Eric Francis, Paris ’05.

Dear Friend and Reader:

We don’t have a monthly horoscope today. As I mentioned recently, the monthly schedules differ in part based on the magazine they originate in, and in part based on the number of Tuesdays in a month. There happen to be a lot of Tuesdays this month. And on the last of them, one week from today is a total solar eclipse in Cancer.

For the sake of doing clear astrology, I don’t usually release the first monthly horoscope for the next month until the Sun is in its new sign, and that happens on Weds., July 22. I’ll get back to you about how I plan to handle that scheduling.

I’m also getting the message to ease back on my creative output, so I’m not planning an edition of Planet Waves Radio tonight.

The sky is popping, however, and I’ve updated Planet Waves Daily with a new post, this one about the Sun and Mercury square Eris. I’ve also delved into some Gemini stuff, including how Mars will be aspecting the natal Nessus and/or Hylonome of many people in our reading audience. Please check there, and I will see you Friday with the regular edition.

Yours & truly,

Dear Friend and Reader:

Lately I’ve been working through some rage at the guys on Harleys who roar past my studio without any tailpipes. Harleys, due to the way the engine cycles, have that distinctive slap and are loud enough with tailpipes; but I guess not loud enough for some. Between fantasies of taking matters into my own hands, I’ve been trying to figure out just why exactly someone would need to rumble down the street at 150 dB.

Harley-Davidson Deluxe Hog. Do loud pipes save lives, or announce one’s arrival? Photo John Cachero.

On one level, it’s what you might call pure testosterone. I was sitting with a client recently and she said she was turned on by the roaring bikes going by. She kept getting up to see what they looked like. I found this interesting; more interesting than wanting to take pot shots at them. It was a clue to what was going on. How we handle anger has a lot to do with our Mars placement, and how we integrate Mars.

That sound certainly gets you to look, whether you’re turned on or you want to see what jerk could possibly be that rude; that engine blasting is a form of publicity and it’s designed to be sexual. It’s the vehicular equivalent of squawking and parading around with one’s plumage out, doing the eternal dance. There is a lot of Biker Guy seeks Biker Girl in those loud engines; sooner or later some chick is gonna think it’s too hot to resist. So what if she has stainless steel teeth.

But this can’t be all. It’s more transgressive than a bird dancing around the backyard; there are lots of ways to get the attention of women. Everyone knows we don’t have earlids, at least not in this dimension, so with all that sound there’s an invasion involved. It’s aggressive. The message that “you are powerless to stop me from doing this” took a while to sink in intellectually; I experienced it as rage. But I knew the anger was telling me something; it usually is.

Henry McCarty a.k.a. Billy the Kid.

The guys know the cops are powerless, too. Having a loud engine is an equipment violation, not a moving violation. If you get a ticket you don’t even need to go to court. If you “fix” it within a day or so, the ticket is dismissed. Then you can unscrew tailpipes again and the game repeats. Under the current state traffic law as I understand it, there are no consequences for doing this to people. It’s little consolation that the driver slowly goes deaf; it’s mean to dogs and cats.

In this drama, I detect a bit of the Great American Outlaw, only like most things Great American, it’s a parody. We’re not talking Billy the Kid here. But then men in our culture, and in most civilized cultures, have a problem.

While biologically-based female roles dating back into the hunter-gatherer days (about three million years of human history, as compared to less than 10,000 years of civilization) are still available and in a sense inevitable for many women, many traditional male roles are not available. Nursing a child is still nursing a child. Slaying a mammoth is different than stopping at Whole Foods and picking up an organic steak. But think of it: is there anything more tantalizingly masculine than a guy standing next to a grill wearing an apron cooking up cheeseburgers for his hungry brood?

Yesterday I was studying the charts for my morning blog and I noticed that Mars is in the very last degrees of Taurus, about to change signs to Gemini. I took one glance at that chart and thought, This is about integrating Mars. By integrating Mars, I mean fully absorbing the energy of Mars into one’s psyche, and allowing it not just a place to be itself but accepting it into every aspect of existence. Mars is about volition, motivation and desire. An energy at the core of the personality, it is the quality that we use to consciously create our lives the way we want or need to. Mars is part of everything from the sex drive to the ability to create money, make decisions and stand up for our rights.

Both men and women have Mars and in our current society I believe have issues integrating that energy. We have so few examples of men who are in harmony with their masculinity that exceedingly few people have a concept of what it’s supposed to look like, or feel like, or do.

For a while recently, Mars took a dangerously toxic form: George Bush and Dick Cheney bombing helpless populations. These men set a desperately painful example of what it meant to be a man, or masculine, to a whole generation of young people. In effect, you can be as violent as you want with no consequences to yourself. This is not new in our era of history. Just this week, Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War, died at age 93, one of the world’s most horrid examples of poisonous, misguided Mars energy.

To some people it looks like Grand Theft Auto, that video game where you get to pick up a hooker and kill her. To some it’s all about having a closet full of assault rifles, but that’s half-baked; shooting at trees and targets (or deer and bear) is not nearly as satisfying as risking your life in the heat of combat. None of this is in integrity; Mars is there, but it’s not integrated into the psyche. It’s this thing you do on Saturday.

The last two degrees of any sign are considered by some astrologers to be what’s called anaretic. Those degrees can indicate a crisis of integrating the energy involved; this can go to the point of a life or death struggle. When a planet is out there at the end of a sign, you have to deal with it. It’s going to be one of the things in the chart that gets your attention over and over, mainly because it’s acting like a missing piece, or a renegade piece. It’s insisting on being absorbed fully into existence. It’s an invitation to attain the closest thing to mastery over an energy that we can get in this life.

Taurus is a sign associated with Venus, so here we have Mars struggling for acceptance in a feminine angle of the psyche. We all have the whole zodiac working in our charts and we all have Venus and Mars. I’ve noticed that most of the gender drama that we see or feel is an expression of how those internalized energies feel to us, which are then projected outward as events, situations and people. Mars in Taurus is trying to be accepted by the feminine side of the psyche. Men are often trying to be accepted by women, or struggling with not being accepted; let’s imagine that the current setup is about the feminine side of the psyche struggling to accept the masculine side. Or, we have a situation where the masculine energy of Mars feels out of place in such a feminine sign as Taurus, and this alienation is an inner confrontation.

Some say men are from Mars and women are from Venus. The fact is, we are both from Planet Earth, and we have to live together. Photo by Eric Francis.

Most people have quite a bit of difficulty stepping out of their programmed gender roles. I think we give ourselves more credit than we deserve for succeeding at this. Women, how open are you to actually asserting your needs and desires, including your sexual needs and desires? How willing are you to subvert those needs and desires to keep the peace, to seem acceptable to men or to maintain your mother’s respect?

Men, how willing are you to be penetrated, psychically or otherwise? Are you receptive to your own feelings, or the feelings of others? In particular, are you receptive to the messages and desires of your intuitive or nurturing side? Are you willing to show your pain, grief or disappointment?

One thing I’ve noticed is that often, members of both genders want their counterparts to be different, then have no clue how to respond when they get what they ask for. Many women ask for more receptive, emotionally open men but get panicky when they find this; they don’t actually identify it as male. Men often claim to want a sexually or intellectually assertive woman, but nearly every woman I talk to says she gets into trouble with men when she asserts her desires or takes initiative. I hope this is a generational thing; I do see signs of progress in some of the young women I hear from.

Still, we live in times when “tradition” is pushed down our throat, meaning traditional roles that take gender to the level of a cartoon. Often, exaggerations and distortions are a defense against something. I think that a lot of macho drama is about rejecting the feminine as an internal attribute; as a fact of biology. A major aspect of the drama, the war between the sexes, and the hyper-exaggeration of gender, involves denial of the fact that we all contain attributes of both sexes in a multitude of formulas — in each of our charts. Despite certain biological facts, we have more in common as humans than we have differences as men and women, but for many purposes, the differences are exploited and emphasized. Astrology, if you use that as a map, does not differentiate between people based on sex. You cannot tell the sex of the person behind a chart from the chart. You need to get that information along with the birth data.

It’s a boy. It’s a girl. It’s androgyny. The singer Devendra Banhart. Photo by J.B. Mondino.

But you can tell a lot about gender orientation. Some women have charts that feel quite masculine, often in very specific ways. Some men have charts that feel truly feminine. Most charts have a diversity of these energies distributed along a wide, complicated continuum. There can be masculine expressions that fail to communicate with feminine expressions; and sometimes the dialog is clear.

In the relationship between Mars and Taurus, in these critical degrees at the end of a sign, we have a question: what would you want your inner masculine energy to do to or with your inner feminine energy? What about your inner masculine is repulsive to your inner feminine? Men: do you ever want to do to yourself what you want to do to women? Women: how do you feel when your libido feels like that of a man? Be descriptive.

One thing to remember is that our masculine and feminine attributes have different qualities from one another, different experiences and may have suffered different injuries in childhood. For certain purposes such as self-study or therapy, it’s helpful for a while to treat them as distinct entities and see what their experiences have been like.

So far, we’ve been talking about a transit with this Mars in Taurus energy. You can also use your natal chart for more specific information. Your house and sign positions of Venus and Mars will tell you a lot about yourself. The aspects to these planes will take you a level deeper. Make sure you draw from about five different sources for each placement or aspect, and make up an original interpretation from there.

On Saturday, Mars will join Venus in Gemini. They’ve already made a couple of conjunctions, so Venus, recently retrograde, is now separating from Mars; they are functioning like two different processes. But in the same sign they will have a lot in common. Gemini has several distinctive properties; one of them is that it’s mental, and it loves words and ideas. Another is that it feels young. Another is that it’s dualistic, and everything in Gemini is going to have two or four different expressions; two or more different opinions of itself.

Couple. Photo by Eric Francis.

Venus is younger in Gemini; younger, I believe, than it is in Aries or Taurus. There is a freshness to this Venus, a light quality, an androgynous quality. She wants to talk and she wants to express her curiosity; part of what we can offer to Venus in Gemini is answering the questions of young people, and treating every encounter with them as an initiation. This, along with the recent Mercury conjunct Vesta, is an invitation to respect young women, and the sexuality of young women, instead of resenting these things. There is something here about honoring the inherent bisexuality of young women, and of women in general. There is a question for men: why do many of them feel that female bisexuality is fabulous but male bisexuality is strange?

Mars in Gemini can be overbearing; it can yell louder than it can listen. It’s opinionated and it may respond to the androgyny factor of Gemini by polarizing toward the macho end of the spectrum. Mars in this sign needs to learn something from Venus: take a light approach. Express your desires in words, politely, and see what happens. Ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. Keep the conversation going for at least an hour, and be patient with what you learn.

Mars crossing over into Gemini has to do with an alteration in the way that male energy likes to think of itself as protective. Most of what men think of as protective is really about being possessive. Venus and Mars in Gemini want some freedom, particularly the freedom to consider ideas. As I suggest in the Aquarius horoscope below, this is excellent astrology to consider the possibilities, to express curiosity, and to have some excellent beyond-hot conversations, confessions and inquiries about one’s personal truth. Gemini doesn’t want to judge anything — it just wants to consider it in a real way. Remember to listen. Use your ears, use your mind and use your heart.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I once had a fascinating conversation with a family member who was retiring from the Navy, hanging up that spiffy white uniform with the scrambled eggs on the shoulders and entering private life. He had served as personal attaché for Governor Ronald Reagan in California and in the Pentagon when Ron was in the White House. Over dinner, we discussed his career and I tried plumbing his depths; he’s a Scorpio, so I knew I couldn’t count on his sharing secrets but maybe I could close in on a few with careful maneuvering. “Can you imagine,” I asked, sipping my wine and lowering my voice, “a scenario in which all of the nations of the world come together to fight a common threat?” His answer was quick, measured and not nearly as militarily obfuscated as I’d anticipated. “Yes,” he replied. “I can.”

It was an ‘ET phone home’ enquiry, and my military-minded, squared-away and no-nonsense loved one had crossed into the dimensional hinterland with nary a quiver. I came away from that encounter quoting Hamlet, regarding his father’s ghost: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” And clearly, I think it’s past time we began to dream them. Quantum physics offers us other ways to think of things; and coming off of years when science and religion were pitted against one another as natural enemies, instead of alienating them further perhaps it would be refreshing to allow them to wed, as they eventually must. The big picture is bigger than we know.

