Category Archives: Weekly Horoscope

Weekly Horoscope

Varuna-Eris: Subscribers Take the Floor

Dear Friend and Reader:

Sunday, I posted a note about the Varuna-Eris square, an aspect between two of the newly discovered, very slow-moving planets that was highlighted yesterday by an exact quarter-Moon. Though I’ve written relatively little about Varuna, I thought I would take a chance and get reader input on this aspect and the phase of history it represents, spanning 2008-2012 (please check the original note for background).

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

The context was last week’s battle by Tea Party Republicans wherein they threatened to shut down the federal government (including withholding pay from members of the military) if funding to Title X programs was not eliminated. Miraculously, Democrats didn’t budge on this one, and late Friday night a law was passed keeping the government in business for another six months — leaving Title X alone for now. We can be sure the discussion is coming up again soon.

I got about 20 emails, all of them alert, aware and informative. Many offered well thought-out ideas about the patriarchal order of society and what this does to women and to everyone. Truly, I was amazed at the depth of understanding and insight into the themes these planets represent, and I got quite an education reading them all.

In today’s edition I would like to share the wisdom of your fellow Planet Waves readers. They are presented in approximately the order that I received them. I’ve excerpted the longer ones, made some minor edits for clarity and taken out the email mannerisms in some to give the text a consistent look. If I’ve omitted anyone’s emails that is my error.

To open up this fairly long article, I’ve asked Sarah to come up with photos from the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY. She’s done a magnificent job researching the Book of Blue library. These photos you see presented are her selections. With each photo is a link to a larger size in case you would like to put it to some creative noncommercial use. (And prints are available.) Anatoly, our webman, has assembled the whole package and copy editing is by Jessica and Amanda.

You’re invited to send or post this page anywhere. I get the feeling we’ve tapped into a deep discussion that is ready to happen — and that is in fact happening. Please don’t forward the page — rather, use this link and send or post the URL.

I will see you tomorrow with a podcast. Remember — those go up each Wednesday morning on the Planet Waves daily blog. Here is an archive of past podcasts.

Lovingly,

Eris is here to teach us to return to the roots of our identity. I do not mean identity as an abstract concept; I mean identity as the direct experience of self and of existence. … How do we identify these cast-off parts, and what do we do with them once we find them? Moreover, how do you relate to others — your partner, your friends — when you’re changing and accepting things about yourself that they don’t accept about themselves? What if you’re asking questions others are not asking? What if you notice things that nobody else seems to notice? What if you’re looking for answers but nobody is willing to raise the questions? — efc

This past Friday when I had called my 84-year-old-father, normally thoughtful, generous and kind (I thought), he blew up, hollering and yelling to me that my 32-year-old pregnant daughter is a rotten, disgusting person with no values and will NEVER talk to her again. She had written him a very loving letter (she read it to me over the phone before sending), explaining how they were going to get married this summer, but now the baby comes first. Dad actually hung up on me while he was yelling, which has never happened before between us. My daughter and I are both shocked, and now I am considering how to approach him at all.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

I love your angle that these are folks who suffered that same oppression/abuse and are now trying to get a little power from ‘doing unto others’. That fits perfectly into the themes Alice Miller has written about in her books for years (The Drama of the Gifted Child, The Truth Will Set You Free, For Your Own Good, Free From Lies). Choose almost any of her books and you get a taste of how children who are shamed and abused are taught that the beatings, deprivation, denial of pain are all done in the name of love and protection and so they continue to perpetuate the abuse — so much of it sanctioned by schools, churches, society. How can any woman (or any man who ever loved a woman) NOT be shouting in the streets for the heads of those who call for these actions? And, you nailed it, not only NO abortion, but no birth control, no sex education and absolutely no funding for those babies who are born but cannot be lovingly cared for when their mothers are forced to birth them. Add in a little of Peter Levine’s work (Waking the Tiger, In an Unspoken Voice) and you get a clear picture of how the pre-natal hatred and fear is passed into the very cells of these children who are unwanted long before birth, and carried out in their actions decades later.”

I have been thinking a lot about the war on women and why it’s been heating up. I am teaching a feminist theory course this term, and I had assigned Jessica Valenti’s The Purity Myth even before the current atmosphere developed — my students are also doing a project for Planned Parenthood that was arranged months ago but could not be, it seems, more timely.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

Anyway, I’m not sure that I have anything incredibly new to add to what I know you already think about, but Valenti’s book is interesting and would be a quick read if you haven’t yet come across it. She relates all of the ongoing issues — anti-choice agenda, increased violence in porn and media, abstinence-only curricula — as a basic fetishization of chastity and, with it, of young girls.

The argument is bigger, but that’s the nutshell version. No one much cares if an older woman is chaste or not; no one is out there protecting my middle-aged virtue. It’s all about “saving” the young girl, the “powerless” girl who actually embodies the potential destruction of the order (Eris and Varuna both in this, and of course you’ve covered some of this in your writing about Eris and the “castaway woman”). Valenti argues well that in this attempt to ostensibly reduce female sexuality, all eyes are actually on female sexuality, which emphasizes the idea that a woman’s worth is about her sexuality.

My students responded really well to Valenti’s book, most of them getting increasingly pissed off about the world that they are coming of age into.

To ban abortion and other rights is a step backward. Women threaten those that love a good fight — war. Many use intuition and men find that mysterious and unknown so women are the wild card. They can’t be controlled and men are frustrated by their sense of freedom and independence. Even in health care women are the last to be studied. If women were respected once again as we were hundreds of years ago, men would know the definition of heaven.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

I’m getting a strong sense that this stuff is connected to the balance of masculine-feminine energies. The powers that be: religions, PATRIARCHAL institutions are battling on a psychic level. They know what’s happening and they are trying to put an end to it with basic psychic assaults, vis á vis women’s health. You, among others, are talking about the balance. This is the way they plan to do battle with the upcoming changes. Pillage the Earth, deny the Divine Feminine, makes sense. Can you speak to it astrologically? I believe your recent columns describing present energies give a good indication.

This is exactly the stuff I’ve been pondering the past couple of days. I plan to bring it up in therapy this week, and looking into Varuna and Eris some more might just provide some external perspective.

I’m observing how and why I do this, and it’s not fun or pretty awareness or analysis, but that smells like the right track. My knowledge of Varuna is old and basic as other figures, from oral tradition stories and not updated/filtered by newer information. And only new info on Eris. This is important material and avoidance isn’t gonna heal it, but it has a lot of toxic and painful elements, so the reactions and sense can be intense and unpredictable, and warding off excess/additional trauma and pain may be the reason for some reluctance to heal and further perpetuation. Diving in, treading, watching, sensing, withdrawing, etc. They are not steps/responses/actions to be deemed successful or not based on the instant reaction that may occur. This is when I ask myself what success means to me.

The process of engaging with and dealing with these hot-button issues must not be so scrutinized and controlled. It’s about water, isn’t it? Anything done with consciousness, or the myriad of steps in the waltz, including the hesitation, fumbling, practice, trials are the ways we try to engage with the water. Of course most of them suck or we’d be in different waters by now, but compassion and patience for the human (also my) condition are what keep me working with this despite it being the crap it is. So, authentically speaking, I’m just a little woman trying to interact with this and a lot of other material and pulp helps keep it real: I’m in love with the common people.

What helps me with anything these days besides art is to stop hurting/allowing self to be hurt as soon as awareness manifests, and that’s the surest way to not hurt the other.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

I dare say in the Garden of Eden the snake did a great job of becoming beguiling, subtle and spinning the truth — as you so wonderfully illustrated with the likes of Karl Rove. It seems women have no place left to go. If the devil as an angel was so beautiful in heaven and sweetly sang, then upon being cast down was beguiling and enticing on Earth, what space is left for women to occupy?

Reality, rawness, sobriety and agape love? Unfiltered, truthful relations, even if that means sex and no marriage? I really think that the marital institution is a relic and unrealistic model under its present iteration and support system — or lack thereof. The global success of using sex as a weapon tops anything going on in Japan — as far as being a tool of human destruction. The beautiful splendor of women just is, ‘we’ have to revel in it, exalting ourselves through it. Men and women have to stop defining womanhood so erroneously and unrealistically. Is woman just made for man and man for woman, straight, no chaser? Are yin and yang supposed to co-exist without intersecting/disturbing each other (other than through pregnancy and eventual birth)?

Do both sides reside in this world as a cohesive unit creating good through meaningful and conscious interdependence, rather than common-law dependence?

Inquiring minds want to grow.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

I can’t help but think the War on Womanhood is a replay of the Christian Patriarchal vs. The Pagan Naturalists. Since the beginning of Christianity, women have been demonized for their ultimate power of creation (through birth) and rhythms with the natural world (Moon/menstrual cycles). These “mysteries” threatened male power (as well as the female ownership of property, since her bloodline was traceable), so to demonize the feminine witch put the power back in the hands of the male.

Sexuality as a natural and joyous state was part and parcel of that natural world, so the repression of that expression is the first line of control. A common pagan practice was for the woman to mark a man’s neck with her menses, so to quench his “bloodthirst” and stem the need to kill. Today, the conservatives are driven by this bloodthirst in all they do. It is their primary source of fuel.

Since America was founded on a Puritanical ethos, the baggage of that attitude dominates to this day. The current conservative agenda wishes women would stay pregnant, poor and quiet. If you are too busy raising your unplanned pregnancies, battling your health problems, or dependent on a male partner’s support, you are much more easily manipulated and can’t find your powerful voice.

In short: powerful women scare the hell out of them. But if they continue down this path, they may find the old adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” may burn them. Let them light that fire, and see how powerful we truly are.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

To me the Eris story points to a deeper issue: why is it that we discount our own inner wisdom and capitulate ourselves to our youthful follies? Our inner male king is just not very good at owning his own maturity… he acts like a wanton teenager most of the time, and “we” accept this… Why? We continue, as a species to continually do what we know is NOT right, just to see if we can get away with it and live our little hedonistic, greedy lives. Why is this? I feel that partially it is because we in our development as a species, we needed to have flawed and imperfect and frankly, tragically fucked-up archetypes to be ruling our collective trans-personal unconscious for the last age, because we were evolving. After all, if the king of the gods could pretty much go out and do as he pleased, just because he was the king, then why should we, as a collective, try to do any differently? And this gets us right to where we are today. With characters like “The Donald” thinking he is good enough to become our “king”… and why not, he’s the perfect stand-in for Zeus, is he not? And we don’t question this… why? Because this has been the best we could dream up for our highest archetypal planetary selves.

Don’t remember much about either Eris OR Varuna (early pre-Upanishads??). But — regarding the attack on women, women’s health, and women’s autonomy, well, we in the trans community are well acquainted with patriarchalism. I would venture to guess, that the demise of a structured patriarchy is part of this crossroads we are approaching. For at least the last 2-3,000 years, perhaps more, women have, by “Western standards,” been relegated to second-class status, particularly by what has become Western religion. Although, there was even gender classism in classical Confucianism, and even amongst some early Buddhists and others in the East. All tied up with patrimony and possession.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

Considering that women outnumber men on the planet, it may be that the balance, or screw, is turning. But this kind of change will not happen without a fight, and you can bet that we haven’t even come close to seeing the last of this kind of bigoted discrimination. I was amazed to see the Republican Women’s Caucus support the attack on Planned Parenthood, even thought they dodged every conceivable query respecting specifics about women’s health.

I’m a new subscriber, and I found this update particularly interesting. I’m 35, married with two children. Two years ago I began a long-neglected journey of awareness into my femininity, something I’d ignored and shunned for many years due to old physical and psychological hurt. Having children in 2004 changed that, and I began to reconnect with the life-giving and generative side of myself. When I became pregnant with our third child in the summer of 2009, my husband, whom I had always considered supportive of my personal growth, and whom anyone would call supportive of women’s rights, flipped out. He became angry and defensive, and changed overnight into someone I couldn’t recognize. He didn’t want the baby, and the reasons he gave were all about his career, the size of our house, the amount of money we had. Things that I could barely bring myself to care about. Things he’d never cared about until the world economy began peaking in 2006-2007. Ultimately he bullied me into aborting the baby. This event, unsurprisingly, tore our marriage apart and brought to light many issues concerning the power dynamic of our relationship.

I’ve struggled these past twenty months to understand why things went the way they did. I work outdoors, taking care of an estate garden, and I enjoy the connections to life, regeneration, renewal, growth, and reproduction that my job and motherhood allow me. That two people who had loved one another deeply for eighteen years could suddenly part ways because of one person’s deep discomfort with those forces was shocking to me, no less because he’s a landscape architect and has always had a great love of gardening. The new difference between our life goals is something most people explain away by citing the basic psychological and physiological void between men and women, but I really think my husband found something more deeply threatening about my journey. It’s interesting to consider that while I was tapping into forces so much larger than myself, he was doing the same, and that in him they became so sinister. The time span of 2008-2012 is telling.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

I think the contradiction points out the hypocrisy. They don’t value life. It’s just a form of power and judgment to hold over women.

Once those un-aborted children are born, where does their humanity reveal itself then? It usually doesn’t. At least that has been my observation over the years. Their behavior and actions — or lack thereof — contradicts the so-called desire to save a new life.

If they valued life, they would behave differently. I had a very vivid (and probably my last) yelling match with a pro-life middle-aged man when I was 20 in the middle of a Sesame Street retail store. What got him to shut up? A question, “How much time have you spent with a child this week?”

He looked stunned and walked away. Other customers clapped. I never felt the need to prove my point again.

I live a very unique and purposeful life. The family theme is one of feminine repression. My mom was the eighth kid; her mother was twenty-eight years old and still had another child who died in infancy. My grandfather was an alcoholic ogre who was abusive to all five girls. I have reason to believe that he molested at least the younger ones. My grandmother took her own life at the age of 45. At the time my mother was just graduating high school (the only one who did). The suicide was a family secret to me that surfaced in 2000 when I was 56 years old. Were we having Cancer eclipses then?

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

The pattern of feminine repression is still in play with my cousins, only much subtler. I am the only granddaughter to have had a daughter and she has had all boys. Perhaps the pattern stops with us?

My personal experience is that I can see a pattern of repressing my expression that reoccurs. I own and integrate one “issue” and awhile later something else surfaces.

Although I am not sure I can properly articulate my thoughts, but reading your email hit me like a freight train. A few months ago, this image of just what you are describing appeared and sat on my chest. It is the ultimate control. And just to take it one step further we are living in a country where in many states if a woman chooses to have her very-much-wanted baby at home with a midwife, she can go to jail (or, more importantly, her midwife can go to jail)!

I have so many anecdotes and instances I could reference in my personal life experience, but this mom of two needs to mentally regroup. I have been doing a lot of inner work around this

specific topic and sending out a great deal of light and love to the universe. I hope that love is magnified, there is a lot of healing to be done so that we can all contribute in this revolution. I am a firm believer that this new world we are radically moving toward will be elevated by those who with pure heart can help others expand and reach the abundance that exists for all, instead of greedily squeezing it into the pockets of a few. Very soon I think that way of being will simply no longer work. Women are that key.

One aspect of the marginalization of women that seems to be verboten is the importance of nurturing. Success for both sexes is defined according to typically male traits. Women, like men, are valued for how much money they contribute to the family, how successful their careers are, how rational and logical they can be.

I have seen some studies that say corporate America is seeing some “value” (i.e., money) in women’s ability to communicate and work together, which is something. But it misses the question of what is family and how do children become healthy whole adults? It takes something besides academic achievement and a safe, clean daycare. Children (and all people) need to be loved and nurtured. You can’t get that from video games, institutional daycare, TV or even Facebook.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

With an economy that requires two full-time incomes and belittles the role of raising a family, no one is home to do the nurturing. The result seems to be a society that has a lot of personal issues with self-acceptance, self-esteem and honest communication that spills over into trying to judge and control others at all levels.

