Dear Fellow Traveler:

We have nearly arrived at the total solar eclipse in Cancer. There are many kinds of eclipses, and this is just the second total solar eclipse in Cancer since the June 2001 event that rewrote existence. (The most recent was last July.) The June 21, 2001 eclipse was precisely on the Aries Point, in the first degree of the sign Cancer. In other words, it happened on the solstice, and was extraordinarily powerful for that reason.

Now we have many other planets gathered around the Aries Point, all of them aligned in the cardinal signs. Those are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, as well as the lunar nodes. I am aware that this time in our lives is offering many people more stress and change than they can process. The eclipses are intensifying the effect: we will be in different territory Monday after the conjunction, and as the energy shifts we will gradually see where that is.

So take it as easy as you can, talk to people you resonate with rather than those who resist your perception, and move with the energy. Given that the eclipse is in the sign Cancer, that means high emotions and, as you will read later, some stress on partnerships. Do that crablike thing and move sideways if you need to. Focus on your basic needs.

There are a lot of planets in Virgo right now, and Saturn is changing signs: these factors point to additional mental stress. So go easy on the self-critique, and if your lover isn’t giving it to you, give it to yourself.

Oil Spill As Metaphor

Cancer is a water sign. It’s difficult to think about water without remembering the Gulf of Mexico, the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream. Everyone has their favorite place in that part of the world and I keep thinking about what is going to happen to Key West. Yesterday I heard that tar balls washed up on the Texas coast. Maybe that will get them into the game: we need a state with a lot of influence to keep the pressure on BP and the feds. I’ve also heard that by August we could expect the oil spill to reach Miami. That’s a lot of beachfront real estate, something to consider for those who don’t care about dolphins.

As someone both trained and naturally inclined to read the signs and symbols, I also cannot think about what’s happening down in that magnificent inland sea without considering what this says about the emotional nature of humanity, and the extent to which we are collectively overdosing on everything that is not conducive to peace, contentment or creativity.

By overdosing, I mean everything from what we see on television to what passes as food and beverages. Every time I see someone walk by with a can of Arizona iced tea, I cringe. I mean how we do nearly all of our socializing on the Internet, where we can safely delete one another. I mean the extent to which we are inflicted with about 10 new reasons a day to get lost in anxiety, and we have few examples or techniques to get out of it: besides, you know, the usual mantras of “it’s all good” or “we’re all screwed.” It’s true that we need to organize politically and environmentally to deal with this stuff, but we also need a kind of psychological activism so we can learn techniques to cope with and process the way the world is now. We need to learn our options.

I wonder why, when I flip through the cable channels, I go past five murder investigations and a couple of murder trials. Conversations about relationships are relegated to the circus of daytime television. How often do you see an artist talking about their work — that is, as compared to crime scene investigations? I would say it’s a ratio of about 1:500. I never imagined that politics would get polarized into the hyped-up state of vindictive chaos that it’s in (the Clinton impeachment should have been a clue), as our country racks up debt for war against a nonexistent enemy and cannot, at this point, solve its own problems. We could, of course, if we could agree what they are, agree to do something and agree that the people who profit from perpetuating the problems have to be moved out of the way.

All of this and a lot more plays into our anxious emotional state right how: what you might call our water body. People really are scared about what is happening to the world. Personally, I find this to be impressive. Yet we don’t know how to turn that fear into action. The Gulf of Mexico is quite a metaphor for how we tend to deal with our water body: our emotional body. I just got an email from Chelsea’s husband, T.J., directing me to an Associated Press story reporting the following:

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”

I am also reminded of the Planet Waves report from the spring about how until recently the Gulf of Mexico was used as a dumping ground for millions of pounds of unexploded bombs as warships returned from sea.

If you’re following the news, you may have heard the theory that there is a massive methane bubble under the blown-out well that could, if it ignites, create a massive fireball, eruption and tsunami.

And CNN is reporting that nearly all of the people who worked on the Exxon-Valdez oil spill are now dead. This should remind us that petrochemicals are toxic. If you’re not supposed to sniff your car’s fuel tank while you’re pumping gas, you should not be exposed to raw petroleum without a respirator and Tyvec suit. From what I hear, that ain’t the way it is on the Gulf of Mexico right now: the workers cannot get the protective gear they need.

I’ve been working as a card reader and astrologer since the late 1980s and that means I’ve been listening to a lot of people tell me their stories. This is how most of us deal with our emotions. We take chances that we don’t calculate. We don’t take precautions that would be easy. Then we dump the old bombs and cap the wells and call that turning over a new leaf and moving on.

Water Recovers Gradually

Of course, this doesn’t usually succeed. Fire, air and earth can burn, blow and quake (and move on), though water heals and returns to equilibrium slowly. What is damaged by water is slow (if ever) to repair, and we need to be mindful that water itself can be damaged rapidly. Once there is a toxic release, it can take a long time to recover, if it ever does. Real-life evidence of this is that it’s nearly impossible to find fish that’s not contaminated with mercury, PCBs, flame-retardants and many other persistent chemicals.

And it’s difficult for us to proceed through our emotional world without encountering their emotional equivalents: deception, resentment, fear, guilt and shame — no matter how much we want (or say we want) love and emotional contact. We absolutely can heal these things, though there are a few prerequisites. One is we have to want to. Another is that we need to set about to do it on our own, acquire the tools we need, and surround ourselves only with cooperative people.

I wish this was how most of us lived. The world would be a lot happier place: an easier place to be. The way most of us treat our emotional reality, it’s as if we woke up one day and discovered 27,000 capped oil wells and a million tons of bombs at the bottom of our personal pond, and have no idea where they came from. This is for the most part true. The past is more complex than most people can deal with, without help — and how many people get help? How many people do you know who go to therapy and love their therapist? We don’t realize that the unresolved pain and injury of our mothers and fathers is visiting us even from the seventh generation or longer into the distant past.

If we want to recover, we need to plan for a long journey, and take the first steps ourselves. Nobody can make that commitment for us, and no matter who wants you to feel better (and by that I mean heal emotionally), you have to want it for yourself or it’s not going to happen. There are moments of breakthrough, but it doesn’t happen in that instant, hyper-convenient way that we Westerners have been conditioned to believe that progress is made. We don’t turn off the computer and turn it back on. Apparently dying, visiting bardo and reincarnating don’t do that much as well. Most people live through the same stuff lifetime after lifetime.

Most of that stuff happens in the context of intimate relationships, and the current pair of eclipses has a lot to say about those. I would note that how we handle our intimate relationships is the single most important factor that determines how we will handle our relationship to the world: that is, with “the system” and the power structure. Indeed, the two will reflect one another — and the whole setup will have its underlying roots in our relationships with our parents.

Cancer-Capricorn: The Relationship Axis

In recent years, an ancient document surfaced that is a key to understanding astrology. I admit, this is not getting a lot of news. I first reported on this in 2007. It’s called the Thema Mundi, a theoretical chart for the world left for us by the classical-era Greek astrologers: the Founders, as they are known. The big news in this chart is that Cancer is rising, suggesting that the 1st house or ascendant is a Cancer influence and not an Aries influence. This has many implications for astrology and the corresponding study of human nature. I call this the 90-degree shift.

Cancer rising for the chart of the world actually makes a lot of sense. Humans have to pause and take care of one another, no matter how much we try to play the every man for himself game of Aries. Our reality is primarily emotional: how we feel is nearly everything. Cancer in the ascendant puts Capricorn on the descendent, which is the 7th house or relationship angle of the chart. We tend to enter relationships with thoughts of family, nurturing, need and cozy emotional exchange (Cancer) and we tend to end up in highly structured or confined situations characterized by parent-child dynamics, financial bonds, obligation, guilt and all the trappings of history (Capricorn).

If Cancer is the 1st house and Capricorn is the 7th house in the chart for the world, the current eclipses are happening across the self/relationship axis of the chart. We just had a lunar eclipse in Capricorn conjunct Pluto, and now we have a total solar eclipse in Cancer. These events are getting that whole axis shaking: our relationships and our ideas about relationships, and the subtle pool from which our feelings and responses emanate. While planets pile up on the ‘personal is political’ Aries Point axis (reshaping the world at large), we have something distinctly inward and personal happening as well — and what is personal affects the world.

There is no private life that is not in some way guided, shaped or dictated by a larger public life. All critters learn by example. Your dog, your cat, your kids, you personally: we all learn, and teach, by example. Notably, most of our ideas about relationships are no more original than what you see on TV and in movies. If you’re below a certain age (I’m not sure what, though) you’re lucky these days if they’re more original than what you find in porn. (The Onion recently did a video mock of a TV discussion panel on the theme, “Is pornography sending our children the wrong message — that sex is pleasurable?”)

And all of this has been passed onto us by our beloved ancestors, with a lot of help exploiting our pain from the advertising industry. This, basically, is our emotional Gulf of Mexico disaster. We could do something about this with some willingness and desire. All of this territory is mapped out. The problems are well understood. As Adrienne Rich wrote, there are methods but we do not use them. With all this eclipse activity, you may be deciding that it’s time to apply a method or two; to get some help. Don’t give up on that after the eclipse has passed and the immediate pressure is off: this game is just getting going.

Eclipse of the Moon in Capricorn, Conjunct Pluto

These eclipses are showing us what we have to clean up, and are pointing to some strong potential for what we can create if we do. I thought the June 26 eclipse in Capricorn was particularly beautiful at illustrating what we have to confront and let go of in our emotional patterns, which is overidentificaiton with the other. I recognize the value of companionship, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I am describing the loss of any boundary between the identities of two people.

We call this romance and commemorate it with large diamonds, expensive dinners and mortgages, but what we have is one of the most significant evolutionary impediments imaginable. We are taught to lose ourselves in the other, and then we call this holy. How can it be cool to lose yourself in the other when you are the only thing you’ve really got?

Let’s think astrologically, step by step. The Moon rules Cancer, the 1st house (= I am) of the Thema Mundi. It was eclipsed in Capricorn, the 7th house (= we are) of the Thema Mundi. That feels like facing pain, enforced growth, the death of a situation, an imminent change in a situation, or outright immolation. Whatever the Moon represents has been through quite a process in these recent weeks, which has shaped its entire experience of relationships. It has recast the sense of ‘self’ that exists in relationship, pointing to what is impossible, what is urgently necessary and most of all, what we truly desire.

There has been an actual break in continuity, though only after acknowledging something from the past, and admitting that Pluto is still new in Capricorn and will be there until 2023-2024. This reminds us of a much longer process of completely redesigning our relationships: perhaps as an intentional act, perhaps as we crawl out of the rubble.

I’m aware how much people resist new ideas about relationships, as if such were not even possible to imagine or create. For the most part we are still dragging around two options: the meaningless hookup, or Cinderella and Prince Charming. We have a lot of other options, but to get there, we need to consider what we do to ourselves and one another by so often experiencing our relationships so unconsciously. In short, we need to begin this whole conversation by admitting our failures, including the failure of our ‘institutional’ forms of relationship.

Eclipse of the Sun in Cancer, Conjunct Juno

We could cut the whole discussion of relationship forms short by beginning with the idea that our primary relationship is to ourselves. Before we conflate this with egotism, narcissism, self-absorption, vanity or being conceited (all of which our culture teaches us to do, mostly through advertising), let’s admit the simple truth that the one truly lifelong relationship we have is to ourselves.

