Dear Friend and Reader:

Before we get to Genevieve’s horoscope, first a note. Today the Sun is conjunct the Galactic Core. This happens once a year, in our era, always around this day. We live in a galaxy; we share the space with many other stars. That galaxy is held together by a supermassive black hole, and around that object is a cluster of stars and radio sources that, together, make up the Galactic Core.

Galactic Core in summer, when the Sun is on the other side of the sky. Photo by Anthony.

If you’re somewhere you can see the Sun, imagine it’s there, and imagine the galactic arms spreading out, intersecting with the Earth’s horizon on an approximately 45-degree angle.

Today, in this last week of the Mayan calendar, much of the United States is engulfed in grief over a school shooting that took place just five days ago.

This is not just grief over the loss of many young students and the teachers who tried to protect them. It’s profound sadness over the state of our society. I think that we now recognize how many factors contributed to this event, and how prolific those factors are. I think we are finally seeing this event — one of 16 mass shootings in the United States so far this year — in context.

The backdrop of the Galactic Core is perfect for two reasons. One is that it’s about issues that are so pervasive that it never seems we’ll understand them, or be able to address them. Think of the line from the old spiritual, “So wide, you can’t get around it.”

Second is that the Galactic Core serves as our spiritual homing signal. It is the distant call to awareness of something beyond the reality we perceive, and all that we believe. This distant call can be difficult to hear for some, and easy to ‘space out’ on — or outright deny — for many, even spiritually advanced people.

I want to remind you that it’s there, and it’s coming in strong today.

Your December Moonshine horoscopes by Genevieve Hathaway are ready today and available now. It’s accessible without using your password.

Friday’s edition will be the last (Friday) issue of the year, while I complete your readings in LISTEN, the 2013 annual edition of Planet Waves. This week, I plan to wrap up the audio portions, take a short break and move onto the written sections. These readings, which include both audio and written segments, are still available to subscribers at the discount of 12 signs for the price of three. They include extended audio and extended written readings.

Here’s a summary of what we’ve been up to on other parts of the website. This week on Daily Astrology & Adventure (the proper name of our daily blog), I covered the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in a special post that includes links to the charts for both the incident and the shooter.

Amanda has covered the current sky leading up to the solstice in the Daily Astrology postings for Monday (featuring the Sun’s conjunction to the Galactic Core) and today. Sarah Taylor has offered a gentle view of our current moment in her Weekend Tarot Reading. If you’re in the mood for some satire, be sure to read our commentary on End of the World, which is rumored to be scheduled for Friday. (Thanks to the many friends who contributed material to this parody.)

We’ll have more about the solstice in tonight’s Planet Waves FM (which is usually posted Tuesday evening EST, but which I may do Wednesday). With or without the Mayans, I believe the meaning of 2012 is still up for grabs.

Thanks for tuning in, and we will catch you Friday.

Lovingly,