The implications for the environment are obvious. Nurturing is bad, so nurturing the planet is bad. Corporate profits are good.

We can’t talk about these issues without being accused of wanting to send women back to the kitchens and out of the boardrooms. That is not what I am saying. Women deserve economic freedom and equality, but does it have to come at the cost of the last bastion of nurturing in our society? And it is not just women, family in general is no longer valued. Other countries do a better job, from parental leave to generous vacation time.

A linchpin aspect if ever there was one. Varuna is, of course, very old (pre-Vedic) broad (the name roughly translates as “to surround”) and even pan-cultural (Uranus and Neptune and probably others are derivatives).

It seems to correspond to the concept of being as (if I understand him correctly) Martin Heidegger approached it. So big and all-encompassing that it is difficult, if not impossible to contemplate from a detached perspective. There is also the idea of Varuna as the arbiter of integrity and authenticity.

The square to Eris would seem to imply that action is required to be whole. To have one’s identity consistent with one’s being. Other than the Moon, of course, the Sun and Sedna are in play. Also, Burney, the asteroid named after the young lady who is said to have named Pluto. Which puts Pluto-Charon into consideration, hence all the Aries Point activity and, well, it seems that Mr. Heidegger would have enjoyed discussing this aspect.

Unfortunately, I am not of the same intellectual capacity as Martin Heidegger. Fortunately, as you have mentioned, this is a slow-developing aspect. Perhaps that is the saving grace that will allow all of us the opportunity to grow and evolve into the whole beings that our epoch will require of us.

As soon as I read your piece our little political drama of the past week created a sort of aha! moment. And I had been reading up on Varuna last week for some reason.

It involves the ice road trucker, Alex. Alex is a funny guy, but in his humour there is subtle racism and the fury of Catholic righteousness. He’s a big guy, a pioneer, a rough guy in a rough land. He is a personality, a maverick, and…a Conservative. He’d likely be a Tea Bagger if he lived in the states. I could go on at length about Alex but it’s best just to watch Ice Road Truckers. Frozen-water god.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

Sandy Lee is a territorial Member of the Legislative Assembly and after ten years of being an MLA, she was finally given a portfolio — Health. (Often the outcast in an all-male assembly.) Sandy has campaigned hard for past national Liberal candidates. She is well-known for her red fashion statements. Really. And her bungling approaches to the health portfolio, generally. (She’s been given a pretty rough time considering some of the crap her male counterparts have pulled over the years — and gotten away with, I might add.)

When our national government fell a few weeks ago, and an election was called, Sandy became the Northwest Territories’ Conservative candidate. (It seems the Libs wanted to increase their chances of a win by backing a male former-premier.)

Alex had an issue with Sandy’s switcheroo. In his usual style, he announced that he would likely run as an independent, to fully express his outrage. While out canvassing the neighbourhood, Alex happened to knock on Sandy’s door. They had a 30-minute-or-so conversation. Alex came out a full supporter of Sandy’s. He’s a Conservative again. And he has faith that Sandy will represent them well. There’s a nice picture in the paper. Alex has his arm around Sandy. She’s not wearing a red blazer. The background is blue. Alex looks proud. Sandy’s looking a wee bit pale and defeated.

I’m thoroughly confused. But, hey, the Ice Road Trucker has spoken.

I have studied patriarchy like a med student studies a cadaver, so when you invited our thoughts on the Eris-Varuna square, I had to respond.

IMHO, the over-arching polarity we are struggling with in politics and the world — especially the politics of relationship — is the battle between patriarchy and enlightenment. Not matriarchy? Yes, not matriarchy. If we would rather not go through another 26,000-year trench fight to expose the horrors of matriarchal psychosis, we need to come out of this battle with an integrated consciousness. We need to arrive at a synthesis of our polarities, to create a higher neutral in a plus-vs-minus logos.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

If I understand the energies of Eris and Varuna correctly, the long square says several important things:

a) Patriarchy is in its death throes, has been since 2008, its excesses being writ large and ugly;

b) The Tea Party is the new face of the Patriarchy; and

c) Women can be extremely effective patriarchs! Sarah Palin, and before her, Phyllis Schlafly, are prime examples.

When Patriarchy burrows into a woman and she internalizes it, makes it her own, the soul sickness comes out with a special nastiness. The pain she inflicts on other women is greater than most men understand, partly because the gender betrayal cuts so deeply, and partly because it is often augmented by jealousy. When that happens cruelty can have a venal spin, as seen in the girl-to-girl hate email that drove a high school student to suicide last Fall.

The Tea Baggers are Patriarchy personified. They will say anything, convince themselves of anything, spew anything at all, no matter how false and outrageous, that makes them feel better about their greed and bigotry. Obama’s a Muslim. More tax cuts for the wealthy. Wall Street is over-regulated. Immigration is mongrelization. Obama is Hitler. Obama’s a communist. Hell, even they don’t believe it all, but it helps them the way it helps a bear to stand up and growl ferociously when threatened. What really pisses them off is the fact that Obama is smarter than they are, and he’s a black man who doesn’t act all slave-y. It infuriates them. They’ll never admit it, and they’ll draw a gun on you if you suggest it, but that’s exactly what’s going on.

Your PW note about the Eris-Varuna square is great news to me. It says that the scourge of patriarchal psychosis is being brought up for review and transformation. You know how it is when you get a new handle on a thorny life lesson — probably one you thought you’d handled in your 30s — after it comes back a decade or so later in a new form, usually in sync with a major transit? I believe the human species is going through just such a whole-life review, right now. I feel like we are being forced by Eris-Varuna to look at our patriarchal psychosis, perhaps for the first time with a hope of healing it.

Photo at the Grandmother Land in High Falls, NY, by Eric Francis. Larger-size image available here.

The intensity of those transitions can get thermonuclear, especially for us sensitives. I look at the political situation and see that we are in a review of the Inquisition, complete with reincarnations of Grand Inquisitors (Rove, Beck, Limbaugh) along with minions (Gonzales) and sadists (Cheney) frothing at the mouth to torture some victims (Guantanamo)?

Even the South has come back to divide a nation like it did the last time Neptune graced Pisces, only this time with Uranus-Pluto and Eris-Varuna. Once again, we are dealing with the mentality that Harper Lee wrote of in her 1960 opus, To Kill a Mockingbird. Obama is the sacrificial Negro, Tom Robinson and the Tea Baggers are Bob and Mayella Ewell, male and female versions. Atticus is the evolutionary goal of our collective human consciousness — the enlightenment at the end of our tunnel, so to speak. Atticus as synthesis.

It all just seems so cyclical! If we are, in fact, doing a grad school review of our major lessons as a species, then we may be able to resolve some deep karma over the next couple of years. And if it turns out that’s what is happening, then we should be able to see some echo of current astrology in the heavens 26,000 years ago. Is that possible to find out?

Meanwhile, it sure as hell is making a grotesque last stand!

By ‘patriarchal psychosis’ I mean the polar extreme of a primitive social behavior (probably about 26,000 years old, if we could pinpoint it). Something that’s been a part of our experience that long does not go quietly. It owns the ego, occupies it until the body dies. Extreme victims of it, while alive, cannot be persuaded by rational means. Reason will not get through, logic is lost on them, facts and consensual reality are ignored or declared biased. A Tea Bagger holding a sign that says, “I reject your reality and substitute my own!” should be the Sabian symbol for this astral event.

My thoughts are only what seem like very obvious ones, about the duality represented by sexism and how ramping up sexist issues so obviously attempts to hold us in duality as we (some of us, anyway) move toward unity and the softer, gentler, more loving and compassionate (feminine) attitudes that shift encompasses.

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Through the Looking Glass

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Neptune entered Pisces this week. In astrology, one of the measures of significance is how rare an event is. Neptune has not been in this position since 1847, just one year after its discovery, and a good while before the Civil War ripped the United States in half. No living person has experienced this transit before. So that qualifies as news. It’s especially news given that for the past 12 years, Neptune’s presence in Aquarius has worked like a fog machine to obscure the difference between truth and lies, to the degree where many are pleasantly oblivious to any distinction at all.

Illustration of Humpty Dumpty by John Tenniel, from Through the Looking Glass, 1871.

I realize that playing games with public perception is a time-honored tradition among the rich and powerful. Even as individuals, we have PR departments that work overtime, to make sure people think we’re pure and feckless. But the tools for manipulating perception have never been more influential, and it seems like the minds of most people have never been more susceptible to corruption (unless you count the ministrations of religion, which set us up to believe anything at all).

To be fair, the world has problems more serious than most mortals have any concept of how to confront, deal with or process emotionally. One could argue that denial is a reasonable approach. Yet the background fear level, coupled with that denial, is precisely what makes people so vulnerable to psychic attack. There is a direct relationship between denial of what is going on in the world around us and denial of our own personal material. And at times, the exaggerated sense that there is ‘something wrong with us’ can send the whole mind into denial — and this now has lots of cultural sanction.

Meanwhile, during Neptune in Aquarius, tsunami has become a household word. We have seen the flooding of New Orleans and many, many other places — too many to count (some days it’s hard to tell the difference between a tornado in the Bronx from a flood that covers a swath of New Jersey; it all blends together). Ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising to the point where island nations disappear under the water before our eyes — while climate change deniers tell us it isn’t so.

We’ve witnessed the contamination of the Gulf of Mexico with crude oil, and the federal government is back to issuing deepwater drilling permits for rigs using blowout preventer technology that predates the BP platform explosion. Thursday night, Rachel Maddow had on her program Michael Bromwich, the federal official responsible for issuing those permits. He defended using the old blowout preventers on the grounds that the federal government knew all along that they don’t really work. That’s what he said! It’s supposed to be an acceptable answer! If you would like to have the awakening experience of being really pissed off, here is that video.

For the past decade-plus we have been living with water on the brain. The first major example of a world-changing event under Neptune in Aquarius was the fraudulent impeachment of Bill Clinton — you know, the president who was dealing quite well with the federal deficit. That is to say, under Neptune in Aquarius we have been experiencing a wide-scale failure of logic. Though we can see the roots of this particular thought form going back a long way, the process has accelerated exponentially in these years of Neptune in Aquarius, which are now, finally, drawing to a close. Yet the damage done by floods is insidious.

I speak as someone with a lot of both Neptune and Aquarius in my chart. I respect these influences, and I know how destructive they can be. It is challenging to get your head above water; you have to really want not to drown. In order to function, Aquarius requires intellectual discipline, and Neptune requires discernment and a bit of detachment. When you subtract these, the psychotic politicians and the directors of television commercials set the tone of consciousness. We can, and did, end up with a political system that is ruled by people under no obligation to make any sense; no obligation to have any empathy at all.

Barack Obama greets Republican mastermind Karl Rove at a White House reception for freshman senators in 2005. Photo by Doug Mills for The New York Times.

Does anyone remember this bit from The New York Times Magazine, written by Ron Suskind? It’s an interview with a presidential aide to George W. Bush, from 2004, and is to me the essence of the Neptune in Aquarius era:

The aide said that guys like me [the author, a Times writer] were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Did you get that? He said, “You, all of you.” His psychic posture is demanding the total submission of the writer and his audience, that is, the whole population, to his own hallucinations. He is saying, we set the terms of reality, we will build our empire on this, and you must surrender (your mind and your will). Do you know who the speaker was? In a recent book, he was revealed to be Karl Rove. It’s no wonder that Rove is the reputed mastermind of the plot to get rid of Julian Assange, the creator of WikiLeaks. We cannot have any leaks of reality (such as our own documents) into this fantasy empire.

Now, it’s one thing that someone says this kind of thing, though it’s more appropriate for Shakespeare or a psychiatrist’s office than you would hope it is for anyone to be saying or even thinking in the White House. It’s another thing that Rove and his colleagues were and apparently still are involved in the military, the economy, the whole world. It’s what Lewis Carroll was getting at when he wrote this passage of Through the Looking Glass:

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

All paranoia, all the time — Glenn Beck, live and on the air, for now. Photo from Fox PR department.

Speaking of anything meaning anything, Glenn Beck didn’t last but a few days with Neptune in Pisces before he bailed out of, or was heaved overboard from, primetime TV. The imminent end of his psychopathology hour was announced by Fox this week, though sadly, no date was given. Beck has viewers, but apparently not sponsors (besides those selling survivalist gear, and gold, which qualifies as such). As Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, you can’t really sell cars or insurance policies or anything particularly useful when you’re also telling people the world is going to end.

The End, however, is a popular item among the populace. Expectation of the world ‘ending’ is the ultimate release from responsibility, from the drive for growth and, well, from just about everything else in our particular world and on our level of existence. In this context The End can translate to, ‘Why should I bother going for that new job, if the currency system is going to collapse?’

Because The End is near, you don’t really have to do anything. We don’t have to do anything, such as set about the challenging task of solving global problems that have amassed during the past century; why bother? Here is the thing not said often enough about the many, many people, including every single fundamentalist Christian politician, who are into The End. It’s the projection of individual mortality onto the collective. In other words, when a person is not mature enough to have a conscious relationship to death, one way out is to say that ‘the world is going to end’ and thus ‘we are all going to die’.

Suppressed orgasm — the very stock-in-trade of religion — pushes conflict around death to the level of a psychic frenzy. Everything, including every relationship, becomes a survival drama. It is a condition wherein the mind cannot let go or embrace the idea of change. If political leaders know a lot of people are simply not dealing with death or sex (matters of the 8th house), then the money aspect of the 8th house is open to being pillaged. Money becomes the symbol of survival and the symbol of power, and that in turn can be used to manipulate anything.

Proposed Shutdown of the Federal Government

At the moment we are witnessing a drama wherein the federal government may be shut down today. I guess this happens every few years (the last time was about 15 years ago), but I don’t remember any such incidents directly. As it’s being explained to us, the Tea Party movement’s new representatives in Congress are pushing the more traditional Republicans into an agenda disguised as ‘austerity measures’.

Pushed by the Tea Party movement, Speaker of the House John Boehner is trying to use the budget crisis as a way to get rid of Planned Parenthood and take regulatory power from the EPA. Wire service photo of the great man.

Congress could pass a temporary law to keep things funded as the different sides work out the issues. This has been going on for a while, and each time, the Mad Tea Party tacks on conditions: We will vote for this temporary extension if you cut this much more money and include this brilliant idea.

The latest version of such a temporary spending law was passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives yesterday, which includes 60 measures that read like the right-wingnut wish list: de-funding Planned Parenthood, taking away regulatory power from the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce clean air and water laws, stripping from ATF its ability to collect information on people who want to buy multiple weapons, and on and on. There is an agenda in operation. The problem with these wild conservative proposals is that they are unpopular with most Americans, so it’s necessary not only to sneak them in but to force them though using this kind of blackmail. Then they get on TV and talk about how they want to be fiscally responsible. In truth, the Mad Tea Party agenda includes threatening to cut funding to the troops (which means their families) and hold that as ransom in order to withhold reproductive healthcare for young women.

This is similar to how Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, has tried to bust his state’s public employee unions as a supposed austerity measure. In fact, he created Wisconsin’s budget deficit by giving huge tax credits to big companies. And the unions themselves are budget-neutral; they merely give a lot of money to Democratic candidates. This strategy is becoming standard fare for our times — create a fiscal emergency, then do everything in the name of responding to that emergency. Here we have an example of pure Shock Doctrine politics: everything is done in the name of a crisis, or of responding to an enemy, and generally in the name of fear. It still amazes me to see my fellow human beings stand in front of a TV camera and spew out lies right in front of everyone. It amazes me that we cannot look at them and recognize: these people are so messed up emotionally, how do we trust them with that much power?

