Dear Planet Waves Reader:

We’re near the end of a long, challenging Mars retrograde; the exact station-direct is March 10. This has been in the background all winter, slowly working its mysterious effects: most of them emotional.

Now that we’re at the dregs of the retrograde, the sensation ranges from not being able to get anything done, to determination to accomplish exactly what you need (which may or may not be working — time will tell). This Mars event has the odd feeling of Mercury retrograde; I thought I was dreaming and then other astrologers started to point out the same thing.

When the process unhooks, we’re likely to make a series of discoveries, and there will be plenty of room for more mistakes. Therefore, in the weeks after the retrograde, proceed with caution, especially where making commitments and acting on your desires are involved.

In psychological terms, you may be feeling frustration over direction, initiative and/or desire. This is a struggle with expressing the vital force, as described by retrograde Mars (expression, initiative) in Leo (the sign of the vital force). Humans tend to have a hard time with this anyway; what do we want, and what are we ‘supposed to’ do? More to the point lately, who are we ‘supposed to’ be? Who exactly is doing the supposing?

Contemplating this is often a job handed to astrology: astrologers are always being asked to ‘tell me about me’. For sure, there are things that astrologers can tell their clients that are helpful, though once involved, it’s crucial to do one’s best to help people in their process of self-discovery, rather than get in the way. I would reckon that astrology has done both in equal measures, at best.

The old, old question of fate versus free will is still getting dragged into astrology (and existence) in the form of this issue about who we are ‘supposed to be’. We’ve lived too many lifetimes to play this game, and I do mean thousands. No matter what, the answer to that always comes from inside. Even if some external circumstance led one in the direction of a discovery, the awareness is internal, as is the choice to act on it.

Mars retrograde is pulling volition into the pit of the psyche (or finding it there, where it originates), where it belongs, and reminding us that to know what we want we must make contact with who we are. Who you are is true no matter what anyone says, thinks, feels or wants; and if you have someone in your life who you think is determining who you are, there is just one way that is possible.

Mars stationing direct in the first degree of Leo is all about desire, motivation and identity — and the place in awareness where the three meet.

Raising this theme sometimes feels like teaching people who are numb from the neck down how to dance. So many influences have convinced us we don’t know who we are or what we want that most people have actually forgotten that it’s possible. But Mars retrograde is pushing the issue to an extreme.

Mars is going to sit in the same degree of Leo for an astonishing 22 days — the very first degree — between Feb 28 and March 22. I say astonishing not because of the duration (that is always true) but because of the vortex-like quality of that degree.

Mars won’t exactly be at a halt (when you plot them on a graph, planetary stations with the exception of Eris appear to be instantaneous). But Mars will be moving slowly and shall we say in a way that is significant of precisely the kind of struggle that defines our time in the human story: our control drama with passion, even the simplest-feeling sensation.

With or without Mars, the first degree of Leo is a hot spot in the zodiac; add Mars retrograde drawing to a close and turning around in this degree and we get a potentially dangerous surge of biopsychic energy.

Yesterday I was in a full-day workshop with Rick Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche, on the comic genius archetype. One of his subjects was John Cleese of the Monty Python troupe, who is a specialist in sexual humor in a way that only a Brit could be capable of. I looked around; the view was like a room full of ladies who had just sucked on lemon slices, dutifully taking notes.

When we look back at this time in history, we’re going to get nauseous at how noncommittal, uptight, shut down and glazed over we were. I have finally started to laugh at the letters that come in that begin, “I’m no prude, but –”

We’re about to experience a series of energy surges, all of them involving Mars and Aries. To those who are shut down, they may feel like a case of apoplexy, and may be equally dangerous. If you’re at war with your energy rising, with change, with passion, with creative flow or with sexual feelings and ideas, and then if they suddenly gush out of the ground of your being, that could be frightening. If you’re resisting, I suggest you ask yourself why; what you think you’re protecting, or what you’re gaining. There is probably an answer; you may decide it’s an excuse.

I’ve described many times the ways in which this spring is an extraordinary moment. It’s the first full blossoming of 2012 energy, and everyone is wondering what that mystery is about. This is a little like explaining the Sixties to someone in 1962. There was a vibe in the air some places, Bob Dylan had left Hibbing for New York, and whether people recognized it or not, everything was about to change really fast. We have that vibe in the air right now, and it may be the inspiration for the conservative backlash. Many people missed the Sixties because they were so scared of the changes and the potential.

Remember that Mars stationing direct ties directly into the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the first degree of Aries on June 8. The connection is that all this Mars energy transposes into an event in Aries, ruled by Mars, just a little while later. We have some ground to cover before we get there: currently Venus, Jupiter and Uranus are in Pisces. This is an invitation to visualize what it would be like to be free; to visualize what you want; to imagine what it would be like to be solid in yourself, and your ‘sense of self’.

Once these planets move into the fire signs (particularly Jupiter and Uranus, moving into Aries), the pace of movement will pick up dramatically, with time and progress taking a surge forward. This includes progress for people who don’t necessarily define progress the same way you do. Just the other day, Mr. Beck was describing the ‘progressive’ as a sickness. Aries can be militant, hard-headed and crude; but this conjunction is an invitation to brilliance, enlightenment, awareness and a sense of liberty.

Whichever way it tends, we will experience a radicalizing energy that wants to blow the dust (and whatever else) out of the corners of our reality and acquaint us with the light of awareness.

Coming Right Up: the Virgo Full Moon

Sunday morning in the US, evening in the UK and Europe, is the Virgo Full Moon. That means the Moon in Virgo and the Sun in Pisces meet at an exact opposition. At that moment the Sun is conjunct Jupiter — this is a gorgeous chart, brimming with watery energy, fresh and alive with airy energy, grounded by Pluto in Capricorn and containing potent fiery energy in the small planets (Eris, Pholus, Ceres and Vesta). This event is the first full expression of Jupiter in Pisces energy.

There’s something special about each of the personal planets. Mercury is aligned with the Chiron-Neptune conjunction in Aquarius. Venus is about to make a conjunction to Uranus. Mars is in the process of stationing direct. Ceres, both a dwarf planet and a personal planet, is aligned with the Galactic Core, incarnating in her role as cosmic mother.

When you combine inner or personal planets with outer or cultural/generational planets, the effect is to personalize the energy. We go to the gods or the gods come to us (depending on your perspective, or the circumstances) but the effect is that the extraordinary can show up — it’s no longer just a theory or a concept; things that seemed impossible in the past manifest in the present.

Vesta, a kind of high priestess of sexuality, is doing something I’ve not mentioned yet — she’s in a long conjunction with a hypothetical point called Transpluto. (Transpluto ‘exists’ but only in mathematics and on paper, and more to the point, in the minds of astrologers who use it.) Without delineating both points (I’ve written lots about Vesta, easy to Google), this is referencing a specific area of sexual healing, which will help you identify and heal a particular aspect of your erotic consciousness or identity.

I’ve been testing Transpluto for well over a year. This is the thing that brings the narrow focus and the suggestion that you are looking for something precise that you want, need or will benefit from. Vesta is the servant of the creative fire, the core fire of existence that is inherently creative, erotic and aware. Vesta’s devotional energy is a reminder that if we want this flame to burn cleanly, we need to focus on that desire as a daily and even hourly activity. This is going on at the far end of Leo, while Mars stationing (also significant of a specific healing of desire) is at the early end. The gift of anything Leo is self-knowledge.

I have an idea what this theme or issue may be. It involves releasing the pain of secrecy and concealment. It’s not just you. Nearly everyone is keeping sexual secrets that are very much constraining their life force and making them feel like some kind of fugitive. We all know on the deepest level that it’s our birthright to be free, to give ourselves, to share ourselves and most of all to be authentically who we are.

Take comfort in the fact that minds are joined. Everyone knows everything about you that is relevant to them, or they will soon know it. There is no point wrapping yourself in anything but light. Remember, love brings up everything unlike itself, so if that light casts a shadow, look at it, remember you saw it, and let yourself go.

Peace & passion,

 

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I suppose the winter of 2010 will be one of those talked about in future years. The amount of cold and snow, rain and frost has set records nationwide, making it feel like one of the longest winter seasons in memory. It’s only February, of course, and there’s plenty more to come. As well, the public is withering under a kind of winter mentality right now, gloomy and dug in, awaiting the next onslaught of actual storm or political sturm, whichever comes first. Here’s the question: are we hunkered down in our discontented winter because politics is finally personal, as we’ve reluctantly recognized the social disparities that drive our daily existence and our anxiety? Or is all this transitory, due to ease itself when spring comes, lifting our spirits with sunshine and new growth? I think the answer is both, but perhaps not in equal proportions.

Spring will certainly bring relief from utility bills that require one to choose between food or heat, to emergency services our local communities can no longer afford. Spring may encourage us to grow some of the fresh food that we find too pricey to buy, or perhaps frequent the local farmers’ market looking for a deal. As Michelle Obama addresses the childhood obesity issues we’ve long ignored, I hope she takes into consideration the expense of eating well. For the price of a bunch of broccoli and a bag of apples, food stamps can purchase a couple of frozen pizzas, a supersized bag of chips and the generic version of several Twinkies. If we’re trying to stretch a meal, junk is considerably more elastic. Yes, spring will put a little bounce in our step, but where will we be bouncing to, I wonder? Maybe we’ll be bouncing in place, wondering when the internal winter gloom that comes with anxious times is finally going to leave us.

Politics has become personal if you find yourself under- or unemployed, if you need government assistance to feed your family, if you have no health insurance or discover that your rates have gone up by 39%. It’s personal if your mortgage is ‘underwater,’ your job funding threatened or your credit cards maxed with 30% interest rates. It’s personal if you need more than one hand to count the friends and family in dire straits, discovering yourself helpless to assist them. Politics is also local. 48 states currently count themselves in crisis. The Red states are determined to cut vital services rather than go after the tax base that enjoys the benefit of Bush’s business entitlements. Those who would turn off street lights, close libraries, underfund court systems and slash childhood health, education and nutrition programs rather than tap the wealthy are known as “deficit peacocks.”