With all the talk of national safety, personal safety, financial safety, it appears to me that what we don’t know about the future is the larger of the fears driving us these days. We like to know exactly what we’re facing, it comforts us; but clearly, we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. We’ve lost control of these events, as uncomfortable as that seems. Even more impressive, there are ghosts walking among us, energy signals that are creating our 3D landscape as just a bit more hazy, reality winking in and out, and definitely not as solid as we suppose it to be.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

Astronomer Phil Plait over at Discovery magazine’s Bad Astronomy website isn’t afraid to light out after folks who push, well, bad astronomy. And with the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing nearly upon us, he is revisiting one of the most enduring conspiracy theories around: The Alleged Moon Landing Hoax.

One of the first images produced by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Photo: NASA.

Plait starts out by speculating whether the new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is taking high-quality images of the Moon’s surface — including the original Apollo Moon landing sites — will quell any of those doubters. His answer? Nope.

“That would be nice, but obviously it won’t,” says Plait. “If they don’t believe the thousands of pictures and video taken from the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts themselves, why would they believe further NASA evidence?”

For good measure, though, Plait linked to his 2001 review of a Fox TV program about the supposed Moon Hoax, “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?” In it, Plait goes through and provides point-by-point refutation of the conspiracy theorists’ claims, from why the photos taken on the Moon don’t show stars to the “deadly radiation of space.”

The Apollo 11 lunar module touched down in Mare Tranquillitatis (the Sea of Tranquility) on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon (it was not Neil Young, as previously reported in Planet Waves), uttered the familiar phrase, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” while his fellow moon walker, Buzz Aldrin, described the view as “magnificent desolation.” Armstrong’s quote was supposed to be, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” but understandably enough, he was a little nervous at the time.

Part of the evidence validating the landing on the Moon is astrological. The same astrology that brought us the Woodstock festival just three weeks later brought us the success of the Apollo program: a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Libra, opposite Chiron in Aries; all aligned with the Aries Point. We will have more about this in next week’s edition.

The Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, Calif., has filed a lawsuit against a number of retailers claiming that some of the purses they sell contain potentially harmful amounts of lead. After decades of trying to get the lead out of gasoline, paint, plaster and many other products, this report is the latest in a trend of lead turning up in numerous products, many of them from China.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the nonprofit organization tested purses — mostly vinyl and faux leather — produced by some 26 manufacturers and found “their products contain lead at levels high enough to pose a health threat.” The Center for Environmental Health notified those manufacturers of the test results.

This action was brought under the auspices of a California law — Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 — that requires shoppers be warned of lead dangers. According to the article, “Lead is found in vinyl and other fabric. The metal serves both as a stabilizer and as a chemical ingredient in some dies, paints and other coloring agents. It’s also found in zippers and zipper pulls on some of the products.”

It’s starting to sound like PCBs, which were a wonder-chemical that was put into everything from fabric dies to flame retardants to surgical implants — before being recognized as universally toxic.

So how serious a health threat could this be? Well, lead exposure has been proven to cause a raft of health problems, and it’s especially dangerous to children and pregnant women. Part of the problem is that lead, like many other heavy metals, is both an acute toxin, a neurotoxin, and is hormonally active. Lead is known to make people stupid, especially if they are exposed when young. For many years it was used as an additive in gasoline. The thing about lead is that what goes up must come down — right near where it went up. Lead emissions tend to stay local, rather than to drift. The generations born in the 50s, 60s and early 70s sustained the maximum exposure in North America; finally lead was banned as a gasoline additive, and started showing up in nearly everything else.

The health effects of lead have been known since Classical times, with the Wikipedia entry on lead poisoning noting, “Lead toxicity was first recognized as early as 200 B.C. Nicander of Colophon wrote of lead-induced anemia and colic in 250 B.C.” But that didn’t stop the Romans from using it in pipes and goblets.

A lawyer for the Center for Environmental Health told the Chronicle that the group hopes retailers can be convinced to use their buying power to influence manufacturers, by refusing to stock any products that contain lead.

A complete list of the manufacturers whose products were shown to have lead can be found here.

It’s no surprise that the head of the Roman Catholic Church recently released a document declaring, in a nutshell, that people should come before profits. After all, social justice is a calling card of many, if not most, world religions.

Benedict XVI meets Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Photo: Daniel Acker.

But the publication of Pope Benedict XVI’s third papal encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), goes well beyond that, calling for a sea change in world financial systems, so that more benefit and fewer profit, through the redistribution of the world’s wealth from richer nations to poorer.

According to a Washington Post article about the encyclical, the pope declared “access to food and water is a universal right, wealthy nations share with poorer ones and profit is not the ultimate goal of commerce. He advocates the creation of a ‘world political authority’ to manage the economy.” Benedict XVI further asserted that there needed to be greater care for the environment with “more research into alternative energy, worldwide redistribution of energy resources and pushing more advanced countries to lower their energy consumption, either through technology or through greater ‘ecological sensitivity’ among residents.”

Some might see irony in this latest papal pronouncement, given that the Roman Catholic Church is often cited as one of the richest organizations in the world, having some of the most impressive gold reserves, its own bank and its own stock market. The Vatican City is a repository of some of the most important artworks of Western civilization, and the Church owns property all over the world. However, putting a number on the total wealth of the Catholic Church isn’t easy; speculators claim amounts of up to $100 billion or more, but there is little documentation to support any definitive calculation.

Among the criticisms leveled at the Catholic Church in the past have been that its institutional wealth stands in stark contrast to the poverty Christ lived in, and that by liquidating some of its assets the Church could provide services to millions of people in under-developed nations.

The 144-page encyclical can be downloaded in PDF form here. The Church has not changed its position on female priests, birth control, or abortion. Mass can still be given in languages other than Latin.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 10, 2009, #774 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You may find it easier to express what you’ve been feeling, particularly if that involves an erotic/spiritual/emotional nexus that has had you tied in knots. Two things to remember, as the next days unfold: one is you’re not as tied up as you were a week ago, so you don’t need to tug as hard, or at all. Second, the new space into which you’re projecting your thoughts and ideas requires less energy than the old one; when you speak, try to use understatements. The main thing you need to do is hear yourself. You have complete control over this factor; the twist involves sorting out the truth when you seem to have two conflicting opinions on the same matter.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Financial matters rarely take care of themselves; we need to roll up our sleeves and do something about them. Emotional matters are usually the same way; they don’t get better unless they get attention. Anyway, so far as I can see, you need the satisfaction of resolving something on your own terms: yet frequently those terms involve taking a passive approach. Gradually your motivation has been perking up, but it’s been easy enough to ignore. Over the next few weeks, you’re likely to be feeling highly motivated to get your life in gear; which is a beautiful thing as long as you connect the engine to the wheels. If you get the sense that the free flow of energy is blocked, it’s not actually about money or about love; it’s about your trust in your own creativity; trusting your ability to make a positive impact on a situation. I would ask you, what exactly would it take to get you there?

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
This weekend Mars joins Venus in your birth sign. This is an invitation to act on your desires; meaning to take action. You can bet these include sexual desires, to which I will say: we are conditioned to ignore or deny ourselves what we want. Then when we make a move toward getting what we want, the programmed response is guilt. The problem with guilt is that it’s self-reaffirming; in other words, the guilt reaction itself is usually enough to convince us that something is wrong, which has a touch of Alice in Wonderland to it: declaring the sentence before the trial. Of course, actions have consequences; but that does not make them inherently right or wrong. Remove guilt from the equation, if you can, and you’ll get to manage all of this consciously.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Look carefully and you will see that you’re in entirely new relationship territory than you were in just one season ago. Something old has been removed or is losing its power; something new is gradually taking its place. This is not an easy transition, and it involves developing the ability to make agreements, and for everyone involved to honor those agreements. Our civilization has yet to figure out that most of its woes are encrypted directly into the most personal modes of relationship, and the most intimate. As a culture we have yet to figure out that what made our parents miserable will probably make us miserable, but as an individual you are finally coming around to this revelation. Just remember, their fears are not your fears. More to the point, they did generally not see their fears for what they were; you cannot afford that particular delusion.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
The problem with the concept ‘spiritual’ is that it tends to be applied only to things that are outside the regular affairs of life; not, for example, to sex, relationships, work and politics, to name a few. These are the areas of existence that typically get the exemptions, and that doesn’t leave much; such as yoga class. As much as we say that spirituality is different than religion, it’s the same thing as long as we have the Saturday night / Sunday morning false division of reality. You are one of the pioneers of the notion that everything is spiritual and that spiritual ideas are useless if we don’t apply them to whatever we need to. You’ve always known this, but lately it seems like a focusing lens has been dropped in front of this issue and you can see just how vital it really is — to your happiness and that of the rest of us.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You’ve had so many ideas and so much to do that frankly I’m surprised you have time to read your horoscope. Now if you want to accomplish some of what you’ve set out to do, you need to change your methods. At the moment, that involves taking leadership. You have done a lot; you’ve accomplished plenty. You continue to do a lot, indeed, too much: the next step involves taking leadership over some form of coordinated activity, and taking over the language involving the object, goal or orientation of the project. There has never been a time when your ideas and what affects many people beyond your scope of perception were more closely related. You just need to climb a little higher to see the connection; it would help to set a goal for yourself that you feel is outside your current abilities.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
What we need to get used to, in my opinion, is the nexus between sexual experimentation and healing the relationship between our soul and our body. I mean this about all forms of sex; and here is the issue. What has the power to heal has the power to harm. If we don’t consider our erotic exploration a means of healing, it will manifest as something that divides us between ourselves, and that is what usually happens. That is why so many of us are in so much sexual pain. We expect sex to come with various shades of deceit; we expect it to get in the way of friendships; we don’t consider the deeper implications of engaging in this activity that has the power to create humanity and consciousness. Your life is an example of the most creative expression of these ideas. Please don’t keep them to yourself.

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Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
What has a back has a front — in this dimension. If you expand your awareness to include a wider array of possibilities, everything can change. True, it’s simpler to think in binary terms; in linear concepts; but you would be missing most of the story if you do. You are about to enter a world of possibilities, and that world may seem like a hall of mirrors, where it’s unclear whose feelings belong to whom and what results will come from certain actions. It would help to remember that many more possibilities exist than you can currently observe, both personal and professional. You may not be able to see them right away, but you will be able to feel them: in the form of tension with people you encounter. If you notice any form of polarity, or a pull toward someone, or even a negative sentiment like resentment or jealousy, explore it; look right at it, and speak to it clearly.

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Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
You want people to be less wimpy, to stand up for their beliefs and not cower down from the least argument, and you’re about to get it. The challenge for you may be figuring out what side of a particular issue someone is taking; that may be the same puzzle they are facing. So if you want a good conversation, your role initially may be to help others figure out what their opinion is. This is kind of like being an editor, which in fact would be a fine role at this point in your life, given how much activity is happening in your 3rd solar house. The problem is that editing and even writing are becoming things of the past, requiring too much patience and discipline than is well supported in the current version of the world. Who has six hours or six months to think about something? That’s the real issue; you need more time to think, and you can give it to yourself.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Watch your workload over the next few days. Things are going well now, but you could find yourself snowed under when you least expect it; and much of what you think must get done doesn’t have to be done. Besides, you’re not the only one who can do it, though you may be feeling that way. Part of what will help is to cut through the chatter, the paperwork and the distractions and make one key decision from which everything else will follow. Part of how you know you’re making the right decision is that you’ll feel like you have to make some immediate adjustment to your idea-framework, timing and use of language — and that will help you see how little you have to do, in order to get quite a lot done. With Mars in Gemini, work from idea to action and not the other way around.

