Tag Archives: Hylonome

A boy from Honduras is shown being taken into custody by US Border Patrol agents near the US-Mexico Border near Mission, Texas, June 12, 2018. Photo by John Moore

Caring in Action: the Cancer Eclipse

By Amanda Painter

Dear Friend and Reader:

Eric wrote at the beginning of the week about today’s Sun-Chiron square, and the collective healing needed to our inner masculine/yang sides. Then I looked at the chart for the July 2 Cancer New Moon and solar eclipse, and started thinking about the daily assaults on our empathy and capacity to care that are being made by the daily news.

Demonstrators gather to protest against the separation of immigrant families at the border in Austin, Texas, on June 14,  2018. Photo by Amanda Voisard / Statesman.com via AP

Demonstrators gather to protest against the separation of immigrant families at the border in Austin, Texas, on June 14, 2018. A year later, things are no better. Photo by Amanda Voisard / Statesman.com via AP

And it all cascaded together in my perception of what amounts to the ongoing psychological and physical torture of immigrant children separated from their families and being held in detention at the U.S. border. I’ll get to the astrology in a moment.

I’ve been seeing a lot about this in my Facebook feed and my email inbox. The strongest recurring theme, however, is an overwhelming sense of paralysis: not knowing what we can do; wondering ‘why isn’t anyone organizing a mass protest?’; asking ‘who is organizing something I can join with?’; feeling completely at a loss regarding which actions will help and which might actually make things worse.

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Notes from Virgo: Use Your Intelligence

Dear Friend and Reader:

At the recent United Astrology Conference, astrologer/activist Caroline Casey noted that Pluto has left Sagittarius, but it seems that nobody has informed world leaders of that fact. What I understood her to be saying is that the Pluto in Sagittarius vibe of obsession over ideology, fanatical religious ideas and true-believership is still going strong, even though Pluto started its transition into Capricorn in 2008.

Planet Waves
Front door of the Hermitage, Omega Institute. Photo by Eric.

Sagittarius is usually considered a sign associated with religion and beliefs, and under the influence of Pluto these became relentless influences, infiltrating every area of life. The 15-year Pluto in Sagittarius era (spanning 1995-2009) featured the consolidation of religious power in the United States, as well as the American Taliban vs. the Taliban in the ongoing religious crusade known as the ‘War on Terror’. Supposed ministers of Jesus preached the gospel of war to stoke up their conservative congregations.

What most astrologers don’t know is that there are many other slow-moving points still in Sagittarius. They don’t have the reputation of Pluto, because they were discovered more recently and because fewer astrologers use and write about them. One reason for this is that the newer discoveries are classified as ‘minor’ planets and are therefore considered suspect by most astrologers, particularly those who have not investigated them.

Current activity in Sagittarius offers a descriptive, useful picture of the insanity that we’re currently experiencing in politics, which is in effect a continuing takeover of government by religion. I wish this were an exaggeration, though you can see it everywhere you look. Just this week, President Obama revised the Democratic Party’s platform to include the term “God” and state that Jerusalem is the proper capital of Israel, according to the news website Politico.com. Note that the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits what it calls a “religious test” for suitability for office; too bad the news hasn’t got out yet.

And the Democrats are supposedly the less religiously driven party. It was the Republicans who in the early 1980s turned fundamentalist churches into political clubhouses, and implemented abstinence-only indoctrination into public schools.

Planet Waves
Someone’s parody of God at his computer, based on Gary Larson. Now that He’s been included in the Democratic national platform, he will smile on the Earth and finally bless America. Then again, it could be the delete key.

This ban on sex education, resulting in propagated ignorance, has evolved into candidates openly campaigning to criminalize abortion, proposing laws designed to humiliate women who seek reproductive health care, and even to take down the Supreme Court’s famous 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision. That ruling prevents states from banning the use of birth control by individuals within their private spaces. Yes, there was a time recently when a state could ban the sale of condoms on some allegedly moral ground. In our system of law, one Supreme Court decision is a foundation for the next, and Griswold establishes the right to privacy — the foundation on which Roe v. Wade is built. If Griswold goes, so does Roe — and they know that.

It’s too easy to lose sight of the fact that these are values driven by religion, not by ethics, reason, science or good public health policy. Americans live in a country where freedom of religion is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, though that means the right to practice your religion without government interference — not the right of government to impose religious values onto the people. Indeed, that freedom from imposition is the very essence of freedom of religion. ‘Get your laws off of my body’ was in the Revolutionary era about ‘get your laws off of my soul’. This seems to be happening a little more every day, even though slow-moving Pluto has moseyed into Capricorn, where it seems to be delivering into government all the mojo that it collected while in Sagittarius.

As I pointed out last week, Pluto was at the center of a nearly century-long conspiracy to get astrology to use at least one minor planet: itself. Pluto was from its discovery in 1930 through its reclassification in 2006 considered a ‘major’ planet. We now know that it’s one of many objects (there are currently more than 1,000 known) in the Kuiper Belt, the region of space just past Neptune earning it a place in the minor planet catalog as (134340) Pluto.

And it turns out that currently, there are a bunch of those planets concentrated in Sagittarius, including (among others) a Pluto-like point called Ixion, as well as Chiron-like points (centaurs) Pholus and Hylonome. These are concentrated around a deep-space point I mention from time to time called the Great Attractor, which is like an enormous energetic catapult that has the main quality of polarizing things.

This combination of forces describes a real spiritual crisis. By that, I mean things like good and evil trading places, killing in the name of love, and politicians going up to the podium drunk with power, imagining they’re standing at the bully pulpit of the universe. Most of what they spout is some form of hatred of women, or of humanity.

Planet Waves
Jupiter and its early Earth-like moon Io photographed by New Horizons in 2008. The New Horizons mission is scheduled to reach Pluto in 2015, and will return the first detailed images of that system, which we have never seen in detail. Photo: New Horizons/NASA-JPL.

I bring this up now because the mid-Virgo Sun (along with Mercury) is making aspects to these points in Sagittarius. Virgo and Sagg are both mutable signs, so what happens to one happens to the other, though in a different way.

In our era, the Sun aspects all of these Sagittarius planets every time it passes through the middle of one of the mutable signs (which also include Gemini and Pisces). This weekend the Moon passes through Gemini, forming the last quarter Moon, so we will be getting the energy from two different directions.

Virgo is a sign associated with logic, reason and other forms of mental power. It’s also the sign of the goddess, that is, the feminine attribute of cosmic presence and wisdom. At the moment, this quality is clashing with what seems to be some pretty intense (though potentially subtle) conflict, centered just around the corner in Sagittarius.

Now, if you happen to be born with the Sun, Moon or ascendant in Sagittarius, you’re experiencing this on a personal level, and one possible manifestation is as a spiritual crisis. Spiritual usually translates to existential: a question about existence (often signified by your Sun sign or rising sign), which happens to be going around on a pandemic scale. You may not, however, be experiencing personally some of the darker manifestations I am about to describe as being part of events unfolding in Sagittarius, though you could be picking it up as legacy material (ancestral, karmic or associated with past lives).