For anyone who honors this, it’s more difficult for the idiots to slip into our lives (it’s possible, but we might not roll out the red carpet for them). It takes two unconscious people to make an unconscious relationship. The minute one is conscious and able to admit their own best interests, they are free to move on. This, of course, takes commitment to one’s own cause. And that, to me, is what a total eclipse in Cancer is all about.

Remembering that this takes place in the 1st house of the Thema Mundi, and that Cancer is the sign of incarnation, this eclipse is about incarnating as yourself.

Mixed right in with the eclipse is Juno, and in her highest manifestation she is about commitment: so this eclipse is about unifying one’s commitment to oneself. Juno is conjunct this eclipse within one degree: she is right there, setting the theme.

Juno has another dimension, though. She is the embodiment of our expectations, our pain and most of all, our jealousy in relationships. We have a lot of concepts of ‘what a relationship is’ and ‘what a partner is supposed to be’, including one’s own role as such. Women are given a lot more of this baggage than men (Simone de Beauvoir explains this in The Second Sex: women are taught to have a relationship as a primary life goal and men are taught to have relationships as part of their lives). So Juno represents this conceptual level of what a spouse or being a spouse represents, and that needs to be taken apart and looked at honestly.

Part of why we have such narrow ideas about relationships is the jealousy that Juno represents. We throw one another into all kinds of bondage because we are jealous.

The problem is not so much that we get jealous, but that we worship jealousy. We organize our lives around avoiding jealousy at any cost, usually through lies, secrets and denial, and this is where most of our relationship energy goes. In that environment, growth is basically impossible. Basically you have a choice: you can say ‘I’m a jealous person and that’s how it is’ or you can say ‘jealousy is an opportunity to grow, and I want to grow’.

The connection may not seem obvious at first, but you may discover that jealousy is your best teacher, your best opportunity to set yourself free and the thing that teaches you what love is not, and what love truly is.

Yours & truly,

 

 

 

Parsing The American Dream

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Boy the way Glen Miller played
Songs that made the hit parade.
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days.

And you knew who you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men,
Mister we could use a man
Like Herbert Hoover again.

Didn’t need no welfare state,
Everybody pulled his weight.
Gee our old LaSalle ran great.
Those were the days.

— All in the Family lyrics by Charles Stouse and Lee Adams

Archie Bunker. That’s a name most of us recognize, the prototype for ignorance, bias and racism wrapped in an almost — but not quite — loveable package of human frailty. Norman Lear’s creation of a 1970s American family as cultural battleground cracked open the mythology of sanitized television families that had been force-fed to the public through the 1950s and 1960s. For the first five years of All In The Family, the nation couldn’t look away. The character of Archie was originally designed to remain unlikable, but Carroll O’Connor brought a vulnerability to the role that broke through the bigoted crust of a population mesmerized by its own image. In the end, Archie was allowed to evolve into a gentler creature, but it should be noted that as he did so, the public lost interest.

There’s another name being bandied about these days, a name some of us recognize but few of us know much about. Herbert Hoover, our one-term 31st president, was a curious creature who combined both softly liberal and sharply conservative views. He was skilled at problem-solving and organizing, with a reputation for stringent micromanaging. He put his faith in volunteerism and business rather than in government sponsorship, carefully guarding both the GDP and the public coffers, and streamlining spending. He inherited a fiscal mess and let the banks fail in the early 1930s. When he finally decided the economy needed government stimulus, it was too little too late.

Hoover was an austerity president who believed that the public could pull itself up by its bootstraps. He staunchly refused to offer public aid when the Great Depression took root, even when nearly a quarter of the population were without work and homeless. Tent cities sprang up boasting his name: Hoovervilles. In one of those gaffes one is never able to live down, he defended his policies by announcing that the hobos were eating better than ever. Archie Bunker might have said something similar, and now you know why you’re hearing Hoover’s name in the news.

Continued at this link…

Planet Waves 2010 Midyear Report is Ready

Dear Fellow Traveler:

The midyear audio report is ready. For subscribers, this is a 12-signs-for-one-price audio product. Originally planned at 10 minutes per sign, it came out to about 25 minutes per sign, with an introduction for all the signs. This report will work for your Sun, Moon and rising signs — and you can even scope out what’s going on with your kids and significant others. The report is ready. I’ve raised the price for all 12 by $5 as promised; the project came out so well that the signs are being sold individually to non-subscribers. The report covers outer planet transits, the cardinal T-square and the eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn. It’s solid astrological work and I trust you will find it helpful.

Last week a reader asked how to work with the rising sign aspect of my reports, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

As you know, we’re in the midst of one of the most unusual alignments of our lifetimes. This is the cardinal T-square that is synonymous with 2012. At the heart of the matter is the square of Uranus and Pluto, the one that will make the Sixties look like a walk in the park. That square is within three degrees now, joined by Jupiter, Saturn and a pair of eclipses. All of this is lined up with the Aries Point, which is like a magnifying/focusing effect. Everyone is affected by this astrology no matter what their sign.

Some people are experiencing this as calm weather, and by the way, I don’t suggest you worry about that. There are some individuals and some charts aligned harmoniously with the current process of rapid change. When you look back on these years you will be amazed at what you experienced, who you became and what you accomplished.

For others, there is quite a bit of unrest, turbulence, pressure and weirdness, and you may be wondering what is next. This report will be applicable to both perspectives, because they are two sides of the same process.

The audio introduction is about half an hour, then each sign gets about 25 minutes devoted to it. I am also including a wrap-up segment summarizing what I learned doing the 12 signs, covering the eclipses specifically. The report is ready now, well in time for the total solar eclipse on July 11. We’re offering this for only $24.95 to existing clients now. Later on in the week, we will be selling each sign separately, so you’ll save substantially by ordering right away.

What About my Rising Sign?

I write Sun-sign horoscopes and detailed reports that work whether you know your natal chart or not — that is my specialty.

Now for the reader question, which pertains to how (for example) the Aquarius birthday report relates to Aquarius rising; or how any one of the signs in the Midyear Report works for your rising sign.

The great Patric Walker, one of my spiritual mentors, once said of astrology: “It’s all about the houses.” He was a newspaper astrologer, so he meant the solar houses of a horoscope column.

He meant it for natal charts as well. It’s possible to take a chart with an accurate ascendant (based on your birth time) and strip out all the planets and just read the house pattern — that’s how well houses work. So when I think through your astrology, about 51% of my energy goes into what house an influence (such as an eclipse) occurs in. For your Sun sign, I use the solar house system, which works beautifully. I also suggest you know your rising sign and pay as much attention to my interpretation for that sign as you do for your Sun sign. And as a Cancer rising Moon child, I pay attention to lunar energy all the time. So the better you know your chart, the more information you’ll have available from my work — and the better the value.

To find your rising sign, all you need is your birth time and a five-minute trip to Astro.com. If you don’t feel like doing that, your Sun sign (also called your birth sign) will give you the information you’re looking for.

Here is the link to order your Midyear Report from Planet Waves (instant delivery). Subscribers can still get all 12 signs for one price — $24.95. If you’re currently a subscriber to Planet Waves Astrology News, renew early combined with the report and get a discount on both. Make sure you use the same email address that your issues come to!

For readers who have not subscribed to Cosmic Confidential, here is a combined offer for $44.95 — all 12 signs of Cosmic Confidential plus all 12 signs of the 2010 Midyear Report. If you purchase the combined offer, you will receive instant access to Cosmic Confidential, your confirmation letter will contain access info for the Midyear Report, and you will receive an email notice when the Midyear Report is done.

You can also order by phone by calling Chelsea at (206) 567-4455. Thank you for doing your metaphysical shopping at Planet Waves.

Yours & truly,

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 9, 2010, #823 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

By their nature, shadow images hide from our perception. By our nature, we tend to not want to see them. So the denial of shadow material — such as fear, guilt, shame and insecurity — is pretty much built into this thing we call human nature. But if we want to grow, and that means grow out of our anxiety and self-reproach, we simply have to face these matters, and I don’t mean in the form of a fleeting glimpse. You are in a rare moment when you can peer into this dimension of yourself and observe them as if you are looking through a fog. The question is what to do with what you see, and I would say focus your attention for as long as you can. Remind yourself that every effect has a cause. See if you can get to the point where you can see fear as an option that you choose, or not.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You seem to be married to an idea, and are using this as a substitute for devotion to yourself. What you’re feeling as commitment may be part of a plan to stabilize the ebb and flow of the human tide, which can be an annoying thing to go through constantly — especially for one born under your sign. But ebb and flow is what we do the most dependably. Any notion of commitment, to another person, to yourself or to the work that you do, needs to include room for fluctuation (this, even the designers of bridges and skyscrapers know well). This weekend’s total solar eclipse is encouraging you to be flexible in your ideas about everything and everyone in your life. Take some of that space to see things as they are rather than as you insist they should be, or should have been. I’m pretty sure you will like your new perception better than the old one.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

If you’re getting involved in a financial partnership, or a personal relationship that includes the merging of finances, I suggest you get a few things out on the table. One is the scorecard that you’ve accumulated during this particular encounter. State your resentments and your unresolved issues in clear terms. Be honest about your values and whether you think they align with the values of the other person. Then invite your counterpart to do the same — and listen well. You may feel compelled to yield to what is important to someone else, and this may evoke several layers of response. I would remind you that the history of this relationship goes back long before this relationship, and you may need to take extra care that you’re not bringing in the past unfairly. You will soon see how much you have to gain by faith and fairness.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Western culture, particularly the United States, seems bent on denying the past. Yet in order to grow, we have to make peace with the past, take the information we need and let history go: which is different than denial. Indeed, it’s precisely the opposite use of the mind. At the moment, your relationship to yourself is evolving rapidly, and that in turn is shifting your relationships to others. This is having visible and productive results. The past has weighed heavily on your emotional life, and it’s only recently that you’ve been able to acknowledge your disillusionment and admit what you want. You’re well on your way to finding the present, and you are more emotionally available than you’ve been in a long time. This is something to neither rush or to delay, but to embrace consciously. Then spread that energy to everyone you meet. Notice who they are, today.

Imagine yourself in gestation, suspended in fluid. Feel the gentle movement, the distant sounds and the light that’s coming from inside you rather than around you. This space has the quality of paradise, yet you’re also confined. You have everything you need, but you have no influence over the flow of events. All you can do is focus on the changes you’re going through: on what you feel, and on who and what you’re becoming. You know you’re growing so fast that eventually you won’t be able to contain yourself in this enclosed bubble, but for the moment it’s serving its purpose. Now notice: you’re not alone. The vibrations and emotions you’re experiencing are, in part, influenced by a source outside yourself. You’re in relationship to whatever this other thing is, and it’s influencing you powerfully. Be aware of this: all your growth depends on it.

You’re finally letting go of that heavy quality that has dominated your life for so long, and that has influenced so many of your decisions. Your anger is beginning to change into something else, something more useful. Your need to take total authority over yourself and certain people around you is beginning to reveal itself as less than helpful. The reason you’re noticing these things now is because you have an option; you can see that you have a choice, and you’re making the obvious decision. But there is something else. You know that every decision you make opens up a world of possibilities, some of which you cannot see, and none of which you can predict exactly. Letting go of that false sense of control is what will gently guide you into true freedom.

You are embarking on a creative partnership that has the potential to help you express your true talent. There’s something ‘old’ about this arrangement and something entirely new about it. Every positive quality to this arrangement has a negative counterpart somewhere in your history. Yet instead of that history repeating itself, it’s as if the problem points are being redeemed into something useful, indeed, something that benefits and nourishes everyone involved. These two ideas — benefit and nourishment — are your best friends right now. Notice when they are present in your environment, and nourish them right back. Keep a positive flow. As Saturn enters your sign, the winds of change will sweep through your life. Be alert, look for the best in every situation and remember: you know yourself. Use that knowledge and it will grow.