Fred Rogers testifies before Congress on the importance of Public Television on May 1, 1969 when Nixon was threatening funding to the program. You can watch the video here — it is amazing.

Among the other items on this same legislative agenda are getting rid of Public Television, NPR, Medicaid and Social Security. Clearly, our nation is in the grip of an opportunistic infection of the mind, based on its weakened integrity. Under this theory, tax cuts for the rich remain the answer to all the world’s ills. I watch a lot of cable news. I keep hearing guys from the Mad Tea Party come out of the room and say, “Yeah this is gonna create jobs. Lots and lots of jobs.” Most newscasters just let this go by unquestioned, and the general public — outraged by high taxes — just swallows it whole. But they (which is to say we) don’t get the tax breaks!

I am wondering how much Americans must have taken away from them before they figure out that something is missing. How long before we wake up from our ADD around social consciousness and realize we can do something? I wonder what we think is the purpose of all these taxes we pay. If the social programs all disappear, all we’ll have are bombs and guns. For those who live in a world of pain and fear, that does make some sense.

I will add, however, that the introduction of Chiron and Neptune in Pisces is a game-changer. Like anything involving Pisces, it may take a while to get tangible results. The first thing that will change is perception. Outer planet transits always shift the whole climate and our perception of the world around us. For a while the lies will be transparent before we figure out what to do about them. There are other game-changers that are en route, particularly Uranus square Pluto. That is the action piece. I’ve said in previous articles that this presumes something against which to take action — and now we’re starting to see what that is. The next essential step is coming from a positive vision for the future, and I know that seems like a heck of a lot to ask right now.

When In Doubt, Raise the ‘Safe’ Level

Also this first week of Neptune in Pisces, Japan dumped 15,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Engineers managing the cleanup of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant were making room in ‘low’-level waste tanks to hold high-level water (some of it reported to be 5 million times more radioactive than the allowable levels). Thus, the ‘low’-level water had to be flushed, and the only place to flush it was the Pacific. The official line is that these persistent toxins will he harmlessly absorbed by the ocean, but one would need to have no understanding of biology to believe that. These toxins will migrate through the entire globe through a process called diffusion, while at the same time moving up the food chain in a process called bioconcentration.

Finally, a clear image of the external damage at Fukushima. This picture, taken by a small drone aircraft, shows the destroyed reactor building of Unit 4, the one with the spent fuel pond that kept bursting into flames. The photo shows the scale of the building, which has been nearly impossible to see in previous photos. Photo: Air Photo Service Co. Ltd., Japan. More photos here.

A strong aftershock hit northeastern Japan on Thursday. Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) reported: “Today’s earthquake (which we have seen variously reported as between 7.1 and 7.9 in magnitude) has knocked out power in some sections of northeast Japan. The single-unit Higashidori Boiling Water Reactor and the Rokkasho reprocessing plant have lost offsite power and are running on emergency diesel generators. Offsite power may also have been lost to the three-unit Onagawa nuclear complex, although there is a report that power remains for the reactors themselves, but not for the fuel pools and that those are relying upon emergency diesel generators.”

Meanwhile, as radiation continued to spread across the United States, the EPA raised the supposedly ‘safe’ level of radiation exposure — something that Japan did recently as well. According to The Tennessean, a Gannett newspaper (associated with USA Today), “The EPA is preparing to dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after ‘radiological incidents’, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.”

The newspaper reported that the rule does not require public airing before it’s decided upon. The article continued, “Drinking water, for example, would have a huge increase in allowable public exposure to radioactivity, the group says, that would include: a nearly 1000-fold increase in strontium-90, a 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for iodine-131 and an almost 25,000 rise for nickel-63.” Gee, when the going gets unsafe, redefine safe. This would not be the first time in history that the ‘safe level’ has been raised to just above the probable exposure level. That’s how it’s done with PCBs and dioxin. You clean as much as you can (or feel like paying for), and call it good.

For some reason this reminds me of Alan Hale, the state legislator in Montana who is arguing in favor of abolishing drunk driving laws. He also happens to be a bar owner. Here is some video of that. But back to nuclear power.

Physicist Michio Kaku, one of the founders of string theory, has been outspoken about the nuclear crisis in Japan. Photo: BBC World Service.

Michio Kaku, a professor of physics at City College of New York, is warning that “three raging meltdowns” are underway at Fukushima. Here is that video interview.

But probably the most distressing news of the week came in the form of speculation, though based on history and the available facts. Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong–based environmental writer and former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, has proposed that the nuclear installation at Fukushima was housing a covert nuclear weapons program. She believes that several of the reactors were functioning as enrichment devices rather than as civilian power plants.

She writes:

“The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan’s civilian nuclear power plants.

“A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and unexpected events.”

The Way Forward, Through Pisces

I recognize that none of this is pleasant to think about. But it all points to the need for something better. If we want the quality of life on our planet to get better, we need ideas, and we need ways to apply those ideas. But first we are going to need to understand our thinking, and the thinking of the people who are pushing the world into various nightmare scenarios. Or maybe we don’t need to understand them, actually — maybe we only need to understand ourselves. That might actually work.

For example, if we challenge our tendency to believe lies, that blocks the process of deception. It actually stops the pathogen of deceit in its tracks. That is about shifting our own motives toward valuing truth. Sooner or later, we will need to face this shadow that is cast over humanity, yet for now we can begin with our own hearts, minds and souls.

One of the most dysfunctional beliefs is that what we think, feel or do does not make a difference. That is to say, if you ask the question, “What does my being more informed about nuclear power do to prevent a nuclear accident?” you may get a null answer: logically, it may make no difference at all.

You may decide that, if you live within 100 miles of a nuclear power plant, you need an evacuation plan. That will help you and your family but it won’t help solve the larger problem. In fact, however we analyze it, there may not seem to be an answer to the larger problem. We can make token gestures, which make small contributions, which might add up — but that takes a good bit of self-convincing.

So what if we take the whole situation as a matter of personal integrity? What if that’s the only thing on the line? What if we make just one decision — to stop believing lies? That is by default a commitment to be more discerning. It is a decision to be better informed. It implies a decision to be more honest with ourselves, and in turn, more honest with others. Doing this would shift our relationships toward integrity. I know we don’t usually think of this as being associated with Pisces, but that’s what time it is.

Yours & truly,

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s
new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Chiron Files: Spring Cleaning

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Cleaning is healthy activity for humans, particularly here in the Western world where our lives become cluttered with both stuff and activity. The word less often means ‘restoring a hygienic condition’ and more often means getting rid of what is no longer needed. This month there is an unusual surge of Aries energy as Mercury, the Sun and Mars join slow-movers Jupiter, Uranus and Eris.

These Aries placements represent an exuberant burst of energy that might be directed at throwing away the past, embarking on new enterprises and asserting oneself in just about any possible way — those six planets cover a lot of subject matter. However, there’s a distinction that must be made between throwing off the past and embarking on the future. Aries is all about new beginnings, and Uranus — which has arrived to stay for the next seven years — is one of the most revolutionary and forward-thinking planets of the lot.

Yet consider this: Mercury is retrograde between March 30 and April 23. Mixed in with all this burst-forward energy we have a reminder to consider the past. That reminder may come in elements or ideas of the past that persist; and it may come in the form of hesitancy about moving forward because we have those ideas. In either event, the result may be the sense of a frustrated beginning.

This month, anyway, patience is going to be a virtue. Lack of patience could have a weakening effect, and there is a real risk of bad decisions that could have lasting results. I strongly advise delaying important decisions — and even seemingly minor decisions — until after Mercury is direct on April 23.

The challenge will be that because of Jupiter’s presence, there will be an exaggeration effect that makes things seem more important than they are. This will have a few hotspots, including April 11 and May 11 (give a three-day range for each date), which might have roots back to something you did on or around March 15.

Here is how to make this astrology work for you:

• Consider the past as an active process. There is likely to be something there that will benefit from your understanding. You may have a misconception, false information, exaggerated information or some significant missing bit of data that you need to know about. Delays in progress or any setbacks in commencing a new project are opportunities to do this. If you find yourself stuck, go on a hunt for the missing information. It may be looking right at you.

• You may be coming up against a past idea of who you are that conflicts with the growth or progress you’re making. An outdated self-concept may be the problem. In order to address that outdated self-concept you would have to know what it is. So take the opportunity to find out. You have time; on the short-term scale, there is no rush. Mercury retrograde is a short (if challenging) useful phase of review.

• Consider the differences between how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. Self-understanding is basic to being a self. With all this new energy moving into Aries, self-actualization is going to become all the rage, just as if it never went out of style. I’m not sure it was ever in style, but back when Chiron was in Aries in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was definitely something that was available. A book like Games People Play could sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

• Speaking of Chiron, its presence in Pisces continues to be a meaningful counterbalance to all of this expressive, me-conscious energy coming from Aries. Chiron in introspective Pisces is a continuous invitation to explore one’s inner awareness and every now and then consider that there exists a world other than the one you can see.

Yours & truly,

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s
new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Aries New Moon Called Off

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In an extraordinary step, the Masters of the Universe have canceled Sunday’s Aries New Moon. “It seems like a big deal to you, but it’s pretty much nothing for us. We took a look at the front page of The New York Times and thought the better of it,” said one of the Masters, who with his colleagues has presided over the Earth for the past 6,500 years.

Artists’s impression of the Aries New Moon that almost happened Sunday, but was canceled due to danger.

“Frankly, it was a really bad idea to schedule this New Moon for right now,” the Master continued, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He said he had consulted his longtime personal astrologer, Flo Higgins of Rumson, N.J., before making the decision. He added, “We thought you would have some fun with it, but obviously not the way things are going now. What a mess.”

The potentially dangerous combination of influences involves a New Moon combined with the Jupiter-Saturn opposition, at the same time that Mars is exactly conjunct Uranus right on the Aries Point. “That’s just buggered, especially with those Japanese nuclear power plants and a few thousand tons of spent fuel still on the brink of turning to plutonium soup,” he added.

“Plus, Mercury is retrograde,” Flo Higgins said.

A spokesperson for ascended master Sanat Kumara, reached on the outskirts of Shamballa where he was recreating with the Lords of Karma, said yesterday that, “It would have been a fantastic opportunity if you guys had a faint clue how to hang loose. We’ve never seen people so freaked out, and this is the 14th time we’ve observed the evolution of humanity. I know you’re thinking, ‘the world is so messed up, how can I relax?’, but consider this. You’re not going to make any progress till you have your wits about you. Half of you don’t even know you’re alive.”

“New Moon called off. Party at my house,” tweeted Jonathan Cainer of York, England.

Sources close to the decision noted that currently there are a number of people on Earth who are trying to destroy the planet who would not have responded well to the New Moon, despite the fact that it was supposed to be conjunct Jupiter. The polarization of the Jupiter-Saturn opposition — the two largest planets opposite one another, with the Earth in the middle — plus Mars and Uranus lining up, was clearly a recipe for planetary psychosis.

Short on leads for this article, last night I went on a reporting mission to Club 55 on K Street in Washington, DC., looking for my friend Marvin, who is an energy lobbyist. The last time I was there, he gave me an earful about why we need to get rid of daylight savings time, just to waste more oil.

Majeston works at College of Uversa, a nonphysical institution located in the 7th dimension, shown here as it occasionally appears to mortals. Illustration by Tammy Russotto.

Before I could find Marvin, who I don’t really like anyway, a dancer I know named Tanya saw me as I came in through the door. She walked over and whispered in my ear, “Majeston.” Then she winked, kissed me on the cheek and strutted away, swaying her hips tantalizingly.

Of course! I knew he was a professor of astrology at the College of Uversa, a nonphysical academy that prepares souls to be astrologers as they pass through the 7th dimension. He said that during the past week he had assisted with the decision as a consultant and was familiar with the issues that were considered.

“We had to spring this on you fast, but actually, it fits with the astrology,” Majeston said. “With Mars conjunct Uranus, you know something a little different was going to happen on fairly short order. Doesn’t anybody actually read these charts?”

Majeston added that despite suspending the New Moon, normal evolutionary processes would continue at least through June 2012, when the Masters would assess whether anyone was getting the benefits of the current planetary alignments. “We thought you would all be having a lot more fun by now. We thought you would get bored of people who spend all their time trying to jerk you around with fear,” he added. “In short, we were pretty sure that by now most of you would have a clue.”

“Seems like the only place anyone knows how to have a good time is in Madison, Wisconsin — or Thailand,” he added. I took notes feverishly as Majeston went on.

This does not help. Repeat, this does not help. Staring at yourself critically does not make you more beautiful. According to Yavanna, you just need to relax and be yourself. It’s okay, you can do it.

“Obviously you don’t get it. Anxiety is boring. We had no idea humans, in their infinite adaptability, would figure out a way to make it into a fascination. Let’s put it this way. It’s possible to get a flat tire while you’re on a road trip and have that be an interesting experience. Okay, that is creativity. But who would want a flat tire every day just for the fun of it? Or spend your whole life worrying about it? That is the basic state of humanity. You guys are a piece of work.”

He suggested that I contact Olooma, one of the Ancients of Days, for additional information. “He’s got time to talk to you. He just chills out all the time,” Majeston said.

I found Olooma in his usual spot in the 9th dimension, reclining next to his fountain of light surrounded by spectral divas. “Most humans are fitted with a version of the ego that’s full of bugs,” he said. “Just about everyone is using Version 6.3. That one was a disaster. We’re now up to 10.6 and that works a lot better. You should try it out. We’ve enhanced color sensitivity and music appreciation.” He added that the newer, upgraded egos are more sensitive to solar-lunar events and can feel the presence of Jupiter as something besides alcohol.

Yavanna, Queen of the Earth and Giver of Fruits, said that humanity’s struggle involved pleasure anxiety. “It’s blocking your intelligence,” she said. “I actually mean this. It’s sad how many of you are proud of how prissy you are, but it’s not doing a thing for you, except to keep you in a mental fog.” She said she hoped that the temporary respite from the intense astrology of the past two years would give people an opportunity mellow out for a few days.

“Play some music or have sex,” she added. “Man, I just don’t get it. You people love to waste your time on nothing when you could be consummating creative bliss with every waking hour.”

Astrologers Around the World React

Tracy Delaney, programmer of the Serennu.com website, discovered that to “cancel” the New Moon, the Moon would station retrograde shortly before the planned conjunction to the Sun. In order to do that, however, the Moon would have to be declared void-of-course from August 2001 through January 2016, “which explains a lot,” she said.

Tracy Delaney this week became the first astrologer in history to calculate the Moon going retrograde.

Doing the calculations for the extremely rare lunar retrograde this week, she went through three quarts of vodka, eight pots of coffee, two laptops and a box of stress balls.

“It was ugly, and it took a while” she said, brushing her hair out of her face, “but I sodding figured it out. Actually my daughter Alys did when she made a joke about Black Moon Lilith, and that cracked the formula.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, programmers at Time Cycles Research were furious at the decision because it meant their software would be inaccurate. They responded by stripping all the asteroids out of their newest edition.

At Astrolabe, publishers of Solar Fire, frenzied telephone operators handled hundreds of panicked inquiries from confused customers, many of whom asked if this involved the new 13th sign.

Despite the obvious logic of canceling the Aries New Moon, many Earthly astrologers were confounded by the decision.

“That’s gonna be a little weird,” said Adonis Moonchild of Goddess Girl astrology in Phoenix, who is a voracious columnist for StarIQ and huge fan of Jeff Jawer. “There hasn’t been a lunar retrograde since 11 ice ages ago, but I guess they have to do what they have to do. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. It was havoc for the trilobites.”

Richard Noelle, one of the world’s most talented astrologers, said, “This goes to show that horoscope columns are pure garbage.”