Continued at this link…

 

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, February 26, 2010, #806 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

You’re discovering what a lusty personality you have. In fact, it’s more like a lusty soul, craving existence. You have no special need to determine that your passion for life is somehow inappropriate: it’s no more so than breathing. Once you get judgment out of the way, the only remaining question is how to manifest your desires from the psychic realm to the physical realm. I suggest that you stay close to your feelings and learn to saturate your emotional vibration with the feeling of who and what you desire. Build up your charge like a battery (or more technically a capacitor). Allow the energy you carry to be a clear image of the feeling and the desire of what you want. Craving is good, but embrace the pleasure of consciously allowing yourself to want; then we shall see what happens.

You’re moving into transcendent territory regarding the work that you do. I keep talking about this; maybe it’s because so many of my Taurus friends live with perennial career struggle. However, this is the time to come to the realizations that make the commitment to who you are and what you want to do seem natural. Beware that in our monoculture, we believe that there’s just one thing, which can lead to a search for ‘the one’. As far as I can tell, what you are going for is a quality of devotion to existence, as expressed through creative activity and service. Read that three times. The objective is a quality of devotion. To existence. As expressed. Through creative activity and service. I am familiar with life on your planet, and I know how weird that seems — till you get into it.

There are times when those twins inside you get together and get it on, and you’re in one of those moments. By that token, the Taurus horoscope would apply to you word for word, though what we need to add is the faith factor. This is an internal consciousness which generally cannot be spoken or described in words, but which is experienced as a sense of moving from your center. Any external spiritual practice, from lighting a candle to meeting a guru, is designed to bring awareness inward to your center point. Please remember this. You contain who you are, and therefore you contain what you seek. Move from the interior of your awareness outward. That is to say, focus on yourself and your feelings and let this experience spread outward into the world around you.

There are rewards for clarifying agreements, plugging holes, and remaining independent of group dynamics. These will be significant; give it a little time. Lately you may seem to be taking three steps back for every step you take forward. This won’t last much longer, though you need to take the forward steps consciously. Your sign is ruled by the Moon, which is about to be full in Virgo: that’s a surge of mental energy, which may be destabilizing. Therefore, you must balance the cyclical nature of the Moon with the stability of Saturn, so that you can take advantage of both inspiration and discipline; or rather, so that your creative power can take advantage of the structure that will contain your ideas and your sensations. I can sum up Saturn’s message for you in two words: stay grounded.

These weeks of Mars retrograde in your sign have not been easy. You seem to have something new to get clear about every day; you seem to have to work out some new wrinkle in your psyche every hour or two. Your energy may be all over the place and you may have some adrenal exhaustion. Mars retrograde is the picture of resistance; there are many ways to address that, though at this point the best way would be to not resist that particular quality. I am more concerned about what happens when Mars stations direct on March 10, which I would sum up as: take things gradually and consciously and slowly as you resume your forward motion. You may feel inclined to bounce right into action, and I would say, a subtle shift of momentum is more than enough.

Virgo is one of the easiest signs, or energies, to stress out; it can also handle a high volume of activity, though it helps a lot if the energy is turned down. The computer I’m now working on quite literally would have occupied a warehouse 50 years ago, with less processing power and less memory but consuming far more energy. I can now carry it in a nifty shoulder bag, and it runs on a battery. Think of yourself as this next epoch of technology: the energy-efficient, compact unit. There will be times during the next few days that you’ll need to turn down the energy input; turn down the volume; keep earplugs in your pocket and use them anyplace it gets too noisy. Likewise, the results of your thought process may be subtle, solutions that work because they have leverage rather than drama.

Do you think of yourself as an idea person? Probably, but you may not be too confident about it. Your idea process is subtle, and maybe in the long run better if you don’t fly that as a flag. However, you are very much in the role of idea person right now, and for quite a while to come. I hope it doesn’t add too much pressure to say that people are depending on you, particularly where you work. Ideas can be original, and they can be original applications of old concepts; an idea can be as simple and as effective as putting flowers in a vase. Remember that you have this perceptive ability, and you are a likely source of resolving something that others perceive as difficult, or cannot perceive at all. Seeing any problem accurately is at least halfway to solving it.

It’s not that you’re working without a goal; more likely, you’re looking in the wrong direction — toward the past. I say this recognizing that Scorpio’s tendency to be set in old patterns of thought is pretty amazing, given that yours is the sign of transformation and evolution. What you are transforming is precisely your mental process. You may get nervous every time you step out of your cautious mental framework. But let’s put it this way: Google, as clever and effective as it is, was built on a simple old idea: cross-referencing, applied to a new environment. Think of your conservative mind as a foundation from which you can take a certain leap of faith. You invest a lot of time thinking, without necessarily recognizing that the result of thought is an idea that allows you to save months or years of labor. This is a lot easier than you make it.

You may be concerned that your relatively new stable environment is going to suddenly be disrupted. That’s always a risk when you reach a place of stability, however there are a few kinds of instability: one is disruption, which while often helpful in the end, can be difficult; yet worse is the expectation of a potential problem. The other kind of instability involves moving toward an emotional or creative breakthrough, which results specifically in freedom. Anticipation of this kind of change can be equally destabilizing, and it’s often considered a reason to avoid passion or inspiration. I suggest you live with the tension for a while and discover what you have on the way without torturing yourself with negative expectation. Various supportive factors say you’re perfectly safe; you can even leave the house, if you want.

For a while, you get to do the pushing — or rather, you now need to. Certain factors that had you at the edge of your limits have eased off, and you’re left to your own strength, ingenuity and willingness to make progress. This is a test of how strong and how determined you’ve become, and you may be surprised at the outcome. You may feel like you’re burrowing through your own emotional body, passing through layer after layer of mixed feelings. You may feel like your progress is obstructed by the weight and substance of the past, but in reality this is a mirage. You may believe that the perfect partner is going to show up to help you, however, certain people you care about have plenty else on their minds. So now you get to give it a go, seemingly without support. That’s the place to start: simply be willing to take your first steps as an independent agent.

It’s amazing how useful mild irritation can be, if you put it to work. The kind of irritation you’ve been accustomed to lately is the type that’s difficult to do anything about because it’s been so difficult to pin down. You now may be noticing how a communication breakdown in a relationship is limiting your other possibilities; and further, that it’s about more than communication. Relating implies that there’s something to relate and that’s the factor that someone close to you may be finding in short supply. It’s not you: you have plenty to offer. Ask yourself where offering your creative energy results in the most palpable exchange. An exchange is a cycle with momentum, not merely passing something back and forth. Be sensitive to where momentum is building and where it’s dissipating and you will know exactly what to do.

You pave the road to the future with your feelings today. You may well ask how you’re supposed to do that: how exactly you can do that. The method is emphasizing the positive: what works for you, what you recognize as helpful, what provides you with benefits that nourish you and the people around you. At the moment this is a matter of emphasis: you will see what you focus on. What you focus on will magnify. Therefore, the art of seeing, of noticing, and of responding to what your sensory and emotional data provide, is vital now. Yet there’s also a higher level: the level of holding a vision. You know what you want. I suggest you be bold enough to articulate this to yourself, and listen to what you’re saying; and from there, to take action and do something about it.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Just one more week till the next monthly horoscope. Actually, I am scheduled to finish next Tuesday’s long monthly edition today. I’ve learned to schedule this job over three consecutive days, as opposed to a weekly horoscope, which takes about three hours to write if I have a good wind at my back.

Today I want to tell you a little about what I do a few times a year when I’m not writing for Planet Waves, which is offer talks and workshops. I have two coming up over the next two weekends, and I’m including the descriptions below so you can get a sense of what they’re about.

In-person presenting is a truly refreshing alternative to spending 15 hours a day online, and I do it whenever I can. I work in lecture format, and workshop-intensive format, presenting on a wide variety of topics (for example, investigative reporting for activists and bloggers).

We don’t learn enough in school and we need to get together and form our own personal universities. Plus, the best way to learn is to teach, if you have the patience. I am lucky; I have the patience, and I love the rewards of integrating my personal knowledge and passing along some of what I’ve learned to the next generations on the planet (and as is often the case, to my elders).

Yet conferences are about more than getting together to share information: they are about actually meeting. While we live in a kind of disembodied state on the Internet, it’s vital to get back into that space of actual eye contact and physical presence when we can.

You will see the title of the first conference presentation as the lead article in Planet Waves Astrology News, which will be cross posted to Cosmic Confidential as well.

You may have heard a version of the NCGR presentation a few months ago on Daily Astrology & Adventure, our main blog — I developed and rehearsed the presentation at a meeting of our local NCGR chapter, and posted the audio. With any luck at all, I’ll be posting the audio to both of these on Planet Waves, as well as blogging on both conferences as they happen.

See you kids in your inbox on Friday.

Peace & passion,

Updates daily at Planet Waves and Cosmic Confidential Diary.

 

Presentation at Poly Living 2010 on Feb. 20, by Eric Francis (in Philadelphia)

Our current definitions of relationship models — monogamy and polyamory — supposedly distinguish between whether a person has one partner or more than one. Yet about half of all ‘monogamous’ people have, or have had, sex outside a monogamous commitment; and all polyamorous people are involved in one-on-one relationships. Maybe they have more in common than we thought.

In truth, every relationship is based on each partner’s inner relationship to self, and this is the most significant factor to consider in how they relate to others. Further, all relationships with others are one-on-one bonds, no matter what their apparent style. These one-on-one relationships, whether sexual or not, whether ‘monogamous’ or ‘polyamorous’, each exist as part of much wider and far-reaching social networks.

Interpersonal relationships can support or hinder one’s relationship with oneself to varying degrees. Relationships are either supported by communities where they exist, or not; relationships support community, or not. Our prior dichotomy between relational styles, i.e., ‘monogamous versus polyamorous’, is neither descriptive nor useful at describing how real-life relationships work, since in effect, all relationships have important elements of both concepts. This presentation explores these real-life factors in our contacts with others, and how they relate to our wider social experiences.

Eric has presented for Loving More and other relationship-oriented events since 1997.