Rather than having faith in a relationship, I suggest you aim to trust existence. In order to do this, you must have faith in yourself: a precious and rare element on our planet. In our world, we put enormous energy into romance, marriage, expectations, commitments and striving for the perfect bond. Then it’s as if we don’t notice how often this fails. Yet the thing we’re really not noticing is what it’s a substitute for, which is clarity, self-respect and faith in existence. If you look, you can see why. The more we run toward supposedly permanent emotional entanglements, the less emphasis we place on who we are. They’re mutually exclusive because our relationships are so often based on something other than who we are. No matter what you’re experiencing right now, you can trust that you’re moving closer to the truth of yourself.

You need to sort out an emotional commitment from a financial commitment. This is usually known as marriage, though even if you’re not married or if the relationship I’m describing isn’t with your spouse, the feeling is similar. The boundaries seem to be all over the place. You’re not sure whether to take authority or make some kind of sacrifice. Actually, there is something in this situation that’s out of your control, which evokes some memory of childhood. Here’s what you can do as an adult: you can be creative. You can pay attention to the details. You can shift the conversation away from adversity and petty wrangling toward allegiance and your mutual need for security and common ground. If you come to a point where you feel helpless, remember you are not; your power is in the strength of awareness, communication and the decisions you make.

Shift into proactive mode. For the past few months you’ve been able to ease away from the feeling that you need to be six steps ahead of everyone, and you needed the rest. Now you’re back to a distinct need to be on top of your game. That means mapping out the chessboard, knowing who is who and where you stand with everyone, and seeing what options you have. As the next few weeks unfold, you will need to make a series of decisions, and they count. Indeed, you’ve made several choices the past year-and-a-half that didn’t quite count, and now you’re playing for keeps. But you’ve learned plenty, and you’re ready to apply that knowledge. Let me clue you in on one thing you may not be noticing: people — such as colleagues, bosses, clients, peers or whoever — respect you a lot more than you think. Step into that space and live like your life matters. It most surely does.

Stretch your horizons, and I mean far and wide. The nature of your life is about to take on new dimensions, as if you are shedding a skin or outgrowing a previous set of conflicts, delays and irritating situations. Before that you experienced a series of jolts that seemed ‘well intentioned’ on the part of the universe, but which were also far from comfortable and only nominally useful. Your current astrology speaks of opening up a new life that feels like cracking out of a psychic cocoon and discovering you’re alive. Remember the ways in which you’ve strived to exceed the bounds you knew could never limit you. You could call this waking up to yourself. Yet a relationship potentially is involved, and potentially solid and productive, which I mean in the deepest long-term sense. I suggest you take authorship and widen your field of potential, based on what you want to experience and accomplish with unfettered honesty or bold imagination. Don’t let yourself be limited by your prior concept of what is possible; that is the very thing your psyche is ready to outgrow.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

This weekend’s eclipse pulls back the veil over some of the aspects of your life that are the most precious to you: emotional bonding, meaningful sensual pleasure, your creative passions and your sense of adventure. AndI am sure it comes as welcome news that you’re at a culmination point. You don’t need to eat from this whole buffet at once, though there is certainly a meal coming. Rather, imagine yourself fully entering this dimension of your life, finally allowing yourself to relax the emphasis on so many things that supposedly violate your true nature. You’re not giving up everything you’ve learned; it will still be there when you need it. What has been lacking is your full commitment to what you want, and this is that part that you alone can offer. If you find you’re giving yourself reasons why not, stop looking for reasons of any kind. Indulge your experience because you can. Be real because that’s the thing to be.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Dear Fellow Traveler:

We’re into that phase of the month when Tuesday editions are something other than monthly horoscopes — here is the July long monthly and here is July Inner Space. We also have interesting coverage of Sunday’s solar eclipse on Daily Adventure & Adventure, our main blog — which today includes coverage of the point Lilith.

Today I have an astrological self-study project for you, which is looking up your Moon sign and house placement. This is a new idea for a Tuesday edition — let’s see how it goes.

If you are interested in astrology, knowing the placement of your Moon is basic. In truth, it is essential. The Moon represents your core personality: the child self that grew into an adult role. The Moon also speaks to your basic needs, and it describes your mom.

I bring this up now because the Sun is in the sign Cancer, ruled by the Moon, and we are about to have a total eclipse in that sign as well. So that places emphasis on the Moon.

If you seek understanding of yourself through astrology, you want to know about your Moon. It can help you explain a lot of things that are not covered by your Sun sign, including aspects of your personality that you don’t like to reveal to others or, alternately, that you overemphasize because they are so familiar. The Moon can also tell you how your mom’s personality transferred into your own, and where your mom’s influence is sneaking into your life.

Finally, the Moon can be understood as the “child self” because it describes our most basic needs for nourishment and attention.

An accurate Moon position depends on knowing your birth time. If you don’t have your time of birth, you can get your Moon sign or something close to it, though not the house your Moon is in (which changes about every two hours). So, step one, as with any astrological project, is look up your birth time. I don’t suggest you believe the “about dinner time” kind of description; go for your birth certificate, or get a more detailed description from a parent or other relative. You may need to call your local health department, which will advise you on how to get a certificate with the time, if it is available. Note that many replacement certificates lack the birth time.

The next step is to go to Astro.com, where they have a nifty, convenient system for casting your chart. I just did it — it’s easy and the programming is smooth, cheers to Astro-Dienst. This is going to give you the basic data, not an interpretation. That second portion, how to work with your Moon placement, I will cover one week from today.

If you take these steps, you’re also going to know the rest of your planets. Many of you will be seeing your natal chart for the first time. I would suggest you look at it with wonder and not “confusion.” Astrology is based on a language, and it takes time to learn even the basics, but you can get good information straight away, if you know where to look.

Please let me know how it goes. We have posted this letter to a discussion page. To use this discussion page you will need to create an identity in our blogging system or use the one you have. Creating an identity takes about 30 seconds. There, you may discuss your findings and state your questions. I’ll check that page tonight and ask other Planet Waves astrologers to check in as well. Let’s see what we learn.

Yours & truly,

Dear Fellow Traveler:

The United States is having its 234th birthday this weekend — a good time to check with something called the Sibley Chart. This is the best-accepted chart for the United States, dated July 4, 1776 and with a time of 5:10 pm local time, Philadelphia. The time of the chart has been debated; if you’re curious about the backstory you may check out the page in Astrodatabank that discusses the issue. I was a bit skeptical of this chart until the Sept. 11, 2001, incident, which basically proved the time is accurate — that ascendant degree of 12+ Sagittarius turned out to be pretty sensitive, confirming that this is a working chart to within a few minutes of accuracy.

To sum up the transits the U.S. chart is now taking: every aspect of American life is in the process of profound and sweeping changes that we can barely imagine. It’s hard to counsel a whole nation, but if this were a client, I would prepare them to go through a series of transformations, inner and outer, that create an entirely different life in just a few years. The chart aligns exactly with the cardinal T-square that we’ve been discussing. Were the United States a person, the angles of American life that would be most affected over the next two years are sense of identity and perception in the world (ascendant), personal resources (2nd house) home and security (4th house), marriage and partnership contracts (8th house), and reputation, career and goals (10th house).

The Sibley Chart has Sagittarius rising, which describes our sanctimonious, religion-obsessed, expansion-obsessed nation. We love to spread out, and for the first couple of hundred years of our existence we did quite a bit of it. We still think that’s what we do, even though at the moment we’re shrinking both in influence and in economic strength. Our military is mired in two wars that have no goal and no limit to their expense; that is not growth, unless you supply guns and hamburgers to the troops. Our treasury borrows every day, taxing the distant future, to wage these wars, and there are no protests against them. This week Republicans in the Senate blocked renewal of unemployment benefits to more than a million Americans while it will spend billions to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan under a false pretense of being at war with Al Qaeda.

There is a story to how this came to be, in the form of a transit that happened a while ago.
A transit is when a real-time planet makes an aspect to a planet in the natal chart. The Sept. 11 incident involved the opposition of Saturn and Pluto exactly — to the degree — across the 1st and 7th house cusps of the Sibley chart (Pluto in Sagittarius, the ascendant, and Saturn in Gemini, the descendent). This high-pressure meeting, which first occurred in the mid-summer of 2001, inflicted serious damage to our society and in turn, to many other societies. Rather, how we handled the whole thing inflicted the damage. It’s possible to thrive under a combined Saturn-Pluto transit (most of us did), but that would necessarily come with raising awareness, meeting the challenges of growth and changing one’s ways when necessary.

Instead, with the blessing of an American public humiliated, terrified and bent on revenge, the United States commenced the 21st century with an agenda of nonstop war, which we are now paying for with our unemployment rate and the sad fact that we cannot afford basic services for our people.

This is a lesson, and one we would do well to learn, if learning is still possible: we get a choice how we respond to national and global events, and how we respond actually matters. The transits that we’re having now are significantly more powerful than those of 2001, which is saying a lot. Each of these transits suggests some outer manifestation, as well as a decision and growth process that we can go through as a nation; if, that is, we consider ourselves part of a nation. We tend not to talk to our neighbors in the United States. We don’t usually sit in cafes and have conversations; we grab a Hot Pocket on the run. If we consider ourselves part of a group, we think of ourselves as factions, as special interests, or as viewpoints.

Yet we rarely question our viewpoint, and most people lack the critical-thinking skills to dismantle what they see on Fox News.

The Grand Cross and the Sibley Chart

Let’s take a look at the transits the U.S. chart is under. These are the kinds of events that would happen never or once or twice in the life of a human; many are happening for the first or second time in the history of our country. More significant is the fact that these transit events are all happening simultaneously. And best of all, the U.S. has an Aries Point chart, with both planets and angles in the early degrees of the cardinals signs. In fact it’s hard to imagine a chart taking any more high-energy transits at one time than the Sibley chart is having now. The United States is oriented to absorb the full impact of the cardinal T square, described in detail two weeks ago. What an awesome opportunity for cultivating maturity and taking leadership. We can, if we want, design the prototype of a new society with these transits: with a different basis economy, new energy resources and a fair model of governance.

In the Sibley chart, Venus and Jupiter are placed at the beginning of a cardinal sign (in Cancer), meaning they are in aspect to the Aries Point. So, too, is the vertical axis of the chart (the dark line tilted a little toward the left, called the MC/IC axis, which is in early Aries-Libra). These highly sensitive points are simultaneously taking transits from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto.

Notice that streak of natal planets on the upper right, in the sign Cancer. Let’s call that the Cancer stellium. That grouping, in the 8th house of sex, death, taxes, banking and transformation, represents our inheritance as a nation: the incredible wealth that we started with. Cancer can have a feeling of collectivism, of populism, of family and of authentic bonding. That 8th house is the one that says:

  Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Right now and through the next few years, these Cancer planets are all going to take dozens of transits. These include squares from Saturn in Libra, squares from Uranus in Aries and oppositions from Pluto in Capricorn. In other words, if you think the news is nonstop madness now, we’re just getting warmed up. And apropos of the Aries Point, it’s all, constantly, going to have a personal feeling. The Moon, as well, is taking a major transit — from both Chiron and Neptune.