On another personal astrology note, this configuration may have additional personal meaning if you’re born between approximately March 1-10, June 1-10, September 1-10 and November 1-10. Just remember, this astrology seems to manifest differently in the private realm than it does in the collective or political realm — though there is a connection between the two. For example, a spiritual weakness in an individual or mass of individuals can be exploited by someone looking to gain political power.

Let’s go over the points involved one by one. Ixion presents us with the factor of amorality. It’s the embodiment of the idea that there is no such thing as right and wrong. There is, of course, but Ixion acts as if these things don’t matter. I take this a level deeper; I think that Ixion reminds us that anyone is capable of anything. It’s just that some of us make more wholesome choices than others, or do the work of having personal ethics.

When you put Ixion into the spiritual or religious context of Sagittarius, the combination can be nasty, mainly because religion is supposed to be a study in morals. If the religion’s own moral law is that anything goes, all kinds of cruelty can be perpetuated in the name of God. This has often been true, particularly from what we know of the past 2,000 years — though the astrology we have today is a picture of our situation today.

Ixion is joined by two faster-moving (though still relatively slow, therefore potent) minor planets. One is Hylonome (pronounced hy-la-no-me), which sums up the plight of the victims of that cruelty. This centaur planet is also associated with the grieving process, as well as with situations where there is a total loss of individuality, usually when a woman’s identity is subsumed or offered to that of a man. The combination of Ixion and Hylonome feels like people’s own pain being used as a psychological weapon against them.

Then there’s Pholus. This is like adding a high-pressure element that forces the above out of a bottle and sprays it directly at humanity. Pholus also possesses a kind of value-neutrality; it adds emphasis, force and urgency — and a sense of immediacy, but adds nothing at all in the way of discernment or ethical principles (much unlike Chiron that way). Pholus is the ‘seize the moment’ factor that we see being used by these forces — the take any opportunity to get the point across, as long as the point gets you power, money or votes.

Finally, in the background of this, just a few degrees away, is the Great Attractor. This is a deep-space point located far beyond the edge of our own galaxy, and one of its main properties is to polarize people, emotions, events and so on. As if the Ixion-Hylonome-Pholus combination is not reactive enough, the Great Attractor ramps it up a few orders of magnitude, pulsing out of Sagittarius like it’s a matter of do-or-die.

Now does everything make a little more sense?

I didn’t think so.

What’s particularly disturbing is that all of this faux-morality is being pushed on people as the only issue that matters when there is a lot else that needs our attention. Yet it should not be such a big mystery why a program about obsession over the rights of a fetus comes along with denial of global warming, ignoring the mess in the prisons, supporting the death penalty and pretending government has no job. It’s all part of the same refusal to deal with reality. By the way — while I’ve spoken mostly of the United States, it’s not just here. If you live outside the U.S., look around; you may notice many of the same things happening, though perhaps with a little better PR spin.

Planet Waves
Chart showing planets in the mid-mutable signs. Some of the Sagittarius planets are at the top right of the chart, including Pholus, Ixion and Hylonome. The planets opposite those, in Gemini, are Jupiter, the Moon and Vesta. In Pisces, to the left, are Neptune, Chiron and Borasisi (another point related to religion and belief). Finally, in Virgo are Mercury and the Sun. The point in late Leo is Transpluto, about to enter Virgo after spending about 80 years in Leo.

Here in the States, religiosity is going to have a bigger impact than we think on the November presidential election. In the days before the election, Mars comes through the alignment in Sagittarius, stirring up these issues and getting ‘the base’ all fired up. Juno, associated with marriage, social justice and the bone of contention, is right there as well, and that’s likely to show up as the ‘defense of marriage’ (which means homophobia).

And Mercury stations retrograde in Sagittarius that very day, another indicator of the influence of religion on this particular election, amidst what looks like a total meltdown of the electoral process, as one of my astrology study buddies describes it. The thing is, for quite a while, religion has played a bigger role in government than most have noticed.

A few days ago, Sun Myung Moon died. While he’s widely believed to have been a cult leader, he was much more — with tentacles enmeshed in politics and business on many levels, who owned land in all 50 states and around the world, and who would do things like fund movements to legitimize the use of chemical toxins — all while claiming to be the messiah. His mass marriage rituals were pure stagecraft to perfect his image as cult leader. You could say that this is the role of religion, in many other contexts.

Novelist Alexander Chee summed up his game in an email to me this week: “He was, no doubt, a canny operator, and his opposition to North Korea is ironic: both he and Kim Jong Il claimed messiah-like statuses. So he was really a sort of anti-Communist reflection to Kim — the Moon as it were to his Sun — we see two Korean men trying to claim God on Earth status. In a strange way, Moon’s seemingly batty religious antics was the cover for a powerful political machine that was in turn a cover for a profit-making core that benefited him more or less alone — much the way North Korea is run.”

In an article I found this week, Salon.com described a 2008 “coronation ceremony” for Moon in the Senate Office Building that was attended by 12 members of Congress. Here is how Salon.com described the affair:

On March 23 [2004], the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and Stalin — the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him “none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”

To many observers, this bizarre scene would have looked like the apocalypse as depicted in “Left Behind” novels. Moon, 84, the benefactor of conservative foundations like the American Family Coalition — who served time in the 1980s for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice — has views somewhere to the right of the Taliban’s Mullah Omar. Moon preaches that gays are “dung-eating dogs,” Jews brought on the Holocaust by betraying Jesus, and the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls “Godism” — with him in charge. The man crowned “King of Peace” by congressmen once said, according to sermons reprinted in his church’s Unification News: “Suppose I were to hit you with the baseball bat to stop you, bloodying your ear and breaking a bone or two, yet still you insisted on doing more work for Father.”

People actually fall for this shit — and I don’t just mean Moonies. I mean a lot of politicians around the world who played the game with Moon, and who will keep playing the game without him. Part of this game involves religion being a ruse, cloaking over the concentration of raw power and money. It just happens to be an especially powerful one — tapping into people’s deepest fears, their confusion and sense of mystery about life, and most of all, their guilt and their apprehension around authority.

At the moment, we have another influence: the Sun and Mercury in Virgo, which are saying: use your intelligence.

Lovingly,

 

Planet Waves

Gemini Quarter Moon: Keep Your Mind On

This weekend is the last quarter Moon in Gemini. We’ll have an aspect between the Moon in a mutable sign and the Sun in another mutable sign (Virgo). Lots of mutable energy — particularly when both signs are naturally associated with Virgo — can make for nervous mental energy, as well as an explosion of ideas.

Planet Waves
Up close and personal: here are planets covering from 14-19 of the mutable signs — right in the zone where the quarter Moon is. This is called a 90-degree sort because the planets cover a narrow cross that touches Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. Most of these are slow-moving points with a lot of impact. They’re similar to Chiron, Pluto or 1992 QB1. Though they provide rich fodder for interpretation and a way to measure the influence of a chart, most astrologers don’t bother with them. Calculation by Serennu.com. See full list here.

Indeed, from the moment the Moon ingressed Gemini Friday at 12:09 am EDT (that is, overnight Thursday to Friday in most time zones) the pace and volume of both words and ideas is likely to increase. The Moon makes many aspects while it’s in Gemini (where it will be till Sunday just before 1 pm EDT, when the Moon ingresses Cancer and a new story begins).