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Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Now it’s time to test your theories. You don’t test a theory in theory, you test it in action. An experiment is involved. Mars (now joining Venus) moving through one of the most adventurous, dynamic angles of your solar chart for the next few weeks will give you plenty of ideas and plenty of words for them. The action point is the contact point. To have actual pleasure, growth-oriented experiences or the excellent thrill of creating something new, it’s necessary to take a chance. With Venus and Mars both in Gemini, the possibilities may seem endless, as do your options for how to apply them. If I were experiencing this astrology I would go for the person or experience that I find the most appealing; and now that I contemplate the Gemini aspect, that could indeed begin with hot, hot, hot talk.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
The intangible may be so real you can hold it in your hands; give it a chance to become so. Seek with the faith that you will find, and feel with the faith that you will experience fulfillment as a result. Remember that the richest territory for you is interior, regardless of how expressive or interesting your life is now. What you are firming up is your ability to be a container, and therefore to feel full. You cannot hold energy if you don’t have the ability for some kind of psychic containment; you cannot share if you don’t have enough for yourself. These are old problems that you’re finally able to remedy. That planets at times may seem to be playing a game of paradox with you, and at at times you may be feeling deeply mixed emotions. Stick with your feelings and discover the win-win: the more you have, the more you can give; the more you have, the more people give to you. Try to get this one down; it’s a keeper.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Following a New Moon conjunct Vesta in the sensitive first degrees of Cancer, opposite Pluto, it was quite a week for The Personal is Political. Let’s not forget the Venus-Mars conjunction. It’s fair to say that anything that happened in the news this week was about all of us, whether we think of it that way or not. We got the Aries Point in the style of the sign Cancer: the world has come crashing into our living rooms. In case we are looking for evidence of how the Aries Point (that is, the early degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) magnifies the news and makes it our own, we have a prime example.

Three beloved American celebrities, indeed, household words even on Guam, left the planet within 24 hours: Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, and Farrah Fawcett. Two of the three are extremely interesting sex symbols, and though this article may not be the place to get into it, the astrology gives a vivid picture of this.

Then the election crisis in Iran got a face: that of Neda Agha Soltan, the unlikely martyr: a young woman who was shot in the chest by Iranian police. The political movement in Iran has transformed to a specifically women’s movement; by some reports, two-thirds of the protesters in the streets of Tehran have been women. Or we might credit a lot of Muslim men for marching alongside their sisters. It transformed again from the perception or reality of voter fraud to a debate in the streets over whether the Islamic Republic has any credibility at all in the eyes of the Iranian people, and for that matter, the world. Remember that this country is ruled by a form of governance that draws all, as in all, of its power from the alleged dictates of a male god, his male prophet and his cadre of holy men.

Speaking of patriarchy, a young middle-school 4.0 honors student who was strip searched as zealous school officials were trying to find her alleged stash of Advil won a partial victory before the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s correct — they looked inside her undies for Advil. I’m surprised they didn’t find a tampon.

The court ruled that the search was excessive, in part because the immediately prior search of her bags and pockets revealed nothing suspicious (this is why you should never have rolling paper in your car, as that becomes probable cause); but the court immunized school administrators from personal lawsuits. This is not a good signal to send. When I was editor of New York Education Law Report, I learned all about what screwed up things go on in schools with the full knowledge and support of the administration. South Park is right.

Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion. He thinks it’s okay to do this kind of thing. “Preservation of order, discipline and safety in public schools is simply not the domain of the Constitution,” he said. “And, common sense is not a judicial monopoly or a constitutional imperative.”

This quote makes no sense to me, even as the former editor of a law report. He must have copied it down wrong when Scalia was yakking at him. The Constitution does not mandate common sense, and the schools would be exempt even if they did. Right? But the conclusion is obvious. In the mind of The Hon. Assoc. Justice Pubic-Hair-in-the-Coke, clearly it must mean: off with her jeans!

Hypocrisy is a Drug

Then there’s the South Carolina governor: The Hon. Mark Sanford, who was exposed for having a relationship with a woman in Argentina, who claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail (look ma, I’m an Eagle Scout!) but left his easily-recognized official vehicle parked in the parking lot of a small airport — and then happened to bump into a reporter. Who recognized him as someone besides J. D. Salinger.

Stunts like carrying two pigs into the Statehouse lobby endeared Sanford to S.C. voters, but not to state lawmakers. Photo: S.C. Statehouse Report.

While this may seem like the sordid scandal of the week, it has a few special properties that make it archetypal in nature. It’s also the news event that most closely matches the astrology through the July 4 weekend, and which vibrates with some deep emotional undercurrents, and advises extra caution in affairs of the heart. That astrology also counsels extra caution where sexual or emotional hypocrisy or maybe is a factor.

Sanford is a person with a lot to lose: he was considered for the 2008 vice presidential nomination, he was a potential contender for the 2012 Republican nomination and he was chairman of the Republican Governors Association till he resigned in the wake of this news. Everyone knows that Republicans don’t have affairs. They hold the torch for the standard that how moral you look involves your personal life, set irrevocably during the Clinton impeachment.

Sanford’s conduct reveals how far we will go to get our emotional needs met, but it also speaks of the human potential for hypocrisy. And then of course there is the relationship between the two. Sanford, a congressman in the late 1990s, was a particularly harsh critic of Bill Clinton, and voted for three out of the four articles of impeachment when Clinton had an affair with his fellow Leo, Miss Lewinsky. “I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible…I feel very comfortable with my vote,” Sanford said at the time.

“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust,” Sanford told CNN in another interview. “And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”

He has also weighed in on whether same-sex couples should have the right to marry, which means have the right to have legal sexual relationships. “As Jenny and I are the parents of four little boys, we’ve always taught our kids that marriage was something between a man and a woman,” he told The Post and Courier in 2004, according to Think Progress. As if that would prevent them from being gay.

In an email to his mistress, Sanford described her beautiful South American skin tone and tan line, the exquisite curves of her hips, and he used the term “hopelessly impossible” to describe their love affair, which evolved from an eight-year friendship. This is an example of the kinds of situations that can arise when we are in a structured relationship, have a few unmet needs, and have access to the entire world right from our desk. This describes a lot of people. I have never seen statistics on Internet-based relationships by those with supposedly monogamous primary partners, but they must be incredible.

Check out this Solstice Aspect Structure, Again

So how does this all happen at once? Well, the answer is astrology. Unrelated things are related because you can’t jump out of the universe.

Unrelated Things. Paint by Tony Brown.

Everything about the solstice/New Moon combination points back to the Aries Point, which points to events that we can all relate to, and which reflect our lives directly. It also points to sex: Venus, Mars and Pluto, for example, and a New Moon conjunct the sex goddess herself, Vesta. I know I also refer to her as the celibacy goddess — she is both.

As part of the solstice and Cancer New Moon conjunct Vesta that we experienced Monday, Venus and Mars made an exact conjunction, in a close aspect to the solstice point (00 Cancer). The solstice and subsequent Cancer New Moon happened in very early Cancer; and Venus and Mars at that moment were conjunct at 15 degrees of Taurus (the Beltane point) — creating an exact semi-square, or 45-degree angle. This, in turn, was in aspect to Pluto, specifically a 135-degree aspect called a sesquiquadrate (or sesquisquare): that is, a 90-degree aspect plus a 45-degree aspect from Venus/Mars to Pluto. The 45- and 135-degree aspects often work as triggers or tipping points.

When you see me or any other astrologer use the term degrees, we are saying: these things are related. Don’t think of it as a complicated aspect structure; think of it as a huge conjunction. They are so related as to be in one place. It’s one energy system, though drawing from different signs; but you can pile the whole thing up (which is what often happens, in terms of the results).

We have the following planets related: the Sun and Moon, the solstice point (i.e., the Aries Point), Vesta, Venus, Mars and Pluto. Remember that this is the setup for the whole season, and this season comes with a lot of eclipses, three of them, including the cliffhanger of a solar eclipse that is the subject of my extended midyear horoscope report. This astrology tells a story that will go on for months.

And Here Comes Aqueerius

During the next week or so, the celestial drama unfolds, if you can imagine such a thing. In astrology, imagination counts for a lot. The whole thing is a kind of legal fiction. It’s like a cartoon based on reality that creates reality as it goes; the more you notice, the more fun you have.

Celestial drama, artist’s rendition of SN 1993J. The bigger star sends seven suns’ worth of mass to its little partner, then explodes in a fiery death. Credit: ESA

Venus and Mars are in Taurus. Both are gradually sailing into a square aspect (90-degrees, fixed sign to fixed sign) with the triple conjunction of Chiron, Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius. Can you visualize that? First Venus (the faster moving of the Venus/Mars pair) will square the triple conjunction, starting on July 1 when Venus squares Chiron (followed soon after by Jupiter and Neptune) then four days later, Mars squares Chiron. Of course, Venus and Mars will each square Chiron, Jupiter and Neptune; so this is a very complex dynamic, and it involves every sex, gender and gender role. Even a cross-dressing bisexual can’t worm out of this one.

A square also has a way of triggering events, but it has another way of being deeply introspective. It’s as if something that’s inside ripples out, as an event. Or as may be the case, a lot of events. My intention for explaining this astrology to you is so that you can use the aspects consciously and not get dragged into something negative — but rather, apply it to deepening your relationships, to raising consciousness and for some interesting sexual experiences.

To sum up in advance: the key to taking this astrology on a positive, constructive and interesting level rather than a negative and entangled one (abundant possibility here) is tossing hypocrisy out the door of your life. This astrology is a beacon for honest transactions.

Let’s look at a few of the dynamics involved. I will save Jupiter for an afterthought — the more challenging energies are Venus and Mars square Chiron, then Neptune. This is a potentially explosive, potentially extremely fun, potentially extremely weird, potentially demented sequence of events.

Nile River Goddess. Art by Latifah Shabazz.

Venus square Chiron can result in an uncontrolled expression of erotic energy. This is the girl in your high school who everyone thinks is beyond hot and who has a reputation for actually having sex and who you really, really want to have sex with, but you’re afraid it won’t be ‘special’ for her and you’re probably right, but it would be really good, but you’re still scared for some reason — she is not, she just wants more. And she’s gonna get it, and you need to have guts to walk up to her and speak your mind (or whatever organ you want). Basically, it’s a girl like Farrah, who is kinky in part because she’s a little messed up. But she’s determined to have fun. She’s determined to let it out, and work it out that way.

One manifestation of Venus square Neptune could be: everything is like a dream, you cannot tell what’s real and what’s not; what’s coming from your hormones and what’s coming from your brain and what’s coming from, um, someplace else. You’re not supposed to care where it’s coming from; you don’t care what pill it is. It’s all too good to be true and maybe too much to be fun — to appreciate this aspect you need a taste for excess (particularly with Jupiter right there). You need to violate public moral standards (Aquarius) for it to be really fun. Jupiter can make it seem like whatever you’re doing can have huge consequences, which may or may not be true; but it’s worth the risk.

Chiron square Mars turns this whole thing inside out. I will give a male example. He is the guy who is so stunning that all the girls/women are dripping for him, but he’s a proper kind of fellow, despite being the hottest drummer for miles around. The propriety is part of his appeal, but it’s a trap.

He has this thing about sex being sacred, and he won’t get naked with anyone unless they are destined to be really, really special. The standard is impossible to meet; it’s religious in nature. You are human, not a deity; he wants a deity. He is the anti-Vesta: sex symbol and closet prude. He probably thinks pussies smell bad, but they’re ‘sacred’, so he won’t say anything. Anyway, he’s unlikely to find out, but he’s waiting for just the right girl; the one from another planet that he read about once in a science fiction novel. The one more powerful than him. You may be that girl, but you have to prove it. It’s just that you’ll hardly ever get the chance.

Add a square to Neptune and this whole thing can go Kamikaze. He will do heroin and get with a hooker to blow off steam. But it won’t be as much fun as he was hoping. Add Jupiter and it’s several hookers plus some alcohol, too much coffee and a bipolar episode.

The Awake Way to Do This

Aspects can and always do have many manifestations — and they are what we make them; they exist on the level we experience or express them. What we make of them is related to who we are becoming, consciously or not. The cautionary side of this story is to remember human nature, and to remember your nature.

Venus and Mars by Sidney Harold Meteyard. Oil on canvas, 41-1/2 x 43-1/2 inches. Venus and Mars in astrology are about remembering and honoring human nature, including the dualistic nature of ourselves and others that we often overlook rather than accept as a given.

Using aspects like this consciously, there would be a matter of choice involved, rater than only compulsion. The key is to be aware of both potentials. The choice would ideally based on one’s true values (Venus and/or Mars in Taurus) and remembering where and how these intersect with those of the larger society (the square to slow-moving planets together in Aquarius). The thing to bear in mind is that we find our values planets together in Aquarius). The thing to bear in mind is that we find our values through a process of experimentation, including testing out norms.

