“In conclusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time.”
— Robert Anton Wilson

Dear Friend and Reader:

Here’s what I’ve been wondering all week: how can a presidential candidate tell the nation that he doesn’t pay federal taxes and nobody seems to care? There were many impressive moments in Monday’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but that took first prize.

The issue involved why Trump has not disclosed his income taxes, which is a basic though unofficial requirement of all presidential candidates in our era. Clinton said that in the few tax returns that had been disclosed over the decades (mainly in gambling license applications), Trump had paid no federal taxes, to which he responded by saying that means he’s a smart guy. He had many options; that was the answer he chose.

Donald Trump spreading his wings to fly.

In any other time of history, there would have been mass outrage. Imagine if Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush had said such a thing. People would have stormed the stage. The logic is plain: I pay taxes; so should you, big man.

Today it just seems like one more fleeting detail in the chaos, or one more feel-good moment. It’s true: most of us are angry about taxes and how little we get for them.

Yet the president is the nation’s top law-enforcement official. His example, and his integrity, actually matter. Or rather they used to. Now, a leading presidential candidate is honored as a rebel. The obvious problem is that he’s not one. Rather, he’s spent his life working the system for all it’s worth, enriching himself. He’s worked the banks and the Clintons and the Russians and the media and all the rest of it. In truth, Donald Trump is the biggest conformist of all.

Trump’s support comes mostly from working Caucasian men (formerly called blue-collar), which is to say, the little guy: factory workers, truck drivers and laborers among them; that is, the guys Bruce Springsteen sings about. You know, Joe Hardhat. Trump claims to be a billionaire and meanwhile regular folk scratching out a living are paying for his party, working two days a week for the federal government while he pays nothing.

Does anyone really think that he’s going to look out for their best interests? I realize that Trump’s supporters think he’s going to shake the tree. What they don’t seem to understand is that he’s more likely to chop it down and burn it for firewood.

In Monday’s 90-minute conversation at Hofstra University, viewed by about 84 million people, Trump was also nailed for persistently lying about Pres. Obama allegedly being born in Kenya. For a full five years after the president’s long-form birth certificate was released, Trump claimed the president was some sort of alien or unnatural citizen, an issue on which he has built his whole political fortune.

Does it matter who’s the president or where he was born?

Asked by the debate moderator, NBC’s Lester Holt, why he had suddenly changed his mind a week ago and admitted that Pres. Obama was legitimately American, Trump gave a roundabout, disjointed 400-word answer that would have got some interesting notes had it been part of a psych evaluation. His response distilled down to: we could not find a Kenyan birth certificate.

What kind of answer is that? Yet who among his supporters is actually concerned that the would-be commander-in-chief is totally full of shit? Well, it makes perfect sense in the Wonderland where logic is but a quaint antique in the museum of philosophy. The temporal order of things does not matter.

He learned in 2011 that there was an American birth certificate, and then claimed that there was not one, as late as this past January. It’s perfectly OK to think this way where you can hold the execution before the trial (something that’s happening a lot lately, as police continue their serial murders of unarmed men of color).

And how about that? Someone near San Diego calls 911 for help dealing with a relative having a mental breakdown and the police arrived 50 minutes later, after three calls. Then they deployed a Taser and simultaneously fired five shots into Alfred Olango, age 38, as witnesses and relatives watched in horror. It makes no sense, and yet it happens about five times a week.

Xena, Eris and the Internet

About 10 years ago, an object called UB 313 was discovered and soon named Eris, and understood to be the most distant planet orbiting our Sun beyond Pluto. In that gesture, astronomers redefined the word ‘planet’ and demoted Pluto to a new thing called a ‘dwarf planet’. This defined Neptune, the fog of delusion and denial, as the outermost official planet: as the boundary, or non-boundary, of reality.

Contemporary illustration of Eris by Alexandra Bach.

Eris, whose Roman counterpart is called Discordia, was discovered in Aries, where it’s spending more than a century. One of the discoverers, who helped select the name, said that Eris was reflective of the chaos of the world.