Part of why there are so many aspects being made by the Gemini Moon is that the Sun and Mercury are in Virgo, Neptune and Chiron are in Pisces, and there’s still a whole spaceship full of planets in Sagittarius. Most of them are smaller points orbiting our Sun that you probably haven’t heard of till now (Pholus, Ixion, Hylonome), which are begging some extremely pertinent spiritual questions.

And, over the next few days, both the Sun and the Moon will be making aspects to all these little troublemakers in Sagittarius. By spiritual questions, I really do mean obvious questions. I’m not splitting hairs here between the astral and the etheric planes, or debating whether crop circles can properly be called 7th dimensional phenomena.

No, I am asking whether something that’s cruel and manipulative can be called love, or said to be the product of spiritual evolution. I’m asking whether suspending any ethics in one’s own conduct can rightly be seen as a good example for anyone. And I’m asking what’s happened to what used to be a value about setting an example for those younger (and sometimes older) than ourselves.

I suggest you take extra steps to notice who around you is struggling, and what you can help with. I suggest you consider earnestly your own deepest questions or apprehensions about life, and respond to them in a way that’s compassionate and creative. Depending on how your chart is set up, you may be feeling some of this poignantly, whether it’s your own fear about unresolved material in your past, to the fact that you can no longer stand around and do nothing while criminals take over the whole planet, your company or your community.

Meanwhile, I suggest that if the problem is identified in a coherent way, then the solutions will come right along with it. Astrology doesn’t merely throw us paradoxes; every equation has many solutions, and I suggest you use this brilliantly intuitive, intellectually potent astrology to go from one to the other.

 

Planet Waves

Obama Accepts Nomination; Was Moon Void?

Things have an odd way of happening with the Moon void-of-course when Obama is around. For those not familiar with the term, a Moon void is the astrological equivalent of a foul ball. No matter how good it looks, if the ball sails to the right of the right field foul line, it’s nothing more than a souvenir.

Planet Waves
Eastern section (nocturnal side) of chart for Obama accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. This is the ascendant at the moment he accepts. The late Taurus Moon (you can tell it’s late because its number is so close to 30) is crossing its own South Node, as well as making a conjunction to what’s called the osculating apogee — a hypothetical point involving the Moon’s orbit. The Moon is also square another hypothetical point called Transpluto. So what we have here is a void-of-course Moon that’s making aspects to three non-tangible points, including two that are hypothetical. Is the Moon really void-of-course? It certainly seems to be guided, if only by subtle forces. See full chart here.

Technically, a Moon void is when the Moon has separated from the last major aspect to the latest planet in its current sign. Said another way, it’s late in degrees (close to 30, the number of degrees in a sign) and it won’t make any new aspects till it enters the next sign. This happens at least briefly every time the Moon changes signs (two or three times a week).

Most notably, the Moon was void when he took office at noon on Jan. 1, 2009. That came along with being sworn in a second time, if you recall Chief Justice Roberts’ making the late-night trip to the White House to re-cast the spell. There was also a Moon void on election day 2008; the Moon changed signs. And though I can’t think of examples off the top of my head, the Moon has been void at a few other key moments. I’ve associated this with the drifting feeling that the administration has had for long stretches of time.

So, I was not surprised to see the Moon passing through the last degree of Taurus when he accepted the Democratic nomination last night. The thing is, the Moon was done making aspects to planets, but it was conjunct its own South Node, as well as a lunar point called the osculating apogee (or Black Moon Lilith). Neither of these points are tangible and technically, according to the old rules of astrology, these aspects don’t count as aspects for the purpose of preventing a void Moon. [Note, I covered this aspect pattern in Thursday’s Daily Astrology post.]

Finally, the Moon was square another hypothetical point called Transpluto. This is a thing that exists in the minds of astrologers, astrology charts and a few scattered explanations here and there — and nowhere else. So we had the Moon in very late Taurus making aspects to three intangible points at the same time. To me, the implication here is that the ball is indeed in play, but that it’s being guided by subtle forces and that Obama, if he wins, is going to pass through a narrow opening.

The strange thing about the South Node is its association to the past. The Moon there describes some kind of old story — not four years old, but going much further back than that (the South Node can take us into past lifetimes). The story is influenced by things we cannot see.

One interesting quality of the Black Moon Lilith (the osculating apogee) is its association with what you can think of as the dark feminine — the psychological factors. I believe that of the two candidates for president, Obama is the one who respects women more. The Taurus Moon is strong no matter what (in its sign of exaltation). Yet we can see that it’s dealing with influences not available to normal perception.

I think that in the end, this election — to the extent that it’s really an election — is going to come down to women and the issues that affect them the most. Or so we can hope. Certainly there are plenty of them, though a lot of people seem like they’re in the mood to roll over and give up the rest of their power.

 

Planet Waves

A moment from Burning Man 2012

Planet Waves
Photo by Jim Urkuhart.

 

Planet Waves

Planet Waves monthly horoscopes provide a broader perspective that surveys the themes of the coming month and often, the weeks that follow. The September Monthly horoscope was published Friday, Aug. 24. Inner Space for September was published Tuesday, August 28. The August Moonshine Horoscope was published Friday, Aug. 17. Please note that the longer monthly horoscope (published Friday, Aug. 24) is being incorporated into the Friday issue after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space still publishes on Tuesdays.

 

Planet Waves

Friday, September 7, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #916 | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Virgo Birthdays This Week

It’s essential that you understand how your experiences early in life have shaped you into the person you are today. In these years of your life, you’re closer to those experiences than you’ve been any time since they originally happened. You have the ability to see what it is that exists deep in your psyche as the source of your intensity. The goal of your life at this time is making sure that you don’t project your feelings, which include your insecurities and your passion, onto others. If you can interrupt that fairly typical human experience, two things can happen. You will be able to take full ownership of how you feel, and why you feel that way. And you’ll open up space for people you care about to express how they feel, which is different than what you presume they feel. Note, I’ve done a full treatment of Virgo birthdays at the Virgo birthday report.

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This is a good time to consider your situation from a spiritual perspective. To do this you will need to explore not just the concept of ‘spiritual’ but also your relationship to the unseen world, and the way that your beliefs influence how you experience this. What I see in your chart is that there are some false beliefs that you accepted, or that were foisted on you, that bear no relationship to your true sense of God/the cosmos/your higher self. Well, none except that they stand in the way. So this process starts with an inventory of what you believe, which in turn can lead to an inventory of what you know. You can also make a list of all of the properties you believe God has, and then investigate how this contrasts with what you walk around telling yourself from moment to moment, or better still, what beliefs prompt you to take action. Here is a simple equation: What you act on is what you have faith in.

Hello Aries — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — It’s about time you made that decision to feel good about yourself, which translates to feeling like you actually belong on the planet. To do this, you’ve had to take a chance on something, though you’ve also had to be honest with yourself about some darkness that you’re struggling with. From the look of your charts, the moment you made contact with that honesty, you felt the potential to meet — or actually did meet — someone who was willing to match your energy, which has led to an experience of what seems like your real potential. If you keep doing this, which will feel like opening up a little more every day, you will see that the path you’re on is leading you in the direction of your true potential. Yet as you experience that, keep looping back around into the awareness of your deepest fears, your most distasteful attitudes and that part of you that just refuses to let go. The more you look right at these things, the more power you will have over them, and the less you’ll feel like a victim, whether of yourself or of anyone else.