Yet all of these transits are opportunities for change and progress. Because so many are connected to the Aries Point, they will have a tendency to bring people in — to include us in the experience of growth and change. Let’s go over a few of these events:

Saturn over the MC and into the 10th house (2010-2012). Translation: the government (a 10th house entity) is about to go through big changes — bigger than we’ve seen in generations. With a Libra midheaven, we have the ability to have a just and fair government, if that is what we want — so we better get wanting and step up to the challenge. Either we start taking the process of governance seriously (rather than as a place to vent venom and paranoia), or the friendly Libra façade of our government falls to the ground and shatters, revealing what is beneath it. The United States has spent many years inflicting its cruelty on other countries, under the guise of liberty, justice and spreading democracy. We can now rebuild our own country and create a government that is responsive to the needs of the people, and of legitimate business enterprises that will help guide us into the 21st century more smoothly and consciously than we’ve been seeing so far.

Pluto opposite the Cancer Stellium (2010-2020). Translation: our values, such as they are, are threatening our wealth. But we can transform our values, on the one hand going back to something simpler, and on the other, making room for necessities that are distinctly about our moment now. We are obsessed by the idea of corporate greed and, as a culture, must openly challenge (for example) the entitlement of BP to do what it is doing to our food supply and to the oceans of the world. Pluto in Capricorn, in the 2nd house, would say we need new values, and one way or another we’re going to get them. It’s going to start with energy, both how we create it and how we use it. The 2nd house (where Pluto is, in the U.S. chart) is about the resources we have on hand — and that is what we need to depend on. We have wind, sunshine and a lot of land. We don’t need to buy oil — and the transition has begun. Driving across Iowa two weeks ago, I was stunned at how many massive windmills there are. Pluto in Capricorn (along with other factors) is saying we need to stop letting our values be dictated by television commercials.

Saturn and Uranus square the Cancer Stellium (2010-2017). Translation: we need to recreate our financial sector. Anyone know of a big luxurious island without cable or satellite we can send all the investment bankers to? Our economy needs a deeper basis than greed or survival. We need to set a goal of taking care of as many of our people as we can with the resources that we have — and that needs to become the basis of the banking system.

Neptune and Chiron Conjunct the Moon. This process has been going on for a long time, and it’s going to last for a while longer. It is here to remind us of the incredible denial trip we’re on as a nation, and our need to wake up and be honest with ourselves. The Moon can represent the public, in a public chart such as this. Neptune represents a kind of anesthesia: a dreamy delusion that we think of as a comfort zone. We are a country where many parents put their children on antidepressants. We don’t want to deal with authentic feelings (instead, we substitute anxiety), and we have a tendency to pretend that things that are happening aren’t happening. We do not understand the concept of moderation. As long as we live on corn syrup and mood stabilizers, we won’t be able to feel our way through this growth phase. We could spur this whole process by sobering up a little and going back to eating real food.

Chiron conjunct the Moon will feel, to many, like a rude awakening, though anytime Chiron is having a challenging influence you can be sure it’s the most recent of many notices — and that there is an opportunity for healing. This is a calling to awareness, sensitivity and focus. If we pay more attention to facts and less attention to opinions, we might see what we’ve got going on. And that Aquarius Moon, above all else, says: we’re all in this together.

Yours & truly,

 

 

Divided We Stand

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Once again I am struck by the sheer absurdity of our political situation. This week Mike Huckabee held forth at FOX News about the ‘ick factor’ in homosexuality, while Elena Kagan, vetted by Congress as a Supreme Court candidate, insisted that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policies present an unacceptable level of bias in the workplace. General McChrystal retired, and Petraeus changed tactics in Afghanistan to expand the killing rather than pursue the delicate mission of nation building. Unemployment extension failed again; the Republicans called those without work lazy and suggested that those still receiving checks should be tested for drugs.

To fund more war, House Minority Leader John Boehner proposed that Social Security be pushed back to age 70, adding that the proposed financial reform is similar to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” Running against Majority Speaker Harry Reid, Nevada candidate Sharron Angle proclaimed that God’s plan for those impregnated by rape or incest does not include abortion. Glenn Beck has embraced the real spirit of Martin Luther King, of which the majority of us remain unaware. Oh, and don’t forget that Hurricane Alex, the earliest superstorm in fifteen years, is pushing oil in the Gulf onto land with 90 mph winds.

If you’re thinking just shoot me now, that’s exactly what I think, several times a day. How is it possible that we’ve come to such a pass? How did the national conversation become so thick with preposterous distractions while real solutions are obstructed? How is it that the progressive policies we so desperately need are thwarted at every turn? You won’t be surprised to learn that this was all planned, well in advance of our current crises. “Government is the problem,” is a political meme that found its champion in folksy Ronald Reagan.

Our 40th president was once a Democrat, then ran for office as a Republican, but was clearly Libertarian in his heart of hearts. Populist conservatisms can be found in St. Ronnie’s vision of deregulation, limited taxes and non-interference from government. His message was pointedly Christian, born in the cradle of white elitism. “We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down,” said sunny, old Ron. “Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.”

Continued at this link…

Midyear Report from Planet Waves

Dear Fellow Traveler:

Today I’ll be working on the 2010 midyear astrology report from Planet Waves. This will be a 12-signs-for-one-price audio product, with an introduction and a conclusion. This report will work for your Sun, Moon and rising signs — and you can even scope out what’s going on with your kids and significant others. Today a reader asked how to work with the rising sign aspect of my reports, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

As you know, we’re in the midst of one of the most unusual alignments of our lifetimes. This is the cardinal T-square that is synonymous with 2012. At the heart of the matter is the square of Uranus and Pluto, the one that will make the Sixties look like a walk in the park. That square is within three degrees now, joined by Jupiter, Saturn and a pair of eclipses. All of this is lined up with the Aries Point, which is like a magnifying/focusing effect. Everyone is affected by this astrology no matter what their sign.

Some people are experiencing this as calm weather, and by the way, I don’t suggest you worry about that. There are some individuals and some charts aligned harmoniously with the current process of rapid change. When you look back on these years you will be amazed at what you experienced, who you became and what you accomplished.

For others, there is quite a bit of unrest, turbulence, pressure and weirdness, and you may be wondering what is next. This report will be applicable to both perspectives, because they are two sides of the same process.

The audio introduction is about half an hour, then each sign gets about 10 minutes devoted to it. I will also do a wrap-up segment summarizing what I learned doing the 12 signs, covering the eclipses specifically. I plan to have this ready Monday, July 5 well in time for the total solar eclipse on July 11. We’re offering this as pre-sale to existing clients only for $19.95. For last year’s Midyear Report, we divided the signs in half — this year we are offering them together.

What About my Rising Sign?

I write Sun-sign horoscopes and detailed reports that work whether you know your natal chart or not — that is my specialty.

Now for the reader question, which pertains to how (for example) the Aquarius birthday report relates to Aquarius rising; or how any one of the signs in the Midyear Report works for your rising sign.

The great Patric Walker, one of my spiritual mentors, once said of astrology: “It’s all about the houses.” He was a newspaper astrologer, so he meant the solar houses of a horoscope column.

He meant it for natal charts as well. It’s possible to take a chart with an accurate ascendant (based on your birth time) and strip out all the planets and just read the house pattern — that’s how well houses work. So when I think through your astrology, about 51% of my energy goes into what house an influence (such as an eclipse) occurs in. For your Sun sign, I use the solar house system, which works beautifully. I also suggest you know your rising sign and pay as much attention to my interpretation for that sign as you do for your Sun sign. And as a Cancer rising Moon child, I pay attention to lunar energy all the time. So the better you know your chart, the more information you’ll have available from my work — and the better the value.

To find your rising sign, all you need is your birth time and a five-minute trip to Astro.com. If you don’t feel like doing that, your Sun sign (also called your birth sign) will give you the information you’re looking for.

Here is the link to pre-order your Midyear Report from Planet Waves. Giving myself a little extra time, I plan to have this ready by Monday, July 5, when the price will go up to $24.95.

For readers who have not subscribed to Cosmic Confidential, here is a combined offer for $44.95 — all 12 signs of Cosmic Confidential plus all 12 signs of the 2010 Midyear Report. If you purchase the combined offer, you will receive instant access to Cosmic Confidential, your confirmation letter will contain access info for the Midyear Report, and you will receive an email notice when the Midyear Report is done.

You can also order by phone by calling Chelsea at (206) 567-4455. Thank you for doing your metaphysical shopping at Planet Waves.

Yours & truly,

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 2, 2010, #822 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

You may have an urgent need to break free from emotional patterns, though this may be showing up many different ways: a struggle in a relationship, a sense of confinement, the need to live someplace new or a burning desire to sever from history. Here’s the thing. People aren’t computers; we cannot just push the ‘restart’ button. We have to guide ourselves through an inner journey. Resolve and persistence can help when it comes to changing our psychological makeup, yet what typically happens is that when it’s time, it’s time; and it is time. You can facilitate your process by being honest about the past. One of the truly significant problems that often banishes growth is our struggle to do just that — though at this point you must observe and feel what you’re letting go of. There is a lot — and I do mean a lot — about letting go of the original impression of marriage or male/female relationships that you got as a child, and I suggest starting journaling a clear description of what those relationships were and how they felt.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Notice the current paradox of your life, and check whether you have any attachment to it. It’s true that existence is often a process of exchange, and we seem to get one thing (or experience) at the expense of another. Or we could describe this exchange as giving up what we don’t need in exchange for what we truly want. You have a choice here: both of these options are open. However, you may be experiencing the need for an idealized notion of security or confidence that you don’t have yet, and a calling to focus your desire in a way that creates what you want. Simply put, what you want requires that you take a risk, and that risk specifically involves letting go of a notion of security. I suggest that you be extraordinarily specific about your desires. Rather than saying something general like you want to be confident, describe what that confidence would entail, what it would look like and how you would feel being there.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Financial growth can be about making more money, or it can be about evolving your ideas about money. If you’re a woman, you’ve been inflicted an extraordinary amount of cultural imprinting about your economic fortunes being tied to a husband or partner. If you’re a man, you’ve been imprinted with ideas about who you’re supposed to provide for, and why, and how well. It would be a stretch to call any of this ‘teaching’ — it’s actually branded into our emotional bodies with few alternatives available. You now seem be on the brink of releasing lots of this stuff, though the question is what you’re replacing it with. Intuitively you know you can work out a whole new relationship with money, though what you may not recognize is that this breaks down to more than a feeling; you need specific points of decision, and of action, and clearly several of these involve the role of money in your relationships.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You are poised for some extraordinary new success, and a whole new variety of achievement. One of the ways that you’ll be facilitating this is not being stuck in the personality structure of someone who has failed in the past, or who does not deserve recognition. I assure you this has nothing to do with your actual state of being. Once the concept of deserving comes up, you can be sure that there’s a defensive reaction somewhere in the equation. I suggest you observe its utter lack of usefulness. Indeed, this concept — deserving — may be the bone of contention you have with yourself, and it would help facilitate your happiness immensely if you would let this go. You have a plan, you have a vision, you are not merely competent but a kind of visionary — and your outer reputation reflects this. Allow these things to get the results you want, and they will.

There seems to be no limit to the hidden layers of a human psyche, or what is contained there. More interesting is the extent to which this can conflict with our outer image: what we project to the world, and how we perceive ourselves in the world. Notice the discrepancies between the two over the next week or so: what you feel, and what you reveal; what you experience inwardly when the lights are off, and how the world sees you. I think you’ll learn a lot from studying the differences. The first question you’re likely to ask yourself is why they exist. You may run into some conditioning about what exactly makes you worthy of a relationship, which is to say, worthy of love: and which doesn’t treat you particularly kindly. Here is a secret: this concept is so old, we have no idea how old — but it has nothing to do with who you are today.