One Chiron connection is to be mindful where one’s sense of lack, injury or craving could cause us express ourselves in ways that are out of balance; remembering that we also have a need to do specifically that. Looked at one way, human existence is about exploring the territory between balance and imbalance.

There is something here about being mindful that we are trying to get deeper emotional needs met while we do things that may be ‘just for fun’ or ‘just because we have to’ — and to be aware what might happen as a result of different kinds of choices. the Taurus connection is about remembering that we make different choices based on our level of self-esteem. Often that process comes into relationship with this thing coming out of aquarius called peer pressure, which often includes the brainwashing to have a low opinion of oneself.

Neptune’s presence in the square is a reminder to be aware of ‘unconscious’ impulses, the influence of loneliness and the tendency to rationalize, and instead to be honest about our needs and desires as early as possible and to explore experience from there. Mars square Chiron warns against going on a purity trip or moral trip while directly indulging in that which one supposedly is against.

The presence of Venus and Mars suggest that we look at how we (for example as men and women) take the same kinds of experiences in different ways: but that we are indeed having common experiences.

Taken together, Venus, Mars and Pluto are about sex and the dance of the genders, and the common forces that influence all gender identifications; internal and external. Chiron in any form is about raising awareness, and some injury, usually in the past, is typically involved. Neptune is about the imagination and, taken in an active, healthy way, it’s about making fantasy experiences real. Vesta is about devotion to a process, a person, an experience or a necessity.

I called up Dale O’Brien today to get his spin on this whole arrangement — of which he sees Vesta as a centerpiece.

“Vesta is more about the Vestal than the goddess; devoting oneself to someone or something,” he said. “She is very big in decision making. Women were chattel in Rome, perhaps worse than in Greece. The Vestal Virgins were taken at a young age [some say as young as seven]. When they came to midlife, they had a decision to make: to rededicate their life to being devoted to the temple, or they could leave the temple and and be free women. They could go from total obscurity to being very powerful. Vesta’s role in the solstice chart is an enormously powerful placement, but its power is missed because its power is understated.

“Now with this solstice conjunct Vesta, there is enormous issue about what people are going to dedicate themselves to, particularly in the face of Plutonic changes.

“I don’t think [Gov. Mark Sanford] is just another sex scandal. It has a larger archetypal quality. It’s like, if there was going to be a nuclear attack in 24 hours what would you do? Most people would make love, no questions asked.

“You know, it could be all over. What are you going to do with your life? Are you living in a strong connection to the life force? This includes conscious sexuality.”

Yours & truly,

“My actions at the Washington Plaza Hotel, beginning an hour and a half from now, depending on traffic oin Massachusetts Ave., will be reprehensible and indefensible. Of course I will wish I had never made the mistake I am about to spend several hours making, but sadly I am too blinded by greed and lust to care about or consider the consequences of my actions.” Click for video.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Modernism is not a word I use much because it’s too generic to be useful; and overused, as well. The innovation of the moment is always tagged modern, but having tucked a number of seasons under my belt, I remember when color television was the ultimate in modern — or the microwave, which had my mother so concerned she would be nuked in her very own kitchen, she used it as a breadbox for two years before attempting to reheat a cup of coffee. New technology is always modern — cutting-edge, we like to say — and those of us who don’t keep up with the latest stuff are constantly on the cusp of being obsolete; I’m there. I don’t have a cell phone, let alone an iPhone or a Blackberry, so I’m obviously an old fogey. John McCain lost votes when it was revealed he couldn’t e-mail — now he’s discovered the power of Twitter. Day late, dollar short, for John; and every comment he tweets is patently obsolete to the direction modernity is taking.

Modernism is a defining concept, however, in the big picture. Here in America, we consider ourselves the forerunners of modernity. That’s pretty arrogant, considering how backwards we are on many important fronts. Still, we won the space race, put the web on the map and gave the world little blue pills to keep its resolutions firm so we’re there; entrepreneurs of the first water, full of interesting ideas that change the outlook of the day and, ultimately, drive the marketplace. Notice that we’ve just connected the dots back to money. In this nation, profit and modernity are kissing-cousins; hand in hand, they offer us a chance to worship at the throne of the AmeriCo god and buy more techno-toys. Our American deity, it should be noted, does not seem to have an ethical or moral center; just a self-indulgent one.

For years now, the conversation about Middle Eastern culture as compared to Western has centered around modernity; they show little evidence of democracy as fundamentalist Islam forbids much of what we think of as modern thought. In places like Afghanistan, where war lords rule and tribalism runs deep, the Taliban, even though it is repressive and brutal, is welcomed by many because it offers structure in a chaotic collection of territories threatened by the West. It seems logical that squatting in the sand century after century, fighting the elements and one another, has proven to the locals that their survival requires some umbrella under which to gather and collectively fight against intruders. That the umbrella is radical Islam at its most stringent probably doesn’t bother them; live in the empty desert for a few millennia — every day the same, scratching out a survivor’s life — and then you tell me what’s radical and what isn’t.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

When you run down the list of uses for the International Space Station, “volcanology” is not likely to be very high on the list.

Sarychev Peak Volcano in Stereo. Credit: Expedition 20 Crew – International Space Station, NASA.

Perhaps a little shuffling is in order.

Just reported this week on SpaceWeather.com is news that a crew member snapped a photograph looking nearly straight down on the eruption of a volcano on June 12. It was the first time in 20 years that Sarychev Peak, located in the Kuril Islands, had blown its top, and the resulting image was spectacular.

The folks at Space Weather took especial note of three particular features of the eruption. Firstly, its shockwave literally “punched a hole through the atmosphere.” Secondly, the brown and white of the plume was created by a mixture of ash and steam. And thirdly, the plume was capped by what appears to be “a mass of water condensing from air shoved upward by the rising ash column. If so, it is akin to the iridescent pileus clouds sometimes featured on spaceweather.com.”

That not fantastic enough for you? Grab your 3-D glasses and take a look at this tricked-out version of the image by graphic artist Patrick Vantuyne of Belgium.

It shouldn’t be surprising that dogs — who can be trained to find missing persons and hidden explosives, among other things — are now being used as early warning systems for medical conditions.

Dogs are being trained in Britain as potential life-savers to warn diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels fall to dangerously low levels. Photo by Phil Walter.

According to Examiner.com, dogs in England are being trained to sniff out low blood sugar in diabetics and warn them about it before their human companions begin suffering the deleterious, and potentially deadly, side effects of hypoglycemia.

The article cites a Reuters report in The Windsor Star newspaper, which says the Queen’s University Belfast concluded a study last December that found “65 percent of 212 people with insulin-dependent diabetes reported that when they had a hypoglycemic episode their pets had reacted by whining, barking, licking or some other display.” Now the Cancer and Bio-Detection Dogs research center, based in Aylesbury, England, is following up on that study by training dogs to detect signs of low blood sugar.

The article quoted Chief Executive Claire Guest, from an interview with Reuters TV, as noting, “Dogs have been trained to detect certain odors down to parts per trillion, so we are talking tiny, tiny amounts. Their world is really very different to ours.”

But before you get your hopes up at the idea of a pooch being part of your next doctor’s visit, it’s worth noting that Guest doesn’t actually think this will lead to dogs in hospitals. Instead, she hopes electronic sniffers can be made that will match the abilities of dogs’ noses. However, such technology is still about 15 years away, she predicted.

An interesting debate encompassing fascism, religion and public service has taken shape in recent days outside Springfield, Missouri.

Members of the National Socialist Movement picking up litter last weekend along Route 160 near Springfield, Mo. The Springfield unit of the neo-Nazi group volunteered with the state last year to adopt a half-mile stretch of the highway. Photo by Mark Schiefelbein.

That’s where the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, applied to adopt a half-mile of Route 160 as part of the state’s adopt-a-highway program, where groups volunteer to keep public rights-of-way clear of trash. A June 20 article in The New York Times outlined the reaction of state lawmakers, who were displeased by the group’s application but could not legally deny it — in fact, Missouri had lost a court case years earlier after turning down a Ku Klux Klan application to adopt a roadway.

This time, it seems, officials thought they’d respond by renaming that road for someone they felt the National Socialist Movement would disapprove of: Jewish theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who escaped Nazi Germany and eventually became a leading figure in the Civil Rights movement here.

However, on Monday The Times reported that Heschel’s own daughter, Susannah Heschel, who teaches Jewish studies at Dartmouth, has raised an objection to the tactic. According to the article, “she appreciated their intentions, but attaching her father’s name to a road cleaned by neo-Nazis would be ‘vulgar’ and would ‘dishonor’ him.”

In all, an interesting situation that raises some surprisingly deep questions, which writer Brad Hirschfield delves into this week at the On Faith section of WashingtonPost.com.

COLOMBO (AFP) — Sri Lankan police say they have arrested an astrologer after he predicted serious political and economic problems for the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Chandrasiri Bandara, who writes an astrology column for a pro-opposition weekly, was taken in on Thursday, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara said.

“The CID (Criminal Investigations Department) is questioning the astrologer,” Gunasekara said Friday, adding that they wanted to find out the “basis” for the prediction.

The astrologer had predicted that a planetary change on October 8 will be inauspicious for parliament and the government may not be able to arrest rising living costs — a prediction already made by private economists.

The opposition United National Party condemned Bandara’s arrest and accused the government of heading towards a dictatorship.

“The crime which Chandrasiri Bandara committed was publishing an astrological column which was adverse to the government,” UNP general secretary, Tissa Attanayake, said.

Sri Lankan politicians take astrology seriously and most have their own personal seers who decide the auspicious times to launch any new programme or work.