Hello Taurus — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). If you would like to hear your Taurus birthday reading, please visit this link.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You may be wondering what you have to give up in order to make someone happy, though I would ask whether any such arrangement can succeed at making anyone happy. I suggest you also do a little self-investigation and see where this is coming from. Everything has an origin, and this particular thought form is not an exception. One way to consider what you’re experiencing is an investigation of your relationship to authority. Any sense that something must be so, that is, the idea that anything is compulsory or will be enforced, relates to how you perceive authority. On this topic, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion coming through, seemingly from outside sources. If that’s true, I strongly suggest that you focus on your own needs, feelings and creative fire. Temporarily subtract everyone else and their agenda (or what you think their agenda is) from the picture, and see what you’re left to work with.

Hello Gemini — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Have you listened to your birthday reading? Click here for an hour of astrology plus a tarot reading by Eric.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Current aspects provide the perfect environment for making substantial progress on anything that involves thinking, organizing and problem solving. If there are any writing projects you’ve been wanting to do, this is the moment not just to start but to fully engage yourself. You have access to at least two distinct levels of your mind, that I suggest you consider individually. One involves what you can think of as ‘everyday’ material, perhaps related to business functions and creative writing you would have others see. Another level offers you access to some of your innermost secrets, and this is readily accessible right now. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to say that you could not, or that you’ve struggled to get clear, try again in earnest now. I suggest you explore this particular dimension with no thought of the censors, and with no concerns that it might be read by someone else. The point of this experience is an unfiltered, direct expression of who you are and what you have to say.

Hello Cancer — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Your financial situation is now intimately linked to your creativity, and this may have you on edge. It’s always easier to assign success or lack thereof on external conditions, such as ‘the economy’ or whether your particular talent is the thing that people are paying for these days. That’s a consideration now, though it’s a relatively minor one. Even in ‘good times’ most people have to put their best foot forward, if they want to be rewarded for doing something that really matters to them. I don’t know anyone, no matter how talented, for whom this is not a delicate spot. Fortunately, your deepest personal resources — your intelligence, your ability to come up with ideas and your gift for communication — are directly connected to your revenue stream. Cast off the idea that you get paid a fixed amount for an hour of work. Consider that the quality of your ideas, and your gift for applying them to real-life situations, is what will translate into greater abundance, and satisfaction with your work.

Hello Leo — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Did you miss your birthday reading? Click here to order an hour of astrology plus a Tarot reading by Eric.

 


 

Planet Waves

Hello Virgo and Virgo rising readers. I’ve just finished your 2012-2013 birthday reading. Check this link to listen to your hour-long astrology reading plus Tarot.


 

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You may be feeling like your whole childhood is in your face — your raw emotions, your cosmic questions, your expressive enthusiasm for life. Mommy, daddy, siblings, aunts and uncles, the babysitter — the whole lot of them — may be showing up like ghosts haunting your bedroom or your most sensitive inner spaces. This notion of the past occupying our lives is one that never gets enough consideration, though these specters and memories from ancient history can be looming presences. Sometimes you cannot see them; you can only feel them. At the moment, they may feel like fear — in particular, the fear that nobody in the world is actually trustworthy. You may be concerned that if you concentrate too much power and/or talent in your own hands that you too will cease to be worthy of faith. You may be concerned that if you’re too happy, others will be envious and take advantage of you. I suggest you figure out where these (or any similar) thoughts came from. I don’t think you made them up, and I imagine that you don’t want anything like this getting in the way of your happiness and your peace of mind.

Hello Virgo — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — One reason most people stay out of public view is insecurity. The mere thought of people being able to see them, or see the work they do, is enough to inspire nearly anyone to hide in the house. You don’t have that luxury now; you’ve stepped into a kind of spotlight, even if this is only among your closest friends and associates. You may be feeling some tension about what people find out about you, and how being noticed and observed will change who you are. When you’re making adjustments, I suggest that you err on the side of being a little more real. While cloaking yourself or retreating may seem to work to alleviate temporary discomfort, consider the longterm effects. Anything you choose to conceal now you may have to reveal later, and until you do, you’re likely to worry about it. Therefore, I suggest you be yourself — and get used to the feeling of gradually opening up and exposing yourself to the minds of others. You have more going for you than you think, though you have some progress to make developing your confidence in that fact.

Hello Libra — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Do you have this feeling that your life is balanced on one extremely delicate self-doubt? It could be anything, though I suggest you get out your microscope and see if you can find any traces of self-doubt that are influencing your life. I can name two potential (as in likely) categories: one is the lack of approval by a parent or parental figure (likely to be father), interfering with your sense of what you’re capable of, or whether you’re respectable. The second (and potentially more complex one) may involve doubts about whether you’re in fact ‘suitable relationship material’. If you’re working with that one, remember that it didn’t come from nowhere. You didn’t make up the criteria against which you’re attempting to reconcile your self-worth. However, you did take it on at some point, though if you want to let it go, it’ll be helpful to know where it came from, in part so that you can assess the credibility of the source. You’ve begun a phase of your life wherein you will be carefully considering your past tendencies in relationships, whether they serve you now and what to do about them. At the moment, some very telling information is available.

Hello Scorpio — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You’re your own best ally and your own worst obstacle. I suggest you notice when you trip over yourself, and make a point of getting out of your own way. Part of how you do this is by going through your goals and working out any conflicts that may exist between them (such as time conflicts, priorities of what to do with resources, and getting clear in your thoughts about what’s the most meaningful thing to do first). I suggest you monitor the way that any delays are related not to something logistic but rather to an emotional hangup of some kind. You’re at a point in your life where asserting yourself in a bold way may seem dangerous. You may be wondering whether you’re perceived as a person of solid character. You may be thinking about what others think of your motives. I suggest you put that all out of the way and focus on staying clear with yourself, and knowing what motivates you and why. There is one other question, which is this: on what ground do you build your self-esteem?

Hello Sagittarius — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — It’s time to update your resume and portfolio. This counts if you’re the CEO of a multinational company, a sophomore art student or anything in between. I suggest you focus carefully on what you’ve accomplished since 2009. Speaking of that particular year, you may have done more than you think; it was not a ‘lost year’, as you may be inclined to think — though I suggest that you do a careful, month-by-month review and see what changed. Meanwhile, the process of updating your resume will provide a forum for you to track everything you’ve achieved and accomplished. The first draft of this list needs to be in long format, including such activities as helping others with their career or business ventures, any activity that raised your public profile, and people you met who had an influence in your life. Then, tighten it up for public consumption. I think there’s a good possibility that in this stretch of time, you ended one volume of your professional history and began another. Now, as you proceed, you need this organized inquiry into what you’ve accomplished as a foundation to stand on, and as a reminder of what is possible.