Devotion is a moment-to-moment activity. The technical details speak for themselves, if you’re listening. This time in your life may feel like one that is ruled entirely by necessity rather than by preference, desire or authentic choice, though this calls for some inner reflection. When you get to that point where you know something must happen, or that you know you’re doing the right thing by devoting yourself to an experience, the beauty of that moment is in your voluntary response to give yourself over. This applies to your erotic reality as well as any creative endeavor that you’re involved with. Rather than concerning yourself with the potential implications of anything you’re doing, I suggest you ground yourself in the present. Feel every nuance of your thoughts as they melt. Allow yourself to surrender one delicious moment at a time.

You are gradually gathering the presence of mind to fully take part in all that life is offering you, though it looks like some anxiety is getting in the way. There’s something inside that fear, though I suggest you evaluate it on one basis: what you are feeling has to do with trust. There’s so much energy coming at you that I could see you questioning whether you can feel safe with what is happening, or with the potential for so much change. Anxiety is the shadow side of an experience; the choice to trust is the side that offers light we can see by — including seeing our fear for what it is. You’re being summoned into a new world of experience, and it may seem that this world is entirely untested, unproven and unknown. Really, none of these things are true. But your choice to go beyond what is familiar — including a particular goal you’ve clung to for so long — will take you to a new depth of emotional confidence.

You seem to be obsessed with service. I mean, it looks really impressive, like at this rate you could end up on a Vatican coin. Yet you have another impulse coming from even deeper in, which looks like a passionate need to create or express something. The service thing may be a distraction, or an excuse to not give yourself something you really need. Or you may be trying to stay visible and connected to a community. I would remind you that your evolutionary fires are burning hot, and in many respects this has nothing to do with any other person. You are in relationship to yourself, and the depths of that are invisible to others — that is, until you reveal them. I suggest you nurture your inner journey for a little longer before doing so, and please be aware of when you’re distracting yourself from something you want and need deeply.

Have you noticed how many relationships are better after they break up? Not all the time, but often, the emotional communication is better, the sex is better, the friendship is deeper, and some other element is gone. Now why is that? What is it about the way we structure a relationship when we call it ‘a relationship’? What is it about how we have ungrounded expectations or unrealistic dependencies? And what is the whole drama of ‘breaking up’? When it works, that is, when the relationship has a solid basis in truth, it’s really more like opening up and setting one another free. Then, love is possible. It seems like all of your relationships can go through this transition, and liberate themselves into their next form. You don’t need the expectations, you don’t need to know the score, but what you do need is the freedom to feel what you feel in the presence of the people who matter to you — and this you have.

There is loving, and there is being open to love. Both are necessary to relate to other people, and on balance, being open to love seems like the one that people struggle with the most. You have just been through some profound experiences of opening up to yourself. Your charts look like you’ve made peace emotionally with a process of change that has been pushing you for a couple of years now. It’s as if you’ve accepted and settled into the journey, and the fact that many of the outcomes are uncertain. What you may have experienced is the peace of mind that comes with letting go of an attachment to the past, and this in turn makes embracing the new possibilities that much more appealing. You can be real with yourself about the fact that the potential for real change evokes fear in many people, though you seem to grasp that it’s a lot more fun if you can move beyond this obstacle.

There is one aspect of your current erotic life that is all about service. There is another aspect that is about blazing into a new concept of experience that is all about flooding your mind and your senses with passion and joy. Oh, and ideas and a profound desire to liberate yourself and to relate to other people who are free. Do the two have anything in common? Are they directly opposed to one another? And on what basis are you choosing one or the other? You certainly have the option to be obsessed with the details of your relationships. Commitment is a truly significant issue for you. I would, though, caution you against ever thinking you know what is best for anybody but yourself. I don’t say that because it’s wrong; I say that because people are so good at concealing their agendas, and their insecurities, that it’s often very hard to tell.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Two elements of your psyche that are both fully functioning, and close to one another, are ready to be integrated. You’re almost there. You haven’t quite got the intellectual notion of what they have in common: you still have this idea that they cancel one another out. This involves how you process money and your concept of money; and how, in turn, money relates to self-worth and independence; and finally how this influences the subtler parts of your being: your creativity, your receptivity, your desire to be free. There are still plenty of people who believe that money corrupts everything, and I suggest for your own sake and that of everyone around you that you go to the next dimension with this one. You now have within reach the actual experience of resources enhancing your creative gifts and doing nothing to detract. Deep at the core of both is a common experience, which is valuing yourself. And this is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour journey. Walk lightly.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Dear Fellow Traveler:

This weekend, Saturday at 7:30 am EDT (4:30 am PDT, 12:30 pm BST) is a partial eclipse of the Moon in Capricorn. [Most ephemerides list this as the time of the Full Moon; others list the eclipse separately eight minutes later.] This is an eclipse on the Aries Point, with many planets involved. Said another way, we have an eclipse close to the change of seasons, which always brings something, or many things, that are truly unusual. [For new readers who have not seen our earlier coverage, please use the “Prior Issue” link at the upper left of this page.]

It’s as if we stand at an event horizon but can’t see just over the curve of the Earth. These events are likely to precipitate out pretty rapidly over the next few days and weeks, so get ready to make decisions and open up your heart and soul to allow for both progress and its twin, change.

I’ve said just about everything I have to say about this eclipse, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned anytime lately one thing in particular about eclipses in general. Do what you want the day of an eclipse. Focus on what is the most meaningful to you. We often wonder how to change our lives, how to make real adjustments and how to get our desires to manifest. Using astrology as a model, one way is to work with eclipses, which are one of the most fundamental elements of evolution. They are psychic and physical magnifiers.

Therefore, focus on what you want the day of an eclipse. Do what you love best; be with, or be in contact with, the people you love the most. This factor of eclipses is so dependable it’s a wonder there aren’t books and articles written about it, but I’ve never seen one. For most of the world this eclipse happens on a weekend, when most of us have a little more flexibility with our time. Even if you have to work, make sure you invest some of your time and thought into what you love.

One last thing. A South Node eclipse of the Moon in Capricorn has the feeling of the past losing its grip. It’s as if a dimensional portal opens and old emotions can drain out, allowing in a new spectrum of feelings. I dare say we drag around plenty of accumulated anxiety from our ancestors. We’re so accustomed to doing this that we barely recognize what’s going on; we totally take it for granted. You don’t need the fears of your parents and your grandparents, nor of the people who came before them.

The combination of Pluto and the eclipse in Capricorn looks like an opportunity to release ancestral guilt, control and a sense of burden in relationships. Our parents, grandparents and their predecessors had ideas about relationships that they passed onto us — but we need our own basis for relationships. You’re entitled to live your life free of what encumbered them, and you can. One simple formula for exchange to consider is that here in our world of opposites, compersion is the opposite of guilt. It seems to take time, but really it’s a fairly simple choice.

Yours & truly,

 

 

 

Business As Usual

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

This week, as we all counted our beads praying that things wouldn’t get worse, they did. Along with his staff, our commanding general in Afghanistan got liquored-up on a bus with a Rolling Stones reporter and let loose the inner ‘mean girl’ in an on-record bitchfest. A federal judge in New Orleans with financial ties to big oil suspended Obama’s drilling moratorium. The Deepwater containment cap was removed, due to ice crystals that indicate the venting system is no longer working, perhaps bumped by an underwater robot. Republican obstruction has left over a million of us without unemployment extensions, which will trickle down to produce further economic desperation across the country. And worse in the long run, playing to our fears much like the buildup to war in Iraq, the cry for policing the deficit infects the political landscape and influences public opinion.

Business as usual isn’t the people’s business, of course, it’s the big business of corporatocracy. The last several decades have intensified what some call a New Gilded Age ruthlessly promoted by the right, but this has been the American story since its inception. In a real sense, our problems today can be tracked back to the split between property-focused, Christianist federalism and secular Jeffersonian democracy. America is designated a republic, not a strict democracy. Get it? Republicans, Democrats? The difference is illuminated by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s comments on capital punishment at the University of Chicago in 2002: “The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible.” So said one of nine Supreme Court judges with a lifetime appointment, a federalist ideologue of the first water. He is joined by a minimum of three others who interpret this nation’s laws with a bias toward ‘corporate personhood’.

Business this week included Obama accepting the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, sparing him from firing after years of dedication in combat that included tracking down Saddam Hussein. Yet not forgotten, at least by the left, was the general’s coverup of football star Pat Tillman’s death by ‘friendly fire’ in 2004, and two previous controversial remarks that bordered on insubordination. McChrystal, a counterinsurgency expert, had enjoyed unprecedented freedom, staff and budget in Afghanistan. President Karzai and his military advisors are greatly upset at the loss of this hands-on guy. McChrystal developed a relationship with Karzai, accompanying him to visit tribal leaders and putting a face on American leadership. And let’s be candid — the Afghanis like to look you in the eye as they accept payoffs and cash for their cooperation. Stanley was the man.

Continued at this link…

Aquarius Birthday Audio Report

Dear Aquarius or Aquarius Rising:

By special request of Aquarians in the reading audience, I’ve just completed your birthday audio presentation for 2010.

Our birthday audio has become one of my best-received astrology products in all the time I’ve been working. It combines the intimacy and directness of a live reading with the economy of a published report — and I just love doing these projects.

Although we’re well past your birthday month, this report is a relevant, fresh take on where you are and where you can go this year. This is a combination of astrology and tarot, suitable for Aquarius Sun, Moon or rising. It was an interesting report to record — there have been several important and rare transits that directly affect your sign. As you know, we are in times of change and reformation, and this state of rapid movement is affecting every person on the planet. Now is the time to embrace the innovative energy of Uranus and really think about the future that you are creating.

Your Aquarius reading is a careful look at your astrology through 2010, and a review of some significant astrology from the past couple of years. I’ve focused on the outer planet transits — Neptune in Aquarius, and Chiron in Aquarius. Neptune in Aquarius has initiated a shift toward your intuitive side, creating more of a balance between the masculine side of your brain and the feminine side of your brain. Chiron offers a more precise and focused view of this intuition, and along with that, more clarity.

Your two ruling planets, Saturn and Uranus have been in opposition, giving you an unusual opportunity to see and experience contrasts. This is a lot of tension, basically a standoff in your life, and creates an excellent time to raise your consciousness and be aware of seeming contradictions that you have within yourself — and both planets are changing signs nearly simultaneously, which represents a new start in many aspects of your life.

I’ve included a 20 minute tarot card reading, using the Voyager deck by James Wanless. You can order now and get instant access. This is high-quality stereo audio which you can listen to as many times as you like, for as long as you like — these files will be preserved in their original location. It’s priced to be affordable — $14.95 for about an hour of astrology and 20 minutes of tarot.

Because my astrology writing is focused on the houses, I recommend this audio for Aquarius rising as well. This audio report makes an excellent companion to Aquarius Confidential, the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves, which is in written form.

Thanks for your participation, and for doing your metaphysical shopping at Planet Waves.