 

Presentation at the NCGR Planetary Revolution: Geocosmic Alchemy II conference on Feb. 27, by Eric Francis (in Cambridge, MA)

Since the 1977 discovery of Chiron, astronomers have discovered thousands of new planets and established several important new classes of planets orbiting our Sun. The most recent include Eris, the planet that compelled scientists to define the word ‘planet’ and reorganize their notion of the solar system. Yet astrology gives these discoveries only minimal attention.

Perhaps this is because they open up challenging areas of psychology rarely considered by astrologers. Maybe established astrologers don’t want to think they don’t really understand their own natal chart — a normal response to having five or 10 or 100 new points dropped in.

Using Eris, Chiron and Nessus as examples, Eric Francis will establish a foundation for using these planets in your counseling practice and written forecasts. You’ll learn the difference between an asteroid, a Centaur and a TNO (the three main classes of new discoveries).

Author of Small World Stories, Next World Stories and Cosmic Confidential, Eric has been researching the new discoveries since 1994 and teaching about them in the United States and Europe since 1998.

Dear Planet Waves Subscriber:

We are now in the deeps of the Chiron-Neptune conjunction, about to come spiraling out the other side. I trust that by now you’re at least familiar with this event, if only from noticing how weird things are. The thing is, we’re distracted by the fantasy world that surrounds all the strangeness: the Neptune overdrive. Is there any dimension of this aspect that doesn’t involve a 3G connection? Can you sell any product, from chewing gum to a car, without promising access to a different dimension?

There’s something distinctly nonphysical about Neptune in Aquarius. I am stopping short of saying spiritual — it could go there but doesn’t always. It’s the morph of psychic and electronic that has become so enmeshed with our lives. Even if we’ve never used a WiFi connection, we’re surrounded by them, and they affect us. In theory this aspect should also be arriving with plenty of awareness-raising experiences, on a fairly wide-scale level. Maybe the awareness is happening and we’re just not aware of it. Neptune is involved after all, and those kinds of mental loops are possible. However after a while this amounts to texting while driving.

Neptune in Aquarius describes our plasma cloud, pocket-video wonderland of contradiction. It’s a world in which something might be true, or it might not, and the difference is thought of as entertainment, mild frustration, or as playing a video game: that is, unless some reality sets in and one becomes the news.

Yet at the same time, there’s something in this aspect about coming out of denial, becoming aware of our environment and in particular our mental environment. We live surrounded by all this stuff and all these images and we pretend it has no actual influence on our consciousness or social relationships. Chiron is pointing to the truth, though in the style of this energy it may be inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Think of Chiron as focusing light through the misty fog that has shrouded our world in delusion, illusion and denial since right around the faux impeachment of Bill Clinton. Not that the fog started there, but we reached that moment when all our own headlights were showing us was their own reflection. Then years later Chiron arrives with all of his, um, magic — like the alarm clock on my cell phone that vibrates at 7:30 every morning, even after I turn the feature off. Yet for those waiting for ‘everyone to wake up’, remember that the planets impel, they don’t compel, and when they do anything close to compel, it’s usually through a crisis and not the rapture.

Chiron and Neptune get together next on the autumn equinox of 2094. Many people as yet unborn will be in their 70s and early 80s when this song comes around again on the guitar (in early Virgo, by the way, in case you’re planning for it).

Plus, a Side Order of the Aquarius New Moon

Adding a touch of the spectacular, on Saturday we have the Aquarius New Moon occurring one degree from this conjunction. So begins the Chinese Year of the Tiger. We had tiger years in 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926 and 1914. The tiger is associated with prowess and awe, and there are said to be only 3,200 left on the planet, down from 100,000 a century ago. One writer has proposed that the mythology of the Chinese zodiac has contributed to what makes them so appealing to hunt.

Lunar events such as the New Moon tend to precipitate the energy of slower-moving patterns, and once again this lunation qualifies. The Sun and Moon are gathering for a sendoff to the conjunction. And as the Sun and Moon light up the inner sky with their mix of yang and yin energies, what do we see? With any luck, the incredible potential for choice, for movement, and in particular, to direct our awareness anywhere we want.

Yet looking around, it’s clear that we’re alive in a moment of extreme polarization, and for many, deep and even unspeakable personal fear. Looking at what we’re up against at this time in history, I see a world society in crisis and many people struggling to adjust. Though many deny this fact, others are aware that our postindustrial, postmodern, post-rational civilization is approaching a critical turning point. This may be something in the physical environment, and it’s clearly something in the psychic/psychological environment: in truth it’s about where the two intersect, but we keep missing the point; we keep projecting it outside ourselves.

For a long time we called this Y2K, but that was too soon. The lights stayed on. Then we started calling it Sept. 11, but that didn’t get us anywhere except Afghanistan and Iraq. (Notably, Sarah Palin has advised Obama to bomb Iran if he wants his approval rating to go up. She’s not just beautiful; she’s Christian.) Now we’re calling it 2012, lacking any practical sense of what that might mean. So far this week, nobody has asked me if the world is going to end in two years; but I think they just forgot.

A Mental Confrontation

Looking at the vicious dysfunction in Washington [see Rachel Maddow video below], the further takeover of society by corporations whose lawyers sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and an economy not being very economical, we have a clue what 2012 might be about. Instead of working to solve world problems, many of our supposed leaders are merely fighting for personal interest (i.e., for reelection, and various self-serving ideology campaigns), as well as striving to take away any meager benefit that an individual might get from being part of our society besides the privilege of shopping at Wal Mart. Heck, why bother doing anything for us? We’re a captive audience.

Then we’re up against ourselves: our own need to grow, seemingly against all these odds, and with not enough time; and our resistance, and our lack of skills to adapt to an environment changing so fast it would make an astronaut nauseous. We’ve been subjected to numerous shutdown campaigns and often many find themselves in states of anxiety and even panic. After being deskilled, numbed out and trained to say no to sex, work in cubicles and to eat plastic food, we wonder why it’s hard to get in a good mood and wage revolution. And time keeps going faster. I propose at least half a day be inserted between Monday and Tuesday to help us stay on top of things.

Finally, we’re coping with having limited relationship skills, including leadership skills, in a time when we need them dearly. Some say it’s men, some say it’s women, bisexuals know it’s both. There are a lot of people for whom this whole communication thing, relationship as awareness and growth, focus on the purpose of existence, is as ordinary as a UFO landing in their backyard. The little critter comes out chirping and, well it must be meaningful.

Or it’s like those Miller Lite commercials where the guy keeps choosing the beer over the gorgeous girl. Have you seen those? In one, he cannot say the word ‘love’ to her no matter how many times he tries, but straight away he can tell the hottie cocktail waitress he would love another beer.

What is frightening is how intractable all of this seems; how immutable human consciousness seems. Yet we all know that it’s anything but immutable; that we really can, and do, make decisions, learn and influence one another.

Two or Three Degrees of Separation

Lately I’ve been dipping into a book called Connected, which tells the story of human networks — that is, the ones that existed long before facebook, though including modern social tools. The authors describe the plasma-like way that influence spreads through our immediate society, out to about three degrees of separation. That is to say, my words influence you, your friends, and the friends of your friends — and then beyond that point, my influence supposedly falls off.

This is true of all of us, though some people serve as particularly influential nodal points.

The authors, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, illustrate the plasma-like environment of consciousness that serves as a vector not just for ‘information’ but also for becoming healthy or unwell, for one’s body weight going up or down, whether one smokes or not, finding love, raising political awareness and just about any other experience we think of as self-directed and personal. In other words, not just germs are contagious; feelings and actions are as well.

Consider Neptune in Aquarius and you have a nice picture of this. Indeed, Neptune (the planet of dreams, fantasies, imagination and delusion), in Aquarius (the interwoven digital system and the waves of life/light/sound that travel there) says so much about the times we live in and how permeable and interconnected we all are.

One fairly obvious potential here is for individuals within a culture to influence many people around them, for example, to come out and vote, to see a social injustice for what it is, or to work for a better life. The authors assume that everyone influences about 20 direct connections: such as family members, coworkers and friends. Given that other works, such as Bowling Alone, suggest that most Americans don’t really have too many friends, this may be a generous figure — though deep intimacy may not be necessary for someone to act as a vector.

So let’s assume the number of people we each influence is more like 10. This still suggests that, directly or through our social network, we each influence about 10,000 people. With the spread of online social networking, we may influence far more. This figure only includes actual social vectors among people familiar with one another, not nonphysical vectors that travel on the subtle planes of existence. We know that plenty of information, sensation and interaction travel through the dreamtime. Under the influence of Chiron-Neptune we can assume that energy and ideas are doing so with unusual potency right now — but let’s leave the current discussion mostly within a realm where documentation is possible.

The fact that you would choose to improve your life, to make a difficult decision or to wake up from a long spell of personal despair can and likely will have significant influence on the human environment that surrounds you. And by the same principle, the environment with which you surround yourself has a significant influence on the ease or difficulty of your improving your own existence.

Exponential Potential for Change

While these findings may not seem revolutionary, they point to a growing cultural understanding that people influence one another, and moreover, that we may do so on an exponential level. This provides some excellent motivation to live in such a way that you want to propagate in the world.

From a therapeutic standpoint, there is one potential problem I see: people choosing to change specifically because they might influence others. Yet the motivation may not matter, as long as the change and growth are sincere.

We are now experiencing the peak energy of Chiron conjunct Neptune. Chiron’s primary role is to raise awareness, almost always with the intention of healing oneself. Often it is awareness alone that sets the energy of change and progress in motion. Reminded of this, we have some great motivation to pay attention, and take to heart such ideas as, “When I am healed, I am not healed alone,” or, “Become the change you want to see.”

Yours & truly,

Updates daily at Planet Waves and Cosmic Confidential Diary.

 

I just turned on the TV and caught this impressive bit of the Rachel Maddow program. Among the things that count for something special happening for the first time under the Chiron-Neptune conjunction, or a slight expansion on that, seeing the light, here we have a great example. I understand the element of fraud in the alleged Democratic/Republican dichotomy (both ‘sides’ are sold out to the same banks and corporations), but at other times this split was at least minimally functional. At the moment, the nature of the game has changed. Rachel has mapped it out nicely in this piece from her Tuesday night broadcast, which is about 10 minutes long and may give you a case of ageda (tha’s Sicilian for nervous stomach) — as well it should.