The government’s popularity is at an all time high after the military crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for nearly four decades to carve out a separate state for minority Tamils from the majority Sinhalese community.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 26, 2009, #772 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Set aside the seeming issues of fault and blame. I know that once those circuits in our brains are turned on, they are difficult to turn off. However, if you care about the truth, you need to move to a different conceptual framework. There is indeed a cause to your present situation; and it’s more complex than you may be imagining. Someone close to you is also involved in sorting out a very similar matter, and the relationships are similar, but the effects appear different. For example, what has mainly served to shut you down has served to open up someone close to you, or someone you want to be close with. You have something to learn from this person, and how they respond to their environment and inner movements of energy. Let them decide if they have something to learn from you.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You’re entering mysterious territory that may at once feel dreamy, lonely, fulfilling and empty. You may be wondering how one cluster of experience can have so many different properties. Let go of any doubt that there’s something off within your own perception — this is indeed a strange dimension you’re at the edges of, and you’re not going to come out the same person. What will mainly be challenged is your notion of stability, which on most days tends to be wound up a little too tight to do you much good. You’ll feel better, learn more and be more productive if you allow yourself to be a different person every day and perhaps from hour to hour: with a changeable concept of what you want and need, of what hurts you, and what will heal your soul. Or simply, a mutable concept of who you really are inside.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You have a rare opening to dialog with yourself and others about events that have hurt you the most. Few people like to have this conversation; they think it’s an admission of weakness. You are intelligent enough to know that keeping things shut away doesn’t help you or anyone close to you. I suggest you remember that you’re not a bad person because you were treated a certain way. To the contrary, what you can now address is the fact of having been made to feel bad about yourself. Start with the simple acknowledgement that something was done to you, over which you had no control. That admission will open up a world of positive ideas in response: in other words, mental and emotional movement; creativity; confidence: simply, the opposite of paralysis.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Who is being narrow minded? Any time you are inclined to point the finger at someone else, take a step toward opening your own mind. Don’t blame yourself — just open up. Look at the world a different way. There is a lot to look at. It is true that we live on a planet where most of our brothers and sisters insist on being psychologically myopic with the same care they put in their contact lenses each morning. It’s true that when you’re open, it takes someone else who is open to even notice, and that can be discouraging. But psychological narrowness is the next best thing to rigor mortis. It is consciousness contracting in the opposite direction of the life force. Oil your hinges. Stretch your body’s muscles. Think new ways, and new experiences will come to you.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You are now in the usually hidden dimension of how you really feel about your relationships. What’s the most helpful is that you can see them for what they are; you can see people for who they are; and this way, when you love them, you know you’re loving the real person and not your own image of them. This is perhaps the greatest step we can take on the way to being someone devoted to truth. It is the essential thing that divides romance from relationship. As part of this process, there is the necessary recognition that in addition to love, we are joined with people by those things that are sometimes called the ties that bind. The way of the lover is to see those for what they are, and to keep loving.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You need to depend on your popularity as much as your message. You spend your life taking care of people, or so it seems. Many of the people you have nourished and helped to grow have become strong in their own right, and you can depend on them to help you. If you are struggling to take leadership of a situation, take a step back. You need to work specifically with a feeling of ease. You need to spin psychologically difficult, or difficult to grasp, subject matter in an easy way. If you do this, you will be able to help people open up in a way that frees their energy and by extension wastes less of yours. The truth is that most of us don’t know how much we have, which is why we’re so reluctant to share. Get clear about this one yourself.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
You seem to be working to reconcile your two different concepts of sex: one as something recreational, playful and creative; and the other as something deep, dangerous and transformational. Your psychic chemistry is just about right for this experience of reconciliation. Is one of these aspects a lure into the other? Are they really the same thing, but divided by a world that loves to put everything into categories? The thing that gives all of your experiences meaning is specifically you. You are the one thing that they all have in common. So this process of reconciling two ‘concepts’ is really about allowing aspects of yourself to make friends with one another, and also about recognizing how diverse you truly are.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Move carefully through the relationship territory of the next week or two. A partner may seem more willing to experiment, to dare or to be thrown wide open than you are. This may be unsettling, particularly if you are in the mood to be cautious, to weigh every emotion and to doubt your right to feel passion. If you’re not fully conscious (which is an abundant possibility), the differences between you and others could result in an actual fracture or split. You can help by maintaining your flexibility, and knowing when you’re reacting instead of responding (that is easy — reactions are fast and responses are more gradual). Take the opportunity to follow instead of lead.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Think of all the things that were done to cram you into your gender role. Yes, there are nice things about being a girl, and nice things about being a boy. But I don’t think they should be compulsory, the conditioning should not start when we’re fetuses, and it would be nice of someone to mention the damage that being treated this way causes us. Most of your healing process at the moment involves working out various aspects of your gender identity. As a Sagittarius you are a natural at bridging the gaps between very different things, and it’s entirely natural for you to draw wisdom, energy and ideas from many sources. Open up just a little and you will have a rare opportunity to give your male and female sides equal rights within your own life.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
There would seem to be some titanic inner struggle between your desires and your sense of security. This is often the case, when real desires enter the picture. I suggest you take the opportunity to ask yourself why exactly you might be having this response. Is there actually something threatening about what you want or need, or are you hyper-sensitive? Is it possible that you’re feeling guilty? And if so, why would that be? Remember how much of your psychology is determined by the stories that you tell yourself. Remember how much of your inner nature was inflicted on a child who was told things about himself or herself that simply were not true. To the extent you are in conflict, you are believing very old lies. This is the perfect chance to cast them off.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Good art is usually born of conflict; that is, the process of resolving conflict. You have just enough of the right kind of emotional turmoil to give you something worthwhile to say, or to show, the rest of us — and there is a very wide door open to being able to express yourself in precise terms. I would not worry if you don’t feel like you’re actually coming across, should you attempt to describe, write about or illustrate your experience; the essence of what you are feeling will come across clearly. It may take you a little time to catch up with your own message, too. If the process is unsettling, embarrassing or seems dubious, you’re in the right place at the right time. It just may take a few weeks or months for you to catch up with yourself.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
This continues to be a time in your life when you can visualize your way into reality. There is a message coming through about your relationships. Usually when creating a relationship, we envision the kind of partner we want. I suggest you take a long moment and envision the kind of partner you want to be. Reach for something beyond what you may be capable of today, but which you aspire to. Consider your best traits and how they can be nourishing to others. Use role models if necessary. And remember, since this is an experience of imagining, the rules and limitations of the past do not apply. Along those lines, this is not about who you’re supposed to be, but who you want to be; in truth, who you really are.

Coming Soon: the Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition. Here is product and signup information for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Northern Hemisphere summer begins Monday with a series of planetary events, and as often happens, events in close proximity describe a theme. When the Sun makes its ingress into the cardinal sign Cancer, it will be conjunct an asteroid called Vesta.

Vesta Goddess Firedance. Photo by Pakalil.

This magnificently complex asteroid, I believe, holds the key to understanding how we might go about healing our often injured, burdened and confused sense of our sexuality. In one word, the method is devotion.

In this article I’ll do my best to describe the qualities of Vesta in a way that makes it possible to feel and experience them — and to put them to use in our relationship experiences. Vesta is primarily about tending the fire within. That fire, and that experience of constantly caring for it, becomes the focal point for organizing space; that is, the psychic space of our lives, our priorities, and our beliefs.

Vesta is represented by a hearth (actually, a chevron, though in mythology it’s a hearth), and that hearth is the center of the home. We make our homes, comfortably or not, primarily within our psyches. The fire is the core fire of human existence, which is inherently sexual and creative. We use this fire for light, for heat, for creative purposes (you could say, to prepare our meals, whatever form they may take on the physical and nonphysical levels of existence).

Honoring this would give our daily lives and our relationships, whether sexual or not, a central concept to work with. Vesta is inherently about one’s relationship with oneself, which is the thing we share with others no matter what form that sharing might take. It may seem a paradox, but there is a touch of the impersonal to Vesta, which to me is about a boundary between self and other that gives everyone a little extra space to be who we are. Yet there is something collective about Vesta as well: we all share the same inner fire, whether we recognize it as the same thing or not.

In the solstice chart, the Sun meets up with Vesta in Cancer, a sign associated with nourishment, nurturing, emotions, mother and the experience of incarnating. The Sun is about expression. It is the source of all light in the astrological system; it is the central point that holds the solar system together and provides an anchor for awareness and for one’s tangible place in the world. So Sun/Vesta in Cancer is one version of the full expression of Vestal energy.

Sculptures of Vestals, aged between 6 and 10 when appointed by the emporer, Vestals would serve for 30 years, learning the sacred rites for 10, performing the rights for 10 and teaching the rights for the last 10.The Vestal who lost her virginity was thought to jeopardize Rome itself. Photo by Ess Pea.

The next day, there is a New Moon, with Sun, Moon and Vesta in a precise conjunction. This is the first of many potent lunations (including three eclipses in July and August) that defines the current stretch of time. Happening so close to the beginning of a season (with the Sun still at solstice), this New Moon activates events that occur on a large scale that feel personal; and personal events that reach past our individual lives toward a collective experience.

Remember, this can be subtle, and noticing that anything of this kind is happening requires inner sensitivity and a sense of context that could truly be described as spiritual.

At the same time there is a conjunction of Venus and Mars in Taurus. A Venus/Mars conjunction brings together the male and female principles, and in Taurus there is the recognition that we each contain both, in our psyches and our bodies. The Taurus connection describes this as a resource that we possess and can share with others, once we take ownership of it ourselves. This is a clue. Much of our sexual pain comes from trying to experience our sexuality without actually being in possession of it first.

This event, too, is occurring in one of those subtle zodiac positions that connects personal events to collective ones — at the precise midpoint of Taurus, where the Sun is on Beltane. You can be sure that plenty of other people are experiencing something similar to what you are. Here as well, we get a sexual theme; Taurus is about sensuality, self-possession, physical contact and a property called biophilia. This is about resonating with life, which we get in part from the connection between Taurus and Venus. I covered this quality fairly recently in an article called “Kaleo: Venus Unbound.”

Let’s take these two factors individually, the Vesta aspect and the Venus/Mars aspect; and then let’s see what they add up to.

Vesta: Tending Fire, Holding Space

I had my first conscious experience of Vestal energy one autumn when I moved into a house in Hurley, New York. I love this experience because it’s an example of how an event in life can open the door to something supposedly mystical or mythological.

Ceremonial fire in the Chironian. Photo by Eric Francis.

At the time we moved in, my housemates and I didn’t have a lot of money, so we couldn’t start up the oil heat; but there was a very nice wood stove and a big pile of wood to go with it. However, the wood was wet, because it was pretty old and the season had been very rainy.

It’s possible to burn wet wood, but it takes a lot of work to get it going, and to keep it going. (It’s also a lot less efficient.) Once the fire was started, it was essential to keep it running hot, and to cycle the firewood into the kitchen so that it would have a chance to dry off next to the stove, if possible. This became a 24-hour devotion. The stove had to be tended at least every three or four hours. Being a few years into my astrology work, the Vestal symbolism of tending a hearth was not lost on me. This activity was similar to what the Vestal Virgins had as one of their primary responsibilities: to keep the sacred flame in the city’s central hearth going all the time.

As mystics, we regard outer fire as a symbol of an inner fire. The inner fire is the individual creative source within the psyche. Vesta, the asteroid, is associated with various forms of devotion, such as to work. (Most astrology books you read that mention Vesta will associate it with things like staying late at the office, and avoiding social interaction.) I view Vesta as the place where we must tend to our creative and sexual fires. Basically, it’s how one becomes an artist, a craftsperson or a lover. One must constantly apply attention to the creative flame, otherwise it can flicker out, burn too hot or go out of control. It’s not something you can do occasionally and get the same results. People with regular jobs often think of artists as ‘workaholics’. But that is an idea that disconnects the concept of work from that of personal development.

Many of Vesta’s best results come specifically from the art of devotion itself. As we progress we learn that we have the choice of what we devote ourselves to.

Lakshmi Girl celebrating Vesta on the vernal equinox in the Chironian, in Rosendale, New York. Photo by Eric Francis, March 29, 2007.

The flame and embers provide a source of heat, of light and of energy. They become the central organizing principle around which one’s life is organized. We all use Vestal energy, though most people express it in devotion to things that are not necessarily associated with their true calling. So the idea here is to identify some aspect of that calling and then tend the flame continually, a little bit every day. Then true creative gifts can emerge, and begin to take on their vital role in the world.

In the sign Cancer, the focus is on the home. It’s also about cultivating the devotion to self-nourishment. This is about taking care of yourself, not ‘rewarding’ yourself. The work associated with Vesta is of a specifically self-nourishing kind, even though in the short run it may require more effort than seems worth it. The key is to work the devotional angle, rather than the effort angle; Vesta is my college fiction professor saying on the first day of class that to be a fiction writer one must write one word a day. That means, you return to the project daily.

The sexual aspect of Vesta involves making contact with the sexual dimension to all of existence. The inner flame lights up the space inside us, and there, we can do our healing work. It also creates an inviting environment where others can seek contact, healing and rest. Vestal erotic practices involve holding the space open for others, witnessing their processes and experiences, and giving oneself sexually to sexual pleasure of others, as a gift of healing or love. This has nothing to do with romance, which tends to be narcissistic. Vesta is about standing back a little and allowing others to experience the heat of your inner fire, so that they may experience their own, or light it up for the first time.

Vesta is also about practicing compersion: holding space for the pleasure of others, that does not directly involve you. But this is another article, or maybe a book.

Venus and Mars: Exploring Inner Completion

In our relationships, we’re usually taught to seek in others what we allegedly don’t have in ourselves. This is the cause of enormous chaos, which is largely driven by compulsion, false expectation and by being cut off from both self-knowledge and human contact. The world plays a very mean game of turning emotional contact and sex into a commodity, without ever really saying what the price is.

Tempio di Vesta. Photo by Marco Chiaraluce.

There are other themes contained in a Venus and Mars conjunction. For example, our over-identifying with prescribed gender roles frequently creates setups where it’s difficult to recognize the common ground we share with others. This common ground would be the basis of our relationships, if we would allow it to be.

Venus and Mars conjunct in Taurus is about seeking some experience of how we contain our opposite polarity. This is literally true; for example, both males and females produce hormones of the opposite sex. Heterosexual-identified people can and often do experience sexual fantasies and attractions to people of either sex. Psychologically, we often emulate or express a diversity of gender attributes. Many of us envy the opposite sex in small and large ways.

Venus and Mars conjunct in Taurus bring this quality into focus, particularly at such a powerful time as the solstice. Taurus, and a conjunction, both point to an interior quality, something that we all contain within ourselves. It happens that this is something we seek in others all the time. The combination of Venus and Mars conjunct, and the Sun and Vesta conjunct, suggest that more than needing something, we all actually possess something that we can share, if we take care of it regularly.