Astrology Retrograde: Young astrologers group left for Mesopotamia in 2006 and has not been seen or heard from since.

Reached by satellite phone in Mesopotamia, Chris Brennan, who is bravely leading an expedition of thousands of bright young astrologers into the Dark Ages, said that he did not want to interpret the chart until he had calculated the time lords, which would take until August.

Asteroid specialist Martha Lang-Wescott, the wisest astrologer in all of Montana, said, “The gods are perverse. I told you.” She then went back to teaching her dog, Cady, how to read.

“What’s wrong with a little New Moon in Aries, opposite Saturn? It’s just gonna mess up a bunch of other stuff,” said David Roell of the Astrology Center bookstore. “Fiji, Syria, Timor, whatever. If you write a book about it we’ll be happy to stock it.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” said Michael Lutin of Park Avenue.

Psychological astrologers were debating the issue vigorously. Violating the laws of space and time, a special retroactive session was called for UAC 2008, which met in a packed room on Monday. Before an audience stuffed with students of Kepler College, the all-star discussion panel consisted of Liz Green, Melanie Reinhart, Howard Sasportas, Dane Rudhyar and Dr. Marc Edmund Jones. It was moderated by Isabel Hickey, who presided with a riding crop.

Liz Green makes a statement outside the retroactive UAC 2008 panel on Sunday’s canceled Aries New Moon.

Emerging from the meeting, Green inaudibly whispered the following statement: “There are no shortcuts to self-knowledge. Even if the New Moon is canceled, the shadow material represented by retrograde Saturn in Libra must still be addressed.”

Later that day, I found Richard Tarnas out in the lobby and asked him what he thought. “Subtracting the Aries New Moon is like the archetype of the empty self. It fits the modern zeitgeist perfectly,” he said, adding that he would cover this in his next book, which comes out in 2025. “We’re in the midst of quadrature alignment of Uranus and Pluto but it’s awfully quiet. It feels like Christmas morning but only the mice are awake,” he said.

Jose Arguelles was available for a conversation over peyote buttons spiced with cannabis indica. “From my new perspective on the Other Side, I can tell you that time has actually run out. You people have already gone over the edge, into the void. That’s why everything seems so crazy. Your fragile logic of time has fallen apart. You must step out of time and you’ll be happier.”

In Truth, Coyote Stole the Moon

Intergalactic astrologer, modern day shaman and top-secret consultant Philip Sedgwick noted that the Masters of the Universe who claim to have made this decision had only been in charge for 6,500 years, which suggested a bias toward Judeo-Christian thinking.

On a previous instance, Coyote stole fire. Tomorrow he is expected to steal the Moon. Image by Hyenacub.

“Coyote stole the New Moon,” he said in a phone interview Thursday.

“I became concerned when I went into the backyard to check my sundial on the first 90-degree day of the year, and I noticed that it was off kilter. I thought it had to do with the pole displacement due to the quakes. But it seems that time has been reset, not that the New Moon has been canceled.”

“I’m even more worried about the New Moon in Taurus a month from now when we have seven planets in Aries counting Eris, of course. According to the Northwest Indians, Raven will steal the Sun. So people will be totally in the dark, as usual.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Emma Langley, a receptionist at the local eye doctor, commenting reluctantly. “I’m a very non-controversial person. I like my life that way, no matter what the Masters of the Universe think.”

Yours & truly,

Amidst Retrogrades, Planetary Action Heats Up

April 1, 2011 Northampton, MA (AP) — Following close on the heels of recent rolling revolutions in many of Earth’s countries — thought by most astrologers to have been sparked by Uranus aspects — the next wave of the ‘Twitter revolution’ phenomenon went cosmic.

As soon as the Masters of the Universe decided to pull the April 3 New Moon, planetary tweets, including posts from planets orbiting other stars throughout the galaxy, began coming in at such high volumes that Twitter’s servers actually crashed. One source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested the white-hat hacker group Anonymous might have been responsible for the crash. However, the official word from Twitter is that since the tweets from beyond our solar system took many hundreds of thousands of light years to get to Earth’s Internet, it is likely a simple case of a non-compatibility issue caused by grossly outdated formatting.

Tweets posted before the crash, however, indicate another factor: Mercury’s latest move to retrograde motion. Now that everyone can know anyone’s whereabouts and status in a blink of an eye instead of an aeon, we’re seeing trends move faster. Even non-retrograding bodies like the Moon, suddenly released from her duties on Sunday, have decided to join initially-reluctant Mercury in the revolt against direct linear motion. What follows are some of the tweets caught before the server crash.

Mercury

Horoscope says should go #retrograde. Dunno if I feel like. Just did few months ago. Got soo wasted. OMG! Sooo not up for that again.

Luna

@Mercury: Hey, I’m going #retrograde too! MayB we can together? Go EZ this time.

Venus

@Mercury: Didn’t u go all #retrograde 4 the holidays? U crashed my #matchmaker site NYE!

@Luna: Moons can’t go #retrograde!

Luna

@Venus: Mind ur own business. I’m going. :p #Newmoon, so I’m doing something new. Get it?

Titan

@Venus: Moons can 2 #retrograde! Callisto & I do all da time.

Mercury

@Titan. Heard that about u2. Here goes! Going #retrograde! Steady…. hold on now…

Mercury

!drawkcab s’gnihtyrevE !ti did I ?anuL ,gnimoc u R

Eris

@Luna: u r such a follower!

Venus

@Eris: b nice! She just got dumped by Masters of Universe. Is confused & lonely

Eris

@Venus: whatev! I been waiting yrs for this party in #Aries. No one invites me to da others. Merc shows up, makes 1 pass, thinks he can try 2 more

@Mercury: u get as drunk as last time, I’ll deck u!

@Luna: have fun w.Merc. but don’t expect him to last long. Too quick! Then he sneaks out da back

Mercury

@Eris: ouch. Harsh! U shld chill & try #retrograde

Eris

@Mercury: not now. Sun is coming thru #Aries. Omg — hottie!

@Titan: U & Callisto swing?

Titan

@Eris: no. try Pluto & Charon. They r wild & out there!

Charon

@Titan: hey now! No rumors pls. we thought we’d try retro 2gether this time

@Luna: how’s it working 4u? I’ve never tried b4. Am nervous!

Luna:

@Mercury: .hsur-deah giB .yzzid mA !aohW

@Charon: .nuf tub drieW !ti 4 oG

Venus

@Luna: don’t close your eyes. Makes it worse!

— by Sean Springer and Amanda Painter

First ‘photos of Mercury’ in 30 years taken with Mercury retrograde

The first photos of Mercury distributed widely on the Internet were taken with Mercury retrograde, giving rise to speculation that they are really photos of somewhere else.

Dubious images are believed by the public to be Mercury. Very little about the picture actually makes sense. Photo: NASA.

“They look like just about anyplace,” said astronomer Mike Brown of Caltech, who discovered Mercury. “You cannot conclusively say that’s Mercury. It’s the probable surface of something, a planet, an asteroid, maybe even Arizona. But to say it’s Mercury is speculative.”

Neil Armstrong was emailed the image Thursday. “This looks extremely familiar,” he said from his home in California. “I could swear I’ve seen this somewhere before.”

By Thursday night, speculation that the Mercury photos were a hoax was running wild on the Internet. “Look closely and you’ll see the shadows go in all directions,” said Sophia Coppola, reached at home in Palermo. “This is worse than the crap Kubrick did for Nixon with the Moon landing thing. I can’t believe anyone is falling for this. Look, there’s a Snicker’s wrapper on the lower left.”

But NASA officials were adamant that the photo originated with the $56 billion MESSENGER program they say arrived at Mercury this week, the first spacecraft to reach the innermost planet since Mariner 10 in the mid-1970s.

“That would be nice, but the whole thing was fried by solar flares,” said Martha Alexandra, a secretary at the space agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I mean, toasted. The decals on the outside of the ship are actually scorched. You can’t tell if it’s USA or USSR.”

“The Moon was in Pisces when the photos of Mercury appeared,” said Rob Hand, who was leading a tour of the Nile Valley with his cousin Barbara Hand Clow. “Clearly, this is a work of cinema.”

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s

new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 1, 2011, #854 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Saturday’s New Moon in your birth sign may offer you some shocking insights into who you are. You knew you were bold; did you have any idea you were this bold, or this assertive about something that might ordinarily sap your confidence or be something you might not usually express? The idea is to make the most of the breakthrough, and to consider it a doorway rather than a passing experience. I also suggest you stay grounded in your feelings. You may find that challenging, because the way the planets are set up you may have the sensation of a strong ego presence, but if you sense a bit more deeply, a kind of dry sensation. Therefore, stay wet. Drink water, take baths and don’t let all the fire and heat boil off your subtle inner presence. Your true emotions may seem to take you by storm at odd moments.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Aries, please go to this link.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — The complexity of the moment includes the sense that you are on the cusp of some huge leap, and that the story of your life has the potential to take any turn. At the same time you may find yourself seized by moments of a false lack of confidence and even panic attacks. Therefore, any time you’re feeling like you lack the guts to dare, I suggest you question that. Look directly at your fears, and figure out where they come from. If you think life is a conspiracy of some kind, remember that it can just as easily be a conspiracy that works for you as much as against you. Therefore I suggest you do what you can to foster cooperation, and as you make up the story of your life, embed plot elements about how people you may not even know are assisting you behind the scenes. As Lou Reed said, you can’t count on the worst always happening. In fact it rarely does, leaving plenty of room for everything else.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Taurus, please go to this link.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Episodes of confusion or mild chaos will provide you with wide openings to define yourself and understand your purpose in a new way. Therefore, when you get to the point where you don’t understand something, or where disorder seems to prevail, that is where you become the one who can apply purpose and direction. This will remind you how different from your friends you can be, and how different they can be from you, yet the result of the relationship is still productive. One of the prevailing themes of the forthcoming Mercury retrograde is remembering that who you are is not only flexible; it’s changing constantly in subtle ways. This is precisely why you can handle diversity better than many people you know; your encounters with others are a means of experimentation. There’s no requirement to commit yourself to any point of view other than awareness and responding appropriately from moment to moment.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Gemini, please go to this link.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — This is a time to make significant, even astounding strides in your professional life, though you may not notice the results right away. What you will notice is the feeling of something truly interesting happening. The planets suggest that this is the time to push the limits of what you thought you were capable of, as well as the limits of appropriateness. If astrology means anything at all, the implication of the current alignment is that you are so free to be whatever you imagine that you can barely describe the potential. But the potential exists and it’s fully energized now. Allow yourself those moments of taking chances with being fully authentic. Give yourself permission to do what you think of as your ‘real work’, and by that, I mean expressing your true calling and deepest mission, no matter how outrageous you might think it is.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Cancer, please go to this link.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — The image in your chart is a crack in the sky opening up and a whole new dimension being not only available but obviously so. At the least you have an opportunity to see far into the future, and to look at the current circumstances of your life and of the world in a way that transcends all of the insanity developing in the short term. There is freedom in this, and there is the gift of being able to solve problems from a ‘higher’ level of reality, which tends to make them seem much simpler. Think of it this way. You can measure the area of a room by counting how many times you can lay down a 12″ x 12″ tile, or you can measure and do the math. Only now apply this to your perception of yourself and what role you’re playing in the rather meaningful global drama that is unfolding. You possess solutions to problems that have not even been identified yet. Don’t worry if you have no idea where they come from.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Leo, please go to this link.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You have some amazing new opportunities opening up, but to take advantage of them will require trust on a level that you may have experienced only at rare moments of your life. Remember that all trust is trust in yourself; the reason is that no matter where or in whom or what circumstances you may invest it, you have to trust your decision to do so. So it all comes back to you. If people are offering you opportunities that seem way outside what you have ever considered possible, you’re going to need confidence in order to make the most of them. Despite the startlingly quick turns of developments, I suggest you consider the next few weeks a test phase. You don’t need to make ‘final’ commitments about the future — only about what you’re willing to explore right now. Therefore, you can go in as deeply as you want, remembering that everything is an experiment.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Virgo, please go to this link.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s

new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — It’s a good thing you handle intensity well, though you can admit it to yourself if you’re being pushed past your limits. These would include the sensation of feeling overwhelmed, or if you’re burning out from expressing such a high level of sensitivity. It’s true that full awareness is your best friend right now, and that includes using that information to manage your environment in ways that matter. Make sure you leave enough energy and resiliency to handle the surprises that others seem to be springing on you fairly regularly — some of them are going to be worth going with. If you think this is all some kind of conspiracy to get you out of the past and into the wild world of the present moment, you’re right. If you encounter boring or staid tendencies in yourself, figure out which parent gave you that particular quality, put it in an envelope and mail it back to them.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Libra, please go to this link.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — If you cannot accomplish something by one method, you can definitely accomplish it by another. For example, if you cannot change another person, it’s absolutely certain you can change yourself. I don’t mean to accommodate who someone else is — I mean to accommodate who you are. Said another way, if you cannot change your circumstances (which I doubt), you can change how you respond to them (and that will clue you in to where change is not only possible but inevitable). That said, for the next few days I suggest you proceed cautiously. Don’t push your health. Drive the speed limit, and particularly when traveling, do so with your mind rested and alert. Focus on basic self-care. Your best ideas and breakthroughs will manifest where you leave a clear space. In moments when you don’t feel like you’re getting anything done, do less rather than more and you will make some brilliant, efficient moves.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Scorpio, please go to this link.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Your world is more lavish than you know. Your ideas are better than you ever imagined. That the circumstances around you seem reticent to change doesn’t matter. If you have this idea that the best of what you have to offer is not being accepted by the world, you can safely ignore that as some form of misinformation. You are making a place for yourself: a one- of-a-kind place for your truly unique offerings. You can afford to be patient where outer results are concerned — and as bold as you care to be on the level of your creative process. This is a truly meaningful time to experiment with your sexuality, remembering that some of the best opportunities show up unexpectedly and are not subject to planning. Make sure you attend to the basics to take care of yourself, then proceed with confidence.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Sagittarius, please go to this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — The world is inviting you to open up, yet you seem to be persisting in some kind of retreat. What are you feeling insecure about? The more you dig in, the more imposing the potential in front of you will feel. Even if you resist a little less, you will feel considerably safer. Most of what you’re experiencing is an energy differential — the world is changing fast, and this may translate to either some directly personal circumstances changing, or your sense that global events are more than you’re equipped to handle. To the extent that you experience any of this as destabilizing, it’s mostly an illusion created by a pressure buildup in your emotional body. If you let off some of that pressure, the world will seem less overwhelming. The more of that tension you hold, the more imposing events will seem. Therefore, find a way to blow off some steam and you will feel grounded and safe.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Capricorn, please go to this link.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Your mind needs some room to breathe. You may feel overwhelmed, and like you have more on your plate than you can handle. The beauty of the moment is not how much you can get done (which is plenty), but how well you apply yourself to one particular idea. The key is having faith in yourself, or rather, that is what you’re learning. In order to use your mind to its best potential, create some space in there. Pause before you begin anything and ask yourself the best approach. There will be an easier, better way to go about it. Then apply the same method to the bigger puzzles that present themselves to you. In fact this is the time to contemplate solutions to your most perplexing problems and to work out your most ambitious plans. If you relax your mind just a little, nothing is impenetrable.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Aquarius, please go to this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You have options. That’s one thing to remember — it’s the beauty of the moment. You have resources, and you’re much more self-sufficient than you think. That’s a great position to be in, and at the moment you’re free to experiment with the idea. There’s freedom in self-awareness, and that freedom includes access to your vast inner stores of initiative, energy and creativity. You have plenty to share but you’re under no obligation to do so. Yet of all the opportunities presented to you by the genuinely unique and positive astrology of the moment is the chance to take the inner territory of feeling good about your existence: that is, recognizing who you are and what you’ve accomplished. Yes, we are in a dangerous time in history. In the immortal words of Hunter Thompson, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Pisces, please go to this link.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s

new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Mercury Retrograde: A Change of Mental Perspective

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Mercury stations retrograde on Wednesday. This is a little like turning up the volume on our mental environment.