I don’t know Rachel personally, though she provided me with her chart data. One thing I can tell you from watching her is that this is someone who is not just a journalist; it is clear (to me) that she went or goes to therapy and takes the process seriously. You can actually see her growth process in motion, in the way she shapes her ideas and in her conception of maturity. Her birthday is April 1 and I will do her chart for you (and for her) closer to that date.

 

Lee McQueen, one of the world’s most innovative, creatively independent fashion designers, was found dead in his London home Thursday morning. British press is reporting that he committed suicide about one week after his mother’s passing.

Like much else that happened in Lee’s birth year of 1969 (Woodstock, the Moon landing, the Manson murders), McQueen was iconoclastic and yet became an icon. His designs were favorites of such stars as Sarah Jessica Parker, Lady GaGa, Rihanna, Bjork and Cheryl Cole.

McQueen was a Pisces Sun, Moon and Mercury: deeply sensitive, intuitive, receptive, feminine and creative. His body was found hours before Venus ingressed Pisces.

Despite his sensitivity, other factors suggest not just the ability to tolerate controversy but a passion for it, even though it took its toll on him. An avid explorer of the dark side, if his life was an exploration of the edge, it was an inner edge that he subsequently expressed in his work.

The Times of London said in his obituary Thursday night: “His tastes were eclectic. He had an apparently effortless ability to move between the low culture of the ‘bumster’ trouser, via outrageous confections which envisaged women metamorphosing into reptiles, to essays in haute couture that pointed to his early apprenticeship in pattern cutting, and demonstrated that when he wanted to, Alexander McQueen could drape the female form with consummate art and grace.”

Not surprisingly, his chart is focused on the Aries Point, indicating his astonishing level of influence in the world. Aries Point charts personalize collective issues and tend to broadcast individuals into the collective. His lunar nodes — which have a similar property on their own — are precisely aligned with the first degree of Aries/Libra. His south node is clustered with the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, suggesting an incredible inheritance of talent from prior incarnations. Chiron is on his North Node, illustrating how he would inevitably use that talent in a highly individualistic way, letting nobody dictate his course.

He was no doubt feeling the pressure of the approaching repeat of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Aries, closely opposite his own, coming in early June. As well, transiting Pluto in Capricorn was pushing on all of those Aries/Libra points and planets.

McQueen was openly gay, something he is said to have known about himself from age six. He described coming out at a young age: “I was sure of myself and my sexuality and I’ve got nothing to hide. I went straight from my mother’s womb onto the gay parade.” This offers a clue to his emotional proximity to his mother, and a check of his progressed horoscope indicates that her death was indeed the influence that seems to have pushed him into deep enough despair to have lost contact with reality.

Numerous factors in his chart suggest an unusual sexuality. On first look one sees Pisces planets in the 5th house (risks, creative endeavors, sex play, pleasure and concealed karma), in true Pisces style suggesting an imagination as vividly erotic as it was artistic. Chiron in nearby Aries was continually pushing this into the realm of experience; in other words, fantasy was clearly not enough. He was obsessed by making his ideas real.

Yet his Venus-Saturn conjunction reveals a sense of being trapped in something — perhaps a male body — and his Nessus-Vertex conjunction in the 8th house illustrates a deep connection to the dark side, giving him a fated quality that he danced with constantly. This is someone who walked with one foot in the land of the living and one in the realm of the dead, and felt comfortable doing so.

My sense is that he viewed women as dark and unfathomable (Black Moon Lilith square the lunar nodes) and his life and fortunes seemed to hinge on this fact.

With this astrology, it would not be easy for him to maintain his stability under extreme stress, and my hunch is that when toxicology reports are available (if they are made available in England) we will, once again, see prescription drugs implicated. This is visible with his Pholus at 27+ Aquarius, right where the Moon, Sun, Chiron and Neptune will be meeting on Saturday.

As the years go by, McQueen and his ideas are likely to be elevated to the stature of high art, and he will continue to influence many generations of young designers: facts that may be of little comfort to his friends and family today, but which will no doubt be of great consolation in years to come.

 

 

 

 

 

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

There’s nothing so lovely as a blanket of fresh snow, especially here in the country where the landscape is naturally scarred and rutted. What seemed raw and bleak after Autumn removed the softening effect of foliage takes on a gentle, gleaming beauty as snowfall obscures all the sharp angles. When I spoke to my granddaughter this week and told her it was still snowing, she said, with little kid enthusiasm, “Lucky!” Well, yes, ok — if you discount the heating bills, the harsh realities of cabin fever and the many navigational challenges.

Being a diminutive person, making my way through a snow drift to get the mail is a slow, cold business; I suspect a taller individual could easily step over what I’m obliged to plow through. As I worked my way out to the road yesterday, I noticed a track of exposed gravel left by a passing truck. It seemed easier going, but I no sooner put my foot on it, slick with invisible ice, than I found myself upended with a thud and a yelp. Oscar, my dear neighbor Fishing Jim’s housemate and member of my extended dog-family, came running to take a deep bow in front of me, his tail wagging a plea for one of the biscuits I routinely carry in my pocket. I surrendered not one but two biscuits, got the mail and limped back to the house, carefully retracing my steps.

It seems as though life is like that, these days. We’re wading through some very heavy stuff in a landscape we’re neither accustomed to nor prepared for, but we’re doing the best we can. When we think we’ve found an easier option, one with which we’re more familiar, there’s every chance it will turn us upside down with bruising results. And even as we attempt to right ourselves, there’s someone or something standing right there, expecting us to jump up with a smile and get on with it. So we do, limping and shaken and wondering how much damage we’ve sustained, how much ache tomorrow will bring. From the economy to the government gridlock to cutbacks in crucial services and the rising cost of utilities and food, we’re dealing with formidable challenges. From deluge and mudslides in the West to “Snowmageddon” events in the East, we’re getting a Winter tutorial in navigating the unexpected. Perhaps we should begin to expect it, and give ourselves an edge.

Falling on my behind in the snow can be dealt with because my error was in trusting my eyes rather than what I knew of cold weather and ice. My resulting bruises can be avoided next time, based on what I learned from this experience. The national situation is similar but more harrowing, due to a national epidemic of irrationality that has entwined itself in our belief systems and conversations, and made a direct beeline into the halls of Congress. Various national leaders insist that we step out on that treacherous ice again and again, and they’re prepared to keep us skidding and slipping until we’re all so battered and confused that we go along with them, exhausted. We need to keep our wits about us.

Continued at this link…

 

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, February 12, 2010, #804 – BY ERIC FRANCIS
Planet Waves en Italiano

You may be seeking wider horizons in a relationship, or feeling the approach of spring. A little vibration is good for most partnerships, which tend to get set in their ways. Yet I suggest you note what is really changing: as far as I can tell, it’s your perception of yourself as a partner. You can no longer play the ‘role’ that was for so long, so easy for you. This may involve the discovery that a role ignores the fact that you are a work in progress. You can be a certain way as long as you think you know who you are, but once you admit that you’re on a quest, then begins the adventure. I would offer a clue, which is that you’re closer in your experience to a close partner than you think — but you won’t know unless you speak up.

I suggest you consider what factor in your environment is compelling you to adjust. There are several to which you seem to be responding, and notably you’re seeing the many ways these changes will benefit you. Yet it would be helpful if you understood your motives. It appears that you’re experimenting with the potential that it’s easier, more fun and more productive to go with the flow than it is to resist. This is a meaningful step, though something is influencing you to try on this way of life. Certain other possibilities seem to have reached their limits, though when it comes to a professional matter whose time has finally arrived, you will need to make sure you take an extra step to actively envision what you want rather than taking a ride on pre-existing circumstances.

You seem to be in one of those environments where everything is in harmony — except for one thing. You have a decision to make, with the primary choices being: decide the factor is the one thing you can’t tolerate; or decide that no matter what this one other person or factor may say or do, you’re determined to create this situation as you want it to be. Here’s a clue I can offer: Whoever or whatever is resisting is probably not directing this personally at you. He or she has other problems, and you’re getting some of the overflow. If you assume it’s personal, you’ll take it personally and handle things one way; if you assume that people have their issues and are entitled to them, you will handle things rather differently. It’s up to you.

While key elements of your life are suddenly coming together, you may think that this is not the time to push your luck or take advantage of the situation. I would say to the contrary: now is the moment to give everything a stretch — your sense of what is possible, your vision for the future, your commitments, and moreover, your deepest desires. You’re still on your way to finding out what those are, and the most significant thing you can do right now is to give yourself permission to have a better life — no matter what may be happening in the world around you. You may be wondering how or why so much is changing all at once, and if so I would suggest the answer is simple: you are finally starting to pay attention to something that’s been trying to get your attention for a long time.

One of your greatest assets is your independence. You seem to be getting the hang of one of the most valuable tools on Earth: relationships based on “you figure you out, I’ll figure me out.” Of course, everyone can compare notes at the end of the day, but till then it’s easier if everyone stays out of one another’s way. Here is the thing: behind the scenes, you’re having a far greater effect on the people around you than you imagine. You’re the one originating the example for how to live your life your way. I know there is that old joke about herding cats, but you seem to be causing a stampede of independent-thinking and autonomous decisions. The truth is, what’s good for everyone is indeed good for everyone, so keep reminding the world of that cosmic miracle.

For a long time you’ve been obsessed, though with little clue about what. That must be really annoying. It remains to be seen whether you’ll be any happier once you know what mysterious thing has held your attention by the scruff of the neck. You might say that you’re finally getting a clear perception of someone or something that’s been veiled in a blind spot. The thing about blind spots is that you cannot see into them until your perspective changes. That means noticing that what you’ve actually been responding to is your own fear. Fear of what? Of being known and visible — which translates to the fear of existing in a tangible and undeniable way. Don’t worry, it’s not just you — this is an epidemic. You happen to be in the fortunate position of resolving the issue constructively.