The nickname for Eris, prior to its official naming, was Xena, based on the short-lived but fun ‘warrior princess’ TV series. The keynote of that program was how its narrative lacked continuity. One episode could be set at the time of the birth of Jesus, and another far in the future.

At the time, my take was that Eris focused the issue of personality fragmentation, which I associated with the rising tide of the internet. (You may read my original report here, from early 2008.)

I described how the “constant revision, co-creation and constantly morphing relationship to the technology we surround ourselves with, or that is imposed on us, is associated with a sense of self that has no fixed point of reference and in many ways is experienced as having no solid ground to stand on.

“But it is this very groundlessness that is the goal or aim of many spiritual or therapeutic paths, and which can be put to excellent use, because it means that an obstacle has been moved out of the way,” I wrote at the time.

What I did not do was project this into the future; had I done so, I might have said that the entire ground of reality was about to collapse under our feet. I didn’t connect the dots, or understand the full implications of the issue I was looking right at. At the time, the internet seemed relatively stable, taking a form that would last a while. That was not true.

Enter the iPhone

When the iPhone was introduced by Apple in January 2007, few people (if anyone) understood the impact this would have: to accelerate the destabilization of both psyche and society. This is always true of new technologies; the spiritual or social impact is never considered in advance, except for their profit potential.

Spoof of the iPhone projected on the screen during the introduction to the device. The joke is true: the content of the old medium becomes the content of the new medium. The internet becomes a telephone.

The iPhone and all of its knock-offs would shrink thought down to Twitter scale, where everything is done on the run, in short form, on a tiny screen. The internet would become an even bigger heap of scrambled data, each bit having little relationship to any other bit. This, in turn, would become a popular mode of thought.

Recently we researched the chart for the introduction of the iPhone, the first smartphone sold in the Western world. Eris shows up boldly in that chart. Mercury and the Sun are tightly square Eris, meaning that both self-concept (the Sun) and the mind and communication networks (Mercury) are about to be run through the psychic blender. Neptune in Aquarius was rising like an electronic mirage. Neptune in the ascendant is a way of saying boundary issues, and smartphones were imbibed and soaked up without the faintest question or consideration. Neptune in Aquarius rising in this chart is a somewhat hilarious image of an electronic drug.

Now we’re experiencing the conjunction of Uranus (disruption, revolution, invention, technology) and Eris for the first time since 1927-1928 — the dawn of the electronic age (television, radio and the transistor each have significant historical points of emergence since the late 1920s). All electronic media have the property of disrupting self-concept and serve to tribalize people. That is, the individual self gives way to a collective notion of self. This feels good in some ways (being part of a tribe is a form of acceptance) but there really is no tribe, just a mass of people who think they think for themselves but who are more interested in doing the trendy thing.

Greatly simplified chart for the rollout of the iPhone. You can see that the Sun and Mercury (planets at top left) are square as-yet un-named Eris (lower right). A square is high-energy, direct contact, provocation, action and most of all, change. What changes is not just communication, but the mind itself (Mercury) and one’s sense of identity and being (the Sun). The Sun and Mercury are in the sign of old things (Capricorn) while Eris is in the sign of new things (Aries). Notice also that Neptune (illusions, dreams) is rising, in Aquarius, the sign of technology. A mirage is rising and about to infiltrate everything and everyone.

Yet much more than this happens. While previous electronic media have imploded space and time (such as telegraph moving at the speed of light), the internet has exploded us. Online, everyone is inside-out. There is no privacy on the internet, as we see over and over again: emails become public, data is mined by programs called cookies and we broadcast all our marketing demographics into Facebook. Yahoo can have half a billion client identities stolen and it’s news for about one hour.

In other words, we are now into a world where a prevailing value is that nothing matters. This is known as nihilism, which is the philosophy of the digital age.

Meanwhile, the NSA is recording and indexing everything, by which I mean everything you post. Your computer or phone can be turned into a telespeak (of George Orwell fame in the novel 1984) that spies on you using audio and video eavesdropping from your built-in camera and microphone. (Please see the film Snowden to get a sense of the problem.)