Wouldn’t that be novel? Wouldn’t that be a new, useful definition of self-esteem?

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

WYSIWYG is the shorthand we used back in the day when my buds and co-workers were developing software long into the night; installed like lone space captains behind their glowing monitors in darkened rooms, navigating the internal challenges of whatever new program they were working through. Bit by bit they inched forward, the result of their last keystroke glaringly obvious: What You See Is What You Get. The cool part of that was that if they didn’t like what they saw, they’d back up, eliminate the command and start over. That particular satisfaction eludes most of us.

Wiz-ee-wig. Photo by Jake Hobart.

I suppose it wouldn’t if we each had the same mindset as my skilled and imaginative old friends, creating something from nothing, Big Idea firmly in mind; bugs and glitches considered only the wrinkles of a long process of refinement. They knew what they were shooting for, and kept it foremost in their minds. They couldn’t make a mistake; if something didn’t work, they simply corrected any error to refine their outcome. Why don’t we think that way? Why must all personal errors end up “baggage” and “wounding?” Why must we embrace everything we’ve ever experienced and drag it along to define who we think we are?

As we create our individual life program, it would be helpful if we’d loosen the linear space/time aspects, the 3D particulars, of our experience on the planet and seek remembrance of our own personal Big Idea; but we get lost in the bills to pay, the responsibilities to attend and the anticipated escape from them at the end of the day as we relax with a glass of wine or diversion of choice. We end our day exhausted from busyness, done with business and crashed on the couch; we start the next one picking up the thread of yesterday, living with the results of every wrong choice or episode, and expecting more of the same. If it looks the same, it must be the same, right? WYSIWYG.

Well, not unless we allow it; that’s the good news. Past programming can be identified and ditched; and we don’t even have to look back, if we’re willing to let go of the old. The bad news is that as long as we are looking at the screen, believing what we see but not fully in charge of the Big Idea that constitutes the center of our life-calling and desire, we are lost in the game but not experiencing the satisfaction of refining the product.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

NASA’s probably hoping the third time will be the charm, since the two space shuttle launches have been scrubbed in the past week, most recently Wednesday.

The United States flag waves in the breeze as the space shuttle Endeavour sits on launch pad 39-A Tuesday morning June 16, 2009 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Bazemore).

The Endeavour is on the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla., but a hydrogen leak caused NASA to scrub the early morning launch less than four hours before takeoff was scheduled, according to The Washington Post.

The leak — in a hydrogen vent line that is attached to the shuttle’s external fuel tank — is the same problem in the same place as the one that caused the first launch, set for last Saturday, to be scrubbed. According to the Post article, repairs had been made after that leak, including replacing the hookup and two seals. That did the trick back in March after a similar leak showed up, but not this time.

Endeavour’s mission will carry the Japanese contribution to the International Space Station, the module known as Kibo that includes a “front porch” that will be used — no, not for sitting in rocking chairs — for experiments in space. The Space.com website has a day-by-day schedule for Endeavour’s 17-day mission.

When a kid — especially a boy — gets a scar, he’ll usually come up with a story to tell his friends that’s much more interesting than the truth. Say, “I was attacked by pirates” rather than “I tripped on my shoelace and fell.”

One in a million… A teen in Germany has been hit by a meteorite as it hurtled to Earth at more than 30,000 mph and lived to tell the tale. Photo: Telegraph.co.uk

But a German teen named Gerrit Blank won’t have to bother with that, since it’s pretty hard to beat the truth: “I was hit by a meteorite.”

Gerrit, who is 14, caught a glancing blow from the streaking space rock as it plummeted to the earth late last week. He wound up with a three-inch scar on the back of his hand, according to a June 12 article in The London Telegraph. It reports that Gerrit saw a ball of light headed his way, then “a red hot, pea-sized piece of rock hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot-wide crater in the ground.”

The rock has been confirmed by scientists as having originated in space, making it a pretty rare thing: A meteorite that survived a trip through Earth’s atmosphere, where they usually burn up.

So, how rare is it to be hit by a meteorite? The odds usually applied to the incident are one in a million. In fact, the folks over at Space.com dug into their archive and found only one other recorded incident where a person was struck by a meteorite. That was in 1954, when napping Alabama housewife Ann Hodges got a rude awakening after a 3-pound meteorite fell through the roof of her home, bounced off the furniture and struck her in the hip, leaving a bruise.

Space.com also tracked down a few near-misses over the years, including a spectacular 2004 event when a meteor weighing a ton and bigger than a fridge blew up in the night sky over Chicago, showering the Windy City with bits of space debris.

Word to the wise: If you’re invited over to a place called the Ice Physical Properties Laboratory for drinks, don’t get your own ice.

Post-doctoral researcher Mathieu Choukroun prepares an ice sample for study. The ice lab has special equipment and techniques for creating and working with ice. ( NASA/JPL).

That’s where scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are endeavoring to recreate the kinds of ice that have been discovered on frozen moons like Titan and Europa, according to an article posted Tuesday on the JPL web site.

Take, for example, Titan. Surface temperature? Oh, about minus 290 degrees. “Cryovolcanoes” belching a cocktail of “super-chilled liquids” onto the surface. The possibility of rich organic chemicals that might be “possible precursors to life.” To learn more about all this, JPL scientists are working to reproduce the kind of ice that would be found on that satellite of Saturn.

“We’re trying to shed light on processes that have occurred in the evolution of these bodies and understand what is happening on them now,” JPL planetary scientist Julie Castillo said in the article.

Sometimes it’s the elements that go into the ices — such as ammonia or various salts — that the scientists are looking to replicate. But there are also different types of ice, like “clathrate hydrates, water ices that form at low temperature and under high pressure and have molecules of different gases locked inside their ice crystals,” the article reports.

The goal of such experiments? Not to develop new novelty ices to flavor drinks down at the local bar, that’s for sure. Rather, it’s the continuing search for insight into where life might be found in our solar system and galaxy.

“Ice is found nearly everywhere in the universe and comes in many forms,” Castillo says in the article. “Where there is ice, there is often water, and where there is water, there is the possibility of life.”

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 19, 2009, #771 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
The Sun is about to move over the angle of your chart that grounds you to the planet. Despite your reputation as a feisty, self-assertive player, the real you is someone who needs the security of home and the comfort of a family. Recognize where this exists already, and create it where you can. The extraordinary astrology of the days right around the change of season emphasizes that you are the central focus of that experience. You are the one who must light and maintain the home fires, and then the people you seek and crave will be drawn to you. This involves your home, but it’s also about maintaining a psychic and emotional position of allowing everyone around you to feel at home, with who they are and with who they are becoming.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You have so much you want to express, and much that you need to express. Say it while you feel it. Let people know how much they mean to you. This is the kind of generosity that requires nothing except the presence of your heart. That presence is not a fleeting thing; it’s your true devotion, of the nature of an eternal flame. You are giving at this point in your life from a place of self-awareness and actually having something to offer. As you extend that gift, you will feel its presence more and more, and you’ll notice the quality that is generally filed under ‘spiritual’ — the more you give, the more you realize you have. Work with this for a while and it will turn some of your less functional beliefs about yourself upside down.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You may be wondering what you have to give up. This question has nagged you for the past month or more. Part of you has one idea and part of you has another idea, but I wonder why you’re thinking about this at all. One potential reason involves the depth to which we are indoctrinated into the idea of sacrifice. Offering willingly is one thing. Offering from a sense of owing others is another. The difference can become obscured if we lack a healthy sense of self-worth. In my experience, the first obstacle to self-worth is figuring out that you might be lacking in the stuff. As long as we keep telling ourselves we’re fine, we will overlook the issue. I suggest you phrase it as a series of questions, beginning with the words “what if?”

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Vesta and the Sun move into your sign over the weekend, followed by a spectacular New Moon. Venus and Mars are conjunct in your house of hopes and dreams, solid and dependable Taurus. All of this rates as an invitation to wake up to yourself, and to be aware of your presence in the world. Many other people recognize your value, your place and the meaning of what you have to offer; the missing piece is you stepping into that awareness yourself. Over the next few days you have a lot, and I do mean a lot, of help from the planets. If you notice feeling something different, if you wake up and notice that you are different, let it happen.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Your charts are taking on a larger-than-life quality that they frequently do this time of year, though at the moment you have a spectacular opportunity to act on it. If you are planning a business move of any kind, this is the time to reach upward. The key to success in this venture will be remembering that it’s not about you; you are involved, but what you are here to create is really something much greater. The key is to see yourself as part of that something, perhaps a large part, perhaps a small part, but in any event a significant one. One reason this is true is because you are the one who takes the initiative that enables something to actually happen. Be aware: the time is nigh.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Focus on bringing a key project to fruition. Remember that you may not be the one doing most of the work, but you are indeed the one in a central position of communication, which is to say coordination. You may not have ultimate authority, but you have access to everyone, mainly because they are the ones coming to you. This is not merely a neutral role, however. There is a theme involved. Your job is to remind people why something needs to happen. To do that most effectively, you need to open your eyes and be fully aware of the larger context involved. Nothing is happening for its own sake right now; nothing in the world. This theme of for a larger purpose is spray painted in every corner of the sky.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
These past few months may have resonated with more potential than success; with more crisis than creative opportunity. But think of all that as preparation; consider how much more aware you are now than you were just a few months ago. Now comes the moment of truth: focusing your priorities and making sure that you put your potential to the best possible use. The sky is about to light up with an opportunity. As I have been suggesting in the other signs, it may not be specifically about you. Your job is to hold space (Vesta theme) for something much larger to occur. How large is large? Look around you. Look at what you say you support, and what you know feeds the world. If it’s within reach, throw your support behind it.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
We live in a world where many, many people thrive on taking and a sense of entitlement that twists the mind if you think about it. Working most of my adult life as a journalist covering crimes committed by corporate and government officials, I have seen this over and over; but we don’t need to look that far. You can witness this in some of the most ordinary transactions. I suggest you take every single opportunity to reverse that trend: every opportunity to give, to love, to set free, to share, to express the truth; to offer rather than withhold; to include rather than exclude. Forget the ditty about how ‘it comes back to you’. Do it because it’s your soul’s calling to offer what only you can offer. Be grateful that you have so much, and take a few days off from wanting more. There is more to want than that: for example, a community and a world where everyone has just enough, particularly a sense of belonging.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
You are being called upon to give yourself totally not to any one relationship, but to every relationship. One of the big problems on our planet is that we live in a hierarchy of love. Some people are ‘more important’ than other people, and we can act in very strange ways because of this. The outcomes of this situation, however, prove the point that we really don’t know what role people have, and it’s fair to doubt that we have any discernment at all. Monday’s New Moon is calling on you to suspend all discernment and make sure that you are offering what you can to every situation you are in. I cannot tell you why, or how; I can only tell you what I am reading in the planets. You are a born humanitarian and you know it. This is not merely a dream.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
The astrology for the past two years has not been easy for Capricorns; at best you are questioning every belief you ever had. At worst you are looking at the world wondering whether there is any justice at all, even as you do your part to create that justice. Here is what I can tell you about your astrology right now: a large door is swinging open in these very days. You have the power to heal many of the wrongs that you see. Most of that comes from having a sense of perspective; there would be far less injustice if people could only see it for what it is. You can see it, and unlike many who get ground into the dust trying to make a better world, you are uniquely equipped to do your part.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Everyone has the gift of healing. When you get a little cut on your hand, have you ever marveled at how your body knows how to repair it? Your role might be to make sure the injury stays clean for a while, but then the body does its part. That is how being a good healer works. There are ailments you are suffering that will yield to this formula; there are injuries that others are suffering to which you can offer your consciousness and support. Monday’s spectacular New Moon in your 6th solar house — the house of healing, service and your best work — resounds with one message from ancient wisdom: let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food. Practice this and you will help many.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Pisces is blessed with natural access to a cosmic dimension of existence. In this respect, yours is the strangest sign of the 12, because so many things that matter so little to others make the greatest difference to you. At the same time, it’s also true that things that hurt others minimally can cause you the greatest emotional and psychological damage: things like subtle deception. Due to the ongoing conjunction of both of your ruling planets combined with Chiron in Aquarius, the world is becoming more like you are; more able to embrace your viewpoint; and more willing to give you space to exist. Move into that space now. You don’t need to take it, or take anything: the way is open.