Yours & truly,

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 25, 2010, #821 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

One of the reasons you’re more trusting of your goals is that you’re starting to figure out what they are — and as a result, you’re on the move. But Mars, your ruling planet, is off to the side in Virgo, and there it’s making a conjunction to Vesta. This suggests following a careful and methodical process rather than jumping into anything blindly, or all at once. The less you ‘make this about you’ the more you and everyone else will prosper. It’s become easier to make decisions than it was a week ago — though I suggest you notice the many ways in which those decisions are making you. This is different than being backed into a corner; the feeling is like an obvious choice presenting itself. Obvious translates to developing trust in your motives, which is a result of letting yourself be aware of what those motives are.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Do you really know what you believe, and have you figured out how powerful your beliefs are? You may get the feeling that someone is flipping on your inner lights. If so, turn your awareness around and look within. In doing so, the thing you might fear is the sudden sense of your own presence in the world, which could indeed come as a shock — and that’s a great thing. Stick with the feeling and you’ll feel guided to take additional steps toward putting that awareness to use. We could describe this process as, “I actually exist, therefore, I have this potential.” Saturday’s eclipse pulls back the veil over a raft of concealed feelings, values and fears that might prevent you from accepting the truth of your existence. That particular database is the accumulated anxiety about living and reticence to change that’s been passed down through your maternal line. Give yourself permission to let go of all that fear like a puff of smoke.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Having support is mostly about accepting support: that includes embracing encouragement, material assistance, companionship and relationships with peers that help you focus your talent and drive. I suggest you engage in a conscious process of actually taking in, embracing and receiving. Most of us are taught not to trust those who would offer to help; there is presumably some other motive, which involves being taken advantage of. Do the math and you’ll see that this translates to: help = harm. If you have even the vaguest traces of mistrusting those who would help you, purge them from your files now, lest you contaminate the goodwill of others with the fears of your ancestors or the disappointments from your own past. Conduct your life as an active exchange. Many are depending on you, and you on them.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Personality and soul are said to be two different things. While some schools of thought regard this as a divide and conquer technique (pitting one against the other, or insisting that one is real at the expense of the other), the distinction is useful at the moment. Allow it to call your attention to another level of awareness that has much to offer you. I’m sure you’ve noticed there are those times you feel ‘connected’ and there are other times you feel ‘disconnected’. What, exactly, are you tapping into during those moments of contact? Whatever it is, it’s more easily available now than it’s been in a long time. Your relationships are being reborn with a new sense of purpose; even as you read, this is being revealed. To see this you will need to look deeper than day-to-day circumstances, and keep looking and loving from this perspective.

I suggest that you not take emotional reactions of others too literally, particularly someone’s seeming fear of women. This person is likely to be expressing something they don’t understand, while at the same time you run the risk of hearing their concern through a narrow filter and making the misunderstanding worse. An eclipse of the Moon is a good time to focus on mother, mothering and children; and this eclipse in the sign Capricorn is saying take this back a few generations. You have some profound emotional healing available through this portal, which may come in the form of making peace with how anxious your predecessors were. In truth, they had no idea what they were even frightened of; they just took the fears of the past for granted. You can afford to look at them, and you can remind yourself that everyone owns their own feelings.

Get yourself organized on all matters of communicating with colleagues, and your financial affairs. Give yourself about three weeks for the project; take matters one step at a time. You’re being guided by a brilliant kind of intuition, one that is helping you unravel the inner power of your creativity. To make the most of this you will need to be receptive, relatively calm and unusually trusting of yourself. The all-too-outspoken skeptical side of you may wonder where intuitive information comes from — it is amazing to me how many people don’t trust this beautiful human sense. If you start questioning, that’s a sign you’ve stopped listening and have lost contact with your creative source. If you’re feeling confident and curious when you reach unfamiliar territory, that’s a sign that you’re back in contact, so I suggest you cultivate that feeling.

A close partner has been in an unusually self-sacrificing state of mind, and this may be making you nervous: their motives exist in a blind spot in your perception, and you’ve never quite known them to be this generous. There may also be other sources of irritation, such as a nagging sense that you don’t do enough for others. Notice what the two have in common: the economy of partnerships, that delicate teeter-totter between one side of a human equation and the other. There are two elements of this that you are now free to unravel. One is your hidden tendency to be critical of yourself no matter what is going on; and the other is an excessive belief in the doctrine of separate interests. These are related, and related closely, though it would take a while for an alien psychologist, unfamiliar with human nature, to figure this out. Here’s a simple way to think of the connection: set yourself free and the people around you will feel free.

Stick with people with whom you share a common purpose. You are being called together, and should have no problem recognizing one another. The common purpose looks like service, but it’s not self-sacrificing. There’s the feeling of giving from the heart, and a sense of taking care of something larger than yourself, for a larger purpose. This, in turn, becomes your shared purpose, which creates common ground. I say this fully aware of how compromised many people are on the theme of cooperation. We are taught to compete over the most trivial, pointless issues, so what you may experience is something of a miracle for this world. The one thing to avoid is self-criticism and in particular, projecting that onto others as any kind of harsh assessment of them. Keep the energy positive, recognize the moment you turn down a dark alley of thought — and go the other way.

Saturday’s eclipse of the Moon is about focusing on your resources. You are involved with a long-term program of cultivating self-sufficiency. The phase you are at is understanding the necessity for keeping your resources organized, particularly your finances. What ‘belongs to you’ is less about what you own personally and more about what you have access to, and what you are aware exists. Someone close to you may be willing to enter into collaboration with you, and in a sense seed your fortunes. This is a business gesture, however, there is a personal feeling that is infused in what may be a strictly financial matter. You seem destined to learn that you are never really self-sufficient; everything we do involves an exchange with others.

You are aware, perhaps more than anyone, how many changes the world is about to go through, and I can sense your concern. It’s not strictly personal or private; you are tapping into a collective level, and some huge crossroads that our culture has finally come to. I suggest you focus on one issue: the evolutionary value of events. Stay off of the doom channel and remember that, at the very least, the purpose of the human adventure is to experience, to learn and to grow. At best, it’s about creating our own lives. It’s true that many of our contemporaries are walking around in a coma and can barely be said to be doing any of these three things. However, that does not need to involve you. As the days and weeks go on, you’re being drawn deeper into your own awareness, and are creating many worthwhile experiences. Look for others who are maintaining a creative, introspective way of life and stick with them.

We are in the midst of some of the most intense astrology of our lifetimes though you have one of the best vantage points available to anyone. I say this for two reasons: one is that you haven’t given up on the power of ideas. In fact, I don’t think you’ve ever had greater faith in human ingenuity, no matter how buggered the planet seems at the moment. Second is that you’re willing to stand back and proceed slowly; you still have a sense of caution about your actions, in the midst of a truly reckless time in history. This will work for a while, though I would caution you that as soon as Saturn enters Libra in a few weeks, the pace of your life will pick up considerably, and you will have less time to ponder. Your faith in ideas and ingenuity will translate to making fast, precise decisions with all of the chips down on the gambling table. You may even be presented with one such situation this weekend.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You are getting a sense of what is possible, and this is coming with a perhaps daunting sense of all that you’re responsible for. In other words, activating potential comes with stewardship. With wealth comes responsibility for managing that wealth. With influence comes the necessity to be aware of what that influence can do. In nearly all ways your life is increasing and your creative power is burgeoning. With the power to create comes the power to damage or destroy, which is a way of saying pay attention and treat your gifts with respect. You have more influence than you realize at the moment. Rather than suggesting that you foster a paralyzing degree of caution, I suggest you cultivate an enlightening quality of awareness — at all times, in everything you do and with everyone you encounter.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Went to the well but the water was dry
Dipped my bucket in the clear blue sky
Looked in the bottom and what did I see?
The whole damned world looking back at me
— “Liberty,” by the Grateful Dead (Hunter/Garcia)

Dear Fellow Traveler:

We are approaching the summer solstice, one of the most concentrated astrological moments of the year. This plays into an existing setup of planets gathering in the places where the changes of seasons are focused. As referenced many times on these pages, this is called the Aries Point: the imaginary cross in the sky that goes from Aries to Libra and Cancer to Capricorn. The Aries Point goes by several other names, including the cardinal cross of the heavens, though whatever you call it, the concept translates to events with strong influence on personal and global affairs.

If you’re wondering why the world seems to be spinning off its axis, and why your life might feel like a trip through your own personal Twilight Zone Theme Park, check the astrology: it’s the Aries Point — the one that reminds us that the personal is political and that every individual is connected to a larger public life. If you know your chart, even just a little, look for planets and angles early in the cardinal signs and see what you discover.

Mighty players in the cosmic drama have been collecting along this axis: the ones that change the world no matter what they do. Pluto, the first to arrive, is still in early Capricorn. Saturn is about to re-enter Libra to stay for two years. Jupiter and Uranus are conjunct in Aries, having their first exact meeting in the first degree of that sign (degree symbol: a woman, risen from the sea). This is an alignment of historic dimensions: I would rate it in the top five most potent setups of the past 50 years, up there with the mid-60s alignment, the grand cross of August 1999, and the Saturn-Pluto opposition of August 2001.

We can take these separately [see caption at right], noting that we are in the midst of several key alignments: for example, Saturn opposite Uranus and Saturn square Pluto. And of course, we are now well into the effects of the gem of 2012, Uranus square Pluto — the infamous spark plug of revolution.

While these charts make excellent things to study in retrospect, astrology is mostly about embracing our present moment. It is an easily available map to our experience, now. Most writers are describing the alignment as the ‘cardinal T-square’ because it involves three of the cardinal signs. It is also the 2012 alignment, which focuses on the square of Uranus in Aries and Pluto with the Moon in Capricorn. The Sun is about to complete the cross by ingressing the sign Cancer on Monday, June 21. This is followed by a spectacular lunar eclipse in Capricorn, exactly conjunct Pluto, on Saturday, June 26. Mercury is in the picture, close to the Sun, so whatever this alignment represents has a voice.

It’s worth mentioning the influence of eclipses, which I describe in my weekly podcast. Eclipses are fulcrum events that concentrate both personal growth and the historical process. They define eras of time, but it’s a little like getting propelled through a funnel and coming out in another dimension. Part of why they’re so powerful is that they align several dimensions of space and time: in other words, they are multidimensional in a way that goes beyond what you ordinarily see in astrology.

If you’re an astrology student and you’re wondering what the lunar nodes are about, when you see the node, think eclipse. The lunar nodes (where eclipses always happen) are the energetic gateways to the past and the future that enable eclipses to be what they are. The nodes are separate from the Moon; they are points in space that have an 18-year orbit. Think of them as a meeting point. When the Sun and Moon are both near a node, that’s when we have an eclipse — or more accurately, a pair of eclipses, one at the Full Moon and another at the New Moon. Generally, eclipses arrive with a surge forward, with a release of the past and an unusual encounter with the future. Events can seem fated or karmic. They feel magnified, and (like the Aries Point) eclipses merge individual and collective consciousness.

Therefore, you could say we’re heading into an interesting week — not that we’re vaguely short of interesting at the moment. When the Sun and Moon get involved with a slow-moving setup, it tends to precipitate the energy contained in that alignment and ground it in tangible ways. Imagine that the tension of the current alignment of slow-movers (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto) has been building for years, focused on the Aries Point. Now the Sun, Moon and lunar nodes arrive, and we have an eclipse — two of them, actually, with the second being a total eclipse of the Sun on July 11. That looks and feels like a cascade. If I had to offer any astrologically-based advice, it would be to focus on what’s truly important, and I mean that in the long run. Now is the time to concentrate positive attention on your most meaningful goals and plans.

A grand cross baptized by eclipses says that we are standing at a vast crossroads, where choices actually matter. The thing to know is, you are making decisions that affect things you aren’t aware of yet. Therefore, the way to use an eclipse as a navigation tool is to focus on the goals and desires that reflect your deepest values.