Poster by Kevin Paulsen. Photo by Eric Francis.

And that environment has been overwhelming lately. Monday’s news that plutonium is leaking from one of the crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant is a reminder of what you might encounter on an hour-to-hour basis, if you pay attention. For more than two weeks, events at this fairly typical nuclear plant have been spinning out of control — the latest in a very long series of developments that are reminding us how close to the edge the world really is. Since Sept. 11, 2001 we have lived through a decade of one calamity after the next. Just how many of the ‘one of the worst earthquakes ever’ can we have in a few years?

Heck, we’ll go back merely to the first week of January, when the prevailing news was birds falling out of the sky by the thousands and fish floating to the surface of streams. If that seemed a little ominous, it actually was; the day after we reported that, the shooting happened in Tucson. Then there was a wave of revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. Then the corporate puppet Teabag party governor tried to shut down the public unions, leading to three weeks of the most massive U.S. protests since the 1960s. Some governments gave in; others started shooting at their people (Bahrain, Syria, Libya). Then came the quake and nuclear crisis in Japan, which, by the way, is every bit as serious as it was the first day; the threat of a meltdown is just as great. Radiation is leaking into the atmosphere, the groundwater, the oceans and has spread across half of Japan. Then the US, NATO and its allies went to war in Libya, with no plan to get out.

So, let’s be clear. While the world needs attention and its systems need updating and rethinking, and while things fall apart, those who have taken over society are spending most of their time making war and taking money. The two are related. And one way or another, this is affecting all of us: energetically, emotionally, spiritually, economically. If you happen to know people in Japan, you will be feeling that personally. If you’re one of many people who loves Japanese culture for some inexplicable reason, you are feeling this. If you live near a nuclear power plant, you’re feeling how vulnerable we are. You have probably never had to abandon your home and the pattern of your life as a refugee, but the way the world is, you may be able to relate to the feeling.

I don’t care how deep a person has their head stuffed in pillows as the alarm clock goes off again and again: everyone is feeling the global call to awakening. For some this is exciting, for some it’s annoying and for others it’s literally terrifying. As you watch videos of that tsunami sweeping away cars, tractor-trailers and warehouses full of goods, you realize the power of the natural world to impact our lives; the order of nature becomes apparent, and I think that’s liberating.

Everyone’s favorite nuclear power plant operator.

It is easy to lose context in the midst of all of this; to lose connection with the greater scheme of existence. It’s also possible to be brought into connection with that greater scheme, with others who care, with others who want to grow and make a difference rather than freak out. I would remind you — maybe I don’t have to — that plenty of people are actually, genuinely scared. By that, I mean certain people among your coworkers, friends and neighbors, who are feeling the potential for everything to fall apart, or maybe even yourself. I mean kids who might have a clue what’s going on in the world, yet not fully understand or have a way to process the information.

One morning about 10 days ago, I woke up, looked out my bedroom window and saw the rain dripping from the neighbor’s roof. I was grateful it was not radioactive rain. Here is the truth. We may not be able to say that for long, and in fact there is a large, densely populated part of the world where rainwater is carrying elements like cesium and iodine. Tap water as far as Tokyo is contaminated, and radiation has turned up in many crops. Plutonium has escaped from Unit 3 and has been found outside the plant. Remember that there are numerous nuclear plants with the same design currently operating in the United States. I would note also that while actual increases in radiation are not apparent everywhere, there are some individuals who can feel an energetic breach like this, or an injury to the Earth, no matter where they are.

And here is something else: there may be a lot of people who just don’t care. Part of the skill of being alive now is not letting the zombies and the green, three-eyed space aliens get you down. Part of how you do that is by maintaining a sense of who you are. Note that this is not usually experienced as certainty but rather as an active question. Once you become comfortable with the question, you will be a lot more comfortable with who you are. If you keep asking the question the same way, you may get frustrated. Therefore events and astrology come along to shake up the whole matter — and that is what Mercury retrograde in Aries is about.

Here is a short summary of that transit, which goes from March 30 through April 23.

Mercury represents the mental environment. It is not merely the ‘theme of communication’ or ‘the mind’, but rather where consciousness intersects the world around us. The two patterns overlay one another and create a totally unique pattern within our minds. Because it’s so compelling, and dominates consciousness so thoroughly, we tend to associate this pattern not merely with what we are experiencing, but also with who we are.

Chart for Mercury stationing retrograde.

Aries, where Mercury will be retrograde, has lots to say about who we are and who we think we are — and at the moment Aries is the scene of a revolution. When Mercury stations retrograde Wednesday there will be six major points collected there — the mean lunar apogee (Black Moon Lilith) on the Aries Point, Uranus one degree away, the Sun, Jupiter, Eris and Mercury. Not shown on any commercial chart is a point you’ve read about here — 1992 QB1.

Here are a few highlights:

Mercury is making a series of conjunctions to Eris. The furthest known planet from our Sun, Eris represents the personality chaos that marks our era in history. It’s the obsession with not knowing who we are. There is a lot of freedom in over-emphasizing that ‘you don’t know’ — such as being liberated from the need for authenticity. Once you tune into who you are, the next logical step is to stop bullshitting yourself and anyone else. Awareness of self implies commitment. You can gradually become powerful in that way that you always struggled with not being. Mercury is stationing retrograde very close to Eris. It’s just made a conjunction and over the next five weeks as the retrograde works out (the process is longer than the actual 24 or so days that Mercury’s apparent motion is in reverse), there will be two more. This is an opportunity to see your issues for what they are, and to assemble the seeming pieces of yourself into a cohesive idea.

Mercury is close to a conjunction with 1992 QB1. This is the planet that helps us get past the notion that ‘death rules’. I suggest we take a look at how deeply and unconsciously we accept that. In our current version of the world, whoever has the power to kill is the boss. Have you ever considered this one? Oh, Mr. Policeman has a gun. My husband might beat the snot out of me (and kill me). That nuclear power plant might blow up — we better treat the guy making millions off of poisoning our kids as a god. Taking that to another level, we are fond of the phrase, ‘death and transformation’. Oh, doesn’t that just make the notion of change sound like a wheelbarrowful of fun? 1992 QB1, as the first planet [ever] discovered beyond Pluto, offers another notion of change; another idea of transformation. Its energy feels more like gradually slipping into orgasm than someone coming along and saying, ‘change or die’. The thing is, this requires willingness.

Tags on the wall, Kingston, NY. Photo by Eric Francis.

Mercury is making a series of conjunctions to Jupiter and oppositions to Saturn. This sounds like an experiment in understanding the difference between willingness and resistance. Human consciousness is not merely dualistic; it requires contrast to be able to sense distinction. People who either blur everything into one gray mess or see the world hotly polarized in stark black and white are not seeing the subtle shades. Jupiter and Saturn are more similar than most astrologers acknowledge, representing complimentary rather than contradictory energies. It just helps to know the difference between the way the water feels and the way the edge of the pool feels, and Mercury getting into the opposition of Jupiter and Saturn is here to offer us the sensation of that contrast.

Part of the contrast is the difference between self and other. Oppositions imply relationship. On the most basic level of astrology, Aries represents self and Libra represents other and our relationship to other. We now have a kind of revolution happening in the sign of self, complete with the planet of revolution (Uranus) right there. But we tend to get stuck in out-moded concepts of relationship and then caught in the confusion of not understanding why we feel so trapped. Conventional wisdom holds that there is no other way, except to seek self in other and then get stuck there. But at the moment the influence of self-awareness is so strong we’re likely to figure out that we don’t need another to be who we are; we can be who we are and relate to others if we want.

One last. The Moon is conjunct Neptune waaaaaaay at the end of Aquarius. There have been more than 150 Moon-Neptune conjunctions in Aquarius over the past 12 years or so, and now there are just a very few more before Neptune takes up residence in Pisces in 2012; and just one more before Neptune visits Pisces starting next week. Cutting a long story short, the conjunctions in this last degree of Aquarius are an opportunity to help us transform our emotional body into a living instrument tuned to subtle energies (rather than the sticky, heavy thing that we so often experience it to be). Most of what we think of as growth, transformation and healing involves our emotional body, which is the thing that tends to get stuck in the past no matter how smart we are. However, part of the challenge is about doing this at a time when there is an enormous emotional strain on the world, indeed many; it is daring to open up and let yourself feel at such a moment.

Mercury retrograde offers us many chances to shift our mental perspective as an experience and not merely as an intellectual concept. As you take this ride you can actually experience different sensations based on seeing the world differently, which is another way of feeling your own existence differently. That starts with consciously exploring with curiosity and willingness rather than resistance and judgment. Those are your basic choices. And in them more is contained than you may think — for example, we are actually face to face with the potential to spark a global awakening.

Catch you Friday with a weekly horoscope.

Yours & truly,

PS, looking at the minor planets, there is also a triple conjunction of three asteroids — House, Hera and Memoria. It’s time for something other than jealousy, shame and control drama to rule the roost. True, one has to have some authentic confidence to allow in another idea. It’s possible, and it’s easier if we’re willing to consider the alternatives.

PPS, here is the article about the most recent Mercury station direct, in early winter. And here is the article about the corresponding Mercury station retrograde three weeks earlier.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s

new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Attention Light Bridge Subscribers: Light Bridge audio readings are now available for half the signs — the rest are coming soon! If you have not signed up yet, you may do so here. Everyone is invited to read the articles on the Light Bridge blog, which will update periodically. Customer reviews of Light Bridge are collecting here. Don’t miss the free audio introduction to the project that explains how I created these seven-year readings. To everyone: thank you for your patience while we completed the written phase of Light Bridge.

Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span

Dear Friend and Reader:

Planet Waves has just completed a digital compilation of my writing about 2012 dating back to 1987. It’s called Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span. The span extends from the Harmonic Convergence through to the winter solstice of 2012. [Here is an audio introduction. Here is the purchasing link. Note that this is a different project than the Light Bridge annual edition.]

The articles in the collection are drawn from a number of sources, including Planet Waves and our various annual editions, as well as blog entries, my notebooks and one from an earlier book called 313. The book begins with a new piece that covers the history of the Harmonic Convergence and its possible influence on world events. I then present a retrospective of writing describing events that fit the pattern, either historic or philosophical, of how we approach the topic of irrevocable change. Even if you’ve read some of this writing before, the pieces will now come together when you see the ideas in context.

I have consistently treated the concept of 2012 as something we are creating now, even as time accelerates and we race toward the future. Different articles offer perspectives on the Mayan day count as well as the Western astrology associated with 2012. I am not making predictions; rather, my intent for all of these articles has been to focus our minds on the present moment and enter the future through immediate awareness. I am describing the process of opening up to the moment.

The book is beautifully illustrated with Mayan-inspired glyphs created by Carol McCloud.
These are like no artwork you’ve ever seen before. Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span comes with a separate file of historic charts. We have done our best to leave links to other sources embedded in the text.

As you may have read, Jose Arguelles, who created the Harmonic Convergence and first called attention to 2012, died Wednesday. According to his website, before he departed he said to his apprentice, Stephanie South, “I have done all that I could on this planet. I am being called to assist in the closing of the cycle from the Other Side.”

Arguelles was the author of The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, which became a kind of platform for creating the Harmonic Convergence. He was also author of Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013 which was a book and a game that came out in 1990. Dreamspell is an interpretation of Mayan daykeeping that teaches one to use the Mayan calendar in a practical, accessible way. Arguelles was the father of the current movement to adapt Meso-American calendar systems and other alternative models for considering time. In a sense, what we think of as time is really a prison that locks us into a time/money orientation of consciousness.

I was never Jose’s student, but his ideas have touched my life and informed my astrology through different teachers, friends and colleagues. We think it’s an intriguing synchronicity to be making this work available when so much attention is being given to Jose’s ideas.

Here is ordering information. Delivery is instant. The format is a downloadable PDF with images solid enough that they will print nicely.

Thank you for your interest. I think you’ll love this project. It’s been a lot of fun to create.

It’s only change —

Here at the Edge of the World

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Atlantis as envisioned by computer graphic artist, for the Nat Geo program Finding Atlantis. The producers say that the image is a composite of many ideas from classical monuments.

Dear Friend and Reader:

In the midst of all of this nuclear madness, Nat Geo channel premiered a special about some scientists who have discovered the remnants of what they believe is the lost city of Atlantis. Its location, according to the theory? Some mud flats in southern Spain, near Portugal, called Donaña. The program, called “Finding Atlantis,” was created for the Nat Geo channel by a Canadian production company, and with a little research is revealed to be controversial.

Beneath this concrete dome on Runit Island (part of Enewetak Atoll), built between 1977 and 1980 at a cost of about $239 million, lie 111,000 cubic yards (84,927 cubic meters) of radioactive soil and debris from atomic bomb tests on the Bikini and Rongelap atolls. The dome covers the 30-foot (9-meter) deep, 350-foot (107-meter) wide crater created by the May 5, 1958, Cactus test. Note the people atop the dome. Credit: Defense Special Weapons Agency.

The original archeological project, started by a Spanish team and then joined by Richard Freund of the University of Hartford, searched the Donaña bogs using a kind of MRI device, looking for underground evidence of a civilization of which they seem to have found some additional clues (this is a previously researched site). Freund proposes that the location of the presumed Atlantis focused on by the special was destroyed by a tidal wave. “This is the power of tsunamis,” he told Reuters. “It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about.”

“Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years,” Reuters reported as background to the program. “Plato’s ‘dialogues’ from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis ‘in a single day and night…disappeared into the depths of the sea’.” Yet though many have gone searching for Atlantis, others believe that Plato was speaking in a kind of intellectual metaphor.

Of the things about the archeological find that Freund claims exist, the most endearing are models of the fabled city that were supposedly created as memorials by its refugees who landed in Spain — something denied by the Spanish scientists who say that no such models were found. For our purposes, though, it doesn’t matter whether the TV special is true or not — what matters is that the symbol of Atlantis makes a spontaneous appearance in our culture just as the world is on the brink of nuclear disaster.

Though we know very little about the actual Atlantis — including what it was called, when it existed, or whether it existed — the archetype of the lost continent is a persistent aspect of human consciousness. Sometimes it’s called Lemuria, or Mu. From one past-life regression about 10 years ago, I have a direct memory of being captain of a merchant marine vessel when Antarctica was inhabited, at the time of the mass evacuation from that continent. According to what I learned in my regression, one of the destinations for refugees was Spain. My wife went there. I stayed behind. It turned out that the leaders of the society who ordered the evacuation were about a century or two early in their predictions.

The myth of the lost civilization is persistent and it is intriguing. So, too, is the notion that a civilization, such as our own, might fall by its own undoing. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t considered whether this is inevitable; not out of any particular meanness or religious belief, but rather because we’re such a bunch of dumb asses who refuse to wake up.

Until 1970, solid low-level and transuranic waste at the Atomic Energy Commission’s nuclear weapons facilities (shown here is Hanford Reservation, circa 1950s) was frequently disposed of in cardboard boxes. Once filled, this unlined trench would have been covered with dirt, leaving the cardboard to deteriorate and allowing the waste to contaminate the soil and leach into the groundwater. Photo from the Brookings Institution archives.

In modern mythology, Atlantis represents a society that was stricken from Earth because it was unable to handle the technology that it created. In some versions of the tale, that is specifically what we (in our era of gadgets) would think of as spiritual technology (telepathy, mental manipulation of matter and time), yet where the ethical capacity to handle these talents has failed to evolve along with the power we hold.