Coming Soon: the Next World Stories Midyear Horoscope Edition. Look for signup information Monday for the midyear edition horoscope by Eric Francis. And if you haven’t read your Next World Stories annual edition, it’s still waiting for you! Sign up here.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Tuesday’s edition of Planet Waves will be a live webcast tonight. The program will cover the situation in Iran and the astrology of the summer.

Planet Waves Radio will be webcast tonight, Tuesday, June 16 at 10 PM ET on Blog Talk Radio. The Sun is wrapping up its course through Gemini, and as it reaches Cancer on Sunday, June 21 we enter the astrology of the summer. This consists of a New Moon a day after the solstice in the second degree of Cancer (activating the Aries Point) and then a series of three eclipses in July and August. This is a complete revision on the astrology of the first half of the year and portends a summer of many unusual developments and potential progress. The floor is open to talk about all of this, with a focus on the power of eclipses.

Also, the current strife in Iran is related to Pluto in Capricorn. I’ll post the Iran chart to Planet Waves Daily with a brief introduction later in the day, so you can get a look at that before the program.

Please tune in tonight at 10 pm ET.

Yours & truly,

Dear Friend and Reader:

My original theme for the week was to explore how the economic ‘downturn’ will help people find their roots. Without so many distractions of success and money to chase and houses to flip, we have a chance to do what’s important to us; to scale back the pace of our lives and this obsessive overscheduled busy-ness and recreational spending, and apply our creative and financial resources to what matters.

Leonard, a school teacher and minister from a Scandinavian country, is seen here teaching a Holocaust class at Auschwitz II – Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, where more than a million European people are estimated to have died. In a very straightforward way, he is explaining to these students that they are in front of the ruins of gas chamber/crematorium 2, how the process worked and what the implications are. The structure was dynamited as the Nazi officers retreated in 1944. More photos from this series are located here. Photo by Eric Francis.

The current planetary setup reflects a moment of true revelation. The triple conjunction in Aquarius is about an emerging new social pattern as well as we as individuals figuring out how to redefine and expand our personal civilization, and figure out how to merge it with the larger dance of society. I’ve described earlier how I believe we are opening up a communal psychic field where we can meet and exchange energy, as well as ground ideas into visible reality and explore there as well.

Chiron conjunct Neptune is about coming out of both individual and collective denial, clearing the haze and acting on the potential we have now (Jupiter in Aquarius, too). This takes some money, but not as much as poured into the kinds of crap that have been obsessively, incessantly indulged in during the years of the housing bubble. I view the current reshuffling of society as an opportunity to do a lot with very little, and moreover to focus on what we actually need and want to be doing rather than mindlessly running on a cappuccino treadmill.

Then, someone showed up at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC on Wednesday and tried to shoot the whole day down. He was stopped by a security officer who did his job and gave his life, apparently preventing yet another episode of mass murder-suicide.

This is the third political shooting in the past few weeks, all of them surrounding Mercury stationing direct in Taurus and making a square to the Aquarius triple conjunction. The shootings involved the assassination of an abortion doctor; a shooting at a military recruitment station; and now a purported Holocaust denier opening fire at the Holocaust Museum. This is a pattern. Each of these killings, despite being sold to us as isolated incidents, reflects an agenda and a set of values. Each represents something much larger than itself.

In the dialog that preceded writing this article, I was hashing out with my fellow editors how to approach the news of the week. One of them, Savas Abadsidis, suggested that the pattern of shootings is reflective of deep unrest, malcontent, frustration and rage that is taking root in the midst of an economic crisis with so many other injustices being perpetuated at the same time: billions going to banks but people sick and starving; GM and Chrysler fleeing abroad; wars raging on in Iraq and Afghanistan; state after state passing constitutional amendments against gay and lesbian people getting married; and so on.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Meanwhile there are a lot of people angry that a black man is president, that gay and lesbian people have any rights at all and that women still have the right to chose whether they want to have an abortion or not.

“I think there’s a growing unrest and it dovetails with what you told me is happening in the fall,” Savas wrote.

Good observation. Savas is not an astrologer but he was recalling a conversation about the forthcoming Saturn-Pluto square that has its first exact pass on November 15, followed by two additional passes on Jan. 31 and Aug. 21, 2010. Saturn is a solid structure and Pluto represents a force for change, progress and transcending the past. So the square between them is a change of form; and it would be inner form. It’s like a collectivized inner process of radical readjustment that spreads on a wide scale. It’s also potentially reactionary astrology that, on the collective level, feels like the other shoe dropping on the election of Barack Obama, and (more to the point) the progressive uprising that led to it. Whose shoe is it going to be? I think that the people who put Obama in owe it to everyone to hold him to his promises.

The Saturn-Pluto dynamic usually invokes some kind of conservative backlash. Summing up the current setup, we had a Saturn-Pluto opposition in the summer of 2001, just five weeks before the Sept. 11 incident that set the vibe of the next eight years and in many ways is still running our lives. There were a couple of predictions of terrorism and one prediction, by Papa Smurf astrologer Rob Hand, that we would have a war with Afghanistan. Nobody predicted that the events of the summer of 2001 would lead to the attempted establishment of a police state. No astrologer that I know of predicted the PATRIOT Act.

I don’t know what the November astrology is about, exactly, but if I were the White House astrologer I would be advising that security be turned up and that the president’s travel schedule be minimized for at least the last two months of the year and well past January.

The stage is also set for some kind of new fracture in the economic system to emerge. Whatever may be the case, this square takes place very close to the Aries Point, involving the directly related first degrees of Libra and Capricorn. This tells us that the matter affects a widespread public; and that individuals may feel the events privately, or that there will be a sense of ‘we’re in this together’. This is not true of every news event. This aspect represents the first significant test of the Pluto in Capricorn era, into which we transitioned during 2008 and are taking up fully in 2009. What emerges at that time reveals something that was already there, or rather, is already here.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Though Saturn square Pluto part one occurs in November shortly after Saturn enters Libra, we’re standing in the dynamic right now, which also involves a number of factors I went over last week. Summing up the current setup, Saturn and Uranus are at opposition, meaning that these two radically different energies are opposing one another. Then Saturn changes signs and moves into a square with Pluto; then Uranus changes signs to Aries, gradually moving into a square with Pluto.

This adds up to a long T-square of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, all taking place along the cardinal points — the Aries Point. This is a wild mix of revolutionary and oppressive energies that we will be working out clear through 2012.

Let’s take a look at the chart for the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, by a Holocaust denier. Before going there, I would point out that initially while not exactly mainstream, Holocaust denial is a kind of intellectual cult that has some momentum, and that momentum is troubling. It is an actual viewpoint, argued intellectually, not merely someone casually saying that something that many people saw and documented didn’t happen.

There are many historical and psychological reasons for this kind of denial, and while we may assign Holocaust denial to the crackpot files, the sentiments underneath it are pervasive enough to be concerned about. We may not want to think that there is an issue, but that in itself is a form of denial. The way the Holocaust happened and was allowed to happen involved denial, including the denial of an agenda. If it happens again, the same basic mental ploys will be put to work.

This conversation will necessarily involve looking at some technical points of a chart. I will interpret, leaving my margin notes in the conversation. I’m only going to use very close or ongoing aspects, so I will leave out the conversation of degrees.

The chart initially highlights three astrological events, mainly; these are compound events, involving several factors each. I’ll take them one at a time.

The first is that Saturn in Virgo is rising and Uranus in Pisces is in the descendent — putting the Saturn-Uranus dynamic (pluralism versus fundamentalism; progressive thinking versus neoconservative thinking) into the spotlight. You may recall that this aspect was exact for the first time on the very day that Barack Obama was elected. It represents the split that, sometimes quietly and sometimes not, currently has our nation by the throat. And finally it’s an opportunity for reconciliation and integration. Astrology is the kind of thing where you play the aspects on the level of your own enlightenment.

Click on image to enlarge.

Next, Mercury is in Taurus, having just finished its square to the triple conjunction in Aquarius. This is the event that basically drove many people to the brink of their sanity during the past couple of weeks. Mercury has extra power because this particular chart has Virgo rising; Mercury is therefore the ruler of the ascendant, always one of the most influential planets in a chart. At the time the shooter opened fire, Mercury (the planet of the mind, and which also represents the shooter in this chart) had just completed its chaotic, confusing and disruptive square to these three powerful planets exactly aligned in Aquarius. So we see the shooter’s state of mind represented here. What is interesting is that Mercury has already squared the conjunction at the time of the shooting, indicating a reference to the past; the denial of something in the past.

Mercury turns up in the 9th house of religion. He translates to someone who is stuck in his supposedly religious values, in delusion and denial (square Neptune), feeling like he has a broken mind (square Chiron) and exaggerating big time (square Jupiter).

I have said before that the triple conjunction in Aquarius represents something progressive and that Mercury in Taurus represents entrenched values, which have just had a run-in with progress. This is happening on many levels in our society right now. We are not going to go sailing blithely into a wonderful future; we have a lot of extremely confused people to contend with, people whose main attachment is to a past that they are basically hallucinating about. If you ask me, one of the crucial spiritual issues of our time is what to do with so many people who are so outraged about the supposed injustice of others having rights or simply living their lives freely.

Finally, the Moon in Capricorn has just completed a square to Eris, the planet that caused the reorganization of the solar system in 2006, including the change in category for Pluto and Ceres to a new concept, a dwarf planet. The Moon in Capricorn is a good image of conservative, structured or traditional thinking; and it has just made a square to Eris, in the 8th house of death. The Moon has already squared Eris, again referencing the past. Again, conservative values have been put through a kind of reality check and the result is extreme confusion.

Confusion about what? Eris is on the 8th house cusp. The goddess of discord and chaos is guarding the house of death and transformation. That’s often how it works. The Moon’s aspect points to the 8th house, which to me is the house that gives away what this chart is really about. The 8th addresses issues of sex, death, money and power, which combine in various configurations to cause all kinds of pain.

This is generally true until we sort them out and take them separately, one at a time. Then we see the relationships for what they are. Eris present on the 8th cusp, in Aries, represents rather stunning confusion regarding these issues, and the confusion is primarily coming in the form of an identity crisis. In other words, the confusion is so serious that it’s causing us to be in a state of chaos about who we are.

Illustration by Colette Coughlin.

We find three other points in the 8th house: the Part of Fortune (conjunct Eris), suggesting that someone is poised to benefit from the chaos; and Venus and Mars, in Taurus, which are about to make a conjunction. I am not a Vedic astrologer, but I am aware that when Venus and Mars are close together and there is a Venus retrograde involved, this suggests a competitive situation that is a special case. It depicts the male and female principles in some harsh competition, in the house of sex, death, money and power, and the Vedic astrologers don’t like this one at all.

Feeling this chart, and looking at the big picture that it offers, rather than analyzing it, the feeling is that this is a chart about sexual pain and frustration. Venus and Mars in the Taurus 8th house of a chart is sexually provocative. But if we see them in a chart where there is a mass murder being plotted, we can be pretty sure that the underlying issue is sex, and that, I believe, is true for our culture. The crisis is so serious that many people are even afraid to talk about it, much less do something about it.

We’ve been experiencing a profound case of sex denial since the early 1980s, when the United States began a national campaign of teaching children “abstinence” instead of basic facts about their bodies. In that regard, we have a pretty serious problem, given the tens of millions of people who have been through this indoctrination. Notably, this is not really a new movement in a country that is based on puritanical values. The denial of sex is a deep root in our culture, and it’s one that invariably leads to upsurges of violence and deep, fermenting rage that fuels many other seemingly unrelated problems. And some obviously related ones: rape is a crime that involve sexual rage, usually pointed at a woman.

Though few people actually say this, two of the most divisive issues our country is grappling with — homosexual rights and abortion — both directly involve sex. They masquerade as political, but they are as personal as, well, as personal as what you do in the shower. What we don’t like to admit, indeed, what we tend to actively deny, is that there are various political factions who are very concerned about what happens when you lock the door to your apartment. And it is not an accidental agenda. There is a reason that the same people who are against birth control are also against abortion: women are supposed to be mothers. That’s what it adds up to. As for queers, well, plenty of people feel that we can’t be having sex for its own sake. But like, whose body is it?