Sex can be complicated, but all dogs need jobs. The job I suggest you give sex is the overall improvement of your wellbeing. Truth is, erotic experience can be thought of in many ways as money, food or thought itself. It’s 100% open to interpretation and choice. Clearly, you’re being driven by your erotic impulses at the moment, and they may seem daunting in several ways: one for being so impersonal. Another for how many people or scenarios they may involve. Yet you are a person, so by definition whatever you feel or need is personal. Ultimately, what you seek is contact, and what you need is contact, and what will improve your life is: connecting in a way that, by your own choice, you focus on emotional grounding and nourishing communication — as kinky as you want.

Being misunderstood offers you a form of power: you know the truth, and they don’t. Therefore, you maintain control. Yet is this really the way of life that you seek, or want to create? And doesn’t it play directly into the perception that you don’t do anything without an agenda? Doesn’t this validate the perception that causes you so much struggle? Currently, your life is mediated by what you give, not what you need. That is to say: you’re being invited to set aside your many intricate and at times insatiable emotional needs and offer some love and comfort to those around you. Once you start doing this, you’ll get a look at the extent to which you’ve done the opposite for a long time. Among the things that actually influence you, awareness of this will become one.

This is the time to sweep together all the plans, thoughts and ideas you’ve scattered around, and see what they add up to. In sum, they add up to a new expression of yourself, or rather, the expression of a nascent sense of yourself that is becoming strong enough to take on a life of its own. Or rather, your own. Your life is not separate from you. While you don’t cause the world, you do indeed cause your version of the world, and are ready to discover that you keep creating it every time you breathe, speak or take a step. As a child, you had exceedingly little power over your environment. As an adult, you have somewhere between 49% and 99% influence over your environment. How far do you want to go?

There’s no such thing as ‘once and for all’, but what you learn about money over the next few days will be applicable to every financial situation you face for the rest of your life. The cosmos seems determined to inform you just how resourceful you are. When money became the only medium of exchange, we were ripped off of something inherent about who we are, what we have and the work that we do. The true value of things is hidden by their price, not revealed. By value, I mean the actual worth to you and to the world. One clue to bear in mind is that the value of whatever you do is established only by the extent to which you and others benefit simultaneously. It’s not a matter of you versus anyone; your wealth, influence and prosperity are a community venture.

It would be difficult to overstate what a visionary moment this is for you, but I’m going to understate my interpretation so you’re more likely to take it on board. We know how long it takes for a human to awaken to his or her vitality, present consciousness or simple truth. Astrologers, therapists, spiritual teachers and hospice workers see people waking up in late years or last moments of their lives, grateful for having done so. You’re getting to wake up long before ‘the end’, but the shift you’re moving through is indeed an ending. I suggest you not be so eager for a new beginning. Nature really does abhor a vacuum, so you don’t have to be concerned: for now I suggest you let the past drain out of your system, and focus on holding yourself open in ways you actually believed were impossible.

You’ve done such a good job at hiding your dreams from yourself. Yet why would you do that? Perhaps out of the fear of all kinds of vulnerability. If you act on your dreams, you become subject to resistance, resentment, judgment — and success. This is double edged: first you would have to face the negativity of the undead. Next, you would have to take responsibility for what happens to you. Somehow these supposed threats have lost their influence over you, or they will the moment you reach past them. Notice that the power other people seemed to have was only given to them by you. Yet there is nothing to take back. You have what you need, which is the power to make choices based on what you want: which translates to the power to be who you are.

Good Morning!

As you may have figured out by now, Tuesday horoscopes are on an as-available basis. Currently I write two monthly horoscopes, which run the first two Tuesdays that the Sun is in a new sign. The rest of the Tuesdays, I send a letter. Today, you get a letter: about a chart I will be using later today to write Friday’s horoscope — that is, Saturday’s Aquarius New Moon.

If you are in a hurry and want some useful information, here is my summary of the chart: you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to ‘back into your desire’, or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake; you may discover what you want by an experience of conflict that resolves itself quickly and then leaves you with real information. Therefore you need to be mindful of experiences that teach you what you don’t want, and therefore provide information about what you do want.

One other point. What you want and how you feel about that influences your environment — particularly your mental environment but also your direct ‘physical’ environment. Your conscious desire changes the world around you, and has an influence on elements of life that you thought were ‘too powerful’ to respond to you. Therefore, focus on what you want and observe how the local cosmos responds. Observe how you respond.

One last point. This is a good time to observe your conditioning patterns and see the ways in which you are influenced by groups and by the media. Until we do something about it, we are all brainwashed by the influences of others who are trying to tell us what is supposed to be good for us (a luxury car, an awesome new deodorant, chewing gum that makes you hallucinate). To move out of that level of consciousness primarily takes awareness.

Now, how did I get there? Are these kinds of declarative statements really possible? (Note to English majors: astrology writing is a literary format, in which I am expected to give you useful material that you can actually apply to your life. But this is a kind of mental trick; it’s useful because I interpret it in a way that slants it in that direction.)

Let’s look at the chart for Saturday’s New Moon. This chart is a simplified version, with most of the planets and points removed. If you want to see this contrasted with a more complex version, tap this link. I’ve left the ones that are directly in the current game. I will name them in order, from the top, anticlockwise: Mars retrograde, Saturn retrograde, Pluto, Mercury, Sun, Moon, Chiron, Neptune, Venus and Jupiter. The glyphs are all intuitive and you already recognize some of them.

Notice that there are planets with lower numbers next to them (from 3 to 6). They are talking to one another, and working as a set. Then there are planets with higher numbers next to them and they are talking to one another and working as a set (those in the 25 to 26 range). The sky is a little like a radio. Planets tune into frequencies based on their degree position, and relate to other planets in that range. Easy.

The planets in the 3 to 6 range are in aspect to Mars retrograde (the purple guy at the top). The ones in the 25 to 26 range are the Aquarius New Moon, conjunct Chiron and Neptune.

Reading astrology, the thing that is odd or unique can call the tune. Mars retrograde stands out in this regard. Mars has retrograded far enough back in Leo to be mixed up in the Saturn-Pluto square. You can see that because Saturn (green thing on the left) and Pluto (purple thing on the bottom) are within one degree apart, in a square aspect (see the line that connects them? It’s not necessary, you can see the aspect without it because planets in the same degree range are in aspect to one another.)

Toward the right, Venus and Jupiter in Pisces have moved into the aspect structure. When I am describing all the planets in the 3 to 5 range, that is called an aspect structure: the one that involves Mars retrograde and the Saturn-Pluto square. This is quite a mix of tension and gratification. Notice how Mercury is opposite Mars: that’s the conflict (Mercury opposite Mars can have the flavor of a blow-up or of psychic tension), which is largely mental in nature. It’s about an idea, and that could well be within you, trying to work itself out.

When I say, “you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to ‘back into your desire’, or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake,” that is the influence of Mars retrograde talking to, and influencing, and being influenced by, Saturn and Pluto: an aspect that is changing civilization as we speak. Where Mars encounters that is where the individual will meets the big forces that shape the world. Example: if you lose your job (presumably as a result of Saturn-Pluto restructuring), you then get to figure out what you want to do next (Mars involvement: desire, but it’s retrograde, it’s an ‘odd’ way to figure something out, but it works).

Then there is the New Moon group, at 25-26 Aquarius. (By the way, they are really at 26-27 because once you go over 25 even you are into 26th degree; but I’m stating it this way to match the chart illustration.) As I explained in a recent edition, when a slow moving setup such as the Chiron-Neptune conjunction is met by a close event from the Sun and the Moon, it brings out the nature of the slow moving setup.

And what would that be?

Chiron conjunct Neptune is about seeing our environment for what it is: the psychic environment, the digital environment, and any environment involving exclusive groups of any kind. By exclusive I mean anything for which you need membership, a password, a device, or to believe in an idea. The Neptune fog is being clarified and focused by the high-precision energy of Chiron. We are getting to see through the fog, which includes seeing the potential for creative movement and the toxic potential of the environment that is around us. If we get good information, it will give us some ideas for how to respond — not merely present a hopeless situation.

I have been learning a lot from the Abraham-Hicks material under this Mars retrograde in Leo, and today’s daily quote sums up this point nicely.

“Anytime you feel negative emotion, stop and say: Something is important here; otherwise, I would not be feeling this negative emotion. What is it that I want? And then simply turn your attention to what you do want…. In the moment you turn your attention to what you want, the negative attraction will stop; and in the moment the negative attraction stops, the positive attraction will begin. And — in that moment — your feeling will change from not feeling good to feeling good. That is the Process of Pivoting.”

Yours & truly,

Dear Planet Waves Subscriber:

We’re now well into Mars retrograde; our closest planetary neighbor stations direct in about a month, on March 10 in the first degree of Leo. It then spends the next three months working its way back across that sign. That’s how Mars works; due to its retrograde, it spends up to seven months in one sign, then covers the other 11 signs in about 17 months.

This prolonged experience ought to be giving us something to consider. I keep working through the themes of the current Mars retrograde, of which I have several for you today, but I would like to comment for a moment about repressed anger. Mars is a planet associated with anger, and the retrograde turns it inward.

As I write, a company called AIG is handing out $100 million in bonuses to its executives and employees. This company still owes the taxpayers $182 billion for various rescue packages, which we could classify as the result of some serious management incompetence. We were told in late 2008 that if AIG went under, it could take the global economy with it, and people actually believed this lie. That kind of conduct, hardly worthy of reward, they all get checks. Note, this is business as usual for capitalism. We just happen to be hearing about it now.

While we’re being told that the public and those in Congress are angry about this, where, exactly is the rage? Where is the action, the resistance, the moral indignation? Stuffed inside us, is where. Part of why we may be afraid to let it out is that once we start, we may not know when it’s going to end. There’s so much to be angry about. But one way or another we’re going to have to process that rage, or it will eventually have its way with us. Meanwhile, we are free to camp out in our anger.

Yet one problem with repressed anger is that it jams our circuits, keeping us in a stupor. Anger serves to block much else we might otherwise feel — all the other forms of passion, pathos and curiosity associated with Mars, and in this respect it can be useful to those intent on not living fully.