It is the same basic idea; and it’s the same issue we’re facing now. It’s what Kurt Vonnegut was talking about in Cat’s Cradle, which we read about two weeks ago when I covered Borasisi. In a particularly literal moment of astrology, the idea for the chemical that ends the world came out of General Electric, when Vonnegut was a PR man there. Notably, GE manufactured the transformers that are now threatening to spin totally out of control. This gives us a hint, by the way, that Borasisi has a resonance with the long history of crimes committed by GE.

Atlantis shows up as a factor in astrology as well. Minor planet specialist Martha Lang-Wescott delineates the asteroid (1198) Atlantis with the following themes: “Sense of impending doom; belief in deserved punishment/negative karma; invasions of privacy; access to inside or confidential information; abuse of resources, talents or information; importance of confidentiality/use of knowledge; water disasters; warnings.”

In a phone interview Thursday, Wescott added another theme: “The other part of Atlantis is a negative projection, and we’re seeing a lot of that. Atlantis is ‘doomsday is here’.” For example, she says that, “People with Venus/Atlantis aspects doom their relationships. If Atlantis is prominent [in a public chart], then you’re going to hear astrologers talking about doom and gloom.”

Here in our era dominated by the negative obsessions of fundamentalist Christians, there’s plenty of that; it’s a religion based on the Revelation or the Rapture or the Apocalypse, which is the supposed ‘end of the world’ — predicted relentlessly for the past two thousand years (blended artfully with a radically sex-negative message), and presumed in modern times to be nuclear. I often wonder whether all these negative projections about cataclysm are adding up to the thing itself. Human thought is powerfully creative, and the federal budget has a lot of potential.

Museum display replica of the ‘Fat Man’ bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Photo is from the Digital Photo Archive, Department of Energy (DOE), courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives. It is part of the Manhattan Project collection.

It is little known that J.R.R. Tolkien, in a work called The Silmarillion, gives his own version of the fall of Atlantis, an island he calls Numenor, located off of the western shores of Middle Earth. Numenor existed about 35 generations prior to the commencement of action in The Lord of the Rings. Anyone who has read this book has met and loved one of the descendants of its refugees — Strider (Aragorn, son of Arathorn), who becomes King Elessar I. Most of the wondrous places that readers visit along the way as Frodo and Samwise seek to destroy the ring were created by former Numenorian refugees and their descendants. The fictional empires of Arnor and Gondor were founded by a handful of people who escaped to Middle Earth right before a quake and tsunami destroyed Numenor. That is why they were described as the ‘race of kings’. They founded empires. Incidentally there is a direct bloodline back to Elros, the founder of Numenor preserved by Strider in the group of which Strider is a part, which is known as the Rangers of the North. In other words Strider would be heir to the Numenorian throne, had that civilization existed in his day.

The most beloved fantasy novel of the 20th century has its early origins in a version of Atlantis. Numenor falls because its people, who live long and abundant lives in a kind of paradise, are terrified of death. They first become obsessed by wealth, then they crave the power and immortality of the gods who live on islands further west. Their downfall is propagated by Sauron, in an earlier incarnation than we know him in The Lord of the Rings. Their hubris is spiritual rather than technological: based on their fear of the unknown, they want to live forever.

More recently, in Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, there is a part that I think of as the Atlantis passage. “As I have said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink,” God says to Walsch at one point in their dialogue.

“I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself.”

Whatever you may be hearing about the nuclear crisis in Japan, this week human civilization is now revealing how close it is to doing just that.

Fukushima Daiichi: Thousands of Tons of Radioactive Waste

As of this writing on Thursday evening, here is the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. All six of its reactor cores are in some level of distress after being damaged by an earthquake and tsunami one week ago. We’ve been covering this extensively on the Planet Waves blog — here are some of those articles, and my most recent audio. In short, the tsunami damaged the reactors’ cooling systems, which has allowed the fuel to heat up and in three cases, partially melt.

Uncapped spent nuclear fuel stored underwater in K-East Basin on the Hanford nuclear site in Washington. Photo is from the Department of Energy archives.

As a result, there have been hydrogen explosions in reactors 1, 2 and 3. From what I am reading, it’s fairly certain that the explosions in 2 and 3 breached the steel inner containment structures. Fuel cores have been exposed in all three due to cooling system failures, and there is a struggle to keep any water level at all in units 2 and 3. This means the fuel cores have melted partially and may melt entirely if they get too hot and the self-sustaining reaction goes out of control. When you hear news reporters use the word ‘catastrophic’ to describe something worse than is now happening, that’s what they are hinting at.

While a full meltdown creates a worst-case scenario for reasons I will explain in a moment, Unit 3 has a special issue: about 6% of the fuel is called MOX, or mixed oxide, which contains plutonium.

Plutonium is another universe of toxicity than uranium. Inhaling as little as one-millionth of a gram can cause lung cancer, according to Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility. I would dare to say it’s more toxic than the worst dioxin, TCDD. Every single gram of the stuff is supposed to be highly regulated. So there is a special focus right now on Unit 3, though the presence of plutonium is rarely being mentioned; it is getting a bit of attention and I’m glad of that. Here is an NPR article that covers the issue, even as the Tea Baggers try to pull federal funding for that station. And it is mentioned in this New York Times article.

Impressively, the Times reported Thursday night, “The decision to focus on the No. 3 reactor appeared to suggest that Japanese officials believe it is a greater threat, since it is the only one at the site loaded with a mixed fuel known as MOX, for mixed oxide, which includes reclaimed plutonium.”

This is a tank farm under construction on the Hanford nuclear site in Washington. The principal function of the tank farms is the storage of byproduct material left over from plutonium extraction operations prior to permanent disposal. This byproduct material has no useful purpose and is stored in 177 underground storage tanks with a cumulative total capacity of 55 million gallons, with individual tanks ranging up to 1,000,000 gallons (pictured). This waste material is composed of toxic chemicals that were used to remove fission products from irradiated reactor fuel. Photo is from the Department of Energy.

Unit 4, meanwhile, has another issue. The spent fuel pond (a storage area for massive amounts of old fuel rods) has run dry (or was pumped dry in an emergency need for water) and the old rods are getting very hot from fission reactions that are stirring to life — hot enough to potentially melt down. Unit 4 has burst into flames several times, apparently not from hydrogen explosions but rather from the fuel rods themselves starting to burn (most likely, the explosive zirconium cladding). The problem with spent fuel is that it contains high concentrations of the degradation products of fission, a whole stew of isotopes that move through the food chain and can jeopardize many organ systems.

Units 3 and 4 are currently being doused with seawater by helicopters, a technology better suited for fighting a forest fire. This is an utterly desperate measure. Units 1 and 2 are, we’re told, being refilled ongoing with fire hoses and water cannons. As of late Thursday, engineers were still trying to restore power to the plant, which could provide some hope of the remaining cooling systems coming back online. And, by the way, there are problems with the spent fuel storage facilities heating up in Units 5 and 6, though the reactor cores in those units are presumably in fairly good shape compared to the others. But I have not heard the words ‘cold shutdown’ applied to them.

Assuming the situation stays stable for a while and is eventually brought under some vague semblance of control, that still implies the release of a plume of radioactive steam, an underground plume and a flood of radiation into the Pacific Ocean. This will contaminate much of Japan, and because the Jet Stream carries air east at a fairly rapid speed, I’ve read the plume will reach North America (particularly the West Coast) as early as this weekend. The levels may seem low at the moment. But relatively low levels of radioactivity can cause the same issues as higher doses based on what is known as the Petkau effect.

In addition, there is the issue of bioconcentration. Radioactive materials move through the food chain quickly, concentrating not only in predators but (for example) also in grass-eating cows. There is no such thing as a little radiation, and every drop of the water being dumped onto these reactor cores is turning radioactive and being released to the biosphere.

Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Laboratory presents award to Robert Oppenheimer, a key scientist who developed the atomic bomb. Left to right are Oppenheimer (the wraith in the white hat), General Leslie Groves and Robert G. Sproul. Photo is circa 1945, from the Digital Photo Archive, Department of Energy (DOE), courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives.

That was the good news. Borrowing from Rachel Maddow, I know this is a difficult time to say worse, but it actually can get worse and has been hovering close to it from day to day.

Remember that we are in new territory where nuclear accidents are concerned. This specific thing has never happened before. However, it is probable that if even one of these reactor cores or spent fuel ponds goes into full meltdown, it can sink below the land, reach the water table and create an underground explosion that destroys the small swath of land where this drama is unfolding, causing all of the reactor cores and spent fuel to go out of control. In any event there would be too much radiation for anyone to stay on the site keeping a grip on the others.

That would make Chernobyl into something that seems like a Science Fair experiment by comparison — and it wasn’t. There were about 180 tons of radioactive fuel involved in Chernobyl. At Fukushima, there are at minimum 1,000 tons and so far as I can tell, as much as 3,000 tons (including spent fuel) based on comments made by our government Wednesday, all concentrated in this one facility. (Rachel Maddow covered this in some detail last night).

The Full Moon, and the Aries Sun Conjunct Uranus

The astrology for the next five days is not particularly encouraging, though if the workers now sacrificing their lives at the plant can keep a grip on this through around March 24, I would say the situation might de-escalate. Here’s my reasoning.

Leó Szilárd, one of the co-inventors of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb. Recalling the night of his invention, he wrote, “We turned the switch, saw the flashes, watched for ten minutes, then switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow.” Original copy of this image is held in the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Oregon State University Libraries.

We are currently building into the Full Moon in Virgo. This is a close Full Moon, happening at perigee. It’s running with a lot of momentum, and it’s happening at the very end of the astrological year, with the Sun at equinox — about to enter Aries. Hence Saturday’s Full Moon is an Aries Point event, which (as we have seen) tends to magnify things greatly and brings a lot of people into whatever situation is involved. It’s the world crashing into your living room. It’s you taking part in collective destiny in some direct way, just like we saw the people of Wisconsin do.

The Full Moon represents a peak, and the Sun-Uranus conjunction exactly on the equinox represents a kind of collective surprise development. Let’s hope that’s about some friendly space aliens showing up with their radiation extinguishing devices and cooling off the whole situation; that’s approximately what we need right now, because so far, things could use improvement.

A number of other features make this a pretty special Full Moon. For example, it’s directly involved with the lunar nodes (which I covered two issues ago, and in the second article down). It’s exactly square the nodes, which gives the event the feeling of an eclipse, or a point of no return.

The lunar nodes are aligned with two particularly meaningful points. The node in Sagittarius is pointing to the Galactic Core; hence, this Full Moon is square the core of our galaxy. This stirs up a spiritual crisis. To me the core represents our connection to Source, or our homing signal. The star that Planet Earth hangs out with is located 25,000 light years from the core — far out near the edge of the galaxy. And our star is located between two of the spiral arms. So we are in a distant, remote location, in the boondocks of the galaxy — and for this reason I am not surprised our particular planet so often has a ‘god forsaken’ feeling. The square between the Sun, the Moon and the Galactic Core suggests strongly that we have to seek inwardly for our spiritual connection. It also represents events that might provoke us to do that, and I would say if you have not noticed that fact yet, this is an awesome time to pay attention.

Remember that on our plane of reality, emotional impulses are binary: love and fear. Many have a hard time telling the difference. Here is a clue. If it does not feel like love, then it’s probably fear.

The ground crew of the B-29 “Enola Gay” which atom-bombed Hiroshima, Japan. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, the pilot, is in the center. Photographed on Mariana Islands in Guam. The entire Enola Gay’s flying crew on Aug. 6, 1945 consisted of 12 men. The plane was famously named after Colonel Tibbets’ mother. Photo: UPI.

The South Node, opposite the Galactic Core, is conjunct a point that keeps showing up again and again in charts. The point is at 28+ Gemini. This is a very strange spot in the zodiac that shows up prominently in the charts for Sept. 11, the Asian tsunami of 2004, WikiLeaks, two key charts for Japan — and then for the quake one week ago. These are events that involve the breakdown of systems, turning points in history and in one case someone who is working to tell the truth about those systems.

I happen to have the asteroid Beagle there, and I’ve been hunting this point like a hound for several years. Up till now I was aware that the connection could not be a ‘coincidence’ (I covered this in my first article on WikiLeaks, by the way). Now, this is not merely a point that appears in the charts for catastrophes; it comes with an odd kind of disaster that seems eerily out of place — and it’s also present in people or things that raise our awareness. For example, WikiLeaks just published memos that prove Japan knew it could have this problem years ago.

When I saw how involved it was in both the charts for Japan and the quake, that made me more curious. There is a fixed star at this point, called Betelgeuse. I knew this star was there but I never researched it. A friend looked into it this week, and she dug something out of a 17th century astrology textbook — no ordinary one, the first one ever published in English, called Christian Astrology by William Lilly. He associates the star with “rare engines of war.” That is a quote. Now, that is interesting, since at the time he wrote that there was no such thing as a jetliner or a skyscraper.

Checking Wikipedia next, we learned more. Betelgeuse is a red star, connected with Mars. “With the history of astronomy intimately associated with mythology and astrology prior to the scientific revolution, the red star, like the planet Mars that derives its name from a Roman war god, has been closely associated with the martial archetype of conquest for millennia, and by extension the motif of death and rebirth.” Notably this star is opposite the Galactic Core, facing toward intergalactic space. It feels that way.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Here is what I am thinking. As these global events come closer together, it’s starting to feel like someone is doing all of this. I got that feeling the strongest over the weekend pondering how this extremely rare quake — the 3rd most powerful on record — struck a region in Japan just where there are numerous nuclear reactors (including others not currently in distress). When I read the phrase rare engines of war, I suddenly felt like I was sitting in the middle of someone else’s war.

The question is: whose war, and over what? I don’t know, but I can tell you that the atom was not split for peaceful purposes. It was split with the intention of killing a lot of people. That much is history. Most wars are fought over the usual stupid reasons — power, greed and egotism. Heck, why not? The world is ending anyway.

Next, it occurred to me that this was a war in which environmental disasters were being used as weapons. When Friday’s quake happened, there were a spate of posts that went around about how the federal HAARP facility on the Alaskan tundra was turned up to full tilt at the time. I wasn’t in the control room taking pictures — I don’t know. But many people believe this is an electromagnetic device capable of changing weather patterns and inducing seemingly natural disasters. But this is not my field of inquiry; it was a little too tinfoil hat for me, that is, until I was looking at video of nuclear reactors blowing up one after the next.

So, I started asking around. I asked a friend who is an engineer if you can make an earthquake. He sent back a number of references, the most interesting of which was a quote from Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense, a guy named William S. Cohen, during a news briefing. The quote comes from the Department of Defense transcript of that briefing.

The atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

He said he had read about the prospect of “some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves” [emphasis mine].

Gee whiz: the very secretary of defense speaking, not some conspiracy (or astrology) website? And, um, like — others are doing this? Like who for instance?

Saddam Hussein? Castro? Russia? Darth Vader? Well, whoever.

When the United States is talkin’, it’s always someone else. We’re nobody special, just the only country ever to use the Bomb on a population. And we happen to have one of these electromagnetic wave thingies — a really big one and it keeps getting bigger. That would be HAARP. And this is not particularly new technology. Stuff like this was being developed by Nikola Tesla, an electrical engineer who was busy in the early 20th century. Tesla, who invented alternating current and thus the modern electrical grid, was ahead of his time. In 1897 he was researching cosmic rays.

I just looked at his chart. He has Mercury in that mysterious 28+ degree of Gemini: Mercury, the planet of the mind, of ideas and of messages. By the way — for what it’s worth — he was the biggest rival of Thomas Edison, the founder of GE — the company that designed those nuclear reactors that are melting down.