Sexual energy is not neutral. It’s vital and it’s creative and we all possess it in abundance. It takes a lot to turn sexual energy dark, but it only requires that we let it be what it is, for it to be creative and to offer us its life.

Next week, as Venus and Mars get closer to their exact conjunction on the solstice, at the exact midpoint of Taurus, let’s take this conversation a step forward.

Yours & truly,

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Have you ever noticed that the difference between the word ‘evolution’ and ‘revolution’ is merely one consonant? Intuitively, we can describe both activities as something that moves us along; shifts us, pushes us forward. If we’re listening, we can also discern the root definition that makes the words revolution and revelation kin; we can feel the vibratory quality that links them. They’re of a bunch.

Viva la (R)Evolucion? Picture by Mark Hammergren.

During this Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron conjunction, I’d suspect that you’ve had a few revelations of your own, and you can expect more. If you haven’t witnessed your own temperament rise in decibels, you must have met that energy elsewhere in your travels; we’re feeling the wounds of yesterday and bringing them into the sunshine today. Messy business. Emotional pain is not useful unless it brings the seeds of revelation with it; in fact, most pain has to do with resistance. If we can have a serious talk with that portion of ourselves that resists feeling, forgiving and releasing what is chronic in our psyche, the dissolution of old patterns can begin; we cannot begin serious psychic surgery without first acknowledging that we need it.

Initially we must define our life patterns and witness the damage they do us; next, we must renegotiate our future by achieving some perspective and behaving in entirely different ways. This is internal work, but it always has an external counterpart — God/dess is good that way, waving flags. Connecting the cause of our circumstances to our limited beliefs about ourselves is the first step in changing our personal future; that’s taking responsibility for our own mess. Until we do that, we are subject to a thin and egocentric philosophy that keeps us in the lower, defensive aspects of our animal nature, old and unbreakable tribal loyalties, plodding ego-inflexibility and our millennia-old fear and shame base. Think Dick Cheney; enough said.

An early warning system to our limited thinking is found in another concept that interests me — counter-intuition. Let’s define, quickly, because this concept has been mangled. Intuitive describes our own deep resonance and soul response to incoming information; this is an inherent ability in each of us, access to our personal truth awaiting our attention and nurture. Being counter-intuitive is actually opposing, not intuition, but logic in favor of taking some path toward a greater purpose; but it can also be a form of self-delusion.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

The Cassini-Huygens space probe, which for nearly five years has been reporting from Saturn’s giant Moon Titan, has provided evidence that the weather patterns on Titan are similar to Earth’s but much slower. And that means longer summers, scientists say.

This infrared image of Saturn’s Moon Titan shows a large burst of clouds in the Moon’s south polar region. Photo: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Nantes.

A report from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory describes how the lingering cloud formations will mean a “warm and wetter”autumn on the Moon. One of the Cassini team members, Sebastien Rodriguez of the University of Paris Diderot, described the findings in the JPL news release.

“Titan’s clouds don’t move with the seasons exactly as we expected,”said Rodriguez. “We see lots of clouds during the summer in the southern hemisphere, and this summer weather seems to last into the early fall. It looks like Indian summer on Earth, even if the mechanisms are radically different on Titan from those on Earth. Titan may then experience a warmer and wetter early autumn than forecasted by the models.”

More information on the ongoing Cassini-Huygens mission, and the approaching spring equinox on Titan, is available at ArsTechnica.

The National Aeronautic and Space Administration would like to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2020, but a move by lawmakers to cut 16 percent from NASA’s 2010 budget could jeopardize some of the agency’s long-term plans for manned space flight.

NASA budget cuts start to bite. Collage by Joeforking.

According to SpaceNews.com, on June 4 the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee moved to reduce the space agency’s budget, reporting that, “The $670 million cut to the 2010 manned exploration request would leave $3.21 billion, which is less than is available for the effort this year.”

The NASA Watch website breaks down the numbers in a chart that shows the current financial year budget, NASA’s proposed 2010 budget, and the subcommittee’s proposed cuts.

The budget cuts, at this point, are still only recommendations early in the appropriations process. President Obama has created a 10-person panel to review NASA’s plans for the post-Space Shuttle era, and their report could influence how lawmakers view the space agency’s spending priorities.

Before Congress takes a knife to NASA’s programs, though, its members might want to check out an intriguing little article at Universe Today, entitled “8 Ridiculous Things Bigger Than NASA’s Budget,”to get a little perspective.

Those annoying little hoaxers are back at it, it seems.

Another Martian Mystery. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

NASA is getting the word out about a hoax e-mail that’s been proliferating lately. It claims that anyone looking out the window on August 27 will see a once-in-a-lifetime sight.

“Mars will look as large as the Full Moon,”the e-mail reads. “No one alive today will ever see this again.”

Well, truth be told, no one alive today will see it on August 27, either, or any other day.

According to a NASA press release refuting the hoax e-mail, “Only in Photoshop does Mars appear as large as a Full Moon.”The myth-busting website Snopes.com seconds this conclusion, noting that it would take a 75x telescope for Mars to look that big to a viewer.

The roots of this hoax appear to dip back to 2003, when Mars actually did come closer to Earth than any time in the past 60,000 years. But even then, NASA points out, to the naked eye it appeared to be little more than a bright, red star.

The only thing as big as the Full Moon in the night sky remains, well, the Full Moon. As noted by NASA, “To see Mars as big as a Full Moon, you’ll need a rocketship, and that may take some time.”

To which we echo the space administration’s own conclusion: Bummer!

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 12, 2009, #770 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric Francis does individual astrological consultations, and will be through November 2009. Eric commits to consultations from year to year, stopping for about three months in November. We keep a list of interested clients. To request a consultation, please write to chelsea@planetwaves.net. Thank you.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Surf the waves of chaos; that’s how it always is, but sometimes the wind is behind you and sometimes it’s blowing you sideways. At the moment you have just the right leverage; there is a rare moment of balance in the planets, and you’re approaching the culmination of a long process of making peace with something about yourself, something you feared that many people would judge harshly. Don’t rush these next couple of weeks — savor them, live from moment to moment, and appreciate each observation of how you are not (yet) complete as a state of potential; as an opportunity for fulfillment.

Read your 2008 annual for Aries. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aries and Aries rising here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Fear is of the essence. It’s the second most powerful force on Earth, but learning that fact takes most people a lifetime. More challenging still is the use of fear as a positive force rather than one that hobbles us. I suggest you stalk your fears rather than letting them stalk you. For too long they dominated your life: the sense of impending chaos, skating on the brink of the unfamiliar, and feeling like one half of you is real and the other half is not (but which is which?). You are now on solid ground. You’ve recently found reason to be more honest with yourself. You know that what you fear, you really desire.

Read your 2008 annual for Taurus. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Taurus and Taurus rising here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Over the next few days a series of portals is opening up; this may manifest as a sequence of events, of ideas, of encounters with people and with an overall awakening of an attitude you’ve never quite felt before. While you’re someone who likes to take things at face value — this is one of your potential downfalls, by the way — these events will encourage you to look and feel deeper than what is obvious; to embrace the potential contained in something that may or may not be true. In other words, you’re being invited into a truly rich state of potential, with no guarantees. This is an ideal situation here on Earth.

Read your 2008 annual for Gemini. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Gemini and Gemini rising here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You currently have astonishing power to establish your worth in the eyes of others. Make sure you get it yourself, and please don’t waste your time about it. That is: make sure you take steps to be aware of your value in your eyes; and then establish that value in the eyes of others. Though confidence is always hard-won, many actors on your stage are not only inviting you to take a step, they are demonstrating that you can do so right now. Then go into each agreement and arrangement with a bold sense of who you are, confident that you are the only one who can provide the world with that special thing you provide. If you have never had this particular thought, I think you’ll enjoy the experiment.

Read your 2008 annual for Cancer. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Cancer and Cancer rising here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You’re being compelled to take a narrower approach to many of the possibilities that you see in the world. Yet the planets are offering a kind of exchange program: for everything you feel you must give up, whether to keep your focus or because you don’t have the energy, there will be a residual gain. It may be knowledge; it may be insight; it may be an opportunity better suited to match your current state of energy and commitment. This will work on the financial level; every savings you make can open up a possibility that is either free of charge or profitable. Of course, some things are well worth spending money on.

Read your 2008 annual for Leo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Leo and Leo rising here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You’re about to free up a lot of mental bandwidth, and to step out of a bog that seems to have had you in its grip for many weeks on end. Beware that the acceleration could be a little disturbing; you’re not actually losing control, though you’ll need to shift your awareness to maintain your sense of balance. Let one thing lead to another: an unusual opportunity or career development comes from a combination of being willing to have less glory or ‘credit’ for a truly brilliant idea, and a deeper sense of achievement. What constitutes brilliant? Please, set a high standard and try again no matter what.

Read your 2008 annual for Virgo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Virgo and Virgo rising here.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
You are the third side of the triangle: the defining point that shifts a dimension; the stabilizing factor; the focal lens of a process that is grounding something very new in the world. You have the perfect psychic orientation to be in this role. It’s the kind of leadership that guides but does not direct; that maintains equilibrium between two very potent forces that have plenty in common but are also distinctly unique. I suggest you lean toward the more active side of your potential role rather than passive. Inject some of your energy into the mix. Focus on what may be the missing element: beauty.

Read your 2008 annual for Libra. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Libra and Libra rising here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
It’s clear that the past couple of months have presented certain difficulties communicating about a sensitive matter or whole subject area that you really need to get out into the open. Actually, the person or people you need to get an exchange going with have been working their way onto the same page, though they have not necessarily been saying much about it. Once the conversation begins, it has the potential to go some interesting places, and into some deep places. There may be some role reversal involved. There will be some transposing of words into actions and actions back into words. Be bold, and please allow yourself the space to allow any idea to become a potential reality.

Read your 2008 annual for Scorpio. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Scorpio and Scorpio rising here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
I trust the next few weeks will help you ease back on some of the overwhelm that has dominated your life for so long. Or at least it will ease back from you. What you need now more than anything else is focus. Learn to say no (again); learn to prioritize (again); learn to stay close to home, whenever you can. The most interesting stuff in the world is going on in your mind, not splayed out all over the planet’s surface. Also there is a healing need that I suggest you bump up on your agenda. It may involve a relationship; it may involve your sexuality; it may involve getting something crucial into balance in your body. The thing that will guide you toward that healing is specifically your senses.

Read your 2008 annual for Sagittarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Recent planetary movements have increased your appetite for adventure, and over the next few weeks this is likely to reach a new peak. The question is: what constitutes an adventure for a Capricorn? I would propose: something new. Something you’ve never done before; going someplace — emotionally or physically — that takes you out of a familiar space. I don’t think anything is going to satisfy your curiosity or your craving for contact. You are the one who needs to make the moves; you are the one who must make it happen. Don’t wait for that magic email or SMS. Make decisions and take action. Live up to being so bold.

Read your 2008 annual for Capricorn. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Capricorn and Capricorn rising here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
There is a spirit of freedom in the air over the next week or so, but freedom is strictly something that exists in potential. You can sit around watching television or wondering what to eat; or you can make a series of choices to explore, to expand yourself, and to stretch your thinking at least far enough to get around to the other side of your inner globe. There would seem to be an aspect of who you are that is seeking a voice; that is seeking the opportunity to be heard by you. As the Sun makes a trine to the rare conjunction taking place in your sign, this is a singularly unique time to take personal territory that has eluded you for years or decades.

Read your 2008 annual for Aquarius. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aquarius and Aquarius rising here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Keep pursuing your vision for yourself, or rather, keep becoming it. For all the thousands of spiritual, psychological and metaphysical books written telling us how to ‘get there’, it remains true that every person must establish their own relationship to existence. What you are doing now is having effects now, but you’re also establishing an energetic pattern that will carry you forward for years to come. It may be difficult to see how this is true today, but when you look back at this time in your life even with a year or three years’ perspective, you will see the astonishing extent to which so much follows logically. Therefore: keep creating, with all you’ve got.

Read your 2008 annual for Pisces. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Pisces and Pisces rising here.