Whether or not you, personally, are being observed or having your calls played back does not matter. What matters is that the private sanctuary previously known as yourself has been blown out to the world potentially for anyone to see — and you have largely cooperated with this, and paid for the privilege.

And you may not have put this all together into a cohesive scenario; cohesion is one of the things lacking under digital conditions. Any relationship of one thing to another can also be seen as a fabrication or conspiracy theory rather than as an actual connection. That means that you are being trained to separate yourself from your reality.

One result is that sense of self is disembodied. The internet has induced a society-wide out-of-body experience. When you don’t have a tangible sense of self, when your being lacks physical ground and is projected into digital plasma, you don’t necessary respond appropriately to your situation. You might not recognize when you’re in danger, or when you’re being blatantly manipulated by a nonexistent threat.

People who have no inner ground, no real sense of being, are susceptible to having that empty space filled by someone who stands in front of them and says I, me and mine all day long. He seems to have a self, which makes them feel better about not having one. But this is really two mirrors facing into one another.

The Shock Doctrine, in Miniature

One result of reason and rationality having left the room is that it leaves very few options for how to get a person to respond: whether you’re trying to inform them, sell them something or impose a dictatorship.

This is what the Shock Doctrine looks like. Shock people enough and they will consent to anything. But it also works on a much smaller scale, which is exactly the thing the internet facilitates.

One mark of the digital age is the triumph of emotion over reason. These days, the way you get someone to do something is you trigger them to emote.

This helps explain Donald Trump, and why he seems, to many, more appealing than Hillary Clinton, who likes to explain things rationally. To many, this whole business of making sense sounds like Chinese.

The Shock Doctrine is a 2007 book by Naomi Klein, which explains what she calls disaster capitalism.

This relies on the exploitation of crises to enact controversial policies while citizens are too emotionally distracted by disasters or upheavals to mount an effective resistance.

An example of this is how 9/11 was used to enact the PATRIOT Act, mass spying on ordinary people and two illegal and immoral wars. Under no other conditions than the false pretense of a national threat would the public agree to such things.

Now we have Donald Trump using hot buttons to provoke people and get them to agree to things that are clearly against their own interests. He says things that are so shocking, there is no replying to them. One is just left stunned, or triggered. Yet if you’re already angry and in a state of shock, that outrageous statement might leave you feeling vindicated.

You might also feel like you’re in a world without consequences; a virtual world where everything is a mirage. That, however, is not true.

About Those Ones and Zeros

One last thought for today. You might have noticed one trend of the 21st century is “you’re with us or against us.” There are just two possibilities as far as mainstream narrative is concerned.

You have heard the phrase “the medium is the message.” That means that what is conveyed by media, its actual transformative quality, is from the device itself, rather than the content. Twitter changed the world by reducing communication down to 140 characters. That matters more than any one tweet, or all tweets combined.

Marshall McLuhan proposed that it was the fuzzy image of the television, with its iconic scan lines, which provoked its most powerful results, including getting people to take action en-masse. In a similar way the binary code of the internet is provoking emotional response and having a polarizing effect. This is a Zenith 1950s-era black and white ‘porthole’ TV showing the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” show, which ran on CBS from 1951-1953.

Television had its provocative effect based on the scan lines and scratchy early video image — not the content of TV programming, which is quickly forgotten. Radio had its effect due to speech presented without a body. Print had its effect due to its demand for absolute uniformity and consistency of presentation. Books also draw people inside their own imagination and help cultivate inner space and tangible identity.

The idea that it’s the structure of the medium rather than the content that has the most profound effect may seem weird at first, but consider it for a while and it starts to become obvious.

Digital technology reduces everything down to zeros and ones. We all know this: code is binary. Yet it’s difficult to imagine everything from a Kindle book to a photo to a movie to Facebook to a song being a stream of ones and zeros. They are the invisible ground of the digital age, and the ground (or environment) is the thing with the most profound effect.