Thank you, that was all very interesting

— but at the moment we’re sitting here wondering what to do. Wondering what’s going to happen to all that radiation. Wondering if they’re going to get a grip. And the show is not over — far from it.

In addition to the 2012 configuration (Uranus square Pluto) I’ve been describing for weeks, there are many other aspects gathering around the Aries Point that I haven’t mentioned yet which hint at the possibility of a confrontation. These are about self-awareness awakening us to the forces of darkness that have, so far, kept themselves rather well cloaked. I mean, one definition of the perfect war is one that nobody knows is going on. It looks like something else.

In terms of how to process all this disaster by design, my own preference is to be aware rather than to pretend something is not happening. My preference is to stay connected and creative and curious rather than to pull away. I choose to embrace this moment with a sense of adventure rather than dread. This is a moment of collective awakening.

It may be the beginning of the very moment of collective awakening, here at the edge of the world.

I just have one question for you — what are you doing?

lovingly,

Additional Research: Tracy Delaney, Amanda Painter and Carol van Strum. Photo Research: Sarah Bissonette-Adler. Many readers have contributed ideas, facts and proofreading — thank you.

Waterfall at the Grandmother Land on Earth Day 2010. Photo by Eric Francis.

A Full Moon in Virgo: Turning a Corner

Saturday’s Full Moon in Virgo represents a turning point on many accounts, illustrated mainly because the axis of the Full Moon is square the nodes of the Moon. This is being called a ‘super’ Full Moon because the Moon is at perigee particularly close to the Earth. You can think of this as opposite Black Moon Lilith, the lunar apogee, or you can just think of it as large and close.

Full Moon chart set for Kingston, NY.

The Moon and Sun are also square a point out of a system of astrology we don’t usually use here — that point (a hypothetical, without an actual physical body but with a symbolic and mathematical presence) is called Hades, and it’s in late Gemini. This seems designed to help us become aware of anything that is “unpleasant, useless, antique or deeply buried,” in the words of Arlene Kramer, such as power generation inventions that don’t work and that we don’t need. Similarly in our own lives we might look for defenses, ways of relating to ourselves, ideas or concepts of dualism that no longer serve us.

Hades (not shown in the chart, but at 28+ Gemini) also represents the occult, and the secrets of the atomic world would clearly qualify, making any dark sorcerer proud — except for the fact that no sorcerer likes to see his spell run wild. Still, we need to go deeply into whatever it is that we encounter, make an authentic inquiry and check our basic facts. This is a slow-moving point covering just a degree a year, so it’s going to be hanging around that odd degree that binds together many of the biggest news events of the past decade.

Part of what makes this chart influential is the proximity to the lunar nodes. When the Sun and Moon are conjunct or close to either of the nodes, we usually get an eclipse. When they are square the nodes, there can be a similar sensation. This is an especially close square, coming in at less than one degree away, so this chart indicates both a turning point and an opposition one needs to integrate into one’s psyche in order to proceed with a growth process. That opposition might involve the emotional nature of Pisces and the mental nature of Virgo, an opposition which can cause significant struggle (as if the two have nothing in common).

The nodes themselves align with the Galactic Core — the North Node points right to it. There is an idea that we need to focus on the homing signal represented by the core of the galaxy — that irresistible pull toward the center of consciousness that might be at odds with the normal human experiences of feelings/thoughts and that can seem to exist on a different plane of reality. In fact it can seem so different that we pretend it’s not there, or get entirely distracted in the rest of the sensations we’re feeling. The intensity of this Full Moon suggests that the polarity between the male and female principles (illustrated by the Sun and Moon) becomes so intense that it dawns on the mind that there might be a better way.

This is also an Aries Point event; the Sun and the Moon are both close to Aries and Libra. The Sun is close to an exact conjunction to Uranus in Aries, which it will be through the equinox. This suggests something new; a new idea about oneself (Aries) or about where we fit into the community (Uranus). The world is not always based on the choices we perceived yesterday — often there are other alternatives that we can invoke, though they will take us on a seemingly narrower path.

For an interesting comment on the Full Moon chart, please visit this article on the Planet Waves blog.

Last chance to tell…

For three years, Mark Cocker, the author and conservationist, has been working with BirdLife on a massive and remarkable initiative that documents how birds fill our lives. Called Birds and People, the project is building an international chorus on just why birds are so important to people, how they resonate throughout human cultures, and how they influence our responses to wider nature and the environment.

Eagle Hunters crossing the Altai plateau in Mongolia (David Tipling).

Mark is now calling for more stories, and the next few months will be that last chance to contribute and get your personal experience into Birds and People.

Birds and People will be a unique book for many reasons, but particularly because it contains original contributions from people around the world. Already, the stories of more than 420 people are woven into Mark’s authoritative text — from Paraguay to Portugal, from India to Australia, Azerbaijan to the Bahamas. More than 60 countries are represented already.

Images for Birds and People are being gathered by renowned bird photographer David Tipling, who has already travelled widely seeking pictures. In these examples of his work, red-crowned cranes are trumpeting at dawn on Hokkaido in Japan (shown in link), and the Eagle Hunters are crossing the Altai plateau in Mongolia, en route to the Ulgii hunters festival in October 2009.

Mental, Emotional, Physical or Spiritual?

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Once someone explained to me that the distinction between jazz and blues had more to do with sorting things out in the record store than it did with meaningful differences in the music. To hear the terms, one would get the mistaken idea that they are entirely unrelated things. In fact, they are entirely related, most notably by being music.

That’s how it often is with categories of any kind, and that’s how it is with some we use often — mental, emotional and physical. We could add ‘spiritual’ to that list, too.

The thing about categories is that they do as much excluding as they do including. If you say ‘mental’ then you’re implying that whatever you’re talking about has nothing to do with the body. If you say ‘physical’ you imply just physical.

If you say ‘spiritual’ you imply everything else is unspiritual. Often categories have no relationship to what they supposedly describe. White people are not really white and black people are not black. We refer to black, white and Latino but Latino is not a color.

When we say ‘mental’ we might mean emotional or spiritual. Usually both have plenty in common with one’s physical reality. The charts for spring 2011 are full of illustrations of the crossovers between these seemingly separate realities. One example is how Aquarius (the mental dimension) and Pisces (the emotional and sometimes the spiritual dimension) have been morphing into one sign.

Neptune (a planet associated with Pisces) has been in Aquarius for more than 12 years, and it’s about to cross back and forth over the line between the two signs three times between now and early 2012. This draws a connection between the mental, the spiritual and the emotional. The idea is that they are different expressions of the same thing. Take a few chords from blues, lighten up the riff, and you’ve got jazz.

Meanwhile, Uranus, a planet associated with Aquarius, has been crossing back and forth between Pisces and Aries for the past year, morphing those two signs and carrying over energy from Aquarius. Aries is hot blooded and passionate, but it’s also about physical strength and stamina. Uranus adds the dimension of mental innovation and invention.

When the Sun crosses over the Aries equinox point in a couple of weeks, it will make a conjunction to Uranus. Meanwhile Jupiter, the traditional ruling planet of Pisces, is in Aries, carrying some of that energy over to its neighbor as well.

In effect, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries are currently acting like one sign. There’s something going on here — personality integration. Except for the fact that personality is a category, and we really don’t know what it means. Is it part of the soul? Some say no. I say that it is an aspect of a person. What we think of as the mind (Aquarius, Uranus) is getting expressed through the body (Aries, Sun) and mixed with the soul (Pisces, Jupiter, Neptune) and also with what we sometimes think of as the feeling body or astral body.

Do these categories mean anything? They mean a lot less than the statement that as the astrology of the spring and indeed the next few years develops, we will have increasing access to all the dimensions of who we are — if we want to access those inner experiences.

This column is called the Chiron Files, and it’s worth taking a close look at the particular influence of that planet on its new home, Pisces. Chiron is the original astrological factor that blurs the boundaries. Buzzing around between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, Chiron is usually associated with the signs Virgo and Sagittarius. So that’s a lot of different qualities bundled up into one thing that’s a little like an asteroid and a little more like a comet.

Chiron is like an un-kaleidoscope which, instead of fracturing an image into things that make no sense, reassembles things that make no sense into something that is perfectly understandable.

To me Chiron in Pisces has a few basic messages. One is that everything exists on a continuum. There are not so many hard and fast boundaries and rules, but it’s good to know where you are on the spectrum at any given time so you can respond appropriately.

Another message of Chiron in Pisces is that existence is holographic. Everything we experience is a sample of everything else. Perception is based on seeing differences, and those are in turn based on the differences we already have within our minds. Chiron is not only saying that we can see the world as whole, but also that as we see ourselves as whole, we will begin to see the world that way.

Yours & truly,

Uranus in Aries

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Later today (overnight Friday in some time zones), Uranus leaves Pisces and enters Aries to stay for the next seven years. As the astrology picture of 2012-2015 assembles, this is one of the biggest pieces — the presence of Uranus representing the energy surge; the impulse to enter the future. This has been warming up for a few years, but now is the moment we go into warp speed. In the words of Richard Tarnas, Uranus is Prometheus, the awakener.

The two sides of the planet Uranus, as viewed in this composite image, by the Keck II Telescope at near infrared wavelengths. These new images of the seventh planet from the sun promise to help scientists unravel the mysteries of the weather on Uranus. Photo credit: Courtesy Lawrence Sromovsky, UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center.

Bringing Uranus into such a prominent place as the first degree of the zodiac amplifies its influence, and Uranus is already pretty hot: its characteristics include fast, surprising developments; future-oriented thinking; moments of revolution; and shocking surges of awareness. As Uranus approaches its first exact square to Pluto in June 2012, we’re only going to see this whole process accelerate, bring in more communities and wake up more people. In a phrase, 2012 is about everything, all at once.

For some the awakening associated with this aspect will be extremely uncomfortable, challenging their old ways and pushing many out of their comfort zones. To do this astrology fully, it’s necessary either to challenge or break away from everyone who is not. For many, the developing energies will be the most exciting thing that’s ever happened, the moment of real involvement and participation. A lot of others will watch and shake their heads at how crazy the world is going. I reckon a good few will feel alienated and wish they could do more, having no idea how to.

Uranus in Aries actually began warming up its act last year, when Jupiter and Uranus briefly visited Aries and made a conjunction on June 8. That conjunction was in the first degree of Aries — the Aries Point itself, the first degree of the astrological wheel. The location of the conjunction was one of those clues that our personal lives and the seemingly inaccessible, usually abstract realm of public existence were going to merge rapidly and in a large way. We had a clue that the effects would be international — that was the presence of Jupiter. Sure enough, it has all happened.

I’ll tell you this, though. Whenever I write about politics, I’m fully aware that for most people their contact with government consists of parking tickets, filing taxes and possibly watching television (which is the new scholarship).

Handcuffs on the doors in the state capitol building attempt to lock out protesters. Photo by Robin Davies.

Most of us neither understand nor appreciate what happens in the wider society, and we’re pretty confused about it, too. How are we supposed to tell what’s important when there’s always a lot of action on TV? From what I could tell there were as many photographers outside Lindsay Lohan’s 10-minute hearing Thursday as there are in Madison, Wisconsin, where we have a revolution brewing. The fiasco at the Lohan court appearance (for a troubled rich girl attempting to steal an expensive necklace, to me representing all that’s wrong with the world) is part of a dumbing-down process that either creates distractions or makes us not care about what really matters.

It was fun watching Contessa Brewer on MSNBC Thursday afternoon get openly, vocally pissed off at her producer — talking through her earpiece — who informed her that she had to describe Lohan’s dress because people care. The obvious question is does anyone care, or are they brainwashed into thinking they care?

In Wisconsin, right now, we are witnessing a struggle over the future of the American labor movement, which is the only voice in politics large enough to compete with what can be understated as a right-wing corporatist movement: that is, banks and corporations taking over everything. Labor unions, which are traditionally very powerful in Wisconsin, are the backbone of the Democratic Party, the American equivalent of the Labor Party in other countries. When despotic right wing legislators want to gut the right of unions to exist, they’re saying they want all the marbles. And in a word, having all the marbles is tyranny.

When we look at the mess in politics (which primarily involves how sold out to corporate interests so many politicians are), any person with a shred of sensitivity will be repulsed; merely seeing the face of Scott Walker, the Tea Bagger puppet governor of Wisconsin (whose boss is a multi-billionaire oil and chemical guy from Texas), makes me a little nauseous. That, too, is part of the assault on common sense, empathy and humanity. What we’re witnessing in Wisconsin is supposed power that will stop at nothing. We are also witnessing an agenda. And we are seeing it everywhere, as an old concept of might makes right tries to hold on in a world that is about to deliver only change.

You may not have heard about this, but in Michigan, the state legislature is now passing a law that would allow the state government to enter a fiscally stressed municipality or school district, kick out the elected officials, take over — and strip union rights. Gee, what a coincidence.

Protesters in Madison carry a picture of Gov. Scott Walker as the masked man/bandit/sidekick a la Robin. Walker is a puppet of the Koch brothers, the oil and chemical billionaires from Texas who funded and helped create the Tea Party movement that swept a bunch of right-wing pseudo Republicans into office last November. People who voted for them in good faith are starting to realize they got duped. Photo by Robin Davies.

Other places, on seemingly less important matters, public officials are digging in their heels and pushing their will on people, lying to them, often successfully convincing them that they’re powerless and basically doing anything to convince themselves they actually have power over others. This seems to be on the level of sport; something done for its own sake. In my own city I’m involved in an issue and one of the most perverse things I’m seeing is certain members of the community gloat that they are getting over on others — or so they think.

One problem with having a politically illiterate population is that hardly anyone can see the larger agenda. In fact most would deny there even is one — that all this movement in, shall we say, certain political directions is kind of a coincidence. People who espouse most of Ronald Reagan’s views today would be considered liberals (they are not).

We here in the United States have put up with a lot during the past 30 years that the Neoconservative movement has been rising to power, and we have said so very little. There has been war after war, and giveback after giveback (civil rights, privacy, standard of living, reproductive rights). There was a fraudulent presidential impeachment, two stolen elections and a false-flag attack that has been used to justify anything anyone feels needs some justification.

The U.S. is sitting on $14 trillion in public debt (nearly all of which went into private hands) that our children will either pay back or default on. Just about all the manufacturing jobs have gone to Indonesia and Mexico and China. We have seen the treasury looted again and again. Banks that were bailed out and profitable are sitting on trillions that they won’t lend to businesses. Four hundred people have as much wealth as half the U.S. population.

There is a faction of American politics that will not be satisfied until every real job is shipped overseas, till everyone works at Wal Mart, till nobody has health care, and until women’s rights are gutted entirely. What we’re seeing in Wisconsin is, in two words, resistance to that agenda, and progress toward the new.

Police in Madison escort a protest march. Our reporter in Madison says that with rare exceptions, the cops have been extremely cool. Photo by Robin Davies.

Yet all of this can still seem so abstract. I ask you — why are so many people on antidepressants? Why do so many resort to fundamentalist religion? Why are so unbelievably many people drunk so often everywhere in the world? Why is there so much rage? Why are relationships so fragile? All of this relates to the political environment. Cause and effect are never separate; I cannot tell you which is causing which — but there are many connections.

In case you’re wondering about 2012, have a look around, and a look inside. Consider what is going on in your own life and see if you can discern a relationship to the wider world. That really is the exercise; at this moment, that’s one point of growth. Deeper in, there is, as I’ve suggested, a ubiquitous need for emotional healing that may affect every single person on the planet.

Meanwhile, outer circumstances keep getting our attention. Perhaps you have been, or will be, affected by a layoff, a foreclosure or a bank failure. You may have lost a loved one in one of these disgusting, illegal wars, which would certainly shape your worldview. You may personally be experiencing the effects of climate change.