The Cardinal Cross of the Heavens

Planets are moving from mutable cross (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) to the cardinal cross (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn). For example, Uranus has been a longterm tenant of Pisces, and is now taking up residence in Aries. Pluto was in Sagittarius for more than a decade and is now in Capricorn. Saturn has been in Virgo for more than two years and is now moving into Libra.

In the mundane sense, the energy of the mutable cross is a season dissolving and yielding to the next; and the energy of the cardinal cross is a surge of power, like shoots pressing upwards in the spring (this is described eloquently in The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley). This ‘change of seasons’ is happening over a period of about five years (approximately 2007 to 2011), accompanied by other vital developments: for example, Chiron and Neptune ingressing Pisces.

The crosses have what you might call spiritual implications. This morning I got the intuition to check in with Esoteric Astrology by Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949; text published in 1951). While I’m here, I will offer some background. This book, part of a larger series called A Treatise on the Seven Rays, has little appeal to traditionally grounded astrologers. To them, many of its assertions seem ignorant, speculative and even ridiculous (typical characterizations of literature emerging from various mystery schools). Why this isn’t the pot calling the kettle black is because traditional astrology is part of mainstream Western intellectual thought. It’s not really mystical. Mainstream astrology is indeed mainstream, to the point of being the astrology of empire.

I’ve studied Esoteric Astrology and considered its ideas for about 15 years. Though many astrologers would be reluctant to acknowledge this (probably because it is so difficult to comprehend, and relatively few have actually got through the book) it’s clearly one of the most influential works of 20th century astrology. Bailey grounds the practice of astrology in a deeper philosophy, rooting it in a veiled mystical tradition. She presents ideas that can only be verified or discounted through a combination of intuition, experience and additional study. Among the astrologers you read, you may notice that one broad category ‘gets it’ and one ‘doesn’t get it’, with the ‘it’ being the fundamentally spiritual nature of astrology: that it’s a raft to a further shore, and the memory of what’s on the other side informs the work. The ‘doesn’t get it’ camp is what you encounter when the astrology feels like Tinker Toys or an Erector Set. Note that if you dive into Bailey’s writing by contrast it will make the Planet Waves websites seem as organized as an engineering library.

What we tune into via Esoteric Astrology is the sense of a vast latticework of the psychic levels; the very, very, very long history of human incarnation and of the solar system itself; and the idea that planetary energies and alignments have influence on many planes of existence. We learn that certain alignments bring together the influences of the different levels of reality — and that’s what’s happening now. In short, the people of the planet are going through a group initiation, which is another way of saying a shift of consciousness by a wide population.

This shift of energy — from a long stretch of time under the influence of the mutable cross, to the new setup focused on the cardinal cross — is about as significant as it gets. Traditional astrology tells us the mutable cross is nervous, unstable, slow to respond and mired in a mental quality. The cardinal cross is assertive, action-oriented and seeks to create a new order. In a rare moment of connection, this is also reflected in what Esoteric Astrology has to say about the crosses, though it goes a bit deeper.

Bailey (channeling The Tibetan) describes the mutable cross as the cross of “repeated incarnations,” the “cross of many changes” and the location of numerous experiments that “lead to successive and continuous expansions of consciousness.” The mutable cross is all about encountering the endless challenges of incarnation. It’s the cross of the “Son of God,” that is, the version of the Christ that actually incarnated on Earth. Here we find that round-and-round quality of reincarnation; the sense of being stuck here, and stuck in patterns. More to the point, the mutable cross describes the long (long, long, long) experience of integrating spirit with matter. Bailey informs us that this is the second iteration of the solar system: we are in system two, as she calls it (literally, the second version of the solar system), because it takes that long for physical matter to be quickened to the point where it can fully meld and blend with soul energy; where it will support life.

The energy of the mutable cross is a gradual awakening to the presence of spirit within matter. For example, we are not just our bodies and our bodies are not merely physical. Mutability involves cultivating consciousness of the mind as a distinct entity, then noticing that it veils something more permanent: the soul. It takes a long time to notice this; humanity spends a lot of time on the mutable cross.

The cardinal cross is the cross of action: “the expression of will or power as it expresses itself in the great creative process.”

What she terms the great creative process includes the incarnational experience of humanity, and a lot more than that. One aligned with the cardinal cross “no longer identifies with the form or even the soul, but with the will of divinity and with the eternal plan and purpose. It becomes his plan and purpose.” Bailey describes this as the cross of the Cosmic Christ, which to me suggests that it’s like magnetic north: an orienting pull in the direction of true ethics and purpose, available amidst the chaos of the psyche and of the world. This fits well with the Aries Point theme, because Aries Point events tend to be the easiest to orient our lives around. This includes planets and angles located in the cardinal signs: they are the places where we feel compelled to take action.

The Birthplace of Ideas

Aries, in particular, is “the birthplace of ideas, and a true idea is in reality a spiritual impulse taking form.” Note that we have two spectacularly creative planets conjunct in Aries: Jupiter and Uranus, which are making available many brilliant ideas that we can think of as spiritual impulses taking form. That’s why you’d be wise to trust your ideas at this point in your existence, and to trust that ideas exist that can solve whatever you want to solve; and create whatever you want to create.

“Aries initiates the cycle of manifestation,” she says. So you can think of the transition of Uranus from Pisces to Aries as just that: a form of grounding of a long-tested idea into tangible physical form and decisive action. In the system of Esoteric Astrology, Uranus is one of the rulers of the sign Aries (the other is Mercury, and the two are closely related).

Cancer, and all of this eclipse activity, is a reminder of the initial purpose of incarnation, be that in the universal sense or your individual intention for incarnation. The two are related and that relationship becomes obvious with activity on the cardinal cross in general and in Cancer, specifically. There are few more potent signs of rebirth than a total solar eclipse in Cancer. The coming eclipse is conjunct Juno, which says that as we are reborn and transformed, so too are our relationships, our ideas of relationships and what we think of as our role as a partner. We have some work to do on the issue of jealousy, and Juno involved in this eclipse suggests that we make a note that it’s not healthy, and that there is a sane, loving alternative.

Pluto in Capricorn is about attaining a definite goal as opposed to thinking about, and experimenting with, that goal. We are seeing many things get dismantled, torn apart and revealed for what they are: for example, the entire criminal enterprise of capitalism, veiled as political or economic theory.

Saturn in Libra is about building. There is a close association to sex and money with Libra, though on a more critical level it is about the law: as she puts it, “law, legislation, legality and justice.” And so Saturn in Libra is about actively building our integrity on the matter of laws, which are agreements. As Saturn moves through the last degrees of Virgo, we are seeing the results of laws that don’t work, that don’t protect people and that have an ulterior agenda. As Saturn in Libra does its work, we will witness the power of conscious agreements, of purpose and clarity in relationships. As a society, we are due to encounter the need to use our laws as tools for building a stable, sustainable world that supports and protects humanity from its less conscientious members.

One of my readers said that her take on Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn is mandatory integrity. Yes, it’s easy to cheat, to deceive and to evade one’s purpose, but it’s going to become increasingly challenging: an occasion to which we all must rise, sooner or later. This includes addressing the unjust laws to which so many are subjected.

As we witness the tearing down of so much that is familiar and taken for granted, the alignment on the cardinal cross is compelling us to take action, to speak only the truth and to live as if we are alive. This is a group initiation. We are in this together. Remember that as you sail your timeship through the extraordinary weeks ahead, and beyond. Borrowing a bit from A Course in Miracles, “You cannot be fully committed part of the time.

Yours & truly,

 

 

 

Audio Reports

Planet Waves is now offering audio reports by Eric Francis. Here’s your opportunity to benefit from the extensive astrological knowledge Eric has gained through years of work with clients and his radio experience. Each report provides practical, affirming information to help you create your best life.

It’s like having your own personal astrologer sit down for a reading with you, only much more modestly priced.

As the Sun moves through each sign, we will be adding new audio birthday reports for each sign, and additional Key Life Transits audio reports, so check back often to see if we have something new. Thanks for tuning in.

Key Life Transits Audio – Saturn – $19.95
A five part audio report including an introduction to Saturn and an introduction to Saturn transits. The Saturn Key Life Transits Audio covers Saturn’s transit from Virgo into Libra. The presentation is in audio format, in an easy-to-use player that requires no upgrade or download for the vast majority of our clients.

Chiron In Pisces for all 12 signs – $14.99
An informative 13 part audio product interpreting how Chiron in Pisces will affect each of the signs. This includes a 20 minute introduction and then six to eight minutes for each of the Sun signs — organized by sign. This is 90 minutes of fresh, original audio by one of the best respected astrologers on Chiron astrology.

Pisces Birthday Report – $14.95
Astrology reading by Eric Francis that is approximately one hour in length and covers the incredible Pisces astrology for 2010. As an added bonus, Eric gives a detailed 20 minute Tarot reading to Pisces using the Voyager deck, which works in harmony with the astrology.

Aries Birthday Report – $14.95
Astrology reading by Eric Francis that is approximately one hour in length and covers the incredible Aries astrology for 2010. This is a year of self-discovery, when you will test your relationships, your ideas about relationships and your current career situation, creating a way to get them working together. This is the year that your relationships will support your career and your career will support your relationships. As an added bonus, Eric gives a detailed 20 minute Tarot reading to Aries using the Voyager deck, which works in harmony with the astrology.

Taurus Birthday Report – $14.95
Astrology reading by Eric Francis that is approximately one hour in length and covers the incredible Taurus astrology for 2010. As an added bonus, Eric gives a detailed 20 minute Tarot reading to Taurus using the Voyager deck, which works in harmony with the astrology.

Gemini Birthday Report – $14.95
Astrology reading by Eric Francis that is approximately one hour in length and covers the incredible Gemini astrology for 2010. As an added bonus, Eric gives a detailed 20 minute Tarot reading to Gemini using the Voyager deck, which works in harmony with the astrology.

 

Facing Our Demons — Or Not

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Standing back from our political situation, I think of the Laurel and Hardy schtick where Ollie turns to Stan and says, “Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Blubbering, Stanley wheezes out little peeps of distress, squinches up his face and scratches his head.

We’re Ollie. We’re Stan. And this fine mess is the result of decades of policies and decisions by Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton and Bush the Younger. Obama is the newest engineer on our runaway train, but he doesn’t seem to have any magic tricks to offer us. Most presidents don’t have to deal with both domestic and foreign firestorms at the same time, and you can tell that Obama would rather be flying at jet speed, not careening along on rickety, old paradigm tracks toward the cliff looming ahead. Doubtless there are some mornings when Obama peeps, squinches and scratches, too; perhaps most mornings.

In order to free Congress for big legislation like health care and energy reform, Obama chose to ‘move on’ from Bushy criminal investigations, thus taking on ownership of the fine mess we’re in. The obvious result of GW’s hubristic tenure — hyperextending militarism and the free market right to the edge on warring, spending, borrowing and deregulating — is that we’re now over the edge on every front. Government has always kept the worst projections and assessments from the public in order to keep the economy calm and the people compliant. The good news is that, coming off several decades of denial-binge, the public now recognizes that facts trump political rhetoric. The bad news is that the political system is so hamstrung by partisanship that it can’t move more than baby steps at a time, impeded by those who think “the good old days” of American dominance and expansion are still an option.