What I am proposing here is that the ocean of ones and zeros are why the internet is such a polarized place. And with the world under the full influence of digital conditions, it’s why everything seems so polarized, and why there seems to be no more middle ground. There is swipe left and swipe right. You don’t even find out who a person is before deleting them.

One might ask: can we live like this forever? Is it possible to have a society without compromise, made of people entrenched in their positions? And is this really true, or is it an illusion of the internet?

Lovingly,

Make the Houses Your Home with Eric’s Upcoming Class

“Eric is a gifted teacher, fascinating story teller, with an incredible base of both knowledge and experience that draws one in. Combined with patience and a gift for translating subject matter into very understandable terms, the class was great.”

— Sally Crawford, on a previous class

Learning the houses takes NO technical knowledge: it’s all about life. The houses are the easiest, most grounded and most useful element of astrology, describing themes and physical environments.

Once you have a grasp on how the system is organized, astrology suddenly becomes possible on a whole new level.

If you’ve been feeling like you just can’t quite get your chart (or those of others) to sing, chances are that getting acquainted with the houses is the missing piece of the puzzle you’ve been waiting for.

As horoscope maestro Patric Walker said to Jonathan Cainer, who said it to Eric, “It’s all in the houses.”

I loved Eric’s patient manner with each of us, our questions and our learning styles. I also gleaned a lot from his way of explaining the sample charts, and using his and our experiences and potential scenarios, to open us to new levels of comprehension.
I look forward to Eric’s class on the houses.

— Rachel Schneiderman

A passionate teacher can make material come alive, and Eric is truly excited about teaching this class.

“Thank you, Eric, for continuing to have these classes! They are wonderful.”

— Stacey Katz

It’s All In the Houses will be held via teleconference Saturday, Oct. 8 from noon EDT to 4 pm EDT. The class will be recorded, so you may be present or listen later. There will be a video preview that explains the basics, which will come out a few days before the class.

You may sign up here. If you need a reduced rate, we will gladly help you out — please write to us at cs@planetwaves.net. Note: if you are a Backstage Pass or Core Community member, you should have received your member discount by email last week — please get in touch if you need that information again.

Rebalancing Relationships, New Moon to Full Moon

By Amanda Painter

Friday, Sept. 30 (early Oct. 1 in some time zones), we have a New Moon in Libra — the first New Moon following a pair of eclipses, Mercury’s recent retrograde, and the beginning of a new season. If you feel like you’re in distinctly different territory compared to one month ago, it’s because you are.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Tomorrow’s New Moon seems to begin something rather distinct; and, like all New Moons, it also implies the coming Full Moon.

What a Full Moon that will be: on Oct. 16 (Oct. 15 in some time zones), the Moon will conjoin Uranus and Eris in Aries, and all three will oppose the Sun in Libra. Eric has written much about the Uranus-Eris conjunction that spans this year.

Uranus-Eris in Aries seems to be describing the ways that identity has been fractured by the internet; a kind of disembodied existence we’re all trying to get a grip on even as we try to catch up with it — and with ourselves — as its effects snowball. In as much as Uranus-Eris represents our surprising, innovative and unpredictable relationship with our technology, it also suggests the ways we seek our identity through conflict.

One look at the way even the most well-meaning post on social media can become a no-holds-barred battleground between people who cannot actually see, hear or feel each other — and who might never have met — demonstrates this.

At the same time, we live in an environment where this online dissociation allows us seemingly to be ‘here’ and ‘someplace else’ at once. Suddenly, the Syrian refugee crisis and the Dakota Pipeline protest and an eclipse only visible on the other side of the planet are all unfolding in real time while we watch. Often it is too much to handle; often, in response, we shut down. It’s getting harder and harder to find the sane middle ground between overextension of our senses and emotions and ignoring everything.

When that Oct. 16 Full Moon peaks, it may very well shine some light on all of it. You might start preparing the ground with the New Moon on Friday, and you can begin today. If you have not already begun to tie up any loose ends that freed up (or frayed) with the Full Moon and eclipse two weeks ago, consider that on your agenda now.

