so right up top of the concepts of leadership is the one who focuses a group effort. I know this is a quality more typically assigned to Aquarius, and I have noticed that many Leos have a heck of a time with the whole recruiting and delegating thing. However, putting that skill to work will be necessary if you want to use this extraordinary moment and achieve at least a few truly unusual things, even as the world seems to go mad. I recognize the extent to which this type of leadership may seem to involve a profound shift of orientation for you. Maybe it will seem more within reach if you think of it like how you want your family to run — as a fully cooperative entity. Teach young people all the time. Shift your emphasis from doing things personally to making sure that others do them as well as, or better than, you.


Horoscope #990 Unavailable


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis

Authentic relationship is a form of alchemy. It changes both people involved; there is something new, some previously unknown element, created when people get together and do something real. That quality is gleaming out of your charts right now. Contrary to the popular belief that relationships are about staying the same, it seems more accurate to say that they are about changing and growing together, especially for you. That evokes many mysteries, especially about outcomes — which are entirely uncertain under this way of life. Actual human relating and bonding work under entirely different laws than those of the world, which is concerned with predictable and guaranteed outcomes. Adapting to such a flexible way of existence and an orientation that is about now and not the future presents challenges to many people — though at the moment your charts suggest you are wide open to any or all of this, no matter how new, unfamiliar or well-established it is for you. Leo is a fixed sign; this is a gloriously mutable moment.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2014, #988 | By Eric Francis

Your most intimate relationships are in transition, which means you’re being called upon to be especially flexible and resilient. One particular idea comes under the microscope — that of ‘the perfect marriage’. I believe there is such a thing, indeed I have evidence that there is. The perfection comes not from the static quality of the relationship but rather from its ability to grow, to change and to transform with the people involved. There must be a mutual commitment to healing; mutual respect for each person’s physical and psychic integrity. With that includes recognition of free choice in all matters, especially relating to the partnership itself. I recognize this violates most of the commonplace definitions and concepts of marriage, which seem to be focused around rigid concepts and presumption of ownership. That model is not going to survive the onslaught of the 21st century, and your life is too full and too rich to be constrained by any factor not of your choosing. Here is the challenge: when established structures change, there needs to be a new set of ideas and guidelines to replace them. Those are best if driven by what the people involved agree to as their bottom-line, most essential values. Any relationship between two people will either be based on a dominant-submissive model, or based on consensus. Consensus is based on mutual values. That is the starting point and that is the destination.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, #987 | By Eric Francis

Avoid doom and gloom, worst-case scenario thinking — or at least be aware if such thoughts are dancing through your mind. That will help you choose something else. You are picking up on something larger than you, much larger, something present on a planetary scale. This is true no matter how personal it may feel. Yet on the personal level there is plenty you can do, in addition to monitoring your own mind and addressing any boundary breaches (whether by someone else, or by you) as soon as possible. Maintain your personal integrity, for one thing, both setting an example to others and holding them to a basic minimum. At the same time, be conscious of your use of technology, remembering that all these gadgets that surround us are sold as toys but in fact are tools that can do harm as well as good. Remember that as you use them and you will be doing your part to solve a much larger problem.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, #986 | By Eric Francis

The financial news I’ve related in the Cancer horoscope applies to you as well, only sooner rather than later. This is not a good time to be negotiating, but it’s a great time to figure out where people are coming from, what they have to offer and how you can mutually benefit. However, that information will come out in layers rather than all at once. People will tip their hand a little at a time, though you can be certain that you will find out what you need to know, under a couple of conditions. One is that you use your “sixth sense” or intuition — however you prefer to think about it. Most people feel the hankering of their intuition but few actually respond. I suggest you focus on careful listening — to yourself, and to others. People will give you the clues you need in order to understand their point of view. Indeed, most will state it outright, usually toward the beginning of any interchange; the question is whether you’re paying attention.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, #985 | By Eric Francis

The recent New Moon in your relationship house opens up the potential for a previously closed or strained connection to be re-opened. Check whether people close to you are suddenly more in the mood to negotiate and exchange — though never underestimate the value of your own willingness to have a real conversation. Use that resolve wisely; many others do not possess it in the abundance that you do. Start the conversation. When in doubt, listen for a while. Let the ideas that people express turn over in your mind until you have a grasp of where they’re coming from. That is likely to feel like a breakthrough. The more taboo the subject, the better. This is the time to say what was impossible before. Yes, this involves a risk and yes, these exchanges will change you and shape you and also your relationship. That’s the whole idea; that is what it means to relate in an open way.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for February 2014, #984 | By Eric Francis

You seem to be seeking a compromise on a matter involving shared finances, or perhaps more accurately, a question about sexual values in an intimate relationship. The scenario seems to be going in the direction of someone’s fantasy of how things can be, though leaving out some of the more obvious practicalities. This is definitely a scenario that deserves to have logic, data or some form of science prevail, rather than any form of make-believe or let’s see what happens. And logic will indeed prevail, so I suggest you hold the line and be patient while the planets shuffle around in a pattern that describes the renegotiation of the relationship in a more holistic way. In other words, the discussion is likely to start on one topic, and then expand into other topics that are related on the level of shared values. This comes down to understanding the values you have in common, and those that you do not. I would remind you here that you’re in a somewhat vulnerable position when it comes to others overpowering you. It will not work so well to resist forcefully, so instead, I suggest you use persistence. Time is on your side. What is obvious to you will become obvious to others as the discussion moves along, and the result will be a new understanding of your relationship, built on level ground.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, #983 | By Eric Francis

My friend Greg, a Gemini moonboy, had a most interesting experience recently. Quite by surprise, his own reflection called to him from a mirror, and a kind of dimension shift happened. After a while, his reflection started speaking to him, representing the mind beyond his normal waking consciousness — what some call the higher self or superconscious: “I don’t understand you any better than you understand me,” is what it said. And then: “You are one of the more interesting ones.” And finally, the promise that his self-beyond-self would always be there with him, no matter how close he got to the edge, watching and protecting him through his journey in this strange world.


Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, #982 | By Eric Francis

You’re getting more accomplished than you may think; I know it’s difficult to discern whether you’re actually making progress, treading water, sliding backwards or some combination of the above. The phrase ‘getting more accomplished’ is a pun — you’re indeed getting better at what you do, though mastery is not always evident to the perception of the one who is developing the skill. Your astrology suggests that you’re re-learning something you had already developed long ago, or going to a new depth of cultivating a talent that you usually take for granted. Part of the story involves how you structure your time, and how you work within an organization. Go back to the roots of the story, remind yourself the total history and see what you discover.


Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — January 2014, #981 | By Eric Francis

Focus on your health, which will mainly require managing your work responsibilities and your stress level differently than you currently do. You need to make some structural changes, including to your schedule and possibly to your physical work space. This is a quality-of-life issue, and you have the focusing power and determination to make real, lasting changes that help you and will improve your efficiency. If you’re facing puzzles or questions, most of the solutions or answers seem to be hiding in plain sight. One thing that may not be so obvious is addressing certain issues that are still hanging out in your life from early childhood. This may include insecurities that you’ve never quite been able to get a handle on, as well as the residual conditioning of being burdened with more than was appropriate for a child. These matters have a way of hanging on and sometimes become more challenging to address as time goes on, though the astrology of this time in your life is centered on making a clean sweep emotionally, as well as making sure your physical space is up to the task of supporting your life. It would be simpler to say take a holistic approach, where every aspect of your life, and every person in your life, is supportive of all the others.