Hello Capricorn — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — It’s less than one month before your ruling planet Saturn embarks on its journey across Scorpio, your solar 10th house. That’s the one associated with responsibility (both personal and public), reputation and honoring your true calling in life. This is indeed the time to review your past goals, and consider what your new objectives are. Yet I suggest you focus, and be discerning. They just about all fall under the general heading ‘easier said than done’, so I suggest that you reduce your plans down to the ones that motivate you the very most. You will need the extra energy provided by the desire to do whatever you’re doing for its own sake. When the time comes, that always provides more drive than the obligation to do something. Also, I would share with you one rarely stated fact about success. When you do succeed, you’re going to be doing a lot of whatever you’re succeeding at. So choose from among those activities that you wouldn’t mind doing 12 hours a day for a while. Usually, that translates to what you want to do, rather than what you’re allegedly supposed to do.

Hello Aquarius — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You have a reasonably clear view — and a clear understanding — of who someone in your life is, and what they represent to you. Listen carefully over the next few days as information comes out that provides additional depth and a sense of the life path that this person is on. Meanwhile, what I suggest you track carefully are the ways you notice you have some influence over both the person in question, and the ‘space’ that is created by the encounter, and how this interplays with your deeply personal interior space. Be aware that you need a room of your own, a place within yourself that belongs to you and you only. I mention this now because at the moment, you’re susceptible to some infiltration, right when you need the most influence over what happens within what I will call your sacred precinct. There are things that you can share all the time, there are things that you can share sometimes, and there are a few that are meant for you alone. Be aware of which is which.

Hello Pisces — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

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The Chaos Generator

Dear Friend and Reader:

A few days before Hurricane Irene visited New York and New England, I picked up the I Ching that I keep in my bathroom nutshell library, and opened randomly to Hexagram 18, Disruption. This is a little like The Tower, or the rune Hagalaz, but the I Ching is more philosophical than most interpretations of those symbols. “Disruption leads to great success,” the commentary says, which is encouraging. The time frame is three days before, three days after whatever event. (I got the hexagram about three days before the storm, and I’m writing this article three days after.)

Water over a mountain: Waterfall on the Coxing Kill on the Grandmother Land in Ulster County, New York. The stream is at its highest level that anyone remembers, after about eight inches of rain fell in about 12 hours. This is the same waterfall that I usually depict in its more placid state in other photos. Here is a link to a high-res version for printing/sharing. Photo by Eric.

Wind under a mountain is how the hexagram is described. This might seem a little strange, as wind usually goes over mountains, or between them. Wind under the mountain would either stop the flow of air, or be air moving briskly (and with great focus) through a cave. You can think of this mix of elements as the grounding of an idea. Talk stops and focused action begins. “When disruption leads to great success, the world is pacified. It is beneficial to cross great rivers, in the sense that there is purpose to your actions.” And the commentary suggests: “Cultured people inspire others to develop virtue.”

What is interesting about tapping into ancient sources of wisdom is the association of meaning with worldly events. What happens doesn’t ‘just happen’, with some people shaking their heads at a supposed disaster while others say it’s all good or it is what it is. An event is a contact point; each one leads to the next, as we learn to intervene with awareness and intention. While the I Ching associates disruption with unusual success, for that to happen, change has to be experienced as an opportunity.

That’s the whole thing. That’s the issue, and by that I mean the very issue.

Not only do most of us not see change or disruption as opportunity; not only do we spend most of our time cowering or distracted; we’ve become a society that isn’t especially interested in rebuilding itself. I see this as a lack of vision, which in turn has many roots, pointing to cultural and spiritual problems. In truth it has little to do with the aftermath of a storm. It affects everything else, every day. This is particularly true as even a modest earthquake can cause problems at 10 nuclear facilities, and as the infrastructure of society is revealed as being more fragile every time something happens; then we spend our lives in the anxiety of knowing that everything might collapse at any moment.

On the local level, people have little choice but to put their communities back together as best they can when something causes a disruption, no matter how large. Somebody’s barn can become the Post Office and the church can become an infirmary. But often in the wake of a disaster, it’s too expensive to rebuild easily, and there can be large infrastructure issues that have to be addressed, such as repairs to roads and utilities. That often requires federal dollars, money from the society around us, to which we have contributed all our working lives.

Casket of Pfc. Douglas L. Cordo, age 20, of Kingston as it leaves the Old Dutch Reformed Church, with his mother, Tracy Litts Karson, following behind. He died in Zabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 19 of injuries sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. In the foreground is the Rev. Kendra van Houten and retired Ulster Country Sheriff’s Capt. Harry VanVliet. Photo by Eric.

As our country goes through its long series of (more or less) natural disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) currently only has $800 million on hand. This is supposed to be the first-response federal agency that we count on when things get exceptionally rough, providing disaster relief and some money to rebuild. Considering that Hurricane Irene will be one of the most expensive storms in U.S. history (costing between $7 billion and $10 billion), and considering that we’ve had floods, tornadoes and wildfires all year (mingled with various nuclear crises), our emergency agency is down to nickels and dimes.

I don’t mean to make U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, your personal spokesman, but he’s an up-and-coming sadist on the national scene, and lately he’s been on TV telling us we have to make budget cuts in other areas to be able to pay for disaster relief. (Note, after several months, he finally backed off of this demand Wednesday, admitting it would be appropriate for the federal government to assist without this kind of condition.)

At the same time, raising taxes, especially on the richest Americans or the companies they own, seems to be out of the question. Budget cuts means reducing federal services in a time when they’re most desperately needed. Do you understand why we’re fighting in Afghanistan, and why as a consequence we don’t have enough money to help Vermont?

These are not the days of guns and butter, as once proclaimed by Lyndon Johnson. We are now trading food and roads for bombs and drone aircraft. Even if we are not doing this personally, we are not actively resisting. Psychologically, I do understand the problem. What we face as a society (on top of what we must do to keep our individual lives going) seems too large to deal with. It’s for this same reason that our politicians are either thriving on chaos or resorting to cheap end-times mysticism. It’s not only easier and more profitable for them to do so; it’s what they know how to do. This is a violent mentality, and it begets violence. Congress has long specialized in providing money for murder, but we’ve always assumed there would be a little bit left over to rebuild bridges after a storm.

If this philosophy is allowed to persist, we will simply become a nation in decline. By that I mean if there is a bridge you depend on to get places, once it falls into total disrepair or collapses, you will simply have to find a new route.

The Situation in Sagittarius

The Sun is now in Virgo, a mutable sign. There are an additional three mutable signs — Gemini, Sagittarius and Pisces. By one useful method of doing astrology, what happens to one of the mutable signs happens to all of them. Therefore, something unusual happening in Sagittarius can influence the other three mutable signs, and in turn ripple out into the many charts that have something potent in the mutables (which is basically everyone and everything).

Chart for Hurricane Irene making landfall at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, last weekend. The chart has 14+ Virgo rising — which picks up on Pholus at 14+ Sagittarius, and the Great Attractor at the same degree (not shown in this chart). See the chart below for the other points that are part of this alignment.

To explain this I will need to go technical on you. But I will make it simple: the number to watch is 14. Let’s start with the Irene landfall chart. That has 14+ Virgo rising. That’s really the 15th degree but since the big number is 14, that’s what I’ll call it. Just remember, once you get past 14 whatever you’re talking about is occupying the 15th degree (this information may come in handy someday).