A Long Retrograde in Leo

Mars is retrograde second least of all the planets, about 10% of the time. But the months before and after the retrograde itself count as part of the process. In broad terms, I am counting the whole time Mars is in Leo as being associated with this event. Arrived in Leo on Oct. 16 and leaves Leo on June 7, right before one of the most significant astrological events in several generations: Jupiter conjunct Uranus on the Aries Point.

Both events are connected by the common element of fire; and of Mars, which is the planet most often associated with Aries. Think of it this way: all winter long we are experiencing Mars tracking backwards (meaning, the Earth is going past it), which is like a windup of all that Martian-Aries energy.

Then within days of Mars leaving the sign where it was retrograde (ingressing from Leo to Virgo), there is, well, there’s a kind of explosion in Aries: one that’s going to make this a truly interesting spring; a season to remember; a kind of awakening. But we’re not there yet, not collectively. We’re still in the prep phase of Mars retrograde, gathering up all that Leo energy, pulling back the slingshot; and Mars is about to get mixed up with some slow- moving planets. One way to look at this is that Mars retrograde is jumping into the conversation that is currently underway between Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. Let’s come back to that one last.

First Theory of Mars Rx In Leo: Contacting Desire

One of the ideas that kept coming through again and again during the writing of Cosmic Confidential is that Mars retrograde in Leo is about contacting authentic desire. Retrogrades have a few common properties: inwardly directed, oriented on a review, and revealing of the shadow properties of the energies involved. As regards desire, particularly sexual desire, we live in the land of shadows these days, wherein denial and hypocrisy are causing many psychic disturbances and contributing to a general state of frustration.

Mars represents drive and the motivation for action; Leo represents the heart, passion and creative impulse. So we have a story here about finding one’s heart’s desire. This is a vital part of enlightenment, as far as I can tell. I recognize that the Buddhists have given desire a bad name, saying it’s the root of all suffering. However, most of us here in the West are not on a path of renunciation, and even if we were, that would not work unless it was our heart’s desire.

On its face, this would seem to be a philosophy of selfishness that defies any sense of collaboration or community. However, we have a much more serious problem in our society caused by people who have no idea what they want; or they have a vague idea when they need a clear idea, in order to make that happen. Being out of contact with one’s desires is a good way to be misled. This condition helps explain why so many people end up with so much that they don’t really want.

Here’s where it makes sense to look at the shadow side of desire, which is guilt. Guilt is basically a way of life in a repressive society, and there are few desires that we don’t associate with guilt. For many people, every bite of food, stopping somewhere on the way home from work or doing anything fun (such as admitting or acting on a sexual desire), are all associated with guilt.

We may cast ourselves as selfish people, and recognize the arrogance and self-centered quality of the Western world. It seems like nobody can have a big enough truck. Yet this to me is all about a reaction against being stalked by the shadow of guilt. We tend to be attacked by that guilt when we want something that is different than what we were told or conditioned to want.

Leo, like any fire sign, is about taking risks. To have that spark of individual, inner, actual personal desire, we must gamble something. There is a lot about sex in this transit: about understanding ourselves sexually. There are few opportunities more poignant to be ourselves than when sex is a factor; and part of that being oneself involves both knowing what you want, stating what you want, and standing in your desire and availability with self-affirmation and without guilt. This mainly requires one thing: self-knowledge, which is almost always based on courage and necessity.

We spend so much time and energy worrying about who we might offend with our desires that we rarely get so far as to figure out what they are.

Second Theory: Busting out of Conformity

Leo is opposite Aquarius. These two make an interesting pair, having lots to do with the intersection of the individual and the collective: that is, the many places in astrology where I becomes We. If that we is any form of social group, its rules can be harsh and in many cases not openly stated. Many of those rules set a low tolerance for individuality and the expression of curiosity, no matter how ‘progressive’ the social group in question may fancy itself being.

Leo describes a special kind of individuality: it’s expressive in a way that Aries only begins. Aries is the point of initiation and Leo is the point of more mature, creative, stable expression. True, Leo is associated with kids, though the Sun (which rules Leo) is associated with adults and expressing adult power. Those who devote themselves to creative process need to be in contact with both the adult and the child aspects of Leo at the same time: the child for curiosity and inspiration, and the adult for guidance and boundaries. This is not so easy for most people, who tend to be in parent/child mode: for example, needing to be told what to do, feeling powerless or over-controlling, or being unable to handle their whims.

Aquarius presents another aspect of the challenge. This sign represents the psychological tension between an individual and a group; or an idea supported by a group. Aquarius is the sign of individuality, and also the sign of rigid conformity, often to the notions of people who have unusual influence. It reminds me a little of the Army, which sells itself as elite and individualistic, but it’s really about doing exactly what you’re told. To break out of that takes self-awareness and a deep, soul-felt desire to individuate.

Nobody is advertising that product these days. Our current social language lacks the words and phrases for this process of becoming an individual; it used to be called self-actualization, individuation or waking up.

Today we think of it as having your iPhone set up perfectly. We think of it as knowing exactly what kind of Honest Tea you like best. Marketing culture has in many ways ruled the Western world since the 1960s, but it’s never been this bad; we have never had our minds colonized with so many contradictory messages to conform.

We do not recognize this as the psychological abuse that it is. In fact, most of us see it as a benefit, because as long as we play along, then in theory we don’t have to worry about what we might really want, or the consequences of not snapping into line. The current conjunction of the Sun and Nessus speaks of this collective abuse of individuals and individuality by various collective forces. Do these forces con us into being thought for, or do we willingly give up our power? Well, it’s a lot of both.

Mars retrograde is an impulse to reach inside for one’s own desires, needs and creative impulses regardless of what others might say, think or make a drama out of. It is an opportunity to be conscious of your tendencies to play along with the game the crowd is playing, and make another choice. Yes, there is a risk involved, but most of it is in your mind. Most of the risk that is not in your mind involves how to deal with hypocrisy; that begins by being aware of it when you see it.

Third Theory: Getting Involved in Something Larger

Now we can look at the exact aspects Mars is about to make to Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. Mars is a personal planet. For the next several months, Mars will be making contact with Saturn and Pluto, which are transpersonal in nature; and for a brief while, Jupiter will be in the mix. Saturn and Pluto are dancing around the Aries Point, which is another transpersonal kind of thing, connecting individuals to much larger processes. Unlike Aquarius, which does basically the same thing only it’s full of psychic tension, the Aries Point comes bursting into your life one day.

So what could this mean? I think it’s about getting over ourselves. There are so many factors that isolate us in our era, most of them psychological, many of them how we use technology, that the isolation itself has become invisible. We don’t question what it means to be slaves to our anxieties, our habits, our insistence on perfection.

In the Taurus chapter of Cosmic Confidential, I described something I called defensive individualism. Here’s how I phrased it:

Being who you are is in truth not about defending yourself over what you might not be; it’s about a positive, direct expression of your existence. Someone can define themselves as a vegetarian; but the question is, what do they eat? Someone can define themselves as ‘not religious’, but the question is, what values do they espouse?

So the question is for you: how do you want to participate in society, as an affirmative statement? I think you actually do know. In fact I think that knowingness is so intense as to be burning up your mind, and causing you to reconsider your whole life to allow it to happen. Yet it may be scaring the bejesus out of you.

Yep: there is plenty in this Mars retrograde about dancing with fear. It looks like the fear of existence, which is a strange thing because it’s really all we have.

And how about that?

Yours & truly,

Updates daily at Planet Waves and Cosmic Confidential Diary.

 

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

You don’t have to wait for it anymore. Change is here. It’s happening in you, me, us. Even as our reptilian brain — that ancient portion of us that handles emergencies related to survival — responds to the difficult twists and turns of our current sociopolitical circumstances, there’s something quite unique bubbling in our Higher Minds. If someone asked you how to close out an Era, how to prepare yourself for a leap in consciousness and recreate your essential humanity while rattling around in the chaos of structural dissolution, you would probably just stare at them, wide-eyed and speechless. And so it is these days, when people ask us what we think. We aren’t sure, and that’s because we aren’t thinking; we’re feeling our way through this.

Some of us are denying those feelings of something unprecedented occurring, hoping that everything will go back to normal eventually. Others are exploring the emotions, allowing them to pass through the landscape of our minds, giving us the opportunity to separate what’s valuable while discarding the old paradigm baggage that has kept us in place so long. This thing that’s going on is organic, aligned with galactic forces, cosmic imperatives and planetary necessity. It’s both creative and destructive, summoning the energy of the Hindu goddess Kali, the Dark Mother of Time that slays the ego with reality. It’s inexplicable and exhausting. It’s simultaneously frightening and exhilarating, pushing us forward even as it seems to be pulling us backward. It’s the last step before the first step. It’s a dimensional doorway.

Again and again, over these last months, I’ve read channeling that pronounces this magnificent experiment within our own hands, within our own minds, as co-creators of an unknown future. Much like self-fulfilling prophecy, this will be what we decide it will be, both in the collective and in our own personal experience. The conundrum of facing so great a challenge as a Shift of Ages while we feel the most fragile and helpless contains the seeds of the consciousness we seek. This would not be on our plates if we didn’t have the ability to meet it squarely, so even if we don’t feel prepared we must assure ourselves that confidence is somewhere within us, waiting to be found. Yet many of us stand at this transitional crossroads, turning our attention to endings rather than beginnings, to strategies for the short-term rather than visions for the long-term. We must begin to trust not only the intuitive wisdom we’ve brought into this lifetime but also the clues that are continually being fed into the public consciousness, like little sparks of Light.

Continued at this link…

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, February 5, 2010, #803 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Avoid public dramas if you can, which may mean staying out of public places, or at least choosing from among places that qualify as friendly territory. Inside your home is going to be the best bet. You’ll need to keep a close eye on your own tendency to be temperamental when you’re under stress; if you can do that, you’ll have a significant advantage when you’re in tense environments, if you cannot avoid them. Meanwhile, a partner or significant other may be more emotionally sensitive than you’re aware of, or even than he or she is aware of. He or she may mirror back to you some of your own inner struggle. Significant similarities exist between what you’ve been through and your response to those experiences; and there are significant differences as well. Be mindful of both.