In this country, “where seldom is heard a discouraging word,” we lie to each other and to ourselves to preserve that sunny Reaganesque illusion. Believing lies is our national version of Prozac. Not wanting to know is a sedation overdose that has now landed us all in the emergency room. Because we still don’t want to face the truth, we continue to slap band-aids on national wounds to our treasury, liberties and ethics that gush like BP’s failed pipes. Each day that passes makes a dire situation more critical.

Continued at this link…

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 18, 2010, #820 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

You face a test this week about whether you feel safe expressing yourself so fully, and living so boldly. This extra light has come with extra shadow, and I know it’s confusing. Many before us have wondered why facing our true potential also comes with facing some of our deepest fears. As the Sun makes its last moves in the sign Gemini, straddling this dualism may feel like stretching across a contradiction, which is true: you are the bridge. To be fully alive means to embrace every shade of potential, and there’s a reason this is true: the opposite would be to suppress part of the psychic spectrum, and this would not qualify for ‘fully’ anything. Follow your feelings carefully as the Sun makes its way into the sign Cancer on Monday, and notice the results when you relax your mind and let it all be.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

This week’s solstice provides you with a missing ingredient. The absence of this whatever-it-is may have been quietly tormenting you with a sense of emotional emptiness, as the world around you has its impact on your life. You’re not really empty, though the Sun in Cancer will add previously lacking substance to your thoughts and emotions. This is likely to feel like filling your mental engine up with oil, which will help the various parts of yourself connect with one another a little more smoothly. What you’ve been feeling is intensity without direct access to the inner resonance that would take the edge off. Remember, as a Taurean you cannot process things on a merely intellectual level, tempting as that is. You experience your thoughts emotionally, and as the Sun makes its way into the sign Cancer, you’re about to get a lot of support.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You’re standing face-to-face with overwhelming forces, and it doesn’t help that you can’t quite describe the phenomenon. It’s halfway between gazing out at the cosmos and seeing absolutely nothing, and seeing overwhelming bright light. These are internal qualities. They have certain parallels in the physical universe of planets, stars and galaxies, though the human dimension is what we think of as a spiritual matter. As the seasons change this week, you’re likely to face this dark versus light situation with more confidence. The difference is that you’re tuning into feeling the presence of the observer and identifying with this, rather than with trying to reach for one side of the split between dark and light. Incidentally: the fact that you can see contrast and experience yourself many distinct ways is a profound gift — especially if you dare to think of it that way.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Over the next seven days, events in your life will begin to move more quickly than you’re expecting, and I suggest you move with them. If you’re seeking a sense of security or grounding, you’ll find it in hanging loose with everything from your emotions to your sense of place. Let the river flow, let the tides move and in the words of a surfer I met last summer, “Look where you want to be.” The combination of the solstice on Monday and a lunar eclipse conjunct Pluto on Friday suggest nothing short of total transformation. These events, focused on your sign, reveal something you’ve suspected all along: there is a missing piece, and you are it. You are part of a much larger pattern of events that is happening around you and that has been developing within you for many years; it’s just that your own role was not clear.

Venus in your sign has opened up the flow of potential, and you’re discovering that potential is real rather than just a theory. By real, I mean that the present value is obvious to you, rather than some notion of future value. This is value you possess and that you can share, and you’ve always had it: but recent events have opened up a new flow of ideas and more than anything else, confirmation that what you’ve felt for so long is real. What you have at the moment is a contact point between your highest vision for life and the tangible things you do every day. For most and I do mean 90% of all people, this feeling happens a few times in a lifetime, and the moments would stand out if we recognized them when they happen. I’m here to remind you exactly what you have available, and reassure you that now is the time to act on the obvious.

The central question is, ‘Have you come to terms with yourself?’ I can use astrology to propose what you might be doubting or processing, though you can speak more articulately than that. You know the differences with yourself that you’ve been trying to iron out. You also know the extent to which your self-critique lacks any real function, and sends you deeper into questions that have no answers. I suggest you count this kind of mental gyration as a luxury you can no longer afford. It affects your relationship with yourself, and it influences how you see others and thus who they are in your life. An aspect of what you are doing is teaching the parent in you to relate more coherently to the child in you, because this child is the source of most of the fear that you experience. And, truly, you’re too old to be governed by that fear.

Keep your focus and remember your goals. This is vital: be vigilant of your own objectives and those of anyone with whom you collaborate. The inner energetic quality of attention is the same, whether the beneficiary appears to be you or something of which you are part. Both will be equally rewarding and each side of the equation will help the other, because they are one cause, one purpose, and you are at the center of that purpose. There are many influences acting on you, and some of them are destabilizing. I suggest that you resist any temptation to be flaky. Indeed, as the new season develops the theme of your life will increasingly be about commitment and consistency. It is true that you are experimenting in some wild directions, and there are greater horizons to come, but none of that will work without solid grounding in the adult world.

You may be discovering you have issues with your friends that were somehow veiled until recently. A theme is developing where you’re the one who makes the sacrifices and puts out the effort, but are not rewarded for that attentiveness. I suggest you stop trying so hard, and make clear statements of your desires. I was going to say needs, but the word ‘need’ conjures a feeling of childhood resentment that is not befitting your visible, mature place in the world. Over many recent months you’ve been experimenting with different notions of leadership, and being placed in different positions of authority. That, in itself, is a form of service. Expressing honest leadership is doing the world a huge favor, though you may need to make some internal adjustments to feel the authentic value of that idea.

You’ve waited a long time for the world to actually be as weird as you’ve seen it all your life, and now you’re getting a reflection. Here is a suggestion that I would trust few others than a Sagittarian to understand: whenever you see a problem, think of it as an opportunity because you hold some piece of the solution. Whenever you see some surprising form of progress, look for the ways you not only might contribute in the future, but which you are contributing to it in the present. As the planets make a series of bold moves this week, take every occasion to feel your presence in the world, and to experiment with the thing you crave the very most: letting go. Take that how you wish: emotionally, erotically, empathically, or trusting the flow of events. That trust will validate itself.

It turns out that honoring leadership is a theme of many astrological signs these days; Aries, Gemini, Cancer, Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius all have significant movement in their 10th solar house. So while you have company on the leadership council, which by the way suggests strongly that a team approach to leadership is the way to go, nobody else but Capricorn has Saturn about to cross their 10th house cusp. This has a quality of ‘the buck stops here’, though the involvement of Libra puts a strong emphasis on cooperation, balance and an elegant approach to problem solving. But more than anything the implication is that you must be prepared to take responsibility for what you have created, and for what you intend to create. Nobody can have this transit without some big plans, so while you are getting yourself organized, think for the long run.

Now is the time to focus on health issues you want to resolve, no matter how long you’ve been dealing with them. Aquarius is one of the signs for whom emotional and physical health are fully integrated, so part of this is about discovering a more settled place on the level of your feelings. This involves your complex situation involving a longstanding relationship, which is once again seeking a new depth of resolution. Yet there is also the ‘purely’ medical level, which suggests strongly that routine care, from a dental cleaning to a visit with a nutritionist, can have significant longterm results. The same will be true with therapy. For example, if you have a therapist you’ve worked with in the past, doing one or two sessions could move you ahead quickly — particularly if you bring in material from your especially interesting recent dreams.

Aquarius birthday audio is coming soon — it will have its moment.

The ongoing Jupiter-Uranus conjunction has you under so much pressure to recognize your value, your contribution and like you belong on the planet that the project could easily backfire. I suggest you make a series of efficiency refinements. The first of these is to feel the logical result of these planetary signs and work backwards from there. For example: how would you feel if you were solidly confident of your place in the world, with part of that confidence being that others recognize your contribution? That’s the posture you need to take: a kind of quiet assurance that may not, by the way, feel so natural for nervous, the-world-on-her-shoulders psyche of a Fish. I am proposing that the show is not going to start without you; you’re the star of this particular production. Nobody can play your role, and reruns of Futurama aren’t cutting it anymore.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Dear Friend and Reader:

This is the week when I’m working on the July monthly horoscopes. For those new to our schedule, there are monthly horoscopes offered on the first two Tuesdays that the Sun is in a new zodiac sign (at the end of the calendar month). Then if my schedule permits, I will do something else the other Tuesdays. For today’s edition I have a request for you. Thanks in advance for a moment of your time.

Working with Chelsea and other members of our business team, we’re studying the ways to build Planet Waves into a stronger organization with a broader subscriber base. As you know, we provide the services we do without advertising. This, in turn, means we have to be really good at drawing in new readers and giving them excellent reasons to subscribe and renew.

Here’s my request: please go back to the moment when you first subscribed to Planet Waves for the first time. What was it that got you to make the decision? Was there any one article, promotional letter or experience? Or was there some other factor?

One additional question: is the term “subscriber” or “member” more appealing to you? Which do you think of yourself as being? Please be descriptive.

Here is a feedback form where you can add your comments — or you can reply directly to this email. Thank you kindly for your time and attention. I’ll see you Friday with a regular edition of Planet Waves Astrology News.

Yours & truly,

 

 

PS: We have some excellent new posts to our blog areas. Len Wallick’s Monday and Tuesday editions are an excellent summary of the current astrology. I have a weekly astrology entry that’s a new addition to the Cosmic Confidential Diary. And Enceno Macy, our correspondent from a prison on the West Coast, has written an essay on loneliness.

PPS: I now offer an audio astrology update on Wednesdays at about noon, located on our daily blog.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Today we arrive at the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus, in the first degree of Aries. As I’ve written many times, this is one of the key events in the 2012 astrological pattern, which peaks when the Mayan long count reaches day 13.0.0.0.0 on Dec. 21, 2012. The astrological pattern associated with 2012 in Western astrology involves many planets converging around the ‘personal is political’ region of the zodiac known as the Aries Point.

Many of these events are focused on the signs Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, aspecting the Aries Point by square or opposition. Today’s event marks an exact conjunction to that degree. We could say more about the significance of this, but I’m here today with a few short queries to help you determine where you stand on the way to whatever 2012 means for you, and whatever this incarnation means for you.

1. Where do you stand in relationship to your life plans? Do you do what you want, what you love or what you ‘must do’? Do you earn your living doing what means the most to you, or must you set your values aside in order to earn your keep?

2. Who is around you? Do you consider your closest friends your family of choice, that is, your true tribe, and what are the values with which you’re in affinity? Are your relationships characterized more by harmony and purpose, or by conflict and turmoil?

3. Are you in contact with your original decisions for entering this incarnation? Do you understand why you’re here, or do you struggle with the notion that your life is meaningless?

4. Do you feel you have options in the most significant matters in your life, or do you feel that you are boxed into an experience you cannot get out of?

5. What is your relationship to desire? Do you desire the pleasures of your life without inhibition, or do you find yourself struggling with guilt when you want the things that will make you happy?

6. What is your sense of the future? Are you optimistic about your life? Are you optimistic about the state of the world? If you’ve answered no to either of these questions, what power do you have to change the answer?

7. What is your relationship to your potential? Do you feel you have more or less potential than when you were younger? Do you find it easier or more difficult to tap into and manifest?

8. What is your sense of connection to the larger life that surrounds you? Do you take an active role in expressing that sense of connection, or are you waiting for ‘something to happen’ that will get you to make a move and get involved?

9. How has your relationship to death evolved over the course of your life? Are you more fearful or less fearful? How do you make transitions? Do you find it easier or more difficult to make transitions as you get older?

10. Are you able to ask for the help you need? Do you offer assistance to others in need? Which is easier for you?

With that, I bid you a blessed Jupiter-Uranus conjunction on the Aries Point.

Yours & truly,