The first 14 shows up in the ascendant of the Hurricane Irene landfall chart. Landfall is when the eye of the storm reaches the land, and it touched the Outer Banks of North Carolina at about 7:30 am on Aug. 27. That is the stated time, as reported in news coverage. And the ascendant comes up as 14 Virgo 22 (meaning 14 degrees and 22 minutes). You can see that on the far left of the chart. That number is the degree of the ascendant; Virgo is the sign rising. This is where a chart begins.

Now you look for other things that have the number 14, especially in the mutable signs: there is something, right at the bottom of the chart — Pholus, a centaur planet. We keep seeing Pholus show up in big charts — everything from the Fukushima quake to the shooting in Tucson to the hacking scandal at News Corp. Pholus is the planet with the small cause and the big effect. It’s a kind of detonator, or perhaps better said, a catalyst.

Pholus is at 14 degrees Sagittarius. It is closely square the ascendant, triggering the whole chart. That happens to be the degree of the Great Attractor. That is a fixed point (like a star, only much, much bigger, and not emitting any light) that is way beyond our galaxy. The Great Attractor is a power source, literally broadcasting on every frequency except visible light. It’s one of the largest and heaviest known objects in space, probably consisting of a massive amount of dark matter. It’s pulling more than a million galaxies toward it at an incredible rate of speed; ours is one of them. Basically, everything is moving in the direction of 14+ Sagittarius. And Pholus is sitting right there, right now, condensing all that power.

This calculation from Serennu.com looks at the minor planets aligned in the mid-mutable signs. Note how many points have the number 14, which are aligned with the Great Attractor — a magnifying energy source in mid-Sagittarius.

Pholus is not the only thing there. To see what else is in the neighborhood you have to use a more powerful tool than what comes with most commercial software; this we find on a website called Serennu.com, programmed by Tracy Delaney. The graphic at left is a sort for everything in the mid-mutable signs. Not only is there a lot — there is a lot piled up right in mid-Sagittarius. Not everything on this graph is in Sagg however — it includes all four mutable signs, but they are all working together. But what is in Sagittarius per se is really interesting, because to me it describes the underlying psychology of our time in history, and more significantly, the spiritual crisis. Here is why.

All by itself, Sagittarius is the sign that relates to things that are visionary, spiritual and exotic. That would include educational, so if you’re ever inside a really, really amazing library, you’re standing inside the concept of Sagittarius. It’s also concerned with justice, but on the level of the highest courts, such as the United States Supreme Court or the UN’s International Court of Justice. We all have Sagittarius in our charts. We all have an energy flow coming in from this direction, whether we use it or not.

What aspects the Great Attractor takes on part of the energy — especially a conjunction. People who have natal planets in aspect to the Great Attractor can have an odd kind of charisma, where they seem untouchable. It’s as if they have an invisible boundary around them, that makes you keep your distance but want to get closer at the same time. The word attractor is used because everything is rushing toward it, but nothing can ever keep up.

It can also have a magnifying effect on whatever is there, like a cosmic repeating station that might take the relatively subtle theme of a planet or asteroid and broadcast it outward. Remember, the Great Attractor is the mass of many thousands of galaxies; it’s positively enormous. Then things come along and line up with it, and that’s exactly what we have going on now.

One of them is Pholus, a centaur planet (small, potent, weird orbit, demanding awareness). With Pholus, you don’t need any other factor to have a magnifying or accelerating effect, but it’s sitting smack on the Great Attractor right now. If the best key phrase of Pholus is ‘small cause, big effect’, add the Great Attractor and you might say, ‘very small cause, very big effect’. Pholus also covers the theme of how we react to famous people, and it’s all about intoxicants (from alcohol to Prozac to video games). And the thing about Pholus is that it can unravel several generations of buried or previously encapsulated karma. When Pholus is on the scene, you’re dealing with stuff your grandparents and great grandparents did not deal with, be it family karma or that of society. And we are getting a big blast of this right now. We are dealing with a society that has not been building itself up for the next generations, and which has not been dealing with its problems.

Note: If you have a point in your natal chart at or near 14+ degrees of any mutable sign (Gemini, Virgo, Pisces or Sagittarius), it’s taking a long transit from Pholus, and is likely to be a central point in either your healing or growth process.

Because there are several planets conjunct the Great Attractor, we can get an idea of the themes that are involved, as this multi-generational bubble is burst and lots of stuff comes gushing out. I won’t be able to cover all of the points — there are a lot of them, but I will prioritize and cover the ones that strike me as the most significant.

The Cry of the Poor, Amorality — and a Narcissistic Society

Of the many points involved in this configuration, three others stand out in Sagittarius. Note, all are objects orbiting our Sun. They are all in Sagittarius, a sign associated with spiritual matters, and a region of consciousness where we would draw the perspective that helps us acknowledge that we’re all in this together. You can think of Sagittarius as collective soul.

In Western society, arrogance and vanity are considered the privileges of success — and also how you get there. This is an advertisement for Bentley automobiles, which cost up to $500,000. What exactly is he saying here?

The first such point is Hylonome, a slow-moving centaur, which has been working over the Great Attractor. Hylonome is a female centaur who commits suicide when her partner is killed. This has been associated by astrologers with a theme of senseless grief, and sati, the (supposedly outlawed) ritual practice of women in some parts of India who choose or who are compelled to self-immolate on their husband’s funeral pyre (this association was made by Melanie Reinhart).

There is a related theme, which is ‘the cry of the poor’ (noted by Juan Revilla). On a planet with the kind of resources that ours has, in a society as technologically advanced as ours is, poverty is a manufactured product, inflicted on people as a matter of policy. Hylonome can be associated with mass expressions of protest or grief (such as during the funeral of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, during which it was precisely conjunct the Scorpio New Moon).

At the moment, an asteroid called Narcissus is conjunct the Great Attractor. I keep seeing this conjunction. Then every time I tap into Washington, DC politics, I notice how it’s a bonfire of the vanities, to borrow Tom Wolfe’s phrase. The players on the stage are involved in a big ego drama that gets them a lot of attention and happens to influence the economic and military fate of the country and in many ways, the world. But it’s totally disconnected from reality. It’s also a comment on a society that is driven by narcissistic values — from the big star you’ll be if you wear these pantyhose, to the Army of One that will supposedly win the war against the terrorists.

On both the political and social levels (that is, what they do in DC and how we conduct ourselves driving through an intersection or in line at Panera Bread), it is this narcissism that is the state of mind that can ignore the cry of the poor. Someone with a job can feel a sense of smug superiority over someone who doesn’t have one; people with pious religious views (a Sagittarian theme) can feel superior to the unsaved. In Sagittarius, this is the perfect image of the fundamentalist Christian movement that is yielding a bumper crop of politicians who conflate their own smug piety with the birthright to political power.

“Ixion Plunged into Hades” by Jules-Elie Delaunay (1828-1891) is an example of the Neoclassical tradition revered by the French Academy in the nineteenth century. The scene depicts the fate of Ixion after insulting Zeus’s wife, Hera, at an Olympian Banquet — an endless succession of days in the underworld attached to an eternally revolving wheel of fire and attacked by serpents. While this version of events involves the painter taking some poetic license on the original mythology, we have at least an image of the pain that may be one consequence of amoral action.