Regarding a professional matter, there seem to be two possible choices, but really there are two mental outlooks you can apply to the situation. One is about how most matters of ‘personal expression’ are not so personal. Often, they are about patterns that were set in motion long before we showed up on the planet. The second involves the feeling of extreme vulnerability that can manifest when you make a choice that actually does set you in the direction of what you want, and what serves you — or even when you step up to the commitment to do so. Be aware that you exist in a mental environment first, and an ‘economy’ or ‘society’ second. Your frame of mind is nearly enough to determine the outcome you want — if you know what that is.

You’re coming around to a new approach to a contract or agreement that’s been driving you mad in recent months. Your updated thought process could have a significant influence on a creative project or professional situation, particularly if an investment of some kind is involved. Yet once it gets dark out and the Moon comes up, don’t forget your other agenda — getting some of, more of, or all of the sex you want. Was that some kind of New Year’s resolution? If not, I suggest you add it to your list of the necessities of life, not the luxuries or ‘distractions’. I would add a reminder: sex happens in the context of relationships, which are based on agreements. A negotiation process is involved, which involves stating what you want and dealing directly with the response.

The answer is not to detach from your feelings, but rather to go deeply into them. You have an excellent grasp of how you feel on an intellectual level, yet there is an aspect of this situation that is showing no mercy. In the minds of most, that is not an invitation to be more vulnerable, but rather a cue to be more aloof. Remember, you don’t need to prove anything to anyone, and the last I heard, sensitivity was neither an Olympic sport nor a commodity traded on the Nasdaq. You can start with being aware of what you feel, and your ideas will give you a good idea where to begin. A creative outlet of some kind will guide you deeper into yourself, and that’s the place you’re going to find refuge, release and the sense of connection that you seek.

Your environment is hypersensitive and potentially over-reactive. Nobody feels like they can do anything right, though you’re the one who is able to sense that this is not as much a personal issue about any one person as it is about the state of the world. I suggest you keep a clear eye on the psychological patterns that do so much harm to so many, and be the one who guides the people around you out of them. You’re the one who is aware, so you have the first advantage here. This cannot be addressed on a superficial level; somebody has to ask the real questions, if anyone wants the real answers. You can go a long way if you start there. The planets suggest that at the moment people are susceptible to old personal material, so old they may have discarded it as irrelevant long ago.

Take off the mental stress; this is one of those phases when it could have a significant physical impact. If you can ratchet down a few levels, you’re likely to find yourself in a place of profound understanding that could influence the decisions you make. To be sure, you make different kinds of choices depending on your frame of mind at the time you’re making your decision. I suggest you take your time with something you’ve been working out since December. Put your emphasis on settling your restless nature a bit, and letting some of the emotional charge dissipate. You keep telling yourself you can keep your cool, but this is a question of layers. As each one of them comes off you will make a new discovery about yourself and what is important to you now, rather than in the past.

One of the great obvious mysteries is what sexual experience has to do with creative experience. The simple way to explain it is they wake one another up. Sex creates more than babies; it creates awareness. Art creates consciousness, not just works on paper. What they both have in common is that they require a willingness not only to have life be ‘nice’ but to delve into a world of light and dark, fear and passion. Both sex and art involve transmuting taboo emotions into something that is creative or pleasurable. If that is the working concept, then you can regard all feelings as healthy, normal or acceptable. Most pain comes from judging feelings; it’s one thing to feel shame and it’s another to say it’s bad. Or pleasure; or love; or the craving for emotional freedom that would open the way to any or all of them.

Mars has reached a point in its retrograde where it’s aspecting the Saturn-Pluto square. Jupiter is also involved; so we are adding some energy to the equation, and some inspiration. Oh! That stuff. There is only so inspired you can be on a backwards, uphill run. Yet certain developments suggest that you may suddenly remember why you’re on this journey, and why you committed to making the changes that you once feared were inevitable: only now they seem more welcome. The soul aspect of Pluto is coming out in this arrangement, rather than just the obsession/compulsion aspect. So too is the attribute of Saturn that says it’s easier to get what you want when you know what it is, and when you set goals, and when you set limits.

You’re getting to the heart of a thought process that’s been lingering like a fog for more than a year. Suddenly you seem to feel the promise of clarity, rather than just a question. But I would ask: is the issue clearer, or are you feeling better for other reasons and looking at it with greater clarity? Maybe this is a chicken and egg kind of question, though in that particular riddle, what is missing is the awareness of a point of origin, or of a much earlier timeframe. I suggest you take this opportunity to go back in time and get a look at the actual roots of your situation. Not incidentally, this is the aspect of any personal growth situation that most of us are trained to avoid looking at, and it’s usually the aspect that grants the greatest sense of strength.

This is a moment of significant contact, though it may feel like an inconvenient kind of good fortune. Here is the thing to remember: your friends can help you, and you can help them. You certainly seem to have professional matters on your mind, and you may be wondering whether you’re making progress toward building your house, or just making more sawdust. That matters less than making sure the community that helped create you, and that you helped create, gets some of your attention. Professional contacts and success are one thing; helping weave the world is another. You are part of a network of light, and if you turn your energy in that direction some of it will shine right back on you.

This may be a really strange few days to be an Aquarius. You tend to live with one foot in the dreamtime; abstraction is as real to you as scrambled eggs for breakfast. Yet you’ve been experiencing something unusual: in mundane terms, a sense of purpose, combined with a sense of potential, combined with a deep questioning of why either of these things matter. They may not; that is for you to decide, and the good news is that you have a sense of your own depth that would give you access to some real information. You may at this point in your life be discovering how personal meaning really is. You are the only one who gets to determine or decide on the relevance of your feelings, your experiences or your perceptions.

It’s as if your world has been strung with a ray of light, on which anything can pivot: fate, fortune, love, existence itself. You are standing in the place from which you can go anywhere. Now the question is, where do you want to go? Imagine for a moment that past commitments don’t matter; all that matters is what you want, in this moment. What, where, and who would that be? If this is the question you avoid, forget about why, and embrace it now. Likelihood is irrelevant; the cosmos has moved into one of those rare moments of long odds opening up. If something is standing in the way of your faith, go around it. If something is standing in the way of action, summon your will and allow your small volition to merge with something far greater.

Dear Subscriber:

I’m here with Jude’s article for you, called Starting Over.

This week I’m taking the rare opportunity to opt out of a horoscope and essay. For next week I have to write a weekly horoscope for the newspapers, so you’ll see one of those. I have an Inner Space for you Tuesday, though it’s based on the short annual (expertly excerpted by our copy editor, who has edited my horoscopes for five years); I’ll see if we can pull together excerpts of Cosmic Confidential instead.

Which is doing amazing by the way. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And — you are welcome.

The feedback has been incredible and the extra work — starting much earlier and finishing about three weeks later — seems to have paid off. But I think the best is yet to come: everyone who has signed up so far, and who signs up for the next week or so, will have access to the Key Life Transits section. I am designing a way to offer this separately, but for now it’s included. These are a series of articles on the big transits we have: Saturn return, Uranian opposition, Pluto square, and a series of Chiron transits. I will likely go in order of the solar system: Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Pluto.

The articles in Cosmic Confidential cover your astrology by Sun sign. These will cover your astrology by age. I am looking forward to settling down from the wild ride of CC 1.0 and jumping into CC 2.0. We also have some very cool projects slated for the spring. I will of course keep you updated. Meantime, if you’re going to upgrade to all 12 signs, extend your Planet Waves subscription and you get CC for the price of lunch.

Reminder, the Full Moon is overnight tonight. I am aware that I said some places it was overnight Thursday to Friday, jumping the gun a little. Please note that correction.

One last: the Planet Waves daily blog has been hot lately. Our article selection has been pretty amazing and traffic is up substantially; our first big jump in quite a while. Here are some of the highlights: a Zelda Rubenstein tribute about to go up; a tribute to J.D. Salinger; an astrological tribute to Howard Zinn; a 69th birthday tribute to my dad; new articles by Len Wallick; and a mock interview of me by Larry King — all on Daily Astrology and Adventure (that’s the official name of our blog).

By the way — I’ve been warned off of using my prior (preferred) salutation, “Dear Friend and Reader,” because spam catchers catch the word ‘friend’. We have this little issue of content filters snagging naughty old Planet Waves, so please beware of that. Check your spam if you don’t see us by 10 am ET, and remember, we post to the subscriber area, but for that you need your password.

Remember, we’re heading into a Full Moon conjunct Mars retrograde on a Friday night. That means: be cool. Don’t just play it cool, actually be cool. Pay attention, watch for crazymakers, and find a constructive, pleasurable and creative way to vent your energy. I’m sure you can think of one.

Yours & truly,

Dear Friend and Reader:

Last week’s solar eclipse in Capricorn conjunct Venus is showing some ramifications in the corporate/government realm covered by that sign. Thursday the Supreme Court issued a decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 150-page decision, we’re being told, grants the rights of individuals to corporations, originating in the matter of whether companies can pour money, unfettered, into propaganda designed to sway an election. Previously, this was subject to campaign laws that kept such electioneering a few feet back from the election itself.

Personally, I cannot think of a more significant issue for the Supreme Court to rule on, in our era of unmitigated corporate power. Here, we have one of the first landmarks in the Pluto in Capricorn era, a time when we know that the structure of society will change in many ways.

The court held yesterday that corporations have the free speech rights of people. Yet if anything, corporations are superhumans, subject to no responsibilities of citizenship that would balance freedom on the scale that they typically exercise it.

They do not have a natural lifespan, and can in effect live forever. They cannot be incarcerated, and holding them civilly liable for crimes or abuses of their rights verges on impossible (case in point, Bhopal). Any punishment is meaningless, as most in the position to commit atrocities have so much money that even a heavy a fine comes out of the petty cash fund. They can be as big as the state of Israel (or bigger), have an army and exist on five continents at a time. They have no lawful interest except for profit. They can employ a thousand attorneys. Their shareholders can come from many different countries. Their own power and structure shields the individuals involved from most forms of prosecution; it is rare that corporate officers are held accountable for the crimes committed by their companies.