Continue reading →

This Week on Planet Waves FM

This is Your Brain on the Internet

Dear Friend and Listener:

In this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM [play episode here], I consider the question of cohesiveness. Inspired by Donald Trump’s performance at Hofstra University Monday night, I’ve taken a gander (with the help of Andrew McLuhan) into what all this gibberish is about. My observation is that it’s about the internet.

Sheila Chandra.

Capital of non-relational information, the library without a catalog, where the house game is 52-Card Pickup: we can thank internet consciousness for the rise of a political candidate who makes no sense whatsoever.

Before I go there, I consider the current astrology — in particular Mars in Capricorn, and its relationship to Pluto in Capricorn, and Jupiter in Libra.

In the second segment I do an analysis of who won the debate and why. If you’re the kind of person who likes things to make a little sense and believes that the pages of a book should be numbered, Hillary Clinton won. If none of your thoughts connect and you don’t believe in logic, reason or rationality, Donald Trump cleaned up.

In the third segment I play my interview with Rosetta Star, one of our friends in Asheville, NC, who recently took a bunch of her friends, her oldest kid and a trailer of equipment up to the protest in Standing Rock. There, 280 Native American tribes are blocking a tar-sands-oil pipeline and are in for the long haul. You may also read Amy Jacobs’ coverage here.

My musical guest is the magnificent mystic of music, Sheila Chandra.

Thanks for your membership support — thanks for tuning in.

Lovingly,

Randy Rainbow, known for his cheeky song parodies, seems to be suggesting there will be more debate-based videos coming up. Can you handle another debate? Image: video still.

Super-callous-fragile-ego-centric-braggadocious

by Amanda Painter

Granted, Donald Trump has such a, um, unique way with words, it’s hard not to take a shot at him — whether you’re a Hillary Clinton fan or not. But to put a comic critique to a rather fast-paced rhyming song just two days after the first presidential debate takes some real skill.

Randy Rainbow puts on his debate-moderator-as-Mary-Poppins persona and gets singing to hilarious effect in this video posted yesterday. Is anything missing? Well, perhaps just the acknowledgement that if we don’t recognize and own the part of our collective shadow that Trump represents, polarization will prevail.

But not to worry! Musician Jay Mankita unveiled the third iteration of his song about The Hair That Must Not Be Named at Dance New England’s 2016 summer camp, and offers it here on YouTube (you might want to turn the volume up, or turn on the CC subtitles). With equal comic rhyming brilliance, Mankita offers a pointed yet gentle reminder along with the snark. Everybody, now — it’s a sing-along!

Trump oh dear

Trump oh no

Trump oh say it isn’t so

Trump oh fret

Trump oh fuss

We all have a little bit of Trump in us

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

We published your extended monthly horoscope for October on Thursday, Sept. 22. Your extended monthly horoscope for September was published on Thursday, Aug. 25. We published the Moonshine horoscope for the Virgo New Moon, by Len Wallick, on Thursday, Sept. 1. Your Moonshine horoscope for the Pisces Full Moon was published on Thursday, Sept. 15.
Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign.