Also close to the Great Attractor, and part of this psychological grouping, is Ixion. This is a planet out near Pluto, discovered in 2001. Ixion, an early human king, was the first murderer and later, the would-be rapist of Hera, the Queen of Heaven. I associate this point with amorality — the lack of any moral sensibilities at all. To me this represents what appears to be a potent, even prevailing value, grossly inflamed at the moment, of not caring what is right or wrong. We expect, and in a sense endorse, our leaders making disaster relief after a hurricane into a political issue.

There is one last gem in this alignment — Borasisi (an outer planet discovered in 1999). This is the planet that reminds us of the human personality trait, ‘If I believe it, then it’s true’. Borasisi is in Pisces, square the Great Attractor and all these points. I think of it as a denial factor (‘if I don’t believe it, then it’s not true’). I covered this planet — which has associations with global toxins issues, the nuclear crisis and General Electric in particular — the week before the quake and meltdowns in Fukushima, in an article called With Love from Borasisi.

And as if this were not enough, the Sagittarius group is opposed by Chaos (an outer planet discovered in 1998). Judging from this alignment, remembering that all of these points are ramped up to an exponential degree of influence by the Great Attractor, it would seem there is no escaping our warped perspective on life. And these are all located in the heart of Sagittarius — where we really could be drawing our highest impulses to embrace our soul’s mission on Earth.

By this I mean that the point in our charts where we could be inspired to express our highest vision is at the moment — and it’s a long moment, because these are nearly all slow-moving points — where we must contend with self-obsession, overwhelm and the desire to zone out. Or looked at another way, right at the point where we draw some of our deepest inspiration is a kind of chaos generator, making focused awareness seem impossible.

The Full Moon of Sept. 12

As I mentioned earlier, what happens to one of the mutable signs happens to all of them (this also works with signs on either of the two other crosses, cardinal or fixed). As the Sun moves through mid-Virgo, it’s going to make a series of squares to all of these points, basically lighting them up. These squares from Virgo to Sagittarius are coincidental with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 incident. This culminates with the Pisces Full Moon on Sept. 12, 2011.

Simplified chart for the Pisces Full Moon, showing how the Sun-Moon axis crosses the lunar nodes. (Clue: the glyph for the Sun looks like the Sun and the one for the Moon looks like the Moon; the nodes are the vertical axis formed by the orange things.) This links the Full Moon to the potent solar eclipse of June 1. The many points on the mutable cross, which are shown in the table above, align with the planets shown in this chart. And all of the points in Sagittarius are gathered around the North Node, the orange horseshoe at the bottom.

As the Sun and then the Moon make squares to this whole grouping of points during the next week to 10 days, you may notice yourself, the people around you and the media environment go through a strange, seemingly unconscious process that appears to be associated with grief surrounding Sept. 11. That is the surface layer; what we’re getting is a chance to observe the layers of feeling, fear, denial and exaggeration behind the political pathology of the past decade. We are getting to see the results of the logic, ‘If I barricade myself in and declare the whole world dangerous, I will feel better’.

Many of the factors involved (in particular centaurs Hylonome and Pholus) suggest that deep healing is possible, including of the multigenerational issues implied by Pholus (for example, misdirected patriotism, addiction to a war mentality, and the belief that there is a pill to cure every problem). But the prerequisite to that experience of healing is awareness — and dealing with the fear that is currently inherent in paying attention — at least at the moment.

The Pisces Full Moon also makes a square to the solar eclipse in Gemini earlier in the year (both are mutable signs; we are now about three months or 90 degrees of solar movement past that eclipse). This will add public resonance — eclipses have that sensation. This is another way of saying that the Full Moon of Sept. 12 is square the lunar nodes: it’s a potential turning point, which includes all of the themes associated with the planets in Sagittarius (which are condensing around the North Node).

The simplest way to say this is that unless we take our political problems to a higher level, what you might call a spiritual level, we’re going to be caught in the same game endlessly. The issue is evolutionary. We might ask ourselves not about when we’re going to come up with a solution to our political problems, but rather to the problem of politics.

Lovingly,

 

Planet Waves FM: News Roundup and Mars Square Eris

This week’s edition of Planet Waves FM considers how well the Mars-Saturn square — and how Mars aspecting two planets that embody the principle of the ‘shadow feminine’ — describe our current cultural climate. The Mars-Saturn square had many of us feeling frustrated as our authentic drive came up against the conceptual container of ‘who we’re supposed to be’. There is a message here to feel your own motivation, rather than any sense of purpose dictated by others; this is historically sensitive material for many women. As Mars in Cancer makes an aspect to Black Moon Lilith and Eris, the forbidden and castaway parts of our feminine sides are being energized. Literal examples of forbidden and taboo women in the world need the voice activated by these energies; indeed, all women do, as the political landscape keeps manifesting the likes of Michele Bachmann and Christine O’Donnell.

To listen to this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM in the old player, or to view the archives going back more than a year, check this link. If you listen to Planet Waves FM in iTunes, please check this letter to iTunes listeners.

 

 

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Sept. 2, 2011, #873 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Revised and Updated! Click for Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — If you’ve learned anything from the past month, it’s to choose your battles. This would include the struggles you face within yourself; most of the emotional turmoil you’ve been through was unnecessary. I say that knowing you’ve learned a lot, including the way in which conflict can feed on itself. In any situation you find yourself in, remember that there is an easy way and a hard way. The easy way is likely to involve some form of expressing yourself constructively. The hard way is likely to have a tense emotional pitch and be fraught with angst. You will know which path you’re choosing by your emotional state. Either way, you’re making contact with energy. One way will come with confusion, emotional chaos and pressure; the other will come with a grounded sense of work well done, and the experience of easing tension. The choice should be easy, that is, if you choose.

Aries, your birth sign or rising sign, is getting some of the most potent transits of them all right now. I’ve recorded an hour of astrology and a tarot card reading for you. Learn more by visiting this page.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Artists are at a significant advantage over many other people in that the work they do gives them the opportunity to embrace many facets of their being, and to use conflict in a productive way. It would seem like every cell in your body is reaching for this way of being in the world. The Sun and Venus are in one of the most creative, dynamic angles of your chart. Yet as they make their way through this territory, you’re likely to encounter many layers of old resistance, dysfunctional beliefs and pain that seems to be coming from somewhere beyond you. I suggest you allow this material to come up and out, rather than trying to deny it and push it back down. By approaching these experiences with curiosity and some passion, you will take pressure off of your relationships, and off of yourself. The beauty is that right now you’re in precisely that spot where creative process and healing process intersect — a place there is little use for judgment or guilt in any form.

I’ve recorded an hour of astrology and done a tarot reading especially for you. It’s information that will help with your relationships, your professional life and your personal growth. Visit this page to find out more.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — As Mercury is making its way across Leo in direct motion, you can now tap into some of the energy that seemed to get lost in so much chaos over the past few weeks. You still seem to be caught in some controversy over what you want the most, or what is the most important to you. You might ask yourself why that is controversial — and how it got to be that way. A controversy implies that there are two sides to the issue, competing for who is right. Who exactly are you fighting, and why? One clue I can offer is that this may have something to do with how you think you’re perceived by others. If you’re trying to make a point, impress anyone or control your image, you can be sure that you’re not really focused on your own values. Part of what you may be going through is the need to be yourself among people who would have you be some other way. In any event, I suggest you put the whole situation into words — it will make a lot more sense when you do.