This is an easy distinction, to see the difference between human rights and corporate rights. While many think there is a precedent for this, the original decision supposedly giving corporations the rights of people was so flawed that the issue is right in Wikipedia where school kids can read about it on their iPhones. That famous case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, never took up the constitutional issue. Many in the legal community are fully aware of this issue, to the extent that there is a law center devoted to dealing with it.

Most people do not understand that ‘corporatism’ is the true definition of fascism; that is, the merging corporate interests and entities with the state itself. This is the thing to beware of. What we have just witnessed is an example of the state granting greater rights to the corporations who are its creatures than to the natural sovereign citizens of the land — in this case, the power to influence elections to high office. In effect, the government has privatized elections and has sold out its own power: a typical move, consistent with the central bank existing as a private entity as well.

I would say that Thursday’s decision in Citizens United is an example of unequal protection under the law. Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, those who enjoy extraordinary rights must be held to extraordinary responsibilities. The problem in our moment of civilization is precisely that this alien race of entities thinks it has no responsibilities at all, in any meaningful sense of the concept.

I’ll be back with a more detailed analysis of the chart and the issues in a coming edition.

Yours & truly,

Updates daily at Planet Waves and Cosmic Confidential Diary.

 

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Jupiter went into Pisces this week, and if you’ve felt the news hit your heart like unwelcome aftershocks I wouldn’t be surprised. We were caught between hope and despair as we watched Haitians rescued, a week trapped beneath rubble, while others that might have been saved by sanitation or antibiotics perish. We’ve stood by helplessly as the Democratic Senate super-majority collapsed. We’ve been bitterly disappointed as the Right-leaning U.S. Supreme Court backtracked on new sentencing for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Californians are being evacuated as the sky drops buckets of unaccustomed rain, and in beleaguered Virginia, a man with a rifle killed eight and forced down a police helicopter before being captured. Not all of us appear entirely sane. Total eclipse of the heart? Or grist for the mill of the Gods?

Politics is personal. It’s also local. What we saw in Massachusetts — Ted Kennedy’s iconic Senate seat, dedicated to progressive concerns for almost 47 years, going to a Cosmo centerfold and Tea Bagger — is local politics gone viral and hard-headed. My own brain is about to explode from the buzz-saw clamor of Republicans chirping the good news that the nation is headed back into their cold embrace, as gleeful as locusts rubbing their legs together, ready to descend. Nonsense. The echo chamber of political thought in these last days is about as relevant as re-runs of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Regressive politics won’t work this time, if it ever did; I doubt regressiveness has ever achieved anything other than to delay the inevitable. We can’t go backwards and hope to address what’s ahead of us. Bill Moyers, politico for LBJ before he moved to journalism, has told us that Republicans consider government a “perversion;” the entirety of their policy is obstruction to governance, and that’s not what we need now. As old timer Sam Rayburn, a Democrat from Texas and longtime speaker of the House of Representatives, said, “A jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a carpenter to build one.”

Continued at this link…

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, January 22, 2010, #802 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Imagine a guardian angel has come into your life, whose only role is to reassure you that the fear you were feeling so recently is simply not necessary. We know that, of course; but tell it to the fear. Jupiter in Pisces is serving you as a kind of psychic cushion; another voice that is available to answer distress, anxiety or any form of psychic disturbance. Jupiter is pointing to something that was always there, in a slightly less tangible form, and this can help you tune into this moment as an emotional tipping point: toward pleasure, toward a richer sense of imagination, and with some greater possibilities. The experiences you desire are not merely in your dreams. Yet all of them depend on some form of cooperation, which will be easier to connect with as you let anxiety melt out of your psyche.

You’ve been exploring your long-term goals quite nearly forever, and one particular dream is closer than you think. Look for it in the form of a tangible opportunity or direct recognition of some kind. I’m not sure what keeps people from thinking that they can do something meaningful to them and to the world; so few people try that there is plenty of room. And whatever you have to offer looks like something real and necessary. I suggest you address what looks like a mix of identity crisis and a tendency toward panic attacks, because these things are only wasting your energy and reinforcing a false idea. What would be the opposite of this? Get out of your head: let the vision come to you rather than you going to it. Feel the quickening of energy. When you take action, memorize what it’s like to ignore fear.

Mercury has stationed direct at the same time as a solar eclipse; that was a week ago, and if you look at the events of these past seven days, you will get an assessment of your commitments, and the commitments of others toward you. Or is it expectations? You need to figure it out. It seems that many of your business and sexual interactions have the fingerprints of guilt and obligation on them, and it’s long overdue for you to have had enough of this. I was going to say ‘sick of this’ and you may well be: if anything is ailing you, investigate whether it’s your sense of feeling trapped in promises that you have no idea why you made them. Remember that about 90% of this is strictly a phenomenon of your mind; literally a hang-up that you don’t need and will only be stuck with if you want it.

It’s time to get back into art. It’s time to travel. The two may be related. I know money may be tight, but that never stopped anyone from traveling or making art, if they really wanted to. A change of scenery would make it easier for you to see the many sources of support, psychic and material, that you have available. Part of how you gain access to them is through the only thing there actually is on the planet, relationships. Everything in your charts at the moment suggests that you push the limits on cooperation, on community, and on connecting to the incredible bounty of energy that is humanity. You must provide one thing: the crystal of intention. The seed idea. The organizing principle. Clarity of purpose. Whatever you want to call it.

Mars retrograde in your sign is the last holdout of this winter’s incredibly complex astrology. Now that so much crazymaking is out of the way, including Mercury retrograde and two eclipses, you have some perspective on what sources of distress are internal and what is coming from your environment. This in turn can inform you how much your own sense of self, and your sense of direction, shapes everything you experience. It’s easy to deny this when the planet is going mad and even the tectonic plates of the Earth are feeling the astrology. Mars retrograde is designed to pull you deeper into yourself than you have ever been, and while you’re there, I suggest you stay on the lookout for something about yourself that you never knew. The people who love you are aware of this quality in you; and you are aware of it in them. Next stop: authentic self-awareness. Clue: it’s easy.

So you’ve seen the pitfalls of trying to emphasize maturity over enjoying your life. There is only so far that theory can go, and coincidentally, it’s the one they kind of bashed into you as a child. You can now connect with that child and (with the wisdom of an adult) give him or her some of what she needs and wants. Most of this is where you allow your mind to go, and in a word, that direction is curiosity. I believe that curiosity has the highest value of any human thought, because it leads the way to so much: to love, to creative flow, to passion and to taking chances that we often think the better of. The simple desire to know and to understand is the thing your kid in there wants the most out of life, and you have an open enough mind to encourage this hunger and thirst for awareness.

With the Sun and Venus crossing the most dynamic angle of your chart — that would be Aquarius and the 5th solar house — you are on a quest for adventure. That’s good timing, though you need to be cautious about potential conflict over the next couple of weeks. I don’t suggest you walk on eggshells; rather that you pay attention for anyone who might not actually be a friend. You don’t need to be suspicious; a friend is what a friend does. Someone who is persistently insensitive is not a friend; someone who is not supportive of your desires is not a friend. That’s really all you need to know. Enjoyment of life does not depend on cooperation of others but it can definitely he hindered by the lack of cooperation. The most helpful thing you can do is to stay on friendly terms with yourself.

How many people are out there working to protect the world from the one inevitability of existence — the future? Most of the political battles and nearly all of the personal struggles of our lives involve the one simple fact that time moves on and existence changes. To create any illusion to the contrary requires a lot of effort, and that shows up as most of the madness that we witness. At the moment, you are negotiating with the future regarding the work that you do. You seem to have a notion that the answer can be found in the past, in the form of something that you left behind, or neglected to account for when you made the choices that have brought you to where you are today. Perhaps, though I suggest you look in the past for the sources of resistance, not for inspiration. The inspiration is here and now.

Make sure that you connect every idea you have with some tangible way to improve your life. Let this be the deciding factor about whether a concept has any value at all. Does this sound totally selfish or like perfect common sense? I suggest you stay out of the realm of abstraction and stay directly in the realm of self-care. Self-care includes creating a healthier environment (and by that I mean healthy on every level, from the music to the food to the kitty litter); and that touches everyone who happens to wander into your life, or who you currently live with. This is the one missing improvement after many (very many) concepts you’ve had to make your life a better place. Simply: making your life a better place (for you).

After an earthquake there are aftershocks, and we’ve had a series of quakes associated with an eclipse in your birth sign. The ground will be settling for a while, and it may take some time to see where you stand with yourself; however, unlike a physical quake, in the world, psychic shakeups are usually helpful, and they don’t do any serious damage. Keep your perspective: you’ve been prodded to take a step in your life, which means waking up and noticing that the things that mattered to you so much yesterday may not matter to you so much today. New things certainly do: you have some fresh priorities, and I suggest you keep them at the top of your to-do list rather than anywhere else. The word is value. Remember what you value, all the time.

Venus has arrived in your sign: the world needs this, and you are her first beneficiary. Venus in Aquarius does something helpful, which is put a little organization around the feminine principle. Far from being ruled by ‘male’ aggression, I believe the world is currently mostly ruled by toxic feminine energy that manifests as emotional manipulation (such as television advertising), fear, psychic chaos, obsession with glamour and superstition. Were the world really ruled by male energy we would all be out there fighting the good fight, and if by toxic male energy, openly crusading for evil; but we keep it quiet. Venus in Aquarius bestows some logic and a conceptual framework around so much unbridled emotion. For you, it offers the touch of receptive sensitivity in the midst of your restless drive for reason, and for reasons.

Jupiter in Pisces: that is good news. And when was the last time you heard me say that? I hope it was more recently than 12 years ago, the last time Jupiter was in our sign. Let the psychic pressure begin to ease off and feel your ears equalize with a little pop. Take note of all the dry spots in your world, whatever they might be. Make a list, long or short, of everything in your world that needs water, be it metaphorical or actual H2O. Notice what you need more of, and what needs improvement in your life, and be real about this assessment. Then set your intentions on having those things happen. Don’t worry about how; your job is to align your energy with your intention, desire or need, and the job of the universe is to answer.