Aries (March 20-April 19) — If the skies are any indication of where you are in life, the phrase ‘mending fences’ should resonate in some way for you now. How that term reverberates in your case will in large part depend on relationship choices you made during the past two seasons. In all probability, the consequences of those choices will begin to become increasingly clear during the next month or so, serving to define the parameters of your life for at least the next six months. Because you have already proven yourself to be a reasonably rational and competent decision maker over the last couple of years, there is no reason to second-guess yourself now. Rather, follow through by acting to shore up the framework of one-to-one relationships you have chosen to sustain and develop over the six months just past. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — It would seem as though you have more options now than you had at this time last year. In particular, it would appear as if you have greater opportunity both to create and evolve through your vocation of choice. The only caveat is that you will need to bring the time and energy required to avail yourself of a wider range of collaborators and personal discretion. Therefore, in order to make the most of what’s opening up for you, focus first on your physical wellbeing. Prioritize improved nutrition in particular. Take the next month or so to research possible improvements in your diet, no matter how good you think it is now. Also, review your life for any habits that take more out of you than they return. Finally, endeavor to accept and embrace any form of improved fortune rather than mistrusting it. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You know life is good. You also know that the best way to enjoy yourself is in a life-affirming way. Now is a good time to begin putting all that hard-earned knowledge to work, beginning with some serious reflection regarding what works best for you now. Don’t despair if an old thrill has somehow gone. It doesn’t mean you have lost your groove. It simply means you have evolved. Allow yourself to experiment and explore new forms and sources of gratification appropriate to the person you have (perhaps unknowingly) become. If you don’t know how or where to start updating or upgrading your groove, look first into your own heart for what’s currently most important to you. Then, look in the world for where your heart’s desire will be just as important to others as it is to you. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — There’s a rather earthy old saying that will not be repeated in its entirety here because it would be offensive to some readers. Suffice to say the subject matter is opinions, and the punch line is: “everybody has one.” There is now a distinct possibility that your opinions are of far greater value than suggested by that profanely pithy proverb. Yet even absolute certainty of being correct will not justify your being pushy when it comes to asserting your convictions at this time, however. Better to be a clear example by living your truth rather than speaking it. Should you have no choice about stating your position, do it concisely, and just once — preferably in writing. Rather than waste your energy on endless, fruitless debates, allow the passage of time to prove the veracity of your prescient perspective. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — A vague and undefined feeling you have been living with for some time now is about to become something more definite and clear for you. As you approach this new level of your awareness, it would help your cause to remember two things. First, always remember that your feelings are valid. Never let anybody tell you otherwise. Even if you don’t know why you are feeling happy (or sad, or lucky, or whatever) you can be certain that the sense represents a reality every bit as substantial and consequential as any other. Next, remember that knowledge — and access to it — is power. The self-knowledge you are about to realize more fully is no exception to that rule. Do not fear having your eyes opened. You will be better off with a better understanding of what you have so long only intuited. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Even if you have not changed your residential address recently (or do not anticipate doing so anytime soon), now would be an excellent time to go through your worldly possessions with an eye towards simplifying your life and lightening your load. Whether you realize it or not, the set of eclipses that concluded only two weeks ago have combined with Mercury’s recent retrograde to send part of you on ahead. Though you may not yet be fully aware of it, the rest of you is likely to follow what has already moved on. Best then to prepare; and there is no better way to do so than through the practice of releasing attachment to material objects that no longer earn their keep with you. At the very least, the end result will function to make your life less cluttered, even if do you eventually elect to bring it all back home. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Libra 2016-17: What Are You Building Toward?

“This tells me you’re building toward something big, and that you will not care much about your inner controversies once that happens — or you will want to have them resolved, see them for what they are, or not be caught up in them.”

— Eric Francis Coppolino

Dear Libra Reader:

In the quote above, from the Vision Quest annual reading for Libra, Eric was describing for you this moment we are in right now: Jupiter newly in your sign, the Sun right there with it.

You don’t have to aim for colossal but you can think big, Libra. Infrared photo of the Great Sphinx by Sarite Sanders.

Nine months ago, maybe you had no idea what that thing you might be building toward might be.

Today? Only you can say what your “big thing” is, how you feel about it and how it is affecting your life.

But if you’re looking for more clues, a cheerleader in your corner, or a way to update and invigorate your approach and long-range vision, Eric has just the thing for you:

Your 2016-17 Libra Birthday Reading, available for pre-order now.

Currently the pre-order price is just $19.97; a steal for at least an hour of audio (in two segments) plus a video tarot reading using the Voyager Tarot by James Wanless. When the reading publishes, the price will increase.

Astrologers have long associated Jupiter in one’s Sun sign or rising sign with ‘luck’. Yet this is not the ‘trip over a bag of unmarked bills on the sidewalk’ kind of luck. Jupiter rewards action you take toward your desires and goals with some cosmic support — but you must do your part.