Gemini is one of the most misunderstood signs — and as someone born under this sign, part of your role is to hold a mirror to the world. I’ve recorded an hour of audio for you, plus a 20-minute tarot reading. You can get access to these by visiting this page.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Mars making its way across your birth sign since early August has come with many challenges. It’s as if you’ve had every fight you can ever have. This will be true for a while — until the next opportunity for conflict arises, in which case you get to make a conscious choice based on what you’ve learned so recently. We could sum up the underlying question this way: How can you relate to your environment in such a way that allows you to state what you need, but without having that become a point of contention? The question you might ask yourself is, why do you associate your own needs and desires with guilt? This is a question with an answer, which I suggest you investigate. Making contact with this deep-seated conflict will help you live in harmony with your environment. You don’t like to be told what to do, especially in your own home. Yet you have some commitments to others that call on you to share your physical and emotional space. If you experience this as a potential source of pleasure, you’ll have a lot more fun.

I’ve recorded an hour of astrology and done a tarot reading especially for you. It’s information that will help with your relationships, your professional life and your personal growth. Visit this page to find out more.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Now is the time to shift the emphasis of your career from achievement to the financial rewards involved. You’ve accomplished a lot the past few months; if you ease back on that particular drive, you will see more ways that what you’re doing — or what you’re planning — can be financially rewarding. I say this knowing that most people do what they do for the money, and the deeper rewards are usually considered secondary. You seem to have the opposite tendency, and could afford to be a little more motivated by feathering your nest. This will inspire you to do more that’s of service to the world around you, not less. For the next few months I suggest you go over old plans, projects you set aside and goals that got sidelined to other activities. Many of those have embers that are still burning, and are points of creative contact with people who could be valuable creative partners. Cultivate those relationships and everyone will benefit.

Hello Leo! Your birthday report is now available. I’ve recorded 70 minutes of in-depth astrology plus a 20-minute tarot reading for you, exploring relationships, personal growth and your professional life. Visit this page for additional information.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — For many people it’s a long way from their vision of what they want to the reality of manifesting it. For others, it’s a long way from their faint notions of what life could be to any focused idea. For you, the door to both your highest vision and your ability to manifest it is wide open. Yet you have to cross the territory of one particular paradox to get there. I would describe that as how the problem-solving mind and the intuitive mind work together. You’re often a mental, logical person, but at the moment that particular gift is being overtaken by an intuitive gift. Problems and puzzles that will defy your intellect will be transparent to your intuition. You don’t need to labor over having every step in the mental process organized or thought out. You already know the way through the maze.

Eric is working on your birthday audio — we plan to have it available by this time next week. Please stay tuned!

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Pay close attention to your anxiety level, and don’t let it run away with you. I recognize that there is plenty to worry about. Yet most of that fear rushes in where your sense of yourself is missing. Therefore, when you encounter fear, focus on who you are. If at that moment you distinctly feel a lack of any concept of who you are, check in and see if you’re using an elimination process, that is, trying to figure out who you are not and hoping that the remainder tells you something. I don’t think this will work very well; the statement ‘I am not’ does not translate directly to ‘I am’. Focus on any affirmative desire, goal or purpose that you might feel. Now, what happens when you do that? Do you feel any more confident? When you notice your own presence in the world, do you feel more vulnerable, or less? Do you feel more in harmony with your environment, or less? Work with these equations for a while and you will regain your sense of orientation.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Libra, please go to this link.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — There are many people angry at God right now, and I dare say that God is getting blamed for many things that are clearly of human creation. With Mars moving through the angle of your chart associated with your spiritual identity, I suggest you investigate the role of anger in this relationship. My question for you is, if you’re angry, who exactly are you angry at? You might be inclined to say yourself, but I would propose that self-directed anger is misdirected. You’ve been through a series of inner skirmishes the past month. Some of these may have stressed your relationships, and sent one particular person into retreat. Once you understand who you’re angry at and why you feel that way, you will stop inflicting it on yourself and get out of the thought loop that you seem to be in. Go patiently, and notice when you decree any particular possibility as being out of the question.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Scorpio, please go to this link.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Your solar chart suggests that you feel every possibility within you of what a person can be, and like you can actually express any of it at will. The interesting thing is you feel bigger than all of your different properties combined, which is a fine thing to notice. You will need to draw on each flow of energy and use them for a productive purpose. At this stage you can work with the idea that there is no such thing as ‘negative’. Rather, there are merely things you notice going on, within you and in the world around you. Each has a purpose; each can be put to good use. Everything you notice not only can support your goals and objectives, you must draw from it as an energy source in order to have its creative potential accessed, and to siphon the energy off of potential sources of conflict. That said, you will soon reach that moment where certainty runs out and when it’s time to take a chance based on your best instincts. Part of how you can trust those instincts is by being in harmony with all the light and dark within you.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Sagittarius, please go to this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — There’s a lot of tension between the religious ideas that our culture offers, and its ideas about sex. In order for religion to get any traction, it has to define something as evil, and with extremely rare exceptions, that something is sex. We can see examples of this every single day as various ‘presidential’ candidates wage war on anything and everything erotic. At the moment, the spiritual angle of your chart (Sun in Virgo, 9th house) is in perfect harmony with the erotic angle (Jupiter in Taurus, 5th house). This works well with your long-term program of dismantling all of the sources of guilt in your mind. At times this may feel like a process of forgiveness; at other times it may feel like the discovery that you never did anything wrong, despite the shrill cries of those obsessed with death. That really is the question: the whole issue of sin comes down to whether it’s okay to be alive, and if you decide that it is, then the obvious thing to do is celebrate.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Capricorn, please go to this link.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Does working to improve yourself actually make you a better person? I guess it depends on what we mean by the words working, improve, better and person. Life is for the living; there is a relationship between theory and the practical experience, and at the moment I suggest you emphasize the latter. Inner process gets you so far; placing yourself in environments where you can explore your ideas about life, and about yourself, is how you discover what is real for you and what is not. All knowledge is contextual. Self exists in the context of community, of relationship and the expression of creative purpose. In all these aspects of existence right now your chart is bursting with energy. I can also see that there is a perceived risk involved in stretching into new experiences. That risk factor is precisely the difference between theory and practice — though there is another word for it: potential.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Aquarius, please go to this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — This is one of those moments when the doors in your relationships can swing open mysteriously. This follows a phase of some turbulence and frustrated potential. Since Pisces is one of two signs that has its partnership angle ruled by Mercury, your relationships come under the influence of Mercury retrograde three times a year, and that can churn things up. The planets in their courses are presenting you with opportunity; what you must bring is trust. Trust would not be so meaningful had it not been an issue in the past, so this is a significant contribution on your part. What exactly are you trusting? The first thing is your own perception. The second is that the people around you are in fact devoted to directing their energy in loving and creative ways. There are no guarantees of these things, and I remind you we live in an exceptionally challenging time for any relationship because so much is changing so fast. Therefore, trust your flexibility. It’s one of your greatest assets.

To order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Pisces, please go to this link.