Maybe your Social Security or disability will be cut because someone wants a new yacht, or holds in disdain those less ‘fortunate’ than themselves. You may be eating Corexit with your shrimp chow mein. Probably, though, your personal point of contact to the wider world will come in forms that differ slightly from someone you see interviewed on the news. (Then again, what you think of as the news may be coming to your town, your street or your living room any day.)

Some kind of a protest thingie in Madison that sums up the feeling of Uranus-Pluto aspects. Photo by Robin Davies.

Maybe you know you’ve contributed to the problem over and over by not speaking up every time you’ve known you wanted to; every time you saw injustice — on whatever scale, including right in front of you — but decided you were powerless or that you didn’t want to bother. I promise you it’s not too late to care, and to take action on whatever level feels right. One thing that will make this easier is that others around you will be getting involved. You won’t need to feel like you’re the only one who cares.

For most people, the revolutionary surge of Uranus square Pluto — the epicenter of 2012 astrology — will arise as a sense of restlessness, as the awakening of conscience, as the desire to influence the world in a creative way. Maybe that, in turn, will be about growing into some of the potential you keep feeling, that keeps calling you, begging you to respond. You may wake up one day and decide the truth really does matter: on whatever level you take that concept. Apparently the people of Wisconsin heard the wake-up call.

“I never thought I’d be covering a pro-democracy movement in the United States, much less in my city,” said Elizabeth DiNovella, an editor for The Progressive. “I think people here really have this awareness of how money has spoiled politics. Even today a lot of people at the protest were chanting, ‘The banks got bailed out; the people got sold out’.”

The protests by far have been some of the most vibrant and sustained in the United States since the 1960s, with tens of thousands of people in the streets day after day, and an occupation of the capitol lasting for three weeks.

Warm and sunny in Madison, WI? Fox News shows scene of police and protesters scuffling, claiming that it’s in Madison, WI. The only problem is that it’s warm, sunny and there are palm trees. The footage was shown in a segment with Bill O’Reilly whining about how people say Fox News is lying about the protests. The palm trees were spotted by some of those professional leftists who of course have a keen eye for trees.

DiNovella said that the whole experience has taught people a lot. “The propaganda of the right no longer works on the people of Wisconsin. People are aware of what’s going on and they recognize that something is wrong.” She gave as one example how Fox News, during a rant about how the protests were being staged by “professional leftists,” showed footage of violence at a union-related protest purportedly in Madison. The problem was that there were palm trees in the frame.

“Now people are carrying inflatable palm trees at protests,” she said. “The energy here has been so positive and people have been so creative.”

DiNovella has helped with protest movements in many parts of the world. “I’m so glad I didn’t have to build a low-power radio station. Compared to other places, we already have the infrastructure.” She said that recently the pipefitters union gave away 14,000 bratwurst and hot dogs, feeding hungry protesters — many of whom have spent days on end out in the cold.

“Wisconsin has its own progressive tradition, especially involving unions, that is part of the American fabric. It’s funny watching these reporters coming in from out of town who are surprised that this could happen here, including in the independent media,” she added.

Uranus square Pluto is not just about addressing external oppression. It’s also about an inner revolution over dark mother and dark father: the oppressive forces that we’ve internalized over the years, and from which we seek freedom. It’s about breaking free from the structures that merely eat energy and feed negativity. Revolution is about getting out from under the shadow of the past, from guilt, and from the urge to suppress every creative or erotic or loving impulse you feel. Revolution is about figuring out you’re actually alive, and doing something about it.

Yours & truly,

Tsunami waves in Japan earlier today. Photo: Reuters.

Biggest Quake in 140 Years Hits Japan at 8.9;

Tsunami Warning Issued for 20 Countries including U.S

Uranus in Pisces is certainly going out with a bang. It’s been rippling through the political spheres for weeks. Today a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck near the city of Sendai, just north of Tokyo on the northeastern coast of Japan. This is being called the most powerful quake to strike Japan in 140 years. A debris-filled wall of water as high as 30 feet has washed over some cities and farmland.

Chart for quake off the coast of Sendai, with the coordinates corrected for the actual location off the coast. Note the packed 8th house, including Chiron, Mars, the Sun, the Black Moon Lilith, Mercury and other points in Pisces (the 8th house by whole sign houses). Centaur Nessus is prominent in this chart — it’s angular on the 7th house cusp.

There are no known death tolls at this time; it’s impossible to estimate so early in the situation. One witness said the quake was so intense that it was impossible for him to stand up. First he and his wife clung to the outside of their house, then they had to curl up on the ground. Major aftershocks are expected. Train lines are down in Tokyo, a city of 13 million, and highways are closed. The quake happened in the mid-afternoon local time, with many people away from home and children in daycare centers.

Witnesses say this was an unusually long quake, with tremors lasting several minutes. It’s being called the 5th largest quake in the world since 1900, rivaling the Chile quake in 1960, Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1964 and the Sumatra quake of 2004. Remember that the Richter scale, used to measure quakes, is logarithmic; a 5.0 quake is 10 times more intense than a 4.0 quake. This increases proportionally as you go up the scale such that the energy increase from 8.0 to 9.0 is much greater than from 4.0 to 5.0.

There are four nuclear power plants in the area. CNN is reporting that one of the plants has a fire and one has a shutdown of the cooling system. CNN is also reporting that the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that the plants where shut down safely, so this is a potentially conflicting report.

Tsunamis have already reached Taiwan, and warnings are out for as far away as Hawaii, the entire West Coast of the United States and Canada, and coastal Chile. But only small waves are expected in these outlying areas. Due to the prevalence of video cameras, there are astonishing videos of both the quake and the waves in Japan. CNN is reporting that there are evacuations underway in coastal areas of Hawaii. Images of piles cars sitting in a harbor, an explosion at a refinery and other vivid images of devastation are being broadcast on television.

These are the planets on a 90-degree dial aligned approximately with the Mars-Borasisi conjunction. In other words these are the points that are conjunct, square or opposite the conjunction.

Let’s take a look at the chart. We see a powerful 8th house in Pisces — with Chiron, Mars, Black Moon Lilith and Uranus present. Sometimes astrological symbolism can be glaringly literal; the 8th is the house of the ’cause of death’ and here we have many planets involved with a water sign, including three of the higher-impact ones — Mars, Chiron and Uranus. With Uranus just 3 arc minutes from Aries (where it arrives later today), this is an Aries Point event. Such a potent 8th house speaks to the possibility of both loss of life and economic impact. There is a lot of concentrated wealth and industry in this part of Japan, so the impact is being felt in markets and will be experienced by the insurance and reinsurance industries. (Reinsurance is an insurance policy held by an insurance company.)

The ascendant for the Japan chart comes up arc minutes from the degree of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999 — demonstrating that eclipses can be active for many years after the event. This eclipse was also present in the Sept. 11, 2001 chart — Venus, the chart ruler was there.

In addition, the Moon’s South Node in the Japan chart, as mentioned in last week’s edition, is now in Gemini and in this chart is conjunct the Moon’s position in both the Sept. 11 chart and the Banda Aceh chart. The prevalence of this degree in global-scale disasters is pretty weird; I covered it in a recent article on Wikileaks.

The Moon phase is first quarter, which is unusual for such a large quake; they happen more often at new and full phase. The Moon had just entered Gemini and was in a close square to Chiron at the time. Last week we read about Borasisi; at the moment of the quake, Mars was (and remains for the moment) in a close conjunction to Borasisi.

Both points are square the Great Attractor, which is a force that magnifies the influence of whatever comes in contact with it and is associated with far-reaching effects extending beyond what can be readily perceived. Looking at a list of minor planets, we see the a concentration in the mutable signs around Mars-Borasisi, including Hopi, something that speaks of events with a rapid onset. One description of the quake that I heard a little while ago included the unusual sound of thousands of buildings creaking simultaneously. The asteroid Siwa, right in the mix (opposite the Great Attractor), is associated with sound.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 11, 2011, #852 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Self is not static. Indeed, it’s about the most dynamic element in nature. It would help if we could distinguish self-concept from self. The thing that tends to get stuck is our idea of who we’re supposed to be, which has some relationship to who we were yesterday. I don’t suggest you get lost in the theory of this, except to remember that what tends to seize is an idea and what tends to flow is your actual being. With Uranus entering your sign today, you can pretty much forget the past and get ready for some nonstop motion. It will help if you allow your idea to be free, so that when the actual person you are finds itself in the midst of sudden progress, you can minimize inner conflict and go with the flow of existence. You’re unlikely to have any choice in the matter of whether your life takes some giant steps, though you have plenty of influence over what direction you choose.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Aries, please go to this link.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — To the extent that this is a moment of inner awakening for you, it’s also a moment of seeing what you’ve been missing. You’re being presented with an inner view that may be shocking, strange or feel like something to celebrate. It will help if you remember that what you’re experiencing is indeed an inner experience. Most of the people you meet every day have neither affinity for nor attraction to this thing sometimes called an inner life. If they do it’s often dressed in the garb of outer life: situations, personalities, physical objects, goals, etc. There is another inner life that is attached to none of those symbols. You could think of it as the clear essence of being; as pure energy; as your sense of presence within the universe. It’s what we think of as ‘alive’ the moment that concept has any meaning at all. To experience that on our planet at this time can be pretty shocking.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Taurus, please go to this link.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — One good idea will lead to the next. One interesting encounter will point the way to the next, and the two are related. You’re being invited to feed your imagination on people: on their presence, what they say, and those to whom they introduce you. But don’t wait around for that; don’t be shy. Make your presence known, and pay attention to your environment. You’re in an unusual space where your circle of friends is growing outward and reaching into unfamiliar social patterns. People you never would have expected are positioned to reach toward you. One thing you might notice is that you’re no longer the weirdest person in your environment. Indeed, you may think you have some competition, but fortunately your life is more about collaboration than contest. If you keep that perspective you’re likely to make some very good friends over the next few days.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Gemini, please go to this link.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — This is a particularly brilliant moment for your professional life. Do your best to set aside the sensation of ‘too much’ and put your intelligence to work making the most of the volume of events and of energy flow. Then open your mind to some of the possibilities that you actually have considered but have never quite given yourself credit for being up to. At the moment, just about everyone else thinks you are. You don’t need to do much except get out of your own way and not send yourself your usual litany of negative or questioning messages. Cancer is a yin (feminine, receptive) sign by nature; you are now embarking on one of the most yang phases of your life: a time of expression and what looks like wild innovation and creativity. The most important thing you can do is stay emotionally grounded: not stuck, but present in your feelings, even as they move at their unusual current pace.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Cancer, please go to this link.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — As the next few days unfold, feel yourself approach a tipping point in a financial or partnership situation. This is a moment when the balance of inertia shifts toward being a thing in motion rather than a thing at rest; toward clarity rather than the soupy fog that has enveloped some aspects of your life; toward the future rather than lingering in the past. A doorway is opening for you, and it’s opening a lot wider and into a more interesting space than you may realize at the moment. You may feel like your horizons are widening, but what is really expanding is your idea of who you are and what you’re doing in the world. When that particular perspective takes on its full dimensions, the world itself seems to change. Remember, and remember again: it’s you who is bursting into full color. The world has always been this wild.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Leo, please go to this link.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — I’m here to remind you once again that everything is negotiable. I know that hardly anyone lives this way except for a few billionaires and con artists, but I’m telling you that — with rare exceptions, which probably have many exceptions — everything is up for discussion. That includes every agreement or commitment you ever made; every seemingly intractable situation; your entire concept of your finances; and the way you project yourself into the world and seek identity in the people that you meet. How they see and experience you is entirely up for grabs, and you get to set the terms of the discussion. One last — you’re not alone. There’s that old song that says two is the loneliest number, after one. This moment is your opening to meeting many kindred spirits, as long as you are authentically, unequivocally yourself.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Virgo, please go to this link.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You’re being a gem with someone you work with who may be getting on your nerves or going through a difficult emotional time. You have a way of channeling your energy into creative directions, which really is the name of the game. And you actually have a life. Yes, there may be a lot of movement, unpredictable developments and perhaps a bit more energy than you would prefer, but in actual fact you have a rich existence and I think you know it. That provides you with both reassurance and a cushion. But I suggest you stay as far outside of your safe zone as you can, because that’s where you’ll find your maximum creativity. You tend to like stability and you’re thriving on it at the moment; events may seem to conspire to draw you out of your comfort zone and into what may feel like an entirely unfamiliar place. The way your chart is set up at the moment, you can have both.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Libra, please go to this link.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You may have to assert yourself against someone close to you. This person’s reluctance to speak up, live up to a commitment or respond to your needs has been a cause for concern. I would caution you against exerting too much energy their way; a little is all it will take. There are many other influences that are sending the same message in his or her life, and I assure you that this person feels like they’re in a bit over their head. There are aspects to their life that you don’t know about yet. I would not go so far as to say that they’re actually living a double life, but there is likely to be an element of that. Because of your proximity, you’re likely to be someone to whom they respond. So I suggest you make your feelings known in the form of a direct request rather than a hint of some kind, and then listen to what you hear. Leave the door open.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Scorpio, please go to this link.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Many things exist in potential: talent, ideas and your ability to project yourself into your goals. What makes the difference is action, and on that particular score I can give you a clue: you may never quite feel ready for what you want to do, or what you plan to do. You may never meet all the prerequisites, have enough knowledge or be certain enough. And you know what? That doesn’t matter. You’re not exactly unprepared at this point; in fact you have far more experience than you think, and that experience is worth more than you imagine. Still, you may think that makes little difference when you don’t have the certainty or the confidence that you need. It’s true that some of the most worthwhile accomplishments in the long story of humanity have happened when they were good and ready. Most of them seized the lives of people who had little preparation and no idea what they were getting into.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Sagittarius, please go to this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Your astrology offers several different images for what might be coming. One is you transform your basement into a laboratory and start working on those inventions you’ve been planning all these years. Or, the Cirque du Soleil arrives in town and you’re the host to the fire-eaters and sword swallowers, who stay for at least three weeks; while they’re living with you, they teach you all their tricks and you join their troupe and go on the road for seven years. Or you buy an old summer camp in your area and found a special program for child prodigies. In any event, expect some new energy to come into your home; reconsider what it means to feel safe in a time of rapid change. At the very least, consider redecorating, remodeling or moving to bigger digs. And if you currently live with your family, get ready to consider some much better options.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Capricorn, please go to this link.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Having the life you want is suddenly no longer a matter of power or resources; it’s a matter of people, and you’re person one. Normally we think of success as being upwardly mobile; for you it’s more about being able to extend yourself among your peers. You practice a kind of lateral success, which is another way of saying weaving community. You may have a sense that you’re at the center of that community, but that’s only true from a limited perspective. You’re participating in a much wider cosmic project of re-weaving the human family. I am sure you’ve noticed how fragmented our communities are and how alienated so many people feel. I promise you, you’re one of the people who feels less estranged. That’s a special distinction. And you don’t have to let on. Just keep weaving.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Aquarius, please go to this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — With everything else going on in your sign (and thus your life), you might not notice that Uranus is slipping into Aries this week, ending a seven-year spell of rampant whatever-it-is that you’re probably sure is not over. However, I have a question: Have you ever had one of those revelations wherein you realize the one thing you need to do is relax, cease from exerting so much effort and energy, and allow ‘pure mind’ to get your results? That is, to allow consciousness to be the potent activating agent that it is, and then experience the universe responding in its quantum way? I thought so! Well, it may take you a few weeks to get there. You can start by making the conscious choice to gear down, even if your life doesn’t respond in 10 seconds. Obviously many things would be easier if you had no concerns about where money was supposed to come from, and if one aspect of life is poised to respond to the whole quantum mind-power thing, that’s the one that’s gonna happen first.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Pisces, please go to this link.