That’s not as hard as it sounds. Open the door, see how much wider your world is now, and take a step out into it.

“For what it’s worth — never heard anything so right on, aligned with what I am looking at, aware of, dealing with, leaning into — especially professionally and emotionally.”

— Robyn Landis

Eric and Jupiter will right by your side, generously offering you a hand. Take hold of it through your Libra Birthday Reading (give it as a gift!), and tap into your life’s potential.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter

Planet Waves Astrology Editor

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — There is no question that you have a great deal to look forward to during the next 12 months, no matter how things look to you now. For the time being, however, it would be best if you focus more on getting the smaller and more personal details of your life in order. That way, you will be less likely to feel scattered, off your tether or otherwise out of sorts when your experiences begin to make your world a bigger, broader place than it has recently seemed to be. Let there be no question: you are ready. Your life since this time last year has primed and prepared you to take in and retain everything you need to attain greater proficiency and step up to bigger aspirations. Just give yourself a chance to start slow. If you need it, take a nap. If you crave it, linger long in a warm, soothing bath. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Improvisational art is among the greatest human achievements. It is not as easy as it looks, however. When it is the turn of any given musician in a jazz combo to deliver a solo for example, what the audience hears is more than just random noodling. Preceding a jazz musician’s spontaneous creation are years of learning, practice and experience playing with others. The result of this long and individuating evolution is a unique individual, one who can listen with an educated ear and respond in collaboration; one who can capture and express the universe with vital immediacy while also furthering the world’s development into the next moment. Whatever form your own creative nature takes, be confident that you are now ready to deliver your own exquisite solos. All you have to do is pay attention. You will know how to pick your spots. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You know the sensation. Just when you begin to feel a little sorry for yourself, something happens that is so gratifying as to make you feel silly for having indulged even the slightest self-pity. Astrological indications are now hinting rather broadly that you are ripe for just such an event at this time. What form the experience takes will depend on who you are. Perhaps love will find you. Maybe you will find a niche in the world that fits you like a glove. Of course, you must do your part by keeping your eyes open for — and being receptive to — what is flowing in your direction almost in spite of yourself. If you need a clue regarding where to look and what to look for, focus on people you already know and places you already go. Odds are that somebody or someplace familiar to you will pleasantly surprise you sooner rather than later. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Abraham Lincoln reportedly observed that response to hardship is a less-than-reliable indication of personal character. So far as Honest Abe was concerned, the truest test of character is how a person handles being in a position of power. If one assumes that President Lincoln was a good judge of human nature, you might want to be aware of how the astrology for the remainder of this year is implying that you are being conferred a significant amount of power yourself. Specifically, you might expect people to be looking up to you as an authority figure in your public and professional roles, even if your official place in any hierarchy is low man on the totem pole. This could be an opportunity. Act as if you are worthy of influence now, and it might mean a promotion later. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Some astrologers think Aquarius is inherently gregarious. Others aren’t so sure. Most likely, the set of qualities associated with any sign are only potentials that function something like genes. Some qualities tend to be dominant. Others are latent. What ultimately expresses often depends on context. It would appear that the astrological context of at least the next four weeks (if not the next year) would favor your being socially active. This might be especially true in a structured environment such as your workplace, your place of education or even your place of worship. If that’s a plausible scenario for you, be aware of how nearly any behavior can be appropriate if it is practiced at the right time and in the right place. In other words, rather than being a social butterfly, be a social politician. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — It is in some way likely that your interactions with the world at this time are taking place in an environment that favors your natural talents and tendencies. You might even have found a very supportive and productive niche for the time being. If that’s not how life is working out for you now, it could very well be that one or two relatively small adaptations on your part would turn things around and put you in hog heaven. The best sources of information regarding what adjustments would work best to promote your good fortune are people who have known you for a long while, rather than recent acquaintances. Be proactive and ask any and all such confidantes about what you should do to thrive, rather than just survive, where you currently live, work and play. — by Len Wallick. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.